“You need better things to dream about.”

“Valkyrie Cain, welcome to death.”

“That is such a stupid thing to say.”

Scapegrace ran at her and Valkyrie threw the ball of fire she’d been holding for the past few minutes. Scapegrace was instantly enveloped in flame. He wheeled around, screaming.

“Master Scapegrace!” Thrasher yelled, horrified.

Valkyrie frowned. “I thought he couldn’t feel pain.”

Scapegrace immediately stopped screaming and running about. He just stood there and continued to burn.

“You’re burning quite easily,” she said. “Is that a zombie thing or something?”

“He has been using an awful lot of skin creams lately,” Thrasher mused. “Maybe the mixture is especially flammable.”

Valkyrie waved her hand and the fire went out.

“You haven’t seen the last of me,” Scapegrace said without enthusiasm, as he turned and walked out of the hotel, leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Thrasher gave her a parting growl and quickly followed the trail out of the door.

The aroma of charred flesh forced Valkyrie to go looking for Skulduggery. She found him in the back room, helping Shudder to his feet. The walls were decorated with bits of zombie.

“Shudder did this?” she said, stunned at the sheer violence of what she saw. “Alone? Without a weapon?”

“Technically,” Skulduggery said, “Anton is a weapon. Or at least his gist is.”

“What’s a gist?”

“It’s the bad part of me,” Shudder said, speaking like every word was painful. “When I need it, I let it come out. Every time I do, however, it takes me a little longer to recover.” He frowned. “Sanguine was here. He came in and…” He grasped his sleeve and yanked it up. There was a metal band on his forearm, and hanging from it was a short link of a cut chain. “He has the key.”

Valkyrie followed Skulduggery up the two flights of stairs. They got to the twenty-fourth room. The door was closed and the key was in the lock.

“He has it,” Skulduggery said.

“How do you know? He might still be in there.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “He didn’t set one foot inside that room. He opened the door less than a centimetre and the nearest Remnant was sucked into the Soul Catcher. If he’d stepped in, they’d have swarmed him and then they’d have swarmed the hotel. After that, they’d have gone on and swarmed the country. We failed.”

“So now what?”

“Now we find Scarab’s castle before Kenspeckle repairs the Desolation Engine. I know someone who might be able to help us – it’s a long shot, but what isn’t these days? We’ve run out of options.” Skulduggery turned the key until they heard the lock clicking into place, then he withdrew it. “And we kick the living daylights out of anyone who stands in our way.”

33 POSSESSED

33
POSSESSED