Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 40

For Christmas, there was only one real gift Valkyrie could think of for Crow. He had a lot of things, as did all the Dead Men, as they had had four hundred years each to acquire the objects of their dreams. She couldn't quite afford to buy them all Ferrari's – well, that might have been a lie, but she still wasn't wasting her money on Ferrari's in Ireland – but she had found everyone something they wanted and would like. For Crow, it wasn't so easy.

It had taken weeks, several talks cross meetings with Echo-Gordon, consultations with Nadia and finally, a figurative slap to the back of the head to work it out.

Two weeks prior to the Ball

"Mr Pleasant?" Fletcher asked. Crow was in a bad mood with him, so he had told Fletcher to call him that. When he got bored of that name, he'd 'forgive' Fletcher and have him switch to Skulduggery again.

"Yes?" He asked from his place at the table, reading his newspaper while they ate lunch.

"Is it true that's not your real skull?"

Crow slowly put his paper down and looked up at him. "What makes you think it is not my head? Is this head not good enough?"

"Err, I don't know, I was just told by someone that it isn't your real–"

"Who is your source?"

"It was one of Kenspeckle's assistants. I forget his name. But he said that it's not your real one."

Valkyrie watched as Crow sighed and nodded. "Unfortunately, yes, he is right. My real skull was stolen while I was sleeping, or meditating as some like to point out, and I never got around to tracking it down. I'm certain it's out there but this one works fine. I won it in a poker game in the late eighties right after the original was stolen. Gordon thought it was hilarious."

"Yeah, but, like, that's really weird to have someone else's skull on."

Crow sniffed and turned back to his newspaper. "It's a fine skull. Nothing beats the original, obviously, but it is fine. I'll get around to it when I don't have annoying teenagers pestering me every few moments."

And that was how Valkyrie knew what to get him.

Cut to two days after the Ball, Valkyrie stood on the side of a rainy street, looking into the trees and waiting.

No cars were around, and the buildings had either no lights on or something to shut the light out from the outside, a curtain in some but usually just a blanket or clothes rack hung with clothes.

Caelan, the person she was meeting, walked slowly out the trees and headed straight for her. He was soaked through, unlike her as she had waterproof clothes on, her usual protective ones. Her hair and face were dripping wet to match him though. As he got closer, Valkyrie could see he had been maybe nineteen or twenty when he died, bitten by a vampire some hundred years ago, with dark hair and eyes, a fairly good-looking face and too pale skin.

It had taken her a while to track him down but after hitting a dead end, Raven had heard of her quest to find the vampire and gave her a few clues the morning after the Ball.

He too looked at her closely as he approached. They had spoken twice on the phone in the last thirty-six hours and hopefully, he had done what she needed.

"Caelan?" She asked when he stopped just a metre or so away.

He nodded. "Detective Valkyrie Cain," he said slowly. He had a pleasantly deep voice, more masculine than Fletcher's, but compared to her family it was still quite boyish. His face especially but not being able to grow a beard due to being dead didn't help. She supposed she couldn't blame him for that. "I have begun to make the arrangements."

"Begun?"

"He has not said what day or time, just that he is interested in selling the item. He asked why you wanted to buy it. I said I did not know, just that you were. He mentioned another buyer. I said you would pay more."

"How much more?" She asked immediately. She was buying it for over fifteen grand already, she didn't want to go much higher.

"He didn't say anything about prices, just that he had another bidder. The Murder Skull is popular apparently," he said, tilting his head at her in a predatory way but never smiling. "Why are you meeting me alone?"

"It's a secret," she said with a small smile of her own. She wasn't alone, Tanith was a few streets away and close enough to get to her if she gave the signal. Too far away for him to detect. "I need the skull on the twentieth of this month, no later. I'll top any offer, but I want it by then. Tell him that. I'll meet in Ireland, no other country, but he can decide the meeting place. That's all."

Cealan nodded and went to leave before Valkyrie quickly asked: "Why are you doing this?"

He stopped and looked back at her, rain dripping from his long eyelashes. "You helped kill a vampire named Dusk."

"He had it coming."

"He did. I am glad he's dead."

He had left and when he was almost out of view, she went back the way she came and found Tanith. It had taken the full four days before she got a text, at eight am on the twentieth of December, that Chabon wanted to meet with her.

She had to bail on Skulduggery to go meet him, claiming it was an emergency of the highest female proportions – she was pretty sure they thought she, Tanith or someone she and Tanith knew was pregnant – and met him at a café in Dublin. She had the money in an old briefcase she had found in their home and stuffed it full. All twenty-three thousand euros, way more than she wanted to pay for the skull. But it was less than a whole new wardrobe for him, she supposed.

