We were coming to rescue Dad and Tanja. We’d talked about it, planned and imagined, yet seeing them there, helpless and chained as part of an unholy ritual, hit me hard. I stopped, faltered, call it whatever you want, until Jamie growled, ‘Don’t just stand there, lad! Move your arse!’

The sight of Dad and Tanja had slowed me, but it was recognising some of the other prospective victims that really pulled me up. Kipper. The Seer. Tiger Girl. Omo, who I thought had given up the gig and gone into consulting or something.

I didn’t recognise any of the other figures. The Ragged Sisters must have hunted down ghost-sighted people besides our ghost spotters. Three of them were bleeding heavily, and if they weren’t dead it’d be a miracle.

They had to have the ghost sight to be useful for the ritual. This meant that Leon was the odd one out and his only purpose was as bait. Bastards.

‘Anton!’ Rani cried as she danced away from a particularly frenzied Ragged Sister attack. ‘We need you!’

That jolted me into action, and it was Li’l Ace time again, but after a few attempted shots, I swore and had to stop because I was in danger of hitting Rani, Kirsten and Jamie as they waded into the fight.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and I’m sorry to say that this time around she gave birth to an exceedingly gross baby, because I started scooping up leftover zombie ghost bits and heaving them at the Ragged Sisters.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing like being conked on the head by a mostly substantial but semi-rotting zombie ghost body part to put you off your game. The first Ragged Sister I successfully targeted squawked when a zombie ghost hand slammed into the side of her head, and that was enough of a distraction for Kirsten to put her out of action, joining half a dozen others on the ground who were either motionless or groaning in pain.

After that, I was like an especially disgusting glitter cannon, sending a storm of zombie ghost bits semi-accurately at the Ragged Sisters. Okay, so Jamie caught half a zombie ghost foot on the back of the neck, but that was an accident. Mostly.

I’m not going to lie, it was pretty revolting. True, they were ghost parts, and not really bits of body – but they were pretty close. Heaving arms and legs and other bits that I didn’t recognise until I had them in my hand and then it was too late so I may as well hurl them as best I could was a test of how obedient my stomach was, because I was continually repeating, ‘Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.’ Not only because it would ruin any semi-hero type coolness I had, but because I hate vomiting. In my book, stuff is meant to go down that pipe, not up.

I guess lobbing loose ghost bits onto people is a way of attracting attention and that’s why one of the Ragged Sisters, who’d just collected a shoulderblade on the shoulderblade – something I was particularly proud of – swore, turned around and charged towards me.

His curved knife got bigger and bigger as the Ragged Sister howled and bounded at me. I had a kneecap in one hand and a chin in the other and I hurled them at him at the same time, but it didn’t slow him one bit. Swinging his knife, he was nearly on me when Fergus latched onto his leg.

It was a truly magnificent tumble as the Ragged Sister hit the concrete and slid with Fergus’s jaws clamped on his ankle. I kicked the knife away and was sizing up whether a boot to the head was warranted when Jamie marched up and delivered one anyway. ‘You were overthinking it,’ he grunted. ‘Go with the flow.’

‘Me?’ I panted. ‘Overthinking it? Surely not. Or maybe I was. Possibly.’

He snorted and jogged to where Rani was dealing with the last of the Ragged Sisters, then all that was left was Liliana Pascal, who was sitting cross-legged on the dais in front of the potential sacrifices – Dad, Tanja and the other terrified captives.

Dad caught my eye and actually waggled his eyebrows at me. I had no idea what he was trying to say, but the fact that he could cheered me up a bit. As I got closer, it was clear that we were too late for the unlucky first three, though, people I didn’t know. No one survives losing that amount of blood. When I looked at Liliana Pascal – irritated but a long way from scared – Rani’s relationship with revenge made a lot of sense. Taking it out on the leader of the Ragged Sisters wasn’t going to bring back those three, and it wasn’t going to make up for the treatment they’d dished out to Dad, but I could already taste how good it would be.

Mmm … pre-revenge taste. If actual revenge was anything like as good, then bring it on.

I took a step toward the leader of the Ragged Sisters, and at that moment I caught Rani’s eye. Yep, the same sort of thoughts were going through her head as she slapped her dagger in the palm of her other hand. From one angle, this woman, this leader of a brutal cult of Trespassers, must be a perfect representative of those who’d killed her parents.

