Chapter 208
A group of men were sent to Valkyrie and Skulduggery to 'prepare' them for their esteemed leader. Neither of them were able to talk, but Valkyrie was a good enough detective to understand whoever the leader was someone important and evil.
Both of them had the dust brushed off of their clothes, Valkyrie's hair was brushed and tied back up in a ponytail and they were switched rooms to somewhere cleaner and prettier. It was still a room barren of furniture, but there were chairs and a desk in the corner. It was also nice that Valkyrie didn't have to wear a bag over her head.
Valkyrie knew when the leader had arrived by the click click of heels coming towards them. For a heart sinking moment, she thought it was China by the way the woman walked, but when the double doors were opened to reveal her identity, she was pleasantly surprised to find someone new. Almost unnaturally auburn red hair framed a small, wide eyed face. She had a spattering of brown freckles, light makeup, diamonds in her ears, and her frame and dress were remarkably close to China's. Her beauty came close also but didn't have a certain something that caused her to fall in love.
"Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain," she simpered, walking to them with an obvious feeling of power. "I've been waiting for the day you two would turn up at my doorstep."
Neither of them could say anything around the tape over their mouths. Valkyrie made sure to look at her with bored indifference.
She stopped when she was close enough to reach out and touch them. "I would wonder what it is that brought you to my doors today, but I'm actually on a rather tight schedule. I am so glad you popped by in time to fit into my plans. I think I'll be able to get a significant price for your heads. But where are my manners? We haven't met, have we, Valkyrie? I'm Eliza Scorn."
She reached and ripped the tape, and any hair on Valkyrie's top lip, off in a quick motion. She couldn't stop the wince. "I can't say I've heard of you."
Eliza rolled her eyes and Valkyrie couldn't blame her. Practically everyone, even Fletcher, knew who Eliza Scorn was. She was just as infamous and powerful as China, and they had been for a time in the war against Mevolent. China had even told Valkyrie stories of them together. "I'm sure. I noticed you hurt my little pet Ubumnyama."
"I don't even think I could pronounce his name," she said mildly.
Eliza gave her a pretty smile. "I see you're a perfect copy of your partner. I noticed you disliked the Kith downstairs. I would rather like to keep you and see if someone with Ancient blood would be able to be activated successfully, but my… business partner has already stated, hoped even, that you would fall into my lap for him to take."
"I assume that's The Children of the Spider?"
"Of course," she smiled, as if delighted Valkyrie worked it out. "We had hoped the Australian Sanctuary would specifically ask for assistance, but their selfishness outshone even my assumptions! Thankfully, your beautiful little Necromancer friend asked for you to come and help."
"I swear to god if you hurt her–"
"You'll destroy me where I stand, I'm sure," she rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't be able to touch me if you tried, darling. At any rate, I've got better things to do than gloat. I just had to see for myself that either of you were truly tied up at my humble Church. I'll be seeing you, I'm sure."
Valkyrie didn't bother asking any follow up questions as Eliza swept around and out of the room, leaving only the delicate scent of her perfume Valkyrie wasn't ashamed to admit she rather enjoyed. She waited for the door to be closed but it never happened, instead some of the same men and one of the women came back in and immediately applied new tape to Valkyrie's mouth and re-bagged them both for transportation.
.*****.
32 hours later
Valkyrie flinched as someone touched her. The hands didn't respond other than to continue, tugging at the tape around her neck to take the bag off of her head.
It was so dark she couldn't see who was in front of her at first, but when a soft hand trailed from her cheek to her mouth, for a wild moment she thought it could be Nadia.
Then the hand roughly pulled the tape from over her mouth and Valkyrie knew it wasn't. Nadia would have been far too concerned about hurting her and wouldn't have simply ripped tape off of her lips.
"What the fuck?" Valkyrie whispered into the dark.
"Shhh!" A female voice hushed, quietly stepping over to Skulduggery to get his bag and tape off.
"Militsa?!" Valkyrie quietly exclaimed.
"Shut up! They're outside!" Militsa snapped breathily.
Valkyrie waited for her to finish with Skulduggery, who barely made a grunt as the tape was pulled from around his head, keeping his jaw shut, and shuffled from side to side uncomfortably as Militsa carefully cut the handcuffs she and Skulduggery were wearing with her shadows.
"I need to pee," she immediately announced to them. "Like, yesterday need to pee."
"They are right there!" Militsa snarled under her breath.
"Cool, well, I literally cannot fight or do shit right now because I need to pee so badly that if I stand, I will wet myself. What do you think we should do?" Valkyrie snarked back.
Militsa muttered something unintelligible under her breath.
"Valkyrie, just pee in the corner. Militsa, where are we?"
"And get trapped with it?" Valkyrie countered. "We need to get out, you can fight well enough to do that surely?"
