

Streetlight Magic: The Sleepless Man  
By Jon Kaneko-James

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Jon Kaneko-James 2012

Edited by Rhea Phillips

Cover by Neokeroko Design

Layout by Gregory Seales

For all the people who worked hard to get this project off the ground.

My Men Stand Ready In The Night...

It might make you feel better to know that you are protected, that although there is no shortage of supernatural 'things that go bump in the night,' there is also no shortage of people who make it their business to stop them. As George Orwell said, 'we sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.'

My name is Conroy Forbes, and I employ a great number of said 'rough men.' Yet, we are not the government. The government does not believe in angels and daemons, black dogs and the hungry ghosts of lepers. The government could never justify a defence force against the armies of darkness because to do so they would have to prove they exist, and that would cause open warfare.

On the occasions where we are needed the government charges our services to the Westminster Palace entertainment budget. So when our name appears in records at all, it is as a charge to a gentlemen's club on Jermyn Street, the Mirandola Club, for a service with the self-explanatory title of Streetlight Magick.

We handle cases from threats of international war to supernatural domestic abuse. Quill, one of our esteemed detectives, takes on the case of the Sleepless Man. I found Quill living under a bridge in Camden, learning magick. Think of that what you will.

I

It was a bright, humid afternoon when the London Bridge Hospital put in a request for two people: the Metropolitan Police Liaison for Unusual Crimes, and the Magus Edward Quill of the Mirandola Club. The name 'Edward Quill' generally put people in mind of a certain type of person: middle class, educated, good looking and suave.

Ed was well educated. From a lot of perspectives he was also good looking, but on other counts, he usually disappointed people. His long, white-blond hair and whitish-blue eyes made him look like the violent henchman of a Bond villain. This was a man who should have been cracking his knuckles and feeding people to the crocodiles, not acting as a Magical Consultant to the Metropolitan Police.

DC Muthy had been looking forward to meeting a dishevelled but gorgeous consultant sorcerer. He would have preferred a woman, so somewhere in the distant future there might have been a will-they-won't-they moment that might have ended in sex. What he actually got was much different.

What he got was the drummer from a rock band. Drummers are not like guitarists or lead singers. Drummers aren't typically glamorous; they're 'sturdy,' or 'solid.' Quill wore a trench coat without sleeves, a band t-shirt and scuffed Doc Martins. He had the kind of body you get from lifting very heavy weights at the gym and then celebrating with a gallon of real ale and three burgers.

"Hello there, mate," Quill paused to check his mobile. "You're DC Muthy? I read the stuff you sent on my way over... is Max around?"

Muthy didn't quite know how to react. Quill was Welsh, with the carefully modulated accent of a provincial who'd been living in London for a long time and had gotten used to no-one understanding him if he didn't Pronounce Every Word Very Carefully And Enunciate As Well As He Could. It made him sound like a Welsh language newsreader. Murthy resisted the urge to peer behind him in case the real Occult Consultant had brought a bodyguard.

"I'll need to call up and see if it's alright for you to be on the crime scene, if that's what it is. The victim is quite fragile." Muthy said, resisting the urge to scream piss off and get me the proper wizard.

"It's alright mate," Quill offered him a slim leather document holder. "I've got my warrant from the Home Office."

Muthy stared. Quill waited for a response but none seemed forthcoming so he pushed on. "I don't mean to be patronising but," Quill continued, edging towards the lift. "You're a bit new, aren't you?"

****

After getting into the lift, leaving the mute and silently fuming DC Muthy in the foyer, Quill put his glasses back on. They were tiny chrome circles that he felt made him look like a serial killer. He'd ended up with them after a particularly intimate eye test with a tiny optician in Peckham. She had to climb onto him to use some of her equipment, which had made something switch off in his brain. After that it had just been a haze of perfume and blind compliance.

"Well, that's a well-made first impression," Quill muttered.

He studied himself in the lift mirror, running his fingers through his hair, grimacing every time he caught a strand under his jagged nails, before retying it neatly. The thirteenth floor of the London Bridge Hospital was for members of the Mirandola Club 'in good standing,' meaning almost anyone who'd paid their dues and not buggered the chambermaids. It also occasionally doubled as a magical A&E, although not often. Contrary to what people read in fiction the magical world was as dull as the mundane one and there weren't too many people running around with ancient curses, or ghostly hounds hot on their trail anymore.

The doors opened out onto a room that contained beige walls, plush furniture and DI Max Erstwhile. Max was a bassist, but he could have gone as far as lead guitar if he'd bothered to learn the other two strings. He was short and slim, with wild hair tamed back into a loose ponytail. Quill knew that at the slightest provocation it would rear up and break into a mullet.

"You've bleached your bloody hair again?" Quill said. "Every time we go on stage they think we're fucking white supremacists."

Max smiled. Today he was wearing a faintly 80s looking suit and drowning in a grey woollen overcoat.

"It's not a proper band anyway," Max said. "You just wanted to plaster Camden with posters saying, 'Fuck Richard Dawkins.'

"It's a good name for a band," Quill barked "Anyway, what's the situation?"

Max put on his business face, "Forty-six year old white male, goes by the name of Thomas Diogenese Jennings. He was admitted just over two hours ago after the Maudsley took delivery of a man claiming he was cursed. Said if he fell asleep he'd die, which nearly happened when they put him in a side room. He's not in a good way at the moment, all his organs started shutting down when he dropped off. They couldn't send him here fast enough after that." He said.

"Is this Mirandola business, or Civic Safety Fund?" Quill asked.

"Mirandola," Max said. "Paid up member, had one of those nice, metal cards with the sharp edges."

"Nice one," Quill said. "Do you mind if I see him?"

Max nodded, "You might not get much sense out of him," he said. "From the receipts in his coat pocket it looks like he's been awake for about four days."

****

Tom Jennings looked about as good as you expect after surviving organ failure and sustained period of insomnia. He was awake in name only: his eyes open and glazed, fitfully flickering around, following movement in some invisible spectrum. They'd seated him on a high stool, tethered to a jellyfish-like arrangement of bags and tubes that fed him the potions and chemicals keeping him awake and alive.

There was only room in the side ward for three people, or one person and Quill. A young Asian doctor looked slightly startled from being interrupted from his ministrations to being trapped in a small room with Erstwhile and Quill, who had to hunch to duck under the arm of a monitor and suck himself in to squeeze between the wall and the bed.

"So this is him," Quill said. He looked over at the young doctor, "Am I okay to try and talk to him?"

"Anything that makes him respond," the Doctor said. "It might keep him awake a bit longer."

Quill had an easy manner with children and the mad. It involved speaking loudly and slowly with lots of bonhomie.

"Hello there, mate," he enunciated cheerfully. "What happened to you then?"

Jennings' glazed, flickering eyes turned onto Quill. His brow knitted with the effort of someone doing quantum calculus on a rollercoaster.

"I'm from the Mirandola club," Quill said. "You said you were cursed."

That got a faint reaction. Jennings' troubled look turned into abject panic. He started to get up, his face ashen. Quill gently pushed him back down into the chair.

"Focus, Jennings," Quill said. "Come on Tom. What happened to you? What happened?"

Jennings' eyes focused momentarily on Quill. He spoke with a murmuring, delirious voice. "Don't let them get the skin. Don't let them," he said. "Vagas. Vagas...No," he shook his head. "No, no, no."

Quill looked over at Erstwhile and the young doctor. He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. The Asian doctor jerked his head towards the door. They were herded out and into a more plush meeting room where he became visibly relieved not to be in such close quarters with Ed and Max anymore.

"Phew," he said. "Sorry about that, got a bit stuffy in there. I'm Jas by the way."

Jas' accent was crisp. It was the sort of accent that only daddy's money could buy, not that he hadn't done well with it. Not a lot of people could handle Post Paracelsian Medico-Hermeticism, which was the only sort of occult healing the London Bridge Hospital was interested in. No Aesculapian dream-nonsense or Reiki crystal-waving here. Quill looked him up and down thoughtfully.

"Hello Jas, I'm Ed," Quill pumped the doctor's hand. "What about this skin, then? I presume that's why we're here?"

"Yes," Jas looked over to Max, who might have nodded lightly. "DI Erstwhile has seen it, although we couldn't get it off him because he went berserk every time we tried to touch it. We just about got him to let us put it in the locker in his room."

"Do you mind if I smoke here?" Max asked, instantly lighting up. "It isn't as if the health and safety are going to inspect," he looked into space. "Sorry, where was I...? Oh yeah, the skin. Sorry. It's a sort of bolero jacket but the material... it isn't anything natural. I probably would have described it as a skin if I had to," his eyes suddenly sharpened and snapped into focus. "I don't mean 'skin' as in leather, though. It looks like an animal's living skin: silvery, with a layer of blubber, working veins and blood vessels and everything."

"Can we get a look at it?" Quill asked, thoughtfully.

If a mind reader had been passing by they might have seen the power of a great and methodical intellect working away behind Quill's eyes. Unfortunately, to the casual observer Quill's thoughtful face looked like something between a caveman stumbling through astrophysics and a football hooligan trying to work out who to hit. Jas looked suddenly uncomfortable. Max broke into a smile.

"What are you thinking?" Max asked.

"A lot of things," Quill rose from his chair. "I've got the rings of three different Goetics who bring hidden things, I have a few interesting herbs in my pocket that would allow me to step into the spirit world and snatch the skin straight through the wall, or I might be able to use Crowley's invisibility square to cloud his mind so he doesn't notice me taking it."

They followed him through the corridor and back into the room. He looked around, his eyes falling on some nylon straps lying discarded on the bed.

"Are these restraints?" Quill asked; Jas nodded. "Good, the thing with all that is..." he knelt down and ran the restraints around Jennings' thighs and calves, securely attaching him to the stool. "The thing with all that is that it's actually a lot of faff over nothing."

Quill pushed his way past Jennings, opened the bedside locker and took the skin out. Jennings' reaction was immediate: he sat bolt upright, shaking like a man electrified, and started screaming and swearing. His eyes opened like saucers, bloodshot and desperate, he clawed at Quill to get the skin back. Unfortunately for Jennings, he was sick, exhausted and about forty pounds lighter than Ed Quill, who pushed past him effortlessly and back out into the corridor.

"We were trying not to put too much stress on him," Jas whispered, chewing his lip anxiously. "He survived organ failure."

"It won't let him die," Quill said. "I've seen this kind of curse before, it doesn't let you get off lightly. If you can find a way around the Doom, this kind of curse can keep you going for centuries. If it says he dies when he falls asleep, then he dies when he falls asleep. Not when he gets run over, not when he catches a virus or gets stabbed by a mugger. The curse gets what it wants."

Nurses came running as Jennings' fit of rage descended into spittle-flecked hoarseness. His face was lobster red now, with bright white foam around his mouth. His eyes bulged out of his head as nurses surrounded him, glaring at Quill, knowing that they couldn't sedate their patient.

"He's tied to a chair," Quill said. "His memory's probably fucked by now anyway, so he won't be like this for long."

Almost as soon as Quill spoke Jennings' tantrum started to subside, first lapsing into sporadic rants; then fitful, querulous fretting. Finally, he lapsed back into a confused silence, looking vaguely around the room, picking at the restraints worriedly.

Quill stepped back into the relatives' room. Max hadn't entirely left, hanging out of the doorway, still smoking. Jas came back in, looking resentfully at said cigarette. Quill was sure he saw the doctor breathe in deeply as he stepped towards him.

"Right," Quill threw himself down into the chair, dropping the skin into his lap and picking over it with his thick fingers. "Warm to the touch, sort of a bit silvery, like sealskin or dolphin... that rings a bell."

Quill looked at Max, "Why does that ring a bell?" Quill asked.

Max shrugged. Quill looked back down at the skin.

"Okay," he turned it over again. "Working veins and corpuscles, a layer of fat... but it isn't pissing blood into my lap. This is definitely the supernatural."

Jas looked hopeful. Quill pushed himself out of his chair.

"Right," he said. "It rings a lot of bells, but I can't think of anything straight off, so I'm going to take this back to the club and see what they make of it. Max, can you make sure he stays here and doesn't lick too many windows?"

Erstwhile nodded.

"Right," Quill made for the door. "I'm off then, no sense wasting time around here. Jas mate, keep him alive. I'll come back to you both as quickly as I can."

****

Walking through the streets with the skin trailing over one arm made Ed feel uncomfortable but he'd come out without his man bag, so there was nothing else for it. It also meant that he was without some of the other things that made him feel more comfortable walking the streets of London: his crowbar and highly illegal pistol. Magic wasn't a problem. The tattoos and scarifications covering his chest and arms gave him the power to channel all the magic he wanted. Sometimes the black opal scarified into the twisting paths on his arms irritated, but it was nothing antihistamines couldn't sort out.

Quill's only problem was that he completely lacked spooky mystical senses. Not a single one. No ability with psi cards, no spirit guide or whispering voices. His inner eye was either totally blind or welded shut. In the presence of the most powerful types of magic he could honestly say that he felt, at most, 'a bit of tension.'

That was probably why he didn't notice the angry water spirits waiting for him on the stairs.

He'd made his way from the London Bridge Hospital and going under the bridge itself, careful of not being seen. His plan had included a burger in the posh food market around the corner and finding a bus back to the Mirandola Club. This meant passing by the urine soaked tramp shelter known as 'Nancy's Steps.'

The pavement just before the steps was narrow, by necessity as it passed under London Bridge. The low concrete arch hosted a modern Chamber of Horrors on one side and a new-old pub on the other. Ed decided to squeeze past the pub rather than shove his way through the masses of tourists queuing outside the attraction. That strip of pavement dog-legged when it passed the steps, effectively hiding them from view by all but the most paranoid pedestrian.

Ed Quill, unfortunately for him, wasn't the most paranoid pedestrian. He moved to walk past the sheltered alcove hiding Nancy's Steps. There was a flash of movement and agony exploded in his stomach and then behind his knees, sending him down onto the filthy pavement.

He caught a flash of a man with black hair before a boot hit him in the stomach with enough force to bring the taste of vomit to his mouth – and he clung to it, wrapping himself around the boot and holding on for dear life. His other attacker kicked him repeatedly in the back with so much force that he stumbled, but Quill ignored it, twisting hard and pulling the black haired man off his feet.

The black haired man landed badly, at just enough of an angle that his head bounced off the merciless edge of the marble step. It left a dash of dark red blood that evaporated immediately. Even in his reeling, beaten state Quill could recognise the tell-tale sign of something not remotely human. Unfortunately another jarring kick in the back meant that there was no way he could concentrate hard enough to do anything about it: he pitched forward and smacked his head against the black metal of a lamppost.

Thankfully Quill was still a very large and now very angry man. He felt a low growl rise in the pit of his stomach, coming up through his diaphragm and escaping from his throat. The first hint of doubt appeared in the blond man's face. Quill yelled incoherent abuse, and using the lamppost, dragged himself to his feet.

Standing up, he managed to take a step away from his attackers. They were both good looking with windswept curly hair and high cheekbones. Both wore heavy, knitted roll-neck sweaters and thick denims. The only appreciable difference between them was that the one on the floor was dark haired and the one still standing was blond. Oh, and the one on the floor looked to have dropped a crowbar, while the one still standing had a cricket bat.

Ed stepped back again, making sure that his heel ground into the dark haired one's groin. It emitted a realistically human shriek as he shifted all his weight back onto his heel and twisted.

"See how much fucking use your cheekbones are to a woman now, bitch," Quill growled.

It wasn't the snappiest mid-fight banter he'd ever heard, particularly since his victim's only response was to curl into a ball and sob brokenly over what was left of his manhood. The blond one was being equally uncinematic, charging forward with the cricket bat held above his head.

Quill threw himself to the right with as little grace as you'd expect from a two-hundred-and-fifty pound, six foot man. He gripped the lamppost tightly, using momentum to swing a tight circle around and come out behind the blond, who tried to correct himself but stumbled past, mid swing. This was all the opportunity Quill needed, having several inches, forty-five pounds and ten years' gym time advantage over his attacker. He lurched forward, grabbed the blonde's weapon hand and sank his teeth deep into the side of the man's neck.

The blond screamed impressively. The pain distracted him enough for Quill to fling him down onto the steps and jump onto his back. The blond went rigid, trying to prevent Quill from slamming his face into the same marble edge that had knocked out his friend.

This didn't deter Quill, who had long arms and evidence that his enemies' gonads were just as sensitive as a human's. He shifted sideways, grabbed the blond's scrotum, and twisted, crushing his balls with every ounce of his strength. The blond jerked as if a jolt of electricity had gone through him, squealing, and Quill took advantage of the diversion to slam him, face first, into the edge of Nancy's Steps. He kept it up until he felt less enraged that he'd been jumped in the street and no one had done anything about it.

It was only when the red mist lifted a moment later that he realised two things: despite it being a weekday in the summer there hadn't been a single person on the street, and that at some point during the rather one-sided fight he'd managed to lose the skin Erstwhile had entrusted to him.

Then he noticed that there had been more than two of them. A third assailant, a woman, had been stood away from where they'd been fighting. She was beautiful beyond anything Quill had ever seen. Just looking at her was enough to make him briefly forget that he was in so much pain he wanted to vomit, which made him suspicious. The fact that she had black eyes and was wearing the seal-skin/jacket probably clinched it. Supernatural: probably some sort of water spirit. Another massive bell rang in his subconscious, but it really wasn't a moment conducive to flashes of insight.

