Chapter 203

It took some time to catch Skulduggery up on everything that had happened in the almost nine months he had been gone. He'd had two weeks with his brothers to get most of it, but Valkyrie quickly realised they had missed out some key information and had to go back over it for him again.

Valkyrie and Nadia took time to slip away a few times. Once they stayed at Solomon's while everyone slept at Corrival's, as her family had been prior to her and Solomon returning to Ireland, and another time they rented a hotel room as Skulduggery and Solomon wanted Solomon's house. It was a weird game of wanting alone time to very obviously have serious conversations or have sex, but no one would verbally say why they were leaving, just that they were going to "check-up" on the house. Dexter and Saracen would go to Dexter's old apartment in Dublin on occasion. Which were most nights.

It wasn't any of their faults for being obvious. Corrival forbid "ye old hanky-panky" from his house, Dexter had told her with a casual shrug. It was also comforting to have big discussions as a couple without anyone else around to interrupt or overhear, and the same went for more intimate moments. Plus, no one wanted to pretend they were working or sleeping if there was an emergency so they could help, so it was a useful and unsaid code between them.

The rest of the time they were either sleeping or, most importantly, working.

"So Samuel Grievers has been incarcerated?" Skulduggery confirmed.

"Yes, through the American Sanctuary, straight to one of their strongest and most hidden prisons. I'd give it at least a few years before we hear his name again, assuming he has as much influence as it's always been rumoured," Meritorious explained. "He's one of those that should be in a world-owned prison, likely Coldheart."

"My thoughts exactly," Skulduggery nodded.

"We have to pick our battles," Valkyrie said quickly. "Myra's also in prison."

"Yes, she'll die there," Corrival said bluntly. "It may help send a message that we're not taking this lightly, all the things the Spiders are doing. Hopefully it'll discourage other young, impressionably lives from joining them."

"Perhaps," Valkyrie agreed. "So whereabouts are we? Did any of the Wild Brothers get caught when they blew up Tanith and Saracen?"

"No, they all got away, and killed some good operatives," Elder Feie said darkly. "We did confirm they were the same people that took Pleasant hostage and broke into the English Sanctuary when you attempted to get to the God Killer Sword, however. Their leader runs under the name Pippin Black, born in Africa although we don't know where, but seems to have been brought up in England. Has never been seen on camera and wasn't at the English Sanctuary during that debacle, sending someone else in his place. His righthand person was born Welsh, named Merrik Swifthand, is the smallest person of the group, the only non-man to ever be in the group as far as we know, and in the top five. They are the brains behind much of the group and they're on record for suspicion of killing multiple people and performing some high value heists. They were never caught, however. The other three seem to be purely brawn and are not instrumental to Black or Swifthand, named Juandré Opperman and Lemae Van Wyk, both Elementals, and Wikus De Villiers, an Adept seemingly proficient in invisibility, although we can't be certain for obvious reasons."

"They don't seem to be horribly tough magic wise," Valkyrie said. "The Diablery where significantly stronger and we took them down."

"Always the optimist," Skulduggery complimented unnecessarily. He'd been doing that randomly. "These people seem to be less aggressive and more dependent on weapons and their ability to escape. A different brand of mercenaries."

"Gross."

"Quite."

"What's the chance of us tracking them? If we could take out some of the Spiders players before they can begin openly fighting, that would be useful."

"Unlikely, I've been on their trail since I returned to Ireland and haven't heard a single thing, and neither has China. She did dig up some dirt on Stolen but he seems to have been silent for a long time."

"Working on the Magicae Furem Device, no doubt."

"That worries me," Corrival said, sitting back in his chair. "We have no idea where the Spiders are despite the rumours they've all been travelling into Ireland, have no way to identify them when they aren't using magic, they have the God Killer Sword, and we know they have talented engineers such as Stolen, who we know is good working with signals, an inventor and a competent thief, as well as possibly an assassin. Whatever he's doing to the Magicae Furem Device, I would guess it's going to be significantly more powerful than the Necromancer's theorised."

"What should we expect from it then?" Valkyrie asked.

He shrugged. "No idea. There's no way to until it comes out and is used. At minimum, we believe it strips the victim of their magic and can somehow transfer the power to a selected person. Whether it's just raw power or abilities, or how it works exactly, we cannot be sure. We have some limited information at the grace of the Necromancers, but it's purely theory based on images and concepts. Most researchers seemed to have only glimpsed the box the Device is in once in their lives. I feel that makes the research rather useless."

"Potentially, but it does all come from some of their top people, and Necromancers are amazing scholars if nothing else," Skulduggery added.

They decided to leave their meeting there and Valkyrie and Skulduggery split up – Skulduggery to continue with the still rising number of crimes occurring all over the country, and Valkyrie to Corrival's mansion.

