Skulduggery Pleasant- Daughter Of Darkness

THE SECRET WAR

Skulduggery put his gun away and walked out the hall, he peered out into the night. Satisfied that there were no human fireballs lurking anywhere nearby, he came back inside and picked the door off the ground, grunting with effort. He maneuvered it back to where it belonged, leaving it leaning in the doorway, then he shrugged and came back into the living room, where Roselyn and Stephanie were still standing staring at him.

"sorry about the door," he said

The sisters still stared.

"I'll pay to get it fixed."

they carried on staring.

"It's still a good door, you know, Sturdy."

When he realized the sisters were in no condition to do anything but stare, he shrugged again and took off his coat, folded it neatly and draped it over the back of a chair. He went to the broken window and started picking up the shards of glass.

Now that he didn't have his coat on, the girls could truly appreciate how thin he really was. His suit, well-tailored though it was, hung off him, giving it a shapeless quality. they watched him collect the broken glass, and saw a flash of bone between his shirtsleeve and glove. He stood, long back at them.

"Where should I put all this glass?"

"I don't know," Stephanie said in a quiet voice. "You're a skeleton."

"I am indeed," he said. "Gordon used to keep a wheelie bin out at the back door. Shall i put it in that?"

Roselyn nodded. "Yes OK," she said simply and watched Skulduggery carry the armful of glass shards out the room. All their lives they had longed for something else, for something to take them out of the humdrum world they knew-and now that it looked like it might actually happen, they both didn't have one clue what to do. Questions were tripping over themselves in their heads, each one vying to be the one that was asked first. "Did you find it all right?"

"I did, yes. It was where he always kept it."

"OK then." if questions were people then Stephanie felt that they'd all be staring at her now in disbelief. She struggled to form coherent thoughts.

"Did you tell him your names?" Skulduggery was asking.

"What?" Stephanie asked

"Your names, did either of you tell him your names?"

"Uh, no..."

"Good. You know something's true name, you have power over it. but even a given name, even Stephanie and Roselyn, that would have been enough to do it."

"To do what?" Roselyn asked

"To give him some influence over you, to get you to do what he asked. if he had your names and he knew what to do with it, sometimes that's all it takes. That's a

scary thought now, Isn't it?"

"What's going on" Stephanie asked. "Who was he? What did he want? Just who are you?"

"I'm me," Skulduggery said, picking up his hat and wig and placing them on a nearby table. "As for him, I don't know who he is, never seen him before in my life."

"You shot him" the girls said simultaneously.

"That's right."

"And you threw fire at him." Stephanie said

"Yes, I did."

"Mr pleasant, you're a skeleton." Stephanie said

"Ah, yes, back to the crux of the matter. Yes. I am, as you say, a skeleton. I have been one for a few years now."