There is a pernicious and evil legend that comes down to us from ancient history: the legend of the Blood Libel. It's a regular, recurring slander that echoes down the ages, hurled against out-groups when an excuse for a pogrom or other form of mass slaughter is desired. The Blood Libel is a whisper that says that the strangers sacrifice babies and drink their blood. There are variant forms: the babies are stolen from good Christian households, the blood is baked into bread, the babies are their own incestuous get by way of the bodies of their own daughters. No embellishment is too vile or grotesque to find its way into the Blood Libel. The most frequent victims are Jews, but it's been used against many other groups—the Cathars, Zoroastrians, Kulaks, Communists, you name it. The Romans regularly used it against the early Christians, and doubtless they'd stolen it from somebody else. Its origins are lost in antiquity, but the sole purpose of the Blood Libel is to motivate those who believe it to say: "These people are not like us, and we need to kill them, now."

I always used to think that was all there was to it.

But now I know better; I've witnessed the wellspring of the bloody legend and seen its practitioners in action.

And I'm still in their hands.

16. Eater of souls

MEANWHILE, SOME DISTANCE ABOVE MY HEAD, HERE'S WHAT happens as Iris's rite runs to completion:

Benjamin paces around the Chapel of the Ancient and Honourable Order of Wheelwrights, nostrils flaring to take in the sweet summer night air, heavy with pollen and sweet with the scent of new-mown hay.

Benjamin is a mild-mannered debt management consultant from Epping, and he's doing very well, thank you. He works out for half an hour every morning in the gym downstairs from his comfortable office; then he goes to work, where he helps distressed businesses find ways and means of improving their cash retention practices. He spends his evenings arranging social activities under the aegis of his local church (who the neighbors consider to be slightly odd but generally friendly and helpful), and sometimes, at the weekend, he plays with the church paintball team.

Epping is one stop down the line from Barking, which is what the neighbors would think of him if they could see him now, wearing the black cloak of a member of a very different Order, and carrying a gun that fires something more substantial than paint pellets.