Rated T for the occasional use of strong language, innuendos and (barely) sexual scenes.

Written before the release of 'Death Bringer' so any plots, themes and changes in character that occur in the book have not happened in this and probably won't. (tl;dr, Caelan is much more kickass as this goes along!)

This is slow starting, but please bear with it! Enjoy ^^


A pair of heels slammed down on the floor almost hard enough to leave a dent. The heel's owner was a young woman whom went by the name of Zenobia Triton with brown hair slicked back into a tight bun and dark brown eyes, framed with lashes that at the moment were sending a look of fury out to all those unfortunate enough to be in her path. The click clack filled the corridors as she marched towards the room where the council of elders were sat.

Slamming her fist down onto the desk in front of her she cried, "C'est vrai?"

"S'il vous plaît, Madame." One of the men sat at the desk said as he tried to calm her in his soothing tones, speaking French as the rest of the people in the room were, for indeed, they were in Switzerland. "It is for the best."

"For the best? You're moving an ancient magical artefact that could break at any second to Sweden for crying out loud!" Zenobia then giggled, slightly hysterical as she ran the situation through her mind once more. Okay, so she was playing it up more than a little; the artefact in mention was in perfectly good shape and as unlikely to suddenly crumble back into its original atoms as she was. But still, what they were suggesting was stupid and she wasn't going to stand for it. "It should remain where it has always stayed, in Mont-sur-Château!"

"Madame Triton," The elder massaged his forehead in exasperation. Clearly Zenobia was known for her quick temper. "We understand that the artefact that significant value to your villages heritage, but please, keep your temper under control! You're burning the table, which is far older and valuable that you could dream." Zenobia finally noticed how her hands had flames flickering over them and were scorching the table with neat, black shapes of clenched knuckles. Slightly embarrassed, as she had never been good at controlling her magic when she was pissed, she removed her hands from the desk, folding them in front of her. "We are not just a group of old men and women trying to hoard away your ancient villages heritage for fun. We are the Swiss sanctuary, and it is our job, no, duty to protect our countries magical heritage.

'I'm afraid I'll have to put a deadline on it. If you do not let us remove it by the end of the monsth, then we will have to remove it by force. And trust us when we say this, that we do not want to do that."

"It is for the best. Fear not, it shall be in safe hands. It will be far better protected with us than it was in your vaults. Don't take that personally." Another elder assured in their sickly sweet and eager to please voice. It was patronising, insulting and Zenobia hated it. She was forty-seven, for crying out loud! Sure, she didn't look a day over twenty-five, but that still didn't give them the right to speak to her as if she was an air headed baby. She was a highly skilled elemental, especially in the area of fire and was fed up of getting no acknowledgement from them for her talents. She could be out there right now fighting and locking up criminals, you know, just generally kicking butt if not for the group of stuck up, pompous elders in front of her. 'Not enough experience' they'd say. Well, if they never let her prove herself then she'd never get any experience would she?

But that was another matter and completely irrelevant. Her tiny village, Mont-sur-Château, was located in an incredibly obscure part of Western Switzerland and boasted a rich array of magic users. And by rich she meant ten in a village of one-hundred-and-twenty, Zenobia included. Yet it was rare in the fact that the non-magic inhabitants knew of the existence of magic.

"Sorry, sorry! She stormed off ahead… again." A second magician of her village apologized as she hurried in , brushing down her immaculate suit and adjusting a pair of glasses on her nose. "I sincerely apologize for anything offensive she may have said in the short period of time she was here." This of course meaning that as soon as they returned to their village she would be severely punished for being so rude to the countries elders.

"Quite." One such elder mumbled.

"So. As I'm sure Zebobia here… mentioned, we of Mont-sur-Château seriously think that you should reconsider your plan to move the relics into your care. We've looked after them for hundreds of years without a single break in. Do not underestimate our capability to protect them." The magician the fixed the elders with a stern look whilst pushing her glasses up again.

"Please. We are in no way suggesting that you cannot protect them. We are merely stating that they would be protected better here. We have hundreds of artefacts in our care. Please, let the specialists deal with it."

And so the debate when on in a similar fashion for another couple of hours until the Mont-sur-Château magicians finally gave in and retreated. A month later four priceless magical artefacts made their way up to the Swiss sanctuary by a highly guarded train weaving its way along obscure routes through the mountains of Switzerland. When the train arrived only three of the artefacts remained and great deal of the guards were knocked unconscious, and violently as well. The ones that weren't were either tied up and gagged in the toilets or… worse. Some of the guards would not, could not wake up.

Needless to say, it wasn't a great day for the Swiss sanctuary.


