"Hey, I'm..."

"Fletcher Renn," Betty nodded positively. "I know."

Fletcher faltered, then sniffed and rubbed his neck uncomfortably. "Right... Guess, I'm sorta famous, at this point, huh?"

"I mean, we've been colleagues for years now," Betty replied hesitantly, "but, sure, I guess you are."

Valkyrie snorted. Fletcher covered the awkwardness by glaring at her. She kept smiling. This was much too entertaining to be supportive.

"Right," Fletcher said again and cleared his throat. "And, uhm... you are?"

"Betty," she said happily, "Baisemain."

"She works in the filing department," Skulduggery said from his corner.

"Alright, that should do for greetings," Diamond announced as she whisked into the kitchen, Nuce following behind. "Are we ready?"

Valkyrie straightened up from the counter. "I'm not really clear on why we're going to this warehouse, specifically?"

Betty raised a knowing finger. "There's only one file that documents the pink diamond, and it states that it went through that exact warehouse."

"Plus, we have reason to believe that this is also the place through which they smuggle the Romanian victims of Gian's ring," Skulduggery added, "including the girls that were murdered in Dublin."

Diamond's and Valkyrie's lips thinned about equally at the reminder.

"Alright, then. Fletcher?" Diamond quickly moved on. "Have you ever been anywhere along the Western Romanian boarder?"

He swayed his palm approximately. "I've been to Timisoara. But that's still about a three hour drive from where that warehouse is."

"Then, let's hope we're not in a hurry," she said.

"Seems like we'll need two cars, then," Skulduggery said to her, "if I take you and Nuce with the Bentley, Valkyrie can take the rest."

"The Bentley is a bit conspicuous," Diamond diverted swiftly, then turned to Valkyrie. "I'll take Nuce and Betty in the Audi, you could take Fletcher and Skulduggery in your car."

Valkyrie nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

The group filed out on cue. Valkyrie only briefly noticed Skulduggery forcefully adjusting his hat as they left.

Fletcher teleported them and the two cars into an abandoned parking lot in the North of town. Diamond loaded Betty and Nuce into her Audi, and their small convoy moved towards broader roads, and eventually merged into regular traffic.

During the majority of the ride, Valkyrie and Fletcher chatted, while Skulduggery sat in the passanger seat, his angular jaw propped against the back of his hand, his brown facade eyes below brown hair, staring ahead at the cars in front of them. Once in a while, he would give Valkyrie directions, otherwise he opted for the silent treatment. While she got his appreciation for the Bentley and annoyance with Fletcher, Valkyrie was not sure if she got this level of sulkiness.

About three hours in, they arrived by a secluded warehouse facility out on the country side. Mostly empty roads lead through dark fields, and eventually towards a security gate. They parked the cars at a distance, hid them between bushes at the side of the street.

As they made their way around storage containers, to the entrance, the silence was filled with looks between Fletcher and Betty. When she eventually threw him a bright smile, he made an attempt at smalltalk.

"So... how did you all know each other?"

"I'm with Dye," Betty replied cheerfully.

"Oh, yeah? How'd you meet?"

"Oh, just work," Betty shrugged. "Nothing exciting."

"Nothing exciting, yeah?" Diamond snorted ironically. "My shoulder begs to differ."

"I mean, apart from that," Betty tried.

"She fell on me," Diamond informed the rest.

"I did not," Betty pouted.

"She did, in the cafeteria. She slipped on a banana peel. An actual banana peel," Diamond chuckled with unwavering enthusiasm, "like a cartoon. And then, she dislocated my shoulder."

"I dislocated your shoulder in the process of falling on you," Betty specified, "please don't say 'and then, she dislocated my shoulder'. That sounds like I slipped on a banana peel, got up, and then dislocated your shoulder. That would make me a terrible friend, Irie."

"Forgive my clumsiness," Diamond replied gallantly.

She turned back to Fletcher, "anyway, that was ages ago."

He sniffed, "if it was ages ago, why do you still call her by her last name?"

Diamond simpered bemusedly, and Betty hickupped an endeared laugh. "Oh, honey, who do you think she got her last name from?"

He blinked but was interrupted by Skulduggery. "There are good news and bad news."

They neared the big gate separating them from a loading bay. Behind the barbwired, ridgid metal fences, two guards were patrolling, occasionally disappearing between parked trucks. Otherwise, the facility seemed to be mostly unmanned, which was no surprise, since it was ten P.M.

