"Oh, yes, speaking of which." Erskine paused the massage for a moment and raised one hand to point at each person as he mentioned their names. "Mr. and Mrs. Edgley, these are relatives of Gabe. That's Donnie there, and Medwin. Donnie and Medwin, these are Valkyrie's parents, Desmond and Melissa. They've just been clued in to the Big Secret."

But not the Big Big Secret, which Erskine hoped was obvious by his use of false names. Medwin was just the first legitimate name he could think of that sounded like Merlin, and Donnie... Donnie was short for Donatello, one of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, of whom another one was Raphael.

It made sense.

And on another, more selfish note, Erskine was starting to think there were far too many Big Secrets in his life.

Skulduggery stared down at the box on his lap, a blank expression made all the more amusing because of the fact that it was actually an expression, and not just his blank skull. "I'm not opening this."

Erskine pretended to pout as he worked between Dexter's shoulder blades. "Why not?"

"Because I have an idea of what's in it."

So did Fletcher, evidently, given that he was grinning like a loon. Erskine's pout faded into an anticipating smile. "How?"

"Gabe thinks I'm a lot more gullible than he has any right to. That, and there's only one thing he'd want me to open in the middle of all of you like this."