Stephanie brought her knees in and spun on her back. The Hollow Man loomed over her, little more than a black shape. Its fist came down on to her belly like a wrecking ball, would have emptied her lungs were it not for her armoured clothes. She braced her feet against its legs and pushed herself back out of range, rolling backwards into a crouch, the Hollow Man stumbling slightly. She plunged her hand into the display stand next to her, scrabbling for a weapon, fingers curling round a mop. The Hollow Man came at her and Stephanie rose, swinging the mop like a baseball bat.

She missed wooden mops. Wooden mops had a little weight to them – whereas the plastic one in her hands merely bounced lightly off the Hollow Man’s head.

She flipped it, drove the other end into its mouth, pushed until she’d sent it staggering and then she let go, turned and ran back the way she’d come. Her eyes were clearing. She no longer wanted to puke. A Hollow Man turned to her and she dodged round it, tripped and fell and saw the Sceptre. She threw herself forward, plunged her hand under the fallen shelf, her fingers closing round its reassuring weight. The Hollow Man reached for her. She turned it to dust.

She got up, disintegrated the next one, and the one after that. Three more trundled into view and she dispatched them with equal ease. Then the only sounds in the place were coming from Skulduggery.

She hurried back to the open area, in time to see Rhadaman pull Skulduggery’s arm from its socket.

Skulduggery screamed as his bones clattered to the floor. A blast of energy took him off his feet, and Rhadaman closed in, ready to deliver the killing blow.

“Freeze!” Stephanie yelled, the Sceptre aimed right at his chest.

He looked at her and laughed. “That doesn’t work, remember?”

She shifted her aim, turned the door behind him to dust. “It only works for its owner, moron. Now, unless you want your remains to be swept into a dustpan, you’ll shackle yourself.” She kicked the shackles across the floor at him. They hit his feet, but he didn’t move.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re thinking, ‘Can I kill this girl before she fires?’ Well, seeing as how this is the Sceptre of the Ancients, the most powerful God-Killer in the world, and it can turn you to dust with a single thought, you’ve got to ask yourself—”

Skulduggery swung the butt of his gun into Rhadaman’s jaw and Rhadaman spun in a semicircle and collapsed.

Stephanie stared. “Seriously?”

Skulduggery nudged Rhadaman with his foot, making sure he was unconscious.

“I was in the middle of something,” Stephanie said. “I had him, and I was in the middle of something. I was doing a bit. You don’t interrupt someone when they’re doing a bit.”