First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2024

Published in this ebook edition in 2024

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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Text copyright © Derek Landy 2024

Skulduggery Pleasant™ Derek Landy

Skulduggery Pleasant logo™ HarperCollinsPublishers

Cover illustration copyright © Matt Taylor 2024

Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2024

Derek Landy and asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008708474

Ebook Edition © September 2024 ISBN: 9780008708498

Version: 2024-09-09

This book is dedicated to the wonderful producers, technicians, sound designers and actors who transform the Skulduggery Pleasant books into audio masterpieces of unparalleled genius.

If not for a pesky stutter I would be in that recording booth with you and nailing the accents every time, instead of lying here on this couch, being fed
grapes by a man dressed as a monkey,
waiting to be entertained.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Keep Reading …

The Skulduggery Pleasant series

About the Publisher

It’s just before nine, early November, and we’re outside, on a hill, seven miles from the town of Cholmondeley. It’s raining. It’s been raining all day, and the roads are flooding. The strong and frequent gusts of wind carry the heavy rain sideways. Like the story goes, it’s a dark and stormy night.

This is Hollow Hill. The building we’re looking at, this tall slice of Gothic melodrama, has been plucked straight from the mind of Edgar Allan Poe, maybe crossed with a little Tim Burton. Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Tim Burton.

If a hotel could be tortured, dear reader, this is the hotel. Light spills from its windows in a transparent attempt to appear warm and inviting. It’s not either of those things. The hotel is unsettlingly big, and perches on top of this hill like a wounded bird, all broken wings and ruffled feathers. It clings on, its talons deep in the ground so that the wind doesn’t blow it away. On a clear day, when the rain isn’t so heavy, people with the time for such things would think, perhaps, that this hotel is oddly shaped, and they’d be right. There’s a reason for that.

Headlights swoop over the trees and the bushes and the stone pillars. A car, coming up the winding road. Down at the base of the hill, where the water is deepest, this banged-up pile of junk would have surely struggled. It’s a miracle it got through.

There are thirty spaces outside the hotel. Twenty-four are empty. Despite this, the driver of this banged-up pile of junk makes an ordeal out of parking. That’s a particular skill. When the engine cuts off, all that can be heard is the sound of the rain peppering the roof, the windscreen, the bonnet, the windows, the world. Two women sitting in the car, peering at the hotel. They’re maybe in their late twenties.

“Well, this is creepy,” says Kate. She’s American.

“You’ve seen pictures,” Lucy tells her. She’s English.

“Pictures taken during the day when, you know, it already looked intimidating. But at night? When it’s raining and there’s thunder and lightning and the roads are flooding behind us and no one else around for miles? This is the kind of place you get horribly murdered.”

Lucy looks at her friend, careful not to apply too much pressure. “If you don’t want to do this...”

A spark of hope in Kate’s voice. “We could go to another hotel?”

“I mean, you could go to another hotel, sure.”

“Can I take the car?”

“It’s my car, Kate.”

Kate gathers air in her cheeks and exhales while she thinks. “Are there any other hotels around here? Where are we anyway?

“Cheshire.”

“Like the cat?”

“Just like the cat, yes.”

Kate’s phone is already in her hand. Scrolling and tapping, she nods. “Okay, there’s a very nice hotel in that town we passed. Chol-mond-de-ley, right? Why don’t we stay... what? Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing,” Lucy says.

“You’re grinning like I’ve said something funny. Why are you grinning, Lucy?”

“It’s pronounced Chum-lee.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“How can Chol-mon-de-ley be pronounced Chum-lee? What happened to all the letters in the middle? See, this is the problem with Britain. You think you’re so clever, but actually you’re awful.”

“We are the worst,” Lucy agrees. “But it’s still pronounced Chum-lee.”

Kate peers up at the angry, angry sky. “Do you think I’d be able to call a cab? Do you think one would come out in this weather?”

“Do you really not want to stay here?”

“It’s creepy. I don’t do well with creepy.”

“I don’t do well with creepy, either – that’s why I brought you along.”

Kate narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to guilt-trip me?”

“I would never think to do such a thing.”

“Because it won’t work.”

“Of course it won’t. You’re far too intelligent and insightful to fall for such an obvious ploy.”

“I’m not staying in this creepy hotel.”

“Why on earth would you is the real question.”

“There is literally nothing you can do to make me stay here.”

“Of that I am aware,” says Lucy. “Absolutely nothing. Not one thing. Nothing except bite my lip and look worried.”

“Not even that.”

“Nope. Not even that,” says Lucy, biting her lip and looking worried.

Kate shrugs. “See? My resolve is iron-clad.”

“Looks like it,” says Lucy. “Kate?”

“What?”

“Please?”

“Fine,” Kate says, scowling. “I’ll stay in the creepy hotel with you because you’re a wuss and a terrible friend.”

“And you’re so brave and you’re a great friend.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kate grumbles, reaching into the back seat, snagging her designer satchel bag that she got on sale two summers ago.

They throw open the doors and jump out, squealing as they run over wet gravel, the rain immediately drenching them, plastering their hair to their skulls. Lucy gets to the main door and shoulders it open, practically stumbling into the foyer with Kate spilling in behind her.

Like the rest of the hotel, the foyer is old, lots of wood, and it has a smell, a great smell, a wonderful smell, a smell of age. Music plays through unseen speakers – Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 – and the walls on either side are lined with shelves on which rest glass globes, eighteen in all. Strange lights flicker and swirl within them.

“What are they?” Lucy asks.

“Crystal balls?” says Kate as they wander over for a closer look. “Giant marbles? Snow globes? Shake one and see what happens. Oh, you know what they are? Lava lamps. I used to have a bunch of these back when they were cool.”

“These were cool?”

Kate hesitates. “Weren’t they? I mean, no, they weren’t. Ugh. So lame. Embarrassing for anyone who bought seven.”

They leave the lava lamps and walk into reception, where the music transitions to Mozart’s Requiem. A young man in his early twenties waits by the desk. Lucy smiles politely as she approaches.

“Hi there,” she says.

The young man is a little surprised by the greeting, but he recovers well and offers a smile. “Hello,” he says.

“I’m Lucy, hi. This is Kate. We’re checking in.”

“Are you?” the young man says. “That’s nice.”

An awkward moment passes.

“Are you going to help us?” Lucy asks.

The young man studies her. “Do you need me to?”

“I – I think so?”

“Why?”

“I’m not... Yes, I’m going to need some help checking in, thank you.”

“All right then.”

That awkward moment circles round and comes back, stays a little longer this time.

“Oh, dear God,” Kate exclaims, “what is wrong with you both? Sir, my friend thinks you work here. Lucy, he clearly doesn’t work here.”

Lucy frowns at the young man. “You don’t work here?”

“Oh, no. No, I’m a guest. The Wi-Fi in my room isn’t working, so... My name’s Asher. You’re Lucy, right? That’s a nice name.”

“I’m gay.”

Asher shrugs. “Well, it’s not that nice a name.”

The door behind the reception desk opens and a man emerges, all smiles. He wears a nice suit, nothing too expensive, but generally of good taste, though his tie is questionable.

“Good evening and welcome!” he says, clapping his hands. “I am Oscar Aylesworth, the owner and manager of the Hollow Hotel. You must be Kate Crisco and Lucy Babbage – do I have that right?”

“I’m Lucy, she’s Kate,” says Lucy.

“How do you do?” says Kate.

“An American! How charming! I knew an American once!”

Kate waits for him to complete his sentence. Apparently, that’s all he has.

“Oh,” she replies. “Cool.”

Aylesworth flips open a leather-bound ledger and tracks his finger down the columns. “Your rooms are ready for you. I see that you’ve also booked two other rooms?”

“Yes,” says Lucy, glancing at the clock on the wall. “They’re due any minute now. I also requested a conference room, if you have one?”

“We don’t have a conference room per se, but we do have a drawing room where you won’t be disturbed. May I enquire as to the nature of your business?”

“We’re interviewing someone for a magazine,” Kate says. “Dark Delights.”

“I don’t think I’m familiar with it.”

“It’s new,” say Kate. “We cover all things Gothic, kooky, and cool.”

“You’re journalists?”

“Kind of,” Lucy says before Kate can continue. “In our spare time.”

“And the person you’re interviewing,” Aylesworth says, leaning forward across the desk and lowering his voice, “is it anyone famous? Should I roll out the red carpet?”

Lucy smiles. “Our guest would prefer anonymity.”

Aylesworth straightens, a delighted look on his face. “Well now! You can be assured of anonymity in the Hollow Hotel! Mr Devoe, did you hear that? We have a celebrity staying with us tonight!”

“I definitely heard the bit about them preferring anonymity,” Asher says, nodding. “I was wondering if I could have the Wi-Fi password?”

“Of course, of course! It’s the name of the hotel plus four.”

“Plus four what?”

“Just plus four.”

Asher pauses. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Aylesworth suddenly looks away, waving one hand in the air. “Terry! Terry!”

Terry hurries over. A small man with small ears.

“Terry,” Aylesworth continues, “this is Miss Lucy Babbage and Miss Kate Crisco. Would you take their bags to their rooms?”

Terry looks around for luggage, but the only bag he can see is the one across Kate’s shoulder.

“This one stays with me,” Kate says, tapping the satchel and smiling. “We have other bags out in the car, though.”

Terry looks at her, then turns and peers back through the foyer at the rain that is lashing at the glass part of the door. His entire body sags.

“We don’t need them right now,” Lucy says quickly.

Aylesworth waves this away. “Terry, go and fetch the guests’ luggage.”

“Honestly, no,” says Lucy. “We can wait for the rain to ease off.”

“Terry,” Aylesworth says, becoming quite stern, like a primary-school teacher admonishing a kitten.

“They want to wait for the rain to ease off,” Terry says.

“Fetch the luggage.”

“But it’s raining.”

“Wear a coat.”

“I didn’t bring a coat.”

“Why didn’t you bring a coat?”

“I didn’t want it to get wet.”

“You didn’t want it to get wet? Then what’s the point of having a coat?”

“It’s a summer coat. It’s not meant for rain.”

“And you only have one coat, do you?”

“No. I have two coats. One for summer and one for winter.”

“And the winter coat is meant for rain?”

“Yes.”

“So why didn’t you bring that one?”

“I didn’t think I’d need it.”

“There’s a storm!”

“I thought it’d be over by now.”

“Fetch the luggage, Terry.”

“Could I borrow your coat?”

“No. Mine is... it wouldn’t fit you. My shoulders are a lot broader than yours. You’ll be fine. It’s not raining that hard.”

Terry holds out his hand for Lucy’s car keys and, as she’s passing them over, she winces and says, “Sorry.”

He trudges away.

“Excuse me, Mr Aylesworth,” says Asher, “but that password isn’t doing anything.”

“Huge apologies, Mr Devoe!” Aylesworth says, clapping his hands again. “It’s the name of the hotel plus four.”

“So is it ‘the Hollow Hotel’ or just ‘Hollow Hotel’ and then four?”

“Plus four, yes.”

“Which is it?”

Before Aylesworth can confuse Asher further, an elderly couple shuffle out into reception. The woman’s name is Nora, the man’s name is Bert. They are the Brambles and they are very old. Nora wears a cardigan. Bert likes to wear his trousers high on the waist, so much so that his ankles are always on show.

“Pardon me,” Nora says, in that shaky, trembling voice some old people have, “but what time is dinner?”

A look of professional regret passes over Aylesworth’s face. “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Bramble, but I’m afraid that we’ve stopped serving dinner. The restaurant closes at nine, you see.”

“Oh dear,” says Nora. “Oh dear. Bert, did you hear that?”

Bert has not heard that. Bert has only recently admitted that he even needs hearing aids, but instead of getting a matching set he decided to get one, in case he didn’t like hearing things the way he used to. His hearing aid is rarely on and never in the right ear. “Hmm?” he says. “What?”

“They’ve stopped serving dinner,” Nora says loudly.

“Dinner?” says Bert, blinking at her. “I suppose so. I am a bit peckish.”

“No, Bert. They’ve stopped serving it.”

“They have?” Bert asks, the news taking him by surprise. “Did I like it? What did I have?”

“You didn’t have anything, Bert. Neither did I. We weren’t there.” She smiles at Aylesworth. “We got lost, you see. Bert and I? We went for a wander.”

“We went for a wander, you see,” Bert explains to Aylesworth. “Nora and I. We got lost. So many corridors in this place. We got quite turned around.”

“Yes,” says Aylesworth, giving them both a smile. “I did warn you about that. This building has corridors that go nowhere and doors that open on to nothing but walls. It’s part of the hotel’s charms, as it were. There is still room service, however. We could bring your food up to you.”

“Bert,” says Nora, “they can bring our food up to us.”

“Ooh,” says Bert, “fancy!”

“Yes,” Nora says with a nod. “Very fancy!”

Bert considers, and then announces, “I will have the cabbage.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have any cabbage on the menu,” Aylesworth tells him.

“Oh,” Bert responds, and announces, “then I will have no cabbage.” He thinks for a moment. “Do you have any parsnips?”

“The menus are upstairs, Mr Bramble. On the desk in your room.”

Bert peers at him. “On the what?”

“The desk.”

“The what?”

“The desk.”

“The desk?”

“The desk in your room.”

“The desk where?”

“In your room.”

“Is it?”

“Is what? The desk? Yes. I think. I’m sorry, what are you asking?”

“Bert,” says Nora, “the menus are in our rooms – now leave Mr Aylesworth alone. He’s a very busy man.”

Aylesworth chuckles. “Nonsense, nonsense, I always have time for my guests.” And as these words pass his lips Friedrich Vogel comes down the main staircase. Vogel is a happy German man.

“Ah!” Aylesworth cries. “Guten Abend, Herr Vogel!”

Vogel marches right up to the desk, giving a polite nod to the assembled guests before turning his smile on the hotel manager.

“Guten Abend, Herr Aylesworth! It is raining with the cats und the dogs, is it not? The cats und the dogs.”

“Indeed it is, Herr Vogel,’ Aylesworth replies, practically giggling. “Uh, brauchen Sie etwas?”

“Brauchen Sie etwas!” Vogel echoes. “Sehr gut, Herr Aylesworth! Sie sprechen gut Deutsch!”

Aylesworth actually blushes. “Oh, danke, danke. I’m still learning. It’s my passion, you see. Learning other languages.”

“Ja?” says Vogel. “How delightful! Wunderbar, ja? And how many languages do you currently speak?”

“Just one.”

“Und you do it so very well!”

“Danke.”

Asher has been waiting for a lull in the conversation, and he doesn’t squander his chance. “Excuse me, do you have the password written down, perhaps?”

“Oh, apologies!” Aylesworth says, reaching for a card.

Before he can pass it to Asher, lightning flashes outside and the hotel door is hurled open to the sound of thunder directly overhead. Two people stride in out of the rain.

“Ich glaube, ich spinne!” Vogel cries. “I know you! From the specials on the television! You are all the time with the disappearing nun und the floating... with the... glowing eyeballs und the... You are—”

Clive, a Welshman in his forties, hurries forward. “Romeo Gideon does not like to have a fuss made over him,” he says in a quiet voice. “Neither does he like to have his name spoken aloud.”

“What’s that?” Bert asks.

“He doesn’t like his name spoken aloud, dear,” Nora tells him.

“Who doesn’t?”

“I’m not sure.”

Kate frowns at Clive. “You spoke his name aloud.”

“I’m Clive Ferrier, hello. I’m Romeo’s assistant.”

“You said it again.”

“Are we not allowed to say his name?” asks Asher.

Clive smiles apologetically. “His name can be uttered in hushed tones only.”

Aylesworth peers at Clive’s companion, a tall man with dark hair swept back off his broad forehead. “I’m sorry, who is this?”

Romeo Gideon approaches the desk, and nods gravely. “Exactly. Who am I? I’m nobody. I’m nothing. I have a few skills, I have a few talents, but I’m nobody to make a fuss over. Firefighters, doctors, nurses, the emergency services, retail workers, coffee-shop baristas, they’re the real heroes. Me? I just bring a little magic into people’s lives.”

“Hi, uh, Romeo,” Lucy says in a suitably hushed tone. “I’m Lucy, this is Kate. We’re from the—”

“The magazine. Yeah. Big fan.”

“You’ve read it?” Kate asks, surprised.

“Sure,” Gideon says, and it’s obvious he hasn’t. “This is some hotel. I can already feel the unquiet spirits of the dead.”

“Who is this?” Aylesworth asks yet again.

Lucy smiles. “This is our guest. The guest we’ll be interviewing.”

“The celebrity?” says Aylesworth, thoroughly confused. “I’m not sure I recognise... Are you in movies, or...?”

Clive leaps forward to spare his boss any embarrassment.

“Romeo Gideon is the undisputed Dark King of magicians. You’ve probably seen his TV specials or gone to one of his sold-out arena tours.”

“No, I don’t think I have,” Aylesworth responds. “A magician, you say? For children or...?”

Gideon laughs. “Sure. I’m a children’s entertainer. I entertain with balloon animals and rabbits out of top hats. I pander to the lowest common denominator in search of easy applause. Or do I?”

“Do you?”

Gideon’s smile vanishes and his glower chills the room. “Or do I, instead, delve into the dark heart of my audience, expunging their voyeuristic impulses as I force them to reckon with their own paltry existence?”

“Oh, my,” says Aylesworth, clearly impressed. “In that case, Mr Gideon, I am honoured that you would choose the Hollow Hotel to—”

“Excuse us for a moment,” Gideon says dramatically, and Clive has to hurry to keep up as he marches almost out of earshot. “Clive.”

“Yes, Romeo?”

“Clive, you said this was a professional operation.”

Clive nods, and smiles, and nods again. He’s been expecting this. “Dark Delights sounds like a very promising magazine with a demographic you could really—”

Gideon cuts him off. “I don’t do ‘promising’, Clive. I do top of the pile. I turned down a prime-time television interview for this?”

Choosing his words carefully, Clive replies. “The prime-time television show rescinded the invitation after—”

“After what, Clive? After what?”

“After... my mistake.”

That seems to satisfy Gideon and he rolls his shoulders. “Okay then. We’re here now, so let’s be professional.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And in the morning I’m docking your pay.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Clive says miserably.

Gideon leads the way back to the others. “This is the most haunted house in Britain, is it?” he says cheerfully. “All right then, let’s get this interview in the bag and then we can all go—”

The door in the foyer bursts open as lightning snaps the air outside, and for an instant the two figures standing there are mere shadows. The assembled guests – and the hotel owner – stare at the newcomers as the rain lashes and the wind screams through to reception.

Rejoice, dear reader, for our heroes have arrived.

As thunder bellows, the newcomers step into the warm light of the hotel and the door closes of its own accord behind them.

The young woman’s age is impossible to guess. She has the look of a nineteen-year-old and the eyes of a thirty-year-old. Her hair is dark and perfectly in place, as if the wind and rain had decided to forgo their usual games. Maybe they were scared, for there is something about her that certainly intimidates. More than her height – for she is tall – and the broadness of her shoulders and thickness of her limbs – for she lifts heavy things quite regularly – there is a weariness to this young lady that comes to soldiers, and killers, and those who have seen too much and done more than they would have liked.

And, of the rest, her clothes are black, her eyes are dark, and that is all you need to know.

The man strides forward, not even glancing at the glass globes on either side of him. His clothes are immaculate, an ode to tailoring that is beyond the comprehension of most laypeople. This man is not a layperson. This man is an expert, of a great many things.

His shoes are black, and Oxford, and seamless. His laces are round waxed cotton. Eighty centimetres long.

His suit is charcoal. Two-piece. His shirt white. His tie is navy blue, silk with wool interlining. The knot is Windsor. The pocket square is folded white silk.

His fedora is a piece of art, a teardrop crown and raw-edge snap brim with a grosgrain ribbon hatband.

His gloves are black, leather, with three-point decorative stitching on the back, and he wears mid-calf dress socks.

He is handsome, his skin somewhat pale, his hair brown, his beard full and magnificent.

“Greetings, fellow people,” he says loudly. He is Irish, though from his accent he has lived away from home. His voice is velvet. “We are but weary travellers caught out in the rain and we are looking for somewhere to shelter from the weather and rest for the night, because sleeping is something that we both do. This is a hotel, is it not?”

“It is,” says Aylesworth, somewhat dubiously.

“Then it is perfect for our needs.”

“You’re not wet,” Lucy says.

The young woman smiles at her. “I’m sorry?”

“You were caught out in the rain,” says Lucy, “but neither of you are wet.”

The young woman nods, and smiles again. “We had an umbrella,” she says, “but it sadly passed away.”

Vogel looks the bearded gentleman up and down appreciatively. “That is a magnificent suit.”

“Thank you! It is, isn’t it? Almost as magnificent as my beard! I notice none of you have yet commented on my beard.”

Vogel hesitates, for being asked to comment on a beard is a somewhat new experience for him. “It is a fine beard.”

“Thank you,” the bearded man says. “I grew it myself. Valkyrie had her doubts about it, but I knew it would pass muster.”

The bearded man’s smile is unusually large. His teeth are straight and white, and his lips stretch over them, making him resemble a smiling shark. The smile is disconcerting. The fact that it refuses to drop from his face makes it ever more so. Surely to smile so widely, for such an extended period of time, would strain the muscles of any face. Not so this gentleman’s, it would appear.

The young woman, at least, is aware of the awkward silence that has followed her companion’s announcement. She seeks to dispel the tension.

“So... yeah,” she says. “What about this storm, eh? Nothing better than coming in out of the rain to meet a lot of friendly, confused faces.”

“Your name is Valkyrie?” says Kate, who has spent the last few moments appreciating the spectacle before her.

“Yes,” says Valkyrie. “Is that strange? Do you find it strange? It’s a normal name where I come from.”

“We’re from Ireland,” her companion explains. “Do any of you know of this place?”

Lucy frowns. “Ireland? Yeah. We know of Ireland.”

“Then you will know that Valkyrie is a normal name in Ireland. As is Skulduggery, which is the name that I have. You, sir.”

“Me?” says Gideon, who has gone quite pale and so very quiet.

“You have a face I’ve seen before,” Skulduggery says.

Gideon tries to smile. “I don’t think so. I’m not... I’m just...”

“You’re that magician guy,” Valkyrie says.

“Am I? No.”

“He doesn’t like his name to be said too loudly,” Aylesworth tells them softly.

“Does he not?” says Valkyrie. “I’ll be sure to whisper it, then. Romeo Gideon. The magician. What’s that like? To be magic? It looks fun. Is it fun? Can you do a trick for us now? Even a card trick will do. Something cool.”

Gideon swallows. “I’m not... I’m not working tonight.”

“He’s here to do an interview,” Kate tells Valkyrie.

“That’s exciting! Skulduggery, isn’t that exciting?”

“I am definitely excited,” Skulduggery responds, and swivels his eyes towards Aylesworth. “You’re the owner, are you?”

“Oscar Aylesworth, yes. You’d like a room? Two rooms?”

“Let’s leave that to one side for the moment, Mr Aylesworth. This hotel has a reputation.”

“For excellence?” Aylesworth says hopefully.

“For dead people.”

“Ah, yes. The stories. If you will permit me...” Aylesworth puffs out his chest. “The Hollow Hotel started as a modest country house, built here, on Hollow Hill, in 1853. When the original owner died in a tragic accident, the house was sold to a nobleman called Edward Burgess.”

“Oh, I think I know some of this story!” Valkyrie chimes in. “Burgess was not a nice guy. He was, to use the parlance of the time, the absolute worst. He claimed to have been in love with a beautiful young woman from the small town of Chol-mon-de-ley.”

“Chum-lee,” Skulduggery reminds her.

Valkyrie watches him through narrowed eyes. “I still don’t get how it can be pronounced that way.”

“Right?” says Kate.

“It’s ridiculous!” says Valkyrie.

“That’s what I said! So how tall are you?”

“Tall enough to reach the top shelf,” Valkyrie replies, enjoying herself. “Where are you from?”

“Oregon.”

“Nice part of the world.”

“Can’t be that nice. I moved here, didn’t I? I’ve never been to Ireland.”

“You should visit.”

“Maybe I will.”

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Would you please stop flirting?”

“I’m not flirting,” Kate and Valkyrie say at the same time.

“I have a girlfriend,” Valkyrie explains.

“I have a cat,” Kate says as if she’s agreeing with her.

Lucy frowns at her friend. “No, you don’t.”

“I have a picture of a cat,” Kate elaborates. “My landlord doesn’t allow actual cats, so I have a picture of one instead. I’m Kate. My name’s Kate.”

“Like I said, I’m Valkyrie.”

“That’s some name.”

“I’m some woman.”

“Holy jeepers,” Kate breathes, getting flustered as Valkyrie smiles down at her.

“So anyway,” Skulduggery continues, clearly bored, “this beautiful young woman, Emilia Pearce, was already betrothed to a young man called Jonathon Hopkins. Burgess, however, was the jealous sort, and he killed poor Jonathon and dragged Emilia to this modest country house. She got free, and hid herself away, slipping through the space between the walls. Burgess decided to wait her out, but Emilia would not emerge, not when he was there. She died in that house, trapped within the walls.”

Lucy raises an eyebrow. “She’d rather die than be around this guy? I can relate.”

“You know your history, sir!” Aylesworth says approvingly.

“Some of it,” says Skulduggery. “The ghost of Jonathon, her betrothed, waited outside the house for her spirit to join him, but Burgess was not prepared to give her up, not even in death.

“He built a bigger house around it, constructing a maze of corridors that went nowhere, doors that opened on to nothing but brick walls, so that Emilia’s ghost could never leave. Burgess lived here, alone, tormented by Emilia’s heartbroken spirit, until he himself died of a heart attack years later – and then his ghost found itself caught in his own trap.”

Aylesworth nods. “So the stories go, yes. The house was sold, and sold again, and sold again, and in 1909 it became the Hollow Hotel.”

Valkyrie says, “The hotel is home to the ghosts of Emilia and Burgess all year round, but legend has it that at midnight, one night every eight years – tonight – a hidden room appears in the hotel, and anyone who finds that room can release the tormented spirits.”

Her words take a moment to sink in, and the assorted guests – and hotel owner – pause as if to consider their own mortality.

Vogel is the first to break the silence. “This is all very, uh, gespenstisch. Spooky, ja? Very spooky. Ghosts und spookiness. Brilliant fun. Dinner, Mr Aylesworth. Is the restaurant still open or...?”

“They’re not serving dinner any more,” Nora tells him, “but there is a menu upstairs, in our room. You can borrow it, if you like.”

“There’s no need to share menus,” Aylesworth says, smiling, “there is one in every room. The selection is, I must admit, limited, but I can certainly have Elaine make you a sandwich and bring it up to you, perhaps?”

“A sandwich, yes, ja, sehr gut.”

“I’m sorry,” says Asher, who is showing remarkable patience, “the Wi-Fi...?”

But poor Asher’s prompting goes unnoticed as Terry has returned, dripping wet and wheeling two small suitcases.

“Terry, excellent!” says Aylesworth. “Could you show Miss Babbage and Miss Crisco to their rooms, and I will check in the rest of our guests? Looks like we have a busy night ahead of us!”

Terry grumbles something in response, and veers towards the elevators.

In a corridor on the first floor, Kate knocks on Lucy’s door and Lucy emerges. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 plays gently.

“Any ghosts?” Lucy asks.

“None yet,” says Kate. “We gonna try and get this interview done tonight or wait till tomorrow?”

“Let’s do it before he has a chance to run. Did you see his face when the two weirdos arrived?”

“Valkyrie is not weird,” Kate says.

“Valkyrie is very weird. Just because she’s hot doesn’t mean she’s not weird.”

“But we can make an exception for the weirdness because of the hotness. You know the Hot Girl Rules just as well as I do. But yeah, I saw how Gideon reacted.”

“Strange,” says Lucy.

“Odd,” says Kate.

Lucy is suddenly wearing a smile, and Kate fixes an exact copy on to her own face as she turns to greet Romeo and Clive.

“Romeo!” says Lucy. “How’s your room?”

“Small,” Gideon informs her.

“Oh. I’m sorry. It’s the biggest one they had.”

Romeo appears agitated, so Kate shifts the focus. “Clive, how is your room?”

Clive smiles. “It’s fine, thank—”

“Those Irish people aren’t going to be involved in the interview, are they?” Gideon asks.

Lucy hesitates. “No, they are not. Why? Is there some reason they would be?”

“No. None,” says Gideon. “We’ll be downstairs. Come along, Clive.”

Gideon leads the way, his long legs striding, and Clive scampers to keep up.

A young woman emerges from a nearby room, pushing a cleaning cart. Gideon and Clive pass her and she stares, her eyes wide. When they’re gone, she gathers herself and wheels her cart over to Lucy and Kate.

“Excuse me,” she says, her accent pure Cheshire. “Is that... is that Romeo Gideon? The magician from TV?”

“Yes, it is,” says Kate.

“Oh my God. I am such a fan.”

“You are?”

“I’ve always thought he was so mysterious and brooding and... My boyfriend, well, my ex-boyfriend now, he always got mad when he came on the telly and I just melted.”

“A little jealous, was he?”

The young woman blushes ever so slightly. “Maybe? They’re both tall, dark, and handsome, but... This is Romeo Gideon, you know?”

Kate and Lucy share a look.

“You must be Elaine?” Lucy asks.

“Yes, sorry, hello!” Elaine says, smiling easily. “I’m working in the kitchen tonight, but I also clean rooms, turn down beds, that sort of thing. Mind me asking what Romeo Gideon is doing here?”

“We’re journalists for Dark Delights magazine,” Lucy says. “We’re interviewing him.”

“A spooky man in a spooky house kinda thing,” Kate adds.

“Ah, right.” Elaine shrugs. “Couldn’t have asked for a spookier house than the Hollow Hotel.”

Down the staircase they go as Monteverdi’s Vespers plays.

“Have you worked here long?” Kate asks.

“Oh, none of us have,” Elaine responds. “It’s a whole new staff. I’ve been here six months. Terry, have you met Terry? Terry started a little before me. Even Mr Aylesworth’s new.”

“He only bought the hotel recently?”

“A year ago. It’s pretty hard to get owners to stick around. You know, because of the ghosts.”

“Have you seen Emilia?” Lucy asks, like she expects Elaine to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

But Elaine doesn’t laugh. Her voice does, however, get slightly quieter. “I’ve seen some things. Heard... voices. Crying. Even a scream, once or twice.”

“That must have been unnerving.”

“Oh, yes. It’s never a good thing to hear a—”

And now, of course, is the perfect moment to hear a single, bloodcurdling scream.

All three young women freeze.

“That was no ghost,” says Lucy.

