Archive of Our Own

The thing was, the Dead Men weren’t meant to die.

Sure, that’s what everyone had thought would happen, at the beginning. That’s how they had gotten their name. Men volunteering for a suicide mission. That’s what everyone said.

But as time went on, the moniker ‘Dead Men’ came to mean the very opposite of the thoughts that had first provoked them. It was spoken with reverence. It was two words that so very defied the essence of what their group really were – well, minus a certain walking, talking skeleton, of course. The Dead Men were survivors. They were winners. They took unforgiving odds and a promise of death, looked it in the eye, turned it upside down and smashed its head in and laughed as they did it. They were defiers of logic, of fate.

There was Skulduggery’s disappearance, of course. He came back.

Hopeless was the first to die. Actually die.

It was a blow to all of them, because Hopeless was meant to be the unkillable one. ‘Oh, at least Hopeless will survive,’ they whispered to themselves in the darkness. ‘At least we know we’ll live on in Hopeless’ memories.’

They called him a man of many faces. For that was what he was. An intangible sliver of something that only communicated with the waking world through shoddy seances and possession. Hopeless didn’t have what could be called a body, and therefore weapons couldn’t touch him. He had all the bloody corpses of the battlefield and their magic at his fingertips, ready to be his the moment he wanted to slide inside and take control. He slipped in and out of elementals and adepts whenever he needed, using their magic to do his bidding before leaving the husk of flesh to slump to the ground again. He could battle somebody else’s subconscious to take control of their body, a battle of the mind which Hopeless usually won.

They hadn’t known that Baron Vengeous could rupture Hopeless like he could so many others. Sure, it had taken some odd symbol magic on Vengeous’ behalf, but nobody had known. They hadn’t planned for the idea in the slightest. Hopeless was the one they could rely on to find a way out of a situation. Hopeless was the only backup they needed.

And, as if the loss of Hopeless wasn’t enough, they had also lost Larrikin when they had needed him the most.

It was near the end of the war, where spirits were low and a need for alcohol was high. It was when jokes were a currency most valued, and laughter a rare commodity. It was a time reeking of the stench of blood and rotting flesh, where anything slightly sweeter was savoured.

Larrikin was the person who could make them laugh. He knew exactly what would make them laugh. They often wondered whether his magic was a huge burden on him – it must’ve been hard, reading people’s emotions and memories from objects and auras, and having to store all of that behind a façade of calm and happiness – but Larrikin always put his magic to good use. He used it to give them joy in a time where sorrow was the norm.

He died from a blast from Serpine’s red hand. It was something that should’ve taken Dexter instead, but Larrikin had read Serpine’s emotions, had guessed where the blast would go. And he had chosen to give his life, his laughter dying along with him.

They said that the good died young.

“Don’t you think that’s so unfair?” Ravel growled, clenching his hands into tight fists. “Don’t you all think that it’s all so goddamn unfair?”

Skulduggery tilted his skull, a sign that he was listening. Anton was staring blankly at the floor. Ghastly had his head in his hands, although a twitch of his fingers showed that he was paying attention. Dexter was lying on the floor, groaning and moaning about how his back ached and his feet hurt and how he wanted a ‘really good bath, thanks’. Saracen was staring at Dexter and was evidently trying really, really hard not to laugh.

“Think about it. Actually think about it.” Ravel took a deep breath, calming himself down. “What was this whole war actually for? Sure, the Church of the Faceless Ones are a group of absolute bastards, but what was the point?”

“Defeating the bastards, of course,” Dexter responded from his position on the floor. “Defending the world. Being heroes. You know, the usual.”

“But the war is over. The war’s over, the entire magical community is in shambles – the number of casualties from Lord Vile’s five years in the war alone are devastating.” Skulduggery’s backbone shifted ever-so-slightly, and Ravel was reminded that the skeleton hadn’t ever encountered the armoured necromancer who’d caused so much death. It made some weird concoction of resentment pool within Ravel’s chest. The idea of Skulduggery having gotten off so lightly just rankled. “We’ve lost two of our own. Two who we’d unanimously agreed were the best of us. And it’s just not fair.”

“Erskine, war isn’t meant to be fair,” Anton said bluntly. The Dead Men all swivelled to face him in perfect unison from their various positions around the table.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Fuck off, Watson.”

“Anton! Dexter! Now is not the time!” Ravel noted that Ghastly had emerged from his hiding-place behind his hands. He spent a lot of time hiding behind his hands. Not that he was the only one hiding. They were all hiding from something. They showed it differently.

“Anyways.” He cleared his throat, and everyone’s attention returned to him in a seamless synchronicity that only the Dead Men displayed. “Consider. Consider the mortal weapons. Yes, I know. The mortal ones.” All the mouths that had opened from his statement closed at Ravel’s display of determination and certainty. “Lord Vile’s armour was just metal, was it not? His magic overpowered ours, but who’s to say a cannon wouldn’t at least put a dent in that pretty little suit? Maybe a battalion’s worth of guns?”

