Shouts and the sound of running feet saved Mia from answering. Elton and two of his brothers were speeding toward us, others behind them, Simon far to the rear, but puffing gamely back down the street.

Marc and Henri reached us first, Elton close behind. Amazingly, Rust seemed unfazed. Without hurrying he stepped back toward John, grasped a handful of his hair and dragged him to his feet. A few other guys from the party arrived, Simon bringing up the rear. Rust kicked the back of John’s knee and held him from behind by chin and hair as he knelt in the road. John’s breath came in short panting gasps. He was properly scared of the monster now. Blood from a cut on his forehead ran in trickles down into his eye. Rust looked pointedly at Mia. ‘Get in the car.’

Elton and his brothers advanced. ‘Let him go, or—’

‘Or what?’ Rust sneered. ‘Think you can stop me snapping his neck?’ He shook his head. ‘Mia knows what to do.’

I stood frozen by fear. Rust had something broken inside him. You could see it in his face. A hole in his mind that needed to be filled with other people’s pain. He was burning his bridges just for the joy of seeing the flames take them. He would break John’s neck without hesitation. He’d do it and walk off, leaving my friend paralysed, a life taken away, replaced by long years of helpless dependence.

‘Let him go.’ Mia bowed her head and started to walk toward the passenger door. That’s when a dark shape loomed up behind Rust, pulled his arm back, and in the blink of an eye had him over the car bonnet with the captured arm twisted behind his back.

While Elton and others moved quickly to help John away, I just stood there blinking stupidly at Mr Arnot, who had circled round and walked calmly up behind Rust to put him in an arm lock.

When Mia and John were safe with the rest of us, behind a wall of the Arnots and their relatives, Mr Arnot released his snarling prisoner and stepped smartly away to join us.

Rust whipped around, a blade gleaming in his hand, and for a moment it looked as if he might just hurl himself into the midst of us. He managed to contain his fury and instead held his knife out at arm’s length, sighting down the edge at Mr Arnot as he backed away. ‘You, old man. You put your dirty hands on me. I can’t be having that.’ His voice shook with loathing and with a tightly bound rage. ‘You watch yourself, old man, because I might just have to find you one night and cut an apology out of you.’

As one, we all began to retreat back up the street. Rust watched us hungrily as if looking for stragglers.

‘He’s mad.’ John wiped the blood from his eye.

‘Looney tunes.’ Elton glanced back. ‘Dangerous. You keep away from that guy.’

‘No kidding,’ I said. ‘We should call the police.’

‘That one will find them soon enough,’ Henri said behind us.

‘Your dad’s really something!’ Mia raised her voice and called out, ‘Thanks, Mr Arnot!’ Ahead of us Mr Arnot raised a hand in acknowledgement. ‘I didn’t know he could handle himself like that.’

Elton nodded, a touch of pride in his face. ‘Who do you think got us all into martial arts? He’s old now, but still tough. Used to box back in Madagascar. He does security work these days.’

We headed back toward the warmth and light of the Arnots’ flat, marvelling at Rust’s craziness. I just listened, very tired now. Walking along in the cold night it occurred to me that, in the great multitude of humanity, creatures like Ian Rust were like the cancer cells among the crush of blood cells in my veins. Rare, but requiring only one to begin to pollute everything around them. Because ugliness multiplies, and hurt spills over into hurt, and sometimes good things are just the fuel for evil’s fire. I found myself limping, all my pains returning, the weight of my illness settling on me, too heavy to be borne. Two more steps might have seen me falling to my knees. But Mia’s hand found mine, our fingers laced, and I walked on feeling that I could go all night.

CHAPTER 19

We came to D&D late, with thick heads. John, sporting an impressive scar on his forehead, seemed inordinately pleased with himself, though unable to remember the walk back to Simon’s house during which he had danced with lampposts, climbed over a Mercedes, and declared from its roof his love for the girl he had been dancing with.

‘Lisa! Lovely Lisa!’ he’d crooned, sliding back to the pavement.

‘Wasn’t that one called Laura?’ Simon had asked, puffing steam before him as he kept up.

‘Um . . .’

