Skulduggery stepped out, sending twin streams of flame towards Purcell and his friends. The fire swarmed over their force field, unable to get through, but Valkyrie used the distraction to bolt from behind the car to the bookshop, and leaped through into darkness. She tripped over something and almost went sprawling into a bookcase, but managed to keep going. She glanced back. Skulduggery was right behind her.

Then a stream of energy seared through his chest, lifting him off his feet and he fell, just collapsed on the floor.

"No!" she screamed, running back to him, grabbing his arm, pulling him after her. "Get up! Get up!"

"I think I killed him," said the blonde girl, walking in. "Oopsies."

Valkyrie pushed at the air but the girl dodged out of the way and it hit the boy behind her. He flew back and Doran Purcell came at Valkyrie. She used the shadows to fling him against the far wall as hard as she could, aware of the girl's short bark of excitement.

Blondie leaped at her. It was a clumsy attack and Valkyrie flipped her to the ground, started throwing down hammer shots. The other slammed into her from behind and they stumbled against the table. She kicked at his leg, stomped on his knee, cracked an elbow into his jaw. He went down and then Doran hit her, a punch swinging in from her blind side. Doran forced her back against the wall, holding her with one hand and punching with the other. She didn't want to kill him, didn't want to kill anyone, but Skulduggery was lying on the floor and not moving and so she hit him in the throat with all of her strength. He dropped and she turned, kicked the girl in the face as she tried getting up.

Valkyrie ran to Skulduggery. She turned him on to his back. His facade had melted away. He wasn't moving. She tried to lift him, and heard a chuckle from behind her.

They were on their feet again, and grinning.

"Did you really," the girl said, "think it would be that easy?"

Valkyrie grabbed the shadows but Doran moved faster than she could see, his fist slamming into her side like a truck. She was lifted off her feet, the breath rushing from her lungs, went stumbling into the other boy's arms. He picked her up, held her over his head and threw her into the bookcase. She hit the shelves and then the ground, books raining down on top of her, and something closed round her ankle and the boy was dragging her across the floor. She whipped shadows at him but they glanced off his force field.

She kicked at his wrist with her free leg and twisted at the same time, freeing herself and coming to her feet. He turned his head right into her hook, and she caught him on the hinge of the jaw. A sweet, perfect connection that sent him back a few steps, but which should have sent him straight to the ground.

Doran grabbed her from behind in a bear hug, lifting her into the air. She sent her heels backwards, missing with her left but feeling her right crunch into his knee. He hissed and dropped her and she torqued, sending an elbow up into his chin.

It should have put him down. It didn't.

The other boy punched her. He didn't know how to punch but there was so much strength behind it that it didn't matter. The room whirled and Valkyrie felt her backside hit the edge of the table.

"I like your jacket," the girl said. "Doran, Sean, get it for me."

Doran thundered towards her and Valkyrie did a backward somersault across the table, keeping out of his reach. He shoved the table and it caught her mid-thigh. She cried out and almost went down and he climbed on to it to jump, but she pushed at the air and sent him hurtling across the room.

Something blurred and the other boy, Sean, hit her again. She fell to her knees and he kicked her and she flipped sideways. When she landed, she would have cried out if her lungs had allowed her to make a sound. Sean walked up and stomped on her back. He did it again and it felt like her whole body was breaking. He flipped her on to her back, unzipped the jacket and yanked it off her. She moaned, turned, tried covering up but Doran's foot found her side and her ribs smashed. Valkyrie found a breath and screamed.

Sean threw the jacket to the girl and she put it on. "Oh," she said, "I like this. Oh, I like it a lot."

Valkyrie tried to curl up into a ball but every movement made her scream louder. She wrapped her arms round herself, feeling bits of jagged rib poking through her skin.

"What'll we do with her?" Doran asked, a grin in his voice.

"I don't care," said the girl. "Just kick her to death and be done with it."

demand a body!" the zombie head yelled from his jar of gross liquid. Sanguine had to resist the urge to throw a pillow at him. He'd already done that once, and had succeeded in toppling the jar on the table. The head had shrieked and rolled off on to the floor, and Sanguine had laughed so much he'd popped some stitches.

"I demand a body!"

"Would you please shut up?" Sanguine said. "If someone other than Nye hears you, we're both sunk."

Scapegrace ignored him. "Doctor Nye! Doctor Nye, I demand a body!"

Nye swept in, ducking its head to fit through the door. It had to bend its knees and spine in order to peer into the jar. "You," it breathed through its surgical mask, "are shouting again."

"Where is my body, Doctor Nye? We had a deal."

"I remember," the doctor said. "Do you think I would forget? Or perhaps you think I would cheat you now that I have the remains of the White Cleaver?"

"Oh, I know you wouldn't." Scapegrace was trying to glare into the doctor's small yellow eyes, but his head was lopsided in the jar and so he ended up glaring at Nye's elbow. "Because until you find me a new body, you're not getting the White Cleaver's brain."

