6 Years Later
Valkyrie Cain rang the door bell and listened to the familiar sound.
It took no time for the front door to open, and her look fell downwards at the little face of Alison.
"Look at that!" Valkyrie exclaimed excitedly and picked her up in a swoop. "It's the watchdog!"
She carried her giggling sister over her shoulder into the kitchen, where she gave her cooking mother a peck on the cheek.
"Hi, dear," said Melissa, "how are you?"
Valkyrie set Alison down onto her feet and leaned back against a warmly wooden counter. "Doing fine," she said, "I'm starting to get used to the house."
"Is it too big?" Melissa wanted to know, while she stirred a pot of boiling pasta.
She shook her head. "Not really; it's well filled. Just odd to think of it as my place, rather than Gordon's place."
Melissa nodded. "I can imagine that. I'm sure that will settle in another month or so."
"Steph!" Alison called and hopped into the room, holding a little piece of what looked like dry clay in her hand. She proudly held it up to Valkyrie. "I made you a dolphin."
"Oh. My. God." Valkyrie took the gift in awe. "That is amazing. Thank you."
And, in fact, the dolphin looked more accurate than Valkyrie would have expected. The fins were a bit clunky and large, but the general shape was fitting. Some blue clay paint ran stripes along the side.
"Did you make that all by yourself?" Valkyrie asked impressively.
"Yeah, in clay club," Alison beamed.
"It's her extracurricular class at school," Melissa elaborated, while straining the pasta.
"Pretty nifty," Valkyrie praised and raised up the figure before putting it in her jacket pocket. "This will be the first new decoration at my place."
Alice beamed and clapped. "Yay."
"You better value my lost brother's memory," Desmond said casually as he strolled into the kitchen.
"No, we approve," Melissa informed him.
"Oh, okay." He nodded. "I mean, of course it's your place."
Valkyrie beamed and gave him a greeting hug.
"Are you taking care of your place?" He asked teasingly.
"I would think so," she nodded thoughtfully.
The doorbell rang again and Alice immediately darted out of the kitchen, to open for the second guest. There was an exchange of words between a high-pitched and a dark voice, then she came back, dragging Skulduggery Pleasant behind her.
"Good afternoon," Skulduggery nodded. He was wearing a façade that was the face of a man with short, light brown hair, thin stubble, rounder features and a dark blue pinstripe suit.
Collective hellos came back.
"Skulduggery, look at my dolphin," Alison ordered.
Valkyrie pulled the figurine out of her pocket and showed it to him.
"Very pretty," he graded. "Does it swim?"
Alice chuckled. "No, it can't swim. It's made out of clay."
"But then, it isn't really a dolphin, is it?" he probed.
She put her hands on her hips with a sassy look. "It's called imagination."
Melissa and Valkyrie snorted a laugh, and Skulduggery nodded comprehendingly. "Learning new things every day."
Desmond looked around on the stove, then turned to his wife. "This looks like the point, where you'd need plates. Is this that point?"
"Yes, but bowls, please," she nodded.
Looking proud of himself, he went to get the dishes out of the cupboard.
Skulduggery's phone started ringing and he pulled it out, as if he was intending to turn off the sound. But then, he halted at the caller ID. "Excuse me," Skulduggery said and turned, as he picked up on the way out.
Desmond put the bowls down next to the stove and opened his mouth, just as Valkyrie's phone beeped. She sighed, threw him an apologetic look, and checked her phone screen. It only took the first couple of words of the message, to make her eyes widen.
"Oh, no," she said.
"What is it?" Melissa asked worriedly.
Valkyrie looked up. "There was an assault against the English Sanctuary. The entire building was destroyed."
"Oh my God," her parents said simultaneously, as their eyes grew large as well. Alison looked questioningly back and forth between them.
Skulduggery came back, and he briefly mustered the shocked looks on the assembled faces, as well as the phone in Valkyries hand. "That was Dexter," he told her, instead of telling them old news. "It looks like we might have a Myron Stray copycat on our hands."
Valkyrie sagged and exhaled discontently.
"Here is the unofficial part;" Skulduggery veered, "apparently, the person that was forced to do this is still alive."
She frowned in bewilderment. "How? Another Desolation Engine?"
Skulduggery shook his head. "They don't know. But a friend of Dexter's found them in the rubble, and they are hiding in a safehouse in Brighton."
"Who else knows about where they are?" Valkyrie asked.
"Just us," he replied.
"Okay, good." She said, but then found herself frowining again. "Wait, the English Sanctuary is in central London. Why isn't this all over the mortal news stations yet?"
Skulduggery schook his head. "No, Grand Mage Penn has moved the English Sanctuary to a restructured warehouse facility, outside of London. Exactly to avoid this kind of publicity."
"Well, that's something, at least..." Valkyrie muttered, looked down at her phone and send Fletcher a text.
When she was done, Valkyrie turned to her parents and immediately sighed, giving them a pained look. "I'm so sorry…"
"It's fine," her mother immediately waved energetically. "Go, go, go!"
They quickly turned and hurried out.
"Irie!" A familiar voice called.
