Michael Corner and The Solid Gold Underpants

I'm not all that good at scrying. I've never been good at divination either, and they are pretty similar. Divination is harder, because there are so many futures, but both rely on separating 'wish from wisdom' as the Diviners say. Diviners use all sorts of strange things: mirrors, fruit peel, animal guts, the more disgusting the better, but Scryers traditionally use a crystal ball or, in the twenty first century, an app. I was using Scryr on my phone, which is pretty good for filtering out wishes, and I was looking for a box.

Not just any box. I was looking for a Pandora's Box. Some bozo had 'found' the wretched thing, opened it (as they always do) and thrown it away as quickly as they could. They had then succumbed to about thirty diseases. Simultaneously.

'I've got a ditch,' I said. 'Lots of stinging nettles.'

'I've got a tree stump,' said Boot.

'Is it by a ditch?' I said.

'Trying to pan out,' he muttered. 'Yes. Ordinary field ditch like there are about seventy zillion miles of in England.'

'But we have ditch and a tree stump,' I said. 'Which rules out a lot of other places.'

'Point,' he said. 'I've got a road. Along the ditch.' He stared a bit longer. 'Not a road,' he corrected himself. 'It looks as though, yes, it's been carpeted. I can even see the pattern. Nasty.'

'Carpet,' I said. 'Are you sure? Is it a dump site or something?' Looking for a box in a dump, even a glittery magical Pandora's Box, would be a nightmare

'Old carpet used to make a muddy path passable,' he said. He would know. His family are landowners, after all.

'Might be carpet,' I said doubtfully. 'I've got that hedge pretty clearly, though. Have you got enough to get co-ordinates?'

'Still greyed out,' he said. 'Can you pull out a bit more?'

I pulled back my vision until my ears started to pop. All I could see were the hedge and ditch. The hedge was in flower, which was odd in winter, and the ditch was half full of water. I tried to glance at the co-ordinate fields without losing a grip on the vision.

'I've got a reading,' I said. '38.56 Oak. Can't read the Willow.'

'Either 41 or 47,' said Boot. 'Close enough?'

'We need at least one decimal place,' I said. 'Come on. I'm holding it.'

I could practically hear his brain creaking as he tried to focus on three different things at once.

'41.23,' he said at last, sounding as though he had run a marathon.

'I'll do the conversion,' I said, taking pity on him. He didn't sound as though he could lift a feather.

Oak was easy, because it is an Earth coordinate. Willow is Water and keeps on shifting. He had done well to get two decimal places, but by the time I tracked it down it had moved to almost 42.

I got it up on Google Earth and it turned out to be in a hedge between two fields, somewhere in Bedfordshire. I had to risk flipping there in broad daylight, hoping it was too remote for anyone to see me appear and wonder what I was searching for.

The truth was that I didn't know, because I didn't know what sort of Box had been opened.

A Pandora's Box is like a prison for curses. You can deal with a curse by breaking it, triggering it or containing it. Breaking a curse is dangerous because you have to be confident that your magic is stronger than the wizard who cast it. Curse-breakers are highly paid specialists because the burn-out rate is astronomical. Most work for banks because so many inheritances come 'with strings attached', usually lethal ones.

Triggering it can be dangerous too, if you're not prepared to wait for the intended target to turn up or if you are employed by said target, so the safest method is containment in a Pandora's Box. A Box can be the only viable way of dealing with a swarm of curses because one Box can contain an almost unlimited number of them. When you are cleaning up the site of a duel where a load of hexes have been flung about, a Box will be your only option, though it can take time. Cleaning up the school after the big fight took nearly seven months and a whole new cellar had to be created to store the Boxes they filled. I suspected that the Box I was looking for had been 'liberated' from the school.

Boxes can be either boxes, in which case I would have to find the key, or flasks, in which case I was looking for a stopper. I reckoned it was a flask because the curses had morphed into diseases and curses in flasks tend to evolve. Whichever it was, Boxes were always pretty little objects with lots of gold and crystal. This is why they are so frequently stolen.

