Requiem: Chapter Fifteen...

I have the next chapter all ready to go for you guys so here it is :)

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Skulduggery was perched in a tree above them, watching as Magnus and his date chatted on a bench by a small pond. Valkyrie had secreted herself in a flower bush a few feet to their right. Her dress was too tight and her shoes hurt but at least the stupid facade was gone. She could see a glittering necklace around the woman's neck, and the unnatural shimmer kept catching the light as she talked. Magnus kept inspecting it when he thought the woman wasn't looking.

"You can stop looking at it, Percy." The woman smiled at him. "I know you have an eye for magical artefacts but this one stays with me for now. We can discuss the sale later."

"Sorry my dear. It really is rather enchanting though. Almost as enchanting as you."

"Oh stop," the woman simpered. "You do know how to flatter a lady."

"That's not all I know how to do," Magnus said, and Valkyrie saw his expression change and the tip of his finger turn black a split second before he touched the poor woman beside him. Valkyrie snapped her palm and threw him over the back of the bench with the air. The woman shrieked and scrambled back. Skulduggery dropped from the tree and levelled his gun at Percival, his facade gone. The woman saw his skull, started to scream, and then she fainted. He ignored her.

"Percival Magnus, you're under arrest."

"Skulduggery Pleasant. Never thought I'd see the day when my little crimes were important enough to attract your attention." His gaze shifted to Valkyrie. He was a weedy little man with watery eyes and thinning hair. "And you must be his new pet. Cain is it?"

"Call me a pet one more time and you'll be sent to the Sanctuary without your teeth," she warned.

"Fiesty, aren't you?" He grinned, and they only had a second to duck as his hand turned black and the air seemed to ripple and turn red. The ground where Valkyrie had been standing was lacerated with hundreds of deep slashes.

"I thought he could only hurt people by touching them!" she called to Skulduggery.

"So did I," he called back. He fired several shots that sent Magnus leaping for cover. Valkyrie used the opening to send a swathe of shadows slamming into the mage. He dodged at the last second and she barely escaped his devastating gift as he cut the plants behind her to shreds.

"Stay still so I can kill you," he snarled as she ran to Skulduggery's side, stumbling in her stupid heels. She was too slow. Another blast of deadly power came her way. Skulduggery threw her out of the way and it struck him full force, and Valkyrie tumbled and watched in shock as his beautiful suit shredded and he screamed and hit the ground and didn't get back up. Valkyrie scrambled over to him, grabbed his gun and aimed.

She'd never shot anyone before. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. She watched in shock as the bullet hit Magnus square in the chest, and the red liquid spread out around it and ruined his nice shirt. And he clutched the wound and then his hand was red and he was falling. And as he fell his eyes rolled back and his limbs folded under him and then he didn't move anymore and the red was spreading out on the nice ornamental footpath around him.

A skeletal hand touched her back, the other reaching up to remove her finger from the trigger. Skulduggery moved slowly, like it was a great effort to do anything, but he took the gun from her as she started to tremble and he pulled her close and held her while she cried. She didn't mind that he had no skin. She didn't mind that there were gaps under his shredded clothes when she hugged him. All she could see was the red seeping from the bullet hole and staining the stones, even after he'd turned her away from it.

"Ghastly, we got him." Skulduggery's soft voice was strained, the smoothness turning as rough as sandpaper as he spoke into his phone, keeping one arm around her. "We need someone to handle clean up." There was a lull while he waited for a response. "Yes, he's dead. He tried to kill us." He paused. "Valkyrie is fine but I need medical attention. We're in the public gardens in the city centre. Thank you." He ended the call, and he swayed on his feet, and then he dropped to his knees with a groan.

"Are you alright?" Valkyrie hunkered down beside him, letting him lean on her so he didn't fall.

"That really hurt."

"Thanks for saving me."

"The nick of time rescues are my thing, remember," he answered. She thought he might chuckle, but then he swayed and he went limp. Valkyrie tried to wake him, and as she did she saw his damaged bones. Hundreds of tiny nicks and scars on every inch of exposed bone. Some of them had splintered into hairline cracks along his skeleton.

"Val?" It was Tanith, with Fletcher, Ghastly and a bunch of Cleavers beside her. She looked at the unconscious woman on the bench and the dead man on the path, and then she looked at Valkyrie's tear stained face and Skulduggery slumped against her and she sprang into action. She barked orders and the Cleavers moved as a unit to secure the area, Ghastly took out his phone to contact the people who would disguise the incident and Fletcher walked over to the two of them huddled on the ground.

