Finally, an update! (people gasp and faint) Hopefully I'll be updating every two weeks from now on, at least. This chapter's an experiment; it's all from Bartimaeus's POV. I might or might not write more as him, I'll see how it goes.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and as always to Ignotus Veritas.

Oh, and can anyone tell me why Quickedit deletes asterisks (the little star thingys at the top of the screen, in case they're called something else in american), or are they only deleted in preview? It's annoying. (it deleted the angrysmiley that I puthere too)

Enjoy!

Kitty told me as we left her flat that it wasn't a long walk to the meeting place, which of cause made me ask were the meeting place was. She told me it was a secret.

Is it me, or would anyone curious enough to listen to our conversation just follow us to the oh-so-secret meeting place?

So we walked in silence for a bit, me looking around at the area. It was similar to the slum that Kitty's parents' house and her friend Jakob had lived. A tip, in other words. I also noticed that no-one said anything to Kitty, despite the fact it was a fairly busy slum. I began listing reasons:

One: Kitty only just moved here;

Two: Kitty is antisocial;

Three: Everyone is antisocial here;

Four: Kitty has a bad reputation

Five: I'm scaring them off, what wit—

"OK, stop sulking. We need to talk about" she paused for about two seconds and then ran through a list, and I mean ran through:

"How to introduce you to the guys; what your alias will be; what plans we'll propose; who you'll work with-"

"Alias? Why do I need an alias?"

"Just because you're not human doesn't mean you have to flaunt it, Barty"

She was… smirking. There was no other word for it. Not an evil smirk, just like she was laughing at me. I realised my expression was stuck half way between disbelief and anger and changed it back to normal (cynical, if you want to be precise)

"Barty?" I said. I think my contempt was lost on her.

"Yes, Barty. We're nearly there; so, next item on the agenda: introductions. Stefan can see you as you are, watch out for him. Even if they attack you, strike back and everything's lost. Got that?"

I nodded, wondering if this was how Kitty talked to her little Resistance group. Maybe they're stupid, but I'm not.

"What does Stefan look like then? Or I won't know who he is"

"I'd guess he'll be the one staring at you in horror"

"Duh. I mean--"

"This is the meeting place."

Well, she'd got bossier- sorry, more authoritive, over the years. And it worked, as well, I suddenly realised. I had not made even one sarky comment. Not one. Compared to my attitude to Mandrake, this change of attitude could be called a miracle.

Well, lets have a look at the Resistance.

Djinn have better eyesight than humans, so I had the advantage of seeing them before they could see us. A group of six; four men and a woman, with another girl walking over to join them as I watched. They were looking around, and trying to hide it. They seemed nervous, but managed to conceal it, and all in all did a pretty good job of looking like they belonged here.

We walked over too them, Kitty walking faster than she needed to, and me tagging behind. I was not looking forward to this meeting, strangely enough.

As Kitty had said, I could tell which of them could see me. A blond boy with long, straight hair hanging in front of his face. His eyes were startlingly dark compared to his hair and complexion, and were wide open, staring at me.

It was lucky he was the one who could see me. He clearly didn't know what to do, cowering, panicked. One of the girls looked at him – Stefan, Kitty had said his name was – with concern, and then at me in sudden understanding.

I rolled my eyes. Kitty started telling them something, but she ran at me, dived forward; I saw, too late, flashes of metal in her hands.

I grabbed her wrists, she twisted and ducked (she was strong, for a human girl-child) pulled one hand free. I felt a flash of pain across my shoulder, ignored it, slammed into the girl, using leverage to knock her to the ground despite Ptolemy's slight form.

I pulled the silver daggers from her hands and threw them aside, not far enough she'd have to search for them, but too far for anyone to get them back without me noticing. Grabbing them off her made blisters all across the palms of my hands, but I knew enough about human ideals of respect that I didn't want Kitty to help me.

Kitty had managed to control the rest of the group, and I listened to a basic explanation of why I was here (conspicuously missing was the fact that Kitty had summoned me). The girl who'd attacked me was dusting herself down angrily.

I spoke up when she made a move towards where the daggers had fallen, speaking to Kitty but not taking my eyes off my attacker.

