"When Britain fir-ir-ir-ir-irst, at Heaven's command…"

Shanghai, Lisa knew, was the busiest and most populous port in the Orient. Compared to the rural Midwestern town she grew up in, it was to be expected that hunting witches here would require much less discretion from magical girls.

Even so, she expected the spectacle of an unchaperoned girl marching down the Bund, a glowing, gem-like object aloft in her hands while singing at the top of her lungs, to be an uncommon enough sight to merit at least some attention from the streams of passers-by around.

"Aro-oh-oh-oh-oh-ose out of the ah-ah-ah-azure waves!"

No-one, however, seemed to notice Cecily at all.

That was not exactly true. A little pocket of space surrounded Cecily wherever she walked: the crowd parted way before her, and joined up behind. Yet no one looked at Cecily: rather, they looked through her, or past her, or beyond her – in any case never directly at her. But they gave way all the same.

"This was the charter, the charter of the land!"

A rickshaw driver clattered up behind them at furious speed. Lisa looked at Cecily nervously; the girl returned her glance with a wink. When the rickshaw was almost upon them the driver suddenly made a sharp turn right. He barged into a pair of overweight elderly ladies and his passenger tumbled out. There was an angry shriek, an unladylike curse, and a torrent of broken pidgin English as the rickshaw driver tried to convey how abjectly sorry he was to someone who was apparently a Sikh policeman. A hullaballoo rose as the usual Shanghai crowd of busybodies, gossipers and pickpockets quickly gathered around the scene.

Cecily had not broken a stride. In fact, she did not spare so much as a glance at the small commotion she caused.

"And guardian an-an-an-an-angels sang this – oho!"

Her soul gem started pulsing faster. Cecily tilted her head appraisingly. "This way, I think," she announced abruptly, and veered into a smaller street branching off the Bund.

The next fifteen minutes was to Lisa a confused whirl of walking under run-down tenements, along dirty cracked pavements that winded narrowly in unexpected directions, and past squat, filthy hovels shabby and sinister in equal measure, as Cecily tried to hunt down the witch, and she tried to follow. There were a couple of times when they almost cornered it – once they thought they had even glimpsed the outlines of a barrier – but each time the witch just managed to elude them.

"This is a tricky one," Cecily muttered grimly. "Worry not, old sport, we'll have him yet. Only," she added in a pensive tone, "we've been heading awfully south for quite a while now."

"Have we?" Lisa's head was still spinning from the convoluted route they had taken. "I'm afraid I'm quite lost."

"You haven't seen the worst yet. There are some places in Shanghai no doubt overflowing with grief seeds, where I would not even dream of stepping foot…But warnings can come later. There!"

Lisa looked at the direction Cecily was pointing, and saw what seemed to be a grimy Chinese-style inn at the end of the alley. "What does that say?" she asked, squinting at a tattered banner that drooped rather forlornly from the second storey. "Oh, I'm sorry, of course you won't know Chinese…"

"The House of Ten Thousand Dreams. I can read a few words. Well," Cecily swept her hand grandly to the entrance, "shall we?"


The sudden burst of light and noise made Fang Sen groan in distress and drop his pipe. His hand felt around for it, but without success, so he forced his eyelids to open.

To his surprise two young female foreign devils wandered into his field of vision. The elder one made some remark in their barbarous devil-speak to her brethren, which caused her eyes to fill with pity and revulsion. Fang Sen's heart swelled in shame and anger. He wanted to shout, It was you foreign devils who brought this here in the first place!, but by then he had found his pipe and his mouth was busy sucking in the next draught of the Great Smoke.

After conferring briefly, each foreign devil for some reason walked over to a side of the wall with a shining gem in her hand, and slowly, methodically, combed the length of the room.

As far as Fang Sen knew this was perfectly normal foreign devil behaviour, and he just wished they would finish their business quickly and leave him alone. However, when they approached the Chinese altar at the end of the room their gems shone more brightly than ever, and they got back together for further discussion.

Fang Sen did not like the altar. All the smokers tried to avoid lying near it, because of its squat, sinister look and because it was prone to emanating inexplicable drafts of cold air. But the two devils approached the altar with considerable excitement. One of them thrust her gem at it and – here Fang Sen nearly dropped his pipe again – a swirling whirlpool of rippling darkness encircled by strange symbols gaped open on the wall above.

Ribbons of light now swathed the two foreign devils. When it faded, their accoutrements had changed. The elder one now wore a gleaming white tunic and held a trident in her hand; the younger one was dressed in uniform, not unlike the ones Fang Sen had seen at military parades in the foreign concessions; and across her shoulder was slung what he recognised, from the same parades, to be a machine gun.

The two devils walked into the black circle and disappeared; then the circle shrunk in size and also vanished.

Fang Sen stared at his pipe with deep respect. "That's strong stuff they put in there," he muttered as he sank back onto his mattress, where he quickly proceeded to forget the incident entirely.


The witch's lair was pitch black, save for a smoky cloud of unearthly white light. In front of the light floated a clumpy, bulging red sac. From the distance it looked like a cushion, or a distended heart, or even –

"A handbag?"

