Chapter 115

The drive was intense as Skulduggery told her things she should and shouldn't do or look out for while Nadia tried her hardest to remember it all but was so worried about the mission, as Skulduggery called it, that she wasn't retaining any of what he said.

They travelled for hours, Skulduggery only stopping once so she could go to the loo and get something to eat so she wouldn't, as he said, "pass out during the mission." She'd ignored his words but had used the loo and bought a sandwich which she put on the floor by her feet. She was far too stressed to eat.

The last hour of the ride, she thought over her plan and tried to memorise some of the map he'd drawn out and by the time they came to a jarring stop, she knew the map by heart which helped solidify some of the points she needed to remember.

"And you promise we can go to Kenspeckle's after?" She asked him, taking one last deep breath.

"I swear," he told her solemnly, holding out a hand. "Thank you, Nadia. You're the best shot we've got."

She took his hand lightly, barely even touching his fingers, and gave him the smallest handshake that hopefully let him know she didn't like any of what she was doing but understood she had to do it.

The first part of her mission was to travel to the town which was the other side of a large cluster of trees, too small to be a woods, but somewhat large. That took her half an hour. Then she was in a small town, which she had to go around, and that took the best part of forty-five minutes. By then, she had her personal plans down on what to do if bad things happened. Then was going across a farm filled with cabbages and corn which was the worst part because it had rained that night and she got covered in mud over the twenty minutes that took her, bringing it to the early evening. She could see the maintenance shed in the distance as Skulduggery had described it.

She could also see the seemingly abandoned and ruined castle that was essentially the top of a giant anthill. She could see between two hills the end of the sea where it met the sky in the far away distance.

Feeling her heart thud painfully, she walked carefully over to the maintenance shed, hunched behind a row of bushes, and looked around carefully before breaking the lock with a force of air in the mechanism and went straight in.

She held her breath at first, fearing she'd be immediately jumped on by Spiders, but when she clicked her fingers, she found the shed was blissfully empty. Just as Skulduggery told her, there was a bunch of rusted and old tools, and an extractor fan, a massive one with dust covering it. She didn't have much time until it was the evening, but she predicted another hour before the Spider's would be working since they lived nocturnally according to Skulduggery. Using the air, she blasted a hole in the dirt that acted as a floor and used her hands to dig out a hole around the tubing that would lead under the castle. Nadia shook her head, trying to imagine how Skulduggery could have possibly known where the vents and extractors where, before using some precision magic to make a large hole in the bend of the vent.

Some rats ran the opposite way.

Shivering and wishing she was at home, or Valkyrie's home anyway, she kicked off her mud-caked shoes, crawled into the hole and began army crawling in the narrow metal vent before she could talk herself out of this stupid plan. She'd do it for Valkyrie and her brothers. She'd prove she was strong enough to handle the pressure and save Solomon. So long as she didn't pass out with fear first.

The directions she had to take were very simple, so long as she kept to them and no one turned on any furnaces before she was done. She knew when she had reached the castle tunnels because the vent began to look rusty and she could see mesh and run off tunnels going to other parts of the building. As silently as she could, she shuffled along and passed the mesh hole in the vent, seeing nothing except a gentle flame on a desk.

Remaining just as silent, Nadia continued down the vent, seeing more and more mesh and grate holes light up and she knew she was cutting it close on time. There was a certain corner she needed to pass, and she was sure she should have been now by then but couldn't know in the dark. The little lights did nothing more than make her wary of the Spiders and other mages around her.

She found the corner she wanted quite suddenly, by banging her head against the corner of the vent pipe she was in.

It had a thudding noise and although she was in enough pain to cry, she bit her lip and listening carefully. No sounds were made. She hoped that meant no one heard her and, trying not to think of them coming to get her, she gently lowered herself, front first, down the curve.

Even with magic slowing her, the going down part was quick and she only stopped herself going squish by an inch.

Gently, she pulled herself so she was flat in the vent rather than curving with the pipe, and heard as motors began whirring as the extractor fans began being used for the forgers and other workers in the bowels of the tunnels. She had hoped to have passed them by then, but at least it wasn't hot yet. That would take several minutes. Her heart thudding like a drum, she crept quietly through the vent, warm air, dust and tiny metal flakes hitting her face as the extractor fans did their job. She didn't want to risk anyone noticing her magic, so she squinted her eyes and held her breath as she made her way through the big rooms. As she got to the end of the hallway, she heard voices, the first ones since she had begun, and carefully slowed down to avoid any noise whatsoever.

