Derek Landy - Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days

S he missed him.

She missed his voice, and his humour, and his warm arrogance, and those moments in his company when she realised that this was when she came alivefinally living, by the side of a dead man.

For eleven months he had been gone and for almost a year Valkyrie had been searching for his original skull, to use as a tool to reopen the portal and get him back. She slept when she had to and ate when she needed to. She let the search consume her. Time spent with her parents grew less and less. Shed been to Germany, and France, and Russia. She had kicked down rotten doors and run through darkened streets. She had followed the clues, just like hed taught her, and now, finally, she was close.

Skulduggery had once told her that the head he now wore was not his actual headhe had won it in a poker game. He said his real head had been stolen, while he slept, by little goblin things that had run off with it in the night. At the time he hadnt gone into any further detail, but he had filled in the blanks later on.

Twenty years ago, a small church in the middle of the Irish countryside was being plagued by what appeared to be a poltergeist. The angry spirit was causing havoc, terrifying the locals and driving away the police when they came to investigate. Skulduggery was called in by an old friend and he arrived, wrapped in his scarf with his hat pulled low.

The first thing he learned was that the culprit wasnt a poltergeist. The second thing he discovered was that it was most likely a type of goblin, and there were probably more than one. The third thing he unearthed was that the church, as small and as spartan as it was, had a solid gold cross set up behind the altar, and if there was one thing goblins loved, it was gold.

Actually, if theres one thing that goblins love, Skulduggery had said, its eating babies, but gold comes in a close second.

The goblins were trying to frighten everyone away long enough so that they could pry the cross loose and make off with it. Skulduggery set up camp and waited. To pass the time, he sank into a meditative state, to be roused whenever anyone got too close to the church.

The first night the goblins came and he leaped out, screaming and throwing fireballs, scaring them witless. The second night they crept up, whispering among themselves to bolster their courage, and he appeared behind them and roared curse words and they ran off once again, crying in fear. But the third night they surprised him, and instead of sneaking up to the church, they sneaked up on him and grabbed his head while he was deep in a meditative trance. By the time he had figured out what was going on, they had disappeared, and Skulduggery had nowhere to put his hat.

Now wearing a head that was not his own, Skulduggerys investigations had revealed that the goblins later ran foul of a sorcerer named Larks, who had stolen their paltry possessions and sold them on. The investigation ended there, as other events began to call for Skulduggerys attention. He had always planned to get back to it, but never did, and so the rest was up to Valkyrie.

The skull, she had learned, was bought by a woman as a surprise, and somewhat unsettling, wedding gift for the man she was to marry. The woman had then used the skull to beat that man to a bloody and pulpy death after she found him stealing from her. The murder inquiry was undertaken by mortal policeValkyrie hated that expressionand so the skull had been logged as evidence. Now known as the Murder Skull, it had found its way on to the black market, and changed hands four times before a sorcerer named Umbra sensed the traces of magic within. Umbra had acquired it and within a year it came into the possession of Thames Chabon, notorious wheeler, unscrupulous dealer, and all-round shady character. As far as anyone knew, Chabon still had the skull. It had taken considerable effort to even get in touch with him, and Valkyrie had been forced to use quite unorthodox means to do so.