Bedlam

“Not robbery,” Skulduggery said. “Extortion.”

Valkyrie snapped her fingers. “That’s right. Extortion. Their little businesses would be targeted and threatened, and they’d have to pay these nasty sorcerers to not trash them.”

Yonder didn’t seem overly sympathetic. “That’s too bad,” he said. “Protection rackets are the bane of small business. Have these crimes been reported to the City Guard?”

“Well, that’s the problem,” Valkyrie said, passing Lush. “It seems the nasty sorcerers doing all this damage are City Guard officers. Like you guys.”

“That’s a serious accusation,” Lush said.

Valkyrie smiled at her. “I’m in a serious mood.”

Yonder’s radio barked to life for a moment. When it went quiet, he nodded. “OK, duty calls. You two have a good night.”

He went to walk out, but Skulduggery stood in his path.

Yonder narrowed his eyes. “You’re impeding a sergeant of the City Guard.”

“I’m just standing here.”

Yonder went to walk round him, but Skulduggery stepped into his path again.

“Now I’m impeding you. Did I ever congratulate you, by the way? On your promotion? Congratulations. Sergeant Yonder, Officers Lush and Rattan – you’re all under arrest. Surrender your weapons and we won’t have to hurt you.”

There was a heartbeat of silence, and then Yonder laughed, and looked at his friends and they laughed, too, as if Valkyrie and Skulduggery couldn’t read the intent in their eyes. Yonder went for his gun and Lush went for hers and Valkyrie punched her in the throat and shoved her back. Rattan had his gun out and he was aiming at Skulduggery, but Skulduggery was throwing Yonder to the floor and Rattan couldn’t get a clear shot so he switched targets, swinging the gun round to Valkyrie. Valkyrie’s hand lit up and lightning streaked into his chest, blasting him backwards and filling the air with ozone.

Still gasping, Lush pulled her gun and Valkyrie grabbed her wrist with one hand and punched her in the face with the other. She ripped the gun away, tossing it into the shadows, and Lush snapped her hand out and a wall of air took Valkyrie off her feet.

She hit the ground and rolled, looked up in time to dodge a fireball. Energy crackled around her body. The fine hairs on her arms stood up. Lush threw another fireball and Valkyrie straightened, holding out her left hand, her magic becoming a shield that the fireball exploded against. Lush ran for her gun, but Valkyrie caught her in the side with a streak of lightning that spun her sideways and sent her down.

Valkyrie pulled her magic back in and quelled it before it scorched her clothes. That was getting to be a problem.

Yonder was lying on his belly, his hands cuffed behind him.

“You can’t do this!” he raged. “I’m an officer of the City Guard!”

“Not for long,” Skulduggery said.

Yonder rolled on to his side so he could glare at him. “No one will believe you! Commander Hoc knows you’ve had it in for me from the beginning! He’ll take my side!”

“He won’t have a choice,” Valkyrie said, walking over. “He’ll do what Supreme Mage Sorrows tells him to.”

Yonder snarled. “You’re so smug, aren’t you? You’re in with the Supreme Mage, so you get to strut around, doing whatever you want. Let me tell you, let me be the one to tell you – that time is coming to an end. You hear me? Things are going to change around here.”

Despite her worries, despite her anxiety, despite everything that had happened and everything she had done, Valkyrie looked down at Sergeant Yonder and found she still had the capacity to laugh at stupid people.

“Omen,” Miss Gnosis said, leaning forward, her elbows on her desk and her fingertips pressed together. “We need to talk about your future.”

Omen Darkly nodded. The office, filled with the morning sun, was nice and neat and smelled of some exotic spice that was not too pungent. Miss Gnosis had books everywhere. Her desk was packed full of stuff. She looked like she had a lot going on.

“Omen,” she said.

He looked up. “Yes?”

“Your future. How do you envision it?”

“I haven’t really thought about it too much.”

“I realise that,” Miss Gnosis said in that cool Scottish accent. She pushed a form towards him. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s the SYA.”

“And what does SYA stand for?”

“Senior Years Agenda.”

“Very good.” Miss Gnosis sat back. “What age are you now, Omen?”

“Fifteen.”

“So you’ve got another two years of school after this one, and maybe two years after that before your Surge. Do you have any idea yet what discipline you want to specialise in?”

