Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 146 - American Section: The Beginning

Chapter 146

Two days later, Nadia woke Valkyrie up exceptionally early to meet with the renovators and builders that were going to be fixing their old house into something modern. She got ready and joined her brothers as they groggily followed along, and ended up sitting still and tiredly as Nadia, Erskine and Anton figured out the details. Thankfully, those three had a vision in their minds and with the architect and building manager, they decided what was happening and all Valkyrie had to do was sign the papers. Nadia and Erskine warned her that some things were still undecided and they were still choosing exact layouts and that even the illustrations she had seen a week or so ago had been changed by the professional they had hired. But that was okay with her, she trusted them to remake the house.

It did leave two problems of course. What were Fletcher and Myra doing and what were she and her family going?

That was easily solved it turned out. Without telling her, her brothers had been in contact with Corrival and they had all agreed on her initial idea of sending off the Dead Men to other countries as bait towards political peace. And it had worked. The moment Meritorious mentioned the idea to an American ambassador that had visited demanding results, the ambassador had jumped on the chance exceptionally fast and a deal had been struck that the Dead Men would relocate to America for a short time to help with a few cases of extremities as well as have the ability to look at a suspected American Spider group. The Spider part had nothing to do with the American agreement, but it was something to do.

Valkyrie had been surprised that they were moving so swiftly. With the reports from Skulduggery and Solomon that the Spiders were all coming to Ireland, she had simply assumed all the groups were gone except for the Irish dens.

The second problem of Fletcher and Myra was also fixed – Myra had finished her exams and they were ready to move if necessary, plus the two of them could do anything with Fletcher being able to teleport. So they were going to be joining them going to America. It had been, Meritorious said, a part of the deal struck with America.

And that's how the next week was spent. Crystal came over daily as Valkyrie's family was teaching her basic magical theory and helped her learn to use her magic until it was confirmed – Crystal lit a small flame in the palm of her hand.

They had all celebrated the achievement but it wasn't for long. Valkyrie's family had to leave and Crystal was left in Ireland to self-teach herself as much as she could in the months in which they would be gone. She was warned she may be left with being an Elemental out of a lack of time, but Crystal didn't seem to care. She was just glad to have magic and a different kind of life to the one she thought she was stuck with.

.*****.

They teleported to Arizona, America.

"How exciting!" Myra squealed from Valkyrie's right side. She'd excitedly attached herself to Valkyrie that morning attempting to chatter about how wonderful it was to go on holiday together and that they were going to be friends for life after this.

Valkyrie just nodded and adjusted all the bags she was carrying. Nadia had refused to put her stuff in storage so Valkyrie had five bags, four and a half of them being Nadia's belongings. There were American Sanctuary workers waiting for them.

"Dead Men," one of them said, a smiling darkly tanned man with black hair and pretty brown eyes. He looked a lot like Dexter, except completely different. Perhaps it was just the energy he gave her. "We were asked to meet you."

"Saile!" Erskine said, dropping his bag and practically jumping the man. The woman who was next to Saile rolled her eyes. Valkyrie knew who she was.