A/N Hello there! I promise I'll try and not have too many Author's Notes but I would just like to start off with a mini introduction and a dedication. This is my first published Skulduggery Pleasant fanfiction and I hope it is up to all your expectations. I don't mind helpful criticism as long as it is useful and something obvious or plain like grammar or spelling. I AM ONLY HUMAN! (unfortunately). As I aid I don't mind criticism as long as that is what it is. Please do not waste your lives by sending hate messages or whatever. Seriously, you could be doing so much better.

Anyway, that's the boring stuff. Here is the good bit. DEDICATION!

This ENTIRE book is dedicated to my best friend because she is a genius and is all round awesome. She has helped me in so many ways with my writing that the only way I could thing to show her how grateful I am is by writing this. So please be thinking of my genius best friend while you are reading this. Did I mention she was a genius? The amount of amazing story ideas she comes up with, WOW!

I don't own Skulduggery Pleasant! I wish I was that genius. I do own all OC's! Except Ikaila cause she's my friend I don't own her XD.

Ok on to the really, really, good stuff. The story...

Chapter 1

Valkyrie sat in the passenger of a not so ugly rental car, staring out of the window in utter boredom. They had been chasing Billy-Ray and Tanith all over Ireland, and now were chasing them through the scorching cities of Australia. A tip off from a friend of a friend of someone's sister had informed them that the pair had been looking for someone. Someone who been apparently hard to find.

The tip off had narrowed down their field of search to a street in a small city in the big state of Queensland. One of the twelves houses on the street was being targeted by the hit man and Tanith. One of them housed someone of importance to someone house.

The only problem was figuring out which house that was.

Valkyrie was restless in in her seat, fingers drumming against her knee in impatience trying to view the situation in an optimistic way.

She liked Australia. Fletcher had taken her there a few times when they were dating and it'd always been fun. It was warm and sunny and lots of funny little animals. Fletcher had once told her about drop bears and Valkyrie was still annoyed she'd believed him. She fought monsters on a daily basis, with that kind of job it's hard to tell what was real and what wasn't.

The car door opened and Skulduggery got out staring at something across the street. Valkyrie looked up at him with a frown and opened her own door.

"What's wrong?" She asked following his gaze to a cream coloured, two storey house. His dark brown eyes, gifted to him by his façade, scanned the house in that detective way of his.

"There was a crash inside the house." He stated still seeing something she wasn't.

"It could have been a dog." She shrugged.

"The window shattered."

"It could be a very strong dog."

"Valkyrie I highly doubt it was a dog." She looked at him.

"Why? What's so improbable about a dog?" He pointed to the house and they watched someone be thrown across the front balcony.

"It still could be a dog." She persisted as they ran across the street. The sun was warm against her skin, but she tried not to notice it too much and focused more on the number of parked cars in the neighbour's houses. The dry grass crunched under their feet when they ran onto the front yard and continued towards the stairs leading up to the front door and balcony.

They reached the top and Skulduggery ducked as Billy-Ray stepped out from the corner swinging a chair at his head. It missed him and Valkyrie leant backwards, watching the chair leg whizz passed her nose. Skulduggery tackled Billy-Ray and Valkyrie moved to help the girl as another girl climbed through the window beating her to her. A third person climbed through the window and Valkyrie joined in with the two girls as they glared at the black lipped woman.

Tanith noticed Valkyrie out of the corner of her eye and turned to her with a smile, black veins painting her face, making everyone shiver. Valkyrie splayed her hands but Tanith moved around the displaced air which proceeded to snap the wooden rail of the balcony.

The girl leaning on the rail fell backwards managing to grab the edge stopping her from belly flopping on the cement below. Colourful words left her lips and her friend was immediately trying to pull her up.

