Armageddon Outta Here - The World of Skulduggery Pleasant

“You’ll come after me? Tear me apart? Cut off my head? I’ve heard it all before, Annis. It doesn’t impress me.”

“If I ever get out of prison,” Annis said, ignoring her, “I’ll find you and eat you.”

Tanith smiled. “Well, OK then. Haven’t heard that one in a while.” She took hold of Annis’s arm and pulled her to her feet. “I’ve got a sack outside,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wear it until I get you to the van, just to keep the sunlight off. Hope you understand.”

Annis perked up. “Is it a nice sack?”

“It’s pretty stylish, as sacks go.”

On their way out, they passed Scrannel, who was snoring peacefully in the dirt. Annis gave him an affectionate kick, and he mumbled something and went back to snoring.

“Boyfriend?” Tanith asked.

“Pet,” Annis answered.

Tanith nodded. “All the best ones are.”

he was food, she was told as they dragged her to the cell. She was lunch. She was little more than a snack, thrown to the beast to reward it for blood spilled. The men were strong, and she kicked at them and they hit her, but still she kicked. She would not go gently to her death. Not her. Not Valkyrie Cain.

Her knees scraped over rough stones and rubble and bled through her jeans. The cold shackles dug into her wrists. Her struggles echoed down through the concrete corridor, as wide as the school running track. The sunlight was too far behind to throw shadows. The darkness was too close in front.

The man holding her arm let go, and keys jangled as he went to the cell door. He slid open a hatch before he unlocked it, to check on the beast. She felt the other man tense, and for a moment his attention was away from her. She twisted from his grip. The light was too far away, so she ran into the darkness. Laughter followed her.

She ran fast. Her tennis shoes splashed in dark pools of stagnant water, and the uneven ground threatened to cut short her escape. She kept her shackled arms up, like a boxer, to protect her head should she run into a wall or a low-hanging pipe. Her eyes were adjusting to the world of shadows, and she couldn’t risk a backwards glance.

There was a break in the solid mass to her left, and she veered into a branching corridor. The cold registered on her bare arms, but she didn’t feel it. She wouldn’t feel anything until the adrenaline faded.

Their voices came, calling for her. Cell doors, iron and old, blurred by on either side. There were people in some of those cells. She could hear them, reacting to the mocking calls of the men. In other cells, there were beasts. They snarled and snapped and hurled themselves against the iron, excited and bloodthirsty, adding to the cacophony.

Concrete steps led upwards to a faint yellow light. Valkyrie left the darkness and took the steps three at a time. The staircase spiralled and the light grew stronger. Another corridor, long and thin, the sunlight streaming through the narrow windows on one side. At the end of the corridor, a wooden door. She ran past the narrow windows and through them saw a small stadium, basic stone seating curving round a lowered arena.

Where the hell had they taken her?

The wooden door opened before she got to it. The man with the keys smiled. Oddly, for someone so dirty and brutal, he had a nice smile. Behind her, the other man was blocking her retreat.

“You’d better be coming along now, girl,” the man with the keys said.

Valkyrie went to a window, turned sideways, and squeezed the upper half of her body through. There was an open space of flat concrete twelve metres below, just before the seating started. She managed to get her hips through, but a hand grabbed her leg as she fell. She swung into the wall and did her best to loosen the grip. The man with the keys could barely get his head through the window. His fingers were tight on her ankle.

“Go down and catch her,” he said to his friend.

Coins fell from Valkyrie’s pocket as she dug into her jeans with her shackled hands, searching for something to break his hold. Something sharp. She unbuckled her belt and pulled it free, held the buckle in her palm with the prong sticking up through her index and middle fingers, and closed her fist. She curled her body upwards, stabbing the prong repeatedly into the back of his hand. It was a crude dagger, and limited. He cursed and yelled and gritted his teeth, but didn’t let go.

The muscles in her abdomen were burning. She had to break his hold now. She wouldn’t get another chance.

Valkyrie released his forearm and grabbed his hand, doing her best to prise a finger loose. She could raise his fingertip off her leg, but that was it. She heard him laugh at her efforts.

Her muscles screaming at her, she dug the buckle prong beneath his fingernail. He cried out for his friend to hurry up. She squirmed the prong deeper and he cursed at her, the pitch of his voice rising with the pain. Finally his nail lifted and she fell with his screeches, turned her body and tucked her chin to her chest. She hit the concrete with her shoulder and tried to absorb the impact through her side. She knew how to fall. She’d been taught how to fall.