“With his sunglasses gone and his scarf hanging down, there was no denying that he had no flesh, he had no skin, he had no eyes and he had no face. All he had was a skull for a head.”

“But if you can confront your inner demons—""I did confront my inner demon. I punched him in the face and he exploded."Valkyrie had to laugh. "But now he's back.""Of course he's back. He's resourceful. He is my inner demon, after all.”

“He put on his hat and wrapped his scarf around his jaw, but did without the wig and the sunglasses. He clicked his key chain and the car beeped and the doors locked."That's it?"He looked up. "Sorry?""Aren't you afraid it might get stolen? We're not exactly in a good part of town.""It's got a car alarm.""Don't you, like, cast a spell or something? To keep it safe?""No. It's a pretty good car alarm.”

“We're not really intruding," he called down. "This is all a big misunderstanding.""Stop right there!" shouted one of them.Skulduggery held his hand to an ear he didn't have."What's that?""Stop!""Keep going?""STOP!""OK, we'll keep going.”

“He could wear hats. He could wear an assortment of hats of different shapes and styles. Boater hats, cowboy hats, bowler hats. The list went on. Pork-pie hats, bucket hats, trillbies and panamas. Top hats, straw hats, trapper hats. Wide brim narrow brim, stingy brim. He could wear a fez. Fezzes were cool. Hadn't someone once said that fezzes were cool? He was pretty aur ether had. And they were. They were cool.”

“Don’t kill me,” he sobbed as he lay there. “Oh God, please don’t kill me.”“If you had let me finish,” Skulduggery said, slightly annoyed, “you would have heard me say, ‘Come out, we’re notgoing to hurt you’. Idiot.”“He probably wouldn’t have said idiot,” Valkyrie told the sobbing man. “We’re trying our best to be nice.”The man blinked through his tears, and looked up.“You’re... You’re not going to kill me?”“No, we’re not,” Valkyrie said gently, “so long as you wipe your nose right now.”

“It's really not as bad as it sounds. I was attacked by a shark once, back when I was alive. Well, not so much a shark as a rather large fish. And not so much attacked as looked at menacingly. But it had murder in its eyes, that fish. I knew, in that instant, if our roles had been reversed and the fish had been holding the fishing pole and I had been the one to be caught, it wouldn't hesitate a moment before eating me. So I cooked it and ate before it had a chance to turn the tables.”