"Animal," she growled. "You ruin my brothers and howl your apish triumph?"

"I ruined them?" Quill stooped and grabbed the crowbar. "What the fuck is this, a tickle stick?"

"Look at them? They, who were idolised at the balls of Nuadha." She shouted, pointing at them. "What use are they to a woman now? Gelded. Useless. All their strength and vigour wasted."

"Look, if they jump out and try to kick the shit out of me, I fight back. This isn't a film. There were two of them and one of me, and they had weapons. What did you expect me to do?" Quill demanded.

He felt the waves of power gathering and raised a feeble defence against it. If he'd taken less of a beating or been more prepared he could have stood against her, but the woman was a creature of magic: more made of it than flesh and blood. She spat words in a familiar but unintelligible language.

Quill tried to strengthen his shield, but his head was still spinning and the injuries to his back and chest were starting to make it hard to breathe properly. He reached out to the names of the Archangels, but a sharp inward breath sent dizzying lances of pain through his body. Spots danced in front of his eyes and he felt the singularly unpleasant sensation of a curse taking hold.

The seal-woman laughed, pointing at him with a long, red claw.

"You'll neither sleep nor rest, human," she laughed musically. "If you do, you shall die."

II

She hung around to taunt him for a few minutes after that. Quill managed to drag himself to his feet again, but there was absolutely no chance of doing anything except breathing very shallowly, especially now that blacking out, even for a second, was going to prove fatal.

She probably said something significant during the whole tirade. Unfortunately Quill was in so much pain that all he wanted was for her to go away and stop bothering him, which she eventually did. She glanced at the dark haired and blond men, lying semiconscious on the floor, and flicked her wrist. Shadows fell on them with a deafening sound of the roaring tide, and they vanished, eaten away by darkness.

The woman herself looked Quill steadily in the eye, holding his gaze despite the pain in his back and neck making it hard for him to hold his head up.

"Let. This. Be. A. Warning." She enunciated carefully.

Quill's brain raced to keep up with the revelation. He was just clinging by his fingertips to the idea that he'd found the people who'd cursed Jennings. He was also dimly aware that the woman was still talking, but most of his attention was taken up by not crumpling into a ball on the pavement. The woman flicked her hair theatrically, taking carefully choreographed steps up the steep marble stairway. Quill was dimly aware that she had skin of the finest alabaster and curves that heroes would kill for, but as she walked away there was soon nothing that could anaesthetise the nauseating levels of pain he was in. Getting hit in the back and stomach with wooden and metal clubs hurt, regardless of how much adrenaline might be pumping around in your system.

"I fucking hate you," Quill muttered at her vanishing feet, before stumbling off to where he could hail a cab.

****

There was a special way of hailing a cab when you were in this condition: a certain talisman displayed prominently around the neck ensured a quick pick up by bald men in antique vehicles who suddenly appear out of nowhere, or at most out of the corner of the eye. One of them picked Quill up within a few seconds and kept him talking with drawling inanities until they managed to navigate their way to a suspiciously traffic free Jermyn Street, and the premises of the Mirandola Club.

For the uninitiated, Jermyn Street is a very narrow street just before London's Piccadilly Circus. It's filled with small, dark old shops that sell very expensive things – usually clothes. Its cafes are similarly tasteful, dark and expensive. The entire street reeks of old money. In the middle sits the Mirandola Club. Like most things in the occult community, the Mirandola claims a long lineage, going back no further than 1852, when two Victorian sorcerers were so overcome with admiration for Giovanni Pico de Mirandola's translations of Kabbalistic theology that they decided to start a meeting club to honour him. Since they were both shirt makers, Jermyn Street was the logical choice.

The club sits at the mouth of a narrow alleyway, just off the street itself. It was a magnificent limestone building where the architect had been let off the leash when it came to rococo detailing. A huge blue ceramic lozenge on the side of the building proclaimed that it had been the residence of a now forgotten Nepoleonic hero and a bridge spanned from its upper floor to where the club had long ago annexed the offices of a respectable solicitor.

The cab pulled up on the main road, forcing Quill to stagger out into the alleyway and hammer on the intercom.

The intercom crackled to life. "Yes?"

"It's Ed," Quill said. "Two bastards with heavy objects kicked the shit out of me."

Something buzzed and the door popped open. Quill limped inside, doubling over as the full impact of his injuries really started to take effect. It was less than ten steps from the door to the common room, where his knees failed and he barely managed to slump into a nearby armchair.

The common room was windowless, lit only by a dim orange glow day and night. Quill slouched awkwardly, too weak to move, after a moment he became aware of another presence.

"Shall I fetch someone, Eddy?" Inquired a gravelly voice filled with concern.

It was Turner, the Majordormo. He was a powerfully built, bald man with scarred knuckles. Sometimes he and Quill spotted for each other.

"See if James is in. Miranda will do if he isn't, but if James is around, or even if he's coming back soon, make sure you get him."

Turner said something reassuring and vanished into the next room. Quill curled up in a ball of agony and tried to console himself with the fact that at least the pain would keep him awake.

Two and a half short eternities later his dimmed senses tuned in to the fact that someone was approaching across the wine-stained carpet.

"Hello mate," Quill murmured. "Wanted to pick your brain."

"What on earth have you done to yourself?" James asked.

He had a light, cut glass accent and glasses that reflected the faint orange glow. He immediately manoeuvred Quill into a more comfortable position, despite having arms and legs like matchsticks. Quill gave a grunt of pain, squirming to find a way of sitting that didn't aggravate his back injuries.

"Just sit still," James snapped. "You'll be alright in a minute."

That was the first reason Quill had asked for James. Lots of practitioners had a special talent, in fact Quill was rare in being an all-rounder. James' talent, or at least his magical talent, was healing. Of course, like everything in life there were side effects.

"Don't get over excited," Quill whispered. "I haven't got time for chemo."

"Tumors are an effect of having too much life: the cells go mad and start mutating when they should die. It's the natural consequence of the quest for immortality," James said. "Believe me, the one thing you don't have just now is too much life. Now, try to relax."

There were magical formula and shapes of power traced in the Astral, and he muttered an ancient incantation under his breath, but to all intents and purposes he laid hands on Edward Quill, whose injuries immediately started knitting back together.

Quill gasped at the immediate and uncomfortable warmth that came with the healing. The heat changed quickly from a faint tingle, to a deep sting to a genuine scalding hot burn. His bones repaired themselves and his soft tissues started to regenerate. He stuttered involuntarily, trying not to cry out until the pain of the healing became worse than the pain of the injuries.

"Oh Christ," Quill choked. "Stop, fuck's sake please stop." James ignored him, gripping his shoulders tighter, "Fuck," Quill's spine snapped into a painful arch, "God, stop," James moved only to pin Quill's arms to his sides, "Christ," Quill writhed, squirming away from James' grip.

James ignored him, holding him tighter in place until his swearing became a whine, and the whine became a single, drawn out scream. Quill struggled weakly. Every splinter of bone and fibre of muscle had turned to white hot lead. Just when he thought it was going to kill him, it stopped.

"You bastard," Quill panted. "You utter fucking bastard."

James took a step away. He was used to patients feeling quite violent when he'd finished working.

"That's why they don't use Odinist Reiki at London Bridge." James said.

"I'll kill you one of these days," Quill growled. "I'll kill you."

James didn't say anything. The healing, the pain and its side effects were part of the curse, an echo of Loki's impotent, rage filled agonies as acidic poison dripped on him in his lonely cave.

"Fucker," Quill muttered. "Fucker..." He subsided. "Sorry mate, I know it's part of the deal."

"Better than the ones who get off on it." James said mildly. "I don't want people to shout abuse at me... Some people are just wrong."

"Yeah," Quill grunted. "Sorry mate," he tried to shake murder out of his mind. "Anyway, I was hoping you might be able to help me with something else."

James tilted his head curiously without getting any closer. He hadn't survived twenty years as a healer by trusting people.

"Go on," he said.

"I've got a case involving a member called Tom Jennings, but I've never heard of him. Do you know anyone...?" Quill asked.

This was James' other talent: he didn't come across as the sort of arse who thought they were 'good with people,' but James knew everyone, or if he didn't, there was a good chance he knew someone who did. James Solorz knew where the bodies were buried.

"I know the name," James' brow furrowed. "Let me phone Cally. She'll be out of work about now."

He made a brief phone call to the ambiguous Cally. That was James' way. Quill sat and sipped a bitter double espresso (courtesy of Mister Turner,) as James went from pleasantries to catching up to carefully dropping Jennings into the conversation. It was the work of an artist. He laughed and smiled at something said from the other end of the phone and made his goodbyes. All in all the process had taken about twenty minutes. MI5 couldn't have done it in less than a day.

"I did know him as it turns out," James said. "Did you remember all that stuff with the Red Path back in the eighties?"

"Depending on what part of the eighties it was, I might not even have been born," Quill said.

"Point," said James. "The Red Path was a good idea that turned out to be a nasty reality: blood and sex magic. Very paleo-pagan... but they got more into the blood than the sex for some reason."

Quill thought about it. "Weather, maybe? Say what you like, kicking the shit out of someone keeps you warm."

James smiled. "I can rather imagine that," he said. "Anyway, it wasn't a good time for us. There had been all that nasty business with people cutting each other's heads off and then Wilbur managed to summon Agres in the King's Apartment at Hampton Court... and the fire... the Government were actually starting to talk about creating a proper department to deal with this sort of thing."

"Yeah, that would have worked out. Cambridge boys with silver bullets and a platoon of Credenhill's finest for backup. Aye, I'm sure that would have a complete success." Quill said.

"They do it every so often. The last time was before I was born," James said, "But I met John Delancey just before he died and he said they wanted something similar in the twenties. Anyway, though, the Red Path split into two factions: the hardcore and the moderates, who wanted to talk. We had to pull it off, so our chairman spoke to his cousins in the Masons and Jennings appeared. He was a professional negotiator with a proven track record, and young, too, just desperate to make his name."

"Since we're not members of a poorly funded government department like Max, or at war with cannibal pagans, I assume he did a fairly decent job?" Quill said.

"He worked miracles," James nodded. "He got the moderates on side and marginalised the hardcore, who managed to burn themselves to death in a squat just outside Brighton."

"That's bloody convenient," Quill said. "How hard did they look to see if it was an accident?"

"Hard enough. I mean, it wasn't completely innocent: Jennings was meeting with Peter Vargas at the Royal Albion in Brighton and they'd decided to invoke a grand sending. From what was left afterwards it looked like they were trying to invoke Llew." James said.

Quill nodded for another espresso to be brought over. "I'm not that good with my Celtic pantheon... Llew is...?" He asked.

"One of yours! A Welsh sun-god, he's one of the more civilised gods, to be honest, but they were obsessed with getting 'the wilder aspects,'" James rolled his eyes. "And they didn't quite process the fact that the 'wilder aspect' of a sun-god would be pure, white hot energy. It wasn't even a fire, really. They just found the house gutted and some shadows on the wall."

Quill raised an eyebrow. "Right," he sipped his espresso. "That rules out some boys with a baseball bat and some cans of petrol, then."

James nodded. "Psychics had nightmares for miles around. One of my friends even woke up with burns."

"Fair enough," Quill said. "Who's this Peter Vegas you mentioned?"

"Peter Vargas," James corrected. "He was the leader of the moderates," James stopped to signal one of the stewards, who slipped behind the bar. "After the other lot disappeared he was in charge of the whole group for a while, but he's basically retired now. He lives in Kingston."

"Kingston London?" Quill asked.

James nodded. "Yes. Oh, thank you," the steward handed James a coffee. "Sorry, yes. He hasn't been active on the magical scene since the nineties, neither has Jennings. Although, Jennings was never really interested in magic, he only joined because his lodge asked him to."

"And now he turns up on the Thirteenth Floor of the London Bridge Hospital with a weird, living seal skin." Quill said.

James leaned forward with a questioning look. "Seal skin?"

"Yeah," Quill said. "I was going to get to that," he finished his espresso. "He came in after not sleeping for most of the week, keeping himself going with drugs and magic, and he had a jacket made from seal skin. Living seal skin, with all the veins and blood vessels."

James looked at Quill as if he'd just told him the man had come in haemorrhaging and trying to attack anybody in his immediate vicinity.

"I assume you transported it carefully?" James asked slowly.

"I was going to." Quill said.

James' face fell. "Oh, Edward..."

"Two men jumped me on the street by Nancy's Steps, which is how I ended up in such a state. There was a woman with them; she snatched the skin back while I was fighting," Quill flagged down another espresso. "...and she did something. I think she's given me the same curse as Jennings."

"How could you let go of the skin?" James was baffled, ignoring his last comment.

"I was getting the shit kicked out of me by men with heavy objects," Quill shouted. "I don't know if it's ever happened to you, but it's pretty bloody distracting," he gritted his teeth and forced his voice down to a conversational level. "Sorry, anyway, it sounds like you know more about them than I do."

James nodded. "The seal skin screams Selkies. It makes sense with the curse, too. Ondine's Curse: if you ever sleep, you'll die. Selkies are incredibly powerful sorcerers if they have their seal skins, the females even more so."

Quill frowned. "Was Jennings in their league?"

"Not necessarily," James said. "They have to leave the skin behind to pass for human. There was a time when stealing it was a popular way for certain fishermen to get themselves a wife."

"What, the rape and pillage variety?" Quill said. "How did the Selkies stop it?"

"Violent reprisals. Not only aimed at the perpetrator, but his entire circle of family and friends. Horrible curses, horrible deaths. It took a few hundred years, but people were put off eventually." James said.

"Oh, septic spermatic chord," Quill sighed. "She thinks I'm a friend of his," he pushed himself up out of the chair. "I'd better warn Mister Erstwhile, and see if Jennings has any family. Bollocks. Balls."

"Do let me know if you have any luck," James called after him. "I think I'm probably going to postpone my plans to leave the building for the next few days."

III

Quill made his way back to London Bridge, thundering through the 1984-style décor of the new Jubilee Line stations. One of the architects had to have been a closet anarchist, he reflected, to have made Westminster Tube look so much like the stronghold of a futuristic dictatorship.

Once there, he phoned Max and asked him to meet in the 'caff' under the railway arches. It was the sort of place where men in high-visibility jackets ate high calorie food and unhealthy amounts of white bread. It was not a bohemian retreat for the world, or the sort of place where the tattooed owner would wax lyrical about the latest coffee, hand crushed between the knees of virgins. This was the sort of place where, for under a fiver, you could get two pieces of white bread hugging an improbably large number of cheap sausages... and cup of tea.

"What's wrong, don't you want to see Jennings again?" Max smirked, pushing his way between two builders.

"Not really, no," Quill said. "Look, do we know if Jennings has any family or friends?"

"Yeah, we've got some details," Max checked his phone. "Says here he's got a daughter called Lilly, she goes to London Met."

Quill's attention sharpened. "Do we have an address for her?"

"She lives in Bethnal Green," he said. "We gave her a call earlier but she hasn't picked up."

"Look, we should go over there. We need to start keeping an eye on Jennings' family and friends," Quill slugged at his scorching hot coffee. "Actually, you need to start keeping an eye on yourself."

Max looked at him quizzically. Quill leaned back, taking a pained sip of his coffee before explaining everything that had happened to him in the last few hours.

Max's eyes widened. "So, if they think you're his friend, they'll probably think I'm bloody shagging him. Fuck. Not to belittle the terrible curse you're labouring under, or anything, but I've actually got to put my men between him and them. You turn up and take a weird jacket and they do that to you. What's going to happen if they turn up at the hospital and we tell them where they can stick it?" Max ranted. "I'm getting SO19 on this. Shoot to kill."

Max was making gun motions as he talked. Quill put a hand out and patted him on the shoulder.

"I don't think they'll come to the hospital, mate." Quill said. "If they wanted him, they could have had him. They got close enough to lay the curse, and that's not the sort of curse you use to warm up for something else, it's the kind of curse you lay and then sit back to watch someone's inevitable death."

"I hope you're right," Max said darkly.

"Yeah..." Quill said. "Look, we haven't got anything else. Shall we go out and see the daughter? If you've got time, that is?"

Max stole a bite of Quill's sandwich. "Finish your dinner, I'll tell the boys they need to be careful."

****

One of the best things about knowing Max was that he had a car. The fact that it had hidden blue flashing lights wasn't the coolest thing. Not having to share space or rely on public transport: that was fantastic. Quill always felt a degree less heroic when he knew that his daring investigation could, at any time, be halted dead in its tracks by a signal failure. He had images of the villains from the Maltese Falcon dying of boredom as they lay in wait for a Sam Spade who was stuck in a tunnel on the Northern Line. Cutting down side streets, speeding through lights and flashing past traffic jams on the wrong side of the road, now that was the way it should be.

The only problem was that knowing he wasn't allowed to sleep made him really want to take a nap, even just to slump against the passenger side window and doze as they made the journey to Bethnal Green. Not being able to, despite the relatively early time of day, was torture.

Max pulled the car up to a yellow brick terraced house on a quiet backstreet. High steps arched over the entranceway to a basement flat. They were almost at the top of the steps when the door opened.

"Oh, hello." The figure had an armload of empty milk bottles.

The speaker was a tall, thin man about Quill's height with short, wiry black hair and coffee coloured skin. He looked African or Afro-Caribbean, with striking pale green eyes.

"Can I help?" He asked.

Max went into official mode, stepping forward with his warrant card in hand. "We're looking for Lilaea Jennings. Is she around?"