“His armour was a whole lot more than just metal,” Skulduggery said petulantly.

“We get it,” Saracen replied. “The little baby is annoyed that he didn’t get a crack at defeating the big guy. But you know that I’m the only one that had a chance of seducing him.”

“You’re just a regular man, Saracen. Skulduggery is a skeleton. Seeing as we’ve all failed, well, maybe the dead guy has one over you.” Dexter rolled over onto his stomach, looking beseechingly up at the rest of them. “Come on, guys, don’t you agree with me? Maybe Lord Vile has a perverted taste for bones! I’m not judging what gets in that guy’s pants!”

If Dexter was trying to get a laugh, it didn’t work. They all just resumed their staring at random spots on the floor and walls, trying their best to avoid each other’s gazes.

Ravel scanned the faces around him, the faces with which he’d spent around two centuries with, the faces of people with which Ravel would entrust his life without a second thought. They had a bond forged in the heat of battle and the chill of fear, the sort of bond that – no matter how horrifying war was – it couldn’t have been created anywhere else. If anything, Ravel was glad he’d signed up for what had been so liberally named a ‘suicide mission’ all those years ago, if only to meet the people which he now treated as his brothers.

But there was a reason why there were some things you told your friends and not your family. These thoughts that Ravel was voicing now; they’d been turning over and over and over again in the back of his mind, never quite making themselves known.

He’d said them aloud, once or twice, but it had only been with the crackle of the campfire to keep him company. He’d been so careful to ensure that not even Skulduggery in his meditation had overheard anything Ravel might say. Indeed, the only living ears that might’ve heard his incriminating words belonged to those now decaying in muddied land – dying sorcerers who begged for comfort as they waited for death to take them.

“What were you saying?” Ghastly asked kindly, clearly sensing that what Ravel had said wasn’t simply some flight of fancy but rather something he actively wished to discuss.

“Yeah,” Saracen added, “about the mortals?”

“Guns! Cannons! Who knows what else they’ll come up with in the next few years? We’re sorcerers; we’re meant to be the powerful ones. And we are.” Ravel took a deep breath, organising his thoughts so they made some cohesive sense. “We’re superior in every possible way. And yet we’re stuck in our old ways, dependent on our magic and our egos.

“Just imagine what we could do! Imagine what we could do if we combined our abilities with their ingenuity! We’re better in every way, yet we’re so reliant on something that honestly should’ve been improved a long time ago. We’re better than the mortals, so much better! Yet they go around with their little weapons of death, thinking they’re better than us, and we let them, because we think that it doesn’t matter since we’ve got our parlour tricks.”

Ghastly sat straight abruptly, eyes flaming.

“Did you just call that bastard which killed my mother a parlour trick?!”

“Ghastly –” Anton tried, to no avail.

“He’s right,” Skulduggery said in that quiet, no-nonsense voice of his. “Our magic may something you think the mortals can defeat, but against Lord Vile? You –”

“YOU’RE AN IDIOT, THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE!” Ghastly exclaimed, slamming his fist onto the table, making them all flinch. “YOU’RE AN IDIOT! A FLAMING, STUPID, DUMB IDIOT WHO CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT WE STAND FOR!”

“Ghastly –”

“MY MOTHER DIED TO THAT PARLOUR TRICK OF YOURS, ERSKINE. AND ONE OF THE THINGS SHE SAID MOST ADAMANTLY WAS THAT WE WERE TO PROTECT THE MORTALS.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, shoulders trembling with evident rage. “THE WAR IS OVER. THE WAR IS OVER, GODDAMMIT, AND WE WON! SO WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO THROW ALL THOSE DEATHS AWAY?”

“Well, perhaps I’m not as blind as you!” Ravel shot back. “Perhaps I can see the future; a future where we don’t need to hide from the mortals! Imagine how much easier the war would’ve been if we’d had access to their weapons!”

“Ghastly –”

“Yeah?” Although his volume had lowered, Ghastly was clearly angrier than before. His voice came out as a hushed whisper, cold and frigid in tone. “Do tell.”

“Think about it, Ghastly. Think what we could’ve done if we hadn’t had to hide our every move. Think about the forces we could’ve amassed! The armies! We’d have so many more materials to work with! And the mortals – well, they’d be honoured to work with us. With sorcerers! Tell me, why are we hiding in the shadows like rats?”

“Who said we were hiding?” A new addition to the argument, Ravel noted.

“What else can you call it, Skulduggery? Scuttling around in the darkness in case the mortals see us? Covering our faces with masks and guises instead of showing off our natural-born talents for all to see? Face it; the days of cowardice are over.”

“Is that what you call it?” An edge of weariness entered Skulduggery’s tone, and Ravel was suddenly aware of how much the skeleton had been through. “Cowardice?”

“Skulduggery,” Anton reprimanded lightly.

“No. I’m done.” He stood up abruptly, adjusting his already perfectly perched hat. He was nervous, then. Ravel was oddly relieved to know that Skulduggery could still get nervous. “Ghastly’s right, and I’m not saying this because he was my friend before the war.

