Jenna opened her eyes. For a moment she didn't know what woke her up, but then she realised that somebody was shaking her shoulder.

'What?' she asked in a blurry voice.

'Miss Carano, I am terribly sorry, but it's half-past five. I need to close the office for today.'

It was Mr Jones. Jenna used her extraordinary deductive skills to conclude that she was still in the office. Mr Jones mentioning the office helped a little. She felt like something was wrong with that half-past five thing, but she couldn't quite grab the concept yet. She sat up and brushed her hair out of her face.

'Sorry, boss. You should have wake me up earlier.'

Jenna got up and stretched, causing her backbone to crunch. She frowned.

'It did not seem like a wise idea,' said Mr Jones.

The girl looked around. Everyone was long gone, even Kahn. It was dark outside the window, which reminded her that she wanted to go to check out that cemetery before sunset. But then she passed out sometimes before noon, of course. She slept through her chance to check out the cemetery at daylight and it wouldn't be a smart thing to go there unprepared. Speaking of things one shouldn't do unprepared, she just remembered that she had a meeting with Robert Montomery.

'Quick heads up, boss, about our werewolf case... I think it's actually a ghoul case. I will probably go out to have a look tomorrow morning, then head back in the evening to destroy them. I might be bringing along Remy as well.'

Mr Jones shivered for the thought.

'There is not enough money in this world to make me go out to a ghoul-infected cemetery after dark…' he murmured, wrapping his ugly cardigan tighter around himself.

'Maybe you should give me a raise then,' smiled Jenna while putting on her jacket.

'Now, now, don't be silly, my child,' he shook his head amused. 'Ready? Let's go.'

Jenna stepped out and stopped at the small, dark landing front of the door. She snapped with her fingers and a couple of flickering sparks appeared to light up the stairs. They looked like fireflies.

'How do I get to Angel from here?' she asked as Mr Jones closed the door.

'You got to either catch the bus 274 or the Northern Line. I recommend the Tube, there are usually traffic jams at this hour everywhere.'

So Jenna chose the Tube, which she regretted very, very quickly as she stood there, with a stranger standing on her feet, someone else's elbow poking her ribs and something hard pushed to her butt. She only hoped that this last one was a handle of an umbrella or something like that.

Fortunately, her torture didn't last more than ten minutes. It took another five to get from the platform to the gates, thanks to the huge and slow crowd. Jenna decided, for at least the hundredth time, that she will buy a car soon. Or a motorcycle. She could totally see herself on a motorcycle. Maybe Marcus would give her some advice about which one to get.

Despite everything, she was only late by five minutes. When she opened the door, she looked over the fireplace, but the sofa and the big armchairs were empty. She looked around and saw Robert in one of the boxes on her left. He leaned above the table like he was writing something. Jenna waved at Luther, who nodded back. As she walked closer to Robert she realised that he wasn't writing, but drawing.

'I didn't know that you can draw,' she said. Robert looked up so suddenly as someone who got caught doing something nasty. The small sketchbook disappeared into his pocket in a heartbeat. Jenna saw a woman's face with a lot of curly hair, but only for a glimpse.

'I…' he was obviously struggling to find the words, which was something Jenna never saw before. 'It's just a hobby. Helps to kill some time.'

Jenna sat down across the table and looked curiously at Robert.

'Can I see it? Are you any good?' she asked.

'No, and probably no. Are you hungry?' Robert was on his feet already, turning towards the bar. Luther was staring at them, like someone who is watching a car accident and cannot look away.

Jenna just realised that she was, in fact, hungry. She slept through lunchtime, after all.

As Robert went away, she looked after him. She was a little surprised: she would never take him as an artist. Also, the drawing looked suspiciously like her, and that made Jenna smile.

Robert returned with a huge burger, a lot of fries and two coffees; a latte for himself and a big mug of black for Jenna. The girl grabbed the burger and took a bite, but pushed the plate with the fries towards Robert, who took a piece and dipped it in the ketchup. The burger was delicious, with a thick beef patty, bacon and fresh vegetables.

'You remembered how I drink my coffee,' she noted, looking at him in the eyes.

Robert shrugged.

'I am a teacher. My job is to remember things,' he said casually.

'Sure, sure,' nodded Jenna but she had to hide a grin. 'What's with the smart casual, by the way?' she asked, checking out Robert's outfit. He wore simple blue jeans and a knitted jumper over a white shirt. For him, it was the equivalent of wearing shorts and some sport jersey. He didn't even have his fancy cane with him.

