The word axe reminded Harry of the weight in hishands, though he couldn't find his way through the barsof music to remember what it signified.

'Don't be afraid,' Butterfield said, 'you're an innocentin this. We hold no grudge against you.'

'Dorothea ...' he said.

'She was an innocent too,' said the lawyer, 'until weshowed her some sights.'

Harry looked at the woman's body; at the terriblechanges that they had wrought upon her. Seeing them,a tremor began in him, and something came betweenhim and the music; the imminence of tears blotted itout.

'Put down the axe,' Butterfield told him.

But the sound of the concert could not compete withthe grief that was mounting in him. Butterfield seemedto see the change in his eyes; the disgust and angergrowing there. He dropped his half-smoked cigaretteand signalled for the music-making to stop.

'Must it be death, then?' Butterfield said, but theenquiry was scarcely voiced before Harry started downthe last few stairs towards him. He raised the axe andswung it at the lawyer but the blow was misplaced. Theblade ploughed the plaster of the wall, missing its targetby a foot.

At this eruption of violence the musicians threw downtheir instruments and began across the lobby, trailingtheir coats and tails in blood and grease. Harry caughttheir advance from the corner of his eye. Behind thehorde, still rooted in the shadows, was another form,larger than the largest of the mustered demons, fromwhich there now came a thump that might have beenthat of a vast jack-hammer. He tried to make senseof sound or sight, but could do neither. There wasno time for curiosity; the demons were almost uponhim.

Butterfield glanced round to encourage their advance,and Harry - catching the moment - swung the axe asecond time. The blow caught Butterfield's shoulder;the arm was instantly severed. The lawyer shrieked;blood sprayed the wall. There was no time for a thirdblow, however. The demons were reaching for him,smiles lethal.

He turned on the stairs, and began up them, takingthe steps two, three and four at a time. Butterfieldwas still shrieking below; from the flight above heheard Valentin calling his name. He had neither timenor breath to answer.

They were on his heels, their ascent a din of grunts andshouts and beating wings. And behind it all, the jackhammer thumped its way to the bottom of the flight,its noise more intimidating by far than the chatteringsof the berserkers at his back. It was in his belly, thatthump; in his bowels. Like death's heartbeat, steady andirrevocable.

On the second landing he heard a whirring soundbehind him, and half turned to see a human-headedmoth the size of a vulture climbing the air towardshim. He met it with the axe blade, and hacked itdown. There was a cry of excitement from below asthe body flapped down the stairs, its wings workinglike paddles. Harry sped up the remaining flight towhere Valentin was standing, listening. It wasn't thechatter he was attending to, nor the cries of the lawyer;it was the jack-hammer.

'They brought the Raparee,' he said.

'I wounded Butterfield -'

'I heard. But that won't stop them.'

'We can still try the door.'

'I think we're too late, my friend.'

Wo!' said Harry, pushing past Valentin. The demonhad given up trying to drag Swann's body to the door,and had laid the magician out in the middle of thecorridor, his hands crossed on his chest. In some lastmysterious act of reverence he had set folded paper bowlsat Swann's head and feet, and laid a tiny origami flower athis lips. Harry lingered only long enough to re-acquainthimself with the sweetness of Swann's expression, andthen ran to the door and proceeded to hack at the chains.It would be a long job. The assault did more damage tothe axe than to the steel links. He didn't dare give up,however. This was their only escape route now, otherthan flinging themselves to their deaths from one of thewindows. That he would do, he decided, if the worstcame to the worst. Jump and die, rather than be theirplaything.

His arms soon became numb with the repeated blows.It was a lost cause; the chain was unimpaired. His despairwas further fuelled by a cry from Valentin - a high,weeping call that he could not leave unanswered. Heleft the fire door and returned past the body of Swannto the head of the stairs.

The demons had Valentin. They swarmed on himlike wasps on a sugar stick, tearing him apart. Forthe briefest of moments he struggled free of theirrage, and Harry saw the mask of humanity in ragsand the truth glistening bloodily beneath. He was asvile as those besetting him, but Harry went to his aidanyway, as much to wound the demons as to save theirprey.

The wielded axe did damage this way and that,sending Valentin's tormentors reeling back down thestairs, limbs lopped, faces opened. They did not allbleed. One sliced belly spilled eggs in thousands, onewounded head gave birth to tiny eels, which fled tothe ceiling and hung there by their lips. In the melЈehe lost sight of Valentin. Forgot about him, indeed,until he heard the jack-hammer again, and rememberedthe broken look on Valentin's face when he'd namedthe thing. He'd called it the Raparee, or somethinglike.

And now, as his memory shaped the word, it came intosight. It shared no trait with its fellows; it had neitherwings nor mane nor vanity. It seemed scarcely even tobe flesh, but forged, an engine that needed only maliceto keep its wheels turning.

At its appearance, the rest retreated, leaving Harry atthe top of the stairs in a litter of spawn. Its progress wasslow, its half dozen limbs moving in oiled and elaborateconfigurations to pierce the walls of the staircase and sohaul itself up. It brought to mind a man on crutches,throwing the sticks ahead of him and levering his weightafter, but there was nothing invalid in the thunder ofits body; no pain in the white eye that burned in hissickle-head.

Harry thought he had known despair, but he had not.Only now did he taste its ash in his throat. There wasonly the window left for him. That, and the welcomingground. He backed away from the top of the stairs,forsaking the axe.

Valentin was in the corridor. He was not dead, asHarry had presumed, but kneeling beside the corpseof Swann, his own body drooling from a hundredwounds. Now he bent close to the magician. Offeringhis apologies to his dead master, no doubt. But no.There was more to it than that. He had the cigarettelighter in his hand, and was lighting a taper. Then,murmuring some prayer to himself as he went, helowered the taper to the mouth of the magician. Theorigami flower caught and flared up. Its flame wasoddly bright, and spread with supernatural efficiencyacross Swann's face and down his body. Valentin hauledhimself to his feet, the firelight burnishing his scales. Hefound enough strength to incline his head to the body asits cremation began, and then his wounds overcame him.He fell backwards, and lay still. Harry watched as theflames mounted. Clearly the body had been sprinkledwith gasoline or something similar, for the fire raged upin moments, gold and green.

Suddenly, something took hold of his leg. He lookeddown to see that a demon, with flesh like riperaspberries, still had an appetite for him. Its tonguewas coiled around Harry's shin; its claws reached forhis groin. The assault made him forget the cremationor the Raparee. He bent to tear at the tongue with hisbare hands, but its slickness confounded his attempts.He staggered back as the demon climbed his body, itslimbs embracing him.

The struggle took them to the ground, and they rolledaway from the stairs, along the other arm of the corridor.The struggle was far from uneven; Harry's repugnancewas at least the match of the demon's ardour. His torsopressed to the ground, he suddenly remembered theRaparee. Its advance reverberated in every board andwall.