Chapter Seven

The New Boy and the Old Enemy

To Valkyrie's relief the end of school bell had sounded and the Maths lesson had dragged on for what Valkyrie had thought hours, and she gratefully packed her things into her bag. The new boy, Lorcan had not been in Valkyrie's class, and Valkyrie was quite glad, as he didn't stop staring at her all day. Not in a dreamy-like fashion, but in a creepy-I know who you are- sort of look. It made her feel uncomfortable and like she was a dog on show. At least Maths had given her some space to not to be watched for an hour.

She pushed herself through the crowd to the corridor and unconsciously, looked about her to see if she could see Lorcan anywhere. She didn't know why, but she was disappointed for not seeing him anywhere, and had plan to have a private chat with him to ask what his problem was. She couldn't get the idea out of her head, that he may know who she is, that she is actually Valkyrie Cain and fought magical creatures with a living skeleton by night. But how could possibly a new arrival know her secret so soon? And what was that thing about his parents working for the Sanctuary? Valkyrie shrugged and continued, getting out of the school as quickly as possible. She had been eager to phone Skulduggery all day, to see what he was doing, and if he wasn't coping without her and hoped that he wasn't, so that he could beg her back and she would never have to go to school ever again. But a small sceptical voice in her head kept saying that that was very unlikely.

Finally, she made out of the school gates, waving to some friends along the way that had said goodbye to her. She didn't really have close friends, but she didn't want any enemies in school, so she preferred to be friendly. Anyways, she fought too many evil characters lately that she couldn't deal with some spiteful kids at school as well.

She found a comfortable bench in a deserted park of greenery next to her school and got her phone out. Previously that day she had tried to sneak a text to Skul earlier, but Mr Rogers had caught her and given her a detention, which she didn't really mind. It was normal for Stephanie Edgley to get detention now and again.

She found his number and pressed the call button. Valkyrie looked about her to see if any pupils that were walking across the field couldn't eavesdrop on her. She let the phone ring five times, while she tapped impatiently on the bench table and bit her lip.

"Answer Skul! That's what mobile phones are made for!" She whispered angrily.

When the phone continue to ring for another five rings, she gave up and groaned, chucking her phone in her bag disrespectfully.

She folded her arms and looked around, scowling.

She thought about Skulduggery going to the conference where all the detectives will be gathered and exchange their theories of the case today and what was happening,. The day was still young and she could easily slip out of the house with her Reflection out. She thought about Detective Wild and Theodore. Would Skulduggery be with them again? Valkyrie suddenly became jealous. She should be there, with the detectives and solving the case. She still had the competitive side of beating Hugo Spite, and wandered if they would ever beat him. She sighed at the thought, and raised from the wooden bench. She chucked her bag over her shoulder, and glancing to her side saw something unusual.

At the far side of the park were some trees and there were two people standing there in the shade. They didn't give Valkyrie the impression that they were out on an innocent walk, but the two seemed slightly dodgy. They were two men, in their mid-thirties and they wore identical black shades over their eyes. Valkyrie didn't need to see their eyes to see who they were looking at. They had their hands in their pockets the same as each other in same matching macks and shifty hats. Valkyrie tried to not make it obvious she had spotted them and started to walk towards to the exit of the park, and see who they really were. They tried to make them look like they were two friends that had just bumped into each other and were chatting casually, but Valkyrie knew what they were doing, they were watching her. She kept her head down and didn't glance up. But before she realised, she had knocked into an unfortunate who had fallen on to the ground before her. To her horror, as she saw the person, her heart dropped.

It was the new boy.

As soon as he got himself up, she immediately apologised.

"I am so sorry!"

To Lorcan's luck, it had been raining that day and he had fallen into a patch of mud. Great! thought Valkyrie.

Valkyrie didn't know what to do as she watched Lorcan rub off mud from his clothes, but while he was doing this he wore an amused smile.

Valkyrie frowned. What was up with his guy?

Valkyrie stood their helplessly, and Lorcan started laughing. This didn't make Valkyrie feel any better.

"In a hurry?" He laughed.

"What?" Valkyrie asked, she was still panicking about staying in the park. If only she had seen Lorcan approached towards her.

Lorcan frowned, "I'm sorry, but you seem…intense."

Valkyrie shrugged and shifted on her feet, awkward. "Err, just tired, that's all." She tried to give him a reassuring smile. She wanted to leave, but she didn't want to be rude. They stood their in silence together. She was going to ask him to excuse her, but suddenly he said before her, "My name's Lorcan , I'm in your class, I believe."