"Cain," he said, sitting down. "Who's this?"

"This is my associate, Miss Low," Valkyrie said. "I'm too important to my family to come back harmed, so she agreed to act as security for your safety."

Chabon nodded once though he did look less happy with Tanith the more she talked. "You have the money?"

"Twenty-three thousand," she said lowly and Tanith brought it out and placed the case on the table. Chabon turned it over and rested his hand on the top. He checked the content, as she expected him too – she had checked Sanctuary files on him before coming out – and he nodded after a few moments.

"It is," he confirmed needlessly and brought out a box from under the table. It looked like a hat box and Valkyrie unzipped it and looked in. The skull was there.

Valkyrie zipped it up and held her hand out. He shook it and within moments he was gone, as was the money, and she had the skull.

"That was easy," Tanith said, beginning to relax a little. "I expected him to run off with the money."

"Don't be too quick," she said, standing and running to the door. He was almost at the end of the street. "It's a fake!" She screamed.

He glanced back and immediately took off running.

Valkyrie ran for him, throwing herself into oncoming traffic and just darting out the way of it before she got hit, getting to the other side of the street and making a beeline for the man. If only she could work out Weasel's magic, she would know exactly where he was! She chased him down the streets with Tanith at her heels, unable to trip him up with any of the magic she knew because of the pedestrians around them, and they were all too in the way for Tanith to really run at him!

He got to the end of an alley, looked back at her, cursed, and kept going.

They got onto a long stretch of road not too long after though and he obviously didn't factor in that Tanith Low was one of the fastest runners around – in moments, she covered the metres between them, and there had been a lot, and tackled him to the floor.

Valkyrie reached them, grabbed the briefcase and knelt down beside him. Some people looked on but mostly it was older ladies keeping their heads down and moving on.

"Where's the real Murder Skull?" She asked lowly.

"I had it!" He shouted in pain. "I had it on the phone, I had it this morning! But when you have an item someone wants, usually someone else does too! So I sold it to someone that paid triple!"

"Fuck," Valkyrie said, wetting her lips. It was Christmas, damnit. "Who to?"

"I don't know, it was a pair," he said. "A woman and a man, both in suits, they were really happy to get it. They didn't speak much."

"Tell us something we can use to find them or else."

He glared at her, but Tanith moved the arm she had behind his back and he shrieked before she let it relax a little and he started to sweat in pain. "The man was practically a maniac. I said I wouldn't work with him again, all he wanted to know was about you. His partner had that two-eye thing, one blue one green."

"Heterochromia," Tanith said. "Davina Marr."

"Aww, shoot," Valkyrie said, standing up.

Tanith got up and pulled the man to his feet. He took a few breaths and tried to get the briefcase, but Valkyrie held it back. "Give me my money," he said, looking frazzled.

"You got your money from Crux and Marr," Valkyrie shrugged. "I paid for the Murder Skull, I didn't get it. You don't get anything for nothing."

They left and didn't bother going home or doing anything else, they just got on Tanith's motorcycle and she drove them to the Sanctuary, stopping only to call Fletcher and ask him to take the briefcase back which he did but only because he thought it was full of tampon or pregnancy tests and didn't want to know any more information than they gave. When he was gone, they went into the Waxworks museum where the Sanctuary was stationed until it moved sometime in the next few months.

The Administrator came to meet them when they came in. "Detective Cain, is there anything I can get you?"

"I need to speak to the Elders and Crux and Marr," she said. "Are any of them busy?"

"No, the detectives, Grand Mage and Elder Crow are in a meeting together, and Elder Guild is on a break at the moment, he may be up to half an hour," the Administrator said. "I can schedule you in for after their meeting?"

"Don't worry, they're expecting me."

Tanith popped off to the toilet and to get a drink as she was not a Sanctuary employee nor a Dead Man or Dead Man apprentice, so didn't get the privileges Valkyrie did. She knocked on the Grand Mages door alone.

"Come in," Meritorious said. She opened it and found Marr sat in one seat before the Grand Mage's desk, Crux on his feet having just been stopped furiously saying something, and Elder Crow sitting in a chair beside Meritorious. He smiled at her. "Head Detective Cain," he smiled, making the peasant detectives glare at her. "I was just having a meeting with our newest recruit, Detective Marr, and Detective Crux. We teamed them up as partners as that works so well for yourself and Detective Pleasant."

"Yes, it is a good system," she said, keeping her face blank and refusing to look at the skull on the table. "If one of us dies, the other can call for backup."

