Chapter 221

Valkyrie was angry and in a lot of pain. Kenspeckle had been too busy to heal her, so she'd been treated by Doctor Synecdoche very rapidly. The moment she woke up she asked about Skulduggery, who was also sore but standing and well. He'd been okay enough to drive them to Corrival's once a new rental was dropped off outside.

"Here they are!" A woman's voice called excitedly.

Valkyrie raised her eyebrows at Skulduggery, who painfully shrugged back, and they walked pitifully slowly into the front parlour of the mansion. On the high backed, dark and faded sofas were Dexter, Erskine and Saracen, Tanith, Nadia and Militsa, and four people Valkyrie had never met before. Laila was in the arms of Tanith and the woman, a petite blonde girl, was kneeling at Tanith's feet and seemed to have just stopped entertaining Laila.

"Hi," she said roughly, limping into the room. Her hip had been smashed in four places and would take a while to fully heal. "Nadia."

Nadia stood and very gently wrapped her arms around Valkyrie's waist. "What happened?"

"I got fucked up."

"Again?"

"Uh hu."

"Sit down," Nadia said softly, getting her to slowly lower into the over padded armchair. "What happened?"

"There's three teenager mortals that got superpowers, but they're all sociopaths. They messed me up and Kenspeckle's too busy to help so Doctor Synecdoche operated on me but I literally woke up an hour ago so I'm in pain still."

"Yeah, I'd imagine so," Nadia frowned. "Do you want a cup of tea?"

"I'd love that," she said sincerely, giving her a small smile. Nadia asked around the room and everyone agreed to tea. She left to get it.

"Skulduggery," the dark-skinned man grinned, standing and shaking Skulduggery's hand. She doubted anyone other than her saw the slightly pained turn of his head. "It's good to see you again."

"And yourself Vernon," Skulduggery nodded. "How have you been? Not to be rude, but I thought you were dead."

"Ah, yes, that was intentional. You've missed out on some important things," he said, offering Skulduggery his seat. To his credit, Skulduggery took it, a testament to his pain and his willingness to take the help.

"You'll have to catch us up."

That began the saga of learning that Dexter, Tanith and Erskine had tried to reach herself and Skulduggery but, as they hadn't been able to, had gone to the Alps to locate Argeddion, who was a superpowered human through finding out his True Name, and was supposedly the one responsible for giving mortal's in Ireland magical abilities. At the base Tyron Lament had set up, with Vernon Plight, Lenka Bazaar and Kalvin Accord, they had found Argeddion, who was unconscious. None of the four were able to leave the base as they had to keep Argeddion safely secured. Lament had told them about the Accelerator, which they believed could be used to create a larger facility that could hold multiple people that knew their True Name or were too superpowered to allow to remain in society, which had been the reason Valkyrie had been called by Corrival about an incident at the Sanctuary. At this same time, Dexter had been allowed to observe Argeddion up close, at which point he had betrayed their trust and killed him by stabbing him in the brain and swirling the knife around so no god-like powers could fix the damage.

"And you didn't get mad?" Valkyrie asked incredulously.

"Oh yes, I was furious," Lament nodded. "However, once I removed myself from the situation and calmed down, I realised I felt different. As if something had been overshadowing my thoughts for a long time. My thinking and thought patterns shifted and I was able to deduce Dexter, Erskine and Tanith were correct when they suggested that Argeddion was doing something to the mortal's here in Ireland. I think he was doing something to myself as well. And my co-workers. He was influencing our thinking and our actions and when he died, it stopped."

"Oh, wow," Valkyrie said.

"Indeed. I was hoping this meant the powers of the mortals would have disappeared, but Dexter spoke with an Elder some hours ago when Mr Renn was helping us relocate to Ireland discreetly, and it doesn't seem to have helped."

"The mortals," Skulduggery interjected, "weren't necessarily given powers, but rather access to powers they already had. I expect that now it is awakened, it cannot be hidden."

