Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 44 - Released

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

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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."