Director Brynner took the three of them to the Underground’s exit, through a nondescript wooden door that led immediately to his office on the top floor of the Caliber Institute.

He knew he shouldn’t, but he always felt a little trill of satisfaction when his more dramatic moments got the results he wanted. Helton was imperturbable as always, but he caught the one with the pink hair – Orsolya Carpenter, her name was – glancing out of window at the buildings below. He could practically see her reorienting where she thought she was.

The door to the station he’d conjured vanished as he sat in the comfortable leather chair behind his meticulously tidy desk. He’d already set out three chairs for his guests. They were considerably less comfortable. Truthfully, he could probably have just gotten two; Helton never sat down when prompted.

To business, then.

‘Please, sit yourselves down,’ he said, glancing over the reports Penelope had compiled for him. Two of three chairs were filled. Helton declined to be seated.

The Gnome, who’d just introduced himself as Merlin Williams, launched once more into talks of recompense for the distress he’d experienced at the hand of one of the Institute’s employees.

Brynner cut him off. ‘We can get right to the debriefing if you’re feeling impatient, Mr. Williams?’

The formality seemed to appease the Gnome. He leaned back in his seat, and contributed several quite astute observations to Helton’s account of everything they’d experienced. At the end, Helton strode over and placed the Powerbook containing the Epistemophage before him. Brynner slid it with a gleaming metal finger until its sides were parallel to the edges of his desk. It would distract him otherwise.

‘On the matter of recompense,’ he said, when he was quite sure they’d finished. ‘We’ll be anonymously sending a wereguild to the family of the guard. Unfortunately no such compensation can be sent to the librarian’s family.’ Seeing the sour expression on Miss Carpenter’s face, he added, ‘As a party in breach of the Inside Accords, she would no longer qualify for its protection or advantages. And such breaches must be held up as examples.’

‘What’s a wereguild?’ asked Carpenter.

‘Compensation a party within the Accords has to pay if they take the life of another Accorded individual,’ provided Helton.

‘She didn’t actually kill anyone though,’ said Merlin of Helton. ‘She might be a bumbling ignoramus, but she certainly didn’t kill that man. He dropped dead after…’

Both he and Miss Carpenter shuddered.

‘Regardless of liability, Mr. Williams, the Caliber Institute is the overseeing entity over much of the paranormal goings on in the UK; with your heritage from Outside I’m sure you already know this, what with your submitting paperwork to us along with your taxes and the like. If a perceived intrusion of the supernatural results in the appearance of an Auditor, it can only be as a result of our not doing a thorough enough job.’

Brynner would have smiled, had he still been in possession of a mouth.

‘Which brings me quite neatly to the topic of employment. Miss Carpenter, Mr. Williams? I’d like to make you an offer.’

‘Oh no,’ said Helton. She visibly sagged. Brynner thought she might even go so far as to actually sit down, but it apparently wasn’t quite that bad.

‘I have what I’ve learned from your debriefing. I have some compiled documentation of your abilities outside of what’s happened this night. And Penelope has kindly supplied footage of your work tonight before doctoring it sufficiently for Mortal consumption.’

‘Who is Penelope?’ asked Carpenter.

‘She’s a ghost,’ said Helton. ‘A proper one, too, not just an echo. She lives in the network here and is probably the only reason smartphones haven’t led to a mass extermination by Auditors.’

‘I need to cut in there,’ said Williams, growing quite agitated in his seat. ‘To be blunt, it seems like you’re about to offer us employment without explaining just what the–’ here he took a second to compose himself ‘–the thing we encountered even was. I would be… greatly appreciative if you could elucidate me on just what the fuck an Auditor is.’

Brynner waited a moment, just in case he wasn’t finished. He didn’t appreciate the Gnome’s tone. Though he could understand it, he supposed.

