Amongst Our Weapons

16 Commitment

Since I couldn’t experiment on Beverley, I needed something primed with stored magic. We didn’t keep any demon traps at the Folly … but one thing I knew for a fact had stored magic in it was my staff.

I usually leave it in the Asbo, but I’d brought it into the Folly that morning and left it in the demonstration room. This lives at the back of the Folly, and was a small lecture theatre with raked seating where the amateur savants of the Society of the Wise could demonstrate their latest magic to their peers. There was even a segregated Ladies’ Gallery halfway up the north wall, so that the weaker sex could watch and admire their menfolk without getting underfoot. Toby was currently up there, grumpily wearing his lead, which was attached to the railing.

He’d thought he was going for a walk but actually he was a vital part of the experiment.

Another reason I was using the lecture theatre was that it was lined with two and a half centimetres of cork to act as magical shielding. Apparently, back in the day some of those public demonstrations could get quite explosive. Which explained why the top of the huge oak table on the podium was streaked and scarred with burns and scratches. There was even a patch where a hole had been burnt right through, with a matching crater on the floor underneath.

I mounted the staff above the table with a pair of lab stands and went through the spell forma by forma. Then I stood back from the bench, cleared my mind and lined up the formae and ran through them, saying each one out loud.

It didn’t work the first time, or the second, but the third time I felt the spell catch as if I’d turned a key in the ignition. Hugh Oswald’s staffs had spent years soaking up magic from his weird granddaughter’s beehives, and so the release came with the hum of thousands of wings and the sickly smell of raw honeycomb.

Toby started barking – a mad excited yapping.

I let go of the spell.

The air suddenly had a greasy feel and the smell of burnt copper.

I’d put a bit more magic into the environment than I meant to. Theoretically this should disperse naturally, but according to David Mellenby’s notes a high level of magical saturation was definitely a health hazard.

As insidious as carbon monoxide, only far more unpredictable in its effects, he’d written in his notes.

Toby obviously thought so. He’d stopped barking and was pulling frantically at his lead.

I began to worry – I needed to burn off some of the magic in a controlled fashion, but there was a ridiculously high chance of any spell, even the most basic, backfiring. Then I thought maybe I could put the sīphōnem spell into reverse and lock the magic into something. I should have brought something I could have used as a magic sink. Why is it you always think of these things when it’s too late …?

Toby stopped struggling and lay down with his head buried in his paws. He started to whine.

A red flower opened above the demonstration table. It started as a fist-sized globe, but unfurled petals of crimson light shot through with blue veins. It grew quickly and I jumped back to give it some room.

And then it evaporated, the petals dissolving into the air just like Beverley’s water balloon had.

‘I trust the rest of the experiment was a success,’ said Nightingale.

He was leaning over the railing in the Ladies’ Gallery and smiling sardonically. At his feet, Toby had perked right back up – although he paused in the adoration of his master long enough to give me an irritated snarl. Nightingale led him away, and as I waited for them to come downstairs I tidied up.

The staff was cold and inert beneath my hand now. I gave it a few experimental swings. I’ll say this for old-style wizardry – if the magic failed you could always beat someone to death with your staff.

Nightingale entered through the main door – Toby did not follow him.

‘Did it work?’ he asked.

‘Better than expected,’ I said. ‘It drained the staff completely.’

‘So I noticed,’ said Nightingale. ‘Perhaps the next such experiment should be conducted outside. In fact, some distance away from a populated area.’

‘If we try this on Francisca,’ I said, ‘you may have to follow up with whatever it was you just used. Does it have a name?’

‘Not as such,’ said Nightingale. ‘David developed it so I could clean up after his experiments. I have to note that I’m also worried that draining a staff will not be the same as drawing off power from another universe.’

‘It might not be another universe,’ I said. ‘It could be a different dimension or a tertiary subspace domain. And in any case I don’t think we have any choice.’

‘There’s always a choice,’ said Nightingale. ‘But often we don’t like either alternative.’ He took the staff from me and rested it on his shoulder as if he was on parade. ‘This was a heavy sacrifice,’ he said, ‘since we are still some way from fabricating our own staffs. And that’s not taking into account your upcoming leave.’

‘You forget,’ I said. ‘We’re back in bed with the Sons of Wayland. Grace will make us new staffs.’

‘What makes you think Grand Master Yutani will be so accommodating?’