"I'll turn around and go if any of your people threaten me again." I made the statement completely flat. Your people. A calculated insult. I wouldn't suck up to them.

"No-one's going to attack you now. Ciara, put your daggers away, we could all get arrested for carrying weapons

"Now, are we agreed we won't attack 'Barty'?" I had never met a human who could pronounce inverted commas as well as Kitty could "Good. OK, lets discuss our current plans. We have Barty as an ally for now, how can he help our strategy?..."

She kept talking, basically trying to get them to say how I could be of a help. I knew what she was doing: making them realise how useful I was.

Ciara, the girl who'd attacked me, had one hand on one of the concealed knives she'd attacked me with. Her eyes kept flicking over to me, and when I caught her looking she looked straight at me.

She looked angry, and I grinned at her, knowing it would infuriate her. Maybe I was letting Kitty boss me around, but I could piss off this little wannabe-warrior as much as I wanted.

The others were staying away from me, obviously scared of what was probably the only 'demon' they'd ever met as anything other than an enemy. Silly, they wouldn't be as nervous if I was trying to kill them. Where's the sense in that?

I had been daydreaming, I suppose. It was almost relaxing, being on Earth without any charge, as such; not nearly as nice as the Other Place, but that couldn't be helped.

"Demons!"

I recognised Stefan's voice, and checked the planes for myself. A routine patrol of foliots were fast approaching on the forth plane.

I moved ahead of the Resistance, which was in a semi-panic trying to find its weapons, and shot down the first of the foliots with a well-placed Detonation. The second fell with a silver knife in its throat; I looked back to see Stefan aiming a second throwing knife.

The collective Resistance was managing to pull itself together, but it was clear they couldn't fight without seeing their opponents.

Or maybe they could. Ciara the violent was leaping to where we had aimed and slashing around like a manic, which was surprisingly effective.

Kitty had a knife and was waiting for an attacker to give away its location, and the others were, as far as I could tell, pursuing similar strategies. I left them to it, returning to the fight.

It became clear this was not a normal patrol. For one, there were far more of the damn creatures than on a normal patrol. And normal foliots couldn't go invisible in the first place, much less stay invisible despite the pain caused by silver. Heck, it was hurting me and I hadn't touched the damn stuff.

I had to do something, and I realised now what.

Two minutes of evading foliots whilst preparing a tricky spell ( A/Ndo they call it 'spell' in TBT?) later, the foliots became visible to all humans in the vicinity, and I was feeling slightly ill from the effort it took to do such a specialised piece of magic. I'd made the foliots, but not myself, visible to the Resistance, but not innocent bystanders, while also disguising who it was who had cast the spell. Not easy, as even humans should be able to guess

The foliots were no match for their human opponents, so I stopped seriously trying to kill them and watched the Resistance do a mighty good job of taking the demons apart. Soon there were only two left, and they were fleeing (doubtless disobeying orders, since they had stayed this long).

Suddenly, the ground began to shake. Never a good sign, and this was no exception. Cracks were appearing on the earth I was standing on.

I leapt back; the ground erupted upwards and outwards. A creature appeared, roaring.

It was something like an afrit, I didn't know what. Doglike in form, with flames running across its body. It roared, flames flickering out from its mouth.

It somersaulted towards me with startling speed, slamming a claw out at me as it landed, and any sympathy I might have had for it having been trapped underground vanished.

It just missed, gouging into the earth maybe two centimetres from my foot.

I jumped back further, forming a plan of attack as I went, but I forgot it from the shock of what I saw next.

What was clearly a Detonation – magic available to higher-level djinn and anything upwards – flew past my shoulder into the creature's face. I spun in mid air to see who/what had done that.

I had maybe two seconds to regret it,the time between something hitting me very hard from what was now behind me and me connecting just as hard with the ground.I had been thrown around enough to know the impact wouldknock me unconcious, and, sure enough, it did

Mako: (mutters) that was a lame cliffhanger. It's so hard to write about being knocked out in 1st person shouts Find out what happens next in the next exciting instalment of--

Audience: (starts throwing things)

Mako: OK, I'm going… Bye!