Cecily snickered. "Not quite. It's a purse. A scarlet purse, in fact. Our witch has poetic pretensions."

In hushed whispers they decided on their strategy. Cecily, the close-combat specialist, was to close in for melee; Lisa, with her Gatling, would provide covering fire and suppress any counterattacks.

"Just like how it was done back in the Great War." Cecily's cheeks were flushed and her eyes held a dangerous predatory gleam. "Jolly good, old bean! Tally-ho!"

With a loud whoop Cecily launched herself at the witch. The witch swivelled ponderously towards her, and the air echoed with a thin, mournful whine that grated at Lisa's heart. Gritting her teeth, Lisa brought her machine gun to bear and opened fire.

Thick strings shot out of the purse towards Cecily. Most of them were shredded by Lisa's gunfire while Cecily easily pirouetted past the remaining few. She reached the monster and slashed with her trident; a wound opened up on the side and black, jelly-like globules spilled out.

One of them fell near Lisa, spraying her with a sticky, sweet-smelling goo. Lisa swayed, and for an instance she was five again, sitting beside Mother on the bed, making her laugh as she mimicked Father's attempts to cook in the kitchen.

Shuddering, Lisa forced herself back to consciousness. She shook off the goo and looked around.

Her friend was less fortunate. Encased by one of the black globules, Cecily was tied by the purse-strings and being dragged towards the open red purse. Lisa tried to move, but some strings had snaked up her ankles and held her fast to the ground. She could only watch, helpless, as an unconscious Cecily was drawn closer and closer to the gaping mouth of the witch.

"I say we let the roastbeef be."

"Better the devil we know, my princess."

Two lights flashed, white and red, and suddenly Cecily was free of the strings and falling. She dropped onto Lisa, which caused the large goo globule around her to splatter everywhere…

It was night at the Bund. Two girls walked hand in hand along the riverfront; one talked animatedly as she pointed towards the distance while the other – could it be Cecily? – watched her sideways with a secret smile

…and Cecily was shaking herself awake with an angry growl, "That was private!" that took Lisa a moment to realise was directed at the witch.

Cecily sprang at the witch, which was now crumbling under the blows of the two new magical girls, and joined in their attack. The assault, however, was hindered by their need to avoid the globules, which the witch was shedding in profusion; meanwhile the purse was wriggling towards the strange white light.

"Too many goo!" the red girl shouted. "The witch, she is getting away!"

"I'll handle it!" Lisa called.

As the other girls sprang back, Lisa focused and tapped into her reserves of magic. Her machine gun transformed into an artillery emplacement, which delivered a long and relentless barrage that tore into the witch. For an instance it seemed as though the tattered remnants of the purse would reach the light, but at the last moment the cloth ripped and frayed and the witch was no more.

Black globules everywhere started drying up. From the largest clump a grief seed dropped towards the earth. Out of reflex Lisa stretched her arm.

A hand snatched it away. It was the pretty girl in white. "Typical American. Comes into the fight at last moment, thinks she saves the day."

"Give it here, Labelle." Cecily walked up next to Lisa. "The witch was ours."

"Was she?" All around them the witch's barrier was failing and the real world reasserting its outline. They were standing on the roof of a row of apartments, close to a broad and busy thoroughfare. "See where you are, roastbeef."

Looking behind her, Lisa saw a four-storey tower, gleaming in the light of the setting sun. "That's…the Great World arcade, isn't it? So that must be Avenue Edward VII and we are…" she looked at the sun to her right, "south of it. Oh!"

Cecily folded her arms. "We found the witch in our territory."

"But the witch crossed to our territory. Also, if you remember," the French girl sneered, "we saved you and your new pet American. But, of course, what should your perfidious ilk know of gratitude?"

Cecily adjusted her grip on the trident. The French girl laid a hand casually on the hilt of her lance.

"Now, now, Marianne." The girl in red – that must be Tamara, Lisa thought – walked between the two. She bent down and murmured something in French to Marianne, who glared at her. Tamara grinned, clasped Marianne's closed hand and gently prised it open. She took the grief seed and tossed it to Lisa. "The spoils go to the conqueror, no? Please pardon Marianne. She is a nice girl, mainly."

Marianne snarled at Tamara, turned her back on all of them, and stalked off. Tamara gave a helpless shrug, smiled apologetically, and hurried off after her.

"Now I feel like a cad," Cecily remarked wryly when they were out of earshot. "They needed that seed far more than us."

"Why would that be?"

"Oh, theirs is a long and a sad tale." Cecily sighed. "Too long and too sad, certainly, to go into at the present. I shall be taking my leave now – no, the grief seed is yours, I won't think of sharing it – here's my address," she handed Lisa a piece of paper, "I live in a hotel; if I happen to be away when you call leave a word by the concierge and I'll get in touch. Good evening!"

"Good – evening."

And then Lisa was alone in the cool dusk air. High above, the first stars began to glimmer in the twilit summer sky.