“You people,” Sanguine said. “Always so eager to die heroic deaths. I don’t want any blood on this suit, so if you don’t mind, I’ll be headin’ outside now. Wouldn’t want to be caught in here when the carnage starts.”

He turned to go and Shudder punched him. Sanguine spun and fell back, nearly tumbling over a chair.

“What about your no violence rule?” he said, rubbing his jaw.

“No violence towards guests,” Shudder clarified. “You are no longer considered a guest.”

Skulduggery walked towards him and Sanguine straightened up.

“You can punch me all you like,” he began and Skulduggery said, “Oh, good,” and hit him. Sanguine tripped over the coffee table and fell backwards to the ground.

“It won’t do no good!” he barked. “Them zombies are comin’ in an’ there’s nothin’ you can do to stop it!”

“Call them off,” Skulduggery said.

Sanguine spat blood and grinned up at him. “Shan’t.”

“Call them off or I’ll hurt you.”

“How much hurt can you deliver in thirty seconds? Because that’s how long you have. They’re goin’ to come in here and you’re goin’ to fight ‘em off, and can you guess which one of you’s goin’ to fall first? My money’s on the girl. They’re goin’ to tear her apart. They’re goin’ to eat her alive and I’m goin’ to watch and it’ll be a show I ain’t never goin’ to forget.”

A tune filled the air – a terrible, shrill version of Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’.

“That’ll be them now,” Sanguine said, taking out his phone. He moved slowly, like he expected Skulduggery to start kicking him. Instead, Skulduggery gestured and the phone flew from Sanguine’s hand towards Valkyrie. She caught it, pressed the answer button and held it to her ear.

“Uh, hi,” said a man. She knew the voice from somewhere. “Uh, we may have a slight problem.” It was Vaurien Scapegrace. Of course. It stood to reason he’d be involved in this. “The others kind of, they ate someone. And I know you said not to, but they did it without me knowing so…Basically, they’re acting kind of weird and I’m wondering what I should do.”

Valkyrie covered the mouthpiece and looked at Skulduggery. “It’s Scapegrace,” she said. “He’s outside with the zombies and he says they’re acting strangely. He says they ate someone.”

Sanguine sat up, all colour gone from his face. “They what?”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Eating people is what zombies tend to do.”

“Not these guys,” Sanguine said. “Let me talk to him.”

“Not a chance,” Valkyrie said.

Sanguine got to his knees. “You have to let me talk to him. I swear to God, you have to. If I tell ‘em to attack, you can shoot me, OK? But I need to talk to him.”