It was Professor Stefan who spotted the two figures picking their way through the broken glass and ruined Christmas decorations.

“They’re a bit tall for elves, aren’t they?” he said. “Seems to defeat the purpose, having tall elves.”

“They’re not elves,” said Maria. “They’re demons! Unlock the car doors, please. I want to get out.”

Professor Hilbert did as he was told, even though it didn’t seem like a good idea to go after two large demonic elves. The small ones were bad enough.

Maria leaned over Reginald, opened the door, and clambered out.

“Nurd! Wormwood! It’s me!”

Nurd and Wormwood were just as pleased to see Maria as she was to see them. They hugged, and were soon joined by Professors Stefan and Hilbert, and Brian and Reginald, who kept a cautious distance from them.

“When you say ‘demons,’ that usually implies a degree of badness,” said Professor Hilbert to Maria.

Maria tried to explain.

“Look, not all demons are demonic,” she said.

“I did try for a while,” said Nurd. “I just wasn’t very good at it.”

“He was useless,” Wormwood added, unhelpfully.

“I wasn’t useless, I was just . . .”

Nurd tried to find the right word.

“Rotten?” Wormwood suggested. “Incompetent? Gormless?”

Nurd settled for “different.”

“Differently useless,” muttered Wormwood.

The scientists were examining Nurd and Wormwood with some curiosity. Professor Stefan poked Wormwood with a pen, which came back with something unpleasant stuck to its tip. As Professor Stefan watched, his pen began to dissolve.

“That does happen if you’re not careful,” said Nurd. “It’s best to avoid touching him without gloves, or even with them if you fancy wearing them a second time.”

“You’d better explain how you got here,” said Maria. “After all that’s happened, I don’t think it matters much if they know the truth about you now.”

So Nurd did. He covered his banishment in the wilderness, the way he’d been pulled from Hell to Earth, and how he had managed to foil the invasion of Biddlecombe by the forces of Hell using only a borrowed/stolen car. He then explained how Samuel had ended up in Hell, along with two policemen, some dwarfs, and an ice cream salesman,⁵⁰ and the manner in which they had all returned to Earth together.⁵¹

There was a chorus of questions from the scientists when he had finished. They wanted to know about other dimensions, and reverse wormholes, and what the weather was like in Hell. Nurd tried to answer, but each answer seemed to invite ten more questions. Eventually it was left to Maria to call a halt.

“We don’t have time for this now,” she said. “We need to find Samuel. If there are demons, and problems with reality, he has to be involved somehow. And, if I’m right, he’s probably trapped somewhere in there.”

They all took in the great mass of Wreckit & Sons. There was a field of energy surrounding the store, but it was different from the one separating Biddlecombe from the rest of the country. When Maria threw a stone at it, the stone simply bounced off, although it was hot to the touch afterward.