Juni sits back, a troubled look on her face. “Actually I can’t tell you how much I hope that the demons are a product of your imagination. For Emmet’s sake, Kik’s and the others.”

“I know,” I mutter. “I wish they weren’t real too. But they are.”

She licks her lips, frowning deeply, trying to get her head around what I’m telling her. “I need proof,” she finally says. “I’m not sure what you want me to do, but I can’t do anything until I’ve seen direct evidence.”

“I want you to help Dervish,” I tell her. “Chuda Sool has some sort of mind lock on him. I want you to help me break it. You can do that without believing in demons, can’t you?”

“Perhaps,” she says. “But I don’t want to go anywhere near your uncle’s mind until I know for sure what I’m dealing with.”

“I think I can prove it,” I say softly, lowering my gaze. “But it could be dangerous. The sort of dangerous where we all die horribly if things go wrong.”

“I’m prepared to take that risk,” Juni says evenly.

“Me too,” Bill-E pipes up bravely, though the squeak in his voice betrays his fear.

I nod reluctantly. “Demons don’t appear out of thin air. They have to be summoned. Their universe has to merge with ours. A window or tunnel between worlds has to be opened. If Lord Loss and the other demon were real, there has to be a place where they crossed. A secret place. A place where nobody but their human partners can get into.”

“The D workshops,” Bill-E and Juni say at the exact same time.

“Got it in one,” I chuckle bleakly.

Juni keeps saying she must be crazy for going along with this, it’s a mad plan, she should have her head examined. But the magic unnerved her. She’s confused, not in complete control. I should give her a day to think things over and clear her head. But she might not play ball if I did. She might start rationalising and analysing, and decide nobody in her position should break into a building. Worse—she might tell Davida what I believe and tip our enemies off. So I rush her along, allowing her no time to think.

It’s impossible to sneak up on the D warehouse, no matter what time you come. Large, powerful lamps are trained on all sides of the building at night. You can’t approach it without your shadow preceding you, growing like a giant’s the closer you get.

But I’ve got magic on my side. I could have performed any number of miracles in our room to convince Juni of my power. I didn’t randomly choose to experiment on the light bulb.

Studying the lamps from the shelter of the closest building to the warehouse. Juni and Bill-E are quiet behind me. I can’t see all the lights from here, but I can imagine them.

Not sure if I have the strength to do this. Just have to try and hope for the best. Focusing, I close my eyes, keeping the picture of the lamps vivid in my thoughts. I visualise the lamps flaring and going out, all at once, like a flashbulb on a camera. Call on the magic. Try to extend it to the lights.

Doubting if I can really—

“Bloody hell!” Bill-E gasps. Then a chuckle. “Coolio!”

I open my eyes to darkness. “Let’s go,” I hiss, starting forward, not sure how much time we’ll have.

“Oh my,” Juni says breathlessly. But she runs after me with Bill-E, along for the ride even if she doesn’t truly want to be.

The guards come out of their hut with strong torches. We drop to our stomachs as their beams sweep the surrounding area. I think about quenching the torches but that would really stir up their suspicions.

Lying on the cool ground, head down. I hear one of the guards on his walkie-talkie, checking if the lamps are out all over. He doesn’t sound worried. The guards sweep the area a few more times with their torches, then return to the hut. One keeps his torch beam trained on the door of the D. There’s no way we could get in through it without being seen. So it’s just as well I didn’t plan on entering that way.

Rising, I hurry forward, trying not to make any noise, heading for a point about three-quarters of the way along the side of the warehouse, where it’s nice and dark, where we can’t be easily seen by the guards.

I rest when I get to the wall, panting heavily, more from fear than the run. Juni and Bill-E arrive moments later. Bill-E’s puffing hard—he’s not as fit as me. I can see their faces in the light of the moon and stars. Bill-E looks scared but excited. Juni’s just scared. Funny, but I feel like the adult here.

“What now?” Bill-E asks when he gets his breath back.

“The Indian rope trick,” I grin, then try to make a length of rope appear, dangling from the roof. Nothing happens. I try again, this time demanding the rope to simply appear on the ground. Nothing.

I frown, wondering if I used up all my magic quenching the lights. But then I recall my fight with Artery and Vein. Dervish supplied the weapons, laid them on the floor of the secret cellar, axes, swords, etc. He wouldn’t have gone to all that effort if we could have simply made weapons appear. Maybe magic doesn’t work that way and objects can’t be created out of thin air.

So the roof’s out. Fine. Time for Plan B.

I focus on the wall. Bare blocks, cemented tightly together. No chinks. Can’t tell how thick they are, but I imagine the wall’s more than a single block deep. I place my left hand on the nearest block and concentrate. Not sure if I can melt stone like metal, but I give it a go.

The block doesn’t melt. I try again but still it holds. I sigh—looks like I’ve run out of ideas. But as I lean forward, trying to think of some other way in, my fingers gouge into the stone. It’s like putting my hand in mud. I make a half-fist and scoop out a handful of mushy material. I smile at the muck, then at Juni and Bill-E. “You two clear the mess away,” I tell them. “I’ll get to work on the rest of the blocks.”

“Be careful,” Bill-E whispers. “We don’t want the wall collapsing.”

“No worries,” I snort. “Grubbs Grady’s on top of the situation!”

“This is madness,” Juni mutters, but digs her fingers into the semi-melted block and begins scooping it out.

It takes fifteen minutes to gouge a hole big enough for us to fit through. It feels like hours. All the time I’m aware of the threat of the lamps snapping back on, the guards sighting us, everything coming undone.

But the darkness holds and at last I melt through the third and final layer of blocks. I poke my head through the gap and switch on the torch I brought with me. This looks like an ordinary props room—puppets and moulds lying around, tools, mannequins, bits of material, tubes of glue. I switch off the torch and slide forward. Juni follows, then Bill-E.

Bill-E’s frowning when he steps in. He looks back at the hole. “What are we going to do about that?” he asks. “If they see it when the lamps come on…”

“We just have to hope they don’t.”

“And when we leave?” he persists. “They’ll know we’ve been here.”

“I’ll try to make the stones solid again and put them back,” I tell him. “But if I can’t, don’t worry. If I’m right and we’re dealing with demons, we’re not going to hang around like horror-movie victims, waiting for them to get wise to us.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Juni asks. “If there aren’t any demons?”

“Then we’ll wind up in a heap load of trouble,” I chuckle. “But it’ll be trouble of the ass-kicking, job-losing kind, and trouble like that I don’t mind so much.”

“So what now?” Bill-E asks, glancing around.

“We wander. Explore as much of the building as we can. Keep going until we find something strange or run out of rooms.”

“Perhaps one of us should remain here, to alert the others if the guards find the hole,” Bill-E suggests.

“How?” I grunt.

“Phone.” He roots out his mobile, flicks it on, frowns, shakes it, then scowls. “No signal. Damn.”

“It’s probably better if we stay together anyway,” Juni says, then lets out an uneasy breath. “I’ve never done anything like this. I never even stole sweets from shops when I was a child. I’ve always respected the law.”