I Must Be Crazy

For the first time in a long while, Tracy felt glad that her father spent most of his time at work. Somehow she thought that this would be a bit much for him. It was very nearly a bit much for her.
A whole group was trooping along to the agency this time: Tracy, with Markus sticking close beside her and Lissy holding his hand, and the three teachers and Darcie on either side of them.
“I’ve never actually hired someone from this agency, so I’m not entirely sure about all the details and intricacies of hiring someone,” Hadrian said thoughtfully. “This will be a learning experience - proof that people never stop learning.” He glanced sidelong at Zariya. “Of course, in some cases it’s much like the old adage, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’.”
“Who are you calling old?” she snapped. “Compared to you I’m like a baby.”
“Ah, but I’m not a dog so it doesn’t apply.”
“You’re just… insufferable.”
They soon reached the building, and Tracy stopped, looking up at it.
“It’s big,” remarked Lissy. “And old, and dirty.”
“It does need some TLC,” agreed Crispin. “I offered to invent a maintenance machine, but they said they didn’t want it.”
“That’s because any ‘maintenance machine’ made by you could be more aptly described as a bomb,” muttered Zariya. The scientists frowned.
“Not everything I make explodes, we’ve been over this. What about that cleaning tablet I used in the road? It didn’t explode.”
“Your original design was based on a bath bomb, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yes. But,” said Crispin hurriedly, “When the original trials didn’t work out I altered the formula slightly. Now it’s the amazing cleaning solution, Bang Bang Goodbye Dirt!” He glanced around, and added under his breath, “Formerly known as Killit Bang, until that damn lawsuit.”
“That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard, and both versions involve explosions. What happened to the people in the original trial?”
“Um, the last time I saw them the skin grafts were coming along well… and they didn’t like me very much.”
Zariya shook her head despairingly. “Stick to things that are meant to explode.”
“They didn’t explode! They just-”
“Cleaned skin away as well as dirt?”
Muttering to himself, Crispin strode into the agency.

Mr Pith looked quite surprised to see a whole group approaching the desk. He downed the last of a mug of tea down in one, slammed the empty mug down on the desk and demanded, “What’s all this, then?”
“We’re taking over!” announced Crispin, sitting down on the desk and sliding himself over it, all simply to point threateningly at the little man, who glared fiercely at the tip of the finger which was so rudely intruding into his personal space.
“No, we’re not.” Zariya grabbed Crispin’s ankles and pulled him off the desk, depositing him in a heap on the ground. “We have a problem, Mr Pith.”
“So I see,” said the man, leaning forward over the desk. “His name is Crispin Barnes, and he just pointed at me in an objectionable manner.”
“No, I mean a problem other than that. There was a problem with someone Markus hired.”
Mr Pith frowned, finding Markus amongst the others and beckoning him forward. The boy reluctantly came forward and sat down obediently. “Well then, spit it out. What’s the problem?”
There was a short silence. “The police are after Tiar,” said Markus softly. “She killed a policemen and some boys at my school.”
Mr Pith blinked. There was another, longer silence, and then he said, “Ah,” in a very careful tone of voice, before kicking the chair away from the desk and wheeling it over to the computer with some difficulty. “Tiar, was it? We’ll register the complaint to her data-”
“I think we need to do more than just register a complaint,” snapped Tracy. Mr Pith smiled thinly.
“Ah, but, you see, that is all we need to do. Complaints are taken very seriously in this agency. The consequences of this will be… severe.”
“Yeah, a complaint is a pretty bad thing,” Darcie said, nodding. As Tracy turned to her, she said, “The higher-ups in the agency decide what the punishment is to be, depending on what the complaint was.”
“There’ve been rumours that a couple of people have been sentenced to death,” Crispin said a hushed tone.
“I’ve heard that one,” said Zariya. “It was another major mess-up - some unstable guy got hired out as a handyman. Ended up a mass-murderer, arsonist, rapist and just all-around bad dude. Not someone you’d want to meet on a dark night in an alleyway.”
“If he’d met you he wouldn’t have needed to be sentenced to death,” muttered Hadrian. “His remains would have been returned to the agency in a matchbox.” Taking this as a compliment, Zariya grinned proudly, not noticing the vampire raise his eyes heavenwards in silent appeal.
“In any case, we wanted to know if we could hire a demon hunter,” Darcie said to Mr Pith, who smiled widely, and gestured to a tin on the desk.
“Would you care to donate to Jimbawhistle’s Cake Neglection F-”
“Fine! Just shut up and answer!” snapped Zariya, whisking Tracy’s purse out of the girl’s pocket neatly, filching a pound coin and popping it into the tin before she could protest. Grumbling, Mr Pith consulted his computer.
“Hmm. No, I’m afraid it would appear that you can’t.”
“B-but why not? Tiar could be coming back at any moment!” Tracy blustered, forgetting about her purse. “What of she comes after Markus again?”
Mr Pith shrugged. “Sorry, my friend, it’s the rules. We’ve hired out the maximum number of trials for the moment. Unless you’re willing to pay upfront, of course.”
“How much will it cost?”
The small man examined her critically. “Far more than you can pay. Let me see…. danger rates… day to day strains and stresses on persons and weaponry…” He tapped away on the computer for a few moment, before coming back with a wide smile. “Ninety-four thousand, seven hundred and eighty-seven pounds. Do you have that in cash or cheque? Credit card?”
Tracy gulped. “Uh-”
“None. I thought so.”
“Is there no other way to pay?” Hadrian asked. Mr Pith frowned.
“Well… I suppose… anyway, shouldn’t you know? You’re a member.”
“Exactly. I don’t hire out, I get hired out.”
“Fair enough, I suppose. Everyone is stupid in some areas of knowledge, even you,” Mr Pith assured him serenely, making the vampire scowl.
“What’s the other way of paying?” Darcie persisted. Mr Pith sighed, and sat back in his chair, his arms behind his head.
“Ah…. a long, and fascinating tale, of love, action, loss, betrayal and money… actually, I lie, mostly it was about money.” He sniffed loudly. “Anyway.”
“Can you not just get to the point?”
“Young lady, I always just get to the point. I’ve won world records for getting to the point. Now shut your gob and let me speak.” He rolled his eyes around, for no apparent reason, and said, “Once upon a time, in this fine world of ours, there existed a beautiful and wonderful jewel. This jewel was called the Jewel of Mirrors, and it was said that, if you looked into the jewel, it would reflect yourself and your true nature. It was also a very large jewel, and the most brilliant jewel the world had ever known.” He licked his lips. “It was, in short, very valuable.”
“What does this have to do with us?” Tracy asked, but he flapped her irritably into silence.
“I’m getting there, I’m getting there! Now, you people are surely by now used to all sorts of strange happenings going on - strange people and creatures and all that - so now you can be introduced to something else which will blow your tiny minds, although not literally.” He smiled ghoulishly. “No, Tiar is probably the best at literally blowing people’s minds… blew them all over the show, from what the news says.” He nodded at the computer screen, on which he had just pulled up a local news site.
“That’s in very poor taste,” said Hadrian disapprovingly, and the man shrugged.
“That’s me, I’m afraid. Poor taste is my middle name.”
“That’s a strange middle name,” said Crispin.
“Anyway!” Mr Pith said loudly, glaring at them all in an attempt to get a handle on the conversation again. “People from all over the world would come to see the Jewel of Mirrors, in the hopes that they would see their true natures reflected in the magical crystal. Although many saw, many went away disappointed, ‘cos they were selfish bastards at heart but didn’t want to admit it to themselves.” He sniffed again, and rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “Pollen… stupid stuff, floating around in the air and getting up my nose…” He coughed. “Right. A long, long time ago, a very, very intelligent man went to gaze upon the crystal. While he saw in the crystal that he was a selfish bastard along with the rest of them, he also knew that he was very, very good at his job. What was his job, you ask? Well, you didn’t, but we’ll pretend you did, because I guessed you’d be rubbish at audience participation. This guy was a thief, and the best in the business. He was more than just your average thief - he was an artist, he took pride in his work. So one day, this guy went along, and he nicked the crystal. Just like that. And he stuck it in his pocket and ran like the clappers. But, you see, he then went on a ship - this was ages ago - and the ship sunk. Goodbye, lovely, wonderful crystal. Or, so we thought.” He grinned. “It has recently come to my attention that the Jewel of Mirrors has re-entered our sights. You can go and get it for me.”

“Now that, kids, is what we in the business call ‘overkill’,” said Zariya once she was human again.
Hadrian shot her a glare, dusting a bit of dirt off his waistcoat. “I didn’t see you doing anything.”
“I was too busy saving Sparky here.” Zariya pressed down on the policeman’s back with her foot. “Get up, man! Honestly, just lying around.”
Hadrian went and picked up his jacket from where it was lying on the ground and dusted that off too before putting it back on. “Help the poor man to his feet. He’s just been mown down by a flying werewolf.”
“Are you saying I’m fat? You’re just on a role for name calling today, I see,” Zariya said, pulling the policeman to his feet. He shrugged her off and backed away.
“What…”
“Oh no, not question time.”
“Zariya, just let him speak.”
“What the hell were you thinking? You just killed that kid!” the policeman shouted at Hadrian, gesturing violently at the truck.
“Tiar,” said Markus softly, still hanging onto Tracy. “Tiar. Is she… dead?”
“Of course she’s dead, you stupid boy, a truck just fell on her!” bellowed the policeman. He blinked suddenly, realising something, and turned back to Hadrian. “How did you do that, anyway? It’s a truck… you… pushed it over… and… there was a dog here a moment ago…”
Zariya sighed, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Just go back to your car and drive away. Okay? It’s easier.”
“We’re surrounded by people having mental meltdowns today,” Crispin remarked, unravelling his jumper. He’d finished one sleeve and was moving onto the other. “Maybe it’s contagious.”
There was a sudden commotion as one of the doors of the primary school flew open, and Lissy was expelled violently from within. She ran to Tracy and Markus, shouting, “What happened, what happened? Are you alright?”
Tracy let go of Markus to hug her, just as Miss Plum also appeared in the doorway and strode towards the teachers; behind her, an audience of small faces appeared in the window, and some peered out of the door.
“I saw that! I saw all of that! So did they! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Do you really think it wise to get involved when you understand nothing of what just happened?” Hadrian asked calmly. Miss Plum glared at him.
“A truck just crushed a girl in full view of whole classes of children!” she cried. “What kind of thing is that for them to see? They’ll be scarred for the rest of their lives!”
“Look into the road,” said Hadrian, taking her shoulders and gently turning her around to look. “Do you see that red mess? That was a policeman. A living, breathing human being, less than a few minutes ago. And now he is, if you pardon my vulgarity, mincemeat. In fact, not even mincemeat. Be glad that they didn’t see that happening, because we did. And we’re not complaining.” He released her, ignoring the horrified look she was giving him. “In fact, once they lift that truck they won’t find any crushed girl beneath it, let me assure you. All that little stunt did was force her to leave temporarily.”
“So she’s not dead?” Markus blurted, at last moving from his sister’s side so he could hear what the vampire was saying more easily. “What do you mean, force her to leave?”
“The more I explain, the more complicated it becomes to make you understand,” he sighed. “Very well, I’ll try. Tiar is not quite of this world. As a demon, she is part of… a kind of alternate dimension, I suppose, yes, that’s the best way of describing it to someone with no knowledge of these things. If anything happens to her which would, if she was a human, kill her, then she is automatically transported back to her own world. She won’t be able to get back for a short while now, so we have a grace period to prepare for her return.”
“Demons? Alternate worlds? Do you think I’m insane or, or just stupid?” Miss Plum said weakly, shaking her head.
“Neither, my dear, in fact I was hoping you would be open-minded enough to accept this without question, but apparently I underestimated you.” Hadrian glanced at Markus and Tracy. “Do you two understand?” They nodded, but Miss Plum still wasn’t finished.
“You’ve brainwashed these two as well? What is this? Some kind of cult or something?”
Crispin sighed. “I hate it when it’s like talking to a wall. Can we just go?”
“I agree,” said Hadrian darkly. “In fact, we shall. Crispin, have you anything to clean up this mess?”
The scientist glanced into the road. “I think I do. Can you lift up the truck again? It looks a little suspicious there, and when the driver comes back he’ll be annoyed.”
“I suppose so. And then we’ll go…” Hadrian frowned. “To the Vaun house, I suppose. Yes, that seems best.”