"No, she went with her doctor," the young man said. "She's my girlfriend," he offered Erstwhile his hand to shake. "I'm Jones, Jones Patterson."

"What do you mean by 'went with her doctor?'" Max asked.

"She's got Tantalus Syndrome, it's an allergy to some kinds of water," he stepped back into the house, gesturing for them to follow him. "She's had it for years without a problem, but she fell into the sea over the summer and they want her in for a battery of tests."

"Sorry to hear that," Max said. "I hope she's not too ill."

"No, that's the thing," Jones wandered into the kitchen, scanning the various surfaces, fridge notes and cork boards. "She was fine. They told her if she ever swam in the sea she would die, but then she was fine. We took her to casualty and they didn't even know what all the fuss was about."

Quill and Erstwhile gave each other significant looks.

"Do you have a number for her doctor?" Erstwhile asked.

"That's what I'm looking for," Jones opened and closed a drawer. "I'm sorry, I can't find it. We usually have the number on the cork board, in case something happens."

"Does she have attacks very often?" Quill asked.

"Nah," Jones said. "Not since she was little, but we have to be careful: boil water to get the impurities out, special filter on the bath and shower."

He went into the living room and searched fitfully through some more drawers before shrugging.

"Sorry, gents," he said without turning back to them. "I can't find it. I don't think I gave it to her uncle..."

Max's ears pricked up. He glanced at Quill and mouthed, 'She doesn't have an uncle.'

"What did he look like?" Quill asked.

"About this tall... wavy blond hair. He looked like a fisherman for some reason." Jones said.

"Right," Quill said. "Did he leave you anything?"

"His card," Jones offered them a small square of glossy card. "You can have it. I've copied down the number."

"Have you met her family before?" Quill asked.

"Not really: her mum's dead and she fell out with her Dad before she came to Uni," Jones turned back to face them. "Anyway, she isn't here. The doctor picked her up early."

"Is that normal?" Max asked.

"I've met him before, he's a private practitioner. I think her Dad pays for him." Jones said.

Quill took the card carefully, feeling faint traces of magic throbbing in the scarifications traced over his skin. It was enchanted in some way... he concentrated harder, pretending to be reading the details extra closely. A contact spell. A smile crept across his face.

"Thank you, Mr Patterson," Quill said. "That'll do nicely. We'll be going now, won't we DI Erstwhile? Thank you for your time."

Quill shot out of his chair, with shocking speed for a man of his size, and bolted towards the front door as if his arse was on fire. Max looked surprised and got out of his chair, making more official noises as Jones let them out. He let Quill get down the steps and a little way away from the house before asking what the hell was going on.

"This card," Quill held up the business card triumphantly. "Is a contact spell. You hide one on a business card because then the person thinks they're phoning you, not just hearing voices. It's less incongruous, easier to use without suspicion. Some unscrupulous bastards even link it up with a premium rate number and make a bit of money for themselves, but the best thing," Quill turned on his heel, grinning eerily. "Is that we can use it to find the bastard."

IV

Quill led them around the corner to a disused patch of waste ground. Gorse bushes were pushing their way up through the concrete and a small circle of car seats had been placed around the remains of a now dead fire. Erstwhile picked his way over the square and oblong pebbles of broken indicator glass littering the floor, and carefully he thrashed his way through the thorny undergrowth. There were discarded shards of safety glass and car parts strewn everywhere.

"I can't believe you even found this place," he said. "I didn't know you'd even been to Bethnal Green. What do you do, just memorise every patch of waste ground inside zone three?"

"I have special wizard sense," Quill explained. "But whereas some wizards' sense let them see useless things like illusions, monsters and the future my senses let me see cheap caffs and quiet spots for a bit magic."

"Can some people really see the future?" Erstwhile asked.

"They can," Quill chose a relatively clear patch of ground hidden at the centre of the undergrowth. "But I wouldn't bother asking them to tell you anything useful, because the ones who actually use their powers tend to disappear."

"That sounds a bit useless." Max frowned.

"Doesn't it?" Quill said.

There was a chipped and faded white circle painted on the ground. It might have once been the centre of a football pitch or a netball court. Quill glanced sideways at Erstwhile.

"You know how you don't carry a can of spray paint to write 'paedo' on the front of racists' houses?" He said.

"Quite correct," Max said. "It would be a grotesque abuse of power to find members of race hate groups and spread rumours they're fiddling kiddies."

"Good," Quill looked thoughtfully at the circle. "This can of spray paint you don't have? Is it white and can I borrow it?"

****

In the end Max decided to get the car and bring it to the waste ground. One reason was because it gave him somewhere to wait while Quill sprayed out an elaborate pattern on the tarmac. The other reason was because it occurred to him that a policeman making repeated back and forth journeys to a car parked 'innocently' outside Jones' house might be the sort of thing that got reported to the IPCC.

It started to rain half way through his effort, but the rain somehow failed to fall anywhere inside the circle. Quill stayed inside, crabbing from place to place for more than an hour until he finally emerged, only slightly damp despite having spent the last seventy minutes crouched in heavy rain.

"Right," he emerged with white paint misting his fingertips. "Let's do this. Come on, get into the circle."

Max gave him a sceptical look. "How do you do this anyway? Don't you need your magical powders and Goetic rings?"

Quill shrugged. "Some of that speech might have been for effect." He admitted. "Most of what I do I do by myself. Some people make amulets or bind spirits into themselves, but I just like to do things my own way. The other lot have too many downsides."

"What do you mean?" Max looked suspiciously at the circle.

"Well amulets just break," Ed explained. "Spirits get a mortgage on your soul. If you push yourself too far, they start taking over. Now get into the circle."

"I thought the thing you wanted to summon went into the circle?"

"Yes," Quill wagged a finger at him. "Sorry, you've spotted my fiendish plan, there. I was going to sacrifice you to my gods in return for normal skin pigmentation and a faster metabolism," he rolled his eyes. "Get into the bloody circle, the circle is for us. The thing you want to summon goes in the triangle."

Max frowned. "I thought you said the card would only let us find him?"

"There are different ways of finding someone: there's hours of investigation and tracking someone's financial doppelgänger through the paper jungle, and there's going to their favourite pub with a hammer. This is more the second one." Quill said. "In a way."

"Where's the summoning triangle?" Erstwhile craned his neck to see over the gorse.

"Just on that corner by the garages, just where someone would come around the corner if they wanted to use the waste as a shortcut. It should be a good enough place that we'll get something."

"Right, why am I standing in here?" Max shifted uncomfortably.

"Nature doesn't like summoning," Quill said. "There tends to be a physical backlash."

Quill nodded and ceremoniously lit four small trash fires at the cardinal points of the circle. Between them, he knelt in turn and prayed to the four piles of cooking salt, from the container he'd brought in his backpack.

The wind stirred, whipping Quill's hair into his face. He stared into the distance, and after a minute he brushed it away, striding to the northern compass point.

"I stand here between the lords of the elements, in the fortress of the watchtowers of the north, south, west and east. The rains cannot penetrate, the winds whip around us. Cold are my bones, hot is my fever. Doo. Aipe. Ores. Dann. Demm. Nemo. Nestes. Thanatos. Nanetes... hear me..."

He moved to the south, calling out the same invocation with different, but equally strange names. At the east there was a strange sound from somewhere outside the circle and the larger pieces of leftover headlights started to shatter. Something changed in the circle, a feeling of warmth and light. It might have been a cloud passing over the sun, but for a moment it seemed as if the light on the outside of the circle was weaker than the light within.

Quill moved to the Western point, spreading his arms wide. "Lords of the elements, compass points of the universe, spokes of the wheel of sidereal time, hear me. Lords of the humours, great masters of oneness, I call out. Oro. Estar. Shemo. Deme. Regol. Emerot. Felemus. Antar, antar, antas. Hear me!"

Suddenly it was twilight outside the circle. Quill felt the sudden scrutiny of something non-corporeal and definitely non-human.

"Right," Quill muttered. "That's got their attention."

Max looked around nervously. The old, afternoon daylight was preserved in only two places: inside the circle and triangle. Quill smartly brandished the business card.

"I call to the fragment of this soul," he held the card above his head. "I call to the author of this spell," the fires whipped and guttered with the wind, threatening to set light to some of the gorse. "He who has taken the name of 'Joseph Jennings.' He who has visited the house of Lilaea. He who lies."

The wind whipped up violently, sending a storm of shattered glass and gravel into their faces. One of the salt piles started to migrate, sliding into the circle, leaving a trail of grains.

Quill faced into the gale with a hard expression. He said three words that couldn't be heard and the howling immediately died down.

"I call to the one who is resisting. I call to the liar and cozener," Quill pulled his shirt over his head, exposing his bare chest and the intricate mystical patterns scarred into his flesh. "By Sandalphon and Uriel, by Hermes and Sekhmet. By the magnetic currents of the underground, I summon him. By the phantom trains and the magnificent seven, I call him. By the red roads of blood, bring him. By the open mouth of the oyster and the discordant chime of death, bring him."

Quill raised his voice, pulling with every ounce of energy he had. "As I will, so shall it be," he closed his fist. "Emor, embar, amet!"

There was an unpleasant sound of metal slithering over metal, and one of the corrugate sheets dislodged from the roof of a lock-up garage. Quill resisted the urge to flinch. The inside of the circle was his personal universe. He glared at the razor sharp piece of metal flying towards him. He snapped out words like bullets.

"Private." He said. "No admittance."

The sheet of metal hit the edge of the circle as he pronounced the first syllable of 'admittance.' There was a terrible crash and the sheet flew through the air and towards Quill's head, Max instinctively ducked. The metal sheet hit the edge of the clearing at the speed of a falling guillotine. The sheet of corrugated metal bounced and clattered to a stop somewhere on the other side of a pile of bin bags.

Both Quill and Erstwhile felt the shift in the air. The strange tension was released, but it was the release of something having been done or decided. The four rubbish fires immediately burned out. The wind picked up the four pillars of salt and carried them whirling in white dust devils around the waste ground...It was then that the Selkie came strolling around the corner and walked straight into the summoning triangle.

It was the blond one. His eyes bulged as he saw Quill lumbering through the weeds, but as he turned to leave, the ground gave way, trapping him up to the waist, legs kicking uselessly in whatever subterranean cavern the spell had opened up.

Quill paced the edge of the triangle, smiling down at him.

"Hello there, mate," he said. "I thought I'd start by apologising–"

The Selkie gave him a venomous look, opening its mouth to reply.

"Oh, not for this," Quill said. "This is what you get for underestimating people, and I hope you're grateful that you've been captured by such an honourable and gentle person as myself," he paused. "Did your balls grow back, by the way? Or was that the other one?"

The Selkie spat at him. When it spoke it had a deep Scots accent. "It was the both of us, although now I know you were just having a feel 'cos you were missing your boyfriend." It said.

Quill glanced at Erstwhile, who raised an eyebrow.

"Don't be like that Maxie, I'm sure we can sort this out," Quill turned back to the Selkie. "Sorry, he's a policeman. They don't take well to insinuations of homosexuality," Quill gave his best forced laugh. "Thank god it's not the nineteen seventies, eh? You'd be 'falling down the stairs' on the way to questioning, no mistake."

"You can do what you like, Mister," it said. "You're a dead man walking and you know it. You're just the start, all his kin and hirelings, every last one of them. When we return to the sea, you'll be a tale they tell to frighten children."

Erstwhile lit a cigarette and held it poised over the crown of the Selkie's head, ready to drop it into the middle of the thatch of his wavy hair. Quill looked over and shook his head silently.

'Naughty boy,' he mouthed, over the Selkie's head.

"What are you doing?" The Selkie jerked around, trying to see what they were talking about.

Max took an innocent drag on the cigarette.

"Nothing, mate," Quill said. "Nothing, just my friend Max getting a bit ahead of himself, that's all," Quill grinned at Max. "We're not going to do anything like that for at least twenty minutes."

"If you torture me..." the Selkie said.

"What?" Quill's voice hardened. "Are you going to curse me? Kill me? That's not much of an incentive just now, I'm afraid," he squatted down to be closer to the Selkie. "I'd really think about having a proper, civil chat with me if I was you."

The Selkie spat again, this time it hit Quill's collar. "Slay me," it snarled.

Quill levered himself to his feet, shaking his head. "Being honest, now I know who you are and where you're from, I can't help but respect what you're doing," he stepped back. "Doesn't mean I want to die, but I respect you. Fine, no more threats, no more questions."

He reached into his trench coat and took out a can of lighter fluid. He showed it to the Selkie.

"So, how about I pour this all over your head and my friend tragically loses his grip on that cigarette? 'Whoomph,' couple of minutes of horrible pain, then it's all over. You win, because you'll be dead, which you just asked for, and I win because (a) it'll make me feel better, and (b) I know a really good necromancer in Sydenham Hill."

The Selkie looked up at him with eyes as wide as saucers. Max stepped into view where it could see him properly, he took a deep puffed on the cigarette. Quill worked at the stopper on the lighter fluid, trying to pry it off with his teeth.

"Sorry," he said around the plastic cap. "I can never get the stupid thing off."

"Give it a twist," Max suggested.

"I won't talk," the Selkie shouted, its teeth clenching compulsively. The conviction in its voice was quickly fading.

The cap came off the lighter fluid with a messy slosh that splattered onto the tarmac.

"There we go," Quill said cheerfully. "Close your eyes," he started pouring lighter fluid over the Selkie's head. "Not that it'll matter in a minute. I think the eyes are the first to go."

The Selkie, still trapped by the summoning triangle, juddered and twisted unsuccessfully, desperate to avoid the stream of accelerant.

"Stop, I'll talk." It cried.

"No, it's alright," Quill chirped. "'Whoomph,' remember? 'Slay me.' I'll get more out of you with Nunhead Mark anyway."

"Why's he called 'Nunhead Mark' if he lives in Sydenham Hill?" Max frowned.

"It's an interesting story featuring a rope, a box of condoms and a folding shovel." Quill said. "I'll tell you all about it later. Shall we?" Quill nodded to the cigarette.

"No," the Selkie screamed. "I yield, I give in. Stop, I'll tell you anything. Don't kill me. Please?"

"Now that's actually quite interesting," Max gestured with his cigarette. "So will fire actually kill it, Dead? Or is this some kind of trick?"

"Fire kills most things," Quill said. "That's why the old witch hunters had such a thing for burning people at the stake."

Quill squatted back down next to the Selkie, leaning closer without actually crossing the edge of the triangle.

"So, first question: what happens to Jennings' daughter?" He asked.

The Selkie looked blank. "What do you mean?"

Quill gave it an appraising look. "I'm not going to insult you by playing some stupid game where I threaten to let Max drop his cigarette every time you say something I don't like," he shifted his weight so that he could sit cross legged. "This conversation is balanced. Every time you tell me something I want to know, you get an entry in column 'a,' every time you say something daft, I put an entry in column 'b.' At the end we look at which column has the most entries. I will kill you horribly if this book doesn't balance."

"I mean it," the Selkie said. "When I came earlier she was away with her physician. Her betrothed man told me to come back now."

Quill pursed his lips. "Alright, a bit of a communication problem. What are you going to do to Lilaea Jennings? Ondine's curse? Something really nasty?"

The light of understanding dawned in its eyes. "She's safe, the daughter of Jennings led us to our sister."

"I'm having a horrible thought: the skin, your sister, Jennings' daughter," Quill sat back. "He did it, didn't he? Jennings had a Selkie Bride."

"Not a bride," the Selkie's eyes blazed. "He took her off the beach and kidnapped her. We heard nothing for twenty years and now when we get her back..." it looked away. "You're a fool if you didn't know it."

"I don't know him, mate," Quill said. "I'm only here because it's my job. Humans don't do family the way you lot do. You go after him, I go after you. That's the job."

The Selkie looked at him searchingly.

"Justly unjust. You follow a blind kind of justice that cares not for who she serves?" It asked.

Quill nodded. "Basically," he said. "You can't be fair to everyone. Nobody knows enough, nobody's wise enough. All you can be is consistently unfair."

"We have the same principals, I suppose," the Selkie replied, philosophically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Quill asked.

"It means we've made a mistake," it said. "But I can't take the curse off your head. Only our sister can do that and she's..."

"Help me to understand this," Quill said.

"There are things I cannot tell you," it said. "Victims we keep for ourselves, and I will endure pain beyond fire or imagination if I give them away... but go to Jennings' home, look for a door that has been damaged. That'll show you the kind of man you're protecting."

"Alright," Quill nodded, pushing himself to his feet. "I'll have a look, but this changes nothing. If he's done something he shouldn't, we'll punish him ourselves."

"And I can't release you from your curse." The Selkie said. "It is a fact I deeply regret."

"Fine," Quill replied, inclining his head feeling not the least bit comforted. "What's her name, your sister?"

Horror, fear and resignation played across the Selkie's face in turn. He looked back at Quill like a man asked to choose between hanging or the electric chair.

"That's cruel," he said quietly. "You're a bad one to do this to me, after all your talk."

Quill leaned forward. "You don't have to give me her true name," he said. "I'm not interested in binding her."

The Selkie shook its head, "No, it doesn't matter. I can't–"

"Anything, a nickname, a name someone used to call her when she was a kid," Quill pressed.

"No," the Selkie said bitterly. "You're a bastard, you are," tears welled in its eyes. "Death or dishonour to my kin, a life not worth living. Never. And I thought you were a good man..."