It was very cold and miserable out in the countryside. The hedge and ditch looked familiar and, yes, the hedge was in flower. That was good because flowering would be a sign of hope. Otherwise every hedge and ditch in northern Europe would have looked like the one I had seen in the Ball. But, it did have a carpet. It was disgustingly muddy but it had a horrible, swirly Nagasaki Axminster pattern just about visible. I prodded it with my staff, which was essentially a long stick with Revealing runes carved into it. It was mostly for poking into nettles. I also had a magic picker, which was an ordinary plastic litter picker with some runes written in Sharpie on the shaft.

There is a cute little charm that points a wand in the direction of a source of hope. We generally use it to find exits at the end of concerts, situations like that, but I was using it to pinpoint the Box. The seal on a Pandora's Box has to be locked with hope, which is a sadistic little twist because, when you unlock it and let all the nasties out, it leaves you hoping that they can all be put back. Of course they can't be, but you still hope. Right to the point at which they kill you.

I got the wand pointed at the target and laid down the staff so that it pointed in the right direction, then moved around and pointed the wand again. Hopefully (hah) the Box would be where the two lines met.

There was something there. I could see the glint of metal amongst the nettles and it chimed faintly when I poked the staff at it.

Chimed? I'd never heard of them doing that before.

Then a voice said, 'Watcha doin'?' and I nearly leapt out of my skin.

A small figure was watching me from the branch of a tree that overhung the hedge. A child, or a large elf, or possibly a demon, stared down at me. I couldn't see very clearly because the figure was almost against the sun.

'Who the,' I began. 'Marshmallow sandwich are you?' I redirected myself quickly in case it was a demon. Never say 'Hell' to a demon. They can bore on about it for weeks. Horrible place, apparently.

'Ahm me,' said the figure. 'Who're yu?'

'I'm me, too,' I said. I knew this game. 'That makes two of us.'

'Yeah, welw,' it said. 'Was gan on?'

'Did you see someone throw something into the ditch?' I asked hopefully

'Norw. But there's summing there. I seen it shiny.'

'Do you know what it is?' I said.

'Yar,' said the figure. ''S 'ome.'

'Home?' Okaay, I thought to myself. Demon, then. 'What's your name?'

'Sparra,' he said

'Sparrow?'

'Yah.'

'With an 'e'?'

Pause. 'Might be,' it admitted.

I shaded my eyes and took a closer look at it. It looked human and had greasy black hair, but was much bigger that I had thought. Just hunched over. Definitely wasn't a goblin, and it had the weird purple eyes of a lesser demon.

'So, 'Sperrow'. You were in a Pandora's Box, were you?'

'Dunno nuffing about a box,' it said. 'I was in this, like, bottle. Sure.'

Under the Treaty of Droylsden, human shaped sapient beings must adopt a sign that shows their true nature, unless they are completely human. So werewolves have to adopt wolfy names, like Remus Lupin did. Vampires have to dress in full formal evening dress, or they can't transform (or, to be accurate, they can transform but only formal evening dress transforms with them, so when they transform back they're stark naked). This little menace had adopted a name including the 'sper-' syllable, which meant it was a Hope demon. It was the Hope that had been used to seal the Box and was just what I was hoping for. At last we were getting somewhere. If it was linked to the Box it wouldn't be going anywhere.

I took a closer look at the ditch. There was the glint of metal at the bottom, under all the nettles. I used the staff to bend them out of the way and peered in hopefully. It was a beer can, but it chimed again. It had to be the Box under a glamour. I clambered down into the ditch, charming the nettles away from my hands, and picked it up. It was a still beer can. There was no sign of a glamour.

'Sperrow?' I said. 'How big was the bottle?'

No answer.

There was nothing in the tree but a couple of wood pigeons.

Shit.

That is the thing about Hope demons. Their influence makes you make false assumptions. I had assumed it was tied to the bottle.

I had to backtrack and question all the assumptions I had made: I had assumed it was a Hope demon, but if it wasn't then more of my assumptions would be correct – including the assumption that he was a Hope demon. Don't go there. Recursive paradox.

I had assumed that it was telling the truth about being in the Box, and that the Box actually was a bottle. That was justified as hope was needed for the Box. I had already assumed that the Box was a bottle on the reasonable grounds that the contents had changed.

I had assumed that the Box, whatever it was, would be at the point where the lines intersected. That was only reasonable if I had used the charm accurately.

