"Where the hell were you?" said Suzie, lowering her shotgun.

"It will take more than a three-storey drop to kill me," said Eddie, in his pale ghostly voice. "But there's a limit to how fast even I can take three flights of stairs. Still, you seemed to have coped quite well in my absence. Where's Walker?"

"He made himself scarce when the trouble started," I said. "No doubt he'll soon return, with backup."

"Someone's coming," said Eddie. "I can feel it. Someone's coming, but it isn't Walker."

And we all looked round sharply as we suddenly realised we weren't alone in the office any more. Standing by the desk was a grey man in a grey suit. Up close, even his face looked grey. The angels had found me.

"Get out of here, John," said Razor Eddie. "There are more coming. Lots of them." He moved forward to put himself between the angel and Suzie and me. "Move! I'll hold them off."

He raised his left hand, and in it was the Speaking Gun, poisoning the air with its presence. The angel began to glow, a light so bright it seemed to come from another place entirely. Suzie and I ran for the open door. We clattered down the stairs at full speed, a terrible pressure building on the air behind us. It felt like a storm was coming. It felt like thunder in the blood, and lightning in the soul. We hit the lobby together and kept running. And from far away and close at hand, we heard the awful sound of a single backwards spoken Word. Something screamed, so loudly I thought my head would burst. Suzie and I ran out into the street and kept going, and the whole damned warehouse exploded behind us. The shock wave almost blew us off our feet, but somehow we kept going, and didn't stop running until we were at the end of the street.

We finally stumbled to a halt and looked back, breathing harshly. The walls of Big Sergei's Warehouse collapsed slowly inwards, and disappeared in a great outrushing of black smoke. In a moment, there was nothing left of the building except a great pile of rubble.

"Think Eddie got out in time?" said Suzie.

"I think so," I said. "Razor Eddie's always been very hard to kill."

"Isn't that what they used to say about Belle?"

"We'd better get moving," I said. "More angels will be on the way."

'Terrific. Where can we go that will be safe from angels?"

"Strangefellows," I said, trying hard to sound confident. "I've got an idea."

"Oh, that's always dangerous." "Shut up and run."

Manifesting Merlin