Kate (Dolcett story based loosely on Lunch Date)

Posted by PK on April 15, 2007 at 16:41:45:

Kate knocked on her daughter's bedroom door. Unsurprisingly, there was no response, so she walked in anyway.

"Mo-THER!!" Tracie yelped indignantly. She sat up on the bed where she had been sprawled in her underwear and pulled off her headphones. "Ever heard of privacy?"

"Yes, well..." Kate hesitated. How to break this gently? "I got my call-up paper today." She held up her hand, showing the document. "I have to report to the processing plant by eleven."

"Oh. Hard luck, Mum. I suppose this means I'll have to get my own lunch?"

"Heaven forfend," Kate said drily. "No, you won't have to because," she slid her finger and thumb, revealing that there were actually two papers and smiled, "You're coming too."

"Oh, shit!" Tracie ran her finger through her hair. "Why me? Why now? I mean...."

Kate knew exactly what she meant. She, Kate, had lived long enough to get married and have kids while Tracie had only recently reached her maturity. There was no point answering because they both knew how it worked. The cull was random and applied to all females of eligible age; fairness was not a consideration. "Sorry, sweetie, but there's no point moping. Look on the bright side, we can keep each other company on the meat bus."

"Great," Tracie said flatly. "I guess I'd better wash my hair, it's greasy. Have I got time?"

"Yes, plenty, and you'd better shave too unless you want them to do it at the plant. I've heard they don't change the razor blades often enough and it can sting a bit..."

"Don't they use a blowtorch these days?"

"Not any more. Too many filets ruined, burnt by heavy handed workers. It was supposed to be quicker but it's not as easy as it looks."

"Really? Well, it doesn't matter. I'm clean already, Richard likes it that way." She blushed.

"Does he now?" Kate raised an eyebrow. "Well, your boyfriend won't be tasting your pussy again unless he buys it at the butchers."

"Mo-ther! That's...." Tracie paused. "True, I suppose. It's just...weird. You know it happens, but...," she glanced downwards, "Weird. Some guy's going to go shopping for his dinner, see all these pussies on a tray, and pick mine. He'll eat it and never know he's eating....me..."

"That's how it works," Kate said briskly. "You'd better get ready now. I said we have time, not forever. You can use the bathroom, I've finished. I'll make some tea if you like. Want pancakes with it?"

"Yeah, why not? I'm not going to get fat in the next," she glanced at the antique Snoopy clock on her bedside table, "Couple of hours?"

Nothing concentrates a woman's mind more wonderfully than the knowledge that she will be chopped up before lunch. Tracie was down from the bathroom, her short, curly, blonde hair still slightly damp, before breakfast was ready. She was dressed in a halter top and Levi cutoffs that showed her figure off nicely.

Kate dished out the pancakes and poured the tea. Tracie wolfed the food down as if there was no tomorrow.

"When did you find out?" she asked at last, accepting another cup of Earl Grey.

"About half an hour before I told you," Kate said. "I knew there was something wrong when the postman knocked on the door instead of sticking the mail through the letterbox."

"Mrs Harris?" the postman had inquired.

"That's me," Kate had confirmed, eyeing the envelopes suspiciously. "It says so right there."

"And Tracie Harris?"

"Come on, Fred, you know who we are. What's up?"

The postman had looked a little embarrassed. "If you want to open them now....?"

"Why would I do that?" Kate knew by then what was going on and wanted to needle him a bit.

"No reason..."

Like Hell. "You want to see the stock numbers, don't you? So you can put in an order. You want my daughter's tits for dinner?"

Fred squirmed. "Er, well.. no, I was thinking I wouldn't mind having yours."

Kate was not immune to compliments, however forward or inappropriate. She was quite proud of her body, but she did have standards. "I'm sure they'll be a fine meal for somebody," she said and shut the door.

"So he can take his chances with the rest of them," she related to Tracie.

"That was a bit mean, wasn't it? Somebody's going to eat your tits, why not poor old Fred? It's not like you could blame him or anything. You've got a really nice rack."

Kate raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Thank you very much. I see you have no problem thinking of me as food, at least."

Tracie blushed. "Sorry, Mum. I suppose I'm not really myself just now. It's just all so sudden..."

"Oh, that's all right. Maybe those classes they give you at school these days weren't wasted after all."

What were they called? Kate wondered. Self Appreciation? Personal Developement? Some bullshit like that. They had only been introduced a few years ago, supposedly to help the modern young woman adjust to the fact that she'd be somebody's dinner some day. The official rationale was that if she learned to appreciate her own body as meat, it would be less of a shock to her when the day came. All very humanitarian. Kate's own theory was that it was intended to make sure the girls kept in good shape so they'd make higher quality livestock by playing on their vanity. No female wants to look terrible naked in public, even if she's about to be butchered.

"What do the boys do when you're in whatever it's called?"

"Oh, that." Tracie thought for a second. "Female Meat Appreciation, I think. Something like that. Cooking, selection of parts, construction of spits and barbecues, that sort of thing. It's that or woodwork."

"I see." Kate smiled wryly. That made sense. In her younger days, if the call came, you just went and that was that. It you didn't like it, tough luck. Well at least Tracie's generation wouldn't have to worry about being badly cooked. Assuming the boys paid attention, that is. "Well, if you're quite ready, we'd better get going. The next bus should be at the stop in about fifteen minutes and it should take us about five to ten to walk there."

"How do you know that?"

"The bus schedule is on the back of the summons, along with a map."

"How thoughtful of them," Tracie said dryly. "Wouldn't it be terrible if we got lost?"

Kate looked at her daughter with concern. Was there a note of desperation under the humour, a plea for escape? "You know we can't, darling," she said gently. They both knew why. If they failed to report on time they would be hunted down and put to death in a way that made being butchered seem the epitome of humane treatment. The last woman who had tried it had been flayed alive, very carefully, and then lowered inch by inch into a vat of boiling oil. The event had been broadcast live on TV and recorded for posterity.

"I know," Tracie said lightly. "Daddy would be so embarrassed. And there's a ten pound fine..."

Kate smiled. "Come on then." She handed Tracie her summons. "Don't forget your ticket or they might not let you in."

"Thanks a lot."

"Seriously, they'll want to know your stock number when you register and if we get separated..."

"Let's not," Tracie said fervently.

It was a short walk to the bus stop, down leafy suburban streets to the main road. The day was warm and pleasant, and Kate enjoyed the feel of the slight breeze on her bare arms and legs. She had chosen a simple, classic outfit comprising a short, sleeveless blue dress that she'd been told complemented her long, wavy auburn hair, sandals with a slight heel and, of course, clean underwear.

There were several people they both knew at the bus stop, though that didn't necessarily mean they were all waiting for the meat bus. Some of them were men. The same stop served several different bus services; most of them were probably waiting for the number 95 into the town centre.

"Hello, Kate, Tracie," Mrs Thompson greeted them. To Kate: "Out shopping with your daughter then? How sweet. Nice day for it, too."

Tracie spared her a forced smile.

"Hello Jane," Kate replied evenly. "Not shopping, exactly. Isn't this your bus?"

Indeed it was; the 95 had just drawn up. Kate and Tracie made no move to join the boarding line.

"Aren't you..." Jane hesitated and then retreated towards the bus. "Oh. Oh dear. I'll er..." The phrase 'See you later' hung in the air.

"Bye, Jane," Kate said pleasantly as the other woman disappeared through the door. The rest of the queue went with her, leaving the two alone.

"Thank God for that," Kate said. "The last thing I need right now is a lot of awkward conversations."

Tracie couldn't have agreed more. She watched the bus full of everyday people depart with relief. She wasn't a part of that world any more. She peered myopically up the road. She hadn't put her contacts in. "Can you see ours coming yet?" she asked anxiously. "I hope it's not going to be late."

"I'm in no hurry," Kate remarked.

"I didn't mean....I don't know. What if it's broken down? I don't want to get skinned and boiled alive because they got a flat tire or the fan belt broke or something."

"Relax. We've only been here a few minutes. They'll probably phone in if something happens."

Tracie looked at her mother, slightly peeved. "Don't you ever get nervous? I mean, we're going to be, you know...."

Kate shrugged. "Not much point worrying, is there? It's going to happen anyway. I always knew it would one day and now it's here I'm..." What, she wondered. Relieved? Well, almost. Not quite that. "I don't know, ready, I suppose."

"Glad you're going while you still look good?" Tracie asked shrewdly.

Kate gave her a lopsided grin. The kid was right; she was as vain as any of them. She didn't really fancy going in as an old hag and being boiled down for dogmeat. She glanced up the road again. "Oh, look, here it comes."

The bus drew up to the kerb like any other service and the pneumatic door opened. It didn't have 'Meat Bus' on the front, just 55 - PLANT. Kate stepped aboard and waved her paper at the driver who just nodded her through; Tracie did the same. Without any fuss, the doors slid shut and the bus pulled smoothly away. Though there hadn't been much of a jerk, Tracie felt her stomach lurch. There was no going back, now. Of course, there never had been. Her sense of freedom had been an illusion since the notices arrived. Maybe it always had been.

There were several women on the bus already, maybe a dozen or more, sitting at various angles in order to chat. A couple stood, though there was ample spare seating. Their outfits varied from formal to casual though all were clean. One girl's outfit was as casual as you can get; she wore nothing but a pair of shoes. As Kate and Tracie moved down the bus, she turned around.

"Tracie? They got you too? Silly question...."

"Uh, hi Toni. Mum, this is Antonia. She's in my Maths class, and the hockey team. Well, was...um....Toni, this is my mother, obviously..."

"Kate," Kate said firmly, holding her hand out. "Pleased to meet you, Antonia. I love the outfit. It's certainly 'you'."

Antonia smiled, shrugging slightly. "Well, it's a warm day and I won't need clothes where I'm going, so why waste any? My sisters can use them."

"And if you've got a figure like that, you might as well flaunt it while you can," Kate suggested.

"Thanks. You look pretty good yourself."

"What happens to our clothes?" Tracie asked anxiously. She didn't really care that much, but she had to talk about something.

"They sell the really good ones," Antonia said. "The cheaper stuff goes to charity shops and the rubbish gets burnt in one of those energy recycling places. Helps provide the energy to cook us with." She grinned.

"I heard they sold the underwear to certain specialist shops," Kate said wickedly.

"Specialist?" Tracie wondered. The other two gave her knowing looks.

"For fetishists," Antonia explained with relish. "Some people like to collect the underwear of women who've been eaten. They get a kick out of it."

"Yuck!," Tracie said. "That's sick. You mean some pervert's going to get his rocks off sniffing my undies while he....?"

"She's a bit young for her age," Kate said to Antonia. "Personally, I quite like the idea of some horny young stud getting the hots for my privates after I'm gone."

Antonia laughed. "Always look on the bright side, eh? Now I almost wish I'd worn some myself. I wonder how much they sell for?"

"I don't know," Kate admitted. "Not so much unless you're famous, I'd guess. I heard Kirsten Dunst's skimpies fetched a packet at Sotheby's after they did her."

"Good grief, imagine what her filet must have cost!"

The bus slowed to a stop and the doors opened again. Three more women got on.

"Last stop before the terminus, I think," Kate said.

The terminus. Tracie shuddered. What was wrong with her? Toni and her mother seemed to be taking this in their stride, why couldn't she? There didn't seem to be enough air. She looked out of the windows. The bus had left the main road and was making its way through an increasingly drab looking area of industrial parks. Toni and her mother were still chatting but she couldn't concentrate on what they were saying. The funny thing was that she'd had a sort of schoolgirl crush on Toni years ago, before she'd realised that most girls did that at some time and it didn't mean she was really gay. It had still been a relief to her that when she'd finally let a boy fuck her she'd actually enjoyed it. She wanted to get out. Everything seemed to be closing in on her. Her halter top was too tight. Maybe she should take it off. She looked around. Up.

"Wh...what are those nozzles for," she heard herself croak.

Kate looked up. "Oh, they're for security, I think. To gas us if we riot. Don't worry, it doesn't happen often." She gave Tracie a slight frown of concern. "Are you all right, dear?"

"Fine. Never better," Tracie said sardonically. "I'm about to be killed, but apart from that..."

"How did you like the play, Mrs Lincoln?" Antonia put in.

"Oh, very funny. Don't you get it? We're going to be chopped to bits in, what, the next hour? Half hour?"

"Yes, dear, you're going to be 'chopped to bits', as you put it..."

"Unless you get picked as a whole roaster," Antonia corrected helpfully.

"And so am I. We all know that. Panicking won't help." In fact, Kate felt a little guilty. She had been enjoying herself chatting to Antonia (such a nice girl!) and hadn't been giving her daughter the support she apparently needed.

Tracie felt guilty too. Why was she getting at her mother and her friend? There was nothing they could do about the situation, and all her own whining was doing was bringing them down. Was she just jealous because they were getting along so well that she felt left out? "Sorry, Mum," she said dejectedly.

"That's all right dear," Kate said, giving her a quick, affectionate hug, one arm around her shoulders.

"It's just so embarrassing," one of the newcomers said during the lull in the conversation. "Imagine one of my bridge club going to the butcher's and seeing my private parts on a tray..."

Kate, Antonia and Tracie exchanged looks.

"How would they know it was you?" somebody else said. "Unless there's more going on in those bridge sessions than you're letting on...."

Antonia smirked.

"I can't imagine what you mean," the first voice retorted sharply.

Tracie looked round. The woman speaking was hardly more than Kate's age, at a guess, but nothing like as attractive. Dumpy and dressed to emphasise it.

"I just hope they make me into sausages or something...."

Kate was trying hard not to crack up, but it was obviously an effort. Tracie couldn't help catching the mood. "Dogmeat?" she said sotte voce.

"Bitch," Antonia whispered to Tracie, poker faced.

"I'm a pussy cat," Tracie replied.

"She's not such a hot dog," Kate said, glancing at the dumpy woman.

Tracie didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she did both. Toni grabbed her and gave her a full body hug, awakening Tracie's memories of her childhood crush. She could feel the taller girl's muscles and smell her sweet-salt skin. She wanted to...she wasn't quite sure what.

Antonia lifted her head up in both hands and kissed her full on the mouth. Tracie felt dizzy. This was an old dream come true. She had thought she'd got past it.

When the kiss ended, Antonia looked her in the eyes and said "I knew."

"You..."

Kate smiled and said a silent 'thank you' to Antonia. Time to double-team.

"Tracie, remember Julie?"

Tracie's head was still spinning. "Julie who?"

"We had girlmeat for dinner once. Your eleventh birthday. Remember how it tasted?"

"Yes..."

"Wasn't it good?"

"I suppose...." Actually, Tracie had found the experience rather disturbing. Not unpleasant so much as uncomfortably exciting in a way she hadn't really understood at the time.

"You had a thigh steak and you wanted to know whose it was but we didn't know, so we decided to call her Julie."

"Yes...."

"Now you're going to be somebody else's Julie."

"What a lovely thought," Tracie muttered grudgingly, but, oddly, she did feel a bit better.

"Or a Tracie for another real Julie. Quite a lot of Julies, actually" Antonia said. "Not to mention a few Toms, Dicks and Harrys. Can't blame them. Hell, I'd order a slice of you myself if I wasn't going with you." She gave Tracie an appreciative look.

"I wish you could," Tracie said and felt herself blush. It was true. She wouldn't mind so much if Antonia was going to eat her. Or Richard, or anybody she knew and cared about. But Richard couldn't afford her and her father wasn't here....

"Thank you," Antonia said sincerely. "I'd like to think you'd do the same for me."

