“So there I was, minding my own business up in Newcastle. Playing the odd prank, floating around. I was keeping a low profile since the portals had been shut. I’m a djinn, after all. If Section 13 found out about me, I’d be hunted and killed.”

“Wait, you already knew about Section 13?”

“They’re scum,” Dee said, the vehemence in his voice taking me by surprise. He tried to calm down.

“Section 13 has murdered supernaturals for as long as I can remember, but it really got bad after World War Two. That was when the purge happened, in the fifties and sixties. It was brutal. The fey had already left by then and locked the doors to their realm. They did that during World War One, I think. The odd one or two got left behind.”

“The fey?”

“Yeah, the fey. Fairies, trolls, leprechauns, that kind of thing. Whole different subset.”

“Right.”

Of course.

“Back to me. I got pulled down south by a warlock I didn’t recognise. There’s not many of them left anymore, incidentally. There’s so little magical energy in the world now that it’s more practical to do most things the mundane way. Your average mobile phone has got more power in it than a magic wand these days. Anyway I was magically bound to this one-year-old kid. Instructed to protect him. I wasn’t given a reason for it, nothing.”

Dee paused, then added; “The kid was you.”

“I’d figured that much out.”

“Right. So for the first nine odd years, that’s what I did. Hovered around you in spirit form and kept you out of danger. It was insanely boring. I mean, there wasn’t any danger. I had one job and there was nothing to do. The most exciting moment was stopping you sticking a fork in a plug socket when you were three.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Well, you were three. After a decade, man I was bored. There were none of my kind in the area to hang out with. I had you and nothing going on. So I decided to see if I could still materialise into a physical form. The wording of the spell which bound me was pretty vague, it was some seriously shoddy spellcasting to be honest. So I wondered if the spell would let me adopt a form that would fit in with protecting you. Like being a schoolkid. It turned out I could do that.

“The problem was, I couldn’t turn back into my spirit form. There wasn’t enough magical energy left in the world, so I was trapped in the body I’d created. The best I could do was keep shifting bit by bit as I ‘grew up’ so to speak. Even getting into my true physical form, the one you just saw, I can only get halfway there.”

“So you’ve just been pretending to be my mate. Because you were forced into it.”

Dee groaned.

“See, this is the whole freaking out thing I was talking about. No, I am your mate. After so many years in this body, I’m as much Deepak as I am the djinn. It’s all fuzzy, like I said. I’m still your mate, right? I know this is all a shock, but I’m still Deepak. Just a bit extra. Like a guardian angel Deepak. Except not an angel cos those guys suck. They’re almost as bad as the vampires.”

“Vampires are bad?” I said.

“The worst,” Dee said darkly.

“Okay,” I said, “then why did you put up with Maxwell’s bullying? Couldn’t you have shifted into your djinn form or something, freak him out?”

“Yeah, sure. And have Section 13 after me? No thank you very much. I’d have been dead by the end of the week. Why do you think I don’t go into my djinn form every time someone has a go at me? Same reason. Hunted to death by Section 13. Or maybe some angels, if there are any around. Oh, and let’s not forget about the vampires while we’re at it. Keeping a low profile was the only option.”

That was a fair point.

“So you were watching over me my whole life? That’s kind of creepy.”

“I was often just in the area, checking out any potential threats and stuff. Of which there were very few. As I said, it was mind-numbingly boring. Stroud is a real supernatural backwater.”

“Until last week,” I said.

“Until last week,” Dee agreed, “Until it all went nuts. I think the demon hound was tracking me. It was probably scared out of its wits and looking for a familiar scent. The whiff of Djinn energy. I doubt it was originally going to attack us, it probably just wanted a stroke and some food. The problem is it shouldn’t be here at all. They’re from our dimension, the one that’s locked, or maybe destroyed, I don’t know. How the hound got here is a total mystery.”

“You seem to not know as much as you do know.”

“I’m telling you all I can, mate. That’s all I’ve got. That’s why you need to stay away from all of this. It’s dangerous and everything is too uncertain right now. There’s nothing I can do to protect you, especially not if you go off on this silly spy mission. In the past I could have switched into spirit form and tagged along, but now...”

Dee left the sentence hanging.

My need for an aspirin hadn’t decreased in the meantime and I really needed some space.

“I need to think about this,” I said. My voice was flat, maybe a bit cold, but how was I supposed to react? It was too much for me to take in.

“Look, it’s getting late and I need to get the paint job done.”

“I can stick around,” Dee said, “talk some more?”

“No,” I said with a flat tone, “I need to go over all of this on my own.”

Dee looked crestfallen. Later I realised all of this had been really difficult for him. From his perspective he’d ‘come out’ and he needed his friend to be cool about it. At the time I was too busy feeling betrayed. My best friend had been lying to me for years. Yeah, sure, okay so I’d sort of been doing the same but that wasn’t the point.

“You aren’t going to go, are you?” Dee said, “To Avebury? Now I’ve told you everything?”

“No,” I lied, “I won’t go. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

Dee got out of the car and reluctantly left the garage. It took me until ten to finish the paint job. I knew there were a bunch of questions I still needed to ask Dee, but my head was already reeling.

Once I was done I retrieved my mobile phone from the desk drawer, locked the garage and went home. Mum had already gone to bed, which was just as well. I didn’t want to talk about anything with her.

*

Victoria Pryce was leaning against one of the pillars that flanked the polished oak door of the mansion. This was a proper old-school mansion, like something out of Downton Abbey. I’d never seen anything like it in real life. Major Wilson had told me the Pryces came from old money. I hadn’t considered what that meant until now. They were rich – I mean really rich.

I got out of the limo and held a finger to my lips and showed Victoria the post-it note on my phone, upon which I’d written:

PHONE BUGGED BY SECTION 13

Victoria nodded, took the phone out of my hand. Hooked a fingernail under the back of the phone and flipped it open. Took out the battery. Handed the phone and the separated battery back to me with a shrug. She knew I wouldn’t risk switching it back on. I had just as much to lose as she did with Section 13 listening in.

“You’re here,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah. This place is...wow.”

“I’m so glad you made it,” Victoria said. She lifted up her right hand and spoke into her sleeve, “Okay, he’s here. Lock him up with all the others.”