LITMIR.BIZ

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we’re old friends. She’ll be happy to see us.”

      “I doubt that. You smell really bad. But fine, whatever, you can go in. But don’t cause any trouble and don’t try to eat anyone.”

      “Thank you,” Thrasher said, and suddenly they were moving again, and that piece of intestine was swaying back and forth, back and forth…

      They walked through a set of doors and then Scapegrace heard Clarabelle’s voice.

      “Gerald!” she cried. There was the sound of running feet and then darkness loomed as Thrasher was wrapped up in a hug. It was a tense few moments of sloshing about, but at least the motion turned Scapegrace in his jar, his head lodging diagonally against the glass. Now he was looking at her belly instead of Thrasher’s, and that was a definite improvement. Her top had ridden up, and he could see the piercing in her navel. It was a little love-heart.

      She released the hug and stepped back. “I thought you were dead! Well, you are dead, but I thought you were properly dead, the kind of dead where you don’t walk around afterwards. Valkyrie said you’d probably been eaten by monsters down in those caves. I’m really glad you weren’t.”

      “Thank you,” said Thrasher, sounding pleased. Idiot. He eventually remembered his job, and put the jar on a table.

      Scapegrace had to wait for the liquid to settle before he could talk. “Hello,” he said. His confines didn’t do him any favours as far as his voice went. Every word he spoke sounded like he was blowing bubbles.

      Clarabelle looked around. “Who said that?”

      “I did,” said Scapegrace. “Look down. No, too far. Look up. At the table. See the jar?”

      Clarabelle peered through the glass, and a huge smile broke out. “Oh, wow! Scapey! You’re alive, too! Oh, I’m so happy!” She clapped her hands in delight. Scapegrace would have done the same if he’d had any hands.

      Clarabelle hunkered down to eye level, and frowned. “There’s something different about you.”

      “I’m in a jar.”

      “That’s probably it. Did you get a haircut?”

      “No. I’m in a jar, though.”

      Clarabelle murmured, not entirely convinced. “I think you’re shorter than you were,” she said.

      “Yes,” said Scapegrace, “because I’m in a jar. I’m just a head.”

      Clarabelle shrugged. “We’re all just heads, when you think about it. The only difference between us is that we have arms and legs and bodies and we don’t live in jars like you do. It’s a nice jar, though. Where did you get it?”

      “I got it,” Thrasher said. “It was filled with sweets, but I emptied them all out.”

      “You’re very clever.”

      Thrasher giggled. “Thank you.”

      “Clarabelle,” said Scapegrace before the giggling grew too much, “we need your help.”

      “Do you need another jar?” she asked. “I don’t think I have one that size. I have a flowerpot. Would you like to live in a flowerpot? It’s got a hole in the bottom but apart from that it’d be perfect.”

      “Clarabelle, my situation is dire. I am a bodiless man. If my enemies were to attack, I’d be defenceless.”

      “Do you have enemies?”

      “All great men have enemies.”

      “But do you have enemies?”

      “I... yes. I’m a... I’m a great man.”

      “Oh.”

      “And I’m the Zombie King, and many people would love to kill the Zombie King because they fear me and my army of the dead.”

      “You have an army of the dead?”

      “It’s... more of a metaphor.”

      “A metaphor for what?”

      “A metaphor for...” Scapegrace hesitated. “...Thrasher. But they still fear me, and without a body I am a... a...”

      “A head,” Thrasher said helpfully.

      “Shut up, you fool.”

      “Sorry.”

      Clarabelle sat back on her haunches. “So what do you need me to do?”

      “I need to speak to Doctor Nye.”

      “You already asked it to help you ages ago. It said no. And Doctor Nye doesn’t change its mind a lot.”

      “I told him we shouldn’t come back,” Thrasher said quietly.

      Scapegrace would have swung around to him if he’d had a neck. “Thrasher!”

      “Sorry, Master,” Thrasher said quickly, “but it’s just not a very nice creature, and I don’t trust it. I heard it tortured people during the war. I also heard it conducted bizarre human experiments.”

      “I heard that, too,” said Clarabelle in a whisper. “I heard it once turned a man into a goat. Or a goat into a man. Or a goat into another goat. I don’t know, I can’t remember.”

      Now Thrasher came around to squat beside Clarabelle and peer into the jar. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “You see, Master? This might be a mistake, coming here. We asked it for help once before and it told us to go away.”

      “That was before I was a head in a jar.”

      “You think the doctor would reattach your head to your body?” Clarabelle asked.

      Scapegrace took a moment to seethe a little bit. “I don’t see how, since a horde of rat-things ran away with my body and we’ve never seen it again. And we know whose fault that was, don’t we?”

      “Mine,” Thrasher said meekly.

      “Yours,” Scapegrace confirmed.

      “But, Master, I couldn’t carry both your body and you.”

      “Did you try? Did you even attempt it? No. You didn’t.”

      “Because the White Cleaver was there in the caves, and Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain, and Valkyrie Cain has a history of damaging you.”

      “Enough excuses!” Scapegrace roared in bubbles.

      “Sorry, Master,” Thrasher mumbled, head down.

      “Scapey,” Clarabelle scolded, “don’t be mean to Gerald. He does his best, don’t you, Gerald?”

      “I do,” Thrasher whimpered.

      “And I don’t know if Doctor Nye will even see you. It’s very busy right now. It’s back there working on top-secret things that it won’t tell me about because it thinks I talk too much and it can’t trust me. I’m not allowed to even peek. I heard a voice and it was an American accent, and he said a bad word. Do you want to know which one it was? It started with F. It’s not the one you’re thinking of, though. It’s the other one. The one that ends with P. Do you want to know what it was? It was froop.” She frowned. “Wait. That’s not a word.”

      “Clarabelle,” Scapegrace said, “you’re absolutely right. I asked him to help us and he did say no, but that was before. That was when I was merely a zombie. And even though he said no, I could tell he was intrigued.”

      “Doctor Nye is an it, not a he.”

      “Then it was intrigued. The chance to bring life to a zombie was almost more than it could handle.”

      “And yet,” came a high, raspy voice from behind, “I still managed to say no.”

      Scapegrace scowled. He could see Thrasher’s reaction to Nye’s

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