“So he could be in shackles or he could be dead – you never know with that guy, huh? Here’s the thing I find amusin’ – y’all call me a psycho an’ yet you keep missin’ the point. Your friend Skulduggery is an ice-cold killer. I mean, that guy is seriously unhinged. Takes one to know one, right?”

“He’s adjusting.”

Sanguine laughed. “Now that’s a good one! That’s one I should try! ‘I didn’t mean to kill all those nuns and orphans, Detective – I’m adjustin’!’ Oh, that is funny. But I think you’re misunderstandin’ me. It wasn’t his recent trip abroad that sent him nuts – he’s been nuts the whole time. Y’all just haven’t seen it.”

“If you kill me,” she said, “he’ll kill you.”

“I have no doubt. Which is why it is a very good thing that I have decided not to kill you. Dusk called a few minutes before you rang – he was hightailin’ it out of there before the bomb went off. He told me he bit you and I can see by the lovely wound on your neck that he wasn’t lyin’. He told me he bit you and he told me that I should probably reconsider my whole ‘I want to kill Valkyrie Cain‘ thing, like he’s doin’. Do you know why he told me that?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t? Do you want me to tell you why he told me that? Do you?”

“Sure.”

He smiled. “He tasted your blood. You’ve got very special blood. Do you know that?”

She glared at him. “Yes.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do. See, you figure you’re descended from the Last of the Ancients and that’s it, that’s the scope of your uniqueness in its entirety. I’m here to tell you, little lady, that that ain’t so. You got a whole host of other things goin’ for you. Not to give you too big a head or nothin’, but everythin’ about you screams important. And I’m talkin’ grand scale important. Everythin’ I hear about you just reinforces that whole idea that you, my dear, are a very special girl.

“When I broke into the Necromancer Temple, I heard some of ‘em talkin’ about you. They called you the Death Bringer. By the look on your face, I can see that you know what that is. You’re their Great Dark Hope apparently, now that Lord Vile’s gone. Imagine that. You and Lord Vile – one of a kind, huh? Ain’t that somethin’?”

He began tapping the blade against her skin.