"The brain?"

Scapegrace chuckled. "You didn't think I'd hand over everything, did you? I told Thrasher to collect the pieces of brain into one single container, and then to keep that container back just to ensure your honesty."

"And when I have fulfilled my end of the bargain...?"

"We'll hand over the final container. So you see, Doctor Nye, you're not dealing with some amateur here. I am the Zombie King. I am the Killer Supreme. And you will drop everything right this second and go find me another body or you will never see that-"

Nye took a plastic container from its pocket, and placed it on the table in front of the jar. It was filled with what looked like pieces of brain.

Scapegrace blew a bubble as he whimpered.

"Your friend Thrasher," Nye said, "is every bit as much of an idiot as you make him out to be."

"I'm going to kill him," Scapegrace said.

Nye flicked the jar with one long, bony finger. "Have patience, zombie. When I find a suitable body, work will begin. Do not presume to threaten me again."

Taking the container, it ducked back out through the door, and Scapegrace's head slipped a little further askew.

"Smooth," Sanguine said.

"Shut up."

"Are you ignorin' me now? Is that what you're doin'? Givin' me the silent treatment? Oh, no, the decapitated zombie isn't speakin' to me whatever will I do? How will I cope? The shame, the shame, to be shunned by a head."

Scapegrace murmured something.

"Sorry? What was that?"

"I said at least I have eyes!"

Sanguine laughed, and Tanith walked in.

"You two seem to be having fun," she said, picking up a towel and covering the jar with it. She ignored Scapegrace's cries and sat on the edge of Sanguine's bed. "How are you feeling?"

Sanguine gave her the grin. "You actually sound like you care."

"Of course I care, honey-bunny," she said, squeezing his hand. "But if you could possibly manage to heal a little faster, that would be super-fantastic."

"It's gettin' worse out there, is it?"

She sighed. "This place is crawling with sorcerers. It's not safe for people like us. I keep expecting Skulduggery to come walking through that door or for Ghastly to call my name..."

"You give me the word, darlin', and I'll take care of that scarred freak in a heartbeat."

Tanith smiled, and tapped Sanguine's chest. "You leave Ghastly alone. He is not to be harmed, you hear me? Don't be mean."

"I don't know, Tanith. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you still had a soft spot for that guy."

She leaned in and kissed him. "What's all this? Are you getting jealous again?"

Sanguine was about to answer when he saw movement over Tanith's shoulder. He stiffened and she turned as Madame Mist entered the room.

Sanguine didn't even have time to sit up before Tanith ran at her, sword out. Mist raised her arm and a torrent of tiny spiders shot out from her voluminous sleeve, catching Tanith full in the face. She stumbled to her knees, spitting and gagging, gradually lost under the growing mound. There were thousands of them. Tens of thousands. More. And then Mist's arm fell back to her side. Sanguine caught a glimpse of the black veins that spread beneath Tanith's skin, and she snarled and leaped from the mountain of spiders. Mist caught her, a slender hand closing round Tanith's throat as she swung her overhead and slammed her to the ground. The sword fell and Mist picked her up like she was picking up a doll and flung her to the other side of the room. Tanith crashed through a set of curtains, bringing the whole frame down with her, and landed somewhere behind the bed, tangled and cursing.

The spiders returned to their mistress, forming lines that flowed beneath the hem of Madame Mist's long black dress.

Nye swept in, looking like a giant spider itself. "What seems to be the problem?" it rasped.

Sanguine waited for Mist to alert the Cleavers or call for help or something, but all she did was stand there, very still, and Sanguine realised Nye had been addressing him.

"She's an Elder," he explained, feeling like there was a huge part of this situation that he hadn't been filled in on.

"Madame Mist is my patron," said Nye. "We have nothing to hide. The debt you owe to me for healing you is now owed to her."

Sanguine took a moment to figure it all out. "Right," he said. "OK. In that case, Tanith, it might be better if you didn't kill her."

Nye looked up to where Tanith crouched, upside down on the ceiling directly above Mist's head, a scalpel in either hand. She still wore the black lips and black veins of the Remnant inside her. Mist, to her credit, didn't even glance upwards.

Tanith jumped, flipping to the ground. Without taking her eyes off the woman in the veil, she passed the scalpels to Nye, and held out her hand to Mist. Their fingers touched, forming a bridge, and a trail of spiders trickled along Tanith's arm and disappeared up Mist's sleeve.

"Is that all of them?" Tanith asked, and Mist nodded. Tanith picked her sword up off the floor, her face returning to normal.

"So Madame Mist has a secret agenda," she said. "Who would have guessed?"

"The others suspect," Mist said softly, "but they have no proof. And so we have time."

"Time to do what?" Sanguine asked.

"To prepare," said Mist. "To arrange. You owe me a favour. I want you to kill someone."

"We figured that much," Tanith said. "Who?"

