Anya hugged Gabriel tightly as he shivered. They could both sense the dire peril outside.

"The blood of the innocent will flow! Thus will the Dread Disciples rise! A feeble scrap of flesh and bones is all that stands in our way... BUT WAIT!"

That terrible hissing voice lanced through their minds. It sounded like a woman's voice, but much, much harsher than any human voice Anya had ever heard. It grated. It snarled. It shrieked. And it growled.

"By Carcescu... What is this? You would dare challenge a Dread Disciple? And yet you do not even know yourself. If you do not even know, I cannot finish this now. Curse the rules of this backwater world! In my own realm I could smite you anyway. But when you do know yourself, then I will come for you! Combat will be brutal, indeed... oh yes..."

The poisonous presence withdrew and both felt a sense of great relief, like they had been saved from drowning in icy water. Anya shuddered. Her skin was still crawling. Nothing had ever spooked her out anything like this.

Gabriel's face looked very pale in the near darkness. "Gabriel…?" She touched his cheek, her anxiety clear in her voice.

"What was that?" His voice was shaking. "A waking nightmare?"

"You'll be OK. I'm here." She helped him stand. This was clearly no place to linger. Arm in arm they hurried back up the forest path and back to Gabriel's house.

Gabriel seemed to have recovered his poise now he was in sight of home. "We certainly find adventure. Maybe too much. And I thought land eggs led boring lives."

The oil lamps were shining in all the windows of the ground floor of the large house. They lit up Gabriel's face. He still looked a little pale. There was a smudge of earth on his forehead and a leaf in his hair. "Hold, dear," said Anya, "there's mud on you." She brushed it off and plucked the leaf away. "There."

They walked up the front path, arm in arm. A beautiful young woman in a long pink dress ran up to them, her long, blond hair streaming out behind her. She could only be Gabriel's sister, she was so beautiful. Anya had seen statues of goddesses who looked like her, although this goddess had a sprinkling of freckles over her nose and cheeks and her eyes were of the bluest blue, like his were.

"Gabriel! Where have you been? How could you wonder off and worry us all like this?" Her voice was trembling a little and her cheeks were flushed pink.

Anya stepped forwards. "It was my fault, it was my idea that we go to the fair. Blame me."

"Do listen to Anya, Lotte," urged Gabriel.

But Lotte didn't even look at Anya. She glared at her brother, her blue eyes bright with anger. "What are you talking about? And what have you got to say for yourself? Mother's been beside herself with worry."

"Listen, Lotte, there's a demon at large tonight, it swooped down on us in the woods, a terrible shadow with the stink of death."

"He's right. A most dire peril is at hand," urged Anya.

Again, Lotte did not look at her, she just folded her arms as she faced Gabriel. "I'm in no mood for your jokes, little brother. I'm very displeased."

"Listen to Anya," said Gabriel, gesturing towards his friend.

"I will not listen to Anya, I am not interested in Anya. You're coming inside, now!" Lotte, took her brother by the hand and led him inside.

"Sorry," said Gabriel, turning to Anya with a helpless shrug just before Lotte slammed the door.

Anya stood there, feeling confused and upset. Lotte had been angry, but she looked like a nice young woman. Why would she deliberately ignore her like that and hurt her feelings? Did Lotte think that she was not a suitable playmate for her brother? Anya felt her bottom lip quiver and tears in her eyes. She hurried back to the cottage beyond the copse and then quickly stopping to wipe her eyes, she entered the kitchen. Her mum and dad were both there.

"Listen mum, dad, we have new neighbours in the big house beyond the copse," she began. "My friend Gabriel lives there now with his mother and sisters. He is such a nice boy…"

Her mother shook her head. "Neighbours, sweet? We would have known if anyone moved there. The house is empty."

"I was surprised too. And that's not all, for I have very serious news, there's something terrible on the loose tonight, a shadow looms over the forest…"

"Listen Anya," her father cut in, "I bear serious news." He looked unwell. His voice was strained. Anya fell silent. "The farmer has decided to make cut backs. I'm laid off."

"Oh no! If there's anything I could do…" She laid a hand on his arm.

"We are penniless, mouse," said her mother.

"I must be able to do something. I don't want to be helpless. I've done babysitting before, I like that." Her mother shook her head. Her eyes looked glazed. There was definitely something wrong here… Anya felt like the floor was slipping away from under her… so much had been weird and unfamiliar today, everyone besides Gabriel ignoring her, the spectral stalker in the forest and now mum and dad sitting there with glazed eyes...

Anya took a calming breath. "If there is anything wrong, I want to help. Shall I prepare you an ale, Dad? You must need cheering up."

"We need to rest. You need to rest, dear daughter."

He seemed so tired and wan… She couldn't bear to worry him. She kissed him on the cheek. "Everything will come right in the end. You'll see. We should all get a good night's sleep."

Back in her bedroom, Anya's mind was racing and her spirits were low. If her dad had no job, they were in trouble. And it had hit him hard. It was so upsetting to see him like this. He was so resigned… so weary. She wouldn't have thought he would ever get that way in his entire lifetime. And then there was something terribly wrong all around her... In the entire community.