“Well, I … I mean, I suppose being an Elemental would be, you know …” He trailed off.

“Do you want to be an Elemental?” Miss Gnosis asked. “You don’t sound too enthused.”

“Yes, no, I mean, sure.”

“Is there anything else you’d rather be?”

Omen shrugged.

“Rack your brains, Omen. Is there any discipline other than Elemental magic that you would like to do for the rest of your life? Because that’s what we’re talking about here. The discipline you’re focused on when you have your Surge is the discipline you’re stuck with from then on.” She hesitated. “You do know how the Surge works?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Good, good.”

“Like, it’d be cool to be a Teleporter,” Omen said. “I’m always late for stuff and I get car sick on long journeys, so that would solve a lot of my problems.”

“Teleportation is one of the tricky ones,” Miss Gnosis replied. “You generally have to be born with the aptitude for it, like Never was.”

“Yeah, I know,” Omen said, a little glumly. “See, miss, the problem is I’m just not very good at most things.”

“Ah, Omen, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“It’s true, though. I’m not. I’m no good at Energy Throwing or—”

“Proper names, please.”

“Sorry. I’m no good at Ergokinesis and I did want to be a Signum Linguist, but I just find it hard to understand all the letters.”

“Which is a problem when it comes to language,” Miss Gnosis said. “But you’ve still got time to decide. What I want you to do is come up with a list of seven disciplines – realistic disciplines – to take into your final two years of school. Then you can figure out which one you want to specialise in.”

“And what if I can’t?”

“Then you’ll still have two or three years after you leave in which to make your decision. You’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to have this worked out, but do you want to know a secret? Nobody has it worked out. We’re all just playing it by ear. No one knows what the future has in store.”

“Auger knows.”

“Your brother’s situation is slightly different.”

“Sensitives know what’s in store.”

“No, they don’t,” Miss Gnosis said. “Sensitives can see a future – not necessarily the future. But what about that? What about becoming a Sensitive?”

Omen’s face soured. “We’re doing one of Miss Wicked’s modules right now.”

“And how’s that going for you?”

“She paired me up with Auger, because siblings have a strong psychic connection, and twins have an even stronger one.”

“I’m aware.”

“And we did that test, you know the one, where we sit opposite each other and I look at a card with a pattern on it and he has to, like, read that pattern in my mind, and then we switch? Auger got every single one right.”

“And how did you do?”

“I fell off my chair.”

“Oh.”

“I think it’s a balance thing. Miss Wicked says psychic stuff can upset your equilibrium, so … Anyway, today we’re going to try to talk to each other using only our minds.”

“You might be better at that.”

“I don’t see how.”

Miss Gnosis smiled. “Omen, come on. A little self-belief wouldn’t hurt, now, would it?”

“It’s just, we’re the only set of twins in the class, and Auger can do it all brilliantly, and I’m kind of holding him back.”

“I doubt he sees it that way.”

Omen gave a little grunt.

Miss Gnosis let him out a few minutes early, which allowed him to get to the toilets without being caught in the sudden crush of students. In fact, he had time to take the scenic route to his next class, past both the North and the East Towers. He descended the staircase in the main building, quickening his pace ever so slightly, and arriving outside his next class just as the bell rang.

Doors opened and each room vomited forth a never-ending torrent of teenagers dressed in either black trousers or skirts with white shirts and black blazers. A few of Omen’s fellow Fourth Years passed. Their blazers, like his, had green piping. He nodded to them. They ignored him. He shrugged.

He took his seat in the next class. Never came in, looking half dead from exhaustion, and sat next to him.

“You doing OK?” Omen asked.

“No,” Never said, gazing blearily at her desk. “Did we have homework to do?”

Omen took out his books. “Yes. You didn’t do it?”

Never gave a groan as an answer, and peered at Omen through one eye. “Why are you smiling?”

Omen shrugged. “It’s just very unusual to have you being the one who’s struggling while I’m doing all right, that’s all. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m finally getting my life in order, that I’m finally becoming the person I’m meant to be.”

“Or,” Never said, “this could not be about you, and actually be about me, and how hard it is to juggle being fabulous at school with being fabulous at having adventures. So, really, it could be either.”

“All those adventures taking a toll, are they?”

