Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 105 - Is Bliss kill-able?

Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Corrival – Pa

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Chapter 105

When they got to the Sanctuary, they had Valkyrie go to Tipstaff and talk to him since she was his favourite and somehow immune to Wolf's charm and Weasel's... well, she couldn't even put a name to the magic Weasel did. Perhaps that really was his magic. And the rest was just really amazing guesses.

"I'm afraid the Elders are in an international meeting at the moment," Tipstaff told her as he sorted something on his desk. It was perfectly neat and organised with the largest in-out trays Valkyrie had ever seen, each half-full and stacked just as neatly. "But, I will put in their schedule to meet with you as soon as they are out. Is that acceptable?"

She grinned. "That's great, thank you Tipstaff."

"Good," he smiled. "Now, this paperwork is a backlog I need you to read, fill out, sort and or bring it to the attention of various people. Yourself and Detective Pleasant have, obviously, been rather busy this last week and we've had a few changes brought in by Elder Deuce while you've been gone."

She sagged a little but took it. She was Co-Head of department. She had responsibilities. "Sure. I'll do this in the office. That's all clean, right?"

"Absolutely. You'll find additional paperwork there, but I was kind enough to ask my assistant to split it into an order of priority. This paperwork has to be before all that."

She nodded and made her leave before more work was thrown on her, going up to the office with the three Idiots. They sat around on their desks and Valkyrie found a sticky note on her desk telling her to clean it. She put the stack of paperwork on top of that.

"Can you guys clear the desks and read a few of these for me?" She asked, sitting down in the comfiest of chairs her butt had ever felt.

They agreed. The men wandered around the room, talking in low voices about Bliss' house and how to present their findings to the Elders while Valkyrie got through the paperwork. The stack Tipstaff had given her was primarily reading and signing to say she knew the new laws, essentially, so she got through that in an hour via skim reading because she herself was technically immune to some of the laws due to her position of power as well as some of it being just irrelevant to her job. She stuck her head out the room and asked someone if the Elders were done yet but apparently they weren't, so back to work for her.

"I hate reports," she whispered to herself.

"Cheer up, Cub," Weasel grinned, his feet up on his desk at the back. "You get paid for doing them."

"No I don't," she grumbled.

"Err, yes you do. You're an employee. It's a part of your job."

"No, I get paid to catch criminals, keep you on track, get Crow to shut up for more than five minutes, and look pretty," she informed him. "Reports is something I have to do because a certain dead guy decided he couldn't act like an adult for more than a few hours alone."