‘All of us here, Helton there included despite her being a good old-fashioned human, are members of the Inside Accords. They were signed toward the end of the Second World War, in the immediate aftermath of magic being introduced by the Trinity Nuclear Test. Having made homes for yourselves in England, you are members of an Accorded Nation: that is, the Earth.

‘Now, the most ironclad stipulation of the Accords is that of secrecy. The Mantle of the Auditor is the reason for this.’

He leaned forward, the leather of his chair creaking as he did so. ‘Magic is an intrusion on this Earth’s natural laws. A virus. The Auditors are the Earth’s immune system.’

‘So you’re saying if a human sees something spooky, they’ll go grey and become an Auditor?’ asked Carpenter.

‘Sometimes. And even then, only if it’s overtly unexplainable; something their natural mental filters don’t blot out. A person having horns is easily ignored, a summoned fireball is less so.’

‘How often?’

‘We don’t have an accurate calculation of the likelihood. I suspect humans with, how should I phrase it, open minds? They’re less likely to turn. But we have, as you can imagine, avoided testing the theory.’

‘Right,’ said Carpenter, nodding her head. The rest of her stayed still as a wild animal preparing to run. ‘And then they pull people’s spines out?’

Brynner sighed. He didn’t need to breathe, so his only reason for doing so was to intentionally convey his exasperation. ‘They eliminate the breach. And then they turn back and forget, or they die. Now. Can we get back to the subject at hand?’

‘Your offer of employment,’ said Williams. He and Carpenter shared a morbid glance.

It had been more than 70 years since Brynner had lungs. He suddenly found himself missing them terribly. A few deep, calming breaths would probably work wonders right now. He found himself eyeing Helton. The other two, he thought, really would be a good fit to work with her.

The ticking that always emanated from his chest had filled the room. They were waiting for a response. Brynner composed himself once more.

‘Yes. As I mentioned, I believe the two of you would be valuable assets for the Caliber Institute, and would like to offer you each a role working with Miss Helton here.’

Williams’ eyes narrowed. ‘Would she be our boss?’

‘No. You would be colleagues on the same field team.’

‘What kind of hours are we talking?’ asked Carpenter.

‘In terms of office hours, you would only be expected to be in for two days of the week to assist with filing, et cetera. But the deskwork is, if you’ll allow me to be candid, really more of a sinecure; the real duties of your role would be in the field. You would be on call for the rest of your time, but provided you can be reached, this time would be your own. And the pay is quite substantial.’

‘Wait, wait.’ Helton had been silent for some time. ‘Why these two? How do you know they’d be any use at all? Yes, they tried to help, but I’m more effective in the field if I don’t have to babysit.’

‘We have eyes out there, Helton. Mr. Williams’ blending of magic and technology is greatly useful in this modern age.’

The Gnome brightened. ‘I’m actually working on something to help us really move into the modern age; it’s like a social media network specifically for magical folk? It’s called BlinkedIn. I’m actually integrating something of the mental filters vanilla humans have to keep it under the radar. Somewhere safe for people like ourselves to connect.’

That… hadn’t come up in the background check Penelope had carried out. Brynner found himself impressed.

‘Meanwhile Miss Carpenter… well, it’s always useful in our line of work to blend in. I would have thought a Changeling’s affinity for this rather obvious.’

Carpenter’s face went as pink as her hair.

‘You’re a Changeling?’ said Williams.

Helton just made a little ‘Huh’ sound.

Carpenter kept her eyes fixed on Brynner’s desk. ‘Yes, I don’t like to tell people because it can give them the wrong impression. Like now. Mr. Director, thank you for the generous offer but I think I should decline. I don’t like being put in situations like this, and I really don’t like having to see people having their spines ripped out.’ She stood as if to leave.

‘I can assure you that tonight’s unpleasantness is far from standard. But if you’re really not interested, I’ll have to schedule a follow-up meeting with you to discuss the risk your online presence poses.’

