By now everyone else in the café had run for the doors, not wanting to tangle with a Drood in full armour, and I was happy enough to see them go. They would only have got in the way. The two Frankenstein creatures had closed in on Molly, reaching out for her with their large, mismatched hands. Molly laughed in their ugly faces, and hit them with a simple spell that made all their stitches come undone at once. The two monsters cried out in harsh, hopeless voices as ancient cat gut exploded like rows of firecrackers in their skin, undoing them like zippers. They fell apart, bit by bit, their separate pieces pattering to the floor, slowly at first and then in a rush. Hands fell from arms, arms from elbows and then from shoulders. Legs collapsed. Torsos hit the floor hard and opened up, spilling long-dead preserved organs onto the floor. The heads were the last to go, features slipping one by one from the faces, until finally the skulls cracked open and the dry, gray brains fell out.

By then I had my own problems. The elf lord was closing in on me, smiling his nasty, superior smile. He waved his long, shimmering dagger meaningfully before me, and I knew what it was, what it had to be. The blade was made of strange matter, presumably put together from bits left over after the forging of the silver arrows that so nearly killed me in the motorway ambush. Could a blade of strange matter cut through armour made of strange matter? I decided I didn’t want to find out. I concentrated, and the armour around my hands extended into long silver killing blades. Just like my Uncle James taught me, when he was trying to kill me.

The elf lord and I circled each other slowly, taking our time, looking for weaknesses in stance and style, for hesitations and openings. Finally we darted in and out, cutting at each other with gleaming blades, come and gone in a moment. The armour made me supernaturally strong and fast, but he was an elf, so we were fairly matched. And for all my family’s extensive training, he had centuries of experience, so he struck the first blow. His dagger came flying in out of nowhere, slipped gracefully past my defence, and slammed into my ribs. I cried out despite myself, but when the blade met my armour, the armour just absorbed the blade into itself. The elf lord was left standing there with only a knife hilt in his hand.

I ran him through. You get a chance with an elf, you take it. You might not get another. My hand slammed against his chest, my extended blade splitting his heart in two. He grabbed my arm with both hands, as though that might hold him up. I twisted the blade, and he fell down and died.