Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 174 - Hehehehehe hehe, Ryaaaaaaan

Chapter 174

The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve. Bright and early, four in the morning. Even Nadia was going to have to help them today by taking care of Laila so both her parents could work.

As soon as they were awake, they split up. Anton, Saracen and Erskine were one unit and took on the brunt of the 'bad' work, mostly to do with larger groups and genuinely world-ending problems. They were a good unit as Saracen could give them an idea of what to do, Anton usually scared enough of them to make them hesitate, and Erskine was more than competent at fighting as well as using his control of air to break them into anywhere they needed.

The issue of Anton's gist still hadn't been sorted or even properly spoken about. None of the family spoke about it without Anton as it felt wrong, and Anton shut down any conversation that even vaguely suggested they might start asking him about the gist. It would have to be dealt with, but it was hard when Anton wasn't interested in talking. At the very least, no one but them knew about the situation, and since he rarely used the gist anyway, no one would notice and use it against him. He still scared everyone that looked at him, making him more than enough of a force.

Solomon and Ghastly had similar jobs of simply finding and arresting all the many maniacs, druggies and drunk mages that got a little too excited to be safe around mortals. Fletcher was all over the city picking people up at designated drop off sites and back to the American Sanctuary, probably the most important job of them all as it made them a thousand times more efficient and safer.

That left Valkyrie, Tanith and Dexter as a second unit to take on other very dangerous criminals. Valkyrie had just placed her sixth criminal in shackles when the mid-morning light started to really shine. Dexter took their next call.

"Foe's gang was spotted," he told Valkyrie and Tanith when he finished, coming over to them. They were chugging down water some Sanctuary workers had passed them. "They were the ones that took the remnant and kidnapped Valkyrie a few years back."

Valkyrie remembered being at Scarabs old castle but not much about the criminals. She'd been focused on Scarab and Murder Rose, both of whom were now dead, as well as the zombies that attacked them, and didn't think she interacted with the gang after that fight, at least not while being conscious. "I never followed up on what their powers are," she admitted.

"Samuel is a vampire, and a strong one too," Dexter told her as they got in their car. Driving was alright in the early morning but they'd have to abandon the car when they got further into the city now it was daytime. "Obloquy is the creepy Sensitive dude that made you feel like you were in pain. And Mercy is an energy thrower of some kind, I actually forgot how exactly. Foe is just an energy-thrower, similar to myself."

"Great," Tanith rolled her eyes, getting her phone out and calling Nadia. She'd done that already a few hours earlier. Going back to work for long hours after the whole Myra thing was not a fun time for Tanith, but Valkyrie was proud of how on her game she'd been. A few more weeks of training and Tanith would be in as good a fighting shape as she'd been before she'd gotten pregnant. Except for the lactating. She'd had to pump breast milk every few hours and had no plans to stop yet. It was okay to see her do it at home as it felt very comfortable and normal in their home, but watching her wrangle her seat belt and two pumps at once in the back seat while trying to call Nadia was still somewhat disconcerting. Or maybe weird. Or maybe Valkyrie was just the bad one for thinking it was weird and it was normal, she didn't really know.

"How far is it?" She asked Dexter instead.

"The Clark County Public Library," he said. "It's on Flamingo Road."

"That's fun."

"I thought so too. It's a good hour away from here."

.*****.