Well… this is longer than I thought. I apologise for any mistakes, I've been writing this all night with breaks and cannot be bothered re-reading. I figured it will be better to simply upload before I go and leave it another countless amount of weeks to upload again.
Valkyrie hadn't intended to be out for so long. It was supposed to only be a short walk, a refresher, to clear her mind. She realised she had slightly overreacted, but she was still mad. It didn't matter now though. The chains wrapped around her wrist burning into her skin reminded her that she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Yes, that was only supposed to be short walk indeed.
She figured it would be dark outside by now, but time probably passed by slower when you are chained to a chair. "What kind of chains are these? The way they make my skin melt really are a gamechanger for kidnappers, aren't they?" Valkyrie asked.
"They ain't mine," Sanguine pushed off the wall, concealed in the shadows of some desolate warehouse.
Valkyrie shrugged and winced as soon as the hot chains moved against her skin. "Oh, is there some club where all you bad boys get together and trade torture devices?"
"Ladies are welcome."
"That's nice."
"I mean, I can bring you along some time if you like?" Sanguine smiled.
"You are acting like there really is a club. If you're serious I'm going to have to make you my least favourite bad guy."
"Darlin', I'm everyone's favourite," he said with a wink.
Valkyrie rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to shut Sanguine down until a set of metal doors screeched open.
XxXxX
Skulduggery, Tanith and Ghastly busied themselves in Gordon's kitchen making calls and formulating plans. "You're sure she isn't just going to come back later?" Ghastly asked.
"Come on Ghastly, we have been in her house for hours since she left. As much as you and everyone else don't trust her, she doesn't trust us all the same. I find it unlikely she'd leave us in here and not come back," Skulduggery replied.
"Guys," Tanith interrupted, "China's been trying to get on to you, Skulduggery. She heard Sanguine had been seen coming in and out of the old warehouse in Roarhaven that some vampires used to use that were rejected for the usual cells."
"Just Sanguine?"
Tanith shook her head, her expression a mix of concern and anger. "Dusk has been seen there just as often."
Skulduggery cursed under his breath and grabbed his coat, "Ghastly, can we take your van?"
"Of course. Will we need reinforcements?" He replied.
"If it's just Sanguine and Dusk we will be alright, but if they have more allies we may need the back up. Get a team on call if we need them."
XxXxX
"You don't know who I am," the man smirked. He was tall with pale skin, black hair and black attire, and contrary to his belief, Valkyrie did know him.
"Don't I?" Valkyrie replied. She chains continued to sear her skin, but she refused to show her pain. "I assumed you were Dusk, but I suppose I'm wrong. How foolish."
"How…?"
Sanguine laughed, "I told ya she was good. She's knowin' more and more, and bein' around that skeleton ain't helpin' our cause."
"You know me because of Skulduggery Pleasant?" Dusk asked.
"I know you because I know you," she replied. "Skulduggery Pleasant has only given me access to the people I already knew of, he hasn't done anything else."
Dusk laughed humourlessly. "And I suppose you're just another fan of the detective, fawning after him and following him around like a lost dog."
Valkyrie shrugged, and hot pain flashed up her arm. "Skulduggery found me," she said through gritted teeth. "He was sent by the sanctuary to work with me, I didn't want to at first."
"At first," he smirked. "Yet the detective has his ways, doesn't he?"
"You talk like you have experienced such things."
"I talk like I know how the skeleton has operated for years. You'll be dead before the end of the week. If I had my own way, you'd be dead by the end of the hour." Dusk snarled.
"Ah, charming. Well, we can't always have what we want now, can we?" Valkyrie taunted knowing it would get her in trouble, but it was also buying her some time to figure out how to escape.
Suddenly, she felt something simultaneously cold and hot strike her face.
"Did you just slap her?" Sanguine asked.
"The little girl doesn't deserve to go unscathed."
"The little girl also knows how to fight," Sanguine warned, "and has friends that know how to fight. Now I'm all about a challenge, but I'm man enough to admit that fightin' the detective ain't always gonna end well."
"Do you see him here?" Dusk asked. "Plus, it's almost night and I may have forgotten my medication."
Valkyrie stared at her arms. They were now a mixture of red, white and purple with blood spilling from sticky, open wounds. She knew she wouldn't be able to stand the burns much longer. She could feel the blood draining from her face and see her skin sweating from the hot chains though she felt cold. Then, as if on cue, her eyes slowly drooped shut.
XxXxX
"This is the warehouse China told me about," Tanith said as the van rolled to a stop. "We can't just go through the front door, we've got to find another way in."
Skulduggery disappeared around the corner. "I have found something," he said once he returned, hovering above them. "There's a broken window just around here we can fit through. It seems it will lead us to some kind of balcony on the inside. Maybe we will get a good vantage point."
