With a barely concealed 'the hell?" muttered under her breath, she packed her stuff away and set off after the office worker, remembering to thank her teacher for being let out. Why on earth would he turn up at her school of all places? She hadn't seen hair nor hide of him for months, so she guessed it wasn't for a friendly reunion. While she was thankful for his help all of those times (although not so much for the confessions of love), she wasn't prepared to forgive him for just turning up at her refuge against all the crazy things in her life. Besides, weren't vampires supposed to only come out at night?

When they arrived at the main entrance, she found that by the trophy case, a tall person in a dark coat was stood. Assuming that this was Caelan, she padded over to where he was waiting. He turned smoothly to face her before announcing, "Come with me, I can't tell you what I need to here, someone unsavoury could listen in."

He turned the coats collar up and pulled on a baseball cap, which he then secured into place with the coats hood before venturing back outside. When he noticed her amused look, he explained how he burnt to a ridiculous extent, which only served to make her snort. When he walked, he seemed to make a strange stomping motion with his feet, which she only guessed was him trying to walk 'like a human'.

He made one of his small smiles as he noticed her heart beat pick up, which made her respond with a frown as she looked away. The last thought that went through the receptionists mind as he watched the two apparent teens leave the building was, 'Cousins? Not bloody likely.'

"You have a car?" She demanded instantly as they sat down.

"Yes, I have a car."

"You have a car? Do you even need one? I thought you kind of… you know… crepteverywhere." It wasn't a flashy car such as Ferrari that you'd expect a vampire to drive around in, or a classic like the Bentley, it was simply a car. In fact, it was worse that that; it was a Ford Focus, and not one of the newer ones either. It was dull silver, had a deep dent in one of the sides and all but the front window were blacked out, and even that one had a filter on it to prevent too much sunlight coming in.

"Just because I can, doesn't mean I will. It's nice to maintain a sense of normality now and again." He shrugged. Noticing, as always, how his torso didn't move a bit due to him not needing to breathe she suddenly realised that staring at his chest probably looked a little odd… and he'd certainly noted it.

"The planet will not be impressed. So, what was this urgent thing you had to talk to me about?" As soon as the words left her mouth, the amused expression on his face vanished, which promptly ruined the mood.

"I think I may have found a way to get the remnant out of Tanith. Other than doctor Nye that is."

A shocked silence completely filled the car. It seemed to press dauntingly on them, restricting all speech and noise… until Caelan's stomach rumbled loudly. Despite now ridiculous the noise sounded, it reminded her that this man with his slick black hair and flint sharp cheekbones was a hungry monster. "No offence, but there's no way I'm sitting in an enclosed space with a hungry vampire."

He smirked, "Not even a house trained one? As I told you last time, I've got the wolfs bane and hemlock formula. I'm a human now… pretty much." She shook her head, remembering the other things he'd said last time until he interjected with, "Besides, I have something to… ah, eat… in the boot."

"Shouldn't you have thought about that before hand? Walking into a school with hundreds of people when you hungry… it's just asking for trouble isn't it?"

The skin at the bridge of his nose crinkled angrily into a snarl as he replied, "It's not exactly easy to get a good supply of food you know. Unlike fanciful vampires in novels, I can't just go and snack on Bambi rather than humans. It doesn't work like that." Having said that, he did look tired… and hungry. There were darker shadows under his eyes than usual and a bit of five 'o' clock shadow across his jaw. She would have pointed out that he needed a shave, but he looked a little stressed and decided he didn't need it.

"What is it? How?" She chose upon instead.

"What? My lunch?"

"The anti-remnant device."

"Oh, that. Well… I've been… uh… looking into it. You've been pretty upset about the whole issue."

Biting back a 'How observant of you!' she curled up into the chairs embrace, bringing her feet up onto the edge of the seat and relishing how if she'd done this in the Bentley Skulduggery would have had a heart attack, yet it seemed Caelan wasn't bothered by it. "You noticed?"

"You and Tanith were close-"

"We still are. She's just not… herself at the moment."

"And I can fix that for you." He flashed her one of his smiles that made her heart race.

'Think of Fletcher, think of Fletcher. You are with him and you are not some ditzy heroine in a love triangle for goodness sake. Fletcher Fletcher Fletcher.' She ran those lines through her head like a mantra before replying, "So, what is it?"

"It seems to be another form of the remnant capturer, yet far more advanced. I've only heard snippets, but it seems it was made by a woman whose partner was bound to a remnant for several years and got fed up."

"Go her."

"Indeed." He muttered dryly, hoping for a more positive and emotional reaction from her. Perhaps that would have to wait until they actually got the remnant out from Tanith. "Anyway, I haven't been able to pinpoint its location exactly; as you know not many people are on friendly terms with me per se. But I think it is somewhere in… well, Switzerland."