Quill felt a cold sensation in his stomach. He began to think that he'd backed himself into a corner.

"Ummm, if I can explain?" Max said carefully.

Two sets of eyes riveted themselves to him. Max froze for a fraction of a second, thankfully that was almost twice as long as Max's hyperactivity and short attention span would permit him to worry about anything. A circuit shorted in his brain and hurled him onward.

"It's about our system of justice," Max continued. "We want to punish Jennings – properly, wrath of the gods type things – but before we can do that, we need a name for the victim. Any name."

V

Eventually, the Selkie had given them a name: Eilidh, pronounced 'Eye-leash.' Quill had struggled not to let the Selkie nearly shit himself with relief. They'd apologised for the impromptu binding.

They trudged to the car and drove away from the waste ground, leaving the Selkie still trapped up to the waist to get itself out with its, now, limited magic. Quill smirked at the thought. It made him feel just a smidgen better. Neither of them spoke for a while, both lost in thought. Eventually Max broke the silence.

"So, where are we going? At the moment I'm basically pointing myself back towards the London Bridge Hospital." He asked.

"He said try Jennings' house," Quill said. "So I think I'm going to have a look there."

Max studied the road very intently for a minute. "It's could be a trap," he said. "We had just threatened to burn him to death."

"He was in the triangle," Quill said. "I'd have known."

"Would you really have burned him to death?" Max pulled the car around a tight corner.

Quill shrugged. "Would you have dropped the cigarette?"

"I don't know, mate." Max said. "You know what I'm like. I don't know what I'm going to do myself until I do it."

Quill exhaled a long, deep breath. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"There wasn't enough there to guarantee that you'd kill someone, either. We could have left him alive and in agony," Max shook his head, suddenly turning to look at Quill. "Christ, I could have dropped that the cigarette by accident. Was it real lighter fluid?"

"Keep your eye on the road!" Quill snapped. "Bloody hell. Yes, it was real lighter fluid. I couldn't think of anything else to do once we had him. I could have worked on a binding spell but that would mean we had to get his name, which still would have meant getting him to talk, which would have put us back at square one. You saw how hard it was to get his sister's name. Multiply that by a factor of ten... and thanks for helping me just then. I was starting to think I'd buggered it up."

"Meh, don't worry. What are friends for?" Max said. "Lucky you were carrying it, really. The lighter fluid."

"Never know when you need a fire," Quill said. "Anyway, I think I'm going to go and pay Jennings' house a visit."

"Nice one," Max said. "His address should be in the stuff I emailed over to you earlier. Obviously, I can't go with you."

"After that completely professional and ethical interrogation we just did? It's only a tiny bit of breaking and entering," Quill said.

Max looked around for somewhere to park. "Water Spirits don't have national insurance numbers, they're non-people. It's a sad state of affairs, and I expect a campaign is being organised to represent their rights as we speak," he pulled into a space between two vans. "But that's the way things are. Jennings might be a scumbag, but he's a human being with rights. In fact, if he is a scumbag there's no way I'm doing anything to make that evidence inadmissible," he took the car out of gear. "So jump on the train over to Richmond and have a look around. If anything suspicious is going on, just knock a window through and leave it to the local curtain twitchers."

****

The District line carried Quill out to Richmond with its usual rattling, archaic pomp. If any of the London Underground lines were enchanted, the District Line was their king. Quill sat on a rattletrap train from the eighties that made its way through unnaturally wide tunnels, past orange-lit deposits of trackside machinery. Despite the tube being entirely electric, District Line stations always smelled slightly of petrol, like a 24 hour garage.

It let him off in the market-town bustle of Kew Road, outside Richmond Station. It didn't quite feel like London here, or if it did, then this was London with the upgraded browser and all the annoying features taken out. It had the peaceful air of Dartmoor after a thunderstorm. He got himself a double espresso and trudged around the corner to a street called 'The Vineyard.'

This street was lined with four story houses, built for the frantically overpopulating Victorian middle classes, made from the yellowish brown stone of London Stock Brick: a sort of clay sponge for pollution. Here though, the air was clean enough that some of the houses were almost the same colour they would have been when they were built.

Jennings' house was atypical for the street: an orange brick art deco offering that looked like it had been built to fill a bomb crater. It sat there looking incongruous, something old next to something older. It also had a side door leading around to the back garden, which the others didn't have. There wasn't even barbed wire over the top.

"Classy," Quill muttered, treading on a clump of delicate posies as he walked up the short path.

He rummaged in his bag and found a sheaf of old copies of the Watchtower to stick under his arm. It wasn't a very good cover, but people were prepared to believe almost anything about Jehovah's Witnesses. He knelt down so that he could see through the letterbox, getting nothing more than an eyeful of hall table, and peered through the front windows, knocking on them as loudly as he could. After a few minutes of trying to draw someone's attention, Quill backed away from the door and took a run up and jumped the garden fence.

He wasn't a small man. In fact it might already have been mentioned that he was actually quite a big man, with the weight of muscle far outweighing the fat. The wooden fence and flimsy wooden door wobbled dangerously, threatening to splinter and pitch him backwards into the front garden, but the other benefit of Quill's muscle was that he was able to haul himself up and over the fence with enough momentum that gravity didn't really notice what was happening until the worst was over. He dropped down into the back garden.

It was suitably huge and barely kept enough to be acceptable to the Richmond suburbs: the grass hadn't seen a lawn mower for some time, but the garden furniture was clean and there was a weeded section of patio closer to the back door. There was also a period back door whose lock resisted Quill for precisely nine seconds.

The first thing that hit him when he got inside the house was the smell. Most of the features were still period: the single glazed metal window frames, long ago painted white; the chessboard pattern of black and white tiles on the floor; the quaint, unvarnished kitchen table with a velvety network of scoring from where countless knives had been used on it over the generations. It was a cute set up, if not worn round the edges.

That was where the smell came in. It was the smell of a ghetto without proper sewers: stagnant water and human waste. Quill followed his nose out into the dining room, then out again into the hall, where the stairs arched up over a tiny cupboard door. A door that had been recently kicked in.

The hall also bore signs of a struggle: what he'd taken for a build up of post dropped through the letterbox was the scatter of a recycling box knocked over. A tub full of umbrellas had been upended at the foot of the stairs, and some of the stair balusters had been shattered, presumably where someone had used them to shelter from a heavy blow.

Quill's hackles rose. Leaving the door to make sure he was alone, he held his breath, willing the thunderous beating of his heart not to give him away. He padded carefully to the living room door and threw it open, moving as stealthily as he could to the dining room and finding it empty. That only left the upstairs bedrooms and there was no way a building like this would be soundproof enough to hide the sounds of people moving around upstairs. He checked behind the couch, then under the dining table and made sure that the serving hatch really led through into the kitchen. Then he went back through into the kitchen, checked the week old food in the fridge, and contemplated that it might be a good idea to step out into the back garden and check the shed.

After that, there really wouldn't be anywhere else to check other than the door under the stairs.

Quill gritted his teeth. "Come on Ed," he said. "Don't be a pussy."

He forced himself to turn and marched out into the hallway, an uneasy sensation had settled on his chest, a part of him had a bad feeling he knew what was behind that door.

The door was off its hinges, pushed back into the frame by a house invader with a tidy mind. The thing they couldn't do was replace the insulating rubber around the edge that seemed to have been torn up when they forced the door in the first place. The door was thick: wood and what seemed to be a kitchen worktop with two layers of soundproofing rubber between them. The cellar steps inside were similar: covered in a glossy, marble effect veneer, like a nightclub toilet.

Something creaked upstairs and Quill very nearly broke off to investigate. The lights on the stairs had burned out at some point, probably recently, leaving them pitch black. Absolute stillness reigned in the darkness, with no other character than the increasingly repellent stench of faeces. He fished in his pocket for his torch. It wasn't in the first pocket he checked.

"I can come back with Max. We can definitely get a warrant for this," he took a step back towards the light.

There was another 'crack' of expanding wood somewhere in the house. Quill stopped himself. His face twisted into a mask of annoyance.

"Stupid bastard," he thrust his hand into his other pocket. The torch was there. "There, see? Now stop being such a useless arse monkey and get down those steps."

In a moment of caution he relaxed and reached out with his senses, feeling for any magic weaved around the cellar. Subtle dweomers to confound divination and prevent magical intrusion, the sense of being inside a soundproof concrete box, which was literally true, and something to keep out non-human intruders, but no magic to affect the mind. Then again, it might already have been mentioned that Quill was as psychic as a brick.

"See? Fuckwit." Quill snapped, stomping down the stairs.

There was a railing half way down. He made his way carefully, feeling for the edges of the steps in the darkness. They were concrete rather than wooden, possibly cemented breeze blocks. The result was strangely reassuring. His hand touched something wooden. It swung freely, tapping back against him. Some sort of stick attached to the wall. His next step came down into water. The stench made him gag.

"Probably flooded, we're close to the river." Quill muttered. "That or he managed to break a sewer pipe."

He eased his foot into the water, displacing something semi-solid that floated away.

"Oh Jesus," Quill gritted his teeth.

He took another step into the water, then another without finding the bottom. Finally, he had no choice but turn on the torch. The white LEDs gave out a dim glow, giving plenty of light to see by, but not what you could call good light. It was enough to reflect off the inches of black water flooding the tiny room, illuminating the floating sewage. A small army cot sat in one corner, barely above the waterline.

Quill grimaced. Details started to filter through: the club hanging on the wall. It was made from a length of wood that you'd get from a builder's merchant, with tape for a handle. It hung from the wall by a loop of tape twisted in on itself. Next, he noticed the litter of plastic spoons and microwave cartons floating in the water around the bed.

Finally, he noticed the chain. Someone had cut it off, inelegantly slicing the chain in two and then levering their cutters underneath the steel collar, which they'd had to take off in three pieces. Part of the chain still hung from a stainless steel loop, cemented into the breeze block wall.

Quill gripped the end of the torch between his teeth, leaning over and bracing himself on the end of the cot. He just about managed to reach the bed, which creaked threatening under his weight, and get a better look at the pieces of the collar. There were no remains of a lock or buckle, just a clumsy weld in one of the pieces. His jaw tightened angrily, his teeth sinking into the torch's rubberised coating.

Eilidh had been held her for god knew how long, in this damp, sometimes flooded room, welded into her collar. A surge of anger made him push himself back off the bed, punching the wall. The respatex panelling juddered loudly, clattering against the brick.

"Bastard," he muttered, imagining Jennings with his cock out and the club in his hand.

Quill had just taken the torch out of his mouth and climbed back up to the hallway when he heard another crack on the stairs.

He turned to see a woman coming down. Her clenched fists were wreathed in flame. The smell of burning paper tickled the back of his throat.

"Okay, apparently these old houses are more soundproof than I thought." Quill whispered.

She glowered, her body trembling with tension. This wasn't the skittishness of fear, it was the danger of the hair trigger. She was slim and blonde, wearing a pink tracksuit that, surprisingly, still suited her. She was somewhere between her forties and fifties.

He stood, watching her without moving, keeping his hands where she could see them.

"I don't know what the problem is," he said. "But I'm not with Jennings, and I'm not the police... and you probably aren't a Selkie," he looked at her flaming hands. "They're not known for being good with fire."

She watched him. He could almost hear the cogs turning in her mind.

"People know I'm here," Quill said. "But I don't see any reason why I should hurt you. We can both walk away from this without any trouble."

"You're human?" She said. She was a Londoner, middle class.

"As much as anyone," Quill said. "I'm not a Selkie either, I'll tell you that."

"You're afraid of the fire," she said. There was something wrong, something too perfect about her face.

"It'll burn me as much as anyone," Quill said. "That's quite a feat, is that all you can do? What are you, spirit ridden? You're a cheval?"

"You've come for me," she said. "I heard you come in. You knew what to look for. You know."

Quill's brain froze and for a split second he wished he could reach through the ether and steal the out of control, hyperactive blarney that some people had. Max would have said something. It might have been something wrong, or stupid, but he would have said something.

Quill said, "Umm, what? Erm--"

That was all he had a chance to say, because at that point he saw the woman's expression harden as she made up her mind. Quill fell sideways onto the cot just as the blast snatched the cellar door up and threw it, hurtling away into the kitchen. It also made the cot collapse and he felt his stomach lurch violently as he fell into the sewage water.

Fire washed and blossomed above him, filling the tiny room, dying as quickly as it came. Quill clung to the leg of the army cot, fighting the urge to exhale or stick his head above the surface. Revulsion and survival instinct fought for a moment, with the urge to survive winning out, keeping him under the water as his lungs burned.

Unfortunately, Quill had been more intent on protecting his head and neck as he'd fallen than taking a deep breath, so his limit soon came. His head started to buzz and the reddish mist encroached on his vision. Every instinct screamed at him to rise to the surface and breathe air. Only the prospect of passing out and drowning in old bathwater and human waste forced him to the surface, reeling and clinging to the bed for support.

He looked up at the square of light, waiting for the woman's shadow to block it out and give him a slow broiling death in the disgusting broth. She didn't. He stood waist deep in sewer water for long enough to really take in the depth of his own stench.

After a few moments he climbed gingerly out of the cellar. The passage was badly scorched, but not burning. The kitchen was a wreck. Presumably, she'd walked out of what was left of the back door. Quill shuddered, quickly checking to see if there was any solid matter stuck to him, and reached for his phone. Miraculously, it was still working after a bath in sewage. He looked at it, hesitating at the moment of dialling.

"Hello Max," Quill rehearsed. "I've had a bath in the contents of Jennings cesspit and now I'm going to have a shower in his bathroom to further contaminate the evidence. I might even steal some of their clothes if I can find anything that fits me..." he shook his head. "No, maybe not."

He looked at where the hall mirror had been, glad that it had fallen off the wall when the blonde woman had thrown her fireball.

"Hello Max," He looked at the imaginary Erstwhile. "I think we really need to find out what Lilaea Jennings quarrelled with her father over, but I'm covered from head to toe in Selkie urine for the moment, so could you do it? Oh, and send a car to pick me up while you're at it, because I don't think I'll get a cab to pick me up like this...? No, I'm not taking the piss..."

He stared into space for a moment, then finally dialled a number.

"James, mate?" Quill said. "I've had a bit of a mishap," he flicked his dripping hair with a shudder of disgust. "And I was wondering if you could pop over and have a chat with someone for me? Don't worry, it's just the job for you."

VI

James Solorz wasn't the sort of man to get drunk on borrowed power. His conversation with Quill had included a great deal of concern about whether Max Erstwhile knew Ed was sending random club members to do investigation work.

"Ed, are you sure about this?" He'd said.

"I'm sure." Quill had said.

"Why do you need me, though? I thought Max was on this one," James had replied, worry betraying his usual calm demeanour.

"You see, this is what I'm talking about," Quill had said. "You're not on the team, but you know everything about the job. Rex Castor doesn't know that much. He's probably still trying to work out a new strategy in poker. Atlanta Simms barely knows about his own cases."

"Well, is Max okay with it?" James had asked.

"Definitely," Quill had said a bit too quickly.

James had frowned. "I'm going to phone Max," He'd said.

"Don't phone Max." Quill had said, there had been an edge of pleading in his voice.

"Alright, why not?" James had demanded.

"Please, just don't phone Max. Please? I'll do anything. Anything, seriously."

"Edward, is there something the club needs to know about?" James had lowered his voice, a sinking feeling in his gut.

"Oh Christ no," Quill had said. "Definitely not. Not even you need to know that. Seriously, I swear by everything I hold holy that this isn't some sign I'm going nuts or shagging a Selkie. It's just between you, me and the car you're sending to pick me up from Richmond."

"From behind the bins at the Olympic Kebab Shop off Richmond High Street?" James had said. "I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, Ed, but I will find out what this is about."

"I know mate, I know." Quill had replied, his speech unusually low and fast. "Someone, some time will tell you, if only because they saw me when they were walking through Richmond minding their own business... but not right now, please?"

"Fine..." James had said slowly. "You want me to call on Jones Patterson, boyfriend of Tom Jennings' daughter?"

"He's 'Tom Jennings' now?" Quill had sounded incredulous, which had given James a moment of pride. "I thought you'd never heard of him?"

James had smiled a little. "I caught up with my friend Cally, she was in town earlier," he started to cast about him for his jacket, resigned to leaving the club. "She was the neutral observer when it was all happening."

"What colour is her hair?" Ed had asked.

"Sort of ginger, why do you ask?" James had said.

"No major reason," Quill said. "Look, thank you for doing this."

And that had been that. James had put his coat on and headed out to the address that Quill had texted him, and now he was standing on the doorstep outside a Victorian townhouse, painfully aware that he didn't have a leg to stand on if the person on the other side of the door told him to sling his hook.

Thankfully the identity of the young man who answered made that highly unlikely.

"Hello James," Jones looked worried but pleased to see him. "I didn't expect you to come knocking on my door. Are you still doing that physio course?"

"I passed," James said. "Is your shoulder still giving you trouble?"

Jones grimaced in the affirmative, waving James into the house. "Come in for a minute," he said. "I was just making some coffee."

Jones led him through into a square living room with grey walls and white plaster decoration. It had a flatscreen TV and three elderly sofas. A blue-haired goth girl perched on one of them. She looked up as he came in, a quizzical expression on her thin, pretty face.

"James, this is Katya, my housemate. Katya? This is James, he did some free physio on me when I had that shoulder injury." Jones said.