She didn't know who any of the people were, but she listened closely as she silently crawled above them.

"It's better to cut them off from their alliances," one mage was saying. "Without an alliance, the Sanctuary won't be able to call for help."

"Without the threat of help, other countries will move in," another, more rough voice, said. "We can't compete with the whole of the world."

"We can make them all hate Ireland though," a sly voice said. "We always have the problem of either alliances coming to help or having enemies try to take Ireland. But if we make Ireland look weak and incapable, we will be causing problems for the Sanctuary, and the alliances won't believe Ireland is worth helping because it makes them look back, but allows the Sanctuary to spend all their time keeping the enemies out rather than us."

"They may work together," the second voice warned.

"They will not," the first declared. "They hate each other too much. Mages have no loyalty whatsoever, even to their own people."

Nadia knew she should keep better concentration on what those Spider's wanted to do in order to take over Ireland, seeing as she had the opportunity, but she was more concerned with getting to Solomon and luckily, she was through the room those Spider's where in and could move into what Skulduggery had told her where the cells.

It was sooner than she thought but she had been in the pipes for at least forty minutes by then. She could feel her body sweating badly and her shoulders were shaking from the strain.

The holes in the vents where sparser and had thick metal bars covering them to keep them from being used in the way Nadia was, but there was meant to be one that had a grate over it that Skulduggery thought she could loosen. If not, she had to blast that too, but she was comfortable with her options despite the threat of death. Due to the many cells, the vent went in a loop, and Nadia chose to go to the left to try and find it, as Skulduggery had not been able to tell her the exact location.

There was no light in the direction she chose, and she didn't know what that meant, and without any air being used through the vent in these parts, she could taste the stagnant dust and something horrid that probably included rotting human waste and something infected. She could hear the rats though. Rats on the floor, scuttering around, others in the vents ahead of her. They were probably the only reason she hadn't been found out. She had to stop just to let a shiver run through her.

On the second curve of the square loop she made, she saw a dim light, so tiny she wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't so pitch black, but she knew that wasn't necessarily good. She crawled closer and heard whimpering as she did. She swallowed back bile.

Through a sealed, metal hole in the vent, she could see a single candle and not far from that, two men. One was dressed in black and she could see he was a Necromancer, and she had a mini heart attack before realising that the Necromancer was not Solomon. No, the naked man on the floor with red skin was Solomon. Pale, broken bones and bleeding on the dirt and stone floor, the shadows of rats scurrying around the men. The standing Necromancer must have been Craven, a man Valkyrie had told her about. He was torturing Solomon.

And if he found out she was there, he'd do the same to her.

She was so frightened Craven might notice her she didn't dare make a noise despite her awkward position. Craven moved beneath her, out of sight, and there was some scraping of metal on metal. His whispering voice cut the air. "I'm glad you're still alive," he said. Nadia could hear the grin in Craven's voice. "I've wanted you dead for a long time. It's only right I get to do the honours."

Oh no, Nadia thought. I can't fight a Necromancer!

"You've made a disgrace of Irish Necromancer's for centuries, and now you think partnering with Skulduggery Pleasant is acceptable? The Skeleton is our enemy. You were the one that told us to work against the Dead Men in the war. But now you have changed your mind in the most despicable way possible." Craven came back into view, his shadows swirling around his feet. "You're going to die here, Wreath. It's been four days. They're not letting Pleasant go. They're not even asking him where to find you. You're just as forgotten and pathetic as you were when he left you the first time."

Nadia flinched as Craven's hand suddenly shot out and the blade had sheathed itself in Solomon's stomach.

"It's not the way I would have wanted it. Not as public," Craven said as Wreath writhed on the floor, moaning and gurgling. "But it'll do. When your body is dumped on the doorstep of the Dead Men's house and it's reported to Pleasant – they'll know you're only a warning. The girl is next."

"Ng – ng –" Solomon gurgled, staring at Craven in the dim light. "Ng Val-gry."

