CHAPTER THREE: The Merging
Darquesse's eyes widened, her mouth parted slightly in a surprised sneer of masked pain, as she stared at Valkyrie, a formless creature bending the elements into a vague body around her. The thing crushing the life from her arm was a hand carved from charred cement, slowly gripping now onto the bone, then, with a snap, severed the arm off completely.
Valkyrie hurled Darquesse away from her by the stump and she flew across the upturned street into the side of an old sedan. The car collapsed from the impact and folded into itself in a shower of glass and a scream of metal. Breathing heavily, Valkyrie picked up her arm from the ground.
"Well," she said darkly, crossing the road, "that's a start."
Darquesse pushed herself out from the folds of the metal around her, anger pulsating in her veins, the blood dripped freely from her severed limb until she commanded that it stop. She looked up as the strange body of her alternative self hovered over her.
"My body," Valkyrie hissed, her arm hanging limp in one hand which she used to point threateningly at Darquesse. "And unless you want your butt kicked from Dublin to Cork and back, then I suggest you give up the rest of it before I take it off you, in pieces."
Valkyrie moved backwards as Darquesse lashed out in a fury of shadows, using footwork where her arm was lacking to kick up the darkness. The shadows hit a wall that erupted from the cement beneath them, blocking off any further attacks; deep gashes sliced the stone work like butter until there was nothing left.
Darquesse stepped forward, her legs poised beneath her as the wall crumbled away leaving no trace of Valkyrie anywhere. With a growl, she spun around bringing her arm to her face, blocking the rock hard punch from Valkyrie.
Darquesse grunted, her arm popping beneath the pressure of the attack. She pushed Valkyrie back, her arm healing almost immediately as she threw a spear of darkness.
It pierced the elemental cocktail that made Valkyrie's body and passed harmlessly through, dissipating a few feet behind her.
"Whoa," Valkyrie could feel herself grinning, not sure of what her new face looked like: she hoped it was intimidating. "How awesome am I right now?!"
Darquesse stood rigid, breathing heavily; shadows wrapped themselves about her feet, flaring like angry pythons. "I want your powers."
"Too bad, these are mine."
Darquesse leaped into the air her fist embedding itself into the elemental mass of Valkyrie's midriff. Valkyrie felt nothing but the queer sensation of someone passing through her in a ghost like fashion. With a howl of laughter Valkyrie retaliated, her clenched hand morphed into a jousting javelin and she uppercut her evil nemesis in the gut. Blood spewed forth, and Valkyrie suddenly felt very uneasy and light headed. She felt charged, like she was draining something out of Darquesse and filtering it through herself, making her tingle all over.
Darquesse ripped herself in half to escape the skewer and the draining of her powers, falling sideways onto the road below them. By the time she hit the ground her body had healed and Valkyrie watched her with interest as she struggled to get to her feet, her hand pressed firmly to the spot where the spear had pierced her flesh. Darquesse looked up at Valkyrie, her face filled with wild rage and fury as she seemed to sum up her chances.
With a final snarl Darquesse disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.
Valkyrie sighed, exhausted but exhilarated at the same time, and gave herself a high five.
o)0+0(o
China Sorrows pressed her thumbs against the insides of her wrists and the bathroom glowed green, an energy sigil peeled back from the wall and charged over to the tub. A blast of light erupted from it, illuminating the room in a solid colour before dimming.
Skulduggery looked at China in what he hoped she read as being incredulous. "Binding won't work," he said, as electrical cords wrapped about Darquesse's body. She lunged, teeth bared, the binding pulsed brightly and held her back.
"Well what do you have in mind!" China snapped, tapping more Binding sigils to life.
Skulduggery grunted as Darquesse's wild eyes rolled backwards into her head, she gave one last push against him, before her mouth opened and she deflated beneath him like a wet balloon. There was a sudden silence as the splashes and sounds of struggle stopped, only the hum of the binding sigils could be heard.
"Lift her up!"
Skulduggery hesitated momentarily before obeying, raising Valkyrie's head above the level of the liquid before stepping out of the bathtub, dripping. Waving a hand he pulled the rest of the liquid from her lungs and flung it aside, splashing China ever so slightly, who looked on with a hint of disgust as Skulduggery lifted Valkyrie from the solution. He rested her gently on the soaked floors.
