The police station was well lit. Valkyrie approached it from the side, dropping from the high wall into the car park. No one around. Not many cars. She avoided the security camera and ran to the nearest window. Suddenly she was no longer floating above – she was sucked back into her own head, and she felt how cold she was, how the rage burned like ice in her belly. Tendrils of darkness slithered between the window and its frame, and she twisted her hand and the tendrils snapped the lock and the window popped open. She used the air to boost herself up, then climbed into a bright bathroom that smelled of disinfectant.

She went to the door, listened for a moment. Somewhere, phones rang. Somewhere, people talked.

She stepped into the corridor. It wasn’t a big building, and Valkyrie figured the cells would be as far away from the main entrance as possible, so she turned right. She rounded the corner and ducked into a room, an interview room by the look of it, to avoid a passing cop. She waited until his footsteps receded before she emerged and continued on. She came to three cream-coloured steel doors with glass partitions. The first two cells were empty. There was a man lying on a bed in the third.

Shadows crept into the lock and smashed it from within, and Valkyrie was walking into the cell before Moore had even lifted his head from the thin pillow. The door closed behind her.

He looked at her. He was in his early twenties, skinny, with a bad haircut and a cleft in his chin. A plaster covered a thin cut along his cheek. His left forearm was bandaged. He stood up, still looking at her, frowning now. She reached a hand towards the camera, up high in the corner of the cell, and sent a dart of shadow into the lens. Moore stepped back.

“What was that? What the hell was that? Who are you?”

She stepped closer, hands by her sides, shoulders relaxed. Inside she was cold. There was a block of ice inside her. The voice spoke to her.

Kill him.

When she was close enough, she swung her right hand up, fingers splayed and palm open, twisting into the strike. She caught him on the hinge of the jaw and he crashed back against the wall. A power-slap, Skulduggery called it. As powerful as a punch, without the risk of broken knuckles. One of the new weapons in her arsenal, ever since Tanith went bad. Valkyrie watched Moore try to stand up straight. His legs gave out and he fell back. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were clouded. She waited while he shook his head and his eyes refocused. He looked at her and she watched his anger build.