“I hope so. It’s weird, isn’t it? You meet someone and you become friends and you grow to love them, and that’s the way it works. That’s how things go. But then a baby is born, and you don’t have that long period of getting to know them, of figuring out if you like them as a person… you just love them. Like, it’s instant. You hold the baby in your arms and you feel so much real, overwhelming love, like you would do anything to protect it. Bam, just like that, your whole life is different. This baby, this little person that you don’t even know, is now more important to you than anything else.”

“It does come as quite a surprise,” Skulduggery murmured, and stood up.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I was talking about a little sister, not… not a child of your own… I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Skulduggery shook his head. “Nonsense. You described it perfectly. Pure, unconditional love. It’s a wonderful thing. You’ll experience it again when you have a child of your own.”

“Whoa!” said Valkyrie, jumping to her feet, the blanket falling around her. “Whoa! Stop right there! We’re not even going to talk about that! We’re not even going to mention the possibility!”

“It unnerves you, then?”

“It freaks me out is what it does! I think I still have a few years left of, you know, playing the field before I find someone I want to settle down with. We’re talking a few centuries, you know?”

“So you’re not planning on rushing into anything?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Does Fletcher know this?”

She laughed. “He’d better.”

“And Caelan?”

“I make sure to tell him every time I see him.”

Skulduggery put his hat on. “That’s my girl.”

Chapter 17 - The Zombie King - And Co

Chapter 17
The Zombie King and Co

aurien Scapegrace, the Killer Supreme, the Zombie King, lay in a freezer, his legs curled up to his chest. He felt the freezer move slightly and he muttered dark things under his breath. The refrigerated truck he’d been using as a mobile base had broken down, so he’d sent that idiot Thrasher to get another one. But Thrasher couldn’t find a refrigerated truck. The only thing he could find that even remotely met Scapegrace’s requirements was a Percy Penguin Ice-cream Van.