I concluded that I had been sloppy, first time, and already under the influence of Sperrow, but no: I had done it right, but the wand had been pointing at Sperrow. I wondered vaguely where it had got to.

Right. Start again. There must be traces of hope left on the flask, or was that too much to hope for?

Nothing. Five readings, all completely random.

There was nothing for it but to go back to schoolboy magic. 'Accio Box!' I said.

And, lo and behold, the Box rose from the ditch not ten feet from the beer can and landed politely at my feet. 'Accio stopper' didn't work because there's a technical word for the stopper that I had forgotten, but it didn't matter because the stopper was lying about five inches from where the Box had been. Both were completely inert and very blingy so I could understand why the unfortunate muppet had stolen them.

I stowed them in the insulated carry case that Quilly had provided and flipped back to the office, wondering why Quilly had chosen a case decorated with Peppa Pig.

'Shame about the demon,' said Mr Gorbentius, examining the Box with a powerful loop in his eye. 'But they're slippery at the best of times.'

'Especially Hope ones,' said Boot. 'You did well to spot it so quickly.'

They were being kind, verging on the patronising. I hate it when they're being kind. 'Has it left a trace on the Box?' I said to cover my irritation. 'I wonder whether it's on the database.'

'Quilly?' said Boot, and the elf materialised at his elbow.

'Yes master?' he said, and Mr Gorbentius frowned in irritation, as he always did when Quilly addressed Boot, or me, as master. Technically, he owned Quilly, but elves can't acknowledge goblins as masters.

'Have a look at this,' said Boot, indicating the Box. 'Is there any demon-taint on it?'

Quilly produced elf sized nitrile gloves and ran a thumb around the rim of the Box.

'Very clear, master,' he said. 'He must have been right at the top.'

'Could you have a look through the database and see if there's any record of him,' said Boot.

'Won't be a minute, master,' said Quilly and disappeared with the Box carried carefully in front of him.

We barely had time to turn our attention to the stopper when Quilly reappeared with the Box.

'I have found a record, master,' he told Boot. 'There is evidence of this individual being in circulation in London in the late eighties, and in The United States in the early nineties. It disappeared in 1996 and the indications that it was bottled by a private agency in the States. It was traded back to the Ministry in 1998 to be used in the clear-up.'

'Excellent! Thank you, Quilly,' said Boot. 'What are the correlations?'

'Poll Tax in London, master, and Mr Clinton's early years in the States,' said Quilly.

'So… Experienced in affecting governments,' said Mr Gorbentius.

'That sounds a bit ominous,' muttered Boot.

'We'll need to keep an eye out for signs of over-optimism,' said Mr Gorbentius.

'Good luck with that,' I said, thinking about the prime minister. He didn't strike me as being someone who needed help in being over-optimistic.

'In the meantime, we need to report on the access to Physic Alley[1]' said Mr Gorbentius. 'Apparently the government has got wind of it and is asking questions of The Ministry.'

'The fact that Nige is a friend of the PM's may have something to do with it,' said Boot. 'He wants to cash in on all that property he bought.'

'The PM is probably hoping for a nice contribution to party funds,' I said. 'He's in for a disappointment.'

Porgy was waiting for me when I got back to my office, and I suddenly realised why she was there.

'I'm really sorry,' I said, feeling harassed on all sides. 'I haven't had a chance. What's the latest sich?'

'No need to apologise, master,' said Porgy in surprise. She had only recently joined us and hadn't got used to our egalitarian policies. Gods knew where she had come from but they seemed to have been fairly old school. 'There has been one more claim, but it has not been substantiated.'

'Right, well, I'm planning to go out this afternoon and case the joint,' I said. 'Do you have a map.'

'I have up-loaded a detailed map of the area, with magical overlays, onto your phone,' she said. 'There are two possible tangent spots. One on St Mary Axe and the other off Creechurch Lane.'

'I'll check out Creechurch Lane,' I said. 'Where do they get these weird names from? I wonder.'

'Because magical names are so normal?' she said drily. Maybe she was getting the hang of it after all.

A few months before, I had stumbled upon a couple of hidden Alleys, Physic Alley and Chemic Alley that had once been accessed from a building in St Mary Axe. It's a weird name for a pretty ordinary street, but it is right in the middle of the City of London where real estate is worth a fortune. Several fortunes. The Alleys were cut off and isolated when the building was demolished in the seventies, trapping some serious drinkers inside in a limbo state during which almost no time passed.