Never laid her forehead on the desk so that her hair covered her face. “I’m bruised. And battered. I get into fights now. Real, actual fights. Me. A pacifist.”

“You’re not a pacifist.”

“Well, no, but I hate fighting. I hate the pain aspect. Also the effort aspect. Fighting would be so much easier if you could do it from your phone, you know?”

“Damn these physical bodies.”

“Ah, now,” Never said, sitting up and flicking her hair back, “I wouldn’t go so far as to damn my physical body, Omen. I’m blessed with this form. See these cheekbones? I will never take these for granted. But I do ache. I mean, I can’t be expected to follow your brother into every single battle, can I? He’s the Chosen One. He’s got the strength and the speed and the skill. I just have the bone structure and the attitude.”

“Kase and Mahala aren’t Chosen Ones,” said Omen. “How do they do in these battles?”

“They’ve been doing this for longer,” Never countered. “They’re better at it than I am.”

“There you go,” Omen said. “You just have to give it time, and then you’ll be as good as they are.”

Never lolled her head back, and looked up at the ceiling. “Three days ago, we were fighting this guy, a Child of the Spider. Ever seen one of those people? They’re creepy enough in their human form, but when they change …”

“You actually saw him transform?”

“Oh, yes,” said Never. “It was gross. Like, seriously disgusting. He sprouted all these extra legs, his body contorted, his face became a spider face … and the sounds. Great Caesar’s Ghost, the sounds! Squelching and tearing and popping and more squelching … And, at the end of it, he’s twice as big as us, and a spider. A spider, Omen.”

“You’re not afraid of spiders, are you?”

“I tend to get slightly arachnophobic when they’re three times the size of me.”

“Understandable.”

“So, we were fighting this giant spider, and I realised I’d forgotten to do the biology homework.”

“You thought about biology when you were fighting a giant spider?”

“Well, yeah,” said Never. “It just popped into my head – the module where we studied insects and arachnids – and then we had that chapter on the Children of the Spider and how we still don’t really know how they came to, like, be spiders.”

“Yes,” said Omen, “I remember the lesson.”

“Do you?”

Omen hesitated. “No.”

“Thought not. Anyway, I asked Auger about the homework.”

“While you were fighting?”

“Oh, wow, no. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can have light-hearted discussions while trying not to die. I just don’t have the stamina. I’m out of breath the entire time. So I waited until after. And you know what he said?”

“He’d done the homework?”

“Well, yes, but do you know how he’d done the homework?”

“I would imagine by doing it in his spare time?”

“Will you please stop spoiling my stories by knowing what I’m going to say?”

“Sorry.”

Never sighed, and continued. “He did it at night. The previous night, after we’d sneaked back to our dorm rooms. Four o’clock in the morning and he’s making sure his homework’s done. The same with Kase and Mahala.”

“So … so why didn’t you do that?”

Never frowned. “Because I was sleeping.”

“But why didn’t you—?”

“Because I was sleeping,” Never repeated. “I love my sleep, Omen. It’s one of the eight things that I do best. You can’t expect me to not sleep because of homework. We all have our limits, the lines in the sand we do not cross. That is mine.”

Omen nodded. “It’s a great honour just to be around you sometimes.”

Mr Chou walked in and closed the door.

“Can I copy off you?” Never whispered.

“Oh,” Omen whispered back, “sorry, no. I didn’t do the homework, either.”

“Why the hell not?”

Omen shrugged. “I was thinking about other things.”

Never glared.

“Right then,” said Mr Chou, “let’s start off with last night’s prep. Who can give me the answer to the first question? Never?”

Never sagged.

Razzia was bent over the sink in the Ladies, doing her make-up, because that was practically the only room in the whole of Coldheart Prison where the light was good enough, and Abyssinia was in there with her, the two of them just spending time together, not bothering to talk, just two Sheilas hanging out, enjoying the silence, alone with their thoughts, and then Abyssinia said, “I don’t know if I do.”

Razzia stopped applying her mascara, and frowned. Had Abyssinia been speaking this whole time? Had Razzia been answering? Was this another one of those conversations she forgot she was having halfway through?

Strewth, as her dear old dad used to say. Her dear old dad used to say a lot of things, though. Her dear old dad could talk the hind legs off a kangaroo.