"Hey." He crouched in front of her and touched her shoulder.

"I shot Magnus," she said softly. "I shot him and I killed him."

"You've never killed anyone before, have you?" Fletcher's tone was careful, like somebody speaking to a child on the edge of a tantrum.

"No."

"The first time is always the worst," Skulduggery groaned. He tried to sit up but failed.

"Stay still. I'm gonna get you both to the Sanctuary." Fletcher put a hand on each of them and then they were in the Infirmary. Valkyrie helped to lift Skulduggery onto a bed as Doctor Raze came sweeping in with a serious expression on her face.

"What happened?"

"A man called Percival Magnus hit him with some sort of power when he was aiming for me," she said quietly as Fletcher gave her a sympathetic smile and disappeared.

"Have you seen the power before?"

"He's used it on other people. It cuts them all over, even their organs. Will Skulduggery be okay?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine. He's a difficult man to kill." She put a hand on Valkyrie's shoulder, her eyes softening. "I need you to wait outside while I help him, alright? I'll call you as soon as I can." Valkyrie nodded and left the Infirmary on numb legs. She sat in one of the hard plastic seats outside, pulled off her stupid shoes and she cried, drawing her knees up to her chest and sobbing into her arms.

She replayed the shot over and over in her mind, wondering if she could have done it differently. Wondering if she should have gone for his leg instead. But all the time the voice in the back of her head whispered to her. You didn't want that. You wanted him dead for hurting Skulduggery. He killed others, he deserved it. She tried to ignore the voice, but it was insistent, continuing to nag at her until Fletcher and Tanith found her a while later, still sitting in that plastic chair.

"Val?" Tanith sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. "You okay?"

"I killed him Tanith. I could've shot him in the arm or the leg and instead I shot him square in the chest."

"He was trying to kill you. He almost killed Skulduggery. He planned to hurt and potentially kill the woman he was with. What you did was self defence."

"But I could've-"

"No," Fletcher said gently. "Stop it." He took a seat on the other side of her and took her hand. "If you keep thinking of all the things you could've done you'll drive yourself insane. You did what you had to in the moment."

"He was trying to kill you, Val. You saved two lives tonight." Tanith smiled. "Skul owes you big time now."

"No he doesn't," she answered, shaking her head. "He saved me. That's why he's hurt and I'm not. I shot Magnus afterwards."

"We've all done things we don't like," the blonde woman answered. "Sometimes being the good guy means you have to make the hard choices."

"You made the right one," Fletcher added. They stayed silent for a while as Valkyrie came to terms with the knowledge that she'd ended a life.

"How was he when you left him?" Tanith asked, breaking the silence.

"Bad, I think. He spoke before Fletcher brought us here but he couldn't move. He had marks all over him. Lots of them cracked."

"I've seen it before. It's a Necromancy technique called 'The touch of a thousand cuts'. Nasty trick," she said with a scowl. "Normally it only works on the flesh, but since Skul has no flesh I guess his skeleton took the brunt of it."

"I have to go," Fletcher said, frowning at his phone. "Let me know how he is when you can." Fletcher disappeared in a second.

"How long have you been sat here?"

"Since Fletcher brought us back from Ditchwater. I had to leave while Doctor Raze treated him." Valkyrie frowned. "How long ago was that?"

"A couple of hours. We came as soon as the mess Magnus caused was sorted."

"What happened to the girl he was with?"

"She's fine. She's been allowed to return home and advised to leave the necklace in a safe place from now on. She actually asked me to thank you both. She had no idea her new boyfriend planned to do more than just buy the necklace from her." Tanith squeezed Valkyrie's knee as the Doctor appeared in the corridor.

"He's awake and asking for you," she said. "He's still in one piece but be gentle with him, alright? He's sore." Valkyrie nodded and got to her feet, her legs aching from sitting still for so long.

"I'll be right here," Tanith assured her. She nodded and entered the Infirmary again, heading straight for her partner. His destroyed suit had been replaced with a hospital gown and he was covered by a rough blanket. He was sat up against the pillows, and he watched as she approached.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello."

"How are you feeling?"

"Sore, I have to admit." He had the weird black tape around most of the bones that were exposed, and he didn't move much.

"That's a lot of tape," she said.

"There were a lot of cracks." He cocked his head. "Are you okay?"

"You're the one in a hospital bed."

"You shot someone, Valkyrie." He turned his palm over on the blanket carefully, opening his hand to her. She reached out and he clasped her fingers gently. "We're partners. You don't have to pretend you're alright around me."

