This is a work of fiction any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is unintentional.

I couldn’t believe I was going to Oxford without seeing my parents; but it was the case—in fact as soon as I’d interviewed Andy Wilson, I’d be off elsewhere, probably back to London. Despite the near miss on her life, the President was staying to finish her state visit. I admired her courage, but then she was being protected by the best security service in the world—well the ancient world—viz. moi.

I drove up to his house and parked my car, marking where it was, I made it disappear again by throwing a black veil over it. I made my way up to his front door but something stopped me from ringing the bell. Something didn’t feel at all right. I glanced at my watch it was six o’clock yet the air felt as if it was midnight; it was abnormally cold.

Scrambling over his garden wall I ran down his neighbour’s garden and, trying to avoid stepping on their baby cabbages, I heaved myself over the fence and slithered down behind an apple tree. Andy was sitting at his desk, so what was wrong? Was tiredness and the bizarreness of this case getting to me? After all, I trained as a nurse not SIS operative—that I seemed to have a natural aptitude for the action may be explained by various incarnations—well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I knelt behind the apple tree and watched Andy; he seemed to be writing something—with a pen? Has he never heard of computers? Probably not, he was also likely using Egyptian hieratic script. How did I know that? Did he know that? I mean, did he know the protodynastic stuff which evolved into hieratic then the demotic scripts? Its existence is so rare, the papyri having perished, not many so-called experts, are actually fluent in it. Andy is special, he was able to understand something I showed him in this script, the protodynastic stuff. Could he also be another reincarnatee?

If he is why am I getting this horrible sensation that something is very wrong? I waited as the shadows lengthened and it became too dark to read in the garden, yet he was still at his desk, writing and yet I could see no evidence of a light. I suppose he could eat bin loads of carrots, but even that wouldn’t enable him to see in the dark.

Something moved further down the garden. I stayed still, imagining myself covered by a black cloth. I heard a footfall and slowly drew my gun from its holster and eased off the safety catch.

Something or somebody walked close to me. I eased the gun through between my left arm and my ribs and kept my finger on the trigger—trying not to move or breathe too loudly, although I could feel sweat dribble down my back and my knees were hurting after being in one position for so long.

Some more footsteps approached from the house, “Anything?” asked an American accent.

“Naw,” replied another.

“Well, keep lookin’, she’s around somewhere.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Remember, the master does not take kindly to failure.”

“Yeah, I know: has Wilson talked?”

“Not yet, but he will.” They parted, both walking away from me. Keeping my gun in my hand I pulled myself up off the ground using the apple tree as an aid. My knees were screaming in pain and I wondered if I’d ever stand up again let alone walk—a question that was solved by one of them walking in front of me. I stepped out behind him and brought the butt of my gun down on his nape. He fell heavily and I dragged his inert form into the bushes. I undid his belt and tied his hands behind him, then I unlaced his shoes and tied his ankles together and with a bit of discarded garden twine also tied his big toes together. I gagged him with his socks and put his underpants over his head, then his trousers and tied the legs together. I rolled him deeper into the shrubbery and after shoving his gun into the top of my trousers at the back, I crept away sniggering to myself. He would in future to be able to say he was found under a gooseberry bush.

I continued towards the house. I would have to use conventional warfare—hence the lack of lights—they knew so much as a torch beam alighting anywhere on me would enable me to transform into a fiery goddess look-alike and fry the lot of them. I had worried about the security lights coming on but when I’d watched the other guard move back towards the house, they hadn’t activated, so I assumed they’d been turned off or worse. It also explained why Dr Wilson was sitting in the dark writing. It wasn’t him.

Some of these older houses are huge, my parent’s is a modern one—about nineteen thirty something, built in a little close of detached four-bedroomed houses. This one I should guess has about six bedrooms, a couple for servants, plus dressing rooms for the larger bedrooms. There was also a cellar. It isn’t my usual method of entry, but I lifted the top off the coal hole and, lowered myself in, doing a sort of reverse of Father Christmas.

“How nice of you to drop in, Miss Curtis,” said a voice from the gloom. “I don’t know how you got past my men, but it hardly matters does it?”

A glimmer of light shone through the coal hole and I wanted to move to stop it highlighting me from behind. “Who are you?” I asked.

“I’d tell you but seeing as you’ll be dead in a few moments, I don’t think it matters do you?”

“How are you going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to shoot you if that’s what you think, I’ve sent for Oliver, he said he’d like to renew his acquaintance with you. Honestly, girl, I’ve never known him have such passion about someone before.”

While he was talking to me, I was whispering a chant and in my mind drawing flaming pentagrams around the room—it was obvious, whoever this man was, he couldn’t see them. Oh good, because that meant he couldn’t see three hundred pounds of female Panthera leo standing behind him.

She nudged his leg, he shouted and I fired three times at where his voice had emanated. I could have asked her to bash him, but I wanted him out of the running permanently. I did let her chase his soul and devour it. I felt for a light switch, it didn’t work. They must have turned the power off at the mains. I threw further pentagrams at the door—it would take Oliver some minutes to get through them.