‘For one thing, makers got to make,’ I said. ‘And once they’ve made, they want to see what they’ve made put to use. And secondly, we can give them and the Society of the Rose the thing that, deep in their hearts, they secretly crave.’

‘Which would be what?’

I gestured up at the Ladies Gallery.

‘Recognition and a seat at the table.’

Nightingale gave me a strange appraising look.

‘Sometimes, Peter,’ he said, ‘you quite terrify me.’

Somebody else who was currently terrified turned out to be Alastair McKay. At least, judging by how happy he was to see Guleed when she went over to the Hotel Russell to bring him in for another interview. She said that according to the reception desk Alastair hadn’t left his room since he checked in.

She brought him in round the back way, where the metal gates, Portakabin and concrete prisoner access ramp gave the illusion of being a bog-standard police station. At least how they appear in gritty TV dramas. We didn’t want him getting comfortable.

Me and Seawoll sat in the cramped remote-monitoring room next door, and watched as Guleed got Alastair settled and gave him the ‘caution plus three’. This is your standard caution followed by the assurance that you aren’t under arrest, you are entitled to legal advice and we totally won’t make anything of it if you try to leave. Thanks to TV, nobody ever believes the last bit – which is all to the good.

Danni walked in with a manila folder and sat down to the right of Guleed, who introduced her.

‘Straight to the chest,’ said Seawoll as Alastair dragged his gaze up to Danni’s face with a visible act of will.

Guleed explained that they needed Alastair to see if he could recognise a number of people, and Danni opened the folder and started extracting photographs. Actually they were hard copies run off on my crap inkjet printer, but they would do.

This was where having a modern twenty-first-century interview room without a table, the better to monitor the suspect’s body language, had its main disadvantage. Danni had to clumsily hold up each picture in turn, using the folder as backing.

‘We need to get a folding table,’ I said.

‘That’s what you get for fucking with tradition,’ said Seawoll. ‘And as for the folding table, you’d need to have it bolted down otherwise the next evil scrote will pick it up and twat you with it.’

The first set of pictures were blow-ups of the people from the 1989 Manchester group photograph, interspersed with pictures of the same individuals sourced from family and friends. True to form, Alastair remembered the women’s full names but only had the first names for the men.

He confirmed that a Brian ‘maybe his surname was Packard but I don’t really remember’ had taken the photograph.

Then we brought out contemporary pictures of the Manchester Bible study group. We had images of all of them, either cadged from relatives or taken off the internet, except for Jacqueline Spencer-Talbot, aka Jackie, who we still hadn’t found.

‘Look at Jocasta,’ said Alastair when he saw her in a still from a magazine article about third way entrepreneurs. ‘How many companies has she started? It used to be a struggle to get her to make the tea. Just goes to show you really can’t judge how someone’s going to turn out when they’re young.’

He recognised the 2009 picture of Brian Packard that we’d taken off Facebook – it was the latest picture we could find. Brian at a colleague’s leaving do in Los Angeles. Originally a group shot, he’d had his arm around the shoulders of a plump elderly white woman with curly brown hair. Next stop Florida was the caption. Both the retiree, his other colleagues and Brian were tagged by name on the Facebook page.

All of their names had now been duly entered into what me and Reynolds were, this year, calling the Unreality Files. A database of people that had come to our attention, tagged only by nationality, by which of us had entered them, and by a code word representing the reason they were in there. No personal details or case references were attached to the names, to avoid violating data privacy laws on both sides of the Atlantic. The photograph and the names of the people in it were all tagged as BANANAs, meaning they were associated with something or somebody ‘hinky’ and/or ‘sus’.

The picture we showed Alastair wasn’t marked with a name.

‘That’s him,’ he said when he saw it. ‘That’s the guy from Davos who was with the blonde. Only he was different.’

When we asked in what way, Alastair got the slightly glazed and defensive look that I’ve come to associate with people who have been subject to the glamour. Once it’s worn off, the victim can remember what happened but they don’t understand why they acted the way they did. This can lead to cognitive dissonance and denial – although if you listen to my therapist, so does walking down the street.

So Brian Packard was, probably, the mysterious Collector that Lesley was collecting the rings and the lamp for. Which meant he’d known about the rings and the Manchester Bible study group from the start. Had he learnt of the lamp after he started collecting the rings? It would be a hell of a coincidence otherwise.