"He bled so much." Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "I keep thinking there was something else I could've done."

"There probably was," Skulduggery answered truthfully. She liked that he was so direct. "You could have shot him in the shoulder. Or the shin. The foot, perhaps. But you didn't." He held her hand a little tighter. "And that doesn't make you a bad person. If you had given him that chance to live he would've killed you without a second thought."

"You really believe that?"

"I know it. I've come up against his kind more times that I care to remember."

"Did you know what his magic would do to you?"

"No. But I knew what it would do to you. I had more chance of coming out of it unscathed than you did."

"But you didn't come out of it unscathed, did you? Look at you. You almost died."

"Don't be dramatic."

"No, you definitely almost died," Doctor Raze said, appearing with a clip board. "Your skeleton is two sharp taps away from turning into shrapnel, detective. Don't downplay it."

"I was trying to be reassuring," he muttered.

"Valkyrie doesn't need reassuring. She needs the truth. And I'm sure if she trusts anyone to be truthful when she needs it most, it's her partner." She scribbled something as she spoke and then disappeared again to check on another patient.

"I think she might have just schooled you," Valkyrie said slowly.

"I think she did." He turned his eye sockets back on her. "Alright. I had no idea if I was going to die or not when I pushed you out of the way. I'd rather die after more than four hundred years of existing than have you die after only twenty two." He patted her hand. "But it's not the first time I've almost died and I'm sure it won't be the last."

"I was really worried. You seemed alright and then all of a sudden you were unconscious." She frowned. "Why didn't you pass out right away?"

"I'm tougher than I look, but unfortunately it seems staying on my feet turned many of the cuts into cracks and in turn the pain forced me to black out anyway."

"Are you in pain now?"

"I am. I can't move very much."

"Is there anything I can get to help you?" she asked.

"Just your company is fine." She felt him smile. "I'm glad you're safe."

"I'd be dead if you hadn't shoved me out of the way." She squeezed his hand carefully. "Thanks for that."

"My pleasure." His head tilted again like he wanted to say something, but he stayed silent.

"What?"

"I was thinking about the paintwork on my car," he answered. "I really hope we didn't scratch it."

"We? If I remember it was you that pushed me against it."

"But you were the one that kissed me so it's your fault if it is."

"That's not fair though."

"What's not fair about it?"

"You pushed me against the car." Her cheeks warmed. "I didn't ask you to do it."

"My poor Bentley." He paused. "Why do you always go red around me?"

"I don't always go red. I just blush when I'm embarrassed."

"Why are you embarrassed?"

"Did you miss the part where I kissed you?"

"I kissed you too. I'm not embarrassed. In fact I'm fairly smug. I think I did a wonderful job, don't you?"

"I'm sorry, do you actually expect me to answer that?"

"Why would I ask a question that didn't require an answer?" She could tell he was amused just from his tone of voice.

"You wouldn't but I'm not going to answer you."

"Then I'll have to assume you fell in love with me because of it and can't admit your feelings. I don't blame you really. I'm wonderful."

"Do you ever stop talking?"

"No. You should know that by now." He cocked his head. "I'm still waiting for you to answer my question."

"Good God, will you drop it?" She scowled at him.

"Absolutely."

"Really?"

"No. Tell me." She sagged.

"I swear to God I will kill you if you tell anyone. You were alright." Her cheeks burned furiously and she knew if he had lips he'd be grinning.

"Something tells me I was more than just alright."

"Will you shut up?" She looked away.

"We have to talk about it at some point, you know. Otherwise things willl become awkward." The seriousness returning to his tone made her look back at him.

"What's to talk about? He was about to bust us and I panicked. I just went with the whole fake dating thing. It worked. The end."

"Well, I wanted to apologise to you actually."

"Really? Why?" She felt her eyebrows creep upwards.

"I might have gotten a little...carried away. I wanted to say sorry if I overstepped."

"I kissed you unexpectedly in the middle of an undercover case and you think you overstepped?"

"In fairness you only did it to stop us being discovered."

"And you did a good job of convincing Magnus that we were just an ordinary couple." Her free hand rose to rub the back of her neck awkwardly as she remembered how her heart had pounded when he responded. "Your acting skills are amazing."

"My acting skills?"

"Well you only froze for a second and then you acted like you were really into it. Maybe you should put your performance forward for an award." She tried to inject some humour into the conversation.

"Oh dear. I think you misunderstood me." His tone changed. "I'm not apologising because I was too forward, Valkyrie. I'm apologising because I feel it was inappropriate of me to kiss you back."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I wasn't acting."

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