Scepter of the Ancients (30 page)

Valkyrie smiled, and Scapegrace’s anger flared.
“What the hell is so funny?”

“First of all,” she said, her confidence growing, “they’re not my
masters
. I don’t have a
master
. Second, they don’t need a battalion to take you down. And third—and this really is the most important point—whoever said I came alone?”

Scapegrace frowned, turned, saw someone walking up behind him—a skeleton in a black suit—and he tried to attack, but a gloved fist hit his face, a foot hit his shin, and an elbow slammed into his chest. He fell in an awkward heap.

Skulduggery Pleasant turned to Valkyrie. “You all right?”

“I’ll kill you both!” Scapegrace howled.

“Hush,” Skulduggery said.

Scapegrace launched himself forward and Skulduggery moved in to him, grabbed his outstretched arm, and spun him around, then abruptly cut him off by slamming a forearm into his throat. Scapegrace flipped in midair, landed painfully.

Skulduggery turned to Valkyrie again.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Really.”

Scapegrace had his hands to his face. “I think you broke my nose!”

They ignored him.

“He talks a lot,” Valkyrie said, “but I don’t think
he knows what all the words mean.”

Scapegrace leaped up. “I am the Killer Supreme! I make murder into an art form!”

Skulduggery hit him again, and Scapegrace did a little twirl before falling.

“Vaurien Scapegrace,” he said, “by the power endowed unto me under the Sanctuary Rule of Justice, I am placing you under arrest for the attempted murder of Alexander Remit and Sofia Toil in Oregon, Cothurnus Ode and Armiger Fop in Sydney, Gregory Castallan and Bartholomew—”

Scapegrace tried one last desperate attack, which Skulduggery cut short by punching him very hard on the nose. The Killer Supreme wobbled, and he collapsed and started crying.

DEREK LANDY
lives near Dublin. Before writing his children’s story about a sharply dressed skeleton detective, he wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a little thriller in which everybody dies.

As a blackbelt in Kenpo Karate, he has taught countless children how to defend themselves, in the hopes of one day building his own private munchkin army. He firmly believes that they await his call to strike against his enemies (he doesn’t actually have any enemies but he’s assuming they’ll show up sooner or later).

The reason Derek writes his own biographical blurb is so that he can finally refer to himself in the third person without looking pompous or insane.

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