Hey there,
Before I posted the last chapter I was very hesitant about where I was going to take this story, and this was partly the reason why I hadn't posted it as a new story whenever I started working on it last year. But I am happy to report, to anyone who cares, that I have outlined the majority of the story and mapped out my OC villains.
Even though this work is just for funsies, I'm happy to be working on something in such detail again. :)
Enjoy!
Sticking Lucas in 'the basement' proved to be a more difficult task than originally thought. Dragging the lump of unconscious man down the stairs and towards the basement of the house was a challenge, to say the least, Valkyrie kept dropping him on his head.
"Can you please stop doing that." Skulduggery said after the third time Valkyrie had dropped him.
"I can't help it, he's heavy."
"Valkyrie you train with experts in combat and magic every day. You've saved the world at least twice. You're practically all muscle."
Valkyrie remained silent for a second, a look of satisfaction stretching over her dark features.
"You're doing this because he pushed you out a window, aren't you?"
"It was a long fall."
"Thought so."
"It hurt."
"Typical teenager, you all hold grudges."
"He pushed me out of a window."
"When I was your age, getting pushed out of windows was fun."
Valkyrie glared and promptly dropped Lucas on his head once again.
'The basement', as Skulduggery called it, was a very tiny room underneath the stairs which was filled to the brim of the most useless and impulsive purchases he had ever made. Lucas was tied to a flimsy, plastic, pink chair, which commonly seated children, and was shoved in amongst the piles of stuff. Skulduggery had to push on the door it a few times before it would shut properly, pausing every few seconds to push offending items in from hanging out of the frame. Once it co-operated and shut completely, he locked it from the outside, and Valkyrie casted a quick withstand for good measure.
"Where did you stash the locket?" Valkyrie asked once she was sure the room was secure enough to hold him.
'Um." Skulduggery replied.
"Um?" She repeated, her voice doing that high-pitched thing voices do when stressed about a potentially missing, highly powerful, mystical, mystery locket.
"It should be somewhere around here."
"Somewhere!?"
"It was the 1700's Valkyrie. The 1700's!"
"That's like, a blink of an eye for you!"
"You're forgetting that I can't blink."
Valkyrie let out a noise of frustration and slumped over into the couch, letting herself experience the tiredness that she'd been pushing from her mind for hours now.
"Right. Well. You sit there, I'm going to find it."
Valkyrie nodded, her eyes closing with heaviness. Good dreams never befell her anymore, darkness slipped into every part of her life now, shadows waited around every corner for a chance a her. She supposed, if she tried really hard, she could get herself out of this life of world-saving and violence. But she also knew that she'd never be content living a normal life anymore. After all, she had wished for this. She'd seen what was on the other side of normal, she'd seen the adventure that was lurking behind the facade of ordinary and she was too invested in magic. Too obsessed with what she had been shown, of what happened when you looked passed the mundane of normal life. Valkyrie lost herself in these thoughts, cataloging memories from previous day and reflecting until she finally, slipped beyond. The skeleton detective the last person she thought about before she fell into the hazy claims of sleep.
Skulduggery, on the other hand, was having a particularly hard time finding the locket. He had rifled through everything in his hat room and his suit collection was suffering immensely as his immaculate, tailor-made suits were strewn all over the floor. He sat in the middle of the mess, looking around in defeat. He had looked through the chest of drawers he had kept adjacent to the mirror and so far, all he had found was a receipt for chili fries. When in the hell had he purchased chili fries? He didn't even eat, for goodness sake!
He'd done his fair share of moving since the 1700's, The War had started that year and had ended sometime around the 1900's. Had he lost it somehow? Skulduggery was starting to slightly panic, it was, after all, a highly powerful piece of magic; he was starting to wonder if it was not in his hands – whose had it fallen into?
He kept frantically rifling around in his stuff until the sun broke through the night. The birds singing in a new day and the normal, mortal world awoke once more.
Valkyrie awoke just before sunrise, startling awake with a jolt and a slightly harsh intake of breath. Her nightmare slipped away into nothing as she, in a panic, wondered where she was, looking around the room wildly before she saw the broken glass of Skulduggery's front window and it all came rushing back to her – the fight, Lucas, the locket. The locket! She jumped up from the couch, sleep forgotten, and rushed off to find Skulduggery.
"Skulduggery!" She shouted up the stairs.
"Let me out." A voice sounded, rather pathetically, from 'the basement'.
Valkyrie stopped.
"Skulduggery!" She shouted; a tad more urgent.
"Please." The voice pleaded. "I really need to use the bathroom!"
"He's awake!" She shouted once more until she heard movement from above.
Skulduggery rushed down the stairs, took one look at Valkyrie and silently rushed off into the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" Valkyrie asked as she trailed behind him.
He opened the freezer and peered in to find nothing much of use, frozen meals for Valkyrie and some ice cubes.
"Looking in the freezer." He said as he stuck his hand in to push the contents around and stopped when his hand caught onto something cold and circular. Skulduggery pulled out the object, it was metallic and looked like a sheet of paper rolled up into a ball.
Valkyrie stared for a moment before speaking.
"Well, you should stop doing that. Come with me."
Before Skulduggery could say anything, she had grabbed onto his wrist and dragged him back to the living room, back to stand outside of 'the basement'. Giving Skulduggery barely enough time to shove the ball back into the freezer.
"He's awake," Valkyrie said.
"Oh."
"He needs the bathroom, apparently."
"Not anymore." Lucas moaned, miserable.
