Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Corrival – Pa

Chapter 87

The three days later, the sky was full of sunshine and a spattering of rain, making half rainbows in the distance. With the Spiders now hiding elsewhere, Tesseract in the highest security prison in the world and Craven disappearing for the foreseeable future, they had been placed back on normal missions with any leads of the former things taking priority, assuming they came up.

It was kind of anticlimactic. The Spiders and Necromancers had set them up for a big chase and fight but disappeared. The Necromancers, the cowards, had stopped when they realised their leader was dead and the one they asked to replace him had tricked them all.

Being several days later, though, did give them one new thing to do. They had received a call from Kenspeckle so now they were here to see how Melancholia was doing.

Valkyrie walked ahead of the others and saw the girl was sitting up in bed. She had a frown on her face, but it was her eyes that gave away how lost she was.

"Hey," Valkyrie said softly, walking to her side. She got glared at. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. I want to go home," Melancholia hissed.

"Err, actually, I have to tell you some news," Valkyrie said. "Has Kenspeckle told you anything that happened, why you're here?"

"No," Melancholia said grumpily.

"Craven was telling everyone you're the Death Bringer and wanted me and you to fight. We did but when you threw me into a wall they started arguing and you held my hand and I knew something was wrong. Not just because you were acting weird, but you were looking pretty bad. So, I brought you here for treatment."

"You should have left me at the Temple!" She said loudly. "Why did you bring me here, you nimnit?"

"You couldn't stay at the Temple because I knew Craven could get to you there and I believed he had done something awful to you. Once I brought you here, he told everyone that you're the saviour and that I had tortured you and kidnapped you and another girl. I didn't, but they didn't exactly ask me, they just decided to try and kill me. And then Craven let the Children of the Spider into the Temple and they killed the High Priest and all the Clerics and destroyed the place when we tried to get them out. There isn't a Temple, a Priest, Clerics, anything. All the Irish Necromancer's are dispersing to other places."

Melancholia stared at her in shock. "Cleric Craven wouldn't do that," she whispered.

Valkyrie leaned against the bed frame and tried to look friendly. "Melancholia, I need to ask you something. What happened before Craven made us fight? What did he do to you?"

"Cleric Craven didn't do anything to me," she whispered, still thinking over what Valkyrie said.

"Then how did you get so ill? You've been in an induced coma for five days, the doctor said you were on deaths bed. What happened?"

She had a faraway look in her eyes. "Nothing."

Valkyrie nodded. "Alright. I'll get Solomon to talk to you about your future."

"I want to go home," she said angrily, snapping to her version of reality.

"Of course."

She left Melancholia there and found Kenspeckle and Crow in the other room. "Valkyrie. Finished attempting to get her to talk?"

"She's got a mental block," Valkyrie informed him, though she knew he knew.

"Precisely. I was just asking Skulduggery if he could send someone who could look through it without breaking it," he said, glaring at Crow.

"I will make a call," Crow said after a moment.

When he was gone, Valkyrie asked Kenspeckle, "Why not remove the block?"

He sighed. "Valkyrie, when I assessed her, I found dozens of broken bones, cuts, signs of torture. Her magic had an enhancer that was using her physical health to keep active. I had to give her a new kidney to keep her alive. I know how much of the damage was caused, but I cannot tell you who did it. She is healthy, but if you reveal the memories to her, she'll likely go insane. She's not capable of coping, as she showed you when she asked for help."

Valkyrie nodded, knowing he was right.

The man who would do the job couldn't come for a few hours but agreed to tell them the results by phone the next day.

.*****.

The call about Melancholia was difficult but informative. They knew all the horrors, but putting a name to the ones who did it to her was hard to think about because the names made it feel more real.

"It was Craven that took her to a lower level room," the Sensitive told them through the phone. "There were already seven Children of the Spider there and someone hired to put a block on her mind with blonde hair and green eyes, tan skin, and they left before the Spider's started torturing her. They did it all through the night, and then they left and more came in to heal her enough to survive. She slept through the day and I believe it was at that time Craven also left and began telling the High Priest that he suspected the girl is the Death Bringer to divert his attention."

"And she didn't wake up until Craven took her to fight me?" Valkyrie asked.

"No, she did not. She also still remembers nothing."

Crow thanked the man and they hung up. "Informative, but useless," he sighed. "The Sensitive he described, the one that put the block on her mind, we may be able to find him."

Valkyrie nodded, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "You think he'll try and leave the country?"

"I know so. That man is most likely Noirette Paine. He specialises in torture and confidentiality. He puts blocks on his own mind so strong other Sensitives have trouble getting past them. It's said even he can't remember the mages he works for," Crow said, leading the way out their Sanctuary office. "But he's been arrested before."

"Could they charge him?"

"In the past it was hard," he admitted, "because he would put blocks on all the people he worked with and himself, so they remembered his name but never what he did. Getting a Sensitive to actually see a crime was incredibly hard, so putting him away was too. But we keep a file of all those that say they knew him anyway."

She nodded and sulked all the way down to the Mystical File Room. He opened up the door and she sneered at all the cabinets. "I hate this place."