Now that it was known that the Alleys were still there, and that the properties were very valuable, their original owners (or their descendants) and anyone else who could forge a decent property bond, were trying to claim them back and we had been tasked with sorting the mess out.

Unfortunately, someone had got there first. One of the drinkers had managed to sneak out and had been buying the properties dirt cheap because the owners thought the property no longer existed. I needed to check out a couple of things, but first I had to find out where he had got out and got back in again. There were two places where the hidden Alleys and the mundane world were tangential, as Porgy called it. St Mary Axe, I knew about and I was fairly sure there was no access point there. That left Creechurch Lane. I didn't need to flip. It was only ten minutes' walk from our office.

The buildings along the Lane looked quite promising. They had been modernised to an inch of their lives but there were still warehouse hoists showing their original use, and an old pub. The Trinity Bell was a bit like the Cauldron would be if someone had spent zillions on doing it up. I had a quiet half pint and wandered around, getting suspicious looks from the staff, but there was not a sniff of magic in the place. I wandered up and down the lane, getting nothing, and not being sure what I was expecting. I had another look on the app, now I had some idea about what things looked like on the ground, and realised that the closest point of tangent was just off Creechurch Lane itself. It was in the much more mundane sounding Bury Street.

And there it was.

A beautiful relief sculpture of an ocean liner on the corner of some office that had once housed the liner's owner. No mundane passer-by would have noticed, but the cement around several of the black marble blocks glowed with magical potential. I wondered how Nige had opened it.

I laid my hand on a cool marble slab and, when I focused on it, the marble vanished, or became insubstantial, and I just walked through it.

My first impression, just looking around, was how tired and dreary it all looked. Not dirty, because so little time had passed here in the fifty years that had passed outside. There were splashes of colour that looked artificial: a bright red and fluorescent yellow poster advertising McCrupley's Instant Cauldrons, a blue and white striped awning over racks of purple boots. I made a mental note to ask Mum whether she remembered McCrupley's Cauldrons, and what was Instant about them. Everything else was grubby brown and grey and green. Was this what life was like in the 70s? Dingy but garish?

Once I had checked the access, the first thing that I needed to look at was a café with a flat over it. I had a key, and the owner wanted to know whether magic worked in the flat. Some properties suppressed magic and that would make it much more valuable. Anyone living there couldn't be attacked using magic. They also wanted to know if it was habitable because, if it was a dump, they wouldn't be able use magic to decorate it if magic was suppressed.

The lock made a terrible graunching noise as I turned it, but the door opened easily. There was surprisingly little dust on the floor. It smelt a bit musty, and the décor was terrible.

'Accio cushion,' I murmured and I caught a foul orange swirly patterned cushion as it flew across the room. It would have matched the carpet by the ditch. One question answered and fee earned, thank you very much.

The other question, which I had been putting off, was; what was the state of the access from St Mary Axe? That was trickier because I didn't know exactly where the access was on this side. I walked slowly up one side, extending my senses, and down the other, but there wasn't a glimmer. I sat on a stone bollard and tried to remember where I had appeared when I flipped in. What if there was no gate, as such, and people simply appeared. I walked down the middle of the alley and there it was: a cold spot that felt a bit like a flip would if you were inexperienced, or if you weren't expecting it.

There was nothing solid to feel, and anyone watching would have thought I was a mime artist, the way I was patting empty air.

I composed my mind as if I was going to do a difficult flip and stepped into the cold spot.

It was like walking blind into a brick wall. Whatever I bounced off was solid enough. It must be the wall of the coffee bar on the other side. The bar where Hermione and I had sat and she had told me about the Alley. Rubbing my sore nose, I set off back down the alley to see if I could find the other way out again.

'No need to do a formal report,' said Mr Gorbentius. 'The PM himself has requested an in person verbal report. Just do an internal memo and confirm that you will be there at 18:30 this evening.'

'And try not to bleed all over the carpet,' said Boot. 'It will do nothing for our credibility.'

My nose had started bleeding the moment I had stepped through the marble slab and had proved remarkably difficult to stop.