"'Not Valkyrie'? Are you asking me to spare the girl her life?" Craven chuckled into the night. "Wreath, the rumours I told you of what happened to her in Grievers Down is only the beginning of what I'll do to her."

Getting progressively louder, Craven laughed and walked away as Solomon writhed on the floor and reached out to Craven, trying to use the last of his strength to get to the man. It was all for nothing, as Craven's footsteps faded and eventually his laughing did too.

With goosebumps on her arms, Nadia swallowed carefully and got her String out of her pocket and carefully wrapped it around one of the bars.

She rubbed it back and forth and it practically melted through the metal, giving her a boost of confidence even though she was shaking all over. She did all the top parts of the bars, and then carefully did the bottom, grabbing the bars before they fell and putting them off to the side. When she had a hole, she poked her head out, saw no one but Solomon with his eyes closed and breathing gaspingly, and shoved her arms out, then pushed herself headfirst from the vent. It was difficult and it pulled her trousers down a bit, but she got herself out and used the air to stop herself mid-air and land on her feet. She yanked the trousers back up and went to Solomon's side.

"Mr Wreath?" Nadia said very quietly. She put a hand on his cheek and felt how frozen it was. Solomon opened his eyes at her and she could see the recognition when his eyebrows went up. "Mr Wreath, I'm here to help you. I – I don't know how, but – but we need to leave, okay? Um, I –" she felt herself tear up. "Skulduggery sent me to get you, but I don't know what to do now I've found you. You can't stand. Can you?"

He drew in a gurgling breath. "Ca-gne"

"C – Cane? You mean your Necromancy item?" Nadia looked around them. "Um, it's not here. Mr Wreath, if I leave you I might not find you, or you might die. I can't find it. Oh god, this was a bad idea."

Shakily, he raised his arm and pointed at a cell door. She stood and looked through, and sure enough, half a stick was in there, black and barely visible in the light. She used her control of the air again and slid it from its resting place to where Solomon was on the floor.

He grasped it in his hand and she could immediately see shadows wrapping around him. She quickly rushed to his side, deathly afraid of being left there behind, and grabbed his upper arm, seeing as the rest of it was mangled and she didn't want to know what that felt like. With an ease Nadia hadn't expected, Solomon shadow walked them. So easy to leave, but with his cane locked away... Nadia knew that must have been a torture in itself.

Nadia looked around quickly when they had finished and saw they were outside, but still in the castle, the top, abandoned part. It had started to spit with rain and the sky was a dark orange as the sun set on the sea behind them. She laughed in relief, wondering if that was how Valkyrie felt after her missions, and then looked back at Solomon.

He looked a lot worse in the sun.

She almost panicked, not knowing what to do with a brutally tortured, bleeding, naked man with a knife in his stomach, but her head pulled her back to the time she had had her basic medical training at school, so she stood and used the air to pick Solomon up, although it was getting difficult to use her magic now she was so exhausted from everything else. Taking a deep breath, she directed Solomon's floating body in front of her, and started to jog across the field.

She got as far as the maintenance shed at the end of the field before she had to stop, breathing heavily and knowing she was done for if she couldn't keep going. Surely the Spider's knew something was up? How couldn't they? She just couldn't be sure because she knew nothing about tactics or keeping watch or anything like that. But in her head, she knew they had to have been someone around. So she surely only have a small amount of time left. And it took another twenty minute walk at a fast pace to get to the town.

She felt like crying, but kept moving, walking on shaky legs and hoping she could find something or someone that could help her. She should have known it was no use. Behind her, she heard a shout and saw a group of Spiders, maybe six of them, advancing steadily. They were already almost on her. Her heart skipped a beat and she nearly dropped Solomon.

One of the Spider's began transforming.

She screamed and tried to run, keeping Solomon in mid-air but wobbling up and down dangerously, running for their lives even though she was so exhausted she wasn't going at more than a jog and she could feel her sobbing tears falling from her eyes and making her stumble over the uneven ground. She just wanted to curl up in a ball and have her dad hold her until she was safe, or have Valkyrie jump in and save her as she had before.

She could hear as the Spider, in gigantic Spider form, caught up to her, jumped on its hind legs and –

She fell to her knees, screaming and crying for help, covering her face. But no pain came.

"It's okay," Fletcher said, putting a hand on her back. "You're safe now."

OH.

MY.

GOD.