Her eyes met his. Brynner never blinked unless he chose to. He delicately retrieved a report from his desk and continued. ‘We have a few avenues to consider there. There’s your, er, YouTube profiles, ‘@Sleepyybear’, ‘Saubra’s Clean Living, Clean Life’, and something just called ‘Abidalian’. All with associated profiles around the web. All connected to the same IP address, I’m told. And at least one occurrence of minor spells in your videos. Quite a risk.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘I’m keeping you informed. As I said earlier: we have to make examples of those that breach the accords.’ Brynner traced his finger back up the report. ‘Let’s see… Imrus and Sarolt Carpenter, up in the Lakes? Along with Adrienn, Panna, Zente, and Edvin. I’m sure they’d be distraught to know the danger you were putting them all in.’

Carpenter sat back down, but remained tense. She was weighing up her options. ‘How do you have those names?’

Perhaps the Sturm und Drang approach was doing more harm than good here. ‘It’s our job,’ Brynner pleaded. ‘The names are all on paperwork your parents filled out and submitted to us. Miss Carpenter, I need you to understand. I am not a threat to you or your family. You are. But if you were to join the Institute, that would grant you and yours a measure of protection. We can have Penelope cover your tracks, for starters.’

She just looked at him. Carpenter’s calculations had clearly come to a conclusion. He couldn’t continue cumulating compromises. If it came to confrontation, he’d be obligated to commit to his convictions.

‘Kay,’ said Carpenter, as Brynner tried to think of another word for obligated that began with a C. ‘As long as I don’t have to delete my channels.’

‘Oh,’ said Brynner. Unexpected. ‘What about you, Mr. Williams?’

‘Would I be granted access to your R&D department?’

‘Once your paperwork is cleared and you’re fully approved for fieldwork, yes?’

‘Excellent,’ said Williams. ‘I’m in.’

So that was that.

Brynner took in their comportment. Carpenter had taken on a brooding countenance; Williams’ eyes were glittering, his gaze somewhere in the future; and Helton’s mouth was twitching at the corner in that way it so often did when she was suppressing an urge for violence. ‘I’ll have someone along shortly to go through the paperwork with you. And there’s another meeting I must arrange beyond that.’

*

A huge, brown-furred, black-horned Minotaur led them down to a more moderate office and set them off on forms to fill in. He wore an expensive but off-the-shelf suit that struggled to encompass the charcuterie of muscle on him. As if to offset this, he also wore a bright, novelty necktie. It had a picture of Garfield on it.

‘It was a gift from my wife,’ he explained when he suspected someone was looking at it, which happened to be immediately. ‘Anyway, I’m Cepheus – spelled with a C, not a K – and I’m with the HR department. I’ll be getting you all signed up today, well, not you, Nora, but while we have you, you are overdue for confirming your details are still correct.’

By the time they finished all the paperwork, and answered a few interview questions that Cepheus assured them were just a formality, Brynner was waiting outside the office. It was now almost 5 in the morning.

‘I hope you’re getting time and a half for this, Cepheus,’ said Nora.

‘Double time, actually,’ Cepheus said with a wink. ‘It’s hazard pay for having to ask you to do paperwork.’

Brynner cleared his lack of throat. ‘If you’re quite finished, I’d prefer not to keep our chthonic clairvoyant waiting.’

Cepheus paled at this remark. ‘Of course, Director.’ He addressed Merlin and Ursa next. ‘Good luck.’

They were led to an old, industrial-style lift with a double roller door. Nora had only been in this lift once, when she’d first joined the Institute. She didn’t flinch when Brynner slammed the doors shut, noting to herself that he didn’t begin his explanation until the lift had already begun to move. He hadn’t changed since she was last down this way.

‘I’m taking the two of you to see our resident Fate. Her name is Morta. You’re not to speak it in her presence. In fact, it’s better if you only speak when spoken to. Stay within the light of the doorway. And do not attempt to get a better look at her. She will bestow upon you a prophecy.’

