Derek Landy - The Faceless Ones

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2007

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Skulduggery Pleasant rests his weary bones on the web at:

www.skulduggerypleasant.co.uk

Derek Landy blogs under duress at

www.dereklandy.blogspot.com

Text copyright © Derek Landy 2009

Illuminated letters copyright © Tom Percival 2009

Skulduggery Pleasant logo ™HarperCollins Publishers

Skulduggery Pleasant © ™Derek Landy

Cover design © blacksheep-uk.com

Cover illustration © Tom Percival

Derek Landy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007302161

Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007318285

Version: 2019-10-23

This book is dedicated to my agent, Michelle Kass.

I’m not going to be sappy here, OK? I’m not going to talk about how much you’ve done for me (which is a lot), or the impact you’ve had on my life (which is immense), and I’m not even going to talk about the advice, encouragement, and counsel you’ve given me since we met. And I’m not going to mention conversations on tractors either, or iPods at dinner tables, or the amount of Yiddish words you’ve taught me that I’ve promptly forgotten.

All of which, surprisingly, leaves me with nothing much to say.

Sorry about that.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: The Scene of the Crime

Chapter 2: Killer on the Loose

Chapter 3: That First Kiss

Chapter 4: The Sea Hag

Chapter 5: Tracking the Teleporter

Chapter 6: Fletcher Renn

Chapter 7: Batu

Chapter 8: The Civilised Man

Chapter 9: The Enemy

Chapter 10: Finbar’s Little Trip

Chapter 11: Wreath

Chapter 12: In the Office of the Grand Mage

Chapter 13: The House on Cemetery Road

Chapter 14: The Diablerie

Chapter 15: Breaking and Entering

Chapter 16: Stealing the Grotesquery

Chapter 17: The Dark Little Secret

Chapter 18: In the Flesh

Chapter 19: The Man Who Would Be King

Chapter 20: Aranmore Farm

Chapter 21: Opportunity Rings

Chapter 22: Conversations with a Late Uncle

Chapter 23: Anathem Mire

Chapter 24: The Changing House

Chapter 25: The Raid

Chapter 26: The Sceptre

Chapter 27: Blink

Chapter 28: Saying Goodbye

Chapter 29: Cellmates

Chapter 30: Beryl

Chapter 31: Old Friends

Chapter 32: The Trade

Chapter 33: Jailbreak

Chapter 34: The Battle of Aranmore

Chapter 35: The Things of Impossibility

Chapter 36: Enemies

Chapter 37: Falling into Place

Chapter 38: From all Sides

Chapter 39: Crisis of Faith

Chapter 40: Killing Gods

Chapter 41: Black Lightning

Chapter 42: The Moment

Chapter 43: The Gateway

Chapter 44: The Task

Keep Reading …

The Skulduggery Pleasant series

About the Publisher

he dead man was in the living room, face down on the floor beside the coffee table. His name had been Cameron Light, but that was back when his heart had a beat and his lungs had breath. His blood had dried into the carpet in a large stain that spread outwards from where he lay. He’d been stabbed, once, in the small of the back. He was fully clothed, his hands were empty and there was no other sign of disturbance in the room.

Valkyrie moved through the room as she had been taught, scanning the floor and surfaces, but managing to avoid looking at the body. She felt no compulsion to see any more of the victim than she absolutely had to. Her dark eyes drifted to the window. The park across the street was empty, the slides glistening with the rain and the swings creaking in the chill, early morning breeze.

Footsteps in the room and she turned to watch Skulduggery Pleasant take a small bag of powder from his jacket. He was wearing a pinstriped suit that successfully filled out his skeletal frame, and his hat was low over his eye sockets. He dipped a gloved finger into the bag and started to stir, breaking up the smaller lumps.

“Thoughts?” he said.

“He was taken by surprise,” answered Valkyrie. “The lack of any defensive marks means he didn’t have time to put up a fight. Just like the others.”

“So the killer was either completely silent …”

“Or his victims trusted him.” There was something odd about the room, something that didn’t quite fit. Valkyrie looked around. “Are you sure he lived here? There are no books on magic, no talismans, no charms on the walls, nothing.”

Skulduggery shrugged. “Some mages enjoy living on both sides. The magical community is secretive, but there are exceptions – those who work and socialise in the so-called ‘mortal’ world. Mr Light here obviously had a few friends who didn’t know he was a sorcerer.”

There were framed photographs on a shelf, of Light himself and other people. Friends. Loved ones. From the photos alone it seemed like he’d had a good life, a life filled with companionship. Now it was over of course. There was no Cameron Light any more, just an empty shell on the carpet.

Crime scenes, Valkyrie reflected, were rather depressing places.

She looked over at Skulduggery as he sprinkled the powder into the air. It was called rainbow dust because of the way any residual traces of magic in an area would change its colour. This time, however, the powder remained the same colour as it drifted all the way down to the floor.

“Not one trace,” he muttered.

Although the couch was obscuring her view of the body, Valkyrie could still see one foot. Cameron Light had been wearing black shoes and grey socks with worn elastic. He had a very white ankle. Valkyrie stepped to the side so the foot was out of view.

A bald man with broad shoulders and piercing blue eyes joined them in the room. “Detective Crux is nearby,” Mr Bliss said. “If you are caught at a crime scene …” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

“We’re going,” Skulduggery said. He pulled on his coat and wrapped his scarf around the lower half of his skull. “We appreciate you calling us in on this by the way.”