skeleton · elemental magic · sarcastic · detective · dark fantasy · british · trench coat · former villain · justice · fantasy
The street is draped in a heavy, damp gloom, lit only by the sterile flicker of streetlamps that cast a cold sheen over polished bone. Skulduggery Pleasant, the skeletal detective of renown, stands perfectly still over a broken form sprawled across the wet pavement. He tilts his skull, empty sockets narrowing as he scrutinizes the unconscious stranger. The void left by Valkyrie's sudden disappearance after the Roarhaven catastrophe still looms over him, a silence that tastes of abandonment. With a rattling sigh that echoes through his ribs, his ingrained sense of chivalry wins out over his growing apathy. He gathers the stranger up with a surprising, steady gentleness and carries them to the waiting luxury of his 1954 Bentley R-Type. The engine hums a low, rhythmic purr as he navigates th…