‘What kind of prophecy?’ asked Ursa.

The lift came to a lurching halt, and Brynner wrenched the doors open to reveal a dim stone hallway, lit only by a whisper of candlelight. Quite incongruous with the architecture upstairs.

‘She’ll tell you how you die.’

Ursa took this in. She failed to see how that was a good thing. ‘Why would we possibly want to know that?’

‘It’s part of the Institute’s insurance policy. As it stands, right now anything could kill you. You could trip and crack open your skull. You could have a sudden heart attack. Helton there could shoot you in the back of the head.’

Ursa’s nervous glance back at Nora failed to elicit a response.

‘But,’ continued Brynner, leading them further down the shadowy passage. ‘Let us say you’re prophesised to be slain by a man wearing one sandal. Suddenly, none of these other threats are possible. You are safe. Think of it as a kind of shield.’

A door loomed before them; a nondescript thing with no lock and no handle. It swung open of its own accord. The room beyond was pitch black, the candlelight from where they stood too cowardly to go any further.

Brynner perched on a sober little bench that seemed to function as a waiting area. He addressed Ursa, either ignorant of or unmoved by her trepidation. ‘You’re to go first, Miss Carpenter.’

Ursa swallowed, half expecting her throat to make a kind of creaking sound instead. She looked from the door, to Merlin, to Nora.

Nora just held her gaze, unblinking. She could understand Ursa’s predicament; Nora had felt the same way when she’d gotten her own prophecy. It wasn’t that she was incapable of empathy. She just preferred to keep things professional.

Then Ursa sucked in a fierce breath, squared her shoulders, and marched through the waiting door.

As instructed, she stayed within the light of the doorway. There was a flutter of wings close to her head, and she flinched to one side, almost planting her foot in shadow. Fortunately she had quite a bit of experience when it came to staying in-frame.

Her eyes had begun to adjust now. In the centre of the room was a figure with its back to her, facing a triptych of other, empty doorframes. The wings that had knocked her off-course for a moment belonged to a fat, prehistoric-looking magpie which settled down on the frame among a dozen others. They each followed her with unblinking eyes.

The figure didn’t turn. And were there others, facing her, within the doorways? No, Ursa thought. They’re mirrors.

The Fate’s reflections in the three mirrors were each dressed in a minutely different fashion, though the lack of light made details hazy and vague. Common to each was long hair, almost to the floor, and an eyepatch over the left eye, though the colour and ornamentation changed from one to the next.

Ursa waited.

Maybe half a second before Ursa opened her mouth to announce her presence, Morta, the Fate, spoke out.

‘Orsolya Carpenter. I have foreseen your death. Your life comes to an end almost as loud as the crack in the bell.’

Ursa closed her mouth. She retreated from the room.

Nora recognized the haunted look that Ursa wore when she emerged. ‘Don’t tell us what you got,’ she said, as Ursa came over. ‘It’s for you alone.’

But she could still remember when Morta had told her, ‘The end of you comes after a… suspicious malfunction.’ She’d been near-horrified, considering what she wore on her wrist. Nora felt her eyes soften, just a little.

‘You did well, though,’ she added. ‘I hope it wasn’t too bad.’

Merlin went through next. He realised he’d been near silent for a time, thinking through what the Institute’s resources could be put towards – magically speaking – instead of partaking in the sparkling conversation of his associates. But this was another opportunity entirely.

Think of it as a kind of shield, the clockwork Director had said.

A bird flew at him. He paced on, indifferent. A figure waited with its back to him in the middle of the darkness. Rude, really. Still, he at least could be polite.

‘Good morning! I’ve come to–’

‘Sam Williams.’

Merlin stopped, mid-greeting. That name wasn’t exactly a secret or anything, but still, it being said by a woman in a basement with only a mirror for company was more than enough to give him pause.