Once they reached the Vaun house, Markus went upstairs. Tracy watched him go up the stairs, then sighed and followed the others into the living room.
“We need to hire a demon hunter,” Hadrian was saying. “While it’s all very good tipping vehicles over on top of her, we lack the knowledge and understanding to defeat her once and for all, or banish her back to her world, or whatever it is which would work best.”
“You can hire demon hunters from the agency?” Tracy asked, sitting down on the couch. Lissy climbed into her lap.
“Oh yes. You can hire most things from the agency. Why would you be able to hire demons if you can’t hire demon hunters?” said Hadrian with a wry smile. “You can also hire vampire slayers, and just general monster hunters. You can hire the disease, and you can hire the cure. Business is business, after all.”
“No werewolf hunters, might I add, we’re clearly wonderful additions to all communities,” remarked Zariya, sitting down on the arm of the couch.
“I believe you come under the definition of monsters,” Hadrian said, with a touch of triumph, earning himself a glare.
“But can we afford a demon hunter?” asked Tracy. The others blinked at her. “I mean… we still haven’t had to pay anything for Darcie, and I’m sure we’re going to have to start soon. No-one’s told us anything about prices. What if it costs more than we can afford?” She blushed. “I mean, I know… I know it’s our fault, but…”
Hadrian sat down next to her. “Tell me, Tracy, do you know why Markus hired that girl?”
“I suppose he wanted someone to help him. Someone he didn’t know. Because - because he wouldn’t tell us.”
He nodded. “I suppose you’re right. Unfortunately his choice in helpers was not the best, although I believe those at the agency were partly to blame. Isaiah does, on occasion, get it into his mind to cause some havoc. I suppose it must be quite boring, spending your life in one place. But still.” He stood up again. “We should go. There’s no time like the present to deal with past sins. Go and get Markus, Tracy, we shouldn’t leave him alone.”

The sound of a police siren is a vaguely unsettling one. They were hearing a lot of them, mostly heading in the direction of the high school, but some going elsewhere. Tiar seemed to have gotten lost somewhere on the way; they’d been waiting for about ten minutes now.
“Do you think she’s gone somewhere else?” Tracy wondered, sitting on the bench with her arm around Markus’s shoulders. Her brother was staring at nothing, his head resting on her shoulder. Darcie shook her head.
“I can still feel her coming, I’m sure the others can too. I think she’s going in all sorts of crazy directions, though, so it might be a while before she gets here.”
One of the police sirens was dopplering towards them; at last the car came into sight, and pulled onto the pavement. The two policemen inside jumped out and hurried up to the three teachers at the gate. Hadrian went forward and spoke to them; they were gesturing at Markus, trying to motion him over to them.
“They don’t look happy,” said Darcie.
“They wouldn’t be, they’re investigating a multiple murder in a school,” murmured Tracy.
“This is true. Markus, we should go and talk to them.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Markus, we should really go and talk to them, because Tiar is quite a bit closer now and it would be very good if they weren’t still here by the time she arrives,” Darcie said urgently. Tracy glanced at her.
“What will happen to them when she gets here? What’ll happen to us?”
“We’ll do everything we can to protect you, don’t worry. Them…” She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “I can’t really say. I mean - we’d have to expose ourselves in order to protect them, and then there’s all the stuff that comes with that.” Noticing Tracy’s expression, she added hurriedly, “But we’ll still do all we can, I promise. We don’t want anyone to die without cause. It would just be so much easier if they weren’t here when the worst comes to - I mean, if the worst comes to the worst.”
The blonde girl sighed and stood up, pulling Markus up with her. “Come on, then, let’s go and talk to them.”
“I don’t -”
“You don’t have a choice, you’re coming. You need to do this, it won’t be difficult.”
The police officer shoved past Hadrian as Tracy led Markus towards him. “You’re Markus Vaun?”
“Yes.”
“We’d like to ask you some questions about-”
“I know what it’s about,” snapped Markus. “What else would it be about?” The policeman looked taken aback, and removed his helmet.
“I’m sorry, Markus, but we have to take you in for questioning. A serious crime has been committed - we need to find out who did it.”
“We-” Markus started, but Tracy interrupted him: “I know it’s a lot to ask, but could it possibly wait? He’s… having some trouble. I think it would be better if he stayed with me for the moment.”
“That’s fine, you can come with him to the station,” the policeman said with a reassuring smile at Markus, although the boy wasn’t even looking at him.
“Our options have just gone out the window,” Crispin said, loudly enough to make the policeman turn. At the end of the road stood a slim figure, looking towards them. She took a few steps towards them, almost uncertainly; then, with more resolve, she strode towards them.
“Who is that?” said the policeman, more curious than anything else. His partner, who had been waiting by the car, was running to meet her. “Walking in the middle of the road like that, doesn’t she have a brain?”
“Oh no,” Markus whispered, so quietly that even Tracy could barely hear him.
“Close your eyes,” Darcie said quietly in her ear. “Trust me, if what I think is about to happen does happen, you’ll be better off not seeing it.”
“What-”
“Just do it, Tracy. You trust me, don’t you? Don’t peek. Don’t. Just do what I tell you.”
The police officer in the street had just reached Tiar, and was leaning down to speak to her. Tracy closed her eyes, and put her hand over Markus’s as well, just to be very sure; she didn’t have to wait long.
“Christ!” the policeman next to her exclaimed, and there was the sound of running footsteps. “Stay back, you people, stay back!”
“Oh no, he’s doomed,” Darcie murmured, as Tracy gingerly opened her eyes. Hadrian went further than commenting; he actually lunged at the man and grabbed his shoulders.
“You should really reconsider that action,” he said, letting go of one of his shoulders and grabbing the man’s wrist instead; he was reaching for his gun. The man tried to go for his two-way radio instead, but Hadrian stopped him again, and nodded to Tiar. The girl was still standing in the middle of the road, looking a little lost, and next to her lay what was left of the policeman. There wasn’t much, and what was left was hardly recognisable as human remains.
“Do you really think you’re going to be able to do anything against that? Whether you go up against her with a gun or with a while lot of backup, you’re all just going to be turned into big smears in the road. Understand? Don’t. Do. Anything. Leave it to us.”
“What are you going to do?” the policeman asked, hands hanging limply at his sides. Tracy felt a little sorry for him. While the police were equipped to deal with most things, young girls walking around making people explode was probably not one of them.
“We are going to stop her,” said Hadrian. “In a way which will hopefully not result in unpleasant demise for all of us, and for the children at this school. Also, in a way which doesn’t involve offensive weapons.”
“You’re going to - to just stroll up? Unarmed? After what she just did?”
“Yes, yes I am.” Hadrian sighed. “Hold this.” He took of his jacket and handed it to the man, who took it without comment. Straightening his tail and then his waistcoat, the vampire stuck his hands into his pockets and proceeded towards the girl as if he was taking a pleasant stroll on a summer afternoon. A few feet away from her, he stopped, and bounced on his heels for a few seconds. Tiar regarded him suspiciously. “Well. Good afternoon, Tiar.” He projected his voice loudly enough that everyone was able to hear him. “I think you know that you haven’t been behaving in the best manner as of late.”
Tiar scowled. “Hadrian. Go away, I want to speak to Markus. Why’s he here? Is he following me? Does he want to say sorry?”
“Can I ask you some questions?” the man said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Why did you do this?” He lowered his voice a little. “You do know what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve messed up things for us, for all of us. Now they’re going to know. They’re going to know that we’re different from them, and do you know what else? They’re going to assume, because of you, that all of us are dangerous and that all of us are like you.”
“I don’t care,” Tiar said stubbornly. “I was just doing what Markus asked me to do.” She glanced at the boy, huddled next to his sister, and when she returned her gaze to Hadrian her expression had changed completely, to something that could only be described as a smirk. “You know we have to do that. We’re nothing, you know - to them? We’re meaningless. We’re slaves, pawns. We’re a means to an end, nothing more. We have no feelings, no ambitions, we’re nothing.”
“Nothing has feelings and ambitions too,” said Hadrian, leaning down to put his face closer to hers. “And what you just said was utter bull. Don’t try and make up rubbish to defend your actions.”
The girl’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “You’re just as mean as he is!” Hadrian grabbed her arm as she tried to put it to his face. “Let me go! You - you horrible, evil man!”
Hadrian sighed, briefly wondering why he was always forced to deal with children. He wasn’t even particularly fond of children this age, especially girls; they were bearable until slightly older than Lissy’s age, then were terribly annoying for about ten or twelve years before becoming good company once more. This also went for boy, except that the interval of annoyingness went on for up to sixteen years, and possibly even longer. “Tiar, please just behave yourself. I’m only trying to do what’s best for you. You’re confused. I don’t think you’re suited to this place or this job. You should return home, maybe get counselling or something.”
“Are you telling me I’m insane? Why are you saying these things to me? Why are you even talking to me?”
“Because I have an interest in your well-being. Please don’t make this difficult.”
The demon girl twisted out of his grasp and retreated a few steps, glaring, going towards a large truck which was parked on the opposite side of the road. Hadrian straightened up and looked at her evenly.
“I won’t go,” Tiar said at last. “I hate you. Markus is going to come with me, and-”
“Wrong answer,” said Hadrian, and lunged at her. She dodged, but the vampire’s target had apparently not been her, but the truck. Grabbing one of the straps, he pinned her against the side of the truck and swiftly wound it around her, snapping it as easily as if it was a single thread of cotton. As she struggled, he ducked around the back of the truck. As the onlookers watched in disbelief, the truck began to slowly topple over.
“No!” yelled the policeman, dropping Hadrian’s coat unceremoniously on the ground and running towards the truck. Zariya tutted, and went after him, but, realising that she wasn’t going to catch up with him in time, she dropped all pretence and shifted shape. The policeman went down easily when a large dog leaped into him.
The truck hit the ground. There was no scream from Tiar.

