Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Chapter 12

Valkyrie had decided Tanith didn't need a code name – or rather, they were having more fun using insults as code names for each other and that after just a day they were both responding to all insults quite readily so it didn't matter. On the battlefield, their enemies would hear phrases such as "Bitch, on your left!" and "Duck, cow!" and they were both perfectly okay with this.

They had just left a warehouse, where they had encountered what Valkyrie had named the White Cleaver, and just barely escaped with their lives. Panda had been about to use the earth element when Tanith had pushed him out the way of the White Cleaver and saved him. Needless to say, she was now officially on their side and not a temporary help, as Crow had so lovingly told her. They couldn't be certain where the Cleaver had gone.

"We still need to find Serpine," Valkyrie said when she'd had enough of the bickering over his inability to say things nicely. "I'm assuming we all agree he's not at his castle still?"

"Yeah," Crow said smoothly. "He would have moved on as soon as he attacked the Sanctuary, or maybe even after we escaped. His last place was this warehouse and that was a trap in itself."

"So, where do we go?" Tanith asked.

"I'm still working on that," Crow muttered.

"I think I have an idea," Weasel said, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Is it appropriate?" Tanith asked.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Tanith, don't be so unprofessional!" Valkyrie snorted, getting her an elbow in the ribs from the woman. "You said when you talked to the Echo stone it mentioned other objects that could kill Gods, right? Well, what object other than the Sceptre is ancient, has a rich history, destructive, can't be destroyed and is just out of Serpine's reach?"

"The Book," Snake said suddenly. "He wants the Book!"

"What book?" Valkyrie asked quickly.

"The Book of Names," Crow told her. "I can't believe I didn't notice it before! Of course, he needs the Elders dead to get to it."

"It's a book kept in the Irish Sanctuary that holds everyone's three names, erasing them when the die and adding them as soon as they're born, adding a Taken name if it's applicable," Tanith explained to her. "The three Irish Elders use the strength of their will-power to keep it from being taken. It's a spell or signals or something that uses their magic to make you think or want to not go to it."

"That's right," Crow continued. "Even if you want it more than anything, even if you are at gun point, you will not be able to get to it no matter what. The only way for someone to get close would be to kill all three Elders."

"So, he's targeting the Elders, I get it," Valkyrie stated. "You said they're in a safehouse? We need to go to them and protect them then. He'll come to us."

"My thoughts exactly."

.*****.

The group of six were driven in the van by Crow, though it felt more like a maniac. Valkyrie had slid and fallen all over the place until Panda as reached out pulled her onto his knee and the ride had been pretty easy for her after that. Everyone else sat motionlessly in place, made of more muscle than anyone she'd ever met before. It was super cool.

Crow stopped them by a tiny shack in the middle of absolute nowhere and opened the back up for them to troop out. Valkyrie sank into the mud and carefully followed the others into the shack where they followed a set of stairs down to a spacious room with tasteful art, modern technology, a beautiful kitchen and doors leading off to bedrooms and every other commodity a safehouse surely didn't need but this one had.

Meritorious and Morwenna Crow were waiting for them.

"What are you doing here?" Meritorious asked. "Where is Shudder and Vex?"

"They're on their way," Crow said. They hadn't told anyone how they had destroyed the Sceptre or even that they had had it in the first place. "We're here because Serpine want's the Book. You need more protection than you have."

"And while you're here, he's killing people up there," Meritorious said, standing at his full height above Crow. He must have been seven foot at least. "You're objective is to search and destroy. Not wait around, let everybody die and hope someone else deals with it."

"Like how you treated this at the start," Valkyrie muttered snidely.

"And what would you know of it?" Meritorious turned on her darkly. Crow put up a hand to stop him advancing on her.

"Serpine has to kill you to get the Book," Valkyrie explained, purposefully sounding as if she were speaking to a child to annoy him since he was being nasty anyway. "To get the Book he needs to kill you. We haven't heard of any killings, or anything at all except his creation of the White Cleaver."

"White Cleaver?" Morwenna Crow asked from her seat further back. She was very regal looking.

"Serpine used some type of magic medicine to change a Cleaver into something else," Panda said, trying to be meditator. "We don't think it's human anymore."

"And it's under Serpine's control," Crow added. "We barely got ourselves out."

Meritorious looked at Morwenna Crow and then he sighed and took a seat beside her. Crow took that to sit down opposite and they all sat around or leaned on various things as a show of peace.

"You're certain he'll come here?" Morwenna Crow asked.

"Yes," the skeleton Crow replied. "I'm certain he tailed us actually. We need to prepare of an attack."

Meritorious nodded. "We will fight with everything we have at our disposal. But the child cannot have a part in this."

"That's not up to you," Crow said. "She is my…" he trailed off.

"I'm their kind of kid, kind of apprentice, friend, thing," Valkyrie supplied. "And I'm helping."

"What magic can you do?" Meritorious asked.

"I don't have to fight with magic. I was thinking, no one will suspect me of fighting anyway. If they find just me here, they won't be bothered by me. It could make them think you left me here," she pointed out. "They might not suspect you until too late."

Crow nodded. "I was thinking the same."

"We are not using Valkyrie as bait!" Panda said immediately. "I won't have it."

"I won't be alone!" Valkyrie defended.