"What do you suggest doing with them?" Vernon asked.

Skulduggery shrugged. "There is nothing we can do. It's the Sanctuary's problem. With hope, they'll ask the other Sanctuary's to help them in making a decision to appear more cooperative."

Lament nodded and Laila made a sudden shriek as Tanith removed Lenka's hair from her tight fist. "You can't pull hair," Tanith whispered to her. "That's not very kind."

"I don't mind," Lenka grinned.

"No, it's not okay," Tanith reiterated. "Let go."

Laila squealed again, but in anger this time.

"Let go," Tanith said patiently, trying to pry Laila's tiny fingers open. Every time she let go of one to work on the next, it went straight back down. She looked across Lenka's head and at Valkyrie before huffing a breath out like a growl.

Valkyrie chuckled painfully, and everyone began laughing as Tanith struggled with Laila until the baby finally dropped the hair by herself. Tanith thanked her and there was a moment of silence before Laila threw herself at Lenka's head.

"Oh my god!" Lenka cried, falling back.

Tanith held Laila up, out of reach of Lenka's hair. "Baby! That was so naughty!"

"She's a ninja."

"She would be a good ninja," Valkyrie nodded, accepting the tea Nadia handed her. She gave her a sweet smile that was returned before Nadia began handing out drinks to everyone else. "I'm going to go upstairs if you don't mind. I'm too tired for any political talk, and I can feel it coming."

Nadia nodded with her and Tanith decided to follow with Laila, and that meant all the women in the room ended up leaving the men to be boring. She felt like one of them should remain for the principle of being involved, but didn't both to say anything. It wasn't like they were forced to leave, they choose it, so it wasn't bad. She wondered, as she very achily pulled herself up the steps, how many drugs were still in her brain.

"So Valkyrie," Lenka began when they were in one of the upstairs informal living rooms. A dozen lounge chairs were in there and Valkyrie lay down immediately to rest her body. Nadia put a big pillow on the floor next to her head and held onto her tea for her. She smiled at Nadia and they gently kissed. "What's it like working with the Dead Men?"

"Tiring," she said. "Difficult. Rewarding, most of the time. It can be hard but I love working with my brothers."

"It's so sweet you and the Dead Men are so close," she gushed. "I always wanted older siblings, it's like a dream of mine."

She grinned. "They're alright. Saracen once gave me a headlock takedown and almost killed me, so brothers aren't always great. I've loved having a big sister though, Tanith's the best."

Tanith grinned at her. "Ah, you're cute."

"She did once break both my arms at once though."

"Which was an accident!"

"It was on purpose because I called her fat when she sat on me. So she broke my arms. I was thirteen."

Nadia smirked. "I remember this."

"You weren't there, she's fed you lies!" Tanith laughed. "It was an accident!"

Valkyrie shook her head. "She's in denial because she doesn't want to admit she's fat."

"I swear to god, Val," Tanith smiled. "You're the worse. Little sisters are the worst."

"Nah, big brothers are the worst."

She nodded. "Agreed. Do you need any pain medication? You don't look so hot."

"Don't worry about it," she said, carefully rolling on her side to have some tea. It was awful, but the tea soothed her a lot. "Were you guys okay the last few days? Hey, did you settle in fine Militsa? I'm sorry for disappearing immediately."

"It's okay," Militsa said politely. "Me and Nadia have been talking and I helped with the baby. It's been fun."

"I'm glad," she nodded.

"Your baby's so cute," Lenka grinned, holding out a finger for Laila which she batted away. "I wish I could just snuggle you forever!"

"She's a sweetheart," Tanith said proudly. "You can hold her if you want."

Lenka grinned and held her arms out and Valkyrie watched as Tanith sat back and watched the cute woman hold Laila carefully and hold her like she was standing up. Laila looked around, kicked both her feet and demanded to be set on the floor. Lenka looked like she might refuse so she could cuddle for a moment – Valkyrie didn't blame her, everyone in Valkyrie's family wanted to cuddle her and not let go – but then released her. Laila laughed and began crawling at incredible speeds, and Lenka crawled after her. They crawled out of the room.

