Enjoy.
Valkyrie woke up with a pain in her head and a crook in her neck. She blinked her eyes open and moaned. Her mussels were horribly stiff. A gag muffled any sound she made, and her arms were wrenched behind her back at a painful angle. Her nose was pressed against a wall and her legs were duct taped together.
The floor was hard and concrete, and it was too dark to see anything, but she got the sense that she was in a big room, maybe a warehouse, or maybe she was still in the gym. Valkyrie tried to wriggle around a bit, but to no effect. Her bindings held.
"Feugo. Venteferro. Mavra. Amoracchius."
The voice came from somewhere behind her, just a whisper in the darkened room. Valkyrie squirmed and tried to turn herself over; she made it onto her back, but could turn no more. Her handcuffs were chained to the wall.
"Domine. Lava. Quod. Est sordium."
The handcuffs dug painfully into her back, but Valkyrie ignored the unpleasant sensation and turned her head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of the owner of the voice. It was almost too dark to see, but somehow she managed.
"Vente! Venteferro! Vento! Vento servitas! Ventas, vento servitas!"
Blackwood was sitting, cross legged, on the floor about ten feet away. He still wore a robe, but the hood was pulled up, and Valkyrie thought she could see a couple of bullet holes at the very edge, courtesy of Skulduggery, no doubt.
"Ventas, vento, servitas! Ventas, vento, servitas! Ventas servitas -"
He had a pentagram drawn in chalk on the floor, this one about the size of a hula hoop, and he sat just outside the confines of it. Slowly, as his voice gained volume, glowing, orange smoke spiraled up in a lazy circle from the center.
"Vento servitas, vento ventas, servitas vento!"
The sulferus smoke was so thick now, Valkyrie couldn't see through it. What was odd though, was that the spectral smoke didn't pass the circumference of the pentagram. It was like a glass tube had been dropped over it.
Blackwood's voice fell silent, and Valkyrie's eyes turned back to him. He slumped down a little, and his face was covered in sheen of sweat. He looked exhausted.
Something was in the circle. Through the smoke, she could see it move. Bare glimpses of it appeared. Scales. Claws. A wing. Two, no, four black eyes blinked at Blackwood through the smoke and haze, the only still things in a world of deception and illusion.
Blackwood began to chant again. "Deus. Considero me culpa in nomine. . . ."
The effect on the creature in the pentagram was imitate. It let out a piercing wail, and the eyes began to bob up and down restlessly, as if searching for a way out of its prison. Blackwood didn't stop, if anything, his voice gained speed and volume.
". . . .dono mihi. . . .persessum satisfacti. Pulveribus pulverem pulveribus fieri. . . .cineribus cineram fieri terrae terram fieri!"
He fell silent, and after a while, so did the wailing of the creature in the pentagram. Blackwood swayed a little, but didn't fall.
Valkyrie was laying down, all her ackes and pains forgotten, with wide eyes.
"Grimalkin." Blackwood said. "Grimalkin." He said again, and Valkyrie realized he was calling the creature's name. "Grimalkin!" The third time, the eyes floating in the smoke seemed to flinch, as if Blackwood had physically struck him. Blackwood reached into his robes and pulled out a photograph.
"I compel you, Grimalkin, with your true name, to do my bidding." Blackwood said.
The creature answered, and Valkyrie shuddered. No human could ever make words sound so guttural. No human could make your ears bleed just by putting anger in it's voice. No human could sound so beastly.
"Mortal man of flesssh, by your own magic'sss lawssss you cannot take my will any more than you have by sssomoning me here today."
Blackwood visibly trembled, such was the power in the creature's voice, and it was several minutes before he could speak, but when he did, his voice did not waver, and he held his head high.
"I do not intend to make you do anything more with your name," Blackwood began, "I intend to make a deal with you."
"What kind of deal?" Hissed Grimalkin.
Blackwood smiled. "A simple one, as these things go. You take ten, maybe fifteen minuets out of your busy schedule to kill someone for me, and I'll let you go."
Grimalkin laughed, and Valkyrie felt sick to her stomach. "You think you can hold me, mortal man? If you have nothing more to trade for my sssservices, other than freedom I already have, then you had better ssssend me back."
Blackwood seemed almost confident. "I can keep you here as long as I want. With your name, I can make you stay here, in this world. With this circle, I can make you stay in this room, forever, if I want."
Grimalkin did not seem happy about the prospect. It's four cat eyes bobbed up and down, and the smoke twisted and swirled as it moved around. A long, unstopped growl that was almost a purr emitted from it's throat.
"I read about you, you see. You are unusual, for a demon. You don't like to be kept waiting, even though you have all the time in this world, and the next."
Grimalkin hissed.