"There is a lot of signals on this safehouse," Morwenna Crow said, standing in a fluid motion. "We will activate the anti-magic wards at the right time and prepare ourselves. We will all fight without magic and they will do the same. As I remember, Serpine couldn't fight a damn for himself."

Valkyrie grinned and got a pat on the back in support by Crow before they split up for the attack. Panda didn't look happy and she gave him an apologetic smile before helping move the furniture from the room to give them space.

.*****.

Valkyrie sat in the middle of the room and waited, listening with a fast heart as the door at the top got blasted off and several people came running down the stairs. Slowly filing into the room with suddenly wary faces, came twenty-three minions, twenty Hollow men and Serpine himself. She smiled at him weakly, feeling significantly more nervous in front of so many enemies in such a small space. They literally rook up half the room and the Hollow Men stood so close together their skin compressed against each other. They might be outmatched.

"Hi," she squeaked, getting an arrogant smirk from Serpine. She continued to look at him and tried not to glance at his hand which began to leak purple smoke. She gulped and felt her stomach get sick. "How's it going?"

"Where are the Dead Men?" Serpine asked, grinning. He looked slightly different to last time. Greyer, maybe. "Don't tell me they used and left you already?"

She shrugged. "I'm here and they're not," she said as confidently as she could. "They left on foot ages ago."

"Hmmm," he said, wandering around the room slowly, glancing into the blackened doors. "And the Elders? Where are they?"

She wondered if he could see her heartbeat. "They were sent ahead. They think I was taken home. I – I think they were bored looking after me. You were right."

He grinned, taking the bait. "If only you had accepted my offer in the first place. Now I'll have to kill you."

He walked to her slowly and his arm raised – she could see the evil in his green eyes – and the anti-magic wards were activated and the wrought iron door slammed into place.

Serpine glanced up at the sound but then his expression soured to loathing and he dove onto Valkyrie, trying to strangle her, using his weight to stop her fighting back. "Damn bitch!" He was screaming, and she thought he said more but the two Elders and the Dead Men ran attacked his men very suddenly, leaving Valkyrie dealing with Serpine.

He pulled up from choking her and smacked her hard in the face. "Do you know what you've done to me?!" He screeched and Valkyrie quickly sucked in breaths before pulling her knees up and hitting up in the groin.

He jumped up in pain and Valkyrie used the momentary reaction to pull herself to her feet and kick him onto his arse. He grabbed onto her leg and she was pulled down beside him but she grabbed the stun gun that had been concealed in the back of her jacket – which was way heavier than she ever thought a gun would be – and used the back end to slam against his face.

The hit was hard enough to make the back of his head smack the concrete floor, but he didn't let go. Instead he yanked her hard and she fell onto her back and he grinned as he slowly started dragging her from the room.

"Crow!" She screamed, unable to twist or pull her way away. "Help!"

"It's too late girl!" He growled nastily, showing all his teeth in a way that was on a distant league to a smile but she could certainly see glee in his eyes.

Acting quickly, she raised the gun and shot it, missing him as he threw her away and she hit the wall instead. Shouting in pain, she kept a hold of the stun gun and took her second shot, just grazing his shin but she did hear the sharp intake of breath over the other fighting. She quickly crawled over the floor to a chair against the wall and picked herself up, although it only made him laugh. She saw her brothers trying to get to her, but the Hollow Men and lackies kept them away.

"What are you going to do?" He asked loudly. "You can't even shoot."

She ignored him and stood behind the chair and raised the gun as he started running at her – she had no time to move and shielded her face with her arms, gun pointed uselessly at the ceiling, and then… waited.

Nothing came.

She uncrunched her eyes and found Crow had tackled Serpine to the floor. Relief flooded her and she instead quickly ran, jumped and kicked a man in the stomach that had been about to hit Tanith from behind and he went down long enough for her to run her sword through his arse and then went back to her fight. She turned and saw Crow was grappling intensely with Serpine and decided he was having fun so used her last of three stun shots by running to Meritorious and stunning one of the goons trying to overpower him through numbers and then ran back to fetch the chair and got back in time for him to turn, grab it, and smash it to pieces over another one of them.

There was no one to fight but Serpine by then and everyone was panting and trying to catch their breaths through the gas stuck in the underground base as Crow growled insults in Serpine's ear as he choked him to death. Valkyrie didn't particularly want to watch so she fetched the many, many – it was an absurd amount – of shackles and the rest of them shackled and finished with the living minions of Serpine's.

Just as Crow was standing up over Serpine's wasted body, Weasel came and gave her a hug. She hugged him tightly. "Love you," she whispered.

"Love you too, Val," he said tiredly.

"Is it over?"

"I think so," he said with forced cheer.

She nodded and pulled away to fetch Crow's hat from the corner of the room where it had somehow landed. She walked over to him, steadily not looking at Serpine's, or any, body and gave it to him.

"You're a good girl," he said, putting it on his head. "I think it's time to take those wards down."

Morwenna Crow and Meritorious took some kind of hint and went to another room to deal with the anti-magic ward and wrought iron door. The Dead Men came together, Crow putting an arm around Valkyrie to pull her into the group and she caught Tanith's sleeve to pull her into the circle too and they all clasped each other's furthest shoulder, Valkyrie having to just put an arm around Crow but managing with Tanith, and they stood there for a moment, the men and Tanith with their eyes shut and grateful for the outcome. She smiled.

It was perfect really. She was so glad they were still together.

Awwwwww. They be the cuteness :D

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