Tracie's eyes widened. What, her, eat Toni? The sex goddess and hockey team captain? It was almost unthinkable.

"Looks like we're here," Kate said. "Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?"

Tracie looked out of the window. The bus was drawing up next to a biggish nondescript building with no windows, the sort you might see on any industrial estate without remembering anything about it five minutes later. It could have been a packing plant for frozen peas, but for the faded sign saying 'Jameson Meat Products.' They came to a halt opposite an entrance labelled 'livestock' flanked by two men in overalls carrying short batons.

"Cattle prods," Antonia guessed. "Better behave yourself, I've heard they really sting."

"Last stop, all off," the driver called.

Everybody stood up and started to file out. Tracie followed her mother, with Antonia behind her, off the bus and through the door. When everybody was inside, the men came in and shut the door behind them. The room was a largish, bare space, as nondescript as the outside and slightly cool.

"Clothes off and into the bins provided," one of the men said."Underwear in the white one, shoes in the brown one, anything else in the large black one. Any small valuables, watches, credit cards, etc, get one of the clear plastic bags on the table over there and label it with your stock number; they'll be returned to your next of kin."

Antonia slipped her shoes off standing up, one foot at a time, and tossed them into the bin. "That's me done," she said.

Kate pulled her dress off over her head and carefully deposited it in the black bin. "I hope they don't burn it," she said, unsnapping her bra, "It's a good one."

"That really would be a waste," Tracie said drily, pulling off her own halter and shorts and disposing of them. They could burn them for all she cared. Good grief, her mother really DID have a nice rack. Bigger than hers but still firm, just ripe enough to bob and sway little under their own weight as she cut them loose and bent down to pull off her panties. She looked fantastic. Delicious, even.

Tracie followed suit, wondering at her own reaction. Her own mother looked good enough to eat, even to her. She didn't know whether to be proud of her or jealous. Could she ever look that good? She tossed her shoes and panties - she wasn't wearing a bra - into the bins and stepped back, shivering slightly. Her small, pink nipples were erect. Must be the chill, she thought.

A few of the other women were dragging their feet a bit and the stockmen had to encourage them with threatening motions of their batons. Mrs Dumpy was complaining about something until one of the men threatened to stun her and strip her himself. "I'm sure neither of us wants that," he remarked. Still grumbling, the woman complied. What was revealed was hardly appetising.

Antonia smirked at Tracie. "Like you said, dogmeat."

"That's very unkind," Kate reproved them with mock severity. She was totally unconcerned about her nudity. So would I be if I looked like that, Tracie thought.

"Unkind to dogs," Antonia said.

Looking around the room, Tracie saw that most of the women were in fairly good shape, but she didn't think she compared too badly to most of them. She wasn't the best, but she wasn't dogmeat either.

"Through that door, into the showers," one of the men ordered. "Anybody needs shaving, that door first." He pointed. "After the shower, out through the far door into the inspection room. The meat inspectors will be with you shortly."

"I don't suppose there's any point telling them we've already done that," Tracie said, following the others as instructed.

"Routine," Antonia said. "It's just as quick as checking to see if any of us need it. Not in a hurry, are you?"

The shower room was like any such communal facility. When the water came on, it was pleasantly warm, not too hot. For some reason, Tracie had expected it to be cold. Silly, really, warm water would clean them better and butchers were only interested in the quality of the meat, not in torturing the livestock. She went through the motions of washing herself again; there wasn't much else to do.

"What happens next?" a slender, flat-chested girl asked nervously.

Tracie smiled wryly. Even she knew the answer to that one, despite having daydreamed through most of her appreciation classes. Besides, wasn't 'meat inspectors' self-explanatory? Maybe the girl just wanted to talk. She could understand that after her own babbling fit on the bus.

"They'll examine us to see what sort of meat we are," Antonia explained kindly. "How we'd best be prepared and what grade. Most of us will be sold in parts, but you..." She paused for thought. "Your tits wouldn't look like much on a tray. I don't know, I'm not an expert, but I'd think that, gutted and maybe stuffed, you'd make a nice, lean little spit roast for an outdoor party. Ever seen a spring lamb roasted whole?"

"Er, no-o...."

"I have. Actually, it wasn't stuffed, they left the body cavity open. Cooks better that way, I suppose. Anyway, the smell as it's cooking is mouth-watering. You'd be like that, but even better."

"Er, thanks..." The girl looked dubious about the prospect. Antonia looked as if she'd like to eat the girl herself, cooked or raw.

"Oh, don't worry, you wouldn't feel a thing. They'd cut your head off first. Me, I fancy being a live roaster...."

Kate was towelling herself off and Tracie joined her. "I wish I'd been able to say goodbye to Dad," she said. "He'll be back from America this afternoon and we'll both be gone. I left a message on his phone but it's not the same, really. Do you think he'll be able to get any leftover bits of us from the butchers, or will we be all sold by then? I mean, I know it's expensive, but it would be nice to think..."

"Depends whether you get picked as a whole roaster," Kate said. "He certainly couldn't afford that. You wouldn't mind if your father had you for dinner?"

"No, I'd like to think he would." Tracie shrugged sheepishly. "I know it doesn't really matter because I won't be there to see it, I know I'm just being silly, but I'd rather think that at least one person I know will be having me. Richard's just a student, I'd be out of his price range. Same goes for most of my friends. You and Toni won't be able to, obviously."

Kate nodded approval. "I see you've calmed down a bit. I'm very proud of you."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess. Maybe those classes are finally kicking in. They say you hear things even when you're asleep. Mostly it's you and Toni. It's great that you're here. Oh shit, no, sorry, it isn't. I mean..."

"It's all right, dear. I'm glad I'm here with you too."

"But..." Tracie felt her eyes brimming with tears. "I wish you weren't at the same time. If you weren't, you could have had some of me. I wouldn't mind if you ate me, Mum. I wish you could."

Kate hugged her. "That is so sweet, darling." She was deeply touched. Being the age she was, Tracie wasn't usually very demonstrative of affection with her parents. This was the closest they'd been in a long time. After a long minute, she let go. "All right now?"

Tracie nodded. "I'm okay. I think I've had about a month's worth of mood swings in an hour." She smiled bravely. The rest of the women were finishing up and going one by one into the inspection room. Kate and Tracie gave each other a look of mutual understanding and went in together.

There was nobody but their fellow livestock in the room. It was well-lit and warmer than the disrobing room had been, quite comfortable in fact, though there was nothing to sit down on. They just had to stand there and wait to see how they would be disposed of.

Being naked didn't bother Tracie by then, even if she wasn't quite as bold as Toni. Nudity never had bothered her that much, except when she was worried about her body image. Just the usual girl stuff about whether she was getting fat or her bust wasn't big enough. The thought of being inspected and graded like cow at auction was a bit disturbing, though. A couple of the other women, now out of the relatively normal environment of the shower room, were adopting defensive postures, trying to cover their pussies or their breasts or both. She resolved not to do that; it looked absurd. A few minutes after the rest of them, Mrs Dumpy and the two others who'd needed shaving came in. Mrs Dumpy looked subdued and dejected and Tracie felt a little sorry for her. Toni was still talking to the slender girl, who was listening with the rapt air of hero worship Toni so easily inspired in people. Maybe she was coming round to the idea of being roasted. Toni could probably have talked her into it whether she'd been called in or not; she wasn't Captain of the hockey team for nothing. "Nice party," she remarked to her mother, "I wonder when the music starts."

Kate smiled. "Oh, I don't think we'll be waiting too long."

A door opened and four men came in. Two were the ones in overalls with cattle prods they'd seen before, the other two wore white coats and white hats. One of the latter, a small, weaselly individual, carried a clipboard; the other, taller and older man a portable phone/datapad about twice the size of a normal mobile. The inspectors, obviously, Tracie thought, and the enforcers in case we cut up rough. "Form a line," the taller one said, immediately establishing who was really in charge. He was quite good looking, Tracie thought, and she wondered if he got turned on doing this. The women shuffled themselves into a line abreast. Tracie managed to get somewhere in the middle, between Antonia and her mother. On Antonia's left side was the slender Spring Lamb girl.

The two inspectors started at the left of the line. Tall Guy spoke quietly into the phone/pad and occasionally tapped the keys. Weasel Face stood slightly behind him, marking the clipboard with a ballpoint. Trainee or cheap labour on some job creation scheme, Tracie guessed. Each woman in turn was asked for her stock number before Tall Guy entered his comments about cut this and grade that. He didn't seem to be in any hurry. Lamb Girl had an odd, beatific expression on her face while Toni seemed to be concealing a smirk. Tracie leaned back and saw that Toni was fondling the girl's bottom. She leaned forward again and grinned at Toni, who winked back.

Soon enough it was Spring Lamb's turn.

"Stock number?"

Lambie had to think for a minute but eventually recited it.

"What do you think?" Tall Guy asked Weasel Face, who looked flustered. Testing the novice?

"Um, cuts? Grade 'B' plus?"

"Possible," TG admitted grudgingly, "But there's another option. A better one. Think."

That seemed to be a bit much to ask of Weasel Face. "Live roaster? Didn't we get an order for one of those?"

"We did, but this isn't it. She wouldn't last long and the customers like them to. Try again."

"Er....sushi?"

TG shook his head in sorrow.

"You just can't get the staff," Toni muttered and Tracie snorted. The inspectors ignored them.

"As cuts, she'd be decent quality but not much weight. On the other hand, there's a specialty market that she'd be perfect for."

"Prepared lean roaster," Antonia said aloud. "Top her and gut her and she'll keep nicely in the cold store until you get an order."

Tracie was shocked. Were they allowed to speak? Would the men with cattle prods be called in? She looked sideways at TG, waiting for the axe to fall and noticed in passing that Spring Lamb appeared to be pre-orgasmic.

"Shut up, bitchmeat," Weasel Face snarled in what was presumably supposed to be a menacing voice.

"Or else what?" Antonia replied, regarding him with mild contempt.

"Well?" TG asked Weasel Face.

"Well what? Sir..."

"Is she right?"

"But she's just..."

"So? What I asked was, is she right?"

"I, uh, well........"

The poor fool couldn't win, Tracie realised. He could back down and admit that Toni had been right in the first place, or he could deny it and risk looking even sillier if she was.

TG let him wriggle for a bit and then lost patience. "Never mind. What else?" he asked Toni.

Antonia shrugged. "Just the obvious," she glanced at Lamb, "You can marinade or stuff her body, or not, according to how she's ordered. She'll fetch a better price as a luxury item than she would as standard cuts. Waifs are considered a delicacy in some quarters. You'd better keep her pretty head, they may want it as a centrepiece."

Tracie definitely heard Lamb gasp and it occurred to her that maybe Toni wasn't just showing off but doing this for the girl's benefit. Nice of her.

"Very good," TG said. "I've heard worse assessments from people who've been on the job for a month." Weasel Face glared silently at Toni. "Moving on, look at these next two. I think we may have our live roaster here. Which one?"

He means us, Tracie thought. Me and Toni. Oh wow.

Weasel Face looked her up and down, then did the same for Toni, trying to maintain a professional air. He reached out and gingerly felt one of Toni's breasts as if it were a ripe fruit. Tracie half expected Toni to hit him, but she just stood there impassively. He looked at Tracie again. Was he going to grope her too?

"Come on, we don't have all day," TG said impatiently.

"I don't know, they both look very....suitable," Weasel Face said lamely, wary of being trapped again.

"Oh, come on. It's me, of course," Toni told him.

"Why is that?" TG challenged. "What's wrong with the blonde?"

"Wrong? Nothing at all. Tracie's prime stuff, really good. I'd eat her any day. She'd make a lovely oven roast or grade 'A' cuts or almost anything else you like. I'm just stronger, that's all, I'm an athlete. I'll last longer on the spit and, as you said, that's what the customer wants a live one for. They want to watch the meat wriggle and writhe before they get it on their plates."

"Quite the expert, aren't you?"

"Not really. I have an Uncle who's a butcher, I've seen a few roasts and I stayed awake in Self Appreciation class. That and a few things I picked up here and there. It's not rocket science."

"I hope you're paying attention, Ray," TG advised Weasel Face, who muttered something inaudible. "Of course they're meat, that doesn't mean they're stupid. A real professional isn't too proud to learn from anyone, that would be stupid. Anything else?"

"Only that, before I'm done, I'll make half the party come in their pants, and not just the men. Might cut into your market, though."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Because after they've watched me go out fucking the spit for half an hour, at least one of the women will probably volunteer to do it next time."

"Or if they don't, they'll want to order another from us. We'll see. Congratulations, Miss Muffin, the gig is yours," TG said wryly. He muttered something into his pad. "You'll be picked up by car within the hour. This afternoon you can do your last pole dance."

"WooHoo!"

"Next, blondie here. Stock number?"

"Er, three four....something. Sorry, I forgot."

TG just shook his head slightly. "Never mind. Tracy, is it? Tracy..."

"Tracie Harris."

TG tapped his pad, looking it up. "Got it." He looked Tracie up and down. "Well, it seems your friend was right again. Unfortunately, since we don't have a vacancy for an oven stuffer, you'll go for cuts, grade 'A'." He muttered into the pad again, then put his hand between Tracie's spread legs - she was holding the prescribed inspection pose with feet eighteen inches apart and hands by her sides - and cupped her pubis. Tracie resisted the urge to flinch away or go up on her toes and ended up thrusting forward slightly, toes curled. She kept her hands still with an effort. TG's hand was hard and warm and she felt a thrill go through her loins, into her belly and out to her whole body. She stifled a gasp as he ran his forefinger up between her labia and put the finger in his mouth, tasting it. Tasting her. "Make sure Dave gets this one," he muttered into the pad.

"Who's Dave?" Tracie blurted out, not expecting an answer.

"Our best cutter," TG replied. "Wouldn't want to spoil a filet like that."

"That's nice to know," Tracie said, but TG just gave her a vague, polite nod and addressed her mother. "Stock number?" Kate recited it as he inspected her and took a note.

"I think he likes you," Toni said sotte voce. "Maybe he'll order you for lunch."

"I wouldn't mind if he fucked me first," Tracie replied in the same tone. Her skin was still tingling.

"Look at this," TG instructed Ray. "You don't see one of these very often. A mature prime, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe double prime. We'll get back to this one. Give it some thought." He moved on.

Tracie gave her mother a 'what the fuck?' look and Kate gave back a 'beats me' expression.

"Probably just trade jargon for something pretty obvious," Toni said in a nearer-normal tone of voice. TG didn't seem to mind them talking as long as it didn't get in the way of his job. "Like Kate's older than us and a mother but she's still really hot stuff. Which she is." Kate accepted the compliment with a smile.

"Sounds right," Tracie said. "Thanks for what you said about me."

"It was true."

"Even the bit about...."

"If I wasn't here with you and I'd known you'd been called in, yes, I'd have ordered some of you. Why not? I got the impression you wouldn't have minded."

"I wouldn't. I've just never eaten anybody I knew. Have you done that before?"

"Remember Jenny Coulter?"

"Oh. Yes. Wasn't she on your hockey team? Top scorer?"

"And a good friend."

"You mean you....?"

"Yup."

"Did she know?"

"Know? She phoned me after she got the summons. I went over to her place and picked out my cut before she caught the bus so I could pre-order it. We had a little fun first, as you might imagine."

Tracie could imagine that all too well. Pity she hadn't had time to do the same thing. Change the subject. "Are you really looking forward to the spit roasting?"

"Might as well. It's not what I'd have chosen to do today but since we're all for the chop anyway, yes, that's how I'd have wanted to do it. I want to go out with a bang."