"And if I cannot? Would you like to wet yourself like a two year old in the middle of trying to kick someone?" Skulduggery asked with a mocking voice of interest. "Because I've seen that happen and it was truly an awful experience for everyone. Honestly, I never heard of or saw that person again, I think the embarrassment killed them."
Valkyrie paused to attempt to think through her dehydration on what to do and then sagged. "Don't watch me though."
"I really don't want to. Militsa, what did you see on your way here?" He asked, his voice deepening dramatically as he kept his voice down.
"We're on a big boat," she whispered quickly, "with hundreds of cargo containers. I think it might be mortal, but I'm sure the guards outside your container and mine are mages."
"How did you get away?" Skulduggery asked as Valkyrie tried not to feel anxious about unzipping her trousers.
"I still had my bracelet when the men that kidnapped me came for me. Since we didn't think they'd been killing the other Necromancers, I just pretended a ring I had was my Item and they left it at the hotel. I figured they'd take me to you, or you'd find out I was gone and come for me, so I pretended to be helpless and when I thought it was safe, I was able to get out of my restraints and my container, I locked my guards in after knocking them out and looked around for where you might be. I used the windows up there to look in and Shadow Walk inside."
"That was quite clever," he complimented.
"Thanks, it was really on the spot to be honest," she quietly glowed. "Um, I could, like, Shadow Walk us both outside the container and we could take out the guards and lock them in here if you like?"
"I think that would be a good idea," Skulduggery said and she heard the gentle rustle of their clothing as they stood together and then nothing more.
Valkyrie listened carefully and when she determined they had actually Shadow Walked out, she frantically yanked down her trousers and hunched over, positioning herself with unfortunate ease as to not pee on her clothes. The relief she felt at emptying her bladder was so great she was able to completely dismiss her earlier anxieties over peeing in front of Skulduggery and Militsa and instead just felt much better.
She grimaced when she pulled up her clothes, since she wasn't able to wipe and that was nasty, but it was also a part of doing a lot of her work in rural places. Sometimes she had to do what she had to do. After getting herself together, she went to the front and hoped they'd be able to work something out so they wouldn't end up in the container with her pee again.
The doors opened and Valkyrie stepped back. Skulduggery bodily threw one of the guards in and another fell from the air beside the first when Militsa let them drop, and Valkyrie joined them outside. Skulduggery closed it and they quickly made their way around to the side where they'd be hidden from view.
All around them were metal cargo containers. Valkyrie didn't see anyone when she left theirs, nor around the corner, and she had no experience with ships to know if that was how it would remain or if that meant something was wrong. "I don't think we should try to fight," she immediately told the other two.
Skulduggery tilted his head. "Whatever do you mean?"
"I mean I want to find a hidey-hole and bunker down until we get wherever we're going and then when we dock, leave the boat with everyone else, or even get Shadow Walked behind a pillar or something. There's nowhere to run here and I don't feel comfortable trying to figure anything out. And anyway, there's only going to be lackeys here, not any big people. What if we take someone out that's an actual crewmate and then the boat smashes into the pier?"
"I doubt that'll happen."
"How do you know?"
"Because I would simply guide the boat to a perfect stop."
Valkyrie looked at his deadpan. "You would not so don't pretend. If you used magic someone would notice anyway. Can we find somewhere safer to discuss this? This is really not a good idea!"
"There is nowhere to go, Valkyrie. They'll know we're gone as soon as they notice the guards missing and check. We're better off searching who is here and taking them out now than waiting like sitting ducks to be found. I appreciate that the situation isn't the best, but it's what needs to be done."
Valkyrie took a breath before nodding, despite feeling as if Skulduggery's plan would get them captured faster. Militsa stayed quiet and stayed by Valkyrie's side as they quickly ran down the gap between the containers to the end where they dropped to the almost immediate edge of the boat and into the ocean beyond.
Of course, they were immediately noticed by someone.
To the sounds of shouts and Militsa's very scared gasp, they ran in the other direction, all unable to use magic in case of mortals abord. They ducked, dived and pretended to be really good jumpers with the help of their magic to get away from the slamming feet against metal but it wasn't possible to escape them forever.
Barely a few minutes of circling the same block of containers and someone Valkyrie recognised as a mage from the Church of the Faceless jumped into their path. Skulduggery went to punch him but he put a hand out, palm facing Skulduggery, and Valkyrie saw as the air shifted towards him and Skulduggery ceased moving.
Valkyrie jumped in and went to kick the man, but a hand grabbed her leg and she was blocked. A man stepped out of nothingness and went to punch her in the face, which she ducked under and went close to punch him in the jaw. He took the hit without a flinch and kneed her between the legs.
She grunted painfully as her eyes welled up and her knees buckled. Militsa made an attempt to fight but got distracted when some ship staff came to gawk and she was swept off her feet. They were all placed in handcuffs before Valkyrie had stopped her pain-reaction tears.
HErE haVe SomE MoRe!
I've gone mad, still not finished my work, might drop out, eeeee :'D
