The shop had a Soho address, on the border between the sleazy sex shows and the trendy tourist cafes. It took Paul a good half an hour to track it down. The shop front consisted of a narrow door and a small window crammed with statuettes of dragons and fairies. As Paul entered, he had to duck to avoid the paraphernalia hanging from the ceiling. Chimes and dreamcatchers fought for space with necklaces and crystal pendants. The darkness of the interior made the back of the shop difficult to see after the sunshine outside.

Near the door, a bored shop assistant stood behind a glass counter. She seemed barely out of school. She tried hard for the Goth look: her eyes and lips bore black make-up, she wore a black shawl over her black T-shirt, and she busied herself painting black varnish onto her nails. Her one concession to the summer weather was her belt; a dark grey. The whole look would have been dramatic, Paul thought, if she were forty pounds lighter. The Goth look really only worked on consumptive youths.

Paul stood in front of the counter. After a moment he coughed to attract her attention.

"Sex magic is at the back," she said, eyes fixed on her nails.

"Why does everyone ... Look, I'm not here for that. I wondered, do you have any books on demonology?"

"Books are at the back," said the teenager, waving her wet fingernails. She looked up and saw Paul's face for the first time. "Next to the sex magic," she added.

Paul warily groped his way into the dark interior. The smell of incense gave the darkness an almost physical feel, as though black gauze curtains hung from the ceiling. Much of the merchandise seemed made of glass or china. How many years bad luck would he subject himself to if he stumbled in the gloom and broke something? On the other hand, how much worse could his luck get?

A baby spotlight shone on the bookshelf. Paul scanned the shelves quickly, studiously avoiding looking at anything that might involve sex. Most of the display featured modern paperbacks on world religions. One section covered Wicca and witchcraft, but they seemed more of the Mother Gaia, 'hug a tree'-type books. He eventually found the demonology section, if four books could be said to form a section. It nestled uncomfortably close to 'Love spells and sex majick.' It seemed a feature of all the books to misspell words. 'Fairies' became 'faeries', 'vampires' became 'vampyres'. If all else failed, the authors saw fit to add an extra 'e' onto the end of words.

Paul flicked through all four books. Two merely catalogued demons and their traits from history, one claimed to be humorous, entitled 'Keeping Demons for Pleasure and Profit', and the last described demons as 'misinterpreted earth spirits, demonised by the Christian church'. Paul turned to regard Scarth, sniffing at a display of karma CD's. He couldn't imagine any right-thinking person who wouldn't demonise Scarth.

He scanned the rest of the shelves and quickly decided they were useless for his particular needs. He returned to the employee of the month at the till.

"Do you have anyone here who is an authority on ... um ..." an authority on how to banish a genocidal demon back to hell? "the supernatural?"

"Madam Tara does readings in the afternoons Monday to Thursday. Palm readings, horoscopes and crystal healings," intoned the shop assistant.

"No, I don't need a fortune teller. I need ...." What did he need? A miracle, or whatever the equivalent intervention from the other team was called. "Do you have, I don't know, lists of local covens, or something? Or a professor of demonology who ... shops here ... regularly?" He petered out, realising how lame it sounded.

The look on the assistant's face strongly suggested that she knew exactly what sort of man wanted to meet witches, and, by the way, they don't dance naked in the full moon, not all the time, anyway, and besides, just two streets away there were establishments that could cater exactly to his needs, perverted as they were. Which was quite a facial expression, given that it was in black and white.

"I just have ... questions." Paul had been here before. When someone had a particular opinion about you, whatever you said merely confirmed it. He should cut his losses, but every time something drove him to dig a deeper hole.

"Questions about witchcraft, and rituals, and demonology. And stuff."

The Goth stood still, her wet fingernails frozen in mid wave, staring at Paul with an 'I've heard that before' expression.

"No? Right, sorry." He looked back at Scarth. The demon wore headphones attached to the music display, his back turned towards Paul. "I'll just, you know, check the books again, sort of thing," he said, edging back towards Scarth. The shop assistant stared silently at him as he casually sauntered towards the sex majick books with all the nonchalance of a pervert.

"Scarth!" he muttered, pretending to look at the books. Scarth made no reply. Paul checked the front of the shop. The Goth was painting her other hand, her interest in the sex maniac gone.

"Scarth!" he hissed. He looked at Scarth. He was standing at the CD display, his eyes closed. Paul nudged him with his shoe. Scarth opened his eyes. To Paul's amazement, the demon's eyes were full of tears.

"Sing," said the demon, his voice hoarse with wonder.

"Yeah. Mood music for menopausal women. Wonderful. Come on, we're going."

"Sing," he said again, his voice trembling with emotion.