Golden Vale Primary School’s break time was a little later than the high school’s was. It was at break time that the three teachers, without much discussion, went to stand by the school gate, looking out at the world.
“Do you know what it was?” Zariya asked quietly, once they had stood in silence for a while.
“I can feel it coming this way,” Crispin said, idly pulling at loose threads on yet another jumper. Zariya briefly wondered how many jumpers he unravelled per year. “That’s probably not going to be a good thing.”
“I think I know who it is,” said Hadrian, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking detached. “It’s that demon girl who came in last year.”
“Trust you to remember something like that.” Zariya shuddered. “Wasn’t she some… relative of yours or something?”
“The niece of a friend of a friend’s cousin, I believe. Tiar, her name is. I wonder how she ended up here?”
“Well, someone hired her, of course. And now she’s coming this way, and probably not so that we can all have some tea and cake,” said Zariya, rolling her eyes.
“The question remains, what are we going to do?” said Crispin, still unravelling. He was now rolling the wool into a new ball as he unravelled. Perhaps he was intending to knit himself a new jumper.
“Well, I think that’s quite obvious,” said Hadrian. “We’re going to defend this place.” He stuck his chest out. “We’re teachers. This is a school. We must defend it and its pupils at all costs, for this is the reason why we have been put upon this Earth!”
“You’re… you’re just mad,” Zariya said, shaking her head. “It’s quite sad, really. But I do agree. We can’t let her do anything untoward to these kids. This is agency stuff. Getting them involved isn’t fair.”
“So that’s that, then.” Crispin tucked the growing ball of wool into his sleeve, which was now quite a bit shorter than his other one. “We’re staying out here until she comes?”
“If she comes here. There’s always that possibility.”
“Unlikely,” said Hadrian glumly. “She’ll probably sense us just like we sense her. She’ll come to say hi, or to see what we’re doing or something.”
“I just hope we don’t have to do any last minute stands.” Zariya began to re-tie her ponytail. “Those always do mess up your clothes a bit.”

Tracy first heard of the disturbance when someone ran past her classroom, shouting and crying. A little later, after her teacher had finally calmed the class and continued with her lesson on psychological abnormalities, Mr Arbour, one of the senior teachers, came in and pulled her out, closing the door. The class was silent, trying to hear what was being said as they spoke together gravely; at one point, Tracy’s teacher, Miss Hemmel, covered her mouth with her hand. After a few more minutes, they both came back in.
“Everyone please listen,” she said. “I need you to stay quiet for a while until we’ve finished talking to you. There’s been a problem in the school, and we need you all to go home calmly and responsibly.” Some people began to speak, but she fiercely waved them into silence. “It’s very, very important. I know some of you might need to catch buses or trains, or for some reason you might not be able to go home yet - if this applies to you, can you go to the hall and wait there. Go straight there, and if you’re going home now, go straight out of the front entrance of the school. Don’t wait for friends, and if you need to wait for siblings, do it outside.”
“What do you think’s going on?” Tracy asked Anna in a whisper. Anna, who was a sensible sort of person and one of Tracy’s closest friends, shrugged her shoulders.
“I could come up with any number of conspiracy theories, but I doubt it would help.”
Miss Hemmel looked straight at Tracy, and for a moment she thought she was about to be reprimanded for speaking. Then the teacher said, “Tracy, not you. Can you go with Mr Arbour, please?”
The blonde girl blinked, and glanced around at her classmates, who looked curiously back at her. She stood up uncertainly.
“Don’t worry about your bag, just come,” the senior teacher said impatiently as she reached under the table.
“What’s happened?” she asked once they were out of the classroom, hurrying after him; he was setting quite a pace.
“I had better warn you. You’re about to see something which will be traumatic for you, but there’s nothing else we can do.” Mr Arbour glanced sidelong at her. “It’s your brother.”
“Markus?” Tracy’s heart seemed to clench in her chest, and she grabbed the man’s sleeve in sudden fear. “What’s happened?”
“We have absolutely no idea. There’s… there’s a lot of blood, and a lot of mess, and your brother is in the middle of it and won’t move.”
Tracy stared at him. “And you think Markus is involved? Is he alright? He’s not -”
“He’s fine, I’m sure. He’s simply resisted all attempts of ours to help him, although we ourselves don’t really relish the thought of going through all that to get him. We tried to physically remove him but he fights and bites and just kicks up a fuss. We thought he might respond to you.”
They were just going into the Languages corridor at this point, and at the other end Tracy could see teachers standing around as if keeping guard. Mr Arbour lead her straight through them, but stopped about halfway down the corridor and turned to her. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Well… prepare yourself. Your brother is sitting by the wall next to the opposite door. Try not to look around - just look straight at him, concentrate on him. He’s the only thing which needs to concern you. The rest of… the rest will just cause you unnecessary worry. Just get Markus out of there.”
Swallowing, Tracy nodded, and followed the teacher the rest of the way down the corridor. At the end, she was ushered through the doors.

She noticed the smell almost at once; it was disgusting, metallic and oppressive, and she covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, not that it really helped. Trying to fight down her natural and morbid curiosity, she kept her eyes on the huddled figure hunched against the wall opposite her. She knelt down next to him, touching his shoulder. She heard his breath catch in his throat, and he flinched away.
“Markus? Are you alright? What happened?”
His eyes opened. “Tracy?” He stared at her as if seeing a ghost.
“What happened?” she asked again, pulling him into a hug. “All this…” He shrank against her, throwing his arms around her neck and pressing his face against her shoulder. “Come, we need to get out of here.” Managing after a few tries to pull him to his feet, she led him out into the corridor, where Mr Arbour and the other teachers were waiting. Before they could intervene, the boy said into Tracy’s ear, “I hired someone from the agency.”
She frowned, glancing at him. “Why - who? Did they do this?”
“Yes. She was called Tiar. I didn’t meant this to happen.” The tone of his voice scared Tracy more than the twisted images Mr Arbour’s warnings had summoned up in her mind. It was a little hoarse, as if he was shouting, and lacked any type of life at all. Everything he said was toneless and largely uninflected. She thought briefly of people in movies, who, when presented with some kind of traumatic scene, would scream and then mostly be over it. Markus wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that easy.
“Where did she go, Markus?” Tracy turned away from the senior teacher, who was hovering next to her with clear intent to interfere. “What was she going to do next?”
“I don’t know what she was going to do. I don’t think she did either. She went…” Markus frowned, as if trying to work something out. “She went towards the tennis courts - that’s the direction of Lissy’s school, isn’t it?”
The blood drained from Tracy’s face as she realised this was true. “Sorry sir, we have to go,” she snapped at Mr Arbour, started down the corridor and ignoring all attempts to stop her. “Walk, Markus, walk!”

“My head hurts,” said Markus bleakly, about halfway to the primary school. They were cutting across the playing fields, and he kept stumbling. “I don’t know if we’ll get there in time. She started ages ahead of us.”
“Shut up and just walk, walk faster!” Tracy dragged him mercilessly onwards, not allowing trips or stumbles on either of their parts to slow them down. Soon they reached the pavement, and she lead Markus the rest of the way at a kind of clumsy half-run.
When they arrived at the front gates, not only were the three agency teachers there, but Darcie was, too. She grabbed Markus’s arm, grimly examining his colourless face.
“Damn… there’s nothing I can really say but sorry… when I see Pith next I’m going to give him a good kicking, letting you hire out that girl.”
“Is Lissy alright?” Tracy demanded at once, trying to look for any signs of chaos and destruction in the school. She could see none, and Hadrian nodded.
“The demon girl has not been past here yet.”
“Demon girl?” Markus said weakly, refusing to let go of Tracy. The vampire nodded.
“She’s… not the most natural creature in the world. I think the agency had rehabilitated or something. So much for that. There’s little we can really do, other than wait and try to head her off.” He glanced at Markus. “He’s in no shape to be anywhere near the front lines. He’s going into shock or something.”
“I agree.” Darcie helped Tracy to lead Markus over to one of the benches. He sat down gratefully and pressed his hands to his temples. Darcie felt in her pocket. “I’m sure I had some kind of cure-all in here…”
“She’s getting closer,” Zariya said tensely, shifting her body ever so slightly so that she’d be ready to do anything at any given moment.
“Well,” said Hadrian, at last taking his hands out of his pockets. “If I was religious, I’d say that now would be a good time to bow our heads and pray. But I’m not, so let’s just say that if you die, Crispin, I will never forgive you.”
“So I’m chopped liver, am I?”
“You, Zariya, are possibly only slightly more easy to kill than I am. And that’s a compliment.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take it.”
They waited for the bringer of doom and destruction to arrive.

“I see you found a new friend there? She as good as the last one?” the older boy who might have been called Adrian asked with a smirk.
“Hi! I’m new at this school today. Who are you? It’s nice to meet you,” said Tiar, automatically and almost woodenly. Markus stood up and grabbed her by the wrist.
“Come on, Tiar.”
“But - wait! Food, no, can’t leave food!” Despite her protests, Markus dragged Tiar away, out of the lunch hall, to the laughter of the older boys and, in fact, most of the lunch hall.

