‘Really? And what little ears you’ve got!’

‘All the worse for hearing you with.’

‘Psst!’

The figure in the bed started, then leaned its head sideways. Right, Fang said to himself, the other one’s hiding under the bed.

‘What?’

‘Say “my dear”.’

‘What? Oh, right.’ The figure sat up again. ‘All the worse for hearing you with, my dear.’

Fang took a step closer. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said.

‘What small teeth you’ve got. And other things too, but there’s no need to be gratuitously insulting.’ He reached forward and grabbed a handful of curtain, flooding the room with light; quite possibly, the first decent illumination it had ever had. For a split second the whole room seemed to blur, as if the deep shadows in the corners were being panicked into deciding what was in them. ‘Wolf my arse,’ Fang sneered. ‘You’re just a human with a wolfskin rug tucked round you. What’ve you done with the witch?’

As he spoke, he sidestepped; with the result that, when Grimm #1’s head poked out from under the bed, he was ideally placed to slam his boot into it. Which he did.

‘All right,’ he growled, grabbing Grimm #2 by the throat and squeezing, ‘that’ll do. I’m arresting you on charges of witchnapping and impersonating a Wolfpack officer. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and retold in very simple words for the under-fives. Right, what’s going on? Who are you, and what’s with the wolf imitations?’

‘None of your business,’ Grimm #2 replied. ‘Does the expression diplomatic immunity mean anything to you?’

Fang’s brow furrowed. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It’s a coded message for make sure nobody ever finds the bodies. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather co-operate?’

Grimm #2 wilted. ‘It’s all just a silly misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘My brother and I were out walking in the woods and we lost our way and it was getting dark, so we knocked at the door but there was no one here, so we—’

Fang shook his head. ‘Wrong cottage,’ he growled. ‘The Three Bears are over in the south plantation. This is Little Red Riding Hood’s granny’s place. As you well know,’ he added. ‘So explain about the wolf’s disguise, before I get irritable.’

Grimm #2 shrugged. ‘You call at the werewolf’s house, you expect to see a werewolf. What’s to know about that?’

‘Were—’ Fang blinked twice, then made a faint choking sound. ‘Oh, one of those. God almighty, I should have guessed.’ He scowled, and spat.

‘You don’t like werewolves?’

‘Hah! Wolves who dress up in humans’ clothes? Disgusting, I call it…’ He tailed off, and blushed. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘that still doesn’t explain who you are and what you’re doing here.’

‘Ah.’ Grimm #2 grinned feebly. ‘Good question. The truth is, we were just looking for a mirror.’

‘A mirror?’

‘That’s right.’

Fang raised an eyebrow. ‘Not wishing to be personal,’ he said, ‘but with the wolfskin rug and the mob cap and the flowery eiderdown, I think a mirror’s the last thing you need. Just take it from me, you don’t want to see it.’

Grimm #2 blinked twice in rapid succession. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said quickly. ‘Oh well, blow that, then. I think we’ll be going now.’

Fang looked at him narrowly. ‘You’re sure it was just a mirror you were after?’ he said.

Grimm #2 nodded. ‘Oh,’ he added, ‘and there’s a werewolf in that wardrobe over there. We’ll take that one with us as well, I think. I mean, waste not want not, and if we ever happened to find ourselves in a situation where a werewolf might be useful…’

Fang held up a hand. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ he said. ‘If by werewolf you mean witch, you can’t have her. She stays.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Grimm #2 objected. ‘I mean, we found her first. And we went to all the trouble of knocking her out—’

‘Just a moment. What do you want her for?’

Grimm #2 was about to reply; then he stopped, and smiled. ‘Come to that,’ he said, ‘what do you want her for? Don’t mind me,’ he added. ‘I’m terribly broad-minded.’

‘I want her to turn me back to my proper shape, if you must know,’ Fang replied awkwardly. ‘You see, I’m not really a handsome prince.’

‘Get away. You certainly had me fooled.’

‘I don’t want to fool anybody,’ Fang snapped. ‘And I most certainly don’t want to be a handsome prince for a moment longer than I have to. Which is why I really need that witch.’

‘Fair enough,’ Grimm #2 said. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, what...?‘

‘A wolf.’

Grimm #2 shrank back a centimetre or so. ‘A wolf?’

‘Yes, a wolf. A big, bad wolf. You got a problem with that?’

‘Me? Good God, no.’ Grimm #2 kept perfectly still and smiled broadly. ‘Nothing but the greatest respect for big, bad wolves. Fine body of, um, predators. On second thoughts, you keep her. Your need is greater, and all that stuff. And now we’ll be—’

‘Stay where you are!’ Fang growled. ‘Nobody’s going anywhere until we’ve got this sorted out. You haven’t told me what you want the witch for.’

‘Haven’t I? Oh gosh, how remiss of me. Well, it’s like this. My brother and I, we… we work for this major pharmaceuticals company, you see, in their research and development department, and we’ve got this amazing new drug we need to test.’

‘Drug?’

‘Medicine, I should have said. Anyway, we want to test it, obviously, and the government won’t let us test it on humans and the anti-vivisectionists won’t let us test it on animals, so we thought…’

Fang bared his teeth. It wasn’t quite the gesture it should have been; the only threat they posed was of being blinded by the sparkling sunlight reflecting off them. Nevertheless, Grimm #2 did a very lifelike impression of a live slug in a salt cellar.

‘You’re lying.’

‘Yes, in a sense I am, rather. Sorry. Would you like to hear the truth now?’

‘Grrr!’

‘I’ll take that as a Yes. The truth is—’ He hesitated. ‘You may have trouble assimilating this,’ he said. ‘It may sound a bit, you know, weird. You won’t mind that, will you?’

‘Get on with it, before I mistake you for a long pink dog-chew.’

‘Right.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The truth is, we’re agents of a foreign power — foreign as in from a whole different dimension or reality or whatever — and we’re here to subvert your entire civilisation and culture by gaining control of the Mirrors network. Does that make any sense to you?’

Fang pursed his lips. ‘You’re trying to tell me you’re a little green man, right? Or a bug-eyed monster?’

‘Not in so many words,’ Grimm #2 replied. ‘Although if you prefer to think of it in those terms, I expect it’s an entirely valid viewpoint with a lot to recommend it.’

‘All right,’ Fang said. ‘You’re not green or bug-eyed, but you’re still aliens?’

‘Good word. I like it. Aliens. Yes, we’re aliens.’

‘And you’re here to kidnap a witch and take over the world?’

‘Yes, I suppose you could—’

‘You’re here to take over the world, and you’re frightened of me.’ Fang clicked his tongue. ‘You know, somehow I don’t see myself losing a lot of sleep over any threat you lot might possibly pose. I’ve seen craneflies more dangerous-looking than you two. No, I still don’t believe you. I think you’re just ordinary burglars, and round here we have a traditional way of dealing with burglars that makes Islamic law look like an exercise program. Now—’

‘Hey!’

Fang glanced down. The elf was tugging at his trouser leg.

‘Well?’

The elf looked down at its miniature shoes. ‘Sorry to bother you,’ it said, ‘but we’d appear to have more company.’

‘What? What kind of—?’

A figure appeared in the doorway. It was dark, stocky, menacing…

Short…

‘Howdy,’ it said.

The queen sat down, pulled out a small flat tin box from somewhere inside her gown, and opened it. Inside was a complicated-looking brass machine, quite unlike anything Sis had ever seen before, and next best thing to impossible to describe. However; imagine that a slide-rule fell in love with a sextant, and they had a daughter who eloped with a pair of kitchen scales, and their daughter married the illegitimate grandson of a stirrup-pump…