That provoked another image in Tracie's mind. Rumours about Toni's sexual prowess were always a hot topic of gossip but she'd never had the nerve to ask before. She'd never have the chance to ask again. "Is it true you've fucked the whole football team?"

Toni laughed. "No, only five of them and never more than two at once. Two of their girlfriends too, not always at the same time. And three of the hockey team. Shall I go on?"

"No, it's quite obvious you'll be missed," Tracie said. A thought struck her. "Do they know?"

"I e-mailed my stock number to everyone I've ever slept with," Toni said. "Or, if you want to get technical, ever had up against a wall. Not that it matters now, I'm booked for a party."

"One word: gatecrashers," Tracie said.

Toni gave her a raised-eyebrow look of respect. "You know, I never thought of that. Thanks. Nice to think my friends might turn up to see me off. Oh shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...."

"It's okay. Like you said, maybe the tall guy will order my pussy for lunch."

"I don't think so," Kate said with a knowing smirk.

"Why not?"

"Because your father will be having it for dinner, along with your left breast and a steak from your right thigh. I ordered them this morning when I got your stock number."

Tracie was almost dumbstruck. "Wha...?"

"Lucky man," Antonia said. "The classic 'crosscut' or connoisseur's selection. He'll be dining well tonight. Nice one, Kate."

Kate shrugged modestly. "Well, if he's losing his wife and daughter, he should at least get a good meal out of it."

Tracie regained her voice. "But how? Can you do that? I mean, you're..."

"Meat, like you, certainly. But we have a joint account and the delivery is to him, not me."

"And you didn't tell me this before, because.....?" Tracie gave her a mock glare.

"I wanted to make sure you liked the idea. Besides, I didn't want to get your hopes up in case you got picked for a whole roaster. That would have invalidated the order. Since you're marked down for cuts now, it will go through."

"Oh, thanks, Mum, you're the best!" Tracie said, hugging her. She didn't care if she got stunned for getting out of line, but nothing happened. Maybe TG wasn't bothered now she'd been inspected. "But what about you? And can we afford it? I mean, can Dad? Those are pricey cuts."

"Oh, don't worry, the compensation will cover most of it. If I get chopped he'll get one of my tits and a rump roast. I couldn't order two filets so I got him yours." She winked. "He already knows what mine tastes like. Just not cooked."

"Mother!" Tracie grinned back.

In the background, they heard TG continuing the inspection. "Hands down, please, don't be shy.."

"Maybe he'll eat yours raw too," Antonia said mischievously.

"Oh, that's just....." Tracie paused, imagining it. "Do you really think...?"

"Necrophiliac, incestuous, oral sex?" Antonia suggested. "Beats flogging a dead horse."

Kate snorted.

"What's the joke?" Spring Lamb asked, finally getting up the nerve to break out of her place in the line.

Antonia put her left arm around the smaller girl's slight shoulders, drawing her into the group. "Meet my new friend Lucy. Lucy, meet Tracie and Kate. There, you're introduced."

Little Lucy Lamb, Tracie thought. She could imagine her as she would be, slim belly slit open, rotating on a spit and turning brown, her head on a silver plate. What could she say?

"Pleased to meet you," her mother said, offering her hand. The girl took it awkwardly, her own small, pale hand delicate and frail looking compared to the older woman's tanned and powerful one. She explained the joke and Lucy smiled.

Fuck me, Tracie thought. No wonder Mum gets on so well with Toni. She looks more like her daughter than I do. Jocks, as the Americans have it.

"Nothing wrong with sausages," TG was advising his apprentice at the end of the line. "Or stew meat. There's always a way to make a woman into saleable goods, you just have to find the most profitable way of doing it. Besides, the trainee cutters need practice and there are no prime cuts on this one that they could ruin. Anything spoiled just goes into the grinder."

"Poor Mrs Dumpy," Tracie said. "Still, it's what she wanted."

"And I get my pole ride and you get your juicy bits munched by your next of kin," Toni said brightly. "Talk about the ultimate Daddy's girl. How about you, Lucy?"

"If I've got to go, I don't mind being roasted like a spring lamb. It's sort of sexy in a weird way, and it does suit me. I can live with it." She smiled wryly. 'For another twenty minutes or so' went unsaid.

"So all's well that ends well," Antonia said drily, "Unless there's something we don't know about being a 'mature double prime'.

All's well apart from the fact that we're all going to die, Tracie thought, but she didn't feel afraid. She felt an odd, euphoric combination of fatalistic calm and sexual arousal and a warm feeling of community with her fellow livestock. It was a strange place for a group bonding experience, she reflected.

"It seems we're about to find out," Kate noted. TG and his stooge were coming back.

"Break it up, please, ladies," TG said without rancour. They stepped back and made room for Kate, who assumed the 'stand at ease' inspection pose. "So, Ray, what do you think now?"

"I don't see what the big fuss is about" Ray grumbled. "Okay, she's not bad looking...."

"Not bad?" TG gave him a Look.

"Okay, she's...." Ray looked Kate over again, attempting to look indifferent, "....pretty good."

"It helps if you don't drool when you say that," Antonia said.

"Think. How many women in their mid to late thirties look this good? A few actresses and models, if you can believe what you see on screen. This is a real housewife, no makeup and no airbrushing, and she's near perfect."

"So how's that better than the young ones?"

"Not better, necessarily, just different. It's a matter of taste. Some people think the meat of an older woman in her prime has more character."

"So? Lots of people prefer the young ones too."

"If his brains were gunpowder, there wouldn't be enough to blow his nose," Antonia muttered.

TG glanced at her sharply but his expression suggested he didn't disagree. "Why do truffles cost so much?" he hinted.

"Truffles?" Ray looked blank. "Aren't they chocolates or something?"

TG sighed. "It's a kind of mushroom, prized for its flavour. They grow wild and they're rare. They cost a lot. Why is that, do you think?"

"Rarity value? Oh...."

"The penny finally drops, after being hammered in with a brick," Antonia noted.

"Exactly," TG said. To whom was unclear. "It's easier for a younger woman to stay in good condition, with no more effort than a little physical activity and a halfway decent diet. Look at the muscle tone on this one." He felt Kate's left thigh. "Top quality meat, and plenty of it. Not stringy, but no more fat than the usual subcutaneous layer that gives the flesh of a woman that smooth, rounded, feminine look." He hefted one of Kate's breasts. "Full and juicy, not at all flaccid, with hardly any sag and thick nipples." He felt her upper arm. "More good meat. How do you exercise?"

Kate suddenly realised he was addressing her. She had been quite carried away by his rather intimate evaluation of her body. In other circumstances, she would have found the familiarity offensive, she was married after all, but in the present situation it didn't bother her, in fact she found it quite enjoyable. "Um, sorry, what? I was miles away...."

"I asked how you exercised, Mrs Harris."

"Oh, do call me Kate. I feel as though we already know each other. I swim a bit when I can, do a bit of yoga, play tennis, nothing much."

"Wear a sports bra?"

"Sometimes....but not today," Kate replied in a barely passable imitation of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. "Yes, of course. No woman in her right mind with tits the size of mine goes jumping about on a tennis court without one."

"Turn around, please." Kate complied.

"Beautiful rump, you see? No sag at all. Straight back. Good calves. All in proportion. Back around, please, Mrs...um...Kate." Kate turned around.

"Clear skin and eyes, indicating good health. Do you cook?"

It sounds like I'll cook up nicely, Kate thought. "Yes," she said.

"Mum's a great cook," Tracie said. Kate smiled at her.

"Do you see?" TG demanded of Ray. "Is she just 'not bad'?"

"Er..." Ray looked discomfited.

Antonia leaned over to Tracie and whispered in her ear. "Look at the punk's pants. I think he's in love."

"All right, she's good meat and she's a whatsit, 'mature prime'. So what are we going to do with her?"

"At last, a sensible question. What would you suggest?"

"Er, I dunno, auction her?"

TG raised his eyebrows. "Congratulations, your first intelligent answer. That's exactly what we're going to do." He addressed Kate. "You, stay here a moment. You, you and you," he indicated Lucy, Antonia and Tracie, "Also stay. And you, you and you," he pointed to three other women. "The rest, go with Bob to the cutting room." One of the men in overalls came forward to herd the other women to their final destination.

"What's going to happen to us?" Tracie inquired.

"Apart from the obvious? Nothing to worry about, you'll be processed in due course, you're just going to have your photos taken first. When you're grade 'A' cuts, your picture goes on the packaging. For the little roaster we need advertising copy." He muttered something like 'Simon, get in here' into his phone.

Okay, Tracie thought. Makes sense, but...

"Not that I mind," Antonia said, "Having nothing better to do until the car comes, but why me? I'm already sold, aren't I?"

"Yes, but you'll look good in the company brochure. You might even make Miss August in the Spit Muffin of the Month calendar."

"That's nice. I hope my parents get one, they can mount it over my hockey trophies."

"I'll see that they get one if that happens," TG said. "Compliments of the Company. Now follow me." He walked towards one of the doors in the far wall and everybody followed him. He has that kind of voice, Tracie thought. He says 'Do this' and we just do it. We're sheep and he's a sheepdog. A handsome dog, too. I don't doubt that he will send Toni's parents the calendar if she makes Miss August and, sorry Richard, I'd fuck him in a second if he asked me.

Interesting, Kate thought. She could see that the other three women chosen as 'A' grade meat were all fine specimens, in the same class as her daughter, ranged in age from their late teens to early twenties. Yet she, the old boiler of the group, seemed to have attracted the most attention. Could she use that? For what, and how? It seemed unlikely, but she bore it in mind just in case.

TG led the way into appeared to be a basic photographic studio. At any rate, there was a mounted camera, various lights and reflectors, and a slightly raised dais with a backdrop of blue- grey cloth. A slim man with close-cropped, receding hair in tight dark trousers and a blue silk shirt was fussing with the equipment.

"Get on with it, Simon, it's food packaging, not a Vogue cover," TG said in a bored tone..

"I'll thank you to do your job and let me do mine," Simon retorted waspishly. It was obviously an old antagonism, worn thin by repetition.

Don't rush on my account, Tracie thought. She wondered what was happening to the women who'd already gone through to the cutting room. Were they already dead? Part of her wanted Simon to tinker with his toys forever; another part wanted to get on with it, to find out. It would be the last thing she would ever learn. Suddenly, she felt dizzy.

"Steady, love," Kate said. "Take your time. Breathe."

Tracie gave her a grateful smile. "I'm okay," she said, and then she was.

"You," Simon said, beckoning to a dark haired young woman. "Over there." He indicated the dais. The girl complied and stood there looking nervous.

"Not like that, you look as if you're facing a firing squad. Relax the shoulders....no, don't slump...look at me."

"Say 'cheese'" Antonia suggested.

Simon glared at her, then looked interested. With a minimal shake of his head, he got back to his work. "What's your name?" he asked the girl.

"Dierdre."

Tracie wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it. In the space of a few minutes, the little ponce managed to coax a passable photoshoot out of Dierdre. By the end of it, she was striking demurely sexy poses like an underwear model selling a pair of silk stockings and a garter belt. In fact, the best full length shot would be juxtaposed with a closeup of her face on every shrink- wrapped package of every piece of her grade 'A' meat that they sold.

"It'll do," TG admitted when Simon pronounced himself satisfied. "Jim, take this one to the cutters." The other man in overalls came forward and took Dierdre by the arm, leading her off the dais and towards the door. She looked stunned and bewildered, as if the modelling session had transported her and she was surprised to find herself back to stark reality.

Next, Simon called a tall blonde whose name turned out to be Helene. She went through the session in a kind of a daze, but apparently it was good enough. This time, Bob had returned to escort her out.

The third girl gave her name as Sam. She had light brown skin, a tangle of black hair and the body of a gymnast with breasts like firm, ripe plums. She ignored Simon's directions and put on a show of her own. Before long, he stopped trying to direct her and just tried to capture her moves. "Somebody switch that fucking vidcam on," he snapped at one point while working his own camera frantically. Tracie noted that he had dropped the camp voice. Presumably he had assumed it as protective coloration in the world of fashion photography.

Sam had started by striking a parodic body-builder pose and then licking her own right arm from shoulder to biceps. She built up from there. What happened after that was probably still illegal in several American states and most of the Middle East.

"Bloody Hell, she's good," Antonia said with frank admiration. "If she's not an erotic dancer, she should have been."

"I'd fuck her," Tracie admitted. "Oh, I wouldn't know how, but I'd give it a shot." It felt good to say that, it made her feel closer to Toni and a bit more grown up.

"So would I," Kate admitted. "Oh, don't look so shocked. I'm married, not dead. Not for a while yet, anyway."

Tracie hadn't thought that her mother could even entertain thoughts like that, even though she did herself. Her parents were happily married, it had never occurred to her that they might have fantasy lives or that her mother might get turned on by watching a strange girl dance. She'd sometimes seen her flirting with men, but that was okay. Not that being slightly bisexual was bad or anything, or even unusual, it just seemed....unmotherlike?

When Sam finished, she struck a final pose and then actually bowed.

Antonia applauded, clapping loudly and wolf-whistling. Tracie joined in, then her mother, Lucy and the worker, Jim, who had returned in time to catch most of the performance. Even TG, shaking his head and smiling wryly, clapped a couple of times. Ray just looked like a stunned mullet and Simon allowed her an appreciative nod.

"Special edition of the company magazine, do you think?" TG suggested.

"More like special edition of Men Only. I could sell these anywhere," Simon admitted.

"If they put any of those on her packaging, there'll be nothing left of her by teatime," Antonia said.

"Take her to the cutting room, Jim," TG said. "Almost seems a pity."

"She could have been a model," Simon agreed.

"Maybe she was," TG mused, consulting his pad. "No, estate agent."

Sam didn't wait to be led off the dais, but strode off boldly as if on a catwalk. Jim just nodded and turned and she followed him out, head high.

"Anything I do after that will be an anticlimax," Toni said.

It was Lucy's turn next, but all she had to do was look sweet and girlish, which wasn't much of a stretch for her. When she was finished, she started to where Bob was waiting to take her, but Toni moved to meet her. Bob fingered the stun baton now tucked into his belt and looked to TG, but TG shook his head and gestured 'leave it' as Toni gave the girl a hug.

"You're going to be delicious, kid. Just hold that thought, okay? Chin up."

"Okay." Lucy broke the clinch after a while, not so long as to try the men's patience. "Thanks for everything, Toni. Goodbye. Bye, Tracie, bye, Kate."

As the three gave their own farewells, Lucy turned and walked out with her slender back straight.

"You next," TG said to Tracie.

"That was a nice thing to do," Tracie said to Antonia. Then she stepped forward and onto the dais, turned and faced the camera. Suddenly, it all seemed absurd. Everybody's eyes were on her. There were Toni and her mother, TG, Simon crouched behind his camera and, oh yes, Weasel Faced Ray, all waiting to see her advertise herself as meat. Well, sod 'em. She was going to be dead soon, what did it matter how she looked on the labels? She smirked, and heard the click and whirr as Simon took a shot. What the fuck? Another click.

"Great, keep it coming," Simon said.

Tracie stuck up two fingers in the traditional 'bunny's ears' salute that some say dates back to Crecy, or was it Agincourt? Something about sticking it to the French anyway. She never had been that good at history. In case he hadn't got the message, she said "Fuck you."

Her mother smiled and Antonia gave her the thumbs-up. Simon took another picture.

