Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 61 - Face to Paste

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

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Chapter 61

"Hello my beauty," Caelan said.

Valkyrie felt sick and had to stand up. "Where are you? Where's Nadia?!"

"I have an offer for you," Caelan said down the phone. "Would you listen? Good. Valkyrie, my love, I need to see you again. Forget about favours, I need to see you in the flesh once more. Meet me at Nadia Robin's house and we can talk. If you do, I'll let her go. If you don't, I'll assume you want me to kill her family. Make sure you come alone or I'll kill Robin then and there."

"Don't you–" He hung up before she could finish. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," Valkyrie cried, throwing the phone on her bed and walking in circles. She had to think of something, she had to do something. What could she possibly do though? She might have been trained by the best but she couldn't keep a vampire from killing any one of those three people, four including the stupid butler, and if she didn't make it in good time he might decide to kill them anyway! "Fuck!"

There was a knock at her door and Valkyrie jumped nearly a foot in the air. She quickly steadied herself and took a breath. "Come in."

Fletcher opened the door and looked at her in concern. "You okay? I heard you swearing."

An idea popped into her head. "I'm fine. Fletcher, I need your help. You need to keep a secret."

His eyes opened wide, but he came in the room and closed the door after himself. "What is it?"

"Caelan has Nadia and her parents at their house. I need you to take me to them."

"We should tell Skulduggery," Fletcher immediately said.

"He said to come alone or he'd kill Nadia. If I don't get there quickly he might kill her parents, Fletcher, I need you to teleport me there! Down the street from her house would do, just don't tell anyone or they'll ruin it."

"Valkyrie," Fletcher growled, looking incredibly angry, "there is no way in hell I'm taking you to that monster to be – to be raped and killed! Don't you dare make me a part in that!"

She looked at him stonily. "I can kill him, Fletcher. I can kill him and I will be fine, but Nadia won't be. She'll be – she won't be fine, okay! I can do this. I'll rip him apart and then I'll call you and I'll make sure Skulduggery doesn't kill you. Please, you're the only one that can help me."

Fletcher sighed and teleported over to her with a glare. "You better know what you're doing," he said, gripping her upper arm roughly.

They teleported to the end of Nadia's street, hidden behind the low garden wall. "Thanks," she said airily, feeling a little lightheaded. She breathed quickly, getting herself ready for the fight and felt her mind get into the right place and all the other feelings take second place. "I'll call you."

She climbed over the wall easily and kept to the trees, coming up to the house and through the back door. She'd never gone that way before, never more than the parlour and dining room next door. She moved silently through the house, seeing all the beautiful art and the white walls and the white carpet and the solid oak wood floors of the hall and the high ceilings. She carefully crept through the whole downstairs and found nothing, meaning she had to carefully creep up the stairs and through the hall. It wasn't a massive house, thank goodness, nothing like Valkyrie's home, so she only had a few options. And only one of those were open and Valkyrie was sure she saw a shadow move behind the door.