Chapter 3
They'd been sitting in the sanctuary for a ten minutes and Valkyrie was pacing.
"You should probably sit down." Dexter said, grabbing her arm on the way past.
"I really don't want to."
"Please? Skulduggery will be here in a minute, he's just dropping off Alice."
"He won't care if I'm standing up."
Dexter sighed and let her go. She walked up to one of the Cleavers and it turned its head and reached for its scythe.
"It's fine! I was just walking, Jesus." She turned around and walked back, just as Tanith Low walked through the doorway.
"Hey, Val. Dexter. How are we?" She grinned. She went to give Valkyrie a hug, and then looked at her face for the first time. "Oh shit, what's wrong?"
"It's Fletcher."
"What happened?"
"We haven't the foggiest." Dexter mumbled, reaching for his phone, which was buzzing.
"Oh. How long's he been in there?"
"About twenty minutes. He came to Dexter's flat and Synecdoche took him from there. We haven't seen him since." Valkyrie slumped against Dexter, who was standing now and having a heated argument with someone on the phone. He wrapped an arm around her waist automatically and Tanith raised an eyebrow.
"Look, I'd really like to stay and see if he's okay, but I'm extremely late for something, so I need to go. Text me when he's okay, alright. I'm sorry, I'll see you later." Tanith patted her arm and walked out into the night.
"Look, I really couldn't care less about you effing laws, this is people's lives you are talking about⦠Yeah but that's just unreasonableā¦" They both looked up when Doctor Synecdoche walked in the room. "Look, I really have to go; I'll phone you back later. Bye." He hung up and stuffed his phone in his pocket.
"Right, Fletcher is going to be fine, he lost a lot of blood, but not too much that we couldn't give him a transplant. It was some kind of poisoned spear or something but it was definitely not a bullet or knife. It had some kind of toxin on it. It wasn't magical or anything, just poison, we're doing more tests on the sample. He's going to be pretty rough for the next couple of weeks so take it easy when he wakes up. You can come in now, though."
They followed the doctor into the infirmary and through the halls of beds and tables until they got to one with a curtain around it. They must have had to operate straight away. Fletcher was laying under three duvets, sleeping. His hair was as crazy as normal and his chest was bandaged. He was pale, and had a burn on his forehead. And he was smiling.
"I knew you still couldn't resist me." He muttered, lightly chuckling, which turned into heavy coughing.
Dexter frowned, but Valkyrie laughed. "Oh get over yourself."
Skulduggery joined them a few minutes later and they waited until Fletcher had gone back to sleep before discussing what happened.
"And he didn't say anything before he was unconscious?"
"Nope, nothing."
"Right, we're going to have to wait until he wakes up then. You can go home if you want. Alison is with your parents at the house, I told them you probably won't be home tonight." Skulduggery turned his head to Dexter. "Am I correct?"
Valkyrie blushed. "Yeah, you probably are. Is it okay if we leave Synecdoche? We're just getting in the way here."
"Okay, I'll phone you if he wakes up or anything."
Skulduggery led the way out, and he got into the Bentley. "I'll see you tomorrow. Have fun, children." He drove away and Dexter rolled his eyes.
"God, I'm three days older than he is. Right, let's go."
It was past midnight and the streetlights were turning everything a horrible brown-orange colour. They walked hand in hand and Valkyrie was biting her nails.
"That's not good for you."
"I know. I just want to hurt whoever did that. Really bad. I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep."
He glanced at her face. "That suits me." She punched his arm.
He unlocked the door to his apartment for the second time that night and they both collapsed on the kitchen chairs, because they couldn't be bothered to walk to the living room. Dexter reached forward and rubbed her arm.
"Valkyrie, he'll be okay. He'll heal."
"Yeah, I know that, I just want to know who did it. I want to make them suffer."
"You can torture them tomorrow, okay? Let's just go to bed, because it's late and I'm tired, and you're tired and it's freezing in here."
They walk into Dexter's bedroom, which was only big enough for a double-bed and a desk. Valkyrie shrugged off her jacket and trousers and got under the covers, where Dexter was already lying.
"Okay?" He asked, kissing her jaw.
"Yeah. Goodnight Dexter, I like your face, okay."
He smiled, but she was already asleep. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, before falling asleep himself.
