"She's not going to sulk," Gabe said with a grin, leaning forward to poke Valkyrie's side. "She's not going to sulk because sulking is for little children. Isn't that right, diddums?" He cooed the words. "Isn't that right? Isn't it? Isn't it?"
He kept up the prodding and the baby-talk until Valkyrie was laughing too hard to even consider sulking, at which point Gabe laughed back and they all left the ice-cream parlour amidst stares and grins from the rest of the patrons.
There was no evidence of Marr at the construction site, and not just because of the big strong workmen who had been tromping all over the place all day. Nor did they find anything to indicate she'd been to any of the following locations. Which didn't mean she wouldn't use them later, just that she wasn't using them now, which meant she was, most likely, using the abuse women's shelter. It was the safest place for her; it required long-term watching just to find out if she'd been there or not, and then extra-careful handling to get her out.
After that, they went phone-shopping for Gabe. The Archangel, as he explained gleefully to Fletcher, had never bought a phone before. He took to the shopping trip like a child about to get bought a gift. Which he was, since Skulduggery promised to expense it under under his Sanctuary wage. They came out of the store with Gabe beaming and clutching his new phone like, well, a child who'd been bought a new toy.
He was already programming phone numbers into it by the time they reached the Bentley, curling up on the front seat and humming as he set each person with their own ringtone (none of which were actually on the phone before he laid hands on it).
He was still playing around with it by the time they pulled up in front of the Edgley's house, hanging over the back of his chair and asking Valkyrie a thousand questions about how to work phones to keep her mind off the impending evening. Then Skulduggery turned the Bentley off and Gabe looked up. "Oh, right. I'll wait here, okay?" He gave Valkyrie a brilliant smile, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "Good luck." He grinned. "Remember to breathe."
no subject
He kept up the prodding and the baby-talk until Valkyrie was laughing too hard to even consider sulking, at which point Gabe laughed back and they all left the ice-cream parlour amidst stares and grins from the rest of the patrons.
There was no evidence of Marr at the construction site, and not just because of the big strong workmen who had been tromping all over the place all day. Nor did they find anything to indicate she'd been to any of the following locations. Which didn't mean she wouldn't use them later, just that she wasn't using them now, which meant she was, most likely, using the abuse women's shelter. It was the safest place for her; it required long-term watching just to find out if she'd been there or not, and then extra-careful handling to get her out.
After that, they went phone-shopping for Gabe. The Archangel, as he explained gleefully to Fletcher, had never bought a phone before. He took to the shopping trip like a child about to get bought a gift. Which he was, since Skulduggery promised to expense it under under his Sanctuary wage. They came out of the store with Gabe beaming and clutching his new phone like, well, a child who'd been bought a new toy.
He was already programming phone numbers into it by the time they reached the Bentley, curling up on the front seat and humming as he set each person with their own ringtone (none of which were actually on the phone before he laid hands on it).
He was still playing around with it by the time they pulled up in front of the Edgley's house, hanging over the back of his chair and asking Valkyrie a thousand questions about how to work phones to keep her mind off the impending evening. Then Skulduggery turned the Bentley off and Gabe looked up. "Oh, right. I'll wait here, okay?" He gave Valkyrie a brilliant smile, reaching out to squeeze her hand. "Good luck." He grinned. "Remember to breathe."