"This room holds the most important records we have to aid us in fighting evil and keeping ourselves prepared for attacks," Crow said, going to the cabinet he needed immediately. He looked in it for a full minute before pulling out the correct one. "Here. Noirette Paine. A two hundred and something mage from California with a reputation for blocking the minds of all around him."

She gasped suddenly. "That's it! That has to be why Marr was having trouble telling us stuff and she couldn't remember who she worked for."

"Exactly," he said, reading through the report. "It doesn't mention Marr ever reporting having met the man before she came here and got involved with The Torment. In fact, it doesn't mention any complaints at all in the last thirty-two years."

"So, either he's been really good, or really good at being bad," she said. "I'm imagining the latter."

"I agree," he said and slotted the file back. "I'm impressed he let the block weaken at any point for our Sensitive to see him, however. That is very out of character."

"Maybe he was just really confident she would die," Valkyrie suggested. "So he didn't use all his powers on her."

"It is a possibility, but I doubt the Spiders would have told him what they planned to do with the girl," he said.

"If he specialises in blocking torture, then it would make sense he could guess, though, right?" She said, and he nodded as they went to the car. "Wouldn't it make sense he assumed she'd be killed and now that she's on her way to one of the American Temple's she'll be in danger?"

"A possibility," Crow agreed. "However, if I remember correctly, and I'm always correct, Paine is a coward and as soon as he heard you saved Melancholia's life and there was a manhunt, he would have used the distraction to leave the country."

She sagged. "So he's gone then. It's been days, he could be anywhere in the world by now."

"Exactly. Which is why we're doing something else." He got in the car and so did she and they set off. "I realise we haven't visited Finbar in a while."

"No, we haven't. Has he seen something?" She asked.

Crow shrugged. "Honestly, I think I'm more concerned we haven't had a call about all these things happening. He usually Sees. We actually need to inform him Paine may have put a block on him."

She sighed when she sat in the Bentley. "This is tough sometimes," she said. "I don't like telling people bad things like this."

Crow hummed as he started the car and began driving. "That's why we have to appreciate what we do have. Our family."

"I do," she said quietly.

He didn't say anything for a long minute. "I wanted to talk to you."

"About?"

"Well, about you. About you growing older and–"

"Crow, Skulduggery, please, no, don't do this," she said, raising her hands. "I don't need this talk."

"I just want to say, you are a beautiful young woman and I'm very proud of you."

"Thank you."

"And I understand that you are getting older."

"No thank you."

"And that you were recently dating a Militsa."

"No, I wasn't."

"And that's what I want to talk about. You didn't date her. You're only sixteen," he said, patting the wheel nervously. "At your age, it's okay to mess around, you're young, it's encouraged even, but I just don't want you to think that because one relationship went wrong you can't have another long-term relationship."

"I know that," she said, a blush blooming purely out of embarrassment for him. "And it's not as if anything even happened between me and Militsa, so it's fine."

"I'm just worried about you," he said kindly.

"Please don't be," she said into her hands.

There was a long pause in the conversation before Crow began again. "Are you going to see Militsa again?"

"Yes," she said reluctantly. "I'm going to tell her I want to talk to Nadia again."

"You do?" He said, surprised.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I love her. Still. I want to see her again, even if just so we can talk. I can't exactly have Militsa stringing along if I'm doing that."

"No, I suppose not," he said. "Well, I'm glad you've come to a decision."

"Me too," she smiled.

They got to Finbar's tattoo parlour in the evening, shutting off the Bentley and going into the shop quickly to avoid the gaggles of teen boys getting drunk with their mates for the first time.

"Skulman!" He cried happily when they came in. "Val! It's so good to see you!"

Valkyrie glanced at the man sleeping on the table. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, him? Yeah, man, he's just tired, you know?" Finbar said.

"Why did you tattoo a smiley face on him?"

"Oh, no, I didn't do that," he said. "He came in like that. I tattooed this puppy on him."

He pointed and Valkyrie saw the man's calf had a little white baby poodle tattooed on it. "I see," she nodded.

"Hey, man, I'm sorry," he said, looking over at Crow who was standing patiently. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Yes, in fact, there is. Can we go into the back?" Crow asked, and they went in there. It was messy but not as awful as it had been when she was younger. Sharon, Finbar's wife, would come over occasionally with their child and clean as payment for a tattoo or money while Finbar played with his son. They sat around the table. "Finbar, I have to be honest. I have a feeling there's something wrong with you."

He nodded slowly. "Okay man. What do you think is wrong?"

"I think another Sensitive put a block on your mind. Have you heard of Noirette Paine?"

Finbar flinched back and took a breath. "That's not a name you want to hear," he said, shaking his head. "Why do you think he's been here?"

"I believe that he's been blocking your visions. I don't think you couldn't have not had a vision of the Temple coming above ground, or of the Spider's attacking. You are always the first to See, and you're also a friend of mine, so I suspect Paine was sent to make sure you didn't remember any visions involving the Spiders."

"That's deep man," he nodded. "I guess I'm gonna have to get checked out, huh? I don't want some other guys block in my mind getting in the way, you know? Gives me the hibijibis just thinking about it."

Crow told him the name of the Sensitive that they had spoken too earlier that had helped Melancholia and then they left him there with his sleeping client.

Agghhh!