It was a nightmare version of its daytime self, the streets narrowed and crooked and the buildings long and bent. Nothing fit. To Amber, it was as if each selfish piece of Desolation Hill had shouldered the others out of its way. The Municipal Building hunched jealously over the square, the stores on Main Street jabbed and strangled their neighbours, and the church reared away from it all, tall and spiked and vicious.

But, if the town was twisted, its inhabitants were merely showing their true selves.

She drove by demons carousing on the streets. They fought and screwed and danced and destroyed. They were bloodthirsty and insatiable and quick to anger. Three demons having sex in a store window suddenly started arguing, and the window smashed as they fell through, tearing at each other’s throats. Other demons laughed at them as they passed.

They were giddy, Amber saw. Giddy with malevolent delight, and high on the rush of adrenaline and endorphins that came with giving themselves over to their baser instincts. Not one of them was trying to fight it. And why would they? They’d been looking forward to this night for the last year. Twelve months’ worth of lust had built up. Twelve months’ worth of grievances could now explode into full-blown fury. Old debts were looking to be settled. No slight would go unanswered.

Amber thought for a moment of all those kids and all those teenagers down in their soundproofed panic rooms, their parents unable to get at them, unable to tear them apart or feast on their flesh. She imagined games being played or movies being watched. She imagined them sleeping, safe and warm in their peaceful, pleasant soundproofed cocoons, while outside hell had come, raging and vengeful, to stalk the jangled streets of their town.

Two demons were up ahead, beating the crap out of each other in the snow. She recognised the smaller one as the old man from Fast Danny’s, the fisherman who had the crusts cut off his sandwiches. He had horns now, and fangs, but he went down and the bigger one laughed, started kicking him. He lost his balance and stumbled out on to the street, and Amber clipped him as she passed. In the side mirror, she watched him twirl and fall, and then the demon fisherman got up and started kicking him, howling with laughter the whole time.

She left them in the distance and returned her attention to the road, and braked.

A Hound sat astride his bike in the middle of the junction ahead. Waiting for her.

Amber sat very still, feeling the pickup tremble beneath her, barely aware of the smile creeping across her face.