She untied her hair and then sat by her bed, lost in thought. The whole atmosphere over forest was wrong, somehow. She thought of the stinking shadow with the bloodcurdling hiss and shuddered. The memory of it made her skin crawl. The fiend must surely be the reason why everything felt so wrong. She and Gabriel were the only ones who knew about it. She thought of Gabriel and smiled feeling warm inside. She must speak to him again. Just looking on his face again would be a great comfort. But it was late and Lotte hadn't exactly been welcoming. Anya would not be rude enough to butt in where she wasn't wanted. She gazed through the window at the starry sky and smiled as she remembered gazing into Gabriel's dark blue eyes that time on the Ferris wheel and how they danced together in the hall of mannequins. But she wouldn't visit him without an invite. On the other hand, what if the evil spectre should intrude again tonight? Could the fiend be after Gabriel? If so, Anya would be there to defend him.

Anya stood up and wrapped herself in her ragged old traveling cloak that was a little too big and slipped out of the cottage and through the copse. It was a warm clear night, with a crescent moon shining silver above in a sky full of stars. The windows of Gabriel's brick house were still lit up by oil lamps. Through a ground floor window, Anya could see that they were metal oil lamps. She had only ever heard of those before, from the priestess of Grace who had educated her as part of her charity work. Evidently Gabriel's family did not have to rely on candles and their hearth fire. Anya paused, thinking about what she was doing. Was she really about to trespass? Without an invite, that was what it amounted to. That was not justified, however much she wanted to see her friend again. But then… these circumstances were not normal. She reminded herself of the menace of the shadow that hissed foul threats and she tiptoed up to the back of the house. She was going to defend Gabriel if the foul thing came back. That had to justify trespass.

She circled round to the back of the house and looked up at the first-floor window. There was the light of an oil lamp shining through the diamond panes. She clambered up the side of the house, using footholds and toeholds in the rough stone walls. She was astonished at her own agility. It was as though she were much lighter somehow than she used to be.

Gripping the stone windowsill, she peered through the window and found herself almost face to face with a beautiful older girl who sat at a small wooden dressing table on the other side of the glass, brushing her long blond hair with an ornate hairbrush. Anya gave a little gasp. How could she have been so stupid as to think this was a good idea? This must be another of Gabriel's sisters. What would she think of Anya peering in her bedroom window? But the girl was gazing into a mirror on her vanity table. Had she not noticed Anya's face looking in? Apparently not. Her sky-blue eyes were fixed on the pretty, heavily freckled face of her reflection in the looking glass. Anya wasn't about to question it further and slipped to the ground. She shook her head. She had no right to come to someone's house without an invitation. She knew better than this.

But then… A terrible shriek high above… a hissing and a wailing… the moon was abruptly cut off by a black shadow swooping across it. Then the shadow lunged towards the house and Anya sensed its chilling malevolence once more. The garden was suddenly plunged in darkness. The lights of the oil lamps in the windows flickered and died. Anya felt an icy sense of terror. Hadn't the fiend hissed that she was coming for one of them? She must have meant Gabriel then. Anya leaped back up the side of the house determined to find Gabriel's window and protect him at all costs. How long it took her to scramble up the side of the house this time she could not say for certain – she was in the grip of panic. But then she heard Gabriel's cry through an open window and made for it, heaving herself over the sill.

There in the room was the darkest shadow of all. It was so dark and so opaque that it would surely obliterate any light. It seemed to turn its attention to Anya and for an instant, she felt she was staring into the very pit of wickedness. More full of pure, blind evil than anything she had ever imagined. It chilled her heart.

Yet again, that terrible hiss lanced through her mind: "Again you would interfere, sunburned brat? You do not even know yourself! When you do I can squeeze your soul until it bleeds."

Then as before, the evil presence withdrew. The oil lamp flickered back to life. Gabriel was sitting up in bed, pale and trembling. Anya hastily gathered him into her arms. "I'm here now, dear, you've nothing to worry about." He was shaking so she kissed his forehead and stroked his hair. She rocked him and hummed a favourite lullaby of the villagers. She felt overwhelmingly relieved that she had arrived in the nick of time. She turned cold at the thought of what might have happened if she had not.

"Thank the gods you're here, Anya," said Gabriel sniffing, burying his head in her cloak.

They sat together in silence for a while. "It was that horror from the forest," said Gabriel abruptly. Anya gazed upon his face as he told her what happened. "I was sleeping and then was plunged into a nightmare. I was stuck running along a horrible tunnel reeking of the stench of death, rotting arms groping for me from all the walls until I entered a cavern piled with corpses…" he shuddered, "I never even imagined anything like it before. And there was the shadowy figure standing on the pile of bodies, looming over me. Then I woke up and it was standing at the foot of the bed, watching me. Then I saw…" He choked and Anya hugged him tightly again.

"Oh you poor, sweet thing! She's gone now, she's gone and if she intrudes again, she'll have to go through me."

He continued; "then she cast aside the shadows. The shadows were her wrappings and then I saw a woman, skin as white as chalk, her eyes burning with dark fire… brrr! Her eyes had the look of serpents as she glared at me. The strands of her black hair coiled around her like writhing snakes. She spoke to me and her voice sounded hollow… dead… 'Do you know who my enemy is boy? You do know, don't you? I can do nothing if she doesn't know, but you can tell her. I can make you mine then, it could be your reward.' She grabbed my wrist and her touch burned, searing, icy cold. She had a silver bracelet in the shape of a serpent. Then I saw her white hand shrivel and become dead and rotting. The snake came to life and hissed. I looked up and her face was like a skull, framed with filthy hair, the eye sockets burning with fire and she drew back her lips to show me a mouthful of rotting fangs and hissed; 'you would be wise to obey.' But when you came she went away again. I knew I could count on you."

Anya shuddered at this chilling tale. What were they up against?