“I’m not complaining,” Vex corrected. “I am merely voicing my displeasure.” He frowned. “By the way, all joking aside, do I call you Ghastly or Elder Bespoke?”

“You can call me whatever you want.”

Vex nodded. “Thank you Gladys. Where’s Shudder tonight, anyway? Don’t tell me that miserable sod’s staying in that Hotel while there’s a party on.”

“I’m afraid he is,” Ghastly said. “You know very well that Anton isn’t one for small talk.”

“The years were meant to mellow the man, didn’t you tell me that once?”

“I was evidently wrong,” Ghastly conceded.

Vex suddenly smiled. “Remember how Larrikin used to wind him up? We’d be sitting around, waiting in a ditch or something for the order to strike, all of us tense and humourless, the enemy a mere stone’s throw away… and then Larrikin would whisper something to Shudder. Remember that?”

A grin formed on Ghastly’s face. “I remember Shudder’s birthday.”

Vex laughed and Valkyrie had to join in, it was so infectious.

“We were huddled down in a field in France,” Ghastly told her, while Vex snorted at the memory. “This was, I don’t know, 1850 or so. We were all there, all seven Dead Men – Skulduggery, Larrikin, Dexter, Hopeless, Saracen, Shudder and me. We hadn’t moved from that spot in three days. Apart from Skulduggery, we were all cold, wet and starving. Anyway, Larrikin decided on the third day that it was Shudder’s birthday, and there was nothing Shudder could do to convince him that it wasn’t.”

“The problem,” Vex said, picking up the story, “was that it was getting close to Go Time. There was a squad of Mevolent’s men we’d been tracking for days, and we had to take them out without raising the alarm. But now, suddenly, Larrikin was insisting on a birthday cake and a sing-song. The rest of us were focusing on not cracking up, but Shudder was taking it seriously, and couldn’t understand why Larrikin would want to do something so dangerous.”

“We were sitting in a hole we’d dug,” Ghastly said, “with the wind howling and the rain falling, and Larrikin squirmed up beside Shudder and kept trying to hug him.”

“And Shudder’s not a hugger,” Vex said.

“It developed into an extraordinarily quiet wrestling match,” said Ghastly, grinning. “They rolled over and over in the mud, Larrikin with this enormous smile on his face and Shudder silently furious.”

“Shudder got him in a choke hold,” Vex said. “Larrikin started digging around inside his clothes for something. He was going purple by this stage, though still smiling. And then he brought out a bun.”

Valkyrie laughed. “A bun?”

“A very crushed bun,” Ghastly said. “Crumbs now, mostly. Barely held together. He’d kept it hidden for days. And with his other hand he stuck a candle in it.”