Markus lead Tia as far away from the lunch hall as he could. When they reached the end of the languages corridor, which was empty and silent, he whirled to face her. “Those, Tiar, were the bullies. They are not people you introduce yourself to and try and make friends with.”
Tiar nodded. “I knew they were the bullies,” she said. The boy hesitated.
“You did?”
“Of course. I was just trying an alternative approach, in case that would help at all. I don’t think it really did, though.”
“Now they’ve followed us here,” Markus said, as the door at the end of the corridor opened. Tiar glanced up.
“I know that, too.”
“You seem to know everything, all of a sudden.”
She grinned. “We’ll see.”
“What’s this, then?” Adrian called down the corridor as he and the others approached. “Now you’re taking your girlfriend down a deserted corridor? Ooh-er, aren’t you a bit young for all that?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” said Markus, just as Tiar said brightly, as if the idea had just occurred to her and was a good one, “You’re all a bunch of dipshits!”
There was a short pause. Markus could hardly believe what he’d just heard, and eyed the bullies with apprehension. To his surprise, they burst out laughing.
“Hey, I think she’s trying to insult us,” smirked the boy who might have been called Ryan.
“Well, that’s just not very nice now, is it?” said one of the other boys, a huge gorilla of a boy with an unkempt mop of gingery hair. He flicked Tiar’s nose with his finger.
“Just because it’s not very nice doesn’t mean it’s not true,” she said, rubbing her noise. “You’re just a bunch of bullying bastards without the guts to pick on someone your own size. Your mothers must be so proud, that their gangrenous offspring are big and strong and brave enough to torment someone less than half their height. You’re a credit to your pedigree, or lack thereof - who knew such giant examples of worthless waste of life would spring from such disgustingly diseased loins as you have. You’re perfect specimens of cannon-fodder, you should join the army - you’re big, stupid and no-one would even care if you died. In fact, people would be happy if you did. Your families would dance on your graves and throw huge parties - thank the lord, we’ve finally lost those wastes of space, now we can have some real children, who are actually worth the time and sperm it takes to create them!”
Tiar finally paused in her tirade, panting for breath. Staring at her with wide eyes, Markus wondered where she’d summoned up such an outpouring of bile.
“What the-” started one of the boys, but almost at once the girl started again, apparently not quite finished.
“Don’t even speak, you giant animated pustule. Your existence would be better justified if you were a tumour on a dog’s left testicle.”
“Where the hell did you get her?” Adrian asked MArkus. The blonde boy hesitated.
“I hired her from an agency to stop you. If you don’t leave me alone, then - then I can’t take responsibility for what happens to you.”
“What’s she going to do, insult us to death?” the older boy said in disgust, over Tiar’s ranting. She paused again, apparently hearing this.
“No, no I’m not. Do you want to hear what I’m going to do to you?”
“No, because you’ll never shut up once you get started,” muttered one of the older boys, but the girl took no notice.
“Let’s see, what can I do to you? Unfortunately I don’t really have any tools. I have stationery, but - oh! I know, there’s a blade in my pencil sharpener. That’s not too bad.” Her smile had become fixed; her eyes had a strange glazed quality. “I’ll use the razor blade to cut off your eyelids and maybe pry out your eyeballs a little, just to get them started. Then I’ll pull them out properly, so the nerve comes out with them, and I’ll make you eat the eyeball part while I strangle you with the stringy part. Wait, no, I don’t think it would be long enough. No, I have a better idea. I’ll kill one of you and kind of saw off your head with the sharpener blade - it’ll be quite hard, but I’m sure I’ll manage - and then I can break the top vertebrae off and pull out your spinal cord. That should be long enough to strangle someone with, and I can stuff bits of vertebrae and neck meat into your mouth to choke you.” All of this was accompanied by violent gestures by way of demonstration. There was something terrible in her manner; she was completely serious about everything she was saying.
“Screw this, you’re a psycho,” Adrian said uneasily, and motioned to his friends to leave. Tiar’s fixed grin grew wider.
“Oh no, don’t go. We still have so much fun to have.” When the boys kept walking, she said angrily, “I told you to stop.”
To Markus’s shock, they did, although it didn’t look like they’d intended to. In fact, once of them went to take another step forward and overbalanced when his foot wouldn’t leave the ground.
“Good,” Tiar said. “Now come back over here. Let’s go into the stairwell, so we can all sit down.” There were no windows in the stairwell; no-one would be able to see in. Swearing, the boys turned back and walked jerkily towards them again, moving as if controlled by inexpert puppeteers.
“What the hell is going on? What are you doing to us, you little freak?” gasped Ryan. Tiar just smiled.
“I’m just trying to reason with you. Markus asked me to stop you for him, so that’s what I’m doing.” She turned to Markus, still smiling. “Believe me, once I’m finished with them they won’t ever bother you again.” She laughed, and grabbed his hand, leading him into the stairwell. “I know! We can do it together! And then we’ll be even better friends, and there won’t be anyone to distract you from having fun with me!”
“Tiar, I’m not sure how you’re doing this or what you’re planning to do next, but I’m not sure it’s right,” Markus said anxiously. The girl looked at him, surprised.
“What do you mean? I’m just doing what you asked.” She smiled again. “I’m doing what’s best for you. They hurt you, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but-”
“They made you cry. They don’t deserve to live if all they do is hurt people. Especially you, Markus.” She squeezed his hand. “You were the first person to hire me, so you’re very, very special to me. I’ll never let anyone hurt you, never, ever again, I promise. You’ll be happy until the day you die because I’ll be right here by your side forever, protecting you.”
He didn’t even know what to say to this statement of totally unwanted loyalty. Tiar didn’t seem to require an answer, however, turning to the older boys, who were standing lined up neatly against the wall, their expressions ranging from fear to anger.
“Now then. I’ve heard that you haven’t been very nice to Markus, and that makes me unhappy.” One of the boys swore at her with futile bravado, and she dropped Markus’s hand to walk over to the boy where he stood by the wall. He flinched as she raised a hand to stroke his cheek. “I was lying before, about all the things I said I was going to do to you,” she said quietly, trailing her finger across his throat. “I don’t have any of the tools I need with me, as I said. So I can only do… this.”
She pressed the palm of her hand to the boy’s face, and in her eyes Markus saw a mad, feverish brightness.

Darcie shot upright, whacking her head hard on the open cupboard door above her. She had been packing groceries into the cupboard when she had felt something - something strange yet familiar at the same time, as if someone she’d known a long time ago had walked into the room. Whatever it was, she could tell that it probably wasn’t a good thing.

Hadrian was teaching his class a lesson on Shakespeare and The Tempest when he suddenly paused, and a frown made his brow wrinkle. There was a long silence before one of his class asked, “What is it, Mr de Mellios?”
He blinked as if waking up, and his expression returned to its normal, slightly haughty, serenity. “Oh, it’s nothing. Amelie, what do you think about…?”

Zariya also reacted to the strange feeling, although she would have liked to think that she did so with more professionalism than Hadrian did. In fact, she was in the middle of a netball game with her class, and her sudden hesitation resulted in a netball bouncing swiftly off her head and nearly knocking her backwards. Ignoring the apologies of the child who had thrown the ball, the teacher glanced quickly around. Not finding the source of the problem in the immediate vicinity, she went back to the lesson.

Crispin’s reaction, of course, was to make things go ‘boom’. The lights in his classroom had been replaced with heavy-duty, virtually indestructible ones, but they weren’t indestructible enough. All the extra strength glass did was stop the students getting showered with bits of glass, at least from the lights. Lots of things exploded this time, not just the inside of the lights; a row of bottles on the windowsill, and as a result of these, the window itself exploded outwards; some of the students were showered with water as the plastic water bottles on their tables proved that glass wasn’t the only thing that Crispin had some strange influence on. The glass terrarium which held the class pets was also a victim, and it was because of a mixture of flying glass and escaping bugs and other icky things that Crispin’s class fled out of the door just like on his first day, shrieking.
Crispin himself just sat at his desk and picked bits of glass out of his hair. Sweeping some insects off his paperwork, he murmured to himself, “Something wicked this way comes.”

Markus could feel the wall pressed against his shoulder, although he couldn’t see it. He was curled in a huddle in the corner of the stairwell, his arms covering his head. He wondered for a moment why he was sitting like that, until he thought of what he had just heard. Some strange instinct had made him close his eyes as Tiar pressed her hand to the boy’s face; as a result, he had only heard what had happened directly after that. There had been… a soft, pulpy sounding explosion, and bits of something soft had spattered on him; he could feel warm wetness where something was soaking through his shirt. He had heard someone close by scream - one of the boys - before there was a series of other soft explosions, and the scream stopped. Then, there was just silence, apart from some dripping noises.
Someone touched his arm, and he flinched. “Hey, Markus? Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” It was Tiar’s voice; she sounded worried. “Markus? Markus!”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, as she starting shaking his arm to try and get his attention. “What did-”
Whatever he was about to say was lost forever as he at last opened his eyes and looked around.
Tiar had been deadly serious when she said that the boys wouldn’t worry Markus. In fact, the boys wouldn’t ever worry anyone ever again; they would never interact with anyone again.
The scene that greeted Markus’s eyes was one that he would have been happy not to see, and one that would haunt him forever more. Where the older boys had been lined up against the wall, there was now simply a group of headless corpses, slumped at the bottom of the wall. The walls of the stairwell were splattered on all sides with blood, gore and unidentified grey stuff; Markus didn’t want to think what it was.
“Markus?” Tiar was saying again, but the blonde boy had staggered out of the stairwell and into the hall in front of the doors into the corridor. There, he threw up the contents of his stomach. The girl followed him, still anxiously repeated his name.
“Shut up… shut up… oh god, oh god… you did this…” He stumbled to the other side of the hallway, to the doors leading outside, into the cool, clear, fresh air; in here the stench of blood hung thick in the air, choking him.
“But Markus, I did what you asked - I stopped them! They won’t bully you any more after this,” the girl said, putting her hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her off.
“What… what are you? Oh god… they’re dead. You… what did you do to them?”
“I just did… I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’ve always been able to do it. It’s easy. You just think them dead, and then they are.” She grinned at him. “See? So I was the best person to help you! I got rid of them easily-”
“No, no!” he groaned, still trying to unlock the doors. They gave a little, but still didn’t open. “I didn’t… I didn’t want-”
“But you said-”
“I didn’t want them dead!” It came out as a scream, and Tiar stopped in surprise. Markus stared at her, half in terror of her, half enraged. “Why can’t you see that this is wrong? It’s wrong, it’s wrong! You don’t - you don’t just kill people! This is - they were -” He trailed off, shaking his head. He could feel tears on his cheeks, and there was a strange blurriness at the edge of his vision.
“Are you mad at me?” Tiar asked in a small voice. When he didn’t answer she said, voice rising hysterically, “You are mad at me, aren’t you? You are, you are! Why are you so mad? I just did what you asked! You’re mean, Markus! You’re just so mean! I don’t… I don’t like you any more!”
He hardly even noticed as she ran out into the corridor; he thought she might have been crying. Markus leaned against the wall as the doors banged shut behind her, and slid down the wall, and just sat at the bottom of the wall. He closed his eyes. He didn’t ever want to open them again.

“I hardly saw you at school yesterday,” Tracy remarked at breakfast the next morning. “Usually I see you between lessons, or if I go somewhere during lunch.”
Markus kept his eyes on his cereal, not trusting his expression to not give anything away. “Oh, didn’t you? I was a bit late getting out of some lessons, maybe that was why.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She didn’t ask any more questions. Markus breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they were out of the house.
“I’m walking with someone else today,” he said to Tracy and Lissy. His older sister raised her eyebrows.
“Who, new friend?”
“Yeah, I suppose she is. Seeya later, Lissy.”
“Ooh, a girl?”
He waved, smiling, and started off on the alternative route to school.

