Skulduggery Pleasant fan-fic: The Cradle of Magic (UNDER EDIT)

Falling.

-Ghastly

Dexter sniggered lightly at her remark and swigged his red wine rather automatically,

"Yes, but that's what he does... it's his... how you say..." his eyes flicked up from Bliv's intensified gaze and to Skulduggery's "Raison d'etre."

The detective chuckled lightly, placing his hand on the table.

Dexter proceeded, "I mean, the only reason he bought the Porsche; and I quote, was 'because; like me, it's a babe magnet... nobody can resist its sexy looks."

I laughed with the others and looked over at Tanith who caught my stare and smiled, she looked gorgeous in her long, red dress cut in a slit at the knee wit her white-blond locks tied high up in a diamanté clasp. A twitch of a smile started to spread across the edges of her lips, her gaze still laying on me.

"Ghastly?" she asked, amusement lingering in her voice.
I switched back, my look more alert, chewing the corner of my lip,
"Hm?"

"How about you and the boys tell us one of the Dead Men stories? I'd love to hear one of those, you keep going on about certain aspects but I've never heard a full story before."
Storm suddenly looked interested and clasped her hands on the desk,
"Ah! The Dead Men... now I HAVE heard a lot about them... weren't they the team during the war that went on missions and stuff?"

Bliv giggled a little, and Dex's glance switched back to her,
"Elaborate Armageddon..."
"Oh, just something Sarc said... nothing much... I um..." she swigged her white wine.
Skulduggery proceeded answering Storm's question,
"Yes, we were... it was rather essential at the time... we aren't a group anymore only great friends..." he shifted negligibly in his seat, placing an forearm on the table, supporting his skull. "Those were dark days."

There was a long pause, I was threatened to say something but Bliv keenly broke the silence, humming a fraction before standing, "I'm going to get drinks, do you guys want anything?" Her dress was strapless, black, with a long slit to her calves; her brunette hair swept over to her left shoulder elegantly.
Dexter stood immediately and the two looked at each-other, he caught in her gaze.
"I'll come."
Gracious muffled a chuckle, Dexter handing him an enticing glare and the two walked off got the bar, Vex noticeably slipping his hand into Bliv's as they turned the corner.

Skulduggery checked his watch rather automatically, or maybe even pointently; the golden sun fall had risen into the darkened clouds and the new moon had now cast the sky.
"I think maybe it's time to head back actually, we've got a lot on tomorrow... I'm sure Ravel won't want his operatives falling asleep during the meeting?"

Tanith hid a yawn, splaying her hands, catlike, across the table towards mine. "Oh come on Skulduggery, just one story... Please?"

I sighed and caught my friend's fake glance before turning back to Tanith.

"It was the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty one, and it was up west of the Missouri River in South Dakota, and the Dead Men were riding again. This was still years before that damn fool Custer stumbled across all that gold in the Black Hills, years before Wounded Knee and the massacre that took place there. This was before the territory was emitted back to the union, back before Deadwood, back even before that pitiful Treaty of Laramie promised the region of the Dakota people, a treaty that, if ever that was one, was drawn up just to be burned. It was the time of gunfighters and hard living and easy dying and, of course, it was the time of mean-spirited, blood-slicked magic..."

****

-Vin

A hard, piercing scream tore at my eardrums as I fell. My hard breathing caught in my chest and I easily found I couldn't move, my body shooting vertically in an arrow towards the quick and moonlight stained concrete; which came ever so close every thinking second I took.
A million visions shot through my eyes like flickering fire, tearing sweat down my cold neck as the wind whipped at my heels; sure enough finding myself within body length of the ground.
I spun, at least that was what my head depicted, cradling my neck and spine as I rolled; my hand falling behind and snapping with a sickening 'crack' under my body weight and the sheer antagonistic force of the ground beneath me.
Blood pounded heartlessly through my ears, blocking everything but my sight which still lay encased in shadows.
I felt the arm blood, trickle the scarred lines on my face from previous occasion and flow down over my jacket and into the ever increasing pool of blood on the pavement.
Letting a moan escape my cracked and bloodied lips I tossed painfully to my side, feeling the jabbing of a brittle rib on the innards of my chest scream out in pain as I fogging made a stand; jerking vigorously towards the way out.