Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 153 - This is a mess

Chapter 153

Nadia's POV

Lilo, the man, was riffling around the house. Another man and a woman had walked in a few minutes after he had tied her up on her knees and left her next to the wall, and now Lilo and the woman were trying to find whatever it was they wanted while the other, new man was 'watching' her.

He was actually on his phone and didn't seem to be paying attention. He was man-splaying his legs so wide Nadia would have usually asked if he was hurting himself, but he had a massive assault rifle on his back and it kept her very quiet.

Her main thoughts were of three things. Firstly, that Valkyrie was alright. She and her brothers were on a major mission and although Lilo hadn't really indicated if he and his friends were maybe doing something to interfere with that, she had a little feeling that it was connected. At the least, she hoped they were just using the opportunity to steal things while the Dead Men were gone. She suspected that wasn't what was happening but thinking of anything else would make her panic so she tried not to.

Secondly, she was worried about Tanith and Laila. Again, no one had mentioned them at all, so she hoped they were alright, but she had no way of checking. They had put duct tape over her mouth anyway. She was more worried that Tanith would walk through the door any second now with her little baby strapped to her chest, completely exhausted, and be able to do nothing to protect herself and get away. Tanith was tough, but Nadia was keenly aware of how much Tanith was struggling from the damage pregnancy had caused to her body as she was the one that did the things Tanith couldn't while they were stuck in the house together.

And lastly was her and Myra. Something was bugging her about that. She hadn't heard a peep from up the stairs. She didn't think anyone had been up there, but she also couldn't be sure they hadn't used magic to check. Did they just think a mortal couldn't fight back? She'd thought, at first, that maybe Myra could hide and call for help, but every five or so minutes that past just made this nagging feeling in her head intensify. Why hadn't Myra done anything? Why hadn't she heard a sound? Why hadn't these invaders gone to check for more people? She'd heard them say 'teleporter' several times, so they knew about Fletcher staying here – so surely they'd know about his mortal girlfriend.

Something wasn't sitting right about that, but there was hardly anything she could do. Or, maybe she was overreacting because she was tied up, had duct tape over her mouth and was surrounded by people that would more than certainly kill her if she attempted to do anything. Myra might have heard the commotion of her fighting when Lilo had tried to tie her up and hidden away and the invaders just didn't care about a mortal. She needed to find a way to help them, or at least herself if her gut was right, before something drastic happened.

How was she meant to do that exactly?

.*****.

Tanith's POV

"Tanith!" Myra gasped out. "I need to talk to you! Something happened to Nadia and the others!"

"What's happened?" She asked, eyes narrowing and stalking forwards. The woman she'd been talking to, her name forgotten, watched them.

"I don't know! Some man came into the house and started threatening Nadia, I snuck out the front when he was tying her up. I didn't know what to do, I just ran to find you!" Myra rushed out; her voice high with panic but quiet enough that she wasn't shouting.

Tanith nodded quickly, trying to think of something useful. "Okay, we need to get back there."

"How? Do you know someone who can help?"