Tanith scaled the wall and ran inside first while Skulduggery hovered by the window making sure they got inside quietly. Ghastly displaced the air around him and shot himself upwards. Immediately Skulduggery could hear the southern drawl of Billy-ray Sanguine. He seemed to be warning someone of Valkyrie's fighting abilities. The voice he heard next shouldn't have surprised him, but it did make things more complicated. "Do you see him here?" The voice said. Dusk was here too.
The look Tanith and Ghastly gave Skulduggery meant they knew Dusk was here. Ghastly pointed to his phone, questioning whether to call for back up or not, Skulduggery shook his head. The floor beneath them was old, creaky metal, to the left of them a staircase leading downwards. Skulduggery shuffled toward the edge of the balcony, staying low and unseen. Finally, Valkyrie was visible.
Skulduggery's phantom heart dropped. Her eyes were closed, and her skin was torn and bloody at her wrists. Had she passed out or was she faking it? Her head lolled to the side and Skulduggery knew she was definitely out.
"See?!" Sanguine said. "She's already hurt, you didn't need to slap her."
Skulduggery's hands balled into fists automatically, and in his peripheral he could see the anger in Tanith and Ghastly.
"The little girl deserved it. She's acting like a child."
"Look, I know you think she's all for the skeleton detective, but I'm tellin' ya he's gonna come for her. He's gonna protect her."
"Do you remember how long his previous partner lasted? He's going to throw this one away as soon as she's fulfilled whatever task he needs her for."
"Either way, we get her and we get to him."
Skulduggery, angry and feeling the need to punch someone, leapt over the balcony towards the warehouse floor. Ghastly cursed and followed behind, making sure Tanith did the same.
"Well," Skulduggery announced, "you got me."
Dusk turned sharply just as Skulduggery's fist connected with his face. He stumbled back, clutching his nose, but Skulduggery stalked forward. "Is anyone going to tell me why you kidnapped Valkyrie, or shall I keep hitting the vampire?"
"You think we are just going to tell fall and tell you?" Dusk grunted.
"Your call," Skulduggery said with a shrug and kneed him in the chest followed by a blow to jaw. Dusk shifted left and threw a right hook into Skulduggery's rib cage. Ghastly and Tanith separated, one ran for Dusk and the other rushed at Sanguine, but it was too late.
"Stop or her pretty little head gets it!" Sanguine yelled. Sanguine was crouched over Valkyrie's body, limp in the chair, with his infamous straight razor to her throat.
XxXxX
Valkyrie's eyelids fluttered open and she gained consciousness once again. She could hear before she could see and all she heard was the sound of fighting coming to a halt as her body was jolted back, the chair going with her.
Then there was a familiar, soothing velvet voice. "Why are you doing this?"
Doing what? She wondered. She felt a cold piece of metal pressed against her throat. Did they put the chains around her neck when she passed out?
"We are sendin' a message," Sanguine laughed. Valkyrie flinched, his voice was uncomfortably close, and it was almost as if she could feel his breath on her shoulder.
"To who?"
"You and all your do-gooder buddies at the sanctuary. We all heard about this here pretty lady long before we found out you two were comin' together bein' partners and all. She was picking off some of our friends like they were nothin' but pestering flies. So, we find out you two are workin' together and… well, we ain't sitting on the sidelines while you get your thrill lockin' us all up. We are all still here detective, and we are gonna get you." Sanguine brushed aside Valkyrie's hair and smiled at her neck. "And now we have another one to have fun killin'."
"You hurt her, and I'll make sure you don't live to see another day."
"There's a knife to my throat, isn't there?" Valkyrie murmured.
"Yes darlin', yes you do," Sanguine replied.
Valkyrie felt a part of her darkening, like her soul was being dampened by shadows and casting her out of her own mind. Suddenly, the feeling drifted away as quickly as it had come, leaving her even more dazed than before. Her skin was still sizzling under the heat of the chains, but she couldn't feel it anymore. She felt Sanguine's arm around her freeze and the razor dropped. She looked down at the razor to see a shadowy tendril connected to the razor's handle as if it were holding it in place. In her ear she heard choking sounds and more dark tendrils leaked out of… her body? She heard a girl laugh and it sounded like her own laugh, but this wasn't a funny situation. Then she heard a voice, you'll thank me later, it said. It sounded like her own voice.
All at once, the shadows disappeared, Sanguine was gone from Valkyrie's side, and her mind cleared from all of the confusion. Tears fell from her eyes as the pain flooded back to her nervous system, but she was angry.
From her left she saw Sanguine stumble toward Dusk. "I don't particularly like you, but I think we should get out of here." He gripped Dusk's arm, but before they sunk into the ground he stared Skulduggery down, "We'll be back."
Valkyrie watched as a small sinkhole formed in the floor and they disappeared. "And I'll be back for you," she muttered before her eyes fluttered closed once again with the memory of burning flesh vivid in her mind.
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