James nodded self effacingly. "I was studying at Rohampton and we had to get a certain number of therapy hours in," he said. "It turned out I knew Jones' dad."

"It's a small world," James said. "It's going to sound strange, but I'm actually part of the investigation into Lilly's dad," he perched on the edge of the seat Jones offered him. "I was wondering if we could talk about Lilly's quarrel with her father."

Jones looked surprised. "The police investigation?"

James nodded. "I can show you some identification, if you'd like," he lied.

"No, no, that's fine, mate." Jones said. "I didn't know you were a copper. Well..." he sighed. "I don't know much, look I'm getting a bit worried about her to be honest. She went out with her doctor first thing in the morning and she hasn't come back. Her phone's going straight to voicemail. It's not like her. She's stayed at the clinic before, but she always sends a message."

"I see," James frowned. "Which clinic is it?"

"Ah," Jones said. "I don't really know. I mean, she has told me..."

"Do you have a number for them? Is there an address?" James asked.

"There was a leaflet, but someone must've taken it. It was on the corkboard." Jones said. He looked suddenly pale and worried.

And he wasn't the only one. The Katya looked so deathly that she almost matched the grey walls. She stared fixedly into the kitchen, hunched in on herself without breathing. There was an audible creak as she ground her teeth together.

"Jones?" James said. "I'm so sorry to boss you around in your own house, but would it be alright to ask you for a cup of tea? If you've got time I'd like to go back and nut out a few details," he shrugged. "Lilly might even come back while we're at it."

"Yeah, sure," Jones cleared the living room table of cups. "Milk, no sugar, isn't it?"

Jones stalked into the kitchen, checking every flat surface and under every pot, pan and magazine he passed for that elusive leaflet. Katya's tension went up a notch from high anxiety to abject fear. She glanced at James out of the corner of her eye as if he might go away if she pretended to ignore him.

"Are you alright?" James asked.

She didn't answer immediately. After a few seconds she managed a laconic, "yes."

"Fair enough," he said. "If you think of anything, my card is under the coaster."

He slid a crisp, white card under the cork place mat, amusing himself with his diary until Jones came back with three mugs of tea.

"Thanks," Katya said, turning to James. "Do you mind if I take this to my room?"

"Oh, yes, don't let me keep you." He said.

Katya vanished upstairs as quickly as someone could while holding a nearly full mug of tea, leaving Jones and James alone in the living room.

They circled for over an hour, talking about nothing. Jones didn't know any of the dark details of Lilly's life because Lilly religiously refused to talk about them. No matter how drunk or upset, Lilly never brought up her childhood or mentioned her mother. She had no pictures of her mother or father and only agreed contact through the private medical specialist, who Jones couldn't remember the name of. James went through the motions, almost too bored to worry if Quill's favour was going to get him put in prison for impersonating a police officer.

Then something very interesting happened.

"So, did he come into the flat?" James asked, wondering whether he was better off getting a tube home, or a cab.

"Yeah," Jones said.

"Did you see him?" James asked.

"No, I was in the other room." Jones said. There was something about his manner, his tone of voice, it was like an exposed nerve.

"Which room?" James pressed.

"The other one." Jones frowned.

"The kitchen?" James asked.

"Yeah." Jones said.

"Was the door open?" James asked.

Jones' frown turned into a scowl. "Yeah."

"There are a lot of things piled up in front of it," James looked into the kitchen. "What were you doing?"

"It was closed, yeah?" Jones snapped. "Why isn't it any of your business."

"But I don't think some of those things have been moved for a while," James said. "Some of those old newspapers have dust on them."

"Then I was in here," Jones said. "I must have been clearing the breakfast things."

James leaned forward. "How long were they talking?"

"None of your business," Jones shouted.

"What did they talk about?" James began to raise his voice. "What was his voice like? Did he have an accent? Think, Jonesy, think. Give me one detail."

Jones shot to his feet. His eyes bulged with anger. "Fuck off man, you ain't no cop. You fuck off."

"You're angry with me?" James stood, stepping towards him. "Why? You don't even know, do you?"

"Get out of my face," Jones screamed, his voice raw with animosity. "You've got no business."

"Alright," James raised his hands. It was time for an experiment. "We'll call it a day for now. It's been a long day and all the worry must be really messing with your mind."

The effect was immediate. Jones' face turned into a mask of hate. He lunged across the living room, reaching for James with eyes full of violence and rage.

A gurgling, animal noise rose out of his throat. "Ain't no-one messing with my mind." He screamed.

He was five or six inches taller than James, with more muscle, a wider chest and longer arms. But James was a sorcerer. He raised a hand, reaching for the energy that made his body work. He stretched down to the world-tree at the base of Jones' spine and agitated the energy flowing in its roots. Odinist Reiki was painful enough when it was being practised benignly. There was no rage blind enough to keep you going when an Odinist healer was trying to hurt someone.

Jones made an altogether less menacing liquid noise, the sort of noise of someone being tasered in his gentleman's area, before crumpling to the floor. James frowned guiltily; he stepped out of the reach of Jones' agonised writhing. He kept the effect going until Jones lost both bladder control, and consciousness.

"Oh god," James muttered. "I'm going to prison," he breathed. "There's no way I'm going to get away with this."

He stopped, suddenly painfully aware of Katya somewhere upstairs in her room. There was no sound of movement. James imagined her sitting, trembling on her bed, her mind retreating to a place where only drugs and police psychiatrists could reach her.

James quickly cleaned all the cups and, aside from Jones being unconscious in a pool of his own fluids, did his best to remove all signs of his visit. He fished under Katya's coaster and took back his business card.

Then he hurried down the front steps onto the street, fumbling out his phone. He swore under his breath as the voicemail message played out not once but twice.

After the second he left a message. "Ed? It's all gone quite badly wrong. I've left Jones Patterson on his living room floor. He attacked me. Someone's left an enchantment on him. They've affected his memory of the person who took Lilly away, maybe his entire memory of her life. They also left a few nasty booby-traps in Jones' mind. I really think we should be worried about Lilly's safet--"

He didn't have the chance to say anything more, because at that moment the tiny, blue-headed Katya screeched around the corner in a battered Ford Fiesta and tried to run him over.

It wasn't a very good assassination attempt. Someone had put the bins out earlier, and there were traffic bollards on the pavement to prevent anyone mounting the curb. Katya ploughed towards James, aiming her car between the bollards but misjudging both in terms of space and velocity.

The clumsy turn had sapped a lot of her speed, which probably saved her life. She hit the bollards with enough force to write off the elderly, maroon Ford Fiesta, but not enough to write herself off. The bin bags and wheelie bin had slowed her down further, but more importantly cushioning James from the worst of the impact.

In fact, he would have been completely fine if he hadn't jumped back in surprise and accidentally fallen down the concrete steps to someone's basement flat.

It was a long, slow and unpleasant roll down the stairs. Instead of bouncing or absorbing the impact, something went crunch. People talk about the different kinds of pain, James was in the kind of pain known as horrible pain. Absolutely blinding, horrible pain. His arm was the sort of shape associated with complicated plumbing. Two of his fingers were dislocated. He screamed in agony, never the sort of man to hide behind machismo.

"You bastard," Katya screamed from the top of the steps. "Oh god," she clutched her neck, her knees buckling.

She clung to the fence for support.

"Oh god," she whimpered, grabbing the back of her neck. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Stupid girl," James shouted. "You shouldn't have gotten out of the car. You might have broken your neck."

"Oh god," she whimpered. "Oh god."

"It's alright," James said, forcing himself to sound calm. "Did you hit your head?"

"No," she said.

"Good. Did anything touch your head or neck? Did you fall out of the car and land awkwardly?" He asked, his healer instinct taking over amidst his agony.

"No..." She whimpered.

"Good, it's probably whiplash, but you should get yourself checked out by a doctor." James said. Lying sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, trying not to move his own head. "What were you thinking?"

That seemed to remind Katya that she was angry. "Bastard," she screamed. "I'll kill you."

"Work on standing up first," James retorted. He felt around for his phone. He seemed to have landed on it. "Why do you want to kill me?"

"Only her father calls her 'Lilly.'" Katya snarled.

"Oh," James said. "And that would be bad enough to kill...?"

"He's a psycho," Katya snarled. "Do you know the kind of man you're working for?"

"Umm... not really," James said.

Katya's monologue was in full flow. "He sent her away when she was young, after her mother died. She went to boarding school, raised by people who didn't care, and then when she was older she was allowed to visit. Sometimes he would allow her to stay over, but very rarely. Then, one day when she was seventeen she came there to surprise him. She didn't have a key, but the door was open and she went in, do you know what she found?"

"No--" James said.

"She found her own father having sex with a woman in the basement. She was tied to the wall and he had a stick to hit her with. The whole place smelled of shit. 'Laea said she stood there, paralysed with horror. Then the woman turned her head - turned her head! Do you know what she saw?"

"Ummm?" James said. The pain was getting intolerable now.

"Her own face! Her own sister! Twins!" Katya said, scandalised. "He kept one locked up from birth as his personal sex-slave. 'Laea said she went back to school and made excuses so that she never saw him again. She was terrified of him."

James moaned and then something occurred to him. "That wasn't all though, was it? She told you something else, didn't she? Something that might have sounded a bit insane?"

Katya glared at him.

"There was something, wasn't there?" James asked.

Katya looked delighted to be pressed. James wondered if she'd waited all her life to tell the awful story of her friend's dark secret.

"Over the summer she fell into the water," Katya said. "We were terrified. She's supposed to have an allergy to sea water. We all panicked, you know. We thought she was going to die. I rushed her to the hospital and they didn't know what illness we were talking about but they took it very seriously anyway. Nothing. No reaction, except after a few hours she dries off. But they still keep her in for observation because she says that when she was in the water she heard voices. "

"What did they say?" James asked.

Katya shrugged painfully. "I don't know," she said. "She didn't tell me, but last week her 'uncle' turns up on the doorstep for the first time and her Dad goes crazy."

"Right," James closed his eyes seeking temporary relief before he had to force them open again. "God, I need an ambulance, so do you," he looked up at Katya. "Do you have a phone? I think mine is dead."

"... no. I left it in the house," she said. "I had to climb down the drainpipe to get out without you seeing me, you know."

"Oh. Hopefully someone will call the police," James said.

They waited a few minutes. Eventually the silence got too much.

"We could call for help?" Katya suggested.

James hesitated. "We could." He said.

"Shall we try?" She asked.

James saw a sudden, vivid image of the scene: Jones inside, lying unconscious on the living room floor. Outside, a car ploughed into the bollards, Katya clinging to the top of the basement steps, and James himself lying injured and immobile at the bottom.

"Alright," he said. "On three."

VII

Meanwhile, Quill had just emerged from the shower. After forty five minutes of washing and rewashing he'd reached a stage where he no longer wanted to vomit or claw every inch of his skin off. For a time the embarrassment and revulsion had blotted out the real meaning of what he'd seen in that makeshift basement.

Now there was only anger.

And seven missed calls on his mobile. Six of them were Max, one was James. He listened to James' call, frowning when it was cut off in the middle of a word.

Quill poured himself a coffee. The club provided rooms for staff, but he rarely used his. The complimentary caffetiere was stiff and tasted of very little at all. He made himself comfortable and tapped for call back. James' phone went straight to voicemail. He tried it twice more. He'd fired off a terse email before showering, giving Max the details and suggesting that someone more official should drop by. From Max's persistence to speak to him in person Quill guessed that things at Jennings' house had been just as he'd left them. Then he phoned Max.

Erstwhile picked up the call before the end of the first ring. "Ed, what were you doing?" He demanded.

"Fighting off the assassination attempts of a mad woman with fire powers." Quill snarled. "Did they find anything?"

Max stopped for a beat. When he spoke again he was quieter, more serious.

"Yeah," he said. "Apparently he must have accidentally damaged a sewer pipe or dug too close to someone's septic tank."

"And?" Quill asked.

Max sucked air through his teeth. "And the Metropolitan Police Special Committee is having a crisis meeting to decide where this stands legally. We don't know if we can charge him with anything, since the victim is absent, and probably not human."

Quill pursed his lips. "Shit." He said quietly.

"I know," said Erstwhile.

"Fine." Quill said. "I got James Solorz to go and have a chat with Lilly Jennings' boyfriend, see if we can get hold of her, or find out a bit more about her dad."

"Fair enough," Max said. "Why couldn't you go yourself?"

"Mad woman with fire powers," Quill said. "I had to go get a change of clothes after that."

Quill could hear Erstwhile smirking down the phone. "Had an accident?" He asked.

"Fuck you," Quill said, cheerfully. "Look, as far as I see it we have three leads: James' friend who adjudicated the talks where Jennings worked for the club; Peter Vargas, who Jennings met just before dropping out of the magical community as quickly as he dropped in, and the Selkie madwoman herself. Since we can't control when number three will show up, I'm going get James to follow up number one and look into number two."

"Don't forget the woman who nearly killed you," Erstwhile said.

"Yeah," Quill agreed. "I've got a message from James, too. I'll have a listen to that before I do anything else."

Max's reply was drowned out by a strident bleeping in the background.

"What's that?" Quill raised his voice instinctively.

"It's the alarm in bloody Jennings' room. He pulls it every time he has one of his panics. They should have left him in restraints."

Quill sipped his coffee, more commotion interrupted Erstwhile's call. A voice cried out, "Guv'!"

"Shit, I think something's happening," Max said hurriedly. "I'm going to go. We've already tried to get hold of Vargas, though. Listen to this: he disappeared last week, after some mad woman showed up at his house. He sent for the police, I'm getting the records sent over."

"Do you think it could be our flamethrower woman?" Quill asked.

"Dunno," Max said. "Got to go. Get me a picture for positive ID."

"Nice one mate, be in touch," Quill said, but Max had already hung up.

Caffeine rushed around Quill's system. He was tired. He swallowed the coffee once it was cool enough and finished off the pot with the last of his milk. Just knowing that he couldn't sleep was making him imagine grittiness in his eyes, the edges of sleep encroaching. He caught himself wondering how many hours before caffeine wouldn't be enough and he'd have to move on to something else, until even that wouldn't be sufficient and he'd end up like Jennings.

It was just after three o'clock, and he knew that his tiredness was imaginary, or possibly a side effect of coming down from all the espresso he'd been drinking. He called down to the bar and made sure there would be another double awaiting him on the way out.

"Load of bollocks," Quill muttered, throwing back the espresso.

****

The internet yielded up a surprisingly huge amount of useful information on Peter Vargas

place of residence. The house stood alone in its own garden on an estate built in the Horton Country Park in Chessington. It was Kingston in the same way that Ireland was in Wales. Although, as the web brochure said, it was 'encapsulated by lush natural woodland.'

"Handy for the theme park," Quill muttered.

He leaned on the doorbell again, knocking hard on the window. Not a curtain twitched or glance came his way. The estate was like a ghost town, although the nosiness of house-persons and the old was never to be underestimated. The letterbox defied his attempts to look through it. Vargas had installed a double layer brush to stop anyone seeing though.

Quill rummaged in his backpack, taking out a stubby crowbar and slipping around the back; thankfully, in their desire to create 'a pleasant, olde-worlde community where no one locks their doors' the developers hadn't bothered with any sort of garden walls or fences, separating the plots of land with glittering quartz borders. Quill cleared his mind for a moment, groping blindly for any magical security, then stepped over, glad to avoid the theatrics he'd experienced at Jennings' place.

The back garden had the spontaneous wildness of a space managed with military precision. This was no overgrown pikey's back yard. This was an oasis for bird and insect life: with picturesque wildflowers growing up between the flagstones and pleasant, peaceful spaces partitioned off by waxy, dark green shocks of ivy. Little stone tables and sundials were dotted around, serving the bohemian comfort of distressed wooden benches.

Some of the effect was spoiled by the fact that someone had melted the backdoor into a burning puddle.

"Not going to catch me like that twice," Quill said.

He whispered words of power, spreading his arms wide and drawing down magical energy from the aether. It fizzed through the granules of crystal embedded into his scarifications, shaping itself into spells long ago carved into his flesh. One of the sad truths was that spontaneous magic was almost impossible. However good you were at it there was no way around the fact that a new spell took time. On the other hand, if you knew what you were doing there were ways you could prepare something pretty big.

Quill's method was body modification. Every scar, tattoo and piercing contained an effect. Other sorcerers did it with amulets, devices and pacts. There were all kinds of non-human entities willing to grant you power in return for a chunk of your immortal soul. The problem was that Quill's resources were finite and inflexible, but there was no mortgage taken out on his spirit.

He stepped over the puddle of what had once been a double glazed, plastic door and into the kitchen. It was a family kitchen: a huge hob, two large designer fridges and a marble topped 'island' style counter in the middle of the room. Machinery chugged quietly somewhere in the background, matching the faint splashes of water that spattered into the drain outside. Quill tilted his head, trying to discover anything unusual under the whirring.

No signs of life. There was a cup on the draining board, a plate drying off and a small copse of cutlery standing in a kitchen tidy. This was the kitchen of someone who looked after themselves, but lived alone.

"Why does he need two massive fridges?" He mused.

There was a thump in the living room. Quill reached into his pocket and thumbed the buttons on his phone.

He moved surprisingly quietly for a man of his size, which still wasn't quite quietly enough to sneak up on the woman rummaging through Vargas' cabinets.

It was her again: white-blonde, now sporting scorch marks on her tracksuit. Books and papers were discarded in a heap in the middle of the spacious living room. She gave Quill a look of animal panic.

