Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 44

Tanith's POV

Tanith was at Valkyrie's mansion shaving her legs when her phone went off. Stilling the hand with the razor, she reached over and grabbed her phone. It was Skulduggery.

"Hello," she said, pressing the phone between her head and shoulder to continue her leg.

"She's missing," Skulduggery said immediately, emergency in his voice. "I can't find her anywhere."

Tanith knew he meant Valkyrie and threw the razor down. "When did you last see her?"

"This morning, in the Sanctuary medical ward, I had to stay. I sent her to the office," he explained. "Valkyrie?!" He shouted, and then there was the sound of a door slamming. "Damn. You need to get here now."

Tanith grabbed her trousers, looked at her foamy legs and nodded. "Be there in a moment."

After rinsing her legs and drying off in record time, she was dressed and at the Sanctuary as quickly as she could by bike after Fletcher didn't pick up his phone to take her.

Skulduggery was waiting for her. She'd been less than half an hour.

"You haven't found her yet?"

"No. I checked the CCTV, but there's nothing. All I know is that Crux wasn't meant to be here today but was. Guild gave him back power a few days ago strictly for paperwork to fill out the workforce, but he was meant to be off today. I think he wiped the cameras."

"What about witnesses, surely they saw her?" Tanith asked, following Skulduggery into the Sanctuary just as the sliding door was opened for them. It was in shambles, people looking all over, even under tables, for Valkyrie. There were boxes everywhere as they were preparing for the move to the new Sanctuary. It added problems though because although there were bare rooms, there was also a lot more hiding places between all the boxes.

"No one has come forward if they have," he said darkly, opening a door suddenly and making the occupants jump before moving on. "I believe they haven't seen anything, unfortunately. Valkyrie is well liked by everyone at the Sanctuary."

"She has that effect. What about Crux?"

"Hasn't been seen since he left Guilds office."

"What about Guild?"

"Doesn't care, still in his office. Elder Crow has done a sweep of the building and there are no recent deaths so I'm certain she's here. There's no way he could have gotten out with her, and she'd have never left with him," Skulduggery said. "We need to find Crux."

"Wait, how long has she been missing?"

"What time is it now?"

Tanith checked her phone. "Just after four."

"Then between four to six hours I estimate. I didn't know she was missing until two hours ago, she could be anywhere by now. I even checked the security cameras of the Museum and café opposite, I'm certain she hasn't left unless he took her out a secret passage, and he shouldn't know about those."

"I don't understand," Tanith said as they walked to where Tanith was certain Meritorious' office was. "There are Cleavers, people, everywhere."

"There was a distraction," he said as the Grand Mage came out of his office with a thunderous expression. "A gas leak at the north side of the Sanctuary had everyone busy for a while searching it out, all the Cleavers went to help victims. I suspect Crux sent some of them away too."

"Guild overstepped his authority," Meritorious growled. Tanith was keenly aware of Meritorious' reputation. "I'll be having words with him. Crux is considered fired if and when you can get the evidence he responsible for this. I want this sorted and Crux in shackles within the hour. This has gone on for too long."

.*****.

Valkyrie's POV

Valkyrie heard the slider on the door open. The man, Jerald Vanes, stood in front of it already. There had been noise before that. What was happening again?

Her head thumped painfully. She groaned. She felt a pressure on her leg, then a pain, and realised he was stepping on her ankle. Why? He was facing away from her.

He was talking to someone outside.

"H…" she breathed, trying to make a word. Trying to ask for help. "H…"

Nothing came out. Her head hurt. She closed her eyes for a moment.

What felt like an age passed and she opened them again. What was happening? There was a big noise outside. A fight? No, why would there be a fight? She was at home… no, I'm not, she made herself think. I'm in a cell. With a man. What was his name?

Her head was pounding so badly, everything hurt and felt wet. She was so gross. It was all her blood, and she was fairly certain she'd peed at some point too.

She groaned and tried to make out a word like she had before. Nothing came out but air. It was like her lungs had no force to them. She'd felt that before, like the time she'd fallen out a tree as a kid. Kids had called for someone to come help her and the florist, Mr Hagan, had called an ambulance. He'd put his hand on her body and made her uncomfortable. "H…" she tried again. "H… p… m," she tried, breathing the letters out. "H… p…"

She had no idea if anyone heard. Something dark flashed before her eyes and she closed them obligingly.

.*****.

Valkyrie woke again in a bed with a soft mattress. She groaned and breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the familiar scent of Kenspeckle's hospital ward.

She opened her eyes slowly and pulled her head up to look around. There was no one else around. She was in the normal ward, the one for watching over patients and minor injuries. No one else was about. She must have been there a while.

"Val?" Tanith asked, and Valkyrie noticed her suddenly standing by one of the doors. "Thank God you're awake! Kenspeckle!"

"Hey," she said weakly, her head falling back to the pillow. "God, what time is it?"

"It's three in the morning," Tanith said, standing next to her and stroking her hair. "You've been here three days."

"Three days?" She said unbelievingly. "What happened?"

Crow, Panda and Bear came in. Bear had several days of beard growth. The other two couldn't grow beards, but Panda and Tanith certainly still looked tired.