They run down the stairs and Vespers is replaced by Elgar’s Cello Concerto as they join the others in the section of the hotel that there isn’t a name for, the section just off the reception area where the staircase begins, where the elevators have their doors, where there’s a little alcove with nothing in it, where a dead body hangs from the rafters and blood drips on to the carpeted floor.

“Oh, my good God!” Elaine exclaims.

“Jesus!” Kate blasphemes.

“He’s— He’s—” Clive jabbers.

“Stop panicking, Clive!” Gideon commands. “Stop it!”

Asher is shocked and scared with nowhere to put it, so he lashes out. “Will you leave that man alone, you jumped-up carnival act?”

“How dare you?” Gideon thunders. “Do you have any idea who I am? Do you have—?”

“All right!” Aylesworth says over them all. “All right, everyone. Obviously, there has been a tragic accident...”

“Accident, Mr Aylesworth?” says Terry, incredulous. “Accident? The man’s dead!”

“Now, we don’t know that for sure,” his employer tells him, then looks back at the puddle of blood forming beneath the corpse.

Skulduggery and Valkyrie stroll in. Valkyrie frowns at the commotion. Skulduggery looks delighted.

“Calm down, everyone,” he says. “What seems to be the—? Oh.”

“Ah,” says Valkyrie.

“I think I’ve identified the source of the problem.”

“The dead guy.”

“The dead German man hanging from the rafters, yes.”

“His blood...” Aylesworth says, his voice quivering. “The carpet...”

“Cold water, baking powder, and white vinegar,” Skulduggery tells him. “Mix it into a paste. Blot the stain. Do not scrub. Leave it for—”

Valkyrie spares him a quick glare. “Skulduggery.”

“Yes, the corpse,” Skulduggery says as if she’s just reminded him how to behave. “Ladies and gentlemen and fine, fine people, if I could have your attention, if I could draw your focus momentarily away from the dead body hanging from the ceiling, a moment of your time is all I require.”

He pauses to gather a new, sombre expression on to his face.

“We have all been through a lot. Mr Vogel meant a great deal to a great many of us and his loss will echo in our hearts, our minds, our very souls. He was a good man. I remember the first time we met, a little over an hour ago. The first thing he said to me was how much he liked my suit and then he told me, unbidden, how much he liked my beard. I will miss him, and his incredible taste in both suits and beards.”

Kate glances at Lucy to make sure she’s finding this as weird as she is. Lucy nods to her. Yes, she is.

“But time moves on,” Skulduggery says, “and it drags us with it. And time heals. That’s what time does. My dear friend Vogel wouldn’t want us to dwell on our grief, but he would want us to solve his murder.”

“He was murdered?” Elaine says, horrified.

Kate frowns. “Do you think he got up there by accident?”

Elaine is too busy being terrified to answer. “Then the murderer is still among us!”

“Please, please,” says Skulduggery, his hands up, “let us not stop listening to me. I’m a very important and intelligent person. I am, as a matter of fact, a detective. Solving murders like this is what I do – is that not correct, Valkyrie?”

“Could you get to the point a little faster?” Valkyrie says.

“We should call the police,” Elaine says in a small voice.

Skulduggery gives her a single pat on the shoulder. “Well, let’s not rush to a decision on that. I am, as I mentioned, a detective. Valkyrie and I will take care of this.”

Terry peers at him suspiciously. “And we should trust you, should we? For all we know, you killed him! For all we know, you’re the killers!”

Skulduggery smiles so broadly his skin might tear. “Ah, yes! The pointing of the fingers! The reckless accusation period! The paranoia, the desperation, the fear! All integral parts of any murder case, but I assure you, neither I nor my partner have murdered this man. Valkyrie, you haven’t murdered him, have you?”

“I don’t murder people,” Valkyrie tells everyone.

“You see?” says Skulduggery.

“Not any more,” Valkyrie continues.

“And I haven’t murdered anyone at all, recently,” Skulduggery informs them happily.

“I’m calling the police,” Elaine says, taking out her phone.

“Elaine, Elaine, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that.” Skulduggery takes a small bag of fine powder from his pocket.

“What is that?” asks Asher.

“This is rainbow dust,” Skulduggery answers. “When I sprinkle it, it will detect magic in the air and tell us if...” He sprinkles and the powder shimmers with colour on its way to the floor. “I see.”

He puts the powder away and looks at those around him. “Gathered gentlepeople, there are forces at work here that you do not understand. There’s an aspect to this world that good mortal folk like yourselves have no idea even exists. There is magic, and there are monsters, and there are killers, and then there’s us. We’re all three, but we’re on your side.”

Lucy watches him. “You’re magic, a monster, and a killer, are you?”

“Prepare yourselves,” Skulduggery says, his fingertips tapping his collarbones. “This may be a little... shocking.”

The assembled guests – and hotel owner – watch in shock as Skulduggery’s skin ripples and then retracts, his eyes and hair and that magnificent beard sliding down his face, his jaw, his neck, and disappearing beneath his shirt collar, leaving him with a gleaming, grinning skull.

The panic hits and boils over, and it’s a race to see which one of the guests can scream the obvious the quickest.

“You’re a skeleton!” Kate screams, beating the others in both timing and volume.

Skulduggery nods, pressing his gloved hands together. “Yes. I am, as you say, a skeleton. But I assure you that, bearded or not-bearded, I mean you no—”

“Run away!” shouts Asher.

They run, these guests – and hotel owner – but Valkyrie is blocking their exit. While her face remains where it is and, at least according to common beauty standards, where it should be, white lightning dances in her open palm, forcing the panicking people to stumble back.

“Oh my word!” Aylesworth exclaims. “Oh my word!”

“Everyone just needs to calm down,” Valkyrie says in a soothing voice.

Lucy points at Valkyrie’s hand. “You’re being electrocuted!”

“No, actually, I’m not. Also, this isn’t electricity I’m holding. It’s... well, it’s basically magic, so...”

Elaine leaps forward. “Get out of our way!”

The lightning crackles again, and Elaine screams and falls back into Terry’s arms.

“No one is leaving,” Valkyrie tells them. “Listen, even if you got to your cars, the road out of here is flooded. Isn’t it better to stay where you’re warm and dry?”

“Warm and dry with a talking skeleton and an electricity woman and a murderer on the loose!” Asher points out.

Valkyrie hesitates. “But... warm...”

Skulduggery walks over to stand beside Valkyrie, his hands up and open in a placatory gesture.

“If I could have your attention...? Thank you. Believe it or not, your reaction to my appearance is somewhat typical. People like you are unused to seeing living skeletons in exquisite suits, and find it hard to reconcile that with what they think they know of reality. But I put it to you: since I obviously do exist, then it stands to reason that there is absolutely nothing strange about me at all, so in theory you should accept the fact of my existence in much the same way as you would accept the existence of that wall, or that potted plant, or, to a lesser extent, that painting.”

“How many are there?” Terry asks, voice shaking.

“Ah! Screaming Man. Hello.”

“My... my name’s Terry.”

“You don’t look like a Terry. You do look like a Screaming Man. But very well, Terry it shall be. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant. This is Valkyrie Cain. Terry, you asked a question.”

“How many are there?”

Lucy frowns, and glances at him. “How many what, Terry?”

“Skeletons!” Terry says. “They could be anywhere, don’t you see? They could be anyone! You’re talking to someone and you think they’re normal and then their face falls off and suddenly they’re a skeleton! You ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers? It’s like that, except with skeletons. The police, the army, the government... I bet there’s loads in government. And the media. All this ‘woke this’ and ‘woke that’...”

Skulduggery tilts his head. “Terry, are you saying that all the liberals in the world are secretly skeletons, plotting to take over?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Skulduggery takes a moment, as if enjoying the idea, then shakes his head. “Come on now, Terry. That’s just silly. You’re being silly. What are you being? Are you being silly?”

“You... you don’t scare me,” Terry lies.

Skulduggery takes a single step forward, looming over Terry like Death itself. “Of course I don’t. I’m not scary at all. If I were a paperback novel, my spine would be creased.”

“I’m sorry? What?”

“I’m an open book is what I mean. If you have any questions, you can just ask. Do you have any questions, Terry?”

Terry swallows thickly. “How many more are there?”

“How many more what, Terry?”

“People who... who are skeletons inside.”

“Oh, Terry,” Skulduggery says softly. “There are billions of us.”

“What?”

“We’re everywhere, Terry.”

“No.”

“There’s nowhere to run. There’s nowhere to hide.”

“Oh, God, no.”

“Beneath every face, beneath every person, there’s a skeleton, Terry, watching you, waiting for you to drop your guard...”

“No, please.”

“...because when you do—”

Valkyrie steps forward now, the lightning disappearing from her hand. “Would you stop scaring the man? Terry, he’s just describing people.”

“What?”

“He’s describing people, Terry. That’s all he’s doing. Beneath every person, yeah, there is a skeleton. Big deal. There’s no invasion. He’s the only one of his kind.”

Skulduggery gives the tiniest of shrugs. “Not the only one.”

Valkyrie sighs. “There’s another one, though it’s still him – from the future – but you don’t have to worry about him because he’s in prison. A big magical prison that floats through the air. There is no invasion. You’re perfectly safe.”

“Not perfectly safe,” Skulduggery says.

“Well, yeah, okay, there is a killer on the loose, so you’re not safe as such, but... at least you’re warm. Skulduggery, can you try to make him feel better?”

Skulduggery places a hand on Terry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for scaring you, Terry.”

Terry is too petrified to even flinch. “I wasn’t... I wasn’t scared,” he says, clearly lying.

“Good. I’m glad.” Skulduggery leans closer and his voice drops to a whisper. “Because if we did decide to take over, you wouldn’t know about it till it was too late.”

“What?”

“We have spies everywhere. Tell me, Terry – can you trust your own skeleton not to be one of us?”

Terry makes a sound halfway between a whimper and a more scared whimper.

Satisfied, Skulduggery addresses the rest of them. “Well now, I am delighted that not one of you has tried to run away.”

“We did try to,” Kate points out, but Skulduggery ignores her.

“Because that bodes well for the rest of the night. Whatever your plans were for this evening, I’m afraid they have just been derailed. You see, you are now caught, centre stage, in the middle of a genuine murder mystery. You will not leave these premises and you will not call for outside help. You are all suspects in the murder of Mr Vogel, and, by the time morning comes, we will have our killer in custody, and those of you who survive will be allowed to return home.”

“Those who survive?” Gideon says, his face even paler than before.

“If the past is anything to go by, there will be more blood spilled before the night is over. But fret not, dear mortals: Skulduggery Pleasant is on the case.”

Skulduggery stands there and nods, and Valkyrie looks at him. When he doesn’t continue, she sighs.

“And me,” she says. “I’m here, too.”

There’s a moment of stillness, and then everyone takes out their phones.

“This is insanity,” says Elaine. “I’m calling the police.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you do that,” Skulduggery responds, taking a slim black box from his pocket. “This is a gadget. Don’t worry about what it’s called. All you need to know is that none of your phones will have a signal from the moment I press this button.” He presses the button.

“Hey! My phone’s got no signal!” Terry shouts, surprised.

“Also, as we said, the roads are flooded so none of you can actually drive away, but even if they weren’t you would not be allowed to leave.”

Elaine blinks. “You can’t seriously think that I killed that man.”

Valkyrie takes this one. “I’m sorry, Elaine, but any one of you could be the killer. Which reminds me: you probably don’t want to find yourself alone with just one other person for the rest of the night because they might try to murder you. Elaine, yes, you have your hand up?”

“I understand all that,” Elaine says, “I do, about how any of us could be the killer, but just speaking for myself, I’m not the killer. You don’t have to believe any of them, but you just have to believe me. I’ve lived in Cholmondeley my whole life. I’m local.”

“So am I!” says Terry.

“Terry’s local as well!” says Elaine. “Although not as local as me.”

Terry frowns. “What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Elaine tells him, “other than you might be the one who murdered the German man, but I’m definitely not.”

Terry gasps at the betrayal. “I didn’t murder no one! Don’t believe her! She’s trying to frame me! I’m an innocent man!”

Valkyrie interjects before it goes too far. “No one’s trying to frame anyone. We’re not suspecting either of you any more than we’re suspecting Mr Aylesworth or Asher or Bert or Nora...”

“Hmm?” says Bert. “What’s that?”

Nora pats his arm. “They suspect us of murder, Bert.”

“Murder?”

“They think we killed that German man.”

“Killed?”

“They think we did it.”

“Who thinks we did it?”

“The skeleton and the scary lady.”

“I’m not scary,” Valkyrie says, frowning.

“Did we?” Bert asks.

“Did we what, dear?” Nora says.

“Kill the German man?”

“No, Bert, we didn’t.”

Bert nods. Then, “I killed a man once.”

“Did you?”

“Well, I thought about it.”

“There you go.”

Elaine is on the verge of tears. “How can you all be so calm? This man’s a skeleton! He’s saying there’s magic and monsters, and there’s a dead man still hanging from the ceiling! How can you all just carry on?”

Asher comes forward, his hands gentle on Elaine’s shoulders. “Elaine, is it? It’s going to be okay, Elaine. Look at me. Look at me. Control your breathing.”

They both breathe for a few moments. Terry glares at Asher, but doesn’t say anything.

Elaine is just calming down when Gideon passes through her line of sight. “And what’s Romeo Gideon doing here? If this is one of your illusions, and you’re filming all this, I – I don’t give permission for my face to be shown.”

“This has nothing to do with me,” Gideon assures her.

“You’re going to have to pixilate my face,” says Elaine. “And distort my voice. I don’t like hearing my voice when it’s played back to—”

“This has nothing to do with me,” Gideon repeats, a little angrier this time.

Clive steps in, smiling. “This isn’t an illusion or a trick or a set-up, Elaine, I promise you. And there aren’t any hidden cameras.”

“I don’t want my face shown on—”

“But if there were, we would absolutely pixilate your face and disguise your voice, wouldn’t we, Romeo?”

Gideon stares. “But there aren’t any cameras!”

“I know, but if there were—”

“But there aren’t! This is ridiculous! This whole thing is ridiculous! And you know I don’t like people saying my name aloud!” He spins, jabbing a finger towards Skulduggery. “And you!”

“Me?”

“If you want to solve this, solve it. That means the police won’t be called, right? Good. If this gets out, no one’s going to care about the rest of you, but Romeo Gideon, the Dark King Magician, gets tangled up in some dead-guy drama and I’ll be headline news and not in a good way. I need... Clive, what do I need?”

“You need positive media coverage,” Clive replies dutifully.

“I need positive media coverage,” Gideon says, nodding. “I need good stories, human interest, stuff that shows me in hospitals visiting sick kids and being nice to people, not... not murder...”

Elaine watches him, and attempts a smile. “I’m a huge fan.”

“But not enough to appear on one of my specials, apparently.”

“So this is a special?”

“No! It isn’t!” He turns away, then points back at Elaine. “Clive, give her an autographed photo.”

Clive hesitates. “I don’t have one on me right—”

“You’re meant to carry them around for just such an occasion!” Gideon rages. “You are the worst assistant I’ve ever had!”

“Dude,” Valkyrie says, standing between them. “Ease off.”

“Do you know who I am?” Gideon shouts, outrage turning his face red.

Valkyrie’s voice is calm and terrible. “I know exactly who you are, Romeo.”

Gideon shuts up and visibly shrinks.

“The police,” says Aylesworth.

“We don’t need the police,” Skulduggery says.

“No, look,” Aylesworth says, pointing to the rain-warped windows, at the flashing blue lights reflected. “The police are here!”

Valkyrie frowns. “How did they arrive so fast?”

“How did they get through the flooded roads?” Kate asks.

Skulduggery turns to the assembled guests – and hotel owner. “Who called them? Which one of you was it?”

No one moves, and then Elaine coughs gently. “It was me,” she says meekly. “I sent the message. I’m sorry.”

Skulduggery shakes his head. “I am very disappointed in you, Elaine,” he says, and walks away.

“It’s just Constable Dudley,” Elaine says, but Skulduggery has already gone. She directs her explanation to Valkyrie. “He’ll take care of this. I know he will.”

“The constable won’t be able to help,” Valkyrie replies. “The rainbow dust tells us that magic was used, so if the killer is magic then involving the police... it’s never a good idea. We’ll have to get rid of him. For his own safety.”

Elaine sounds hopeful. “Can I go with him?”

“Sorry, Elaine. You’re still a suspect.” Valkyrie speaks a little louder. “Okay, guys, here’s the deal. Don’t tell the nice policeman about us. If you try to use this as an opportunity to leave, it will not work, and you’ll annoy the hell out of me.”

“We don’t know that it won’t work,” Asher says.

Valkyrie smiles at him. “What’s your full name?”

“Asher Devoe.”

“Asher Devoe, pretend to be a cow.”

“Moo,” says Asher, then frowns. “What? What the hell?”

“We can command you to do things, so do not try to mess with us.” She follows Skulduggery out of the room.

When she’s gone, Lucy turns to the others. “What do we do?”

“Constable Dudley can help us,” Elaine says.

Aylesworth frowns. “I’m inclined to believe the magic people.”

Constable Dudley enters the hotel. He’s a young police officer, and his high-visibility jacket is slick with rain as he struggles to close the door against the wind. His hat flies off and goes rolling across the foyer on its side. It’s not a terribly impressive display, but then he’s not a terribly impressive person.

When he manages to get the door closed, he picks up his hat, sets it on his head, and walks into reception.

“Evening, all,” he says.

Aylesworth clears his throat. “Constable Dudley, what seems to...? What brings you, ah...? What can...? Why are you...? Hello.”

“Mr Aylesworth,” Dudley says in greeting. “Hello, everybody. Elaine.”

“Yes?” Elaine says nervously.

Dudley hesitates. “You called the station, Elaine.”

“Mmm.”

“You said there was a dead man in the hotel.”

“Mmm-hmm?”

“A dead German man. Said he was murdered.”

“That’s right.”

“Can I see the body?”

“I suppose.”

Nobody moves.

“Can you show me where it is?” Dudley asks.

“It’s... through here,” Elaine says, and reluctantly leads the way. Dudley, and everyone else, follows. Dudley peers at Gideon.

“Aren’t you that magician fella?” he says. “What’s-his-name? The lad who’s on TV a lot. Not the good one. The other one.”

“Romeo Gideon,” says Clive.

“No, that’s not it.”

“No, it is – it’s Romeo Gideon.”

Dudley shakes his head. “It’s Zanzibar, or something stupid like that. Waldo, maybe.”

“No, it’s definitely Romeo Gideon.”

“You look just like him.”

“Thank you,” Gideon says, acid dripping from the words as they enter the hall, where Elgar’s Cello Concerto plays on a loop. There are the stairs, and the elevators, and the rafters and the pool of blood soaking into the carpet, but something is missing.

“The body!” says Elaine. “It’s gone!”

“Huh,” says Dudley.

“It was here a minute ago! He was hanging from the rafters! There was blood! Look! Look at the blood!”

Dudley peers at the carpet, and nods. “That does look like blood. Did the rest of you see this body?” When nobody answers, Dudley says, “Terry, what about you?”

“I... saw...”

“Yes?”

“I saw what looked to me like a... It was more of a...”

“I didn’t see anything,” Lucy announces.

Kate nods. “I didn’t see anything, either. Bert? Nora?”

“I have awful eyesight,” says Nora.

Bert blinks. “What are we talking about?”

Dudley takes off his hat, smooths down his hair, and puts the hat back on. “All right, I might just be a small-town constable, more used to chasing ducks around the town square than catching killers and whatnot, but even I can tell when there’s something fishy going on. So who’s going to tell me?”

Elaine swallows. “We... we can’t.”

Dudley moves so that he’s standing in front of her. “Elaine, how long have we known each other?”

“Our whole lives, more or less.”

“There’s nothing you can’t tell me.” He looks at the others. “Folks, Elaine knows me. Terry knows me. You can trust me. I’m here to help.”

“I know you, all right,” Terry mutters.

Dudley turns to him. “You okay there, Terry?”

Terry shrugs, puffing out his chest a little. “I’ve known you your whole life, too. I’m older than you, remember? I knew you when you were little. Knew you when those lads were bullying you – you remember that? Who came to your rescue then, eh?”

“Terry, if you’re intimidated by the uniform—”

Terry laughs. “Intimidated? Me? That’s funny, that is! Whenever I think of you, Constable Dudley, all I can see is a crying little kid with chubby cheeks and—”

Before things get any worse on their own, Skulduggery and Valkyrie stride in.

Valkyrie looks exactly the same, because of course she does, but Skulduggery is wearing a whole new face – clean-shaven, with green eyes.

“The local constabulary!” he exclaims. “Excellent! Constable Dudley, is it? Constable, heard a lot about you. Yes, indeed we have. First question, just to get it out of the way, do you like my beard?”

Dudley frowns at him. “You don’t have a beard.”

This causes Skulduggery some dismay. “I don’t?”

“You don’t,” Valkyrie concedes.

“This face doesn’t have a beard? Not even a droopy moustache?” He looks at Dudley. “What kind of face is it?”

The constable furrows his brow. “Are you... asking me to describe your own face to you?”

Skulduggery takes a moment. “Not if that would strike you as in any way odd.”

“It would strike me as a little bit odd, yes.”

“Then I am definitely not asking that.”

“Don’t I know you?” Bert asks Skulduggery. “Your voice is familiar.”

“We’ve met,” Skulduggery says.

“We have? When?”

Nora puts a gentle hand on Bert’s arm. “A few minutes ago, dear. This is the same... This is the... the gentleman. The tall, slender gentleman. He had a beard.”

“A magnificent beard,” Skulduggery corrects.

“You don’t have it any more,” Bert notes.

“Sadly, no.”

“But your face. It’s different.”

“Yes,” Skulduggery says, and smiles. “I’m smiling.”

“Oh,” says Bert, giving a nod. “That must be it.”

Skulduggery turns back to Dudley. “Constable, this is an active crime scene, and as such we are knee-deep in our investigation. I am Detective Me, this is Sergeant Her.”

“I’m sorry?” says Dudley.

“He’s Me, I’m Her,” Valkyrie says. “Pretty straightforward.”

Dudley’s frown is deepening. “Wait, hold on. Who’s he?”

“I don’t know a He,” Valkyrie says, and looks at Skulduggery. “Do you know a He?”

“I knew a He, but he died.”

“Who died?” asks Dudley.

“Who died? I didn’t hear that. Was it recent?”

“Was what recent?”

“Who’s death.”

“Who’s death?”

“Superintendent Who. He was a good man.”

“Who was a good man?” Valkyrie asks.

“No, He was a good man. Who was incompetent. He used to tell me outrageous stories about the killers Who let slip through his fingers. The man was a menace.”

“A menist?”

“I’m confused,” says Dudley.

“Admitting to confusion is the first step towards clarity,” Skulduggery tells him. “Sadly, it will do you little good here.”

Dudley looks at them both. “Do you have any identification?”

“Yes, we do,” Skulduggery responds. “Now, we were called to investigate a possible murder. We have a suspect. Male. Two arms, two legs, a torso and head. Sound familiar?”

“He has eyes, too,” says Valkyrie. “A nose: one. Same with the mouth.”

Skulduggery nods. “He’d have been wearing clothes.”

“Have you seen him?” Valkyrie asks Dudley. “Heard him, maybe? He has a distinctive call. Like a herring gull, but softer, and with words. He has an accent.”

“How would you describe it?” Skulduggery asks Valkyrie.

“Poorly,” she replies. “I’m not very good at describing accents.”

Dudley tries to speak, but Skulduggery talks over him. “Has this male been around here? Have you noticed him? Maybe you haven’t noticed him. Is there anyone that you haven’t noticed? Maybe he’s been wearing a disguise. Picture the man we’ve just described and then picture him with a moustache.”

“Or a funny hat,” says Valkyrie.

Dudley looks like his thoughts are static. “I should call someone.”

“Anyone we know?” Valkyrie says, an eyebrow raised.

“I’ll just call the station...”

With an arm round Dudley’s shoulders, Skulduggery leads him out into the foyer, and everyone follows.

“Who shall I say is calling?” Skulduggery asks.

“No,” says Dudley. “I’ll call the station.”

“And you are?”

“Constable Dudley.”

“First name?”

“Arthur.”

“Arthur Dudley, this has been an amusing misunderstanding and you want to leave.”

The assembled guests – and the hotel owner – watch as Dudley nods.

“You’re right, I do. The way I see it, there’s no murdered man hanging from the ceiling, and that’s all I need to know. Unless anyone’s got anything else they need? Elaine?”

Elaine can’t think of anything to say.

“Arthur Dudley,” says Valkyrie, “everything’s fine here. By the time you get to bed tonight, you’ll have forgotten this ever happened.”

“I probably will, you know,” Dudley says, chuckling. “Okay, folks, have a good night.”

Valkyrie opens the door for him and Constable Dudley plunges out into the rain. When Valkyrie closes the door after him, it has to be said, she doesn’t struggle for a moment against that wind.

“Are you a Jedi?” Asher asks, awestruck.

“Names have power,” says Valkyrie. “You have someone’s name, you have a limited amount of control over them. Sometimes it’s enough to do the job. Sometimes it isn’t.”

“Why can’t you use that to find out who the killer is? Just ask us?”

“It doesn’t really work on big questions, and if the killer is magic, they’d most likely have a psychic defence against it.”

“Magic skeletons and psychics...” says Asher, and looks to Gideon. “Bet you’re feeling like a proper fraud now, eh?”

“Actually,” Valkyrie says, “Romeo isn’t quite the fraud he lets on.”

“What do you mean?” Kate asks.

“Romeo is one of us. He’s a sorcerer.”

Everyone stares at Gideon, who is blushing a deep, deep red.

“That can’t be true,” says Kate. “I’ve seen his magic show. I mean, it’s mediocre at best.”

“Hey!” says Gideon.

Valkyrie keeps her eyes on Gideon. “The illusions might be shoddy and ripped off from better magicians, but when he reads people’s minds? That’s all real.”

“Oh my God,” says Kate. “You’re a cheat!”

Gideon makes a noise like a startled monkey. “What? How can I be a cheat if what I’m doing is the real thing?”

“Because, like, the trick is the point!”

“That’s patently absurd! My rivals would kill for my power!”

“They don’t need it!”

“I’m the only one up on that stage who is actually magic! How is that not blowing your mind right now?”

Kate points at Skulduggery. “Because talking skeleton!” She swivels to Clive. “Did you know?”

Clive bows his head in shame.

“I am disappointed in you.”

Aylesworth has a sudden thought, and bounces away from Gideon. “Wait! If he’s magic, then did he kill Mr Vogel?”

“He’s the murderer!” Elaine cries.

Skulduggery’s new face slides off, disappearing beneath his collar.

“Now, let’s not jump to the fun part of the evening quite yet,” he says. “As a psychic – what we’d call a Sensitive – Romeo was, to borrow your phrase, Kate, mediocre at best. He worked for the English Sanctuary, an organisation for sorcerers, until he made one too many mistakes and he was let go. But a mediocre sorcerer can be a very successful magician, and there is nothing wrong with using your abilities to make a career for yourself in the mortal world.”

“I’m a natural showman,” Gideon says, somewhat defensively.

“Yes, you are,” says Skulduggery. “But every murderer has a motive, and I can’t see a motive for this murder.”

“Where is Vogel?” Asher asks.

“I took him down. He is currently residing in one of the rooms in the east wing.”

Aylesworth practically howls. “You put him on a bed? With sheets? With all that blood?”

“It seemed disrespectful to leave him on the floor.”

Aylesworth desperately wants to argue, but he seems constrained by decency.

“How does this work?” Asher asks. “How do you usually solve murders?”

“Every case is different,” Skulduggery says. “Some require extreme levels of violence – some require almost no violence at all. There is always violence involved, however. Especially with us.”

Valkyrie has to nod. “We usually end up punching at least someone.”

“I need to pee,” announces Clive.

“Me too!” says Elaine, like she’s just remembered.

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind a pee break, too,” Kate murmurs.

“I’m quite hungry,” Nora says.

Bert rubs his belly. “I am famished.”

Aylesworth smiles like the professional he is. “The room-service menu is—”

“Mr Aylesworth!” says Elaine. “You can’t expect me to make food for people with all this going on?”

“Excuse me,” says Kate.

Aylesworth’s smile dims a little in confusion as he turns to Elaine. “Need I remind you that this is a place of business? It doesn’t just stop being a hotel when somebody dies. We are professionals, remember.”

“Professionals? This is just a job, Mr Aylesworth! This isn’t my career! I’m not going to still be working here in fifty years’ time!”

“Excuse me,” says Kate, a little louder this time.

“Where are you going to go?” Aylesworth asks, genuinely surprised by Elaine.

“I have plans! I have dreams!”

“What dreams?”

“I’m going to open a teashop with my mum!”

“And sell what?”

“Tea!”

“I’m very sorry, everybody,” says Kate, “but if you could all just turn round and see what I’m seeing, if in fact I’m actually seeing what I’m seeing.”

Everyone turns and, while not everyone gasps, those that do gasp are those who have never seen a ghost before.

“Oh, my,” says Nora.

“Could someone,” says Kate, dropping her voice to a whisper, “probably the talking skeleton or the six-foot gorgeous Amazon –”

“Thank you,” says Valkyrie.

“– just confirm that what we’re looking at is a, you know, a...”

“Ghost?” Skulduggery prompts.

“Yes.”

“It’s a ghost.”

“Oh, wow.”

“That’s Emilia, that is,” Terry says.

Aylesworth stares in wonder. “She’s beautiful.”

Valkyrie glances at him. “You’ve never seen her before, Mr Aylesworth?”

Aylesworth shakes his head. “To be honest, I doubted the stories were true...”

“Well, the stories are true and that is definitely a ghost,” Skulduggery says.

“She looks angry,” says Valkyrie.

“She does look angry.”

“Are we safe?” Asher asks. “Can a ghost hurt us?”

“Very much so,” says Skulduggery. “Everybody slowly back out of the room without causing a disturbance and we should be absolutely—”

But the ghost turns to them, sees them, and her face contorts and a long, mournful wail rises from deep within her.

“Run away!” Terry screams.

“No, don’t!” Valkyrie shouts.

The wail becomes a roar and the ghost rushes towards them, and now everyone’s running and screaming.

Asher turns a corner and runs through the corridor, and turns another corner and runs, and turns another corner and runs, and turns and runs, and when he finally slows he has no idea where he is and the only sound he can hear is another classical music piece piped through from invisible speakers. Whether he knows it or not, he’s listening to Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.

(You should listen to it. It’s a good one.)

Fighting to catch his breath, he leans over, hands on his knees. For someone who has just seen a ghost, he is coping admirably well. He draws in a deep, deep breath, and straightens, feeling a lot more in control.