“I know what you want, Erskine. You want recognition, don’t you? You don’t like the fact that it’ll only be the magical community who’ll know of our heroic pursuits. You want to be saviour of all of humanity.” Skulduggery straightened his tie and made to leave, the bones of his hands settling on the door handle. “No, I’ll boldly state that yes, we did save all of humanity – but you, Erskine, want that to be known by all.”

Empty eye sockets facing the door, Skulduggery continued, “That’s not what Larrikin and Hopeless died for. I tell everyone that they died for something they were fighting for. Larrikin died defending his friends, his family. Hopeless died knowing that he’d done something great for the world, unsung like all true heroes are.

“Do you want that to all go to waste, Erskine? Never mind Ghastly’s loss.” With clear effort, Skulduggery gritted out, “Never mind my loss. What about the loss of your friends?”

“That’s what I’m trying to avenge, Skulduggery, don’t you see? Don’t you see that it’ll all have been better if we’d been out in the open? Why are you so blind to the obvious, hmm?” Seeing Skulduggery’s eerily still and unresponsive posture, Ravel dared himself to go a bit further. “You mightn’t see, but I do. After all, what did happen in the five years you were away, hmm? When you left us to rot? When won’t you be too cowardly to tell us?”

Ghastly lunged at Ravel, teeth bared, but Skulduggery stopped him with a wall of air. Silence descended upon the Dead Men as the skeleton turned Ravel’s question over in his mind.

“You’re right,” the skeleton said after what felt like an eternity. “I am a coward. I am. But not wanting to do anything without the promise of acknowledgement?” He paused.

“That’s true cowardice.”

-----------------

Ghastly never thought he’d experience the death of his best friend a second time over.

Technically, Skulduggery hadn’t died the first time. In body, yes, but in soul, no. And technically, he hadn’t died this time either. Instead, he was sealed in another dimension with an unknown number of malevolent gods who could probably come up with a million and one ways to torture a skeleton with their grandmas’ knitting needles.

But, oddly enough, the sealing of Skulduggery in another dimension with the Faceless Ones felt a whole lot more permanent than his literal death had been. It must’ve been a testament to a lot of things that only the gods could take Skulduggery away.

So, though he wasn’t actually dead, had defeated many of the technicalities of death with footnotes and a ‘try harder next time’ and was in fact as dead as he had always been – which was to say very dead and very not dead and a Dead Man all at once – Ghastly felt like he absolutely had the right to mourn Skulduggery Pleasant as if he was really, truly dead.

Which was why Ghastly was currently wandering the streets aimlessly, searching for a suitable bar to get absolutely, shamelessly drunk.

It was also why he almost walked over a tiny person curled up on the kerb.

“Oh my g – I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there!” Ghastly bent down, apologising profusely as he examined the girl before him. He’d accidentally kicked her legs, but luckily he hadn’t caused any bruising or anything of the like. Ghastly knew that he sometimes forgot to control his strength, and injured somebody as a result. “Are you alright?”

Now that he could see her properly, Ghastly realised that she wasn’t that tiny at all – maybe on the short side for her age, she looked about fifteen, but she’d seemed small because she’d been curled up in a ball, her black jacket making her blend in with the pavement. She had a hood thrown over her face, the shadows covering her hair and eyes, but Ghastly thought he could make out tear-tracks that drew their winded way down her tanned face and ended with dark splotches that covered the inside of her sleeves.

“Sorry about that, I...I didn’t hurt you, did I?” The girl shook her head, her head tilting to reveal wide eyes and strands of fiery red hair. “I’m so sorry if I did.”

The hood fell over her eyes again.

“I – what’s your name? I’m Ghastly. I’ll...I’ll go, if you want.” Ghastly didn’t know whether to stay or leave. What was he meant to do? She clearly wasn’t feeling the best, but maybe she didn’t want anybody around. “Sorry about that.”

The girl mumbled something under her voice, burying her face in her jacket.

“Pardon? I didn’t quite hear you.”

This time, Ghastly could make out the words the girl was saying, her voice whisper-soft like a breeze and broken from what sounded like hours of crying.

“I’d like it. If you stayed.”

“I – alright.” Ghastly sat down next to the girl, smoothing down the undersides of his pants as he tried to maintain a distance that she would find comfortable. He was great with emotions when it had come to adult sorcerers, but a girl who might even be mortal? That was a ballpark Ghastly had never thought he’d ever have to enter.

He wasn’t sure what to do. What should he talk about? Did she want to talk at all? Ghastly fiddled with his hands, glancing sporadically at the space between him and the girl. Should he breach the distance with a comforting hug, a pat on the back? Should he ask what had happened? Now that he thought about it, she reminded him of Valkyrie; after all, she was about the same age. What sorts of problems did Valkyrie have? But then again, Valkyrie was by no means the average girl, whether mortal or a sorcerer.

“I...don’t have a name,” she murmured under her breath. “I...want to choose one.”

“Choose one?”

