Somebody cleared his throat. Loudly. They all looked up at the broken mirror. Billy-Ray Sanguine stood in the corridor above them, hands in his pockets. “How is everyone?” he asked. “How’s everyone doin’? We should catch up later, all of us, talk about old times and have a laugh. Can’t do it now, I’m afraid. Bit pressed for time, what with our ultimate masterplan and all.”

“Come down here, Sanguine,” Skulduggery said.

“Why, so you can arrest me?”

“No,” said Ghastly, “so we can kick the hell out of you.”

An elderly man appeared beside Sanguine and Valkyrie knew she was looking at Scarab.

“We have guests?” Scarab asked.

“Yes, we do, Pops,” Sanguine replied. “I’m afraid the girl broke a mirror though.”

“Well, that’s OK,” smiled Scarab. “I don’t believe any of that seven years’ bad luck stuff anyhow. Heck, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter – they’re all going to be dead by tomorrow anyway. Hello there, Detective Pleasant. Been a while.”

“We want Tanith Low and Kenspeckle Grouse returned to us,” Skulduggery said. “And then we want you and the others to give yourselves up.”

Scarab laughed and Sanguine shook his head, amused.

“I like you guys,” Sanguine said. “I do. You know why I like you? Because you’re funny. You look all weird and you say all these silly things. Funny, y’know?”

“You act as if you’re not hopelessly outnumbered,” said Scarab, “which, by the way, you are. You act like you’d stand a chance against the fellas we have with us and all the Hollow Men we’ve been stitching together – which, by the way, you don’t. That’s impressive.”

Sanguine nodded. “That, and I don’t mind sayin’ this because I know it’ll stay in this room, is a beautiful thing.”

It was a psycho double act they were watching – father and son lunatics. But even so, they were talking too much. Skulduggery felt it too.

“I take it you’re not going to surrender,” he said.

“The last time you arrested me,” Scarab responded, all humour gone from his voice, “you locked me away without a trial. If it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to repeat my mistakes. There will be no prison cells this time. There will be no cover-ups. There will be justice.”

“That’s why you had Professor Grouse repair the Desolation Engine? You think setting it off will be justice?”

“Depends who I kill, now doesn’t it?”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “What’s to stop us from putting an end to all of this right now, and kicking the hell out of the both of you while we’re at it?”

Sanguine frowned. “Well, we’re, we’re up so high…” He brightened. “Oh, yeah and we’ve got reinforcements.”