“Is your Master a man called Vandameer Craven?” Valkyrie asked.

“Yes!” Scapegrace wheezed proudly.

“He showed you another way into these caves?”

“Yes!”

“You need to tell us where you came in.”

“My Master will kill you all.”

“Craven’s dead,” Melancholia said.

His eyes swivelled to her. “What?”

“He’s dead, killed by Skulduggery Pleasant. But you’ll take orders from any Necromancer, won’t you? My name is Melancholia St Clair. I’m a Necromancer.”

“Mistress,” Scapegrace wheezed adoringly.

Valkyrie turned him back towards her. “You take your orders from us now, all right?”

Scapegrace looked at her for a long moment, then his face crumpled. “I can’t even nod! You took away my body, now I can’t even nod!”

“Were you trying to nod?”

“Yes!”

“Maybe you should tell us if you’re doing something like that.”

“Fine, I’m nodding, OK?”

“Good. Melancholia needs to find another way out of here.”

“Turn me round.” She did so. “See that tunnel up there? See the light? That’s a flashlight. Thrasher dropped it, like an idiot. There were a lot of us when we came in. Now there’s only two of us left.”

“Well,” Valkyrie said, “there’s one and a bit of you left.”

“Turn me round again.” She did so. He tried to bite her.

She held him by the few strands of hair that still clung to his burnt, rotten scalp. “When we get to that tunnel, where do we go?”

“Follow the flashlights the others dropped,” he snarled. “But there are monsters up there. Horrible, chattering monsters, and they’ll eat you. I hope they eat you. Not you, Mistress. But I hope they eat her.”

“I understand,” Melancholia said. “Can we get rid of him now?”

Valkyrie looked at Scapegrace. “I was actually going to miss you, you know that?”

“I hate you and I hope you die.”

“Right,” Valkyrie said, and drop-kicked the head as hard as she could. It shot past Melancholia and the Cleaver and was gaining height when Thrasher suddenly appeared from nowhere and leaped up, his hands closing around it. He landed and ran off, head under his arm, and they watched him go.

“I’ll get you!” they heard Scapegrace wheeze, as the two zombies vanished into the shadows. “I’ll get you, Valkyrie Cain!”

A couple of moments passed. “Well,” Valkyrie said eventually. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

“He’s coming,” Melancholia said.

Valkyrie turned. The darkness writhed in the tunnel behind them.

“If we can ambush him—” Valkyrie began, but Melancholia shook her head.

“Are you insane? We can’t ambush him. And even if we could, then what? Are you going to talk to him? Try to get through to him? Your friend is gone, you stupid little girl. We have to run. We have to get out of here.” She turned to the Cleaver. “Delay. You understand? Do whatever it takes to delay him.”