Chapter 186
To say they had thrown shit at the fan was not nearly a strong enough phrase to describe how many problems Valkyrie had caused herself, her team, the Dead Men and the Irish Sanctuary. They had been split up and interviewed. Thank God they had gone over the story before they had gone in. She stuck to it, and it seemed like everyone else had too.
She simply stated that she had lied to her family and pretended she wanted to leave the fighting in America and that she was visiting mortal family. They did not know where she was, much less did any Sanctuary. She was trying to get the God Weapons, which was the truth, before the Spiders, but failed. They gave her very pressuring questions towards where the weapons were, whilst also denying the English Sanctuary had ever had the Sword, and also asked where the Dead Men were.
As far as Valkyrie could tell, stuck in her little cell for a week and a half, they had absolutely had the Sword, before the Spiders men had taken it, and the English were trying to make out this was a crazed, terrorist-driven attack organised by the Dead Men.
After her initial interrogation where she repeatedly gave them nonsense and stupid answers in between their pre-planned story, they had gotten very annoyed with her and upped their game. Her black eye and broken nose had just made it worse though because then she really wanted to mess with them. She didn't let herself cry. There were cameras in her cell and she didn't want to give them the satisfaction.
She probably wouldn't have gotten out so fast, in just a week and a half, if it wasn't for the surprise visit from an Irish representative to see the 'prisoners'. He took one look at her gaunt, hungry face, swollen cheek, black eyes, ripped and bloody lip, and crooked, blue bruised nose, turned on his heel and stormed away. A few minutes later she was hauled up by some guards and they dragged her into the hall. She yanked her arms away from them and walked herself up the four flights of stairs, making herself lightheaded, and to the Medical Ward. She sat herself on a bed and allowed them to rush and fix some of her wounds but didn't let them touch her nose. Kenspeckle would be furious if someone ruined her face.
Her team came up next. Tanith was glowering and looked like a very pretty, short ball of bruised rage. She had been so worried about her sister, sitting alone in her cell for the last week, thinking on her mistakes and of her baby. They hugged tightly, the doctors and guards hesitating on whether to pull them apart, but no one said anything. It was silent.
Fletcher collected them and took them to Kenspeckle's not too many hours later once the Elders had dealt with the news.
"Valkyrie!" Nadia practically screamed, and ran straight into her arms.
Valkyrie held the girl tightly, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "I missed you," she said simply, and then felt a lot of other arms wrap around her.
"Alright," Kenspeckle said gruffly, getting her free of the arms. He looked at her nose with narrowed eyes. "Your cheekbone is broken."
"We only saw the doctors a few hours ago," she said simply, and walked through to the back to her usual bed.
Nadia trailed behind her and studied her face when Valkyrie sat down. "What did they do?" She asked quietly.
Valkyrie lowered her eyes. Left her alone in a pitch-black cell so completely void of light she could hear only her thoughts and heart pounding through her body. Made sure the air was frigidly cold. Randomly turn the lights on bright white and blare high pitched screeches through speakers until she thought her brain was going to explode. Sent in Sensitives that couldn't get through the mental shields her family had put in place get to the information they wanted, but had been able to push all her scariest, darkest moments to the forefront of her mind before leaving her in darkness again. Used the Needs Remedied signals in her cell but turned down the feeding function to keep her alive but starving.
She took a difficult breath and pulled Nadia into her lap, only feeling better when Nadia's legs were wrapped around her waist and arms snuggly around her neck despite how sore she was. Nadia was so warm, smelt so good, her hair was so, so soft on her painful cheek. She couldn't tell her those things. Nadia was... precious, sweet and kind.
But she could let herself cry now.
.*****.
"Cain," Corrival growled, storming into the meeting room.
"Pa, how are you?" Valkyrie asked drily. "Yes, my week was wonderful, no problems at all. How was yours?"
"Don't you dare play games," he grit out, leaning over the coffee table of the Sanctuary meeting room and staring her in the eye. "What the hell did you do?"
"The Spiders raided the English at the same time as us. We lost the Sword to them. But we have the other three," she said, no smile on her face. "We were betrayed by Wilhelm Scream and I didn't catch it until we were already in the bottom English Sanctuary surrounded by Spiders and security. We fucked up."
"You did."
"We need to destroy the other three."
"How?"
"Fire. Tanith knows how."
"And where's Tanith?"
"With the baby."
"When is she going to help with the fire? And why don't you know too?"
"The Monster Hunters had to smuggle them into the country and I had to hide them. It's only been two days since we got free. As soon as Tanith's ready we're destroying them." He went to get angry at her and she spoke quickly. "I already have the supplies she told me about. We can only work so fast."
"This should be your first priority," he said, standing straight and looking down his nose at her. "The God Weapons are too important and dangerous to just leave lying around, no matter how safe you think your hiding place it. In case you haven't forgotten, the main body of Spiders are in this country right now, with more pouring in every day."
She sipped her tea, letting him get his frustrations out. "It is my first priority. I left Nadia and everyone else to hide the Weapons, after getting them back from Fletcher where they were also very hidden and safe, and then came straight here. In the next few hours, I'll be getting Tanith, the last of the supplies from the Monster Hunters and some from Kenspeckle and destroy them. I don't know what more I can do considering how much time it took to get our supplies."