Rani narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Disapproving.’

‘Wow. I thought I was getting all empathetic, feeling what you were feeling.’

‘That revenge, while tempting, is ultimately unsatisfying?’

‘Err … I hadn’t quite got past the “tempting” bit. Complicated feelings take a while to work out, as you reminded me not long ago.’

A small grin. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘And why not?’

‘Because revenge is stupid, that’s why. If you achieve it, it’s supposed to make you satiated and complete again. But I can tell you it doesn’t. A desire for revenge is like a little child, always whining about how it needs more. It’s never, ever satisfied.’

I gripped her shoulder. She took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’ve got some loose ends to tie up.’

And speaking of tying up, Jamie and Kirsten were gagging and binding the defeated Ragged Sisters with their own torn-up robes.

Heh. Ragged Sisters in their undies weren’t as scary as they were in their robes and masks.

Some struggled, which gave Jamie a chance to deal out meaty backhanders. Kirsten kept tying away, singing softly what must have been a Scottish lament, something about walking five hundred miles and havering, whatever that is. Catchy, for a lament.

Liliana Pascal had dumped her CEO mode and powered up her supervillain shtick. At our advance, she quickly lowered Tanja, stood with her back to the concrete wall – clever – and held one of the curved knives to Tanja’s throat. ‘Unless you let us go, I’ll kill her.’

‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘You can’t expect to come out on top here.’

‘If you want these two alive you have no choice.’

Rani and I separated slowly, each of us moving to one side. ‘If you release them,’ Rani said, getting Liliana Pascal to shift her attention from me, ‘we’ll let you go.’

Liliana Pascal laughed. ‘If I release them, you’ll grab me.’

‘No we won’t,’ I said. Another attention shift.

‘Why on earth would I trust you?’

‘Because we, at least, have some honour,’ Rani said.

‘Honour. Such an empty concept. What if I told you that my acolytes all fought for the honour of the Ragged Sisters? Do you value that honour or only your own?’

‘Oh, please.’ I took another step sideways. ‘You really want a philosophical debate now?’

‘What if I leave all of my acolytes with you?’ Liliana Pascal suggested. ‘You’ll have a dozen prisoners.’

Kirsten and Jamie bustled up at this. ‘Twelve Ragged Sisters acolytes?’ Kirsten slapped her hands together. ‘That’ll get us some serious respect back home.’

‘But with her on the loose, that means that the Ragged Sisters will rise again soon,’ Rani pointed out.

‘The Ragged Sisters will rise again whether I’m taken or not,’ Liliana Pascal barked.

‘You’re not helping your own case here.’ I stepped away a little more. Training.

‘And you’re not helping yours, either,’ Liliana Pascal said. ‘Because if you’re determined to take me, I may as well kill them all right now before you can reach me, creating more zombie ghosts so that I might have a chance to get away.’

Right. ‘That sounds like probably the most rational and logical contribution anyone’s made,’ I said. ‘So that’s why I probably should do this.’

I waved at something behind Liliana Pascal. She was far too smart to fall for the old ‘Behind you!’ gag, which was excellent because it meant she didn’t look around to see the ghost of the little boy, the one I’d met outside, emerge from the concrete and reach into her neck.

It was as if Liliana Pascal had been electrocuted. She stiffened, all her limbs jerked, and then began thrashing. Her hair stood on end and her eyes and mouth were so wide that they looked as if they could swallow her face.

She screamed, too, a scream that was the sum of every cry of anguish she had ever heard from the multitudes of those she had mutilated, tortured, maimed and killed, all blended together and coming out of her own throat at once.

I had to force myself to keep my eyes open.

The ghost of the little boy drifted out of Liliana Pascal’s body and her screaming died away. Her eyes closed, she collapsed and that long, bloodstained knife skittered across the floor.

The ghost wandered off a little way, bumbling along the wall with one hand outstretched to touch it every now and then, a little kid doing a little kid thing.

As I approached him, he smiled faintly in recognition. I reached out my hand. He touched it and I heard a single word: ‘Please.’

I dropped to my knees, reached into his chest, twisted and he was gone, leaving me with the sensation of a scratchy wool blanket, the sound and smell of dough being kneaded, and lots and lots of simple happiness, both his and other people’s.

I teared up a bit.

