LITMIR.BIZ

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from under the table. Ned’s perometer had come alive quite suddenly, but not, as he had at first feared, because of the Demon. The needle was pointing away from the creature and towards the door.

      “The Darkening King – it is not welcome by those of us that remember.”

      And the more he spoke, the more the perometer’s needle twitched. First one way and then another, in quick jerks of frantic movement.

      “If you feel this way then help us! Tell us where he is, how to defeat him.” Terry Armstrong was now more animated than Ned had seen him since they had started their mission, hope burning brightly in his eyes.

      The needle spun now in all directions, faster and faster.

      “Defeat him?”

      “Dad?”

      “Not now, son!” urged his father. “Go on, Sur-jan, what can you tell us?”

      Down the corridor, Ned heard footsteps running at a pace and the needle was spinning so hard that the perometer started to rattle.

      “DAD!”

      “Ned, what’s got into you?” said his mum, and then her eyes fell to the floor and the Tinker’s device. “Oh, dear.”

      Ned snatched it from the floor and slammed it on to the table, narrowly missing a now terrified sprite whose light crackled then dimmed. A spin of the perometer’s dial could mean any number of things. Barbarossa’s men? The BBB? What was left of the Twelve and its pinstripes was still after them too.

      The Demon remained quite calm, his head turned to one side, and he closed his eyes as if listening to something that Ned couldn’t hear. Finally his skin began to glow a fiery red.

      “Trouble is here – here for you.”

      Ned and family were up on their feet in an instant.

      “What trouble? What do you mean?!”

      “Find the old one – he will give you what you seek. Now go. NOW. While there is still time.”

      “The old …?” Ned began to ask, but a second later he was shoved out of the door by both Mum and Dad, with a fast-moving sprite at their heels, out into the corridor and back into the tea room, and that’s when Mavis made herself heard.

      “HOW DARE YOU? THIS IS MY TEA ROOM!”

      

       Grey-suits

      avis’s tea room was eerily absent of any noise. But noise was clearly coming. The Armstrongs watched from the edge of the corridor they had just been led through. It was like looking at a stick of dynamite, its fuse lit and burning, waiting to explode.

      The entire bar was still. Each and every one of its hardened criminal tea drinkers caught in mid sip. The reason stood at what was left of the entrance to Mavis’s Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. The carved door lay broken on the ground, its breakers two men in light grey suits standing to one side of the wreckage.

      “I thought this place was supposed to be safe?!” whispered Ned’s mum.

      “It was till we got here!” spat Ned in far less of a whisper.

      Two more grey-suits walked quietly and confidently into the room. One was built like a giant square brick, with the kind of face that never smiled. In front of him was a slighter man who Ned assumed was their leader. He had red-blond hair and despite their surroundings could not have looked more at ease. Something in Ned’s chest pulled – he recognised this man! It was the very same man who’d fought Benissimo the last time Ned had seen him, at the circus, before At-lan and their battle in the sky.

      “I assure you, you are in no danger. We mean you absolutely no harm. My name is Mr Fox and I am searching for two adults and a child. The child is an unremarkable-looking boy usually accompanied by a mouse.”

      “Unremarkable?!” fumed Ned. With his powers failing as they were, the intruder had hit a nerve.

      “Shh!” ordered his mum.

      As the fox-haired man spoke, “big” Mavis was removing the teapots from her fingers and flexing her mighty hands before curling them into fists. Knowing full well what was coming next, some of the patrons nearer the bar began to edge away.

      “Don’t want no trouble? Do you know how long it took for my gnomes to carve that door? How much I had to pay for the magic what was woven into its wood?”

      “Madam, we will recover your expenses. Unfortunately the door was not willing to open.”

      “If you had half a brain you’d know why. You see, my tea room has been a safe house since before you was born. It’s the one place between everywhere that doesn’t get bothered by lawmen, or politicians, or taxmen, or anyone else. Once you step inside these walls my guarantee is that you are safe from all the nonsense out there – to enjoy my home-brewed wonders at your leisure. To that effect, there’s only one law here: Mavis’s law. And rule number one is: IF MY RUDDY DOOR DOESN’T WANT YOU IN, THEN YOU DON’T GET IN!”

      And that was when the lit fuse blew.

      Mavis’s gigantic right arm tore across the ground-floor bar. The fox-haired grey-suit and his number two ducked but the two door breakers behind them were not so lucky. Her fist connected with them both and there was a sickening crunch of bone on bone. They were flung to the walls violently before slumping to the floor in unconscious heaps. Their commander remained completely calm and nodded to the brick, who in return whispered something into his sleeve. A second later every window on every floor erupted in a shower of breaking glass and then—

       Clunk, clunk, clunk.

      Smoking canisters were launched into the room, their great clouds of green gas instantly reducing those nearest to slumbering heaps. There were, however, some amongst the Darklings and Hidden who were immune to the effects, and for that lucky handful, the fox-haired man had soldiers. Heavily armoured men of a darker grey attire in riot gear and gas masks burst into the room. In place of sub-machine guns, they all carried long-poled electric batons and high-powered dart guns. This was nothing like the raid Ned had witnessed at the Circus of Marvels – the BBB worked the room with ease. With a jolt of their batons, a blast of their darts, one by one resistance was quashed. All, that was, except for Mavis, who launched blow after blow of her great arms at the mounting assault of grey.

      One of the more heavily armoured intruders spotted Ned at the edge of the fighting and began to stride across the room towards him. Ned focused – focused with everything that he had – on the small band of ring at his finger. But just as before, the air shimmered in front of him as he tried to draw it together, then … nothing.

      “Dad, over here!” he yelped.

      Terry Armstrong, meanwhile, had no such problem when it came to his ring and was about to unleash a shower of hardened projectiles when one of the many Mavii reared up behind the man in grey and proceeded to break a teapot over his helmet. Reinforced alloys are lightweight and durable, the perfect material for special-forces armour. No match, however, for Mavis’s best china, and the man hit the floor hard.

      “You lot – with me, before this gas gets the better of us!” she ordered and quickly led Ned and his family back down the corridor. “The door knew who you were the minute you knocked, it always does – the Lady de Laqua indeed!”

      “I thought Mavis’s tea shop was neutral? Why are you helping us?” rasped an out-of-breath Ned.

      “You have more friends than you know. From what I hear, what’s coming

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