The girl was waiting on the corner of the street, sitting patiently on a bollard. A school bag was at her feet, and she was swinging her foot at it absent-mindedly. Even from this distance Markus could hear her humming, although he didn’t recognise the tune.
Like Darcie, she seemed to have the uncanny ability to know when someone was approaching her, because she stopped humming and jumped up when he was a few feet away from her.
“Hi! Are you Markus Vaun?”
Markus nodded. “Uh, hi. You’re Tiar?”
“I am.” To his mild shock she threw herself at him and hugged him around the neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the first person ever to hire me, I can’t thank you enough!”
Because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, Markus started walking in the direction of school again. The girl skipped happily along beside him. She was wearing the right uniform for his school; he wondered where she had got it. Asking her, she laughed, and said, “Some strings just got pulled. The agency does that. I’ve been enrolled in your school on short notice, and I also got a uniform.”
“How did they do that so quickly?”
“Magic!” she grinned.
The more Markus spoke to Tiar, the more the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. There was just something strange about her - something fake, something plastic. She reminded him of nothing more than some kind of creepy living doll.
“Why have you never been hired before, do you know? How long have you been with the agency?”
“Oh, ages,” she pouted. “I don’t know why no-one’s ever hired me. The right person just never came along, I suppose.” She gave him a radiant smile, and a shiver ran down Markus’s spine. “But that doesn’t matter now! We’re going to have so much fun, you won’t even think about those mean bully-boys. But if they do, well! They’ll regret it afterwards, let me tell you…”
Markus smiled awkwardly. “What exactly will you do to them, Tiar?”
“I’ve had some self-defence lessons,” she said gravely. “I’ll use what I remember from those. I’ll, like… kick ‘em in the head and stuff.”
“You learned that in a self-defence class?”
“Well, no, but I’ll improvise a little. But you just leave everything to me, okay? I’ll beat them up and then we can be best friends forever and ever and ever! And then one day maybe we’ll get married, and have kids, and -”
“Whoa, whoa! Married? Where did marriage come from?” he interrupted, waving his hands, horrified. Tiar blinked at him, looking hurt.
“You don’t want to get married? Well, I suppose we could just live together, but-”
“L-let’s just take this one step at a time,” said Markus weakly, still waving his hands. He didn’t want to get on the wrong side of this girl, at least until he’d sorted out this bully problem; that would mean having to go back to the agency, and he didn’t want to have to repeat the whole business of sneaking out of the school, even if it would be easier the second time around, since he’d know where to go. Still, it might be worth it to get out of the company of this creepy girl.

The school seemed to completely ignore her arrival; Tiar walked around the school as though she’d been there forever. After a while Markus suddenly realised that he was following her to his classes; she seemed to have memorised his timetable and where his lessons were. During lessons, she paid attention for about half of the required time; the rest of the time she spent chatting to Markus, to other people in the class, or even to the teacher. She didn’t seem to care if anyone listened to her, she was just filling the silence. For most of the time Markus didn’t even know what she was talking about. No-one else seemed to know, either.
At lunch, of course, she sat with him; she finally stopped talking to eat. She ate a lot, really a lot, about three times the amount Markus did. About halfway through she noticed him staring at her, and she stopped and asked, “What?”
“N-nothing.”
Luckily, before he was asked to explain further, the older boys arrived.

The house was quiet again. Darcie was in the kitchen, washing the dishes, when Markus peered around the doorframe. As quietly as he could he slipped into the kitchen and sat down on one of the chairs. Even as quiet as he was, it wasn’t enough; Darcie glanced around and smiled. “Hey Markus, what’s up?”
He broke a piece off one of the cookies which were on a plate on the table. “What kind of things can you hire at the agency?” he asked, and popped it into his mouth.
The nanny chuckled. “Things? I’m a thing, am I? Actually, don’t answer that.” She added an extra squirt of dishwashing liquid, and went on cheerfully, “Well, there’s all sorts. Me, of course - so nannies, childminders, all that sort of thing - and then Zariya, Hadrian and Crispin, so teachers. Then there’s maids and butlers and drivers, odd-job men and women, builders… everything you could ever need.”
“How does it work? I mean, the people who get hired, they all seem very different, like you and Hadrian, for example. Yet you both work there.”
“That’s simple. We decide we’d like to do a certain job, or think we’d be good at it or whatever, so then we go to the agency and say we’d like to put ourselves down in their books as up for hire to do that job. Then, when they search for someone available to do it, our names and details pop up.”
“So anyone could put themselves there? For anything? Like…” Markus cast about for an example, “An artist?”
“Oh yeah, of course.” Darcie grinned. “I knew someone once who put himself in as a professional gay best friend.”
“Did he get hired much?”
“You’d be surprised.” She put the past dish into the rack and pulled out a dish towel from a drawer. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious,” said Markus casually, standing up. “I need to finish off some homework, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“It’ll take that long? Night, Markus.”
“Night, Darcie.” He hurried up the stairs, aware of her standing at the bottom, watching him.

Markus didn’t go to school the next day. It was Thursday, and he had Music, English, Science, Maths and Art, but he had more important things to do than those. It was time to go to the agency.
He’d managed to get a vague idea of where it was, and so he was reasonably sure of where he was meant to be going when he snuck out of school that morning. The sneaking out was more difficult; he attended the morning registration, trying to ignore his uncomfortably fast heartbeat. Answering the register, he was struck by the sudden fear that his teacher would be able to see what he was planning from his eyes, that she would hear his heart and know, just know what he was about to do. But if she did, she said nothing, and did nothing, and that was how he managed to survive morning registration.
He’d heard somewhere that the more you tried to hide, the more conspicuous you would be. Sneaking around school like a trainee ninja was not, therefore, going to work; so instead of sneaking, he simply walked out of school as if he was meant to be doing just that. No-one stopped him; no-one challenged him. No-one even looked at him. It was as if Markus Vaun no longer existed.

Once he was a safe distance from the school he began to run. His bag, empty except for his lunch, flapping uselessly and annoyingly on his back; he considered throwing it away, but that might be a bad idea. He’d have to get a new bag if he did that.
The centre of town, where the agency was situated, was probably about twenty minutes away from his school, less if he ran all the way. That would mean that he could probably go there, find the place, see if it could help and then get back to school in time for afternoon registration. His classmates would ask questions, of course, but they probably wouldn’t say anything, and his teachers probably wouldn’t even notice he was missing. All should go to plan - as long as he found the agency quickly.
By the time he found it, he was hot, bothered and out of breath; he’d had to duck into a shop to avoid a teacher in a car from seeing him. While they wouldn’t have recognised him, they would certainly have recognised his uniform, and that would be bad. He breathed a sigh of relief on finding the agency, and slipped through the doors quickly.
The man behind the desk glanced up as Markus approached the desk, and said, a little irritably, “Shouldn’t you be in school somewhere, young man?”
Markus blinked at him. “Are you Mr Pith?”
Perking up a bit, the man said, “Why yes, yes I am. Have you heard of my great feats and my numerous wonderful qualities?”
“Um, yeah,” said Markus, deciding not to say anything about the less-than-flattering description he’d heard from his father. “Could you help me? I need to hire someone.”
“Oh, you do, do you? I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” Mr Pith spun around in his chair and then dragged it over to the computer. “What is it that you need? Girlfriend? Someone to tidy your room?”
Markus flushed. “Don’t make fun of me,” he said angrily. “I’m being serious.”
“Sure you are, little man.”
“And I hardly think you can call me ‘little man’.”
“Oh, oh, it’s height jokes, is it? Well, well, excuse me while I call my big muscular colleague to bash your weedy little face in! Once he’s done with you your tiny little brain will have been smashed out through the other side of your skull and I’ll be able to use your eyeballs for marbles! Now sit down and tell me who the hell you want to hire!”
Mutely, Markus sat down. He hadn’t noticed the chair behind him when he’d come in, but he was happy it was there now.
Mr Pith typed on his keyboard for a while before turning his attention back to Markus. “So, weedy one, what do you want?”
“I want someone who’ll stop the guys at my school bullying me,” the boy blurted, before he lost his nerve. There was a pause in Mr Pith’s endless typing.
“Oh yeah, Izzy, bet you feel bad now,” said a voice from the doorway in the wall behind the desk, as a pretty woman came out with a mug of tea. She placed it on the desk next to the computer and smiled at Markus. “I’m sure we can help, sweetie. Izzy - if I hear one more comment from you I’ll pour your next cup of tea over your head.”
Pith huffed crossly. “Why do you come to his defence? I’m the one who was a victim in this situation first.”
“But he’s cute and young and you’re old and ugly.” Grinning, the women vaulted over the desk and hugged Markus tightly. Mr Pith roared with laughter.
“He’s gone bright red…. how sweet. But, my girl, you are going to regret slighting me.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Seeya, Izzy, seeya, sweetie.” She vaulted back over the desk and strolled back through the doorway, humming.
There was a long silence. Apparently feeling that it had gone on long enough, Mr Pith cleared his throat.
“That was Alexa,” he announced.
“Oh,” said Markus weakly. Mr Pith turned briskly back to his computer.
“So, you want someone to solve your bully problem? What did you have in mind? Frightening new best friend? Bodyguard? Scary person? Weirdo no-one wants to get involved with?”
“I don’t care. Just someone who’ll make it stop,” he said quietly, ducking his head.
“You’re really not giving me much to work with here,” muttered Pith, hitting the ‘Enter’ key with some violence. “Here we go. Pretty girl, too, you’ll probably like her. Maybe if you treat her right you can get a girlfriend after all.”
“Will she stop them?”
“Should do, I’m pretty sure. Here, have a look.” Mr Pith turned the screen around, but Markus shook his head.
“I don’t care what she looks like.”
“You really are a misery-guts, aren’t you? You need to look so you’ll know who to grab by the arm and take to school with you when she catches up with you tomorrow,” said Mr Pith, rolling his eyes. Markus flicked his eyes over the picture, intending to give it no more attention than he would any other random picture - but he found himself being drawn back to look at it again.
The girl it showed was probably his age, possibly a little older. She looked a bit like the pretty woman Mr Pith had called Alexa, with black hair cropped quite short, except for a long fringe, and intense blue eyes. Sniggering, the man behind the desk turned the computer around to face him again. “Her name is Tiar.”
“Just Tiar?”
“Just Tiar. Can I take your details? If you want to hire her, that is.”
“Of course I do - Markus, Markus Vaun.”
Mr Pith paused in his typing again. “Markus Vaun as in son of Daniel Vaun? Good grief, I don’t know why you people don’t just hire everyone you want in one go, it would be much simpler.” Still typing, he added, “Which reminds me, you’d better be going back to school after this. We don’t serve vagrants and scoundrel, you know. We’re a very high class place, you know. We pay a lot for this location, you know. If you don’t go to school, you’ll fail your exams, you know -”
“I know, I know!”
“Good, at least you do.” Mr Pith tapped ‘Enter’ again in a self-satisfied manner. “She’ll find you tomorrow. Have fun together.”
Markus made it back to school just in time for afternoon registration, although on the way back he nearly got worried after discovering that his watch had stopped.

