Chapter 167

"I know!" Nadia screamed down the phone to Tanith.

Valkyrie shook her head and smiled, resting on the bed. They were going back tonight, or at least over to where her family was staying. Last night, after their engagement, Valkyrie and Nadia enjoyed an afternoon of shopping and talking all about what they'd love to do as a wedding and what they thought their family and friend's reactions would be – ignoring Nadia's family entirely, which Valkyrie's hadn't mentioned but had noticed – and then in the evening after a light dinner had seen a very bedazzled Santa float.

Then they had gotten back and watched a movie they had rented from the collection in the reception of the hotel, followed by sex, showers, and more sex before bed. They had been tried from their activities, and hadn't gotten up until midday, and then had gotten onto telling everyone about the engagement.

Nadia had wanted to do that part, and Valkyrie had happily allowed her to do all the work and had watched telly instead. Then packed… then ordered food, ate the food, watched a movie… and she was still talking.

Valkyrie looked over at her and smiled as she caught Nadia admiring her ring with a big grin as she and Tanith spoke about weddings. No regrets.

.*****.

"Tanith's looking at wedding dresses," Fletcher told them as soon as they got close enough. He was grinning widely and looked excited for them. "Congratulations, by the way. I thought you were going to wait a while?"

"Yeah, I changed my mind," she said, giving him a one-armed hug, which Nadia copied. "Have they only been talking about us the whole time?"

"That and the baby doing tummy time," he rolled his eyes. "She almost rolled over yesterday, but not quite. Ready?"

They grabbed his offered hand and teleported to a living room where her whole family were sitting. It was a tiny, wooden, cabin place and she could feel the chill but it was a lot nicer than where they'd just been outside with its roaring fire.

There were screams of happiness all around, hugs, congratulations, and a very confused, wide-eyed baby. It was nearly overwhelming, so many bodies hugging her at once, but it was fun too. Luckily, they were all more interested in Nadia since she had the ring, so Valkyrie sat down.

"Now we can plan the wedding!" Erskine said, pulling out a notebook that looked like the one he'd used for the house except this one had a pink cover and lightly pink tinted pages. He'd had a lilac one for the house planning and another deep green for landscaping.

"It won't be for a while," she reminded him.

"It's going to be amazing!" Nadia said over her. "We'll need these next few years to organise it all! I definitely want it in Ireland, and all our family needs to be there."

"How many people is it on your side?" Erskine asked.

"God, at least two hundred including second cousins. Then I would like, maybe, fifty friends? I was trying to work it out earlier. That doesn't include plus ones on the friends either. Then Valkyrie's family and friends."

"We can't really have much of my family," Valkyrie pointed out. "Crystal will be there, and Gordon, and you guys. That's my family."

"And Pa and Skulduggery," Dexter nodded.

"Obviously. Wouldn't it be nicer to have a smaller wedding though? Maybe just close family and our friends?" Valkyrie suggested. "I mean, you have more family than most venues can handle."

Nadia hesitated. "I mean, it's kind of tradition that my family is there. I mean…" she trailed off, a calculating look on her face. "Unless… This might be a bit much, but maybe we could have two weddings?"

"Two?" Valkyrie asked incredulously.

"Yeah. One in India with just my family and yours, with all the traditions we need, and then we'll do a second smaller wedding with a western ceremony and a really fun reception for just close family and all our friends," she said, getting more confident as she went. "It would be hard to work it all out but I bet my family would love to organise the Indian wedding so we can focus on the Irish one."

"We'll need two dresses," Valkyrie pointed out.

"Oh, I'm sure my family will narrow our options for us," Nadia said with a look, but sat on the coffee table opposite her and put a comforting hand on her knee. "I know it seems like a lot but don't worry. Between my mother, when she gets a grip, and Erskine as our wedding planners, I'm sure everything will be breezy. And we'll use Tanith as our negotiator between what they want and what we want, so it'll go well. Well, not that well because my family really will just control the whole India wedding, but we'll have our Irish wedding here so we still get what we want."

"I don't even know anything about weddings. I've only been to like, three, when I was really little."

"Don't stress about it," Nadia said. "Trust me, we'll work it out. We have a few years to decide the details before we actually need to start finding venues and paying people."

Valkyrie took a deep breath. "Yeah, we do. I need to have this Spider war crap over before any wedding things, okay? And redoing the house was really expensive so it would be a good idea to recoup a bit."

"Absolutely. But I will be looking at all the magazines and every time we go past a bridal shop I'll be making sure to point it out. Oh, and I definitely want a dress. Are you going to have a dress?"

"Yeah," she said. She couldn't imagine getting married not in a dress. That was probably the only thing that was exciting her, other than the idea of being married after the fact and getting to tell everyone Nadia was her wife. And maybe cake testing. "Can I choose the cake?"

"Sure!" Nadia grinned, happy that she wanted to be involved. "So long as it's in style."

"I can do that," she nodded.

The afternoon was filled with wedding talk.

.*****.

"Do you see anything?" Tanith asked casually, stirring her straw around her frothy hot chocolate.

Valkyrie looked at her, smiled and saw two men walking out of an alley through the coffee shop window. She leant forward and put a piece of hair behind Tanith's head, getting her to move just enough to get a look at a car that stopped on the corner just long enough to for the men to get in, and then it was driving off.

"They're moving."

Valkyrie and Tanith got up and left the shop, Tanith pulling her phone out and calling Dexter, giving details as the car left in the distance. Dexter was around the corner and stopped to get them within ten seconds.

