And Erik, forgotten by both of them, stepped in behind the young man and stabbed him in the neck with his taser turned to full strength. Lightning flared, and the man stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth stretched in a wild, inhuman howl. Natasha almost cried out as the man’s face changed abruptly before her, the details blurring and slipping. He lurched forward another step, his hands reaching imploringly out to Natasha; but they weren’t hands any more. He didn’t look like a man any more. The slumping figure turned abruptly and lashed out at Erik, one overlong arm scything through the air with deadly speed. But Erik was no longer there.

He’d put away the taser and taken out his pointing bone. And as the figure changed still more, sloughing off its veneer of Humanity to become something so disturbing that human eyes could not bear to look at it, Erik shielded his eyes and stabbed the pointing bone in its direction. The figure cried out again, in pain and horror and thwarted rage, and disappeared.

Erik lowered his trembling hand and moved forward to make sure the thing was really gone. He waved both his hands through the air where it had been, and only then did he go over to join Natasha, who was leaning against the wall with her eyes shut, breathing hard. Erik stopped a safe distance away and waited. He knew better than to touch her, or even say something reassuring. He looked at the poster on the wall. The countryside was simply a painted scene again, but interestingly, there was no trace anywhere of the young man. No-one stood under the oak tree any more.

Erik glanced down at his cat-head computer. “Don’t suppose you’ve any idea as to what just happened?”

“It wasn’t a ghost, and it wasn’t real,” said the cold, inhuman voice. “It was a signal, broadcast by the bad thing that’s waiting for you. The taser interrupted the signal, and the pointing bone dispersed it. The bad thing knows you’re looking for it. It was testing you. Or perhaps it was playing. Who knows why the gods do anything?”

Erik looked at it sharply. “Gods?”

“Manner of speaking,” said the cat head, and it stopped talking.

Natasha pushed herself away from the wall and stood up straight, pulling at her leather outfit here and there to make sure she looked good. She took one last deep breath, let it out slowly, then glared at Erik, herself again.

“Next time, don’t take so long.”

“You’re welcome,” said Erik. And then he went for her, his clawed hands reaching for her throat.