He looked as if he might smile but didn't.

"Sir," Crux said loudly. "Sir, this is what I am telling you about. She is too young, too immature and is running around on a fools' mission. I doubt the Dead Men know she is here."

"They don't," Valkyrie agreed.

"See?" He snarled, or maybe smiled, or maybe stated, she couldn't tell, it was a bit of all. "She cannot be trusted."

"Detective Crux, we have been over your views on Detective Cain, but I am certain in my decision. She is a good detective and I believe we must invest in the future. Valkyrie, as a young mage, is our future and we cannot cut the younger generation out. Now, if you truly have nothing new–"

"Grand Mage, if I may," Marr said, standing and putting her hand on top of the skull on the desk. Meritorious looked at her and said nothing. Elder Crow was silent as usual. "Miss Cain has been running around the country talking to criminals, lowlifes and vampires for weeks. I have heard she has made contact on several occasions, including at the Sanctuary Yule Ball, with Solomon Wreath, a Temple Necromancer. All to get an item, this skull, which has nothing to do with any case she is on but using her status as a Sanctuary detective to track. For one, it is inappropriate behaviour, but it is also concerning to see in one so young. It is troubling me that she wants this skull, the Murder Skull. It is a known artefact to bring the owner death."

Meritorious nodded, considering what she said. He waved his hand down and she sat, hand never leaving the skull. "Detective Cain, could you please tell me your own side of the story?"

"Twenty years ago, Skulduggery Pleasant went to a small town in the Irish countryside to deal with complaints of a poltergeist haunting a local Church. He found there was no poltergeist but there were goblins, and he camped out to catch the culprits who wanted a solid gold cross in the building and went into his usual meditative sleep. However, he went too deep and remained asleep as the goblins went into his camp and took his head off. He got a new head in a poker game."

"And?" Marr asked, confused after Valkyrie gave a pause.

"That skull, the Murder Skull, is Skulduggery Pleasant real head. The one he wears is someone else's," she said simply, smirking when Marr snatched her hand back from the skull. "I tracked it down as a Christmas present, but you accused me of horrible things and bought it this morning so that I wouldn't be able to. Using Sanctuary money. He said you paid triple, but when he tried to fool me, I paid twenty-three thousand euro. I wonder, Grand Mage, did they tell you they spent almost seventy-thousand on Skulduggery's head?"

Elder Crow shook her head and Meritorious put his thumb and finger on his nose and leant his head forwards. Leading on his elbows he said in his deep voice to the other detective party, "Detectives, you have continuously tried and failed to have me fire Detective Cain. She merely wanted the skull as a Christmas present for her partner."

Marr looked angry, but Crux was absolutely furious.

"Due to your inability to keep orders, Detective Crux, I will be putting you on probation for the next three months–"

"Sir–"

"No!" He boomed. Crux almost cried. "Both of you will be paying off the excess cost this skull was bought with, making a total of twenty-nine thousand each, to be worked off or paid in a lump sum, talk to the Administrator for more details. Detective Crux, you are on probation for inappropriately invading someone else's privacy. If you truly believed Detective Cain was buying something inappropriate, you should have made a meeting with ourselves and the Dead Men to discuss the event, not bought an item, close to Christmas mind you, with a Sanctuary card you are not allowed to spend above ten thousand on at any time regardless of the item. That is all, I will see you and review the situation in March."

He looked as if he would fight it, but then bowed and left the room.

"Detective Marr, you are being placed on paperwork for the next three weeks and will return to active duty after that. Do not allow Detective Crux's shortcomings to affect your own work. See this as a second chance. Take the rest of the day off. Good day."

Detective Marr, a very new employee, nodded and left without even looking at Valkyrie. Finally, it was just her and the two Elders. "Am I allowed the skull?" She asked hopefully.

He sighed. "It was bought by the Sanctuary – officially – for ten thousand. Can you pay for that?"

"Do you take card?"

Aww, the poor Murder Skull! And there will be more of Marr and Crux soon, don't you worry! I plan on having fun with them between the other things I have planned!

Guest Review - You've got to keep up, I like to post every two days so long as I'm not super busy. And don't worry, there are lots of cute and awkward moment's coming, though with my style of Valkyrie acting more mature and responsible, it is a little hard to make her awkward because she's too smart! I will plan some extra awkward things to happen, just for you ;) and that's why I have to write Crow and Raven together, someone has to do it! And they both have similar personalities so there will be lots of funny bickering over everything between them I think. It'll be fun at any rate, because it's Skulduggery introducing his bf to his family, it'll be funny! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for reviewing again :)