"Shall we find out?"

"Excuse me?"

All eyes turned to see who had spoken.

Rhys was staggering to his feet, leaning against the wall for support. There was something in his hands, something thin and silvery, possibly covered in foil. As Sharon watched, he slipped it back into his pocket, and his neck tightened and stretched with the effort of swallowing what might well have been a couple of Dr Seah's anti-histamines.

Aware of all eyes on him, with an effort Rhys straightened and repeated, "Excuse me, I don't want to cause trouble, see. But I think you should let go of Ms Li."

Sharon glanced down at the pit, and heard...

footstep on stone wind through old newspaper glass shattering in the night thump of door swish of window pane Help us, shaman!

"Are you... attempting to fulfil a gender obligation?" suggested Mr Ruislip, his grip on Sharon not slackening. "I have observed that it's considered apt for the male of your species to defend the female, regardless of whether the effort is appreciated."

"This isn't a bloke thing," asserted Rhys. "This is me asking you, politely, to not rip Miss Li limb from limb, because that would make me very angry."

"Angry? And what form, dare we ask, will your anger take?"

Rhys drew a long breath.

And there it was, that flicker of power about him, that flash of magic which Sharon had glimpsed when she had been in the shadows but which had never got past the hay fever long enough to make itself known. The filaments in the bulbs around the edge of the room flickered and flared; a cold wind, stinking of factory chemicals and ammonia, gently stirred the air. Wires rippled beneath Rhys's feet. It occurred to Sharon that this was what a druid was, always had to have been, even in the citysomebody at one with their surroundings.

"I'm a druid nearly of the first circle," he hissed. "I was almost the leader of my peers, practically the chosen one. I didn't quite summon the essence of the waterways from beneath the city streets, nearly brought forth the glory of the heavens, was almost on time for a conversation with the whispering dryads of the thousand and one lamp posts, and was only a few words away from sealing up the nether gate across the rotting railway tracks. You should maybe fear me, perhaps."

A stunned silence greeted this statement.

Mr Ruislip raised his eyebrows at one of the suited members of management who, after a second of hesitation, rounded on Rhys and drew back his fingers in the opening gesture of a ritual spell. Rhys threw out his hand and the bulbs around the room flared, a vivid stream of tungsten light. Thin filament coils, burning cherry-red, burst up from the floor and lashed themselves around the feet of the unfortunate member of management, who turned red, then white, then grey, then finally, trousers smoking and hands twitching in pain, began to scream. The filaments, spider-thin and electric-fast, grew and wound themselves round the wizard like a cocoon, dragging him to the ground and smothering him in a writhing, glowing mass of wire, cutting off all sound from within.

Rhys took a step towards the wendigo, and the three remaining members of management took a step back.

"Interesting," murmured Mr Ruislip. "You appear not to be leaking organic compounds any more from your nostrils."

Another member of management made the mistake of raising his hands into an attacking spell. Rhys turned, eyes flashing fluorescent-white, and the wizard choked, clawing at his throat, his mouth opening and twitching, his cheeks bulging, until with a hacking cough that brought him to his knees, he spat out a great fat mouthful of tar-stained goo that dribbled from his lips and stained his teeth grey.

"The next person who tries that," murmured Rhys in a dream-like voice, "will drown in liquid tar, see?"

Mr Ruislip caught Sharon's eye. She gave a tiny shrug. "Hey," she said, "this is your own crappy fault."

The woman, smartly trouser-suited, turned and ran for the door. Her colleague hesitated, eyes flicking from Rhys to Ruislip and back, then with a little gasp he too ran, bolting out into the dark.

Mr Ruislip, still grasping Sharon by the shoulder, yelled, "Betrayal will be reflected in your Christmas bonuses!"

Footsteps echoed down the corridor, the man and the woman running for the lift.

There was the swish of...

... a bicycle tyre?

And the footsteps stopped.

Sharon strained and heard...

She heard...

A child laugh.

Somewhere out there, in the dark.