"I am really, very sorry about this, Valkyrie," he said, balling his bony fists together over her chest and bringing them down with a hollow thump.
o)0+0(o
When Valkyrie came around several things took her immediate notice. The first was the pain in her head. She reached a hand to her ears to find them caked in some sort of greyish slime, which she quickly wiped onto the bed sheets with a slight sniff. The second thing she noticed was on trying to sit up her chest felt like someone had hit her with a wrecking ball. Tenderly she unbuttoned her silk gown, wondering also how she came to be wearing it, and looked down past her clavicle to see blue knuckles imprinted in her pale skin. She examined them for a bit, frowned, and redid the button. The final thing which irked her was the last memory she had: Skulduggery drowning her. A twang of fury passed over her at the thought. He was going to be sorry when she found him.
A door opened somewhere and a lanky man of about forty came out from behind a pair of heavy velvet drapes, his back seeming to have the power of levitation as he approached Valkyrie's lavish bed, carrying a silver tray.
"Miss Cain, your breakfast," he said curtly, his accent was Welsh and he had a prized bar-moustache beneath the dip of his sharp nose, "Eggs Benedict with the choice of apple or orange juice." He placed the tray on the bedside stand and reached under the bed for something, pulling out a small bed table which he placed over Valkyries knees.
"Ah," said Valkyrie dubiously, "this is all nice, and stuff, but who are you and where am I?" She nodded around the room.
"I am the valet de chambre for Miss Darlington Vada," he announced promptly. "And you are at Wickerly Manor."
Valkyrie nodded dumbly. "Uh-huh. Well, I don't know what either of those things is, so…what's your name?"
"My name is Valet Chambers," said the valet, setting the tray onto the bed table.
Valkyrie raised her eyebrows sceptically. "Your name is your occupation?"
"Yes, quite."
"Well," said Valkyrie, rather amazed, "that's convenient."
Valet the valet smiled at her, nodded politely, and seemed to levitate back out of the room with soundless steps. Valkyrie watched him go, slightly creeped out before turning onto her breakfast and devouring with gusto.
"Someone's eating like a famished fat man," came the smooth mellow voice of Skulduggery as he pulled back the drapes Valet had stepped out under from, revealing a large mahogany door behind him.
Valkyrie inhaled sharply, choking on her eggs, pointing a silver fork at the skeleton. She grabbed her juice, swallowed furiously and threw her fork at him. He side stepped it and it tinkled onto the floor. "You were trying to drown me!" She shouted, pulling back as he approached her bed, clutching the bruise at her chest as she did so.
Skulduggery paused; his head lowered and he glanced sideways at her. "It was for your own good."
"What if I fell unconscious?" Valkyrie exclaimed. "Then she would have been all out and about and everything would be destroyed!" She shouted the last bit at him, her shoulders shaking with anger.
Skulduggery's jaw opened, about to answer when another person stepped into the room. "Quite so, dear Valkyrie. It's time you two stop letting everything knock up to pot luck and figure out a solution, or else we're all going to be on the receiving end of a very, very bad day."
She was a beautiful woman, her hair falling to the length of her waist, her eyes bright and her skin pale, the gown around her was elaborately bordered with gold and green leaves on a pale pink robe.
Valkyrie blinked. "Chi-"
Skulduggery placed a hand over her mouth as China closed the doors behind her and approached the bed.
"It's Darlington Vada now, dear."
Valkyrie grit her teeth together, shaking off the bony hand. "Whatever. I'm furious with you also," she snapped.
"Well, I am the one that saved your brain from melting, Miss Cain," she said cooly. "So I believe you owe me some humility and gratitude."
Instead, Valkyrie glowered at her. "I was healing myself. I would've been fine. I've come back from decapitation for god's sake!"
Skulduggery shook his head. "You were attacked by a banshee."
"So?"
"You don't listen to a banshee scream for good reason."
"I figured that when Mrs. Gaffer blew my ears out!"
"Valkyrie, you got severe Pitch Reecho."
Valkyrie blinked. "Is that serious?"
Skulduggery took this as an opportunity to sit on the edge of her bed and received a frown for his efforts, clearly not on her good-list yet. "Banshee screams are pitched to a frequency which lacerates the brain, chopping it up into tiny pieces and then, with their long needle claws, they whisk it out of your ears and uses it to garland salads."
