“It’s a good thing I’m already dead,” said Dead Boy, “or I think I’d be very worried about this.”

“Travel through Time takes a hell of a lot of power,” said Julien, frowning heavily. “There’s not many who can do it. Or would do it for you, John. I suppose I could talk to Old Father Time, on your behalf. Put in a good word for you.”

“Oh, I think he’s got a very good word for me,” I said. “He’s already arranged one trip through Time for me, and after the way that turned out, I don’t think he’ll be doing that again, anytime soon.” Julien looked at me sharply, scenting a story, and I shook my head. “Trust me on this, Julien, you really don’t want to know.”

“All right,” said Dead Boy, “if Old Father Time is out of the picture, who does that leave?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “The Collector is supposed to have a whole bunch of really weird Time travel mechanisms; but he’s still mad at me. For a whole bunch of reasons.”

Dead Boy sniffed loudly. “The Collector’s mad at everyone. And vice versa. I wouldn’t piss down his throat if his heart was on fire.”

“Then there’s the Chronovore,” I said loudly. “Who eats up all the little lost moments of your life, the ones that you can never account for. But he works strictly for cash these days. Serious cash. There’s always the Travelling Doctor, but you can never rely on him being around when you need him.”

“That’s everyone I know of,” said Julien. “Who else is left?”

“This is where it all starts getting a bit risky,” I said carefully. “I think I know someone On High who might owe me a favour. So… I plan to summon an angel down from Heaven.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen two such appalled faces in my life. Dead Boy’s eyes actually bulged in their sockets, and Julien Advent’s face went as pale as Dead Boy’s. They both tried to say something, but couldn’t get the words out for spluttering.

“It’s really not all that different from calling up a demon,” I said quickly, trying hard to sound confident. “The principle is the same, only in reverse. That’s why I needed both of you, for my plan to work. Dead Boy, to help me send my message beyond the planes of the living, and Julien, to help me contact the Courts of the Holy. You have a singular nature, Dead Boy, being both dead and alive at the same time, and I can use that ambiguity to punch my way through a lot of the usual barriers. Julien, you created a drug to split apart the best and worst elements in man. You embraced the best elements, of course, and became a hero, a pure soul. Or at least, as close to one as I’m going to find in the Nightside. Your purity of spirit will help my message get where it needs to go. Theoretically.”

“And that’s it?” said Dead Boy, when he finally got his voice back. “That’s your marvellous plan? You were right, I don’t like it. In fact, I think I would go so far as to say I hate it! Have you lost your mind, John? I can’t even count all the ways this could go horribly wrong. You and Julien could get killed, I could… well, I’m not entirely sure what could happen to me, but I am ready to bet good money that it would be really, really bad! I think I’m going to have one of my turns… Look, you can’t just go banging on Saint Peter’s Gates and demand he send down an angel to talk to you! We’re all going to end up as pillars of salt, I know it…”

“For once I find myself in complete agreement with Dead Boy,” said Julien, glaring at me sternly. “If we summon an angel, and please note the emphasis I am placing on the word if, what we’ll get will be the real thing. A messenger of God, complete in all its power and glory. Not the weakened, limited things that are normally all that can manifest in the Nightside. And you of all people should remember how much damage and loss of life those weakened presences brought about during the angel war last year. They’re still rebuilding parts of the city. If we call down the real thing, what’s to stop it wiping us all out on a whim?”

“First,” I said, “the angel will be contained within a protective circle, just like a demon. Second, your presence and Dead Boy’s will add to the protections considerably. That’s why I waited to connect with you two, before I tried anything. It is… possible, for things to go wrong, yes. Summonings are a bit like fishing—you can never be sure whether you’ll hook a sprat or a killer shark. The last time I tried this…”

“Hold everything,” said Julien. “You actually tried this before?”

“Once, when I was a lot younger,” I said defensively. “When I was really desperate for information about who and what my missing mother was. I thought, if anybody would know…”

“What happened?” said Dead Boy.

“Well,” I said, “you know that really big crater, where the Hotel Splendide used to be?”

“That was you?” said Julien. “It’s still radioactive!”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said, with great dignity.

“Give me back my bottle,” said Dead Boy. “There is no way in Hell I’m doing this sober.”

“I have yet to be convinced we should do it at all,” said Julien. “In fact, I’m still rather hoping this is all some terrible dream I’m going to wake up from soon.”

“God, you’re a pair of wimps! Everything’s going to be all right.” I leaned forward, doing my best to project certainty and trustworthiness. “I’m going after a specific angel this time, and I’m sure having you two along will make all the difference.”

“Don’t worry,” Dead Boy said to Julien. “It’s not that bad, being dead. It’s actually quite restful, sometimes.”

Julien helped me clear away the throw cushions and the rugs to reveal the bare floor-boards beneath, while Dead Boy went downstairs, and came back with a bucket full of the Beadle’s blood. He handed it over sulkily, muttering something about how he’d been saving that blood, to make blood pudding and stock later. I ignored him and had Julien prick his thumb and add a few drops of his own blood to the bucket, to purify it. (Working on the principle that some trace of the drug that brought out his best elements was still in his system.) I then used the blood to draw a really big restraining circle, surrounded by every protective symbol I knew. It took a long time and used up most of the bucket of blood.

“I don’t even recognise some of the languages you’re using,” said Julien.

“Think yourself lucky,” said Dead Boy, and I had to agree.

Finally, it was done. It looked pretty impressive, even if it did smell really rank. The three of us sat down together, inside a second smaller protective circle, holding hands; and that was it. No chanting, incense, dead chickens, or waving your hands around. In the end, most magic is really primarily a matter of will and intent. The signs I’d so carefully daubed were the spell’s address, along with a few extra things to get the recipient’s attention, and a few safeguards so the recipient couldn’t simply wipe us all out for interrupting them at a particularly inconvenient moment. You’d be surprised how many demons screen their calls these days. Everything else was down to me, Julien Advent, and Dead Boy, and our combined will and determination.

“Something’s happening,” said Dead Boy, after a while. “I can feel energies forming all around us. I can See… I can See avenues opening up, levels of reality unfolding like the petals of a flower, more levels, more and more… I can See further than I ever could before… and I don’t like it. It scares me. It’s too big…”

“Look away,” I said sharply. “Shut down your Sight and reinforce your mental barriers. Concentrate on the summoning.”

“I can feel something,” said Julien.

“Don’t,” I said.

Dead Boy and Julien both had their eyes squeezed shut now, beads of sweat standing out on their strained faces. I kept my eyes open. One of us had to, and I was more used to Seeing the unseen realms. I still kept my mental barriers firmly in place. There were things none of us could afford to see, if we wished to remain in the mortal world. The glory of the shimmering plains is not for mortals. By now we could all feel Something approaching, from a direction we all instinctively recognised but couldn’t identify. It felt like above, in all senses of the word. Something was coming into our world, Something impossibly large and powerful, downloading itself into a mortal frame that wouldn’t blow all the fuses in our merely human minds.