"Switzerland?" A little shocked, she mulled over the events in her head. Whereas it was great that it wasn't somewhere like… rural Mongolia, Switzerland still wasn't exactly accessible without Fletcher, and if Caelan was the only one who knew about it she doubted things would go smoothly with the both of them together. She realised then that almost everything they'd ever needed to get for their various… erm… magical needs was conveniently in either Ireland or Britain. Basically, pretty close by for back up to come or for retreat to go and lick their wounds.

Although of course, she could get Skulduggery and Fletcher together without Caelan and pop off to Switzerland and back again in the space of about a day. But this also had its problems; they'd ask where she'd gotten her information from, and again neither was exactly friendly with the vampire that was seemingly despised by all. The other alternative was to go with just Caelan, and just the thought of this sent little warning signals into her mind as her gut flipped awkwardly… but of course that could be because she too was hungry. Anyway, that wouldn't work either. She wouldn't be able to fake not being there for that amount of time without it being noticed, and the main issue of course being money. She wasn't exactly rolling in cash, and she doubted Caelan was a secret entrepreneur.

"Is there anything else you know about it?" She asked.
"Yes, but we should probably move out of here. That receptionist is giving us funny looks for being parked here so long for a 'family emergency' being what I said to him."

"Against my better judgement, I think I might just go with you, but only for more information about this."

"You're the great skeleton detectives sidekick, since when has better judgement ever applied to you?"

"Watch it, or I may go back to my maths class." She smirked.

They stopped behind a small convenience store where Valkyrie got out of the car. Partially, because Caelan was about to eat whatever it was he had in the boot and she didn't want to get caught in any feeding frenzy that may or may not happen, and partially because she wanted to get something to eat herself. When she asked what he had hidden away, he replied with an annoyingly vague answer but assured her he hadn't got a dead body, so she guessed he'd somehow stolen some blood bags or something along those lines.

Upon her return with a bar of chocolate and a croissant, she was pleased to notice how eating hadn't somehow magically revitalised him. If anything, the only thing that had changed was that there weren't awkward stomach rumblings filling the car every few seconds. Besides, if he had rejuvenated after his meal into a new Caelan, she would have felt a little cheated.

"So, where are you planning on taking me?" She demanded in between bites of her ridiculously flaky lunch, silently taking into account the miniscule drop of blood on his cheek.

"You will probably object to it, but all of my research is at where I'm currently staying. You'll have to come with me there."

"I'll hear you out, but I'll have to go home quickly to let out my reflection." She replied after checking her watch. "By the way, you've got a speck of blood on your cheek, just there."

"It won't take that long; there's not much to look at." He noisily shifted the gear stick before turning a particularly nasty bend in the road. He regularly checked the small clock on the dashboard, which she guessed was so that he'd know when he was about to transform so he could inject the suppressant.

It was odd. The car smelt of absolutely nothing, unlike most other people's cars, which most definitely smelt of the person who owned it. Although, she supposed that was to be expected since he technically wasn't alive and hadn't been for at least eighty years… but wouldn't that mean the whole place should reek of rotting meat? It probably wasn't best to ponder such things for too long.

They arrived at a three star hotel on the outskirts of a nearby city. As they entered the lobby, the receptionist made a strange cough while giving Caelan his keys back. Valkyrie glared at him in such a way that clearly said 'continue that, and I break your arm' which thankfully stopped the receptionist midway through a suggestive look. Never before had the man who'd once been known for his ability to scare his opponent into submission before even fighting them felt so small. Valkyrie wasn't exactly a huge girl, but she definitely had muscle, which showed through her school uniform a little when she moved; she was by no means weedy.

"Here we have it." He opened the door widely, letting her through first in an odd show of chivalry. The room was filled with dozens of books covering almost every single space that it could. Needless to say, he'd made sure room service didn't go in. Most were opened on random pages with pages bent irrespective of how old and precious they were.

"This is both a librarians nightmare and dream. China would have a fit at all of these dog-eared pages."

"Good thing she isn't here then."

He took her through all the information he'd collected. Most of it was pretty sketchy and obscure, such as 'It can't be removed after four days…?' or 'there's virtuallyno chance of getting rid of the remnant after the four day mark'. She raised her eyebrow as she browsed through them.

"Sorry, but there's not really anything here that's concrete evidence. It seems more like these people were just being optimistic with their approach of writing it down." She frowned as she read yet another frustratingly unhelpful article.

"That's all I could find for ages. In fact, that's all I could find in English."

Snorting, "Don't tell me your some kind of language genius. Besides, it's these books right? I mean, I can read a little French, but this stuff is all… dunno, old-fashioned French."

"I don't know much more than Bonjour and Guten-tag-"

"Which is German." She interrupted.

"Exactly. I've been using a translator. If you look at this text, it talks about how someone's child was infected with a remnant, and that's it, but then later on it talks about how they grow up, and they're obviously not infected here. So there must be someway to remove them after four days."

"Unless of course this is just a story someone wrote."

"You have a very pessimistic view on the world."

"It's hard not to. But if we did go off to find this anti-remnant thing in Switzerland and it turns out that it's just some story to jazz up someone's old hairbrush or whatever, it'll have been a complete waste of time. Time we don't really have."