“What on earth are all of you doing, turning up here in the middle of the day before Lissy is even finished school?” exclaimed Darcie when she opened the door.
“We came to talk to you,” Zariya told her, herding Lissy through the door. “It’s important.”
“Important enough to make Lissy miss her last lesson?”
“Her last lesson is half and hour long, I don’t think she’ll be missing much.” Zariya turned to Hadrian. “Tell your driver to go away, we’re going to be a while.”
The vampire sighed, and made a hand signal to the man in the limousine which was parked next to the house. “What a waste of petrol. My carbon footprint grows by the minute.”
“Stop whining.”
Darcie sighed, and bent down to give Lissy a welcome home hug. “I’ll make tea. Tea will make it all better.”

An awkward silence had descended upon the Vaun family living room. All three of the teachers had been given a large mug of tea, while Darcie drank a strange green concoction, thick and gloopy-looking. Lissy had gone upstairs to play in her room.
“So, what you’re telling me is that you nearly assaulted my charge?” Darcie said eventually.
“Exactly,” said Zariya, and sipped her tea in a self-satisfied way, as Hadrian glared venomously at her.
“I did not assault anyone.”
“Only because I stopped you.”
“Even if you hadn’t I wouldn’t have done anything! It’s not as if I meant her to be there - she was there of her own volition, stealing something from my desk, I believe.”
Zariya snorted. “And why would she do that?”
“I don’t know! All I know is that I was about to subdue the hamster when -”
“Now there’s a hamster involved?” said Darcie weakly, as Crispin laughed into his tea. Hadrian flushed, his pale skin colouring.
“I thought I was a little thirsty, so I should have a little drop just to be sure I could control myself!”
“You should’ve asked me,” remarked Crispin. All eyes turned to him, and he blinked bad owlishly. “I’ve been developing a formula to try and aid our vampiric friends in keeping their noses clean.”
“Do you need a test subject, by any chance?” asked Hadrian darkly, folding his arms.
The scientist shrugged. “It’s not poisonous, if that’s what you mean.” He pulled a vial of red liquid out of some hidden pocket in his white coat. “It contains all the nutrients a vampire needs, without the hassle and embarrassment of having to find a victim.”
“What’s all this about having to subdue a hamster, anyway?” mumbled Zariya, half to herself. “It’s a hamster. A small rodent. How much resistance was it going to offer? What kind of hamster was it, some giant, super strong raving lunatic hamster or something? Why else would it need to be paralysed and made to not fight back?”
Hadrian took the vial between finger and thumb and held it as far away from him as possible. “Is there anything in it which might possibly explode?”
“Nothing.”
“Is there anything in it you don’t think will explode, but which when exposed to your unusual influence might do just that?”
“No, why?”
“I’m sure Darcie doesn’t want her employer’s living room redecorated. Not to mention the fact that I don’t particularly want to end my life as wallpaper.”
Crispin waited until he had swallowed the contents of the vial, then said innocently, “I wonder where I put that newly developed, nearly microscopic, timer activated bomb I was working on?”
Covering his mouth, Hadrian muttered, “That’s not even funny. And, may I add, that was the foulest thing I have ever tasted.”
The other man tutted. “I’m a scientist, not a chef. And not everything I make explodes, you know.”
“Going back to the previous subject,” interrupted the nanny. “You definitely didn’t do anything to Lissy?”
“Hand on heart, I never laid a hand on her.”
“Because the said hand was on your heart?”
“Shut up, Crispin,” snapped the vampire. “You’ve already given me indigestion.”
“I believe you,” said Darcie cheerfully, standing up. “Who wants some cookies?”

Tracy and Markus arrived home to the sound of unfamiliar voices coming from the living room. Darcie looked up as they stuck their heads around the door.
“Hey there, you two - cookie?”
“Who are these, Darcie?” Tracy asked a little doubtfully, receiving a chocolate cookie and retreating. Darcie smiled.
“Teachers from Lissy’s school.”
“She’s not in trouble, is she?” asked Markus.
“Oh, no! I just know them from the agency, and so they popped around for a chat when they heard I was in the area.”
Zariya waved cheerfully at them from the living room. Tracy smiled at her and said, “Oh, alright then. I’m going to my room - seeya later, Darcie.”
The nanny called after them, “I’m putting the dinner on in a while, I’ll shout when it’s done.”
“Got it,” replied Tracy, going up the stairs. There was silence for a while after she and Markus had gone.
Darcie stood up and closed the door. “I’m a little worried about Markus,” she said quietly, going to sit down on the couch again.
“Oh? Why?” Zariya sat up a little, interested.
“I have a feeling he’s getting bullied.” The nanny shrugged. “I actually don’t know what to do, apart from charming him for luck and health and safety and all that stuff. I’ve never had to deal with that kind of stuff.”
“Could always turn them into frogs,” suggested Crispin brightly. Darcie rolled her eyes.
“Witches don’t actually do that, stupid.”
“Crispin never had to deal with bullies either, they always exploded before they could give him any trouble,” said Hadrian with a grin. The scientist gave a long-suffering sigh.
“I’m being serious,” said Darcie. “Markus doesn’t know what to do either. But there’s no way he’s going to ask for help from anyone. How do you help someone when you have no reason to go to the scene of the crime, so you’ll look suspicious if you go there, and they won’t ask for help and will probably get mad if you try to help? I can’t use any witchy powers, either - my range isn’t large enough and I don’t really have anything which could work without him knowing and triggering them…”
“Darcie, Darcie, you’re getting worked up.” Hadrian squeezed her shoulder. “Just do what you can. As far as we can, we’ll try to do the same.” He smiled. “You never know, he may get through and it be stronger because of it. He’s probably an intelligent and resourceful young man who will grow up to be a credit to himself and his family… or something.”
“Yeah, I think he’ll be fine with you watching his back.” Zariya hugged her affectionately. “Alternatively, if it all gets too much then just drop the pretence and tell him I’ll come and kick the bullies’ butts.”
Darcie laughed. “Thanks, I’ll do that.” She stood up. “More drinks?”

Daniel was more than a little disgruntled to find a small party going on in his living room. “I know that for the moment you’re not being paid by me, but that’s still no reason to hold parties. When the cat is away the mice should not play,” he told Darcie in a low voice, having pulled her out into the passageway. She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair.
“Sorry. It wasn’t meant to be a party. It’s just some friends from the agency - they’re working at Lissy’s school.” Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she added, “Lissy fainted at school today, they brought her back home.” Daniel’s whole evaluation of the situation changed at once, and the nanny silently thanked Hadrian for telling her about this cover story. Of course, they couldn’t tell Daniel that Lissy had been brought home so she wouldn’t speak to her classmates about certain hamsters being put in grave peril by a certain teacher.
“O-oh… is that what…? Is she alright?”
“Lissy is fine, don’t worry. I think she just got a little too hot.”
“Nothing lasting? Nothing bad?”
“No, Daniel, she’s fine. You can go and see her, if you want. I think she’s playing upstairs.”
“I’ll go and see her, then.” He patted her shoulder absently. “Carry on… don’t drink all the liquor…” Darcie chuckled as he hurried up the stairs.
“How sweet,” said Zariya as the nanny came back into the room. “I assume that means we can drink some of the liquor?”
“It’s rude to eavesdrop, you know. No liquor for you.”
“That reminds me, we should probably talk to Lissy,” said Hadrian as Darcie sat down next to him. He stared down at his clasped hands. “Just… just make sure she is alright.”
“You seem very worried about someone who was a potential meal not so long ago,” remarked Zariya under her breath. Hadrian tensed, and the room went quiet. Zariya glanced around. “I meant in the classroom!” she clarified quickly, and everyone relaxed.
“That was very nearly under the belt,” said Darcie, throwing her a warning glance.
“So far under the belt, in fact, that you’d have been closer to the floor than the belt,” the vampire said quietly, twiddling his thumbs.
“It really wasn’t that long ago, though,” said Zariya. She hesitated, then said grudgingly, “You’ve done really well to come this far in such a short time.”
Hadrian blinked at her. “Zariya Knell! Was that a compliment I just heard pass between your lips?”
“Possibly,” she said haughtily. “Don’t take it to heart, though. I’ve probably just entered a state of temporary insanity.”

A little later, Lissy appeared shyly in the doorway. Spotting her, Darcie said, “Hello there, little one, we were just about to come and get you.” She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the side of the couch, and now spread her arms, inviting the little girl to come and hug her. Lissy ran over and jumped into her lap, cuddling against her.
“Daddy came and spoke to me,” she said, and the teachers pricked up their ears.
“What did you say to him?” asked Darcie casually.
“I said I fainted, like Mr de Mellios said.” Lissy blinked as everyone in the room visibly relaxed. “Can you tell me something?”
“We do owe you something,” Hadrian nodded before anyone else could answer. Lissy stood up and went over to him.
“Why are you in our school, if you’re strange creatures?”
“That’s an interesting question,” Crispin said lightly, picking at a loose thread on the jumper he wore under his white coat, which now hung on the back of the couch. “We need to eat just as much as the next person. Or, at least, some of us do.” This was clearly directed at Hadrian, who mutely pointed to his belt.
“Below,” he said simply. Lissy peered up at him, and he told her, “I like teaching people. I think sharing knowledge is a duty, an important one, and… there are things I need to make up for.”
“Bad things?” the little girl asked, leaning on his knee. He nodded, and looked away in an attempt to hide the look of melancholy which had suddenly passed over his face.
“Very bad things.” He smiled briefly. “I’ll be teaching for a long time before I make up for them.”
“Is it hard?” Lissy asked quietly, looking at everyone in the room. “Not being able to tell anyone, I mean. And having to hide it.”
“I like this small child,” announced Crispin, who was now unravelling his sleeve. “She’s more intelligent than I expected.”
“You don’t even deserve that question,” Zariya said crossly to him. “You don’t hide anything. Things go boom and you invent strange creations. Or create strange inventions. One of the two. Or perhaps both.”
“It’s not as if I have anything to hide,” the scientist said haughtily. “I’m completely human. I just make things go boom sometimes. I admit that. It’s one of my flaws.”
“I’m completely human too, I just have a few perks,” shrugged Darcie.
“I’m human most of the time, does that count?” Zariya asked cheerfully, and leaned forward to ruffle Lissy’s hair affectionately. “It’s just as hard as we make it, kid. Maybe sometimes it’s harder to hide stuff, but if we stay happy and enjoy our lives and our jobs then everything’s fine.”
“That could apply to anyone,” said Crispin doubtfully.
“Well, it applies to us, too.” Zariya smiled at the little girl, and downed the rest of her tea.

