Thank you to my kind reviewers!
"Start the car. Start driving back to the house - fast, like usual. Be careful."
There was murmured assent from the other end of the line, and Skulduggery hung up. He held his arms out to Valkyrie and she stepped into him.
"Are you sure you weren't an actor in another life?" Skulduggery mused as they lifted off the ground.
Valkyrie laughed, breath sweet and fresh and without a trace of alcohol. "I feel bad about all of the liquor I poured out on the ground." She shifted her arms around his neck as they picked up speed, the ground spreading out below them like a reflection of the night sky, bright pinpoints of light shining out of the black.
They changed direction and their velocity increased. The lower strata of the clouds began to envelop them as they sped towards a steadily growing cluster of lights in the distance. Valkyrie shivered and dug her face into the angle between his shoulder and neck. "I can't get used to the idea of you being warm," she commented, her nose cold against the sliver of exposed skin. Skulduggery shivered and cursed. "That's freezing cold. God. It's such a problem to have a body again."
Valkyrie laughed, the increasing wind ripping away the sound and dispersing it into the night sky.
"And I can't see either," he grouched, removing one arm from her waist to wipe at his eyes as the chill wind gusted. Valkyrie murmured something into his neck that he didn't catch. He was, however, painfully aware of the way his extremities were beginning to ache dully, and his nose was probably as red as Valkyrie's had been.
The cloud bank swooped down below them, and suddenly they were flying through a mist of swirling, featureless grey. Skulduggery frowned and began to incline downwards when a tingling at the edge of his mind stopped him. Valkyrie withdrew her face from the shelter of his shoulder and their eyes linked.
"Do you -" he began, and she cut him off with a sharp nod.
"It's getting closer."
He strained, trying to pierce the dense fog that was whipping by them at high speed. The tingling built to a buzz, and then he could sense movement, fast movement, rocketing in their direction.
"Skulduggery-"
"I'll catch you," he barked, and thrust her from him. She tumbled backwards and was consumed by the whiteness as he dove in the opposite direction, abandoning himself to gravity's hold.
Egad! Cue cheesy cliff-hanger...