The first thing I had to do was check in with The Ministry, because they got twitchy if we had contact with No 10 without them being consulted. The section I had to talk to were The Department of Mundane Affairs. The whole department consisted of about three people but they were so up themselves that you would have thought they ran the world.

'Fill in these,' ordered Evenesca Thrillwell, the assistant director, passing me a sheaf of forms. 'In triplicate.'

'Why?' I said looking through them. 'These relate to enhanced agricultural output and self-willed plumbing.'

'Departmental policy,' she said. 'We don't know what the PM will raise with you and we need to keep track of all contacts.'

'But we know exactly what he's going to raise,' I said. 'He wants to know about Physic Alley. You told me yourself that's why I was being summoned.'

'He may,' she said guardedly. 'But he has a reputation for straying off the brief.'

'Is he likely to bring up these things?' I said, patting the papers.

'We don't know,' she said. 'We want to be sure we've covered all the bases.'

'Well, look,' I said. 'I've got to be knocking on their door in half an hour. I'll do as many as I can before I have to leave and I'll keep off the subjects that I haven't covered. How about that?'

She sniffed. 'I suppose that'll have to do,' she said. 'In future get here earlier.'

I got half way through a questionnaire on the durability of bricks used in mixed-use buildings by the time I had to leave. I may have allowed a bit more time than was actually necessary, like twenty-five minutes, so I was hanging around outside the big gates long enough to get suspicious glances from the security forces.

One of them spoke into a collar mike and moments later Cormac MacLaggan emerged from the door, looking every bit as well fed as the last time I'd seen him. This was tricky. I had to remember that he didn't think we'd seen each other since we left school.

'Hello, is that Corner?' he said, striding over and shaking me vigorously by the hand. 'I don't know if you remember me. MacClaggan. Griff. Long time no see. What.'

'Cormac,' I said as pleasantly as I could. 'I didn't know you worked here.'

'Very hush hush after, you know, up north, but they're getting a bit less twitchy these days. A few months ago they wouldn't let me use the front door. Not that I need to, of course, but one chimney starts to look much like another. What.'

He waved us past security and in at the door that opened mysteriously, but turned out to have a hidden flunkey inside.

'I've told them I can Charm that to open with magic but they won't listen,' he said. 'Apparently they could use an electrickery gizmo but having a chappie there is cheaper. You're a little bit early. Can you wait in here and I'll see if the Big Dog will see you.'

He ushered me into a waiting room painted in a tasteful pale blue and shut the door. I had a sudden feeling that I recognised as paranoia and tested the door to check that he hadn't locked me in.

The door opened a crack and I peered out into the surprisingly unlavish hallway. There were people walking about, heads bowed in discussion, but my attention was caught by a short man with greasy flattened hair that looked painted to his scalp.

He was talking to a tall blonde woman in an impenetrable, but somehow familiar, accent.

'Sperrow?' I said.

The woman frowned but the short man looked at me with curiosity. He was wearing dark glasses, so I couldn't see his eyes, but I would bet they were purple.

'Thar noors Bruta Sperrow?' he said.

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm afraid I mistook you for him.'

'Noor, noor. Ah'm not he. Ah harvent seed Brutha Sperrow this day, he said. 'But Ah know ee wer in thus morning.'

'Sorry, I didn't catch your name,' I said.

'Ar'm Gordon Asperinal,' he said. 'And you are?'

'Cornelius Carterhaugh,' I said, inventing quicky. 'Sorry to interrupt.' I smiled winningly at him and the woman and closed the door before he could ask any more questions.

Moments later, the door banged open again and MacClaggan returned. 'Do you want to come up?' he said. 'The BD will see you asap.'

I gripped his arm. 'Cormac,' I said. 'Did you know that there are at least two Hope demons working here?'

'Nonsense, old boy. They'd never get past our screening.'

'Cormac. I've just seen one. And it mentioned that there's at least one other.'

'Who told you? How did you get to speak to it?'

'I glanced out of the door,' I said. 'It was standing in the hallway. Said its name was Asperinal.'

'Gordon?' he said. 'Of course he's not a demon. Damn good fellow. I screened him myself.'

That didn't fill me with confidence. 'It's a Hope demon,' I said. 'It'd have no problems foxing the screening process. A-Sper-Inal. It's got the 'sper-' trigger. And it knows another called Sperrow.'