And then a voice from behind him says, “I don’t want to alarm you—” and Asher yells and jumps, whirling round as he does so, flailing his arms at Kate, who stands there, looking guilty.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she says. “I was just standing there and you came running up, and I was waiting for you to see me, but you didn’t, and then I was, like, how do I announce my presence without making it weird?”

“So you decided to jump out at me?”

Kate scoffs. “Oh, come on – that was hardly a jump. That was an... energetic step forward.”

Asher puts a hand over his chest, feeling his heartbeat. “Anyone else hiding back there with you?”

“Just me.”

He nods, takes another breath. “That was a ghost,” he says. “We just got attacked by a ghost.”

“Yes, we did.”

“I’ve never seen a ghost before. It was terrifying. It was... okay, it was kind of beautiful.”

Kate’s eyes widen a little. “I was just about to say that.”

Asher pauses. “I’m going to say something really awful now, okay? I think it’s worse when pretty people die than regular people.”

“Oh my God, I feel the same way.”

“It’s like it’s bad enough this person had to die too young or whatever, but...”

Kate nods. “But when they’re really pretty it’s like the universe is robbing us of someone we could happily stare at from across the room.”

“Yes. Exactly. That’s why I never want to die.”

“Me too.”

They grin at each other, happy to find the comfort of a shared experience amid all this chaos.

Asher’s grin fades slightly as a thought occurs to him. “Hey, didn’t they tell us not to be alone with anyone?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not the killer, are you?”

“No,” says Kate. “Are you?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. “No.”

“You took a scarily long time to answer that.”

Asher chuckles. “I’m sorry, that was mean. I’m just messing with you.”

Kate glares, glances around, then looks back at him. “Okay, I would walk away as now I think you’re gonna try to kill me, but I don’t want to be alone because someone else might try to kill me, so I’m sort of... conflicted.”

“Yeah,” Asher says, looking like he regrets his attempt at humour. “Then how about we stay where we are, just looking at each other, and if either one of us moves closer to the other one, then that’ll be the signal that that person intends to kill the other person? Is that fair?”

“That’s fair.”

“Okay then. So we’ll just stand here.”

“Just stand here,” Kate agrees.

They stand here.

In another corridor in the Hollow Hotel, a corridor where Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 plays, Lucy is on her own and feeling scared. When she hears voices approaching, she initially shrinks back, fearful of ghosts, but then wonders if ghosts would put as much time and effort into coming up with insults as these two obviously have.

She steps out as Skulduggery and Valkyrie round the corner.

“Lucy,” Skulduggery says. “You escaped the scary ghost.”

“I did,” says Lucy. “Can I tag along with you two?”

“By all means,” Skulduggery says, and she falls into step alongside them.

They move into another corridor where the music changes, and another corridor, where the music changes again.

“Are we, um, escaping?” Lucy asks.

“No,” says Valkyrie.

“Escaping is usually done at a faster pace,” Skulduggery informs her.

Lucy nods, slightly dismayed. “So we’re not trying to escape the ghost that just attacked us? Okay. What are we doing?”

“Taking the opportunity to look around without the owner hovering at our shoulders,” Valkyrie tells her.

The corridor opens up as they get to the closed doors of the restaurant. On the wooden panels to either side of the doors there are words engraved.

Valkyrie peers at them. “What does this say? Cucurb... cucurbita...”

“Cucurbitaceae,” Skulduggery says.

“What is that? Latin for restaurant or something?”

“The Latin for restaurant is popina. The word restaurant is from the French, restaurer, which means to restore oneself, which in turn comes from the Latin restaurare. Popina is a word borrowed from an Osco-Umbrian language, the equivalent of the Latin coquina, which translates as kitchen, or cooking.”

Valkyrie nods thoughtfully. “I don’t care.”

Skulduggery indicates the carved words. “Cucurbitaceae. Poaceae. Leguminosae. Rutaceae. These are all families of—”

“The Mafia?” Lucy says. “Gangsters?”

“Flowering plants.”

“Disappointing.”

“Virtually all plant-based food and livestock feed is derived from these families of plants,” Skulduggery says.

“And what’s that?” Valkyrie asks, nodding to the words carved over the doors. “Is that Latin?”

“It is,” Skulduggery says. “It means When is seven twelve?”

Valkyrie looks immediately annoyed. “What? When is seven twelve? Seven is never twelve. Seven is seven. Twelve is twelve.”

“It’s a riddle,” Skulduggery tells her.

“Is it a maths riddle? I’m not doing it. I’m not doing maths. Not doing it.”

“I don’t think it’s a maths riddle.”

“I’m not doing it,” Valkyrie says as Skulduggery opens the doors and they enter the restaurant.

He finds the light switch, and the overhead lamps come on, the kind that dangle from the high ceiling on delicate chains. It’s nice. A lot of dark tables and expensive-looking chairs. Rain covers the large windows in sheets, blurring the outside world to nothing more than a vagary.

Apart from the rain, it’s quiet in here. No music.

Skulduggery turns, noting the words carved above the doors on this side. “We have the answer to the riddle. It depends how much you bleed.”

Valkyrie actually glowers. “What does that mean? When is seven twelve? It depends how much you bleed. What?”

Skulduggery walks round the room. Lucy goes in the opposite direction, with no idea what she’s supposed to be looking for, while Valkyrie sticks to the middle.

“Why do you bleed?” Skulduggery asks.

Valkyrie shrugs. “Depends what time of the month it is.”

“Then why do people bleed, in general?”

“Like, when they’re cut.”

“What cuts you?”

Valkyrie holds up both hands, starts counting on her fingers. “Knives. Swords. Spears. Throwing stars. Axes. Pitchforks. Scythes. Sickles. Bayonets. Daggers. Machetes. Claws. Fangs. Oh, wait — what cuts just me, or what cuts other people, too?”

Skulduggery stops walking for a moment and looks back at her. “Have you been cut by all of those things you just mentioned?”

“Off the top of my head? Yes.”

“A lesser man might feel guilt for dragging you into danger at such a young age.”

“A lesser man might.”

“Thankfully, I am no lesser man,” Skulduggery says, and resumes his examination of the walls. “Sharp things cut you. When is seven twelve? When they are musical notes. Theoretically and essentially, Western music is made up of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale: C, D, E, F, G, A and B, plus five flats and equivalent sharps in between. So C, C sharp/D flat, D, D sharp/E flat, F, F sharp/G flat—”

“Yes, okay, I believe you,” Valkyrie says. “Musical notes is the answer.”

“Musical notes is the key,” Skulduggery corrects.

Valkyrie grins. “Aren’t notes and keys the same thing?”

“A note is but one pitch within a key.”

Now Valkyrie sounds annoyed again. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

“Plenty,” Skulduggery responds, “but I don’t know what they are. If I did, I’d make a conscious effort to learn more about them. Musical notes are the key to the puzzle.”

“I thought they were the answer to the puzzle.”

“That wasn’t the puzzle,” Skulduggery tells her.

“We’ve got to solve another puzzle? How is that fair? We solved the first one quite brilliantly, if I do say so, and we should be rewarded for our brilliance.”

“We have been rewarded,” Skulduggery says.

“With another puzzle!” Valkyrie complains.

“Puzzles are fun.”

She stands there, hands on her hips, and shakes her head. “You are such a nerd.”

Lucy has been waiting for them to shut up. When it becomes obvious that this is not going to happen, she plunges into the conversation with a question. “Are you looking for the hidden room?”

Valkyrie looks at her. “What hidden room?”

“You know,” says Lucy. “There’s supposed to be a hidden room and if you find it you set Emilia’s spirit free.”

“Oh, that hidden room!” Valkyrie says, then gives another shrug. “Never heard of it.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Lucy presses. “That’s why you’re here.”

“We were in the area, stopping a...” Skulduggery pauses. “Actually, it doesn’t matter what or who we were stopping or how many people would have died if we’d failed, the fact is, we were in the area, we finished up earlier than expected, and we thought we’d drop by.”

“And you walked right into the middle of a murder mystery,” says Lucy.

“It happens,” says Skulduggery.

“It happens,” agrees Valkyrie.

“So do you think solving the riddle will lead us to the hidden room?” Lucy asks.

“Maybe,” says Valkyrie. “Which means we’re looking for something to do with music in the only room so far without any music playing. How does it get piped through anyway? I didn’t see any speakers.”

“The architect who built the hotel round the house was a complicated man, but a genius architect,” Skulduggery says. “Plus, he was magic.”

“So we’re looking for something musical in this quiet dining room,” Lucy says, and points to a small panel on the wall, a panel with a carving of a musical note. “Maybe this?”

“Ah! Let me see that,” Skulduggery says, coming straight over. “Oh, this is interesting. All right then...”

Lucy stands back, watching him rap his knuckles on the panel. When that doesn’t seem to satisfy him, he moves his hand a fraction, and does it again.

We’re back with Kate and Asher, in the corridor where Chopin plays. They stand with their backs to either wall, not saying anything.

Kate sinks to her haunches.

“You doing okay?” Asher asks.

“This is all my fault,” Kate says quite miserably.

Asher frowns. “Like, the ghost? The murder? You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“It was my idea, coming here to interview Gideon,” Kate tells him. “My best friend is actually in danger right at this moment and it’s because of me.”

“I don’t think you can blame yourself for how tonight has unfolded,” Asher says.

Kate makes a noise that could be confused with a laugh. “You’d be surprised at the amount of things I can blame myself for.”

And now we’re back with Lucy, watching Skulduggery and Valkyrie knock on the wood panelling around the music note. Valkyrie raps her knuckles and it sounds different, it sounds hollow, so she presses and explores and then there’s a click, and a small door springs open.

“How deliciously old-fashioned,” Skulduggery says, clearly delighted. He takes out a folded piece of paper.

“Interesting,” he says. “Very interesting. Not the paper quality.”

“This is why I’ll never be as good a detective as you,” Valkyrie says. “You find boring things interesting.”

“Paper isn’t boring,” Skulduggery says. “I’ve solved many a crime thanks to a working knowledge of paper. Back in the old days, the weight, strength, thickness, drape, and stiffness all had to be taken into account in order to ascertain the origin of a ransom note or a manifesto or simply a—”

“Dude,” Valkyrie says. “Do not care.”

“Early papers, as you know –”

“Oh, God.”

“– were made from hemp rags and linen. The finest cloth resulted in the finest paper. In 1795, the hydraulic press was invented, and we all know what effect that had on paper production.”

“Boy, do we!” Valkyrie says with an abundance of fake enthusiasm.

“By the time 1850 rolled around, machine-made paper was being dried on heated cylinders, resulting in a remarkably flatter—”

“My God!” Valkyrie exclaims. “I do not care!”

Skulduggery sags a little. “This paper is from 1850 or thereabouts.” He opens it. “It’s a letter. Handwritten.”

“Oh, look,” Valkyrie says. “The date, right there at the top.”

“It says 1853. I was right.”

“My point is, we could have just opened the letter to find when—”

“I was right, and that’s the main thing,” Skulduggery says. “The letter seems to be a terse correspondence between one Mr Karl Würth and a G. W. Marks, concerning...” He tilts his head. “Why do those names sound familiar?”

“Dunno,” says Valkyrie. “Were they giant nerds, too?”

Skulduggery’s head moves again, a slight jerk to one side. “Aha,” he says. “They didn’t exist. Both Würst and Marks were pseudonyms of Johannes Brahms.”

“Now him I have heard about,” Valkyrie says.

“I’m relieved.”

“He wrote that song.”

Skulduggery looks at her. “What?”

“‘Candle in the Wind’.”

“That’s Elton John,” says Skulduggery.

Valkyrie nods. “Whose real name was Johannes Brahms.”

“Whose real name was Reginald Dwight.”

“I thought Reginald Dwight was Archie Leach.”

“Archie Leach was Cary Grant.”

“I thought Cary Grant was Maurice Micklewhite.”

Skulduggery shakes his head. “Maurice Micklewhite was Michael Caine.”

“So who was Brahms?”

“The composer.”

Valkyrie purses her lips. “Would he have composed anything I’d know? Was he Mozart?”

“No,” Skulduggery says. “Mozart was Mozart.”

“Did he write anything for Britney?”

Lucy can’t be sure if Skulduggery is oblivious to Valkyrie’s sarcasm or if he’s enduring it merely to show off.

“Brahms was a German composer who lived—”

“Wait,” Valkyrie said. “Is he the one who did that Mickey Mouse tune? You know, from Fantasia?”

“You’re thinking of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ and no, that was by Paul Dukas.”

“I like that one,” Valkyrie says happily. “And all the mops come out. Why isn’t magic like that? Like, you wave a wand and mops do all your housework or your homework or something?”

Lucy frowns. “Why would mops do your homework?”

“Man, I don’t know,” says Valkyrie. “I tell you, I do not miss doing homework. Best bit about being a grown-up.”

“You never did your homework,” Skulduggery says. “Your reflection did it for you.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Valkyrie. “Sometimes magic is like in the cartoons.”

“I’m happy you’re happy,” Skulduggery says. “Our next clue is Johannes Brahms.”

“We’re still on him?” Valkyrie says, rolling her eyes. “Right. Fine. Tell me about him.”

“Well, he lived between 1833 and 1897.”

“This house was built in 1853, so it can only relate to Brahms up to the age of twenty.”

“Ah, but this section was built in 1871, with the finishing touches added many decades later.”

“So it could relate to Brahms during any phase of his life,” Valkyrie says. “Wonderful. Well, tell me about him! What was he like?”

“I never met him, but people who did describe him as brilliant and self-deprecating. He once grew a beard as a prank.”

“So... hilarious,” Valkyrie says. “Gotcha.”

“Ah!” Skulduggery says.

“What?”

“Brahms!”

“Yes. What?”

“Brahms is derived from ‘Bram’, the German word for ‘broom’, a deciduous shrub found in Europe and western Asia. It’s part of the family Fabaceae, otherwise known as...?”

He pauses. Waits.

“Do you actually expect me to know?” Valkyrie asks. “Lucy? Do you know?”

“I have no idea what either of you are talking about.”

“Leguminosae,” Skulduggery says.

Valkyrie clicks her fingers. “Hey, hey! The family of flowering plants! On the door! Thank God! There was a point to all that learning! So... what now?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery says.

Valkyrie immediately deflates. “But how do we use what we’ve just learned to find the hidden room?”

“Again, I don’t know.”

Now Valkyrie starts to look legitimately angry. “Did I just learn something that I didn’t need to know?”

When Skulduggery doesn’t respond, she storms away, and Skulduggery looks at Lucy.

“She hates it when that happens,” he says.

And now we’re back with Kate and Asher. The Well-Tempered Clavier has ended... and then restarted. If Kate or Asher have noticed this, they give no indication.

“So,” Asher says, “do you like... stuff?”

“I like some stuff, I guess.”

“That’s cool,” says Asher. “I like stuff, too.”

“Yeah, stuff’s okay. What do you think of small talk?”

“I’m a fan. You?”

“On the fence.”

“I can see that.”

“But it does fill time.”

“See,” says Asher, “that’s why I like it. You can get through a significant amount of minutes using small talk without ever having to actually say anything.”

“It has its uses,” Kate admits. “What are your views on awkward silences?”

“Don’t like them. Worst kind of silence, if you ask me.”

“Worse than deathly?”

“At least you know where you stand with deathly.”

Kate’s mood, oh-so-close to rising, plummets again. “Did you see that?” she asks.

Asher turns sharply, eyes on the corridor. “What? What is it? Please don’t say it’s the ghost. Please don’t say—”

Now he sees it, the flickering of a person, here and then gone, like a lightbulb about to burn out. And then she snaps into focus, Emilia the ghost, hovering just off the ground, her dress blown by a breeze only ghosts can feel. Her gaze is fixed to the wall ahead of her, and Asher’s mouth goes dry.

“Whatever you do,” he whispers, “don’t move. It’s attracted to movement.”

“It’s a ghost,” Kate whispers back, “not a dinosaur. Maybe... maybe we should try to communicate.”

“Okay,” says Asher because he can think of nothing better to do. “Okay, sure.”

Kate clears her throat and takes one small step forward. She tries smiling, but that feels weird so she stops. “Excuse me? Miss? Are you Emilia? Is your name Emilia?”

Emilia turns her head slowly.

“She’s looking at us,” says Asher.

“I know,” says Kate.

“She’s looking at me,” says Asher.

“She is.”

“She doesn’t look friendly.”

“She doesn’t.”

The ghost of Emilia turns towards them and starts to drift over.

“Let’s back away,” says Kate.

“She’s getting closer,” says Asher.

“Let’s back away faster, then.”

Emilia is moving towards them quicker than they’re backing away and so both Asher and Kate stop moving.

“You know what?” Asher says, keeping his voice low and calm. “I don’t think she’s got ill intent. I think we’re going to be fine.” Emilia starts to moan and Asher nods. “I think she just wants to be around people.”

Emilia’s face contorts and her moan turns to a wail and the wail becomes a shriek and she flies at them.

We’re with Romeo Gideon and Clive Farrier. Gideon has spent the last five minutes cursing the architect who designed the Hollow Hotel, with its impossible maze of corridors, and Clive has spent the last five minutes nodding along and agreeing with him, as is set down in the terms of his contract.

And then Asher screams.

“Did you hear that?” Romeo says. “Where did that come from? This ridiculous hotel with its stupid corridors, it’s impossible to—”

They hear Asher scream again.

“There,” says Clive, pointing ahead of them. “It came from that direction.”

“Yes,” says Gideon. “Good. All right. Let’s go this way.” He turns in the opposite direction.

“But someone might need our help!” Clive says.

Gideon spins, fury dancing in his eyes. “Your job is not to help someone! Your job, as my assistant, is to help me. Do you understand that? Do you understand your responsibilities?”

“I mean, yes, but—”

“Then we run away from the screaming, Clive. We run this way! Hurry!”

Gideon runs, and Clive hesitates, but then starts running, too.

Through the corridors they go, choosing whichever direction takes them further away from the screams. Every new corridor they enter, the music changes, until finally they hear Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier ahead of them, and they run round the corner and freeze.

“You fool!” Gideon whispers. “You led us straight to the ghost!”

Emilia hovers in the air ahead of them.

“You were in front,” Clive whispers back.

“Shut up!”

Asher is unconscious on the floor on the far side of the ghost, and Kate is kneeling beside him, panicking. She looks up, sees them.

“Help us!” she cries. “Asher’s hurt! He’s unconscious! Do something!”

“We can’t do anything!” Gideon cries back.

“You’re a proper psychic, aren’t you?” Kate yells. “Give her a psychic blast or something!”

“That’s not how my power works!” Gideon yells back.

“Well, what use are you?” Kate yells louder.

And then Emilia turns, sees Gideon, and snarls.

“Why is the ghost looking at me like that?” he whimpers.

Emilia’s moan once more turns to a wail that turns into a shriek, and Gideon’s legs give way and he collapses to the carpeted floor.

“Help me!” Gideon screams. “Help me, help me!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Clive mutters.

Emilia flies at Gideon, who covers up, and Clive jumps in front of them, eyes narrowed, fists curled, and an audible whomp reverberates through the corridor, a noise that somehow disrupts Emilia’s form for a moment. Startled, the ghost retreats, disappearing into a wall.

Kate gazes at Clive in shock. “Did you do that? You’re magic, too?”

“I’m a Sensitive, yes,” Clive says, fingers pressing into his temples like he’s trying to ward off a migraine. “I’m not very powerful and I’m not very good at it, but I’m a damn sight better than this gibbering idiot.”

“You do not speak to me that way!” Gideon demands, outraged.

“That command would be a lot more impressive if you weren’t curled up on the floor,” says Clive.

Gideon scrambles to his feet as Skulduggery, Valkyrie, and Lucy join them in the corridor.

“What happened?” Valkyrie asks, moving straight to Asher and checking his pulse.

“Emilia,” says Kate. “She attacked Asher. Is he okay?”

“He’s alive. We’ll need to move him. Skulduggery?”

Skulduggery’s fingers flutter like he’s playing an invisible harp, and Asher floats gently into the air. Lucy and Kate stare in astonishment as Skulduggery and Valkyrie take Asher away.

“That’s amazing,” Kate says. “Did you see what he did?”

“I saw,” says Lucy. “He made Asher float.”

“Do you think Skulduggery can make himself float? Can he fly?”

“Oh my God, that would be amazing.”

“I flew once,” says Gideon.

“No, you didn’t,” says Clive.

“Over the Grand Canyon.”

“You were on a wire.”

“Would you please stop criticising me?” Gideon whines. “I am in shock! I have just been attacked!”

“Asher has just been attacked!” Clive says, his voice rising. “You fell over when a ghost shouted at you!”

Gideon gasps. “What has got into you, Clive? You don’t talk to me like this. Are you possessed? Is that it? Is something possessing you right now? Because, as per your contract, that is a fireable offence.”

“I am sick of you!” Clive shouts. “I am sick of the great and mysterious Romeo Gideon! Sick of the Dark King Magician – a title you dreamed up for yourself, by the way! I am sick of your pompous ineptitude! You are a dreadful sorcerer and a worse human being!”

Kate and Lucy watch and stay very quiet, lest anything they do derail this delightful moment.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” says Gideon, his voice quiet. “You’re saying things you’ll regret later.”

Clive actually looks angry. “The only thing I regret is not quitting years ago. You’re a buffoon! A clod! An oaf! A clown!”

“I am none of those things!” Gideon fires back, then frowns. “Wait, you’re quitting? Why?”

“Because you are a terrible, terrible person. Terrible.”

“That’s really a subjective—”

“Terrible.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Kate says at last. “Clive, how long have you been a sorcerer?”

When Clive looks at her, his demeanour changes, like it’s only Romeo Gideon who can draw out his anger. “This is something I’ve always been but, like I said, I’m not very good at it. I’m a failed Sensitive who made the mistake of thinking: hey, hanging around with another failed Sensitive might be a good way to earn a living –”

“Who’s the other failed Sensitive?” Gideon asks, genuinely perplexed. Clive ignores him and continues.

“– at least until I figure out what I want to do with my life. Boy oh boy, was that the wrong decision.”

“Wait,” says Gideon, “were you talking about me?”

Now it’s Lucy’s turn to ignore Gideon. “Your power drove off Emilia – you can’t be that much of a failure.”

“Emilia is lost and confused and frightened,” Clive says. “I could sense that the moment I stepped into this place.”

“Me too,” says Gideon. “I sensed that, too.”

“How long have you known Romeo?” Lucy asks Clive. “Did you work alongside him at the Sanctuary?”

Clive shakes his head. “I never worked in the Sanctuary.”

“I am not a failed Sensitive,” Gideon proclaims.

Clive can ignore him no longer. “Then tell me what you’re sensing right now.”

Gideon looks suddenly unsure. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

Gideon juts out his chin. “I’m sensing a lot of things right now, Clive. I’m sensing hostility, and unreasonableness, and slowly mounting regret over the things that may or may not have been said in the heat of the moment—”

“You’re not sensing that from me.”

“I’m sensing a stupid-looking, ungrateful, mean former assistant, is what I’m sensing.”

“And what about Emilia, Romeo?”

Gideon hesitates. “Emilia is confused, and frightened, and also lost.”

“That’s exactly how Clive described her,” Kate points out.

“But not in that order!”

“There’s something else,” says Clive. “Do you sense that?”

“Yes,” says Gideon. “Obviously.”

“What is it?”

“What is it?” Gideon says. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a... a presence. A great feeling of... melancholy...”

“It’s not melancholy,” says Clive.

“I didn’t mean melancholy.”

“There’s evil here.”

“I meant evil.”

“It’s like there’s a mask that’s been lifted,” Clive says, “if only for a moment. The killer. It’s the killer.”

Gideon nods quickly. “I’m sensing the killer, too. The man who killed Mr Vogel.”

“Is that who you’re sensing, Clive?” Kate asks.

Clive doesn’t answer immediately. “It’s like all that evil is being kept in a room and the door opened just for a second.”

“It’s a metaphorical room,” Gideon tells them.

Lucy closes her eyes. “We got that.”

“It’s a room in the killer’s mind,” Gideon continues.

“We got that, Romeo!” Lucy snaps. “Shut up!”

Gideon inhales in absolute horror and there is a moment, a blessed moment, when it seems like he won’t respond. But then he goes and ruins it all by speaking.

“I am disinclined to be interviewed for your magazine,” he says.

Now it’s Kate’s turn to snap at him. “Oh my God, shut up! There is no magazine! There never was an interview! Shut your mouth! Shut it! Shut!”

“There was never an interview?” Gideon echoes, appalled. “Then I’ve been lured here under false pretences?”

“You should all go back,” says Clive, “go back to the others, to Skulduggery and Valkyrie.”

“Did you know them before this?” Lucy asks.

He shakes his head as he wanders away from them. “Never met them before tonight, but they’ve saved the world a few times, so you’ll be safe. Well, judging by their reputation, you’ll either be safe or you’ll die, one or the other.”

Kate frowns after him. “Where are you going?”

He turns. “I think I can help Emilia. All she needs is for someone to guide her out of the hotel. When we arrived, I sensed someone outside – a spirit – someone waiting. I think it’s her fiancé.”

“Jonathon,” says Lucy.

“I want to guide her out. She has a chance at being happy, I think.”

“Is it safe?” Kate asks. “You heading off on your own with a killer on the loose?”

Clive can only shrug. “I know where Emilia is right now. I can sense her. I might not be able to re-establish that link, but I have to try.” He gives them a smile, and turns to go.

Gideon stands there, his body practically vibrating with indecision. Finally, he lurches forward, running after Clive. “Wait,” he says. “Clive, wait.”

Clive sighs impatiently, but stops, and Gideon faces him. His face is an ever-changing mask of repressed emotion.

“Where do I keep the key to my flat?” he says at last.

Kate and Lucy glare at him.

“It’s behind the front desk,” says Clive. “Just ask and they’ll hand it over.”

Gideon nods and Clive is about to head off when he speaks again. “Are you sure you want to quit? If you come back to work for me, I can’t promise that things will get better.”

Clive frowns. “Is that meant to be an incentive?”

“We’re a team, Clive,” Gideon says, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “You and me. The Dark King Magician and his assistant. You’re the best assistant I ever had, and I’ve had three. I can’t remember the first one and the second one smelled of tea, but you... you were always fine.”

Clive nods. “And you were always the worst boss ever.”

“We had some good times, though, didn’t we?” Gideon asks, a distinct wistfulness in his voice. He chuckles. “Remember that night in LA when we went out partying with that girl you had a crush on and all her friends?”

“I remember that you left me back at the hotel.”

“It was a private party,” Gideon explains. “You wouldn’t have been allowed in. But we had good times! You’ve always been like a brother to me.”

“Do you have a brother?”

“No,” says Gideon, “but I assume they fetch your dry-cleaning and stuff like that?”

“I hate you,” says Clive, and walks away.

Gideon watches him go and his shoulders slump. When Clive rounds a corner and vanishes from sight, Gideon turns on one heel like a six-year-old and comes slouching back to Lucy and Kate.

“I don’t know how much of that you heard,” he says.

“All of it,” says Kate.

“Everything,” says Lucy.

They are unsure as to whether or not he has heard them because he continues. “We decided to take some time apart. It was a mutual decision. Neither party is to blame.”

“We heard everything,” Kate reminds him.

“Would either of you be interested in becoming my assistant?” he asks. “What’s your name?”

“Kate Crisco.”

“You remind me of my first assistant,” Gideon says, smiling, “or you would if I could remember her. And your name is?”

“I already told you my— You know what? Forget it. You’re exhausting.”

“Thank you.”

Kate and Lucy walk away, side by side, too irritated to use their words. Gideon follows, not even noticing their annoyance.

We shuffle forward in time by precisely sixteen minutes and find ourselves in reception, where Mozart’s Requiem plays on repeat. Valkyrie is here along with the majority of the hotel guests. Skulduggery is searching Mr Vogel’s room to get an idea of who he was and why he was killed, and Asher has been moved to Room 3. As they’re standing there, the foyer door opens and Oscar Aylesworth bursts in, dripping wet.

“Still raining, then?” Valkyrie calls out as he forces the door closed.

“Is she gone?” Aylesworth calls back, pulling off his jacket.

“Is who gone?”

“The ghost of the young lady.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Valkyrie. “Yeah, she went ages ago.”

Aylesworth hurries forward, his shoes squelching with every step. “I’m dreadfully sorry. A hotel manager should never be seen in his shirtsleeves, but if you will allow me to fetch my spare jacket, and some dry shoes, I shall be with you momentarily.”

“By all means,” says Valkyrie, and Aylesworth heads into his office.

A minute later, he’s back, in a dry jacket and footwear, and towelling his hair. “Thank you for your indulgence,” he says. “As the owner and manager of the Hollow Hotel, I feel it important to be fully dressed at all times.”

“Being fully dressed is very important,” says Valkyrie. “This is true.”

“We used to be nudists,” says Bert.

“Albert Bramble!” Nora cries in admonishment.

Valkyrie smiles. “Is that so, Mr Bramble?”

Bert nods, evidently finding a little of that old energy he used to have. “All the time, in the nude,” he says. “Making a cup of tea, nude. Doing the gardening, nude. Taking a bath, nude.”

“The last one’s pretty common, though,” Valkyrie points out.

Nora taps her husband’s arm. “Bert, the nice young scary lady does not want to know about our days as nudists.”

Valkyrie’s smile threatens to vanish. “I’m not scary.”

“Being nude is nothing to be ashamed of,” says Bert.

“It’s not about being ashamed, Bert,” says Nora, “it’s about not planting images in their heads of our dangly bits.”

“Oooh, wow,” says Valkyrie. “Okay, change of subject. Some of you, like Mr and Mrs Bramble and Mr Aylesworth, have missed certain recent developments, such as Emilia attacking Asher, and Clive chasing her off.”

Aylesworth’s eyes widen. “Mr Devoe was attacked? Is he all right?”

“He’s unconscious, so we’ve put him in a room down that corridor there, the room opposite the grandfather clock.”

“Room Three,” says Aylesworth.

“Room Three, there you go. We’re all going to take turns watching over him. Kate, you’re first.”

Kate nods. “Okay, that’s a good idea. Are you, maybe, going to come with me and we can watch over him—”

“No,” says Valkyrie.

“Aw, nuts,” mutters Kate, and stomps off in a sulk.

“What do the rest of us do?” Elaine asks.

“You’re going to stay here,” says Valkyrie, “in the reception area, or in the foyer, while Skulduggery and I solve Vogel’s murder and, like, bring his killer to justice, or whatever.”

“Can we put on the TV?” Terry asks.

“The TV isn’t working,” Aylesworth tells him.

Gideon seems more concerned about the lack of visual entertainment than any of the attacks so far. “Why isn’t the TV working?”