Paul lifted one of the padded earpieces from Scarth's head. Scarth grabbed Paul's wrist and tried to put his ear back in the headphone.

"We're going. Come on."

"Sing!" said Scarth, with urgency. "Want sing. Sing!" He snatched the earphone out of Paul's hand and placed it back on his head. A rapt expression fell across his face.

A woman entered the shop and started talking with the Goth on the counter. They both looked towards Paul, then continued their conversation.

Paul snatched at the headphones and held them high as Scarth leapt to regain them.

"Stop messing about, you retard. We have to go, now!"

"Sing?" pleaded Scarth. "Sing, want sing. Give Scarth sing. Pleeeeease?"

"People are looking. We have to go. We can't stay here all day. Move!"

The woman moved towards Paul. Paul gave an exaggerated yawn, casually placing the headphones over the top of the CD display, out of reach from the diminutive demon, and started to walk towards the door. The woman barred his way. To be fair, it would have been difficult not to bar his way in the narrow confines of the shop. They met between a stand of large wooden African tribal masks and shelves of herbal cosmetics.

"Hello," she said. Paul squinted. All he could see was her silhouette against the sunlit shop entrance, but she was trim, dressed in long skirts, and had a halo of long hair.

"Hi," mumbled Paul.

"Zephyr tells me you have some questions about Wicca."

"Zephyr?"

The woman leant close. She smelt of summer fields and cool woods.

"Her real name is Sharon," she whispered confidentially, "but don't let on you know. Young girls need those sort of things until they have the life-experience to be confident in their own selves."

"Okay," said Paul, slowly. She made it seem as though it was an onerous secret he should guard with his life. "Do you own this shop?"

She laughed. "Me? You're joking. No, I just come here for the incense and the vegan soap. I'm Vanessa. Friends call me Ess."

"Paul," said Paul. "Friends call me ... um ... Paul, I guess."

"So what do you want to know, Paul?" she asked.

"I was just wondering about ... erm ... supernatural entities, sort of thing, really." In this tourist trinket shop, talking to a strange woman, the whole thing seemed absurd. How did you go up to a total stranger and say, 'I have a murderous demon. How do people normally get rid of one?'

"You're a seeker," Ess said, knowingly. "There are several books that could help you on the Wicca religions. It's not an organised religion, so different groups have different deities and principalities, or at least different names for the same one. Do you want help choosing one?"

"Well, no, not really. It was more ...." Paul wondered if Ess could see his face colouring. It all sounded so stupid. How did you just come out and say it? He took a deep breath. "It's more demons I'm interested in. Protection from, banishment of, that sort of thing."

"Come here a moment," commanded Ess, walking towards the front of the shop. Paul followed. In the daylight by the counter Ess stopped and turned. She was much younger than Paul had guessed from the tone of her voice. She was in her early twenties, dressed in what Paul could only describe as hippy chic, as though Christian Dior had come out with a Woodstock collection. Her hair was nominally straight, but so wispy it looked as though it could trap and hide a comb for years. Or possibly a lost tribe of pygmies. The overall effect did nothing to free Paul's tangled tongue.

She studied Paul closely, until he became uncomfortable.

"You have one of the most remarkable auras I have ever seen."

Over her shoulder Paul could see Zephyr (aka Sharon) looking at him. Her sneer suggested that all perverts have weird auras.

"Are you a twin?" she asked.

Paul shook his head. "I'm an only child."

"That's most odd. It's just your aura seems to be lopsided. It's as though ..." Ess looked back into the shop. Paul followed her gaze. Scarth sat on top of the CD display, headphones back on his head. "It's like your aura is being sucked away, as though it includes someone else. I've never seen anything like it."

Zephyr's nod suggested she saw something like it every day, when seedy men mistook the shop for one that sold altogether more exotic goods.

"Maybe I just have bad posture," Paul joked.

"I think we really should chat, Paul," said Ess, earnest concern exuding from every pore. "Seriously. You need that aura sorted out. And I'd be happy to answer your questions too, if I can. I just need to buy a couple of things here first, but really, we need to talk."

The aura comment disturbed Paul. He had always considered it so much New Age hokum, but Ess' perception of it was uncanny. "Sure, okay. I ... I'll just have another quick look at the books, and I'll meet you outside, okay?"

Zephyr's look suggested she knew exactly which books he was going to peruse.

Paul stood by the CD stand and grabbed Scarth around the waist, holding him on his hip as though Scarth were a wayward child. He marched towards the door, trying to walk as naturally as possible while holding the squirming demon. Zephyr regarded his approach suspiciously.

"Nice, um, nice Goth look," he said, as he passed.

She shot a glare of contempt. "It's Emo, actually," she snarled at his back.