"She seems nice," Valkyrie said mildly.

"She is," Tanith said.

Valkyrie narrowed her eyes at her. "You have feelings for her."

"No, not like that," she dismissed quickly.

"Yes like that. You like her."

"I like her as a person."

"Did you sleep with her?"

"Well, yes."

"Already? You've known each other for three days!"

"Well, about four days, but I suppose. There're no feelings between us. Lenka already said when she found out she was getting to leave the facility that she doesn't want a relationship," Tanith explained. "I don't want to make too many plans for after the war, but if we all get out alive… I suppose it's something I could consider. Asking her out, I mean. I have a date with someone else anyway."

"Oh my god, Tan, I swear it was yesterday you were saying you'd never date again!"

"Hey, the date's only casual and sex isn't a commitment so it's hardly a thing," Tanith grinned. Militsa covered her mouth to keep from laughing. "I'm just having fun outside of work and being a mum. Is that acceptable?"

"Yeah, of course, I just wasn't expecting to come back to you being all mushy with some girl you just met," Valkyrie smirked. "I'm going to tell her you fancy her."

Tanith rolled her eyes. "Sure. Go for it."

She hummed. "You're shameless, you know that?"

"Of course," she said simply. "Why would I be ashamed for liking sex? Isn't that the point of it?"

Valkyrie snorted a laugh only to tense painfully and let out a pathetic "ow" that cracked everyone up.

When she was done having everyone mock her, she spoke again. "How did Fletcher react to Lenka?"

"In his usual way," Tanith said with a one shoulder shrug and an evil glint in her eyes. "He flirted with her and got rejected. He tried to ask me out again but then said 'Oh wait, you have a baby. Sorry I forgot,' and Lenka slapped him across the face. It was great."

"Ha! He deserved that," Nadia grinned. "He tried flirting with Militsa too."

"He did," she nodded. "I told him I wasn't interested and he didn't believe me."

Valkyrie frowned. "Was he pushy? He's been a dick before. Feel free to break his nose."

"Don't worry, I can tell him to leave me alone," she reassured her. "I already spoke about it with Nadia and she explained what happened with you." Laila and Lenka came crawling back into the room excitedly. "I still can't believe he said that to Tanith though."

"I think it was the way he genuinely thought I'd be offended over him asking me out rather than the baby comment. He really didn't think it was wrong to not want to ask me out over my baby, but didn't care about asking me out in general," she mused. "He can be quite immature when it comes to women."

"You can say that again," Valkyrie rolled her eyes. "At least he's getting over Myra."

"Yeah," Nadia agreed.

"What's the next step on your mission, Val?" Tanith asked.

She took a deep breath and watched Laila hand Lenka a delicate glass jar from the fireplace. "We just need to find them before they can… end anyone else. They really are sociopaths though. They're scary, more scary than anyone I've ever met. They have no sense of consequences, no care of ending people. They're seriously powerful and they can think up new powers at a second's notice. They created a force field to stop bullets and my magic instantly, they can heal from anything, they are physically stronger than they should be, they can fuel their attacks with magic to have more force behind them. They completely overpowered me instantly. We need to get them alone and away from everyone, and then take them out."

Nadia gently ran a hand over her hair. "You should have called me in the hospital."

"I was unconscious," she admitted quietly. "They left when they knocked me out and I didn't wake up until right before I left for here. I'm sorry for getting hurt."

"It's okay," she sighed, running a hand over her cheek. "You need to be more careful though."

"I always try my best."

"I know."

Tanith made a gagging motion behind Nadia's back and Valkyrie glared at her. "Fuck off Tanith."

Look at Valkyrie, being all mature about her jacket! I mean, she does have, like, ten jackets in this AU.