Fletcher teleported them to the nearest spot he knew, to the Sorcerer's neighborhood in Brighton that Dexter had given them the address to. They took Valkyrie's car with them, since it was less obvious than the Bentley.
And Valkyrie gave Fletcher a hug, but neither of them had time for conversation before he returned to the ruins of the English Sanctuary, and they hopped into the car to head towards the location of the safehouse.
The drive was, fortunately, only about fifteen minutes long before they parked in front of a family home with colorful field flowers growing on natural patches, left and right of the pathway, instead of a lawn. Along the white walls of the house, bushes barely scraped at the square windows. A couple of trees competed with the red shingle roof for height. The house seemed like it was older but had recently been thoroughly renovated.
They got out of the car and Skulduggery put his hat on, but left the façade turned off. Since this was a Mage's neighborhood there was no need for a disguise. They approached the house and walked up to the pathway.
Next to the modern front door, a woman was leaning against a wall, waiting for them. She looked to be in her mid-twenties so, Valkyrie assumed her to be around Tanith's age. Her statue suggested that she was fit but did not have much interest in lifting weights. Her complexion was that of a classical ginger, including the pale skin and the freckles. Although, her hair tone was darker, as if it was trying, and failing, to truly be red, rather than orange.
The woman watched them approach with a smile, which was friendly and yet perfectly neutral. Just as her stance, which was relaxed and yet perfectly upright. When they were close enough, she quickly walked up them, brought a couple of steps between them and the house.
She shook their hands but begun speaking right away, with a light, soft voice and a Brighton dialect. "Detectives, nice to meet you, however, I would like to skip the courtesies because, I doubt, we have the time. I'm Diamond Irie, I found him in the Sanctuary. This house is safe, but… I'm in way over my head."
"What do we know about him?" Skulduggery asked.
Irie shook her head. "Nothing. He barely responds with anything other than 'no' and 'I don't know'. Which makes me assume; either he is under some sort of mind control, or someone knows his True Name."
"You were nearby, when it happened?" Valkyrie asked.
She nodded. "I was able to protect myself with magic so, I happened to be quite close to the detonation. And I also happened to see him in the hallways right before but, of course, I had no idea…" Irie sniffed with dread but caught herself quickly. "There was nothing in his hands, nothing off about his clothes. If he did have a bomb, I didn't see it."
"You are working with the English Sanctuary?" Skulduggery wanted to know.
"Yes, I'm in the security department," Irie replied.
Valkyrie raised her brows lightly and opened her mouth, but she already had a response: "And yes, I understand what that sounds like, but if you have doubts about my alliances, I'm sure Dexter wouldn't mind vouching for me."
"He already has," Skulduggery said.
Irie smiled brightly at that. "Well, that solves it, then." Her face dropped again at returning to topic. "There is something you should see."
She turned and walked them to the house, through the front door, and into a cozy entrance area, with warm but muted decoration, a closet, and a wooden chiffonier.
Left, the door to the kitchen stood open, as well as the door to the living room ahead. Between them, in the corner, a staircase led to the upper floor.
As they stood, Irie opened a hidden latch next to the front door. She revealed a panel of symbols and buttons and begun clicking and activating them. They watched her secure the house for a mment, then she pointed them to the living room and led the way again. This room was similarly cozy but larger, with tall, full bookshelves lining two walls. Windows hinted at a garden outside, and two long couches and an armchair offered seating space for a fairly large group of people. The whole place had quite a welcoming atmosphere, Valkyrie realized, as she felt herself relax lightly, despite the presence of the two strangers in the room.
On one of the sofas, a guy was sitting. He was lanky and still young but definitely past his Surge. His stance radiated defeat, his shoulders hunched forward. and blonde, chaotic curls hung into his face, as he sat with his lower arms resting on his thighs. His hands were held away from his legs, having been wrapped in bandages.
Valkyrie sat on the cornering sofa, and Skulduggery sat on the chair, so that they were now looking at him from both sides.
Irie walked around to the guy and squatted down in front of him, so that she was in his eye-line. "Hey," she said gently. "You have guests."
The guy looked up and tired, green eyes mustered Skulduggery, then Valkyrie, before looking down on the ground and looking even more depressed, now.
"We'll figure out what's going on, alright?" Irie said to him. "I do have to show them your hands."
The guy nodded, and she carefully loosened the bandage of one hand and unwrapped it for a couple of rounds, to make his fingers and palm partly visible. His skin was completely covered in, what looked like, slim, linear burns, in the shape of veins. The skin between those marks was red and blistered, but not swollen.
"Now, from over there, it looks like this is on his skin," Irie explained, "but in actuality, the burns are between the muscle tissue and the skin barrier."