"Stay close, and stay hidden, and I will tell you who your target is when the time is right." Mist glided away so smoothly that Sanguine had visions of a carpet of spiders beneath her feet.

oran Purcell's friends were quickly identified as Kitana Kellaway and Sean Mackin, all three of them seventeen years old and all pupils of St Brendan's Secondary School. Their parents hadn't seen them in days, and no one else had heard from them. There was a fourth member of their group, a girl called Elsie O'Brien. She was unaccounted for. Valkyrie didn't much care about that. Elsie O'Brien hadn't tried to kick her to death, after all.

She didn't remember much of it. The pain had sent jagged spikes through her mind, cutting her off from the details of whose boot came in first, or who had kicked her more, or how long she'd endured before the blackness started to seep into her vision. But she did remember the moment the air quaked, and the way Doran and Sean hurtled into Kitana. Skulduggery lifting her up was pretty clear in her head, as was the back door bursting open. She blacked out before they rose into the air, and only regained consciousness once she was back in the Sanctuary.

She was patched up by Reverie Synecdoche, a Sanctuary doctor who shivered whenever Doctor Nye passed behind her. Nye was working on Skulduggery, much to Skulduggery's irritation. The injuries he'd sustained had only aggravated his earlier ones, the bones the werewolf had damaged. Now he had to lie back and let Nye work its magic. He did so with no small amount of complaining.

Ravel dropped by at his first opportunity, heard Skulduggery moaning and stayed over beside Valkyrie. "We're looking for them," he told her. "We have mages combing the city, with strict instructions not to engage unless absolutely necessary. How are you?"

She chewed on the leaf that melted her pain away. "Mad," she said. "They took my jacket. What about the witnesses?"

Ravel expelled a deep breath. "We're doing our best," he said. "Geoffrey and Philomena are on it, we have clean-up crews and reconstruction going on... I won't lie, Valkyrie. This is a big one. This could be seen as a major mistake."

She looked at him. "Skulduggery will tell you, we did everything right. We kept our distance until we lost sight of Doran Purcell. Skulduggery went into the cafe after him, saw him there with the other two. The girl, Kitana, was hurling insults at some random woman. She went to melt her face and Skulduggery stepped in. Next thing he knew he was flying backwards through the window. These aren't sorcerers we're dealing with. They don't know the rules about public displays of power and if we don't find them fast, things are going to get a whole lot worse."

"Hopefully, their inexperience will work to our advantage," Ravel said. "They won't know where to hide or how to disappear. They're just teenagers."

"So am I. Their level of power was massively different to anyone else we've seen, though. Argeddion must have overloaded them because they had no skill and no training and they still nearly killed us. Skulduggery fired at them and they didn't even know they could throw up force fields until it happened."

"It sounds like they're operating on pure instinct. We'll find them soon enough."

For the first time, Valkyrie noticed the Cleavers standing at a respectful distance. She frowned. "Hey... are they your bodyguards?"

Ravel glowered. "They follow me everywhere. Wherever I go I'm under constant protection. Ghastly can roam as he pleases, but me?"

"Well," she said, "you're the Grand Mage. You're important. What did Mist say about you taking control of the Cleavers?"

"She didn't say much, but then she never does. I have no idea if she even knows we suspect her of being involved in the attack. That damn veil hides a lot. Here, give me good news. Apparently you've solved the murder of Christophe Nocturnal."

"It was easy. The unlocked door, the sword wound. Tanith killed him."

"Any idea why?"

"Probably for sending that woman to kill me. She's quite protective, in her own way."

"Right," Ravel said. "Well, leaving aside what a staggering breach in security that was, at least it's one case closed, two more to go. We have Silas Nadir in the detention cell if you want to talk to him, to put a stop to your dimensional jaunts. And if Lament and his friends ever get their work finished downstairs, we'll have no more mortals going crazy, and the Supreme Council can leave us alone."

"See? Everything's almost fine."

He smiled despite himself. "I'll leave you. I have things to do and headaches to suffer. I'd love to tell you to take some time off and heal but..."

"I don't need to heal," she told him, smiling back. "I'm ready and rarin' to go."

"That's the spirit," he said, starting to walk off. "Oh, when Skulduggery's back on his feet, could you go down and check with Lament, see how things are going?"

"You got it."

"You're my favourite detective, you know that?"

"Oh, I bet you say that to all the teenage girls."

He laughed, and the Cleavers flanked him and then he was gone.

A minute later, Skulduggery had had enough. He strode to the door, fixing his tie, and Valkyrie ran after him. She told him what Ravel had said, and on their way to see Lament they took a detour to the interview room. Silas Nadir didn't even look up when they entered.

Skulduggery sat opposite him, and Valkyrie stood by the wall. Skulduggery tapped the tabletop, his fingers drumming a beat. Nadir moved his head like he was testing a crick in his neck, then raised his eyes.