Scepter of the Ancients Read Online Free PDF

know. Sturdy.”
    When he realized that Stephanie was in no condition to do anything but stare, he shrugged again and took off his coat, folded it neatly, and draped it over the back of a chair. He went to the broken window and started picking up the shards of glass.
    Now that he didn’t have his coat on, Stephanie could truly appreciate how thin he really was. His suit, well tailored though it was, hung off him, giving it a shapeless quality. She watched him collect the broken glass, and saw a flash of bone between his shirtsleeve and glove. He stood up, looking back at her.
    “Where should I put all this glass?”
    “I don’t know,” Stephanie said in a quiet voice. “You’re a skeleton.”
    “I am indeed,” he said. “Gordon used to keep a trash can out at the back door; shall I put it in that?”
    Stephanie nodded. “Yes, okay,” she said simply, and watched Skulduggery carry the armful of glass shards out of the room. All her life she had longed for something else, for something to take her out ofthe humdrum world she knew—and now that it looked like it might actually happen, she didn’t have one clue what to do. Questions were tripping over themselves in her head, each one vying to be the one that was asked first. So many of them.
    Skulduggery came back in, and she asked the first question. “Did you find it all right?”
    “I did, yes. It was where he always kept it.”
    “Okay then.” If questions were people, she thought, they’d all be staring at her now in disbelief. She struggled to form coherent thoughts.
    “Did you tell him your name?” Skulduggery was asking.
    “What?”
    “Your name. Did you tell him?”
    “Uh, no …”
    “Good. You know something’s true name, you have power over it. But even a given name, even
Stephanie
, would have been enough to do it.”
    “To do what?”
    “To give him some influence over you, to get you to do what he asked. If he had your name and he knew what to do with it, sometimes that’s all it takes. That’s a scary thought, now, isn’t it?”
    “What’s going on?” Stephanie asked. “Who washe? What did he want? Just who are you?”
    “I’m me,” Skulduggery said, picking up his hat and wig and placing them on a nearby table. “As for him, I don’t know who he is; never seen him before in my life.”
    “You shot him.”
    “That’s right.”
    “And you threw fire at him.”
    “Yes, I did.”
    Stephanie’s legs felt weak and her head felt light.
    “Mr. Pleasant, you’re a skeleton.”
    “Ah yes, back to the crux of the thing. Yes. I am, as you say, a skeleton. I have been one for a few years now.”
    “Am I going mad?”
    “I hope not.”
    “So you’re real? You actually exist?”
    “Presumably.”
    “You mean you’re not sure if you exist or not?”
    “I’m fairly certain. I mean, I could be wrong. I could be some ghastly hallucination, a figment of my imagination.”
    “You might be a figment of your own imagination?”
    “Stranger things have happened. And do, with alarming regularity.”
    “This is too weird.”
    He put his gloved hands in his pockets and cocked his head. He had no eyeballs, so it was hard to tell if he was looking at her or not. “You know, I met your uncle under similar circumstances. Well, kind of similar. But he was drunk. And we were in a bar. And he had vomited on my shoes. So I suppose the actual circumstances aren’t
overly
similar, but both events include a meeting, so … My point is, he was having some trouble and I was there to lend a hand, and we became good friends after that. Good, good friends.” His head tilted. “You look like you might faint.”
    Stephanie nodded slowly. “I’ve never fainted before, but I think you might be right.”
    “Do you want me to catch you if you fall, or … ?”
    “If you wouldn’t mind.”
    “No problem at all.”
    “Thank you.”
    Stephanie gave him a weak smile, and then darkness clouded her vision and she felt herself falling and the last