“Blue,” I said, “am I to take it you know these people?”

“Unfortunately yes,” said the Blue Fairy. “May I present to you the Vodyanoi brothers, Russian mafiosi who relocated to London after making Moscow too hot for them. I borrowed a hell of a lot of money from them, when I thought I was dying, and spent the lot on wine, drugs, and two very pretty rent boys. I honestly thought I’d be dead long before the time came to pay any of it back…Unfortunately, while all the money is gone, I am still here, and these gentlemen want their money back. Along with a quite extortionate amount of interest.”

“Indeed yes. We are Vodyanoi brothers!” said the thug on the left. “I am Gregor Vodyanoi, and this is being my baby brother Sergei Vodyanoi! We are being very dangerous people.”

“Very dangerous people indeed!” said Sergei, glaring at us all in turn. “Oh my word, yes.”

“Show them how dangerous we are, brother,” said Gregor.

Sergei produced a very large handgun from his coat pocket, put it to his left temple, grinned at us all with very large teeth, and then shot himself in the head. He rocked on his feet from the impact, but didn’t fall. There was no spurt of blood from the wound in his head, and the hole quickly closed. All around us, people were quietly backing away. Sergei gargled a few times, and then spat the deformed bullet out into his hand. He showed it to us, while Gregor slapped his brother proudly on the back.

“Unusually dangerous, I think you’ll agree,” said Gregor. “Now, there is a question of moneys owed to us. Substantial moneys, with much in the way of interest. Due right now, oh my word, yes.”

“Or very much else,” said Sergei. “We are Vodyanoi brothers, and no one is taking the advantage of us.”

The Blue Fairy looked at me. “Help?”

“I should have known you’d be more trouble than you were worth,” I said.

“I suppose an advance is out of the question?”

I smiled at the Vodyanoi brothers. “Any chance we can work this out in a civilised manner?”

“We do not do civilised,” said Gregor.

“Bad for business,” said Sergei.

“Either he pays up, or we eat him,” said Gregor, smiling widely to show off his very large teeth. “Setting an example is being very important, in our line of work.”

I turned to Molly. “Darling, could you take care of this?”

“Of course, darling,” said Molly. She snapped her fingers, and the Vodyanoi brothers vanished, replaced by two small and warty and very surprised-looking frogs sitting on the floor. I looked reproachfully at Molly.

“I meant, take care of the problem financially.”

“Then you should have said,” said Molly, sipping her drink.

I shook my head. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

“I hate to rain on your self-satisfied parade,” said Janissary Jane. “But I have a feeling things are about to get really unpleasant.”

We all looked back at the toads just in time to see them swell rapidly in size, throwing off their toad shapes and bursting out in all directions, until abruptly the Vodyanoi brothers were standing before us again, still in their black leather coats, and looking distinctly peeved. The Blue Fairy tried to hide behind me again.

“That was really not very nice,” said Gregor.

“Not in the least friendly, or businesslike,” said Sergei.

“Time to become dangerous, brother.”

“Extremely dangerous, brother.”

And they changed shape again, shooting up to become taller and broader, their faces lengthening into muzzles, their black coats replaced by the silver-gray fur of enormous wolves. Werewolves. They towered over us, all teeth and claws, with great muscles rippling under their thick pelts. They stank of blood and death and the joy of the kill. They snarled happily, showing huge teeth in their long jaws. I glared at the Blue Fairy.

“You couldn’t have told us in advance that they were shapeshifters?”

“You never gave me a chance!”

“Next time, talk faster!”

I couldn’t call up my armour without revealing my true identity to the whole damned club, so I drew my Colt Repeater and shot both werewolves repeatedly in the head. The impacts rocked them back on their wolf legs, but even as my bullets smashed their long skulls and ripped their wolf faces apart, the wounds were already healing. The Colt was incapable of missing, but it couldn’t provide silver bullets. I made a mental note to have a quiet word with the Armourer about that, when I got back. The Vodyanoi brothers howled fiercely as they pressed forward, into the face of my bullets. I’d hurt them, but that was all.

The Blue Fairy had already disappeared under the nearest table. Janissary Jane produced two long punch daggers from the tops of her boots. The jagged edges of the long blades gleamed with silver. Janissary Jane grinned nastily and waded into the two werewolves, hacking and stabbing at them with her very nasty blades. Blood flew on the air as the knives cut deep, and she dodged and ducked every blow the two huge werewolves could throw at her, doing what she did best and doing it magnificently.

Until one of the Vodyanoi brothers finally connected with a solid blow, and Janissary Jane went flying into the watching crowd. She hit the floor hard and didn’t rise again.

People were backing away in all directions now, but not so far they couldn’t get a good view of what was happening. Many were already laying bets, and cheering or booing as the mood took them. The Wulfshead’s security measures finally kicked in, spraying the Vodyanoi brothers with holy water from the sprinklers and targeting them with lasers from the light fittings, neither of which bothered the two huge werewolves in the least. The club did have more stringent measures, but presumably the management was reluctant to use them unless the fight escalated into something that could threaten the whole bar. Which meant…my friends and I were strictly on our own.

Molly had been tossing spells at the Vodyanoi brothers for some time now, but they just slid off, unable to get a grip on the werewolves’ slippery, unnatural nature. The toad spell had only worked because it caught the brothers by surprise. Molly had been reduced to throwing fireballs at them, but though the silver-gray fur burned fiercely and smelled appalling, it quickly repaired itself.

So I took out Merlin’s Glass, shook it out to full size, said the proper activating Words, and darted in between the two werewolves. Vicious claws slashed through the air, only just missing me, and then I reared up, clapped the Glass over the nearest werewolf, and transported it instantly to the Arctic Circle. The other brother stopped dead, astounded, and I clapped the Glass over him and sent him to the Antarctic. Good luck walking home from that one, boys…

The club’s security systems immediately shut down, and relative calm returned to the Wulfshead as everyone paid off their bets and went back to what they were doing. I put Merlin’s Glass away and went to see how Janissary Jane was doing. She was already sitting up and checking herself for injuries. Tough old broad. She slapped my proffered helping hand aside and got to her feet unaided.

“I’m fine. Don’t fuss, Shaman. Take more than a couple of imported werewolves to put me down. They’d never have tagged me at all if I hadn’t already been a bit tired from the last Demon War.”

“Of course,” I said soothingly, but I had to wonder…Was a time when no one could have tagged her, under any conditions. Maybe she was getting a little old…but then, I only really wanted her as a tutor, not a soldier. We went back to Molly, who was dragging the Blue Fairy out from under his table. One of the bartenders nodded his thanks to me.

“Nicely done, Shaman. Very handy little device you have there. Where did you find it?”

“eBay,” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “Where else?”