"I haven't finished yet. I cross referenced several other books, all in French, until I found this." He led her to a smaller book bound in a leather case with intricate gold patterns. In this was a very small sketch of a strange necklace. She glanced at it before turning back again, confused.

"What's that?"

"That," He began almost proudly, "Is your anti remnant device."

She stayed for a while longer as they looked through all the books until she checked her watch, found it to be almost four 'o' clock and declared that she needed to go home. The car journey took a while as Caelan took an unnecessary amount of time to find Haggard despite all of the signs. 'I get lost easily' was his excuse with a smirk. By the time they were finally within the villages borders, he turned to her and before he could stop it, the words he probably should never have said to her slipped from his mouth, "Your house is number four Baker street right?"

"Sorry?"

"I… ah… nothing."

"How do you know where I live?"

"I don't, that was just a guess." He lied, chuckling slightly as if to ridicule her, yet she saw straight through it.

"I'm not stupid, Caelan." She frowned. He bit back an 'enlighten me' before she added, "When you tasted my blood… you can track me now can't you?"

"Theoretically speaking-"

"You've tracked me to my house haven't you?" She said quietly. For a relieved second, he thought she'd be flattered, but when she opened the door, rushed out and slammed it shut again he realised that perhaps this wasn't the case. Why couldn't she see it his way? He'd been watching over her for over half a year, and had fought off countless magicians trying to dispose of her when she was out and about. Of course, said magicians didn't understand why a vampire in human form would suddenly attack them so he'd built up quite an urban legend: 'that random vampire what likes to beat people up' as one semi-conscious elemental so eloquently put it. Caelan was perfectly aware that she could protect herself just fine, but it wasn't fair on her having to constantly have her guard up… right? Besides, most popular teenage literature these days decreed that stalking = attractive in men. All those fan girls couldn't be wrong, surely?

Although, of course, poor Caelan's rather warped displays of affection were not wanted by Valkyrie. Indeed, most sane girls wouldn't want it. Her mind was a war zone at that moment; he repulsed her yet he was the only way she'd get Tanith back. Those goddamn dark eyes of his, the way they'd drain her brain capacity until she was left as dim as the stupid girls in her class who could only think of the good looking boy in front of them. She'd much rather be feeling these things around China with her weird love magic, at least the attraction wasn't real then.

"Wait." He called. Part of her wanted to stop right there then turn to him and give in, but to hell with that part! She wouldn't be caught dead doing that any time soon. "Please, at least listen."

"I've listened. Thank you for the information, but I don't want to get involved with stalkers, I'm not that stupid." And with that she turned and began to jog back to her house. The very idea he'd been watching her all that time! It made her skin crawl. Just how much had he seen? Did he watch her conversations with Gordon, eating tea with her family, sleeping… oh god… getting dressed in the mornings? She'd rather have Scrapegrace back at this rate.

But now she had the information on the anti remnant necklace… thingy. With that she could get Tanith and everything would be good again. Besides, she could really do with having a long chat with her about the whole Caelan issue since he clearly wouldn't be leaving her alone any time soon. Yep, Scrapegrace and his zombie pal would be great.

When she thought about it, she could definitely remember several times when she could have sworn she'd seen him around in really odd places when she was out. One such was when she was with Fletcher somewhere and she could see him in the crowd near her, prompting her to get Fletcher to teleport them away somewhere very different. Latvia to be exact.

Thudding heavily onto her bed, she mentally thanked whoever it was who'd put up the runes around her house for protection (her mind was a little occupied with other things at the moment). After yet another night time encounter with a shady character she'd taken her safety into her own hands and gotten China to protect her entire home. After all, it wasn't just herself in danger it was also her family.

She looked up at the exact moment her Dad popped his head around the door. "What was with the stomping, Steph?"

She grunted.

Okay, sorry for the mix up! Here is chapter two again! I'm sorry for getting them all mixed up! I was editing bits and accidentally mixed them up, as you could tell! Hopefully it shouldn't happen again, but if something is wrong, as always just let me know and I'll change it.

Gosh, I can't remember at all when I wrote here! Um... I think it went something like this?

So, while writing as Caelan, I noticed that no matter what I did he sounded creepy stalkerish, and then I realised that's exactly what he is! So no problems there! Although I'm a little worried that Valkyrie's reaction to finding out Caelan was stalking her is a little too placid? I did have a creep stalk me around school for about two years or so but i dealt with it by death glaring them at every opportunity. I was going to confront them about it, but then they left the school I go to, so whatever!

For Caelan's vampireness (for lack of better word) I'm making the bulk of it up as I'm fairly certain not much is said about it. So if there is something wrong on there just let me know and I'll be happy to correct it. Also, there is a bit of a dig at Twilight here... yep.

Reviews would make me a very happy girl, but don't feel obliged! If you have time it would be lovely, and they don't have to be long at all. :)

Thanks for reading!