“It’s the weather,” Aylesworth tells him. “Up here on Hollow Hill we’re exposed to the elements. We do have the music to listen to, however.”

Gideon furrows his brow. “Can you turn it off?”

“Ah, no. I’m afraid the music is, um, constant. It’s how the hotel was built.”

“I like the music,” says Bert. “It reminds me of my days as a nudist.”

“Skipping past that,” Valkyrie says, “you can’t turn the music off? Ever?”

“If you cut the power, the music stops,” Aylesworth replies. “To be honest, I don’t know exactly how it works or how to turn it off or increase or decrease the volume or change the... I haven’t figured any of that out yet.”

“You’ve been here a year,” says Terry.

“I’ve been busy,” Aylesworth says, somewhat defensively. Then he perks up. “Sandwiches! Does anyone want any sandwiches? I, for one, am starving. Terry? Elaine?”

“I’m quite hungry,” Elaine says.

“I could eat a sandwich,” says Terry.

Aylesworth shakes his head. “I meant, would you two go into the kitchen and make sandwiches for everyone?”

“I unblock toilets,” Terry says. “I don’t make sandwiches.”

Before Aylesworth can argue, Elaine chimes in. “And you can’t expect me to continue working with all these dead people around.”

“There’s only one dead person,” Aylesworth says quickly. “Mr Devoe is still alive.”

Valkyrie can maybe sense a bickering argument beginning to brew, so she decides to extricate herself as politely as she can manage.

“I’ve already been around you people more than I want to be,” she says, “so I’m going to walk over there for a bit. Keep in mind that I’ll still be able to see everyone, so no one misbehave, and nobody better kill anybody else.”

Valkyrie walks towards the foyer before anyone can object, but Lucy follows.

“Excuse me, Valkyrie? Do you mind if I walk with you?”

“I am trying to get away from people,” Valkyrie tells her. “You’re people. Do you see my dilemma?”

“I do, yes, but one of them is a murderer, you see, and I’d rather not hang out with them, so...”

Valkyrie observes her through narrowed and suspicious eyes. “You’re not going to try to kill me, are you?”

Lucy almost laughs. “Oh, God, no,” she says. “You are far too scary to try to kill.”

“Then yes,” Valkyrie says, “you may accompany me into the foyer.”

“Thank you.”

They continue to walk towards the foyer. Three seconds later, they reach it. It isn’t very far.

“Do you know this piece of music?” Lucy asks.

“I do,” says Valkyrie, “for I am an expert in classical music in much the same way that I’m an expert in art and architecture and doorknobs. I know everything and never get anything wrong.”

Lucy watches her. “I think you’re being sarcastic.”

“What I’m being,” Valkyrie says, “is Skulduggery.”

Lucy nods. “I’d say being around someone like him can get quite... demoralising. No matter how good you are, you’ll never be better than him.”

Now Valkyrie watches Lucy. “Dear God, no.”

Lucy laughs. “Really? I read that wrong?”

“What you have to understand, Lucy, is that I’m great. Like, I’m bloody brilliant. There ain’t no one better than me. Would Skulduggery have been able to use a double negative like that? Not a chance! Oh, he’s a genius, don’t get me wrong. He’s wonderful to have on your side.”

“But?”

“But I think of him as a handy resource. I could look this stuff up, sure, and waste a little time, or I could ask Skulduggery, skip straight to the answer, punch the bad guy, and be home for dinner.”

“So you use him for his genius?”

Valkyrie nods. “I use him for his genius, and I keep him around because he’s my best friend.”

“That’s... sweet.”

“Is it? Oh, good. I can never tell when something is properly sweet. I always wonder if I’m getting it wrong, if this thing that I think is sweet is just warped and psychotic.”

“Is that what happens to everyone who does magic? They lose track of the normal things and it all gets, like, twisted?”

“It can,” Valkyrie says. “Especially for the sorcerers who’ve been around for hundreds of years. You live that long and it changes you in ways you don’t even realise. I’ve seen it happen.”

Lucy stops walking and frowns.

“What?” says Valkyrie.

“Nothing,” Lucy replies. “Nothing, sorry.”

“Tell me.”

“These globe things on the shelves,” says Lucy. “There was a pretty one with really vibrant colours right here. It’s gone.

“Are you sure you’re not just getting mixed up?” Valkyrie asks. “There are a lot of them, with a lot of different colours.”

Lucy makes a face, and then shrugs. “I might be.”

“You know what they are?” Valkyrie asks.

“Yes,” Lucy lies. “Lava lamps.”

“Lava lamps,” Valkyrie says with a single nod. “So this grand old hotel with all those stairs and wood and grandfather clocks and paintings on the walls and ghosts and spookiness, built to contain the spirit of a tormented young woman... has a collection of lava lamps, is that it? That makes sense to you?”

“So they’re not lava lamps?” Lucy says. “Are they snow globes? My other guess was snow globes.”

“They’re Soul Catchers,” Valkyrie tells her. “Those things swirling around in there? Souls.”

Lucy pales. “Like, actual souls? From people? Actual souls from people?”

“Yep.”

“You’re saying all of these glass bowling balls sitting on all of these shelves are full of dead people’s souls?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But... why?”

They come to the window beside the door and Valkyrie peers out into the darkness beyond the rain. “What do you know of the history of this hotel?”

“I know about Edward Burgess and Emilia and...”

“Skulduggery told me the history, so now I’m going to tell you the history,” Valkyrie says. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yes,” Lucy says, smiling again. “I’m fine with that.”

“Some people aren’t. Some people don’t want to learn new things. I don’t want to learn new things. I know enough things. Why would I want to learn about this stupid hotel? Anyway, I learned about it.”

Valkyrie sighs, like she needs to build herself up to this next part, and they start walking back towards reception.

“It started as an ordinary country house built by some guy called Joyce in eighteen fifty-something, then sold to Edward Burgess in eighteen sixty-something. Ten years later, Emilia Pearce died and Burgess hired an architect called Bewilder Mowbray to build round it.”

“That’s an unusual name,” is all Lucy can think of to say.

“He was a sorcerer, apparently well known for designing and constructing extraordinary buildings.”

Lucy raises an eyebrow. “So it was Mowbray who came up with all these corridors that turn back on themselves? What a genius...”

“I know, right?” says Valkyrie. “So Burgess sits in a room only he can find – a room that appears once every eight years for the rest of us – and he sits there, trying to communicate with Emilia using the Staff of Arkanemok.”

“The staff of what?”

“A one-of-a-kind magical doodah, created by some great and powerful sorcerer back in the mists of time, that lets you chat to the dead. But Emilia never answered because, you know, why would she? Then Burgess died.”

“And what happened then?”

“Then the serial killer turned up,” Valkyrie says as they rejoin the others in reception.

“Mrs Bramble,” Aylesworth is saying, “you haven’t touched your sandwich.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” says Nora.

“You don’t like it?” Aylesworth asks.

The sandwich sits on the reception desk like two pieces of bread separated by jam – which is exactly what it is.

“No, no!” says Nora. “It’s a fine sandwich! It looks delicious! I just... I can’t eat bread, you see. My doctor told me that bread just doesn’t agree with my intestines.”

Aylesworth stares at her. “But you asked for a sandwich.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” Nora says. “And you went to all that trouble, as well.”

Aylesworth looks at Bert’s plate. “Mr Bramble, you’re not eating yours, either.”

Bert shrugs. “Bread clogs my bowels.”

“Oh.”

“But we very much appreciate the effort,” Nora says brightly.

“Right,” says Aylesworth, his voice distant.

“Oscar,” says Valkyrie, “you bought this hotel a year ago, did you? And the place was pretty much as we see it now?”

“Indeed it was,” says Aylesworth, apparently eager to move his mind on to something other than the lacklustre response to his lacklustre sandwiches.

“And the staff?” Skulduggery asks, walking up from behind.

Aylesworth cries out in fright and spins, managing to find a laugh before he comes to a stop. “Oh! Mr Pleasant! I didn’t hear you sneak up!”

“I don’t sneak, Mr Aylesworth,” Skulduggery says. “I walk quietly. Did any of the staff work for the previous owners? Elaine? Terry?”

“We’ve both been working here maybe six, seven months,” says Terry.

“What did you do before this?” Valkyrie asks.

“I was a plumber.”

“I wasn’t doing much of anything,” Elaine says.

“None of the other staff had worked in the hotel before I hired them, no,” Aylesworth says. “We all started afresh.”

Skulduggery nods slowly. “The previous owner died under unfortunate circumstances, did he not?”

“Ah, yes,” says Aylesworth sombrely. “A Mr Everett Huxley. He died in a brawl, from what I understand, with a local... what’s the word for it? Ruffian?”

“Thug,” Terry says quietly.

Skulduggery tilts his head at Terry. “You knew the young man who killed him?”

Terry nods. “Ian Gannis. A miserable piece of work. Rotten to the core he was. Scrawny, small, funny-looking. A real lowlife. Used to bully Constable Dudley when they were kids, didn’t he, Elaine?”

Elaine hesitates. “I wouldn’t know about that, but—”

“But everyone knew what he was like, didn’t they?”

“They did, yeah,” Elaine admits.

“Gannis died in the brawl, too, didn’t he?” Valkyrie asks. “They both went over a railing or something?”

“Railing snapped and they fell, yeah,” Terry replies.

Skulduggery turns to Aylesworth. “And that’s when you bought the hotel?”

“It was, yes.”

“You were the only one who was interested?”

“As far as I know. There may have been some other interested parties, but I don’t think they ever made an offer.”

“Are there many hotels in the area?”

“Nearest one is in Cholmondeley,” says Terry. “There was another one not too far away, but that burned down.”

“Which meant the asking price for this place went right up,” Aylesworth says ruefully. “It was completely worth it, don’t get me wrong, but it was an extra unexpected expense.”

Valkyrie folds her arms. “Did the Soul Catchers come with the hotel or did you add them yourself?”

Aylesworth raises his eyebrows politely. “Soul what? Catchers? I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

“Those globes in the foyer.”

“Ah, they came with the hotel, indeed they did. I don’t know if they were Huxley’s, or if he inherited them, too. I had to bring very little, if I’m being honest, and it’s just as well. There are a lot of rooms and I would have struggled to fill them with my own trinkets. What did you say they were? Soul Catchers? What is that exactly?”

“They catch souls,” Lucy says. “There are actual souls in there.”

The polite look on Aylesworth’s face is replaced by something approaching horror. “You mean... from dead people?”

“I was telling Lucy here a little about the hotel,” Valkyrie says. “I told her about Bewilder Mowbray.”

“Ah, yes,” says Aylesworth. “An astonishing architect designing an astonishing building. I have a map of the corridors and even I get lost.”

“We got to the part where Burgess died, waiting in his little hidden room with his Staff of Arkanemok that let him communicate with ghosts.”

A small smile from Aylesworth. “So the story goes, yes. Well, after that, the building went through various owners until it became a hotel in 1909.”

“And twenty years later it was bought by a sorcerer named Nebular Grody,” says Skulduggery.

“I’m sorry?”

“Nebular Grody,” Valkyrie says. “You know about him, don’t you? Over the course of the next year, he murdered eighteen people in the cellar.”

Aylesworth hesitates. “I thought the man who killed all those people was called Victor McHenry.”

“His mortal alias,” says Skulduggery. “Grody murdered eighteen innocent people and trapped their spirits in the Soul Catchers you have displayed in the entrance to the hotel.”

Aylesworth’s eyes flicker to the foyer. “Oh my... Oh my God, I had no idea.”

Elaine frowns, and leans forward. “Wait. Hold on. Wait. A serial killer worked here?”

“A serial killer owned the hotel,” Valkyrie tells her.

Elaine stares at Aylesworth. “And you didn’t tell us that when we applied for our jobs?”

“It was a hundred years ago!” he protests.

“Still!”

“I’m... I’m sorry. I should have. It’s just, this hotel is my last chance to make something of myself. I needed it to be a success. I thought that a haunted hotel would be a popular destination and so I wanted the place to be spooky and ghostly, not... not serial-killery.”

“What happened to him, dear?” asks Nora. “The serial killer?”

Bert perks up. “We’re having cereal?”

“Serial killer, Bert,” Nora tells him gently.

Bert gives a small nod. “I’ll try some. It’s bound to be better than that sandwich.”

Aylesworth’s face drops even further.

“Grody was caught by mortal police,” Valkyrie says. “He disappeared from custody a few days later, and that’s when the sorcerers got him. They threw him in a prison he wouldn’t be able to escape from.”

“When did he die?” Terry asks.

“Oh, he’s not dead,” Skulduggery responds.

“But... what? It was a hundred years ago.”

“Mages can live for a very long time.”

“He’s alive?” Elaine says, alarmed. “What if he’s escaped? What if he’s here right now? What if he’s the one who killed the German man?”

“It is highly unlikely that Nebular Grody has managed to escape,” Skulduggery says. He takes a moment, then pulls his phone from his pocket as he walks off. “Hold on, I’ll make a call.”

“How come his phone works and ours don’t?” Terry grumbles. “That’s unfair, that is.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Gideon announces.

“Nobody cares,” Lucy tells him.

Gideon looks like he’s cycling through possible retorts, then gives up and skulks away.

“How old are you, Valkyrie?” asks Lucy.

Valkyrie raises an eyebrow. “How old do I look?”

“Like, twenty.”

“Add ten years and change to that.”

“Seriously?” says Lucy. “And how long will you stay looking like this?”

“There’s no way to tell,” Valkyrie says, “but... a long time, I’d say. One or two hundred years before any noticeable change, maybe.”

“Two hundred years,” Lucy breathes. “No wrinkles. No crow’s feet. No grey hair. No suddenly putting on weight in areas you’d never had to worry about before.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Valkyrie admits.

“Are there any downsides to it all?”

“Don’t know. Maybe all the people trying to kill me?”

“Getting old is awful,” Nora says.

Bert perks up again. “What’s this?”

“Getting old,” says Nora. “I was just saying how getting old is awful.”

“You still look as beautiful as ever,” Bert says to his wife.

“Oh, Bert!”

“If we could, maybe, iron you out, smooth over all those wrinkles, I’d say you’d still be a looker!”

Nora gazes at him. “You’re such a charmer.”

“Put you on some sort of rack, maybe,” Bert says, getting into the idea now. “Pull all your skin to the back and just iron the rest of it. And I’d be joining you, mark my words. I’d be clambering up beside you. ‘Move aside,’ I’d say. ‘Shuffle over. Now do me.’”

“Oh, Bert, the things you come up with.”

Bert smiles, and kisses Nora on the cheek before settling back.

“Ageing is a funny thing,” he says. “You young folk, it’ll be a while before you have to deal with it, but it’ll come for you. Time comes for us all. Your body will start to betray you. Aches and pains will slowly become a part of who you are. You’ll get slower. Walking from one end of the street to the other will become a chore. You’ll be an irritant to the people walking behind, waiting for their chance to pass you. They’ll mutter and complain and glare, and you just have to accept their scorn.

“Your eyesight will fail. Your hearing. You’ll be on so many pills. And it’s the pills that remind you, every morning, every night, of how much you depend on medicines to keep you going. You’re not enough any more, the pills will tell you. You’re not strong enough, or vital enough. You’re not independent enough to survive this world. You’re a burden on those around you. A burden.”

Mozart’s music plays overhead and for a moment nobody speaks.

“Jesus,” says Lucy.

“Oh, God,” says Elaine.

Skulduggery returns, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Okay, I spoke to the warden of...” He stops, his head tilting. “What’s wrong? What happened? Did someone else die? Was it Gideon? I wouldn’t mind too much if it was—”

Gideon walks back in. “What’s this?” he asks.

“Romeo, excellent, just talking about you,” Skulduggery says. “If I could have everyone’s attention, as if that needs to be said. I just spoke to the warden of Ironpoint Gaol. I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but Nebular Grody escaped from prison three years ago.”

Elaine sags back against the desk. “Oh my God, we’re going to die!”

“You’re probably not going to die,” Skulduggery assures her. “On a completely unrelated note, I’m now going to check on Kate, who I’m sure is perfectly fine.”

Leaving Valkyrie to deal with the panicking guests – and the hotel owner – Skulduggery walks quickly from the reception area into the adjoining corridor and down its length, passing doors marked Staff Only, until he makes a right turn into another corridor and reaches Room 3. He knocks as he opens the door and steps inside.

Asher lies where Skulduggery put him, on the bed, his eyes closed, his limbs straight. There is, however, no sign of the person he has assigned to watch over the unconscious man.

“Kate?” Skulduggery says.

From underneath Asher’s bed, there is a scramble of sorts, until Kate pokes her head out.

“Oh, thank God!” she says.

“What are you doing there?”

“Hiding,” she answers as she crawls out. “There is a murderer on the loose, you know.”

“A murderer who may very well be an escaped serial killer.”

Kate stands, even more horrified than she was a moment ago. “And you left me here alone?”

“You’re not alone,” Skulduggery says, coming forward to check Asher’s pulse. “The unconscious form of Asher Devoe is keeping you company.”

“Unconscious being the operative word. How is he?”

“Pulse is strong and steady. From what I can see, he should be awake. But he’s not.”

“We should really get him to a hospital,” Kate says.

“If his affliction is supernatural in nature, he may need more than a hospital. Come. I’ll escort you back to the others and Elaine can take your place here.” He crosses to the door and opens it.

“Maybe don’t tell Lucy I was hiding under the bed?” Kate says. “I’ve got a reputation to protect. She kind of idolises me.”

Skulduggery nods. “I know what that’s like. Your secret is safe.”

Kate exits and Skulduggery follows her out, closing the door behind him.

They walk back towards reception and Kate tries to ask a casual question.

“So Valkyrie’s girlfriend is a long-term thing, or...?”

“Long-term,” Skulduggery confirms.

Kate nods. “But is it serious, or is it more like a kind of—”

“It’s serious.”

“Mm, yes. For both of them, or is Valkyrie more hesitant about—?”

“For both of them.”

“And you’re quite sure?”

“Quite.”

“Has Valkyrie mentioned me at all?”

“Only in terms of you being a suspect in a murder investigation.”

“I see, yes. And has she commented on my appearance, or whether she finds shorter American girls attractive in any way?”

“She has not.”

“Interesting, yes. Thank you.” They pass the corridor to reception and keep walking straight on. “I can’t help but notice that the hotel reception is that way and we’re headed this way.”

“The air is moving quickly this way,” Skulduggery says.

“And that means...?”

“A door or window is open.”

“And we don’t want the heat to escape, or...?”

“Or a serial killer has broken into the hotel.”

“And we’re investigating? Oh, good.”

“You’ll be perfectly safe with me.”

“Okay. Okay, cool.” They walk on. “So does Valkyrie have a type that you’ve noticed?”

“Of the four romantic liaisons that Valkyrie is prepared to speak about, the first was dim, the second murderous, the third murderous, and the fourth Scottish.”

“So her type would average out as murderous?”

“I suppose it would.”

And now we’re with Valkyrie as she waits outside the ladies’ toilets, just off reception. On the whole, Valkyrie likes to think of herself as normal. She has an unusual job, yes, and she does unusual things, absolutely, but she has endeavoured to ensure that being a part of the magical community – or, indeed, saving the world/universe whenever the occasion necessitated such a move – would not change who she is.

She’s normal. She does normal things. She is not scary. She is not intimidating.

But every so often she likes to scare people.

When Elaine emerges from the lavatory, Valkyrie is right there at the door and Elaine yelps in fright.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Valkyrie says. “Did I startle you?”

Elaine gapes. “Were you just standing here, waiting to scare me?”

Valkyrie pauses before answering. “Yes.”

“Why... why would you do that?”

“I get bored easily.”

“This hotel is filled with ghosts and serial killers and you thought scaring me was a good idea?”

“Yes.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m normal. I’m the normal one. Skulduggery’s the weird one. Have you seen him? He’s a skeleton. I’m not a skeleton.”

“You’re easily as weird as he is.”

“No,” Valkyrie says, pointing at Elaine. “No. I’m normal. We could have a conversation about anything. About music. Who’s your favourite band? What’s your favourite song in the charts right now?”

“I don’t... I don’t know.”

“Do you want to know mine?”

“I don’t really... I mean, sure.”

Valkyrie looks at her. “I don’t know any.”

“Then why would you get me to ask you?”

“I don’t know. I thought a song would pop into my head. You know what did pop into my head? Movies. Do you want to talk about movies?”

“I don’t want to talk about movies!” Elaine says. “I want you to stop being scary!”

“Excuse me? That’s quite rude, you know. Calling someone scary when they’re not scary is very offensive in my culture. Also, I’m not scary.”

“You’re literally standing out here just to scare me!”

“But only because I was bored,” Valkyrie explains.

Elaine moves past her and walks quickly to reception. “She’s scaring me,” she says loudly to the gathered guests.

“No, I’m not,” Valkyrie insists, following behind. “Anyway, the reason I was there in the first place, Elaine, was to deliver some good news.”

Elaine whirls round, her eyes lighting up with hope. “We can go home?”

“No.”

“I can go home?”

“No, but it is your turn to watch over Asher’s unconscious body.”

“You want me to sit in a room with an unconscious guy while there’s a serial killer loose in this hotel?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go with you, Elaine,” Terry says, stepping forward. “I don’t really want to be alone with anyone else.”

“Thank you, Terry,” Elaine says, and they walk off towards Room 3.

Valkyrie watches them go. “Man,” she says, “Elaine had better hope he’s not the killer.”

“Do you think he might be?” Lucy asks, wandering over.

“Everyone’s a suspect,” says Valkyrie.

Lucy nods over at Bert and Nora. “Even those two?”

Valkyrie considers it. “I’m not sure Bert and Nora would be capable of hanging Vogel from the rafters.”

“Maybe they’re magic.”

“Maybe they are.”

“How can you tell if someone’s magic?”

“You cut off their head,” Valkyrie says. “If it grows back, they’re magic.”

They start walking, nowhere in particular, and Lucy looks over at Aylesworth, who is behind the desk, towelling his shoes. “What about the mysterious new hotel owner? Killer or not-killer?”

Valkyrie follows her gaze. “What makes him mysterious?”

“Well, for one,” Lucy says, “he’s not from around here. For two... we don’t know that he’s not the killer. Isn’t that enough to be mysterious and make him a suspect? I mean, look at him over there, drying his shoes, being all suspicious... Or Gideon. Now he looks like a murderer. Dresses all in black...” Lucy glances at Valkyrie’s outfit. “Oh. Sorry.”

Valkyrie just shrugs. “Like I said, everyone’s a suspect, Lucy. Everyone.”

Lucy frowns as they wander away from reception.. “Why did you say it like that? Am I a suspect? I am, aren’t I? Oh my God. I’ve never been a suspect before. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Thrilled? Flattered? Offended?”

“There are many conflicting feelings one feels when one is suspected of murder,” Valkyrie says, and once again they find themselves in the foyer, as Tchaikovsky plays.

“Have you ever been suspected of murder?” Lucy asks.

“Yes,” says Valkyrie.

“Did you do it?”

“We’re not talking about me, Lucy. We’re talking about you.”

“Are we? Since when?”

Valkyrie answers that question with a question. “You’re here to interview Romeo Gideon, are you?”

Lucy nods. “Yes. We are. Yes.”

“How long have you been a journalist?”

“It’s more of a hobby...”

Valkyrie nods slowly. “Uh-huh. So what do you do when you’re not journalisting, Lucy?”

“I’m a music teacher.”

“And how long have you known Kate?”

“A few years,” Lucy says. “She was a teaching assistant in the school where I work. Now she’s a librarian.”

“And are you two...?”

Lucy shakes her head. “No, no, I’m... I don’t have anyone.” There’s a pause that Valkyrie leaves for Lucy to fill. “I used to. I used to be married, but she...”

“Died,” says Valkyrie.

“Yeah.”

“Violently?”

Lucy watches Valkyrie cautiously. “Why would you ask that?”

“I know the look.”

“Yes,” Lucy says, her voice quiet. “Violently.”

“It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? What was your wife’s name?”

“Guenevere,” Lucy says, like the name itself will cause her heart to break all over again.

“Who killed her?” Valkyrie asks.

Lucy checks behind them, making sure nobody else can hear. “There’s probably something I should tell you.”

We leave Lucy to tell Valkyrie her secret and pop by to see Skulduggery and Kate as they walk through a long corridor with paintings lining the walls. Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre plays.

“Does every fancy house in England have a corridor like this?” Kate asks. “I bet they do.”

They pass a portrait of an elderly man, and she slows for a moment before hurrying to catch up.

“Do you think he’s watching us?” she whispers. “If this Nebulous Toady—”

“Nebular Grody,” Skulduggery says.

“If he owned this hotel, maybe he installed, like, secret passageways and two-way mirrors... Wait, is it a two-mirror or a one-way mirror?”

“It’s both.”

Kate shakes her head. “No, the kind of thing that’s a mirror on one side and the other side you can see through.”

“It’s called both a two-way mirror and a one-way mirror.”

Kate looks at him. “But that’s stupid. They should just pick one.”

“They should.”

The air is moving quickly, and even Kate can tell that there’s a window or a door open somewhere nearby.

“Anyway,” she says, “do you think Nebular Grody cut the eyes out of the paintings and he’s using them to spy on us? What about that one?” She points at the painting ahead of them.

“That’s a landscape,” says Skulduggery.

“But look, there’s a goat in the distance.”

“True,” Skulduggery concedes, “but it’s too far away to see anything.”

They take a right, and Danse Macabre is replaced with Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. Ahead of them, a glass door stands open. The wind pushes the rain in, forming a large puddle. Kate hangs back as Skulduggery approaches. He examines the lock.

“So?” Kate calls. “Did someone break in? Do we have an intruder?”

Skulduggery closes the door. “It wasn’t forced,” he says, “simply unlocked. But there does seem to have been a visitor.”

Kate comes forward, and the light reflects off the faint footprints leading down the corridor.

“You’re going to want to follow them, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Indeed,” Skulduggery says.

They follow the footprints.

“Is this, like, a normal night for you?” Kate asks. “Solve a murder, look for missing people, deal with intruders... Is this normal?”

“None of these things is exactly uncommon in my line of work.”

“That’s actually reassuring. I feel safe with you.”

Skulduggery looks at her. “Do you not feel safe with Valkyrie?”

Kate grins. “I feel all kinds of things with Valkyrie, but I’ve met hot, buff girls before. You’re a skeleton.”

“I’m really not that interesting,” Skulduggery says, and then he shrugs. “Apologies. Valkyrie is trying to make me more approachable. More humble. The truth is, I’m incredibly interesting. I’m a walking phenomenon, an impossible person, a genius and a warrior driven by a darkness few can comprehend. My past has been a whirlwind of conflict, strife, and grand destiny, and my future promises intrigue and drama on a scale hitherto undreamed of. I am the most fascinating, magnetic, truly dangerous person you will ever meet and your life has been forever changed by meeting me. When we part, assuming you survive the encounter, every day without me will seem dull and drab, safe and sanitised. I am everything, Kate. I am the high point of your life. It’s all downhill from here.”

“Wow,” says Kate.

“Yes, exactly. ‘Wow.’”

The footprints have dried up a few steps from a junction of corridors.

“Which way do we go?” she asks.

Skulduggery has already made up his mind. “Let’s try down here.”

And down they go, into another corridor, a corridor with wooden floors and paintings on the walls.

“We’ve been here before,” Skulduggery says.

Kate frowns. “Are you sure? A lot of these corridors look the same.”

“We were in this exact corridor four minutes ago,” Skulduggery tells her. “That’s Rachmaninoff playing and these are Rooms Twenty-six to Thirty-eight.”

“Well, this entire hotel is confusing, so I wouldn’t feel bad about walking in circles.”

“But I don’t walk in circles,” Skulduggery says. “I’m me. I save the world and look good doing it.”

“Clive said something about that,” Kate says. “He said that you and Valkyrie have saved the world. Is that true?”

“We’ve done more than save the world,” Skulduggery says, pausing to look around. “We’ve saved the universe. We’ve saved everything.”

“How can you have saved everything?”

“Everything was in danger. Everything was about to be lost forever. We ensured that didn’t happen.”

“But that’s... How can you even wrap your head round that?”

“I can wrap my head round a lot,” Skulduggery assures her. “Why did you want to interview Gideon?”

Kate blinks quickly to adjust to the role of interviewee. “He’s the top magician in the business. Bringing him to the most haunted house in Britain just seemed like a good idea.”

“That’s not why you wanted to interview him.”

“No?”

“There’s something special about Romeo Gideon, isn’t there?”

They turn a corner into the next corridor as Danse Macabre plays and Kate immediately freezes.

Clive lies against the wall, unmoving.

Skulduggery is at his side in an instant, checking for a pulse.

Kate snaps out of her paralysis and hurries forward. “Is he okay? Is he alive? Can you do CPR?”

“He’s beyond CPR, I’m afraid,” Skulduggery murmurs.

Kate yanks the satchel bag off her shoulder and digs into it. “I have a first-aid kit,” she says. “Maybe there’s something in here that’ll help.”

Her hands are shaking and she drops the bag, and the contents spill across the floor.

“Oh, for God’s sake! Where is that bloody thing? I carry a first-aid kit with me wherever I... Here!”

She hands Skulduggery a plaster. “I also have an antiseptic wipe and a small, blunt pair of scissors! Oh, God. Maybe if we move him on to his side so he doesn’t swallow his tongue—”

“I don’t think a swallowed tongue is what killed him,” Skulduggery says, “but I do think the rather large knife sticking out of his chest may have contributed.” He gives her back the plaster. “Thank you, though.”

Kate takes it, drops it in her bag, scoops up the rest of her stuff and puts her bag over her shoulder again – all the while without actually looking at Clive’s body.

“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” she asks quietly.

“Well,” Skulduggery says, “you might.”

We’re in the foyer of the Hollow Hotel, surrounded by all those shelves displaying all those Soul Catchers, and Lucy has just finished telling Valkyrie her secret.

Valkyrie takes a long moment, absorbing what she’s been told. “Does Kate know?”

“Most of it,” says Lucy. “Some of it.” She pauses. “I’m not asking you to beat him up or anything, but do you think you could, maybe, intimidate Gideon into—?”

“We’ll get him to talk,” Valkyrie says.

“Thank you. And... I’m sorry. For lying.”

“Lucy, I get it. It’s cool.”

They look through to reception as Kate speedwalks in. “Clive’s dead,” she announces, panic gripping the edges of her words.

Aylesworth, Nora, and Bert stare in shock as Valkyrie and Lucy hurry in from the foyer.

“He’s dead,” Kate says. “Stabbed. We found him. Skulduggery and me. Skulduggery and I?”

Skulduggery strolls in to join them. “Skulduggery and I,” he says.

