Entry #16: Written July 10th
Dear Diary,
Alright, insane things. Here we go. We left off with human Skulduggery darting away, leaving us in the dust, and him to go beat up the bad guys.
Fletcher and I just sat there, tapping our feet. We remained like this for a little bit longer; I'm not really sure how long we were sitting there. But there was suddenly this enormous BOOM sound that rocked and shook the cell and everything around us. A few stones from the wall fell out and landed a few feet away from us. There was another BOOM that sounded through the whole place, breaking a few stones on the wall from their place and smashing on the cold ground. A few pieces hit Fletcher and I. Nothing happened for a long time, but there was another sound that filled the hallways, and it was like fingernails scratching across chalkboard.
"This is giving me a headache," Fletcher moaned.
I patted his leg with mine. "Well, we'll be out soon, I promise. Someone is going to get over here to get us."
He nodded lazily. "Yeah, wake me when that happens," he said.
"How can you sleep where there are essentially earthquakes going on above us?"
He shrugged and replied, "I don't know. I'm just really tired."
"Whatever you do," I said, "don't die, alright?"
Fletcher chuckled from beside me, and he went still after a little while, and I heard his breathing even out and shallow. After a bit, I heard a large group of people charging down the hallway. I watched as the torches suddenly lit up, illuminating the corridor. Six or seven Sand Men ran by, all of their faces incredibly distressed. Ten French Sanctuary agents zoomed past us, chasing the Sand Men, holding giant cartons of clear and brown liquids. I detected the strong smell of alcohol in the air as they were all running by. I rattled my chains to get someone's attention, but they had all gone off by then. Fletcher woke beside me, grumbled something that was probably an insult to me, and then stared at the wall.
Maybe half an hour later, another group of Sand Men flew by, and they were followed by Madame Gabs and Monsieur Spar. They both had milk cartons full of not milk. They stank of alcohol like the other people that ran by.
"It's them!" Madame Gabs shouted as they ran past, and I assumed that she meant Fletcher and I. There was a loud static-y sound that sounded in the hallway, and people were shouting in French.
Some time passed after this, and I began nodding off. But suddenly, Fletcher began poking at my leg with his foot.
"Look, look," he whispered.
I stared as hard as I could at where he was looking at, and I thought I saw the cell door rattle around a bit. Very quiet footsteps resounded on the stone floors, and I frowned as the keys on the wall began to magically lift into the air.
But then, it clicked.
"Monsieur Rhett!" I shouted happily.
"Shh!" the invisible form of him said. "This is a quiet operation."
"Besides those giant explosions from above," Fletcher grumbled.
"Well that was necessary for what we had planned," Monsieur Rhett replied, swinging the cell door open and turning visible again. He undid my cuffs and then Fletcher's. "Alright, Monsieur Renn, you need to take Mademoiselle Cain and teleport to your room at her villa. There's a picture of the spot where you need to teleport next to laying on the bed. Can you do that?"
Fletcher nodded and held out his hand to me. I gripped it and we teleported.
We ended up in his room at the villa, and we both suddenly doubled over in pain. My wrists and ribs ached so terribly bad, and the arrow wounds in my limbs stung with pain. Fletcher couldn't move his arms or breath right without wincing in pain.
"The regenerating cells!" I moaned out. He gasped in pain and nodded, then grabbed the picture of the next spot. It was a picture of a green field, with a red X on it. Writing on a piece of paper said to teleport to that X in that field. He groaned loudly and reached for my hand weakly and I blinked, and then we were at the X.
Fletcher collapsed onto the ground right then, and I stumbled around, but arms caught me. I looked up and noticed it was Doctor Jacques. He smiled weakly down at me and pressed lightly into my ribs that were still poking out. I shouted in pain and I felt another hand creep up and hold something to my mouth. The hand left my face and I heard rustling in the grass beside me, and Fletcher moaned something out. Lythia's voice responded to his moan, and suddenly, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, I was at Doctor Jacques' place. I grumbled and brought my hand to my face.
"Good morning, sunshine," a voice said.
My eyes popped open. I tried sitting up, but a cold hand pressed me down and pulled the blanket up farther.
"Is Fletcher alright?" I moaned.
"Yes," they said.
"Is that you, Skulduggery?"
"Indeed," Skulduggery replied. "Fletcher's asleep still in the bed over there." He pointed to the side, where Fletcher was lying in a heap in the bed.
I turned back to Skulduggery and frowned. He was back to being a skeleton. One arm was propping his jaw up, while the other one was swinging lazily over the armrest. His disguise was folded neatly at the foot of the bed.
"You're back to normal," I mumbled sadly.
"Technically, this is not normal."
"For all of society it isn't, but it's perfectly normal for me," I shot out.
He shrugged. "A valid point."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm a little upset at having a chance at the human thing, then it disappearing the second I step out of the Nottingham's place. I'm happy that you're alright, though."
"That is always a plus for my to survive," I said. "What's today?"
He paused to think of it. "I think it's July the fourth."
"What?" I shouted. "I've been kidnapped for weeks?"
"We worked so hard to try and find you, but it was virtually impossible," Skulduggery said sadly. "Mademoiselle Robin was barely able to find the basic location of their hideout. They had very advanced spells protecting their property."