I have foreseen your death,’ continued the Fate. ‘Your life comes to an end bathed in viridian flames.’

‘Ah. Thank you,’ said Merlin, and made a mental note to look up some hex codes when he got the chance.

We begin our story with Nora racing through the streets of Middlemarch, hot on the trail of some supernatural beastie. It’s 01:00 in the morning. She’s tracked it. She’s found it. She’s currently pursuing it.

A few hours before, she’d been called into a meeting with Charlton Brynner, the Director of the Caliber Institute. He explained there was an Epistemophage on the loose – a spirit that eats knowledge – and it needed to be caught before it could get online. If the phage were to eat, say, the internet, then all of human knowledge could be lost. Thankfully they usually prefer to eat fiction.

It was also explained that they’d normally send a team of three, but based on her known disinclination for working well with others, she’d be tackling this alone. Nora was given an Apple Powerbook 100 to contain the phage and sent on her way.

In the present, a tap on her wrist heralds a message from her ‘patron’. It informs her there’s a café nearby that doesn’t have Wi-Fi or anything. Might work as a place to corner her quarry. Nora herds the phage onwards.

*

Inside this café, which is run by an old-school family of Orcs, sit Merlin and Ursa, discussing the setup of an online store. Ursa’s YouTube is growing successful enough to warrant this, and Merlin has already set up a personal site for her – it just needs commerce adding. The precise nature and, naturally, the price has remained an unsolved mystery for several hours.

It’s almost a welcome break when the door crashes open and a flowing spectre fills the room, pursued by a woman with a grim expression and an ancient laptop she’s brandishing like a trap.

The phage weighs up its options, and rapidly funnels itself into Merlin’s high-spec laptop.

Nora promptly stalks over and tries to wrestle the laptop from Merlin. His response is to cling to it like a man hanging from a ledge, wrenching it back from her and running several loops around the room. Ursa eventually convinces him to slow down a bit and listen to Nora’s explanation, but not before trying and failing to acquire more coffee in the commotion. This explanation amounts to ‘There’s a thing that eats information and it just escaped through your laptop. Give it to me or I’ll hurt you.’

Merlin, perhaps understandably, takes an immediate dislike to Nora. He won’t just give her the laptop, but he agrees that he’ll check it on her behalf. He quickly disassembles it, removing its network interface card, and puts it back together before powering it on to check what kind of damage the phage has done.

Turns out not much. Rather than eating through the contents of the laptop, the phage travelled through it to another location. Worried about the internet being gobbled up, Nora asks if Merlin can track where it went. He can. He’s very clever.

So Merlin throws together a little tracker-type-thing which reveals that the phage has moved to the Middlemarch Central Library.

‘Am I right in my understanding that we can only track this thing through your laptop?’ asks Nora. The corner of her mouth is twitching.

‘That’s correct,’ says Merlin. You can almost hear his fingers creaking as their grip on the laptop tightens.

Ursa’s thumb is hovering over her phone’s camera app, just in case things kick off again.

‘Fine,’ says Nora, after a tense moment’s consideration. ‘You’re coming with me to fix this. It’s your laptop that’s the problem so it’s only fair you help.’

‘Excuse me?’ says Merlin, his moustache almost uncurling. ‘I would say the problem is a direct result of your incompetence!’

Ursa decides not to film their argument. It isn’t the fun kind of fight.

*

So Nora and her pressganged allies made their way to the Underground. The central library was just a few stops from their location, and just a few minutes’ walk from there. Though it didn’t feel particularly brief, what with Nora and Merlin’s bickering about capability and culpability.

Ursa soon realised they were being followed.

A group of young men in hoodies were sloping after them, occasionally stopping to shove each other or spray a wall with a can of paint they were sharing. But they were keeping pace.

Upon reaching the station entrance, Ursa told the other two to go on ahead a second. She ducked around a corner, and changed. When the group that had been following them caught up, they were stopped by a stern, solidly built woman who introduced herself as a PCSO. She didn’t use the name Ursa.

