Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 70

Valkyrie woke with a start in the back of Ghastly's van. She groaned, remembering flying out the Bentley at over eighty miles an hour, and Remnants being everywhere.

Her whole body felt bruised and battered. Sitting up carefully, she knew why – she was bruised and battered. Even her beloved jacket was gone, and that had been her favourite with the blood red sleeves!

"What's happening?" She asked groggily. "Have you stopped the Remnants? How long was I possessed? How'd you get the van?"

"Erskine drove it with Tanith," Crow said.

"You okay?" Tanith asked, making Valkyrie jump. She'd been so silent next to her, Valkyrie hadn't noticed.

"I feel bruised to hell but I'm okay. Do you actually know why I'm like this?" Valkyrie frowned.

Crow nodded, the back of his skull shining slightly, just visible to Valkyrie around his headrest. "You were possessed for roughly an hour, running around the city and very difficult to catch. It took all three of us to block you in and catch you."

"The Remnants thought if they hurt you enough it would crack Skulduggery and he'd go into a rage," Tanith told her. "They were throwing you around the shop, you nearly went through a wall. We were possessed too but we woke up outside the mansion for whatever reason. I saw Tesseract but he was running away so I suppose he got possessed."

"Weird," Valkyrie muttered.

"Yeah, very. We came to find you and, well, that's when we started chasing you, etcetera."

"Do you know where the others are?" Valkyrie asked.

"Haven't heard from Dexter, I believe the phone lines are down for the Hibernian but I think that's to save additional power. Anton hasn't called either. Fletcher is hiding as you told him to, and if he is possessed, we'll find out eventually anyway. Same story for Peregrine. The Remnants won't give him up if they find him," Crow said darkly.

Valkyrie nodded. "How are we meant to deal with them then?"

"We're going to MacGillycuddy's Reeks," Crow told her.

"But we'll make a stop on the way," Snake said, turning back to smile at her. She smiled back.

They drove on for nearly an hour, Tanith falling fast asleep on Valkyrie's lap looking quite pale – Snake told them she'd been sick twice on the way so she was obviously not feeling better – and when they came to a stop, Valkyrie gently poked Tanith's nose a few times to wake her up.

"You're so strange," Tanith muttered as she gathered herself up.

"Thank you."

They were at a large, flat building in the middle of nowhere. "Hurry," Crow told the girls, and they did, passing through an invisible, cold, forcefield into the area.

"I remember this place!" Snake said suddenly.

"We've been here before," Crow said to no one in particular. "This is the original forcefield Kenspeckle made around an old Sanctuary the first time they escaped. It won't hold long, maybe an hour at most, but it will stop all Remnants, including possessed people, from coming in. I'm hoping some people have decided to join us."

"Detectives, Dead Men, Miss Low," Frightening Jones boomed from the building. He came walking out in an orange top, almost blindingly bright in the dark. At least they had someone, and Frightening also had his sword. "I was quite surprised to find myself waking up in Ireland, but even more so to see you kept this forcefield active."

"Frightening," Crow said, coming in and shaking the big man's hand. "It's good to see you. I'm afraid I didn't actually know if they forcefield was working, and I didn't expect you. Were you the one to activate it?"

"I was. Miss Low," he said, giving Tanith a hug. She looked even paler and a little dazed now. "Tanith, you don't look well at all. You've come down with something horrible."

"She saved a kid and it infected her with all sorts of germs," Valkyrie said helpfully.

"Ah, that would explain it. But this is not good. Not a good night for you to be ill."

Tanith shook her head and rested against him pitifully. She let out a weak moan of pain and almost fell before Frightening simply picked her right up and held her in his arms like she weighed nothing.

"I think it may be a little worse than a mere bug," Frightening said, looking over Tanith's sweaty face. "Tanith, have you been overexerting yourself?"

She nodded.

"I think it best you hide and stay out of the fight," Frightening told her.

Tanith still had the energy to glare at him.

"You know you don't have the strength. I'll put you in the old Gaol room inside, you should be quite safe if you stay still and silent. Here, give your sword to Valkyrie. I'm sure she'll have fun with it."

Tanith glared but did hand it over which Valkyrie knew was all down to the sickness and she'd smack Valkyrie silly in their next training session when she realised what she'd done. Frightening took her away, and when he was back, there was already a swarm of Remnants outside the forcefield trying to get at them, all in human forms and shouting at them to come out.

