Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 186 - Destroying the Weapons

Chapter 186

To say they had thrown shit at the fan was not nearly a strong enough phrase to describe how many problems Valkyrie had caused herself, her team, the Dead Men and the Irish Sanctuary. They had been split up and interviewed. Thank God they had gone over the story before they had gone in. She stuck to it, and it seemed like everyone else had too.

She simply stated that she had lied to her family and pretended she wanted to leave the fighting in America and that she was visiting mortal family. They did not know where she was, much less did any Sanctuary. She was trying to get the God Weapons, which was the truth, before the Spiders, but failed. They gave her very pressuring questions towards where the weapons were, whilst also denying the English Sanctuary had ever had the Sword, and also asked where the Dead Men were.

As far as Valkyrie could tell, stuck in her little cell for a week and a half, they had absolutely had the Sword, before the Spiders men had taken it, and the English were trying to make out this was a crazed, terrorist-driven attack organised by the Dead Men.

After her initial interrogation where she repeatedly gave them nonsense and stupid answers in between their pre-planned story, they had gotten very annoyed with her and upped their game. Her black eye and broken nose had just made it worse though because then she really wanted to mess with them. She didn't let herself cry. There were cameras in her cell and she didn't want to give them the satisfaction.

She probably wouldn't have gotten out so fast, in just a week and a half, if it wasn't for the surprise visit from an Irish representative to see the 'prisoners'. He took one look at her gaunt, hungry face, swollen cheek, black eyes, ripped and bloody lip, and crooked, blue bruised nose, turned on his heel and stormed away. A few minutes later she was hauled up by some guards and they dragged her into the hall. She yanked her arms away from them and walked herself up the four flights of stairs, making herself lightheaded, and to the Medical Ward. She sat herself on a bed and allowed them to rush and fix some of her wounds but didn't let them touch her nose. Kenspeckle would be furious if someone ruined her face.

Her team came up next. Tanith was glowering and looked like a very pretty, short ball of bruised rage. She had been so worried about her sister, sitting alone in her cell for the last week, thinking on her mistakes and of her baby. They hugged tightly, the doctors and guards hesitating on whether to pull them apart, but no one said anything. It was silent.

Fletcher collected them and took them to Kenspeckle's not too many hours later once the Elders had dealt with the news.

"Valkyrie!" Nadia practically screamed, and ran straight into her arms.

Valkyrie held the girl tightly, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "I missed you," she said simply, and then felt a lot of other arms wrap around her.

"Alright," Kenspeckle said gruffly, getting her free of the arms. He looked at her nose with narrowed eyes. "Your cheekbone is broken."

"We only saw the doctors a few hours ago," she said simply, and walked through to the back to her usual bed.

Nadia trailed behind her and studied her face when Valkyrie sat down. "What did they do?" She asked quietly.

Valkyrie lowered her eyes. Left her alone in a pitch-black cell so completely void of light she could hear only her thoughts and heart pounding through her body. Made sure the air was frigidly cold. Randomly turn the lights on bright white and blare high pitched screeches through speakers until she thought her brain was going to explode. Sent in Sensitives that couldn't get through the mental shields her family had put in place get to the information they wanted, but had been able to push all her scariest, darkest moments to the forefront of her mind before leaving her in darkness again. Used the Needs Remedied signals in her cell but turned down the feeding function to keep her alive but starving.