Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 173 - Please someone kill this boy

Chapter 173

Finding a car that fit a baby's car seat and ten adults, most of which being muscular, and thus wider than the average person, was a challenge. So instead, they chose two family rental cars. Over the course of five agonising days, Valkyrie and her family gritted their teeth and kept themselves from murdering Fletcher out of sheer frustration. They stayed on the road, barely parked, and took shifts sleeping just to get into Nevada as soon as possible.

Considering they wouldn't have to have a road trip if Fletcher had visited Nevada before, they weren't exactly best pleased with him anyway. It wouldn't have been as agonising if they didn't have a three-month-old with them.

Somehow, the very grace of God seemed to shine on the absolute idiot of a boy, as he pushed them just hard enough to have them grind their teeth and pull out their hair, but not enough to actually commit a crime. Only Nadia cracked once, smacking Fletcher hard enough to bruise him, when he tried to throw something at Erskine instead of hand it through the car and it fell on Laila causing her to cry. She had been unmarked, thankfully for everyone as there was no doubt her father would have killed all of them if Laila had been bruised. He had to beg and stay quiet for the rest of that night so that they wouldn't tell Tanith and Ghastly, who were having a break in the other car.

On the outskirts of the giant city of Las Vegas, her family found a motel to stay in. Nadia was sent in to buy their rooms, just two nights, and then they brought in their bags. They'd had to shed some of their gear and put it in a storage unit Fletcher had. Everyone was sharing a bag to make it easier. One day they'd go on a real family road trip but those five days had been hell. Poor Laila cried for hours each day and continued to wail for half an hour after they got into the motel before she passed out asleep. Tanith pushed her hair out of her face, continuing to pace and worry over the baby.

Their job over the next two nights was to deal firstly with a threat of a mortal-eating group of goblins, and then to take on some of the New Year's Eve terrorism and end of the world missions. These tasks had come from the Sanctuary themselves. Solomon had joined them on their road trip of hell and was going to help them through it too, which Valkyrie was glad about. She'd barely seen him since they got to America.

There was a light knock on the door and Valkyrie pulled herself off the bed to quietly open it.

"Laila's asleep," she whispered very quietly.

"Okay," Dexter whispered back, leaning in. "Me and Solomon were talking and thought we should go out to test your skills a bit. To check up."

Valkyrie nodded quickly. "I'll get ready now."

She closed the door gently and changed into some shorts and a sports top. It was only just coming up on twelve degrees, being as it was the middle of winter in the desert, but she knew she'd work up a sweat. Nadia had barely slept the entire car ride which honestly had been miserable for them both as Nadia wasn't quite as pleasant a person when she hadn't had enough sleep, so Valkyrie left quietly. She did love her, but five days of barely sleeping, being constantly annoyed and worrying over deadlines had stressed Nadia out too much to let her be a nice person. So a little break to work off some steam was just what Valkyrie needed while Nadia got herself back under control so they could go back to being happy together.

"Oh, man," Valkyrie groaned, ducking her head. She practically stomped up to Dexter and Solomon. "Does he really have to come?"

"He promised to be quiet the entire way," Dexter told her immediately.

"I won't be annoying, I swear!" Fletcher grinned.

Valkyrie glared at him. "You're already annoying me. I thought I escaped you."