She nodded, her eyes darting towards Ghastly before returning to her feet. The gesture of nervousness and trust combined into one made his heart clench with something akin to love.

“Names have...meaning,” he began, not sure what it was what the girl needed. Was this what Ghastly should pursue, or was she in need of comforting about something else? “They can be really hard to choose. After all, they’re representations of yourself, especially when you’re choosing one for yourself.” He paused, not sure how he should continue. The girl made Ghastly feel so big beside her, as if he were dominating her, and he didn’t like that. “Do you...do you have anything in mind?”

She shook her head, but pushed the hood off her head, revealing a messy ponytail of subdued scarlet. How long had it been since she’d washed her hair? Ghastly’s mind whirred with possibilities as he tried to figure out how best to support her.

“I suppose...I suppose trying to figure yourself out can be really hard. Sometimes it’s hard to see yourself and identify yourself.” Ghastly wrung his hands, drawing his knees closer to himself as he tilted his head up to the sky. It was fast approaching night, he noticed. His plans to get absolutely shitfaced had been completely derailed. “I...I would know.”

A slow upturning of the girl’s lips was the only sign that she’d heard him.

“So. Um.” Ghastly swallowed, his throat and lips dry. “Is there...anything particular you want to do? That...knowing that can help. Knowing what you know...and don’t know.”

Silence.

“I like that.”

Startled, Ghastly asked in a voice that was probably a little too loud, “Like what?”

She blinked up at him.

“What you said.” Her voice was little more confident now, and Ghastly felt a small burst of pride, even though he barely knew her. “Knowing what you know and don’t know.”

“Oh.” Ghastly turned this over in his mind. “Well. There are many kinds of knowledge. You’ve heard of IQ and EQ?” She nodded slowly, fiery locks bobbing. “That would be two kinds. Academic and emotional intelligence. Or knowledge.” When her expression turned into one of interest, Ghastly racked his brain for more information. It had been a long time since he had to do anything scholarly, especially with this as the topic.

“The Greeks were interested in the various aspects of knowledge. I think they had two nouns for it – gnosis was the common noun they used, I believe, though there’s another kind, epignosis. Oh, wait – I think epignosis was heading towards knowledge. Well, the first bit must be right, considering they’ve got the same ending.

“Epignosis is a clearer, more precise knowledge. I think it was in the Bible at some point.” He chuckled to himself, and the girl beside himself snorted as well. “Gnosis is – well, it’s more abstract. Fragmented. It’s like – it’s like the ‘true knowledge is knowing what you don’t know’ thing. All that philosophical stuff. I don’t know much about it but, um, you know all those ‘pursuit of knowledge’ things? I’d say it was like that. But less cheesy and more useful. A more substantial, real version of that.”

The girl’s gaze shifted towards him, and Ghastly noticed the glint of a silver bracelet on her wrist. It reminded him of the metallic sheen of necromancer tools.

“Gnosis.” She rolled it over her tongue. “That sounds. Um. Nice.”

“You think?”

They stared at each other.

Then, slowly, she smiled, the curve of her mouth reaching up to make her eyes crinkle at the corners, a sliver of white teeth showing between her lips.

“Yeah. I think.”

Grinning back, Ghastly opened his arms wide, offering a hug to the girl before him. After a moment of hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, embracing him tightly. He could feel the wetness on her cheek as it rubbed against his neck, and he hugged her all the tighter for it.

“I –” She hiccupped, and Ghastly disentangled himself from her grasp, holding her at arm’s length. “I saw you looking at the bracelet. Just then. You...like it?”

Considering it, he said, “Yeah. It suits you.”

-----------------

Ghastly and Anton were dead, and it was all Ravel’s fault.

The fact that they were dead was in itself something that Saracen struggled to wrap his head around. Ghastly, their infallible, immovable tailor, and Anton, whose gist made him practically invulnerable, were dead.

With them gone – and Ravel too, even though he hadn’t counted from the moment of his betrayal – Skulduggery and Dexter were the only members of the original Dead Men alive. One could stretch that small fact to say that Dexter was the only member of the original Dead Men alive, because it was widely accepted by the general public that Skulduggery was far more dead than he was alive.

People tended to say that when you were a walking, talking skeleton.

Saracen wasn’t an original member of the Dead Men. He wasn’t dead. But he had as strong a bond with them as they had with each other – one could say that they were his father figures and brothers-in-arms, somehow both at the same time.

“Hopeless would’ve known, wouldn’t he,” Saracen said mournfully, staring at the table beneath his coffee cup. “He would’ve been able to tell.”

Dexter stared at his own coffee cup. The table on his side remained un-stared at.

“We’d known the whole time. Technically. Erskine had told us!” He began staring at the floor beneath the table, wincing when his vision passed through a wad of very-well-chewed bubblegum. “But we’d overlooked it all, hadn’t we?”

A droplet of coffee on the side of Dexter’s cup dripped onto the table. Saracen followed the tracks it made on the wood, noting the way some of the liquid stayed in the grooves of the tabletop. Behind it, Dexter’s muscles were tense as he drummed his fingers on his thigh, as if preparing for some unseen threat.