‘That’s not bloody likely now, is it?’ said Seawoll when I discussed it with him.

I didn’t wait, but fired off an email to Special Agent Reynolds straight away. Even if she didn’t have enough to initiate an investigation of her own, she definitely needed to know about Brian Packard. It was possible he’d wanted the lamp for his mantelpiece, but I didn’t think that was the way to bet.

These days Big Brother, or more precisely, your Bratty Techno Uncle, doesn’t need an army of paid informers to keep tabs on you. Everybody seems dead keen to take personal responsibility for their own surveillance. So the problem with trying to keep a low profile is that sooner or later you’ll have an involuntary encounter with someone who’s dying to share your details with the world.

Not that Jacqueline Spencer-Talbot, aka Jackie, was trying to hide exactly, but she hadn’t been making an effort to blow her own trumpet either. What she had been doing was running a very successful homeless charity in Southwark. She was accredited with helping loads of people break various cycles of addiction, debt, mental illness and deprivation and get off the streets. And some of her clients were so grateful that they recorded their selfies with her on social media and dutifully tagged her by name.

So finding her was only a matter of time. The real question was what we should do once we found her. She was the obvious next target. But there was always the risk that Lesley was using us to find the rings and that Francisca was using her to find her targets.

Or perhaps she had already tortured Ms Spencer-Talbot’s location out of Preston Carmichael. In which case, any delay could get her killed.

In the end we took the risk – policing is all about being on the spot, being visible and being in a position to do something about it. Even when you’re not sure what ‘it’ is. So once we’d persuaded Alastair McKay to stay in the Folly, me and Guleed headed for Southwark in the Asbo. Five minutes behind us were Nightingale and Danni in the Jag. Stephanopoulos headed out from Belgravia with a couple of Sprinters’ worth of TSG in tow, while Seawoll stayed decanted in the Portakabin in the coach yard to provide a god-like overview.

Guleed was driving, fast, with the Asbo’s light strips flashing but the siren off.

‘I don’t agree,’ she said, when I said Lesley wasn’t going to be stupid enough to try and acquire the ring while we were on scene. ‘You overestimate Lesley, Peter – you always have done. You underestimate the freedom of movement being police gives us.’

And she proceeded to prove her point by whooping her siren and running a red light at the junction of Charterhouse Street and Farringdon Street. I offered a few conciliatory words to the Goddess of the River Fleet as we surged under the Holborn Viaduct – not a prayer exactly, but it pays to be respectful.

‘So you planning to do some mock exam papers?’ asked Guleed.

‘Before I try any mocks I thought I’d get into General Police Duties and Roads Policing,’ I said.

Guleed expressed her doubts about whether I would have any time to study with two newborns and Beverley prepping for her finals. All the while weaving in and out of traffic on Blackfriars Bridge, where the strange blue bulging shape of the skyscraper known as the Pregnant Nun marked the way into Southwark.

When we shot down The Cut, Guleed asked what was on at the Young Vic Theatre, but we went past too fast to see. I got on the Airwave and reported that we were less than five minutes out.

Much less than five – more like two – minutes later and we were pulling up outside the Cherry Tree Shelter. Surprisingly, this was housed in a beautiful 1920s art deco purpose-built garage, single-storey but high-roofed, with Bauhaus-style Crittall windows and white stucco-covered walls. It sat sandwiched between a bus depot and the backs of low-rise 1960s council housing. I was surprised it had survived Southwark’s great leap forward into gentrification.

‘It’s Grade II listed,’ said the man who opened the door for us. We hadn’t even had a chance to introduce ourselves – he must have spotted us admiring its lines while we waited outside. ‘It’s driving the developers mad – that’s how come we get to use it.’ He looked me and Guleed up and down. ‘You’re not developers, are you?’

‘Even worse, we’re police,’ I said, and we identified ourselves.

‘What is it this time?’ he asked.

‘We need to speak to Jacqueline Spencer-Talbot,’ said Guleed. ‘It’s very important.’

While she did this, I checked to see whether the Spanish Inquisition had tagged the garage door. Nothing – it was as unmarked as the pedestrian door. I was beginning to hope we’d got ahead of Francisca on this – maybe even Lesley, too.