Tracie considered sticking the camera up Simon's arse. Of course, it wouldn't do any good even if she could reach him before she got stunned. She'd die anyway, it would be undignified, and it might get her mother in trouble. Besides, her Dad was going to see her on the label when he got his order of her prime cuts. He would be somewhere over the Atlantic now, coming home. Yes, coming home to her prime cuts for dinner. Well, Tracie mused, he had made her, in a way, so it was only fitting that he should consume her in the end. There was something sort of poetic about it. Not to mention perversely raunchy. She felt her left breast experimentally, feeling the thickness of the nipple between finger and thumb.

("Get that thoughtful look," TG muttered to Simon.

"I know my fucking job," Simon hissed.)

Tracie imagined her cuts on a plate, her father deciding which bit to eat first. Leg or breast? Would he save her filet until last? She visualised it: her own sweet pussy on his fork, his teeth meeting in her delicate labia, nibbling her clitoris....she touched herself lightly between the legs and groaned softly.

"Now, THAT is hot stuff," Antonia said. "Subtle, but smoking."

Kate had to agree. Tracie seemed to be in a world of her own, her private fantasies playing out in her body language. "That's my kid," she said with modest pride.

"You're next," TG said. To Tracie: "You, here."

"Man of few words," Antonia noted.

Tracie glanced at Jim, waiting to escort her to the cutting room. He shrugged 'I don't know' and stood waiting. Cutting room. Like her best shots would end up on the cutting room floor, like in a Hollywood movie. Maybe they'd put them back in the director's cut. Put her back together again. But all the King's horses....She walked over to TG. What did he want from her? She had an appointment with her father's dinner plate. Mustn't be late. "Why do you call them cutters?" was what came out of her mouth.

TG looked a little taken aback.

"They're just butchers, aren't they? And we're just meat. So why 'cutters'?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest," TG admitted. "I suppose they think their work requires rather more finesse than the word 'butcher' suggests. It does have some negative connotations."

"Quite," Antonia agreed, straight-faced. "Chopping up women is a fine art. Would you rather have your delicate private parts expertly excised by a 'cutter' or hacked off with a meat cleaver by a 'butcher'?"

Tracie nodded, her expression wry. "Assuming 'not at all' isn't an option." To TG: "Why did you call me back? Fancy a quickie?"

"Not allowed, I'm afraid," TG said with evident regret. "Unprofessional and contaminates the meat, they say, though you do hear stories at times." He shrugged. "We can't watch everybody."

Kate wondered about that. Would the top bosses really be above granting certain choice women another half hour of life in return for their favours? She thought not. She glanced at Ray, who avoided her eye contact. Unlikely that a lowly minion like him would have the pull to get away with it, but she'd bet the thought had crossed his mind more than once. With me? Stuff that, chop me up now, she thought drily. If he tries it.....the muscles in her right forearm flexed. A hand that had gripped a raquet and served tennis balls could surely wring a weasel's throat.

"No," TG went on, "I just thought I'd take a minute to choose my dinner. Dave's probably backlogged anyway, we don't always get this many 'A' graders in a batch."

"Sorry, my filet's booked," Tracie said, not looking too sorry at all. "Still, there's plenty of good stuff left." She waved a hand down her body indicating the selection. "Feast your eyes." She pitched her pelvis forward slightly, hands on hips, flaunting herself. Flirting.

Cock tease, Antonia thought with approval.

TG snorted with good humour. "Couldn't afford your filet anyway, not on my salary, even with company discount."

"What a shame," Tracie commiserated.

"Can we get on with this, please?" Simon carped.

TG ignored him and continued to examine Tracie as if she were a buffet on legs.

Tracie had been inspected as meat before, in Self Appreciation by an instructor - they all had to go through that - and just this morning for real, but this was different, more personal. She was being inspected by someone who was really going to eat her. The thought of it gave her an odd feeling low down in her belly. "I've heard thigh meat is good," she suggested.

TG nodded agreeably. "It is, and your legs are very good indeed, but then so is the rest of you. I think I might try something different." He ran a finger gently down Tracie's abdomen from her sternum to just above the pubic bone. It caught just for a moment in her navel and she gasped softly before it moved on. Lower, you cunt tease, she thought, pressing forward, but the finger was removed. Damn it, I shouldn't have told him my filet was spoken for.

"Belly flesh is highly underrated in my opinion," TG said conversationally. "Yours has just the right combination of muscle and fat for oven roasting."

"Nice to know," Tracie said, voice shaking a little and not entirely from fear. "I do have a tit going spare, you know." Kate smiled, wondering whether her daughter was doing this for fun or just playing for time. Probably a little of both, from the look of her. TG seemed to be enjoying himself too. Well, why not?

"Breast is best, eh? Well, maybe...." As Tracie thrust out her chest, TG gave the offered delicacy an experimental squeeze, making sure to brush his thumb lightly over the hardened nipple.

"Terry...." Simon began.

"Oh, do shut up, Simon," TG said mildly. "Go and sort out your pictures. Some thing are worth taking a little time over."

"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?" Antonia quoted brightly.

"Quite," TG agreed. "Can't really expect Simon to appreciate fine dining, of course. He's a vegetarian."

"I'm shocked," Tracie said, managing to sound mock offended. She glanced at Simon, eyebrow raised, and he glowered back.

"I do hope you're taking notes, Ray," TG suggested ironically. Ray was sitting on a stool with his clipboard placed strategically over his lap. "Turn around please, Tracie."

Tracie complied obediently feeling TG's (Terry's?) hands grip her shoulders and run down her arms. She spread her fingers. She could feel the man's breath on the fine hairs of her neck.

Kate watched with more than casual interest as TG felt her daughter's back and sides. Was he really taking this much time selecting his cut or was he just enjoying himself? An odd thought struck her. Maybe he was doing it for Tracie too, giving her a little lift before she went for the chop. It wasn't impossible, surely? He really did seem to like her and he didn't seem like such a bad sort.

"Maybe a nice piece of rump steak," TG mused, fondling Tracie's pert buttocks in a rather less than professional manner. "What do you think?" He squatted down and stroked the backs of her legs, feeling the firmness of her calves and even giving her ankles a friendly squeeze.

"I've never been in a position to taste them," Tracie pointed out in as level a voice as she could manage. "Doesn't your wife mind you eating strange girls?" It was clear she wasn't only referring to her part in his meal.

"Quite the contrary. She always likes it when I have a girl for dinner. She says it inspires me." He stood up.

"So I'm going to be an aphrodisiac as well as a main course? How nice." Actually, she quite liked the idea. Would it affect her father that way too? What would he do about it? As far as she knew, he didn't have a mistress, just her mother.

"Not to mention a good example," TG said. "Celia does like to think she'll be just as tasty as any of my one-meal-stands when her number comes up. Helps to encourage her to keep in shape."

Kate could sympathise with that. It must be demanding being married to a meat inspector, though she imagined it might have its upside. This 'Celia' was probably due for a good time tonight after TG ate her lovely child.

TG gave Tracie a fleeting kiss on the nape of her neck, took her shoulders and turned her round. "I think I'll have the belly cut after all," he said. "And maybe a couple of calf steaks for tomorrow; the wife can have one too. It's nearly her birthday. Thanks for reminding me."

"You're entirely welcome," Tracie said politely. "I hope you both enjoy them."

"Are we done now?" Simon grumbled. Everyone ignored him.

"Take her to the cutters," TG said to Jim, "And make doubly sure Dave gets her. If he's still busy, she can wait, whether the others have an opening or not. Bye, Tracie, it's been a pleasure. I'll be seeing you again shortly, but I'm afraid you won't be seeing me." He smiled, almost apologetically.

Tracie acknowledged the very small joke with the nod and wry smile it deserved. She hugged Toni and her mother in turn as TG gestured Jim to wait a minute. Simon sighed.

"Bye, Toni, bye Mum. Love you."

"I love you too, darling," Kate said, letting her go.

Brief but heartfelt farewells done, Tracie turned and walked out with Jim. Everybody watched her go in silence.

"Now," TG said, rubbing his hands briskly. "Tea break's over, back to work. I hope you're ready for your close-up, Mrs Harris."

Kate gave a negligent shrug. "What do you want me to do?" Tracie was gone. Did it really matter what happened to her now?

"We'll have Jack mark you up and then take a few pictures...."

Jack? Kate looked around. Another man had entered the room. Oldish, tough looking, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. TG - Terry? - must have called him in while her daughter was performing. Whatever. "Mark me up?"

"Label your parts. The punters need to see what they're bidding on. Ever seen a butcher's chart? Leg, shoulder, breast...."

"Can't you just Photoshop it?"

"It's not the same as the real thing. Takes ages to make it look really authentic, or so I'm told. Much easier and quicker to do it live, if you know how. Jack does."

Kate shrugged again and walked over to the dais, standing there with legs apart and arms held out from her sides while Jack turned her into a meat diagram with his marker. She glanced down to watch him working on her lower body. The implement he used looked like a cross between a felt pen and a paintbrush, with a lead to a cylinder attached to his belt. Pressurised paint feed, she guessed. Neat. It didn't hurt at all, just tickled slightly. Not a tattoo, then.

"It's washable," TG informed her as if she'd be worried about it. "It'll come off in the shower."

Kate didn't want to think about what was happening to Tracie right now, so she thought about something else. When she'd been a student many years ago, a girl had turned up to a costume party dressed in nothing but a pair of slippers and body paint - a Pooka stencil kit, she had learned later - with all her parts labelled the same way hers were being done now. What was her name? Hanna? Hilary? It hadn't been a cannibal party at all, the girl had just been playing a role for fun.

Attention seeker, Kate had thought. She had resented the girl at the time because the ploy had worked brilliantly. All the guys had fluttered around her like moths attracted to a flame. Kate had felt like a wallflower. In her younger days, she hadn't had the confidence to pull a stroke like that. She was too tall, too gawky, too..what? Not quite 'in'. She'd been a good scholar and a decent athlete in unfashionable sports and she'd told herself that she didn't care. She'd dressed in whatever she could throw on. She hadn't learned style in clothes until after she was married and she'd dressed to please her husband because he'd told her that he didn't care how she dressed, he loved her anyway. After that, it was easy.

And I'd almost forgotten that, Kate thought, as Jack worked his way up her legs. I forgot it because I was ashamed of hating her. I didn't want to admit to myself that I wanted to BE her. Sorry, Whoever You Were.

Kate's muscles tensed as Jack wrote 'filet' over her pubic arch. She could feel the letters written in cursive blue-green-grey script. Women are meat, she reminded herself. We want to be meat. We are born to make and feed children if we have the chance, and to be food and pleasure for men. That's the way the world is, you can't fight nature.

She imagined Tracie being cut apart, her sweet limbs taken away and put on trays, cut into chops. Too soon. Her raquet hand clenched. She looked at Antonia. Antonia gave her a thumbs up sign of encouragement. She had never borne a daughter. She didn't understand.

Toni was strong, but she didn't have the fury inside her. She was looking forward to being roasted. But how did Tracie feel?

Tracie stood waiting outside the cutting room. Dave wasn't finished with his last client yet. Just a few more minutes, she told herself, and it will all be over. No more me, just a pile of steaks on a butcher's tray. Oh, Daddy, I hope you enjoy me. I do, I do. I wish I could see you...

Jack encircled Kate's breasts with lines and a script that read 'breast'.

Kate could feel it. The breasts that had fed Tracie when she was very small would be auctioned and sold and she would never know who ate them. It would be so easy to wrap her fingers around a throat and kill. Kill whom?

Ray the weasel? Easy. Simon? No problem. TG? Hard to say. He looked competent and wasn't easy to read. The stooge in overalls? Dick, Jim, Bob, Tom, Dick or Harry? She growled.

Oh fuck, Antonia thought. Mama Lion coming out. This was not good.

When Jack stepped back to admire his work, Kate hit him stiff-fingered in the solar plexus. As he folded, she stepped off the dais and walked unhurriedly towards TG, Ray and Simon like a Doom. She appeared to ignore Bob, who came after her from her right and slightly behind, until he reached out hastily with the cattle prod he'd fumbled from his belt. With a deceptively casual motion, Kate grabbed it just behind the business end, like catching a snake behind the head so it can't strike, and ripped it from his clumsy grasp. As she did, he stumbled forwards and Kate reversed the baton and stunned him with it, on the neck.

Two down in, what, ten seconds? Antonia thought admiringly. She shook her head. "Kate," she said urgently, "Don't. I mean, great moves, but...."

TG held his ground. Ray had got up from his stool and stood behind TG, looking nervous. Jack, the tough guy, was still trying to catch his breath. A good hit to the solar plexus will do that however big you are. Bob was still twitching.

"Mrs Harris, you should listen to your friend," TG said. Into his pad he muttered, "Security, possible berserker. Armed." He thought fast. "Put a hold on the Harris girl if she's still alive."

"Do call me Kate," Kate said again, with a smile that was too bright to be entirely sane. Antonia thought she looked magnificent, the meat markings on her athletic body suddenly transformed to a strange kind of warpaint, woad for an avenging warrior Goddess. Nemesis.

"Kate, you know you can't get out of here alive whatever you do," TG said reasonably.

Kate nodded. "I know that, so why should any of you? Antonia, want to play?"

Toni was torn. It WOULD be fun. But then she'd be dead either very fast and ugly if security had guns - no ecstatic exit on the spit for her - or tortured to death very slowly if they got her alive. "Kate, I'm sorry, we can't do this," she said, feeling miserably like a traitor and a coward.

Kate shrugged. "That's okay. More for me." She advanced again, holding the baton like an expert in some obscure martial art. Karate with cattle prods?

TG took a step back, holding his hands up. Ray scuttled backwards and almost fell over.

"Kate, how did you learn to fight like that?" Toni asked, trying to get her to listen to reason.

"Inter-school jiu-jitsu champion, four years running," Kate said evenly without moving her eyes off the targets. "Considered unseemly for well brought up young ladies these days. Long time ago, but it's like they say about riding a bike..."

Great, TG thought. So much for 'swims a bit, does a bit of yoga, plays tennis'. Strong, fast, skilled and insane. Cold berserk, she won't feel pain. And she has the only weapon in the room. She could probably take us all without breaking a sweat. And I thought today was going so well. Maybe the other girl could help. He looked at Toni, who shook her head. She wouldn't fight her friend, even if she could. Simon was still hiding behind his camera. Hiding? He was taking pictures frantically. "Kate, you know what will happen to you if you do this..." He stepped back again, bumping into fucking useless moron Ray.

"So? Tracie's dead and I will be soon. Think your goons can take me alive?"

TG glanced past her. Bob and Jack were trying to get up. There just wasn't time. "Security have dart guns, Kate. Keeps the meat intact. You'll live long enough to wish you hadn't. I don't want that to happen you. Or to Tracie."

Kate stopped. "Tracie's dead," she said.

"Not yet, she isn't," TG held up his comm-pad. "Thanks to the backlog. Want me to have them bring her to the 'phone?"

"You bastard." The tone was flat, matter of fact. Was he bluffing? Did she dare risk it? Her time was running out.

"Just doing my job. Kate, I'm trying to help you here." Where the hell were security? He saw that Jack was getting to his feet. Kate saw him seeing that and turned, waving him back with the baton.

Jack assumed a wary stance, ready to move when he got an opening. He still looked a little stiff. "Good shot, Mrs Harris," he said gruffly. "But you won't catch me that way twice."

There was a very long moment when nothing happened and the whole room seemed to hold its breath. TG made certain to stand very still and say nothing provocative. "All right," Kate said at last. "Leave Tracie out of it." She tossed the baton aside. "Now what happens? Rack and thumbscrews, hot irons or the comfy chair?" She smiled wryly, humour and sanity restored.