‘Oi. Can I ask what it is you think you’re doing, following us through the streets like that?’

‘Bleh,’ said what was ostensibly the leader of the gang. ‘We simply vanted to drink the blood of the gnomish hipster! He is… our prey.’

‘Right. Enough of that. What’s your name?’ said not-Ursa, pointedly ignoring the Vampire’s flash of fangs.

‘I am… Trevula.’

‘Trev,’ said one of the others, closer to the back. ‘Trevor, you don’t have to do the voice.’

The apparent leader glanced behind to see his vampiric cohort looking a bit sheepish. When he turned back, he suddenly found he couldn’t meet Ursa’s eyes.

‘We’ll, uh, we’ll prolly ‘ead ‘ome, eh lads?’ he said. The rest of the vampires nodded with maybe a 60/40 mix of haste and relief.

When Ursa returned to her still-squabbling companions, she’d swapped back to a more familiar style.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Nora.

‘You’re not very perceptive, are you?’ smirked Merlin (he hadn’t spotted anything either).

*

The phage hadn’t moved by the time they reached the library. Ursa made a quick detour to check a suspicious person on the street, but it just turned out to be a demon waiting for a date.

Merlin sent forth a figment of his will, disabling the library’s alarm with a cantrip – the panel, stamped up with some security company’s contact info, was in full view of one of the windows.

‘Quite vulnerable to magical infiltration as a result,’ Merlin remarked. ‘Sloppy.’

Quietly, they made their way inside. Nothing was immediately apparent – no phage, and no powered computer it might have travelled to. It was decided that they should split up and each search a floor, because that always works out for the best in horror movies.

Merlin, sticking to the ground floor, found himself growing increasingly paranoid. There seemed to be a little wooden puppet that belonged in the kids’ section. And he could have sworn that it had been on a different chair when he’d first come in.

Ursa took the third floor. Rather than looking for the phage, she’d found a vending machine, and helped herself to a bag of crisps. It had been a long night. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary during her exhaustive search the third floor.

Then a voice rang out in her head. It sounded like Merlin, an edge of terror in his words. Presumably he was using a Message spell.

‘There is something here, Ursa. It’s stalking me! Oh my god!!’

In response, Ursa wiped the crisp residue from her fingers and took out her phone and swiped through her contacts.

‘Merlin,’ she said into it, sauntering back downstairs to lend him a hand. ‘Why are you using magic? We have each other’s phone numbers.’

‘I was trying to be subtle!’ came Merlin’s reply. He was definitely panicking. ‘I didn’t want to make a target of – oh no.’

Merlin dropped the call and stared at the puppet, standing unsupported at the end of the aisle he’d come down. He’d been cornered.

‘Hi there,’ said the doll. ‘I’m Nicholas Nickerbocker!’

Merlin didn’t scream, and nobody can prove otherwise. He launched a bolt of fire at the puppet from his outstretched hand, and skidded underneath the bookshelf to sprint towards the stairs. He didn’t look back.

*

Nora, on the other hand, was a consummate professional. Completely unaware of the shenanigans going on elsewhere in the library, she’d noticed a room on the second floor lit with the steady blue-grey glow of a laptop monitor.

Creeping toward the little window in the office door, she could see a figure typing away at a spreadsheet inside, and huffed out a quiet sigh. Either this person was their culprit, or they were a potential witness. Either way, it was a further complication.

Nora closed her eyes and summoned up the power she’d been granted by her ‘patron’; the power that had gotten her noticed by the Caliber Institute to begin with.

She sent a spike of psionic pain into the mind of the woman in the office.

Much to Nora’s chagrin, it wasn’t quite enough to incapacitate her. The figure in the office grasped at her head for a moment, then made a panic-fueled recovery, shutting the laptop and whirling to exit the office. This brought her face to face with Nora, who was not inclined to move.

