Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days
Derek Landy
 Valkyrie, Tanith, Fletcher and Ghastly are hunting down Skulduggery's original skull in order to rescue him from the Faceless Ones. They discover the skull was retrieved by Detective Marr, Skulduggery's replacement, and is in the Sanctuary. They break in to retrieve it, getting Ghastly and Tanith captured. After an unexpected kiss from Fletcher, Valkyrie goes through the portal alone, retrieves Skulduggery, who is initially convinced that he is hallucinating and flees back through the portal outrunning several Faceless Ones. While Valkyrie is in the alternate dimension, a Sanctuary agent attacks China and Fletcher, badly wounding China. Valkyrie has been learning necromancy from Solomon Wreath, which Skulduggery disapproves of. He forces Wreath to tell her about the necromancer's prediction that soon, a Death Bringer will be powerful to break down the walls between life and death forever. The last person they believed to be the Death Bringer was Lord Vile. Wreath strongly believes Valkyrie to be the Death Bringer, but the other necromancers do not agree and want proof. Skulduggery and Valkyrie also learn about a vision shared by many Sensitives, in which Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Valkyrie's parents are killed by an evil sorceress called Darquesse, apparently in only a few years time. Valkyrie is even more horrified at this when she learns her mother is pregnant. Vaurien Scapegrace, Dusk, Springheeled Jack, Remus Crux, Billy-Ray Sanguine and his father, Dreylan Scarab have formed a "Revenger's Club" which plans to destroy the Sanctuary and attack the characters who have wronged them in the past. They begin by attacking the Sanctuary with vampires, so that Scarab can get revenge on Thurid Guild for framing him and sending him to prison for 200 years. The attack allows Valkyrie, Skulduggery and Fletcher to rescue Tanith and Ghastly from prison. The Revenger's Club steal a bomb called the Desolation Engine, kidnap Kenspeckle Grouse and Tanith, and then use a horde of zombies - headed by Vaurien Scapegrace, who they murdered for lying to them – to break into the Midnight Hotel and free a remnant. They use the remnant to control Kenspeckle, forcing him to repair the Desolation Engine, and then allow the remnant in his body to torture Tanith by nailing her to a chair. Valkyrie and Skulduggery rescue Tanith, free Kenspeckle and recapture the Desolation Engine, but Tanith is left severely injured and afraid of Kenspeckle. Kenspeckle then deduces the Revenger's Club made him build a second Desolation Engine. The team track Scarab and the others to Croke Park stadium, and fight for the Desolation Engine. In the fight, Valkyrie is bitten by Dusk, but he reacts strangely to her blood and does not kill her. Scarab informs Thurid that his family will be killed unless he activates the Desolation Engine, and Thurid agrees to do so, but Fletcher teleports him away just before he is able to. Valkyrie goes after Billy-Ray and Thurid's house, but he refuses to attack her, saying that Dusk has decided that leaving her alive will be more chaotic and entertaining. Fletcher safely returns with Thurid, who the bomb was designed to spare, having left him in an isolated area to detonate the bomb safely. Realising she was horrified by the thought of Fletcher's death, Valkyrie kissed him before getting her bite treated, preventing her from becoming a vampire. After she has recovered, Valkyrie and Skulduggery go to transport Thurid to jail, as he has confessed to the crime he framed Scarab for. However, as they are leaving, Myron Stray detonates the Desolation Engine on Detective Marr's orders, destroying the Sanctuary and narrowly missing Thurid, Valkyrie and Skulduggery, burning the bottom of Thurid's legs off in the process. Valkyrie returns home, only to remember with horror the moment in the first book where she glimpsed her true name in the Book of Names, discovering that she is the evil sorceress that destroys the world. She is Darquesse.