Valkyrie was met at the door of Ghastly's shop by Tanith offering a helping hand to her. Valkyrie reluctantly took it, not wanting to be babied, and was led to the couch at the back of the shop. "How are you feeling?" Tanith asked.
Valkyrie sighed. How often will she be asked that in the next twenty-four hours? "Fine, just a bit stiff is all," she replied kindly, they were only being polite. Ghastly joined them and handed Valkyrie some tea which she wrapped her cold hands around for warmth.
"So now that we are all here, what is our plan of attack? Surely we have to come up with something now. It's becoming an out of hand situation," Ghastly said as he sat. "Oh, and good to have you back," he added with a warm smile. Valkyrie couldn't help but love Ghastly. He was a beautiful man who knew exactly how to treat her. Sure, at first they had a rocky start but when she finally proved herself he was more than friendly.
"Thank you," Valkyrie replied. "As for a plan of attack I am probably the last person to ask. I'd never heard of Alistair until a couple of days ago so I wouldn't even know where to begin," she admitted.
Tanith sighed. "We need to get him soon. If he's now turned to killing sorcerer's just to lure you two out then I believe we need to have a fairly decent plan."
Skulduggery remained silent though his mind was quite the opposite. He hated plans and when he came up with some they never turn out the way they're supposed to but they were right, they needed a plan. So while his head conjured up many plans, most involved torture for the pain he inflicted on Valkyrie, one particular plan came out of his mouth. "He's trying to lure us out so we do the same."
"How do you suppose we do that?" Ghastly asked.
"I have two options. One, Valkyrie sits herself out in the open. Somewhere where it's not obvious we are setting him but quiet enough that he will go after her. If he has his lackeys capture her then we follow them. As much as I hate the idea of leaving Valkyrie alone and getting captured, he seems to have taken an interest in her so it could be our only way. My second option is that we stage a case," Skulduggery continued as the others looked at him confused and curiously. "So we make it a major event, a case so shocking it will turn into fast gossip among the sorcerers. Our actions as detectives are also talked about. 'They're going to investigate at so-and-so place at so-and-so time.' That way Alistair will know exactly where we are and try to ambush us. We have back-up ready and we capture him. Simple," Skulduggery shrugged.
"Yeah," Valkyrie muttered. "Simple."
"It's a complicated plan but a necessary risk we will need to take. He needs to be captured and so far these are our only plans, it's worth a shot," Ghastly agreed.
Tanith nodded. "It's all we've got, I say we do it."
"Which plan?" Valkyrie asked.
"We could try the first one and if that fails we can just do the second one, no harm done," Tanith replied.
"Okay," Valkyrie said slowly. "So when exactly am I playing bait?"
Skulduggery looked at her. "You know I don't like this plan," he protested.
"I know," she replied. "It's all we've got and I'm fine with it."
Skulduggery sat back and bowed his head, unhappy that this is how they planned to get Alistair and that it was his idea. He had to admit that if it were anyone else's plan, he'd have protested immediately and tried to think of a new plan. He could imagine China Sorrows being the one to have a plan that used Valkyrie as bait.
"So it's settled then," Ghastly said. "When are we doing this?"
"How about Monday?" Tanith asked. "Val still needs to heal but we need to do this soon. Monday is three days so it's soon and Val can at least let her stitches settle in a bit."
Valkyrie nodded. "Sounds good."
Everyone was silent as if they'd just agreed to murder each other.
"Well, what do we do now?" Tanith broke the silence.
"I don't know about you two but I'm taking Valkyrie out to lunch," Skulduggery announced.
"You are?" Valkyrie asked, her brows furrowed with confusion.
"Yes. Well, unless you don't want to. I could take back to the mansion. Or, you know, you could just come to lunch considering I already went to the trouble of booking a table. I actually had to talk to people, Valkyrie, it was so difficult."
"But you like talking," Valkyrie said.
"Ah, yes I do but not to strangers over the phone."
"Sure you do."
"Fine, whatever, but you're still having lunch with me," he finished.
"What?" Valkyrie scoffed. "A lunch you can't eat?"
Skulduggery put a hand to his rib cage, where his heart should of been, and tilted his head. "Ouch," he mocked.