"Alright, love," Quill put a hand up, both to calm her and because it was a focus for his magical effect. "I'm with Streetlight Magick, investigating all this for the Home Office. I'm not a policeman, and I'm not going to put anyone in jail, okay?"

She replied by raising her arm and sending out a jet of blue flame.

Quill bellowed a word of power. Magical energy twisted through the channels cut into the surface of his arms and chest, mingling with the fire and changing it. One of the benefits of Hermetic Natural Philosophy was the idea that all things were on a scale: light was on the same scale as darkness, fire the same scale as cold. Quill's effect slid the temperature from fire to a blast of warm air. His hair and coat flapped wildly in the sudden indoor gale.

She pulled in the power for another blast. Quill matched it with his own energy, moderating her attack down to a gust of wind that made the ransacked papers flutter in a tornado between them.

"What's going on, love," Quill asked. "What's the connection between Jennings and Vargas? Is it the Selkie? Did Vargas show Jennings how to get his own woman under the stairs?"

The blonde screamed, hurling a blast of fire at him. Quill met it again, grunting under the strain. They were both getting tired. She was pale and drenched in sweat. Quill had fitness and preparation on his side, but she was desperate. Without a pause she battered his defence with three more probing lances of fire. Quill countered each one.

She stepped back, peering at him, a foxy glint in her cunning eyes.

"You're trying to work out how long I can do this, love?" Quill asked, side stepping. "Same here. I've had a shower and a cup of coffee since we last met, and I'm going to make a wild guess that you haven't been sleeping lately."

That struck a note. The recognition on her eyes was unmissable. "Oh no," she laughed. "Not me."

"You know what I mean though," Quill side-stepped again. "Don't you?"

"That's not my sin," she said. Her accent was crisp received pronunciation. "They won't get me."

"What happened with the Selkies?" Quill watched her carefully, keeping a hand in his pocket on his phone. "I think you found out when they arrived. I think you've turned up here once before."

She smiled. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

He saw that she was about to throw another tongue of fire and threw himself aside. It hit the ceiling, licking off the plaster. The polystyrene coving and woven curtains caught immediately. The whirling storm of papers caught, fluttering through the air like flaming moths. Quill hit the floor hard and raised his phone. That was one of the good things about smartphones: they usually had a camera.

Quill managed to snap a good, head and shoulders picture of her, before another blast of fire bathed the carpet next to him. He felt heat and discomfort on the side of his face, but not pain. That was either very good or very bad. His phone was on the other side of the room, sheltered in the empty brick fireplace.

"Your spirit-guest is taking over," Quill shouted. "There's a mirror out there, look in it: you're getting younger and paler every time I see you. Is it offering you more power? Telling you how to sort everything out?"

The cheval drew in the energy for one more blast of power. Her legs were shaking. This had to be the last. Quill drew on his reserves and prepared his counter spell. He smiled grimly.

All good things come to those who wait, he thought.

She drew in every scrap of power she could: fires went out, his phone chirped three times as she drained the charge. Quill stumped up an equal amount of power, pacing himself carefully. He'd still have enough juice for an attack after this, then he could take her back to Erstwhile for some proper interrogation.

She threw her attack with a squeaking grunt of effort. Quill raised his hand with gritted teeth and sent a wave of energy to moderate the temperature down to something harmless.

Unfortunately this attack wasn't fire.

It was electricity.

****

Quill woke a while later with a pain in his neck and every muscle in his body tingling. He was alone. There were sore, red patches where the electricity had earthed itself through him, but no serious burns. Vargas' hall mirror confirmed that he'd escaped fire and shock without any particular damage to his good looks.

He stumbled back into the living room to pick up his phone and the world spun. Quill dropped to his knees, vomiting unashamedly on Vargas' expensive carpet. After repeated scorching at the hands of the blonde woman, and at least one blast of electricity, it couldn't have gotten much worse anyway. On a positive note: being on his hands and knees in the corner of the room was why he noticed the bag.

The cheval probably hadn't noticed it either. It had been rendered invisible in the most effective way possible: it had been lost, not hidden. Somehow it had been shoved down between the couch and the wall, completely empty of its contents.

There was something sad about seeing an old sports bag completely empty. Quill checked it over. Whoever had discarded it had managed to empty it of anything that could possibly have identified the original owner. All of the tell-tale contents and receipts had been removed, leaving only the empty bag... and its luggage tag.

Attached by a leather strap there was a large, black leather holder shaped like a flower. In the holder there was a slim piece of paper that said, 'Lilaea Jennings,' and listed the address Max and Quill had visited earlier.

Quill reached for his phone, there was just enough charge left for a call. It was a long way back to Central London. At least this time he wasn't drenched in sewage.

VIII

Meanwhile, Max Erstwhile was having problems of his own. He'd hung up on Quill's call to address a storm in a teacup. Jennings had been ranting and hallucinating all day, and the furore that interrupted his call with Quill was just more of the same. He raised an eyebrow, stuck his nose around the doorframe and then left the nurses to it. The same scene replayed itself twice more. Max decided to pass the time with some illicit smoking in the relative's room. He was on his third cigarette when Murthy interrupted.

"He's going berko again, guv'," Murthy said.

"Don't call me 'guv,' Ratty mate," Erstwhile said. "It doesn't suit you. Anyway, you know you're not supposed to interrupt me unless he either starts making sense or levitating."

Murthy nodded. "He saw something out of the window, sir. I sent DCs Chambers and Moss to have a look."

"What?" Max snapped. "Get them back. Did you not listen to a bloody word of what I said earlier? We're just as much a target as bloody Jennings. Get on the phone and get them back up here immediately."

Murthy nodded frantically, fumbling with his mobile.

Max hurried down the corridor as fast as he could while maintaining a level of dignity. Jas' was back in the room, trying to calm Jennings. Things had been setting him off about every half an hour through the afternoon, but this was different. Jennings was standing, wilder eyed than usual. He was leaning heavily against the window, fumbling with the catch.

"She's there," Jennings pointed out of the window. "I saw them in the car park, they had someone with them," he trembled with agitation. "They're there."

"Whole sentences," Max said. "I should probably take this seriously. Okay, Tom, where did you see them? Are they there now?"

Jennings jabbed at the window again, pointing down into the courtyard where the ambulances parked. At first he couldn't see anything, then he realised that there was a figure standing between two parked cars: James Solorz. Even from so far away Max could see there was something wrong: he was white as a sheet, his arm in a makeshift sling. A tiny, blue-haired goth girl stood next to him. They looked up at the hospital. The goth girl did something with a phone, holding it to James' ear.

Max's phone rang. Jennings flinched away. Max peered down at James and the girl. He slowly raised the phone to his ear, wondering if a curse could be transmitted through the airwaves.

"James," Max said. "Is this you?"

James' voice was taut with pain and apprehension. "It's me," he said. "I'm with Lilaea Jennings' flatmate Katya."

"Are you alr–" Max started.

"And the Selkies," James interrupted. "I'm also here with the Selkies. They want to speak to you."

"What if I don't want to speak to them?" Max pinched the blind open further, peering for any sign of the water spirits.

Jennings muttered under his breath, shaking his head and backing away from the window. He looked at the cabinet that had once held the seal skin and made a low moaning sound.

"They really do want to speak to you," James stressed. "They were very specific."

"Shit," Max said under his breath. He looked around: the only other copper visible was Murthy. "Shit. Fine, but not here. Tell them I'll meet then in five minutes, around the corner opposite Southwark Cathedral. The open area by the river."

"Yes," James said weakly. "Yes, I'll tell them."

****

It didn't take a lot of effort to slip out past Murthy. Chambers and Moss had passed him on the stairs, nodding as they went past, puzzled but bright enough not to question. He made his way carefully across the courtyard, wary not to fall into a trap before the obvious one that had been set for him. He thought about calling Quill and quickly dismissed the idea. Looking around for anyone shadowing him, he set his phone to record and slipped it into his pocket. So long as they stood close to him and spoke clearly, he'd have a record of everything they said.

James was sitting, hunched over on a stone bench in the open space outside the Cathedral's back gates. His sling was made from a red scarf, he pale and sweating. His face was a mask of pain. The blue-haired girl orbited him nervously.

"Christ, it hurts," James looked up. "Oh Christ."

"Very suitable," Max nodded at the Cathedral. "Are they here?"

James jerked his head to the right and Max saw them for the first time. They stood, hidden in the foreground so that his eye had passed over them until they'd wanted to be seen. He felt a sudden stab of apprehension as he looked into Eilidh's black eyes, and the eyes of the man he'd almost burned to death.

"Only two of you?" Max said.

"My brother, Caomh, isn't well enough to join us. He still recovers from the injuries your friend inflicted on him." The Selkie man said.

"Oh yeah," Max said. "Ed mentioned something. Sorry. He gets pissed off during fights. How are you, after the...?" Max mimed pouring lighter fluid on him.

"I'm well enough," the Selkie said stoically.

Suddenly, Eilidh's eyes came to life. She turned to Max. "Do you have a name? One that we can't bind you with?"

"You can call me Max," he said. "It's ridiculously easy to find my name out anyway."

She nodded. "You may call me Eilidh, this is my brother Drustan."

Max nodded. "What have you done to my friend?" He asked.

Eilidh's eyes betrayed confusion, then amused understanding. She looked at the blue-haired girl, who withered under her scrutiny.

"We didn't do anything," Eilidh said. "It was this brave girl."

The blue-haired girl gave Max a look of mingled fear and wide-eyed mortification.

"What?" Max said. "So, you didn't torture him?"

"No," James said quietly. "It was an accident."

The blue-haired girl rushed back to him. "Don't try to talk," she said.

She stroked James' hair. He grunted and let his eyes droop shut.

Max looked from James to the Selkies suspiciously. "So... you're telling me that she did that to James?"

The goth girl nodded. "I made a mistake," she said.

"They called for help while we were watching, and we saw an opportunity," Eilidh said. "We have delivered them so that we can talk to you."

James gave another low moan, which made the blue-haired girl bite her lip. Max gave them a worried look.

"He's seriously hurt," Max said. "He needs medical attention."

"He fell badly," Eilidh agreed. "I fell like that once, during my incarceration."

"Shit," Max couldn't make eye contact with her. "It's not enough, but I'm sorry."

Her blue eyes flashed with St. Elmo's fire. There were cuts and scars on the perfect skin of her perfect hands, cigarette burns that showed through the seal skin's glamour. For a moment Max's attention focussed long enough for him to appreciate that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and that his most rational course of action would be to unquestioningly serve and obey her. Fortunately his attention was only ever broadly under his command, let alone anyone else's, and so it quickly moved on, breaking the enchantment.

Eilidh looked nonplussed. Max broke away from her and checked something on his phone.

"Sorry," Max forced himself to put the phone away. "I know it's a serious moment. I get distracted easily."

"I can see," Eilidh said. "Theoretically, I am bound to take my revenge upon you."

Max nodded. "And?"

Waiting for other people to talk was torture for Max, but he was a policeman. He'd learned long ago that it was just as much torture for other people. He stood attentively, waiting for Eilidh to say something he could respond to.

"I have taken my revenge upon your friend..." she cocked her head. "Who will soon be finished."

Max suppressed a growl. He wasn't Quill. When he did it, it just looked silly.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Is that what you came to tell me?" He said calmly.

Eilidh shook her head. "I don't take any pleasure from it," she said. "But punishment must be made. The world of men kept me, raped me and took me prisoner. The world of men must pay. You must be taught to remember why you fear us, why you linger not at the sea shore during the night," she lowered her voice. "Why they must not take my daughter."

"She's right," James interrupted. "It looks like someone took Lilaea. I left a message for Quill. It's someone connected with her father."

"My daughter," Eilidh murmured ominously.

"Bollocks," Max shook his head. "As if I didn't have enough to do. Shit."

James panted, his eyes glazing over.

"And he's going into shock," Max said. "Look, we both have a lot to do," he toyed with the lighter in his pocket. "What did you come here for?"

'I understand that you wish to take responsibility for punishing my captor?" Eilidh said.

Max shook his head. "I already have responsibility, love," he said. "I'm a policeman. It's my function in human society, not that you saw much of it being trapped in a basement."

As was usual he only realised he'd said something inappropriate from other people's reactions. This time it was Drustan, who glowered, and the blue-haired goth, who gasped.

"Sorry," he said. "Too soon? Yeah," he looked into Eilidh's icy stare. "Look, it isn't about me taking away your rights. Human being are rape-y and barbaric. If you don't watch them carefully they'd kill each other within days. As a race we can't be trusted with the right of individual retribution."

She eyed him angrily, her handsome jaw working soundlessly.

"We wish to make a trade." She said. "Jennings for another. All you have to do is nothing."

Max frowned. "What do we get out of it?" He asked.

"We remove our curse from Jennings." She said.

"Nonces stay cursed," Erstwhile said. "Remove it from Ed."

Eilidh looked amused. "We thought you'd say that, loyal little man."

"I'd tell you to fuck off, but I'm far too respectful," Erstwhile said. "Who do I have to turn a deaf ear to?"

"The source of all this," Eilidh said. "Peter Vargas."

Max was midway through a completely baffled exclamation of 'what?' When several things happened almost at once:

James Solorz muttered, "Katya," and grabbed the blue haired girl's sleeve.

The blue haired girl, Katya apparently, said, "He's cold."

James slumped sideways, falling off the bench onto his bad arm without the slightest hint of awareness.

As if that wasn't enough Max's phone started ringing. He was ready to ignore it when Eilidh deftly snatched it out of his pocket and answered. Max lunged to get it back and suddenly found out how strong Drustan was.

"Ed mate, what's up?" Eilidh said, in Max's voice.

Max struggled and screamed but Drustan's grip was like a steel vice and Ed didn't seem able to hear him. Eilidh's eyes glittered.

"You found her bag in Vargas' house?" She said, again in Max's voice. "Nice one. Stay where you are," she smirked at Max and Katya. "I'm coming up."

Ed said something else. Eilidh smiled, "He's here," she said in Max's voice. "Send it to my phone. I'll show it to him."

She rang off. A moment later the phone vibrated. Eilidh looked at it quizzically.

"Now, I shall admit I've reached my limitations." She said. "I have no idea how to access a picture message."

Max tried his best not to sulk. "It's usually just about pressing the green button." He said.

"I'm sorry, Max," Eilidh said. "In truth, I was surprised to see that Quill was alive to call you. I felt the curse break free long before we met."

"But it was still alright to let me swap Vargas for taking a curse off my dead friend?" Max said.

"Deception?" Drustan barked out a laugh, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword." He said.

Eilidh leaned in, filling Max's nostrils with the musky scent of her perfume. "He took my daughter, and I will have my revenge."

"I didn't agree to anything," Max said. "I just treated with you to find out what was possible. Now, can I have my phone back?"

She handed him the phone without a hint of bitterness and signalled for Drustan to back off. Max knelt down next to James, he was semiconscious again. Katya had rolled him onto his other side.

"James? James mate?" Max said gently.

James stirred. He was cold to the touch and soaked in sweat. He managed to open his eyes. They looked dull and feverish.

"I know it really hurts mate," Max said. "But I need you to look at this," he held up the picture on his phone. "Do you know who this is?"

"What?" James' eyes slipped in and out of focus. "It's... it's Cally. She's dyed her hair."

Max's stomach sank. "Your friend Cally? The observer from the talks?" He asked.

James was beyond any detailed questioning. His eyes slipped out of focus and he murmured almost meaningless nothings in response to Max's questions. Max moved the red sling to look at James' injured arm and wished he hadn't.

"His arm's not just swollen, it's bulging. It shouldn't be bulging," Max said. "Look, help me get him to the hospital? I'll meet you half way: I can't give you Vargas, he's not mine to give, but I can take you to Vargas' house and see if we can find your daughter."

IX

Quill sat tight, thinking that at any time the demon-ridden maniac might turn up. If he was right and she'd been the one who'd turned up the week before, then she'd been on a circuit of stalking Jennings, Vargas and god knew who else since this whole thing had started.

The gentle whirr-thump sound of machinery worked somewhere deep in the house. Quill sat in Vargas' kitchen, looking out into the passageway. It was fairly wide, wide enough for Quill to have laid down on the floor and spread his arms out.

After a few moments more he noticed that there was a broom propped up next to the door, just by the second of Vargas' two huge designer fridges. A breeze stirred the sheets that had drifted through from the mound of correspondence the Cheval had dumped on the floor of Vargas' living room. Somewhere along the way, probably while he'd been unconscious, the hall mirror had fallen off, spilling a pattern of broken fragments onto the carpet.

It was then that he realised what was wrong. If there had been any colour in his permanently pale face it would have drained immediately.

"If I passed out long enough for her to break the fittings and get away," Quill shook his head. "Why is that I'm not dead?"

It was a chilling question, although still somehow not as immediate as the one of how he could avoid being killed by an opponent who seemed to be growing in power every time they met. There was nothing to stop the woman coming back. She'd been to Vargas' house at least twice before, if the madwoman in the police statement wasn't Lilaea. Quill looked at the hall carpet again, and at the broom.

Absently he felt in his pocket, he still had Max's can of spray paint.

****

Max arrived half an hour later, pulling up in front of the house in his unmarked car, the blue lights behind the main headlamps flashing. Quill looked up from where he was kneeling on the hall carpet and gave a last squeeze of paint that finished off the can. Max and the figures who joined him were visible only as shadows against the frosted glass.