"What do we do?" Valkyrie asked.

"We need to get them to MacGillycuddy's Reeks," Crow said. "Valkyrie, can you call Fletcher?"

"I told him to hide and not to come even if I said!"

"Call him anyway – actually, there's no need," Crow said, staring into the crowd. Valkyrie looked where he was and saw Fletcher standing there in short and t-shirt, grinning madly with black veins and eyes.

"Idiot."

"If we get him back, we can have him transport everyone to the Receptacle," Frightening suggested.

"What's that?"

"A giant Soul Catcher," Crow said quickly. "I agree, but it'll be work getting him back. Hopefully, a few shots to the knees will do the trick."

"Don't kill him," Valkyrie said, rolling her eyes. "Anything else?"

"We need two pieces to open the Receptacle," Crow explained.

"One," Frightening said, giving half a golden circle to Crow without the crowd seeing.

"Good thinking," Snake said with a big nod.

"Thank you," Frightening replied pleasantly.

"Just one more to go then. I know where it is too. Erskine, you remember we hid it in that church?"

"Yes!" Snake said, snapping to proper attention. "I'll get it and meet you at the MacGillycuddy."

"Good. Go out the back, and we'll hold this lot off. Hopefully we can draw them all in there without them knowing what we're up to and trap them like last time. And it looks as if we only have a few more moments."

He was right – Valkyrie watched as the forcefield started to become more visible, little cracks and holes in it that were growing with every passing moment. She unsheathed the sword, bargaining on her added height to make up for the extra weight Tanith's sword had for the stronger woman, and held herself ready. Thank god for sword training!

The forcefield broke like the shattering of glass, and the possessed people came running at them. She immediately had to start slicing shins and arms, avoiding necks, trying her hardest to get them to back off her. It was hard though, at least a dozen had crowded around her and didn't want to leave. She swung violently, very nearly taking off someone's head, but just managed to stop herself and chopped the poor possessed woman's arm off instead. The Remnant screamed and crawled out the woman's body, which fell to a heap on the floor probably to bleed to death, but it was hardly something for Valkyrie to think of right then.

She ended up dropping the sword and stuck with her handy magic after that, using shadows to sweep several people at once far away from her, and air to dislocate legs instantly, fire to scatter them and then her purple energy to shock them unconscious, the Remnants shooting out each time.

Valkyrie was sweating furiously, her hair all over the place, when a possessed Fletcher teleported in front of her.

"Val," he said, his black lips grinning at her. It wasn't his grin, though, it was a crazed, unnatural smile that held no place on his face. "Where have you put Tanith? I wanted to speak with her tonight."

"I don't know!" She shouted over the fighting. The other Remnant-people had backed off now Fletcher was there.

"Don't you? That's too bad. I'd have enjoyed possessing her," he grinned. "How about I have fun with you instead?"

He punched so fast Valkyrie nearly didn't dodge in time, and she still felt the speed of his fist against her cheek. She tackled him to the ground, hoping to punch him hard enough the Remnant would flee, but she underestimated how much stronger he was with the extra Remnant power.

Fletcher flipped them again and Valkyrie was pressed to the concrete, him punching her again and again, trying to get past her arms to her face unsuccessfully.

A bullet bounced off the ground next to them and Crow ran at them, and Valkyrie was able to flip them and sit on his chest and hold his arms down. Crow shot at Fletcher and nicked the inside of his leg. Fletcher grunted and threw Valkyrie off him, and she rolled as Crow shot again and again at the young man, until finally he shot his shoulder and Fletcher screamed as the Remnant left his body. Crow swooped in and grabbed him, putting him over his shoulder.

"Let's go!" Crow roared into the chaos. Frightening shouted his confirmation and they fought their way to the van, jumping in and driving at a manic speed as the others hopped into cars and started chasing them.

Valkyrie worked on reviving Fletcher tensely – they couldn't be certain Frightening wasn't being possessed and hiding it, and she was sure Crow was worried about her being secretly possessed again even if she knew she wasn't. At least she could be sure Crow was safe.

She prayed Tanith was okay.

A little more than a filler chapter, but better than nothing, but it's because the next one has a whole ton of drama in, you really want to read that one! Anyone who likes Fletcher won't enjoy it ;) Thank you for reading this chapter even if I just completely made it seem crap, and I'd love to hear anything you have to say about it.