It was late into the evening by the time they returned to base camp, got a fire going, and settled down to eat the proceeds of Thelma and Leon's raid on the scout hut. It was almost homely: the closest thing they had to a home at the moment, anyway. It would have been easy to believe that they were camping out for the fun, and not because they'd been forced into it. Even the inky blackness that surrounded them like a shroud couldn't taint the sense of contentment that had somehow settled upon them.

On another day the flames that flickered not five feet away might have triggered unhappy memories for Ella, but, protected by Leon's arms, they just made her feel safe and warm. She glanced up as thunder rolled ominously in the distance, reminding her not to get too comfortable.

"Storm's brewing," Thelma observed.

Ella nodded. "I think it's almost time for us to move on."

"We only came here in the first place," Thelma reminded her, "because you were dead on your feet and Leon couldn't carry you any further."

"Well, now I've healed."

"When you've got to go," Leon said reflectively, "you've got to go."

"We'll leave at first light," Ella decided.

Thelma frowned. "And do what? Okay, so we're better fed than we were this morning. But apart from that we're right back where we started."

"Not necessarily," Ella said. She disentangled herself from Leon and pulled the book of Orokiah towards her, laying it flat on the floor and opening it at its centre pages. Thelma scurried across to take a look.

"What do you see?"

"It's still blank," Leon said slowly.

"I know."

Thelma glanced at Leon, apparently thinking she'd taken leave of her senses. But to Ella, at long last, it made perfect sense. She'd been wracking her brains on the long walk through the woods, trying to work out what it was she was supposed to be divining from the empty pages of the book. It wasn't until Leon and Thelma had told her about the odd marks they'd discovered that it had all finally clicked.

"You told me you saw something on the trees," Ella persisted.

"Some kind of symbol," Leon confirmed.

"Exactly."

"I don't understand what this has got to do with the book," Thelma said, looking confused.

"Because the book is a symbol too."

"Pretty meaningless one, if you ask me."

"On the contrary." She jabbed a finger at the empty pages. "What do you see when you see a blank page before you? An empty well, dry of hope? Or...a clean slate?"

"Is this like a glass half full thing?" Thelma asked, sounding dubious.

"We don't need it," Leon said, catching on.

"Precisely."

Thelma snorted. "Come on, you guys. Positive thinking is nice and New Age-y and all, but it's not going to help us."

"But lateral thinking is," Ella said. "That's what we're going to need if we're going to defeat Malachi. And that's what the book is trying to tell us."

Thelma still seemed sceptical. "They wiped it because they're trying to help?"

"I'm not even sure if it was deliberate, and if it wasn't, what their motives might have been. Maybe it was just a side effect of the End of Days, like the tremors and the thunder – I don't know. But I do know the world is a very different place now, and that means we need to find a different way of dealing with it. New ideas, a new approach..."

She looked over at Leon. "A new guide."

"Mephistopheles," he said.

"He does seem to know an awful lot about the End of Days," she conceded, a little stiffly. It was kind of hard on the pride to admit that you might have been too quick to dismiss a good idea just because it hadn't come from you, even if you only admitted it to yourself. As the other Ella had pointed out, Leon and Thelma knew as much and as little about the End of Days as she did. Their opinions were equally as valid as hers, five hundred years of experience or not. It was long past time she stopped listening only to herself, and started opening an ear to them.

"He's evil!" Thelma protested.

"But a sophisticated type of evil. The old-fashioned kind, one that admires honour and integrity. Malachi is none of those things."

Leon smiled, a touch triumphant. "There's your 'why'."

"What I can't work out," Ella said with a sly smile of her own, "is why he seems to have taken such a liking to you."

He grinned and clasped his hands behind his head, the picture of confidence. "Because I'm irresistible."

"Oh, are you now?"

"Come here and let's find out."

He made a playful grab for her. Mindful of her double's warning – her own warning – about being too serious, she let herself be caught.

"Oh God," Thelma said as they giggled, hands flying to her head in despair, "you're going to get yourselves killed. I just know you are."

Leon looked over at her, concerned, but she lifted her head and shrugged, willing to run with it. "I guess I've been outvoted on this one, haven't I?"

"It's not like that," Ella said.

"The hell it isn't," she retorted, but there was a smile playing on her lips. "You know, three really is a bastard of a number sometimes."

"We'll have to go looking for some more ghosts then," Leon joked.

Ella tilted her head to one side in thought. "Maybe not ghosts...but we do need allies."

"Yeah," Thelma agreed. "Anyone without a tattoo on their neck will do nicely."

"David Tyrel."

"What about him?"

"Did you never wonder why Malachi was unable to corrupt him, like he did everyone else?"

Thelma shrugged. "Like the boy wonder himself said – he's not Jim'll Fix It."

"There has to be more to it than that," Ella said, adamant. "And it's not just that he wanted Jo in charge of the school. If David had been an incubus, he would have let them do whatever they wanted. But instead they had to use more conventional means to get him out of the way."