Water droplets tumbled through the sky before smashing relentlessly onto the windscreen of a silver car. The sound these raindrops made collectively drowned out the silence in the Bentley, yet did little to remove the awkwardness, serving only to create pointless conversation that would have been better off left unsaid.

"Terrible weather we're experiencing. I'd wager that it's been getting worse these past few weeks." the famous skeleton detective, Skulduggery Pleasant, offered.

The dark haired teen sat in the seat beside him simply replied, "That would be because it's now November, Skulduggery."

"Ah. That would explain it."

And thus, the rest of the journey was spent in a far more sensible hush. The car leapt and shook on the rural Irish 'road', causing the owner to wince at each pothole they went over. In an ideal world they'd be travelling to their location on a perfectly smooth road, yet knowing the state of local politics, the best they were going to get would be a few hastily done patch up jobs when only pedestrians could travel over it without getting jarred.

Seemingly endless fields of brown fuzz and grey skies passed them by before they reached their destination: a small and disused barn with a roof more hole that tile. At this Valkyrie raised an eyebrow, a little confused at his choice before asking, "Okay, I know we're going for a low profile but… this looks like it could collapse at any minute. In fact, I'm scared to even breathe on it."

"But that's the beauty of it. It seems like it's about to collapse, when in reality-" Skulduggery explained before his apprentice kicked in.

"It's about to collapse?"

Now, Valkyrie was fairly certain that if Skulduggery had any lips to purse, he would have done so. After over five years tagging along with the skeleton she'd gradually learned how to read him… well, most of the time anyway. Instead, the detective chose to hop out the car and swing open the wide doors to the barn, shocking a few nesting birds into shrieking out. The Bentley was driven gently inside, parked in one of the far corners were the building looked most stable. For a while he just sat in the car, taking in the smell, feel and general air of the car that turned it from a Bentley into the Bentley. This was the car that had gotten them around a vast portion of Ireland and out of too many tight spots to count on both hands and toes.

Valkyrie stood just a few steps away from the car, watching his every move as if waiting for an indication of what to do. Eventually he got out, locked the doors with a smooth flick of the wrist and joined her in front of it. It seemed smaller somehow, as if it was finally getting a well deserved rest. A retirement of sorts. Yet she then realised that it was in fact pretty off for someone to think such things about an inanimate object. The silver paint was a little scratched in more than several places, a large dent was smacked into the rear and the entire car exuded an odd odour that could be smelt from several metres away when running. But it was still their Bentley, and she knew undoubtedly that she was going to miss it.

They'd gotten a false lead on a method to extract remnants from people who'd been infected for even over the four day limit. They'd turned up to the location only to be attacked and ambushed, forced into a retreat, albeit a dramatic, fireball hurling retreat. Skulduggery and Valkyrie turned out fine from the attack, other than the odd bruise on the magician who still had skin and a very large bruise on both of their bruises. However, the Bentley had not gotten off so lightly and they'd decided finally to give it a dignified retirement.

"I didn't invite anyone. They'll have better things to do than witness the burial of the Bentley." he shrugged, an odd action for a skeleton. She wondered if it was odd for him to say words like 'burial' since he was essentially an animated collection of dead bones, but enough of such odd thoughts. Resting a hand on the bonnet, Skulduggery simply stared at the car for a while, taking it in further, or rather zoning out which she imagined was fairly easy for someone who technically didn't have a brain. He then turned to Valkyrie, fixing his eyeless sockets on her, "Any last words?"

"Well, um… I've never been to a car funeral before so… You were a great car. Without you we would have been long dead by now… several times over. I'll miss you. No doubt every other car we'll get will either be some atrocious colour or lack your… uh, elegance. Yeah…" she cleared her throat awkwardly, relieved when she saw him nod in approval of what she had said.

"I'll visit." he said simply and then walked out with Valkyrie hot on his heels. When they had left the barn he muttered, "You can call Fletcher now."

The very second he picked up the phone, allowing her to say a dull sounding 'hey' he appeared, his hair as big and ridiculous as always. He wore a very self-satisfied smirk. He was the best-looking thing around in a fifty-kilometre radius and he knew it. "Hey, Val, Skulduggery."

"To Valkyrie's house." the skeleton detective ordered.

The teleporter's eyes widened, "What? Are you sure? Don't you think her parents will get a little freaked if we appear in the middle of their living room with a talking skeleton? I mean, no offence, you're a perfectly nice guy and all, but they'll freak big time."

"Oh! Apologies, I meant Gordon's house. My mind is slipping a little today."