Valkyrie ducked under a well-aimed kick and lashed out with her own. Tanith knocked the kick away and sent a knee into Valkyrie's stomach, knocking all the air out of her lungs. She stumbled back, breathless, diaphragm all tensed up while Tanith advanced. One of the girls, the taller of the two, stepped in front of Valkyrie and pushed the swordswoman back with a wave of energy.

Skulduggery punched Billy-Ray's nose and he howled in pain swinging his straight razor wildly. He twisted out of Skulduggery's grip and kicked out his knees and Skulduggery used that to roll forward and get back to his feet. Billy-Ray punched him and Skulduggery punched him back forcing the eyeless man to take a step back onto open air, sending him tumbling painfully down the steps.

Valkyrie blocked more hits from Tanith and the girl intervened again with another shot of energy. The swords woman stumbled back onto the only remaining railing and leaned against it like she'd meant to do it. She smiled warmly, watching Skulduggery join the circle of people surrounding her. She turned her attention to the two girls and winked at them.

"I'll be back." She assured before she vaulted over the balcony edge. The girls ran to the rail, leaning over it as they watched the Billy-Ray and Tanith sink into the ground with a cheerful parting wave. Skulduggery fixed his tie and picked up his fallen hat.

"Told you it wasn't a dog." Valkyrie smiled at him before walking to the two girls. He rolled his eyes and followed. "Are you two ok?" The girls spun around to face them and took a wary step back. "My name is Valkyrie Cain and this is my friend Skulduggery pleasant." Skulduggery smiled and gave a small wave.

"Obviously you know about magic." He said, more of a statement than a question. They both nodded. "Do you have names?" Another nod. He stayed silent waiting for the two to answer and for a moment it was awkward.

"Ikaila Skye." The tallest girl with curly dark blonde hair held out her hand to shake Skulduggery's, breaking the awkwardness. He shook it and looked at the other girl. "Malachite Burada." Ikaila said pointing to the other girl, who nodded shyly in greeting, ignoring the out stretched hand. She watched from behind her friend with curious and playful dark blue eyes.

"What just happened?" Ikaila demanded.

"You were attacked." Skulduggery stated and she rolled her eyes.

"We figured that one out Sherlock. Why were we attacked?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"You're detectives?" They both nodded. "Look Mal you get to meet real life detectives." She chuckled nudging her friend who in return glared.

"Would there be any reason why someone would attack you?" Skulduggery asked interrupting the pair before any sort of bickering started. Their attention was returned to them and Ikaila looked at him as if to say 'are you serious?'

"How many people do you meet who know why they are being attacked?" She asked rhetorically before shaking her head. "No we don't know. We've never had any connection to people like you." Valkyrie frowned.

"Then how do you know about magic?" Valkyrie asked. Malachite touched Ikaila's arm. Valkyrie didn't pay attention to the motion but Skulduggery tilted his head slightly.

"We taught ourselves. Look that's beside the point." Skulduggery cut in.

"That may be so but it might run so closely beside the point that with the slightest nudge it becomes relevant information that could be completely vital in the figuring out of what is going on." There was a moment of silence after that where everyone but Malachite just blinked blankly.

"Wow. Check it out Mal he sounds worse than you." Malachite glared again, but was ignored by her friend whose eyes flicked back to Skulduggery defiantly, confidently. "Anyway as I said. We taught ourselves." Skulduggery didn't look convinced but dropped the subject. Ikaila glanced around at the neighbouring houses. "Maybe we should take this inside, before someone sees us." An agreement was made immediately and Malachite moved from her almost fixed position go climb through the window and open the locked door from the inside.

Silently, and in a slight act of confidence she dramatically motioned them in, bowing like a fancy waiter in a fancy restaurant, possibly a French one. All she need was the moustache, an accent and possible a gender change and she'd fit in perfectly.

The interrogation was resumed almost instantaneously.

"Did you attackers happen to mention anything about their employer? Or about what they were to do with you? Those two have a slight habit of boasting while they work." Ikaila looked at Malachite then back to Skulduggery and Valkyrie. The two girls stood on the other side of the couch keeping a bit of distance. Malachite had her hands on Ikaila's shoulders like a toddler peeking over her mother's shoulder.