'I know Simeon,' he said. 'Just come in to the FO. International Trade. It's the only place they can understand his accent. Gordon works in Levelling-up because he's a Northerner.'

That made sense. They were in the two most mindlessly optimistic departments in the government.

'How many others are there?' I said.

'What others?' said MacClaggan irritably. 'Look, I hope you aren't going to go on about this to The Big Dog.'

'Well, we've got to do something about this. How did it get in in the first place?'

'I think The Cunning Man brought Gordon in,' said MacClaggan. 'Simeon only came in a day or so ago.'

The Cunning Man. A.k.a. Loki. That also made sense. Of course he would bring in Hope demons.

MacClaggan knocked on an imposing door on the first floor and ushered me in. The PM was sitting at a huge desk but he surged to his feet to shake my hand and I thought how much older and puffier he was looking than when I had last seen him in the flesh.

'Well, gosh! Good heavens, I mean, or what ever you magical chappies say,' he said. 'So you are an actual wizard.' He looked at his hand. 'Shouldn't my hand be tingling or something?'

'Not unless I've cursed it, Prime Minister,' I said with a disarming (I thought) smile. 'And it's an absolute law that we never curse mundane people.'

He roared with laughter. 'Mundane? Eh?' he said. 'I love that. Mundane! So magic is real? I would never have guessed. But you aren't like my idea of a wizard. No white hair and long beard and all that.'

'I dare say I will have white hair and a beard in due course,' I said, feeling slightly overwhelmed. 'Sorry to disappoint.'

'No, no, no! Not at all! Not at all!' he said. 'But you're the first wizard I ever met in person, apart from Cormac, here, and your Minister, and I'm always delighted to break stereotypes.'

I glanced at MacClaggan, who looked blandly back at me.

'So, show me some magic!' said the PM. 'At the risk of sounding like Herod. Show me you're a wizard.'

I hate doing showy-offy magic tricks, and I'm sure MacClaggan would have conjured something sporting so I wasn't going to compete. Much.

I produced my wand and gave him Botanique, which is a charm Michelle taught me. For historical reasons, there are very, very few spells of any sort in French, but Botanique is much more stylish and spectacular than the English and Latin equivalents. It even has ribbons.

'That is amazing,' said the PM, almost reverently. 'Is it real? I mean, it won't turn into ectoplasm or something if I give it to the wife?'

'They're real flowers,' I assured him. 'I don't know how long they last, but they won't turn into goo.'

'Instant compost, eh?' he chortled happily. 'You could make a fortune on the club circuit. Now, tell me about this new road jobbie in the City. Who owns what?'

I explained about the Alleys and how I had found them, and how they had been lost in the first place.

'So they were just sitting there, and no-one knew about them?' he said.

'I think the people who owned property in them must have known about them,' I said. 'But everyone else, once they couldn't get into them, kind of forgot about them. There are other Alleys, around the place.'

'So who owns them?' he said.

'The original owners,' I said. 'Unless they had been bought legitimately by another magical person.'

'I see.' He stared into the distance and drummed his fingers on the desk. 'Do you mean that only a magical person can own a magical property.'

'I think so,' I said. 'I know that the law is clear but it has never been tested in the Moot.'

'That's your court, is it? When is the Moot going to consider this?'

'As soon as the Ministry can get them to sit down and talk about it,' I said. 'Hopefully, this year.'

'But still February,' he protested. 'That could mean months!'

'Possibly,' I said. 'If the Ministry can put enough pressure on them.'

'Can us lot put pressure on them?' he said.

'I doubt it,' I said, wondering if this how business was normally done. 'How much pressure could you put on the mundane courts?'

'Oh, plenty,' he said. 'All we have to do is threaten to review their powers and it's amazing how happy they are to help.'

'I think, if you tried that with the Moot, you might be disappointed.'

'What? End up croaking and eating flies?'

'We never use Transfiguration as a punishment,' I said, wondering where I had heard it before. 'But we don't want to put temptation in anyone's way.'

A green light started flashing on his desk. 'Ah well. We'll just have to wait upon events,' he said. 'It's been a pleasure and an education to meet you, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to turf you out. I've got a couple of Treasury bods coming in to discuss something financy. That is not going to interest The Big Dog as much as magic, I can tell you.'

