Skulduggery Pleasant Kingdom of the Wicked (my verson)

 

ONE.

A cold morning in Dublin, as Skulduggery and Valkyrie drove out of the Bentley and to the sanctuary.

Neither of them were talking, there was just a broad silence (which was surprising considering Skulduggery always had to say something). The silence continued for another five minutes until…

“So, how’s your day?” Skulduggery said, “Anything new?”

She looked at him “No… “

“You’re not talking much, Valkyrie is there anything wrong?”

“No, I’m fine thanks.”

“Is it something to do with being the Death Bring and Darquesse and all?”

“I never said it was”

“Actually, I do recall some complaining coming out of you. To be precise you said ‘I don’t want to be Darquesse or the Death Bringer… I just want to be a normal teenager’”.

“No, I said ‘I can’t believe I’m Darquesse and I don’t know how I got to be the Death Bringer’ I didn’t say I didn’t want to be them, though I’m not saying I want to be them.”

“I see. So from what I’ve learnt from you, you are just pretending about all this and you’re not thinking about any of this as a matter of fact, you’re thinking about Fletcher Renn.

“Um, maybe you might-“.

“-Don’t try and deny it Miss Cain.”

“I wasn’t.”

“That’s the exact attitude I hate!”

“What attitude? Skulduggery, you’re not acting right. Is there anything wrong with you?”

“We’re here.”

He got out of the Bentley and looked at her “coming?” She glanced at him for a second, and then got out of the vehicle. They briskly walked to the doors at the front of the sanctuary, opened them and walked in where it was nice and warm and not freezing. Someone looked at Valkyrie and made a face, she didn’t know who it was she just raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, some will do that.” Skulduggery said.

“…Why?”

“I don’t think some like you, to be honest.”

“What did I ever do to him? I don’t even know him!”

“Well, I think it might have something to do with you destroying their plan to kill three billion people to stop the other three billion from seeing their death. What I don’t understand is didn’t they think they might accidently kill themselves? In my opinion, it was a very lucky thing that the Necromancers’ are still alive.”

“No-one asked for your opinion, Skulduggery.”

“Yet no –one said they didn’t want it.”

Solomon Wreath interrupted them. “I see you two have arrived. Would you like to see the high priest or any one in particular?”

“No Solomon we came to visit you and see how you’ve been and if we can company you in any way.” Skulduggery’s sarcasm was too obvious, that really it was just disappointing. Valkyrie nudged him with her elbow.

“We would like to see the elders, please Solomon.”
“Very well, follow me.”

They followed him through tunnels and strange doors and rooms-some of which Valkyrie didn’t know where there- and finally they reached a door made of some kind of metal Solomon opened it and motioned them to step in.