"Which would you like to hear first?" Skulduggery asked as they hid in the dark behind the fence.

"Bad news first," Valkyrie decided.

"We don't know what we are looking for. Whatever the diamond is supposed to be a clue to, if it is here, we don't know where. We might need to search the entire facility, preferably without raising the alarm."

"Ok, and the good news?" She prodded.

"We have the element of surprise on our hand." Skulduggery said, then paused. "Unless this is a trap, in which case we might be the ones being surprised, and this entire plan is not only bound to fail, it's also playing into the enemie's hands, while most probably getting us killed in the process. Questions?"

Valkyrie glowered. "Those weren't good news."

"That depends, if you consider that, in the end, news is information, and information is always a good thing," Skulduggery told her wisely.

"Then, why specify it? Why announce good and bad news? That only makes us hope for something positive, just to be disappointed."

"Then, you might need to adjust your expectations. By experience, these kinds of ambushes are always a terrible idea."

"Alright, thank you, very helpful," Diamond interjected. "Now, they might be expecting us. But they can't expect what they can't see. It's night; we can sneak in, take a look around..." She turned to Skulduggery and Valkyrie. "You two can do your thing with the guards, and have them take you inside. While they're distracted, Nuce and I sneak in, and stay hidden close-by."

She raised a questioning hand into the group.

"What about us?" Fletcher asked.

She threw him an apologetic look. "I'd actually appreciate it, if you'd stay safe with Betty. We can connect you in with earpieces."

Fletcher glanced at Betty, and then shrugged. "Sure, no problemo."

When no one seemed to have an issue with that plan, they seperated, and Fletcher teleported Diamond, Nuce, and Betty onto a roof with a view onto the entrance, and a straight shot down into the loading bay.

The Detectives approached the gate. As they stepped into the orange beams of the industrial street lights, the guards spotted them immediately, and quickly came their way, hands on their belts.

"Hei!" One of the men started angrily calling to them in Romanian, which Valkyrie could not understand. Yet by his tone she assumed he was telling them that they were not supposed to be here.

Skulduggery lifted his hands pacifyingly. "Good evening, Gentlemen. No need to worry. We're from the Civil Inspections Bureau."

The guards exchanged a look, and one slid the gate open far enough, so that he could look at the newcomers properly. It clanked and rattled loudly in the process, then came to a stillstand again when both guards were standing before them, blocking the way in.

"What do you want?" One man asked with a heavy accent and good grammar.

"We have some reports that your buildings might not be up to standard," Skulduggery explained. "We'd like to take a look around, at the walls, the support beams, the usual."

"You always do the usual in the middle of the night?" The guard challenged.

"Well, we can't have you expecting us, can we?" Skulduggery poised. "If you knew we were coming, you could prepare."

The guard did not seem to buy it. "Prepare what? Rebuild the support beams real quick?"

The tension of their unwanted visit did not seem to want to subside. The guards were watching them with scepticism, annoyance, and even some malignance.

Valkyrie sighed at the man tiredly, making sure to stand comfortably. "Trust me, we don't like being here at this hour any more than you do. Unfortunately, we don't get to chose these shifts."

The guard mustered her sceptically. Valkyrie hoped that it was not recognition she was seeing in his eyes. As far as they knew, these men could have been unexpecting mortals, just as well as fully trained mages.

"Look, Gentlemen, we are only here to do our job. I will have to take a look at this facility, whether you like me to or not," Skulduggery told them sturdily. "So, we could either stand here and discuss the concept of time, while wasting it, or you could let us check this place for asbestos, scratch some points off our list, and then be out of your hair again."

His attempt at establishing authority barely put a dent into the guards opposition.

"We don't let anyone in that the boss hasn't signed off on," the chatty one said.

"Ah, well, if you could tell me the name or your boss, I could contact him, instead?" Skulduggery asked casually.

The guard suddenly sniffed an ironic smile. "Nice try. Talk to your own boss. And come back tomorrow, when management is here." He attempted to close the gate again.

Skulduggery put his foot in the way, to prevent it from moving further. The guard stopped but now looked angry again.

"Why, and there I thought we were just getting to know each other. Too bad. But before we go, would you like to hear a fun little fact to brighten your night?"

"No," he replied sharply.

"Oh well, fortunately I don't need permission to tell fun facts," Skulduggery continued cheerfully. "Did you know that Sparrows fly South for winter?"