The man, who introduced himself as Greg, finally let us in. Inside, it was not what either of us were expecting from a homeless shelter. However hard the volunteers work they usually reek of despair – and other things. Instead, the whitewashed brick walls of the ex-garage reflected daylight back from a skylight that ran the length of the building. A pool table and café tables and chairs were set amongst shrubs and dwarf trees set in planters and big wooden pots. The high roof was supported by square brick pillars with whitewashed cement facing. Hanging baskets full of flowers hung from cast-iron brackets.

‘This is the indoor garden,’ said Greg, who explained that they were a referral-only emergency night shelter. They took referrals from any London borough and provided, in the first instance, a place to stay the night and then immediate help.

‘Help with what?’ asked Guleed.

‘With whatever they need,’ said Greg.

The garden smelt the way fresh potpourri always promises but doesn’t. Although underneath there was Dettol, sadness and a hum – like somebody being tunelessly happy. Throwing-out time was 8 a.m. and clients weren’t allowed back in until the late afternoon, which meant, thankfully, that the shelter was largely empty.

‘Who was it?’ called a voice from further inside.

‘The police,’ said Greg.

‘Tell Sting we’re booked up for the night,’ said the voice.

‘No, the real police,’ said Greg.

We emerged into a canteen area with rectangular tables laid out in a grid. Next to it, separated by a serving counter, was a large, well-equipped kitchen. The sort my mum cleans in hotels and office cafeterias. A couple of people were doing just that, and another woman was sitting at one of the tables with a laptop and piles of folders spread around her. She was white, middle-aged, with long brown hair that was streaked with grey and hung down her back in a French plait. She wore an indigo blouse with silver flowers embroidered at the collar and cuffs. When she looked up as we approached, I recognised the round face, the widely spaced eyes and the long straight nose as belonging to the woman in the 1989 photograph. She looked better without the Lady Di haircut. The smile was ironic but not unfriendly.

‘I suppose another reunion concert was too much to ask for,’ she said.

While Guleed made the introductions, again, I opened the door at the back of the canteen and found a short narrow corridor blocked by a fire door at the end.

‘Excuse me,’ said Jacqueline Spencer-Talbot. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Is there a back door?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Greg, the ever-helpful, and he named the street it came out on.

I called Danni on my Airwave and told her where the door was. She and Nightingale would cover the back way in. When I joined Guleed at the table with Spencer-Talbot, I made sure to angle my chair so I could keep an eye on both the kitchen and the way we’d come in.

There were two people cleaning the kitchen – two white women who looked to be in their forties. Both were dressed in stretchy mum jeans, T-shirts and aprons – one pink and one blue. Both of them were making heavy weather of the surfaces, so I guessed they weren’t professionals. One, with brown hair and big specs, was having a go at the grill and the burners, while the other was buried head first in the cupboards under the sink. I tried to keep them and the indoor garden in view.

This bit of sensible paranoia was not lost on Spencer-Talbot.

‘Are you expecting someone?’ she asked.

‘Ms Spencer-Talbot,’ said Guleed. ‘Are you aware of the deaths of David Moore and Preston Carmichael?’

‘Preston’s dead?’

Spencer-Talbot seemed genuinely shocked. The media coverage of David Moore’s death had been muted due to the lack of sensationalism surrounding the case. Dr Walid’s theory was that the news media and their consumers unconsciously shied away from events that didn’t fall within the narrow band of their expectations. Shot by a jealous lover or stabbed by a hoody were narratives they could run with. Killed in an unspecified manner with no witnesses, no CCTV and no obvious motive probably piqued their curiosity, but would it get clicks or sell papers? More importantly, would it fit the news agenda their organisation worked to?

These days, journalists are mostly freelance and only crusade when they’re on the clock.

Preston Carmichael’s murder had been louder and splashier. That he’d been tortured (evil gangsters!), the body hadn’t been discovered for a week (societal breakdown!), and the fact he’d been semi-famous on YouTube (famous influencer!) meant his death got wide coverage. Even if most of it was bollocks.

But the news seemed to have passed Spencer-Talbot by. Too busy dealing with the immediate needs of her clients or wrapped up in her own little world?

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Guleed.

My Airwave squawked and I put the earpiece in and clicked back.

‘Uniform 523 and 525 are at the back,’ said Seawoll. ‘We’re setting up the perimeter now.’

The TSG had arrived and were in position.

Spencer-Talbot looked at Greg, who’d sat down on the chair next to hers. He took her hand and, comforted, she looked back at Guleed, who asked her when was the last time she’d had contact with Preston Carmichael.