Valkyrie smiled politely, "I know, I'm Val-" She stopped anxiously, then, seeing him look confused, she blurted out her birth name. "I'm Stephanie Edgely." She laughed nervously.

Lorcan laughed with her, highly amused by her. Valkyrie started to get annoyed. What was he laughing at?

"Look, my parents aren't ready to pick me up yet, so I was wandering you could show me around the city?"

Valkyrie didn't know what to say. The boy stood before her smiling sweetly, which to her annoyance made her heart beat wildly. She decided she couldn't say no to that smile.

With a shrugged, she said, "Why not?"

"You sure?" Lorcan seemed happy.

"Yes, my parents are still at work, so I guess they won't miss me for awhile."

Lorcan's smile grew even wider, "Thank you, it's just I need to know my way round."

He and Valkyrie started moving the opposite direction Valkyrie was going, and she noticed that they were passing the two men at the trees.

"Where shall we start?" Asked Lorcan as he clapped his hands with excitement. Valkyrie smiled at this enthusiasm, maybe he wasn't such a weirdo after all. She tried to act casual as they walked across the park while she felt the two eyes bore into her back.

"Can I asked you something, Lorcan?" Valkyrie stared at her enfolded hands, nervously.

Lorcan stopped in his tracks and looked at Valkyrie, with a small crooked smile on his lips. "Depends what it is first."

Valkyrie rolled her eyes, and crept closer to him, so he could hear her whisper. "You see those two men over there, under the trees."

Lorcan discreetly turned his head, "Yeah, the two in the hats?"

Valkyrie nodded, "Are they looking at us?"

Lorcan squinted and seeing they were looking at them, he raised his voice so they could here that he was annoyed.

"Yeah…yeah, they are looking at us." He exclaim excessively loudly.

Valkyrie elbowed him in the ribs.

"Shush!" She dragged themselves further away, so they could leave quicker.

When they were safely at the gates, Lorcan suddenly asked, "What was all that about?"

"I have no idea." Valkyrie lied. But she had an idea. Could it be the Warlocks? She didn't know, as soon as she shook Lorcan away, she would have to inform Skulduggery immediately.

"Shall we get started then?" Trying to change the subject, she started walking down the street, leaving Lorcan pondering on the spot.

"Hey, you're strange."

"What a nice compliment!" Valkyrie said sarcastically, as Lorcan followed at her feet as she carried on walking.

"No, I mean, you're different to all the others, like fascinating."

This made Valkyrie stop dead in her tracks this time and turn slowly behind her to face Lorcan.

"How do you know? You have only known me for five minutes and suddenly you are calling me fascinating!"

"I have seen you today, Stephanie. You keep to yourself, you have no friends but you don't care and there is something abut you that is…" he blushed, too embarrassed to continue.

"What?" Valkyrie forced him.

"…special." he finished, not looking at her.

That's it, he knows! Valkyrie panicked and dragged him somewhere private in a bus shelter.

"Have you been stalking me all day?"

Lorcan laughed with himself, "I can see why you might think that, but-"

"You've been staring at me all day, and I want to know why?"

Lorcan was taken aback by Valkyrie's aggressiveness. "Look, I was the same like you back in County Ross Common, I was an outcast just like you. I just feel that we have something in common. That's all."

Valkyrie sighed in frustration and then crossing her arms realising that she wasn't going to get rid of him. And she did enjoy the company, even though he was strange.

"C'mon then, do you want to experience Dublin or not?"

And with a huge smile Lorcan nodded and followed her.

"So, what was it like where you lived before?" Valkyrie asked Lorcan as they ate their ice cream, walking down the harbour. They had walked around together for almost two hours and Valkyrie realised that Lorcan was actually really cool. They liked the same music and both described their experiences in school, and how similar it was.

"It was…boring." Lorcan admitted.

"Do your parents like it here, in Dublin?" Valkyrie licked her ice cream.

Lorcan pulled a face, it was between bitter, angry and sad.

"I don't live with my parents." he said quietly.

Valkyrie bit her lip, and said apologetically to him, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know. But I thought you said you moved here with your parents. Who are you living with now?"

Lorcan laughed a bit at Valkyrie's mistake, casually waving it away. "It's fine. I've never known them. They died a very long time ago, before I even turned one year old."

Without thinking about it, she gently touched him on the arm. Lorcan looked at her, and quickly she let go, trying to hide her blush. Valkyrie wondered why she did that, she didn't mean to do that, she never usually been this affectionate. Like for example when she had hugged Ghastly. Suddenly she had became sensitive.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "about your parents, I mean."