"Ah, sure thing." Fletcher flexed his fingers before teleporting them, where they all landed in the middle of the living room. A thin layer of dust covered almost all of the available surfaces, excluding only the chairs and tables, making Valkyrie leave a mental note to clean up the place when she had time. "So… are you gonna tell me where you went today or am I still just the bus? Because, you know, I'd appreciate it if you told me." A fine veil of bitterness snuck into the teleporter's words which he couldn't quite hide, creating a pang of guilt in Valkyrie's stomach.

"Just… drop it for now, Fletcher. I'll tell you about it later." she whispered. Catching the serious tone in her words (although he couldn't think of many times when there wasn't such a tone) he left the subject and instead babbled about something in the way only he could.


Understandably, Skulduggery had been sulking. Valkyrie, in all honesty, had been expecting it. It wasn't every day you gave in and retired your car that had been with you for donkey's years. Yet it was months now and he still hadn't done much more than talk to her (which was several weeks ago) and it was making her worried. The best explanation she could come up with as to why was that the combination of all the recent events had been building up and finally got to him. But still, months? It surely wasn't that bad. He hadn't done anything of the sort when he had discovered his surrogate daughter of sorts was Darquesse, or when Ghastly turned to stone. She could go on, but decided there was no point. He would come round when he was ready, and there was no point trying to rush him.

Speaking of recent events, she was getting pretty irritated, however, at the monotony of the recent months, and this she blamed partially on the absentee detective. They'd made no breakthrough on the Tanith issue, she was getting increasingly fed up with Fletcher's near ditzy optimism and to top it all off, Scapegoat or whatever the Zombie was called had been pestering her on methods to prevent the decomposition.

Okay, she'd been trying to ignore them, she really had. But when they turned up at her house of all places, she completely gave up on being patient. God, half the time she wished Caelan hadn't let them out… which was a funny thought because she hadn't thought of the strange vampire in a while… or the accompanying pathetic lilt in her emotions when she thought of him. Ugh.

As of late she'd been spending more time with the echo of Gordon, appreciating the fact that he treated her as he had done before. Ghastly was understandingly not talking to many people and thus as useless as Skulduggery. Tanith was… unavailable, Fletcher was being 'understanding' about something he didn't have a clue about, her parents were going rather ballistic about the whole baby business and Skulduggery had his problem, whatever that was.

Not wanting him to pop up in the middle of a conversation with her uncle, she resisted taking Fletcher and instead chose the long walk to Gordon's house… in the blinding sunlight. It was one of those days where one physically couldn't cover up without worry of fainting, so she bit the bullet and went out in a plain t-shirt, her usual skinny jeans and, god save us, flip-flops.

"Stephanie! That's the first time I've seen your arms in months! Didn't know you still had any!" her father called from the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" her mother asked.

Rolling her eyes, the necromancer replied with, "I'm not twelve anymore. I'm only going to Gordon's. I'll call you when I'm on my way back."

Her mother frowned a little, worried at how often her daughter had been visiting the house of her husbands long dead brother. Was it normal for girls her age to go and visit an empty house? Sure there were plenty of books there that keep her entertained for days, but she was sixteen! There was something odd about it. And then a thought struck her. Stephanie could always be meeting that boyfriend of hers there, the one with the crazy hair whose name she always forgot. Oh… she hoped they were properly aware of the repercussions of such a… relationship.

"Well… stay safe, Steph. You hear me? And remember to put some sun cream on! You burn so easily."

"Yeah, mum! Bye!" Valkyrie gave them a quick wave before rushing out the house, her coat draped over one arm just in case (and not in case of rain by any means). She set off, tying her hair back to keep it from sticking to the back of her neck. It was getting increasingly hot, so much so that the hot air rising from the surface of the car seemed to dance, distorting the images behind. When touched, the smooth metal near burned ones fingers, making her decide, 'Definitely a good thing I didn't go by car.'

Halfway to the house she could see a group of teenager about her age in the distance. Girls in near non-existent skirts and shorts and boys with trousers so low you could see their pants far more than was necessary. Quickly debating in her head whether to look small or confident, she settled on holding her head high and maintaining eye contact if necessary. She wasn't about to act meek in front of a load of teenagers after she'd defeated all manner of crazy monsters.

"Hey, Steph, what's up with you? Going to a funeral?" one of the girls asked, giggling yet it was plain she was only teasing. Almost as if they knew each other?

"Huh?" Was a fairly decent reply considering.

The girl made a dismissive gesture with her hand, "Oh never mind that. We heard you were spotted with some blond guy the other day… well, week. Spill the beans!"

"Sorry, I've got family business at the moment, can't talk right now. Bye!" Valkyrie threw out the first excuse that came to mind and walked past, not wanting to cause a scene.