Before the guard could look any more aggravated, Skulduggery charged him. They collided roughly, and tumbled through the small opening in the gate, into the loading bay. The other man jumped and turned to move on Valkyrie, but she was already scooting low and sliding in beneath him.

Skulduggery and the guard were back on their feet. He blocked a punch coming from above with his ell, and missed one coming for his chest. Knuckles hit bone, and both men grunted at the impact, then Skulduggery returned the gesture, making his opponent clutch his own chest, while moving back and out of the way of another punch.

The other man turned around to Valkyrie, feet secure and ready to attack. She smiled at him. He smirked. Energy began to crackle in his right hand. She poured magic into her own hand, letting it crackle back. He lifted his hand, and she prepared herself. A bright beam of energy shot at Valkyrie, and she ducked low, moved in, and buried her lighting fist in his gut.

As the air shot from his lungs, Valkyrie kicked his shin, making him go down in one knee. She aimed for his jaw next, but the guard was already well on his way to recover from the first blow. He caught her hand and dragged it around, forcing her arm behind her back. Even thought her shoulder felt like it was about to pop from its socket, Valkyrie twisted, turned, and dragged her arm back over her head, to the front, then slammed her forehead onto the guard's nose.

She heard and felt it crack beneath her skullbone. The guard cried out and blindly grabbed for her, catching a handful of hair between his fingers. He held on and yanked, and Valkyrie's head jolted to the side and down towards the ground. Tears shot up into her eyes as entire strands of hair threatened to be ripped from her scalp, yet Valkyrie distributed her weight to one bent leg, and drew in the other for a kick. Her heel hit his knee hard enough, so that it almost turned the other way.

She heard Skulduggery and his guard go down again in a struggle. A shot came lose from a gun, and Valkyrie found herself distracted long enough for the moaning guard behind her to wrap his arm around her throat.

The blood got stuck in her head, the air stuck in her lungs, as the man heaved her up by her neck. Legs kicking, hands uselessly scratching and grabbing around, Valkyrie did her best to loosen his grip. She tried to summen magic into her hand, into her body, anywhere, yet the pounding in her head kept any attention on her mangled throat.

In a last, daring attempt, Valkyrie grit her teeth, grabbed his arm, and heaved up. The man loosened his grip slightly as he stumbled backwards to keep his balance, and she used the distraction to pull up again, with more core strength. She felt her body flip in the air and bent her knees until they made impact with his shoulders.

Valkyrie let herself fall backwards, holding on with her thighs, and then let go as she rolled out the drop. She sucked in raspy breaths as she came up behind the guard, who was lying on his back, looking stunned.

He lifted his head and stared down the barrel of Skulduggery's revolver, pointed down at him. He froze and opened his mouth to protest, but Skulduggery simply adjusted the angle and shot him in the clavicle.

The guard howled, and then quickly passed out from the pain, falling quiet beside his unconscious colleague.

Valkyrie fought herself to her feet, and Skulduggery checked her throat with a quick muster before turning and walking towards the door of the closest warehouse.

"So much for not raising the alarm," she commented.

"So far, they seem to be alone," Skulduggery replied and pushed into the warehouse through heavy doors.

They froze. The door fell shut behind them. In front of them, two guards had their machine guns pointed at them. Their fingers tightened around their triggers.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery moved to hurl themselves out of the way but the shots did not go off since, a moment later, two figures dropped from the ceiling.

Valkyrie recognized Diamond as her feet collided with one guard's head, shifting to diamond for just a moment as they hit, then turned back so that she could feather her fall.

Nuce came down with one hand outstretched, snapping his fingers. A small explosion hit the ground before the other guard's feet, flinging him away. Nuce used the force of the impact to bounce himself up before rolling out the remainder of his fall.

Meanwhile, the guard hollered as the detonation hurled him through the air, towards Skulduggery, who simply lifted his arm to the side.

The man collided with the arm, forcing his fall to come to a sudden stop, and making him snap to his back and drop to the ground with a moan.

"That should be all of them," Diamond announced cheerfully, then lifted a finger to her earpiece to speak through it. "Fletcher, are you sure we're clear?"

"It's looking good," Fletcher said beside them.

Valkyrie turned her head to watch him and Betty walk up to them. They seemed to be in an extraordinarily good mood. Although, this Betty woman always seemed to be in a good mood so, Valkyrie guessed, she did not know what extraordinary would mean, in this case. In either case, she found herself uncharacteristically infected by her light, joyful confidence.