“Now they’re all dead.”

The silence that fell was dark and oppressive.

“He’s dead. That bastard.” Saracen felt a little light-headed, so he scoured his coffee for any traces of alcohol. Had he ordered the wrong thing? “I would’ve liked to kill him myself. Slowly. Painfully. Torturously. And he dares to be dead.”

A strand of hair fell into Dexter’s face. His eyes flicked to it, but his hand didn’t move to brush it away. A display of indifference and apathy.

“He was always dead, though, wasn’t he? Like how Skulduggery isn’t alive but is alive. Erskine’s morals, his soul, it was dead. Always dead.” The tiles on the floor did such a bad job of pretending to be stone that Saracen didn’t know why they even tried. “I miss them. I miss them all. Why – why couldn’t they – they couldn’t even say goodbye.”

Why wasn’t Dexter reacting?

“I wish we’d paid more attention. Given the signs more thought. And I – I wish that Hopeless was here. Larrikin. They would’ve been so much help.”

“Unlike you.”

Saracen blinked in surprise.

“Excuse me?”

Dexter looked up at him, and momentarily Saracen saw the synapses flash like fireworks behind his eyes before he focused on the other man’s pupils.

“You weren’t helpful.”

“I –” Saracen’s vision went haywire as he processed what Dexter had just said, images of craniums and nerve endings flashing before him as he tried to control himself.

“You never tell us your magic, you know. Do you not trust us?”

Ah.

So this was what this was about.

“I’m an Adept, Dexter. I know things.” He sighed, shaking away the impression that Dexter’s brain had left on Saracen’s own. “That’s all you or anybody else needs to know.”

He left out the fact that Ravel of all people had known.

“Yeah. That’s my problem.” Dexter stared at him in a manner that would make any outsider think that it was he with the x-ray vision, not Saracen. “If we’d known what you could do, then maybe you could’ve helped.”

“Trust me when I say that if I could’ve, I would’ve.”

“But that’s the goddamn thing, Saracen!” Dexter’s sudden explosion made Saracen flinch suddenly. “How do we know? We’re expected to put blind faith in you when you clearly don’t trust us? That’s not how it works.”

Saracen scoffed as he tried to imagine x-raying Ravel’s mind for evil thoughts.

“You always say that we don’t know. And we’ve always trusted you. You’ve never given us cause not to.” A tense pause as the words sunk in. “But after this – after so many of us are gone – I’m bound to be paranoid, aren’t I? And maybe that’s what this is. Paranoia. But I can’t help but wonder, where were you?”

“Using my magic simply without telling you what it was, I presume.”

“But why won’t you tell us? For all we – for all I know that magic could’ve been the very piece we needed to stop all this from happening.”

“Why?”

“Yes, why?”

There was silence as Saracen considered how honest he should be.

“Well,” he began cautiously, “I was...young when I chose my discipline. And, uh...it’s – well, it’s not the best. Not the sort of thing you tell others.” Saracen swallowed. “It’s something I prefer, shall we say...to keep under wraps.”

This time, when Dexter stared at him, Saracen was a hundred percent certain that he was trying to analyse him with all the tools at his disposal. It reminded him just how much that Dexter must’ve been through to be one of the few surviving Dead Men, and one of the originals at that. The knowledge of this hit Saracen with full force, and it intimidated him.

“You’re embarrassed.”

“I’m what?”

“You don’t want to tell us because you’re embarrassed.”

“No –” Dexter glared at him, and Saracen – recalling his intimidation from just moments earlier – shut his mouth immediately. “Okay, fine. I’m embarrassed.”

“Thought so.”

They lapsed into silence for a couple of minutes.

“So, Saracen, what you’re saying is, you didn’t tell us your magic – an action which could’ve changed the fate of our fellow Dead Men – because you were embarrassed by that choice you made a couple centuries ago.” Dexter shook his head and sighed. “Honestly. I’d thought better of you.”

“Dexter, just trust me! My magic wouldn’t have helped in the slightest. It helps me know things, sure. Useful sometimes.” Saracen fumbled for words, unsure how to continue without giving the game away. “But it’s very...random. It wouldn’t have given me anything relevant to whatever it was that Erskine was doing. It’s like – it’s like claiming I could’ve done the same for fucking Lord Vile, had you just known.”

Dexter just gave him a look.

“But we wouldn’t know, would we?”

Saracen stared.

“You don’t trust me,” he settled on, letting ice creep into his tone. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it. Because I’m not one of the originals. Because I haven’t done enough.”

Now it was Dexter who looked affronted.

“I wasn’t saying that! I was saying that you need to give us cause to –”

“Cause to trust me? I’d thought that a war would’ve done the job.” Saracen’s voice was absolutely frigid now, making Dexter swallow out of what he hoped was nervousness. “Hell, on the topic of trust – none of us trust each other! That’s what taken names are for! But we’ve fought side-by-side, we’ve defied death together, and yet that seems to have meant nothing.”