“We found him,” Kate says. Her hands are shaking. “We walked down the corridor and then a few minutes later we came back and he was... he was dead.”

Nora expels a breath, and then her eyebrows shoot up. “The killer must have been right behind you.”

“Where is Gideon?” Skulduggery asks.

“The dramatic man went to his room a few minutes ago,” says Nora.

“I reminded him of your instructions to stay in reception, but he, uh, objected.” Aylesworth’s smile is frayed. “My apologies.”

Skulduggery folds his arms and taps his chin. “And Terry and Elaine?”

“They’re with Asher,” Valkyrie says. “I’ll check on them.”

She hurries away.

“We certainly didn’t expect this when we left the house this morning, did we, Bert?” says Nora in a valiant effort to fill the dreadful silence.

“What?” says Bert.

“We didn’t expect anyone to get murdered this morning, did we, Bert?”

Bert looks surprised. “Someone got murdered this morning?”

“Check your hearing aid, Bert. I think it’s on the blink again.”

“Waste of money, this thing,” Bert says, pulling the hearing aid off. “There. That’s much better.”

“This is awful,” Aylesworth mumbles. “This is dreadful. Two murders in... oh, my. This will ruin me.”

“It’s bad for your hotel, Mr Aylesworth,” says Lucy, “but I’d say it’s a lot worse for Mr Vogel and Clive.”

“What’s worse for Clive?” Romeo Gideon says, wandering in. “Quitting? Yes, well, I tried to talk to him, but apparently I’m the ‘problem’ so maybe one of you will have better luck.”

Skulduggery watches him. “Romeo. You were told to stay in the reception area.”

Gideon squares his shoulders. “Listen to me, Detective Pleasant, now that my inglorious past is out in the open, I no longer have to watch what I say. I have made a lot of money, and I am a very powerful entertainer, and I have had it up to here with your intimidating stature and—”

“Clive is dead.”

Gideon blinks. “I’m sorry, what?”

“He was murdered a few minutes ago.”

“Who was?”

“Clive’s dead, Romeo,” Lucy says. “Somebody killed him.”

Gideon frowns. “As in somebody insulted him so badly that he may never recover? I’m sorry, I really don’t take your meaning.”

“He was stabbed, with a knife,” Skulduggery says. “He bled out. His heart stopped beating and his brain ceased to function. He is no more. I’ve moved his body to one of the other rooms.”

“Another ruined bedspread,” Aylesworth mutters.

“He’s dead?” says Gideon. “Clive’s dead? But that makes no sense. The last time I saw him, he was alive. How can he be dead now if he was alive the last time I saw him? You can’t be both! You have to pick one or the other!”

“I’m afraid someone chose for him,” Skulduggery says.

Gideon stares at him, then stares at Lucy, then at Kate, then at the floor. His eyes are close to spilling tears. His lip is trembling. His throat is sore.

He coughs, once and loudly, then straightens and nods and nods again. The others watch him compose himself. It is an odd sensation watching someone struggle to keep themselves from breaking through sheer show-business professionalism.

Gideon takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. Once he’s done that, he speaks.

“Clive Ferrier was a very good assistant,” he says. “Tonight’s fiasco notwithstanding, he tended to book very good hotel rooms and always got me my favourite tables at my favourite restaurants. Granted, that had more to do with my celebrity than any skill or talent or, indeed, aptitude on his part, but I value basic competency when it comes to this job.”

Kate looks at Lucy, and Lucy frowns at Kate, but no one says anything and Gideon continues.

“As a person, Clive was... fine. His manner was – again, tonight notwithstanding – unobjectionable, and his hygiene was excellent. There was an unfortunate period of about eight weeks when he had a moustache, but I finally convinced him to shave it off. If I knew of a particular poem he liked, I would recite it, and if I knew of a song that would encapsulate who he was as a person I would, if not sing it, then ask that you hum it quietly to yourself whenever you think of him. He will be missed.”

Gideon bows and takes a step back, like he’s retreating from the spotlight. It’s weird.

Valkyrie walks back in. “Asher is still unconscious,” she announces. “Elaine and Terry never left his side. Lucy was with me when Clive was killed.”

Skulduggery nods. “And Kate was with me.”

“I’m sorry, what are we talking about?” says Aylesworth. “Are we talking about alibis?”

“I was with Bert,” Nora says quickly, “and Bert was with me, I can promise you that.”

Valkyrie half winces in sympathy. “That doesn’t actually clear you of anything, Nora. You could both have done it.”

“Oh,” Nora says. “Oh, yes, I see.”

“There’s someone else, though,” Kate says. “An intruder. One of the side doors – the glass doors leading in from the garden – was open. There were footprints.”

“Someone else to add to our suspect list,” Valkyrie says, managing to refrain from sighing.

Gideon looks alarmed. “Wait, I’m not on this list, am I?”

“You’re the only one here with any motive,” Valkyrie tells him.

Gideon gapes. “What possible motive could I have for killing Clive?”

“You were angry at him for quitting,” says Kate.

Gideon takes two steps back, like he’s just been slapped in the face. “Is that a motive? Is it? What about the staff? They said they were watching over the unconscious man, but how do we know they weren’t really killing Clive instead? And what about you, Mr Hotel Owner? Where were you?”

“I was in my office,” Aylesworth fires back. “The door was open so anyone could have seen me at my desk!”

Gideon narrows his eyes. “And did anyone see you at your desk?”

“Well, I mean, no,” says Aylesworth, “because most of you left.”

Gideon jabs a finger at him. “Then I put it to you that the hotel owner killed Clive for some reason! Case closed!”

“Case not even remotely closed, Romeo,” Valkyrie says, unimpressed.

“If you’re innocent,” Lucy says to Gideon, “then why don’t you use your psychic powers to find out which one of us is the killer?”

Gideon bristles. “Reading somebody’s mind without their permission is not how we do things as Sensitives. It’s a gross invasion of privacy that is just—”

“Don’t you read people’s minds for your act?” Valkyrie asks.

“I do, yes, but—”

“They don’t give you permission, do they?”

“I only skim the surface thoughts of my audience members. It’s practically not even mind-reading.”

“How long did you work for the English Sanctuary, Romeo?”

Gideon hesitates. “Eight years.”

“What did you do for them exactly?”

“Various things.”

“You read minds for them?”

“Yes.”

Valkyrie walks round him slowly. “But your report describes you as a mediocre Sensitive. Did you fool them for eight years into thinking that you were better at your job than you were? How did you do that? How does a mind-reader hide the fact that he’s not very good at reading minds? Did you lie, Gideon?”

Gideon tries laughing, but that doesn’t work, so he reverts to seriousness. “You can’t just accuse me of something like that without... I took great pride in my—”

“Sensitives are used when people get arrested,” Valkyrie says, and turns to the mortals. “Mages don’t really get trials. Occasionally, yes, they do, and we have our own lawyers and judges and all that stuff, but usually we just get a Sensitive to find out if a bad guy’s a bad guy and, if they are, we throw them in prison. Easy-peasy. Skulduggery, have you heard of a sorcerer called Atrophy Nix?”

Skulduggery tilts his head. “A notorious serial killer who has been murdering people since 1867, we believe. Six years ago, their kill rate went up drastically. For the next four years, they were killing an estimated three people a month. In the early days, some of the victims demonstrated an apparent willingness to be murdered. They had opportunities to escape and yet they remained in place. On one occasion, an attack was interrupted by a knock on the door and the victim answered, bleeding quite profusely, and assured their neighbour that nothing untoward was going on, that they were merely spending time with their close friend, Atrophy Nix. The victim shut the door, and calmly returned to being murdered.”

“Why would they do that?” Kate asks.

“Investigators initially believed that Nix was using the victims’ given names to command them to allow themselves to be killed – but maintaining control during such extreme ordeals simply by using a given name is... unlikely. Plus, some of the victims were mages. They eventually came to the conclusion that Nix uses a Reverence Article.”

Valkyrie arches an eyebrow. “Which is...?”

“A Reverence Article is an object,” Skulduggery says. “It can be anything, really, imbued with what is called the Seven Layers of Obedience.”

“The what?”

“It’s from an old cult that worshipped some obscure god, none of which matters right now. If I had a Reverence Article that you had touched last, you would obey every command I gave.”

“Doubt it,” Valkyrie says.

“You would be compelled to.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t have much choice. It forms a—”

Valkyrie checks her nails. “I just wouldn’t do what you said.”

“The Seven Layers of Obedience are quite unbreakable,” Skulduggery persists. “There’s no—”

“I get that, I do, but I reckon it wouldn’t work on me.”

“Because you’re...?”

“Because I hate being told what to do.”

“I don’t think anyone likes being told what to do, but this kind of magic is something that willpower alone would not be able to—”

“All I’m saying is, I don’t think it’d work on me,” Valkyrie says, and shrugs like it’s a settled matter. “Please continue.”

“Right. Thank you.”

“So for the rest of us ordinary people,” says Kate, “you’re talking, what? Instant, unquestioning obedience?”

“It might not be unquestioning,” Skulduggery responds, “but it would be irresistible. It means you can’t act against the possessor of the Article, you can’t steal it from them, you can’t harm them or allow them to be harmed, and you must stay within a certain radius of them at all times.”

Lucy pinches the bridge of her nose. “So Atrophy Nix used this thing to get people to want to die?”

“Nix’s victims would not have wanted to raise the alarm,” Skulduggery says, “because to raise the alarm would be to act against the person killing them. The Reverence Article would stop them screaming, running, fighting back. It would leave them defenceless, helpless, and hopeless. Powerless to do anything but watch as he killed them.”

Valkyrie leans against the reception desk. “Which explains why he was able to kill so cleanly when he was starting out. So why did he change it up? Why did he start to get messier? Did he just like the thrill of almost being caught? Did he need more of a challenge?”

“Perhaps,” says Skulduggery. “Why are you asking about Nix?”

“Is that the intruder?” says Aylesworth. “Is that who broke in?”

“First of all, the intruder didn’t break in: the door was unlocked,” Skulduggery says. “Second of all, ignore that question and answer mine.”

“Lucy and Kate know more than they’ve let on,” Valkyrie says.

Skulduggery turns his head to Lucy and he waits.

She clears her throat. “A sorcerer named Umpton Fret was suspected of being Atrophy Nix,” she says. “They had a pretty flimsy case against him, mostly circumstantial evidence, but it wasn’t nothing. The thing was, the Sanctuary sorcerers were desperate. They needed to believe that Fret was guilty. They arrested him, brought him in, and got one of their Sensitives to read his mind.”

She looks at Gideon. “And what did you tell them?”

Gideon has gone quite pale. “How do you know this? I thought you were a journalist.”

“I’m not a journalist,” says Lucy. “I’m a music teacher.”

“But... your magazine...”

“Doesn’t exist. We made it up.”

“But... then what is the interview for?”

“There is no interview!” Lucy shouts. “The magazine doesn’t exist! It was all a lie – now answer my question! What did you tell the Sanctuary sorcerers?”

Gideon starts to babble. “I can’t be expected to remember every single case I was—”

“You’d remember that one, though,” Skulduggery cuts in. “You’d remember being involved in the Nix investigation.”

“You told them Umpton Fret was the killer, and they threw him in prison,” Lucy says. Snarls, almost. She’s been keeping this in all night and finally she gets her chance to show her anger. “Everyone celebrated. Even Nix himself. See, Nix hadn’t killed anyone since Fret had been arrested, but the day you said that Fret was the bad guy, Nix celebrated by going out, finding a pretty young sorcerer named Guenevere Propitious, and murdering her. She was my wife.”

Gideon stares at her. “I didn’t know that he wasn’t... I didn’t know Fret wasn’t...”

There are tears in Lucy’s eyes when she speaks, but her voice is strong.

“Guenevere’s body wasn’t found until a week later, by which stage Nix had killed two more – one sorcerer and one mortal. By the time anyone connected all these murders, Fret was already dead in prison. Apparently, he was bunking with a prisoner who’d also lost someone to Nix’s knife.”

A moment passes, and it brings the ghost of a smile to Lucy’s lips.

“I didn’t know magic existed until I met Guenevere. She made me happy in ways I can’t describe, and she told me all about your cool, hidden world. She was a good person. She was kind and smart and sweet and she loved me.”

“So why did you go to all this trouble to get me here?” Gideon asks, and his eyes grow wide. “Oh my God. You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

He staggers, but Lucy doesn’t move.

“When Guenevere disappeared, I went looking for her,” she says. “I tracked her phone to a tiny, ramshackle house in the middle of the city. I found the phone, found her bag, found the charm bracelet I’d given her – this charm bracelet...” She holds up her left hand and shakes it, the silver charms tinkling round her wrist.

“It’s actually become something of a good-luck charm to me ever since... but it didn’t work back when I needed it to because I didn’t find her. Couldn’t find her. There was nothing else in that house, and there was no owner listed.

“I took the sorcerers there, the ones investigating, but they couldn’t find anything useful and, when her body was recovered, they stopped contacting me. The investigators, the sorcerers Guenevere had introduced me to, they all... vanished. Yours was the only name I had, Romeo, and by that point you had left the Sanctuary to make it as a stage magician. I went to one of your shows. I sat right up front and I tried speaking to you when it was over, but you were gone.”

Gideon swallows. “I don’t do the stage-door thing.”

“I went to great lengths to get you here tonight, but not so I could kill you. Just so I could ask you: why did you do it?”

He blinks at her. “Why did I do what?”

“Why did you lie? Why did you tell them Fret had killed all those people? Why did you protect Nix?”

“Protect him?” says Gideon. “No. No, that’s not what I was doing.”

“You framed an innocent man to let a serial killer wriggle free of whatever net was closing in round him,” Lucy says, her anger rising once again. “Do you know who he is? Do you know who Nix is?”

“No!” Gideon insists.

Lucy steps towards him and roars. “Tell me who killed my wife!”

“I don’t know!” Gideon shouts back. “I was a dreadful psychic! But I couldn’t admit it to anyone, so, when they asked me if Umpton Fret was the guy they were looking for, I guessed!”

Lucy jerks back, a look of shock on her face.

“You guessed?” Kate says, her voice quiet.

“The detectives were so sure it had to be Fret that I just went along with it,” says Gideon, “and I said yep, this guy’s the killer. And they threw him in prison. I didn’t know he wasn’t. You see? I didn’t know he wasn’t the killer.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” says Aylesworth, “but since you’re now looking for a serial killer, could those of us who aren’t serial killers leave the premises?”

Valkyrie squints at him. “These are your premises, though, Mr Aylesworth.”

“Yes, they are, but I would prefer not to die on them.”

“Why do you think we should be looking for a serial killer?” Skulduggery asks.

A look of confusion comes over Aylesworth’s face. “Do you not suspect this Nix person of being responsible for the murders of Clive and Mr Vogel?”

“I don’t know why Nix would suddenly turn up at this hotel on this night,” Skulduggery responds. “Do you?”

“Well, no. I simply assumed... wrongly. I assumed wrongly.” Aylesworth sags. “So, once again, any one of us could be the killer, yes?”

Skulduggery nods. “Anyone except you, yes.”

Aylesworth looks up. “Except me? I’m not a suspect?”

“How come he isn’t a suspect?” Gideon says, edging immediately close to a tantrum.

Skulduggery ignores Gideon and focuses on Aylesworth. “No, Oscar, you’re not a suspect. Atrophy Nix has been active from 1867 until now. There have been, on average, two victims every month since then. You couldn’t possibly be Nix.”

Valkyrie hates asking Skulduggery questions in front of other people, but she has no choice. “And why couldn’t he?”

“Because, until three years ago, he was in prison,” Skulduggery says. “Weren’t you, Mr Grody?”

Aylesworth stares at him, mouth open, eyes confused, brow furrowed. Just when we think he’s about to laugh nervously at the ridiculousness of his suggestion, he breaks into a snarl –

“I’ll kill you all!”

– and launches himself over the desk at Skulduggery, swinging a fist that never gets anywhere close to landing because Skulduggery takes him down with one perfectly timed rap on the chin. Aylesworth collapses off the desk and lands, unconscious, on his face.

Oscar Aylesworth – otherwise known as Nebular Grody – frowns and mumbles, his eyes opening to the sound of shackles clicking closed. We’re in Room Eight, and Grody is now looking up blearily from the floor.

“What’s happening?” he asks. “What happened? Why are you all crowded round me?”

“Mr Grody, I’m just shackling you to a pipe in one of your charming ground-floor rooms,” Skulduggery tells him. “Are the cuffs too tight on your wrists? Are they cutting off the circulation? Good.”

Grody shakes his head, which serves to move around some of the thoughts that had lain down to sleep during his unwanted bout of unconsciousness.

“This is ridiculous. This is preposterous! I am not a serial killer! Why would you even think that?”

“You shouted that you were going to kill us all before Skulduggery punched you out,” Valkyrie tells him.

Grody makes a face. “Did I?”

“You did,” says Nora.

“Even I heard you,” says Bert. “And I don’t have my hearing aid in.”

“I’d forgotten that,” says Grody, and shrugs. “Well, fine, yes, I’m a serial killer, but I didn’t kill anyone tonight.”

“Do you promise?” Valkyrie asks.

“You have my word.”

“Is the word of a serial killer a vow you can depend on?”

“When it comes to this, yes,” Grody says solemnly. “Now, if you release me, I will leave, and never come back. Again, you have my word.”

Valkyrie chews her lip. “That’s so tempting. It’s such a good deal. Would you kill anyone?”

“On my way out?”

“On your way out, ever again, that kind of thing?”

Grody pauses, and takes a breath. He ponders.

“I don’t like that he has to think about this,” Gideon says.

“Shut up, Romeo,” Kate says, glaring at him. “We’re not done shouting at you yet.”

“Okay, I’ve thought about it,” Grody announces. “No, I will not kill anyone ever again.”

Valkyrie turns immediately to Skulduggery. “Did you hear that?”

“We’re not letting him go,” Skulduggery replies.

“But look at his little face!”

“Valkyrie, no. Mr Grody, you’re going back to prison where you will serve the remainder of the multiple life sentences you received for the murders of eighteen people.”

“That you can prove,” Grody says.

“That we can prove, yes.”

Lucy frowns. “How long is a life sentence for a sorcerer?”

“Generally, it’s eighty-eight years,” Skulduggery says. “Because Mr Grody received a life sentence for each one of those eighteen murders, he was technically sent to prison for one thousand five hundred and eighty-four years.”

“But I’ve already been in prison for a while,” Grody points out, “so how long do I have left of my—?”

“Because you broke out, I would expect your sentence to be reset to the beginning. So another one thousand five hundred and eighty-four years.”

Grody nods. “Hmm, right. And is my good behaviour taken into account?”

“You broke out.”

“So... no. I see.”

“Do people really stay in prison for, like, thousands of years?” asks Kate.

Skulduggery inclines his head slightly. “It’s rare. Any centuries-long sentence is usually commuted to one or two hundred years, but there are sorcerers who are just too dangerous to ever allow to walk free.”

“Execution would be kinder,” says Lucy.

“It’s generally believed, in polite magical society, that there’s enough death in the world already without our institutions adding to the total. Mr Grody—”

“Call me Nebular,” says Grody.

“No. Mr Grody, those eighteen people you murdered in 1929—”

“You want to know why I did it?”

“I want to know why you did it here. You bought this hotel, turned the basement into a torture chamber, and went about your grisly business.”

“‘Grisly business’,” Grody echoes with a smile. “I like that.”

“But you’ve never given a reason why you focused your attention in one place. Before 1929, you roamed the world, killing whenever the urge overtook you, keeping so many steps ahead of the authorities that they had no idea they were looking for the same man. But then you bought the Hollow Hotel, killed eighteen people –”

“That you can prove.”

“– that we can prove, and invited suspicion, scrutiny, and, eventually, arrest. It wasn’t even sorcerers who caught you – it was the mortal police.”

Grody settles himself as far back as is comfortable. “You want answers, Detective Pleasant? Send in your Sensitives. They will crash against the walls in my mind and my secrets will forever—”

“You chose this hotel for a reason.”

“Everything I do is for a—”

“You killed eighteen people and trapped their spirits in the Soul Catchers that line the shelves of the foyer,” Skulduggery says. “Interesting thing about those particular Soul Catchers – they have blemishes that have discoloured and warped their undersides.”

“Normal wear and tear that comes from displaying them in public view.”

“Maybe,” says Skulduggery. “I’ve read the reports about this place. About Emilia. She never liked the male guests, but she was never hostile towards them, either. She kept to herself and was rarely seen. In fact, the first accounts of any hostility on her part occurred from 1930 onwards – after you had been arrested.”

“And?”

“You drove her to madness.”

Grody laughs. “You can’t drive a ghost to madness!”

“Oh, but you can,” Skulduggery says. “And you did. Killing those people, trapping them, and then agitating the spirits, as evidenced by the signs of power discharge on the Soul Catchers. You tortured them. Living people would not have been aware of their cries, but Emilia would have heard every sound they made. You drove her from her solitude and she appeared before you, didn’t she? At which point, you trapped her in a binding circle in the basement. Why did you trap her, Mr Grody? What did you need from her?”

There is a moment when we wonder if perhaps Grody will continue the arrogant charade, but it seems he’s in a confessional mood.

“She had my son,” he says. “My mortal son. His spirit was bound to hers and she wouldn’t release it.”

Valkyrie frowns. “Your son was Jonathon Hopkins?”

“That insipid peasant?” Grody says, waving his hand. “No. My son was Edward Burgess. Also insipid, and a great disappointment to me, who was about as magical as a clump of hair in a bath, but he was still my son.”

“And you loved him,” says Lucy.

Grody looks at her. “Hated him. Couldn’t stand him. But when he died, and he became trapped in the same ridiculous house he’d built to trap Emilia, I could hear his pathetic cries for help. Wherever I was in the world, I could hear his anguish, his pain, his gurgling sobs...”

“So you trapped Emilia and tortured her,” says Skulduggery, “demanding that she release your son’s spirit. You hurt her so much that she’s terrified of you even now, isn’t she?”

Grody smiles. “Sometimes I like to go for a wander, just so she’ll have to flee to the opposite end of the hotel.”

Skulduggery ignores the display of sadistic glee. “But you were so focused on your games that you failed to notice the police snooping around until the morning they raided the hotel and found you in the basement, surrounded by the remains of the people you’d killed.”

They were... heavy-handed,” Grody says, after a weary sigh. “Those mortals did like to swing their truncheons – oh, yes, they did. They cracked my head open. But I healed while I awaited my trial, and, when I felt ready, I simply walked out of there.”

“Into the arms of the Sanctuary agents waiting outside,” Skulduggery says.

Grody’s smile flickers slightly. “Well... yes. But even in Ironpoint Gaol, with their sigils and protections and wards, I could still hear Edward whining...”

“So, when you escaped, you bought the hotel, and went back to work,” says Valkyrie.

Grody’s face goes remarkably expressionless for a moment. “All I want is a little peace and quiet, and I will kill whoever I have to in order to get it.”

“But you didn’t kill Vogel? Or Clive?”

“Exactly!” Grody says, animated once again. “I am a serial killer, but I’m not the serial killer you’re currently looking for, so now will you let me go?”

Valkyrie looks at him. “Dear God. No.”

“We’re going to close and lock this door,” Skulduggery says, ushering everybody out. “When this is over, you’ll be returned to prison. Maybe a higher security institution. Coldheart, perhaps.”

Grody blinks. “But that isn’t fair. I’m not the reason you came here. Isn’t there a rule that you can’t arrest someone for a crime you’re not currently investigating? I didn’t just make that up, did I?”

“I think you might have.”

“Really? Dammit.”

Skulduggery closes the door and twists the key in the lock.

Skulduggery and Valkyrie speak in low voices in the foyer. The assembled guests need time to absorb everything that has been happening. Kate stands by a window, looking out at the rain. In the distance, lightning illuminates the underside of storm clouds. Gideon drifts over.

“It can get oppressive, can’t it?” he says, his voice soft. “There’s a certain darkness to this part of the world, a dread sort of—”

“Oh my God,” Kate says, cutting right through whatever he was about to say, “do you think we can just have a conversation? Chat about the weather? Your incompetence got my best friend’s wife killed.”

Gideon sighs theatrically. “How many times do I have to apologise? Three times? More?”

“I’d say more.”

“Kate—”

“Oh, that’s nice. You remembered my name.”

“Have I made mistakes?” Gideon asks. “Yes. Have I allowed my ego to run roughshod over my good sense? Yes.”

“Have I got innocent people killed and did I put an innocent man in prison where he was then murdered in his cell?” Kate says, mimicking him with a reasonable degree of success. “Yep.”

Gideon sighs again. “You remind me of someone, you know.”

“Oh, joy.”

“My very first assistant. There was a spark between us.”

“Wow.”

“And that spark led to a... a kinship.”

“Doubt that very much,” she responds.

Gideon leans in a little closer. Kate leans back a little further.

“Kate, I need an ally. I need someone who sees me for me: a flawed man, yes, but a good man at heart. A man capable of change.”

She stares at him. “Are you either of those things?”

“Sure,” he says. “I mean, how hard could it be?”

Elaine rushes in, a sheepish-looking Lucy trailing after her.

“What’s this about Mr Aylesworth being the serial killer?” Elaine says, her voice loud with incredulity. “Are you all being serious right now?”

“Sorry,” Lucy says. “I got out of the bathroom and she was there and I was like, ‘Can you believe it?’ because I assumed someone else had told her about Grody, and I got halfway through telling her, but—”

“Don’t apologise for telling me!” says Elaine. “I should have been informed immediately! I was back there, with Terry, keeping watch over Asher, terrified that the murderer was going to walk in at any moment, and you’d already caught him! Where is he? Which room is he in?”

Skulduggery and Valkyrie walk in from the foyer.

“Elaine,” says Valkyrie, “Aylesworth, whose real name is Nebular Grody, is a serial killer, yes, but he might not be the serial killer.”

Elaine stares at her. “There are two serial killers in this hotel? In this hotel tonight? But... but that’s impossible! What are the chances of two serial killers congregating in the same place, at the same time...?”

“It happens more often than you’d think,” Skulduggery says. “Elaine, we are sorry we didn’t notify you sooner – as a participant-slash-suspect, you absolutely deserve to be kept abreast of what is going on. But if you could return to your post, helping Terry watch over Asher, we will send for you both when—”

Elaine gasps. “We’re still suspects?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But... but Mr Aylesworth...”

“Mr Grody,” corrects Skulduggery.

“How do you know he didn’t kill the German bloke and the other guy?”

“Clive,” Skulduggery says. “The ‘other guy’s’ name was Clive Ferrier. Valkyrie, could I have a word?”

The others watch the detectives step away. Valkyrie nods and walks off, and Skulduggery comes back.

“Where’s Valkyrie going?” asks Lucy.

“To check on something,” Skulduggery replies. “Elaine, to answer your question, we don’t know that Grody didn’t kill Mr Vogel, this is very true, but we know for certain that he didn’t kill Mr Ferrier.”

Lucy frowns. “How do we know that?”

“Let’s run through where everyone was when Clive was killed,” Skulduggery says. “I was with Kate and we were walking in circles.”

“I was with Valkyrie,” says Lucy, “and I was telling her, you know, the truth about me.”

“And I was with Terry,” says Elaine. “And we were both with Asher.”

“Who was unconscious,” says Kate.

Elaine glares at her. “Beg pardon?”

“I’m just saying that Asher was, and still is, unconscious.”

“And?”

“We only have your word that you were with him when Clive was killed.”

Elaine’s face goes bright red, and she points at Nora. “Well, what about Nora? Where was she?”

“I was here, in reception, with Bert,” Nora says.

“And I was with Nora,” Bert says.

“Well, okay,” says Elaine, “but where was Romeo Gideon?”

“I was using the facilities in my room,” Gideon says somewhat imperiously.

Kate frowns at him. “Why didn’t you use the bathrooms on this floor?”

“Because I don’t like using what amounts to public toilets where anyone can come in,” Gideon explains. “I have shy bowels.”

“Skipping over that detail for the moment, that means you were in your room, alone?”

“Yes, I was sitting on the toilet, alone, as is my custom.”

“Which means you don’t have an alibi,” Lucy says, her eyes narrowed.

“All right, Miss Marple, settle down,” Gideon fires back. “Just because I didn’t have anyone with me while I was sitting on the toilet doesn’t mean I killed Clive. What about the intruder? Eh? The mysterious person who came in through the side door? They should be our prime suspect!”

“But you’re the only one with motive,” says Elaine.

“That’s not true at all!” Gideon says, almost shouting, like he’s in court about to deliver the stunning reversal the audience has been waiting for. “The killer had motive! He, she, or they must have had motive because they killed him, didn’t they? So where was Aylesworth, or Grody, or whatever his name is? Where was the serial killer when my assistant was murdered, eh?”

“Around that time?” Skulduggery says. “I imagine he was destroying the evidence linking him to the constable’s murder.”

There’s a moment when everyone, apart from Skulduggery, frowns.

“Wait, what?” says Lucy.

“I’m sorry?” says Kate.

“The constable,” Skulduggery says. “Arthur Dudley. He’s the intruder, by the way.”

Elaine pales. “Constable Dudley’s dead?”

“I would expect so. When he left us earlier this evening, he got in his car and tried to depart. The flooded roads would have prevented this, which led to him changing his mind about leaving. Sometimes it happens. You can use someone’s name to give them an order and, so long as they don’t think about it too much, they’ll obey. But it looks like Dudley came back and let himself in through the side door.”

Elaine is having a hard time processing this. “But... but how do you know he’s dead?”

“Grody has built up quite a grudge against mortal police officers,” Skulduggery explains, “and views them as immediate threats. After Emilia first appeared to us and our group scattered, Grody came across Dudley, or Dudley may even have approached Grody. Grody led him to Room Eight where he killed him, either by bludgeoning or stabbing – some method where blood splattered his jacket – a jacket he then had to get wet in the rain in order to find an excuse to replace. He next began cleaning the blood off his shoes. By my calculations, he was still cleaning them as Clive was being murdered. Hiding one body was hard enough – I doubt he’d have had time to hide two. Which leaves Terry, Elaine, Nora, Bert, and Gideon as our suspects.”

Before anyone can respond, Valkyrie walks back in.

“Yep,” she says. “Dudley’s dead and stashed in Room Eight.”

“How did you know he was in Room Eight?” Kate asks Skulduggery.

“The key’s missing from the cubbyhole.”

Lucy nods approvingly. “You are a clever man.”

“‘Clever’?”

“Brilliant?”

“Better. Valkyrie, can I speak to you in private?”

“Excuse us,” Valkyrie says to the assembled guests.

“Yes,” says Kate to the guests, “excuse us.”

