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 entrance, but the idiot didn’t think to turn the jar around.
“Of course you said no,” Scapegrace said loudly, “and I couldn’t blame you. Bringing life to zombies? How boring. How pedestrian. That’s not a job worthy of your talents.”
Doctor Nye’s knees came into view. Its legs were impossibly long and impossibly thin, the smock it wore grubby and bloodstained. Those knees bent and Nye’s body contorted as it leaned down. That scab of a nose, those small yellow eyes, that mouth, its thin lips punctured by broken thread, twisting into a smile.
“And now you have a job that is worthy of me?” it asked.
“Of course,” said Scapegrace. “I’m a zombie head in a jar. I’m unique. I’m a challenge.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“I want you to attach me to a new body, Doctor. I want to live again.”
Nye laughed, and straightened, immediately towering out of Scapegrace’s view. “I think not,” it said, and turned to walk away.
“I can pay you,” Scapegrace said.
Nye hesitated. Scapegrace could see its long fingers, contorting like a huge spider. Nye swung its head back, its small eyes magnified as it peered in.
“How much?”
“I won’t be paying you in money, Doctor. I’ll be paying you in something far more valuable.”
“I am not a patient creature, zombie-head. Tell me what you have or—”
“The White Cleaver,” said Scapegrace. “I have the White Cleaver.”
Nye observed him through the glass. “The White Cleaver is destroyed. Lord Vile tore him apart.”
“And even then, he was alive. Little bits of finger, twitching on the ground in all of the blood. His right eye was intact, and it was looking around. So I got Thrasher to pick up the pieces – every single little piece – and put them in plastic containers.”
“He is functional?”
“You just have to put him back together,” said Scapegrace. “So you can do that, and take ownership, after you’ve attached my head to a new body.”
“And mine,” Thrasher said.
“We are not sharing,” Scapegrace said quickly.
“I mean a new body of my own, Master. This one rots, and my intestines keep falling out.”
Scapegrace sighed. “Fine. You find us new bodies, Doctor Nye, and you get to keep the White Cleaver. Someone like you, with your history, I’m sure you could find a use for him.”
Nye smiled. “I’m sure I could, zombie-head. Very well. But you should
