So here's another chapter! Thank you so much for the lovely reviews I've had so far-they are definitely keeping me going! I'm sorry that the last couple of chapters have been quite short, but this is a bit longer and I've just finished another chapter which is a lot longer, so it won't be short the whole time. And to Sebastian Castellen and realtawit, thank you so much for your reviews and the constructive criticism, it has been really helpful; but you'll have to wait a bit longer to find out the identity of the man with the green eyes!

I should probably say at this point that I don't own any of these characters, its all down to the amazing Derek Landy!

Chapter 7

Skulduggery stormed into the sanctuary, closely followed by Dexter and Saracen. He burst into Ghastly's office and leaned over his desk.

"Someone's taken her."

Ghastly, who had been reading a thick stack of papers and looked half asleep, was confused.

"Slow down. Who's taken who?"

"Valkyrie. She was attacked in my house in the middle of the night. The door was locked and we couldn't get in to help," Skulduggery sagged. His voice was hollow, empty. "Her screams, Ghastly. I could hear her screams." His head hung as he finished his story. "It all fell silent after that, and by the time we got through the door, she was gone."

Ghastly shook sleep from his eyes and looked closely at Skulduggery. The skeleton looked poised and dangerous. Ghastly knew him well enough to know that Skulduggery badly needed to hit someone. In truth, on hearing this news he wanted to hit someone too. Still, he guessed that all Skulduggery was after was formal permission to do what needed to be done, and hit whoever he felt like hitting.

He sighed.

"Do whatever you need to do to get her back." Ghastly's lips tilted upwards. "Except that trick with Fletcher. Last time you did that all our hospital beds were filled up, and the paperwork took me two days. Fletcher was quarantined for days."

Dexter sniggered, momentarily forgetting the gravity of the situation. "Or that thing you did which left half the psychics with traumatic stress. Although it worked, the psychics are still feeling fragile..."

Saracen pouted.

"Yeah, they never tell me the results of the football anymore."

"It's not like you really need them to tell you anyway," Dexter pointed out, and Ghastly joined in, mocking Saracen.

"I'm Saracen Rue and I know things." Ghastly and Dexter laughed at their own humour.

Saracen replied in a weary tone.

"Only about 10% of the things I know are actually useful, you know that."

Skulduggery's lips raised in a small smile, before he turned on his heel and left. Dexter and Saracen mockingly took their leave of Ghastly, with many bows and murmurings of "Your Eminence".

They left Ghastly behind in his boring office, with his boring papers that he had to read to do the boring job that had been forced upon him.

"Where's my slice of the action?" Ghastly thought wistfully. He suddenly realised that his slice of the action was slipping away from him, following Skulduggery, Dexter and Saracen into danger in order to rescue Valkyrie without him.

"Oh screw it."

Ghastly pulled off his itchy elders robes, uncovering protective combat clothing, pushed his papers off the desk in a flurry and hurried after Skulduggery.


He caught up with the dead men just as they approached Ghastly's van, which had been deemed more sensible for a rescue mission than the chugging Canary Car. Skulduggery didn't look surprised to see Ghastly, and they drove off in silence. No more was said, Skulduggery's anger and worry had spread through the men, Dexter looked concerned and ready to hit someone, and even Saracen had stopped joking around.

Ghastly broke the silence. "So where are we actually going?"

"Well, I asked China if she had heard anything suspicious, and it seems she heard a rumour about a deserted warehouse in the west of Dublin. Inhabitants living near reported disturbances and loud noises. This, coupled with the fact that whilst Valkyrie was being attacked, a train ticket dropped out of one of her attacker's pockets. I found it on the floor. The destination was near the warehouse that China spoke to me about. It's not a certain location, but it's a start."

Ghastly nodded, and Dexter's hand tightened around his gun.

After half an hour of trawling through the traffic in the van, Skulduggery pulled up a couple of blocks ways from the warehouse. The dead men listened quietly as Skulduggery told them the plan.

"Ghastly and I will go round the building one way, Saracen and Dexter the other. Once you find a subtle way to get in, our objective is to find Valkyrie and get her out. If you reach her, then leave with us. We can rendezvous here.

The plan was agreed, and Skulduggery, Ghastly, Saracen and Dexter sneakily made for the warehouse. They split up, and crept off.

The warehouse was dark and dingy, and as Skulduggery and Ghastly entered they were enveloped in the black. This, at least, was common practice for them-as dead men in the war they were used to striking from the shadows.

Skulduggery seemed to have a route through the building planned, and he led the way stealthily. They encountered no one for ten minutes until Tanith Low stepped round the corner. Skulduggery and Ghastly pressed themselves against a wall and slipped back into the murkiness. Ghastly held his breath and pressed himself against a wall as she moved past him.

"What the hell is Tanith doing here?", he wondered aloud after she had passed.

Skulduggery shrugged-all he could focus on now was Valkyrie, so they carried on cautiously through the building. They descended two flights of stairs before they saw a shadow on the wall moving toward them.

Skulduggery crouched down ready to attack, but as he launched himself into a punch the man pulled down his hood.

"It's me, Skulduggery, it's Dexter!"

It was indeed Dexter, looking slightly shaken. Saracen was close behind him.

"We've found her. She's...she's not in a good way. We can get in through the door, and we've found a ventilation shaft which also accesses the room. There's someone in there with her now...so it would be best if we storm the room, two at either entrance."

A plan was quickly agreed, and Saracen showed Ghastly and Skulduggery the ventilation shaft before hurrying back to join Dexter. As Skulduggery climbed through the ventilation shaft he heard Valkyrie's pain filled scream and stiffened.

She screamed again and he carried on moving until he reached a grate through which he could see the room where Valkyrie was.

With what he saw it was all he could do to stop himself from jumping to save her straight away.

Cliffhanger! I'll update again very soon so you wont have to wait long! Thanks for reading, and please review :)