“Please excuse all of us,” says Lucy as she and Kate follow Skulduggery and Valkyrie off to one side.

They stop, huddled together, and Skulduggery tilts his head. “I notice that you two have come with us to this side of the room.”

“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” Lucy asks. “We’ve established that none of us is the killer, so, for all we know, we’re surrounded by murderers.”

Kate nods enthusiastically. “I think we should stick together.”

Skulduggery looks at Valkyrie, who shrugs. “Very well,” he mutters.

“So we have our suspects,” Valkyrie says. “Now we need to whittle them down.”

“How do you do that?” Kate asks.

“Usually, by punching.”

“But that’s when we’re dealing with sorcerers and monsters,” says Skulduggery, “and not, in theory, a mostly innocent group of mortals.”

Valkyrie bites her lip. “Yeah, I really don’t want to punch either Bert or Nora. I’ll do it if I have to, but I would not be pleased. I’ve beaten up old people before, and I did not like it. The way their wrinkly faces fold round my fist, it’s like punching a water balloon and hoping it doesn’t burst.”

“Jesus,” Kate says, appalled.

“Yeah,” Valkyrie says, missing the fact that Kate is appalled at how she described it, rather than what was being described.

“Then we’ll have to whittle down our suspect list the old-fashioned way,” Skulduggery says. “We’re going to interrogate them. I’ll talk to Bert in the kitchen, and Valkyrie, you talk to Nora in the manager’s office.”

“And what’ll we do?” Lucy asks.

“You stay here with the others. Make sure they don’t leave or kill anyone else.”

Kate salutes. “You can count on us, Skulduggery.”

“Thank you, Kate.”

“Up to a point, and then, once we’re past that point, it would probably be smart to stop counting on us—”

“Because we’ll be running away,” Lucy finishes.

“We will be running quite fast,” Kate elaborates.

Skulduggery nods. “That seems reasonable.”

Across the room, the assembled guests on the suspect list watch the huddle and form a huddle of their own.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Gideon asks, keeping his voice down.

“I wouldn’t know,” says Elaine, clearly not thrilled by being in a huddle with Gideon.

“Look at them,” the Dark King Magician says, “thinking they’re all so important and... This is ridiculous, is what it is. I should sue.”

Nora peers at him. “Sue for what?” she asks.

“My time, for one thing,” Gideon says. “I should sue those supposed journalists for getting me here under false pretences, which is a very serious crime.”

“I don’t think it is,” Elaine murmurs.

“I have a new special coming out next year that I have to prepare for,” says Gideon. “You think it’s easy coming up with illusions and routines? It takes as much showmanship as technical know-how, and that requires precision and total focus the likes of which the average person on the street wouldn’t be capable of even beginning to comprehend...”

The others are starting to look bored, so Gideon abandons whatever he was going to say. “You know what? I wasted my time coming here, and now I’m wasting my time talking to you about it. But you know who I won’t be wasting my time talking to? My lawyers, of which I have plenty.”

He nods to himself, like he’s just won an argument nobody else was involved in.

“Oh, you’re not going to sue anyone,” Nora says with a little laugh.

“I’ll sue you,” Gideon retorts without thinking through how immature it makes him sound.

“Do you think these people, these magical people, will allow you to go to court about any of this?” Nora asks. “The skeleton and the scary lady will interfere with our minds, like they did with that constable, and they’ll get us to forget everything before we can walk out of here.”

Gideon puffs his chest out, the same chest that he pays a personal trainer to sculpt into rock-hard pecs for his drooling fanbase.

“I’m going to walk out of here with my memory intact and my lawyers on the phone, and everyone here will get sued, including the killer.”

“Unless you are the killer,” Elaine murmurs.

“I’ve never hurt anyone in my life,” Gideon says, indignant. “The one fight to the death I ever got into I didn’t even get into because I didn’t turn up.”

Elaine frowns. “How did you manage that?”

Gideon doesn’t want to go into detail because it’s a story that doesn’t show him in the best light, but on the other hand he does love talking about himself.

“There was a horrible man who believed I was having an affair with his beautiful wife,” he says. “He challenged me to a duel.”

“He challenged you for a jewel?” Bert says, his hearing aid resting somewhere in his pocket. “What did you have to do for it?”

“A duel,” Gideon says.

“A jewel?”

“Duel.”

“I’m sorry,” says Bert, “are you saying jewel or duel?”

“Duel.”

“Jewel?”

“Duel.”

“Jewel?”

Gideon enunciates. “Du-el.”

Bert enunciates right back. “Je-wel?”

“Duel!”

Nora steps in. “I think I can help with this duel/jewel situation. He’s saying joule. If I remember my school days, it’s a measurement of energy.”

“I’m saying duel!” Gideon almost screeches.

“Joule,” Nora says, nodding in agreement.

“Duel!”

Bert frowns. “Jewel?”

“Oh my God!”

“Hold on now,” says Nora. “It’s not joule?”

Gideon stares. “No.”

“It’s not joule,” says Bert, “but is it duel or jewel?”

Gideon’s eye twitches. “Duel.”

Bert’s own eyes widen. “Duel?” he says, horrified. Then, “Did you win?”

“I didn’t go!” says Gideon. “The man was a psychopath! He wanted to murder me!”

“What’s a murder-bee?”

“I didn’t say murder-bee, I said murder me! He wanted to murder me!”

“Who did?”

“The psychopath!”

“He murdered you?”

“He wanted to!”

“Wanted to what?”

“Murder me!”

“Well, that is understandable,” says Bert. “You are a very annoying man.”

“You might need to put your hearing aid back on, dear,” Nora says, patting his arm.

“Nonsense,” says Bert. “I can hear a pin drop.”

Terry runs in, panic written all over his face. “He’s gone!” he shouts.

“Who’s gone?” Lucy says, leading the rest of them over.

“Who’s talking?” Bert asks, frowning at the ceiling.

“Mr Devoe!” Terry says. “Asher! He’s gone!”

“Everyone stay here,” Valkyrie says, and runs back the way Terry had come.

“What’s happening?” Bert asks nobody in particular.

“You were supposed to be watching him,” Skulduggery says to Terry, who shrinks beneath his eyeless gaze.

“I was,” Terry says. “I was watching him. Elaine came to check on everything here, and I stepped out of the room to stretch my legs and—”

“You tried to leave, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did!” Terry snaps. “One of you is a killer and I should be allowed to leave if I want to! You’re not the police and you have absolutely no right to—”

“Terry,” Skulduggery says, putting a little edge into his voice.

“Sorry,” Terry whimpers.

“You came back, though.”

He nods. “I got as far as the side door, but... I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t abandon... Anyway, when I returned to the room, he was gone.”

“No sign of a struggle,” Valkyrie says, walking back.

Gideon’s eyes go wide. “He woke up. He left on his own. He must have. He’s the killer! Do something! Protect us! Protect me!”

“Very well, Romeo,” Skulduggery says. “The best way to protect you is to interview you first. What do you say?”

Gideon hesitates. “Well, I mean, there are probably others who could do with more protection than me right at this—”

“I agree,” Skulduggery says, nodding. “That’s a wonderful idea.”

Valkyrie jerks her head to Lucy. “You deserve to come, too. Kate, Elaine, Terry, Mr and Mrs Bramble – we’ll be in the manager’s office, so if any one of you tries to kill the others – we’ll hear.”

We’re in the manager’s office. Despite this actually being the office of a serial killer, it’s quite a standard office space that you would be unsurprised to find in any independent hotel. There’s a desk with a chair on either side. A telephone, a computer, a logbook, shelves packed with thick binders, a stapler, some sticky tape, a calendar, a pen, Post-it Notes, a mug (empty), a wall clock (ticking), a framed photograph of the hotel, a small tin for receipts, a small box for petty cash, and a fresh cartridge of printer ink. There are no heads in jars or photographs of victims nailed to the wall.

Valkyrie pulls one of the chairs into the middle of the room and makes Gideon sit in it. Then she looms over him, Skulduggery at her shoulder, while Lucy stands in the corner and watches.

“Now then, Mr Gideon...” Skulduggery says.

Gideon nods immediately. “Yes, I’m here. I’m ready to help in whatever fashion I can. I will answer truthfully and honestly and...” His voice trails off.

“You seem nervous,” Valkyrie says.

Gideon chuckles. “I’m not. It’s funny you should say that because I’m not nervous. I’m innocent so I have nothing to be nervous about. This is just an ordinary conversation to me. Just another ordinary, everyday chat between me and my—”

“Interrogators,” Skulduggery says. “Yes. Let’s begin, shall we? Time, after all, is running out.”

“It is?”

“Oh, yes,” he says. “It is.”

The clock on the wall ticks quietly. Romeo Gideon sits in the chair in the middle of the manager’s office. Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain look down at him. Lucy Babbage, standing in the corner, observes.

“Romeo Gideon,” Skulduggery says. “Born 1788, London. Employed as a Sensitive for the English Sanctuary for eight years, now the Dark King Magician and third-highest paid ‘illusionist’ in the world.”

“Second-highest,” Gideon corrects. He can’t help himself.

“The report I read cited you as number three on the list.”

Gideon shifts in his seat. “That report obviously hasn’t taken into account ancillary merchandise sales of which my plushie, Li’l Romeo, is a runaway bestseller.”

Valkyrie watches him and he squirms. She then turns her head to Lucy, and smiles. “Lucy, would you like anything? A glass of water, anything?”

“No, thank you, Valkyrie,” says Lucy.

“I’d quite like a glass of water,” Gideon says, for his mouth is indeed dry.

“Romeo,” Valkyrie says, “did you lie about everyone you sent to prison?”

“No,” Gideon says at once. Then pauses. “Not everyone. When I began working at the Sanctuary, I could genuinely tell whether someone was innocent or guilty. They start you off easy, and I was part of a larger team. I didn’t go up against anyone who had a psychic defence for the whole of the first year.”

Skulduggery tilts his head. “And when you did go up against someone with a psychic defence?”

“I didn’t do so well.”

“Is that when you started to lie?” Valkyrie asks.

“Yes. I’m actually quite thirsty. Could I—?”

Skulduggery talks straight over whatever Gideon is saying. “So you’d been lying for, what, seven of the eight years you worked there?”

“I suppose,” Gideon says.

Skulduggery wanders over to the wall with the shelves full of binders. “You realise every single case you worked on will now be reviewed.”

Gideon gasps. “But I helped put away some stone-cold killers!”

“And now they have a chance of walking free.”

“Had you met Vogel before you arrived here tonight?” Valkyrie asks.

“What? No,” Gideon answers. Then, “I didn’t kill him.”

“I didn’t ask if you killed him; I asked if you knew him.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“I’m a fan of magic – did I tell you that?” Valkyrie asks, strolling over to the side of the room with the wall clock. “Close-up magic, card tricks, sleight-of-hand, sawing-someone-in-half, pickpocket stuff, all that. I love the way the really good magicians use suggestion and misdirection to manipulate their audience. You ever meet a Fernando Marvellius on the circuit? Went by the name the Great Fernando?”

The way Gideon’s lip curls – it’s dismissive. “Yes. I know him.”

“I met him at a magic convention a while ago. He’s like you, a sorcerer who’s conned his way into entertainment. Never made it into the big time, though.”

“He’s an Elemental, and relies on levitation tricks. That gets old fast.”

“But if you’re a mind-reader, you’re more versatile, right?”

Gideon shrugs. “Plus, I’m a natural showman.”

“Of course you are.”

“Could I have some water?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Skulduggery tells him. “Why did you agree to be interviewed for Lucy’s made-up magazine?”

Gideon spares a moment to frown disapprovingly over at Lucy, who appears thoroughly unbothered, before turning his head towards Skulduggery.

“I agree to a lot of interviews. You have to play the media game if you want to stay relevant.”

“So it had nothing to do with damage control?”

Gideon clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you—”

“Four years ago, you started a charity aimed at helping underprivileged children.”

“Romeo Gideon’s Spread a Little Magic Foundation,” Valkyrie says.

“What a lovely thing to do,” Skulduggery says.

“Yes,” says Gideon. “Well.”

“Approximately how many underprivileged children did your foundation help?”

“I don’t know the exact number.”

“That’s why I said ‘approximately’.”

Gideon looks remarkably uncomfortable. “It was somewhere in the region of... twelve.”

“Hundred?” asks Valkyrie.

“Thousand?” asks Skulduggery.

“Hundred thousand?” asks Valkyrie.

“Million?” asks Skulduggery.

“Just... twelve,” says Gideon.

Valkyrie has an expression on her face that, on other people, might look like surprise. On her, it looks like she’s playing with her food. “The funds that your charity collected went to just twelve children? All of the funds? Some of the funds? Approximately what percentage of the funds your charity collected went to the underprivileged children, Romeo?”

“I couldn’t tell you that exact percentage.”

“That’s why I said ‘approximately’.”

Gideon fails to answer, so Skulduggery steps in.

“From what we can see,” he says, “your foundation split nine per cent of the funds raised between twelve underprivileged children. The rest went on foundation expenses, salaries, bonuses... most of which were under your name.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Gideon says quickly. “I know very little about it. Clive was in charge of handling the distribution of funds, and running a charity is a complicated – it’s a very complicated... There were, yes, there were teething problems.”

“The Charity Commission’s investigation into the Spread a Little Magic Foundation has passed its findings on to the relevant authorities. They are not pleased with you.”

“Mistakes were made,” Gideon admits.

“How do you anticipate the public will react once the findings are published?” asks Valkyrie.

Gideon takes a moment. “I hope they will understand that, despite my best intentions, I came up short of the responsibilities I had taken upon myself.”

“Wow,” Valkyrie says. “That’s a good line. You should use that line in interviews. It’s almost like you had it prepared.”

“Clive was going to quit anyway, wasn’t he?” Skulduggery asks. “Tonight was a catalyst, but he’d already decided that he could no longer work for you.”

“I’m sorry, could I move my chair back? Looking from one of you to the other is giving me a crick in my neck.”

“You may not move your chair,” says Skulduggery.

“Answer the question,” says Valkyrie.

“That’s not accurate,” Gideon says. “Clive wasn’t going to quit. We were determined to get through this together.”

“Was it his idea to agree to this interview, or was it yours?” asks Valkyrie.

“When the request came through, he brought it to me and we discussed it and decided that it would be a good way to ‘humanise’ me.”

“Before the scandal broke,” Valkyrie says.

“Did you blame him for what happened?” Skulduggery asks.

“No,” says Gideon. “No one was to blame.”

“You were to blame,” says Valkyrie. “You took the money, so you were to blame, right?”

“I wasn’t aware of all the... I didn’t run the foundation myself. I’m the entertainer. I’m the star. It was Clive’s job to—”

“To what, Romeo? To run the foundation or to hide what you were doing with the money?”

Gideon is getting flustered. “This is... How is this fair? What are you accusing me of?”

“Murder,” says Valkyrie. “You know that.”

“I didn’t kill Clive!”

“You were angry with him,” Valkyrie says. “You blamed him. Maybe you saw a way to have him take the fall, but the only way that can happen is if he isn’t around any more to dispute what you’re going to say about him to the police.”

“I didn’t kill Clive!”

“Did you kill Vogel?”

“I didn’t kill anyone!” Gideon shouts.

Immediately, he shrinks back, like he’s expecting them to lose their temper with him.

Instead, they shrug.

“Thank you, Mr Gideon,” Skulduggery says.

“What?”

“Thank you for your time.”

Gideon frowns, and doesn’t move out of his chair. “So... wait. Do you think I killed them or don’t you?”

“Thank you, Mr Gideon, for your time,” Skulduggery says, opening the office door. “We’re leaving this room now. Come along.”

Gideon’s eyes fall on the open door, on the promise of an end to this conversation. All at once, he lurches to his feet and throws himself forward before anyone can change their mind, and we follow him out into the reception area, where the (surviving) assembled guests are waiting.

“Did he do it?” Kate asks, her eyes eager.

“I bet he did it,” says Terry.

“I didn’t do anything!” Gideon snaps.

“You stole from your own charity,” Lucy reminds him.

“A victimless crime!”

“Tell that to your victims.”

“Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says, “could you check on Mr Grody, please? He should have escaped from his room by now.”

The others freeze for an instant.

“I’m sorry, what?” says Lucy as Valkyrie walks out.

Kate stares at Skulduggery. “The serial killer has escaped?”

“I was in that room earlier,” Skulduggery says. “There’s a hidden passage that he’ll have been able to make use of by now. Don’t ask me how I discovered it – I’m highly intelligent. Also, we shackled him to a loose pipe that should have posed no significant problem in escaping.”

Terry gapes at him. “Why would you want a serial killer to get loose?”

“Sorry?”

“The serial killer!” Terry says. “Why would you want him to get loose?”

“Oh,” Skulduggery says, “so he could fall into our trap.”

Elaine looks around, and, when no one else says it, she takes it upon herself. “But... but he was already in handcuffs! You didn’t need to trap him – he was already in handcuffs!”

Skulduggery holds up his hands. “Elaine, Terry, please. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m going to die,” Kate mutters, sagging back against the reception desk.

Terry peers at her. “Why? I mean, why you specifically?”

Kate waves a hand in the air, waving it around them, waving at everything that’s happened. “Because, with the amount of serial killers involved in what we’re doing tonight, and knowing my luck... I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to die,” Lucy tells her.

Kate suddenly straightens, and takes her best friend’s hands in hers. “We can’t split up. If we split up, I’m going to die, I know it. Oh my God!” She whips her head round to Skulduggery. “Have I just had a premonition of my own death?”

“That depends,” he replies. “Are you psychic?”

“Not even remotely.”

“And, when you close your eyes, do you see a vision of yourself dying?”

“Let me check,” Kate says, and closes her eyes. “No. I just see the inside of my eyelids. Unless it’s really dark when I get killed.”

“All the same,” Skulduggery announces, “I doubt it’s a premonition.”

“Lucy!” Kate says with urgency. “Do not leave me!”

“I promise,” says Lucy.

“If you leave me and I’m killed, I will haunt you in the worst way.”

Lucy frowns. “What’s the worst way to haunt someone?”

“I don’t know,” Kate admits. “Like... toilet-haunting.”

“I will not leave you,” Lucy vows solemnly.

Valkyrie returns. “Yep,” she says. “Grody’s gone.”

“Aw, no!” Terry whines. “He’s not going to kill you, Kate! Or you, Lucy! He’s going to kill me! Who am I? I’m no one! I’m a plumber. I’m a good plumber, and I had a very successful business, but... I’m not much of anything any more. Of course he’s going to kill me. I’m expendable.”

“Don’t say that, Terry!” Elaine cries. “Besides, why would he kill you, or Kate, or Lucy, when he could kill me? I’m what serial killers go for! I’m young, I’m pretty, I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. You’re lucky, Terry. You’re getting on, and, let’s be honest, you’re no oil painting.”

Terry is ever-so-slightly offended. “Thank you, Elaine.”

Elaine’s hand flutters to her mouth. “I don’t mean to insult you. It’s just that your best days are behind you, and they weren’t that great to begin with.”

Terry nods. “That’s actually a little more hurtful than you probably intended.”

“Oh, I’m saying all the wrong things!”

“It’s okay,” Terry says, comforting her. “You’re upset and you’re scared.”

Elaine nods and, with tears in her eyes, sets the record straight. “All I meant was that you’re old and you’re ugly and nobody likes you.”

Terry bursts out with, “I’m only five years older than you!”

Skulduggery steps between them. “Terry, Elaine, thank you for your input, but I’m going to ask you both to stop talking.”

“Why?” Terry asks.

“I’ve lost interest in your conversation.”

“But why did you want Grody to escape?” Kate asks.

“So he could bring matters to a head,” Skulduggery says. “I’ve found that if you instigate calamity instead of merely waiting around for it to happen, you arrive at a conclusion that much sooner.” He turns his head as a section of the wall opens. “Oh, look, here he is now.”

And this is when Nebular Grody leaps out of the hidden door, a pistol in his hand.

“Everyone get back!” Grody roars. “Anyone makes a move and I open fire! You think you’re tougher than a bullet, Detective Cain? What about you, the great Skulduggery Pleasant? You think you can outsmart a gun?”

“It’s a gun,” Skulduggery says. “Of course I can outsmart it.”

Grody straightens his arm, aiming the pistol at Kate. “If anyone tries anything, I’m shooting this one!”

“I knew it!” Kate cries. “I knew someone was gonna kill me tonight! Lucy!”

Lucy stands there, hands up in a calming gesture. “He’s not going to kill you, Kate! Mr Grody, do not shoot my friend!”

“Why me?” Kate wails. “What is it about me that makes you choose me out of everyone here?”

Grody snarls. “You’re the one my gun is pointing at.”

Kate stares back at him. “That’s a terrible reason to shoot someone.”

“Fine!” says Grody, and lunges at Elaine, who shrieks as he pulls her into him. He jabs the pistol into her ribs. “Now! Everyone shut up! I’m in control here and that’s how it’s going to stay. Detective Pleasant, your gun, please.”

Skulduggery, who has been watching all of this without moving, tilts his head. “What about it?”

“Give it to me.”

“No,” Skulduggery says. “It’s mine.”

“Give me your gun or Elaine dies!”

“You’re not going to get rid of your only hostage at this early stage.”

“I will pull this trigger!” Grody shouts.

“Skulduggery...” Valkyrie warns.

“He won’t shoot her,” Skulduggery responds.

Elaine tries smiling through her terror. “Mr Pleasant—”

“Detective Pleasant,” Skulduggery corrects.

“Give him your gun!” Terry shouts.

“I have killed eighteen people in this building alone, Detective,” Grody says. “I will not think twice about adding Elaine to my list.”

“If you kill her, I’ll kill you,” Skulduggery says.

“That may be so,” says Grody, “but she’ll be dead either way.”

Bert finally turns round and sees what’s happening. Sees it, but doesn’t quite understand it.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Mr Aylesworth wants his gun, Bert,” Nora replies.

“Whose gun?” says Bert.

“Skulduggery’s.”

Bert frowns. “Which one’s Skulduggery?”

“The skeleton.”

Bert makes a face. “That’s Skulduggery? I thought that was Clive.”

“No, dear. Clive’s dead.”

“So’s the skeleton, I’d wager.”

“I will give you to the count of three,” Grody snarls.

“Fair warning,” Skulduggery tells him, “if I pull my gun from my holster, I will immediately shoot you.”

Grody shakes his head at him. “Do you not even care that I will kill my hostage? What kind of hero are you?”

“I’m the kind who wins, Mr Grody, and I will not be handing you another weapon that you can then use to hurt somebody else.”

Grody considers this. “Then put it away. Throw it out of the door.”

Skulduggery is about to argue, but a look from Valkyrie changes his mind. Sighing, he walks to the foyer and opens the door. The wind and rain howl into the hotel and he ignores it as he lovingly places his gun on the front step. He closes the door again, and comes back.

“That better not rust,” he says.

Grody relaxes a little. Not much, but a little.

“Burgess is wailing in your mind, right?” Valkyrie asks him. “He’s screaming and crying and only you can hear him?”

“Yes. So?”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“What?”

“Mr Grody,” Skulduggery says, “everything you’ve told us about killing those eighteen people and threatening the ghost of Emilia is all very well and good, but not once have you mentioned attempting to communicate with your son.”

“That’s why I’m here!” says Grody. “That’s why I need to find the Staff of Arkanemok so I can tell him to leave me alone!”

“There are different ways to communicate – not all of them requiring the Staff of Arkanemok. You’re in luck, Mr Grody, because we just happen to have a world-famous TV magician in this very hotel who can act as a medium.”

Gideon, who has been grateful that nobody’s pointed a gun at him yet, looks horrified. “Me? No!”

Grody’s laugh is particularly cruel. “You think Romeo Gideon will be able to help me? The whole point of Romeo Gideon is that he’s awful at being a Sensitive!”

“Let’s not make this personal,” Gideon says.

“But he does have some talent, doesn’t he?” Valkyrie says. “And look where we are. If there’s anywhere in this country where the spirits of the dead have an actual chance of speaking through him, it’s here.”

Grody glares at everyone except Gideon, who is busy shaking his head. “Fine,” he growls. “We’ll try it. But one wrong move and Elaine dies.”

“Well then,” Skulduggery says, “for Elaine’s sake, I hope every move I make is correct. Since we will need somewhere quiet, if you would all follow me into the restaurant, we can begin.”

Skulduggery goes first and Grody – with Elaine – goes last, and then we’re in the restaurant, and it’s quiet apart from the distant wind and the distant rain.

“Okay, Gideon,” says Grody, “you will help me communicate with my dead son or you can say goodbye to—”

“No,” says Gideon, standing tall.

Grody looks at him. “What?”

Gideon gives a small cough. “That’s not something I can help you with, sorry. I don’t do that.”

“You don’t do what?”

“The communing-with-the-dead thing. I have an aversion to it.”

“Romeo?” Valkyrie says kindly. “You’re doing it.”

“No, I’m really not,” Gideon responds. “It’s disgusting. Allowing a ghost to use your body as a vessel is a revolting experience that no amount of mouthwash can clear away. I mean, we’re talking weeks of the foulest—”

“Romeo, he’s got a gun pressed to Elaine’s head, so you’re doing it.”

“No, I’m not,” Gideon insists. “He’s not going to get rid of his only hostage at this early—”

“Don’t repeat what I’ve just said,” Skulduggery warns.

“But he’s trying to make me do something I don’t want to do!” Gideon protests. “Just like he tried to get you to—”

“I don’t care about you, though,” Skulduggery says. “Everything I said was about me, and applied only to me in those particular circumstances. You’re different. You have no argument.”

“But this is ridiculous!”

“Mr Gideon!” Elaine says, smiling a desperate smile. “I am such a huge fan! I have watched all your specials and me and my friends were talking about going to see you when you were on tour next, if you were doing a show anywhere within an hour’s drive.”

“That’s a fan right there, Romeo,” Valkyrie says, nodding. “You really want to disappoint a fan today?”

By this point, Gideon is feeling very ganged-up on. “But I’m not even any good at communing with the dead!”

“We’re in a haunted house,” Skulduggery reminds him. “I doubt you’ll have to do any of the work.”

Gideon jabs a finger at everyone, his anger bubbling over. “You listen to me, all of you! I am not making myself a vessel for any spirit no matter what you—”

It’s strange what happens next. Romeo Gideon trembles, and his body performs an unhurried whiplash movement, from the heels of his feet, up through his legs, to his hips and then his torso. His arms move like he’s dancing, and his head swivels... and then he slumps and goes still.

“Father?” he says, although it isn’t him speaking, not really. The voice is different.

Grody peers at him suspiciously. “Edward? Is that you?”

“Father, it’s me,” Gideon mumbles. His eyes are closed. “It’s your son.”

“Yes, I know,” says Grody.

“It’s Edward.”

“Yes, I know,” says Grody, more irritated this time. “What do you want?”

“Help me, Father. It’s so cold and dark where I am. Where am I?”

“You’re dead, you idiot boy. Open your eyes.”

“I have no eyes.”

“You’re speaking through a Sensitive. Open his eyes and look at me.”

Gideon’s eyes open slowly and he squints like he’s just woken up. “Father! I see you! I see you, Father!”

“Yes, yes,” Grody says. “Edward, you listen to me now, okay? You listen to me and do exactly as I tell you. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Father! Anything!”

“Shut up.”

The smile on Gideon’s face falters. “Father?”

“I want you to shut up,” Grody tells him. “For the last hundred years, you’ve been whining and complaining, and I want you to cut it out. Just stop.”

“Stop, Father?”

“It’s annoying.”

“But... But my soul. She has my soul, Father!”

“This is Emilia you’re talking about, yes?” says Grody. “The girl you had a crush on?”

“We were in love!” Gideon exclaims.

“She hated you, and with good reason. Not even your mother loved you. You built this place, you damned fool, to trap her, and now you’re surprised that she’s furious with you?”

“Father, please, you must do something,” says Gideon. “Find the hidden room. Find the Staff of Arkanemok. Use it to demand that she release my soul.”

Grody sighs. “If finding the hidden room were that easy, I’d have done it by now.”

“But tonight is the night! It’s waiting to be found! Father, please. She has been tormenting me ever since I died.”

“Good!” says Grody. “You deserve it!”

“But... but...”

“Oh, shut up!” Grody snaps. “Take some responsibility! Own up to your actions! You know what I am, boy? I’m a serial killer, I have no sense of decency, but even I’m appalled at your behaviour. It is, frankly, embarrassing to be associated with you.”

Valkyrie sidles over to Skulduggery. “This is not going how I thought it would go,” she whispers.

“Really?” he whispers back. “It’s going exactly how I thought it would go.”

They watch as Gideon peers round, and a look of fear comes over his face. “Father, she’s coming. She’s getting closer.”

“So?” says Grody.

“Help me.”

“You’re not going to stop, are you?” Grody says, shaking his head. “Fine. So, if I kill everyone here, find the Staff of Arkanemok, and set you free, you promise never to bother me again?”

“I swear it!”

“Very well,” says Grody, his finger starting to tighten on the trigger. “Then I’ll kill—”

It is very unusual for a ghost to pluck the soul from a still-living meatsuit. It requires a significant degree of ability, yes, and of power, absolutely, but more than that it requires a level of intent that most non-corporeal entities quite simply lack. This is through no fault of their own, of course.

The recently deceased – and not-so-recently deceased – have a lot going on. There is the trauma over no longer being alive, there is the trauma over being dead (which is not quite the same thing), and then there is the sheer horror at finding that you’re an actual ghost. It’s a very distracting time for any entity, and time moves differently for the dead, so very few of them ever get to come to terms with what has happened to them, let alone get around to focusing all that much on personal issues.

The fact that Emilia can swoop into the room, flow through Nebular Grody as he stands there, and rip his soul out of his body as she goes is testament to her anger, her determination, and her sheer strength of character.

Then to tear that soul apart, in front of everyone, to literally dismantle his entire being, is something that is beyond astonishing. Of those gathered in this restaurant, there are only two people capable of truly appreciating what it means to witness such an event. Skulduggery Pleasant is one of them, and appreciate it he does.

Nebular Grody is the other, and appreciate it he does not, for he is far too busy dying.

Grody’s body collapses face down and the ghost of Emilia flies from the room.

There is a moment of silence.

“Father?” Gideon says with the trembling voice of Edward Burgess. “Are you all right?”

Burgess’s dead father doesn’t respond.

“Everyone stay back,” Skulduggery says. He is the very epitome of calm.

“What just happened?” Kate asks.

“Emilia just tore Grody’s soul in two,” Skulduggery answers.

Terry swallows thickly. “You can do that? You can kill a soul?”

“Souls can be killed, destroyed, used as fuel. They can be eaten.”

“Eaten?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Father?” Gideon warbles.

