A hand grabbed Stephanie’s hair, pulled her back and she cried out. She tried slashing at it with the second knife, but it got tangled in her jacket and then it too was lost. She reached up, felt the rough skin, dug her nails in, tried to tear through. Her hair was released. Something crunched into her face. The blurred world flashed and spun. She was hit again. She covered up, her arm doing its best to soak up the heavy punches, her head rattling with each impact.

If she’d had magic, she’d have set the Hollow Man on fire by now or sent her shadows in to tear it apart. But she didn’t have magic. She didn’t have such a luxury to fall back on, to get her out of trouble. She wasn’t Valkyrie Cain. She didn’t need magic.

Stephanie brought her knees in and spun on her back. The Hollow Man loomed over her, a black shape through her blurred eyes. Its fist came down on to her belly like a wrecking ball, would have emptied her lungs were it not for her armoured clothes. She braced her feet against its legs and pushed herself back out of range, rolling backwards into a crouch, the Hollow Man stumbling slightly. She plunged her hand into the display stand next to her, grabbing for a weapon, fingers curling round a mop. The Hollow Man came at her and she rose, swinging the mop like a baseball bat.

She missed wooden mops. Wooden mops would have a little bit of weight to them – whereas the plastic one in her hands merely bounced lightly off the Hollow Man’s head.

She flipped it, drove the other end into the Hollow Man’s mouth, pushed until she’d sent it staggering and then she let go, turned and ran back the way she’d come. Her eyes were clearing. She no longer wanted to puke. A Hollow Man turned to her and she dodged round it, tripped and fell and saw the Sceptre. She threw herself forward, plunged her hand under the fallen shelf, her fingers closing round its reassuring weight. The Hollow Man reached for her. She turned it to dust.

She got up, disintegrated the next one, and the one after that. Three more trundled into view and she dispatched them with equal ease. Then the only sounds in the place were coming from Skulduggery.

Stephanie hurried back in time to see Rhadaman pull Skulduggery’s arm from its socket.

Skulduggery screamed as his bones clattered to the floor. A blast of energy took him off his feet, and Rhadaman closed in, ready to deliver the killing blow.

“Freeze!” Stephanie yelled, the Sceptre aimed right at his chest.

He looked at her and laughed. “That doesn’t work, remember?”