Skulduggery Pleasant Fan-fiction- Love Amongst The Cain (Sequel to The Cradle Of Magic)

Watch It Burn.

-Vin

The air was dulled with the inwardness of finely grained mist, lulling the surroundings in a blanket of absolute grey. How overly stereotypical of a landscape dappled with granite headstones and overturned ground. The bunch of flowers lay loosely in my hand. I had no clue why they were there, or why I had come to that matter. Somehow, it felt right even though I had never known her as a mother.
China Sorrow's grave was as she had been. It was grand, marbled, baronial and represented an obvious intervention with funeral plans. She had never wanted anything more than that, despite the family tomb that lay in the earth to await her. No, she wanted different to them. She was always different to them. She had been a Grand Mage to start with. Had been.
I knelt beneath the stone as I felt a trickle of frozen rain pass over my neck, as if to signify an act of power. Or maybe that it was just raining and that was what Ireland did. I placed the crimped roses over the healed wound of the grave and stood to a stance, bring my leather closer to my skin as the rain fell harder. I turned my head and paced quickly towards dry shelter, a storm breaking the facade of the mist. An enclosed tomb was sheltered from the rain and overlooked the graveyard from it's ledge, it was dry and scuffed with marble flooring letting a marble tomb sit proudly in the central. It was unprotected which seemed odd to the untrained eye, until you spotted the symbols adorned to the edges of the stone.
I let a grin leak to the edges of my mouth and bowed my head watching the storm outwardly with my long, wet hair dripping casually over my crossed arms.
I felt my eye wander over the carved name upon the tomb.
"Morwenna Crow." A soft voice stated.
I felt myself jump and steadied my breath, turning to the darkened cloak which entered the tomb. The cloaked figure's face was shaded, the distinctive shade of painted nails tucking an inky slip of fine hair behind her ear as her hood fell to her shoulders. She turned from me, placing her hands on the barrier that surrounded the enclosed space and looked into the misted landscape with ease.
"They found your mother's body in good tact, I take it?"
My eyes flicked to her tilted head, the shadows still placing themselves so I couldn't see. "You see I never attended her funeral." She continued.
I gave a short nod and rung my hair to let the water drip softly to the floor.
"She... It was only a small one." I murmured, nodding a little and watching her intently.
The woman's head turned in a motive of shock and I felt her glare lay upon my face before it softened to a smile. "She deserved no less."
It was distinctive now. So alarmingly distinctive. So calm yet hidden with subtle poison.
I swallowed as she sighed and swept her hair across her face, her sharp blue eyes quite clear to me. She smiled softly and extended a finely manicured hand towards mine.
My heart stopped almost completely in it's beat.
"I missed you, daughter mine."
I felt my mouth fall open to a formed word.
"China."

***
-Trissiana

The air was chilled as she trailed her fingers across the length of the finely dusted table, sighing in frustration and arching her shoulders in a cat-like stance to place both hands over the wood for support.
"We can't just kill them. We need that information." She directed at me, her voice clipped and poignant.
Her dark hair licked the table edge as her head tilted towards mine, giving me a hard and off-putting look of choler and defeat. I let a murmur pass my lips and traced a finger over the blueprints.
"You say there are no other forms of the book?" He head raised to the man handcuffed to the chair before her, his red-scarred eyes dark and his thickly moistened hair sticking to his face. His toned arm dribbled a fine amount of blood, dripping to the concrete floor casually from the blade that lay carved into his arm. His saliva was evidently thick in his throat as he swallowed, clearly audible. He avoided my harsh gaze and looked to the dark haired girl to whom had been intriguing him since we had bound him.
Sanguine gave a brief nod to me before placing his razor to the Dead Man's trachea, the blade biting down on the skin and seething liquid scarlet amongst his beads of sweat that were ever forming around his bare collar bone.
"Answer her." His Texan accent rang out in the room and the man spat his words out of force.
"No. There is nothing else. Everything was destroyed after the war par that document." Anton Shudder's voice was hoarse and shaking despite his fierce and strong facade. We did after all have an ear piece in his ear that rung the tortured screams of his fiancee. He winced and bit back a cry, looking to his lap as a tear trickled down his chin, loosely.
I nodded and bit my lip, tracing a hand over the smaller passages of the Irish Sanctuary. There were hidden ways, now marked over with plaster and steel. But there was a way. There was always a way.
"These two men. What were their names out of interest?" I stated, rolling the map back over itself and placing my hips over the table edge, subtly.
"Rue and Vex." The brunette replied, her focus concentrated on the knife that sat lolling in her hands as she played it against the side of the table.
I gave a nod and caught Sanguine's reflection in my glass as he watched her, titling his head a fraction from where he stood.
I ticked my tongue against the top of my mouth and returned the mapping to my case, loading my gun and spinning it across the table to Sanguine.
"We lead them out of their hole, follow them to our destination and trap them there." I gave a nod and raised an eyebrow as the girl looked up at me, her dark eyes gleaming and fierce.
"There are barriers of protection spread throughout the base. After the last attack it's tighter and far more complex to break. You would have to have someone ins-"
I grinned, waltzing to the door and letting my coat trail my heels as the door clicked open on command.
"Oh, we have someone inside. Someone deep inside, in fact." I twisted my heels to turn to her just as Schwartz sauntered down the badly lit hall, his face evidently painted with scarlet. I gave a nod the Texan and he placed my spared gun to the Dead Man's temple, taking off the safety cap and casting it aside. I returned to her gaze, placing my foot in the gap of the door.
"Within the hour we'll have our lead. And the Irish Sanctuary will be up in flames once more."
I let the door close with a notable click.
And the shot rang through the house.