Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 129 - Getting down to business

Chapter 129

Early the next morning, Valkyrie was woken by her phone. Reaching over, she grabbed it and pressed answer.

"Hello?" She grumbled, sitting up.

"Detective Cain," Corrival said through the phone loud and clear. "Your team came to me this morning."

Valkyrie looked at her alarm clock as Nadia moaned and rolled over. "It's seven thirty."

"Well, they got here at seven sharp," he snapped. "Get here quickly. Do you know where Roarhaven is?"

"Of course."

"Get here quickly."

Corrival hung up on her and after a moment, Valkyrie put her phone down on the bed.

"What was that?" Nadia asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Pa called me. Apparently, the other detectives just finished talking about me to him."

"They're not very nice," she said quietly.

"Some of them are alright, but my brothers were choosing mostly the overpaid henchmen and follow-along henchmen type of people for the team, not actually competent people," Valkyrie told her, getting out of bed. "Where's my trousers?"

"You threw them in the wash," she groaned.

"Oh yeah." Valkyrie went into the overstuffed walk-in wardrobe, which was barely walk in because she could only just pull the door closed behind her. For modesty reasons. "I have to go into work and deal with them now. I'm cutting most of them from the team."

"Okay," Nadia said back. "Will we still be able to get my stuff from my parents tonight?"

"Yeah," Valkyrie said, trying to sound confident. "If not, Dexter and Saracen will take you, don't worry. We'll work it all out."

"Uh-hu."

Valkyrie finished getting dressed in the tiny wardrobe and pushed her way back out. "Will you tell the others I've gone to the Sanctuary when you see them?"

"Sure. Don't forget breakfast," Nadia smiled, kissing Valkyrie lightly when she went over to her sleepy girlfriend.

"I'll get coffee at work, don't worry. See you later!"

Valkyrie was quick to leave the house, knowing it was long overdue that she went to see her team and figure out a real plan. She had done her personal tasks, or at least enough of them that it barely mattered anymore, but now it was time to deal with the Sanctuary section.

It almost felt stupid, she mused as she pulled out of the garage on the motorbike, that she had to deal with a complaint within her team when there was a war brewing. Didn't they have better things to do? Corrival was an Elder dealing with enough rubbish in their world without her team being idiots, especially when they already had a meeting planned for today.

Roarhaven was a good forty minutes from her house, so she knew Corrival would be in a bad mood. The town itself was disgusting with dirty streets, dingy houses and broken up roads Valkyrie had to swerve around. She'd been there before, of course, as it was a mage town and where there were mages, there was usually some type of trouble. That called for her and Skulduggery, or it did in the past. Now it was just her and she didn't know how to feel about all that still.

Pushing that from her head before she went down that rabbit hole of emotions, she pulled up to the short, stout, box building that made up the Sanctuary. There were guards outside, Sanctuary workers rather than Cleavers, but they didn't question if she was allowed in. Still, she had a few wary looks from the odd few. Skulduggery's actions affected them all. Idiot. But, being the kind-of-granddaughter coupled with being the outright favourite of Elder Deuce and probably the Grand Mage also had its uses. She got into the nasty building easily.