Was that a saying? Was that a popular phrase, back in Australia? She couldn’t remember. Her past got so hazy sometimes. She wasn’t even sure if she had a dear old dad, at least one that she’d known. She had a vague image of a nasty man, quick with his fists, but she didn’t like that image, so it went away, and was replaced by Alf Stewart, the cranky but lovable old guy from Home and Away, the greatest television show ever made. Yep, a much better dad to have, she reckoned. Maybe. She hadn’t seen that show in years. Did they still make it?

Oh, bloody hell. Abyssinia was still talking. Now Razzia had completely lost track of what was going on. The only thing she knew for sure was that her mascara wasn’t all done, so she went back to applying it.

Knowing Abyssinia, she was probably talking about her long-lost-now-recently-recovered son, Caisson. She was always talking about him. Razzia got it. She totally understood. Caisson was family, after all. Nothing more important than family.

And it was nice seeing Abyssinia so happy. Those first few weeks, when Caisson didn’t do a whole lot more than have bad dreams while sedated, were the happiest she’d ever seen Abyssinia. She was so proud of her son for sticking it out, for surviving all that pain.

It had reinvigorated her, too, having her son around. Suddenly her attention was back on the plan, because the plan secured Caisson’s legacy. That focus had slipped a little, but now it was back on track. In less than two weeks, it would all kick off.

Razzia couldn’t wait. She hadn’t killed anyone in ages.

But, now that Caisson was up and about, it had quickly become clear to anyone paying attention that he was a weird one.

That wasn’t easy for Razzia to admit. She’d always seen herself as the weird one in Abyssinia’s little group of misfits, so to voluntarily hand over the title to a newcomer – even if he was the long-lost son of the boss – just felt wrong.

But there was no denying it: Caisson was an oddball.

She couldn’t blame him, of course. He’d been tortured pretty much non-stop for ninety years. That would lead anyone to hop on an imaginary plane and take a sojourn from reality. His flesh was scarred, his silver hair – so like his mother’s – grew only in clumps from a damaged scalp, and his eyes always seemed to be focused on something not quite in front of him, and not quite in the distance.

The fact was, though, he could have been a lot worse. According to Caisson, this was all down to his jailer, Serafina. She knew that if he retreated deep enough into his mind there wouldn’t be much point in torturing his body. So, every few weeks Caisson would be given the chance to recover, to get strong … and then it would happen all over again.

The whole thing was just so delightfully sadistic. Razzia hoped one day to meet Serafina. She’d been hitched to that Mevolent fella from ages ago, the one who’d caused all that bother with the war and all. Razzia reckoned she could learn a thing or two from someone like that.

Abyssinia sighed. “What do you think?”

Razzia blinked at her in the mirror. Abyssinia clearly wasn’t asking about her hair, because it was the same as it always was – long and silver. The red bodysuit, maybe? Abyssinia’s recently regrown body was still pretty new, and the suit did a lot to keep it maintained, but she’d been wearing variations of it for months and so Razzia didn’t think she had chosen now to ask how she looked.

Must be Caisson again.

“Well,” Razzia said, “the real question here, Abyssinia, is what do you think?”

Abyssinia exhaled. “I think we press ahead.”

“Yeah,” said Razzia. “Me too.”

“This is what we’ve been working towards, and I shouldn’t let new developments derail us from our goals. I’ve been promising you a new world for years, and I’m not going to abandon you, not when the end is finally in sight.”

“Good to hear.”

“But I just don’t know what to do about the Darkly thing.”

Razzia did her best to look concerned. She did this by pursing her lips and frowning at the ground. She didn’t see what the problem was. The Darkly Prophecy foretold a battle between the King of the Darklands and the Chosen One, Auger Darkly, when the boy was seventeen years old. That was still something like two years away. Plenty of time to kill the Darkly kid before he could kill Caisson. It all seemed simple enough to Razzia.

Abyssinia, like most people, had a tendency to overthink things.

“Prophecies are dodgy,” Razzia said, applying a bit of Redrum lipstick. “If a prophecy foretells what happens in the future, if nothing changes from this point onwards, then all you have to do to avert that prophecy is not do what you otherwise would have done. Bam. On the other hand, how can you be certain that what you don’t do is in fact what leads to the prophecy being fulfilled? Fair dinkum, it’s a complicated business, but, like most complicated businesses, it’s also deceptively simple.”