“Edward,” Skulduggery says. “Your father is dead. He was a psychopath and a serial killer and a horrible human being and no one will mourn his passing.”

Gideon has tears in his eyes. “He... he’s with me now?”

“I doubt he’s anywhere. You’re alone, Edward, as you deserve to be. Now, begone.”

“No, wait, you need to help me.”

“Leave this man,” Skulduggery commands, his voice rising. “Vacate his body!”

“No, please—”

Skulduggery shouts, “Get thee behind me, Edward Burgess!”

Gideon screams and twists and his body judders again, and he suddenly stops, and looks up, and blinks. There is a moment of confusion on his face as he struggles to reclaim his senses, and then he pales, drops to his knees, and vomits.

“Truly,” Valkyrie says, “magic is beautiful.”

“What happened?” Gideon asks, eyes now on Grody’s body. “Is he dead?”

Skulduggery nods. “It looks like Emilia had been waiting all this time for something to distract him. The moment his back was turned, she got her revenge.”

Valkyrie shrugs. “Gotta respect the hustle.”

Gideon stands on shaky legs. “And Burgess? I don’t remember a whole lot of what just happened.”

“His ghost is still in the hotel,” Skulduggery says, “still running from Emilia.”

Gideon wipes his mouth. “But that’s it, right? The killer’s dead. We can go home?”

“Grody claimed he didn’t kill Vogel or Clive.”

“But he would say that, wouldn’t he?” says Terry.

“I’m inclined to believe him,” Skulduggery says.

“But surely I can leave?” Elaine asks, looking like this is all just becoming too much for her to handle. “I was just held hostage! I’m traumatised, and I’ll have to look for a new job tomorrow! You can’t still consider me a suspect! You’re detectives! Surely you’ve figured out who did it by now!”

“No, we haven’t,” Valkyrie says.

“Yes, we have,” Skulduggery says.

She looks at him. “We have?”

“Of course.”

Valkyrie turns to the others. “Of course we have. Yes. I hope the rest of you have been paying attention.”

“You have all been through a great deal this evening,” Skulduggery says, nodding.

“A great deal,” Valkyrie adds.

“But here is where we examine what we know and pick our way from fact to fact, using logic and cold reason, until we have eliminated every possibility except for the truth.”

“The truth.”

“Detective Cain, please take over.”

“Mm-hmm,” says Valkyrie. “Yes. Good. Excellent. I’m going to point to each one of you in turn, and we’re all going to vote on who we think is the killer.”

“No, we’re not,” Skulduggery says, shaking his head.

“Well then, I don’t know how I’m going to find the bad guy,” Valkyrie responds irritably, “so you do it.”

“What’s going on?” Bert asks. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“I’m about to announce who the killer is,” Skulduggery tells him.

“Oh, good,” says Bert cheerfully. “Is it me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“I hope it isn’t me,” says Bert. “I’ve got plans. We’re going on a cruise.”

Nora’s eyes widen. “Are we?”

“It’s a surprise, for our anniversary.”

“Oh, Bert! How lovely!”

She comes forward and they kiss and hug.

“We went on a cruise after we got married,” Bert tells the others, “on the Carpathia. We had to divert four days in, so we never quite got the full experience, but early next year I have us booked on a six-month cruise.”

“Six months!” Nora trills. “Bert! You absolute sweetheart!”

“And it’s a nudist cruise.”

“Wonderful!” Nora cries in delight.

“What an... interesting couple you are,” Skulduggery says. “But back to tonight, a night of many mysteries. Almost everybody in this hotel has a secret pertaining to the murders of Vogel, of Clive, of Constable Dudley. But, in order to get to the who, we must first figure out the why. Why were these men killed? Valkyrie.”

“She did it!” Gideon howls, pointing at Valkyrie. “I knew it!”

“What?” Skulduggery says. “No.”

“Oh.”

“Valkyrie, tell us about Edward Burgess.”

Valkyrie puts her hands in her pockets. “A spoiled, murderous little man. Mortal son of a sorcerer. Mortal son of a serial killer. Wealthy, in a small way. Besotted with a local girl who wanted nothing to do with him and jealous of the man she actually loved.”

“And what did Edward Burgess do?”

“He killed the man Emilia loved, trapped her here, where she died. He was mortal, but he knew sorcerers, and he had enough money to make that mean something. He got Bewilder Mowbray, sorcerer and architect, to build the hotel round the house.”

“And, in the centre of that hotel, Bewilder Mowbray built a hidden room.” Skulduggery turns. “Lucy, tell us what we know of the hidden room.”

“Um... it’s a room that’s hidden,” Lucy says, not expecting to be called upon to speak. “It appears at midnight once every eight years – tonight – but Burgess could find it all year round, and he spent his nights there, trying to talk to Emilia’s ghost.”

“Using, Kate?”

“The Staff of Arkanemok!” Kate announces.

“And did Emilia answer?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Skulduggery nods. “So Burgess got older and older, wasting his pathetic excuse for a life, consumed by his own bitter jealousies and obsessions. And, when he died, his soul was as trapped in this hotel as Emilia’s. His cries of torment could only be heard by his father – notorious serial killer Nebular Grody.”

Valkyrie picks it up. “Grody, using the name Victor McHenry, bought the hotel in order to find a way to shut Burgess up. He thought he could use the Staff of Arkanemok to threaten Emilia into letting his son’s spirit go. But he couldn’t find the hidden room on account of the fact that, since Burgess’s death, it would only appear for one night every eight years. So he started killing people and torturing their souls, eventually drawing Emilia into a trap where he started torturing her. He was arrested before he could free his son, and sent to Ironpoint Gaol, from where he escaped three years ago.”

“Grody remained undetected either by resisting the urge to kill,” Skulduggery says, “or by killing very carefully. He used this time to forge a new mortal identity, that of Oscar Aylesworth, and a few years ago he returned to the area to continue his efforts to silence his son’s complaints.”

“But the hotel was under new ownership,” Valkyrie says.

“Everett Huxley, the man who would soon die, apparently by the hand of Ian Gannis, the man he – again, apparently – simultaneously killed. Rather neat, wouldn’t you say?”

Valkyrie peers at him. “‘Apparently’ killed?”

“Apparently.”

“Okay, so if Everett Huxley and Ian Gannis didn’t kill each other, then...”

“Then who did and why? Who would stand to gain?”

“Grody,” says Valkyrie. “So Grody killed both men, then swooped in as Oscar Aylesworth and bought the hotel.”

“But Everett Huxley and Ian Gannis hated each other,” Elaine says. “Everyone knew that.”

“But not at first,” Skulduggery says. “At first, they were friends, were they not? You knew Ian Gannis, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” says Elaine. “Everyone in town knew Ian Gannis.”

“He was a troublemaker, wouldn’t you say? Terry, isn’t that your opinion of Mr Gannis?”

“It is,” Terry says gruffly.

“What did you know of Everett Huxley?”

“I didn’t know him,” says Terry. “Never met him.”

“Elaine?”

“I didn’t know him, either. Sorry.”

“He was an outsider,” says Skulduggery. “He came in, bought the hotel, and ran it... to a degree. I glanced through the hotel’s records. Business back then was not robust. In fact, the hotel was losing money every year he was in charge. But he kept it going. It makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?”

“He knew about it,” Valkyrie says slowly. “He knew the secret. He knew what the hotel was. He knew about the hidden room.”

“I don’t know, right now, who Everett Huxley really was,” Skulduggery says. “I assume he was a sorcerer, on the trail of Burgess’s magical treasures – most likely, the Staff of Arkanemok. When he arrived in town, when he first bought the hotel, he struck up a friendship with Ian Gannis. Maybe he saw in him someone disreputable enough to actually trust. A co-conspirator, if you will. Sorcerers have a tendency to underestimate mortals. They don’t view them as a credible threat, so they allow their guard to drop.”

Valkyrie takes her hands out of her pockets and folds her arms as she works it out. “So Everett Huxley told Ian Gannis about the Staff of Arkanemok. And Ian came onboard. But then they had a falling-out.”

“Quite a dramatic falling-out – enough so that the entire town noticed the animosity between them. I think Mr Gannis had other plans for the Staff of Arkanemok. Selling it to the right person would have made him tens of millions.”

“So,” says Valkyrie, “Gannis was getting ready to double-cross Huxley, and they argued, and Grody seized his opportunity. He killed them, made it look like they killed each other...”

“And?”

“And then the Hollow Hotel went back up for sale. Grody was intent on buying it. There was another interested party, but they dropped out.”

“Probably after Grody burned down their hotel.”

Valkyrie raises an eyebrow. “Grody did that?”

“Someone owns a hotel in the area,” Skulduggery says, “their only rival hotel goes on sale, they see an opportunity to start a franchise. But then their property burns down and, in all the mess and confusion, Grody completes the purchase.”

“So now Grody is the owner of the Hollow Hotel for the second time in his life,” Valkyrie says. “Okay, but none of this is bringing us any closer to the killer we’re looking for tonight. Everett Huxley and Ian Gannis are dead. Nebular Grody is dead. There’s no one else in that circle left to...” She pauses. “Unless there was someone else involved.”

“Meaning?” Skulduggery prompts.

“Maybe Ian Gannis wasn’t alone. Maybe Everett Huxley confided in two people – or Gannis brought in someone else. A friend, a family member, a girlfriend or boyfriend. Of course!” Valkyrie claps her hands in triumph. “I know who did it!”

“You do?” Skulduggery asks.

“Yes!” she says, and then spins and points. “The big question, of course, is have you figured it out?”

“Who are you pointing at?” asks Lucy.

“Are you pointing at me?” says Kate. “Or Terry?”

“Why are you pointing at me?” Terry mutters.

“I’m pointing at all of you,” Valkyrie tells them. “All of you collectively. Have you figured it out?”

“What are we talking about again?” asks Bert.

Gideon sticks his hand in the air. “I think I know!”

“It was probably you!” Elaine says.

“I’m a celebrity!” Gideon argues. “Why would a celebrity do anything wrong? It’s that guy, isn’t it?”

“What guy?” Valkyrie asks, genuinely puzzled.

“The guy, the unconscious guy.”

“Asher?” says Kate. “Why would Asher be the killer?”

“Because he was unconscious,” says Gideon, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “and now he’s not unconscious and he’s... Where is he? Why isn’t he here? It’s because he’s the killer! Right?”

“I doubt it,” Valkyrie says. “In fact, he’s probably dead. Skulduggery?”

“I would agree,” Skulduggery says.

“What do you mean, dead?” Lucy asks. “Why would you think that?”

Valkyrie shrugs. “I imagine he woke up, overheard or witnessed the real killer in action, and was killed for his trouble. I’m sure we’ll find his body stashed in one of the rooms before too long.”

Elaine’s brow is furrowed. “But then who killed him?”

“You did, Elaine,” Valkyrie says.

“Me?” Elaine says. “What? That’s ridiculous!”

“Elaine couldn’t have killed Asher,” says Terry. “I was with her the whole time.”

Now it’s Valkyrie’s brow that furrows. “Were you?”

“Yes!”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive!”

“So, when you were both watching over him, you didn’t leave the room before her? You didn’t leave her alone with him, not even for a moment?”

“I didn’t, I swear!”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Valkyrie says, snapping her fingers, “because you killed him, too.”

Terry pales. “What? That’s— What?”

“Elaine,” Valkyrie says, “you mentioned a boyfriend you’d broken up with.”

“Yes. So? People break up. I don’t see what—”

“You described him as tall, dark, and handsome, but Terry, you said he was short and scrawny – a description that Elaine didn’t argue with because she understood that you’d said what you did out of spite. She let it go because to respond to that little jibe would have drawn attention to something neither of you wanted questioned. But you couldn’t help yourself, Terry, because you’re in love with Elaine and you hated her boyfriend – Ian Gannis.”

“Ian Gannis was not my boyfriend!” Elaine says hotly.

“I am not in love with Elaine!” Terry says, equally as hotly, but not quite as convincingly.

“You had an opportunity to run,” Valkyrie says to him, “to get out of here, but you didn’t. You couldn’t abandon Elaine, could you?”

Terry is seriously blushing by this stage. “This is silly!”

“I don’t know where you’re getting all this from,” says Elaine, “but you’re just – you’re making things up is what you’re doing!”

Valkyrie shrugs. “None of this proves anything, of course – except that you’ve been hiding the identity of your boyfriend. And if you’re hiding something, you have a reason to hide it. Which leads me to believe that Ian Gannis was your boyfriend.”

Elaine laughs without humour. “This is insane.”

“So Everett Huxley confided in Ian Gannis,” Valkyrie says, “and Ian told you, and together you planned to betray Huxley and sell the Staff of Arkanemok and live happily ever after. But then Huxley and Ian turned up dead, and you believed the official story, that they’d killed each other, but you reckoned that only you knew why. So, when Oscar Aylesworth bought the hotel, you immediately took a job here, and you persuaded Terry to leave his successful plumbing business and take a job alongside you. You figured you needed backup. You needed someone to confide in. It was too much to take on alone, wasn’t it?”

Elaine doesn’t respond.

“So you both spent your time searching for the room, hoping to find it ahead of schedule. You were worried, weren’t you, that another sorcerer would come hunting for the Staff? You had no idea that your new boss is one such sorcerer, but that, as they say, is neither here nor there. So tonight rolls around, and suddenly you’ve got a TV magician and an elderly couple and a bunch of random guests to deal with.”

“Who’s the elderly couple?” Bert asks, looking around.

“But what does any of this have to do with me?” Gideon says. “Or the Atrophy Nix murders?”

“Nothing,” Valkyrie says, looking at Lucy. “I’m sorry, but you’re not getting any answers tonight.”

Lucy experiences an awful feeling, that dreadfully cold plummeting feeling. “But... wait, no... All these deaths...”

“Mr Vogel was a sorcerer,” says Valkyrie. “He was here to find the hidden room. Maybe he enlisted Elaine’s help. That would have been his mistake. She killed him, and got Terry to hang his body from the rafters. She expected the police to be called and for her friend, Constable Dudley, to arrive and take over. In fact, he was parked close by, wasn’t he? Those roads were flooded – there was no way he’d be able to make it through in such a short space of time. The original plan was for Dudley to take everyone back to the station for questioning. Everyone apart from Elaine. She’d be left alone to find the hidden room. When that didn’t happen, when Skulduggery and I spoiled her plan, she contacted Dudley herself to try and salvage the situation. Did you know about this, Terry?”

“I don’t know anything,” Terry says stiffly.

“I’m inclined to believe you. I think Elaine was going to betray you. Dudley loved her and she knew it, so they were probably planning on using you as a fall guy should they need one. She was probably going to betray Dudley, as well, but I’m only guessing here.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Elaine says angrily.

“I know the only thing you care about is finding that Staff of Arkanemok.”

“You think this is about the money.”

“No. I think this is about you getting to talk to Ian Gannis again. I think you miss him terribly. I think, if there’s one person out there for each of us, Ian Gannis was your one person.”

Elaine’s eyes mist slightly. “I loved him. I still love him.”

Terry stares at her. “You said you loved me.”

“If this is true,” says Gideon, “then why did you kill Clive?”

“I didn’t kill your ridiculous assistant!” Elaine shouts. “Yes, I loved Ian. Yes, I wanted the Staff of Arkanemok! That’s not a crime!”

“But I’m pretty sure that killing Vogel is,” says Valkyrie.

“Prove it!” Elaine says, and laughs. “Go on, prove it! That wasn’t even his real name! How is anyone going to charge me with the murder of a magic man? You’ll be laughed out of court!”

“I’m sure your accomplice would be happy to turn on you in a mortal court,” Skulduggery says. “Terry, I’d imagine you’re feeling quite betrayed right now. That’s presumably why you killed Constable Dudley, is it not?”

Elaine whirls to Terry. “What?”

“Oh, yeah,” he sneers, “you didn’t think I knew about that, did you?”

She looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “Dudley was on our side!”

“Then why didn’t you tell me he was in on it? Because you were plotting against me!”

“We were a team!” she shouts.

“You tried to throw me under the bus the first chance you got!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said I wasn’t as local as you!”

“I was shifting focus!” Elaine rages. “We agreed that we couldn’t look like we were in on it together!”

“Well, how about this for shifting focus?” Terry says, and points at her. “Elaine killed Vogel!”

Elaine screeches with indignation and points back at Terry. “Terry killed Dudley and I didn’t know anything about it!”

“This was all her idea!” Terry roars.

“I’ll kill you!”

“I’m right here, Elaine! Come and get me!”

Elaine runs at him and Terry covers his head with both arms because those acrylic nails look sharp.

Then we hear the chimes of the grandfather clock as midnight strikes and the hidden room, somewhere in the Hollow Hotel, reveals itself for whoever knows how to find it.

There’s also a wail. A loud, anguished wail. Getting closer.

Emilia flies through the wall and the windows shatter and the storm crashes into the room, amplified by the screaming, tortured entity to hurricane force. Tables and chairs get tossed into the air and splinter against the walls. The rain lashes and thunder roars. Skulduggery loses his hat.

“Stay here!” Skulduggery shouts to Valkyrie, his voice barely making it over the noise. “I have to find the hidden room!”

“I’m coming with you!” Lucy cries.

She lurches after him, but Kate grabs her.

“Do not leave me!” Kate shouts into her ear. “If we split up right before the end, I’ll get horribly murdered, I know it!”

Lucy pulls her bracelet off and stuffs it into Kate’s hand. “Take this!”

“I don’t need your stupid bracelet!”

“It’s my good-luck charm!”

Kate stares at her. “I’m about to be horribly murdered during a storm that’s taking place indoors, and you’re giving me a good-luck charm?”

“I bet you’ll be fine!” Lucy shouts. “Skulduggery, I’m coming!”

Skulduggery waves his arms, but these winds, these supernaturally augmented winds, don’t obey him, not like they should, so he grabs Lucy’s wrist and they struggle to the restaurant doors, and then the doors crash open and Skulduggery and Lucy stagger out, and the doors slam closed behind them and the storm is suddenly muted. We can hear classical music again: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Liszt.

Skulduggery runs and Lucy has to catch up.

“Wait for me!” she shouts, her clothes drenched with rain.

He doesn’t slow down as he runs deeper into the hotel, taking turns seemingly at random. She can barely keep up, and notices something odd only when her shoulder bounces off a corner that she’s turning.

“The walls are moving!” she shouts, and then glances down. “The floors are moving!”

She looks up just in time to see Skulduggery running towards her.

“Back we go,” he says. “This way.”

‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ by Grieg plays.

“Everything is moving,” Skulduggery says as they run side by side. “The hotel is in flux, constantly rearranging itself.”

“So how do you know where to go?” she says, thankful for those late-afternoon jogs she takes after work.

They turn a corner, reach a dead end, and turn back. They take another corner, reach another dead end, and turn back again.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Skulduggery says. “It’s the notes, you see, the musical notes, just like before. That’s why Bewilder Mowbray had this music piped into every corridor. It’s a guide. Finding the hidden room is a simple case of going one way or the other – left or right. We’re looking for a binary key. We’ve just taken three right turns. Two of those right turns led to dead ends and one right turn led to another corridor. The two right turns were wrong turns, it turns out. A right turn is major, a left turn is minor.”

Lucy stares at him as they run. “What?”

“Listen to the music,” he tells her. “What is that? Come now, Lucy, you’re a music teacher! What is that?”

“Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik,” she says.

Skulduggery nods. “Official name Serenade Number Thirteen for strings in G major. Right turn.”

They take the next right. The music instantly changes as the walls continue to close in.

“Für Elise,” says Lucy. “Beethoven.”

“A minor. Left turn.”

They turn left. Lucy recognises this one, too.

“Bach.”

“Toccata and Fugue in D minor,” says Skulduggery. “Another left turn.”

The music waiting for them in the next corridor is on the tip of her tongue.

“Chopin,” Skulduggery says. “Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E flat major. See? This is fun and educational! Valkyrie would hate it!”

“Don’t let her kill me!” Gideon screams, trying to crawl under the ruined remains of a table. “Valkyrie, don’t let her rip my soul apart!”

The storm rages around them and the ghost twists and wails and screeches but ignores Gideon completely.

“She’s not after you!” Valkyrie shouts to him. “If she kills you, she’s stuck with you! I don’t think she’d want that!”

Gideon looks like he’s going to take offence, then decides against it.

A chair hurtles towards Kate, but Valkyrie releases a bolt of white energy that turns the chair to something less than splinters, and Kate staggers into her.

“I swear to God,” Kate shouts, “nobody better kill me!”

Valkyrie tries to get to Bert and Nora, who are huddled in the corner, but Gideon’s cry of alarm makes her turn back. He’s pointing at a ghost, not Emilia, not flying about, disappearing into one wall and reappearing through another, but a man standing there. Valkyrie wipes the rain from her eyes, fighting against the blurriness of the world, and the ghost of Constable Dudley comes into focus.

“Arthur?” Elaine yells from the floor where she’s cowering. “Is that you?”

The ghost of Constable Dudley turns to her. The wind and the rain pass through him. His hair doesn’t ruffle. His clothes don’t get wet. He looks at Elaine and his face is a mask of placidity. Then it changes. It darkens.

Elaine is on her knees now, her hands up. “Now, wait a moment, Arthur. What happened to you wasn’t my fault. That was Terry. Terry killed you. Don’t you remember?”

Terry, on the other side of the room, howls. “Don’t send him over here!”

Elaine points at him. “Kill Terry! Go on, now’s your chance! Just like we planned!”

“I knew it!” Terry screeches. “I knew you were planning on killing me!” He lurches to his feet and staggers through the storm, into the centre of the room.

“Terry,” Valkyrie calls, “stay away from the scary ghost!”

Terry, amazingly, ignores her, and speaks directly to the ghost. “Okay, yeah, I killed you,” he says, “but she was going to do it anyway! If she was happy to double-cross me, she was going to double-cross you, as well!”

Dudley watches Terry, then turns towards Elaine again.

“Now, wait, that’s not true,” Elaine shouts as Dudley starts walking towards her. “That’s not... Help me. Somebody help me!”

Valkyrie mutters a few inventive curse words that are sadly lost to the storm, and moves on an intercept course, waving her hands to get Dudley’s attention.

“Hey, ghostie!” she shouts. “I can’t let you kill either of these two idiots. Well, I could, but I’m not going to.”

Dudley snarls and is now moving towards Valkyrie, who makes a show of the energy crackling around her hands.

“Stay back, Casper. You don’t want any piece of this.”

“It’s a ghost!” Gideon yells. “What can you do? Lightning doesn’t hurt ghosts!”

“This isn’t lightning,” she tells him, never taking her eyes off Dudley. “It looks like lightning, but it isn’t lightning. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know for damn sure that it hurts ghosts.”

Dudley raises his arms and rushes her, his face distorting into something horrible and inhuman, and Valkyrie blasts him, and his ghost-form flies apart and scorches to nothing, like paper being burned.

“You did it!” Gideon yells, like it’s his triumph. “You killed a ghost! You’re a Ghost-Killer!”

Valkyrie sags in the wind and rain. Ghost-Killer. World-Killer. Why do her nicknames always suck?

We’re back in the maze of shifting corridors, in the collapsing, twisting corridors, in the corridors that tighten and narrow as the walls fold in on each other, and Skulduggery and Lucy run, guided only by the music that plays.

To Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, they go left.

When they hear the Allegro Non Molto section in F minor of Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ (The Four Seasons), they take another left.

On and on they go, until they’re hearing music Lucy can’t identify, by composers she’s never heard of, but she follows Skulduggery as he makes every turn with absolute certainty.

And then the music stops, and the grinding of moving walls fades somewhat. Before them is a door. Lucy is breathing hard and needs a rest, and she walks after Skulduggery as he pushes open the door and enters the hidden room.

There’s a single leather armchair, expensive-looking and old, though not as old as the man who sold it to Edward Burgess had claimed. The walls are lined with shelves on which rest items and objects of power.

“This looks impressive,” Lucy says, her voice little more than a whisper. It’s the kind of room you whisper in, she reckons. “Is this impressive? Are all these things magic? Like ancient magical artefacts and magic spell books—”

“We don’t use spells,” Skulduggery says, almost distractedly, as he looks around.

“Guenevere used spells,” Lucy says.

Skulduggery’s tone is reluctant. “There are spells, but we don’t like to call them that. The word ‘spell’ has negative connotations and reinforces stereotypes we would rather leave behind.”

He waves a hand, his suit immediately dries, and he turns the water into steam that he allows to drift through the air. He doesn’t dry Lucy’s clothes, or her hair. She feels it’s because she used the word spells.

“Guenevere wasn’t nearly as sensitive about this stuff as you are,” she says.

“I’m not sensitive about it,” Skulduggery says, “I just... Anyway. No.”

“No?”

“To answer your question, Is this impressive? No. Most of these items are junk and the books would appear to be cheap imitations. Edward Burgess undoubtedly paid a lot of money to stock a room full of worthless forgeries. Apart from this.”

He picks up a thin twig that had been lying in a glass case.

Lucy peers at it. “What is that?”

“This is what we’re looking for.”

She stares at him, then stares at the twig. “That’s the Staff of Arkanemok?”

“It would seem so.”

“But it’s... it’s tiny!”

“Yes.”

“That’s not a staff. That’s a... It’s a twig.”

“It is twig-like in appearance, yes.”

“But it’s not a staff, though!”

“I think it was once,” Skulduggery says. “Once upon a time, it was a fine and mighty staff.”

“So what happened to it?”

“I don’t know. Erosion? Anyway, let’s get out of here before this room hides itself away again.”

We’re back in the restaurant, where the storm rages, and Emilia has reappeared, flitting over the corpse of Nebular Grody.

Gideon manages to clamber to his feet, and he staggers over to Kate and Valkyrie.

“Are you going to use that lightning on her?” he asks, shielding his eyes from the rain.

Valkyrie’s hair is plastered to her skull. “Emilia’s an innocent victim in all this.”

“So you’re going to do nothing? Fine! Then I’m going to make a run for it!”

Valkyrie and Kate look at him, then at the doors – directly behind Emilia – and then look back at Gideon.

“Dude,” Kate says, “I wouldn’t.”

“Just keep your head down,” Valkyrie advises.

Gideon bends his knees like a sprinter about to sprint. “I’m going to do it. Three. Two.”

And suddenly Elaine is there, crashing into Gideon, Nebular Grody’s gun in her hand.

“Help!” Gideon screams. “Help me!”

Neither Valkyrie nor Kate, who are still just standing there, have reacted in any way to what has just happened.

“Don’t move!” Elaine hollers, the gun pressed into Gideon’s back.

She looks around the room, at the destroyed furniture, the dead body, the ghost, her former accomplice, the elderly couple in the corner, and finally back at Kate and Valkyrie.

“You’re going to let me go, do you hear me? You will never come after me or... or arrest me... or I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him right now!”

“No! Don’t!” yells Gideon.

“I’ll do it!” shouts Elaine.

“Don’t let her!” yells Gideon.

The ghost of Emilia turns suddenly, as if she’s listening to something only she can hear, and then she drifts away from Grody’s body and disappears through a wall. Immediately, the storm fades until it’s just the wind and rain coming through the broken windows.

Elaine returns her attention to Valkyrie. “So what’s it going to be?” she demands, dripping wet. “Are you going to let me walk away, or do I kill him in front of you?”

Valkyrie shrugs. “Sure.”

Elaine frowns. “What?”

“Walk away,” Valkyrie says. “Sure.”

“Really?”

“I don’t have a choice, do I? You’re the one holding the gun. I don’t much like Romeo Gideon –”

“Why not?” Gideon asks in a small voice.

“– but I can’t just stand by and watch you kill him. Probably. So sure. Walk away.”

No one says anything for a moment. Gideon tries to adjust his position – he’s on his hands and knees in a giant puddle on the floor – but Elaine won’t let him.

“You’re lying,” Elaine says.

Valkyrie’s eyebrow goes up. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t believe you,” says Elaine. “You’re lying. When I’m not threatening Gideon any more, you’re going to arrest me.”

“So what do you want to do?” asks Valkyrie.

“I want you to not arrest me!”

Valkyrie winces. “Yeah, but we both know I’m going to. You think you’re going to wander off home and go back to your life after what you’ve done? No. You think you’re going to run, and build a new life for yourself somewhere else? Have you made preparations for any of that?”

“I haven’t made any preparations for anything,” Elaine says miserably. “I expected this to work.”

“Exactly,” Valkyrie says. “So all that’ll happen, if you kill the idiot –”

“Hey,” Gideon mutters.

“– is that you’ll be in prison for a longer period of time.”

Elaine sticks her tongue into the corner of her mouth as she thinks. “Terry,” she says, “what’ll we do?”

“Well,” he replies, “I’m running. I can start again somewhere else.”

Elaine sounds wounded. “Without me?”

“Yes, without you!” Terry explodes. “You were going to betray me! I loved you, but you were going to betray me! I’m going to run and disappear!”

Valkyrie watches him. “You’re going to run and make a new life for yourself somewhere a magical organisation of sorcerers will not be able to find you? Really?”

“Yes,” he insists. “I’ve got options.”

“Like where?”

“Like Orkney. I have a cousin in Orkney who rents out a cottage.”

Valkyrie nods. “You mean the cottage you’ve just told me about?”

It takes a moment for Terry to catch up.

“Dammit!” he says.

“Give up, the pair of you. Elaine, put down the gun and just come quietly. You don’t want me to hit you. I hit really hard.”

From his awkward and uncomfortable position, Gideon tries to help. “Elaine, I understand that you’ve been through a lot, and losing Owen really—”

“Ian,” she says.

“What?”

“His name was Ian.”

Gideon frowns. “Are you sure?”

“I know my own boyfriend’s name!” she yells, digging the gun into his back.

“Romeo,” says Kate, “maybe you should stop talking.”

“No, no, I can do this,” Gideon says. “I’m a people person! Elaine, you don’t want to kill me. You said it yourself: you’re my biggest fan.”

“I was lying,” Elaine says, her voice cold.

Gideon chuckles. “I think we all know you weren’t.”

Elaine sighs, exasperated. “I think you’re... I mean, you’re fine, I suppose, but you wouldn’t be my favourite magician. Does anyone have a favourite magician? Really?”

“I do,” says Gideon.

“Is it you?”

“Yes.”

“Thought so.” Elaine considers her options. “Okay, Valkyrie, if I give up, I’m going to need some concessions.”

“No concessions,” Valkyrie says.

“But I need something! A reduced sentence! Maybe house arrest instead of prison!”

“Sure.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Terry sees his opportunity and he takes it, lunging at Elaine just as she’s about to argue and wrestling the gun from her grip.

“Ow!” Elaine cries. “What do you think you’re doing, you muppet?”