'Yeah, that… You see, I was hoping that I could convince you to take me with you tonight. I have never seen a demon hunting in progress before and I'm quite curious.'

Jenna shook her head, then swallowed the bite. 'I'm not going. I need to check out the site at daylight first, otherwise it would be dangerous.'

'Dangerous for the two of us?' asked Robert, raising his eyebrow. That was a fair point. And it would have been nice to take care of it tonight, and not having to wake up early in the morning.

'Well… But it's just some ghouls, not real demons. Most likely. They are scary and dangerous but not particularly interesting. Still want to come?'

'Certainly,' nodded Robert. 'But let's talk about our police business first. I have some news, and none of them are...'

Jenna's phone beeped. She apologised then got it out. The text was from "Mahda": You didn't called. I will be in the bar we met yesterday if you wanna hung out. Or movie tomorrow? You can come to my place. Xoxo'

'Merda…' Jenna groaned. She decided already that she won't call Magda. The girl was sexy and probably very nice too, but Jenna just wasn't interested at all. She quickly answered: "working tonight sorry maybe next time" because that seemed easier than put an end to it right there.

'Is something wrong?' Robert asked, and Jenna didn't know why but lied something about an innocent friendly meeting she forgot.

'So what is it about that statue?' she asked, mostly to stir the conversation away from the text.

Robert took out his phone and opened up its gallery. There were pictures of the statue. On one of the photos, there was a ruler for scale, so Jenna could see that the statue was about fifteen centimetres. It was a woman figure with a huge butt, thick tights, big round belly and enormous breasts. Her face was covered with braided hair as if she didn't have one, or the artist didn't think it was important. Talking about preferences, Jenna thought. A woman needs to have big boobs and be able to bear a child, but why should they talk, right? It was amazing how little changed since the Stone Age.

'So, as the old lady said in the Museum, the statue is magical. Actively magical, at that, after all those years. There are carvings on it, and they are most likely Runes, or more precisely foregoers of the Runes we know today.'

Robert took a sip of his coffee, while he put on the next picture about the Runes he was talking about.

'So it is a fertility charm after all?' asked Jenna. Robert looked at her surprised; he didn't think that the girl was paying attention at the Museum.

'If it was, people visiting the British Museum would sneak off to dark corners to have sex constantly.' he said.

'I did that!' said Jenna ardently 'But only one time. We didn't touch anything. On display, you understand.'

Robert shook his head, closed his eyes and took a very deep breath.

'Why would you do that?' he asked tiredly.

'It was a really boring date,' she shrugged 'so I mixed it up a little. Do you think it was because of this statue?'

'Do you?' asked back Robert.

'Nah, probably not,' sighed Jenna.

'Just out of curiosity, what are you doing on a good date?'

'Oh, you have no idea…' she grinned.

'As much as I'd love to hear stories about your sexual adventures, I think we should move on. So, we established that it is not a fertility charm or totem. That leads us to the real question: what is it then?'

Jenna took a bite of her burger and waited. Robert woke up the screen of his phone again and showed the picture with the ancient Runes to Jenna.

'What do you think?' he asked.

Jenna looked at them. Some of them were familiar, some weren't, but overall it showed a spell or at least a version of it she knew very well.

'That's weird. Kinda looks like a demon trap, but I don't get those Runes there. Is that supposed to be the Human?'

'I believe it is,' nodded Robert. 'But let me tell you a story I heard yesterday from my old college pal. He is an anthropologist now. You might have heard the story already, actually.'

'I have very few anthropologist friends, Robert,' said Jenna putting a piece of fries into her mouth.

'What? No, it's a folktale. He just told me what his profession thinks about it. So did you ever hear that tale with the old god who got himself imprisoned into a tree?'

'Wasn't that Merlin? Old geezer was too horny so the pretty young girl put him into a wood, which is kinda ironic since you know, he had a wood too...' said Jenna.

'My friend believes this particular story inspired a lot of others that come later, including the one you just killed me forever about Merlin. But let me start over,' waved Robert. 'So once there was a god. We are talking about ancient times, about 25 thousand years ago. Stone Age. And this god, who is, by any means, not equal to the Christian God…'

'Man, this bedtime story sucks,' said Jenna. 'Why don't you start with something exciting, like a car chase? Did they really have cars with big stone wheels like in that cartoon?'

Robert took another deep, deep breath, and massaged his temples for a couple of seconds.

'Okay, I will shut up. Coffee started to work, sorry. Continue, please,' asked the girl.