She'd already completed her triple shift. The Dead Men were all working shifts to cope with their raising workload. She'd had all day yesterday, all night and all of that day, only to be pulled into a meeting at the end of it. It had been two weeks of working and she was starting to get burnt out.

"So fucking tired," she groaned, throwing the front door open.

"Val!" Nadia called.

Smiling instinctively, Valkyrie went through to the parlour where Nadia was minding Laila. She was now almost fully weaned, although Tanith had told her she hadn't particularly wanted to stop breastfeeding, but she had too much on her plate to continue. It allowed for Nadia to be a fulltime babysitter so her mother could get back to work full time. "Enjoying baby duty?"

"Obviously," Nadia smirked. Laila was sitting against the back of the sofa and staring at the television in a daze. "There's leftovers in the kitchen."

Not wasting her energy on replying, Valkyrie went through and found the chicken pasta and heated it up quickly before coming back. She set it on the table and went upstairs to shower, knowing it would end up cold but too strained to bother with anything else, and came back in her pyjamas.

"Where's Tanith and Ghastly?"

"They'll be back sometime tonight, I think," Nadia replied, handing the re-warmed up plate to Valkyrie. Valkyrie thanked her. "Ghastly was here last night looking after her. He does nights, Tanith does days. And I do as much as I can."

"You're amazing," she whispered before kissing her roughly.

Nadia moaned and pulled away. "That is not appropriate."

"She's a baby, she doesn't understand."

"I don't care, it's weird," Nadia said with a roll of her eyes.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Valkyrie eating her food and Laila dropping off to sleep and taken to bed by Nadia. Sometime later, after falling asleep on the sofa, Valkyrie felt her phone buzz and it roused her back awake.

"Ehh what?" She grumbled sleepily.

"Oh, um, Valkyrie?" A female voice asked on the other side. She didn't recognise it.

"Yeah? Who is this?" She asked, sitting up and blinking quickly. The television had been turned off and someone had put a blanket over her.

"This is Militsa Gnosis. The Necromancer. I know you never said about calling you and stuff but something bad's going on and I didn't know who else to talk to."

"Oh, Militsa!" She said, suddenly awake. "I didn't expect you to call. How are you? What's happening?"

"I'm alright thank you. Well, no, not really. It's kind of complicated. I don't know if you heard, but a lot of Necromancers in Australia are going missing and it's been happening for a few weeks now, but the Sanctuary doesn't want to investigate because they say it's a Necromancer problem, but we can't do anything about it. I know you're probably busy, but maybe you could ask if someone could help us?" Militsa said it all very quickly with barely taking a breath and it took a moment for Valkyrie's brain to catch up with the sounds she heard coming from the phone.

"Yes, yeah, sure, let me call Skulduggery and we'll see about coming over and helping. I mean, I might not be able to, because, you know, our country is on the brink of war, but I can see," she said, going to get some coffee. "Would you be able to meet us somewhere? At the least, I can get you out of Australia, put you in a safe house."

"Do you think it's that serious?"

"Oh yeah," she said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. It didn't feel that way on the inside. "Whole worlds about to go to shit, Mil. It'll be mostly Ireland at first, but Australia is a Cradle country as well. I doubt it'll be long until they get to you."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Nope," she said. "Let me make some calls and I'll get back to you, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, I really appreciate this. Are you doing alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, very overworked is all."

They had a few more pleasantries and then finished the call.

"So," Nadia said from behind her and Valkyrie screamed and dropped her mug in the sink.

"Fucking hell, Nadia!" Valkyrie shouted. "Since when were you a ghost?"

She snorted a laugh. "Was that your ex?"

Valkyrie hesitated for a moment, and then laughed. "I mean, we didn't date, but yes, it was Militsa. Apparently a lot of Necromancers are going missing and the Sanctuary refuses to do anything about it. So, she called me. Is that… is that okay with you?"

"What? Of course, go help her," she shrugged. "Did you think I'd get jealous?"

"No, but I've been wrong before," she smiled, kissing her gently. Naida rolled her eyes and hugged her tightly.

A quick call to Skulduggery and he was interested enough to decide it was worth a few hours of their time to see if they could get anywhere with it, but warned they'd likely not get to the bottom of it with their time constraints.

It was enough though, and Valkyrie had caught a few hours' sleep, so she got her work clothes on and made out with Nadia until Skulduggery got to Corrival's and Fletcher popped in. He looked incredibly frazzled, said something about Peregrine refusing to help with the war efforts, leaving it all to him, and slapped a hand on their arms. They popped into Australia and he was gone again before the heat had even washed over her.

"He seems stressed," Skulduggery quipped, and began walking.


Sorry it's just a filler type, it's full steam into the next excitement! Plus I feel like this is exactly how it felt for Valkyrie. No time to recover, straight into work.

I have so much work to do and I've done none of it :)