Yay! Finally got this done today. I don't know why it took me ages (seriously, it's not even that long).
Anyway, hope someone out there enjoys this.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade.
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
Invictus, William Ernest Henley
A pale, beautiful woman stands at the crest of a hill, surveying the view around her. The land is wild and dangerous: she can feel it tugging at her, trying to wind its way around her and keep her here, and the grass is so sharp it feels like teeth digging into her skin.
She shivers, and a drop of rain lands so lightly on her face that she barely notices it.
There is a castle at the bottom of the hill . She stares at it, and a shudder shakes through her when she feels it begin to stare back.
A face, ghostly white in the darkness, is looking out from one of the windows. Even from this distance, she can see the wide smile that the face wears. A hand comes into view and it beckons her forward.
She can't refuse. She can't.
As she begins her slow descent down the slope, trying to ignore the way the mud clings to her gorgeous boots and the rain drums on her hood, she catches a glance of Lough Derg out of the corner of her eye. She remembers a story her mother told her once when she was very young; when St Patrick was here in Ireland, Christ brought him to this lonely little place in Donegal and showed him the last thing he expected to find: an entrance to hell.
The lake is dark and wide, gaping like an open mouth.
She hurries down the hill faster.
As soon as she steps into the castle, she closes her eyes and stops moving for a moment. Partly because her cloak is now sodden and clinging to her back in a most uncomfortable way, and partly because when she strains her ears, she can hear the faint sound of screams coming from several floors down.
The voice is familiar.
There's a lump in her throat, but she won't let him see it.
Nefarian Serpine smiles at her, and he doesn't look remotely fooled by her act. Or her beauty, for that matter. His green eyes are as deep and shadowed as pond water.
'China Sorrows', he says warmly, and walks forward to take her hand. She represses a shiver when he leans down and kisses it. When he straightens up again, her face is arranged in its usual impassive mask.
He smiles again, but this time it is closer to a smirk. 'Stunning, as ever, if I may say so. Would you care for a glass of wine?'
She is about to open her mouth and reply when she is interrupted by another, louder shriek from below. It's almost like a howl, and she can only guess as to what may have caused it.
Serpine catches the expression in her eyes and grins. 'Wine?' he repeats, and he moves to smoothly guide her down the stairs to the cellar, and presumably the dungeons. She doesn't like his hand on her elbow, but she can't shrug it off.
He winks at her. 'The evening's entertainment has already begun.'
Skulduggery, she whispers in her mind, and she wishes he could hear her. She wishes she could get away from here. Home, or abroad. France, England, her namesake, anywhere but here.
But she can't.
She hasn't seen him for four days. In that time, the monstrous, broken look in his eyes has left. Shallow nothingness has replaced it. They are glass doll's eyes, and now instead the brokenness has transferred to his entire body.
What has Serpine done to him?
That lovely dark hair she used to dream about is drenched in crimson. His hands are mangled and misshapen; they are broken beyond repair. One of his legs is broken too; she can see a thin sliver of white that she prays is not bone splitting his skin at the knee. His face seems too thin for the wideness of his eyes, like an owl.
He hasn't seen her yet.
China watches Serpine as he casually lifts his red right hand and points. Skulduggery whimpers, and curls in on himself, eliciting another cry of pain. Serpine smirks and tightens his fingers into claws, and Skulduggery finally begins to scream. Blood pools in his mouth and pours out, running past his teeth and down the side of his face. China knows he has bitten his tongue, possibly right the way through.
It is too much.
'Nefarian' she says sweetly, and Serpine turns to look at her expectantly. She lowers her voice and smiles slowly at him. 'That glass of wine?'
His face breaks into a grin. 'But of course, Miss Sorrows. Please excuse my horrendous manners. I shall return in a minute or two.'
He drops his hand and Skulduggery stops writhing, releasing a gulp of breath.
Serpine disappears up the stairs in search of wine, and China and Skulduggery are left alone. She exhales shakily and puts her head in her hands. What has she done? What has she done?
She lifts her head. Skulduggery is curled in a heap in one corner of the room; behind him, China can see two lumpy bodies, covered in blood. His family.
She is gulping deep breaths, trying to regain her composure, when she hears him begin to mumble something. It is too faint for her to understand clearly at first, and then she takes a few hesitant steps closer and can hear what he is saying.
'Darcie? Darcie?'
He keeps saying it in a whispered litany, and he is looking straight at her.
He thinks I'm his wife. Delirium has set in, he's hallucinating.
There is a sudden sting behind her eyes; it takes China a moment or two to realise, with a certain degree of shock, that she is close to crying.
'Darcie.'
She has never been able to turn away from Skulduggery Pleasant when he was calling her, even by the wrong name. This is no exception.
China lifts up the hem of her skirt a little; she doesn't want to wear Skulduggery's blood for the rest of the evening. She picks her way carefully across the floor, vaguely noticing that it's gotten colder; there are goose bumps skittering up her arms and across her shoulder blades.
Her heart pounds.