Lorcan licked his ice cream, and waiting to finish swallowing it until he said, "I'm living with a great foster family, they wanted me to move with them to Dublin. I really think they're thinking of adopting me!" Valkyrie couldn't doubt that he was very excited and she smiled at him.

"Sure they will." She said reassuringly to him. Then remembered what he had said earlier, the Sanctuary.

"Er, you said your foster parents are working in a place called…Sanctuary?"

"Oh, the Sanctuary is just some rehab centre for homeless people. That's all."

Valkyrie sighed in relief silently. So he wasn't a Sorcerer. Shame, she was starting to like him.

"Sounds cool. I'm sure you and your family will love it here."

"Thanks, and sorry about before. You know, about that 'different' thing."

Valkyrie rolled her eyes, "Forget about it. Anyway, I am unusual."

They continued for a while making for the beach, and content of finishing their ice cream, enjoying the silence. Then, the last thing that Valkyrie would imagine Lorcan to say at that moment, he said.

"Do you believe in magic?"

Valkyrie almost choked on her mouthful of cream, which was stuck icily in her throat.

Seeing that she was choking, Lorcan tried to help her by patting her violently against her back. His face creased with worry.

Valkyrie thought how sad it was to be choking on ice-cream. Then it escaped her throat and she gratefully swallowed it down again with harder effort as she had a lump in her throat that had nothing to do with the ice cream.

"Are you okay?" he looked at her concerned.

Valkyrie nodded, coughing silently. "Yes, just wasn't concentrating that's all."

Lorcan frowned, "Thinking about those men?"

Valkyrie actually wasn't but the moment he mentioned them made Valkyrie even more intense.

"Yes." She lied.

"Who are they? MI6?" he tried to laugh it off so to cheer Valkyrie up, but Valkyrie knew that they were even worser than the MI6.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." She said quietly. It wasn't her intention to say it out load for Lorcan to hear, but he did, and stopped in his tracks, holding an arm out to her to stop her too.

"Go on, try me." His deep blue eyes stared intensely and questionably into her own. She starting to shrink back, intimidated by his eyes.

"It's none of your business." Valkyrie shrugged pass him, annoyed by his fuss in her personal life.

Lorcan bit his lip, and apologised to her, "Look, I'm sorry. You've only known me for five seconds. If I go like that again, can you tell me?"

Valkyrie stared at his face and couldn't help but fall for his puppy dog-like eyes. But she said rather amused, "Yes, I could hit you if you like?"

"Yeah, like you could?" He answered sceptically.

Valkyrie posed her fists up and crouched, "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough." She pronounced Tanith Low's famous catchphrase.

Lorcan laughed, and shook his head, but seeing Valkyrie's determination to prove him wrong, he crouched too, his fists raised.

Just when Valkyrie was about to take a swing, she heard a beep of a car behind her, and both Lorcan and her stood up straight and turned to the sound. Up on the harbour was a car Valkyrie recognised.

A Bentley.

Valkyrie's face spread into a huge grin. She suddenly turned back at Lorcan. "It's time for me to go now. Are you okay for a lift?"

"Yes, my mum knows where the beach is. I'll call her now."

She started her way up until she thought of something. "Hey, do you want my number?"

"Yeah, alright." he smiled.

She quickly read it aloud to him. Leaving Lorcan where he was, admiring the car, she ran up the cobbles of the beach and up to the car. She found a man with bright red, wiry hair, very skinny, big round sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around his bottom half of his face.

"Skul!" Valkyrie walked around the car to face him. "About time, what happened?"

With Lorcan still standing on the beach, Valkyrie was alone with Skulduggery, but he didn't reply.

"Skul?" Valkyrie stepped closer, her brow creasing.

Then suddenly without warning, Skulduggery raised his gloved hand, and ranked his scarf off, but his skull wasn't underneath the scarf.

Instead, the head belonged to Billy-Ray Sanguine. The cowboy Valkyrie had encountered on few months earlier.

Valkyrie tried to run but he reached his hand out and grabbed her arm.

Before she could scream out for Lorcan-by this time he was facing the sea, minding his own business like Valkyrie had told him to do earlier-Sanguine placed his hand over her mouth, and to Valkyrie's horror, he held a napkin, which had chloroform, or a similar chemical in it. Valkyrie tried to struggle against it but it was too late.

As soon as his hand was over her mouth she went unconscious, and the only thing she saw was black.