Valkyrie looked at the yolk of her eggs spewed across the plate, congealing as they cooled down, and felt something squirm in her gut. "Ugh. Really?"
"Yes."
"The brain can be healed if you get to it quickly enough and you have a doctor who deals with that kind of thing," China explained, standing still and emotionless behind Skulduggery. "But what happens most often is that the patient dies anyway."
"Oh joy."
"Because the pitch continues to vibrate throughout the brain it'll keep echoing until it phases out to nothing or, well, it keeps happening even when you're dead. So basically, dear, you could have healed yourself a million times over and spent the rest of your days with mild brain damage and haemorrhaging," she shrugged, "but you seemed happy enough."
"What?"
"You wanted me to tell you jokes," Skulduggery informed, "so to keep you conscious I gave you a repertoire of my most original and funniest capers." He cocked his head at Valkyrie who was frowning at him, confused. "You loved them. I felt appreciated for once. I remembered why I do this job."
Valkyrie shook her head. "I remember none of this."
"That's for the best, love," said China solemnly, "You laughed at so many bone jokes I felt embarrassed for you."
Valkyrie cringed inside, her chest screaming out at her and she put a hand over her heart once more. "So how's the drowning all tie in?" She scowled at the skull looking at her, his shoulders had gathered in concern.
"Damper's Solution," replied China with a slight smile, "created by yours truly, and quite literally the only solution around for miles."
"It absorbs the Pitch Reecho," Skulduggery said, answering Valkyries confused face. "It takes three minutes, usually, to absorb a banshee echo, but you had healed with the echo in you, and in the end we went for five. So we had to hold you under the solution."
"I didn't breath for five minutes?
"Yes."
"Why couldn't I take a breath? What if she came out when I fell unconscious?!"
China frowned. "Obviously the moment you resurface, the echo, if not completely eradicated, will continue to reverberate. And you'd be happily brain damaged forever."
"Ah." Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery, her eyebrows knitted in apology. "Sorry."
"Well, I did drown you," Skulduggery admitted openly, "and you did technically die."
"That doesn't make sense," Valkyrie said with a frown, "Darquesse always surfaces before that point."
"I'm well aware," said Skulduggery solemnly, "and she did, but," he shrugged, "something happened and it was just you."
There was a silence as Valkyrie studied China's alabaster smooth face, trying to read her thoughts.
"I have known that you're Darquesse for a while now," she answered, having determined the question from Valyrie's own mind. "But you're secret is safe with me."
"We'll see," Skulduggery replied gravely.
Valkyrie frowned down at her now cold breakfast, memories of her dream coming to light now that she focused on them. "Something happened between Darquesse and me," she started, earning the immediate attention of the two at her bedside. "She had taken over my body, and I was just, I don't know, consciousness I think. And she was about to escape from my mind and break free when I suddenly pulled together a body from my elemental powers and…I'm not sure what happened, but I think I injured her."
Skulduggery's head bent to one side. "You injured her?"
"Yeah. I punched her in the gut and I felt this surge of energy pass into me, like it was mine, and it wanted to come back. I only got a fraction of it, but when Darquesse got away she healed herself but whatever happened, it affected her. Big time." She paused in a moment's silence. "I can't even hear her at the moment."
Skulduggery lifted the tip of his hat and turned to China, sharing a look.
Welp, fourth chapter up! I hope you guys like it - I like this one WAY better than the last one, which i was a little iffy about but decided to use it instead of re-writing it. This chapter was half done when I thought, nope, yuck, not bloody enough. So started it with a Battle Royale between Val and Darq :D Hope y'all digged it. Trying to keep a balance between the dialogue and description because i have a description addiction -_- it's real peoples.
And a super awesome thanks to xAriannA SerenitYx :D Who has reviewed every chapter thus far! THANKYOU!
Explanation on China's new life coming in laaaater chapters.
Considering of posting some art for this so you guys know how characters like Tomas Blurr and Valet Chambers look. ;D Something to look forward to.
Chapter Four: The Crane already ready for posting! So expect it soon-moon sheep-balloon!
RE/EDIT: Fixed some spelling and grammar stuff! Aaaand did it again -_-