I looked up and saw what he meant. Occupying every square inch of space—on the sea beach, the foreshore, the dunes and even standing in the sea—were hundreds upon hundreds of identical black-clad Mrs. Danvers, staring at me malevolently. We’d killed five of their number recently, so I guessed they wouldn’t be that pleased. Mind you, they were always pretty miserable, so it might have had nothing to do with it. I instinctively grasped the butt of my pistol, but it was pointless—like using a peashooter against a T-54 battle tank.

“Well,” I said, swallowing the last piece of the recipe and addressing the nearest Danverclone, “you’d better take me to your leader.”

The Bees, the Bees

The Danverclones had advanced a good deal since their accidental creation from the original Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. At first, they had simply been creepy, fifty-something house keepers with bad attitude, but now they had weapons training as well. A standard Danverclone was a fearless yet generally vapid drone who would willingly die to follow orders. But just recently an elite force of Danverclones had arisen, with not only weaponry but a sound working knowledge of the BookWorld. Even I would think twice before tackling this bunch. We called them the SWOT team.

T he Danverclones moved in silently. With bewildering speed and a tentacle-like movement of their bony limbs, four of them grasped my arms while another took my shoulder bag and a sixth removed my pistol. A seventh, who appeared to be the platoon commander, spoke briefly into a mobilefootnoterphone:

“Target Number One located and in custody.”

She then snapped the phone shut and used a brief series of hand signals to the other Mrs. Danvers, who began to jump out of the poem, beginning with the ones right at the back. I looked across at Colin, who was also being held tightly. A Danverclone had pulled his taxi license from his wallet and held it up in front of him before tearing it in two and tossing the halves in the air. He glanced at me and looked severely annoyed, but not with me—more with the Danverclones and the circumstances. I was just wondering where they would take me when there was a faint crackle in the air and my recently appointed least-favorite person was standing right in front of me. She was dressed in all her black leather finery, twin automatics on her hips and a long black greatcoat that fell to the ground. She leered at me as she appeared, and I thought about spitting in her eye but decided against it—she was too far away, and if I’d missed, I would just have looked even more enfeebled.

“Well, well,” said Thursday1–4, “the great Thursday Next finally brought to book.”

“Wow!” I replied. “Black is surely the color of choice today.”