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Okay. She had it all together. He’d only ordered a salad and some hot chocolate. She’d added the steak, taking it from someone else’s trolley, giving her an excuse to bring the knife.

It was a pretty clumsy weapon, but right at the moment, she felt like she could do anyone. Do anything. She could throw the chocolate at his eyes first, and then, oh yeah, then, what could be simpler?

What next? What do you do for an encore? Maybe she’d turn herself in. She couldn’t decide. God was watching everything she did, over her shoulder, saying, you’d better do the right thing by Me. Well, she was doing the right thing, only no one would understand. Maybe she’d wait and see how she felt afterwards.

Really simple. She was wearing thick gloves, because it was winter anyway, and she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints. She’d knock on the door and say ‘Room service’. She’d push the trolley into the room, and give him a big smile when he said he hadn’t ordered the steak. And then she’d throw the chocolate at his eyes, and when he was distracted with that, she’d stick the steak knife into him.

She had it all planned out in her mind, even the look of surprise on his face, just the right amount of surprise, so he’d still know why she was doing it. So he’d understand. All mapped out like a telly programme that she’d already seen.

She came to the right door and knocked. No answer.

She knocked again. Oh shit, what if he didn’t answer?

He’d answer. He’d answer. The chocolate. Throw the chocolate at his eyes. This was going to be easy.

She manoeuvred the trolley aside and tried the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked. The room inside was dark. She pushed the trolley in.

Someone snatched her hand away from the handle. She gasped, failing to scream as he grabbed both her wrists and wrenched her forward until they were face to face. ‘You idiot,’ he hissed. ‘Didn’t you realize I’d know you were coming?’

A single bad vibe stabbed down Molly’s back like a dinosaur tooth. She tried to pull away, furious with herself for starting to cry. ‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘Let me go, I didn’t do anything –’

‘Why?’ he hissed. She couldn’t see his face. With a sharp movement of his foot, he kicked the trolley, so that it slid across the carpet and pushed the door closed with a crash.

‘It’s true,’ she said. The darkness pulsed with flowery colours. In one of the adjacent rooms, a TV set was playing, just audibly. ‘The healer has become the warrior.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what they said, Lizzie and John. Oh man, let me go.’

He dropped her wrists. She wished he would turn on the light. If only she could see his face. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

She managed to get into the chair without dying or freaking out. He stood by the door, eyeing the trolley. He picked up the chocolate, thought better of it, and put it carefully back in its place. It was weird, but all the time, it was as though he were looking right at her. She didn’t dare move a muscle.

‘What do Lizzie and John do?’ he said.

She panicked and told him.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘So they sent you along with this.’ She saw something glitter in the reflected light from the window. Her hands gripped the seat of the chair.

‘Oh no, man,’ she said. He was moving the knife about, as though testing it, wondering what it would be like as a weapon.

‘I’m no one’s sacrifice,’ he said. ‘No one’s.’

The glittering movement stopped. Was he still holding the steak knife? The darkness was alive with searing colour, obscuring him.

‘The same patterns,’ he said. ‘Happening over and over. Why did you come here, Molly?’

She imagined she could see his eyes watching her in the blackness, the hot blue of a gas flame. ‘I didn’t come to sacrifice you. Lizzie and John are into that occult scene. I’m a Christian.’

He didn’t say anything, and Molly felt the sudden need to fill up the silence. ‘I thought it was all rubbish, what they were doing. Black magic. It was just something to keep from being bored between trips. But they’re really serious. I think they want to summon up the Devil.’