"Maybe, a bit too good..." Skulduggery mumbled to the previous evaluation.

As the sounds of fighting and conversation subsided, Valkyrie suddenly noticed the intense quiet of their surroundings. Out on the country side, with no one guarding it anymore, the facility seemed entirely voiceless.

Skulduggery tilted his head lightly, looking focused, as if he were listening to something. The rest of the group joined him in quietly keeping their ears alert. There was only the buzzing of machinery in standby and the breathing of five of the gathered group.

"Does anyone else hear that?" Skulduggery asked eventually.

Valkyrie focused even more. Eventually, she believed to pick up on something.

"Beeping," she discerned.

"That's nothing unusual," Nuce noted. "We are in a warehouse."

"No," Diamond muttered quietly, eyes distant as she listened in. "That's no machine. It's..." Her eyes narrowed, then widened. She looked at Skulduggery.

"It's speeding up," he said and started walking.

As no one else could exactly tell the origin of the beeping sound, Skulduggery seemed to, and lead the way through the large hall, towards a back door.

They rushed through a bleak hallway past maintenance rooms, into a storage hall. The sound was not coming from here either, moved them along past story-high storage shelfs filled roughly with boxes and bags of various products, which Valkyrie would rather not have known the contents of. Otherwise, it was fairly dark, only emergency lights and exit signs showing them the way over even ground.

Yet, as they neared, the beeping became clearer, as well as another sound. Muffled, distraught, high voices; probably of two women.

Valkyrie glanced at Skulduggery.

"Screams," he verified, and Betty gave a muttering sound of anxiety.

They sped up a bit more, forming a protective circle around her and Fletcher, as they hurried towards the next door.

Skulduggery walked through, and stopped, almost making the group run into him.

"Goddamnit," he said and made himself move along, so that they could all enter the office.

At least, an office was what Valkyrie believed this room to have been. It was almost entirely void of furniture, and the floor was the same concrete as the rest of the facility. Yet the white board and the size of the room suggested a meeting room.

Too controlled to gasp, but the shock apparent in their expressions, most of them paused the same way Skulduggery had. Only Betty have a squeaky sound of disbelieving shock, and stayed behind with Nuce and Fletcher.

What made them all stop in their tracks, were the two teenage girls, sitting in a corner next to each other. Their wrists were bound and their mouths gagged, tears, and spit, and melted makeup caked onto their cheeks and the fabric of their gags. Both if them seemed to be wearing torn, dirty evening clothes, as if they had been abducted straight from a party.

One girl was wearing a skintight, red mini dress, which was far too revealing for her meak age. She had narrow, delicate features, and long, blond, straight hair that still shone, even though it was ruffled and caught in the gag. Pretty, large, blue eyes stared up at them with fear and hope alike.

The other girl we was taller, had brown eyes, and her features were harder and more angular than those of her friend, yet still lean. She was wearing a similarly revealing navy blue, velvet wrap dress, and her brown hair had once been braided to a French plait.

As Valkyrie, Skulduggery, and Diamond arrived with them, the two girls tried talking and calling out, yet no matter if they were speaking English or Romanian, Valkyrie could only make out "Mhnwwmm," through their gags.

They tried getting up, seemed to frantically be trying to gesture at something. Something on their legs.

That was when Valkyrie realized that the beeping itself was not coming from a machine or a speaker in the room. It was coming from the legs of the girls.

"Oh, God," she said with blank shock.

Right above the girls' ankles, there looked to be the outline of a square object, bulging the skin outward from within. And from beneath their skin, a little, red light was blinking in perfect unison to the rythm of the beeping.

"Are those...?" Nuce asked breathlessly from behind them.

The beeping sped up, coming once every two seconds, and the red blinking sped up with it.

Implants; trackers and time bombs at the same time, designed to be deactivated by a dedicated key fob. Deactivated... or activated.

"Yeah," Valkyrie replied bitterly to the unfinished question.

Geoffrey Perock's face appeared in front of Valkyrie's inner eye; face slack, foam collecting around his mouth, dead within seconds.

As no one knew if trying to help the girls would trigger some sort of trap, there was a moment of hesitation.

But then, Diamond walked closer and bent down to pick something up, so that Valkyrie spotted a little present box, sitting on the floor in front of the girls' feet.

It looked similar to the box in which Diamond had received the diamond on Christmas day; white with a red bow tied around it.