I tried to make out the man I’d just shot. It felt as if one bullet had caught him in the neck and two in the chest. I could hear footsteps scrambling about above me. I continued my search of his pockets and shoved any papers I found—including his wallet—into my jacket pocket. I pushed his gun into the front of my trousers. I wouldn’t be able to bend down without shooting my foot off, but I had some spare ammo. I felt in my other jacket pocket and fiddled with the little device I found there. I’d almost forgotten I had it with me.

No sign of Oliver—that was puzzling—then I realised why:—he was coming in through the coal hole, my only escape route. I heard him slithering in. A snake form,
okay, I called up my two mongooses. And they began circling the room in opposite directions. The slithering got louder and I could hear his hissing as he came closer.

One of my mongooses intervened and I could hear the scrap going on—I bid it withdraw, which it did. I took the device from my pocket and twisted the cap and lobbed it.

The bang and the light emitted are designed to blind and confuse an enemy—well one of physical form. I turned my back and fingers in ears began chanting as the thunderflash exploded.

Percy the python didn’t really have much chance:—transforming into the goddess, I thought I heard him hiss, “Oh thit,” just before he got barbecued along with his little friends—the ones the mongooses didn’t get.

Still in Sekhmet form I smashed through the door and ransacked the house looking for Dr Wilson, but of him I found no sign. I changed back and located the main fuse box and brought the lights back. I checked the house again—he didn’t seem to be there.

Sent out two lionesses to search for him, but he was gone. I remembered the wallet and papers from the man I’d shot—a Warren Z Hoffman, financial attaché to the US embassy. Oh dear, I’d shot me a diplomat, which was probably kinder than what his colleagues would do to him with their waterboards. I called in and asked the office to send in a clean-up squad—not forgetting to mention the sleeping beauty under the gooseberry bush.

Presumably the other guard took off once the shooting started, so I alerted the local plod to comb the area for an American wearing a suit, and to be careful, he was armed.

They called me an hour later to say he was in intensive care having decided to mix it with an Armed Response Unit. I spent the time looking through Dr Wilson’s papers—they were all academic stuff—and if I had time to spare would undoubtedly be fascinating, but I didn’t have time. My girls came back—no sign of the missing academic anywhere nearby.

The thought form which had been scribbling at the desk was gone, I probably disintegrated it earlier, but there wasn’t too much mess considering my search, it would only take him a few weeks to clean up with a few friends—um.

I sat in his chair and looked around the room—this was his study—his holy of holies, and although he used his drawing room for meetings of his local weird group, it was just an ordinary room. I glanced around again as I swivelled about in his chair—there was something not quite right here, something I wasn’t seeing.

I scanned his room much more carefully, then I found it—an energy blank, against a fireplace, which had a wood burner stove fitted in it. I poked and prodded, then by happenstance pressed something which clicked on the stove, and it swivelled round revealing a wooden square with a handle on it underneath which was a another handle. When I turned that something clicked on the other side of the room and a bookcase moved slightly. So much for my scanning.

I closed up the secret switch and returned everything to normal before squeezing through behind the bookcase. Through another door, I entered a secret room which was filled with regalia, statuettes and papyri—I could see now, Andy Wilson was a priest of the Egyptian god Thoth. Statuettes of baboons and ibis-headed figures were everywhere and a candle burned in the corner which I assumed faced east.

I pulled out my phone and did an around-room movie photo, which I then sent to my email address. Then I began to poke about—this guy was into serious magick with his god, but most of it was healing spells or academic stuff. Thoth was a bit of a latecomer in the pantheon and he didn’t use magick for aggressive purposes like someone we know, he usually delegated that to one of the more violent types whilst he tried to educate mankind into intelligent beings—arguably he failed, or maybe it’s a work in progress.

I left and sealed his room again—no need for anyone else to find it—although if he’d been in it, he might have still been there when I arrived rather than abducted by the bad guys.

I drove to the Radcliffe—the large hospital in Oxford, and made my way to intensive care. An armed policeman sat outside the injured man’s room. I approached and he challenged me. I flashed my ID.

“Sorry, Miss, no one is allowed entry except doctors and nurses.”

“I am a nurse,” I protested.

“Sorry, Miss, orders is orders.”

“Well done officer, actually, I’m here on a test and I’m delighted to say you passed with flying colours. I smiled at him and he foolishly looked into my eyes. He’s still on guard, but he can’t see me so he won’t see me go either.

The patient was one Alvin Peabody. No wonder he’s a hoodlum—with a name like that he’d either have to be a traveller in ladies undies or a bandit. Mind you if he’d been the other, I might have got some discount on my next purchase of Sloggis.

I sat beside the unconscious man and began to meditate. In maybe ten minutes, I was on the astrals and it probably took me another ten minutes to find dear Alvin. He was wandering confused and reeling from the shock of the bullet that hit him and then the surgery to retrieve said bullet—I wonder if they’re reusable? Mine aren’t, they’re hollow nosed, unless I wing you, you won’t need an ambulance.

“Alvin,” I said as I floated alongside him—I had disguised myself as an angel—okay it’s potentially blasphemous—but this is the astrals and anything goes, and he’d have recognised a lioness.

