'As you wish.' There was a pause. 'The Administrator has been informed of your presence. Please wait here, and she will be with you shortly.'
They looked at the wall, waiting for it to open up. Skulduggery pressed the call button on his phone and listened for a few seconds, then shoved the phone back into his pocket without saying anything. He'd been trying to call Bliss for the last twenty minutes, but Bliss wasn't answering.
The wall rumbled and the hidden door opened. The Administrator stepped into the corridor.
She smiled politely. 'I'm afraid the Grand Mage is too busy to speak with anyone at the moment, but if you'd state your business--'
'We're not here for Guild,' Skulduggery said. 'We're here for Bliss.'
'I'm sorry, Mr. Pleasant, Elder Bliss is away.'
'Away? Where? '
'I'm afraid I can't divulge that information.'
'We don't have time for this. The remains of the Grotesquery need to be moved now.'
For the first time since Valkyrie had known her, the Administrator frowned. 'How did you know about that? The removal of the Grotesquery is a classified operation, Mr. Pleasant. Only two people in the Sanctuary are even aware of it.'
'Those two people,' Skulduggery said, 'that's you and the Grand Mage? Why does he want to move it?'
'We move items around all the time, for matters of storage, space, or suitability. It's nothing out of the ordinary.'
'When is it being moved?'
'I'm not--'
'Where is it being moved to?'
The Administrator bristled slightly. 'I don't know, actually. The Grand Mage will instruct the transport team personally.'
'How big a transport team?'
'I'm not going to--'
'Let me guess. Guild doesn't want to attract attention, so it will be low-key. Two or three Cleavers, is that it? In an armored van?'
'The Grand Mage assures me it will be perfectly adequate.'
'The van's going to be attacked,' Valkyrie said. The Administrator's eyes narrowed. 'Why would you do that?»'We're not going to attack the van,' Skulduggery told her. 'But we are going to have to steal the Grotesquery.'
There was a pause, and then the Administrator turned to run. Skulduggery held up a hand. Valkyrie felt the faint ripples as a bubble formed around the Administrator's head, robbing her of oxygen. She gasped for a breath that wouldn't come, and Skulduggery caught her as she staggered.
'I'm very sorry,' he murmured.
Valkyrie clicked her fingers and whirled to the figure of Phil Lynott, holding a fireball close to his wax face.
'If you sound the alarm,' she warned, 'I'll melt you.'
'No need,' the wax figure said. 'My communications link is to the Administrator only. They keep promising to extend my link to the entire Sanctuary, but they haven't. As long as I open and close this door, I think they're quite happy to forget about me.'
Skulduggery laid the unconscious Administrator on the ground. 'She'll wake up in a few minutes,' he said. 'Please apologize to her for me.'
The wall rumbled behind them, but they darted through the doorway before it closed up.
'Nice try,' Valkyrie called back.
The Phil Lynott figure shrugged, then looked down at the Administrator, and right before the door sealed, she heard it start to sing 'Killer on the Loose.' Another one of her dad's favorites.
Skulduggery led the way down the stone staircase.
'How are we going to get out again?' she asked. 'The two of us walking around down here is going to look suspicious enough, but walking around while carrying the Grotesquery? '
'We're not coming back this way.'
'But this is the only way in.'
'But it's not the only way out.'
They slowed as they reached the bottom of the stairs, then entered the foyer. Skulduggery walked calmly, while Valkyrie's knees shook. The Cleaver guards turned their heads, watching them as they walked through the nearest set of doors, but did not move to intercept.
They walked side by side through the corridor, like they had every right to be there. They drew surprised looks from sorcerers, but nobody questioned their presence. They left the main corridor and walked deeper through the narrower ones, their footsteps picking up pace.
They approached the Sanctuary jail, where some of the sickest criminals in the world were imprisoned. Skulduggery had told her about some of them. Serial killers, mass murderers, sociopaths, and psychopaths of every description were kept in these cages. Valkyrie could almost feel the evil seeping out through the door like a cold damp, chilling her as she passed.
Ahead of them was the Repository, the giant room that housed mystical and magical artifacts, including the remains of the Grotesquery. But today, unlike every other time Valkyrie had been here, there were two Cleavers standing guard at the double doors. Skulduggery and Valkyrie stepped into an adjoining corridor and stopped, just out of the Cleavers' sight.
'Okay,' he said, 'that's good.'
'It's good? What's good? What's good about it?'
'If the Cleavers are still guarding the room, it means the Grotesquery is still in there. We have a little time. So what we need now is a distraction.'
'Maybe we should release one of the criminals from the jail and have them chase after him.'
'Do you really want to release a magical serial killer back into the world?'
'I was only joking,' she muttered defensively.
He paused. 'Actually, that's not a bad idea. But we don't need anyone from the jail. They're just too dangerous. Someone languishing in the holding cells, however, might be more suitable.'
Valkyrie grinned. 'See? Even my jokes are brilliant.'
Skulduggery started walking, and she struggled to keep up. 'But won't the cells be guarded by Cleavers too?' she asked.
He shook his head. 'After the events of the last two years--first Serpine's attack on the Sanctuary, then taking down the Grotesquery--Cleaver numbers have been decimated. These days, Cleavers are being treated like the precious commodities they are, and used only where absolutely necessary.
'For the minimum-security holding cells, I doubt there'd be any Cleaver presence at all. We'll probably encounter a Sanctuary agent, and if things go our way, the agent will know us and might even allow us our pick of the prisoners.'
'When do things ever go our way?»'Think positive--that's the spirit.'
They reached the holding area without encountering anyone who realized they shouldn't be there. The corridor became narrow, with steel doors on either side. A gangly young man with bright red hair stood up from behind his desk, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
'You're Skulduggery Pleasant,' he said.
'Yes, I am. And this is my partner, Valkyrie Cain. And you are?'
'My name is Staven Weeper. You're not supposed to be here.'
Skulduggery waved his hand airily. 'We have full cooperation, don't worry about that.'
'The Grand Mage has warned us about you.'
'You're sure it was me he warned you about? Not someone else?'
'You are not allowed to be here without supervision,' Weeper said, forcing some authority into his tone. 'Who let you in?'
'The door was open.'