Antonia gave a choked laugh that was half a sob. There were tears in her eyes, she realised. Part of her had wanted Kate to do it, to go out fighting. It seemed so unfair. She appealed to TG. "Please..." she started.

At that point, security arrived in the form of three uniformed men who almost did a Keystone cops impression getting through the door. They waved their guns around as if not quite sure who to point them at. Nothing seemed to be happening.

"False alarm," TG said briskly. "Sorry to have bothered you."

"But..."

"All under control. Shoo." He waved them out. They left muttering, doubtless about bosses who didn't know what they were doing, the usual rhubarb.

"And now?" Kate asked, a mask of calm over maternal anxiety. "You won't...."

"Your daughter will be processed humanely and so will you. We'll just forget about this little contretemps as soon as you give me your word it won't happen again. No harm done."

"Easy for you to say," Bob grumbled, retrieving his baton.

"You got sloppy and you paid for it. Do you really want this woman tortured for that? And do you want your laxity noted on an official report of this incident?"

Bob conceded the point. "What report? What incident?"

"Exactly. Jack?"

The man spread his hands. "No hard feelings." To Kate, with a grin, "But I'll be watching you."

"Kate?"

She nodded. "You have my word."

Ray looked outraged. "That's it? You mean the bitch is going to get away with it? She should be..."

It's true, Antonia thought. The cowards are always the most vindictive. From somewhere she remembered "The revenge of a worm is terrible."

Kate couldn't resist one last shot. "Are you trying to FRIGHTEN me, little man?" she said. For a second, the berserker aspect flickered in her eyes.

TG gave Ray a look of utter contempt. "She's going to die, isn't that enough for you? Go away and change your pants."

Antonia felt her heart lift. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She had dreaded the thought that her wonderful Kate would be broken and defeated even more than the idea that she would be tortured, but she was still herself. Still proud, still beautiful. Peace with honour, not a defeat. The only thing that bothered her was her own cowardice. She had done nothing to help her. "Kate, I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" Kate inquired, raising an eyebrow. "You were right and I was wrong." She gave Toni a warm smile. "Yours is no disgrace." She didn't expect Toni to recognise the reference, but it didn't matter.

Toni smiled back, grateful. All those dates, all that sex, she thought. Nothing like this. Not that she regretted any of it, it had always been fun, but wasn't this a funny time to fall in love?

The intensity of the feeling overwhelmed her. She knew it was absurd and tried to convince herself of that. Kate was the mother of a friend of hers. There was the age difference. Well, that didn't matter to her. She was married, okay. Bit of a problem there. That and the fact that they'd both be dead soon. Serious stopper on a long term relationship. But the heart has its reasons that reason knows not, or something like that, she half remembered. She couldn't help the way she felt. She wanted to do something, but there was nothing she could do. For most of her life she'd been the popular one, the Captain, the one in control. Everybody wanted her or looked up to her or both and she, let's face it, used them. Gently, she hoped. She'd never meant to hurt the lovers she'd had. She just hadn't felt that they were equal to her. She'd always wanted more.

Kate was more. More than she would ever be. She watched her walk back to the dais to finish her photo shoot and felt helpless and ashamed and angry because of that. Her inner turmoil left her paralysed while the routine diagram pictures were taken. Ray had left, she noticed. Maybe he really was changing his underpants or having a wank in the bog.

Dave put the 'phone back in his pocket. "Sorry about the delay," he told Tracie. "Bit of a busy day, and then some flap about a berserker or something. False alarm."

Tracie nodded absently. She felt light-headed. Maybe Sam had felt the same way too; her head was sitting on a bench next to a pile of her body parts. The legs had been neatly sectioned into steaks, she noticed, and piled on a metal tray. Breasts over there on another one. Ribs, feet, arms, hands....Sam was everywhere. She could smell her; the rich scent of blood and a hint of feminine musk. Oh, yes, the pretty filet on a little tray of its own. She could have reached out a hand and touched it. Put it in her mouth and had a taste of what her own would be like when her father ate it.

Dave noticed her admiring his work. "She was a bit of a challenge," he admitted.

"Why? She looked like....." What? "Um, I dunno..." Sam dancing, putting on a show. She remembered. How would she look in her own photographs?

"Top quality?" Dave suggested. "She was. That just makes it harder. The best ones, you have to do them justice. The better they are, the more you want to do your best work with them."

"Tough day, then?" Tracie said with mock sympathy. She expected the irony to be wasted.

Dave smiled. "Tough job but somebody's got to do it? Hell, no. I dream of working with material like this."

"I hope I won't disappoint you," Tracie said. She saw a bucket full of human entrails. Sam's?

"Oh, I doubt that," Dave said. "Working with you is going to be a pleasure."

A small, carping voice in Tracie's mind wanted to ask Dave how he'd feel about having his balls on a tray next to Sam's cunt, cut off expertly and in the best possible taste of course, but she didn't say it aloud. That just wasn't the way things worked and bringing it up would just sound like whining. The last thing she wanted was to go out whining. Her mother would be ashamed of her. Not that she'd ever know, but it mattered anyway.

"How are you going to kill me?" she asked.

"Good question," Dave said. "I can cut your head off if you like, or I can butcher you alive. Some of my clients prefer it that way...."

"Butcher? I thought you people preferred to be called 'cutters'."

"Oh, I don't worry about all that professional snobbery. I prefer to be judged by my work rather than what anybody calls it. Call me a cutter, call me a butcher..."

"Call me Ishmael? Just not late for dinner?" Tracie had heard all the jokes, not that she'd ever read Moby Dick. Just the TV versions. It would be nice, she thought, if I actually had the chance to do that, not that I ever would. I could put it on a bookshelf. I'd like to spend the next fifty years not reading it. I've got maybe five minutes. It might have been easier if Dave had looked like Johnny Depp, but he just looked like an average bloke in an apron with a meat cleaver that could take her head off and probably would before long. "Will it hurt?"

"Not for long," Dave said. "Oh, you mean being butchered alive? No, we're testing a new way of doing that. Sam tried it and that's another reason for the delay. Game girl, that one. Up on the table. Scoot."

"Looks like it's your turn," Kate said after Simon pronounced himself satisfied with her shoot.

"I need to pee," Antonia said.

"Don't take long," TG said, looking at his watch. "The car should be here for you shortly."

Antonia walked out of the room after TG gave her directions to the lavatory. Just before she left, she looked over her shoulder at Kate and said "I'll be back."

"How do you butcher someone alive without it hurting?" Tracie wondered. She hardly knew herself whether she really wanted to know. If nothing concentrates a woman's mind more wonderfully than the knowledge that she will be chopped up before lunch, nothing scatters it more effectively than knowing it will happen any minute now. Tracie could feel the cool wood of the cutting table beneath her back and buttocks, slick with the water that had just washed most of Sam's blood off it.

"A neural blocking collar," Dave said, grimacing slightly. "New stuff. Don't ask me how it works, something to do with electromagnetism. You still feel things, but they don't hurt. Slows your heart rate too, a bit like yoga is supposed to do. That's so you won't bleed out so fast."

"You tried this on Sam?"

"Yes."

"And it worked?"

"Apparently. She didn't scream when I cut her. Some of them do. They think they want to experience it but they get a bit restive when it actually happens. Sometimes I have to hold them down. Usually I just cut their heads off in the end, they don't scream much after that."

"I suppose not."

"Want to try it, then?"

"Oh, why not?" Tracie said, "I'll try anything once."

"Lift your head up a bit." Tracie did that and Dave fitted a metal collar around her neck. It separated into two semicircles that snapped together. Dave pressed a button on it and Tracie felt an undefinable sensation. She tried to lift her arm to feel the collar, but it wouldn't move. Dave noticed her fingers twitch.

"Works on the thing in your brain that stops you moving when you're asleep and dreaming," Dave said. "You know, the bit that when it doesn't work right you sleepwalk?"

"Thought you said you didn't know how it worked," Tracie whispered. She could barely talk.

"I just know what it's supposed to do," Dave said. "It's in the brochure. Like a TV manual. Tells you what it does and how to use it, not how it works. I wouldn't have a clue. Comfortable?"

"Feeling no pain so far," Tracie quipped feebly.

"Then we'll begin."

Lying there helpless, Tracie wondered if she'd made the right choice. What if the collar didn't work and she experienced all the pain but couldn't do anything about it? She felt that she ought to be terrified, but all she experienced was a faint, gnawing anxiety. No adrenalin surge, no racing heart, the collar took care of that, she wouldn't go out fighting the way...

The way her mother would. For some irrational reason, she imagined her mother avenging her, fearless and defiant to the end. She could see her powerful hands strangling all her enemies like wringing the necks of chickens. It all seemed like a dream, those vivid images you see just before you go to sleep. She was dreaming, she realised, and she would never wake up. She heard a soft 'thunk'. And another. And another.

"Hands and feet off," Dave announced from another reality. "Feel anything?"

Nothing much, Tracie thought. Just me dying. Well, I knew that. Look, Ma, no hands...

Antonia looked a bit flushed, Kate noted, when she came back. "Okay?" she asked.

"Never felt better in my life. Where are we on that car?" she asked TG.

"On its way. Up on stage, quick smart."

Antonia went through a series of poses in a perfunctory manner, Kate thought. She took direction well enough and, with a body like hers, she didn't have to work too hard but it seemed to her that she could have done better. Well, with her role on a pole coming up maybe she was saving her best performance for last. Simon seemed satisfied, though. Maybe he had missed something. He'd had a lot to think about. Like me about to murder him. No wonder he seems distracted. That might put anybody off a bit.

"I'll have to work quickly," Dave said almost apologetically, "Or you'll bleed out and die before I get to the prime cuts, slowed heart rate or no. This is all a bit experimental, you understand. I'm feeling my way here. I used to just cut the girls' heads off first. Easier that way. But somebody up there decided there might be a use for the technology and lucky old me gets to test it."

"Poor old you," Tracie whispered.

"The way I heard it, somebody thought the rich and famous might actually pay to be done this way when their numbers came up. Me, I just look at the quality of the end product. But do they ask my opinion? No, it's just 'Let's have good old Dave test it, he's our best cutter' so I've got to work out the best way of butchering a woman alive and still produce the Grade 'A' goods."

"But you love it, don't you?"

Tracie's peripheral vision showed Dave shrugging. "I want to work with the best material, what professional craftsman doesn't? So I have to keep up with the tech or somebody else gets to be top cutter. I'm going to take your tits off now, hold still. Oh, right, you will anyway...sorry, still getting used to this..."

"Don't mention it."

When her hands and feet had been cut off, Tracie realised, she had actually felt it; she just hadn't associated the sensation with what was really happening. It just hadn't hurt enough to register as an amputation. She still had 'ghost feeling' in her fingers and toes. When Dave pressed what must be a blade to her chest, she felt the cool pressure on her sternum. Then the pressure moved to her right, sliding across her torso without rising over the breast. Going under it, through her living flesh. There was a faint sensation of lightness as the breast was taken away.

"Tricky, but a neat job if I say so myself," Dave commented. "The dead ones don't bleed much, you see." The blade (warmer now?) reappeared on her right side, under the edge of her left breast. Daddy's dessert, Tracie thought, noticing absently that Dave must be right handed as he took it off. "Good tits. It's easier to keep the shape with the younger ones."

"Thanks," Tracie said with absent politeness. She'd got used to the whisper and had stopped trying to croak to make it louder. Dave seemed to hear her well enough. "Do have one for tea."

"All right," TG said briskly, "I think that should do."

Antonia stepped off the dais. "Car here yet?" The tone was nonchalant, but Kate thought she read a touch of tension in Toni's body language. Martial arts tends to sensitise its practitioners to reading cues like that.

"Coming," TG said. "In a hurry?"

"I can hardly wait," Toni said brightly. "Get me on that spit!" She rubbed her hands together enthusiastically..

That sounded at least half true, Kate thought. Then something else occurred to her. Oh shit. Could it be..."How long will this auction thing take?" she asked TG.

"Hard to say. We don't get specimens like you every day, and with those berserker Amazon pics..." he shrugged. "The bidding could be fierce. Might take a while."

"That's nice to know." Kate thought about it. She decided to look faintly embarrassed and apologetic. "By the way, sorry for trying to kill you and all that. Nothing personal, exactly..."

"Think nothing of it," TG said generously. "We don't see that very often; I must admit you caught me on the hop. Mostly the ones who crack up are just screamers; the handlers haven't seen a really dangerous one for ages. Might sharpen the slack buggers up a bit. You did us a favour."

"Were you worried?" Kate smiled coyly, with a teasing lift of the eyebrow.

"I was bloody scared," TG admitted frankly. "I just tried not to show it. If we hadn't had....ermm.."

"My daughter?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but what else could I do?"

Kate shook her head. "I quite understand," she said, which she did. "Thanks for letting me off the hook."

TG made a 'de nada' gesture. "Just doing my job. I'm not vindictive."

Because he's not a coward like Ray, Kate thought. Don't let that thought show. She glanced at Toni who was standing with her arms folded defensively under her breasts. An uncharacteristic posture.

"If you two lovebirds have done?" Toni said with deliberately emphasised mock jealousy that Kate recognised as more than a little genuine. Yes, that fitted.

Somebody knocked on the door.

"Now, I could disembowel you," Dave told Tracie. "You know, slit your belly, take the guts out..?"

"I know what it means," Tracie said.

"No offense meant, but..."

"None taken, but what?"

"Well, I took the other girl's out..."

"Sam's". This seemed important.

"Sam's, of course," Dave conceded, "After she was dead. And thanks for offering the tit, but..."

Oh bugger, Tracie thought. Nobody wants my right tit. What a shame. It will languish unloved on a shelf at the butchers'.

"Don't tell anybody," Dave said, "But I have a thing about girls' kidneys."

"You're kidding," Tracie said before she could stop herself.

Dave snorted. "No, really," he said. "They're quite delicious, cooked or raw. I think I'll have yours for lunch. What I meant was: do you want me to finish you off now? Before I do it?"

"No, go ahead. I can always change my mind if it starts hurting, right?"

"Of course."

Tracie felt Dave run his finger down her belly in an exploratory fashion. Finger, or knife? No, definitely finger, the knife had felt different even though it hadn't hurt. Oh, THAT was the knife. Her belly was being slit and there was no pain, but some sensation she couldn't define. Not tickling, either. It felt....oh good grief, surely not? It felt intimate, even erotic.

"Lets get some of these intestines out of the way," Dave went on chattily as he rummaged around in her bowels. There was a sort of wet splatting sound as they hit the bucket or whatever. Not a hollow sound, either. Oh, yes, now she remembered, there was a large metal container under the table. From the sound of it, Sam's guts were still in there. How cosy. She didn't even know the girl and now their insides were sharing a bucket. Another wet splat.

"Do they just throw them away?" Tracie wondered aloud.

"Oh, no, there's plenty of good stuff in there," Dave said. "The Chinese have all sorts of recipes for girl guts. Basically the same as for pigs, I suppose, but they're more of a delicacy. Don't worry, no part of you that's edible will be wasted. There's even a sort of sausage made from female hearts, lungs and livers. Quite delicious. Like haggis but without so much oatmeal. Less stodgy."

"Sounds yummy. Are Sam's innards in there? Won't they get mixed up with mine?"

Dave chuckled. "You know, nobody's ever asked me that before. Come to think of it, not many have been in a position to.. Yes, I suppose they will. The 'innards', as you say, are all just grade 'A' girl guts, same for the organs. It's only the more traditional meats that get labelled individually. Hope you don't mind."