I got to my feet and waved to Dad. He managed to nod, gagged and bound as he was, which made my heart turn inside out for a second, but it was surprisingly reassuring.

Kirsten and Jamie were helping the chained ones down. I went to help. ‘And how’s your Australian holiday going?’ I asked them.

‘Cracking stuff,’ Jamie grunted. ‘Best ever.’

Kirsten eased Omo’s unconscious form into the recovery position, and then dusted her hands off. ‘We’re not on holidays.’

Jamie glanced at her, astonished, but he had his hands full with Kipper, who was a large guy bleeding from a dozen places. ‘Awa’ wi’ ye, sis!’

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I’m telling them.’

He grunted and shook his head, muttering under his breath as he manhandled his lucky ex-sacrifice to the ground.

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘You’re not really Scots, right?’

‘Don’t get sassy,’ she said and then sighed. ‘Our being here is no accident.’ She glanced at Rani. ‘Diane Gatehouse sent us.’

Commander Leatherdacks? Rani’s old mentor doing something to help out the Marin family? Maybe I’d misjudged her.

Rani wasn’t over the moon, though. ‘She thought I couldn’t handle things here by myself?’

I coughed meaningfully. Rani shot me a look and corrected herself. ‘She thought we couldn’t handle things by ourselves?’

‘Better,’ I muttered.

Kirsten held up both hands placatingly. ‘That’s not my concern. She just said that things were a muckle out of hand in this city, said you might need some help. And since the Company of the Righteous is busy with a wee bit of internal strife right now, she asked us.’

‘She’s been friends with some of our top bosses for years,’ Jamie said, climbing to his feet. ‘And she promised us plenty of ghost action. There’s been that, all right.’

That opened a lovely can of worms but we had no time to dive into it, because Liliana Pascal had come to what you might call her senses.

She was sprawled on the concrete, struggling, but she wasn’t going anywhere because Rani had put one foot on her back. ‘You idiots,’ Pascal snarled. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done.’

‘We’ve stopped your bloody rampage, that’s what we’ve done,’ Rani said.

‘Rampage? Is that what you think we’ve been up to?’ Liliana Pascal laughed weakly.

‘Not a rampage?’ I said. ‘A carefully considered and sober program, then?’

‘Needs must, you poor innocent. One day, you might learn that.’ Liliana Pascal took a few breaths, but they were light and shallow. ‘We harvested what was necessary.’

‘Harvested?’ My voice was hoarse and my teeth hurt. Had I been clenching them? ‘Is that all your victims were to you? They were people!’

‘Oh, don’t be childish. We lured them, we took them, they were ours to do with what we liked.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Rani said.

‘It does for us,’ Liliana Pascal said.

I gestured widely. ‘And how’s that going for you?’

‘Fools. You’re all fools.’

‘I hate to say it,’ I said, ‘but now you’re falling into generic supervillain talk.’

She took a few more laboured breaths before answering. ‘We were putting together a zombie army, a force of thousands, hundreds of thousands, a force not seen since the dawn of time.’

‘And for what purpose?’ Rani asked, but I could have answered. I mean, Liliana Pascal was clearly one out of the World Domination Playbook, what with the megalomaniac declarations, the casual ruthlessness and the total lack of a sense of humour. Good hair, though.

‘For what purpose?’ Liliana Pascal shivered. ‘Why, to save the world, of course.’

I blinked. ‘Say again?’

‘We need an army if we’re going to save the world,’ she said slowly, biting off each word. ‘And by interfering, you’ve doomed us all.’

‘Wait,’ I said, ‘ruling the world isn’t the same as saving it.’

She groaned. ‘I’m surrounded by idiots!’

A hand fell on my shoulder and I jumped, then whirled, in hyper-dervish style. Supported by Kirsten, Tanja pointed at Liliana Pascal with her chin. ‘She’s right.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘She’s mad and bad but she’s right. This ghost outbreak won’t stop until the presence on the other side is dealt with. It’ll keep battering at the wall she’s put up it until it falls.’

‘And that’s why we need a zombie ghost army,’ Liliana Pascal whispered, all her anger gone. ‘The barrier we’ve put up has bought us some time, and once we assembled our troops, we were going to take the fight Elsewhere and defeat the presence.’ Her eyes closed. ‘You fools. Without us, you’re lost.’