‘Not since Manchester,’ she said. ‘Did you say David was dead?’

‘Also in suspicious circumstances,’ said Guleed – keeping it as neutral as she could. ‘We believe the cases are linked.’

I heard Danni’s voice in my earpiece.

‘There’s no Inquisition insignia on the back door either,’ she said.

‘Pull back and stand by,’ said Seawoll.

‘He phoned me,’ said Spencer-Talbot.

‘Who did?’

‘David Moore – only last Tuesday.’

According to Postmartin, the standard operating procedure of the Spanish Inquisition was to tool up to a town and promulgate an Edict of Grace which gave everyone a month to make a declaration of faith and grass up their neighbours. After that the inquisitors moved in and, acting as judge and jury, decided whether someone was an evil secret Jew, a heretic, or a Muslim. If they were found guilty most were taken away and burnt.

Postmartin believed that the Edict of Grace had been promulgated at David Moore’s flat – written on the wall above his bed. David Moore had painted over it just as he’d covered the sigil scratched into his front door.

‘I suspect he panicked and tried to deny it ever happened,’ Postmartin had said when I asked why the cover-up. ‘The forensics boys could only recover part of the writing but it was definitely in Early Modern Castilian.’

Or at least the colleague at Queen’s College he’d sent it to thought it was, and what they could read was consistent with existing historical examples.

‘When exactly did he make the call?’ asked Guleed.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Spencer-Talbot. ‘We hadn’t opened up, so I suppose about around two.’

The same day as he’d visited his ex-wife and asked for his ring back. We should have picked up a call like that during the initial investigation. David Moore must have used a phone he wasn’t associated with.

‘And what was the call about?’ asked Guleed.

Frustratingly, the sequence of events still refused to make any sense to me. Francisca tortures and kills Preston Carmichael on the first of the month. She then visits David Moore’s flat on the third, then again on the fourth, and the next day David is calling a Ms Spencer-Talbot and then desperately turning up at his ex’s – asking for his ring back. It’s not until the next morning, when he turns up at the Silver Vaults with his pathetic imitation gun, that Francisca appears out of nowhere and explodes his chest.

‘He wasn’t making a great deal of sense when he called,’ said Spencer-Talbot. ‘He seemed to feel that God wouldn’t forgive him. Which is absurd, of course – God forgives everyone. Eventually, at any rate.’

‘Did he say what he’d done that was so unforgivable?’ asked Guleed.

David Moore had thought his ring would protect him, if only he could get it back, but Jocasta Hamilton had a ring and Francisca had still turned up at her office. If I hadn’t run her off, would Jocasta now be missing her heart? On the other hand, Alastair McKay had sat alone for weeks in his house in Moor Park’s not quite gated community, completely undefended, and nothing had happened.

Although I did get the impression that his marriage was disintegrating.

‘He said that he’d been living a lie,’ said Spencer-Talbot. ‘That, secretly, all he’d ever wanted was things for himself.’

David Moore had been a social entrepreneur, a man who’d spent his career being noisily philanthropic. After his death we’d taken his life apart piece by piece and if he was hoarding ‘things’, they’d been kept really well hidden.

‘He said that God had sent an angel to punish him,’ said Spencer-Talbot.

‘What did you say?’ asked Guleed.

‘I told him to pull himself together.’ Spencer-Talbot made a wide gesture, taking in her immaculate homeless shelter and the less immaculate deprivation beyond. ‘There’s people with real problems that need help – not spoilt fat children.’

‘Fat children?’

‘He was a greedy boy when we were at uni,’ said Spencer-Talbot. ‘Always stuffing his face.’

‘But someone did kill him,’ said Guleed. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

‘Desperate people do desperate things,’ said Spencer-Talbot. ‘Perhaps if we all did more to make things less desperate, then perhaps there would be less violence.’

It was clear that, unlike herself, she felt we, the police, were personally lacking in the ‘making life less desperate for people’ stakes.

‘We believe you may be the next target,’ said Guleed.

A disturbing thought was growing in my mind. What if Francisca was homing in on the rings? Perhaps Alastair McKay hadn’t been in any danger despite the sigil scratched into his door because Francisca needed, or maybe wanted, both a positive identification and the presence of a ring before she could act.