Valkyrie and Skulduggery looked at each other for a second, Lucas' words sinking in.
"Oh god," Valkyrie remarked, looking disgusted.
"Oh god, indeed."
"I surrender, just please, let me out of here."
"That's so disgusting," Valkyrie commented.
Skulduggery and Valkyrie slowly opened the door of the basement, Lucas had fallen onto his side during his struggle to undo the ropes that bound him to the pink chair. He looked up at them pathetically.
"Right. Valkyrie, help him up."
"I'm not touching that." Valkyrie protested, wrinkling her nose in repugnance.
"That's fair." Skulduggery nodded in defeat and, with a sigh, pulled Lucas up himself.
Valkyrie noted that his skin was a rich shade of brown, his eyes were still the glowing green that she had met the night before and his hair was exactly the same, although it had gone slightly frizzy from the struggle. Lucas looked at Skulduggery straight and uttered a few hushed words. Skulduggery turned from him to look at Valkyrie.
"He wants you to leave."
"Why?"
"He's embarrassed." Skulduggery said as Lucas' skin turned to a faint shade of pink.
Valkyrie sighed and left them to do whatever, too tired to dispute. She found an interest in the window Skulduggery had broken last night, and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, looking out at the street. Skulduggery came and found her a couple of moments later.
"The locket?" Valkyrie asked when Skulduggery walked up beside her, still looking out of the window.
Skulduggery hesitated.
"I'll take that as a no then." Valkyrie sighed and turned to face him. "Where's Lucas?"
"He's tied to the kitchen chair." Skulduggery informed her.
"My chair?" She questioned.
"No, the one with the stain."
"That is my chair."
"Oh. So very sorry."
"Now, I'll need a new chair." Valkyrie placed her hands on her hips, looking up at Skulduggery with annoyance.
"There's three more in there." Skulduggery pointed into the kitchen.
"Yeah, but it'll never be the same."
"Just pick a new one."
"No," Valkyrie said stubbornly. "I liked that one, it was very cushy."
Skulduggery tilted his skull at her, she gave him a look in defiance.
Lucas was certainly tied to the kitchen chair, glowering at the restraints that held him. Skulduggery and Valkyrie stood in the middle of the kitchen looking at the man in front of them.
"You're in my chair." Valkyrie pointed out to Lucas.
"Not exactly my choice," Lucas replied, gesturing as best he could at his restraints.
"Why are you here?" Skulduggery questioned.
"You knocked me out and restrained me."
"No, why did you come here."
Lucas stayed silent.
"Are you working for someone?" Valkyrie questioned.
Lucas continued his silence, being entirely unhelpful.
"Been employed to destroy the world?" Skulduggery asked.
Lucas was blank. Not a word.
Valkyrie was irritated. Skulduggery didn't know where the locket was, much less what it did. Lucas wasn't talking, and when he did talk, nothing of interest was spewing from his mouth. Plus he was sitting in Valkyrie's chair. And he had pushed her out of a window.
"Listen here, Lucas," Valkyrie said, her voice lowered as low as possible, as she lent down to eye level, "You'd better start telling me something of interest real soon. Or I'm going to lose it."
"Yeah, I'd listen to her." Skulduggery chimed in, unhelpfully.
"I will get information out of you one way or another. If I have to resort to violence just to get a mere squeak out of you, I will. I'll cut off your arms and beat you with them. I'll get my good friend Tanith to come, she'll suck out your brains and ingest the information. Then when she's relaying it back to me, I'll beat you with your own foot. I'll take one of your arms, shove it where the sun don't shine, then, I'll reach down your throat and give you a handshake. How does that sound to you?"
She watched as Lucas began to pale.
"Okay, Okay." He said. "I'll tell you what you want to know. Only because I'm scared of you. I'm man enough to admit that."
Satisfied, Valkyrie straightened up.
"Are you working for someone," Valkyrie asked again.
"Yes," Lucas said in defeat.
"Who?"
"I don't know. Honest. I don't."
"How have you been working for them?" Skulduggery asked.
"I get letters, real old-fashioned, I'm taking actual wax seal and everything. You know, the ones that you see in movies."
"That's how they contact you?" Valkyrie interjected.
"Yeah."
"Where are these letters?"
"I burn them, as instructed."
"Oh, well, that just bloody helpful," Valkyrie muttered.
Just as Skulduggery was about to interrogate further his phone rang, he pulled it from his jacket pocket and upon seeing who the caller ID was, excused himself to step out of the room to take it. Leaving Valkyrie and Lucas alone.
Lucas gulped. Valkyrie stared at Lucas for a long time, she analysed his face just to make him feel very uncomfortable. Lucas didn't dare make eye contact.
"You're an adept." She stated.
"Uh, yeah," Lucas replied, caught off guard.
"What can you do exactly."
"I make people hurt." He said. "My skin changes colors."
"Hurt how?"
"My skin, it just does things."
"I've seen that," Valkyrie said, exasperated. "What do you do exactly."
Lucas stayed silent.
"Oh, come on." Valkyrie was exasperated with the silence.
Skulduggery walked back into the kitchen.
"Valkyrie c'mon, let's get going."
"What, where?" She asked.
"Murders to solve. World to save. You know, the usual."
"What about me?" Lucas asked.
"Ah." Skulduggery replied.
"Let me go?" He sounded hopeful.
"Valkyrie call the sanctuary."
Lucas slumped in his seat.
Don't forget you can scream at me via my Tumblr (Kageyamallama) or at my Twitter (Kageyamallama)