"Did you get the registration?" He asked immediately.

She gave it to him, which was sent over to someone at the American Sanctuary – someone that was close with the Dead Men, Valkyrie had a feeling it was Saile – who put it in their database to hack into the mortal police equipment to track the car. It would take a few minutes and wouldn't work if their suspects weren't around speed cameras, but they wouldn't guess that the Sanctuary was using mortal technology. It was something they tried to keep quiet.

Dexter drove them in the direction their targets had driven in, going slowly and not trying to overtake traffic and get any attention on themselves. They had almost been seen twice searching for these three in the previous six days and didn't want to give them any more suspicions. They just needed that call…

They got it. It went on speakerphone.

"They're going onto Beaver Street, turn around and go down Arc Street and take the second left," they were instructed by some lady on the other end.

Valkyrie stayed quiet. She badly wanted to catch these people. Lilo Quanta, Marvin Kill and Anti Smith. Smith had a weird-ass name, Valkyrie contemplated for the thousandth time, and it was obvious why she only went by her last name. Marvin was as dangerous as he was distractible by all accounts but had evaded capture and that had ultimately left him with few options but to work for underground criminal organisations such as Griever's Down. Lilo was newer. Someone contracted. After they had taken down Samuel Griever's, he seemed to have been quick to take Marvin and Smith under his wing.

Which, as they had learnt this morning, was because Lilo was trying to take over Griever's Down for his own and was using Marvin and Smith to get to the correct people to take the moving basement. It was pure happy circumstance that they learnt this before he had gained control of it. They had come for some… personal revenge.

Dexter got off the main road and sped up, taking the second left and skidding onto Beaver Street. They couldn't see the black car. "Keep going, you want off at the highway, it's after the large shopping centre."

Dexter weaved, getting a lot of blaring horns, and got in front of a van off onto the highway. He was at the max legal speed before he was on the proper road.

"They're still on the highway," they were told, and Valkyrie leaned forward to see if she could spot the car. It took some time before they got a successful visual.

"There," she pointed, and Dexter slowed behind a truck. "Should we follow them again?"

"We lost them last time," Dexter said in a strained voice. He hated driving; this was Skulduggery's job. Her heart panged from the sudden longing to see him, but she remained focused.

"We should ram them," Tanith said in a hard voice. "Is there anywhere without a ditch on the side coming up?"

"No," the woman on the line said. "But if you get them off at the next exit, there's a building site you could go into."

"Do it," Valkyrie told Dexter.

They tensely continued down the road, waiting for the exit ramp to come up. It was much further away than Valkyrie wished it was, but then she was getting impatient now. Erskine was the only one moving, his legs jumping up and down with adrenaline from his seat in the back. When the ramp came up, their targets indicated to move into the middle lane, so Dexter stopped the car in the middle from changing lanes by coming up beside it.

They waited, and with a stroke of luck, their target sped up to overtake and with a smooth transition, Dexter rushed up and broke right, ramming the smaller car off onto the off-ramp.

Their target, as soon as Dexter gave them some room, sped away with a screech, their wheel plate falling off and side of the car scratched silver. Dexter matched them, slamming on the breaks when they emergency stopped, and then hitting it again when their target pressed on. They had to follow a road for five minutes, where there were no other ways off except a field on one side and a safety guard onto the highway below on the other. Eyes narrow, Dexter kept up his pursuit until their turning came up, a dirt road between some trees, and hit the car from behind.

They all felt the shock. The car in front tried its emergency stop trick again but Dexter had expected that and swerved to avoid the car, giving himself just enough room to slam right and push the car off the road and into the field.

It was bumpy, but the targets surprisingly chose to keep driving. The Dead Men followed as their prey went down the dirt road into the thankfully deserted building site. When they got to the end, surrounded by half-built office buildings and a large open space intended to be a parking lot one day, their targets turned the car in front of theirs and they both stopped. They could see Lilo and Smith in the front seats, Marvin peering between them.

Their targets started getting out of the car. Valkyrie cracked her knuckles. This would be a satisfying fight.

I booked my own wedding venue! And bought four bridesmaids dresses in three colours (daffodil yellow, gold and champaign) to test which dress and colour is best by itself and next to my own dress. Got SO's suit. Made, printed and send invites. Halfway through picking out food. It's going very well. But I also have uni and family problems. Don't you love it when you break down to someone about your mental health, they tell you to fuck off and ignore you and then come crawling back asking for patience and support later?! Cuz I don't!

I hope you liked the chapter, sorry I was gone but it was a busy time. More absent time to come, but also chapters eventually :)

Demise Rim: I know, poor Tanith's nips. I'm not on Wattpad, I did begin this story there to see if anyone would read and inspire me to continue uploading there but no one did so I haven't updated. All of my work is on this account here. You are welcome to try and convince me, and I'd love to hear any fanfic ideas for one-shots related to this story or not if you have any you'd like to read. This may be shady but most Wattpad fics never get finished so maybe I could mashup your favourites and call them my own like a real bitch? I have a few from here I liked but never got finished so there's something there. I'd dedicated them appropriately. Maybe ;)

Lord Duck the Second: I hit and run you with that engagement and left for weeks to focus on boring life responsibilities. So glad to have my 100/100! I'm a bisexual female so snap! You gay now and I'm taking all the credit, ha. What you doin' bout it?

Baron Cryptid: Bleg, my spelling is crappy but I try and you know it! Thank you for reviewing, that may forever be my favourite chapter.