routines. Wears a bit thin when you’ve heard ’em a hundred times, but keeps him happy.’
‘You can’t beat the old stuff,’ Jerzy said proudly.
Caitlin pointed past him through the window. ‘Foxes!’
Ten russet forms darted across the street, investigating one shop, then another, and another, drawing closer all the time. The burly man and the other diners were drawn by the spectacle.
‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ Caitlin said.
‘And weird,’ Sophie added, frowning.
As the foxes crossed the street, they stepped into direct sunlight and disappeared. Sophie caught her breath. The animals reappeared in the shade on the other side of the road. ‘Yes, definitely weird. Let’s get out of here.’
The foxes’ purposeful movement turned from mesmerising to unsettling. They shimmered as they ran and often appeared mistily insubstantial. Mallory’s hand went instinctively to his side, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there.
‘Foxes,’ Caitlin said distantly. The wonder faded from her face, and her eyes narrowed. She palmed a knife from the table.
‘That won’t do much good against a …’ Mallory paused. ‘What do you call a group of foxes?’
‘Dead.’ Caitlin was still and cold.
‘You see what you get for banning hunting,’ the burly man said. ‘Bloody Labour.’
As the foxes neared the cafe, their eyes began to glow with emerald fire. They ran purposefully, their prey identified.
‘Oh dear,’ Jerzy said.
The foxes leaped as one towards the window, but instead of shattering the glass they passed through it, becoming smoke, fluidly changing shape again inside the cafe on the graceful downward arc of their leap. When they landed at the front of the cafe, they were foxes no more. Ten slim, strong, oriental men balanced athletically on their toes, poised to throw themselves forward. They wore loose-fitting brown silk, but their faces had a vulpine cast, their eyes still glowing green.
The one at the front scanned the cafe’s occupants. When his gaze fell on Mallory, Sophie, Caitlin and Jerzy, he smiled slyly.
‘Greeting,’ he said with a heavy Chinese accent, ‘from the Hu Hsien.’
To the surprise of the others, it was Jerzy who stepped forward. ‘You serve the Devourer of All Things. Like all the foulest things in Existence, you have crawled over to its side.’
The leader’s nostrils flared. ‘You dishonour us with your tone. We demand respect.’
‘Demand away,’ Mallory said.
‘Our master, the King of Foxes, received a request for aid. It was delivered with utmost respect to our Great Dominion, and so we have responded.’ He gave a small bow. ‘We know of your power and prestige in this world. We hold a great funeral once you are gone.’
‘You’re not going to stop us,’ Caitlin said.
‘Sadly, not true. You cannot be allowed to cross the boundary to the Far Lands. Your time has passed.’ His left hand snaked out from his side and touched the chest of the bemused burly man, continued through his shirt, his flesh, his bone. When the leader withdrew it, he clutched the still-beating heart. The burly man stared at it in dopey bemusement before emitting a small whimper and keeling over.
Jerzy gave an anguished cry. A sales rep with a garish yellow tie lurched desperately towards the exit. The features of the shapeshifter closest to him fluidly transformed into those of a fox, though the body remained human. Lunging with snapping jaws, it tore the face clean off the sales rep. A shake of its snout and the flesh was swallowed, blood spraying from its whiskers. The leader gave a smile that was mockingly contrite, and then the Hu Hsien advanced as one, those at the rear eliminating the now-screaming diners with efficient brutality.
Sophie was only shaken from her shock when a kitchen knife flashed past her ear and embedded itself in the shoulder of one of the Hu Hsien. His expression registered disbelief, and before that thought had left his mind, Caitlin, who had thrown the knife, was upon him with a second knife. She rammed the blade upwards through his jaw and into his brain.
Sophie was astonished at the transformation that had come over her new friend. Caitlin moved with balletic grace and strength, her face now a warrior’s, hard and focused. She had already slain another of the Hu Hsien before Jerzy’s cry alerted them from the rear of the cafe. He had found the back door through which the kitchen staff had bolted. Mallory propelled Sophie towards it, and then grabbed Caitlin’s arm as she prepared to confront the remaining snarling, now-wary Hu Hsien.
Out on the street, they ran for the cathedral as a wild barking rose up. The Hu Hsien gave pursuit, now fox, now human, now something of both.
‘I seriously need a sword, like Church’s,’ Mallory snarled.
As they threw themselves inside the newly opened cathedral, blue sparks crackled from their feet.
‘We’re not going to outrun them,’ Sophie gasped.
Jerzy stood in their path, arms outstretched. ‘Wait, friends. We are safe. The Blue Fire in the ground, here in your own Great Dominion, makes this a place of sanctuary. Those loathsome things will not be able to set foot in here.’
Sophie saw that Jerzy was right. The Hu Hsien hovered along the cathedral’s boundary in human form, their eyes glittering with malice.
‘Next time there will be a reckoning,’ the leader said. The group moved back, their bodies folding into fox- form, then shimmering into nothingness as they slipped into the morning sunlight.
‘What were they?’ Mallory leaned against the cool stone to catch his breath.
‘There are many secrets in the vast spread of Existence,’ Jerzy began hesitantly. ‘Each of the races populating this wondrous place only sees a small fragment of all there is. None have the great view of the complete tapestry.’
‘And you know more?’ Mallory said suspiciously. ‘What makes you so well informed?’
Jerzy’s breath caught in his throat. He chewed a knuckle, unsure whether he had already said too much.
‘Leave him, Mallory,’ Sophie said.
‘The Golden Ones — the Tuatha De Danann — believe they are the centre of Existence,’ Jerzy continued hastily. ‘They are not. There are many races of power, each overseeing their own Great Dominion, in this world and the Otherworld. And there were many greater powers before, and above, and beyond. The Hu Hsien serve the King of Foxes in the Great Dominion to the east. Most of these powers still slumber as they have done for an age, waiting to be awakened. Why the Hu Hsien are active, I do not know.’
‘They were determined to stop us crossing to the Far Lands,’ Caitlin noted, ‘which suggests to me that we’re doing the right thing.’
‘What happened to you back there?’ Sophie said. ‘You were scary.’
Caitlin looked haunted. ‘I just reacted. It was instinct.’ Massaging her temples, she struggled to recall fleeting memories. ‘Things I learned … that the person I used to be learned … Sorry, I’m not making any sense.’
‘If you can do that again, I’ll have you in the thick of it any time,’ Mallory said.
Caitlin smiled with honest gratitude at the praise. Curiously, Sophie noted a faint, uncomfortable expression cross Mallory’s face.
Jerzy urged them through the vast, ringing silence of the cathedral and behind the altar to a little chapel built in the memory of Thomas a Becket. Inside, the air was suffused with so much energy it felt like a storm was brewing.
‘Wow,’ Sophie said dreamily.
‘What now?’ Mallory ranged around the chapel, apparently oblivious to the euphoric atmosphere.
‘Can’t you see it?’ Caitlin dropped to her knees to indicate a near-invisible filigree of Blue Fire running in a spiral pattern on the stone floor.
‘Your true sight is returning,’ Jerzy said. ‘You are becoming who you were always meant to be.’
‘Here, I think.’ Caitlin traced the spiral to its nexus. She looked round at the others, hesitantly raised her hand, then plunged it into the focal point. There was a flash of the pure blue of a summer sky, and then the room
