Anton Shudder had been busy holding off the zombies at the back of the hotel. He was on his knees on the floor, head down, exhausted, and all around him were pieces of the dead.
“Did we do it?” Shudder asked weakly.
Sanguine approached without speaking and kicked Shudder in the face. The kick lifted Shudder off his knees and threw him backwards. Sanguine howled and clutched his ribs. Every move he made sent bullets of hot pain ricocheting around his body. Gritting his teeth, Sanguine staggered over, dropped to his knees and searched for the key.
Miss Nuncio was dead. She had been holding four of them back and had slipped in the gore. The zombies had descended on her, biting off chunks as she struggled and screamed, cursing them in twenty different languages before falling silent. The only good thing about her death was that there wasn’t enough left of her to come back to life.
Valkyrie was covered in blood. Her arms were so tired she couldn’t lift them, and her legs were so tired it was all she could do to stand without falling over.
“I’m going to check on Anton,” Skulduggery said and left the room.
Every chair or sofa or seat in the place was in pieces. There was nowhere to sit down. Dragging her heavy feet, Valkyrie crossed the common room, heading for the chair behind the reception desk. All she wanted in this world was a shower and a lie-down. That, she reasoned, wasn’t too much to ask.
She got to the reception area and two more zombies barged in. Valkyrie dropped back and clicked her fingers, summoning a flame into her hand. She was about to call for help, but stopped when she saw who it was.
Vaurien Scapegrace glared at her, and the middle-aged zombie beside him did his best to look annoyed.
“My arch-enemy,” Scapegrace snarled.
Valkyrie frowned. “Me?”
“You may have killed my savage brethren,” he continued, “but you’re facing the Killer Supreme now, and I’m new and improved.”
“Scapegrace, I’m really tired.”
“I don’t feel pain,” Scapegrace said, ignoring her, “I don’t feel pity and I don’t feel…” He hesitated. “Bad. I won’t feel bad, I mean, about killing you, which is what’s going to happen very, very soon indeed.”
“Do you want to, like, go away and rehearse that a little more?”
“How dare you speak to the Killer Supreme in such a manner!” the middle-aged zombie screeched in a sudden and dramatic fury.
“Listen to me,” she said to them, “you don’t want to be involved in this. Scapegrace, look at what they’ve done to you, for God’s sake. They’ve turned you into a monster.”
“I’ve always been a monster,” Scapegrace told her, “but now, finally, my physical form reflects my inner darkness.”
“You smell terrible.”
“That’s the smell of evil.”
“It’s like rancid meat and bad eggs.”
“Evil,” Scapegrace insisted.
“Where are they holding Tanith and the Professor?” she asked. “You have a chance to help us end this. Maybe we can help you – maybe there’s a cure for…being a zombie.”
“We don’t need a cure,” the other zombie said.
“That’s right,” Scapegrace nodded.
“We’re happy the way we are.”
“Happy with the power,” Scapegrace clarified.
“Very happy, just the two of us, and there’s nothing wrong with us either. It’s very natural in fact. Nothing to be ashamed of—”
“Thrasher,” said Scapegrace, “shut up.”
“Okey-dokey.”
“We are not going to betray our Master,” Scapegrace said. “I joined the Vengeance Brigade for one reason and one—”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re sorry what?”
“The Vengeance Brigade? That’s what you’re calling it?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s…Nothing. It’s grand. Sanguine called it the Revengers’ Club, that’s all.”
“Club sounds stupid,” Scapegrace said defensively. “Brigade sounds better.”
“Actually,” said Thrasher, “a brigade usually consists of two to five army regiments, so maybe it isn’t really that accurate.”
Scapegrace glowered. “But the Vengeance Regiment doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be accurate either,” Thrasher told him, “seeing as how a regiment is composed of a number of battalions. It could be the Vengeance Battalion, I suppose, but really a battalion usually has around a thousand soldiers in it, and there aren’t a thousand people in your group.”
“How about the Vengeance Squad?” suggested Valkyrie.
“That might work,” Thrasher nodded.
“I prefer Brigade,” Scapegrace snapped. “And now I’ve lost my train of thought.”
“You were about to tell me where Tanith and the Professor are being held,” said Valkyrie.
“No,” Scapegrace said, “I’m pretty sure I was about to start killing you.”
“Don’t even try it.”
“I’ve dreamed about nothing else for the last two years.”
“You need better things to dream about.”
“Valkyrie Cain, welcome to death.”
“That is such a stupid thing to say.”
Scapegrace ran at her and Valkyrie threw the ball of fire she’d been holding for the past few minutes. Scapegrace was instantly enveloped in flame. He wheeled around, screaming.
“Master Scapegrace!” Thrasher yelled, horrified.
Valkyrie frowned. “I thought he couldn’t feel pain.”
Scapegrace immediately stopped screaming and running about. He just stood there and continued to burn.
“You’re burning quite easily,” she said. “Is that a zombie thing or something?”
“He has been using an awful lot of skin creams lately,” Thrasher mused. “Maybe the mixture is especially flammable.”
Valkyrie waved her hand and the fire went out.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” Scapegrace said without enthusiasm, as he turned and walked out of the hotel, leaving a trail of smoke behind him. Thrasher gave her a parting growl and quickly followed the trail out of the door.
The aroma of charred flesh forced Valkyrie