She turned to stare into Mr Ruislip's pale eyes. "What've you done?" she breathed. "What's out there?"

"The gates are down," replied the wendigo with a tiny-toothed smile. "Did you think I was the only one to come through the wall?"

"Rhys?" Sharon raised her voice, louder than she'd meant. "You feeling druidic enough to blast this guy into lots of sticky bits?"

"I can try, Ms Li."

Mr Ruislip turned abruptly, pulling Sharon across his body, one arm over her throat.

Rhys yawned, then put his hands over his mouth. "Sorry, Ms Li," he exclaimed, "That was really inappropriate."

"It's okay," croaked Sharon, against the pressure of the wendigo's arm. " 'These drugs may cause drowsiness.' "

"Yes, but I wouldn't want you to think I was yawningyawningwhile you're in danger, Ms Li."

"Rhys, can we concentrate on the wendigo?"

In the darkness beyond the door, where footsteps had run and stopped abruptly, Rhys heard it againthe swish of tyres on stone, moving fast, far too fast for the narrow gloom outside.

"Now," Mr Ruislip said, shuffling closer to the edge of the pit, "the situation is very simple. You are mortals of no significance, whereas I-"

"What's in the pit?" Sharon cut in, wheezing with the effort of breathing.

The question caught Mr Ruislip off guard. "What?"

"I can hear... voices. All the spirits you stole, right? You locked them up down there?"

"You really expect me to ans-"

"Well, the way I reason it is this. You're gonna use me as a human shield, right, against Rhys here until he like, gets mega-drowsy from all the anti-histamines and that. But that's kinda dumb. Because if you do hurt me, then Rhys is so gonna blast you into tiny bits. And, actually, you may have summoned the nether hordes of darkness or whatever shit it is you've got going out in that corridor there. But me..." Her hands tightened suddenly around Mr Ruislip's arm and it occurred to the wendigo, a second too late, that a vice-like grip went both ways. "... I've got this serious shaman shit going down."

Sharon vanished.

So, for that matter, did Mr Ruislip.

There was a second of confusion.

Mr Ruislip looked round at the shadow world where the shamans walked, and for a second saw all that the shaman could see: walls encrusted with a hundred years of river salt that sparkled like diamonds; the ice that had once been buried here, still visible between the stones; metal crawling with rust mites that burrowed in and out of the iron of the walkway; Rhys burning, blazing with anti-histamine-fuelled magic that spluttered and spat around him like oil in a frying pan.

And, downa long way downthe pit, a spinning, roaring mass, a great writhing mess of voices and shadows: there the red-brick soul of a warehouse plucked from the cracks in the mortar; there the silvery-glass back of an abandoned church hall, still rippling with the music that had once played within its embrace; there the soapy guardian of an old spa house where Victorian gentlemen had perfected their beards; here the sharp clattering voice of the factory floor, stolen at night from the hollow quietness of the waiting machinesdozens of them, hundreds of them, the stolen souls of the city whirled beneath him, screaming, hammering at their prison bars.

And, as Mr Ruislip looked up, he saw for a brief second his own hands, his own arms, his own skin, the billowing flayed flesh rippling around him like sails in a storm, and he grinned, and in this place his grin had fangs, and for a glorious moment he remembered how he had enjoyed the taste of blood and the thrill of the hunt until...

"Yo, saggy-skin!"

Sharon caught him by the waist, charging head first into his middle and knocking him back against the iron railing of the walkway...

... or, to put more fine a point on it, through the iron railing of the walkway.

For a second Mr Ruislip clawed at empty air, but there was nothing, only time and voices, to cling to; and he opened his mouth to scream as he, and Sharon, fell together into the whirling pit below.

Chapter 100.

Recycle Your Household Waste Several floors above the pit where Sharon and Mr Ruislip had just fallen into endless dark, things were not going well.

