She got up and Sanguine came crashing into her. They both went sprawling into the kitchen, the zombie who had thrown him following them in.
Valkyrie was the first up. She grabbed a massive meat cleaver from the worktop and hurled it. The back of the cleaver smacked into the zombie’s head and bounced off. She hurled another knife and this time it was the handle that hit. Sanguine stood, fixed his sunglasses, looked around for his straight razor and saw the zombie reaching for him. He yelped and ducked, but it grabbed his jacket.
Valkyrie ran up behind it, whacking a frying pan into the back of its knee. It went down and Sanguine pushed the hand that had grabbed him into the wall. The wall solidified and the zombie moaned, trapped there.
Valkyrie and Sanguine stepped away, well out of its reach, and looked at each other, and for a moment it was merely in appreciation of a job well done. And then it turned to something else.
Sanguine swung a punch and Valkyrie ducked under it and thrust her shoulder into his gut. He grunted and fell back, but grabbed her as he went, throwing her to the floor. She rolled and hit the wall as he stooped for the straight razor, but a flick of her hand sent it spinning away from him. He growled and kicked her as she lay there. She folded her body around the kick and lashed out with one of her own, catching him in the side of the knee. He yelled as he went down. She got up and jumped over him, but he snagged her ankle and she fell.
Valkyrie rolled and came up and Sanguine sprang at her. She tried flipping him over her hip, but he was too big and too heavy. She turned into him and his hands gripped her throat. Her elbow shot up between his arms and found his chin. His head rocketed back and his mouth hung open and his grip loosened. She punched a fistful of shadows into his chest and Sanguine was flung backwards. He hit the wall and dropped to the floor. The trapped zombie reached out for him, but it was just too far away. It moaned again.
Valkyrie heard Miss Nuncio scream and she ran out of the kitchen.
Moving slowly, he picked himself up. He figured two, maybe three ribs were broken, thanks to the girl and that damned ring of hers. He tried not to dwell on the fact that he’d had his hands around her throat, but had failed to kill her. He was already angry enough as it was.
He found his razor beneath the stove. His ribs bit into his side when he bent to retrieve it, but when it was in his hand again, he felt better.
He left the kitchen, stepping over the bodies of zombies. He made sure the girl and the skeleton were otherwise occupied, then hurried to the back of the hotel. A zombie reared up before him, but he shoved it back against the wall. The wall crumbled and he pushed the zombie halfway through and the wall grew solid around it. This was what his magic was reduced to – the magical equivalent of opening a door, but being unable to pass through it. He snarled and continued on. Speaking of doors …
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,”