"Are you saying he's immune to them somehow?" asked Leon.

"Not in a religious sense, like Roxanne. There's something else about him. And we need to find out what that something is."

"Well, we're going to have to find him first," he said.

Thelma frowned. "Last seen or heard of down at Medenham nick, if I remember correctly."

"Then it's settled. First order of the day: we track down Mephistopheles, and we look for David." She looked at Thelma and Leon, an eyebrow raised. "Agreed?"

"What's this I see before me," Thelma said in disbelief, "Ella Dee working by committee? Consulting other people? Actually caring what they think?.."

"I'm asking for your agreement," Ella said, "not your approval."

She saw Leon frowning, realised it had sounded harsh, and sought an appropriate word to tag on the end. Thelma wasn't just one of the troops, after all. She was a friend.

"Please."

Thelma's lips curled wickedly. "You know, I think I like you better this way."

"We do have the advantage of surprise," Ella continued, intent on laying out the battle plans. "Malachi must believe we're dead, or no longer a threat, or he would have come in search of us by now."

Leon nodded. "Or maybe he's doing the same thing we're doing. Trying to work out what to do next."

"Maybe. He has a war to win, after all."

"You think he's got any regrets?"

Ella thought back to her brief infatuation with Malachi. When they'd first met she'd thought him a mirror of herself: stuck at the same age, struggling with the same conflict between their destinies and desires. She'd thought he felt it too. Even when he could see nothing, he'd somehow found his way to her, as if they were linked by an invisible thread.

But it had all been a lie. Another twisted scheme to render her powerless, another brainchild of Azazeal's, perhaps. He was the one who'd put it in motion, turning intrigue and attraction into unstoppable passion, and all by suggesting that Malachi might be her perfect fit. She hadn't even known it was something she was searching for, but he had. It had probably amused him no end, when the word got back to whichever circle of hell he inhabited, that she'd fallen for his schemes – and for his son – hook, line and sinker.

Malachi might have been half-human, but so far there had been little evidence that he'd inherited anything from his mother except for her powers. He certainly hadn't received her heart. Whatever it was he was doing today, Ella was quite sure it didn't involve a shred of repentance.

"No," she said.

Thelma sniggered nervously. "Shame. This would be a hell of a lot easier if he'd get an attack of the guilts."

"Yeah," Leon agreed. "We could just give him the knife and ask him to stab himself for us."

"Unfortunately," Ella said, "it's not going to be that simple."

There was a long silence as each of them absorbed the enormity of the task ahead of them. Finally, Thelma broke it, standing up and shaking the soil from her skirt.

"Right. I'm going for a walk."

Leon exchanged a glance with Ella. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"Got to walk off my dinner, haven't I?"

"But you're a ghost," he said, looking bewildered.

"A ghost who is not planning on getting lost again." She knocked two of the empty tins together. "Pity we didn't find some string. I could have made us a mobile phone."

"Maybe we should all go," Leon began, but Thelma clanged the tins loudly to interrupt.

"I'll see you later," she said robustly. "Much later. A lot later in fact. So feel free to, you know, do whatever you feel like doing while I'm gone. Sharpen the old knife. Burn the book. Play 'I Spy'. You know. Whatever."

A rustle of ghostly footsteps later, she'd disappeared into the darkness, leaving no room for further debate. They glanced at each other, amused.

"I think," Ella said with an eyebrow raised, "that was Thelma's way of giving us some privacy."

"Or her way of saying we're pissing her off," Leon suggested.

"But either way, I think we should take advantage of it."

Eyes sparkling, he lifted her chin with a finger and bent towards her to kiss her. She parted her lips, but suddenly he backed away, breaking the spell.

"I don't know," he said, looking doubtful. "It seems kind of selfish. With everything that's happening out there..."

Ella took a moment to appreciate how much he cared about their cause – if not his timing. "That's very noble of you, Leon," she said, with more patience than she felt. "But it's entirely misplaced. You acting like a monk is not going to help them right now."

He smiled sheepishly. "I guess not."

"Tomorrow we concentrate on saving the world," she promised. "But for tonight..."

She gripped his t-shirt and guided him towards her until their lips met. As the kiss deepened, she slowly pushed him to the floor, melting into him until she could no longer remember where he ended and she began. His hand drifted from her head down to the nape of her neck and beyond, sending a delicious tingle down her spine.

And then it stopped. Feeling him pull away again, she sat up, frustrated.

"Is something wrong?"

"Turn around," he said, in a low voice.

Ella frowned but obeyed, wondering if it was the corset that was bothering him or if he was giving her a taste of her own medicine by toying with her feelings, the way she'd toyed with his. She turned her head curiously and saw him peering just below her shoulder, his face pensive in the soft orange glow of the firelight.

"Your scar."

She filled in the gaps mentally: the scar she'd received back when she'd been tried as a witch. "What about it?"

