Pleasant ignored him. “Give place, abominable creature, give way, you monster. Depart, then, depart, accursed one, depart with all your deceits.”

Valkyrie grinned. “Say it.”

“I’m not saying it,” said Pleasant.

“Go on,” said Valkyrie. “Say it for me. Please.”

Pleasant sighed, and returned his attention to the exorcism, and then, in a loud voice, he commanded, “Get thee behind me, Bubba Moon!” and Valkyrie cheered.

We went home. Felicity had tried to stay up, but she’d fallen asleep on the couch. I helped Sammy to bed, and he hugged me before I turned out the light. For a moment he was a little kid again, a little kid who needed me.

I stayed with him until he was asleep, and then I sat on the couch and waited for Felicity to wake. When she did, we talked. I didn’t tell her about Bubba Moon. We didn’t talk about what I had just been through. Instead, we talked about us, and our great kids, and our life together. We talked for hours, until the sun bled into the night and turned the sky orange.

Bubba Moon’s van pulled up and I went outside. Valkyrie Cain got out, and so did a tall man with dark hair. Skulduggery Pleasant in yet another astonishing disguise.

Valkyrie told us that the exorcism had lasted three hours. When Pete Green’s body finally slumped into unconsciousness, she’d dragged him out of the circle, leaving only the flickering image of the original Bubba Moon trapped within. By that stage, she said, a team of Sensitives had arrived to drain him of his power. Pleasant told us that Moon would never again get the chance to infect anyone. He would stay there, in that warehouse, in that circle, too weak to possess even a passing pigeon, and that’s where he would remain until the end of days.

I thanked them. Not only for saving my life, not only for saving the life of my son, but also for saving the lives of all the other children who would otherwise have been sacrificed to whatever creature had lived in that light. Valkyrie smiled, thanked me for rescuing them, and ignored Pleasant when he insisted that he’d had the situation under control. He made a joke about not telling anyone what had happened, or he’d have to send in his friends who’d wipe our memories.

I’m pretty sure it was a joke.

They left without saying much else. They didn’t tell me who they were, who they worked for, or what all this meant. Pleasant didn’t explain why he wore so many disguises, although Sammy told me later that he’d caught a glimpse of him when he was handcuffed to the pillar, and he could have sworn Pleasant had a skull for a head. At this point, nothing would have surprised me.