Valkyrie squinted and now she could make out that the wounds were, in fact, not on the top layer of his skin.
"Based on that, I'll assume that his discipline was somehow involved with the detonation," Skulduggery concluded.
Irie nodded. "That's what I was thinking too. Which would also explain why he was able to survive the explosion."
Valkyrie turned to the guy. "Hey," she said with a friendly voice.
He looked up at her.
"What's your name?"
He frowned lightly. "I don't know."
"Do you know your True Name?"
"No," he replied.
"Does anyone else know your True Name?"
"Not that I know of."
"Why did you cause the explosion in the Sanctuary?" Skulduggery jumped in.
Another small frown. "I don't know." His head shook, as sudden emotion poured into his features. "I didn't want to."
"We believe you," Irie said to him and rested a calming hand on his knee.
"How did you cause the explosion?" Valkyrie asked on.
Another headshake. "I don't know."
"What color does a banana have?" Skulduggery suddenly wanted to know.
This time, the guy's frown was deep. "What?"
He inclined his skull affirmatively. "What color does a banana have?"
The guy looked sincerely puzzled. "Uhm… yellow? Green... sometimes?"
Irie got up and sat next to him on the couch. Her hand remained on the guy's knee but she did not say anything, her eyes only observed as they continued.
"What is the capital of the United Kingdom?" Skulduggery went on to ask.
"L...ondon…" The guy slowly replied, now looking like he could not decide whether he was being made fun of.
"What disciplines do your parents have?" Valkyrie asked.
He shook his head again. "I don't remember."
Skulduggery leaned forward, copying the guy's stance. "Could it be that, at some point, someone else made you blow up the Sanctuary today, in a highly theoretical case."
"No." Said the guy.
He paused, apparently noticing that he had made a mistake. Because, in fact, even if it had not happened, it was a possible that it could have happened. And this faulty response could not stay unpunished. Not when dealing with a True Name.
With a jerk, his entire body seized, cramping together, and he cried out in nothing but fear. Irie moved closer swiftly, putting an arm around his shoulders, holding his close arm with a tight grip.
"You're alright," she said in a casual, but gentle voice. "We're none the wiser. We don't know anything about them, or you, or about what happened, yeah?"
He was still whimpering, but the attack did not seem to last very long. Once his breath had calmed, Skulduggery appeared to rather go back to his previous strategy.
"Mix blue and yellow, what do you get?" He asked.
The guy looked up, breathing irritably through the hurt. "Why… do you keep… asking me... these stupid questions?"
Valkyrie realized then, what the plan was, and gladly jumped aboard. "When and where were you forced to do this attack?"
His expression changed from frustrated to blank. "What attack?"
"Who was the fifth president of the United States?" Skulduggery probed.
He snorted bitterly. "Sorry, mate, but that's some useless bloody knowledge, right there. Do I look like the type of guy that studies lists of American presidents?"
Valkyrie kept herself from smiling at the sudden changes in behavior. Irie now also seemed to have caught up on their strategy, because she pulled her arms away, Valkyrie assumed, in order to remove the calming factor.
"Well, you definitely look like the sort of man that has no clue about what is going on here," Skulduggery stated.
"You're right," the guy sniffed contemptiously, "I don't, because you keep asking this nonsensical stuff. I don't know what the hell you want from me!"
"How many people were involved in this operation?" Valkyrie interjected.
"What operation?" The guy asked, with a blank expression that now differed staggeringly from his previous demeaner.
"How many points does the Lufthansa corporation have on the stock market, currently?" Skulduggery asked.
He chuckled bitterly. "You know, you are just as much of an asshole as I thought you would be."
"How can your discipline cause explosions?" Valkyrie asked.
The guy looked at her with a frown. "I don't know."
Skulduggery seemed to decide to risk the trigger. "How many bones are in the human body?"
"I don't know!" The guy finally snapped. "I told you a thousand times! I! Don't! Know!"
His breath was hectic now, his eyes twitching over them frantically.
"Can you tell us what the motive was, of the person or people that did this to you?" Valkyrie asked in a calm voice.
His face almost went slack now, in comparison to his previous rage, when he turned his head to her, replying with, "no."
"Do you not understand, because you don't know, or because you're a little… simple?" Skulduggery continued.
"Excuse me?" He growled, back to shaking with anger.
"What was the location and time that you got your orders?" Valkyrie threw in.
The guy looked at her calmly. "What orders?"
He looked back at Skulduggery and, suddenly, he seemed to become aware of his own sudden changes of behavior, but not understanding where they were coming from. He gasped in confused dread and sagged, letting his head hang again, resting his bandaged hands on the back of it.
"Are we done?" Irie asked impartially.