Diamond opened the bow and the box quickly, and revealed two, round, small, black objects lying inside. Valkyrie thought to recognize electronic key fobs, dedicated to open electronic locks, and she assumed they were the keys for the implants.

This assumption proved itself when Diamond pulled a little gift card from the bottom of the box; red with golden letters.

Valkyrie stretched to peek past Diamond's shoulder and read the message on the card;

One good key, for one good girl.

One bad key, for one bad guy.

Two girls.

Which will it be?

"It's the implants," Diamond breathed.

"What?" Nuce almost barked.

"They're on a timer," she explained desperately and took the keys into her hands, so that she could drop the box and the note. "Either we deactivate them, or they will release poison into their legs."

Valkyrie's question of whether the two girls could understand them was quickly answered, when they started screaming against their gags again.

"But only one key works," Diamond whispered, and Betty coughed in shock and backed away from them. Fletcher and Nuce followed her backwards, keeping her close between them.

For a moment, they were all quiet, except for the frantically breathing girls on the ground. Diamond's wide eyes were still pinned to the key fobs in her hands, as they hovered in front of each girl.

Valkyrie realized as Diamond probably just did, that this was an impossible choice to make. They did not know which key would save who, and they did not know anything about these girls.

The beeping sped up again, now occuring once every second. The sound was starting to unnerve Valkyrie.

Diamond looked frozen. Her gaze hopped back and forth between the keys and the girls. For the first time, since Valkyrie had met her, Diamond seemed clueless as to what to do. While she stayed ridgid in her posture, her breath quickened frantically as proof of it.

The beeping sped up again, twice every second. Suddenly, Skulduggery moved towards her.

"Diamond," he said softly, and she was shaken from her frozen expression, as she looked up at him.

Skulduggery reached around her arms, to carefully lift the keys from her palms. Diamond watched painfully but did not argue or stop him.

The beeping was now quick enough to almost merge into two constant, high pitched beeps.

Skulduggery kept the keys in the same order, in which they had been laid out for Diamond, and hunched down in front of the girls. They were watching him with fearful eyes, protesting weakly but too afraid to fight him on it.

He swiftly but carefully laid his hands around their blinking ankles, each fob nestled inside his palms, pressing against the implants beneath their skin.

Valkyrie felt the need to interfere somehow, saw the same need in the guys' eyes. But she knew there was no use.

The girls gave little squeaks of fear and desperation but let him continue. They looked at each other, the realization and dread written on their gagged faces. Everyone else watched, horrified, unmoving, tensed by the fact that they could do nothing to help.

Both keys gave two beeps at a different, lower pitch. One of the beeps from the implants stopped, one turned into a singular, shrill cheep.

The brown haired girl's eyes widened in horror, then she whimpered against her gag, while the blond haired girl's eyes grew almost calm with understanding. Skulduggery took his hands away and dropped the, now, useless keys.

A silent message seemed to pass between the two girls. Then, foam seethed from the blond girl's mouth, and red wallowed up into her retinas, as if rising blood was filling her up to from toe to head.

The girl with the French plait screamed terribly against her gag, but Diamond was now moving again, grabbing her tied arms.

The blonde girl's eyes rolled into the back of her head, her body convulsed once, then dropped. Her head lulled to the side, and some foam dripped over her cheek, onto the concrete floor.

Diamond and Skulduggery struggled with the other girl, as she tried to throw herself forward at her dead friend. She was sobbing and screaming, yet managed to losen her gag and repeatedly rip her arms away. Fletcher hurried over to take them somewhere else.

Yet beforehand, as the gag came free, the thing happened that Valkyrie realized she had hoped not to happen. Had hoped not to have to know. The living girl called out the dead girl's name.

"Nora!" She cried, tears streaming, body trembling, voice cracking high up, as Skulduggery and Diamond wrestled her backwards. "NORA!"

Fletcher arrived with them and the four of them disappeared. Now alone with the other two, the body of the girl, and the unwrapped gift box on the ground, Valkyrie's attention was pulled to Betty.

She was kneeling on the ground, sobbing distraughtly, as Nuce held her. He had his arms tight around her, but Nuce was not crying, himself. He did not break apart like the last time they had watched these girls die. He looked angry. He looked determined. He looked pissed.

As they waited for Fletcher to return, and for Betty to shakily calm herself down, Valkyrie and Nuce exchanged a grim look. And while Valkyrie felt not seething anger, as much as she felt churning dread, she could identify herself with the sentiment.