That would explain why she’d had to torture Preston Carmichael – to get the ringbearers’ names. Postmartin had briefed us that the Pope had authorised the jolly Dominican friars who formed the bulk of the Inquisition to use torture for information only – not punishment. I’m sure that had been a comfort to the poor sods who were set on fire in the public piazza.

Heather had said that Francisca had been granted a holy vision, complete with a named biblical angel – one with their own Wikipedia page, at that. I didn’t know where Camael, angel of strength, courage and war, had come from, but I was almost certain that the vision was linked to the ritual spell that the Manchester group had unwittingly taken part in.

The flaw in my presence-of-a-ring theory was that David Moore had never got hold of his lost ring. Francisca had speared him in the Silver Vaults while he was still searching for it.

One of the women cleaning the kitchen had obviously finished for the day and was taking off her apron. The other cleaner had moved on to the pots and was making equally heavy weather of scrubbing them. My mum would have been through that kitchen in less than half an hour, but people are just too cheap to bring in professionals.

The departing woman paused to give me and Guleed suspicious looks before exchanging farewells with Spencer-Talbot and heading out through the indoor garden. She was going to get a shock when she ran into the security perimeter, but that wasn’t my problem.

The interruption in the flow of the interview did give me a chance to check whether Spencer-Talbot still had her ring.

‘What ring is that?’ asked Spencer-Talbot.

‘The one Preston Carmichael gave you in 1989,’ I said. ‘In Manchester.’

‘Why on earth do you want to know about the ring?’ she asked.

‘We think there may be a link between the rings and Preston Carmichael’s and David Moore’s deaths,’ said Guleed.

For the first time doubt crossed Spencer-Talbot’s face.

‘Do you still have it?’ I asked again.

‘I don’t see what business it is of yours,’ she said.

But then she relented and, pulling on a leather thong that hung around her neck, she lifted the ring into view. I stood up and leant over the table as she held it towards me for a closer look. It had the same silver gleam and markings as the other rings.

‘May I?’ I asked.

But I didn’t wait for permission before reaching out and touching the ring. In the instance before Spencer-Talbot snatched it away, I got a flash of a distant voice raised in prayer, lemon-scented dust and blood cast like a crimson net.

What if there really had been a ring at the Silver Vaults? What if Lesley had been tracking David Moore in the hope that he’d find it for her? Would Lesley risk carrying the rings around with her? Why not? She didn’t know there was a risk, and they weren’t the sort of thing you’d want to leave lying around.

‘Why do you keep it?’ asked Guleed.

‘Keep what?’ asked Spencer-Talbot – her ring had already vanished back down her blouse.

‘That,’ said Guleed. ‘It’s an object of pagan belief – wouldn’t a crucifix be more appropriate?’

I looked over at the kitchen area and saw that the remaining cleaner was no longer visible. A nasty suspicion formed in my mind and I stood up.

‘That comment is somewhat inappropriate,’ said Spencer-Talbot. ‘How I choose to sanctify my God is my business, not the police’s.’

I reached the counter in three steps. I already had a spell ready, which was just as well as before I could look over the edge Lesley popped up. I had just enough time to note that she’d padded her clothes to make herself look plumper before she tried to smack me in the face with a frying pan.

I flinched back and felt a breeze as the frying pan fanned my face. I’d prepped an impello-palma, which I slammed down on Lesley’s foot. People always forget how vulnerable their feet are. Lesley gave a gratifying yelp.

She tried to flick a blinder in my face, but I felt the formae building and ducked away when it went off. Behind me I heard Spencer-Talbot screaming and Guleed calling it in on her Airwave. I tried to go over the counter, but Lesley had followed up the blinder with another swing with the frying pan, which hit me on the shoulder with a comical boing sound.

It was a dull blow and, because I maintain it’s always a good idea to disarm a suspect, I wrapped my left arm around her right, rabbit-punched her once in the face and grabbed her collar.

Lesley threw herself backwards and the loose sweatshirt slipped easily over her head. I might have managed a second grab, or at least to tangle her in the sleeves, but she hit me in the chest with her own impello-palma which knocked me flying backwards.

I hit a table, which broke and spilled me sideways amongst the chair legs while I thought that a bit of assistance from Guleed might be quite nice about now. I scrambled up and looked to see that Guleed had jumped up and was staring at something behind me.

I thought it was probably Lesley, but when I turned I found myself face to face with Francisca.