"Max, mate," he called out. "Don't bother with the front door, the mad woman completely melted the back."

Max said something a little too quietly and took his companions around the side of the building. Quill didn't have any powers of supernatural empathy, but he knew Max. Therefore he wasn't entirely surprised when Max came through the back door followed by Eilildh and her henchman.

"Alright mate," Max held a hand out. "Take a deep breath before you react."

Quill sighed and shook his head. "Max, after what you did with those skinheads in Hamburg, nothing like this will ever surprise me again."

Eilidh gave Quill a questioning look.

"It was something that happened after a gig," Quill said. "It involved a length of rubber tubing, a bottle of Jagermiester and a small but ferocious dog. I'll tell you the whole story when you explain to my why I'm not currently dead."

Eilidh gave him a smile. "You should be, I felt you die," she looked him up and down. "I felt something die, anyway."

Quill didn't quite know how to take that. "Is that some horribly timed innuendo?" He asked.

Eilidh smiled again. "I like you, but no. The spell was unleashed and something died. What that was, I cannot tell you." She said, her confidence faltering slightly.

Quill nodded. "...alright." He said. "And considering that Jennings and Vargas both seem to be freaks, rapists and bastards... I can let bygones be bygones regarding your trying to kill me. So long as you don't try to do it again. And I'm sorry for what happened to you. I don't know how you could recover."

Eilidh looked around the kitchen. "Part of me is still there," she said. "I sometimes wonder if I'll wake up on that stinking cot with him..." her voice trailed off. When she spoke again it was with rigid self-control and steel. "And a part of me wants to blame the world of men. You have always preyed upon my people..." she shook her head. "But I have agreed to come here peacefully and look for my daughter. If you can honestly assist with that I can forgive you."

"As can I," said her companion, pointedly.

"Oh yes," Quill replied, his eyes finding the wall suddenly intriguing. "Sorry about you and your friend."

The male Selkie shook his head. "Caomh might have a few more problems," he said. "But I can forgive you the once."

"Thanks," Quill offered him his hand. "Ed."

"Drustan," the Selkie shook its head. "We should get on, I've a worry about any girl captive to that man."

Ed had shoved the empty bag under the kitchen table. "This is it," he said. "I was too busy with other stuff to have a proper look around the place, but I'll bet that if you looked hard enough you'd find the contents of this bag shoved into a cupboard somewhere."

"My suddenly watertight prosecution depends on it," Max said.

Eilidh raised an eyebrow.

"This is horrible for your little girl," Quill explained. "But it solves a lot of our problems, we can punish him properly now," he pulled the bag onto the table. "Since your daughter is legally human."

Eilidh shook her head. "You say 'punish.' Yet after the things he did to me, the way I lived...?" she said. "You will lock him in a small room for a length of time. Then you will release him. How does that pay for what he did to me?"

"Well, he put you in a small room with your own waste and forced his sexual advances on you," Max said. "There are some similarities between that and being in the British prison system."

"I do not have a sense of humour about what he did to me," Eilidh said quietly.

"Sorry, I say these things sometimes," Max said. "You shouldn't take any notice."

"We have to find my daughter," she replied urgently, casting her soft blue eyes around the room.

Ed pushed the bag across the table. "I'm about as psychic as a carpet tile, and Max is a knowlessman," he looked pointedly at it. "This is the part where I hope you've got something to bring to the table."

Eilidh smiled and glided over to said table. Ed lost a handful of seconds basking in her beauty before forcing himself back to the present. Even he felt reality flex as she touched the bag, threading her power through it. He felt her essence mingle with Lilaea's psychic residue. She diffused her consciousness so that it was everywhere and nowhere at once, homing in on Lilaea's energy. It was a frighteningly powerful divination. Direct divination like this always scared him. Psychics were like radios; oracles used their tools to ask questions from the Gods. This was a sliver of pure omniscience.

He even felt the jarring unpleasantness when she met resistance. Elidh's face slipped from serenity to a mask of rage. She hissed like something hurt and angry, and he felt her pour energy into the spell, the bag smoking as the mythical energy spilled over into heat. Quill frowned, massaging his temples. Max looked sideways at him.

"Wizard senses giving you trouble?" He muttered.

"They're hardly razor sharp," Quill said, frowning. "But she's a heavyweight."

Eilidh snaked a hand out and grabbed Drustan. She gripped the back of his neck, draining his power so hard that he steadied himself on the edge of the table. Glasses started vibrating in the kitchen cabinets. The resistance was immovable.

"Eilidh?" Ed said. "Shit, I'm sorry, but Eilidh? They've had twenty years to work out a place to keep someone where you can't find them. If Lilaea hadn't helped your brothers they might have never found you."

She gritted her teeth and reached out to Quill. He jerked himself back.

"Eilidh," he shouted. "This place has gas, it could explode," the cooker and fridges started vibrating. "That. Would. Kill. You."

She made a thin scream that grew to a feral, inhuman shriek of rage. She threw the bag across the room, where it flopped disappointingly to the floor.

"I'm sorry." Quill said.

Eilidh walked to the kitchen cupboard where she took three heavy glasses and dashed them against the floor in rapid succession. Only when she'd also murdered a plate and two bowls did she seem to calm down. The power ebbed out of the room, strangely Quill felt refreshed rather than traumatised.

"Sorry," he said again.

Eilidh looked at the floor. Drustan, his skin grey with exertion, put an arm around her shoulder. She shook her head and leaned into him.

"She's close," Eillidh said. "I can feel her, she's so close."

"The problem is, you don't know what close means, do you? It could mean emotionally, physically..." he pushed the fragments of glass and crockery around with his toe. "That's the limit with divination."

They stood in silence for a moment, only the chugging of machinery broke the silence. Water dribbled into the drains outside.

"What is that fucking noise?" Max asked under his breath.

Quill's brows knitted. An idea struck him with a force that was nearly religious. To those who weren't Quill he looked like a Cro-Magnon grappling with calculus.

"Hang on," Quill looked at Eilidh. "How did Jennings know how to keep you? Was the cell his idea? Did he do any protections?"

Drustan nodded. "They were almost impenetrable."

Quill looked at Erstwhile. "We didn't teach him that, and the bloody Masons certainly didn't."

"So, Vargas must have shown him how to do it, yes, I'm following." Max said.

"Which means that if we're lucky," Quill said. "He taught him how to make the underground bloody cell, too," he pointed in the direction of the chugging sound. "Because I've been wondering what that noise was. I think it's a pump."

Max grinned. "You know what I was wondering?" he asked.

Eilidh eyed them like a pair of family pets that had just stolen the Sunday roast, but were eating it adorably. Drustan seemed to think it was his duty to play along.

"What were ye wondering?" The Selkie asked.

"Thank you for asking," Max's eyes twinkled. "Vargas' files say that he lives alone, so why does he need two massive fridges?"

"Good point," Quill nodded.

"Exactly," Max grinned. "One of them probably is a fridge, the other one goes to, umm," he coughed delicately. "Narnia."

"Yes, and it seems bloody queer for someone's fridge to be fitted with such a good lock." Quill said.

It was true, there was an unobtrusive but sturdy lock built into the fridge's handle. Quill tested it thoughtfully, before taking his crowbar and applying it to the handle. It held out bravely, but there's very little that even an expensive lock can do against a strong man with tools and no fear of the law. It came away from the door, pulling the bent mechanism out with it.

"Nice one," Quill grinned.

He swung the door open to reveal an opening into darkness. He opened it fully and the passage light came on. Quill shook his head.

"At least he had a sense of humour," he said.

It was a fairly steep, but had a neat set of steps down into a clean room with concrete walls. There was a blonde figure huddled on a cot in the middle of the room. Lilaea Jennings.

Ed glanced at Eilidh. "She looks just like you," he said. "Literally, to the last detail. That must have been a head job when she saw you."

"Girl!" Called Drustan. "Girl!" He looked at Max and Quill. "Why doesn't she move?"

Max took off his overcoat and rolled his sleeves up. "Because he's given her something to keep her quiet." He said.

Max shoved past Quill and jogged down the stairs. Ed hesitated on the threshold; he looked back to Dustan and Eilidh.

"Would you like to go first?" he offered.

Eilidh put a hand on Drustan's shoulder. "We can't," she said. "There's an enchantment to bar anything but humans."

"Is she alright, mate?" Quill called down.

"I fucking have no idea," Max said. "I think he might have used something a bit weird on her... I've never seen anything like this before."

Ed glanced back at the Selkies, then dashed down the stairs.

Or, at least he tried to dash down the stairs. He certainly threw himself in that direction with every ounce of force that he could muster. Unfortunately the air seemed to have another idea. It tightened around him until he could barely breathe, desperate to keep his lungs inflated and avoid suffocation. It crushed him, feeling taut and stretched to its limits. He struggled, forcing one arm away from his side.

The trap snapped back. All of the pent up force crushing him suddenly exploded into movement, hurling him so hard against the counter that he bounced, rolling into a heap next to Vargas' slightly less immaculate island counter. Lights flashed in front of his eyes. He lay, stunned and injured for a moment, staring into space.

It was there that he noticed something: a sigil chalked into the door lintel, directly above where someone would walk when they entered the building.

"Oh shit," he slurred. "That's how she always turns up," he tried to push himself up. "She's marked the house, she's coming."

"It's Cally," Max shouted. "It's James's friend."

Something dark, raw and heavy moved through the air. Quill staggered to his feet, the pain growing in his back. He could straighten up, at the moment, which suggested that hopefully the damage wasn't too bad. He made it out into the hallway to see Cally squeezing through the large hall mirror. She gripped the sides of the frame, pulling herself out in bursts of straining movement, as if something was trying to suck her back from the other side.

He looked back at Eilidh and Drustan. "Are you going to help me?"

"Does she have quarrel with Vargas?" Eilidh asked.

In the cell, Max shook his head, trying to telepathically send him the right answer. Unfortunately neither of them were in the least bit telepathic.

"Yes," Ed said.

Drustan stepped forward. Eilidh put a hand on his chest.

"Then we have no quarrel with her ourselves." She said.

Quill shook his head. Out of sight, or at least out of mind, Max face-palmed and tried to work out what he should do with Lilaea Jennings.

Cally was almost through. This time Quill didn't try to talk. He picked up a cast iron kitchen scale, took a run up and used all his strength to beat Cally over the side of the head.

The impact was dull and wet and it was a powerful enough blow that it knocked the mirror off the wall. She rolled out of the frame with a bloody gash on the side of her head. Her face was covered in a shining layer of snow white scales. Her arms were thinner with contours like Roman statuary, ending in long, sharp claws. She reached up and sank them into Quill's calf muscle. He screamed and grabbed onto the bannister for support.

"What happened at the conference, Cally?" Quill snarled. "What happened between you and Jennings?"

Cally hissed up at him through emerald green eyes with slit pupils. Her forked tongue shot out. She breathed a lance of fire. Quill twisted painfully and avoided it, almost losing his balance. He righted himself and stomped hard on her shoulder. She screamed.

"What happened?" He shouted.

Cally turned her head, breathing flame again. Quill flinched backwards, expecting another attack, but the waves of fire shot past him.

Quill cursed, realising her game: the wooden bannister, the stair carpet, and the curtains over the hall windows. All of the kindling with which people littered their home under the name of 'decoration' was alight and burning merrily. Both of their blood was dripping freely onto the carpet. Quill kicked her again, this time in the mouth. Blood and spit erupted, landing where it mingled with four pillars of salt. The fire caught the four candles balanced on the hall table, the window ledge by the front door, on the edge of the stairs and on the top of a radiator.

Unfortunately for Cally, Ed had been busy. He'd raided Vargas' house for salt and candles. He'd finished off Max's paint making another summoning triangle, and she'd landed in the middle of it.

"Calliope Tamsin Rhodes," Quill intoned. "I do bind and abjure thee by the name of Almighty Gods: Eheieh, Adoni, Agala. Jehova Elohim and Elohim Tzaboath. By the Angels of the Watchtowers and the Lords of the Elements, I bind you to appear in this triangle of conjuration and be friendly to me, answering all questions and appearing in a pleasing form. By Thoth and by Hermes, I deliver you. By the secret names of all things: Bnapsen, Llior, Osmagog, Amarthes, Nemes, Tash, Doo and Ap. Appear now in this triangle of conjuration and leave not until I give you permission. By the power of the Lord God as vested in me. Amen."

Power snapped into the triangle, which flared into life. Markings that had been spray painted onto Vargas' hall carpet a few minutes ago now burned with a bright white light. Cally writhed, stuck in place.

"Bet you don't think it was so clever setting everything on fire now, do you?" Quill muttered.

"If we all die in the fire at least things will be clean." Cally said.

"Clean?" Quill stepped back. The fire was spreading to the plasterboard ceiling.

"Clean of Jennings and Vargas' filth, Jennings' child of rape," she glared at Quill. "I should never have stood by and allowed it. I should have stopped him."

"Jennings?" Quill watched the fire spread. "Why didn't you?"

Cally made a sound like someone straining to stop themselves from coughing. Her back arched until she was choking, only touching the ground with her heels and shoulders.

"Let it out, Cally," Quill cautioned. "I can push the compulsion if I have to."

"Nnnn. Nnnngh." Cally grunted.

"I compel you by Thoth, and by Hermes." Quill chanted. "I compel you by Michael, who struck down Lucifer, and by the loyal deities of the Ogdoad. I compel you by the name of God Almighty, now speak."

"I killed the Red Path Militants," Cally wailed. Her body relaxed as she spoke, sinking back down against the carpet. "I planted the equipment for the Llew summoning and then I killed them. Vargas and Jennings were acting like they were on honeymoon, but he was too scared to agree to anything because of the militants. So I stopped them."

Quill shook his head. "Neutral observer? How did Vargas and Jennings find out?"

"I t-t-toooooooold them," she tried to stop the words spilling out. "We got drunk, the same night that Vargas started showing Jennings how to catch Selkies. I told them, they told me. The militants were murderers. If they'd been allowed to exist..."

"And you blackmailed each other? A balance of terror?" Quill backed towards the kitchen. The walls and ceiling were burning fiercely now. He was in danger of grilling Cally in a more literal sense than he'd intended.

"I had no choice." She sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks.

The fire was spreading down the curtains onto the carpet. There was an unpleasant 'whoosh' as something went up in another room.

"This is a bloody mess." Quill said. "Cally? We both know I can't trust you."

"Please," her eyes bulged with fear. "I don't want to die."

"I don't mean that," Quill waved his hands in an attempt to calm the situation. "What's the name of your spirit? The source of your power?"

Quill watched the significance sink in. Her mouth opened and closed.

"It's almost got rid of you anyway," he said. "Do you think I'd be able to keep you in a summoning triangle if you weren't in some pretty deep shit? We get rid of it, or you're going to die anyway. You can learn to draw your power in another way."

An expression of abject sorrow passed over her face. She closed her eyes.

"Caldaria," She said. "She's called Caldaria, the White Salamander."

Quill picked up the candle from the radiator. He found it intact and certainly less melted than the ones that had been left where Cally's fires had been burning.

"Caldaria, White Salamander, I call you," Quill intoned. "Caldaria, whose mark I make in this candle," he cut a crude shape into the wax with his thumbnail. "Caldaria, whose mark I make in this candle, I bind you. By Zeus and by Hades, but Kronos and Apophis. By Odin's eternal imprisonment of Loki and the dismemberment of Osiris, I bind you." He held the candle up.

Cally screamed, or at least something using Cally's body screamed. Reptilian features lost the last traces of their humanity. What was left in their place was white as fresh milk, serpentine and beautiful. Almond eyes looked back at him without a trace of Cally's intelligence behind them. Quill looked down at her. The demon looked back at him.

"I'm sorry, love," he said. "This is nothing personal."

He threw the candle into the heart of the flames.

Caldaria made an agonised, serpentine hiss, thrashing in the triangle.

"Good enough." Quill muttered, and reached into the triangle.

The ceiling started to come down in a way that Quill had only thought happened in films. Quill's concentration died, and so did the triangle.

With the power of the triangle gone there was nothing to slow the fire and the hall started burning merrily. Quill dashed into the kitchen just as the fake fridge door burst open to reveal an angry Max Erstwhile. His knees were bowed: Lilly Jennings, six feet tall and model beautiful, was slung over his shoulder.

His mouth opened mid-way towards demanding to know what for the sake of copulation Quill had been thinking, when he saw Cally. She rose out of the flames with a triumphant look on her face.

"Oh, shit," Max said.

"It's all burning," Quill said. "What about Lilly Jennings?"

"She's heavy," Max said.

"Where are the Selkies?" Ed backed towards the garden.

"Outside, they don't do well with fire." Max said. "The bloke was looking like he was about to do something stupid, so I gave him my phone to call for help."

The daemon that had been Cally advanced on them, chattering to itself in an unearthly patois that included, so far as Quill could make out, Akkadian, Latin and Enochian. This was the least dangerous of daemons, a guttersnipe of hell.

Unfortunately, that was still more than powerful enough to kill them both without breaking into a sweat.

"Max, mate," Quill said, avoiding any sudden movements. "Just get out. This isn't a film and there's no point in you dying as well."

"You're not going to die," Max breathed. "She's half your size."

"At this moment, if she doesn't electrocute or incinerate me, she's strong enough to tear off my arms and legs." Quill said.