"No, she seemed nice enough." I'd hate to be sharing a sausage skin with someone I didn't like, she thought ironically.

"Yes, I thought so too. Are here we are, the kidneys. Just a quick snip and bingo! Feel anything?"

"Yes, but it doesn't hurt." Maybe you could try for my G-spot from the inside, Tracie thought. "Do you enjoy doing this?" Is it good for you? went unsaid.

"Every time. I think the interest started in school," Dave reminisced. "During a biology lesson. We were dissecting a rabbit. It was fascinating what was in there. Then I looked at some of the girls watching and thought 'They've got all that stuff in them too, wouldn't it be fascinating to dissect one of them and have a look?' Not in a hostile way, of course..."

"Of course not," Tracie murmured.

"It's not that I didn't like them, I'm not a misogynist; I just found the idea sort of...exciting," Dave admitted with a shrug. "Ready to go yet?"

"No, I think I'll wait until you take my filet," Tracie said. That should be interesting.

The door opened. "Car for Miss Williams?" a man inquired. He was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, hat and all.

"That's me," Antonia said brightly. "The barbecue party?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Mind if I bring a guest?"

"I wasn't told to expect....wait a minute..." the man flipped open a 'phone and spoke into it for a couple of minutes. He pocketed it and said "That would be quite all right, Miss."

Toni smiled brightly at Kate. "Coming?"

Kate was taken by surprise. "Me? But..." She looked at TG who looked almost equally surprised.

"You said it would take a while to get the bidding sorted out," Toni implored him, her body language plaintive and endearing, the kind of woman you wouldn't have the heart to refuse. "I want somebody there I know. What else has Kate got to do until it's time for her to get the chop? Sit around worrying about it?"

It was absurd, Kate thought. She'd accepted that she'd never come out of this building alive. They wouldn't just let her have the afternoon off. The whole idea was ridiculous and probably broke several rules she didn't know about. Bound to.

"All right," TG said.

Huh? Kate thought. "But..."

"I want your word that you'll come back. Your daughter is probably dead by now so I can't hold that over you."

I should stay here, part of Kate's mind thought. For Tracie...okay, by now she's dead or near enough and there's nothing I can do about it. I've already promised not to kill anybody. She looked at Antonia whose look in return was imploring. "What about gatecrashers?"

"Oh, Kate, it was lovely of Tracie to suggest that but..." she gave a meaningful nod to the chauffeur. "Do you really think a high-class bash like this would let them in? Please?"

Spend the afternoon waiting to see how she'd be disposed of as self-imposed penance for not rescuing her daughter or...

Eat Antonia. Should be a no-brainer. "I don't have a thing to wear," she said. Simon was packing up his gear. Nothing more to do. She could imagine Ray saying something caustic, but the little rat wasn't here.

"Dress is informal," the chauffeur supplied helpfully.

Kate turned to TG - Terry- and said "You have my word."

"Good enough for me."

"All RIGHT!" Toni said, pumping the air. "Home, James, and don't spare the horses. Let's party!"

James led the pair out of the labyrinth to the mundanity of the car park where a limousine awaited them. Kate saw another bus arriving, full of fresh meat. The women disembarked just as she, Toni and Tracie had, some clothed and some naked, heading into the valley of steel. Lambs to the slaughter. It wasn't a betrayal, she told herself. Tracie was gone, there was nothing she could do for her any more. What could she have done, been with her when the axe fell? Her hand clenched. There should have been something. What, a touching farewell scene? Hugs and tears? She remembered Tracie leaving with her back straight. Let her have that dignity. She deserved it.

Going berserk and getting her tortured? No, leave it. Let it go.

Seated in the plush leather of the back seat, Toni and Kate watched the drabness of the processing plant fade into the scenery like a bad dream. It was the afterlife, as Kate saw it. She was a dead woman walking. She was outside any normality she'd ever known. Falling into a Black Hole and time had dilated. She was wearing an old RAF overcoat that TG had insisted she should wear in case it got cold. He had sent one of the minions off for it before she departed despite her protests that she didn't need anything any more. It had been easier to take it than argue. Where had he got it from? She had no idea and hardly cared. Tracie was gone and only Antonia needed her now. Well, that she would do and if anybody tried to stop her...hold on...

"You okay?" Toni asked. She looked concerned.

"Fine," Kate said.

"You just looked a bit fierce there for a minute. Not going to go berserk again, are you?"

Kate smiled sunnily. It was an effort she tried not to show. "Not until you're safely cooked and on my plate," she said.

Toni looked relieved. "Thanks for that. It means a lot to me."

Kate knew it did and she suspected she knew why. "What happened to Ray?" she asked.

Toni looked embarrassed. "I'd like to say you don't want to know, but knowing you..."

"How?"

"Drowned him in the toilet."

"Why?"

"You know, don't you?"

"Antonia, I'm married. I couldn't...I mean, I like you a lot, but.."

"I'm like a daughter to you? Yeah, I get it. Well, fuck that, try this."

Kate realised why everybody wanted Antonia a few seconds later. What she could do with her hands...and why wasn't she resisting? She opened her mouth and let Toni's tongue in. It lasted a long time.

"Try incest," Toni said. "Lots more fun than Morris dancing." She attacked again. That took longer.

Kate was breathless. Toni backed off and looked her in the eyes. "Now tell me you didn't enjoy that."

Kate couldn't, of course, as Toni must have known. She'd seen her fight. Strong as Toni was, Kate was at least her equal in strength and far more skilled in martial arts. If she'd wanted to stop her, she could have done it easily. She hadn't even tried and there was no use pretending otherwise. "Why did you really kill Ray?" she prevaricated.

"Because you couldn't," Antonia said earnestly. "He was disrespectful to you and Tracie. I knew why you wanted to and I wished you could, but I didn't want you tortured. I was ashamed that I hadn't helped you....I was angry."

"With yourself. And you took it out on him." Kate couldn't help being a mother.

"Wouldn't you have? You didn't stop because you were afraid for yourself. You're a lot braver than I ever could be. I was nervous when I came back because I didn't know if they'd find him before I left. They can't touch me now, I'm sold and gone and they can't recall me without causing a scandal. They won't come for you because you had nothing to do with it. They'll probably pass it off as an accident and cover it up. Nobody will miss him."

"His mother might." Kate's face was deadpan.

"I doubt it," Antonia said in the same tone, standing up to her. "Do tell me you're sorry he's dead and I'll apologise."

Again, Kate couldn't deny her. "Are you really sure they can't reach you?"

Antonia shrugged. "I hope not, but..." she shrugged again. She'd had to risk it but she wasn't going to point that out. "Would you want them to?"

"Of course not. If I see anybody trying to arrest you I'll kill you myself." She smiled.

"I'd rather you ate me."

There was no more point in Kate pretending not to understand what she saw in Toni's eyes. There was a beat as the two of them looked at each other.

"I'd just like you ladies to know that I didn't hear any of that conversation," James said into the silence. "Would you like some music? The car is fully equipped."

Kate was still looking into Antonia's eyes. "Blowin' Free by Wishbone Ash," she said without moving them. "If you've got the classics."

"One endeavours to give satisfaction," James said in a passable imitation of Jeeves by Stephen Fry as he coded the request into the car's music system. There was a brief delay, as the car's onboard computer discovered that it didn't have the requested item stored and had to download it from the satellite link to the 'net.

"You DO want to party," Toni said.

In case you're one of the poor, deprived souls who've never heard this masterpiece, let me try to describe it. It starts with the catchiest guitar riff ever and proceeds to build on totally inane lyrics that you don't mind because the solid bass lines have suspended your disbelief and hung it out to dry while the twin guitars are dancing in your head like fairies on acid and the drumming makes your heart race. I'd say something like boogilicious if I did perversions of the English language like that but I don't so I won't. Rocks a bit, honest.

"Tight as a bee's arse," Toni approved. Her hands slipped under Kate's coat again. "Talk dirty to me."

Kate had never been good at talking dirty. She suspected that Toni was having a laugh. "I'm going to enjoy eating you," she said instead.

"Start now," Toni suggested. She managed to slip one of her legs inside Kate's coat and around her back, drawing her down.

Kate spread the coat like Dracula about to feast on a particularly delicious virgin and bore down. "You do realise I have no experience with this sort of thing," she muttered into Toni's ear.

"Wing it," Toni murmured back. "Just do whatever you want."

Kate's mind timeslipped back to the bus when Antonia had kindly told Tracie that she'd have eaten her if she could. What did she want to do? Repay the favour. And it might be fun, too. She used the music to bar the door to the part of her mind still worrying about Tracie as the track shifted tempo to the moody bit. The vocals went: 'In my dreams, everything was all right' with the guitars going all ethereal. She traced pattern on Toni's skin to the melody, dreams becoming flesh.

"Pick your cut," Antonia whispered. She was breathing heavily. "Taste me."

Kate ran her fingers down Toni's belly the same way she'd seen the stockman do it. Evaluating her as meat. Imagining the knife that would slit her own daughter's belly open. She could smell Antonia's arousal as keenly as a shark scents blood in the water. She pinched the younger woman's hard left nipple and heard her gasp. Time seemed to have slowed.

In her dreams....she had never imagined anything quite like this. She could have had Antonia as a lover any time if she'd just chosen to. Would her husband have minded?

"Dead?" TG pretended to look surprised when the security man came in. "How, exactly? Show me." The security man took him to the toilet and showed him. "Dear me, the worst case of suicide I've ever seen." It was a old joke and the security man didn't laugh.

"A man is dead," he said humourlessly..

"How long have you been working here?" TG inquired mildly. "Happens a lot. Some people just can't handle it."

"There's a trick to taking a good filet," Dave told Tracie. "Most of the others don't get it. They just don't have the feel for it."

"Mmm," Tracie mmed. He was fiddling around inside her again. She felt she ought to be giving him directions. Where WAS her G-spot anyway? Was there even such a thing? "Down a bit," she heard herself say. She recalled from somewhere that Tantric sex can last for ages and really blow your mind because it started from inside and not just from a bit of rubbing on the clitoris. She suspected that the writers of the Kama Sutra hadn't had much experience with women who were being gutted alive. Well, she didn't have ages and she hoped Dave would get to the point fairly soon. Not that she was bored, just that she'd soon be dead.

"It's because they don't work with the source material," Dave rambled on. "One woman is just like another, it's all just a series of mechanical operations? Ha. A real artist looks at it the way a sculptor does when he works with the grain of the wood. Or the rock or whatever...."

"And you're trying to find the best way to cut my cunt off?" Tracie cut in before he got to bonsai trees. She didn't feel like listening to a rerun of the Karate Kid.

Dave sounded a bit put off, but, "Well, yes..."

"And you're not used to doing it while the meat is alive?" Feeling my way here, he'd said earlier.

"Gigantic Land Crabs in Earth Takeover Bid," Kate said as the Ash boogied themselves out. "James?"

"Your wish is my command. Hatfield and the North?"

"You know them?" Kate was astonished; she'd expected that James would have to download it. In her younger days, her husband-to-be had introduced her to the music of the spheres by tracing its patterns on her back while she was naked on the bed. His fingers had translated the music into a kind of foreplay she had never known before. Then he had fucked her brains out and she had married him.

"All on board in my personal files," James said.

"A man of taste."

"What are you two talking about?" Antonia wanted to know.

Kate smiled. "The reason for being. The reason Tracie existed, at least. The best way of getting high without being stoned." She paused. "But it is a bit better if you are," she admitted. She had been when it happened. Cannabis and really good music beats the shit out of champagne and oysters. She nipped Toni's belly gently with her teeth, wondering if she'd eat that part of her. "Trust me," she said. She would have to take up the slack. If the music selection was right....well, she was on a roll. Still, it would have been nice...

"Morrocan or Afghan Black?" James inquired politely. There was a brief pause as 'The Stubbs Effect' came on.

"The Black for me," Kate said. "You really have that? The seventies vintage?"

"Yes, pre-rolled in the glove compartment. We're out of Tibetan and the Black is fairly scarce these days, but we have a bit left. For special guests."

"You are a Prince amongst men," Kate said, accepting the joint and the lighter that came with it.

"You're going to smoke?" Antonia sounded shocked. She was sprawled on the back seat in wanton abandon, legs apart, her skin still tingling from the touch of Kate's fingers.

Kate lit up, glancing down at the feast spread out beneath her and took a long toke, half-closing her eyes as the familiar hit took effect. It had been a long time. Too long. "What are you worried about, cancer?" she asked, riffing off Linda Fiorentino's femme fatale in 'The Last Seduction'. "Problems with the traffic, James?" The road was absolutely clear.

"I'm afraid so, Ma'am," James said. "There might be a slight delay."

Kate passed the spliff to Toni, who looked dubious. "Oh, come on, live a little. There's more to life than team sports."

Toni took a puff and coughed.

"Inhale it slowly," Kate instructed. "Take it in."

Toni did her best and struggled a bit not to cough again. Her eyes teared up.

"It gets easier," Kate said.

Toni did it again and it DID get easier. Except that the music sounded different. It was complicated and it tickled her brain the same way Kate's hard fingertips touched her suddenly very sensitive skin. She couldn't work the music out, but she tried to and it led her down stranger and stranger pathways as she realised half an hour or three years or five seconds later that Kate was eating her left arm raw.

But there was no pain because she wasn't really eating her. Not yet. Just a bit of tongue which, to her sensitised skin, felt like a cat's. Rough but sensual. Tasting her, teasing her. She wouldn't feel it when she was really being eaten, she'd be dead by then.

Hurtling through the stars came the orchestra from Mars playing tunes which carried us away....

But that was just the music from the car's system. Except it really came from Kate's mind. All of that was inside her. Her tastes, her history, the presence she had, the way she'd enlisted the driver on her side, effortlessly. "You're Lilith," she said. "You're a witch."

"Now you're getting it," Kate said. "James...?"

"Waking the Witch or Lucifer Sam?"

"If you tell me you've got Lucifer Sam in your personal collection I'll fuck you before they chop me up."

"Promises..." James had let his Jeeves persona slip a bit and shifted to Spock mode. "Captain, it is an established fact that with 99.4 probability all higher intelligences have 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' recorded on indestructible crystal."

Antonia looked up at Kate again. "I'd ask how you do that, but I know I'll never know."

"What you're going to do," Kate said with surgically precise compassion, "Is the best spit ride anyone's ever seen. And I'll be there with you and I'll eat you. If anyone tries to get in the way of that I'll kill them."

Lucifer Sam, siam cat. Always sitting by your side Always by your side.

Antonia looked into Kate's eyes again and it was different now. There was another level. Mama Lion? More than that. Tiger? Not that either. Definitely a predator, but what sort exactly?

The cannabis was having its effect. Nothing had changed and everything was different. She remembered things she thought she'd forgotten and forgotten that she'd forgotten. A lover who had given her a book to read, one she hadn't really understood.. All that stuff about gravity lenses and black holes had gone over her head. There was a story in it that seemed relevant but she couldn't remember the words, so she tried to reconstruct it by the feel, building it intuitively from the shapes in her subconscious. It was something about wild animals and primitive humans.

"You'll kill them," she repeated blankly.

"If I have to," Kate said indifferently. Her assurance was overwhelming. The dope didn't seem to have affected her at all. Maybe it affected her differently or she was just used to it. Antonia recalled her saying "Long time ago, but it's like they say about riding a bike..."

"And then I'll eat you. You okay?"

Jennifer Gentle you're a witch....

"Just thinking..."