Diamond stopped and turned around to Betty Baisemain, who was hurrying towards her in the Sanctuary hallway. Her short afro curls bounced as she walked, matching to her bubbly brown eyes, and dark skin that shone as it reflected the light on her round cheeks, which made her wide smile appear even more beaming than it already was.
"Thought, I'd find you here, wandering the halls like a cute puppy," Betty said and her elbow into Diamond's. They walked on, towards the exit of the building.
Diamond sighed. "What else would I be doing? There is literally nothing going on."
"I mean… that is technically a good thing, yah," Betty replied, "but I get you, I get you. You don't like standing still."
"It isn't that," Diamond disagreed and avidly moved her free hand along to her words. "I love standing still, when I intend to take a break. But this is not even a break anymore. I want to do something, it's been weeks since my brain has had to do some actual work."
"Post-war times are always slow, girl. No one's daring anything," Betty pointed out with an empathetic voice.
"Yeah, I'm starting to realize that trend, as well. At least, they aren't making me do guard duty. That would involve even more standing still."
Betty grinned and nodded approvingly. "That's the spirit."
Diamond sniffed and cheerfully looked ahead as she became infected by the good mood of her friend, as usual. A couple of people passed them, as they neared the entrance hall of the Sanctuary.
Her gaze fell shortly on a younger guy with blond hair, who came their way. His face looked expressionless, but Diamond was sure she could see tears in his eyes. She turned her head as he passed, but then looked ahead again. Poor guy probably had just been fired or broken up with.
"So… level? Have a drink with me?" Betty suggested.
"I actually have to stay here for another hour," Diamond sighed, "I'm just walking you to the door."
"Awww," Betty made. "That's too bad. But really sweet of you."
Diamond threw her a smile, and they reached the hall.
"Alright," she then said and let go of Betty's arm with momentum, which forced her to walk quicker towards the exit, "see you tomorrow."
"See yah, babe!" Betty called with a lifted hand, before turning and heading out.
Diamond walked back to where she had come from, towards the center of the building, where the defense department had their offices, in perfect reach of everything. Therefore, it did not take her long to reach the hallways that lead to her office space.
A couple of people smiled or nodded at her, but not many, and she greeted them all back, trying to remember all of their names.
Danger.
Diamond stopped dead in her tracks. The familiar pang of warning hit her chest, that had once been fear and had now become its own sensation, radiating out into the rest of her body.
Shift.
Diamond inhaled quickly and shifted. From the inside out, her body transformed; her organs halting, her muscles growing inert, her skin hardening.
Just in time, before the building exploded.
An enormous bang rang through the hallways, but only for a second, before a wall of fire and rubble shot towards her. Heavy vibrations shook the ground, shook her. Heat and pressure and dirt and rocks engulfed her, rained on her.
But Diamond barely felt it.
The ceiling gave in and dropped. Huge, flat boulders of dry concrete crashed on top of her, splitting and falling around, piling up. The impact was so hard, it came through to her brain, even though it wasn't technically functioning, currently.
She waited it out, trying to focus to not pass out from the transformation. Eventually, the noise and chaos settled, and while keeping some parts of her body shifted, Diamond let go and gasped for air. Smoke and dust came with it, and she coughed but tried her best to stay calm. It was pitch black and, quietly, screams and bangs sounded outside of the rubble she was trapped in.
One of her hands seemed free so, Diamond used it to pull her blouse over her nose and mouth, before carefully pointing it upwards. She touched the rubble above her, that was still being held by her transformed scalp and neck. Sending magic through her hand, into the material, she shifted it, feeling the gaps and air pockets between the rocks. Figuring out which piece was being carried by another would help her stabilize the gap she, herself, was standing in.
Diamond retracted the transformation, only keeping some of the boulders unmovable. Then, she shifted her arms, her joints, some parts of her legs and she gritted her teeth and pushed up.
Even with the help of her magic, lifting the thick concrete was by no means an easy task. She groaned, the groan turning into a strained yell, as she heaved the rubble up and out of the way. Some light fell through, mostly red from fire. Diamond let go of all of the transformations, to let go and jump up, her fingers grabbing the corner of a piece of ceiling. She pulled herself up, keeping her elbows in and her body straight and then, dragged herself out and sagged over the edge of the boulder, breathing heavily.
But there was not much time to rest, because flames threatened to put her hair on fire. So, Diamond fought herself to her feet, turning, to look at what remained of the English Sanctuary.
For a moment, destroyed Roarhaven popped up in her head but then, the image disappeared when some smoke cleared and opened the view onto the building. Diamond was not even inside of it anymore. She was standing on top of the collapsed ceiling, looking over a desolated, fallow field of grey. All around her, piles of rubble stretched out, growing higher the further they were away, making the crater look almost like a symmetrical wave. To her right, the epicenter flaunted with smaller and smaller pieces of rock, which had turned to dust at the center.
Outside and inside the far rubble, people were yelling and screaming. Sirens of ambulances wailed in the distance. However, one cry nearby popped out from the rest.
"Help!" The voice of a young man screamed and soon sobbed. "Help!"
Stunned, Diamond turned all the way around, looking closer, staring through the whisps of smoke that covered the view. And when they kept clearing, something caught her eye.
There was a person. Right in the middle of the bomb crater.