“Who are you?” he asked me.

“I’m a seraph,” I said fluttering my three pairs of wings while emitting a fiery aura—well I’m too bloody old to be a cherub.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve come to lead you away from here.”

“Am I dead?”

“Not yet.”

“Am I going to die?”

“That would depend on many things.”
“
Like what?”

“How did you come to be here?”

“Some copper shot me.”

“A policeman on earth shot you?”

“Yeah, the bastard—oh, beggin’ ya pardon.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t swear in my presence.” I tried to sound like a high level angel, and they don’t get many more brownie points than the seraphim at least in a Christian hierarchy. “Why did he shoot you?”

“I s’pose it was because I tried to shoot him first.”

“Oh dear, what are we going to do with you, Alvin? Do you normally go around shooting at policemen?”

“Just occasionally.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure if you’d be suitable for where I was going to take you.”I lied.

“Are you an ordinary angel?” he asked.

“No, Alvin, I told you, I’m a seraph—normally this interview would be done by an ordinary angel, but they’re busy, some earthquake in South America.”

“Why you got three pairs o’ wings—I thought angels only had two wings, not six—you ain’t no insect are you?”

“Seraphim have six wings: insects, I believe have six legs, you are wasting my time, Alvin, why do you shoot policemen?”

“ ’t’s my job.”

“What sort of job requires you to shoot policemen?”

“Okay, already, I’m a bad guy—does that mean I’m going to hell?”

“In a handcart, I’m afraid.”

“Eh?” he looked puzzled.

“It’s an expression, going to hell in a handcart.”

“Darn it, I go to confession reg’lar, too.”

“I think you might be missing the point of confession, Alvin.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right?”

“I’m an angel, Alvin, I’m not only right—I’m righteous.” How I didn’t laugh out loud at that I don’t know I suppose it was concentrating on keeping six wings going and projecting a fiery light around me.

“Yeah, sorry. Look is there any way I can avoid going to ’ell? Some guys I used t’know are probably there and they’d probably gi’me a hard time, you know?”

I nodded, “Undoubtedly—especially a few of Sicilian ancestry, if I’m correct?”

“Yes, ma’am—is it okay to call you, ma’am?”

“That’s fine, Alvin, as to escaping your just deserts—that’s more difficult to answer. We don’t do plea bargaining.”

“I just wondered.”

“Were you involved in anything when you were shot, or planning something in the future in earth time—there is no time up here.”

“Yeah, yeah I was.”

“To confess that to me now, may help ameliorate any decision that is taken about your future with certain Sicilian persons.”

“Is that so—I dunno, I’ve never been a ratfink before.”

“You’re purely confessing future sins which enables your heart to float lighter and perhaps may save someone else on earth pain or suffering. That would all help.” Strewth—why can’t the idiot just tell me?

“Okay—I don’t know much—it’s all a bit secret, but they’re gonna kill that bitch Carlton while she’s in England.”

“And who is this Carlton woman?” I pretended to be above such things.

“Are you kiddin’, she’s only the President.”

“Sorry, we don’t have politics up here.”

“Jeez—um,” he blushed and looked away, “Sorry, ma’am.”

“I should think so—continue.”

“Well, she survived one attempt, but we got another lined up.”

“And do you know about this new attempt?”

“Not really, only that it’s gonna be a suicide bomber—some sucker Arab, and Shakespeare—that’s not an Arab name is it?”

“I don’t know, we don’t consider race or names to be indicative of anything. We are above all those things.”

“So do I get into heaven, then?”

“I shall go and consult with my superiors—is there anything else you could tell me about this plot to kill, Carlton—is that her name?”

“Nah—that’s all I know.”

“I’ll be back to see you later.”

“Thanks ma’am.”

I fluttered off and back down to earth. Shakespeare—I wondered about that. Then it suddenly came to me, she was going to see a play at Stratford at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Shit, they’ve only just redecorated it for her visit—that would be a crying shame to damage it again, oh and to start World War three wouldn’t be too good either.

I woke myself up and left the hospital—about half an hour later, Alvin was machine gunned along with Officer Muldoon who was trying to protect him and another patient also died. These guys don’t mess about do they?

And furthermore, no one seems to catch them doing it so they just fade into the landscape. I stopped a little way from the house and spoke to John using my Blackberry—I bought it after I heard their calls were harder to eavesdrop on. Mind you they should be, I was paying half as much again for the ruddy thing.

If the bad guys were going to Stratford, so were we. It’s only an hour or so’s drive from Oxford, so after giving John what I’d discovered from the late Mr Alvin Hoffman, I set off to Stratford and to book into a Travel Lodge hotel with adjacent rooms.

Thankfully they had a couple of rooms left. Stratford-upon-Avon absolutely heaves with Americans—after London and the various royal bits there, it’s probably the second most popular place in England for our colonial cousins. Shakespeare does have something special, however, when we came here as a family, I was about nine and Daddy gave us a running commentary the whole day. We had this group of Yanks following us about hanging on his every word. At the end of it they pissed both of us off by asking if they could take pictures of the professor with his cute daughter. I got my hair cut the next day.