"So what is it going to be? Get stuck with me for the next few days until I collapse from exhaustion and my magic no longer holds you here, in which case you lose more time in your world, or-" Blackwood smiled, "You can do me this one little favor, and I'll send you on your marry little way, back to torturing or plundering, or whatever you do with your spare time."
Grimalkin was silent for a long time, and his burning black eyes never left Blackwood. When he finally spoke, Blackwood trembled, and his face fell forward into his hands. The photograph dropped from his fingers.
"I agree to thessse termsss, mortal man." At this, a mouth floated into view through the smoke, grinning a terrible grin with sharp teeth and fangs.
"But know thisss, the next time I am sssummoned," Blackwood whined in the back of his throat.
"And I will be ssssummoned again, make no misssstake," Valkyrie trembled, and flinched, and the demon's verbal assault wasn't even directed at her.
"I will kill you." Blackwood began rocking back and forth, as if Grimalkin's mere voice were knives through his mind. Valkyrie felt sorry for him, and he was the one that kidnapped her.
"Who do you want dead, mortal man?" Grimalkin asked.
Blackwood didn't answer.
Grimalkin's eyes drifted to floor level, focused on something Valkyrie couldn't see.
"Issss thissss the man?" It asked.
Blackwood didn't answer for a moment, then, with a peek through his fingers, he spoke in a horse whisper. "Yes."
The eyes bobbed up and down once, as if nodding, and Grimalkin said, "Then release me, mortal man, and I will kill him, and everyone with him."
Blackwood kept his face buried in his lap, but stretched a trembling hand out and smudged the line of the pentagram slightly.
The demon's sharp toothed smile drifted through the smoke again, not in the same place it was last time, and his eyes floated up, higher than any man could stand, ten or twelve feet above the ground. The smoke began to slip out the crack in the pentagram, draining out of It's prison. It rushed past Blackwood towards the other side of the room, never fully revealing the demon within. The eyes were the last to go, and they never removed their gaze from the cowering Blackwood.
With a howl, the smoke rushed for some door Valkyrie couldn't see in her position, and disappeared into the night.
Neither Valkyrie nor Blackwood moved for several minuets, Valkyrie still being in shock. There was a demon on the loose. This was bad, she knew, and the poor soul Blackwood sent it to kill didn't have a chance.
Then, Blackwood began to laugh.
A deep felt, high pitched, slightly hysterical laugh. His face was still buried in his hands, and to Valkyrie, he was just a shape in the gloom that trembled and shook as the mad laughter continued. Then, Blackwood raised his head, still laughing, and through back his hood. His face was pale, and he looked like he had aged twenty years in ten minuets, but still he laughed.
"I did it!" He giggled to himself, "I really did it!"
He stood on shaky legs, and his laughter died, but when he turned to Valkyrie, the mirth was still on his face. "You hear that, Miss Cain? I summoned a demon and didn't die!" He giggled to himself again, and Valkyrie noticed his eyes were wide, and his pupils were dilated.
He looked at the ceiling and said, "You hear that Johnny? I did what you said I couldn't do!" Now his eyes burned with madness, and he raised his fist and shook it at the ceiling. "I raised a demon and you couldn't! So all I have to say to you is Ha! Ha, ha ,ha! Ha! Ha. Ha. Ha." At this, he dissolved into mad laughter again.
"He's stark raven mad!" Valkyrie thought as she stared at the man before her.
Blackwood's laughter died off again, and he turned back to Valkyrie. With a sigh, he walked up to her, bending down to pick up the photograph he dropped earlier on the way, which must have been what Grimalkin was looking at when he asked who Blackwood wanted dead.
"Well, back to work. There will be plenty of time for gloating after I'm done."He walked over to Valkyrie, who was getting very worried at this point, and bent down to her level. She glared at him defiantly.
"Now, now." He patted her cheek affectionately. "There is no reason to be that way."
Blackwood reached into his robe pocket and drew out a syringe, filled with a clear liquid. "I'm terribly afraid that you cant be conshis for this next part." Valkyrie's eyes widened, and she began to struggle uselessly as Blackwood carefully inserted the needle into her arm and injected the liquid into her system.
She jerked once, tried to say something around her gag, and relaxed, her vision already going dark. Blackwood's features swam and moved as he held up the photograph for Valkyrie to see. His voice, when he spoke, was warped, and sounded like it came from far away.
"Be it one way or another, you will never see your friend again."
Darkness clouded her vision, but she could still make out the image of Skulduggery, leaning against a brick wall, with his bonny face turned towards her and his hat low on his brow. Valkyrie had taken that picture no more than two weeks ago, and she had kept it in her wallet ever sense.
Skulduggery. Her stomach gave a painful lurch. She struggled to think. He might die. The thought made something twist, inside her, right in her chest. She had to stay awake. For him, she had to warn him. For him. She had to stay awake. She had to. . . . .
Valkyrie fell into unconsciousness.
Read and review.