They explained that Crow had been released, or rather walked out of, the Sanctuary medic ward and not found her. After looking for her for half an hour, he'd checked the exits and the Cleavers on guard there and they reported she hadn't left. Then he'd found out about a gas leak on the other side of the Sanctuary and realised it had been a distraction. He'd called everyone to action and they searched for hours. By the time the man in charge of the cells had done a routine check, it was way past when it should have been due to the other searching. He'd heard sounds in a cell, checked it just in case she was in there and when the prisoner had turned on her to try and kill her while he had the chance, and they knew she was there.

"After questioning the prisoner, we found out you were in there for upwards of four hours," Crow said darkly.

"It would explain why I'm so achy," she said.

"You shouldn't be," Kenspeckle frowned, looking at a sheet. "I've given you more drugs than I ever have before. I thought you'd be high as a kite."

She shrugged. "I gained weight I guess."

He hmphed and wrote something down. "Do you want to know your injuries or not?"

She thought about what she remembered. "I think I hit my head a few times. He hit my head into the ground anyway. What happened?"

He put the notes down and crossed his arms. "You had multiple wounds to the head including a broken skull, and fractures in both cheekbones and the jaw, several broken ribs and shards of bones floating around and stuck in various muscles. Your leg was broken. Other than breaks, however, the damage was mostly bruising and popped veins which is, as you know, easily fixed by a genius like me."

She grinned at him. "Thanks for fixing me."

He gave her a rare smile. "You are a favourite."

He left to make some paste or another, and the five talked for a while about different things, mostly what had happened in the last few days, specifically Crux who was nowhere to be found.

Meritorious, who had personally helped pull Valkyrie from the cell when he walked passed the cell wing and saw Cleavers being thrown here and there after the prisoner overpowered the cell man, wanted to put Crow on the investigation to find Crux. Elder Crow didn't allow it, as he was too likely of killing the man and that wasn't Sanctuary policy. Crow had been honest and agreed, and others were put on the case.

He was still at large somewhere in the world.

"Why didn't you get my page?" Valkyrie asked when she was finished eating something gingerly. Having tubes pulled from her stomach through her nose had hurt.

"I did," he said from his place at the end of the bed. "But I didn't look at it. I never thought you'd page me, no one ever uses them. I didn't check it until you'd been found. I'm actually impressed you know how to use it."

"Oh," she said. "That's okay, I guess. I should get a spare phone for things like this. Oh, one of those old Nokia's. I had one as a kid. It was pink. I might still have it, I played Snake on it all the time."

"That's such a good game," Tanith commented.

"I know, right? I want a Nokia. And pain relief. Like, badly."

"I'm going to have to buy you something aren't I?" Crow said, sitting himself down. "To make up for the pager."

"I am not so materialistic, Crow," she sniffed. "You'll merely have to make me breakfast in bed for the rest of my life."

They had a relieved little laugh and Valkyrie was sent back to sleep.

Come midday, Valkyrie was awake and dressed for the day. She was off Sanctuary work for the next week while everything was sorted, and she recovered, but she didn't mind too much. When they returned home, there was another car in the driveway.

"That's Nadia's parent's car," Valkyrie said. "She didn't say she was coming."

"We informed her of what happened once you were stable at Kenspeckle's," Crow said beside her. "I assume you've spoken since?"

"Yeah, on Tanith's phone," she said. Panda was out getting her a new one at that moment. She'd search for her old Nokia later. "She was pretty worried."

"That's why she's here then," Crow said and they all got out the car.

They found Nadia and her mother in the living room with Fletcher. Nadia and Fletcher were talking awkwardly about her relationship with Valkyrie while Mrs Keena looked at him disdainfully. When Nadia saw she'd come in she jumped from her seat and practically flew at Valkyrie. "Valkyrie!" She almost shouted. "My God, I was so worried!"

Wolf jumped equally fast on Mrs Keena, distracting her with tea and lunch in the kitchen and the others made themselves disappear. Fletcher was bodily removed by Bear.

Valkyrie kissed Nadia deeply, holding her head between her two hands. Nadia kissed back desperately, and they only stopped when Valkyrie felt something wet on her cheeks and realised Nadia was crying.

"Nadia, no, don't cry," she whispered, holding her close. "I don't want you to cry."

Nadia laughed but that just opened up the way for her crying and gut-wrenching sobs escaped her. Valkyrie, having never really had to deal with people crying before, picked Nadia up and took her to the sofa. She pulled Nadia up to her hips and brought her knees up, wrapped her arms around her tightly and let her girlfriend cry on her shoulder. She whispered little things in her ear to help her calm and when the worst of it was over, she kissed her neck soothingly.

"It's alright now," Valkyrie said. "I'm fine. I will always make it back to you."

"You can't promise that," Nadia whispered.

Valkyrie sighed. "I guess not. But it means I will always try harder. I'll get stronger. I'll work harder. No one will ever hurt me that bad again, I swear."

Nadia squeezed her arm, so Valkyrie tensed it of course, which just started a round of giggling and kissing and Nadia touching Valkyrie through her clothes in the living room. She was so glad she had Nadia back in her arms again. It was almost worth the pain.

I'm just glad I didn't describe it this time! I feel like that was kind of quick, but remember she was in there for several hours. I suppose I couldn't take her being hurt for that long and had to get into the Nadia love bits. I'm a romantic sop, sorry. I did try!