Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 76 - Twins!

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

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Chapter 76

It took a good week for things to settle in their house and get a meeting with all three Elders to explain Tesseract and The Torment. They had numerous interviews with Scapegrace, the owner of the bar, but he had nothing useful to tell them. In the end, they had to send him to a psychiatric ward for his strange behaviour. He was utterly and totally convinced he was a mass murderer.

Valkyrie had wanted to just let him go as he was harmless, but the Sanctuary said they had to protect him from his own idiocy. They found a nice lady to take care of him and be his 'assistant', a blue-haired girl called Clarabelle that was eager to convince him not to kill people.

The Torment himself hadn't been easy to track. So hard, in fact, they hadn't found him at all.

"He must know more about the outside world than we thought," Crow had grumbled when they were driving away from yet another false lead.

"He's had centuries to learn to blend into all cultures," Valkyrie had replied grumpily. "He could probably fit into any place now."

Tesseract had been even harder to find. Whereas The Torment was had been calling him every few hours, he was now absent and they couldn't be certain he was even in the country.

Tanith was certain she could track him down but she was fainting every day and falling over a lot and had doctor appointments every few days to keep on top of her symptoms and was in no shape to work. Panda was the full-time caretaker of her as well as doing his tailoring and spent much of his time convincing her to not get worked up about it as that was what led to the fainting. It was kind of funny except for the fact they were all so worried for her.

The Sanctuary had to put the Dead Men on hold for that particular case and put others on the search as other problems came up. Corrival had to give them almost three cases a day, sometimes more, to keep up with the crime wave that hit them. They weren't hard crimes, but there were way more than their department could handle and even Bear had been called in to help with a riot and get some peace.

Needless to say, the crowds dispersed quickly when he arrived.

"So, Valkyrie," Raven said with a smile.

She stared at him over her cereal. "What are you doing here so early?" She asked him quietly.

"I was here all night," he said, his mouth twitching as he tried not to smile.

She let a pause go by. "Okay."

"Me and you have to talk."

"About how you're dating my dad?"

"You don't call him that," he pointed out.

"He essentially is though."

"Yes, I suppose so. But you have to talk about that with him. No, I wanted to talk to you about your month at the Temple," he said, diverting the conversation easily. "The High Priest and Clerics are getting restless waiting for an answer."