Leon slipped her shirt down her shoulder to reveal the scar and traced it with careful fingers. "It's the same as the marks on the trees."

"That's because they're not marks," Ella said, shifting back around to face him. It had been too dark to make a thorough inspection of what had disturbed him and Thelma so much. But she had already guessed it would be something like this. "They're brands."

"Of evil."

"Yes," she confirmed softly. "Of evil."

He shook his head, exhaling slowly. "I thought as much. It was creepy enough back there, but on you—"

"It was a long time ago, Leon."

"I know."

"Then what's the problem?"

He sought out her hand and, grasping it gently, said, "It just seems really close to home right now."

She nodded and let it linger, basking for a moment in the warmth of the fire, the heat of his skin against hers.

"Every time I think it's sinking in," Leon continued, "it hits me. This is really it. The End of Days."

"The End of Days," she echoed, and then frowned. "It was Mephistopheles who told you that name."

He looked confused. "Yeah."

"And what it would mean."

"Ella, we've already been over this."

"So why did you come back?"

He broke into a wide grin, happy to joke about it now that particular danger was over. "So we could play doctors and nurses?"

"But he told you what was going to happen. He told you there was no point in fighting this war. So why did you not run as fast and as far away from it as you could?"

"Because he also told me there was one thing worth fighting for." Leon paused and looked straight at her. "Love."

Ella choked back a wave of emotion, caught off guard by what she saw in his eyes. They were eyes that had seen far more of the dark underbelly of the world than they should have done, and they'd lost some of their innocence because of it. But the boyish enthusiasm still remained, and beyond it, the love.

Despite everything that had happened, all the awful things she'd said and done to him, he'd never stopped fighting for her. It was only now that she fully understood why.

"Leon," she began. "About yesterday—"

He looked rueful. "I was upset about Tom. I didn't mean it."

"Oh, yes you did. But that wasn't what I meant either."

"Oh."

"You said I'd forgotten what love is, and you were right. I had. But—" She paused, delicately. "I think I remembered."

"How come?" he said carefully, not rushing her. This was new ground, and neither of them wanted to be the one to spoil it.

"You reminded me."

He leaned back on his one free hand to take it in, looking a little stunned. "So er, when – when was this?"

"Yesterday. When I thought I was dying. And today, too. When I was talking to myself."

The idea obviously tickling him, he laughed out loud. "Ella, just how much blood did you lose exactly?"

"I don't know if it was a dream, or some kind of hallucination, or if it really did happen," she said, all seriousness. She could always have kept the experience to herself, attempted to rationalise it in secret. But that wasn't part of the deal anymore. "But somehow, I was talking to myself."

"Thelma reckons the world's out of balance because of the End of Days," Leon said thoughtfully. "And with your powers, maybe—"

"I was out of balance long before the End of Days."

"What, literally?"

"Apparently so."

"But now you're not?"

She shook her head.

"I guess...that's okay then," he said, in the slow manner he had when he was taking something in that was particularly strange or supernatural, as if his brain was still catching up with his mouth.

She looked over at him, wondering if he thought she'd gone crazy again. But he was perfectly serious. It seemed like he was taking it in his stride.

"Doesn't that surprise you?"

"Ella," he said, grinning, "I can see dead people, my girlfriend is a witch, and it turned out the end of term was actually the end of the world. Nothing surprises me anymore."

She smiled. "I tried to tell you something yesterday, Leon. But you didn't believe me. Do you think you'll believe me if I tell you it now?"

"Depends what it is," he said, teasing.

"I—" She closed her eyes, cursing herself for her cowardice. He'd given her so much. The least she could do was let him know exactly where he stood with her, if she could only bring herself to say it. "I—"

But then she heard the nagging little voice again, the one in the back of her head. Go on, it said, encouraging her, almost daring her. Go on go on go on go on...

"I love you."

See? That wasn't so hard, was it?

Leon didn't say anything. Instead he just stared at her in wonder. She smiled at him, hardly able to believe she'd actually said it, and he smiled back. Ella's heart was thumping; she felt giddy, almost light-headed, more vulnerable than when she'd been mortally wounded even. But with it came a strength she'd never expected.

Love was no longer the enemy. It was no longer a weakness. She could love, and be loved – and it had made her whole again.

She felt a sudden burst of confidence that the war that was coming was one she – they – would be able to win. Surely defeating Malachi would be as of nothing compared to defeating her own demons.

There goes the D word again...

"Oh shut up," she muttered. Leon frowned.

"I didn't say anything."

"No," she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and moved closer, seeing fire dancing in his eyes, a fire she knew was reflected in hers. "So you'd better make it quick. Because by the time I've finished with you, you won't be able to."

"I love..."

"Not quick enough," she murmured, leaning in to silence him with a passionate kiss as they fell to the floor beside the leaping flames.

The fire had burned out by the time they finished making love.