Abyssinia frowned. “I don’t think that’s entirely true, though.”

“What do I know?” Razzia asked, shrugging. With the back of her hand, she smudged the lipstick to one side, then down to her chin. Perfect. “I’m nuts.”

Valkyrie let herself into her parents’ house, went straight to the kitchen and found her mother reading at the table.

“Oh, good God!” Melissa Edgley said, jerking upright.

Valkyrie laughed. “Sorry. Thought you’d heard me.”

Melissa got up, hugged her. “You don’t make a sound when you walk. I suppose that’s all your ninja training.”

“I don’t have ninja training.”

“Sorry,” her mum said. “Your secret ninja training.”

Valkyrie grinned, and eyed the notebook on the table. “What are you reading that has you so engrossed?”

“This,” said Melissa, “is your great-grandfather’s diary. One of several, in fact. Your dad found them in the attic, packed away with a load of junk.”

“Ah, diaries,” said Valkyrie. “The selfies of days gone by. What are they like?”

“They’re beautiful, actually. Beautiful handwriting and beautiful writing.”

“So that’s where Gordon got his talent from.”

“Well, he didn’t lick it off a stone.” Melissa hesitated, then looked up. “Your dad’s in the other room. He’s, uh … not in the best of moods.”

“What’s wrong?”

Melissa waved the diary. “He’s flicked through a few of these. Your great-granddad was a firm believer in the legend that the Edgleys are descended from the Ancient Ones.”

“The Last of the Ancients,” Valkyrie corrected. “But why does that make him grumpy? He knows it’s all true now.”

“And that,” her mother said, “is the problem.”

Valkyrie took a moment. “Ah,” she said. “Maybe I should talk to him.”

“That might help.”

Valkyrie walked into the living room. Desmond was sitting in his usual chair. The cricket was on.

“Hello, Father,” she said.

“Hello, Daughter,” he responded, not taking his eyes off the screen.

She sat on the couch. “Enjoying this, are you?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Who’s playing?”

Desmond nodded at the TV. “They are.”

“Good game?”

“Not sure.”

“Who’s winning?”

“Don’t know.”

“What are the rules?”

“No idea.”

“I didn’t know you even liked cricket.”

He sat up straighter. “This is cricket?”

She settled back. “Mum told me about the diaries.”

Desmond muted the TV. “My granddad had the best stories,” he said. “The three of us would sit round his armchair and he’d just … I don’t know. Regale us, I suppose. Regale us with family legends about magic men and women, doing all these crazy things, all because we were descended from the Last of the Ancients. But my father, well … he’d grown up with those stories and he was sick of them. He suffered from a, I suppose you’d call it a deficit of imagination. And he used to ridicule the old man, every chance he got. In front of us. I didn’t like that.”

“Right,” said Valkyrie.

“And Fergus followed suit. Turned his back on granddad and his stories. He’d always needed our father’s approval more than Gordon or me, so siding with him against what they both saw as nonsense and fairy stories was one way of building a bond Fergus felt he was missing. I wonder what he’d say now if we told him the truth. I don’t think I could do that to him.”

Valkyrie didn’t say anything to that. It wasn’t her place.

“Me, I loved the stories,” Desmond continued. “They meant something. They meant there was more to life than what I could see around me. They meant I could be more than what I was. Because of my granddad, I wasn’t restricted like my friends were. I had, I suppose, a purpose, if I wanted to seize it.”

“So you believed him,” said Valkyrie.

“I did,” Desmond said. “For a few years. When I was a kid. But I got to age ten, I think, and my dad sat me down and told me there were no such things as wizards and monsters. How wrong he was, eh?” Desmond smiled. “Gordon was the troublesome one. Always had been. Even his name rankled our dad. Fergus and I had good strong Irish names – but Gordon … ha. My mother insisted on naming him after the doctor who delivered him. It was her first pregnancy and there were complications, but that doctor worked a miracle, and the future best-selling author came into the world and brightened it with every moment he was here. Our granddad passed all those stories, all that wonder, down to Gordon, and he just absorbed it. He believed, like I did, but unlike me he never allowed our father to trample that belief. That’s what he had that I didn’t, I suppose. A strength.” Desmond shifted in his chair. “All those stories, they’re in the diaries. You should read them.”