I raised my bottle to him briefly. "Good to see you again, Indigo. How goes the war on crime? Killed any interesting supervillains recently?"

"Just the usual scum, dear boy. Nothing wrong with them that two bullets in the head won’t cure. I have to say the current breed of diabolical masterminds and deadly fiends is really very disappointing…No style, do you see; no sense of occasion. Sometimes it’s hardly worth dressing up in the outfit. I mean, is it really too much trouble for a villain to at least wear a domino mask in his secret lair?"

Charlatan Joe had given up on his story now, since no one was listening, and sipped sulkily at his port and lemon. Beside him, the Blue Fairy was pissed as a fart, bemoaning the approaches of middle age and complaining that his wand didn’t work as well as it used to.

"So," I said, loud enough to drown out the Blue Fairy, "what’s the latest gossip, people?"

There’s always someone trying to take over the world, or blow it up, or make it A Better Place; all equally dangerous and disturbed.

"Dr. Delirium is up to something nasty again," said the Indigo Spirit.

"Swanning around in the depths of the Amazon jungle. Thinks he’s so big, just because he has his own private army. The only reason he’s got an army is because his uncle left it to him."

"Right," said Janissary Jane, gesturing a little too wildly with her whiskey bottle. "Never trust private soldiers. Nice uniforms, but no real guts. No fire in their bellies. If they can’t outnumber you ten to one, they don’t want to know. Delirium tried to get me to sign up a few years back, but of course I said no. The pay offer was really lousy."

"Delirium," said Charlatan Joe. "Isn’t he the one who collects new plagues, and then threatens to turn them loose on the civilised world, unless he’s paid off?"

"That’s the one," I said. "Always wants to be paid off in rare postage stamps. I guess once a collector, always a collector."

"There’s a rumour going around that one of the Old Ones is slowly waking from its long sleep under the Arctic Circle," said Charlatan Joe. "And that’s why the polar ice pack is melting so much faster than it should be."

Janissary Jane sniffed loudly. "Every time there’s a blip in the weather, someone thinks the Old Ones are coming back. Not gonna happen. They’ve been asleep so long now you couldn’t wake one up if you stuffed a nuke up its backside and detonated it."

"I did hear that the troll problem’s getting worse in the Underground train tunnels," said the Indigo Spirit. "Nasty things; all teeth and appetite and no manners. Word is, they could be getting close to swarming again."

Janissary Jane brightened. "Always good money to be made during a cull. I’ll contact my agent, see if anyone’s hiring. The city better not have tendered it out to Group Forty-two again; those bastards always want to see the heads as proof of kill. Last time I came up out of the Underground like Santa Claus with a sack full of goodies."

"Got some new videos in, if any of you are interested," said Charlatan Joe. "I know this guy who knows this guy who claims his television set is receiving transmissions from the future. He’s selling best-of compilations on VHS and DVD, and I can get my hands on some for a really reasonable price…"

"I wouldn’t," I said. "I’ve seen that tape. Just a bunch of guys in weird clothes, showing their bums to the camera and giggling a lot. Technology is just wasted on some people."

So we drank and talked and drank some more, and the evening passed pleasantly enough. Charlatan Joe put it all on his tab, since he was still flush from his latest sting. Janissary Jane tried to chat up some guy in chain mail, and then shot him in the arse when he turned his back on her. The Indigo Spirit offered to show me his secret cave, but I politely declined. The Blue Fairy passed out cold and lay snoring on the floor at our feet. "Don’t step on him," Charlatan Joe said wisely, "Or it’ll rain for forty days and forty nights."

At some point, the conversation got around to the latest sightings of the infamous Drood family and their golden agents, and I shut up and paid attention. Never know when you might learn something useful. There are always sightings of my family at work, most of them apocryphal or wishful thinking. If a Drood agent’s done his job properly, no one but the victims should even know he was there. But we’re a bit like crop circles and cattle mutilations; we get blamed for all kind of things that are nothing at all to do with us. The current sightings included action in Moscow, Las Vegas, and Venice. That last one was particularly nasty; no one seemed to know precisely what happened, but the city was fishing bodies out of the canals for hours afterwards. I made a mental note to check up on that one, though it sounded rather sloppy for us.

My family gets a lot of credit (or blame) for things we haven’t actually done, but we never confirm or deny anything. It’s enough that the world is protected; they don’t need to know family business. Besides, it’s all good for the reputation.

The company is usually good at the Wulfshead, but there’s always one in every crowd. A large figure loomed suddenly over us, brandishing a pint of lager and insisting on joining our conversation. He had to be seven feet tall, with shoulders to match, in a battered oversized biker’s jacket and scuffed leather trousers. This, it turned out, was Boyd, Bodyguard to the Stars. A newcomer to the Wulfshead, young and strong and stupid enough to believe the club’s rules didn’t apply to him. He was obviously a Hyde, using a distillation of Dr. Jekyll’s old formula. Potent enough to keep him big and brutal while diluted enough that he was able to maintain control.

He just talked right over us, insisting on telling us all about his new job as bodyguard to a major Hollywood actress. Who, if Boyd was to be believed, couldn’t do a thing without him there to supervise it. He also dropped heavy hints that he’d sampled her famous body when he wasn’t guarding it.

"Really?" said the Indigo Spirit. "I always thought she was a Friend of Dorothy."

"Don’t know if I’d go that far," I said. "But if they were shorthanded, she’d probably help out."

Boyd glared at me. "That’s just tabloid trash. Gossip and spite. She’s all woman, and I should know. Right?"

He glared around at all of us, but I must not have looked convinced enough, because Boyd decided he needed to push me about a bit, just to show he wasn’t to be contradicted. He jabbed me hard in the chest with one large finger, and I looked at him thoughtfully as he raised his voice to me.

He was twice my size and more, most of it muscle. I could have taken him easily if I armoured up, but I couldn’t do that. Strict family rule: the armour is only ever to be used for family business. More important, the armour would have given away to everyone that I was a Drood, and then I’d never be able to come back here again. I liked being just Shaman Bond, and I wasn’t about to give it up.

The bartender was already looking meaningfully in our direction, getting ready to intervene, and I really did consider letting him handle it. For about a second or two. But I didn’t spend most of my life being trained to fight the good fight just so I could let a mere Hyde push me around. Besides, if I let him get away with this, I’d never be able to drink here in peace again. Even the weird and terminally strange have their pecking order. Still, given that Boyd was a Hyde and more than twice my size, I sure as hell wasn’t going to fight fair.

So I held his gaze with mine, quietly retrieved the portable door from my pocket, activated it, and flipped the door neatly under the Hyde’s feet. Boyd had just enough time to look startled before he fell through the new opening and into the cellars underneath the club. He landed with a satisfyingly loud crash, followed by a series of low moans. I picked up my portable door and the floor returned, sealing Boyd in the cellars until someone could be bothered to go down and rescue him. The bartender nodded his thanks, glad he hadn’t had to get involved, and the watching crowd gave me a round of applause. Janissary Jane and I shared a high five, while Charlatan Joe considered me thoughtfully.