'So,' said Robert just a little louder than he had to, 'according to the tale, there was a god, who got so greedy and evil that all the shamans and magical folks decided that they have to get rid of him.'

'Him?'

'I will get to that. By the way, I just figured it out. You are a shaman, and the dog is your spirit animal.'

Jenna laughed.

'Not bad. Very imaginary. But wrong.'

Robert frowned then continued. 'According to the tale, a thousand plus one shamans got together, and they fought with the god for three days. Half of them died, but they have won. A young shaman, he was, of course, the plus one, and in some interpretations of the story also a seventh son of a seventh son somehow outsmarted the god. Made him tire himself out or turn into a bug or something, there are different versions. But, and here is the catch, the god was so powerful that even when they defeated him, they couldn't kill him. And that was a big problem because as long as he was alive, he was dangerous. The shamans had to figure out how to stop someone forever without killing him.'

Jenna looked at the statue with the demon trap-like Runes on Robert's phone.

'I don't like where this is going, Montgomery.'

'I know. So in the tale, they made a sculpture out of magical wood and the last drop of the summer rain, and the blood of a good man, so that kind of fairy tale-stuff. And they locked the evil god into it, then they lived happily ever after. Except for the god of course who was left to rot in a magical prison until the end of times.'

'That is one fucked up fairy tale,' shook her head Jenna. 'But cannot be true.'

'Why is that?' asked Robert.

'Well for starters, there are no such things as gods,' pointed out Jenna. Robert nodded.

'Not that we know of, that is correct. But what if we switch the evil god to a particularly powerful sorcerer?'

'A sorcerer that can hold himself against a thousand others for three days? C'mon, Montgomery.'

'It is a tale, Jenna. The thousand shamans were probably just a little more than what your average caveman could count. I don't think there were more than a hundred magic users around in the whole continent and some of them were elves. As far as we know they didn't interfere with human wars, ever. Not even back there.'

Jenna started to tap on her lips with her index finger. She finished her burger while Robert was talking.

'So you are saying that there is a possibility that there was a really strong neanderthal sorcerer who had a little trouble with a handful of other sorcerers and they all made into folklore?'

'No. Neanderthals are older by a good twenty-thousand years. What we are talking about here is the early human beings.'

'So not the point,' rolled her eyes Jenna.

'Right. Sorry. So what I am saying is that there is a very old tale about a sorcerer who was so powerful that he somehow managed to make himself immortal. I don't think it was only physical, mind you. Even if he was really hard to kill, and let's say so strong that he could break any Signum-like spells, and defend himself with magic, the human body still has its limits. I believe he had a way to stay in this world, or more likely to stay intact and conscious for enough time to occupy another body after his was destroyed. So, as the tale says, it wasn't possible to kill him, at least in a way. So they locked him up.'

'Weirdly, it makes sense,' Jenna knocked with her finger on Robert's phone. 'If that Rune is Human, and that one is Door, they could mean together something like "keeping soul and body apart". But it would also imply that they simply tore him out of his body, which is kinda dark, even for me. Anyway, do you believe that the so-called "god" is indeed in that statue?'

Robert turned over the picture to the next one. It was some cave painting, and Jenna had to pick up the phone to properly see it. There was a faceless mass of people opposite of another silhouette. That one was obviously a woman. They were throwing things at each other, and even so, those could have been rocks or maybe arrows, Jenna knew that they were spells.

'So the god was, in fact, a goddess,' noted Jenna.

'Apparently. I suppose the story changed sometimes around the middle ages when people couldn't deal with the idea of a woman more powerful than men. Check out the next picture.'

'Charming,' said Jenna while she flicked the screen. This photo showed a painting about something that looked like the statue, and the woman figure from the previous picture was inside it. Next to it stood a lonely man, something brown dripping from his outstretched arm. Blood, certainly.

'Those paintings were on the wall of the cave they found the statue in. According to the report, there were several magical and non-magical traps around it,' explained Robert.

'And the guys from the Museum went and took the statue anyway. Very… Unique decision,' said Jenna, sipping the last drops of her black coffee.

'In their defence, it is very rare that something that looks so spectacularly suspicious is really cursed. Just think about the pyramids.'

'Somehow I don't feel better,' she shook her head. 'So your best guess is that this Priest fella stole a super cavegirl from the Museum,' summed up Jenna. 'I know dudes are desperate nowadays but there are so much easier ways to get a girlfriend.'

Robert laughed so hard that the few other guests in the pub looked and stared at them for a couple of seconds.

