"You and me both," Solomon said with a sigh, opening his eyes and blinking. With a delighted bark Rafe raced toward Paddy and reared up on his hind legs to plant in paws in the priest's lap and whine for a head-scratch. He had helped clean Corrival's living-room primarily by acting as a living, furry and rambunctious vacuum cleaner, sucking up anything edible that had been left on the floor. (Mostly peanuts, either fallen from someone's hair or ones from the faery-ring Erskine had left around Solomon's couch.)

Gabe was sitting up on Skulduggery's shoulders, his ears pricked and paws resting on top of Skulduggery's hat, on top of his curled wig, on top of his skull. He meowed a happy greeting.

"Heya, Pad'," Dexter said. The blond was never exactly not jaunty, but there was a mischievous gleam in his eyes and a spring in his step that hadn't been there for nearly a century. "We have to introduce you to the other members of the family." He bowed with a flourish. "Dead Men, present!"

"Give it over, Vex," Corrival grumbled, stepping around the others. Rover was looking up at the church's stained-glass window with an odd kind of wistfulness. (Solomon, without intention, followed the line of regard up to the cross, and was startled to see Jesus' visage benevolent and smiling, clad in linens instead of bloody and hung.)

"Paddy Steadfast." Corrival put out his hand.

"Preeeeeeesenting," announced Rover through his cupped hands in a nasal tone, "the eminent, the magnificent, the Grand Mage Crossword Puzzler Extraodrinaire hisself--" Anton reached out and whapped him on the back of the head without looking away from his narrow-eyed examination of the church, the open floor-space revealed by the shifted pews, and the greyed man standing by the altar.

Corrival didn't miss a beat either. "Corrival Deuce. Glad to meet a man who can keep this lot on the straight and narrow."