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The world was hot. The ground desertly hot and the air burned to breathe. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and nothing but dry dirt all the way to the horizon. Valkyrie tried to breathe slowly through her nose, trying to conserve her water.
She looked around, shading her eyes and found him.
"Sherlock?" She asked and stumbled towards him, holding her lunch in. Shunting had upset her stomach yet again.
He fumbled to his feet, waving his hands in an attempt to stay balanced. He looked drunk, his head trying to see everything around him at once. "Miss Cain, where are we?"
"I_ don't really know." She grabbed his arm and helped him up. "We should find some kind of shelter before the sun rises properly though."
"Go left, never trust right." Sherlock slurred.
"Are you alright?"
"I feel like vomiting. But no time for that. Let's go." He struck off in what was probably right not left. He wavered from side to side dangerously as he took purposeful steps. Valkyrie hurried to drape one of his arms around her neck and take some of his weight. "Good, the world has stopped spinning."
She rolled her eyes and kept walking, holding Sherlock tightly. "We'll find our way out of here easily. We just have to find Jack and the rat-man. You know what? Skulduggery is probably working on a rescue right now. Won't be long until he turns up and saves us, we just have to wait. He has a real knack for rescues."
"Duke Vincent Aema Cessation, master of the Haemon, deliverer of punishments and controller of the guilty." Sherlock muttered. "That's what he called himself."
"What does it mean?" Valkyrie asked, struggling under the strain of holding the detective up by herself.
"Nothing good." Sherlock refused to stay still. He was like a child wriggling around, trying to see something that didn't matter or was boring, interested in the most uninteresting things. "You see, Haemon generally means bloody and Aema means blood. Punishment and guilty aren't reassuring either. Not to mention cessation means coming to a stop, or complete nothingness."
"So his name means blood nothingness, master of the bloody?" Valkyrie frowned. "That sounds both stupid and scary."
"What he did to me, have you seen it before?"
"Nothing like it." She shook her head. "Although Skulduggery told me a similar story of that happening to Ghastly when they first went after Jack."
"Do you know where we are?"
"Nope."
"Did we teleport to Australia or something?"
"No, we shunted. We're in a different dimension. I hate shunters. They're shifty." She giggled slightly. "Every time I've traveled to another dimension I've either been tortured, seen friends die or just pure unpleasantness."
"You fill me with such confidence." Sherlock muttered.
"But I've never been here before. Maybe this place is nice."
"I doubt it."
"Shut up before I leave you behind." She snapped. "I don't do well in heat."
"Or rain or snow apparently." He countered.
"Whatever, I'm sure Skulduggery has already discovered a way to find us." She smiled slightly. He always knew what to do. "Won't be long now."
xXx
"Um, where are we?" John squinted, a hand raised to shade his eyes. All around him was nothing but sand dunes. Familiar, shifting, maddening sand dunes.
"In another dimension apparently." Skulduggery cursed and fixed his tie. "Different dimensions are so tedious. The people never know who you are. They just think you're ordinary. Excuse me while I recharge my façade. Tell me if anyone comes past."
"Sure, but I can't see anything that could possibly have eyes to see you. I don't even see anything but sand." John dropped his hand and turned in a circle again. "We're going to die of thirst."
"Correction," Skulduggery began.
"I know." John interrupted. "You're a skeleton, you don't need to drink."
"True, but I was going to say that I can manipulate the water molecules in the air for you to drink. Therefore you will not die of thirst."
"Right, sorry."
"It's an easy mistake to make. Valkyrie still forgets that. Now let's go before that storm reaches us." Skulduggery took off, a confident stride in his step.
"What storm?" John couldn't see anything on the horizon. "If you can see a storm we're going to die. Well I'm going to die because we can't outrun it!"
"I'm not trying to outrun it." Skulduggery explained as he made him way down a dune. "We just have to reach the settlement over there."
"I can't see anything!" John cursed. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Skulduggery would know what to do. He always did. The time to panic was when Skulduggery gave up but it was not this day.
"Coming John?" The skeleton imitated Sherlock so well that John had to laugh.
It was crazy. Completely crazy but he didn't really care anyone. He ran, more of galloped really, down the dune to catch up with the walking talking skeleton. His life would never be the same, it was worse than Afghanistan.
xXx
She was insane; she knew it but didn't care. Hunger gnawed her belly as she watch the girl struggle beneath the larger man's weight. The girl slipped and hit the ground, a puff of dust rising at the impact to choke her.
She laughed as the girl in black coughed and spluttered, and she wondered at the cackle that ripped from her throat.
Yes, quite mad.
A groan came from beside her, signally her companion's awakening. His glasses were gone and he was bleeding from half a dozen wounds on his head and torso. She didn't think he'd live long.
"Your friends are looking for you, but they won't find you." She giggled. "They'll wish I didn't find them too."
She turned away from the ridiculous man beside her and looked back at the girl. They looked stupid as they stumbled along. She licked her lips, wondering at the best place to ambush them. She'd get them during The Heat, take them down and would burn the trench coat the man was wearing. That would help her survive through the long nights.
They were in her town now. She laid on her back and giggled. She began singing…..
I knew you were
You were gonna come to me
And here you are
But you better choose carefully
'Cause I, I'm capable of anything
Of anything, and everything
Her giggle turned into a laugh, her head rolling backwards and she laughed hard. The unhumanlike sound echoing around her spacious cave. They were here!
The final story will come in the next few weeks. It all will go up in flames, friendships will break, romances will explode and people will die. This is the real end!