“I’m getting myself out of here!” Terry snarls, the gun in his hand. “And no one is going to stop me!”

Elaine backs off, scowling at him, and Terry moves in the direction of the doors. Valkyrie steps into his path.

He frowns. “Get out of the way.”

“No,” Valkyrie says.

Moving slowly and calmly, she raises her hands a little, and Terry straightens his gun arm and steps towards her.

“I will kill you,” he says, teeth gritted.

“Have you ever actually fired a gun before?” Valkyrie asks, and before he’s even answered she grabs his wrist with one hand and the gun barrel with the other, raising it towards the ceiling as she lowers herself under it. Terry pulls the trigger and the gun goes off, and she whips it down, yanking the weapon from his hand and hitting him with it.

Terry cartwheels back, blood running from a gash across his nose, as Valkyrie empties the gun of its bullets and tosses it.

Terry yells out a war cry and charges.

Valkyrie beats him up. It’s a matter-of-fact display from her and a shocking display from him, but that’s to be expected. She hits him with the heel of her right hand, and she hits him with her elbow, and she twists and wrenches and folds his joints whenever he tries something new, and he yells in pain practically every time she touches him. She dumps him on the ground and hits him three times in the face.

“Please,” he gurgles wetly. “Please stop hurting me.”

“I barely touched you,” Valkyrie tells him as she straightens up. She looks at Kate and Gideon and Bert and Nora. “I barely touched him!”

They all nod, but appear unconvinced.

Then the doors to the restaurant are flung open and Skulduggery and Lucy come striding in.

“Do you have it?” Valkyrie asks. “Did you find the Staff of Arkanemok? Why are you holding a twig?”

“That is the Staff of Arkanemok,” Lucy tells them.

They all look at it.

“Thought it’d be bigger,” Elaine says.

Skulduggery holds the twig aloft. “I call on thee, Emilia Pearce! I call on thee to appear before me!”

From somewhere in the hotel comes Emilia’s long and mournful wail, getting closer.

Getting closer fast.

Emilia flies through the wall, her face contorted in rage, the wind suddenly howling once again and the rain lashing. Skulduggery raises his voice to a shout that can be heard above the crashing thunder.

“Hear me, unquiet spirit! You have been trapped in this place for far too long, denied the peace that comes with your station! Tonight, heed my words and fly free! Emilia Pearce, you are released from this house!”

Elaine stops wailing and the anger vanishes from her face and the storm dies down and she hangs there, in mid-air, looking at all of them.

“What’s she doing?” Kate whispers.

No one answers because Emilia isn’t doing a whole lot of anything. She just... hovers.

“What happened to Terry?” Lucy asks.

“Valkyrie did,” says Kate.

Valkyrie turns to Elaine. “You’re not going to give us any trouble, are you?”

Elaine looks like she’s about to start crying. “All I wanted was the Staff of Arkanemok so I could talk to Ian again. That’s all I wanted.”

Gideon frowns. “Wait. Hold on. No, no. Not again.” His body begins to tremble, to spasm, but he fights against it. “You don’t need to possess me, you stupid ghost! We have the Staff of Arkanemok! You can talk to each other using that! You don’t have to possess me!”

Gideon contorts and twists and grunts and hisses, and nobody goes to help because nobody likes him.

“Elaine?” Ian Gannis says, through Gideon.

“Ian?” Elaine says, tears springing to her eyes. “Ian, is that you?”

“It’s so dark,” says Gideon.

Elaine takes hold of Gideon’s hands. “Come towards my voice, Ian! Oh, my love! Oh, I’ve missed you! I miss you so much and I don’t know what to do without you!”

“Elaine?”

“Ian! Yes! Can you hear me?”

“Elaine, I’ve been searching for you,” says Gideon. “I need to tell you something.”

“Yes, my darling? I’m here! I’m listening! What do you have to tell me?”

“Elaine, I think we should see other people.”

There is a long, long pause.

No. Longer than that.

“What?” says Elaine.

“I’ve met someone,” said Gideon, “and I think we have a shot.”

“You’ve met a... another ghost?”

“Her name’s Isabelle. I think you’d really like her.”

Elaine’s lower lip trembles. “You’re breaking up with me?”

“We just want different things. Goodbye, Elaine. I’ll always treasure our time together...”

Elaine keeps holding Gideon’s hands as his body contorts, signalling that Ian has abandoned the possession. Elaine just stares, unable to process what has happened, and Gideon blinks at her, returning to full control, and he tries to smile and then he vomits on to her and Elaine shrieks and dances away from him.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Elaine whispers.

Valkyrie steps forward, pats her shoulder, her wrist, any part that hasn’t been hit by puke, and cuffs her hands behind her back.

“This is awkward and gross and obviously really bad timing,” Valkyrie says, “but you’re under arrest.”

“I don’t believe it,” Elaine mumbles.

“Men, eh?” says Valkyrie.

“Men,” says Kate.

“Men,” says Lucy.

“Men,” echoes Elaine.

Lucy turns to Kate and grins. “See? You’re not dead.”

“I barely escaped with my life.”

“Even so, the good-luck charm worked.”

“You’re not getting it back,” Kate says, folding her hand over the bracelet at her wrist.

“You’re funny.”

“It’s mine now.”

“Give.”

“Nope.”

Skulduggery tosses a pair of handcuffs to Terry, who lies there, moaning and crying. “Terry, hello there. Put these on and get to your feet or I’ll set Valkyrie on you. Good man.”

Terry does as he’s told.

Gideon has his eyes on Emilia. “Why is she still here? Didn’t you release her spirit?”

“I did,” Skulduggery says. “There must be something else keeping her here.”

“I think I know why,” Valkyrie says.

“Take the Staff of Arkanemok,” Skulduggery says, handing her the twig.

Valkyrie looks at it with distaste, then sighs and raises her eyes to the ghost. “Emilia, my name is Valkyrie. Would you like to follow me?”

She walks backwards to the doors, and Emilia drifts after her. The others follow them all the way to the foyer. The music has stopped. They all notice, but they’re too tired or too indifferent to mention it.

“Emilia looks scared,” Lucy says.

Skulduggery, who is carefully drying his hat, nods. “She’s never been able to access this part of the hotel before. Kate, would you open the front door?”

Kate hurries ahead, opens the door. The storm has passed. Valkyrie steps out, but Elaine hesitates, hovering just inside.

“Why doesn’t she go?” Kate asks.

Still holding the Staff of Arkanemok, Valkyrie raises her voice. “Jonathon Hopkins, hear my words. I call on you to appear before us. I have someone who’s been waiting for you.”

At the very edge of the car park, where the lights strain to reach, there’s a mist that becomes the shape of a man. Emilia sees this and joy breaks over her face and she rushes out of the hotel, past Valkyrie, and the mist flies towards her and, when they meet, the wind picks up, no fiercer than a sigh, and they are gone.

“That,” says Kate, “is the most romantic thing I have ever seen.”

Valkyrie turns to Elaine. “What do you reckon? Does that rekindle your faith in everlasting love, or what?”

“Love is for idiots,” Elaine says.

Valkyrie shrugs, and looks at Skulduggery as he ushers everyone out into the open air. “So what do we do with any other spirit that’s been trapped here?”

“We’ll send in the experts and they can seek out Vogel and Asher and Clive and help them move on,” he answers, picking up his gun and drying it off, “but Burgess, I think, deserves another few years of misery. Lucy, are you all right? You seem despondent.”

“No, I’m fine. Really. It’s just... it looks like everyone gets a resolution except me.”

“Which reminds me,” Skulduggery says, turning to point the gun at Kate, “we’re not quite finished here, are we?”

Kate freezes. “What’s happening now?”

“I was wondering,” Skulduggery says, “if there’s anything you might want to say to Lucy after everything that’s just happened. If there is, now would seem to be the perfect time.”

“What are you talking about and why are you pointing your gun at me?”

“Let’s start with the murder of Clive, and go from there.”

Kate laughs, then the laugh fades to a smile, which fades to a worried frown. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious.”

“This is my serious face.”

“I didn’t kill Clive, Skulduggery. You know I didn’t. I was with you when he was killed.”

“You were with me when Clive was found,” Skulduggery says. “There’s a difference. When we walked through that corridor the first time, Clive was there – we just didn’t see him.”

“Lucy,” says Valkyrie, “did your wife ever mention something called a cloaking sphere? It’s a wooden ball that emits a bubble of invisibility.”

“It is my assertion that Kate killed Clive because, unlike Gideon, Clive was a competent psychic,” Skulduggery says, “and as such there was the chance, however slight, that he might sense that Kate was hiding something. Kate, I think you killed him, placed a cloaking sphere beside him, and activated it. By the time we passed that way again, the cloaking sphere had retracted and Clive was visible.”

Kate stares at the detectives. “This is all just... what’s that word? From TV? Conjecture!”

“Then I’m sure you won’t mind us searching this bag you carry with you everywhere you go,” Skulduggery says, “the bag that, in your shock, you dropped. I’m sure you didn’t scoop up the cloaking sphere with the rest of your belongings.”

Lucy has had enough. “This is ridiculous. Kate didn’t kill Clive. Kate, give me your bag.”

“Of course!” says Kate, removing it from her shoulder. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Lucy reaches for the bag and Kate opens her hand, drops it, and, when she closes her fist, her hand is already glowing.

“Kate,” Lucy says slowly. She has frozen in place, her hand still out to take the satchel bag that now lies, forgotten, on the ground between them. “What’s happening?”

Kate smiles. “Atrophy, Lucy! Atrophy Nix! Please use my proper name! And it’s glowing because if either Skulduggery or Valkyrie make one little move I will blow a hole through your head.”

“We should probably leave you to it,” Terry says, and tries to step away.

“Do not move,” Valkyrie warns.

“Can I move?” Gideon asks.

“Shut up.”

“Toss the gun, Skulduggery,” Atrophy Nix says.

“But I just picked it up,” Skulduggery mumbles, but nonetheless throws it at Atrophy’s feet.

“You can’t be Nix,” Lucy says. “You can’t be.”

Atrophy smiles at Skulduggery. “Detective? Would you care to explain it to her?”

“When Umpton Fret was imprisoned for Nix’s crimes,” he says, “Nix here gave in to her curiosity and sought out Gideon. I’d imagine you became fascinated by how awful he was as a magician.”

“That’s not fair,” Gideon says.

“That’s it,” says Atrophy. “That’s it exactly. I mean, look at him. The man’s a walking joke.”

“And then Lucy broke into your safe house,” Valkyrie says.

Atrophy turns her attention back to Lucy. “You should be proud. None of those Sanctuary detectives ever got close to me. But you? You actually found one of my bases. You came this close to catching me. I walked in and realised someone had been here, had taken some of my stuff, and I barely made it out before you came back with the Sanctuary detectives. You almost got me. Almost.”

“You became Gideon’s stage assistant, didn’t you?” Skulduggery asks.

Gideon scoffs. “That’s ridiculous! She was never my—”

“Yes!” Atrophy laughs.

“What?”

“Those were some good years, I have to tell you,” Atrophy says to Gideon. “Just being around someone so incredibly bad at being a mage – it was a tonic. That’s what it was. It was a refreshing tonic, and it came just at the right time. I’d almost been caught, for God’s sake, but, more than that, I was growing bored of doing the same old thing. Killing was losing its lustre. No one could stop me. No one knew who I was. But being onstage every night with you, literally standing in the spotlight, going on tour, killing in every single city we visited... The game suddenly felt new again.”

Gideon blinks. “But... but you can’t be her...”

Atrophy laughs again. “You couldn’t even remember my name, let alone what I looked like! Different hair, different make-up, just to be sure nothing jogged your memory... I wasn’t worried. I was too busy enjoying myself.”

“You were my friend,” Lucy says quietly.

“She didn’t have a choice,” says Valkyrie. “We’re right, aren’t we? One of the things Lucy took from your safe house was the Reverence Article.”

“Sticky fingers, that one,” says Atrophy. “Lucky for me, she hadn’t a clue what she’d stolen. My last show, Lucy was in the audience. I recognised her, of course, but I also felt it. I knew she was the one who’d taken my little toy. In this audience, she was the one person I could not harm. I could not kill. Oooh, that was aggravating!”

Lucy looks like she’s going to cry. “You were onstage when I...?”

“See? You never recognised me, either! I watched you, but never once did you even glance at me – you were staring at Gideon the whole time. I followed you home, let myself in, even found the Reverence Article. But I couldn’t take it. I was bound by my new-found loyalty to you. But that’s when the fun and games began. We became firm friends, yes we did, bonding over every little thing you liked and I pretended to like. I suggested luring Gideon here, and I was going to make you believe he’d killed Guenevere and get you to kill him... Oooh, that would have been so satisfying.”

Lucy straightens up, and her jaw tightens. “If you have to do whatever I say, then I’m telling you to lower your hand.”

“Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,” Atrophy says, “come on now. What did you take from my safe house? Think about this now. What did you take?”

“Guenevere’s phone. And her bracelet.”

Atrophy nods. “Her bracelet. The one I’d kept as a memento. I liked that bracelet, all those little charms. The carriage, the lamp... the heart. You bought her those, didn’t you? You remember buying them, for various birthdays and Christmases...?

“Do you remember buying the heart, Lucy? You don’t, do you? The heart was mine. I put that little heart, that little Reverence Article, into people’s hands and I made them stand there and not scream as I killed them. And, when I killed your wife, I saw her bracelet and I thought that my heart would look wonderful on it. And so that’s where I put it, and that’s where it stayed, on that bracelet, round your wrist, for years.”

Now Atrophy’s smile widens. “Until you handed it to me ten minutes ago.”

“Oh, God...”

“The moment you gave it to me, you no longer had my fealty, my loyalty, my devotion, or my friendship. I no longer had to do whatever stupid thing you told me to. Tell me to do something now. Go on.”

“I can’t believe you’d—”

“Tell me to do something!” Atrophy barks, energy burning in her hand.

“Give yourself up,” Lucy tells her.

“No,” says Atrophy and laughs. “Ohhh, that’s nice. It’s a relief, Lucy, it really is. I’ve been tagging along behind you for years, like a really pretty puppy. I couldn’t even stray. I had to keep within a twenty-kilometre radius of you. Do you have any idea what that was like? No. You don’t. Now I’m free. I’m free to roam and to kill and to live again. I’m going to enjoy this next part.”

Atrophy goes to kill Lucy, but Gideon, who has spent the last few moments moving up behind her, puts his fingers to his temples and says, “Hey, Atrophy.”

He jerks forward with the exertion of the psychic attack, and Atrophy turns to frown at him.

“Was that supposed to do anything?” she asks.

Gideon blinks at her. “It was a... it was a psychic attack...”

“Really?”

All of a sudden, Terry winces. “Oooh, brain freeze.”

“Aw, man,” says Gideon. “I missed.”

Atrophy turns back to Lucy, but Valkyrie moves in, punching her across the jaw. Atrophy clings on to her to stop herself from falling and they go staggering against the nearest car.

Lucy tenses, ready to spring into the battle, but Skulduggery shakes his head.

“It’s better if you stay out of the way,” he says. “Valkyrie will handle it from here.”

“Shouldn’t we be helping her? Shouldn’t you be helping her?”

“Valkyrie doesn’t need my help,” Skulduggery says. “Settle in. I promise you’ll enjoy this next part.”

Everyone watches Valkyrie and Atrophy fight. Every so often, one of Atrophy’s hands glows, like she’s about to release a stream of energy, but Valkyrie just bats it away and hits her.

“This...” Lucy says.

Skulduggery tilts his head. “Yes?”

“This actually is a lot of fun.”

“See?”

Atrophy catches Valkyrie with a right hook, but she’s panicking so much that she barely puts any weight behind it. Valkyrie ducks another, shoves her, and then takes two steps and jumps, spinning with a kick that whacks off the side of Atrophy’s head.

“Now, I didn’t teach her how to do that,” Skulduggery tells Lucy. “A very nice but violent lady named Tanith took it upon herself to teach her those kicks. They are not something to be used, as a general rule, in a life-or-death struggle – but this is hardly a life-or-death struggle.”

“Are you sure?” Lucy asks, not taking her eyes off the fight. “Kate’s a serial killer.”

“Oh, Kate – or Atrophy – is indeed trying her best to kill Valkyrie – but this, on its own, doesn’t make it a life-or-death struggle. With the acknowledgement that the outcome of any fight is never certain, and with the acknowledgement that you should never underestimate your opponent, Valkyrie is by far the better fighter and she’s going to kick this serial killer’s ass. To use the vernacular.”

Gasping, bleeding, panicking, Atrophy lunges at Valkyrie, and Valkyrie grabs her wrist and twists, spinning her into a choke.

“Ah,” Skulduggery says. “Now that I did teach her.”

Valkyrie releases the choke before Atrophy loses consciousness, and allows her to drop at her feet.

She then raises both fists over her head and shouts, “Shovel!”

“Shovel?” Lucy echoes.

“It’s my victory yell,” Valkyrie tells her.

“Oh,” says Lucy. “It’s good.”

Valkyrie takes a slim pair of shackles, not much thicker than regular handcuffs, from her jacket and binds Atrophy’s hands behind her back. As she does so, she removes the good-luck bracelet from Atrophy’s wrist.

“Atrophy Nix, you are hereby arrested for the murder of who knows how many people,” Valkyrie says, pulling Atrophy to her feet. She takes the silver heart from the collection of charms and tosses the bracelet to Lucy. “Would you like to punch her before we take her away?”

“Punch her?” Lucy says as she secures the bracelet on to her own wrist again.

“You can punch her if you want,” Skulduggery says. “She is going straight to prison where she will spend centuries behind bars – most likely until she dies old, cold, and alone. If you are able to derive any sense of satisfaction from any of this, just know that she will be punished for everyone she’s ever killed, including your wife. But sometimes there is a greater satisfaction in also punching your enemy.”

“I don’t know,” Lucy says doubtfully. “I actually don’t know how I feel about any of this. I’m angry, I know that much. I hate her, I know that, too. But I don’t know how much taking a cheap shot will help me get over what she—”

Lucy steps forward, putting all her weight behind a punch that rocks Atrophy’s head back, and Atrophy falls.

“Oh, yeah,” she says. “I see your point.”

Valkyrie takes hold of Atrophy’s ankles and drags her over to the Bentley. “We’re going to go now,” she says. “You probably won’t see us again. If you like, we can have someone stop by every few years to update you on how miserable she is.”

“Maybe, yeah,” says Lucy. “I think I’d like that.”

“Okay, hold on,” Gideon says, “before we all go our separate ways... Atrophy is going to prison. Terry and Elaine are going to prison. Bert and Nora are going on a cruise. Lucy carries on with her life, you two carry on with yours... and everyone else is dead. And what about me? What happens to me?”

Skulduggery observes him. “Romeo Gideon, you may have made mistakes in the past. You may have a lot to atone for. But just now you tried to help, and, even though it was an abject failure, sometimes the effort is enough. More than any of that, though, is the sheer, inescapable fact that we do not care what happens to you.”

“Not one bit,” Valkyrie says, dumping Atrophy Nix into the Bentley’s boot.

“Not even a tiny amount,” says Skulduggery.

“Oh,” says Gideon.

Valkyrie opens the Bentley’s door, and indicates for Terry and Elaine to climb in. They do so, with sad faces and much difficulty.

“If everyone wants to follow us,” Skulduggery says, “I can make sure all cars get through the floodwaters.”

With Elaine and Terry secured inside, Valkyrie closes the car door. “Can we stop for ice cream on the way to the prison?”

“It isn’t even dawn. Where are we going to get ice cream?”

“I know a place,” she says, and they get in the car and drive away.

Well, not quite.

Before they get in the car, Valkyrie looks around. “Where are Bert and Nora?” she asks. “If they get left behind, they’ll be stuck here for hours.”

“Ah, yes,” Skulduggery says. “About them.”

Valkyrie frowns. “What?”

“Lucy, Romeo, remain here, if you please,” Skulduggery says, his gun rising into his right hand while he motions, with his left, towards the hotel. “Valkyrie?”

Valkyrie hesitates, then walks into the foyer, and Skulduggery follows.

“How many Soul Catchers can you count?” he asks.

She scans the shelves as they walk. “Uh... thirteen. Didn’t there used to be more?”

“Yes, there did,” he says, and now they’re in reception, and moving towards the desk. Because we can hear Bert and Nora behind it.

“I’ve had better,” Nora is saying.

“We’ve definitely had tastier,” Bert agrees.

“You remember that woman at the old church? She was delicious.”

“Oh, she was.”

Bert and Nora are on their knees on the other side of the desk. Their eyes are black and there are four corners to their mouths: the corners on either side, allowing the mouth to open horizontally, and the corners just under the nose and halfway down the chin, allowing the mouths to open vertically.

Also, their ears are pointy and their skin is mottled, but who cares about that when their mouths are so weird?

“Hello, you two,” Skulduggery says.

Bert and Nora snap their heads up in surprise, and Nora tries a delighted but casual smile, which is difficult to pull off when your mouth opens in two directions.

“Oh!” she says. “Hello!”

“Oh my God, what the hell happened to your faces?” Valkyrie says, all in one breath.

“Oh, dear,” says Nora as both she and her husband spring to their feet like a couple in their twenties. Thirties, at the very most.

“What the crapping crap?” Valkyrie says, staring. “No, no, no, do not move. Do not take one more step. What the hell is going on? What the hell are you?”

Something, halfway between smoke and vapour, curls from their lips.

“And what the hell is that stuff?”

“That, Valkyrie,” Skulduggery says, “is what remains of Edward Burgess.”

Bert sneers. Sneers are extra-awful when you have a mouth like Bert’s. “You think you’re so smart.”

“They ate a ghost?” Valkyrie says, still trying to process what she’s seeing.

“They’ve been snacking all night, haven’t you?” Skulduggery says. “Draining those Soul Catchers.”

Valkyrie peers at them. “What are you?”

Nora smooths down her cardigan. “We’re Soul Vampires, dear.”

“That’s one name for you,” Skulduggery says with a one-shoulder shrug.

“No, hold on, I’ve met Soul Vampires,” Valkyrie says. “I got three broken ribs from a Soul Vampire. They don’t look like you.”

Nora nods. “There are different types, Valkyrie, dear. Would this make you feel more comfortable?”

Her face slurps back in on itself and her mouth returns to normal. So do her ears and her skin, but who cares about those things?

“Is that better?” she asks.

Valkyrie relaxes and nods. “Yeah, that’s much—” and she goes right back to being appalled. “You’re a Soul Vampire, you nasty old lady!”

Nora sighs, endlessly patient. “There is a great stigma regarding our kind – not entirely unjustified – but I assure you, we’re of no threat to you, or any living thing.”

“Bert’s still got his monster face on!”

“Bert,” says Nora.

“I’m not hiding who I am one moment longer,” Bert says stubbornly.

“Bert,” says Valkyrie, “I commend you on your stance and everything, and I will fight for your right to be who you are and be proud of your heritage, but could you stop flapping your gums at me because it is odd and off-putting?”

“And also what Nora says isn’t quite true, is it?” Skulduggery asks. “You are capable of sucking the life out of someone.”

“Well, I never!” says Nora, her hands fluttering to her chest.

Bert draws himself up to his full height. “You, sir, have offended my wife! I demand an apology!”

“You probably won’t get one,” Skulduggery tells him.

“We have stood here and been assaulted by your slanderous words and your hateful prejudice long enough!”

“We just started this conversation.”

Bert jabs a finger at him. “I demand the name of your immediate supervisor. They will be getting a strongly worded letter in the post, you mark my words.”

Skulduggery tilts his head. “I don’t have a superior, Bert. I am superior.”

“And so am I,” Valkyrie says, mainly because she’s been feeling left out for the last couple of seconds.

Nora puts her hand on her husband’s arm. “Bert, I think we should probably go,” she says sadly.

“You’re lucky that my wife is a kind-hearted woman,” Bert says. “Now, stand aside.”

Skulduggery and Valkyrie do not move.

“Very well,” says Bert. “We shall walk round you.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Skulduggery says.

“This is ridiculous!” Bert cries. “We haven’t done anything wrong!”

“You ate a ghost, Bert,” Valkyrie reminds him.

“But he was a horrible man,” says Nora. “A dreadful man. A man like that, even the spirit of a man like that, doesn’t deserve your sympathy. He was a monster when he was alive.”

“Oh, he was,” says Valkyrie. “And I’m glad he’s dead. But I bet you didn’t come here for him, did you? You came here for Emilia. You’d have stopped her from being reunited with Jonathon and moving on to whatever they’re moving on to. Even the dead have lives.”

Nora shakes her head. “We’re no gluttons, my dear girl. We spend the vast majority of our days hungry. What little ghost-eating we do could actually be seen as a service to the public.”

“Getting rid of a nuisance,” Bert says, nodding. “Keeping the ghost population down keeps all you magic folk safer when you think about it. You should be thanking us for our work and our dedication.”

“You’re not going to throw us in prison, are you?” Nora asks. “Not for eating a man like Edward Burgess’s soul?”

“Quite frankly,” Skulduggery says, “no. We would have liked him to spend the next few decades alone and suffering, so you robbed us of that satisfaction, but it’s something we can overlook. The souls in the Soul Catchers, however...”

Husband and wife glance at each other.

“We... we didn’t want to do it,” Nora says. “But they were right there, sitting on the shelf, and no one was using them. They were going to waste. Every soul we eat prolongs our lives, you see, and gives us strength, makes us younger... but it was wrong. We know that. We’re sorry.”

Skulduggery turns his head a fraction towards Valkyrie. “What do you think?”

“I’m conflicted,” she says. “Nora look like a harmless old lady. Bert reminds me of my granddad, if my granddad had a monster face.”

“If you let us go, you’ll never see us again,” Nora promises.

“I mean... I suppose, if they haven’t actually hurt anyone living...”

“We haven’t,” Nora assures her with a grateful smile.

Bert nods. “We don’t do that sort of thing.”

“You’re sure about that?” Skulduggery asks.

“We’ve only ever eaten the souls of the dead,” Bert says.

Skulduggery tilts his head. “Your wedding cruise – you mentioned it was on the Carpathia. The Carpathia was the first ship to reach the Titanic after it sank in 1912. It managed to rescue seven hundred and five people. A little-known fact about the passengers of the Carpathia is that eighteen of them died soon after reaching New York. These passengers were ostensibly in perfect health, but they just appeared... drained.”

Bert glowers and Nora looks immediately guilty.

“Are you serious?” Valkyrie cries. “Bert! You were like a granddad to me! Nora! You were nice! I am shocked and appalled!”

“A common-or-garden vampire can exist by drinking from blood bags,” Skulduggery says, “but once they drink from the tap, as it were, they find it nearly impossible to go back. How about you two? Did you find it difficult to restrict yourselves to the souls of the dead when the souls of the living were so much more nourishing?”

The nice elderly couple glance at each other, and then Nora’s face slurps again and she monsterises, just like her husband.

“I can see your soul from here, skeleton,” she says, the four corners of her mouth peeling back off her teeth.

“I’m going to feast on you, girl,” Bert says to Valkyrie.

Skulduggery raises his gun and Nora laughs.

“Your bullets won’t stop us.”

“No,” Skulduggery says, “but they’ll hurt.”

The Soul Vampires come for them and Skulduggery shoots Nora six times in the chest and Valkyrie fills her hands with energy and punches Bert, her fists leaving streaks of light in the air as she drives him back.

Nora screeches and lunges, her fingers digging through Skulduggery’s jacket, latching on to his skeleton, but also digging into his soul. He gasps in pain and crunches his forehead into her nose, which splits apart under the impact.

Bert springs to the wall and then flips backwards, over Valkyrie’s head, and she experiences a moment of grudging respect before Bert’s foot catches her shoulder and sends her stumbling. He lands and he’s on her before she knows what’s happening, lifting her off her feet and slamming her into the same wall he bounced off.

Valkyrie doesn’t bounce. Not in a fun way, at least.

Skulduggery tosses a fireball that ignites Nora’s cardigan, and, while she shrieks, he clobbers her with his gun.

Bert grabs Valkyrie in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides. He could bite through her throat right now if he was the regular kind of vampire, but he isn’t interested in her blood. He opens his mouth fully so that it unfolds in front of Valkyrie’s face, ready to feed on her soul. She gathers her magic behind her eyes and lets loose twin streams of energy that almost cut all the way through him.

As it is, the blast flings him back and he goes rolling to a graceless stop, and Valkyrie watches as Skulduggery secures Nora. When he’s done, he throws Valkyrie his last pair of handcuffs, and she secures Bert before he can wake.

“I want you to know that I am very disappointed in you both,” she says, even though they’re unconscious.

They leave the elderly monsters where they are and return outside, where Lucy and Gideon wait nervously.

“We heard gunshots,” says Lucy.

Gideon nods. “We were going to run in to check if you were okay, but—”

“Gunshots,” Lucy says.

“Did you kill the old people?” Gideon asks, like it’s the last question in the world he ever wants answered.

“They didn’t kill Mr and Mrs Bramble!” Lucy says, scolding him with her look. “Of course they didn’t!” She takes a moment and looks at Valkyrie. “Did you kill them, though?”

“Mr and Mrs Bramble are soul-eating monsters,” Valkyrie says, “and they tried to kill us, but no, they’re fine. Well, they’re alive, at least. We’ll have someone teleport in and take them somewhere they won’t be able to hurt anyone else, living or dead.”

Lucy shakes her head. “Is this just a standard weekend for you? Like, you go somewhere, you solve a murder, you fight monsters and serial killers, and then you just wake up and do the same thing the next day? Is this your life?”

Valkyrie glances at Skulduggery, and they both nod.

“Yes,” she says. “It is.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“Yes,” she says. “It is.”

Now. Now they get in the car, and now they drive away.

Keep Reading …

FIND OUT WHERE IT ALL BEGAN …

Click on the cover to read more.

READ THE LATEST MYSTERY …

Click on the cover to read more.

The Skulduggery Pleasant series

SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT

PLAYING WITH FIRE

THE FACELESS ONES

DARK DAYS

MORTAL COIL

DEATH BRINGER

KINGDOM OF THE WICKED

LAST STAND OF DEAD MEN

THE DYING OF THE LIGHT

RESURRECTION

MIDNIGHT

BEDLAM

SEASONS OF WAR

DEAD OR ALIVE

UNTIL THE END

A MIND FULL OF MURDER

THE MALEFICENT SEVEN

HELL BREAKS LOOSE

ARMAGEDDON OUTTA HERE

(a short-story collection)

THE SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT GRIMOIRE

BAD MAGIC

(a graphic novel)

THE HAUNTED HOUSE ON HOLLOW HILL

The Demon Road trilogy

DEMON ROAD

DESOLATION

AMERICAN MONSTERS

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