'So he knows his nickname is The Big Dog?' I murmured to MacClaggan as he shut the door.

''Course he does,' he said. 'He invented it. He says he looks like a golden retriever. That's a breed of mundane dog. Looks like a dopey Floosapel, but with round ears. I gather that he's hoping it will become a tradition.'

'We'll just have to hope that we don't get a female PM any time soon,' I said.

MacClaggan nodded to the pair who were coming up the stairs carrying fat ring binders. One was a man who looked Indian, the other was short, apparently female, with blonde hair and purple eyes that stared at me suspiciously.

I tried not to react where the purple eyed one could see me, but as soon as it was safely out of sight, I turned to MacClaggan.

'Who was that?' I asked urgently.

'Who? Kural Dev?' he said.

'Was that the bloke?' I said. 'Who was the woman?'

'Mimi Dassler,' he said. 'Up-and-coming voice in the Treasury. Nice kid, but a bit intense.'

'Cormac, she's a gold demon!' I said. 'It's got the Midas trigger. It's got the eyes. You can't have missed it.'

'Tell you what, you ought to see a therapist,' he said.' You're seeing demons everywhere.'

'Because they are everywhere!' I said. 'They're everywhere here, anyway.'

'Nonsense,' he said. 'We're just very keen on diversity. Anyway, she was carrying those files, and they hadn't turned into gold, had they. Someone would have noticed that.'

'You know damned well they can turn the touch on and off at will,' I said. 'What's she doing here?'

'Adviser to one of the Treasury bods,' he said. 'Kural, presumably. She's been here yonks. Well before my time.'

At least he hadn't vetted her. Although that meant that there was someone else in the place as slapdash as he was.

The last time I went to No 10 I sneaked out of the back entrance. This time I was ushered out of the front door and I even had my photograph taken, as though I was someone important. It was rather nice, up until the moment I saw 'Gordon Asperinal' standing among the photograpers and watching me.

And, if he was watching me, there would be others.

In a moment of alarm (I would never admit to panic) I was tempted to flip back to the office, but that was discouraged in mundane settings. In any event, it could easily find out where I worked.

I walked away as calmly as I could, sending Boot a WhatsApp: Demon turned up at No 10. Ive found at leash two more one a midas

He came right back: Did they spot you

Def On way back mundne. Prob following. Will stick to crowds. Trace me. Am just going underground.

I felt the slight tug of a Trace hooking me as I entered the station. It could only attach when I was above ground but would Trace me down to about two thousand feet below.

I looked around the carriage. It was only paranoia, but it seemed to be full of short men with greasy hair.

I took a deep breath. For goodness sake, I told myself. You're a wizard. Get on and bloody wizz.

I looked again. No purple eyes that I could see. I extended my senses and caught nothing. I could feel the reassuring tug of the Trace. Surely they would assume I had a Trace on me.

Shit! Was that getting hopeful?

I looked around again. A little old lady that I hadn't noticed before was sitting staring at her mobile. I could see the purple of her eyes reflected in the screen and, not that I had identified it, I could feel the aura surrounding it had been dialled down to almost nothing. Almost nothing.

A crowd got on at Embankment and I scanned them carefully. There was nothing there, I hoped.

Damn.

Scan again. Still nothing, and I used the crowd movement to ease myself away from the 'little old lady' and by the time the train reached Monument I was almost a carriage length from it and prepared to exit.

It got up as the train drew in. So 'she' was getting out there as well? What a surprise.

I moved slowly to the door and watched as it climbed down onto the platform. Then, as the doors started to shut. I got in again.

The carriage had partly emptied and I found a seat. Only for one stop but I needed it. And found myself staring straight at Mimi Dassler in the seat opposite.

I tried so hard not to react, but I couldn't help a flinch. She smiled at me, a slightly twisted smile, with golden teeth.

'Fancy meeting you here,' she said in an unpleasant, flat, slightly Northern twang. 'Are you getting out?'

'I'm sorry, I don't think I've had the pleasure of your acquaintance,' I said. Keep it formal.

'Oh, but you have,' she said. 'Haven't you?'

I nodded noncommittally and started to send a message to Boot: They've tracked me. Im on tube will get off at aldgate.

