Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 199 - The Ritual commences

Chapter 199

Valkyrie's POV

One week later

They were finally performing the Ritual.

Valkyrie inhaled in through her nose and out through her mouth, focusing on her breathing. All she had to do was sit in their circle with signals painted on her skin and wait. It was obviously going to hurt, but she didn't need to do anything other than stay still. She could do that.

She'd come close to asking Solomon if she could leave for a few minutes to call Nadia and talk to her, just in case something happened to her, but he said there was no way. There had been a spattering of murders in the villages and tribes not too far from their secret base – she had no idea how far 'not far' was considering how massive Africa was compared to her home – but it put them both on edge. They had known it wouldn't take long for someone to realise she was missing from the Dead Men's care. They couldn't know for sure if it was someone from the Spiders, or just anyone in general that wanted her or Solomon dead. But it felt too suspicious to be coincidental.

"You'll do fine," Norma told her in a no-nonsense way.

"I know," she whispered. Valkyrie wished Helena was with her instead. Helena was that bit younger, that bit gentler, and she seemed to have a soft spot for Valkyrie even though they were no longer theorising her magic was Pure Magic like Norma hoped. Meanwhile, Norma was still kind and nice, but wasn't exactly as interested as before. Valkyrie understood, though, if Valkyrie had had Pure Magic then it would have meant all her work could mean something. Instead, it was just going to be another string of theories in the Necromancer's extensive libraries. "How much longer?"

"I'll be another five minutes," she said in a strained voice as she concentrated. "I have to make sure this last bit links up with everything else."

Valkyrie nodded and looked at the ceiling. Normally a pen of sorts would be used to draw signals onto the body but this Sect didn't do modern technology. So Norma had had someone make up a traditional paste and was now dipping her finger into it and running it along Valkyrie's body. It was as weird as it sounded, made more so by the fact she had to cover every area of Valkyrie's body. Including under her feet, between her toes and fingers, into her hairline, between her legs and all up and around her butt. It had not been what she expected from this part of the Ritual but considering some of the things Norma knew about her from her 'therapy,' she tried to think of it as a further bonding exercise. Also, pretending she wasn't as hairy as a werewolf helped slightly. The only tutoring lesson Tanith had ever seemed to truly enjoy teaching Valkyrie had been feminism so she just repeated what Tanith had ranted about for hours on end in her head until it was over.

It was about to get more embarrassing though. She had to be naked for the whole thing. In front of her not-really-but-as-good-as-dad. Gross.

She shook her head and took another deep breath to clear her thought. The weird Necromancers didn't care less about her body, seeing as how they were all celibate and she was underaged. Norma, Helena and Solomon also saw her as a child. In fact, Valkyrie was pretty sure Solomon very literally saw her as his daughter, so it wasn't that weird, fathers knew what their children looked like, that was normal. She repeated that next to Tanith's voice to herself in her head to try and make it convincing as Norma stood back and looked her over.

"This is really weird," Valkyrie muttered, closing her eyes.

"Try to relax," Norma said softly. "I know it's strange for you, and you're not used to being naked, but I swear it'll be over before you know it. And no one is going to come near you, you'll be as safe as you possibly can be in the Ritual bubble."