Laying all this aside, for now it is important to note the following: Firstly, that the secondpossibly thirdgreatest shaman who's ever lived, has not today got his fix of peppermint super-strength toothpaste, and this has undeniably dented his mood.

Secondly, as he walks in that place between what is and what is merely perceived to be, with that special walk that only shamans know how to do, he looks down, sees something smoking beneath his feet, and is worried.

Chapter 10.

Respect Others and Respect Yourself His name was Kevin and he was saying, "... so yeah I mean it's like so totally uncool what's happening with modern hygiene. I mean, chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hepatitis, herpes, HIV, and that's just like the stuff they pick up at the routine screening! You know how hard it is to find decent, drinkable blood these days? Alcohol, drugs, fatty diets, not enough green leaf vegetables and I'm like hello?! I'm not even going to drink your good stuff so I don't see how you're planning on living if that's the best your cardiovascular system can produce!"

Sharon leaned a little further forward. This was, she'd concluded after the first ten minutes, the safest look to go with. The act of resting elbows on knees forced her into a position that showed interest, while resting her chin on her hand provided good head support and stopped her mouth from dropping open.

"Anyway," concluded Kevin, trying not to twiddle his bright blond hair, "I was having some issues with the, you know, the..." He made a whistling sound and with two fingers twiddling in front of his face somehow managed to indicate the place where fangs might be. "So I went to the doctor and she was all like 'So you've got a syndrome' and I was like 'Are you fucking kidding me? I'm like the bane of the immortal fucking night or whatever what the fuck do you mean I've got a syndrome?' and she was all like 'Yeah but it's a cool syndrome' and I was like 'Lady, don't give me this it's a cool syndrome stuff, because I've gotta tell you I've got some real issues with personal hygiene anyway and if you're about to tell me that my body is now, like, out to get me, well I honestly can't tell you what I'm gonna do.' And she gave me this leaflet and was all like 'It's called Seah's syndrome and you've probably had it for a while. So when you were living your blood group was O negative and now you're dead'and you know she said 'dead' which I thought was just so prejudiced'and now you're dead your blood group is still O negative, so that's like the only blood group you can drink.' "

"Is that a popular one?" asked Mrs Rafaat. She was resplendent in a bright orange sari, with greying hair and a collection of thin silver rings on the fingers of her left hand.

"Like fucking no!" moaned Kevin, throwing his hands up in the air. "Only like fucking eight per cent of the population or whatever! And turns out a lotta the guys got this, only it's not cool to talk about it, which again I think is so like, so stupid? But if you're AB positive or something like that well then you're really okay because you can drink like anything but O negative and that's all you can fucking have, and I don't know if there's like, any scientific reason to think this but I really think these O negative fuckers don't live clean. I have to bring a questionnaire along now and everything. I mean, really, it's like a fucking dis-as-ter."

Silence as the room waited for a little of his indignation to clear. Then someone applauded, and the others joined in. Kevin shifted in his chair uncomfortably, flashing the lightly fanged grin of the rarely appreciated, not quite able to believe this moment would last.

"I'm sure we'd all like to thank Kevin for his uh... personal story," Sharon recited, forcing a rictus smile.

"Thank you, Kevin!" intoned the room. It was curious, Sharon noted, how it only took two or three people to feel the urge to chant their greetings or their praise in harmony, and suddenly everyone else was joining in, just in case their neighbour felt the urge, and then their neighbour's neighbour felt the urge and, before they knew it, they were being left out or worse being rude. It had almost become a competition to respond faster than others, so as not to be last and caught demonstrating a lack of appreciation.

"Does anyone have something they'd like to add?"

Everybody avoided each other's stare. Then one handthe strange hand belonging to the strange creature whose features no one could entirely perceivewent up, and that voice that was not he nor she but therefore had to be it and more of an it than the average something dared to be, asked, "What kind of questions?"

"Oh, the questionnaire!" exclaimed Kevin, face lighting up at a chance to explore his problem further. "Well..." A big black sports bag was pulled out from under his chair and opened to reveal, just for a moment, a box of latex gloves, a pack of sterile wipes, a tube of expensive-looking toothpaste and a spindle of dental floss, all floating on a sea of sterile packaging, before from all this a plastic folder containing several sheets of A4 was revealed, neatly typed up and laid out with tick boxes. "Dietary standards obviously, sexual history obviously, foreign travel of course, visits to malaria sites, iron content, recent hospital investigations, history of needle abuse, history of drug abuse, history of alcohol abuse, history of jaundice... In fact if anyone wants to take one I've got plenty of spares."

"I really don't think that's gonna be a great idea," blurted Sharon. As Kevin's face fell she added, "But if anyone is interested in helping Kevin out I'm sure they can speak to him after the session."