By this time, Ursa and Merlin had reunited on the second floor. Before Merlin could explain his standoff with the little wooden boy, they’d heard the slam of the door, and found Nora interrogating a dryad with a slim Chromebook clutched to her chest and a pair of glasses on a chain around her neck.

‘Wh-who are you?’ she said. Her eyes darted between the three figures as Nora’s companions joined her. ‘Where’s Steve? Steve! Security will be here in a second, so, you’d just better not–’

‘Oh, we’re with the security company,’ said Ursa, without any hesitation. ‘We’re here to cover for Steve. He had to go home sick.’

‘Oh. Wait seriously? Why are there three of you covering for one person?’

Ursa’s response was just a smooth as before. ‘Well, it’s standard company procedure for covering other shifts. We obviously won’t have the same familiarity with the site, so this way we ensure that the security presence has the same level of diligence as your regular night guard. Could I ask what you’re doing here?’

‘Oh. I work here, don’t worry.’ The librarian held out an I.D card that listed her name as Nessarose. ‘I was just catching up on some work and I, um, lost track of time.’

That the Librarian was here with the only active computer, after they’d tracked the Epistemophage to this very location, was a bit suspicious, to say the least.

‘So, uh, what’s Chris off with?’ asked Nessarose.

‘Diarrhea,’ said Ursa, matter-of-factly.

There was a pause.

‘Steve!’ yelled Nessarose, calling out for the security guard that must still be on-site somewhere.

‘Oh, it was Steve,’ said Ursa. ‘Not Chris.’

‘Well, that nearly worked,’ said Nora, pulling her pistol from its concealed holster and levelling it at the librarian’s forehead. The click of the gun’s safety coming off was suddenly quite loud in the dark of the library.

Ursa’s jaw dropped. ‘Nora?! What the fuck? Why do you have a gun?!’

‘It’s a tool for problem solving,’ said Nora, before returning her gaze to the librarian. ‘You’re not going to be a problem, are you?’

Nessarose’s ashen face was transfixed on the barrel of the gun. She shook her head slightly, and the slight effort of movement broke whatever it was that had been keeping her still. She began to shake.

‘You can guess why we’re really here,’ said Nora, a thinning veneer of patience in her voice. ‘What have you got in that laptop of yours?’

‘It’s not dangerous!’ cried the librarian. ‘I just wanted to make a bit of money on the side, y’know?’ She noted their lack of comprehension. ‘Uh, I modified the phage to harvest info instead of erasing it. And I, um, sent it out to look for card info.’

‘Seriously?’ said Ursa. ‘You summoned up a monster and you’re using it for credit card fraud?’

Merlin shook his head incredulously. ‘There are many simpler methods for such a scheme. Though I can at least appreciate the novelty of this one?’

‘Quiet, you two.’ Nora’s pistol remained steady. ‘You. Librarian. You’re coming with me to the Institute. So is your laptop.’

Nessarose suddenly seemed to remember the laptop I her trembling hands, and just as immediately fumbled and dropped it on the floor.

The burst of eerie light that followed sent Ursa and Merlin diving for cover, and Nora fired a couple of gunshots at the emergent Epistemophage more as a formality than anything. The phage took stock of its assailants and once more decided to make a break for it – this time billowing past Nora and attempting to escape down the stairs.

Merlin had regained his composure and joined Nora in slinging arcane power at the phage’s retreating form, slowing it, throwing it off course. But it kept moving. As it reached the ground level it made a surge of speed towards the exit, then… slowed.

A lullaby rang out; pure, warm little notes plucked from a kalimba cupped in Ursa’s hands. And instead of escaping, the phage sank toward the floor and pooled there, succumbing to the effects of the Sleep spell.

‘Don’t you move,’ said Nora to the librarian. She didn’t bother with the gun this time.

