Bedlam Chapter Sampler

damaging of her soul. She shrugged. “Alice’s situation is fine,” she murmured, sagging against him. “But how are we going to find Nye now ? We found it back in September when we weren’t even looking for it – but now, when we need the bloody thing, it’s vanished off every radar we can think of.” “We’ll find Nye because that’s what we do. We find things. Clues. Truth. Inappropriate humour at inappropriate times.” “Trouble,” she said. “Yes,” said Skulduggery. “We find trouble.” “No,” said Valkyrie, stepping away from his hug and nodding ahead of them. “ Trouble .” A City Guard patrol car was parked in the next street over. Its engine was silent, its lights off. Beside it was a small shop. The door had been kicked open. Crashes came from inside. They ran across the road. Skulduggery was first through the door, Valkyrie right behind him. She readied herself for a fight, an unpleasant part of her hoping that the cops were heavily outnumbered and tonight was the night when she’d get to cut loose. She had a lot of anxiety to work through. Instead, they arrived to find three City Guard officers trashing the place in the dark. Two men and one woman. The woman noticed them, and hissed to the others. They stopped what they were doing and turned. Valkyrie recognised one of them – Sergeant Yonder. She didn’t like him. “Well,” said Skulduggery, “this should be good.” Yonder didn’t say anything for a few moments. When at last he spoke, what he said wasn’t very convincing. “This is official City Guard business. You can’t be here.” “We’re Arbiters,” Skulduggery said, stepping over the remains of a smashed shelf. “We can be anywhere we want to be.” Yonder bristled. “Your jurisdiction—” “Is absolute. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? You two – identify yourselves.”

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