'I highly doubt that The Priest has a romantic interest in the… Let's call her Goddess for now,' said Robert still grinning.

'Then why?'

'Don't forget that he is a mercenary. Attila Kovach or whoever else is his employer clearly has plans for the statue. If it is Kovach, he will most likely sic the Goddess on the city, as he did with that huge thunderstorm last year. He is… I think he is insane and likes chaos for no particular reason.'

Jenna put her chin on her palm again and tapped on her lips.

'If he does… How bad that would be?'

Robert shrugged.

'We don't know if there really is someone in that statue and even if there is, we don't know who. But let's be negative, we are British after all. Worst case scenario is that there is an ancient and very powerful sorceress inside, who probably knows the real names of the Runes, therefore she can speak the Old Talk. Which makes her, if not omnipotent, but certainly much more mighty than any other living sorcerer. She also spent the last circa twenty-five thousand years in a bloody doll, so I assume she is pissed like hell.'

'So it's bad,' sighed Jenna. 'How do you open something like that, by the way?'

'You tell me,' replied Robert. 'It's a demon trap after all. Your area of expertise.'

'You don't open a demon trap,' she explained. 'Demons cannot be killed, they are already dead. So the only way to stop them is to trap them.'

'That's only a theory,' pointed out Robert.

'They manipulate the world the same way like ghosts and they are proved to be intelligent. There are a lot of reports of demons killing people who were suspected to be murderers but leaving everybody else around unharmed. Plus they don't use magic. Only dead things can't use magic. So if you ask me demons are people who went crazy while they were dying. And since we don't know if there is an afterlife, and they don't look very keen to figure it out, the best thing you can do is leave them in the trap.'

Robert raised both of his hands as a sign of surrender.

'Okay, fine. Considering what you just said, is the Goddess just another demon?'

Jenna shook her head.

'I don't think so. Normal demons are, as I said, intelligent, but they are only ruins of the human being they used to be. They are pure rage and violence. If we can believe in your friend's legends, that Goddess is still herself, more or less. Should she get out, I think she would take a body again. That's what I'd do, anyway.'

Robert nodded and pushed the plate with the last two pieces of fries towards Jenna, She took one and pushed back the plate. Robert ate the last piece.

'Let's say she does that,' he said slowly, in thought, 'would she be the same, power-wise?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you know how we don't know why certain sorcerers, like you, can manipulate much more energy than others. The Goddess would need a body to use magic, right? Now if the amount of magic one can handle is something to do with genes…'

Jenna shrugged.

'You got me there. But she speaks the Old Talk, right? So even in a magically weak body, she would be a badass.'

'Yeah, probably. Makes sense,' Robert nodded. 'So how she could get out, after all?'

The girl leaned back on the bench and stretched. She caught Robert's appreciative look and smiled.

'I guess you would have to break the spell what is closing the trap. I usually use a simple Door Rune but I guess they had a fancier way.'

'That's what I was thinking too. Look at this spell here,' he brought back the second picture and zoomed on a couple of Runes. 'That is something you would close a trap with, right?' The girl nodded and Robert continued excitedly. 'Now check out the surface. It's darker than elsewhere at this one spell, and there is a Rune what does not fit in. I will tell you what I am thinking and then you will tell me if it is possible.' He took a deep breath. 'I think that brown stain is blood, from the man who closed down the spell. On the painting he is cutting himself, right? And if that strange Rune there is supposed to be the Connection, that would mean you need his blood to open the trap. Does that make sense at all to you?'

'Are you enjoying this, Montgomery?' asked Jenna smiling.

'I… Well, maybe. I mean, if you put the whole freaky Goddess part aside, the spells are remarkable, especially if you consider that they were done about 25 thousand years ago. The fact itself that they are still working is remarkable. And if there really is an ancient sorceress in that statue, however crazy or dangerous, well… Nobody ever saw something quite like that. In a way, it's amazing.'

'Okay, I admit it, it is pretty cool,' said Jenna 'but that isn't going to change the fact that if you are right, and I think you are, The Priest is out there right now and looking for… For what? A descendant? Is that even possible? Would their blood be good enough?'

'Hopefully we won't have to find that out,' Robert said, typing a text. 'I just messaged Marcus, he will tell everything to his uncle. Now it's up to the old man to catch The Priest before he letting out whatever is in that statue.'

'And with that cue, we should go', stood up Jenna, 'There is a bunch of human flesh-eating, terrifying monsters waiting for us and they will not tear themselves apart...'

She grinned as she saw Montgomery's face going pale.