Mia came in with Elton, last as always. She flashed me a small smile and a knowing look. We had left her at the Arnots’ and parted without words the night before. I had no idea what to expect this morning. Was she my girlfriend now? Did I have to play it cool and keep my distance? I wished Demus had thought to include that in his little how-to manuals. All I knew was that I had sore lips, my jaw ached, and I wanted to kiss her again. Then some more.

Elton, who never drank, flashed a bright smile at us. ‘Boys! Ready to play?’

‘Sure.’ I slipped myself one of Simon’s mum’s indigestion tablets and drank some of the milk I’d asked for. ‘The big question, though, is are we ready for tomorrow night?’

The others frowned at that as if it had been a troubling thought they’d managed successfully to push to a forgotten corner of their minds.

‘I believe him and all,’ said John. ‘But this accident Mia’s supposed to have isn’t for twenty something years. That’s a lot of time to think of an alternative . . . Sorry Mia.’

‘No problem,’ Mia said. ‘If I understood what he said, then that Mia who gets hurt doesn’t even have to be me . . .’

Elton nodded uncertainly. I was losing them.

It was Simon who turned the tide. ‘We need to do it for Mia and Nick.’

‘Nick? What’s it got to go with Nick?’ Elton asked.

‘Well, Demus is a future Nick,’ Simon said, as if it were obvious.

‘He’s what?’ Mia shot an accusing look at me. The other two let their jaws drop.

Simon carried on, oblivious. ‘So if we do what Demus remembers, then we make sure Demus isn’t just any old future Nick, we make him our Nick. And that means that Nick beats his leukaemia and lives to be at least forty. Which isn’t very likely if he just takes his chances.’

‘Demus is you?’ Mia asked, still shocked.

I didn’t answer. I could see that they all knew he was, now that Simon had said it. They were probably wondering how they could possibly have not seen it before.

‘So we’re doing it,’ said Simon. ‘For Nick and for Mia. Right?’

‘If it has to be.’ Elton bowed his head.

Mia nodded, though the look she gave me said that there would be more to come from her on the subject of Demus.

John nodded too. ‘We’re going to get caught.’ He rolled a couple of dice as if that might determine our fate.

‘We might have to run. We shouldn’t get caught, not unless we’re stupid.’ Elton frowned. ‘I told you my dad does security work. He works nights for an agency. He says it’s all about protecting the sites. They’re not interested in actually catching you. The police get the brownie points for that, and the pay, not the security guards.’

‘What about dogs?’ Simon returned to his big fear.

‘They use them on building sites and things like that where there’s valuable equipment lying around. Not indoors. Nobody wants to come back to dog crap on the carpet in the morning.’

‘But—’

‘Are we here to play, or what?’ Elton readied his books, standing some up as a shield to his notes.

We chorused our yeses. We all wanted to think about imaginary dangers for a bit rather than real ones.

He leaned over the table and set something on the table before us: a cylinder woven from red and white ribbons of leather or plastic, about as wide as a finger and maybe five inches long.

‘Don’t touch it!’ Simon slapped at Mia’s hand as she started to reach.

‘Ow!’ She drew back, scowling. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s something Elton does,’ I said. ‘He’ll put things there and, if you touch them, it triggers something in the game. Never something good. He put a glass of coke there once and I swigged from it. That’s how my first character died. Poisoned rations. Me drinking the coke put my guy in the frame as the first one to eat them. Failed my saving throw. Dead.’

Mia nodded. ‘No touching.’ A small grin my way. Did it mean she’d forgiven me already?

She pushed the three pieces of paper from the last session out across the table. ‘Fort. Two. Sicker.’ The words of wisdom her character’s god had sent her when called upon for advice about saving us. I could see some sense in them: there were two of us who were sick, my Nicodemus and Mia’s priestess, both turning grey and fading from the world. We were getting sicker, and it had happened beneath the fort. But how this constituted divine guidance, I had no idea. It made Demus seem like a plain speaker.

‘Maybe it’s an anagram,’ Simon said.

‘Why would my god send me an anagram?’ Mia asked.

Simon shrugged. ‘Elton likes them.’

‘Hmmm.’ Mia moved the pieces of paper around. ‘You work on that then. And we’ll get on with . . . what were we doing again?’