Tracy opened the door. “I heard you talking,” she said. There was a strange tone in her voice, and her expression was unreadable. Darcie and the others exchanged glances.
“What about it?” asked Crispin politely. Tracy glared at him.
“Can you please stop filling my sister’s head with rubbish? However fun you may find it to pretend you’re weird creatures, all it’ll do in the long run is confuse her.”
Lissy frowned at her. “But, Trace, you’re the one who told me that Darcie was a witch.”
The older girl threw her hands up. “I was joking! And they are too, Lissy, they’re playing with you.”
“But-”
Darcie gestured at the door; it closed quietly behind Tracy. She patted the ground next to her. “Sit.”
The girl stared at all of them. “But -”
“Please, Tracy, just sit,” said Darcie, a little testily.
“We need to have a talk about the birds and the bees,” murmured Crispin, earning a glare from Zariya.
Tracy sat down huffily. “I’m not going to believe any of your nonsense.”
Darcie sighed. “I’m actually tired of this now,” she muttered, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Zariya, how close is it to full moon?”
“Three days,” the other woman answered promptly.
“Enough to change?”
“Of course it is.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do a demonstration?”
“Hold on, backtrack a moment for me, please,” said Hadrian, raising a hand. “Why exactly are we now trying to convince the sister of the truth? Why does it matter to her what we are? It doesn’t affect her in any way.”
Darcie grinned suddenly. “You want the truthful answer?”
“Well, yes, it would be appreciated.”
“I want to see what happens. So, Zariya, happy to change?”
“Always happy, my friend, if you’ll block the glass on the door,” replied Zariya, standing up. Darcie stood up as well and went over to the door. She blew on the pane of glass which spread across it; ferns of frost raced across the glass from where her breath had touched it. Tracy’s eyes widened on seeing this, but the nanny simply pointed her in the direction of the real demonstration.
Where Zariya had stood a moment ago, there now sat a large, grey dog, wagging its tail cheerfully. As Tracy stared at it, it tilted its head to one side questioningly. The tufts of white fur on the tips of its ears flipped comically to one side.
“Tracy, meet the dog version of Zariya,” said Darcie. The dog growled. “Sorry, wolf,” corrected Darcie. “Always gets me, that one.”
Eyeballing Zariya, Tracy said, “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”
“You don’t have to believe us if you don’t want to,” said Crispin with a shrug. “It’s no skin off our noses.”
“Thanks, you can turn back,” the nanny said to Zariya, turning back to the glass pane. This time she breathed in, holding her mouth right next to the glass; the frost ferns disappeared. When she turned around again, human Zariya was straightening her clothing.
“That was quite satisfying, in its own little way,” she said with a grin.

“Miss Plum came to my house last night,” Lissy told Timothy the next day at break time.
He looked suitably impressed and asked, “Were you in trouble?”
She shook her head. “She was just checking on me, to see how I was doing at home.” She added in a whisper, making him lean towards her. “I think my daddy likes her.”
“She is pretty. And nice.”
“I know.” They sat in silence for a while, and then the bell rang.

At lunchtime Martinette called across the playground, “Lissy, can you come here for a moment?” Lissy did so. Martinette was in Year Five, and it was always something special when someone older than you wanted to speak to you.
The older girl was sitting on the bench next to the fence, swinging her legs. She smiled at the little girl and patted the bench next to her. Once Lissy had sat down she said, “I heard that your nanny comes from the same place as Mr de Mellios?”
Baffled, the little girl nodded. “The agency.”
“That’s right,” Martinette said. “So, you must be used to that sort of person, then?”
“That… sort of person?”
“Mr de Mellios is a bit… creepy,” the Year Five said dismissively, as if everyone who came from the agency was the same. “Everyone knows that.” She looked at the little girl. “The thing is, he confiscated something of mine, but I want it back and I don’t want to have to ask him for it.”
“What did he take?” asked Lissy doubtfully.
“My tamagotchi.” Martinette leaned towards her, expression grim. “If I don’t get it back soon it could die.” The little girl’s eyes widened. A matter of life and death! “I need you to go and get it for me out of the top drawer of his desk. You’ll be able to reach it, don’t worry.”
“Why can’t you go and get it?”
Martinette sighed. “I would if I could, but I’m too big. You, on the other hand, are small enough to be sneaky, and innocent enough to get out of trouble if you get caught.”
“Isn’t that stealing, though?”
“Of course not! Don’t be silly. It’s mine in the first place, he was the one who stole it.” Martinette glanced at her pink glow-in-the-dark watch and sighed tragically. “Now it’s missed two feeding times.”
Lissy gave in. “Alright, I’ll do it. But only if you’re carefuller with it in the future.”

Sneaking into the Year Five classroom was harder than it had sounded.
Lissy had never been into the Year Five classroom. She’d been past it, and she’d been into the Year Six classroom next door once last year when she’d been little and just starting Reception, and had started to cry and refused to stop until she was taken to see Markus - but she’d never been into the Year Five classroom.
She held her breath and pressed herself into the corner as someone walked past outside. Once they were gone, she hurried over to the desk. It was one of the old-fashioned ones with a panel on the front, so it was easy to hide behind or under it. Lissy was also short enough that she didn’t need to stoop to be hidden from view behind it.
She opened the top drawer with some difficulty. Unable to see what was in it, she felt around instead. Her fingers encountered pens, pencils, small soft toys, action figures - until at last they closed around the smooth, rounded shape of the tamagotchi. Triumphant, she closed to drawer and was about to peep around the desk and make a bid for freedom - when she heard footsteps enter the room. Quickly, she retreated as far under the desk as she could go, hoping fervently that the sleeping tamagotchi would not choose this moment to wake up.
“Bugger,” she heard the voice of Hadrian de Mellios say quietly. His footsteps passed in front of the desk, around the side - then stopped, and went over to the side of the classroom. “In fact, I would go as far as to say double bugger.”
There was one aspect of each classroom which Lissy knew was the same: on one side, there was the home of a class pet. These pets differed for each year - frogspawn, goldfish, snails, a range of insects and other creepy-crawlies collected around the school ground or brought from home. Year Five had a hamster - a little white and orange hamster, which could quite often be seen and heard running on its little plastic wheel as if it was in serious training for a marathon. The side Mr de Mellios was standing on now was the side on which the hamster cage in this classroom was located.
Lissy heard the clicking metal-on-metal noise as the cage opened, and rustling as the man searched through sawdust and bedding, looking for the little warm creature hiding inside. Closing her eyes, she could imagine it vividly. She’d had a hamster once, or Tracy had. They’d let it watch TV with them, and fed it peanuts and little hamster treats. She imagined the little hamster being woken by the teacher’s unfamiliar hands, it running in fright from his unfamiliar smell.
“Well, hello there, little one,” she heard him whisper, his voice loud in the silent room. She couldn’t even hear the sounds of the playground from here. “I hope you won’t take this personally? It’s not that I have anything against you or anything. I’ll try not to kill you.”
Lissy couldn’t quite describe what happened next. It was as if a wave passed over her - a wave of something, not a physical substance, but a feeling. Whatever it was, it terrified her enough to make her burst out from underneath the desk, fully intending to flee out of the classroom and away from whatever was happening there. But the tamagotchi dropped from her hand, and she couldn’t leave without it - it was the whole reason she was here. This was when she realised the strange fear which had overcome her was gone. This was when the strange fear was replaced by another, different type of fear, and she turned to face Mr de Mellios.
He was frozen, staring at her with wide, dark eyes. Year Five’s class hamster was being held, struggling, near his mouth. She stared back, all thought of the tamagotchi gone from her mind. Instead of normal teeth, Mr de Mellios had fangs.
There was a long silence. Then Mr de Mellios, almost sheepishly, put the still-struggling hamster back into the cage and closed the door. “It’s not what it looks like,” he muttered.
“You have big teeth,” said Lissy simply. “Were you going to eat the hamster?”
“I was not going to eat the hamster. I promise. I also won’t try it again.” He glanced around, and approached her carefully, as if she were a dangerous animal which might run at any given moment. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”
“What shouldn’t I tell them about?” She backed away a little, but found her back against the desk. He kept walking forwards in the same cautious way.
“You know what.” His expression was unreadable.
“I-”
They both jumped as the door swung open and Zariya walked in, saying loudly, “Hadrian, I need to talk to-” She caught sight of them, and stopped. After a moment she leapt at Hadrian, grabbing the collar of his shirt and slinging him violently to the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s bad enough that I have to work with you, without you doing child predatory things in your own damn classroom! With Darcie’s charge, as well!”
“I was not doing child predatory things!” protested Hadrian hotly from the ground, not even attempting to stand up. “I was not at all! Don’t inflate things, you’re like those tabloid rag things.”
“What were you doing, then?” She leaned down and hissed at him, apparently under the impression that Lissy wouldn’t hear her, “And why are your bloody fangs out, you moron?” She went over to Lissy and knelt next to her. “Are you okay, poppet? Did he do anything to you?”
“He never touched me,” said Lissy, looking past her to where Hadrian was gingerly clambering to his feet. “Why does he have fangs, do you know? And he had the hamster.”
Zariya whirled. “You have the hamster? Spit it out, right now!”
“I don’t still have it, you silly creature! I put it back! And I did not touch her! Don’t you think I have enough problems without making more for myself? Don’t you think we all have enough problems?” He pointed at Lissy. “What are we going to do about her? However much you try to mince words neither of us are going to convince her that there’s nothing strange going on here. She’s not stupid, and she’s not mute. Perhaps if she tells someone it could be attributed to an overactive imagination, but we can’t take that chance.”
Zariya smiled down at Lissy, who was looking from one teacher to another with mild interest. “You don’t mind if we ask you some questions, do you? And tell you some things? It’s half an hour ‘til the end of lunch,” she added to Hadrian, expression changing to a glare as she turned to him. “I’m sure we can smooth it out. And you’re right, that’s a risk we can’t take. If everyone else was convinced we’d be fine, but I don’t think we’ve quite ticked the ‘normality’ box and Crispin really isn’t helping.” She turned back to Lissy. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine,” insisted Lissy. “I don’t know what’s going on, but no-one’s hurt me and I’m not scared.” She raised her chin a little defiantly, because this last part wasn’t entirely true, and she had a feeling they knew it wasn’t. Hadrian sighed, and squatted down next to her.
“I’m sorry, Alice. I didn’t know you were in the room, or I wouldn’t have done anything to scare you.”
“Lissy,” said the little girl. “Everyone calls me Lissy.”
Zariya snorted with laughter. “I suppose that’s a good sign, that you’re on nickname terms with her,” she remarked to the man.
“What were you going to do to the hamster?” persisted the girl. Hadrian squirmed.
“I was… going to attempt to drink its blood. Not much… just a taste.”
“Just a taste? Of hamster blood? You really are a sick weirdo.” Zariya punched his arm. He rubbed it reproachfully.
“Now I shall have a bruise. I’m sure you’d prefer I drank hamster blood than human.”
“You’re a vampire, then?” said Lissy.
There was a long silence. The teachers exchanged glances, and the woman leaned closer to her. “Now, Lissy, I need you to do something for me. You can’t tell anyone about this - no-one. It’s very important. If you feel…. uh, mentally scarred or something… then come to us and you can talk to us. To me,” she corrected herself, and Mr de Mellios scowled. “No-one can know. If you’re scared of us, then there’s not really anything we can do, but… please. We’re not trying to harm anyone, we’re just trying to get by. We have to live just like everyone else.”
“Are you a vampire too?” asked Lissy, peering at Zariya’s teeth.
“Goodness no,” she exclaimed, as Hadrian roared with laughter. “I’m, er… something else.”
“Something that howls at the full moon and uses a razor frequently,” muttered the man, and received another punch. Serious again, Zariya leaned towards her once more.
“Are you scared, Lissy? I know it must be difficult to cope with strange things.”
“Not really,” said the little girl dismissively. “Some of the things Darcie does are a bit strange, or at least Daddy acts like they are. So does Tracy - like when she cooks things in the big black pot. Herbal medicines, I think she said. Some of them are pretty colours, she keeps them in nice bottles on a shelf.”
To her surprise, Zariya groaned. “I think it looks like we need to talk to Darcie, too,” she said to Hadrian, standing up. “In fact, this might resolve matters quite nicely. Come on, Lissy - we’re taking you home.”
“W-why?”
“Because you fainted and you don’t feel well, so I’m taking you home. Hadrian, get Crispin. You two will just have to take the rap for missing work.”
Hadrian sighed and pulled out his mobile phone. “I’ll call for substitutes for all three of us,” he muttered. “You owe me, hairy.”

