Something was clearly wrong. Michael and Kristen had been gone for more than seven hours and they would surely have phoned in the normal course of events.

There was a knock at the door, and a whole host of paranoid thoughts and images leaped into his mind. He found himself walking over to get the Predator from his jacket, and then realized this was only bloody England, after all. Even in this day and age, there was barely one licensed gun for every hundred people-about the exact reverse of the situation at home-and there weren’t that many illegal weapons on the street.

And those that were usually didn’t make it north of the Thames all the way to posh Mayfair.

Opening the door a crack Serrin saw a uniformed delivery man standing outside with his clipboard and pen. awaiting his signature.

“His Lordship isn’t home. Detained on urgent government business,” he said.

The delivery man didn’t look terribly impressed. “Has to be his signature,” he insisted. “Says so on the paperwork. Look,” and he demonstrated the fact with a thick, ink-stained finger.

Senin shrugged. “He probably won’t be back until midnight.”

“Look, mate, this is well out of hours already. Special service extra delivery, know what I mean? Rakk me if I’m coming back at rakking midnight.”

“Yes, yes, all right.” Serrin was irritated at the man’s foul mouth. “Look, I’ll sign and everything will be in order.”

“Rakk off. You’re not a lordship,” the man said huffily. “You can’t even be one of his servants-you’re a bloody Sep. you are! I can’t let you have this, guy. More than my job’s worth.”

Serrin fished into his pockets and located what he considered a reasonable sum in pounds sterling.

The man looked at the bills rather dubiously.

Serrin exchanged the sum for nuyen, and upped the ante fifty percent.

The man shrugged philosophically. “Just sign as ‘im and no one will ever know the difference,” he said casually. Serrin did as he was told.

“So where’s the package?” he asked.

“Down in the parking lot. I’m not lugging it all the rakking way up here.”

“Thanks,” Serrin said dryly, wishing he hadn’t upped the payment. Just as the delivery man turned to leave, a dark-haired elf dressed in black emerged from the elevator and fixed him with a stare by way of greeting.

“Lord Llanfrechfa at home?”

“Frag me, this is worse than Piccadilly Circus!” Serrin sputtered. “He’s out and isn’t likely to be back until midnight.”

“Pity. It was urgent,” the elf said quietly. Serrin appraised him. He was muscular of build, but very lithe and in excellent physical condition. A street samurai or a physad, he thought.

“You Serrin?” the other elf asked suddenly, to which Serrin nodded. “Streak. Maybe Geraint mentioned me?”

Serrin recalled the name from breakfast and said so, making the mistake of mumbling some thanks for the help the elf had given his friends. Streak took the advantage.

“Look, mind if I wait? It really is urgent,” he said insistently.

“This isn’t my place,” Serrin began, but the elf cut him short.

“Look, brother, last p.m. I had five terms working with me on a raid for his lordship. By the time we shipped out again this morning, I had three and a half, with what was left of one of the trolls. Now I’m down to two and a half. Maybe, some time soon, one of my terms is going to find out he’s down to one and a half.” The elf drew his right forefinger across his throat. It was melodramatic, but he was dead serious.

“I reckon I could use at least enough explanation to keep from becoming another statistic myself. Frag it, brother, I’m not here to knock you on the head and take the family silver. Give me a sodding break, okay?”

Serrin decided to let the other elf in, then locked the door and drew the chain bolt as well.

“Not a bad idea,” Streak said. From his amply padded black jacket, he took the component parts of two folding-stock automatic weapons and began assembling them.

“I don’t know if were going to need this kind of heat,” Streak told Serrin, who was studying him doubtfully “but I’m not taking any chances.”

“I’ve got to go investigate a package and I’m not leaving you here alone in the place,” Serrin said.

Streak looked at up him with an intense stare and then nodded. “Fair enough, term. Fortunately for you, I’ve done some bomb disposal in my time.”

“Damn, I hadn’t thought of that,” Serrin said. “Thanks.”

“Only some, mind you. Don’t get too grateful too soon. Anyway, the scanners should have picked up anything suspicious entering this building. They’ve got good security here.”

“Let’s be grateful for that,” Serrin said with feeling, but Streak caught him out again.

“Not good enough to stop me getting in, of course, and if it’s one of those experimental percussion-sensitive gel explosives that scans as biomatter, then we’d be buggered sideways whatever we did,” he said with a laconic chuckle. “But then, live life to the full, that’s what I say. Can’t worry about being blown into bloody fragments every day of your waking life.”

Streak put down the assembled LMG and got to his feet, taking in the look on Serrin’s face. His own broke into a gleeful smile.

“Serrin mate, you’re a worrier, I can see that,” he said, putting an arm around the other’s shoulder. “I like that in a bloke, but don’t let the bastards get you down.

“Now, let’s go say hello to Mister Bomb.”

The wooden crates were bound only with rope. They were not, apparently, even nailed shut, with sliding tops restrained by the thick ropes around them. Streak’s diagnostics took a few minutes, and he looked reasonably content.

“There’s a little metal content but very little indeed. Actually, I think it’s probably a watch, and a ring. Oh, and a portable computer and one or two other little extras.”

“What extras?” Serrin asked.

“There are two bodies in there.”

“Spirits!” Serrin cried out. “How many dead people are we going to-”

“They may or may not be dead,” Streak said. “Anyway I think we can risk this,” and drawing out an evil-looking survival knife, he slashed clean through the ropes on one crate and slid back the panel top.

Kristen, apparently sound asleep, lay within. Serrin made a scrabbling attempt to lift her out, but it was impossible given the height of the crate. With Streak’s help, he gently tipped the crate onto its side and lifted her into his arms.

“Know her?” Streak asked as he slashed at the ropes on the other crate.

“She’s my wife,” Serrin said, hugging the inert body close to his chest.

“Right, then I s’pose you do,” Streak replied. “So who’d Father Christmas put in this one, I wonder?”

Serrin told him. Like Kristen, Michael was fast asleep and absolutely impossible to wake.

“Oh, look, one of the reindeers dropped a message,” Streak said, extracting a waxed scroll of paper and handing it to Serrin. “Nicely done, eh? Dead authentic.”

“Just stick it in my jacket pocket,” Serrin snapped. His arms full of warm, sleeping body, so mercifully alive, he could hardly take the paper and read it there and then. Streak looked at him, stepped backward a few paces, and broke the seal. Serrin was furious, not wanting the other elf to know who had been responsible for this.

“No. I’ll do the town crier act here, I think,” Streak said imposingly. “Your terms are asleep, sep. Mine are dead.”

Given the emphasis on the last word, Serrin couldn’t really argue. He could only wait and listen.

“ ‘This is a reasoned warning’,” the elf read out. “ ‘We kill those who shed our blood, but we do not kill without honor. Desist from your enquiries. This reasoned warning is also a final one. Our honor will not be impugned.’ Phew.”

“That’s it?”

That’s it.”

“No signature?”

“What did you expect, the Spanish Inquisition?” the elf said with contempt. For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Serrin had him absolutely trumped.