Why me, though? Well, why not? Presumably everybody else was busy. That was the sort of question she would have to leave to whoever was telling the story.

She glanced at the clock. Even if she was going to have to save the world, she reckoned, she’d probably still have enough time to wash her hair first.

In an upstairs window of the house opposite, Cupid adjusted his headband, chambered a round in his rifle and drew a skin-tight leather glove on to his right hand with his teeth. Through his telescopic sight (with the special rose-tinted filter) he could see Kiss trudging wearily back across the sky, his arms full of feathers. The girl was still under the hair-dryer, reading a book. The timing was going to have to be absolutely right.

No worries. Back in the old bow-and-arrow days, it was true, he had occasionally made a mistake. Now, however, he had technology as well as destiny on his side, not to mention the steadiest trigger finger in the Universe. At anything less than six hundred yards, provided the visibility was even half-way adequate, the course of true love was guaranteed to run smooth. He breathed in and felt his heartbeat slow down.

Now the genie was floating in through the window. The girl was looking up from her book. Here, the genie was saying, where do you want me to put all these feathers? Cupid half-closed his left eye and took up the slack on the trigger.

The first shot brayed out in the still air — only Cupid could hear it, of course — followed by the rattle of the bolt as he worked the second round into the chamber. No need to ask whether the first bullet had found its mark; the genie’s mouth had already flopped open in that uniquely gormless way that can only mean one thing. With a half-smile, Cupid brought the crosswires to bear on Jane’s heart and let his finger tighten round the trigger—

A spider, which had been spinning its web directly overhead, fell on the back of his neck. At the last moment, just as the sear slipped its bent, he twitched sharply, jerking the rifle sideways — and a potted fern, which had accompanied Jane from one flat to another for the last six years without really being aware of her existence, suddenly noticed with heart-stopping intensity how entrancingly her hair curled round the nape of her neck — swore, worked the action and steadied the butt in the pocket of his shoulder. Ignoring the spider, which was trying to tunnel down under the collar of his combat jacket, Cupid half-emptied his lungs and eased off the trigger. For a split second the image before his eyes blurred, as the rifle jumped in a fierce spasm of unleashed energy. Then the picture cleared…

Gotcha! The room opposite was suddenly full of pink hearts, floating in the air like big, fat balloons. The whole street was heavy with the stench of roses.

Quickly and carefully, making no more noise than a stalking leopard, Cupid gathered up his equipment and got the hell out.

Fire crackled in the withered stems of the mistletoe, casting an eerie red glow on the lichen-covered stones of the circle. It illuminated seven faces.

“Ready?”

“Yup.”

The Chief Druid winced slightly. Although he was aware of how vitally important it was to attract keen new blood to the Circle, so that the ancient secrets could be passed down to generations yet unborn, he still hadn’t come to terms with young Kevin’s attitude. The sceptical part of him still harboured a suspicion that Kevin, who was an insurance broker, had only joined in the hope of picking up new clients.

However.

“We shall now,” he said gravely, “link hands and invoke the Goddess.”

“Ready when you are, Humph.”

Ready when you are, Humph. It was at time like this that he wondered whether there was any point in passing down the ancient secrets. There was a sporting chance, he reflected gloomily, that if the Goddess did materialise Kevin would immediately leap forward and try to sell her a unit-linked endowment policy.

“Everybody join hands,” he went on, “and keep holy silence in the presence of… Are you all right back there, Mr Prenderby?”

“Yes, thank you, Chief Druid.”

“It isn’t time for your pills yet, is it?”

“Not for another half-hour, thank you, Chief Druid.”

“That’s all right, then.” The Chief Druid glanced round. His flock were waiting, with all the silent embarrassment of grown men asked to hold hands with other grown men who they’d probably see again the next day, but wearing suits and ties rather than long grey woollen gowns. He cast another sprig of mistletoe on to the fire and took a deep breath.

WHOOSH!

“Stone the flaming crows!” The Chief Druid recognised the voice of Shane, who was on an exchange visit arranged with the Order’s New South Wales congregation. He cringed. Just his rotten luck, he said to himself. The one time the Goddess actually manifests herself in my Circle, and the first person to greet her is this antipodean lout.

“Hello, boys,” said the Goddess.

She stood in the centre of the fire, which had leapt up to meet her like a large, friendly dog. Red tongues of flame licked round her, and her head was surrounded by a chaplet of pale blue light.

“G’day, Miss.” The Australian shook his hand free from the clammy paw of Mr Prenderby (who looked like he was going to need his pills sooner than usual) and extended it gingerly. A long, yellow, spotted snake materialised out of the fire and curled round his forearm as far as the elbow.

“And what,” drawled the Goddess, “can I do for you?”

“Excuse me.” Kevin’s voice. The Chief Druid couldn’t bear to watch. It shouldn’t be like this, he told himself; it wasn’t like this in the books.

The Goddess turned her head and smiled politely, like the Queen being introduced to the teams at half-time during the Cup Final. Kevin smiled back, instinctively using the wide grin he used for Putting Clients At Their Ease.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I take it you are the, um, Goddess? No offence, but I think we ought to just… rivet-rivet-rivet.”

The Circle froze, and the only sound was the sobbing of the wind and the frantic croaking of the small yellow frog that had once been Kevin.

“Satisfied?” asked the Goddess. “Or would you like me to do something really convincing?”

The six druids fell simultaneously to their knees.

“Now then,” said the Goddess briskly, “to business. Any requests, anybody?”

No reply. The Goddess clicked her tongue.

“Oh come on, people,” she said, “I’m sure you didn’t drag me all the way down here just to chat about the weather. Anybody for a bumper harvest? Rain for the crops? The winner of the 3.15 at Chepstow?”

The Chief Druid ran a desperate scan through the jumbled mess between his ears, but nothing occurred to him. He briefly considered saying, “All hail!” but decided that She’d take that as a reference to the weather, a subject she apparently wasn’t inclined to discuss.

“Well,” said the Goddess, “if nobody wants anything at all, we’d better just fast forward to the wicker-cage bit, and then call it a day.”

For crying out loud, somebody say something. The Chief Priest swung a hasty glance round the Circle, but nobody was moving. They were all frozen like snakes watching a mongoose; except for Mr Prenderby, who had nodded off again.

“I see.” The Goddess sighed. “Well then, the wicker-cage it is, then. And whose turn is it to be burnt alive this evening? I do hope somebody’s remembered to bring some matches.”

“I have a request, Majesty.”

The Chief Druid’s relief was short-lived, because the words were still hanging in the crisp night air when he realised that the voice that had spoken them was his own.

“Splendid,” the Goddess said. “Right, what’ll it be?”

“Um.” The Chief Druid felt his tongue dragging like sandpaper across the roof of his mouth. “Do you know,” he went on, “it’s just slipped my mind for a moment.”