The extra stop would give him time to get reinforcements in place especially if there was a delay at the points.

Or so I hoped.

No. Surely there couldn't be another one nearby.

I tried to look around surreptitiously, but all I could see was Mimi smiling at me.

I resisted the temptation to jump out at Tower Hill and run screaming from the station, and sat tight.

My phone buzzed. We're good.

Bloody Root, I thought. He's the only person I know who DMs using apostrophes and full stops. But at least I had a chance.

The good thing about Aldgate is that there's only one entrance to cover. The bad thing about Aldgate is that there's only on exit to escape from.

On the other hand, there are no escalators and the stairs are nice and wide. I couldn't think of flipping because the demons could track me and I wanted to lead them to where Boot and co were waiting.

I hit the stairs at speed, hoping that anyone in my way would get out of it. Stupid. Of course they didn't, because, half way up, was Gordon Asperinal.

I dodged around it and it was too slow to catch me. I hexed the gates open, something that would get me some disapproving looks from the Ministry. Out on the ticket hall, I saw Boot and Ted McPhee converging on Sperrow, who still managed to get a blast off in my direction. I swerved round the corner to the little alley that ran down the side of the station and, but some strange luck. Sperrow's curse ricocheted off some shiny surface and hit me a glancing blow on the backside.

It wasn't enough to damage me but my trousers disintegrated in a puff of dust.

There were screams behind me as Boot and co did their work and I risked glance.

They hadn't got all the demons. Mimi Dassler rounded the corner into the alley and came after me, no longer smiling. It was running in a glittery cloud as it turned the dust in the air it ran through into gold.

I ran. Rather quicker than before because I was unencumbered by trousers. But not as quick as Mimi. I heard its footsteps behind me, getting closer, and I was getting further from the only safe place, which was our office.

I pitched, full pelt, round a familiar corner. There was The Trinity Bell, and a fiery thought flashed through my mind. Was Physic Alley warded?

It had better be. Those footsteps were getting closer very quickly and I did not, so did not want to be dragged down to Hell.

And there was the liner in all its glory, the mortar glowing with magic as I closed on it. Reached for it. Twisted and dived through it just as I felt those glittery fingers brush my underpants.

I fell through, grazing my knees badly on the pavement as I hit and turned to face my fate, but there was a solid Thunk and, I imagined, a scream of frustration. But no demon.

I lay there recovering my breath, feeling somewhat sore and bloody on the knees but cool and heavy around my nethers. My underpants were solid gold, I ran my fingers over the smooth metal, then I prodded my leg to check that I was not. I didn't need to. My soul was still intact.

I healed my knees and looked round carefully. I made sure no-one could see me and let my pants slide down under their own weight. They were soft gold, and would not have been impossible to walk in but the elastic was solid gold, too.

Then I set off to see if I could find some seventies fashion to make myself decent. Hoping I didn't meet anyone on the way.

Hope? No. I knew there was no-one there.

'Since when did you become a fashion victim?' said Boot, staring at my trousers.

I had hoped that I would look stylish, but, once again, my hopes were dashed and this time I was not under the influence of a demon. No-one can look good in brown velvet flares with weird tartan strips around the turnups. Quilly's obligatory compliment was definitely ironic and even Porgy permitted herself a smile. And they didn't know how scratchy they were.

'On the other hand,' I said, holding up my underpants for inspection.

'Will you look at the state of those,' breathed Ted. 'So you were that close.'

'Must be worth a bob or two,' said Boot.

'Did you get them?' I said. That was what was uppermost in my mind. I could get the underpants valued later.

'We bottled your hopeful friends,' said Boot, waggling the Box at me. I was sure I could hear the screams.

'But you missed the Midas,' I said.

'We missed the Midas,' he confirmed heavily. 'It's still out there somewhere.'

'We'd better warn the Ministry,' I said.

'I have already done so,' said Mr Gorbentius, who was examining my underpants with his loop. Not something you see every day. 'I anticipate that they will identify at least one more,' he went on without looking up, 'but your friend MacClaggan has been redeployed.'

'I think we can anticipate a great big dose of realism in the Government,' said Boot. 'If not downright pessimism.'

'I wonder The Big Dog will survive,' I said. 'I hope he does.'

[1] See Michael Corner and The Curse of The Drinking Classes.