"Hey, you're not getting off that easy! Tell us later, m'kay! And don't wear such heavy clothes all the time! You'll get heatstroke or something!" the girl waved before turning and carrying on.

'My reflection had definitely been missing things out.' she decided before easing into a jog towards her second home. Racing towards the echo stone she all but flung herself onto a nearby chair and waited for her uncle to notice her presence, longing for a normal conversation. Yet when she realised how engrossed he was into whatever book it was he was reading she lightly cleared her throat.

Gordon jumped, "Oh! Hello! I didn't notice you coming in!"

"Obviously not." she smiked.

"I would ask how you are but you still have that… lookish look on your face. So, any headway on the issues ar hand?" he asked but got a mere shake of the head in response. They chatted for a while, trying to stay clear of magic related conversation, yet as the echo stone resident hadn't left the room in a while his knowledge of the outside world was fairly limited. After a while, however, he gave in and his expression softened as he smiled, "There's always a solution. Don't doubt for a second that you will find it."

"This isn't one of your books, Gordon! We've been at it for months and still haven't found anything. I'm starting to wonder if it isn't just a big waste of time."

"Don't make me call a therapist. Moping never solved anything."

"How would you call one? There's no phone nearby. In fact, I think they cut the line for this place since no one technically lives here."

Gordon paused for a moment, taking in how tetchy his niece was, then suggested, "Have you tried China-"

"I've tried China! I've tried every legal method under the sun to get this information, and several illegal ones."

"Don't tell me of all people you've tried illegal methods! I'll have to call Skulduggery and get him to beat some sense into you… metaphorically of course."

"Like he'd do anything." she near snarled. It was clear to her uncle that she was fed up with worry for her mentor and was deciding to channel this into anger. This saddened him greatly, seeing her in such a condition, yet there was little he could do.

"Still moping too?"

"Yep."

"The pair of you need to get your act together!"

"Easy for you to say, you're-" she began before the sound of the front door creaking open filled the room. Twisting the dark coloured ring around her finger, the channel for her necromancy powers, she opened the door to Gordon's study a crack and peered through it. Two figures could be seen, and then without consciously realising it, when she saw who they were she gave a cry of disbelief. "You two? Again? Why can't you just give up?"

Scrapegrace and Thrasher, the zombies, were stood awkwardly in the hallway, doing their best to look dignified and normal while body parts equally did their best to work themselves loose. Thrasher was in the middle of sewing his zombie overlord's left ear on when her cry interrupted him, making him jump and jab the needle into Scrapegrace's head.

Thrasher opened his mouth, clearly about to tell the girl off for making him injure his boss, yet was stopped by Scrapegrace holding his hand up in what he hoped was an elegant and noble looking plea for silence. Yet there were tears prickling in the corners of his eyes from the needle stuck in the side of his head. "Please. I know that we haven't been… friends, per se, but does that give you the right to leave us suffering? Where's your compassion?" A quick look at Valkyrie's face revealed to him that his 'moving' speech wasn't working in the slightest, so he cleared his throat, got down on one knee and tried a different tactic. "Please! Please, please, please!" I just want to spend one day where I don't have to staple my ears back on, or sew my nose to my face! Is that too much to ask?"

"I know what you want, but for the last time, I don't have the cure." She tried her best to keep her voice cold and icy, but it was getting harder as the temper began to rise.

"But you knew Grouse! Perhaps he told you something?"

"How many times? I. Don't. Have it!" She tugged at the shadows in the room and swirled them around the zombie duo's legs until they were completely tangled, and then, flicking her wrists, flung them from the house so forcefully that they bounced several times before skidding to a halt. She was fairly certain she could see an arm resting casually on the tarmac, and then realised that perhaps throwing a pair of zombies across the road probably wasn't the greatest idea she'd ever had… but shrugged and went back inside, "Eh. They'll figure something out."


Thankfully, after that they got the message she didn't see them again… or she'd accidentally killed them that day, which filled her with a slight disgust, yet nonetheless they were pretty much dead anyway. But that feeling of unrest inside due to the monotony of the day was still going strong. Valkyrie supposed that after having adventures almost every other day for the past few years, just a few hours without anything exciting going on would be torture, let alone months! She eventually found herself reduced to doing her homework herself and even going to school just to keep her mind occupied. This, of course, made her reflection pretty confused, but technically it didn't have the right to be confused, being a reflection! Although she guessed it was just generally being odd recently.

