Skulduggery Pleasant did not consider himself a man.
He had lost that little bit of him on the battlefield, the part that made him good. In more recent years, he had wondered if anyone was really good, or if it was just the body count at the end, or the winning team.
Skulduggery didn't think much about good anymore.
Had he been more in tune with his emotions, had he cared to put names to them, he would have recognized he was depressed. Skulduggery didn't care for his fine suits Ghastly Bespoke, deceased, had made him. He didn't care for the purr of his engine, or the way magic weaved through the air.
He did look at the empty passenger seat a lot. He would sit in parking lots and look at the seat, imagine the way Valkyrie's legs had folded or crossed there.
People were afraid of him. They avoided his gaze and they stepped out of his way when he walked. People had always been afraid of them. When Valkyrie came back, they were terrified of them. Of the mad skeleton and the murderous girl.
Insanity, Skulduggery reflected in the dark, gaze on the seatbelt buckle, was an awful lot like a black hole. You can never quite escape the pull, no matter how far you travel. He wondered what Valkyrie would have said to that.
Alice called by. She found him standing in the middle of the living room. He scared Alice, too.
"You all right, Skulduggery?"
Numbness was such a strange feeling. Skulduggery felt it creep over his fingers and infect his mind. It was like some sort of flammable gas, and once it had spread, it only needed a spark to—
Skulduggery Pleasant isn't here right now. He is shoving his gun barrel down someone's throat and enjoying the look of fear and panic in their eyes. He is snarling and pulling the trigger and is turning to kill, kill, kill everyone there. Leave a message if you think he'll care.
There wasn't much point in anything. Skulduggery was looking at himself in the mirror. He was debating whether or not to change his tie to match his hat. Maybe he should forgo the tie.
He imagined her fingers. He had always liked Valkyrie's fingers. Her fingers always said a lot about her. When they shook, when they reached out to do something, the way they would curl if she was nervous or hyperextend if she knew she was nervous. He wondered what her fingers would feel like tugging on the sleeve of his jacket, what they would look like unwinding the scarf from his throat.
Skulduggery wondered what Valkyrie would think of him as he snapped the air and heard ribs break when the body thwacked against the brick wall.
He was going crazy. It was pulling on him, that place within him, the center of his being that was calm and clear and oh so angry. He delighted in destruction and silence. Where he could lock away that part of himself that wanted to joke and laugh.
Maybe he wanted to go away for a while.
"Your aggression was unwarranted!" the man in front of Skulduggery yelled. "You were told to subdue! You murdered each and every one of them—they were begging for their lives! We obtained the security camera footage and you slaughtered them in cold blood."
Valkyrie wouldn't like this man. Wouldn't like his voice or the way he held himself, with his arms held away from his body.
Skulduggery could kill this man. Skulduggery had that thought a lot, like a playful breeze. When Valkyrie was alive, it was barely there. Now, it threatened to knock him over. He could kill this stupid, stupid little man.
"Detective—"
Skulduggery wrapped his fingers around the man's throat and squeezed and watched the veins come to the surface. It was like a fire burning in him, needing more fuel, needing to see this man's blood ooze out of his mouth and eyeballs to pop.
What had Valkyrie called him, once? A goon.
Skulduggery looked at the passenger seat. He didn't know where he was, or where he had stopped. He could move that seat and no one would say anything. She wouldn't know because she was gone. Gone.
Skulduggery hadn't talked. He hadn't talked to anyone because they were afraid and he wanted to kill them all, anyways.
And without someone to talk to--
Pulling, pulling down. He was happy to go because no one would miss him just like no one would miss the murderous girl.
Things couldn't be pleasant without cain.
Skulduggery tilted his head in a smile, but there wasn't anyone alive to know that.