12. Chapter XII (1/2)
chapter xii
tanith followed the bentley all the way to china's new apartments. she sighed. she had a hunch china was involved somehow. she sent a text telling val where she was. she snuck inside and quickly followed. china deactivated the alarms and she slipped in alongside skulduggery.
"are you ready? i've researched this process, and it's suppose to be excruciatingly painful."
skulduggery only nodded tensely. "who did you choose?"
china shook her head. "no good guys. actually, he's a serial rapist. however, it's better if you don't have a name or a face to the person you're about to use."
skulduggery sighed. "i feel wrong."
china put her hands on her hips. "stop being so wishy-washy. choose a course of action and bloody stick with it!"
"let's do this." his voice was stern. much like it used to be in the old days. tanith texted val what she heard.
val texted back to stop him. by the time tanith made a move to skulduggery the door of the basement closed. she texted val an update of what was going on. a few minutes later she got the text to come to gordon's house.
tanith hesitantly left china's place. she arrived at the house in ten minutes.
"val?" she heard a scream of anger and a crash. fuck, she's furious. whatever skul did this time, he is in some serious shit when he gets back. she hesitantly walked up the stairs, as if approaching her execution. "…val…?"
another shout and another crash. coming from her bedroom. she smelled smoke. pushing open the door she sniffed and realized val had thrown a perfume bottle against a mirror. tanith waded through the destruction and moved into the master bedroom. there were two suitcases on the bed. val was preoccupied with burning one of skul's hats. tanith winced. that was crossing the rubicon right there.
"you sure you want to do that?"
"fair trade." she growled. "one hat for one lie." she flung the now burned carcass of a hat across the room. tanith quickly stamped out the still alive embers. valkyrie was obviously uncaring what she burned. the younger woman flung herself on the bed and shouted at her friend. "he promised that he wouldn't do it! he said that he wouldn't! what's the use of promising something? what's the use of trusting someone if they only
eak their promises?!"
that wasn't exactly fair. skulduggery's record so far had been almost flawless, but valkyrie was beyond reasoning right then. tanith calmly sat with her friend as valkyrie ranted about what a stupid skeleton he was. tanith glanced at her watch. it's 6:30pm…
she stared at valkyrie. the girl was shouting. tanith was pretty sure that darquesse would have been in control by now…
time passes
tanith looked up from her the magazine she had found and stared at valkyrie. the girl was still shouting. she glanced at watch. 7:45pm. she closed her eyes for a few seconds. what was skulduggery was doing?
time passes some more
valkyrie had stopped shouting and was now threatening to "kill that stupid skeleton if he dares show his numbskull in this house tonight". tanith glanced at her watch and bit her lip. 8:20pm. what was happening right now?
more time passes
tanith had finished reading her magazine long ago and was now trying to offer words of encouragement to a panic stricken valkyrie. val was now blaming herself for whatever danger skul could be in. tanith offered multiple times to go and check it out but was shot down. she could never get back inside china's place without starting alarms and possibly messing up the delicate ritual. tanith stared at the clock across the room. 9:55pm. it's almost been three and a half hours now.
time slowly passes
valkyrie had cried herself to sleep. tanith was in a fit. she didn't know what to do. she wanted to storm the place and demand skulduggery back, but val had said that the process of returning to flesh was an extremely complicated one. she didn't want to offset that and ruin skul's only chance at being human again and possibly kill him permanently. she stared at the clock. 11:15pm. she grabbed her phone and called ghastly.