"Just when you think things can't get any worse..." Suzie scowled unhappily. "I can see a rock and a hard place moving into position around us. If you like, I could just shoot us all now. It might be less painful."

"Relax, Suzie," I said. "I'm on the case. Alex..."

"Don't make me do this, John," he said quietly. "Please. You don't know what it's like, what it does to me. When I call him up, he manifests through me. He takes my place in the world. I have to cease to exist, so he can be real. It feels like dying."

"I'm sorry, Alex," I said. "Really. But we don't have the time for me to be kind."

I pushed my gift into his head, found the connection that still existed between Alex and his most ancient ancestor, and pushed it hard.

"Merlin Satanspawn; come forth!"

Alex cried out, in pain and shock and horror, and ran out of the pentacle before any of us could stop him. He got as far as the bar before the change hit him. The whole world seemed to shudder, as reality shifted and changed... and where Alex had been, suddenly someone new, or rather very old, came into the world. He sat in state upon a great iron throne, the heavy black metal carved and scored with crawling, unquiet runes. He was naked, his corpse-pale body decorated from throat to toes with curving Celtic and Druidic tattoos. Many were unpleasant and actually disturbing to look upon. Between the ancient designs,

his skin was blotchy and discoloured and visibly decayed in places. He'd been dead a long time, and it showed. His hair was long and grey, falling past his shoulders in convoluted knots, and stiffened here and there with clay and woad. Upon his heavy brow he wore a crown of mistletoe. His face was heavy-boned and ugly, and two fires leapt and danced in the sockets where his eyes should have been. There was an ancient wound in the centre of his chest, where skin and muscle and bone had been torn apart, leaving a gaping hole. His heart was gone, torn out, long and long ago. He was Merlin, dead but not departed, powerful beyond hope or sanity. Merlin, sitting on his ancient throne and smiling horribly.

They say he has his father's eyes...

He only still existed through an awful act of will. Life and death and reality itself bowed down to his magics. Though there were those who said he was only still around because neither Heaven nor Hell would take him.

"Who disturbs me at this time?" Merlin's voice was deep and dark, and grated on the ear like fingernails dragged across the soul.

"I'm John Taylor," I said, politely. "I called you. Angels have come to the Nightside, from Above and Below, in search of the Unholy Grail. They threaten this place, and your current descendant."

"Damn," said Merlin. "If it isn't one thing, it's another."