Resurrection by Derek Landy

Author:Derek Landy [Landy, Derek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008266462
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

33

They rejoined Melior in his kitchen. He frowned at Valkyrie.

“Are you OK?” he asked. “You’ve gone quite pale.”

“It’s been an eventful few minutes,” she answered, “but here’s the upshot. Abyssinia was super-powerful and used other people’s life forces to heal her injuries and grow in strength. She was finally defeated and chopped up into little bits. Her heart was cut out. Skulduggery, what happened then?”

“We took the heart back with us,” Skulduggery said, “put it in a box, put the box in a room and built a prison around it.”

“Coldheart,” Valkyrie said.

“Named after its first guest.”

“Coldheart Prison,” Melior said, straightening. “I heard them talking about that. They have it.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “They have the prison?”

“They overthrew it two days ago. Which means they have the heart.”

Valkyrie frowned. “And what about the prisoners?”

“I don’t know what they’re going to do with them.”

“We put away some of those lunatics …”

“Could you do it?” Skulduggery asked. “Could you bring Abyssinia back if you just had her heart?”

“If she has this healing ability you described and I had access to the right type of energy, then … then probably, yes.”

An idea exploded behind Valkyrie’s eyes. “Could you do that to someone else?” she asked, and glanced at Skulduggery. “What about Ghastly?”

“Ghastly and Anton were cremated,” Skulduggery reminded her, and the excitement in her chest died as quickly as it had formed.

Then it sparked again. “What about Gordon? We could bring him back.”

“I can’t,” Melior said. “Resurrecting someone who’s died on my operating table – that’s one thing. But exhuming a corpse, bringing that back? I’m not prepared to do it, not if I have any choice in the matter. I’m sorry. I’m not here to play God.”

“We’re not asking you to resurrect everyone,” said Valkyrie. “Just a few. My uncle was such a good man and he was murdered. How is that fair? If it wasn’t right to kill him, then how can it be wrong to bring him back?”

“Valkyrie,” Skulduggery said quietly.

“What?” Valkyrie said, speaking too quickly, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she knew what she was saying. “How many people have you lost that you would love to see again?”

Skulduggery’s head tilted ever so slightly, and Valkyrie felt herself flush.

“There are a few,” he said. “But I wouldn’t presume to have the right to drag them out of their slumber.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry.”

Skulduggery nodded, and turned to Melior. “The circumstances you would need in order to bring Abyssinia back – what would they be?”

“When I revive people on the operating table,” Melior said, “I transfer some of my energy to them. It weakens me, but after a few days my life force replenishes and I recover. Something like this, though … I’d need to take a life force and transfer it to her remains. More than one, actually. Two, possibly three. I’d need a modified Soul Catcher to harness it all, and life forces from mortals wouldn’t be enough. I’d need sorcerers, whose unique energy signatures conform to specific …” He trailed off.

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