Red bought the first round. She was all right. Viv had a pint to herself, in a bowl—the landlord knew them.

"Better get some grub as well, we don't know what the setup is."

So they had pies and chips and beans, and Cardiff farted loudly, so drinkers in the next bar stared across.

"You could bloody power your bike on that," yelled Whisper.

Cardiff farted. "Yours, too, you old bastard."

Connor bought a round, and they downed them.

This was journey food. They had somewhere to get to.

Tina and Red went to the ladies' and came back smelling good. Red wore no makeup and needed none, with her clear pink skin and sapphire eyes. Connor would have liked a go at Red, but Red was not for him.

"Whisper treating you all right?"

"Oh, it's marvelous. Like chariot racing."

"Better," said Connor.

"Okay," said Red. "Better."

She kissed Viv on the nose and Viv licked her. Viv was soppy with the good ones, but she had taken a chunk out of a guy who had raised his hand against Connor. Viv was a doll.

They went out and the night was dark, the way night got to be, even in the sodium-lit cities.

Connor looked up. "Once there were stars."

"You want to tear this streetlamp rubbish across," said Red, "get at the darkness."

She was a good one all right.

They mounted up, and Viv sat in the bag and Connor put back her goggles and gave her a handful of crisps.

She liked riding.

They took off like rockets. The engine poured up its power. You grew into the machine. The body became a shaken jelly of rock and the soul slipped loose, half an inch out into the night. That was how you rode. You were the bike, and out of the body, and never so real as then.

They arrowed up the hills of London, through the lumbering cars and elephant buses, past the parks of winter grass, between the high walls flimsy as paper.

When they came up the final road, the big trees were looming above like a forest. And then there was the house. Connor had been told what he could expect.

A witch's mansion. Turrets and towers. Sunbursts of windows.

"Up there?" said Rose, coming level.

"That's the place."

They soared up the hill toward the house, and swerved to rest on the flatter ground before it.

The noise of the bikes died.

It was quiet.

They stood marshaled, and Connor reviewed them.

"Okay. Now watch yourselves. No messing about. This is Camillo's drum." Cardiff farted. "And none of that, either." Viv barked. "You're smashing," said Connor. He took off her goggles, and marched toward the door.

No bell. A knocker that was a green man head, leaves sprouting from its lips. Nice. "Hands off," he said to them, indicating the knocker. Then he knocked.