"Rosaries," Skulduggery said, because someone had to point out the obvious and it clearly wasn't going to be Gabe, "are very different from muscles." The ones he had now would do until tonight, even if they were sore.

Puppet strings put Skulduggery in mind of Larrikin, who occasionally made puppets with his spare time during the war. Most, if not all of them, were representations of the Dead Men. It was strangely unnerving, being forced to watch one of Larrikin's puppet shows and seeing an eerily accurate little skeleton dancing around on puppet strings.

"As long as you're not attaching them to me," he decided. "Landel could easily exploit that. If he doesn't already have a set of voodoo dolls in whatever passes for his office, he really doesn't need the idea."