Reynard had gone feral, his burgundy button down shirt in strips and rags to reveal the thick russet hair covering his back and shoulders. His legs were wrapped around Lesley’s waist and he had his left arm around her neck while he pounded her head with his other hand. He was snarling, his lips pulled back to reveal his teeth, so that for a moment I thought he might actually be growing a muzzle and I was going to get my first look at a shape shifter.

Still, science had to wait, and I levelled my staff and the wood hummed under my palm as I flattened the pair of them. Lesley twisted going down, throwing Reynard off onto his back. Neither was going to stay down for long, so I had my follow-up ready. But before I could release it, Reynard rolled back on his shoulders and then kicked himself up onto his feet. Lesley was slower and she was still my primary target, so I knocked her down again.

She swore, rolled and I lost track of Reynard as I tried to close my distance with her.

Then I heard Nightingale shout – ‘Down!’ and threw myself flat on my face.

I only saw it coming because of the rain from the sprinklers. It was a like a lens, an optical distortion whirling through the air – a circular saw three metres across, droplets spraying off the top. Even as I was dropping I saw it slice horizontally through the front of the Humvee. And it was fast. I barely got my face to the concrete before it passed over me with a sound like tearing cloth. I looked up and saw Lesley had dropped as well.

‘Stay down!’ shouted Nightingale as something zigzagged over my head from behind me, with a noise like a hummingbird . . . if hummingbirds weighed twenty kilos and ate rats for dinner.

A second and third super-hummingbird passed me to the left and right. I managed to catch a glimpse of one – it looked like a drill head made of silver snowflakes. Whatever they did when they hit a target, it wasn’t going to be a joy forever. I decided to stay down and started wriggling towards Lesley, who was making a spirited crawl for the shelter of the Humvee.

‘Get to cover,’ yelled Nightingale, which just goes to show that great minds think alike. This obviously applied to Lesley as well, because she scrambled to her feet even as I did. But not to Guleed, who came barrelling out of the rain and smacked Lesley down into the gap between the cars.

I made it into my own gap between a BMW 5 series and a Jaguar XJ, whose resale value Lesley had recently lowered by ripping open the doors, just before a chunk of the ceiling collapsed onto the spot where I’d been lying.