"How can we trust you? How do we know you're not working with them and trying to trick us into going with you? For all we know you could be the real bad guys." She challenged before abruptly sighing and shaking Malachite off her. "If you want to say something then you say it don't relay it through me." Malachite smiled cheekily but blushed and stayed where she was behind Ikaila.

"You can trust us." Valkyrie assured taking control of the conversation.

"They have a point though. They have every reason not to trust us..." Skulduggery insisted completely diminishing that control.

"You're not helping." She muttered in annoyance, interrupting the skeleton detective.

"... but what reason do you have to not trust us?" Skulduggery asked. Malachite hesitated then took a step out from behind Ikaila.

"They didn't say anything useful but I know the person chasing us is a man. A mage like you. He wants us for something but I'm not sure what." Skulduggery did his usual head tilt thing as he listened to Malachite, her words echoing in his mind. They didn't say anything… but I know. How could she know?

"They didn't mention this person's name?" He persisted, but she just shook her head and resumed her position behind her friend. Clearly there was a degree of shyness here. "Well it's a start at least." He sighed. "Hopefully Ghastly took my advice and has got us a name." Skulduggery said solely to Valkyrie who nodded.

"Well what are we going to do now?" She half whispered to him. "We can't exactly leave them alone. If our bad guy is after them then we have, I don't know an advantage?" Skulduggery nodded in agreement.

"An advantage would be good. We haven't had one of those in a while."

"You do know we are right here?" Ikaila said interrupting the tea party.

"It would be the safest route." Valkyrie continued as if she hadn't even spoken. Ikaila glared, crossing her arms, definitely not pleased by the fact she was being ignored.

"Ok but if something happens to the Bentley because of them I'm leaving them at the sanctuary." Finally they both turned to the girls in acknowledgement. "We think it would be in your best interests to come with us."

"We think it is in our best interest to ensure our own safety." Ikaila said defiantly and a little sourly. "So far the best way to do that would be to go with you." Ikaila agreed. The house phone suddenly started ringing and Malachite snuck off to check who it was. She picked up the phone and handed it to Ikaila who answered. "Hey mum." She said as she started walking out of the room leaving Malachite awkwardly by herself.

It was silently for a few moments and Malachite didn't like the silence. She racked her brain for anything to say.

"You're wearing a mask." She finally decided. "You're wearing a façade, right?" He furrowed his new brows.

"Um..."

"Can you take off the mask?" She said a little stronger. "There is no point in keeping secrets from us." There was truth in her words but the shock by the fact she just knew made him hesitated. Slowly he reached up and tapped the hidden symbols under his collar. The waxy skin seemedto almost melt away, revealing the skull beneath the facade. She smiled at the sight and said nothing. Ikaila walked back out to see what was taking Malachite so long. She looked at Skulduggery and stopped.

"Whoa... A skeleton? Seriously?" She questioned. "That's... actually cool." She smiled completely calm. Perhaps too many books had been read and too many movies watched desensitizing the girls to the abnormalities of the hidden world. "Let us get out of our pyjamas and we'll be with you in a sec." She continued like there was nothing weird standing in the middle of the lounge room.

Valkyrie looked at their clothes only just realising that despite it being midday they were still dressed in their pyjamas.

"What about our parents?" Malachite asked stopping before she entered the hallway. "They'll notice we are missing."

"I'd be worried if they didn't," muttered Ikaila.

"That's easily fixed. Do you have two full length mirrors?" Skulduggery asked and Malachite nodded.

A/N VOTE AND COMMENT! If you read this chapter and thought 'hmm... it wasn't that good' than I dare you to keep reading. Trust me on this, it only gets better. It gets darker and funnier and the bad guy! ooh... *shiver* So PLEASE! give me a chance and continue. You know you are at least a little bit curious.