Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 48 - Possessed Kenspeckle

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

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Chapter 48

Twenty-eight hours after Valkyrie was booted in the face

Scarab's hideout

Valkyrie woke up some long time later to a fuzzy head and no memories since passing out. It took her ages to work out what had happened. She knew she'd been in a fight, that she was uncomfortable and cold... she felt like that time she'd woken from a surgery all drugged up.

"You're awake," Kenspeckle said.

Valkyrie relaxed. "Skul'u'ggery?"

"He's not here, dear Valkyrie," Kenspeckle said. "No one is here but me and you."

Valkyrie felt something 'not right' about his voice. Slowly blinking in her foggy faze, she tried to look at him. Her neck creaked, and she realised she was in a chair and spent several dumb seconds wondering how she was in a chair, why, and how she hadn't realised. More importantly than the chair, why was she in just her bra and underwear?

Her brain remembered what she had opened her eyes for. Her head pounded, not painfully, but it made her vision blur each time.

Kenspeckle was sitting across from her with a desk between them. Her hands were tied to the chair painfully tight but his own were messing around with tools and little bits and pieces on the table. He was making something.

"Wha' ya doin'?" She croaked out.

He smiled lightly but didn't look at her. "I've been in many bodies, but never once have I found a mind as great as this one. So many thoughts, so much information. It's honestly a pleasure to be here."

Valkyrie frowned at him but nodded at what he said even though she didn't really understand.

"Do you know what it's like to be trapped in a room for centuries with no one to talk to, no one to play with or be in? You are so lonely and cold all the time. I hate it. I never want to see that room again."

Valkyrie nodded. "Wha's happ'n'in?"

"What is happening, my friend, is me repaying my debts," Kenspeckle grinned. "They released me from my hell and all they want is for me to build this little toy – so I am! Honestly, I can't wait for it to go off. And then I will get to you."

"Go off," she repeated slowly, her brain really, really trying to keep up. "Like a bomb? Kenspeckle, why're you making a bomb?"

He laughed in a way Valkyrie hadn't heard the man do before. "You don't know? You don't know. I am a Remnant. I am a Remnant possessing this man to make this bomb."

"So you're not Kenspeckle?" Valkyrie slurred.

"I am Kenspeckle Grouse. And I am also a Remnant. I am using his body and mind to make this bomb and then I will use his body and mind to torture you."

Valkyrie felt her head get lighter and heart beat faster. "What bomb is it?" She asked without thinking.

"It is the Desolation Engine," he said in a tight voice as he carefully screwed something together. "It'll take another hour or more to finish. Kenspeckle thought up the invention, he made it, he got scared of it and deactivated it. Funny, that such a smart man could not so much as think of the consequences of making such a thing. He didn't destroy it because he valued his work as a young man. He was ashamed of what it could do and did not think of it again. And now he is possessed by me and together, we are fixing it to destroy humanity."

"Oh."

"They raided the Sanctuary," possessed Kenspeckle continued. "The moving vans, really. All they had to do was cause a little traffic and open a few doors and when they found the right one, they just had to kill one man and drive away. So simple. I wonder if your great Skulduggery Pleasant has worked it out yet?"

Valkyrie groaned and wondered that too. How long would it take fix again? An hour? Could Crow be quick enough to save her?

Her thoughts turned to Nadia and she worried for the girl. She had been so upset when Valkyrie had been captured just two and a bit months ago. Hopefully, no one would tell her until Valkyrie had been found. Found healthy and whole would be nice...

Kenspeckle crooned on as Valkyrie's haze lifted and finally she was able to look around without her head spinning violently. He told her about all sorts of things Kenspeckle, the real man, had done, all sorts of inventions and other things he wanted to do and try but had not been allowed or decided to hide because they were controversial. He had wanted to prove Hitler and his scientists scientifically wrong in multiple areas in the early nineteen-hundreds but had been too scared to speak up. He had also wanted to prove men and women were able to achieve equal education and were equally able-bodied but in the fifteen-hundreds, he had been too nervous to suggest it within the mortal world. The Remnant told Valkyrie how many things in medicine and society Kenspeckle had known or theorised before anyone else but had done nothing. Valkyrie listened as her fear grew and the Desolation Engine looked more and more whole.

He told her a bit about Remnants too but that ended in talking about atom bombs and guns and torture methods. Soon, way too soon, he declared himself finished. With a strength Valkyrie knew the true Kenspeckle didn't have, he lifted with table, bomb, tools and all, and pushed it to the wall. He brought forwards a cart on wheels with medical things on it.

"And the fun begins," Kenspeckle grinned at her.

He forced her to look him in the eyes as he made the first cut.