Willy finally ran down and led me past his oblivious customers to the back room reserved for my use. He unlocked the door, ushered me in with a last dismal sniff, and then left me alone. I waited till I heard him lock the door again, and then sat down before the waiting computer. I didn’t need to check whether Willy or anyone else had tampered with it; if anyone but me even approached it, the whole thing would self-destruct in a quite impressively nasty manner. Willy didn’t know that, of course. He didn’t need to know. He also didn’t need to know that inside the standard computer shell was nothing more than a properly prepared crystal ball. Far more powerful than any computer and a damned sight harder to hack.

I said my real name out loud, and the monitor screen turned itself on, showing me an image of my usual contact, Penny Drood. A cool blonde in a tight white sweater, sweet and smart and sexy enough, in a distant sort of way. I like Penny. She doesn’t take any shit from me.

"You’re late," she said. "Agents in the field are required to report in exactly on the hour."

"Yes, I did manage to avoid being killed or severely injured, thank you for asking, Penny. May I inquire why the mission briefing didn’t inform me about the bloody big demon dog standing guard outside Dr. Dee’s?"

Penny sniffed. "Demon dogs come as standard these days, Eddie. As you’d know if you actually bothered to read all the updates I send you."

"If I read everything the family sends me, I’d never get anything done. And this was a really big bastard."

Penny smiled briefly. "The day you can’t handle a demon dog, Eddie, we’ll retire you. Now make your report, please. I do have other agents on my watch, you know."

"Ah, but they don’t worship your very existence like I do."

"Idolatry will get you nowhere. Make your report."

I launched straight into it, fluent and precise with the ease of long practice. Just the relevant details; the family doesn’t need to know everything, as long as the mission is completed successfully. I didn’t mention my brief, unfortunate meeting with the Karma Catechist. But when I got to the end of my report and sat back in my chair, the very first thing Penny said was "Tell me about the Karma Catechist." I sighed deeply, but I wasn’t really surprised. The family knows everything, remember? That’s just the way it is. So I told Penny what happened, being very careful to emphasise that none of it was in any way my fault, and at the end she just nodded and broke contact. The screen went dead, and I stood up, stretching slowly, feeling rather relieved. If I’d been in any trouble, she would have told me to wait while she kicked it upstairs.

So, report over, mission concluded. Time to repair to a civilised hostelry and get utterly rat-arsed.

I left the Internet café, nodding good-bye to Willy, who was busy sending anonymous hate e-mail to Bill Gates. I shut the door firmly behind me, and then looked casually up and down the side street to make sure no one was about. The afternoon was shading into evening now, the shadows growing darker and deeper. The side street ended in a grimy brick wall, covered with faded graffiti. I stood before the wall, said certain Words, and a door appeared in the brickwork before me. A door of solid silver, deeply etched with threats and warnings in angelic and demonic script, and with absolutely no trace of a handle. I placed my left hand on the silver, and the door swung open before me. Try that when your name isn’t on the approved list and the door will bite your hand right off; but one of the things I like most about the Wulfshead Club is how jealously it guards its privacy and that of its patrons.

The club isn’t actually in London; you can enter it from any city in the world, as long as you’re a member in good standing and know the current passWords. I’m not sure if anyone knows exactly where (or indeed when) the Wulfshead is really located. Which makes it the best of all possible places to go when you need to get away from the world and its demands.

I stepped through the door into dazzling light, pounding music, and the roar of people determined to have a good time, no matter what. The Wulfshead is very up to the moment, very high-tech. All neon strip lighting and furniture so modern half the time you can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. The walls are giant plasma screens showing dramatic views from around the world, constantly changing. Every now and again they flash up the bedroom secrets of famous and important people, covertly recorded by Peeping Toms with access to far too much technology for their own good. The music slammed and pounded, while girls in hardly any clothing at all stomped and strutted on the spotlit miniature stages, dancing their hearts out till the sweat flew from their flailing bodies, and the bass lines shuddered up through the floor.

The club was crowded, as always, full to the brim with the most interesting people you’ll find anywhere. The Wulfshead is where all the weird people go to relax and to enjoy a drink and a chat with their own kind. The club’s membership includes the supernatural, the superluminal, the super-scientific, and all the rest of the superhuman crew. It’s a cosmopolitan mixture, embracing good guys and bad guys and all the strange people in between. Deals are made, people and others get laid, the odd murder or transformation occurs, and a good time is had by all. Got a hell of an atmosphere.

The club is neutral ground, by long tradition, but the occasional brawl is only to be expected. It’s just high spirits. The bartender keeps order with a steamhammer, and the bouncers are golems, so they can’t be bribed or intimidated.

I made my way to the long bar at the back of the club: a gleaming high-tech structure that looked more like a piece of modern art than anything functional. The club prides itself on having anything you can name on tap; everything from absinthe to human blood to steaming nitric acid with an LSD chaser. In fact the choice is so wide that most of us believe the club keeps its stock in a pocket dimension attached to the bar by a hyperdimensional link. It’s still best to avoid the house wines, unless you’re already on your third stomach.

The bar snacks are appalling, but then bar snacks always are.

I nodded and smiled at old friends and familiar faces as I eased my way through the press of bodies. They know me only as Shaman Bond; just another face on the scene. None of them even suspected I might be a Drood, and I was determined to keep it that way. We protect the world, but no one ever said we were popular. I ordered a chilled bottle of Beck’s from the bar and looked around me. To my left, Charlatan Joe was holding forth to a select group, and I wandered over to listen. Joe was a city slicker and confidence trickster; a shark on legs in an Armani suit. Listening more or less patiently to his boasting and preening was another familiar face: Janissary Jane. She nodded briskly to me as I joined the group. Her army fatigues were stiff with black blood, and up close she smelled of smoke and brimstone.

"Just back from the battlefield?" I said, raising my voice to be heard above the din. "Where did you end up this time?"

Jane shrugged, gulping her whiskey straight from the bottle. She wore her black hair cropped short so no one could grab it during a fight, and if her scarred face had ever been pretty, that was a long time ago. She was a good drinking companion, as long as you kept her off the gin. Gin made her maudlin, and then she tended to shoot people.

"Some demon war, in another dimension," she said finally. "Some damned fool necromancer opened up a hellgate, and the call went out for all good mercenaries to rally to the flag. Pay was good, but I’d have gone anyway, for the fight. Hate bloody demons."

"Who doesn’t?" said the Indigo Spirit, splendid as always in his midnight blue leathers, cape, and mask, sipping his Manhattan cocktail with his little finger carefully extended. "Damned things are worse than cockroaches."