“Saracen, listen to me, I didn’t mean –”

“You didn’t mean shit, Dexter. You didn’t mean fucking shit.” Saracen could feel the anger pooling in his chest, threatening to boil over. “Don’t even try to apologise.”

“I –”

Saracen stood up, his chair screeching hideously on the tiles.

“You guys used to treat me as inferior to the rest of you, just because I wasn’t one of the original members. Whenever you guys made a mistake, you’d place the blame on me. Oh, it was alright during the war, of course. We were all tired. Stressed. Exhausted.

“But now, I don’t tell you one thing – one fucking thing – which poor Dexter Vex feels entitled to, and bam! I’ve lost all trust in his eyes.” Saracen shoved the chair out the way and slammed his hands on the table, boring holes into Dexter’s skull with his vision. He wondered what the other man felt. “So good-fucking-bye, I guess.”

He left without another word.

-----------------

Saracen Rue had almost become a draugr.

By using the word ‘almost’, Skulduggery could almost trick himself into thinking that the alternative was any better. They called it reverse psychology. At least, he thought they called it reverse psychology. Maybe it had some fancy, modern name.

But, in truth, it was far, far worse.

Because Dexter had been forced to kill Saracen.

The more selfless part of Skulduggery knew that, morally, killing Saracen was the better decision. He knew that the man would’ve preferred to die a swift death than to live a half-life during which he’d be hurting his brothers-in-arms.

Yet the truth remained that, despite what others might say, Skulduggery was not a very morally inclined person. In fact, he was rather selfish. He liked it when his friends remained intact and alive, even if it meant they had to sacrifice some aspect of the greater good. Which meant that – despite what the more logical areas of his brain might say – Skulduggery was very sad, irritated and hurt that Saracen had dared to die.

Normally, Skulduggery could go some time without engaging in his skeleton’s equivalent of sleep, but today – well, today he reckoned he deserved it.

Or maybe not.

The oblivion was a poor imitation of sleep, in truth. For one, Skulduggery couldn’t dream. Instead he slipped into an ocean of not-quite-unconsciousness that was full of thoughts that crashed in on one another, unstoppable like waves. Sometimes those thoughts carried nice things, like the seashells that washed up on the beach. Sometimes those thoughts were more menacing in nature, like the glimpse of seaweed one might see behind a wall of blue whose wafting silhouettes resembled demonic tentacles.

As he felt himself be carried away by the lapping waters that was the darkness of meditation, Skulduggery thought he noticed a black-cloaked figure at the edge of his vision.

YOU THOUGHT RIGHT.

If Skulduggery had eyelids, he would’ve blinked.

The figure had transformed from a black haze to something more solid, and was gliding towards Skulduggery at a pace that was both impossibly slow yet ridiculously fast at the same time. The thing that Skulduggery had thought was a cloak was a cloak yet the hem was also crow’s feathers and the night itself, forever shifting and yet staying the same.

The longer he looked, the more confused Skulduggery became. The cloak looked even less than a cloak, and the figure within didn’t seem to be a figure as much as they were a presence – a presence that managed to make Skulduggery’s mind bow under its pressure. Where they a sorcerer? A god? Whoever or whatever they were, they were powerful, and Skulduggery ought to be careful.

“Um,” the ever-eloquent Skulduggery said.

HELLO TO YOU TOO, SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT.

“How do you know my name?”

I KNOW EVERYBODY’S NAME.

“And that’s not creepy, is it?” Skulduggery rubbed his skull, soothing his imaginary brain. “I think it’s only fair you tell me yours.”

OKAY.

“Well?”

IT’S NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

“I don’t have a heart.”

IT’S NOT FOR THE FAINT OF RIBCAGE, THEN. The figure moved in a way that could be vaguely interpreted as a shrug. YOU MIGHT YELL AND SCREAM. I DON’T LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE YELL AT SCREAM.

“Well, clearly you don’t know me, because I never yell or scream.” Skulduggery paused. “And by no means can I be counted as ‘people’.”

VERY WELL THEN.

Skulduggery waited.

I AM DEATH.

Perhaps Skulduggery felt like yelling and screaming, just a tiny bit.

I TOLD YOU SO, PLEASANT. The figure’s hood fell back, and Skulduggery couldn’t help but be impressed by the skull that faced him with empty eye sockets. It had very good cheekbones. Possibly even better than his own. PEOPLE YELL AND SCREAM.

“I want to yell and scream for reasons completely different to what you think, I assure you.” Skulduggery tilted his head, and Death mirrored the action. “That was your cue to ask.”

WHY DID YOU WANT TO YELL AND SCREAM?

“I don’t know, maybe because I’m half-alive and my family isn’t? Because, somehow, I’ve remained alive, even though I was the first to die? Even though it seems like my existence is some twisted manifestation of my own dark and evil thoughts that, by the way, had sent many people in your direction during Lord Vile’s five-year existence?”