That morning, it was just one of those days, Valkyrie decided. Waking up had been completely normal. She'd opened her eyes a crack at the bleeping of the alarm, shut them again for a second and was promptly launched into a dream where she'd already gotten dressed, eaten breakfast and left the house. And when she awoke, she found that not only was she most definitely not dressed, but that she also only had about ten minutes before she had to be at the bus stop. As if the world was trying to prove how cliché it wanted to be when she all but screeched to a halt in front of the bus stop, that was the day the school had appointed a new bus driver that got lost around the winding Irish roads. To further this, when it finally came around the bend, screeching to a halt half an hour late it kicked up a dust cloud that got in her eyes and made them dry for the rest of the day. She was officially fed up and wished she'd sent her reflection to school for the day… it wasn't even nine 'o' clock in the morning yet…

"And so now we get… 64cm for side b." Her maths teacher stood at the front of the class, pointing at various sides of the triangle and reminding them to copy down the diagram into their books. She had a round, friendly face and had to be at least middle aged judging by the sheer amount of grey hairs and laugh lines she had. "Now. Turn to page 127 of the textbooks I just handed out. At the… top left of the page there should be some 'tricky Pythagoras questions'. When you've gotten up to question five put your hand up and I'll tell you what page the answers are on."

Pythagoras wasn't that bad, really, once you got into the swing of it. In fact, it was almost theraputic doing essentially the same question over and over and over again… a squared plus b squared equals c squared and so on. Although nothing compared to racing down tangled alleyways in pursuit of various criminals, hurling fireballs and condensed shadows with Skulduggery…

"Stephanie? Hello?" Her maths teacher waved at her from the front of the class, resulting in a few sniggers from her fellow classmates. "Now we have your attention would you kindly do your work along with the rest of the class?"

Head ducked down to hide the very slight flush on her face (because, of course as Valkyrie would tell anyone, she didn't do blushing), she got to work again, having not noticed that she'd begun to daydream. Although she supposed that was kind of the thing with daydreams, you couldn't intentionally daydream. However, the very second she'd turned back to her work a dark shape passed the window, slightly to wask for a normal walk jet not quite jogging. Yet no one looked up, after all, why should they? They were on the ground floor with windows looking out on to the courtyard that led to the office. People walked past the window all the time.

'Right. So… eleven point five squared is… eleven squared is… one hundred and twenty one, and nought point five squared is… um… uh… great. I can shoot fireballs from my hands, move things with air currents and control shadows and death at will, but I can't square eleven point five!' Sighing, Valkyrie pulled her ancient calculator from her bag and contributed to the tap-tap-taps hat filled the room as people jabbed at time buttons to figure out lengths of a triangle. Her calculator, as previously mentioned, was old with one of the buttons missing, meaning that whenever the need for the number nine arrived she had to use a thin pencil to poke the number in.

A quiet voice interrupted the chatter with, "Excuse me… is miss Stephanie Edgley in this class?"

Confused, she turned around in her seat to see one of the men who worked in the office with a small slip of paper in hand. The teacher nodded, pointed her out then returned to her work on the computer. She wasn't sure what on earth he could have to talk to her about… unless… could it be something to do with her sister (she was fairly certain it was going to be a girl)? At this, she suddenly felt very guilty for thinking all the bad things about the baby, as she had been beforehand. 'What if something has gone wrong?'

"You're cousin's here. He said that it's urgent so you've got the rest of the day off. Family matters." the man explained. Valkyrie just blinked. She was pretty certain that she didn't have any male cousins, unless of course they'd suddenly discovered that Gordon had a secret love child or something odd like that… although a certain amount of relief flooded into her system. It could quite easily just be one of her contacts in the magical community getting her attention with new information… or just a mistake in the system.

"Which one, sorry?" she asked, hoping for some insight from their name.

"Uh…" the man looked down at the scrawls on his paper before looking up once more with, "Caelan Cain, I think he said."


A/N: Rewritten the first chapter! It's also considerably longer now, which is good!

Aaaand, I'm an English peep, so when I say 'pants' I mean underwear, and trousers is, well, trousers? Um, there's probably more, like the whole 'mom/mum' thing, and other stuff. So if there are terms which you're a little 'what is she on about?', just ask!

So, what I wrote before, but condensed! This is my first fanfic, so if anything's drastically wrong, just point it out and I'd be happy to change it! Um, I'm a little 'hm' about putting Caelan and Valkyrie as the main characters because people may jump to the conclusion that this is a romance based piece, and it's really not. I mean, there is fluff, but it's not the main focus, just to clear that!

Uh, what else? Ah! This is going to be at least 150,000 words if all goes to plan with fortnightly updates of around 5000 words or more. And I don't plan of giving this up. I'll stick with it to the bitter end!

Thanks for reading!