Boldly, he stood further ahead, in the middle of the alley, dressed in a dark, flowing priest's cassock and wide-brimmed hat. The violet light of thaumaturgy glowed from the power stone set behind the chamber of the pistol in his hand.

An instant before the power stone flashed and the pistol shot its deadly slug with a low and hollow spitting sound, Marney leapt aside, ramming her shoulder into a buttress, and pressing her back flat to the alley wall. The assassin's bullet cracked the brickwork a few paces to her right with a spray of stone. A sharp, high-pitched whine was immediately followed by a whirl of icy wind. The noise scrambled Marney's empathic senses, but she retained control and heard a creaking, deep and dull sounding.

Ice was forming where the slug had hit the wall. It spread out over the brickwork, creeping towards her like frosted breath on a windowpane. In an instant, the ice reached Marney's right shoulder. She gasped and gritted her teeth as the cloth of her jacket began to freeze. Just as she thought she would have to break cover, the ice ceased spreading and mercifully began to melt.

Magic: that bullet was designed to capture not kill. A direct hit would have preserved Marney's body within a cocoon of ice. But magical ammunition was rare in the Labyrinth, and no one – no one – packed that kind of power into a bullet unless they were damn sure of their skills, unless they were ... well connected. What kind of enemies had Clara made?

The assassin still loomed in the alleyway. Marney tried to engage with his emotions, to manipulate him into to obeying her command, but he was shielded from her empathy. More magic. There was no way she could get close to him while the gun remained in his hand, so she unzipped her jacket and carefully slipped it off. A baldric of slim throwing daggers was fastened around her torso like a girdle. She slid out a single blade. The silver metal felt cool and smooth in her hand.

Marney waited several heartbeats, and then threw her jacket into the alley. Immediately, the power stone in the assassin's pistol flashed and released a burst of thaumaturgy. The ice-bullet fizzed into the jacket, freezing it in midair. It fell, shattering to shards of ice upon the cobbles. Marney spun into the alleyway and threw the dagger. It sliced the air with a sigh before thudding into the face of her adversary. His head snapped back, dislodging the wide-brimmed hat, and the pistol fell clattering from his hand. The violet glow of its power stone faded and died.

Marney wasted no time. She let fly with two more daggers; one took the assassin in the throat, the other in the chest. He stumbled, but did not fall. Marney readied a fourth blade, but paused before throwing it.

Something was wrong.

Beneath the black cassock, the assassin's body was misshapen, top heavy. His back was hunched and his chest sunken. His limbs appeared overly long and painfully thin. There was no hair on his head, and his face was grotesquely deformed. The hilt of the first dagger protruded from his eye socket; it reflected red moonlight, but there was no blood, not from any of his wounds.

Silently, he began convulsing. There came a hissing sound and the alley was filled with the hot and acrid stench of dispelling magic. Violent spasms shook the assassin's body, bending his already twisted form to hideous angles. The hissing was replaced by a multitude of dull cracks, as if every bone in his body was breaking. Still, he emitted not one single cry of pain. Finally the assassin collapsed to the ground where his heaped bulk lay unmoving on the cobbles.

With the dagger still in her hand, Marney moved forwards cautiously. She inspected the remains. A knot formed in her stomach.

The souls of the dead could still talk, but even the most adept necromancer would get no information from this assassin. The creature had once been human, she was sure, but now it was not even made of flesh and blood. The cassock lay as rags upon the alley floor, and within its black folds the assassin's body had shattered into small pieces of powdery stone. Not enough of the face and body remained intact to suggest that they had ever been part of a humanoid shape.

They said that empaths could never forget, though the Timewatcher only knew Marney had tried. The situation suddenly smacked of something from a long time ago. The assassin's emotions had not been shielded to her senses; it no longer had any. Her magic was useless against creatures such as these. She could not feel them coming ...

Her basic instincts kicked in. Spiky pulses of warning rushed up Marney's spine and stabbed into her head. From the corner of her eye she caught the swish of a cassock and the violet glint of a power stone as a second inhuman assassin rounded the corner into the alleyway. Marney rolled to one side and the dagger flew from her hand just as the assassin's handgun spat out its bullet.