"Shit," Max said. "Alright, when she moves," he sank into starting position. "If she doesn't immediately eviscerate me, I'll get out and call for back up. Maybe if the others help me I can keep her in the house."

She cocked her head, chattering at them, dropping her shoulders, the tendons standing out under her snow white scales.

"Here it comes," said Quill, quickly. "I'm sorry mate."

She hunched, coiled like a spring. Quill braced himself. He was a big man. There was no point in trying to dodge. All he could do was get in her way and give Max the chance to get out.

She leapt with impossible speed. Quill tried to put himself in the way, but she sailed past both of them, pushing herself off the wall and coming back from the other direction. Quill caught her in mid leap this time, hurling her at the kitchen island, but she corrected herself and came back at him. Her claws raked the side of his face. He was comforted to realise that Max was no longer there.

"Daemon." A clear voice called out. It was Drustan. "Demon, do you have quarrel with Peter Vargas and Thomas Jennings?"

Cally, or Caldaria, hissed the affirmative. She stood lightly, her feet braced on Quill's chest, her claws sinking into his shoulders. She had the weight of a bird and strength of a construction vehicle. Quill tried not to remind her of his existence by making any sounds of pain.

Drustan advanced, holding Max's phone like a talisman. "This machine wrote to me," he said. "I pressed the green buttons and it told me that he has appeared: the police are holding him, he's at the London Bridge Hospital. Do you hear me?"

Caldaria's eyes were alive with fire. It lit Quill's face unpleasantly. She glanced at him for a moment, giving him a look of the deepest disdain before pushing herself free and leaping through the air. He had a momentary impulse to try and stop her, but pulled himself back.

Cally/Caldaria leapt back into the fire, vanishing. Quill glared at Drustan, who looked back challengingly.

"I could have let her kill you, and your friend, before telling her that." He said.

"You've given her Vargas." Quill said.

"I've given you your life." The Selkie snapped turning away.

Quill stared at him despondently. "No wonder they call you monsters."

Drustan didn't respond. He went into the garden to stand with Eilidh, taking the weight of Lilaea Jennings off Erstwhile's shoulders, Quill followed him out.

"Max mate," he croaked. "I don't know how much of that you heard, but we have to get to the Hospital."

X

They didn't bother arguing or recriminating with the Selkies as they drove back to the hospital. Max didn't speak. Ed sat in the passenger seat, drifting in and out of consciousness. The Selkies sat in the back with Lilaea Jennings draped across them. Max turned on the siren and ignored all other traffic.

They weren't far away when the radio calls came: an IC2 male had been detained trying to assualt Tom Jennings at the London Bridge hospital. He was alleged to be a suspect for the Jennings investigation, so he was under caution and awaiting transport to London Bridge nick. Quill tried to focus, his stomach churning.

It wasn't until they were passing through Elephant and Castle that he heard the call he'd been dreading: there was a disturbance outside the hospital. Officers on site reported an IC18 Female – the unofficial Metropolitan Police code for anything definitively not human.

Then there were requests for backup cut off by screaming. Even the Selkies shared a glance. Max broke speed records.

****

Cally and Caldaria were thoroughly mingled. Cally lost in the ancient malice, Caldaria claiming a prize allocated in a paragraph of a subsection of a section of an agreement she'd known she would one day enforce. She stood in front of a convex mirror, mounted on the point of a blind corner for the private ambulances. The creature reflected in it was as beautiful as it was inhuman. Its eyes were fixed with cold blooded, alien malice.

The novelty was that, for once, they weren't fixed on Quill. As his second impression of the scene sank in, Quill realised the gang was all here: James, with his arm in a sling, stood in the hospital entrance, slightly behind a blue haired goth girl. A semi-circle of uniformed police officers had fanned out across the courtyard, giving her the same tense reassurances that had failed when Quill had issued them earlier. The recently wrong-footed DC Murthy stood just behind them, in his element, gently directing the uniformed officers to give her some space.

Her eyes weren't fixed on them, either. There was one more person, this person had captured her unwavering attention.

Vargas was almost as tall as Quill, with a shabby black coat and silver topped cane. His hair was almost white, in stark contrast to his darkly tanned skin. He had piercing blue eyes and sharp features. Quill didn't recognise him, but with a sinking feeling he decided that he had a fairly good guess.

Max had parked the car in a way that less charitable folk might have called 'crashing.' They stood at the open mouth of the hospital's forecourt, Drustan with Lilaea over his shoulder, Eilidh looking on with bright eyed anticipation. The bloodlust in the air was almost palpable. Vargas and Cally were between them and Solorz. Max looked over at Murthy, who was too lost in co-ordinating the police presence to notice anything.

"Where is it, Peter?" Cally/Caldaria shouted.

The white haired man shook his head. He was rigid with tension, staring at the monster in the mirror, trying and failing to maintain a pretence of off-handedness. Peter Vargas.

"I don't have it anymore," Vargas said. "Tom and I destroyed it. We were going to tell you."

She laughed coldly. "Oh, I'm sure you were," she scoffed. "Neither of you were afraid I'd give the game away about your poor bloody fuck toys."

"They aren't human," Vargas snapped. "They don't have the same psyche as us. For them, the life-span of human is nothing, the briefest candle flame. You can't think of these things as women."

"So why was she screaming as he wrestled her to the ground, Peter? Why did she beg?" Tears streamed down the creature's face.

"I didn't do that," Vargas said. "That was Tom's way."

Fire wreathed her hands. The police line pulsed forward, restrained by low commands from Erstwhile and Murthy. They formed a glowing yellow horseshoe in the curved mirror. Vargas' eyes flitted between her and the reflection.

"No," she growled. "You prefer heroin, don't you?" She reached into her bag and took out a wire bound diary. The flames surrounded it the same way they surrounded her hands, outlining the paper without burning it. "Look what I found at Tom's house."

"He wrote about the first time you let him use yours," she sneered. "And how you took him down to the beach where the Selkie women came ashore to go clubbing. How you showed him where they hid their seal skins. He was too impatient to do it your way," her flames turned from blue to white. "Getting them hooked, then offering them a deal. He knew where the skins were, so he decided the old ways were best."

"I wasn't there," Vargas said.

She surged forward, her face a mask of tears and hysteria. "Well I bloody was," she screamed. "I had to watch because he was our only hope of avoiding open warfare."

"I'm sorry, Ca-" Vargas started.

His eyes travelled up the mirror. He looked past her, the reptilian monster, fixed on something in the distorted, curving depths. His face drained of colour.

"Oh god," he said, turning. "Oh dear god."

Quill was confused for the briefest of moments before he saw them: the Selkies, Eilidh and Drustan, with Lilaea over his shoulder. Vargas' expression went from fear to absolute frenzy. He let out a thin scream and turned to run. The police line chorused a single, simultaneous ineffective imperative to stop him. Vargas broke into an immediate sprint.

He leaped straight through the blonde reptile woman, panicing at having his dirty secret uncovered.

It was as if the sudden movement snapped what little restraint or sanity she'd had left. She hissed, shooting out a clawed hand. This time there was no jet of flame. The fire started inside Vargas, flaring up in intensity until it was the colourless heat of an incinerator. He screamed and wailed nightmarishly. The fire burned hot and tall, reaching up as high as the first floor of the buildings around.

"You're clean now, Peter," the reptile-blonde shouted. "I'm going to burn it all away, every last trace."

Quill stood impotently with his fists clenched. He looked between the Selkies and the burning Vargas. The Selkie Bride watched Vargas wither in the fire, enraptured.

His flesh crumbled and blackened to charcoal in a split second. Before a minute was out what was left of his body collapsed in on itself, leaving only ashes and a pile of pristine, untouched clothing.

The police line broke, rushing towards the blonde. She turned with a snarl, reaching a hand out towards them. Quill broke into a run, but it was too late: a wall of fire swept through the Ambulance bay, melting the tarmac and hitting the police. Two fell back, sheltered by parked ambulances. Three more screamed horribly, rolling on the melted asphalt as they burned. Quill screamed an animal yell and threw himself across the ground between them. The blonde turned, stepped into the mirror, and vanished.

****

Things were a blur after that. Quill watched himself, as if from another room. He saw the video of his rage at the blonde escaping. He saw himself screaming threats and abuse at the Selkie woman, whose male escorts somehow didn't feel like fighting him again. He ranted and threatened, unrestrained by the police, who had better things to worry about. He saw Max glancing at him, irritated by the disturbance as he tried to deal with three dying officers.

Finally it was James who brought him back to his senses – James with his broken arm, white as a sheet from the pain – standing in front of him, speaking calmly as if there was no danger from the red mist of Quill's anger.

"– you hear me, Ed?" James asked. "Come back to us, Ed. Listen to me, think of where you are."

He drifted back into control of his own body, aware of the tears of frustration welling up in his chest and the pressing violence of his rage. He looked at James and past him to the Selkie woman. She watched him with shock and fascination, as if he was an out of control exhibit at the zoo.

"Sorry James, mate," he patted his friend on his uninjured shoulder. "You're right. Sorry, don't know what came over me there."

He looked back at the Selkie woman. She returned his gaze with just the slightest hint of a downward glance.

"Sorry for what I said," Quill said. "After what you went through anyone would want revenge."

"He raped me," she said. "He took away my child and raised her without me. She saw us, she saw him raping me. Do you know how it would feel for a mother to recognise her own child and see nothing except horror and disgust?"

Quill shook his head.

The Selkie woman continued. "Worse than the years in that tiny, stinking room. The waste, the flooding, the beatings," she glared at Quill. "Our kind breed slowly, wizard, and children are rare. To experience pregnancy in that hell..." she shook her head. "There is no death too painful."

"Sorry," Quill said. "What about me?"

She looked away. "I might have been hasty. I'll not revoke the curse on Jennings, though."

Quill glanced over his shoulder at Max, then at James, who looked away innocently. "I don't see why you have to," Quill said quietly. "Who knows what could have happened while we were all out here distracted by all this mess."

The Selkie smiled, and made another subtle movement with her head. Drustan transferred Lilaea to her arms and instantly vanished in the crowd of police and onlookers.

"So..." Quill said. "You'll remove the curse?"

The Selkie gave him a look of bafflement. "My curse has lashed upon you," she said. "You should already be dead."

Quill's stomach felt like lead. He looked at his feet, wondering why he was feeling strange. There was a small pool of dark blood around his left foot.

"Ed," James said. "We can look into this later," he lowered his voice. "We've saved Lilly. Jennings and Vargas are punished, and you're definitely not well." Quill's light headedness became stratospheric. The world lurched.

"Oh fuck," he staggered. "James..."

Darkness rushed up to meet him. He dived right into it.

Epilogue

After that it was a matter of the Selkies quietly departing and all remaining participants receiving the best in urgent medical treatment. Unfortunately, due to Mr. Solorz's indisposition, Quill's own unconsciousness and DI Erstwhile's preoccupation with other police business, Quill was mistaken for a suspect and handcuffed to his bed. Thankfully, this news reached me just before he regained consciousness and, devoid of other amusement, I arranged for myself to be present at the London Bridge Hospital when he awakened. As is usual in such circumstances, he opened his eyes with a look of suspicious confusion.

"You." He said.

"Yes, it is I." I nodded. "How are you feeling, my boy?"

"What happened?" He tried to move, puzzled that he was handcuffed to the bed.

"Blood loss from the wound on your leg, so they say," I explained. "You were found unconscious in the middle of the whole mess. The police and fire brigade arrived, made absolutely no sense of your identification and decided to keep an eye on you as a suspect. Thankfully they logged your Home Office papers along the way and I was informed."

"Good," he sank back into the bed. "Did Lilly Jennings make it?"

"She is still deeply unconscious and she might have suffered some degree of organ damage," I explained. "But her mother assures me that she will recover, and the doctors assure me that she will survive."

"And Cally Rhodes?" He tried to sit up.

"Gone, both physically and psychically," I explained. "I made some subtle astral enquiries while you were resting and I suspect Caldaria has certainly obliterated her. If we're fortunate that means she will have returned to hell."

Quill nodded. The pain from his injuries was starting to make itself known, despite a comfortable blanket of morphine.

"What about Tom Jennings?" Quill asked cautiously.

We both knew that I knew what he'd done. There were things he'd be able to keep from Max Erstwhile, but never from me. I fixed him with a solemn expression, the one I know that makes him sweat.

"He didn't die of the curse, precisely." I said. "I mean, he did die of the curse, but only because someone snuck into his room in the aftermath of Vargas' death and smothered him with a pillow. When he lost consciousness he died, probably only seconds before he would have asphyxiated anyway." I said.

Quill looked distinctly shifty. No one else would have noticed it, but I knew Quill.

I gave him a fatherly look of consideration. "If it was a Selkie, which we don't know, they had the right to carry out the sentence anyway. The Met Committee had decided that he'd committed his crime on a non-human, and therefore it was appropriate to render him to non-human judgement." I smiled down at him, reading his thoughts.

Quill looked relieved at that. There was one more question, of course, but I let him think I didn't know it was coming. I gathered my bag and my coat together, made a huge burlesque about getting my coat on and made the usual noises about a debriefing. He played chicken with me almost all the way to the door. I got my hand on the handle before he said anything.

"Conroy?" He asked.

"Yes?" I had my back to him, so I allowed myself the luxury of smiling.

"Why am I not dead?"

"Part of you did die, Ed," I said. "A doomed, vestigial, human part of you was struck down there and then. What remains is different."

"What is it?" His tone rose, his Welsh accent making its way to the fore. "What's changed?"

"Nothing for you, you've never been anyone else in your life, so you know nothing else," I said, jovially. That always winds him up. "As to what exactly you are? You don't need to know that yet. You'll find out in good time."

And then, just because he was handcuffed to the bed, I walked out and left him wondering. I probably left him with the impression that I know exactly what is going on, which is at least partially correct.

About the Author

Jon Kaneko-James started his writing life in non-fiction, and edits Tarosophist International, one of the largest circulating English-language magazines about Tarot (and strangely the officially allowed Pagan publication of the US penal system.) He loves mythology, history and folklore, and likes nothing better than spending a day with a pot of tea and some ghost stories.

He also runs Boo Tours with his business partner, Anthony Lewis, leading ghost tours and weird history jaunts around London. He started writing the Streetlight Magic series because although there is a wealth of British urban fantasy, all of it seems to be London-based. Considering the number of spooky locations and weird tales to be found outside the confines of the M25 (a motorway/ring-road that circles London, it seemed to be a terrible waste.

So, here we are: Streetlight Magic, an urban fantasy series that starts in London, and commutes.

If you liked the story, why not follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/StreetlightMagic

And don't forget to keep up with our blog: streetlightmagic.wordpress.com

The Magic of Eddy Quill

Some people have been confused by the mixture of Pagan and Christian elements in the magical invocations used by our hero, and if you're interested I feel I should explain (I'm a tour guide, I can't help myself.)

One of my great interest areas is magical books: real ones, from history. When I started writing I really wanted to make the magic Quill used feel like something you'd read in one of the grimoires you can find in the Elias Ashmole Collection, or the Wellcome Collection. These have a certain formula, with invocations of powers, selections of nonsense words and, believe it or not, a very pious attitude to god. These things were being written at a time when you could be killed for practising magic, and the historical magus always had one eye on the possibility of needing to mitigate their actions to a court.

This is why the real-life magical books you find never have things in like:

I call out to our dark master Satan to accept this nice, warm sacrifice of a dead baby so that I can be attractive to women and swim in huge amounts of money! Hail Satan!

They tend to be pious. When a historical ritual magician summoned a demon he did it in the name of God, standing behind the protection of the angels and archangels. If he summons a demon, it's ostensibly for enlightenment. If you look at books of spirits written in the Renaissance they tend to say things like:

The spirit Ironcock Deathmachine appears as an old man riding a white horse and can teach the knowledge of all sciences, including medicine, can cure all diseases and, just as an unimportant side effect, gives you the power to make hot chicks take their tops off. Not that you'll be using that, since all you want are the sciences. Oh, he turns your poop into rolls of cash, too. Not that you'd care, being so enlightened. Sorry, I'll stop bothering you now. XOXO.

As the practise of ritual magic goes on, we get more and more Orientalism in magic (for uninitiated, Orientalism is the colonial-era Western obsession with of all this cool eastern culture we were stealing, and how we basically vomited it all over everything in art and literature without the slightest understanding of what it really meant.) As this Orientalism came in we got more and more use of Egyptian and Classical Gods in Western Magic, and a revival of Renaissance Alchemy.

This peaks with the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and organisations like the Golden Dawn, and Aleicster Crowley's OTO. When I made Quill's magic style I wanted to throw in a bit of modern tribalism (tattoos, piercings, scarifications and so on) with a logical development of the Golden Dawn's rampant Orientalism.

I also want to note that I'm not really worried about having Quill's magic work like real magic. An action-packed urban fantasy story with accurate portrayals of magic would be about as much fun as Mario Brothers with accurate plumbing.

Team Streetlight

Team Streetlight are a bunch of hard-working indie creatives trying to scrape out a living. If you have a problem (related to editing, typography, cover art or ebook formatting) and you can find us, you too can hire Team Streetlight.

Of course, finding us is easy, because I'm about to give all our contact details.

Rhea Phillips editing services: peregrineediting.wordpress.com/

Neokeroko Design, cover design and typography: neokeroko.com

Greg Seales ebook formatting: fdk1000@googlemail.com for a quote.

Mister Lewis blog wrangling (he's also a voice actor:) mr-lewis.com

