It hurt. What she was doing to him, it hurt. She was destroying his being. She was killing him.

Darquesse had his life in her hands, literally. She was twisting and breaking it. Skulduggery screamed, the pain worse than when Serpine pointed his red-right hand at you. He didn't know how much more he could take.

His magic must have looked pretty dim. She had mentioned to him that it was beautiful, that it shimmered.

Eventually his screaming lessened and his voice became hoarse. He dropped to his knees as he felt his life about to end.

Then he felt the life come back to him momentarily. But it was taken away again when Darquesse stuck her hand in it again and then-

Lord Vile woke up. His armour instantly started shifting and forming around him, the shadows becoming solid.

Darquesse took a step back and admired the beauty of the armour. It continuously moved and changed, yet stayed in the same place. She reached out to touch it and an armour covered hand grabbed her own extended one.

"Hello there." Darquesse said, pulling him towards her. "Let's have some fun."

Then, like a bullet, Lord Vile was up in the air, dragging Darquesse with him.

Darquesse laughed and used her own power to fly ahead of him.

"You can let go of my hand now." she said.

Lord Vile didn't reply. His grip got tighter and tighter until the bones broke.

"That's not nice." said Darquesse, mending her broken hand. "But it's been a while since you've last been free, so I'll excuse you just this once."

Vile opened both hands, gathering the shadows. They thrashed and curled behind him, then they shot at her like bullets, puncturing her hands and neck but unable to penetrate her protective clothes.

She launched herself at him and began punching his masked face, but she stopped as his armour grew spikes and it punctured her stomach, getting a few organs. She let go of him and instantly repaired herself.

"This is fun. Let's go somewhere different, France perhaps?"

And before anything else could happen Darquesse shot off in the direction of France and Vile flew after her.

"God dammit! What the heck just happened?" Sky Rune asked, rubbing his neck as Ghastly Bespoke helped him up.

"Darquesse happened. We're lucky she didn't break anything. Even luckier she didn't kill us." Ghastly replied.

The two brought themselves to the Bentley and they hopped in and headed towards the Sanctuary.

+++OoOoO+++

"Are you sure Ghastly?" Tanith asked. "Are you sure that's what you saw, it seems impossible."

"For the last time Tanith, I know what I saw!" Ghastly roared. "I'm sorry Tanith, but when you find out your best friend transforms into the person who murdered your mother and countless others, right before your eyes, you get quite angry."

"It's fine. I'll go make us four some tea." Tanith said, eager to leave the room.

"So Skulduggery Pleasant is Lord Vile?" Erskine asked.

"Yes. Unless it was just my imagination. But it's not, becuase Sky saw him too." Ghastly said, fists clenched.

"Uh, I can't be sure, I uh, still wasn't one hundred percent when it happened."

Ghastly hovered over him. "You were the one who brought it up!"

"Ghastly, calm down." Sky said, arms in a gesture of surrender.

"No! I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, SKULDUGGERY IS LORD VILE. He KILLED MY MOTHER." said Ghastly, getting up and punching the wall. "I knew he kept secrets from me, but not this big. And what are we supposed to do? Before we only had one problem to worry about. Now we have two world-breakers on the loose and we're sitting here."

"It's like the end of the world is here, truly here. We can do nothing, nothing at the moment anyways. We can just hope that Lord Vile and Darquesse don't come back here any time soon. For now, we should just go to lunch then have a rest. I'm sure someone will wake us up for dinner." said Erskine.

GHastly grunted in agreement, backing away from the hole he made in the wall. "Sorry.'

Ghastly, with his fists clenched stormed out to his car and waited for the others. Erskine and Sky collected Tanith and the four of them left the Sanctuary and drove to Gordon's mansion.

Darquesse was stuck in a headlock when they began to see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. They had been flying for little over an hour and Darquesse laughed as they headed straight towards it. They got closer and closer, about to crash into it, then last minute she steered them through the gap and landed in a river not to far from the Tower.

Lord Vile was already on the shore, just as she pulled herself out of the water.

"That was fun!" she said, giving him a smile.

Vile sat down on the ground and put a hand to his helmet. The helmet melted into the gloves and was mixed with the rest of the armour. Skulduggery looked at her.

"Hello Darquesse." he said.

"Hello Skulduggery. That was fun wasn't it? Don't you want to do it again? Put the helmet back on and let him take over again."

"No. I don't want that. I hurt Valkyrie, I'm not doing that again. Leave her alone and go."

"Skulduggery, you hurt me and I'm fine you know. But I like having a rest, so I'm going to give Val back, I'm gonna rest for a bit. For mor than a day. I promise." she laughed. "But I can say I'll be back soon."

Skulduggery had just taken the last of the armour off, when she grunted and staggered forward. He caught her just before she fell onto the ground.

"Hey." she murmured.

"Hey."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." he replied.

"It is."

"Stop blaming yourself, you've got worse problems."

"Like what?"

"Like the gaping hole in your shoulder."

"What!"

"Shush, we'll get you back to the Sanctuary."

He lifted her up and rose into the sky.

"Aren't I too heavy for you to carry all that way?"

"I'll find a boat somewhere, besides you're not that heavy."

"Good. Wake me up when we get there."

Skulduggery said nothing, and there was no sound other than the sound of waves and wind.

Review Please! :)

~Lucinda