"What if we don't know our blood type?" asked a small woman with mousy blonde hair who'd introduced herself as Jess (Hello, Jess) "and I turn into pigeons".

"Well, I'd say you should like get yourselves tested and signed up to the donor register," exclaimed Kevin. "And I hope you've all got donor cards too because there's like thousands of people on the organ donor register who die every year because they can't get a part and I'm like, guys, charity begins at home, you know?"

The next response came from a woman sitting hunched up, who wore with all the ease and familiarity of a polar bear in a bikini a full-length brown abaya that couldn't quite disguise knee joints which bent the wrong way. From beneath her robe she produced a small whiteboard and a green marker pen. With her gloved handonly three fingers in the glove, Sharon couldn't help noticing, and two of them distinctly curved in a way which might well have been clawsshe wrote carefully on the board and turned it to face the group.

Does the blood have to be human?

"Uh, yeah," withered Kevin. "I mean, no offence, I'm sure your blood is like, totally amazing. But if I can't fucking drink anything except O rhesus fucking negative, then banshee blood is probably like, way out there."

"Can I quickly ask," Sharon interrupted, before the conversation could get much more organic, "do you want a stool or something, because you don't look very uh... very comfortable on the chair?"

The creature in the awkwardly worn robe turned its head slowly and Sharon could have sworn she saw a hint of amber-yellow in the tiny slit across the eyes. The marker pen slipped busily across the board.

Thank you, that is very kind, but I am happy to sit however everyone else sits.

"This is a place for everyone, regardless of their um... their situation... to be comfortable. If arrangements can't be made for the comfort of our members here, then, uh... I think we can agree we've uh... kind of screwed up?"

The womanif that was the termhesitated. Sharon sensed that somewhere beneath the fabric a set of mighty teeth longed to chew on the end of the much-gnawed marker pen. Then: Would anyone mind if I hung from the rafters for a while?

"Uh... that sounds fine to me. Anyone got any problems if..."

Sally.

"If Sally hangs from the rafters?"

There was a chorus of "Sure, whatever" from around the room.

The creature called Sally nodded in what might have been gratitude, slipped her board and marker under one arm, and unfolded. Standing on the rickety chair she unfolded first from the knees, which bent backwards beneath her robe like the hind legs of a horse; a hint of talon curled round the seat of the chair for support. She straightened her back, which may have been long and spindly, and unfolded a pair of arms that may well, to judge by the stretching of the robe from finger to shoulder, or by the hint of protruding greyish-blue leather, have been connected to wings. She threw herself upwards in a single motion, not so much an act of strength against gravity, as a moment of pure intimidation in which the forces of nature considered their adversary and decided it wasn't worth kicking up a fuss. There was a flap of black and grey, and a flash of red, and then three claws, each jointed three ways, locked onto one of the horizontal rafters under the sloping triangular roof. The robe flopped backwards, revealing stick-thin grey calves and boney thighs, clad, for the sake of decency, in bright red and white leggings.

Dangling upside down, Sally the banshee removed the whiteboard from its resting place in the crook of her arm, unpopped the marker pen with a flick of her thumb and carefully wrote: Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Chapter 11.

Learning Is the Path to Self-Knowledge The four greatest killers the world has ever seen have come to town.

Sharon Li doesn't realise this and, frankly, why should she? There's a lot of stuff out there for one girl to know, especially a shaman who's expected to know so much stuff it's a miracle she can remember any one thing at a given moment. And would she really want to know about this? Because Derek doesn't.

Derek, high social secretary, and quite possibly high priest, of the Friendlies, servant of the Lonely Lady, watchman of 4 a.m. and, as if that wasn't enough, moderately successful owner of a tool hire business operating out of Balham (third off the price if all items are returned on the same working day) says, "Who's there?"

And then he sees.

"How'd you get here?" he asks, already knowing the answer but feeling he ought to keep the conversation going just in case. "What do you want?"

These are redundant questions, as he knows perfectly well what they want and, more to the point, that he'll be unable to give it to them. Not through lack of trying, but because truly he does not know the answer to the question, the inevitable question: "Where is she?"

He hopes the honesty shows in his face as he answers, backing towards the furthest wall. "I don't know."

The four greatest killers in the world didn't knock, didn't jingle, didn't rattle, didn't crash, didn't jar, didn't crunch on their way in, and now, as they move, they make no sound except the quiet mantra that is their murderous chant.

"Come on, pal..."

"Mate..."

"Mucker..."

"Where's the lady hiding?"

"Are you going to kill me?" Derek asks, or rather, the part of him that desperately wants to live and which, regardless of everything that common sense predicts for the next five minutes, still hopes to explore this receding option.

"Kill you?" one asks.

