“If you want me to hit you again, you’ll keep talking like that,” Valkyrie said.

Deacon shut up. If looks could kill, he’d be skewered. “I know I did wrong,” he said, hanging his head. “I know I did. And I’ve already paid for it. My brother. My poor brother Dafydd. Foe thought Dafydd was me. He chased him and Dafydd… Dafydd fell into that wood chipper. He was always the clumsy one, was Dafydd. So, so clumsy…”

Valkyrie shoved him to get his attention, and when he looked up she leaned in. “If we ever hear of you doing something like that again, creating an innocent person just so you can hide behind them…”

Deacon held up his hands. “I won’t, I swear. I’ve learned my lesson. I was greedy, and selfish. But now I see that it was wrong to—”

“We don’t care,” Skulduggery said. “Run away before I shoot you.”

Deacon nodded, and started walking.

“He said run,” Valkyrie snarled, and Deacon did just that.

Trick or Treat

anith wiped the blood off the carving knife and, ignoring the body of the man she had just stabbed to death, went back to carving her jack-o’-lantern.

Her skill with a blade always came in useful this time of year. While other people would be satisfied with triangular eyes and jagged teeth, Tanith transformed her Halloween pumpkins into works of slowly rotting art. Tonight she was carving a portrait of her dear friend and object of worship Valkyrie Cain. By all accounts, poor Valkyrie still refused to embrace her destiny as destroyer of the world, but Tanith could forgive her this little moment of self-doubt. After all, if Tanith herself hadn’t been corrupted by a Remnant, then she would have been helping Val run from the inevitable.

It was the Remnant inside her, the thing of cruelty and nastiness, that had shared with Tanith this vision of the future, when Valkyrie would become Darquesse and burn all life to a cinder. It had been a glorious revelation, one that had spurred Tanith on to schemes and plans she had never before thought herself capable of. But the fact was there were no more Remnants out there. Her kith and kin were all trapped and locked away and hidden from her – so Tanith was on her own. More or less. She had a Texan psychopath who was besotted with her, and there were times when he certainly did come in useful. But she didn’t love him. Her love was reserved for Darquesse, and Darquesse alone.