Since the transcontinental 'thousand-footer' airships were built these days at the Zeppelinwerks in Germany, the only airship within the cathedral-sized hangar was a relatively small sixty-seater, halfway through construction and looking like a very spartan basket, its aluminium ribs held together with a delicate filigree of interconnecting struts, each riveted carefully to the next. It looked overly complex for something in essence so simple. I glanced around the lofty interior but of Kaine there was no sign. I pulled out my automatic, chambered the first eraserhead and released the safety catch.

'Kaine?'

No answer.

I heard a noise and whipped my gun towards where a part-completed engine nacelle was resting on some trestles. I cursed myself for being so jumpy and suddenly realised that I wished Bradshaw were with me. Then, I felt it - or at least, I smelt it. The lazy stench of death borne on a light breeze. I turned as a dark, fetid shape loomed rapidly towards me. I had a brief vision of some unearthly terror before I pulled the trigger and the hollow thud of my first eraserhead hit home. The hell-beast evaporated in a flurry of the individual letters that made up its existence. They fell about me with the light tinkling sound of Christmas decorations shattering.

I heard the sound of a single slow handclap and noticed the silhouette of Kaine standing behind the part-finished control gondola. I didn't pause for a moment and let fly a second eraser-head. In an instant Kaine invoked a minor character - a small man, with glasses - right in the path of the projectile, and he, not Kaine, was erased.

Yorrick moved into the light. He hadn't aged a day since I had seen him last. His complexion was unblemished and he didn't have a hair out of place. Only the finest described characters are indistinguishable from real people - the rest, and Kaine was among them, had a vague plasticity that belied their fictional origins.

'Enjoying yourself?' I asked him sarcastically.

'Oh yes,' he replied, giving me a faint smile.

He was a 'B' character in an 'A' role and had been elevated far beyond his capabilities — a child in control of a nation. Whether by virtue of Goliath or the ovinator or simply his fictional roots I wasn't sure, but what I did know was that he was dangerous in the real world and dangerous in the BookWorld. Anyone who could invoke hell-beasts at will was not to be ignored.

I fired again and the same thing happened. The character was different - from a costume drama, I think - but the effect was the same. Kaine was using expendable bit-parts as shields. I glanced nervously around, sensing a trap.

'You forget,' said Kaine, as he stared at me with his unblinking eyes, 'that I have had many years to hone my powers, and as you can see, nobodies from the Farquitt canon are ten a penny.'