When she finally reaches Skulduggery, she almost wants to turn back and walk away again. From this close, it is clear that Serpine has done more than torture him to a bloody mess; he has destroyed him. Some of his skin is torn and ragged; it must be agony, but he has managed to raise his arm slightly and is stroking his dead son's matted hair. His fingers shake.
Skulduggery lifts his head to look at China. He looks, but doesn't really see; if he was really seeing her he wouldn't be smiling at her like that.
It is the same smile she has seen him wear countless times during the past. It has never been directed at her though. Never before this.
The hair on the back of her neck rises; the room is still growing steadily colder.
'Darcie.' He says, and she closes her eyes against the tears she doesn't want to cry. They don't obey her, though, and she can feel the first one that escapes as it slides its way down her cold skin. She takes a deep breath through her nose and tries to wrestle back her control.
Fingers touch her face, wiping the tear away gently. She jumps, but doesn't dare open her eyes for a few seconds more.
He would never be this gentle with China Sorrows.
'Why are you crying?' he whispers, and his voice is a tangled thing of concern and worry. His hand curls around her cheek, thumb brushing her skin softly. 'What's wrong?'
Everything, she thinks. Everything is wrong.
She can't do this.
China sniffs furiously, and goes to stand up, to edge away from him and escape this place. She never should have come.
Skulduggery startles her when a grin breaks over his face; it is imbued with so much devotion and adoration that she has to turn her eyes away from his.
'That's my girl. I told you everything would be all right.'
She can't speak without the risk of bursting into tears again, so she just keeps her mouth closed. He doesn't seem to mind, or even notice. He begins to rattle off a long stream of unimportant things, little snapshots of conversations, and she realises these are all things he would say to his wife. She feels guilty, almost as if she is eavesdropping on a private moment in their lives, but then she remembers that Darcie is dead. Her body is lying right behind Skulduggery (does he not know she's there?) and she will never have a conversation with her husband again.
'I can't believe he's nearly four. He still seems so small. I'm not sure if I like him getting any older. I want him to stay like this for a little while longer.'
He's talking about his son now, and he's still stroking the dead boy's hair, eyes lost in a different morning, in a different world.
A part of China whispers to itself, that could have been my world too.
How many times has China glimpsed him over the years, happy and content with his wife and their son, and wished that he loved her instead? The years have melted into one long lifespan of memories, and she has forgotten when exactly she started seeing him this way. Thinking about him this way.
She can't remember the point where her hatred for him faded, to be replaced by this horrible, helpless desperation. All she knows is that whatever chance she had with him was gone before she knew she even wanted it.
And that she has been very, very stupid.
She hated Darcie, because Darcie made Skulduggery happy like no one else in the world could.
And now, thanks to that hatred of her, Darcie is dead, and her young son is dead with her.
China never wanted him to die. She had just wanted Darcie gone, and this was the quickest way to achieve that goal. Foolishly, China had hoped beyond reason that once his wife was dead, absent from his life, he would turn to her. After all, no one could resist China for very long.
China realises now, that by killing his family she has killed Skulduggery. She should have known this all along.
Whatever hope of saving him now is gone, because though he doesn't seem it, he is already dead too.
There is a slight noise upstairs, and she grabs Skulduggery's hand and pulls it from her face. He doesn't seen to notice.
Hurrying over to her previous position near the base of the stairs, she manages to compose herself just as Serpine opens the door and comes down the steps with two glasses of deep red wine.
He smiles knowingly at her. 'There's blood on your face. I see you took the liberty of acting as my substitute while I was gone?'
Her hand immediately jumps to her cheek, where Skulduggery touched her, and she delicately scrubs the blood away. 'Of course' she replies coolly, accepting her glass of wine and smiling back at him. 'Couldn't miss the opportunity.'
Serpine smirks approvingly, and for a moment she feels sick, because if that had been another person on the ground, her words might not have been a lie.
Casually, easily, Serpine raises one hand and points it at Skulduggery, holding his glass to his lips with the other.
They drink their wine, Skulduggery's screams tearing the air apart.
She is eternally grateful when the wine is gone and it is time for her to go home. Wrapping her cloak tightly around herself, she bids a falsely-affectionate good night to Serpine and begins to ascend the staircase.
She looks back just once, to see Skulduggery as he tries to crawl towards his family one last time, before Serpine begins another round.
He doesn't reach them.
She looks away.
As she exits the castle and is trying to walk away steadily, she manages to catch a glimpse of Lough Derg. Station Island, 's Purgatory, the entrance to the underworld.
Instead of the fear like earlier, this time when she sees it it only fills her with a certain kind of harrowing, chilling acceptance.
Because when she dies, she is going straight to hell for this.
And there you go. Hopefully someone managed to make it this far without recoiling in disgust ( my writing is reeeeeeeeeeally bad - have you noticed?).
Darcie is an Irish name, as far as I'm aware. It is derived from the Irish word dorcha, which means 'dark one'.
So….. Anyone up for a spot of reviewing?
Ciao.