They were not going well for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the office Kevin, Edna and Gretel were exploring had suddenly, and unhelpfully, filled with plastic bags. And while this was not, in and of itself, a major problem, the sudden animation of the plastic bags and the seemingly unified decision these items of garbage had taken all at once to come to life and attack the inhabitants of that space was definitely creating a difficult working environment.

"Get it off!" screamed Edna, as a shopping bag proclaiming EVERY DAY IS DISCOUNT DAY! wrapped itself around her arm, pulling her towards the ground.

"Sweetheart, I'm kind of busy!" hissed Kevin, swatting a bag with his sports holdall as it flew directly for his face. Gretel was already half swamped. Plastic bags were clinging to her legs, her belly, her arms, her shoulders, and even as Kevin glanced her way, the troll's great form spun sideways, pushed down by the thickening mass plastering itself to her flesh. A bright orange Sainsbury's bag drifted down and tried to spread itself over the troll's nose and mouth, only for Gretel to roll like a carpet out of its way, crunching and rasping in the swathes of plastic already clinging to her. Even the troll's immense strength didn't seem enough, and Kevin groaned with a foreboding of defeat as something cold and crumpled managed to stick itself across his back, rippling and writhing against his touch as he tried to peel it off.

"There's a trigger spell somewhere in here!" he screamed. "Destroy the trigger!"

Edna was cowering under a desk, a doodle-strewn notebook held up in front of her to bat away the incoming clouds of plastic, which swarmed and circled the room. Gretel roared feebly as a bag wrapped itself around her throat and began to twist and tighten. Kevin tried to get to her, but a bag had got around his foot and didn't want to move, pulling him back down. He flailed at the empty air, then fell, blood running freely from his nose.

He'd taken the wrong blood type, that much was obvious. And now, as Kevin lay on the floor reflecting on all the untoward things that might be happening to his internal organs, he felt the cold pressure of another bag wrap itself around his hand. Another settled across his body, embracing him like a taxidermist's blanket. He saw a white bag settle, so slowly, over Gretel's features. It morphed itself to the troll's nose and mouth, then flared up and down as the troll groaned, choking for breath under the plastic seal.

"Edna," croaked the vampire. "Find the trigger!"

Under the desk, Edna whimpered, swatting away a bag that had attempted to ram itself into her mouth like a sponge. "I can't," she cried.

Gretel's struggles were growing less, her lungs slowing in their battle against the death mask stuck over her face, and even as Edna looked around her in panic, more plastic was encasing the vampire too, pinning him to the floor.

There was...

... not so much a sound as a pressure, a sense of particles moving with a sound just beyond human hearing. The floor-to-ceiling windows hummed; mugs bounced along the surface of the desks; cables buzzed inside their shielding. Something grey, fast and winged was spinning through the air outside the office. Banking tightly, it snapped its wings in close and barrelled towards the building's vibrating glass exterior, which now began to pop, began to splinter, began to crack; and an instant before Sally the banshee burst through into the office, mouth agape and vocal cords singing beyond human powers to hear, the glass walls of Burns and Stoke exploded.

Chapter 101.

All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait "What was that?"

"Did anyone else hear...?"

"Oh my God. Look at that!"

"Dear me, is that something to do with us, Mr Swift?"

"You know, Mrs Rafaat, I think it might be."

"But all that glass! That's going to cost a fortune to replace."

"That's what makes me think it might be something to do with us."

"Do you think everyone is all right?"

"Well, personally I find massive symptoms of architectural destruction a rather positive indication."

"That's because you're incompetent, sorcerer."

"Thank you, Sammy. The next time I'm fighting off unstoppable evils, I'll remember that key piece of feedback and advice."

"Should we do something?"

"You took the words out of my mouth, Mrs Rafaat. Let's... do something bloody mythic."

Chapter 102.

Regret Never Helped Anyone In the flickering gloomy pit beneath Burns and Stoke, Rhys gasped and slid to the floor.

He'd just seen Sharon and Mr Ruislip vanish, only to reappear a second later as two shapes tumbling into the black pit. He'd rushed to the edge, and seen...

... darkness.