On the street Scarth wailed like a sick fire engine. "Sing gone!" he cried. He still wore the headphones, the coiled wire bitten through a foot from the earpiece.

"Yes, sing gone. Just shut up for a moment."

"Sing," he screamed, and struck the headphones with his fist.

"No, the sing has gone. It's dead. You killed it. It's gone."

"Sing!" Scarth's voice rang with anger and desperation. He hit the headphones so hard that for a moment he staggered.

Paul snatched the headphones off of Scarth's head and marched down the street. He threw them into a litterbin hanging on a lamppost.

Scarth threw himself onto the ground and grasped Paul's leg in his claws.

"Scarth sorry," he sobbed. "Scarth good. Bring back sing. Scarth not kill it. Sing, please?" He turned his nightmare face up to Paul, and the tears coursed down his cheeks. He sneezed, and a gob of green snot hung from a nostril.

"Oh God," said Paul, turning away. Scarth scared him now. It was hard enough to deal with a demon that ate people. How did you deal with one hysterical with grief? Hysterical and unsanitary?

A few yards down the street, an electrical shop displayed its goods in a small shop window. Genuine Bolex watches nestled side by side with Chinese nodding cats and suspiciously cheap cameras.

"Wait here," he ordered, and shook his foot free. He disappeared into the shop, and reappeared a few seconds later, pulling the contents out of a plastic blister pack. He took the minature transistor radio and hit the scan button. Then he handed it over to Scarth.

"Here," he said, giving the earpieces to Scarth. "Radio Two. Terry Wogan. Knock yourself out."

Scarth mournfully took the earpieces. He sniffed long and loudly, a sound that would put a starving man off food for life, and went to put one of the earbuds in his mouth.

"No. Put it in your ears. Your ears." Paul mimed putting the earpieces in his ears.

Scarth tentatively put the earpieces in, then his face shone like the sudden appearance of the sun from behind thunder clouds.

"Sing!" he breathed in wonder. "Sing!"

"Listen," said Paul. Scarth gazed unfocussed into space. Paul pulled an earpiece out. Scarth snatched it back and screwed it in again. Paul wiped his fingers on his jeans. The earpiece had been in Scarth's ear seconds, and already had a waxy feel to it. He reached out and hit the off button on the radio. Scarth's face became a mask of horror.

"Sing dead," he cried.

"I'll switch it back on in a moment, but you have to listen to me first, okay?"

"Sing now!" demanded Scarth.

"Listen first!" countered Paul. "You can listen to the singing, but you must be good. Follow me, alright? Don't go wandering off. And don't eat anything. Or anybody. Just be good and stick with me. Do you understand?"

"Scarth good. Sing?"

Paul shook his head resignedly. He hoped the radio was a good move. It might distract him from his more destructive habits, but he didn't want Scarth to wander off and be lost forever in the city. He hit the on button.

Ess stepped out of the majick shop and spotted Paul. She smiled and strode towards him with a determined gait.

"Before we start," she said, stopping just short of Paul, "Zephyr tells me you're a sex pervert. Are you?"

"What? No, not at all," protested Paul.

Ess lifted her chin and looked suspiciously down her nose at him. "Why were you asking for the sex magic books then?"

"No, I wasn't. I never mentioned them. It was her. She just assumed ...." Paul realised that Ess was grinning.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," she said. "Don't mind Zephyr, she thinks every man's a sex maniac. When she gets to my age, she'll find disappointingly few men are."

Her age, as far as Paul could make out, was perhaps twenty three. But she carried herself with such confidence it was only faintly amusing to hear her talk about herself as though she were twice that age. You would have to be self-confident to stride the streets of London dressed as she did. Not that she dressed badly, far from it. She dressed distinctively. Her bright, layered skirts busied themselves with swirls and waves of patterns, the cream cheesecloth blouse bore no evidence of environmentally-suspect bleach, and the whole ensemble was cluttered and adorned with ethnic necklaces, bracelets and trinkets that amounted to pounds of extra weight. On her it worked, somehow. It helped she had the sort of natural good looks that turned hearts, if not heads. The one fly in the (not tested on animals) ointment was her hair. Somewhere between blonde and ginger, it floated and frizzed as though she held a Van de Graaff static electricity generator.

Ess hitched the cotton bag across her shoulder. "Just in case, though, let's go to Soho Square. There's the gardens, we can sit on the grass in front of a hundred witnesses, and anyway, I'm meeting some friends there later. Because you never know," she said, hooking her arm through Paul's and striding off, "you might not be safe with me alone."

Paul glanced anxiously behind them. Scarth trotted in their wake, a gormless smile on his huge jaw.

It took them ten minutes to reach the gardens, every second of which Paul was acutely aware of the close proximity of the attractive woman. Ess, on the other hand, appeared to be oblivious to Paul. He wondered if she always grabbed people like this. Probably. She didn't appear to be capable of uncertainty, grasping life (and Paul) and leading it wherever she wanted.

The gardens were crowded with tourists, office workers and students. In the great British tradition, they hogged the sunlit patches on the lawns. Ess, by contrast, picked a deserted patch shaded by a large sycamore. She folded her legs elegantly, collapsing with a dancer's grace into the lotus position, her skirts naturally falling to cover her legs.

Paul seemed clumsy in comparison. He tried to cross his legs flat on the ground, but couldn't even get close. In the end, he settled for hugging his knees in front of him.

Ess her closed her eyes, her back straight, her hands held in the classic yoga position on her knees. She breathed in deeply and held her breath for several seconds. "Feel that?" she asked.

"What?"

"Life," she said. "The grass, the roots of the trees, the thousands of microbes and insects and the people, all connected." She opened her eyes and looked at Paul. "And you're sat there thinking you've been trapped by a loony, eh?"

"No," said Paul, colouring, wondering if she could read minds.

"You've got questions about Wicca. Fire away, and I'll answer as best I can. But it will cost you."

"How much?" asked Paul, aware of his dwindling money reserves.

"Afterwards, you have to let me sort out your aura, okay? Even if you don't believe a word of it. Just because you don't think you have an aura, doesn't mean your aura doesn't think it has you." She grimaced. "You know, that sounded so much better in my head. Anyway, shoot. What can I tell you?"

"Well, it's not witchcraft I've got questions about, so much."

"Just a point, Paul," she interrupted. "It's no big thing, but a lot of Wiccans don't like the term 'witchcraft', okay? It's derogatory, and gives the people the idea that ..."

She was interrupted by the jingle of a mobile phone. It took a moment for Paul to place the tune.

"Bewitched?" he asked with a grin, as Ess dug into her shoulder bag.

"Shut it," she laughed. "I can say it, you can't."

She glanced at the facia, then held the phone to her ear.

"Hi, Oz.... I'm in Soho .... Yes, of course I've got it," she said, patting her bag as though the caller could see it. She squealed with shocked laughter. "You are a dirty old man. I am shocked and appalled you should suggest such a thing to an innocent young flower like me.... Oh, behave, you'll just have to wait.... Because I'm with a friend, that's why.... Oz, if you were twenty years younger, you wouldn't need the ointment, now would you.... About an hour, I guess. See you then. Bye."

She folded the phone and dropped it into her bag. "Sorry. That was Oz," she explained, rather unnecessarily. "He's such a sweety, but he is an outrageous flirt. I bet if I said yes, he'd run a mile. Now, if it's not Wicca, what do you want to know about?"