The Hound stood where the pit had been. It was huge and scarred and ravaged and it was sniffing at the ground and pawing at the earth. And then it looked up at them with fiery red eyes and its hackles rose and it growled, and Tane felt very strongly that they should be running away now.

They bolted from the crypt. As they sprinted over people’s graves, Tane could hear Hayley hissing apologies. He felt no such remorse. He’d run across a thousand graves if it meant delaying his entry into one of them.

The Hound burst through the mausoleum door, taking it from its hinges, but it hit the gate and for a moment it stalled, unable to find a way past. It solved its dilemma by leaping clean over the rust-tipped spikes, and landed on the far side in a crouch, its muscles rippling beneath the welts and the fur.

The road outside the cemetery was ahead. They were halfway there when the Hound caught sight of them and gave chase. Tane started laughing, one of his nervous reactions when being pursued. Skulduggery and Valkyrie and Hayley were ahead – if the Hound was going to pounce on anyone, Tane knew it was going to pounce on him. He was unlucky that way, always had been.

He didn’t dare look back. He didn’t need to. He could hear the Hound gaining on him. It was all over. He thought it had been all over before, in the crypt, but he had been premature. Now, now it was all over. His life, snatched away, extinguished like a candle in the wind, like in that song, ‘Candle in the Wind’. And then Tane tripped and fell on his face and the Hound passed right over him, snapping at the space where his head had been.

Strewth, bro, that was lucky, a chirpy little voice in the back of his mind piped up.

The Hound landed and skidded on the gravel but snapped its body around, eyes fixed on Tane, saliva dripping from its bared fangs. Its body tensed, coiled, prepared to spring. One lunge would be all it took to close the distance between them, and Tane, lying belly-down on the ground, was in no position to even try to escape.

The chirpy little voice wasn’t saying much of anything now.

There was shouting. Valkyrie and Hayley were at the very edge of the cemetery, calling out to the Hound and hurling stones. One of the stones, probably hurled by Hayley, hit Tane, but he didn’t utter a sound. The beast snarled and reluctantly shifted its stare, snapping its jaws in the direction of the other two.