“I think we should let him try,” said a voice from behind them. They spun, saw Foe and his gang walking up. Foe was grinning. “It might save us the bother of destroying the world ourselves.”

alkyrie stepped in front of Ryan, and Skulduggery straightened his tie. “Excellent,” he said. “You’ve fallen right into our trap.”

Foe looked around at the otherwise empty mall, eyebrow raised. “This is a trap, is it? So this is the bit where all the Cleavers appear? This is the part where we surrender due to being completely outnumbered and you cart us off to our cells?”

“Roughly, yes.”

Foe’s grin grew wider. “Has the trap been sprung yet?”

“I’m simply not going to dignify that with an answer,” said Skulduggery.

Standing behind Obloquy, Samuel was sweating badly. Ryan could see the lines of tension on his face. He looked to be in pain.

“Your pet doesn’t look too good,” Valkyrie said.

Foe glanced back, then shrugged. “When the sun goes down, all a vampire wants to do is rip off his skin and kill everything in sight. Right now, the only thing keeping all of us safe is the last drop of a serum he took. Your boyfriend took something similar, didn’t he? What was his name? Caelan?”

Valkyrie’s shoulders stiffened and her voice grew harder. “He was not my boyfriend.”

“Bad break-up, was it? Actually, don’t answer that. I heard it was. Bad for him more than you, though, wasn’t it?”

“We don’t talk about vampires,” Ryan muttered.

Foe smiled and Mercy laughed. “See?” she said. “Told you he fancies her.”

“So what if he does?” Valkyrie snapped back. “He’s a nice guy. After we’ve smacked you lot around, we may as well give it a go. What’s the matter, Mercy – jealous that two people can like each other when nobody in their right mind would ever like you?”

Mercy glared. “Plenty have liked me.”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie said, “I’ve heard.”

The glare turned to a scowl. “Not like that.”

“You don’t have to justify yourself to me.”

“Says the girl who dated a vampire.”

“Says the psycho who dated everyone.”

“Detective Pleasant,” Foe said, interrupting the conversation just when it was getting interesting, “you’ve gone suspiciously quiet. It’s not like you to miss an argument.”

“Carry on,” Skulduggery said, his head down. “Don’t mind me…”

Foe frowned. “What are you doing?”

Skulduggery waited a moment, then looked up, and showed them his phone. “Just sending a message. Reinforcements should be here soon.”

Obloquy sagged. “I told you we should have just attacked them,” he rumbled. “But, no, you wanted to talk and trade witty banter.”

“Shut up, Obloquy,” Foe said. “Fine, Detective. You want to skip straight to business? Fine with me. Kill them.”

Valkyrie pushed Ryan back slightly as Obloquy headed for her and Mercy zeroed in on Skulduggery.