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Sherringford frowned.

'Alone? Unguarded by your faithful?'

Another pause.

'Do you doubt my power?'

Backtracking quickly, he cried, 'No, oh Great One! My concern for you overrides my good sense.'

'I have . . . converted two intruders to the cause,' Azathoth said. 'I shall send them to you. They will serve as my guards.'

I glanced at the Doctor. He looked back with a forboding frown. I knew what he was thinking, and it was bad news.

He glanced across at Sherringford.

'This One True Faith lark,' he said. 'It sounds as if you have something more literal in mind than a quick dip in the holy water.'

'Once you have heard my Word, Doctor,' Azathoth's voice murmured seductively in my mind, 'then your doubts will evaporate like dew in the sunlight, and you will receive my Mark as a sign of my special favour.'

'Hypnosis? Mind control? I was hoping for something a little more impressive than that.'

He turned to me.

'I've spent a thousand years fighting the Great Old Ones and their servants, and this pathetic specimen isn't one of them. It's nothing but a confidence trickster with the power to make people love it: a cosmic cuckoo masquerading as a trans-dimensional power and trading on the reputation of a being far greater than it could ever be. How pathetic.'

'Clutch at whatever straws of explanation you like, Doctor,' Sherringford whispered, 'but you will think differently when you have heard the Word.'

'That,' the Doctor said, 'is what I am afraid of.'

He turned to look at me.

'Imetay otay ogay,' he said, 'When I say the "R" word.. .'

'Message understood.'

'Make sure Holmes comes too.'

I quickly glanced over to where the Great Detective stood. His face showed no expression now, and he seemed to have got stuck in a particular pose.

'He's in shock,' I said. 'Not surprising. I'll try and pull him after us.'

'Run,' the Doctor cried.

I turned, and froze.

Ace was standing behind me. She looked fine, apart from an unnatural hump across her shoulders. Beside her, Watson was holding his hand out to touch my face. The hand was a hard glossy crimson thing veined with black, with fingers that ended in vicious claws.

'Ah, the newcomers to the congregation,' Sherringford hissed. 'I'll leave you in their capable hands.'

Chapter 17

In which our heroes are finally reunited but their celebrations are suspended for a while.

A continuation of the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.

There was a long pause after Sherringford Holmes and K'tcar'ch walked out of the caravan and into the airlock. There was an expression of complete and utter resignation on Holmes's face, as if he was trapped in a dream and could not wake up. Bernice's face registered a mixture of horror and betrayal, whilst I could read nothing from the Doctor.

After we heard the outer door to the caravan open and then close again, Ace gazed at the Doctor's rumpled linen suit and battered hat.

'It's Kolchak the bleeding Night Stalker, isn't it?' she said.

A slow smile spread across the Doctor's face.

'I've never known you to be convinced by anybody else,' he said, 'so why should a god find it any easier?'

'I used to fancy this guy, when I was a kid,' she replied, twisting so that she could pull the bundled-up floater skins from beneath her jacket, the ones that had given the impression of nascent wings. 'But he was one of the happyclappy God Squad types. Used to take me to church discos on a Saturday night. No booze, no fun, and it all finished at half past ten. I've had more fun watching Question Time. Didn't stop him trying it on when he walked me home, though. Anyway, got chatting to the vicar one night, and come closedown I'd thrown so many spanners into his faith that he had to go off to a monastery in the Hebrides for five years to recover. He lives in a squat in Woolwich now, or at least he did the last time I asked. So, don't talk to me about religion.'

Bernice's eyes were darting between Ace and