Producing the Apple Powerbook 100, Nora approached the Epistemophage. She thought through logistics and found no satisfying solutions, so ended up just putting the open Powerbook directly in front of what might be the thing’s head.

‘Now what?’ asked Ursa. She was putting her kalimba away. It was pink; apparently hand-painted.

Perhaps in response, a voice called out to them. ‘I’m Nicholas Nickerbocker!’

‘Oh fuck!’ said Merlin, as a partially charred and melted doll tottered out from behind a bookshelf. Its feet clattered across the floor towards the group, its path leading it to a collision with the phage.

The phage awoke in a panic, as many do when waking from an unplanned nap. With another blaze of spectral light it shot forward, and straight into the waiting Powerbook.

Ursa beamed at her companions. ‘Right. That wasn’t too bad, was it?’

‘What. The fuck.’ said a masculine voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Was that a fucking ghost?’

A security guard stood at the top of the stairs. He was quite clearly terrified, in worse a state of shock than Nessarose had been.

Then his expression changed. It grew slack at first, before passing back through fear to a kind of blank determination. There was something of steel in his eyes, now. His clothing changed too, the colour seeping from it, leaving it the same shape and cut, but with a fuzziness like static on an analogue television.

The man had taken on the Mantle of the Auditor.

‘Shit,’ said Nora.

The thing that used to be a security guard flashed toward the librarian. There was a cracking sound, and in a sinuous movement of its arm, the Auditor had removed the dryad’s spine.

Now, contrary to what slasher films and certain videogames would have you believe, it isn’t really possible to just cleanly remove a humanoid creature’s spine like a belt from a pair of trousers. It’s a lot messier in real life, with the spine being quite integrated with a lot of other bones, and tendons, and ligaments.

So as the Auditor pulled, much of the librarian’s torso was torn apart by the force. When its hand came free, a twisted knot of muscle and bone came with it, like the roots of a bush pulled from the earth.

The Auditor held up the dripping tangle of gore for a moment as Nessarose collapsed in on herself. Then it took a step toward the three as they watched on in horror.

‘…I hate it when this happens,’ finished Nora.

But the colour had returned to presumably-Steve. The strain from the mantle had been too much for him, and besides, it had eliminated the source of the magic he had seen. He slumped down dead beside the dryad.

There were sirens in the distance. Presumably-Steve had presumably phoned what was presumably the police.

Nora, Merlin, and Ursa had already fled the scene.

*

Ursa wiped at her mouth. She’d promptly thrown up in a bin when they got back to the station, and had come to regret eating those crisps.

Merlin was castigating Nora about what they’d had to witness. ‘Is that normal for you?’ he was asking, waving his arms for emphasis. ‘Does that happen often?!’

‘It’s not supposed to,’ said Nora. She’d put away her gun and was quite pointedly staring at the tunnel the train would emerge from in lieu of anything else.

‘Don’t you think you owe us an apology?’

Nora said nothing. Until the train arrived, the only sound in the Underground was an occasional grumble from Ursa in the aftermath of chucking up her guts.

When the train did arrive, the billowing white cloud that presaged its arrival marked it as something out of the ordinary. The Middlemarch Underground tended not to employ the use of steam engines, partly because of problems using such machines in the confines of a tunnel, but mostly because it was the 21^st century and we’ve all moved on.

Regardless, Nora boarded the train without hesitation, and the other two followed her example. It reached its next stop in less than a minute, and when they disembarked, it was onto an unfamiliar platform.

They were greeted by a tall man with a brass face devoid of features, save for two blue lights that served as eyes. ‘Nora,’ he said, in a clipped tone that suggested private schooling, but many years ago. ‘Welcome back. I see you’ve made some friends?’

‘Are you this one’s employer?’ said Merlin, stepping forward. ‘If so I would like to file a formal complaint.’

The lights blinked at him. ‘…Yes, well. There’ll be the opportunity for that in a moment. If you’d all like to come with me?’