Now she remembered. To a wild animal, there is nothing more disturbing than the wailing of a human infant. The conflict. What was it? Yes, the arrogance of it. The human infant is the most defenseless creature on the planet, but it announces its presence where any other animal would stay silent. Its cry says 'Come and eat me, but...'

Now she could see Tigers crouched in Jungles in Kate's brown eyes. She had trapped them. They were caught in there. She could unleash them any time she liked.

You're the left side He's the right side. Oh, no! That cat's something I can't explain.

Come and eat me but you won't because Mum and Dad are the scariest motherfuckers in the jungle and if you try it you're a fur rug.

Be a hip cat, be a ship's cat. Somewhere, anywhere. That cat's something I can't explain. At night prowling sifting sand. Hiding around on the ground. He'll be found when you're around. That cat's something I can't explain.

"Roll with it," Kate said. "You're just coming up a bit. Takes a while to get your sea legs."

"He's the right side?" Antonia thought aloud, "That means...."

"Can't delay it much longer, Ma'am," James said politely. "We're nearly there."

"It means you're stoned," Kate said. "Okay, James, we're ready."

It took all of Antonia's strength of will to get out of the car without being helped, but she insisted on it. She would not look weak in Kate's eyes if it killed her. "I'm ready," she lied.

"You will be," Kate said, not fooled. "James, got another?"

The chauffeur handed her a joint which she stuck in a pocket of her RAF overcoat. To him she said "Thank you kindly." To Antonia she said "As, you said, let's party!"

Toni took Kate's hand as she was walked into the venue. "Through the house," somebody said. "The party is in the back yard." The details went by her in a blur of images until the host and hostess came to recieve them. They were smartly dressed, none of this undergraduate stuff with chicks in bikinis and blokes in shorts and T-shirts.

"We didn't order two," the woman said, eyeing Kate dubiously. "Is this the second course?" She gave the man (her husband?) a severe frown. "You didn't tell me.."

"She's my guest," Toni rasped out, surprised that she could still speak.

"It's all right, darling," the man said, "We discussed this on the 'phone..."

"Not with me," the woman said icily.

"Would somebody please have the courtesy to get the guest of honour a drink?" Kate asked politely.

The woman looked at Kate as if the Christmas turkey had spoken. Not quite angry, not with her, but a bit put out. She seemed to be working her way up to a bit of disdain. Kate looked back at her with a raised eyebrow that derailed it.

Toni, stoned and in love, saw it as a one-sided war of wills. It lasted a few seconds. The host woman, whatever, was an uptight upper-middle-class bitch out of love with her husband who probably drank too much just to forget that he was married to this shrew. He would be the one who would get her a drink.

Kate wore the incongruous RAF overcoat the way Batman wore the cape, apart from the fact that she was naked underneath it except from the meat lines that adorned her body like...

Like what? Warpaint, she remembered. Not so long ago. Kate made no attempt to close the coat, her powerful, musk-scented and sweat-stained body only framed by it. On a smaller woman it would have looked absurd. On her, it looked....oh my God...oh my Goddess...

"I'll get you a drink," the man said to Antonia. "What would you like?"

"Bring her a beer and a glass of red wine," Kate said. "She can decide." To Antonia, "A bit of alcohol will settle you down a bit. Trust me." To the woman, she held out her right hand.

"Kate Harris. Being auctioned at present. Thought I'd pass the time here. Hope you don't mind."

The woman looked taken even further aback, if that were possible. She glanced at the offered hand for a beat as if she didn't know what to do with it before taking it with scant enthusiasm and the limp grasp of a dead fish. "Angela Harris," she responded coldly.

"Pleased to meet you," Kate lied warmly. She'd been a member of a chess club once where her team Captain had warned her that the mentor of the opposing team had trained his charges in 'limp handshakes and contempt'.

Antonia looked on in delight as Kate refrained from crushing the woman's fingers as she easily could have. That would have been too crude. She watched Angela withdraw her hand like a slug slipping out of an open vice.

"Being auctioned, eh? How novel. Perhaps I'll put in a bid myself." She gave Kate's exposed flesh a deliberately appraising look, reminding her of her place. She didn't go quite so far as to ask her to remove the coat.

"Feel free," Kate responded. "The more I fetch, the more my husband gets. Would you like to see more?" She held the coat open. "What strikes your fancy?" Antonia suppressed a giggle. This was a slaughter, a mismatch. The referee in a boxing match would have stopped it as too bloody. "I'd love to say I'll return the compliment when your number comes up," Kate continued. She paused for just long enough as she looked Angela up and down. "But I'm afraid I can't." The ambiguity hung in the air for a second. "Sorry."

Brilliant, Toni thought. The bitch couldn't take offense without looking silly. Checkmate.

"Beer," the host said, "And wine."

Angela looked like she wanted to spit blood or slap Kate in the face. Of course, she wouldn't dare. She would tell herself that it would be crude and unseemly but everybody present knew that she was afraid of her. Not just of her obviously superior physical strength and certainly not of the martial arts she knew nothing about.

"Thank you," Antonia said politely.

"Something wrong, dear?" the host asked his wife.

"Take a sip of the wine," Kate suggested, ignoring the domestic squabble she'd thrown a spanner into. "Take a minute to breathe and then just shoot the rest down your throat. Then just sip the beer. It will smoothe you out."

"The voice of experience, right?" Toni was starting to stabilise. She sipped the wine and then gulped it.

"Trust me," Kate said. "What I tell you three times is true."

"That's a saying, right?" Fucking Hell, she'd said 'right?' again. What was Kate, fucking Yoda?

"Right. Would you prefer ''remember the mission'?"

"Pole dance, me; you; eat me," Toni telegraphed.

Angela had retreated somewhere but the host was still hovering about. "Um, we, er have to prepare you?" he suggested tentatively.

"Be there in a minute," Toni said. Fuck me pink and call me Charlie, she thought. He's scared of her too. "Just one thing..."

"?"

"Kate gets to eat me, right?"

Antonia pulled herself together just in time to see relief on the man's face. "She is a guest," he said. "As such, she will share in the feast."

"Nice to know," Kate said, pulling the second joint out of her pocket. "For I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. What we have to do now," she said to Antonia, "Is go insane."

"Do we have to?"

"Look around you," Kate said. "Isn't all of this insane?" She produced a lighter from another pocket. "It's all a dream. Most dreams you wake up from, this one you won't. So it's got to be the best dream you ever had."

Antonia was still struggling to make sense of this. "How did you get that lighter?" she wondered.

"Magic," Kate said. "Like this."

"Like what?"

"Fire." Kate lit the joint and took a heavy toke. "Flint and steel or piezzo electrics. It starts there and it ends up here." She glanced around the picnic ground like the predator she was, looking for the disintegrated psyches of the bored and decadent offspring of the filthy rich and scented blood.

Antonia didn't want to look around. She just wanted........

"Take a drag," Kate said and left. Antonia did as she was told. The world blurred again and then came into sharper focus

Some of the kids were setting up the sound system. They just about had it together. One of them, a ginger-haired youth, saw her coming and quailed.

Antonia imagined her wrapping her cloak about the youth's head like a vampire. That didn't really happen, did it? All she knew was that Kate had cast a spell again. She had no doubt that the magic, whatever it was, would work. The sound system burped and spat.

Love is a stranger In an open car, To tempt you in And drive you far away....

Well, that made sense.

And I want you And I want you And I want you so Its an obssession................

Lennox's vocals made the word as dirty and dangerous as it could be. Toni took another hit. Yes, roll with it. She missed the next bit and came in on:

Its savage and its cruel And it shines like destruction Comes in like the flood And it seems like religion Its noble and its brutal It distorts and deranges...

"You know," Antonia said. She passed the joint back, noting that her hands were steady.

"Beer working?"

"I'm level."

"We have to get you oiled," somebody said. Some nobody in expensive clothes who looked two- dimensional to Toni.

"So we do," Kate replied. "In our own time."

It was going to happen again, Antonia thought. She wanted it to.

"Who are you, her bodyguard?"

Toni wanted to see how Kate would do it and suddenly it all snapped into focus. The man was about equal to Kate in body weight and probably had the usual male advantage of upper body strength, but not by that much. He was standing flat-footed and off-balance and he just didn't SEE. She knew how it was to hit a hockey ball and just know when it was going to score. It was a kind of physical intuition and she knew that Kate knew how to do that when she fought and that the flatfoot wouldn't stand a chance.

"I'm her evil stepmother," Kate said. "Get the fuck out of my sight, you smarmy ponce or I'll kick the shit out of you."

Well, so much for subtlety, Antonia thought. She watched the smarmy ponce's mouth open as if to say something and she saw the import of Kate's words sink into his brain and cause the mouth to close again. He was moving in slow motion. She saw him accept the evidence of his senses that warned him not to fight the tiger and she saw him fighting to reject it. Humans read body language all the time but most of the time they aren't consciously aware of it. She wouldn't be aware of it herself, not being academically inclined, if she were not a hockey player who currently happened to be stoned. Hockey is a martial art, she realised.

As the ponce tried to decide what to do, she saw Kate's posture shift just a little bit. Adjusting her balance slightly against the possibility that she'd have to fight. That would be great, except...

It would be a mismatch again.

Its guilt edged Glamorous and sleek by design You know its jealous by nature False and unkind Its hard and restrained And its totally cool It touches and it teases As you stumble in the debris

Were they playing that again or was she just remembering it? She lost track for a minute.

"What did you just say?" SP demanded. He was defiant and afraid, scared shitless and refusing to admit it.

Kate stepped forward and he flinched. She put her right hand on his shoulder. "Points for trying, but no cigar. Good for you." His right hand clenched. She leaned further in and spoke into his ear. "A word to the wise: Don't try it again." In all of that confrontation, she hadn't let go of the joint; she had just moved it to her left hand. She walked past the SP and took a casual hit before holding it out. "Coming?"

Antonia saw that the SP had tears in his eyes. "Yes," she said, accepting the joint. She hadn't begun to plumb the depths of Kate's fury. She'd always thought of herself as assertive, maybe a bit aggressive, but she'd never seen anyone destroy an opponent's ego as brutally as that. She inhaled. "It would have been kinder to punch him out," she said. "Not to criticise or anything..."

Kate shrugged. "Colour me EEvil with two captial 'e's. Colour me don't give a fuck. If I beat him up, there'd be a commotion and you wouldn't get your pole ride."

"And that's important because?"

"You know why."

Because Kate had a mission. Her daughter was gone and all she had left was to protect her, Antonia. "You could say it's because you like me or something."

"I do, I like you a lot. You know that. Do you think I'd have done what I've done if I hadn't?"

"I love you, Kate," Toni said. She couldn't believe she'd just said that.

"I know," Kate said. She didn't see any need to suggest that it was a passionate infatuation under the pressure of extraordinary circumstances. In the present situation, it didn't make any difference. Antonia would love her for the rest of her life, leave it at that.

"Yes, I know it's crazy and you don't love me the same way...." She couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't cliched.

"I'm too old and too married to fall in love that quickly," Kate said, "My daughter is gone and I'll never see my husband again. This is all I have left. For what it's worth, I'm flattered."

"Could you promise you'll really enjoy eating me like you said in the car? Don't lie. I'll know." In her present state she would, too.

Kate braced Antonia's shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "I will. I don't have much longer to go than you do. I couldn't wish for a better last meal. That's the truth; will it do?"

Antonia managed a wry smile. "It'll have to, won't it? When they put me on the spit, I'll be dancing for you."

Kate wrapped Antonia in her coat and her strong arms and hugged her. Then she let her go. "Okay, enough of the sloppy stuff. Pass that joint."

Toni passed it. She walked on. To the pool where she would be bathed in rich unguents, frankincense and myrrh, whatever they were. To that pool inside the forest in whose waters she would drown. Where had that come from, Kate's head?

Kate sang softly:

Look at the sky, Look at the river, Isn't it gooooood...

And the song came on the stereo. Was Kate controlling the music too? Antonia looked up. The sky was blue. Amazing. She didn't see any river, but what the fuck. The blue sky was good. How was Kate doing this? Retroactive RNA transfer? She didn't even know what that was, she'd just pieced together a couple of things she'd read or seen on TV. Suppose the fact that Kate would eat her soon meant that they had a telepathic link that worked backwards in time?

Kate put the mobile phone back in her pocket. She waved to the ginger dude she'd enlisted. Her familiar waved back.

The oiling table was crowded with people eager to lay their hands on the flesh of the sacrificial maiden. Antonia didn't like that.

"Hi, folks," Kate said. "Fuck off. All except you, Henri. You and I will do it. First this." She turned to Toni and put the joint in her mouth, then put her own mouth over the lit end and blew the holy smoke straight into Toni's lungs.

Time slipped. Antonia could have sworn that things happened out of order. Was she on or off the table when this happened?

"Who died and put you in charge?" some arsehole said. One of the ones who'd wanted to oil her.

Oh, yes, she was on the table and not quite sure how she'd got there.

"Nobody. Yet," Kate said.

Things came back into focus. A big youth stripped to the waist. Lots of muscles. If he said anything, Toni didn't hear it, the world was spinning. At some point, Kate had said "Seriously good shit."

"I don't want to fight you," Kate said absently. She picked the 'phone back out of her pocket and said "Your Majesty is like a Cream Doughnut." Ginger Nut responded and the music changed.

"Yeah, I bet." Sneer, swagger, whatever.

"Fighting bad. Fire bad, tree pretty?" Kate tried, eyebrow raised. "No?"

"What is this, Karate Kid the sequel?"

"That and Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Kate said. She made a rotary motion with her right hand. "Wax on." She did the same with her left hand. "Wax off."

The arsehole looked on with a mocking expression. He was really trying for contemptuous indifference, Toni saw, but what he was actually doing was looking at Kate's tits. The last hit from the joint worked on her and she saw all the movements clearly.

The arsehole laughed. "Oh, do it again. I can really see you beating the crap out of me with moves like those."

What he actually liked was the way it made Kate's coat move.

"You are not truly looking, grasshopper," Kate said. "Concentrate." She moved her right hand again. "Wax on..."

Antonia saw it coming this time, but she didn't know exactly WHAT was coming, she could just see something in Kate's body language.

"Wax off.."

Toni saw the arsehole's eyes flick beween Kate's left hand and her tits and then Kate's right hand moved too fast to see. Not a fancy move at all; she just punched the arsehole in the nose with her fist. He fell over, bleeding and stung.

"Fugging bidge hid be," the arsehole said. "Ged er."

The arseholes friends rhubarbed. Kate ignored it.

"Really think you can take us all?" arsehole number two challenged.

"No," Kate said. "But here's the news. The first one who touches me or fucks with Antonia dies. Literally. Ever seen anyone die from a blow to the larynx? They go out fighting for breath, so I'm told. I'd love to try it. Me? I'm going to die soon anyway so I don't care. Who's first? Your move."

Antonia didn't believe that Kate couldn't have taken them all. In her mind, Kate was the personification of all the classic invincible warrior heroines: Wonder Woman, Xena, Red Sonja, Modesty Blaise, Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, Shkai'ra....maybe even the terrible Amanda Blake. Of course she knew that they were all fictional characters. Nobody could do what they did in real life. Part of her feared for her very real and vulnerable Kate.

Arsehole three said, "She's bluffing."

"About what?" Kate said indifferently. "That I'll kill the next time you make me fight? Try me. One last chance...."

Arsehole one got up. "Wad a do staddig aboud fo?" he inquired of his posse. "Ged er.."

"What, big man like you can't get it up on his own?" Kate mocked. "Need your little helpers?"