Skulduggery nodded to her and she exhaled and turned to the guy, putting gentle hands on his shoulders.
"Want me to tell you what's going on?"
He nodded with his eyes screwed shut.
"You don't understand the questions because someone told you not to, alright? Nothing is wrong with you. Someone is using you," she explained softly.
He covered his face with his bandaged hands.
"We just had to find out, what it is that you can't tell us. But that's done now. Now, we find out who you are and who these people are, and how we can stop them. Sound good?"
The guy nodded again, keeping his hands up and his head down.
Irie got up and they followed her example, leaving the room and stopping in the hallway. Valkyrie sighed off the tension of the past emotional game.
"Alright, hit me with it," Irie demanded with a similar sigh.
"We need to find out how the perpetrator managed to use him to cause a detonation. He must have triggered a kind of device…" Valkyrie said.
"And at the same time, we need to find out who would have been able to find out True Names, who also has a motive to attack the English Sanctuary." Skulduggery said.
Irie nodded approvingly. "I also noticed a tell: His calf twitches a bit anytime he is in... True Name mode."
Skulduggery shook his head. "I doubt it is a 'mode'. He will just automatically pick the most neutral way to respond, as not to show that he is lying."
She puckered her lips, as if she was very content with that conclusion. "I can get on board with that." Her posture switched again, now looking decisive. "I can find out who he is. You will have to take over the motive part."
"How quickly can you find out?" Skulduggery asked.
"Oh, right now," she said and pulled out her phone. Scrolling only shortly, she selected a contact and called it, activating the speaker.
"Girl!" A woman's voice said after picking up immediately. "Irie, damnit, are you alright!?"
"I'm fine," she replied calmly.
"I mean, I know you're fine… physically. I mean…"
"Betty," Irie interrupted. "I need intel and quick, and that means I need your focus, right the hell now."
There was a short pause, then: "Aye, Captain. What do you need?"
"I need you to turn on your fangirl-brain and remember a sorcerer's file for me. Because, currently, there are no files of anyone, available to anyone."
There was a grin in the woman's voice, as well as a slight dialect that Valkyrie was starting to detect, aside from the British accent, although Valkyrie couldn't quite place it. "I'll try."
"Alright," said Irie with a sigh. "Do you remember an adept with the ability to trigger detonations or bombs, in some way? Or maybe, someone who can create heat, or pressure, or similar, with their hands?"
"Hmmm…" the voice pondered through the phone. "Yeah… yeah. Totally. There was this kid, a couple of years ago. He can cause flash fires with his hands, through friction."
"Flash fires?" Irie prodded. "Like a grease fire?"
"Yeah, deflagration," Betty clarified, "basically, a low-speed detonation. So, what I'm saying is; he doesn't trigger the bomb, he literally is the bomb. Wait…" There was a pause, in which Skulduggery and Valkyrie exchanged a glance at that information. "Are you saying…?"
"I'm not saying anything," Irie said immediately and demonstratively, "I'm saying altogether nothing, you hear me?"
Another pause. "Totally," replied the woman, then; "ok. So. Walking bomb dude. His name was pretty on-the-nose, but… spelled differently? Like, bomb… but with one letter changed…"
"…Boom?" She suggested skeptically.
"No… No, wait. It also wasn't completely logical. I remember, it was… it was something related to bombs, but he couldn't actually do it…"
Valkyrie tried to let her associations run freely, trying to pick out some possible ideas as to what could be related to a bomb, but not to a magic ability…
"The most unusual one for a sorcerer to use would be… an atomic bomb," Skulduggery suggested.
"Yeah!" The woman exclaimed. "Thanks, random dude. Yeah, it was something with nuclear energy… Nu… Nju… Nuke…?
She now sounded sure and happy about it. "Yes. It was pronounced Nuke, for sure. But spelled with a C: N.u.c.e."
"And can you remember his last name?" Irie asked.
A short silence that could have been a headshake, then: "Nah, it was a pretty standard, mortal sounding one. Wouldn't be able to recall for sure. Also, his file was squeaky clean, as far as I remember."
Irie turned to Skulduggery and Valkyrie. "Can you work with that?"
They nodded.
"It's a good start," said Valkyrie.
Irie looked at the phone again. "Alright, thanks love."
"Anytime," The woman said bubbly. "Bye, random people!"
The line was cut abruptly, and the phone was put away again with a snicker. Then, Irie walked back to the living room and hunkered down into her previous posture, in front of the guy. When she spoke, her voice was almost upbeat, casual, as if she was just having a chat with a friend over coffee.
"Hey, Nuce?"
The guy looked up at her, felt addressed.
Presumably, so that he would not have time to register his own telling reaction, Irie immediately spoke on, "…are you hungry?"
Nuce nodded.