"Us?" one exclaims.

"Wanker," offers a third.

"Tosser," agrees the fourth.

"Why'd we do that, mate? You think we're that kinda guys?"

"Gotta look out for that, mate."

"Just give us what we want..."

"Tits!"

Derek's eyes dance to the one who makes this rather incongruous contribution to the conversation and see him smile. His smile is lecherous, his smile is the ogling grin of a man who's spent too much time in high places observing the things that pass below, his smile is the smile God would have worn when enjoying a dirty joke with Satan, just you and me, hate the attitude, love the wit. Then his eyes move to the other three in the room. How they entered he does not know, but how they will leave he can fairly guess, and he sees that they too are smiling.

Four faces...

... but all the same smile.

A whimper escapes him before he can prevent it; his fingers scratch into the brick wall at his back. "Please..." he whines. "Please, I don't know. She's just vanished, that's all, she just disappeared!"

"How'd she do that then?" asks one.

"Magic!" suggests another.

"Pooffartspoof!" cackles a third.

"Right stinker," concurs the fourth.

"If you can't help us..."

"... then we'll have to find someone else..."

"... because our guvnor..."

"... he wants her so bad..."

"... so bad I mean it's like he's got this massive thing..."

"Wanker!"

"Arse."

"Lovely pair of knockers."

"So you see..."

Four faces fill his world, four faces and they are all the same face, the same smile, the same eyes, the same voice, whispering their words as the floor cracks beneath his feet and the walls grow fingers of mortar and dust to wrap around his throat and dig into his skin.

"... we ain't never gonna stop..."

"Overtime, yeah."

"Payday!"

"... until you give us Greydawn."

He tries to scream, but the concrete is already giving way beneath him, sucking him down, and the walls have curled their ragged fingers around his face, stopping his mouth with mortar and dirt, filling his throat, his lungs, with thick grey sludge, and still he tries, and no sound can emerge until he is bursting from the inside out with the weight of it and his eyes dribble tar and his face is red, then scarlet, then purple, then the orange-brown of sandstone and clay, and at the very, very last a tiny puff of air escapes his lips, the very last puff that he shall ever breathe, and if you listen closely, if you crane your ear right up next to his face, before it is pulled down into the foundations at his feet, you might hear this one word: Howl.

Before he is sucked down beneath the street.

Chapter 12.

A Dog Will Love You More Than Any Man She said, "I get so lonely sometimes."

She said it so softly, so gently, that for a moment the gathered members of Magicals Anonymous exchanged glances, just to check that they'd heard it aright; but yes, that was the sentiment, that was the word.

"It's not something I can really explain," she sighed. "But these last few years I've just known that I don't belong, and people won't understand."

The room lapsed into silence. The speaker was Mrs Rafaat (Hello, Mrs Rafaat).

"And I'm not really magical at all, you know. I mean, I've been tested because I was having these experiences, but they weren't so much experiences as things that happened around me but actually I don't know any wizarding or witching or anything and apparently if I tried to cast a spell it would probably just go puft, but the thing is I do seem to know things, and really things do seem to happen and I suppose I'm actually a bit of an intruder here so I really hope you don't mind, but you all seem like lovely people and I am very interested and really yesbut yes, really actually quite worried. I've been feeling that way for a while, something I can't quite put my finger on but I'm rambling. I'm rambling aren't I? So yes, that's me. Would anyone mind if I had another cup of tea?"

In her mid-fifties, she spoke with the faintest remnant of an Indian accent, softened by many years of life in Wembley. Her orange sari, threaded with blue and purchased in Bethnal Green some ten years ago, was getting a bit tatty round the hem.

"But I don't mind, I mean some people say it's silly to wear a sari in Wembley, but actually I think it's very comfortable, and modest, and allows you to have some strong colour in your life without making a fool of yourself because it's so easy with fashion these days to make a fool of yourself, I'd say it's a safety thing, isn't it, wearing what you're comfortable with not to make a point. I'm rambling again, aren't I? I'm sorry, I do that.

"Um, excuse me?" The bone-white, wrinkle-ridden, spot-stained hand of Mr Roding (Necromancy is such a misunderstood discipline) was raised in polite enquiry. "I don't mean to complain, and I'm sure you're a very lovely woman, Mrs Rafaat, but feeling 'quite worried' isn't what we're here for. I mean, we all feel worried, don't we?"

A chorus of consent.

"But our worries stem from very specific causes. I, for one, can halt the passage of degrading time upon my body through the use of ancient lore studied over many a sagely lifetime, but I still haven't found a solution for the skin-sloughing issue. The books recommend aloe vera, fat lot of use that was. But, the thing is, Mrs Rafaat, I'm not sure your problems really compare."