Death studied him closely, the skull giving nothing away as the cloak flapped in the winds of unconsciousness. Skulduggery was starting to realise why many people found his skeleton self so unnerving. He ought to take advantage of that more.

CALL ME AZRAEL.

“What?”

CALL ME AZRAEL.

“No, I heard you – but why? Are you not going to respond to what I said?” Despite him knowing it was a bad decision, Skulduggery scoffed. “I can’t believe I’m meeting Death themselves and all I’ll be able to tell people is that ‘oh, they were rather rude’.”

I’M NOT RUDE, PLEASANT. I’M SIMPLY CHOOSING NOT TO ANSWER QUESTIONS WHOSE ANSWERS YOU ALREADY KNOW.

“It’s your fault I’m alive, D – Azrael.”

ACTUALLY, NO, IT’S NOT.

“Yeah, I know everyone wants to live, but have you ever considered that some people just are tired of existing without anything to exist for? And – wait, what?”

YOU’RE BEING RUDE, PLEASANT, NOT LISTENING TO WHAT I SAY.

“Oh, smartass.”

SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT, THE SKELETON WHICH GOT AWAY WITH INSULTING DEATH THEMSELVES.

“Death, the being whose scariness and effectiveness is really overrated.” Skulduggery couldn’t stop himself from scoffing, an action which made the cloak-wings-shadows ruffle in what he thought was interest. “Couldn’t even kill a Dead Man.”

I CAN’T.

That made Skulduggery pause.

“You can’t?”

I CAN’T KILL.

“What do you mean you can’t kill?” Skulduggery studied Death’s skull, with its permanent grin and amazing cheekbones. “You’re Azrael. Death.”

HUMANS KILL. ANIMALS KILL. I AM SIMPLY DEATH. The skeleton shifted, coming closer towards Skulduggery. I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHO DIES. I SIMPLY TAKE THEM WHEN THEY DO.

Skulduggery supposed that was true.

“But what does that make you?” he wondered aloud. “The HR of the underworld? It’s not a very illustrious job for an immortal being.”

I AM A COLLECTOR.

“And what does that mean?”

I COLLECT.

“I never would’ve guessed.” Skulduggery paused. “But nobody can see you while you’re collecting, I assume. Why are you here, then? To finish collecting my soul?”

I NEVER STARTED COLLECTING YOURS.

Skulduggery tilted his head, an invitation for Death to continue.

YOU CAN SEE ME BECAUSE YOU’VE COME CLOSE TO ME BEFORE, BUT NOT BECAUSE I DIDN’T FINISH A JOB I’D STARTED.

“I died. How do you explain that?” Skulduggery gestured to himself, to his exposed ribcage – he never brought material goods into his meditative world – and finger joints. “I died, and I came back to life. You took me, but necromancy stopped me from leaving.”

YOU DIED, BUT I DIDN’T TAKE YOU.

“Why not?”

BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T DEAD.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

YOUR BODY HAD DIED, YET MAGIC KEPT YOUR SOUL ALIVE AND PREVENTED ME FROM COLLECTING IT.

“So you’re saying that I was dead, but because of magic I was alive and therefore not dead enough to actually be dead until I wasn’t dead anymore.” Skulduggery would’ve furrowed his brows, except he had no brows to furrow. A sad oversight in the creation of the skeleton, he thought. “That makes even less sense.”

YOUR BODY WAS DEAD, BUT YOUR SOUL WAS ALIVE AND NEEDED SOMEWHERE TO GO. IT CHOSE YOUR SKELETON.

“Huh.”

I ONLY COLLECT SOULS WHEN IT’S TIME.

“So I got a skeleton body and being able to see you out of the deal.”

CORRECT.

Skulduggery mulled over it. What Azrael had said meant that, contrary to popular belief, he had never actually truly died. Sure, he’d floated on a sea of blackness that was akin to perpetual unconsciousness, and sure, he’d felt his body die and an immortal anger possess him which would eventually be the cause and creator of one Lord Vile, but Skulduggery had never actually died, because Azrael had never come to claim him.

And the implications of collecting somebody’s soul only at their time raised a lot of questions about incomprehensible things like fate and ineffability. Did that mean that a person’s death was already written? Was it just the time that was set in stone, marked on a clock that only Azrael could see, or was the exact scenario written down as well? Or was it neither of them – did Azrael only know when a person was to truly die when they truly died, and Skulduggery simply hadn’t reached that point?

“Does that mean you know when everything’s going to die?” Skulduggery asked experimentally. “Like me, for example?”

I CANNOT SAY.

“Of course. Can’t meddle with fate and all that.” He nodded, still contemplating everything Azrael had said and implied. “What about yourself, then?”

Azrael was silent.

“Do you know when you might die?”

PERHAPS.

“There’s no chance of you telling me, is there?”

THE END IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK.

“Cryptic.”

I DON’T USUALLY TALK TO THE ONES WHOSE SOULS I COLLECT. IMMORTALS FIND THIS KIND OF TALK VERY NORMAL.

