The man walked closer. He wore a frayed coat and old, ill-fitting clothes. He was unshaven, and needed a haircut. He was holding something – a photograph. When he was twenty paces away, he stopped, examined the photo, then looked up.

“Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain,” he said. His accent was thick, Eastern European, and he sounded bored. “I’ve been paid to kill you.” He put the photograph away.

“Interesting,” Skulduggery said. “Does it make any difference, the fact that I’m pointing a gun at you?”

The man shrugged.

“He doesn’t seem worried,” Valkyrie murmured.

“That’s never a good sign,” Skulduggery murmured back. He spoke louder. “We have no quarrel with you. We just want the man who hired you – we want Dragonclaw.”

“It doesn’t matter if you have a quarrel with me or not,” the man replied, raising his hand. “I’m going to kill you both.”

“Happy to disappoint,” Skulduggery said, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit the man in the neck, opening up a wound from which burst dazzling yellow light. He clamped a hand over the wound, shutting off the glare, and when he removed it, the bullet hole had sealed.

“You’re a Warlock,” Skulduggery said. “I thought your kind were extinct.”

For the first time, the man smiled. “Almost. Not quite. We’re growing stronger every day.”

“What are you doing here? You’re a mercenary now, is that it? Being paid to kill people?”

“This is a special favour,” the Warlock replied. “When it is over, when I am told my services are no longer required, I will return home.”

“What are you getting out of this? What is Dragonclaw doing for you in return? Or maybe it’s not Dragonclaw. Maybe it’s the Necromancers as a whole. What do they want?”

“I can’t see the point of telling you, seeing as how you will be dead soon.”

“What do you know of the Passage?” Skulduggery asked.

The Warlock shook his head. “I don’t know what that is, and we have talked enough.”

His hand bubbled and boiled, and when he thrust it forward, his palm burst open and a stream of yellow light erupted from beneath. It hit Valkyrie’s left shoulder and she spun, cursing, her shoulder tingling then going numb, and by the time she found her balance again, her whole arm was dead.

Skulduggery had used those few seconds to launch himself at the Warlock. His hat flew off as he slammed his forehead into the man’s face, followed it with three sharp elbows and then clubbed the man with the butt of his gun. The Warlock reached out, taking hold of him and launching him through the air.