An Epilogue to The Man Who Outwitted The Doctor (sort of)
By Mancer of Telemancer
Co-written with EbonyEnigma
The room where Skulduggery Pleasant finally died was cold and empty. No one was there to hold his skeletal hand during the great Skeleton Detective's final moments. Skulduggery regretted that. He really did. But everyone who had ever loved him was dead.
His wife, his child, tortured and killed by Nefarian Serpine.
His mother and his father, dead at the shadow hands of Lord Vile and his own evil.
China Sorrows, his ally, his friend, the woman who had helped murder his family, stabbed in the back seven times. The beautiful woman had died screaming and crying, a revolting look of pain and regret and sorrow etched on her delicate features.
Fletcher Renn, dying after a horrible teleportation accident. He tried to teleport to Valkyrie's deathbed and must've caught a pocket of magical residue, a sort of wormhole, and have gotten shunted to the dimension where Darquesse was exploring. His last words, as he managed to teleport back, covered in blood and bones sticking out, were "Darquesse. Still alive. Say goodbye to Valkyrie for me." Skulduggery had to carry his broken body to the funeral homes next to his house.
Solomon Wreath, supporting Valkyrie against the will of the Necromancers, had his shadows turned against him. They strangled him in his own house. He died alone, killed by a part of his soul.
Tanith Low, murdered by a heartbroken mother who lost everything to the Remnants.
Ghastly Bespoke and Anton Shudder killed by one of Skulduggery's friends. Dexter Vex never reappeared and was presumed dead.
All the innocent people who died at Skulduggery's hands, all the criminals who should've just been imprisoned, not murdered. All the people Lord Vile had killed.
Saracen Rue's death was one of the most painful things anyone could ever see. He had devoted his life to finding Dexter. When a mortal remembered a handsome man's picture above the article labelled 'Presumed Dead After Horrible Accident', Saracen stole the Skeleton Detective's gun and took it to his bedroom. No one had heard the gunshot. Skulduggery threw the tainted weapon into the sea after the funeral was over. Valkyrie put a hand on his shoulder, coaxing him away, telling him not to blame himself.
Wonderful Valkyrie Cain. Skulduggery's one and only best friend. The strong woman who had sat through her parents' death, and later her younger sister's. Valkyrie had walked away, looking barely twenty, when her baby sister was wrinkled and old. Valkyrie's death had been the worst. His companion, through everything, had been a shining beacon that lead Skulduggery away from his rage. She had done so much for him, saved him so many times, and Skulduggery didn't return the favor when it actually mattered. She had gotten sick, terribly sick, even though she was still young. Skulduggery could still remember her smiling face, her soft hand in his hard one, and her words even though she was merely a memory from half a century ago. Right before they had unplugged her from the machine that was only barely sustaining her life, she had pulled him closer and said in that broken, whispery, sick voice, "I love you. Until the end." Then her hand had gone limp, her heart-rate monitor flat, and she died.
He stayed with her for days, staring at her peaceful face, until the hospital refused to let the skeleton pay for her body anymore and let it rot.
But now, no one was at Skulduggery's side. No one was here to save him from the regret. The regret of letting everyone he had ever known down.
Skulduggery stopped reliving his agony and looked towards the ink pad and pen that sat before him, the tools that China had created secretly. She had loved Skulduggery and knew that someday everyone he loved would be gone. She didn't want him to have the pain of that, and created the special sigil that would free Skulduggery's soul, effectively killing the man who had escaped death so many times. The ornately carved case had arrived on Skulduggery's doorstep two weeks ago. Skulduggery had tried to find out who had sent it, but China wasn't alive to consult with. So he had opened the case and found an image of a sigil, a carving pen, special ink, and instructions. Skulduggery uncapped the pen, dipped it in the red ink and placed it onto the blotting paper. Ink pooled, dark, bleeding into the page. Dark eye sockets stared at the ink blotch. Red like blood, like fire, like⦠Like that case from almost one hundred years ago. The woman with the fire hair and the strange man with the strange screwdriver. Skulduggery had never solved that one, never figured out what really happened. But the corpses hadn't come back, and the detective called that success.
Suddenly, Skulduggery had a strange urge to draw the Bentley. He had never been particularly adequate at art, but the Bentley was something he could do. Red lines stretched across the page, forming the car. Circles made the wheels, long curved lines shaped the front, and small dots created the energy flowing through the vehicle. Skulduggery took the pen off the page to refill the ink supply and as soon as his wrist was off the page, a wind took up the page. A strange whooshing noise filled the room and the paper was swept away, the drawing of the Bentley exploding into yellow light. And as soon as the noise and wind started, it stopped. Skulduggery Pleasant stared at the spot where the paper had disappeared fro a few moments before returning to the task at hand. Carving pen met bone and stained the calcium red. Skulduggery copied the triangle, line, and circle onto his skin, making sure it matched the illustration China had drawn so long ago. He finished it, and watched the ink slowly fade. Skulduggery felt no fear, no trepidation, as the last of the red disappeared. The Skeleton Detective loosened his shoulders and looked up to the ceiling of the cold room. His bones fell to the ground, no longer held together by a soul. A cloud of dust erupted at the impact and Skulduggery Pleasant's spirit was gone. He was dead.
"Isn't it strange, though?" Amy Pond asked the man beside her. She couldn't stop thinking about what had happened an hour ago. Who had sent the message to the TARDIS? Who had called them back to the graveyard? "How the energy reading looked like an ink sketch?"
"Very strange," the Doctor voiced, looking up from the orb that the man had thrown out his car. "But then again, everything about this case is strange."
Fin.