Though his skull couldn’t show it, Skulduggery felt relieved to know that Azrael – Death himself, a god by all rights, feared by all who knew it – seemed to be just another socially awkward being who didn’t know how to communicate.

He used to be angry with death. In fact, Skulduggery had very much considered yelling at Azrael multiple times over the course of their conversation. Why had he been left alive? Why had he been stopped from reuniting with his family in the only way he had known, so he could become a skeleton that couldn’t die? It didn’t seem fair that at the time when he’d wanted to die the most, he’d been forced to continue living.

“You know, Azrael…” Skulduggery sighed. “Sometimes I think I’m still hallucinating. That I never left the Faceless Ones’ dimension.”

Azrael wrapped his cloak around himself, his form slowly fading into the shadows.

WE CAN CALL HALLUCINATIONS DREAMS, CAN’T WE?

“I suppose so.”

I BELIEVE HUMANS TELL EACH OTHER TO FOLLOW THEIR DREAMS.

-----------------

When Dead Men die, things happen.

They’re not necessarily bad things. They’re not necessarily good things. Sometimes, they can impact the entire course of history. Sometimes, they only impact oneself.

When Hopeless and Larrikin died, Erskine Ravel made a decision that would shape the entire future of Ireland – no, it affected the entire world, the worlds of both sorcerers and mortals. He chose to forsake the morals which he’d fought the War by. In a vision of mistaken glory, he decided to go against everything that the Dead Men had ever advocated. This decisions and all the decisions afterwards came back to bite him and bite him hard, but that’s not to say that it didn’t hurt anyone else in the process. Grief can blur a person’s mind, and it completely muddied that of Erskine Ravel. Where he would’ve once chosen bravery, he chose cowardice. Where he would’ve once chosen protection, he chose harm.

When Skulduggery Pleasant not-died – that is to say, was dragged into another realm by a bloodthirsty, malevolent god – Ghastly Bespoke made a decision that ended up shaping a young girl’s identity. Under the guise of a façade still under development, he’d gone out to drink, and had instead supported this girl in the discovery of herself. He wasn’t to know at the time, but the girl with her fiery red hair had been none other than Militsa Gnosis, whose last name he had helped choose. He wasn’t to know that he had assisted her in the forging of her magic as a necromancer, in the choosing of her item. He wasn’t to know that his late-night wish to find a bar would lead him to help Militsa Gnosis in his never-ending compassion and desire to help other people, that he would nudge her towards Corrival Academy, towards me. Through this one action, through his grief over his best friend, Ghastly Bespoke made better the lives of many, many people.

When Ghastly Bespoke and Anton Shudder died – when Erskine Ravel killed them – a rift formed between Saracen Rue and Dexter Vex. It was born out of something relatively mundane, but with all the tension, it separated the two remaining alive Dead Men. They wouldn’t communicate again for a very long time, and when that time was over, it would already be too late. They had allowed the betrayal of their friend to cause them to betray each other, and in turn, had spelt the end of their centuries-long friendship, a friendship that ended with one of them killing the other.

When Saracen Rue died, Skulduggery Pleasant found himself doubting life and death even more than he had before. He’d never quite come to terms with his own being alive, and the death of another Dead Man made him wonder how and why it was he was alive and away from the family that he’d been pushed away from. But it was this doubt that lead to his meeting with Azrael, who was there to collect Saracen’s soul, and the subsequent conversation which lead Skulduggery Pleasant to realise that – even if he were still living in a hallucination – perhaps his not-death was a good thing. Perhaps it was good that he hadn’t died, so he didn’t die angry, and that he was given a chance to pursue a future akin to a dream.

But what would happen when Death itself was erased?

Darquesse flitted between the galaxies, the universes, holding stardust in her hand. She would be stretched too thin to do anything, soon. She was God, the Creator, but soon the universe would be fully created and her consciousness to wide to focus.

She couldn’t reverse all death, of course. That would just cause chaos.

But she could give some people a second chance.

-----------------

There was a room.

In the room, there was a desk. A chair. All of them copied from the universe that once was, the universe where the Dead Men had died.

This room, however, would be privy to something special.

Stardust floated down from the sky, from the universe, from a hand of dark matter and cosmic energy that belonged to a god who – once – had been fated to destroy the world, but had ended up rebuilding it from memories. The stardust coalesced slowly, the specks glimmering as they shifted colour, lost their lustre, and eventually became a human figure.

The Dead Men were important people, Darquesse knew. Their lives and their deaths had impacts so important that their alteration would change timelines beyond recognition. They were lynchpins in the universe, points around which history was constructed.

But that didn’t mean that Darquesse was powerless with regards to them This was her world now. It followed her rules. She couldn’t erase death from existence, even if Azrael was now a mere copy of itself, and she couldn’t change points of history ingrained into the memories which her clones had collected. That would lead to disaster upon disaster of small paradoxes folding in on themselves until they snowballed into giant collapses and all the universes were destroyed and, this time, took her with it. But she could alter one or two points if she was careful about it, and Darquesse was very careful.

At the desk, the slouched figure of Ghastly Bespoke woke up.