“Yes,” Billy-Joe said. His limbs wouldn’t stop trembling. He expected Quinn to blast him into a lump of smoking meat when he returned to the Chatsworth. In fact, he’d been wondering if he should even bother returning to the old hotel at all. Five hours of shitting himself about the consequences as he slunk round diseased tunnels full of those fucking rats and worse. Expecting the cops to burst out of the walls any second. Getting mugged. Fucking mugged! Some bunch of deadbeats clubbing him over the head and making off with most of his gear. Not daring to shoot them in case the cops detected his weapon.

It had taken a long time before he trudged back to the Chatsworth. In the end he did it because he believed Quinn would ultimately win. Edmonton would fall into a state of demonic anarchy, ruled over by sect possessed. And when that happened, the dark messiah would catch up with Billy-Joe. Explanations would have to be made. Punishment would follow that. So he came back. This way only one failure had to be accounted for.

“Shit,” Quinn breathed. “Him! It’s got to be him again.”

“Who?” Courtney asked.

“I don’t know. He keeps . . . pissing me off. He’s appeared a few times now, screwing with what I do. What else did he say?” he asked Billy-Joe.

“That he was going to wreck whatever you were doing.”

“Figures. Anything else?” The tone was unnervingly mild.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done. He said it, Quinn, not me. I swear.”

“I believe you, Billy-Joe. You’ve been obedient to Our Lord. I don’t punish loyalty. So he said he’d make me pay, did he? How?”

“Just that he’d catch up with you. Didn’t say nothing else.”

Quinn’s robe changed, the fabric hardening around his limbs. “I shall enjoy that encounter.”

“What are you going to do, Quinn?” Courtney asked.

“Shut up.” He stalked over to the window and peered down through a gap in the heavy curtains. Cars and trucks flashed along the ramp five stories below, curving down to street level. Fewer vehicles than usual, and the crowds on the sidewalk were noticeably thinner. But then Edmonton had been in a mild panic for most of the day since the early morning commuters discovered the vac-trains were closed. Every Govcentral spokesperson in the arcology assured the reporters that there were no possessed loose. Nobody believed them. Things were falling apart across the domes. But not in the way Quinn intended.

I don’t fucking believe this, he raged silently. Some kind of supercops know I’m here. I can’t bring about the fall of true Night without the vac-trains. And now heaven’s own bastard vigilante is gunning for me. God’s Brother, how could everything go so wrong ? Even Banneth is diminished.

It was another of His tests. It must be. He is showing me the true path to Armageddon lies elsewhere. That as His messiah I must not rest, not even to gorge my own serpent beast. But who the fuck is Carter’s friend? If he knew Carter, then he must be someone from Lalonde, Aberdale itself. One of the men.

Although that conclusion hardly reduced the field of suspects. All the men at that sewer of a village hated him. He forced himself to be calm, to remember the few words the bastard had spoken back on Jesup asteroid when he fucked up the sacrifice ceremony.

“Remember this part?” Quinn’s own mimicked face had taunted. So whoever it was had witnessed the sect ceremony before, then. And was from Aberdale.

The realization was so pleasurable it blessed Quinn’s face with the kind of smile usually bought by orgasm. He turned from the window. “Call everyone,” he told one of the nervous acolytes. “We’re going to tool up and march against Banneth. I want every one of my followers to accompany me.”

“Shit, we’re going for her?” Courtney’s eyes were shining with greed.

“Of course.”

“You promised I could watch.”

“You will.” It was the only way. The cops would only allow the vac-trains to run again if they thought they’d eliminated all the possessed in the arcology.

Quinn would bring them together, and do to them what Carter McBride’s friend had done to the sabotage group. After that, time would become his most powerful weapon. Not even the supercops could keep the vac-trains closed for months when there were no further signs of possession.

“But first, I have something else which needs taking care of.”

Courtney did as she was told and switched on a processor block, establishing a link with Edmonton’s net. Quinn stood a couple of metres away, watching the little screen over her shoulder as the questor was launched into Govcentral’s main citizens directory. It took eight minutes before the requested file expanded into the block’s memory. He read down the information, and smiled victoriously. “Her!” he said, and thrust the block towards Courtney and Billy-Joe, showing them the picture he’d found. “I want her. You two go down to the vac-train station and wait. I don’t give a fuck how long you have to stay there for, but the first vac-train out of here, you take it and you get over to Frankfurt. Find her, and bring her to me. Understand? I want her alive.”

A call from reception informed Louise that she had a delivery to accept. The house telephone was almost identical to the chunky black instruments back on Norfolk, except it had a bell rather than a shrill chime. Now she had neural nanonics, the whole thing seemed absurdly primitive. Presumably, for people who didn’t have them as their sole planetary communication system, they were endearingly quaint. Part of the Ritz’s old-world elegance.

Louise looked around the lobby as soon as the lift doors opened, curious about what could have been sent to her. She was sure all the department stores had delivered. Andy Behoo was slouching against the reception desk under the suspicious gaze of the concierge. He jerked to attention when he saw Louise, his elbow nearly knocking over a vase of white freesia. She smiled politely. “Hello, Andy.”

“Uh.” He stuck his hand out, holding a flek case. “The Hyperpeadia questor’s arrived. I thought I’d better bring it round myself to make sure you got it okay. I know it was important to you.”

The concierge was watching with considerable interest. He didn’t get to see such naked adoration very often. Louise gestured towards the other end of the vaulting chamber. “Thank you,” she said when Andy pressed the flek into her hand. “That’s very kind.”

“Part of the service.” He smiled broadly, crooked teeth on show.

Louise was rather stuck for what to say after that. “How are you?”

“You know. The usual. Overworked underpaid.”

“Well you do a very good job at the shop. I’m grateful for the way you looked after me.”

“Ah.” Andy’s world was suddenly very short on oxygen. But she’d come down by herself. That must mean her fiancй hadn’t arrived yet. “Um, Louise.”

“Yes?”

Her soft smile was wired directly into his brain’s pleasure centre, shorting out his coordination. He knew he was making a right old balls up of this. “I was wondering. If you haven’t got anything planned, that is. I mean, I’ll understand if you have and all that. But I thought, you know, you haven’t been in London long and had a chance to see much of it. So if you like, I could take you out to dinner. This evening. Please.”

“Oh. That’s really sweet of you. Where?”

She hadn’t said no. Andy stared, his smile numbed into place. The most beautiful, classy, sexy girl in existence hadn’t said no when he asked her for a date. “Huh?”

“Where do you want to go for dinner?”

“Um, I thought the Lake Isle. It’s not far, over in Covent Garden.” He’d asked Liscard for a two week advance on his pay, just in case Louise said yes; Liscard granted it on a four per cent interest rate. That way he could actually afford the Lake Isle. Probably. It had cost a lot more than he’d expected to reserve the table; and that deposit was non-refundable. But the other sellrats all said it was the right kind of place to take a girl like Louise.