A/N: I don't own Skulduggery, Lord Vile, or Valkyrie. There is Valduggery here, you'll just have to wait for it. Oh, Val when you at last meet her is in her 20s here. Spoilers, obviously.
Skulduggery Pleasant was led roughly into the cell, his hands bound in cuffs behind him. He was left bound, even though the gaol was the finest the magical world had to offer. While people were busy hating him and insulting him, a Tortoiseshell Persian she-cat slipped into the room, her green eyes taking the sight in. She leapt up on the seated former detective's lap, arching her back and hissing protectively. The gaolers laughed. For they knew if Skulduggery Pleasant hated one thing, it was cats.
"Looks like you got a little friend, skeleton." One jeered.
"Please get rid of the mangy beast." Skulduggery said, head bowed in defeat. They'd beaten him, and the cat could tell he was sore. Lightning quick she was off his lap somersaulting in the air over grasping hands and shouting men, and she hit the stone wall, claws out. Somehow she raced up the wall and shoved herself into a cranny far above their heads.
A warning howl made the men reluctant to retrieve her. They left her there, yowling bitter defiance. As soon as they left she fell silent.
That night the cat crept out on whisper-quiet feet, but she knew he heard her. She came down to the bunk where he sat, not having moved an inch. He'd never fought back, never did anything. Somehow the room left him enough magic that he didn't fall to pieces, but he was still slated for execution in the morning. The cat gave a sad cry and leapt lightly to his shoulders. She butted her head into his repeatedly, patted her paws on his cheeks, wrapped her tail around his neck. She raced down and laid on the floor looking at him upside down, until finally he laughed softly.
"I don't like cats, Little Cat, but you're OK." He said. She sat of his lap and purred for hours, keeping vigil with him until the morning.
In the morning the Skeleton Detective's head came up as his door opened and they came in for him roughly. He didn't see the cat weave her way through a confused tangle of men's feet and out the door to freedom, but she did. The cat darted from shadow to shadow keeping ahead of the slowly moving group, making it to the execution ground ahead of time. Stupidly, they had wanted Skulduggery dead in the sun where those who hated him for the at long last revealed truth could see him die.
She crouched in the shadows and waited.
The procession came out at last, and Skulduggery was led, still cuffed, to the man who would be his executioner. If enough of his bones were crushed even Skulduggery would die, and the man's steely grip would turn him into powder, bone by bone.
The man raised his hand, intent on giving Skulduggery just a taste of the pain he'd feel by touching his jaw, and the cat exploded out of nowhere howling in fury, launching herself right for the man's face, clawing and biting. She leapt straight up before he could grab her, and somersaulted over to Skulduggery, sailing past his shoulder, twisting in midair.
She brought herself down on his cuffs, jarring all of her weight to one side, popping the skeletal hand loose. Skulduggery apparently knew enough to run as she grabbed the gloved hand in her jaws, and fled ahead of him tail plumed out in either fright or joy. She looked back to make certain he was following then piled on the speed. She led him on a merry chase as they escaped through a gap in the wall, running out among civilians and through back alleys, and all sorts of wonderful confusing ways that confounded their pursuers until they turned around a corner and there sat the Bentley.
Skulduggery got in, finding the keys in the ignition, putting the car into drive one-handed. The cat dropped his other hand at last as the Bently roared down the roads, and Skulduggery put it on with a painful grunt.
He looked over at the cat and held down his cuffed hand. "I don't suppose claws can spring locks, can they?" He asked. And because she was a rather magical cat, hers did. Skulduggery's magic flooded back in him and he sighed in evident pleasure. He looked over at the cat and spoke again. "I have no idea how you did it, but I know now that's you, Valkyrie Cain."
The cat purred loudly and puffed out her chest and he noticed a medallion on her long-furred chest, a curious green tear-shaped pendant. She cocked her head and he removed it, then turned his attention back to the road. The cat flipped herself on her hips to sit like a human in her seat as the transformation began. It only took and instant and Valkyrie Cain sat beside her partner.
She grinned over at Skulduggery and he shook his head in amazement. Remembering belatedly to reach under his collar and tap the symbols that brought down his facade.
"Seatbelt. Now do I get to ask why you risked certain death to help Lord Vile escape execution?" Skulduggery asked, exasperation in his voice.
"Because I'm in love with you, Skulduggery, and I couldn't think of a more subtle way for you to notice me."
His head flicked over to her in evident surprise, a small smile coming to his features, and he returned his gaze to the road reluctantly.
"You always were a strange young woman, still I compliment you on your taste in men. I don't know if you realize this, but I don't have a plan."
"Go to the docks, there will be a ferry waiting, drive on."
He did as she said, and there was a ferry waiting, and he drove on. He turned to her. "Not exactly, the fastest mode of escape from Ireland, Valkyrie."
She leaned forward and kissed him. "The owner of the ferry owes me a favour. There's a speedboat under a certain bridge, we escape in that. They can't chase us boldly in daylight, and they don't dare dress as civilian police and bring out planes and the like do they?"
"You clever girl!" He kissed her back and followed her to the waiting speedboat.
Years later they had settled in America under assumed names and Skulduggery at last asked her the question that had bothered him in all the years since they had escaped that day. "I think as your husband I can at last ask, where did you get that necklace from?"
"My mother was a witch, Skulduggery, and not the kind you're thinking of. Just because people aren't sorcerors doesn't mean they aren't magical." He smiled at his wife and was content after that to let sleeping cats lie.
Note: This story is dedicated to my mom, an actual witch even though she never practiced who came to me in a dream tonight telling me not to give up on my writing, even though I felt my stories were failures. She suggested the storyline just like she used to, so thanks, mom! I wrote my littermate and first cat companion into the story to salute the two women who loved me enough to return from beyond the veil to encourage me. I don't actually think Skulduggery dislikes cats, but I doubt he's be thrilled with anything that would shed all over his suits.
