I moved over to the wall, said the right Words, and a massive silver door appeared in the wall, as though the door were shouldering the lesser reality of the wall aside. The solid silver was deeply etched with threats and warnings, in angelic and demonic scripts. There was no door handle. I placed my left hand flat against the disturbingly warm and sweaty silver, and after a moment the door recognised me and swung slowly open. I always find the wait just a tad worrying. Because if your name isn’t on the approved list, the door will bite your hand right off.

I looked at Molly. “Remember, my name here is Shaman Bond. Slip up and you could get us both killed.”

She smiled sweetly at me. “You know, it’s almost charming, this need you have to hold my hand and explain everything to me. But if you don’t cut it out sharpish, I will slap you halfway into next week.”

“After you,” I said, and followed her into the Wulfshead.

We walked into a savage blaze of light and a righteous blare of noise. Music was playing, people were drinking and dancing and making deals in corners, and the whole damned joint was rocking. Harsh lighting bathed the packed crowd in constantly changing primal colours, and the music never stopped. Molly and I made our way through the surging mass of bodies with a combination of smiles, charm, and a complete willingness to use our elbows in violent and unprovoked ways. We were heading for the high-tech bar at the far end of the club; a nightmarish art deco structure of steel and glass, complete with computerised access to more kinds of booze than most people even know exist. You want a strontium 90 mineral water with an iodine chaser? Or a wolfsbane cocktail with a silver umbrella in it? Or maybe angel’s urine with extra holy water? Then no wonder you’ve come to the Wulfshead.

Rumour has it the management keeps the bar stock in a different dimension, because they’re afraid of it.

The Wulfshead Club prides itself on always being totally up to the minute, if not a little beyond. The great plasma screens on the walls show constantly shifting glimpses of the bedroom secrets of the rich and famous, interspersed with tomorrow’s stock exchange figures, while go-go girls dance in golden cages suspended from the ceiling, wearing only wisps of feathers. For the more traditionally minded, lap dancers in black leather strips gyrate on raised stages and hump their steel poles into submission. Tonight, a group of Satan’s Harlots out on a hen’s night were line dancing up and down the long steel bar top.