"What supplies do you even need?" He asked, settling slightly but beginning to pace.
"We're practically making a lava inferno. I don't even know everything we need, we're just following Tanith's list of instructions. She got some of the information from Gordon, some from the research Skulduggery and Anton did on the Sceptre of the Ancients before we just split it apart and threw it away in the sea. We just need to put all this crap together, melt it, get it even hotter than that, and throw in the metals and hope we don't burn our eyes out our skulls at the same time. And I mean that literally, we might actually cook our flesh if we're too close to it."
He continuously nodded for almost a minute as he paced. "What did they do to you?"
Valkyrie knew what he meant. In the English Sanctuary. "It's been two days since I got back. I just want there to be more time between then and now. That's all that matters to me right now."
"No, it doesn't," Corrival said, stopping at looking at her with hard eyes. She could see his care and love behind them, but he put on a stern front. "Jane, Jones, Bane, O'Callahan and Tanith have told us what happened to them. I just want you to say it. You have a tendency to bottle things up and not talk about it. So I want you to tell me."
Valkyrie put her cup down, stood, and left the room.
.*****.
"So," Valkyrie smirked, coming up behind Tanith. She'd already handed Laila to Fletcher and sent them off to Ghastly. Poor Meritorious and Corrival had worked way overtime to keep the Dead Men out of what Valkyrie's team had done, although only some people seemed to believe it. The American's had allowed it to pass as they had seen the Dead Men while Valkyrie was gone, so their story was true enough to accept, at least for them to want the contract fulfilled. Valkyrie being underaged kept her somewhat protected from prison, but the others had to be protected by the Irish Sanctuary. Luckily, Aurora had been protected, somewhat unwillingly, by the Americans, and Africa was quick to grab Frightening and book it. "You and Aurora."
Tanith burst into a massive grin. "We're not starting anything."
"No?"
"It was just a one-time thing."
"Uh hu," Valkyrie grinned back. "So I can get the deets, right?"
Tanith snorted a laugh and they hauled the bags of metal, wood and other materials over their backs and went into the small, battered building. "Like what? It's still the same after having a baby, it's not permanent stretching."
"Really, I didn't know," she smirked.
Tanith shoved her with her shoulder and they both laughed. "It wasn't that crazy."
"Didn't sound like that from downstairs."
Tanith didn't look ashamed at all. "I mean the whole – the circumstances. It isn't a big deal. Just a little one-time fling. We've dated before, it's hardly crazy. It was good to have some fun after the pregnancy and fiasco dating Ghastly ended up being."
"I wasn't questioning it," Valkyrie smirked. "Are you ready to burn this shit?"
"Absolutely. I was stressing so much while these Weapons weren't destroyed. It'll be a pain doing this a second time when we get the Sword from the Spiders, but I think everyone will feel better when these are gone."
"Same," Valkyrie agreed.
"I can't help but feel like some of these could be useful though," Tanith said after a moment. "I know they're dangerous and we shouldn't. But as long as the Spiders have the Sword, shouldn't we be worried about how we're going to stop them? They're already several hundred strong, maybe more than a thousand, and much better prepared than us. Now with the Sword too… I can't help but feel like we should maybe reconsider."
Valkyrie was silent. They got to the bottom of the bunker, hundreds of years old and entirely mortal, making it relatively safe for them. Not that anywhere was entirely safe nowadays. The Spiders were sly, cunning and knew more about how to blend with mortals than it had first seemed, and that made hiding things in Ireland hard. Thankfully, the Irish mage population was willing to listen to Meritorious and Corrival and take heed of the situation even if other countries thought they were lying. That made movements hard, and that was enough to give them time and room to do things like this. Doubly so considering as far as anyone knew, Valkyrie was still receiving medical treatment and couldn't possibly be anywhere near these Weapons up until a few hours ago. Too little notice for the Spiders to move. Unless Fletcher was another mole, but she didn't think he was capable of double-crossing them as he was just too kind-hearted and sweet.
"I know what you mean," she said quietly.
They set to work and got their molten fire rolling, being careful not to get themselves killed as they worked. Tanith's blacksmithing skills were put to use, and after some time, Valkyrie let Tanith throw in the Spear and the Dagger, and Valkyrie put in the Bow. They bunked there overnight, and in the morning, the still scorching ashes revealed the Weapons destroyed.
This was for the best, Valkyrie reassured herself. It was better to not her loved ones knew she hid the real Bow elsewhere.
Look at me, posting chapters and shit. Amazing. Inspiring.
I was meant to get married on the 26th this month. I had hoped to have finished this story and post Valkyrie and Nadia's wedding then so we'd get married 'at the same time' because I'm super cheesy like that. I'll at least try to post something!
Ashley Mistic: Naww, thank you! I'm glad you like reading my work, it means a lot to me to see all the reviews I get! Especially when I'm being super slow at posting. Then again, I was told to never trust someone that put noses on their smiley faces, so I don't know man, I'm not sure you're too safe to talk to... ;)