Darcie and Lissy were making cookies when the doorbell rang. They looked at each other, surprised.
“Daddy shouldn’t be home yet,” said the little girl. “So who’s that?”
“Oh well, I’ll go and see.” Darcie dusted flour off her hands. “Maybe it’s a lost driver, or a roving Jehovah’s Witness.”
Humming, she went to open the door, and found Miss Plum standing on the doorstep under a large umbrella decorated with red polka dots. Glancing behind her, the nanny was surprised to find that the rain was pouring down in sheets. When Daniel came back her was be soaked, she knew, since he hadn’t bothered to take an umbrella with him that morning.
“Well, this is certainly weather for ducks… come in, come in. We’ll put your umbrella in the kitchen.” Once they were back inside, she said, “Miss Plum, was it? You’re Lissy’s teacher.”
“That’s right - please call me Annie. You must be Darcie.”
“That’s me… come to the kitchen, we’re making cookies.”
“Miss Plum!” beamed Lissy as they entered the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see how you were doing at home,” smiled the teacher. “I know your daddy’s been having problems lately, so I thought I’d come and see how things were going.”
“Everything’s alright now that Darcie’s here,” the girl said with certainty. “Well, we still don’t get to see Mummy very much, but I don’t get left alone any more. It’s better.” She smiled. “And we get to make cookies!”
Miss Plum laughed. “That’s always a good thing, isn’t it?” She leaned her umbrella in a corner, and then pulled out one of the chairs from around the table and sat down. “I’m glad everything’s going well. And how about you, Darcie?”
The nanny glanced around in surprise. “Me? What do I have to do with it?”
“Are you happy in your job?” persisted the teacher.
“Of course I am. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do - well, I wanted to be a ballerina at one point, I think, but other than that I always thought I’d like to be a nanny.”
“And if you weren’t a nanny? What would you want to be then?”
“I thought you were checking on Lissy, not me,” Darcie said mildly. “Come on, Liss, let’s put the trays in the oven.” Once they were in, the nanny asked Miss Plum, “Why all the questions? Not that it bothers me, but something’s worrying you.”
The teacher twiddled her thumbs, watching their movement with unseeing eyes. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Is this another one of those things you think you shouldn’t tell us?” asked Lissy, who was holding her hands up in the air as they were both encased in oven gloves. Miss Plum bobbed her head uncertainly, not even sure herself whether she was nodding her head or shaking it.
“It’s… a bit… I don’t know. I’m sure it doesn’t matter.” She crossed her legs. “I’ll ask you. The new teachers from your agency started today, and they’re… a little odd. I wanted to ask you about that.”
Although Darcie hadn’t turned, her whole body had stiffened a little, as if worried what she was going to ask. “What do you mean, they’re odd?” she asked casually.
“Well… one of them, Crispin Barnes, made every light in his classroom explode just by walking into it.”
“Into the light?”
“Into the classroom.”
“Oh. Did he make them explode? Or did they all just happen to explode as he walked into the classroom?” she asked, quite reasonably. Miss Plum opened her mouth, then hesitated. “You should think about things like this before jumping to conclusions. I mean, the poor guy! Just started a new job, then as soon as he walks in - boom! And now you and probably other people as well think he’s weird.” Darcie paused. “What did you say his name was again?”
“Crispin… Crispin Barnes.”
“Ah,” said Darcie thoughtfully. “What else was there? I’m sure you didn’t only have that example of strangeness to present to me.”
“Well, no. Uh… one of them, the other man - Hadrian - he said the bell was about to ring and right after that it did. And the other one, Zariya - she said Mr Nebus, the headmaster, was about to walk in and he did.”
Darcie sighed. “This all sounds a bit woolly to me. All three of them are coincidences, I’ll bet.”
“Three coincidences which happened to happen to those people?”
“Well, yes. And anyway, Hadrian could have seen a clock and from that guessed when the bell would ring, and Zariya could have seen My Nebus through the glass on the door.”
“There’s no glass on the staffroom doors.”
“Oh. Then… maybe she heard him, or his car, or something. Either way, you jumped to conclusions with all three of them.”
Miss Plum said slowly, “So there’s nothing strange about you, about them, or about the agency?”
“No,” said Darcie without hesitation. “Nothing strange at all.”

Markus came down the stairs as Darcie closed the door behind the teacher. “Who was that?”
“Lissy’s teacher. She came to check on her. Nice of her.”
“Yeah…” The boy glanced away from her to the kitchen door. “Have you finished baking the cookies?”
“They should be done soon. Do you want one when they’re finished?”
“Yes, please. I’m going to be doing homework - can you shout when they’re done?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll bring one up to you. Tea, too.”
“Thanks, Darcie,” he said gratefully, and turned to go up the stairs again.
“Markus,” said the nanny, and he turned back. She pointed to her eye. “Black eye?”
Markus raised his hand to his eye, which was purple and swelled. “Oh, it’s nothing. Got into a fight at school.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine.”
“You sure?” Somehow the way she asked it didn’t annoy him like it did when his sister asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. If you need anything just ask.”
“I will.” He ran up the stairs again.
Everything was okay, because now he’d decided what to do about it. The agency had helped everyone else he knew who’d used it, so why not him? It was worth a try, at least, although they probably didn’t have bodyguards. On the other hand, maybe they did. It was definitely worth a try.

He’d enjoyed high school, for the first few days - until they’d started picking on him. He didn’t even know their names, although one of them might have been called Adrian and one might have been Ryan. They were probably in the year above him, but they might have been older, he couldn’t tell. They were bigger than him, he knew that much.
On the first day at lunch he’d sat with a boy called Alfie, who was willing to be his friend. All of Markus’s friends from primary school had either gone to different schools or already found new, interesting friends over the holidays or in the first few hours of the day. Alfie was in the same boat.
They’d sat together on the first day, and the second day too. He couldn’t remember what they’d spoken about - something silly, probably. They both liked comedy movies, so it was probably something along those lines.
On the third day, the bigger boys started to pick on him. Alfie saw, but didn’t do anything. That day he say a little further away from him, and didn’t talk to him.
Every day after that there was some kind of unspoken rule that, if the bigger boys were nowhere to be seen, Alfie would sit with him, Alfie would talk to him, and they would pretend that there was nothing going on, that nothing was happening. But always Markus could feel the presence of the bigger boys tainting what they spoke about, and how they looked at each other, as if they were always standing behind him and Alfie could see them and knew they were there, but Markus couldn’t see, and didn’t know. If they ever did appear halfway through lunch, staring around the lunch hall, Alfie would stand up as if someone had lit a firework under his chair, and pick up his tray or whatever was left of his lunch and walk quickly to the exit door, dumping tray and rubbish on the way. Sometimes the bigger boys would see him and laugh, shout things like ‘Where’s the fire?’ or ‘Hey, you forgot your bag!’. Markus sometimes felt bad about that. He didn’t really know why; it wasn’t as if he owed Alfie anything. After Alfie left, the bigger boys would sit with him.
He didn’t like them sitting with him. He preferred Alfie.

“I’m home!”
“You’re lucky the rain stopped,” Darcie called from the kitchen. “It was pelting down earlier.”
“I know, I could see it. It stopped before I had to go out, though.” Daniel was about to go to the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He did an about-turn and answered it, to find an angel on the step.
“Hi!” said the angel. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I left my umbrella here earlier.”
“Here,” said Darcie, making him jump; he hadn’t noticed her coming up behind him. She handed the angel the umbrella, and Daniel finally recognised her.
“O-oh! Miss Plum… I, er, I didn’t recognise you…”
She smiled at him. “Miss Plum is my name for my students. I’m Annie to people my own age.”
“O-oh. I’m, er - I’m Daniel.” He held out a hand for her to shake. The hand which shook it was soft and smooth and cool.
“I know you are, but it’s a pleasure to meet you anyway. Oh, we haven’t met properly, have we? The parents’ evenings last year were always attended by your wife.”
Daniel flushed at the almost accusatory statement. “Yes - they were all at time I couldn’t make. This year I’ll be taking time off to attend them.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Daniel. Thank you for my umbrella, and I’m glad Darcie is working out. Good night.”
She trotted away down the path. Daniel dumbly watched her go until she was out of sight.
“Nudge nudge, wink wink,” said Darcie in his ear, making him jump again. She winked as he turned to her. “I shall say no more.”