"Dear God…So how did you eventually find where it was?"
Skulduggery shifted around in his chair uncomfortably. "First, Mademoiselle Robin tried tracking Monsieur Snuggles collar that showed where he was, but we found that it had been tossed into the English Channel, so that was a bust. We then tried tracking the patterns that the gargoyles' wings made as it flapped away with you using some crazy waves and radios. I didn't understand a thing of it. But point is, it totally didn't work. Next, we tried finding your cell phone, which actually worked. We could just barely see the signal it was giving off on some fancy virtual map that Mademoiselle Robin had created. It was deep underground, about twenty miles from Paris. Monsieur Spar and myself sped out there quickly with a few little gadgets that Mademoiselle Robin had pressed onto us.
"One of the little things we had helped find your cell phone signal better, and we found that it was located below ground at some exact little location. We headed back to the Sanctuary with our findings, and we were informed that Madame Gabs had shut herself inside her room/office thing to think of a plan. Mademoiselle Robin was inside with her, while Monsieur Rhett was busy vacuuming up some sand that had miraculously ended up there."
"See!" I shouted. "It gets everywhere!"
Skulduggery laughed and continued. "He was vacuuming while drinking, which posed to be difficult. Lo and behold, that yes, he spilled his beer onto the sand pile, but the pile began to bubble and sizzle and turn incredibly acidic. We soon discovered that alcohol counteracts with the Sand Men."
"So is that why Fletcher and I saw those Sand Men being chased by Sanctuary agents who stank of alcohol?"
"That would explain it."
One mystery down, Diary!
"Anyway," Skulduggery said, "we tried to get into Madame Gabs' office, but she would only let Monsieur Spar in. He left Monsieur Rhett and I to play with more sand and alcohol by ourselves. Finally, after a few hours, Tanith, Ghastly, and China showed up. They said that Mademoiselle Robin had called them and told them to get down there. Madame Gabs appeared out of her office and dragged us all in there. That's when she told us of her plan.
"The plan was in multiple stages and required for everyone to know their part perfectly. For starters, Monsieur Spar would ask a friend to let us borrow a drill."
"A drill? Like…one to drill in screws?"
"I'm talking like drill so big that we could get down deep underground to find you two."
"That's a really big drill." Yeah. Okay. That's what she said. Fine.
Skulduggery laughed once, and I glared. "Right. Continuing. Monsieur Spar's friend drove it over to the field where we found your cell phone signal and we just stuck it into the ground and let it go on and on for a few hours. Mademoiselle Robin's modified cloaking sphere kept us hidden from the French citizens that were wandering around in said field. Once we reached down underground by a couple hundred feet, myself and a few other agents descended into the hole. We spread out and went searching for your cell phone signal. One person found your phone, but I found you."
"And then you left us to rot there in the cell," I replied cheekily.
He shrugged. "It worked out easier that way. But when I left you two afterwards, I found a set of stairs and climbed them and found a huge cavern where the gargoyles were kept. Using a few little bombs, I threw them onto the ground, which made the gargoyles stomp around and shake the whole place."
"So that's what kept rocking the whole place?"
"Yes, and a few gargoyles were scarping their claws against a metal table, which would explain the terrible nails-against-chalkboard sound you probably heard."
"Yeah, and boy was that terrible."
Skulduggery chuckled and shifted again in his chair. "Anyway, after that, Neva, Gautier, and Colette came down to see what was going on, and they were not pleased. They tried to kill me, but I had cast a force field type spell right before. It was something that Tanith taught me, which helped. As this was going on, a group of Sand Men burst through the door, and they were being chased by Group 1, who had gallons of alcohol on hand. A few were hit with a lot, and they disintegrated. Madame Gabs and Monsieur Spar popped up after that and got rid of the guys they were chasing.
"While we were fending off them, Monsieur Rhett had gotten to you guys and broken you out. The rest you know."
"Wow. That's quite a strange plan."
"Madame Gabs said it was the best she could come up with on such short notice," Skulduggery replied. "She seemed annoyed that you two got kidnapped."
"Yeah, it's so my fault."
Skulduggery laughed and patted my hand. He sighed and said, "About that…uh…"
"Kiss?"
"Yeah, that. I-I'm not really sure why I did that, but I'm sorry for it."
"Don't apologize for it," I whispered. He sighed again and leaned in closer. "Don't apologize," I muttered softly, and I thought for an instant we were going to kiss again, but Fletcher suddenly woke up. Skulduggery pulled away sharply, an apologetic look on his face, if that was possible.
"Oh hey there," Fletcher said and stretched. He tried sitting up, but Skulduggery told him to lie still; Doctor Jacques wanted us to rest.
After this, Skulduggery and I just stared at each other awkwardly, and he was ushered out of the room by Lythia, who came in to check on us.
Okay so! This officially ends my kidnapped experience! The next entry will detail what's actually happening right now. Nothing has really happened over the days that I've been writing this, so that's convenient. Maybe we can keep it that way…
Skulduggery confuses me.
~Valkyrie
Thanks for reading and sorry for mistakes! :D
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