“Is that possible?” I asked. “Wasn’t Celebrity Trainee Pathologist the pits?” I thought for a moment. “Actually, Whose Life Support Do We Switch Off? was worse. Or maybe Sell Your Granny. Wow, the choice these days makes it all so tricky to decide.”

Bowden laughed.

“I’ll agree that Granny lowered the bar for distasteful program makers everywhere, but RTA-TV, never one to shrink from a challenge, has devised Samaritan Kidney Swap. Ten renal-failure patients take turns trying to convince a tissue-typed donor-and the voting viewers-which one should have his spare kidney.”

I groaned. Reality TV was to me the worst form of entertainment-the modern equivalent of paying sixpence to watch lunatics howling at the walls down at the local mad house. I shook my head sadly.

“What’s wrong with a good book?” I asked.

Bowden shrugged. In these days of junk TV, short attention spans and easy-to-digest sound bites, it seemed that the book, the noble device to which both Bowden and I had devoted much of our lives, was being marginalized into just another human storytelling experience also-ran, along with the epic poem, Greek theater, Jackanory, Beta and Tarzanagrams.

“How’s the family?” asked Bowden, trying to elevate the mood.

“They’re all good,” I replied. “Except Friday, who is still incapable of any human activity other than torpidity.”

“And Pickwick? Feathers growing back?”

“No-listen, can you knit?”

“No… Why?”

“No reason. What’s on the books for us today?”

Bowden picked up a clipboard and thumbed through the pages. “Spike’s got a brace of undead to deal with and a possible pack of howlers in the Savenake. Stig’s still on the path of those Diatrymas. The Taste Division has got an outbreak of stonecladding to deal with in Cirencester, and the Pampas Squad will be busy on a slash ’n’ burn in Bristol. Oh, yes-and we’ve an outbreak of doppelgängers in Chippenham.”

“Any literary stuff?” I asked hopefully.

“Only Mrs. Mattock and her stolen first editions-again. Face it, Thurs, books just don’t light anyone’s candle these days. It’s as good that they don’t-add the sixteen or so carpets to be laid and the twenty-eight quotes needed yesterday, and we’re kind of stretched. Do we pull Spike off zombies to do stair runners?”

“Can’t we just drag in some freelance installers?”

“And pay them with what? An illegal Diatryma each?”

“It’s that bad, is it?”

“Thursday, it’s always that bad. We’re nuzzling up to the overdraft limit again.”

“No problem. I’ve got a seriously good cheese deal going down this evening.”

“I don’t want to know about it. When you’re arrested, I need deniability-and besides, if you actually sold carpets instead of gallivanting around like a lunatic, you wouldn’t need to buy and sell on the volatile cheese market.”

“That reminds me,” I said with a smile. “I’ll be out of my office today, so don’t put any calls through.”

“Thursday!” he said in an exasperated tone. “Please don’t vanish today of all days. I really need you to quote for the new lobby carpet in the Finis, I’ve got the Wilton rep popping in at four-thirty to show us their new line, and the Health and Safety Inspectorate is coming in to make sure we’re up to speed.”

“On safety procedures?”

“Good Lord no! On how to fill the forms in properly.”

“Listen,” I said, “I’ve got to take Friday to the ChronoGuard career night at five-thirty, so I’ll try to get back a couple of hours before then and do some quotes. Have a list ready for me.”

“Already done,” he said, and before I could make up an excuse, he passed me a clipboard full of addresses and contact names.

“Good,” I muttered, “very efficient-nice job.”

I took my coffee and walked to my own office, a small and windowless room next to the forklift-recharging point. I sat at my desk and stared despondently at the list Bowden had given me, then rocked back and forth on my chair in an absent mood. Stig had been right. I should tell Landen about what I got up to, but life was better with him thinking I was working at Acme. Besides, running several illegal SpecOps departments wasn’t all I did. It was…well, the tip of a very large and misshapen iceberg.

I got up, took off my jacket and was about to change into more comfortable clothes when there was another tap at the door. I opened it to reveal a large and muscular man a few years younger than myself and looking even more incongruous in his Acme Carpets uniform than I looked in mine-although I doubted that anyone would ever try to tell him so. He had long dreadlocks that reached almost to his waist and were tied back in a loose hair band, and he was wearing a liberal amount of jewelry, similar to the sort that Goths are fond of-skulls, bats, things like that. But it wasn’t for decoration-it was for protection. This was ex-SO-17 operative “Spike” Stoker, the most successful vampire staker and werewolf hunter in the Southwest, and although no friend of the undead, he was a friend of mine.

“Happy birthday, bookworm,” he said genially. “Got a second?”

I looked at my watch. I was late for work. Not carpet work, of course, since I was already there, but work work.

“Is it about health and safety?”

“No, this is important and relevant.”

He led the way to the other side of the storeroom, just next to where we kept the adhesive, tacks and grippers. We entered a door hidden behind a poster for Brinton’s Carpets and took a small flight of steps down to the level below. Spike opened a sturdy door with a large brass key, and we stepped into what I described as the “Containment Suite” but what Spike referred to as the “Weirdshitorium.” His appraisal was better. Our work took us to the very limits of credibility-to a place where even the most stalwart conspiracy theorists would shake their heads and remark sarcastically, “Oh, yeah…right.” When we were SpecOps, we had secrecy, manpower, bud get and unaccountability to help us do the job. Now we had just secrecy, complimentary tea and cookies and a big brass key. It was here that Stig kept his creatures until he decided what to do with them and where Spike incarcerated any of the captured undead for observation-in case they were thinking of becoming either nearly dead or mostly dead. Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable.

We passed a cell that was full of gallon-size glass jars containing captured Supreme Evil Beings. They were small, wraithlike objects about the size and texture of well-used dish cloths, only less substantial, and they spent most of the time bickering over who was the most supreme Supreme Evil Being. But we weren’t here to bother with SEBs; Spike led me on to a cell right at the end of the corridor and opened the door. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the room was a man in jeans and a plain leather jacket. He was staring at the floor with the light on above, so I couldn’t at first see his face, and his large and well-manicured hands were clenched tightly in front of him. I also noticed that his ankle was attached to the floor by a sturdy chain. I winced. Spike would have to be right about this one-imprisonment of something actually human was definitely illegal and could be seriously bad for business.

“Hey!” said Spike and the figure slowly raised his head to look at me. I recognized him instantly and not without a certain degree of alarm. It was Felix8, Acheron Hades’ henchman from way back in the days of the Jane Eyre adventure. Hades had taken the face from the first Felix when he died and implanted it on a suitable stranger who’d been bent to his evil will. Whenever a Felix died, which was quite often, he just swapped the face. Felix8’s real name was Danny Chance, but his freewill had been appropriated by Hades-he was merely an empty vessel, devoid of pity or morals. His life had no meaning other than to do his master’s bidding. The point now was, his master had died sixteen years ago, and the last time I saw Felix8 was at the Penderyn Hotel in Merthyr, the capital of the Welsh Socialist Republic.