"Fuck this for a game of soldiers," the least moronic member of the monkey troupe said. "You want her, YOU take her." He walked away. The others went with him.

The host turned up, attracted by the commotion. "What's going on here?"

Arsehole one started to say something and then his brain, such as it was, caught up with his mouth.

"He annoyed me, so I hit him," Kate said. "He's a bit cross about it. Can we get on with the party now, or..." She let that hang in the air.

The host wasn't stupid. "Get out," he told the arsehole. "Now."

"Be? Bud..."

"I've put up with your shit for too long. Out, and don't come back."

"Nod fair..."

"We could fight for it," Kate suggested. "Just you and me. Wouldn't want to be accused of being 'unfair', would we?" The dig was as subtle as a slap in the face.

Antonia watched the arsehole's face and body language. She could almost read his mind. Kate was big for a woman, but he was much bigger. She had only beaten him the first time by a cheap trick. On the other hand, she hadn't even seemed to be trying hard and that first punch had hit like a hammer; his head was still ringing. Girls don't hit like that. What other tricks did she have up her sleeve? And if he lost...his whole body tensed up. His bloodied nose was making it hard to breathe.

Kate hadn't assumed a defensive posture at all; her arms were down by her sides, relaxed, hands open. Her expression was faintly amused. "Idiot nephew?" she inquired. The unwelcome relative you have to invite or dear old Aunt Aggie gets offended, she guessed.

"Something like that," the host said wryly. "Well, Eddie?" he invited the arsehole to respond to the challenge.

Idiot Nephew gave him a look of incredulous outrage. He'd obviously been hoping the host would forbid the fight and let him off the hook.

"You do realise that, if we fight, I'll kill him?" Kate warned politely. She didn't say 'if I win'.

"And you'll let him go if he leaves?" Kate nodded. The host shrugged. "Okay, then. His choice, his funeral." He crossed his arms.

Oh, you hate him that much? Idiot nephew was turning an interesting shade of red, Antonia thought. She looked at Kate again and Kate smiled back. She wasn't feigning nonchalance, she realised, she really wasn't worried. On impulse, she said, "You could offer him my pussy if he wins."

"All right," the host said, to her surprise. By now a few people had drifted up to watch the confrontation. "You hear that?" he asked the arsehole. "Filet if you win." His tone said 'fat chance'.

Eddie glanced at the girl. She was sitting on the edge of the table, feet dangling, palms flat down by her sides, knees apart to flaunt the delicious prize. She was smiling, taunting him. He knew she didn't want him to have her; she didn't like him. She wanted to get him killed. He looked back at Kate, who was also smiling. One quick rush, using all his weight, that's all it would take.....he started to move, jerkily, and the tall woman didn't flinch, didn't react at all, and he stopped as if he'd hit a wall. One quick rush, he realised, that's what the bull thinks before the sword goes in. And he'd almost gone for it. His heart pounded with reaction. "You're not worth it," he told the girl, looking aside, his voice hoarse. Anything but look at that fucking....whatever she was....again.

"Sorry about the fuss," Kate told the host for form's sake as the idiot shouldered his way past the watchers, some of whom were making chicken noises.

"Don't be, I'm not," the host replied. "It was past time somebody took him down a peg or two. I owe you one. Now, can we get on? Or is there anybody else you have to beat up?"

"Not if nobody bothers me," Kate said equably.

"I'll see the word gets round," the host said drily. "It's John, by the way." He offered his hand, Kate gave her name and they shook.

Antonia was swinging her feet, leaning forward with her hands on the edge of the table. "Does that mean Kate gets the prize?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes, it does," John said after the briefest pause. (Toni woohoo'd) "Only fair." There hadn't technically been a fight, but Kate had won all the same.

Kate raised her eyebrows. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

John shook his head. "I said I owed you and I won't get another chance to pay it back, will I? It was worth it, trust me."

Worth a prime filet to get rid of Eddie the oik? Come to think of it, it probably was. He wouldn't be showing his face around here for a long time. "Thanks anyway." She turned to Antonia and rubbed her hands together. "Okay, lets get started." She took off her coat. "Ready, Henri?"

The man in the cook's apron opened his mouth to say his name wasn't really Henri, then thought better of it. He nodded. Antonia sprawled back on the table and spread her legs, arms behind her head. "Do me," she said, as if she were asking for a rubdown with suntan lotion. Kate and Henri scooped up oil from a large bowl and started to apply it.

"This takes me back," Toni mused pleasantly. "I used to do this with a friend when I was younger. We took it in turns to be the roaster."

"How sweet. It's nice when kids can make their own fun," Kate said, rubbing oil into her legs. "And I suppose, since then, this is the way you always wanted to go when your number came up."

"Mm-hm."

"Is that why you went in for sports?"

"I don't know, really, I never thought of it like that. Might have been part of it, I suppose. I've always been the active, outdoorsy sort and I like a little organised violence."

"Hence the hockey." Kate worked the oil deeper into Antonia's muscular thighs. "Let off a bit of steam and develop some good meat on the drumsticks at the same time?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Kate couldn't argue with that. "Anyway, I'm not in your league when it comes to real violence. Did you know he'd back down like that?"

"I thought he probably would. Most muscle boys never learn to fight properly; they think they don't need to. Besides, one punch and he was calling for help. Not exactly the heroic sort, I guessed."

"And if he hadn't....?"

"I'd have killed him. A promise is a promise, after all."

"How?"

"Whatever came up. You work with what's there. If he charges, use his weight against him, then, once he's down, stamp on anything vulnerable or painful that's exposed, really hard. Balls, shins, kneecaps, solar plexus, nose, throat, whatever. Repeat as necessary until he's helpless and then break something vital."

"I must have missed that bit of Karate Kid," Toni said. Henri, working on her torso, was beginning to look a little nervous. "Oh, don't worry, she only kills people who REALLY annoy her. Mmm, that's nice. Bit more up there?"

Kate laughed. "She's kidding. I haven't killed anybody yet, as far as I know."

"You're not sure?" Henri wasn't reassured.

"Oh, there was a mugger once, or a rapist; it was dark and I didn't think to ask. I may have overreacted, I was a bit miffed, I think. I broke a few things, but when I left he was still groaning and I never heard any more about it so I suppose he survived. I doubt if he'll reproduce, though."

Ginger Nut appeared behind Kate and said "Um..." Kate turned round and he backed up a step, raising his hands. "You didn't answer your phone, and I thought..." he trailed off, trying not to be caught ogling her fully exposed physique.

"The 'phone's in my coat, sorry. Oh, take a good look," Kate said. "Last chance. It'll be on people's plates tomorrow."

"Um....yes...er...what do you want on next?"

"Seal, second album I think. 'Crazy' and 'Kiss From a Rose'?"

GN nodded, two thumbs up. "No prob. After?"

"Whatever you like 'til I text you again. I'm sure I can trust you."

"That's how you did it," Toni said. "I thought it was magic."

Kate cocked her head. "Magick? It was. Magick is just making things happen the way you want them to. Demons or DJ's, you work with what's there."

"You forgot the 'little grasshopper' bit."

"I ate a grasshopper once," Kate said. "I expect you to taste a LOT better."

The music came on and Toni missed some of the lyrics because of what Kate was doing to her legs with those strong, predator's fingers. The voice was sublime and just complemented the sensations.

And through a fractal on that breaking wall I see you my friend and touch your face again Miracles will happen as we trip But we're never gonna survive unless We get a little crazy No we're never gonna survive ...

This was impossible, Tracie thought. Her belly was empty and Dave had spent what seemed like hours cutting her arms and legs into neat slices and she was still alive. Of course, it couldn't really have been that long but he certainly wasn't hurrying.

"I think it interferes with the blood circulation as well as the heart rate," Dave mused aloud, talking about the collar. "The flow to the limbs is nearly cut off so you don't bleed out fast, but whatever is left goes to the brain. Bit like hibernation, only you're awake."

Dave had decided not to take Tracie's filet right away, but to see if he could push the envelope on how long he could keep her alive. He had been polite enough to ask her first.

"Oh, why not," Tracie had said in the near-whisper she had come to accept as normal. "I don't have anything else to do today." Dave had proceeded to section her limbs, one by one, from the extremities inward, so they remained attached until the end. Occasionally he would stop and lift another pile of girlmeat steaks onto a tray. Tracie considered that most of her must be gone by now, as a lot of a woman's weight is in her legs. "Tell me if you feel yourself going," he had offered as he worked his way up her left leg. "Assuming you still want me to take your filet while you're alive?" Tracie had assured him that she did.

"Amazing," he said at last. "I never thought you'd last this long. How do you feel?"

"A bit light-headed and sort of tingly," Tracie said. Actually, she felt oddly euphoric. Amost..

"No pain?"

Comfortably numb? She remembered the music from an old record album of her mother's. There is no pain, you are receding? Something about a ship's smoke on the horizon. You are only coming through in waves...she couldn't put it together in order, she just recalled the feeling of loss, a melancholy, and, at the end, a blistering guitar solo that reeked of a desperation that should have peeled paint off the wall. It had left her with an uncomfortable insight for a teenager: that her mother knew a few things that she didn't. Maybe a lot of things. She had done her best to ignore it ever since. As one does.

"No, I feel a bit, well, high?"

"Want to see what your steaks look like?"

"Yes," Tracie said, "A thigh steak." Like the one she'd eaten, from the girl they'd decided to call 'Julie'. "The right one." She remembered her mother saying "Because your father will be having it for dinner, along with your left breast and a steak from your right thigh." "Lucky man," Antonia had said. "The classic 'crosscut' or connoisseur's selection. He'll be dining well tonight. Nice one, Kate."

Dave showed her the steak from her own leg. It looked like good meat to her. She'd have eaten it, if her mother had cooked it for her. She felt a tear trickle out of her left eye. Her mother wouldn't be cooking for her ever again.

"Something wrong?" Dave inquired solicitously.

Apart from the obvious? "No, that looks great," she said. No use being maudlin now. "Can I see my breast? The left one?"

"No problem," Dave said, apparently inclined to indulge her. He fetched the platter with both her breasts on it, turned so the left one was nearer her, and angled it slightly. With his left hand under her neck, he lifted and turned her head gently to give her a better view.

"Beautiful," Tracie said, "I mean, good job, really." The breasts did look like some sort of exotic dessert, firm but not rigid, like little blancmanges with a neat, pink nipple on each. Just a little blood had leaked out, like raspberry sauces around their edges, which had been perfectly cut, of course. She wondered how Dad would cook his without Mum there. Not that he was a bad cook or anything, but...

"All right?"

"Yes," Tracie said and Dave put her head down. He was probably about ready to finish her off and get his lunch, she thought. "Thanks for showing me."

"Think nothing of it. I don't often get a chance to show off my work to the, er, client?" He made a face, looking vaguely apologetic at being unable to find the right word.

"Must be past your lunchtime by now," Tracie said lightly. "Sorry to have kept you."

"Hardly your fault," Dave said. "It's been very interesting, and I lost track of time. But you're right." He looked a bit put out, thought not at her. "I'm getting hungry. I don't want to finish you off in a hurry, but I shouldn't work with my blood sugar low, either. I didn't schedule this properly, you see, it's all a bit new." He paused. "I could just nip out for a minute and grab a Mars bar, I suppose.."

"Yuck," Tracie said with as much distaste as she could put into a whisper. "You don't want to be eating junk like that. Get a decent sandwich or something, at least. I think I'll last a while longer."

"I shouldn't leave you here on your own," Dave said thoughtfully. He brightened. "I know what, I'll grab a sandwich in the caff and bring it back here. Is that okay?"

"Fine by me. Is that allowed? Eating lunch in the cutting rooms?"

"If I don't ask, nobody can say 'no', can they? Don't tell anybody." He gave her a conspiratorial wink.

"I promise. What are you having?"

"A steak sandwich." Dave picked something up. "One of yours, in honour of the occasion. I'll have them flash fry it, I like my girl meat rare."

"Much better," Tracie approved, feeling quite flattered. A moment of anxiety. "Not my upper right thigh? It's..."

"Reserved, yes, I know. Just the one right at the top, though. There's plenty more just below that. Don't worry, I'll declare it. Back in a tick."

Dave disappeared, leaving Tracie alone with her thoughts. There wasn't much to look at, so she closed her eyes, wondering what her parents were doing. Her father should still be flying home, oblivious to what had happened to his family. Mother was being auctioned. She smiled. That was something to be proud of. What would she be doing while she waited? Mum never had been much for hanging about and doing nothing. She amused herself with speculations and reminiscenses until Dave returned, like something awakening her from a dream with sudden noises and the smell of breakfast. Hot meat. Hers. She opened her eyes. "Hi," she whispered.

"Miss me?" Dave joked. He dragged up a stool or something, she heard the scrape on the floor. "This is good stuff," he added through a mouthful of the sandwich he had already started.

"Mm," Tracie acknowleged, giving him time to take the edge off his hunger.

"No, it really is," Dave said after a moment for chewing and swallowing.

"Don't gulp it, I'll wait." Dave nodded and grunted in mid-chew and their was companionable silence for a minute or two. "Do you have any daughters?" Tracie mused at last.

"Five," Dave said between bites. "Six originally, but.." he shrugged.

No point asking what had happened to the other one. "If it's not a rude question, what would you do if they turned up here?"

Dave didn't take offense. "One of them already has. Fiona."

Unasked question answered. "Did you..."

"Yes. I did her myself. I insisted on it."

"Didn't it bother you to...sorry, I shouldn't ask."

"No, natural question. Yes, it did bother me, but not as much as it would have letting somebody else do it. Put yourself in my place, what would you have done?"

"If you want a job done right...?" Tracie guessed sympathetically.

"Exactly," Dave nodded. "She dressed down well, too; I was proud of her. She was a Grade 'A' like you."

Tracie had never thought much about Stockholm syndrome and the fact that she was bonding with her butcher didn't strike her as odd at all. Gutted and limbless, what else was there for her to do? She'd heard once that goldfish had only a three second attention span, which was why they never got bored swimming around the same goldfish bowl day after day, but the kicker was what happened if the goldfish bowl broke and they gasped out their lives on the carpet. If it took them more than three seconds to die, that's how they'd end up, spending the whole of their lives dying. That's all they'd know about the Universe before it all ended. Did it matter, anyway? Would it matter how she'd spent her last three seconds after she was dead? She wondered again what her mother was doing now, if anything. She'd never know. From somewhere in memory, she heard music. "Like leaves we touch.." Once upon a time, she had been a young girl and she'd known people and had things to do and places to go. The wind had separated the branches. That time had gone and she was just meat on a table, alive after her time. "Good sandwich?" she asked lightly.

"Very good," Dave said, brushing crumbs away. "Ready for the finish?"

"Ready," Tracie said. She was a nice girl, after all; she had been brought up that way. She wouldn't want the man who was about to kill her to feel uncomfortable about it. Besides, what good would it do her?

Kate worked the oil into Toni's loins very carefully. She was a pretty good cook, but preparing a whole woman was something outside her normal experience. It hadn't been hard doing the feet and the legs, but this was delicate work. The filet would be hers and she didn't want it spoiled, as much for Antonia's sake as hers. Antonia would never know if she'd really enjoyed it, but she didn't want to have to lie to her memory even for the little time she had left. It was irrational, she knew, but no more so than leaving flowers on a gravestone.

And did you know That when it snows My eyes become large and the light that you show can't be seen...

"Do you want to spit her?"

Kate, eyes blinded for a second, turned around. A man looking nervous. Was she really so fearsome?

"No," she said. "I don't know how to do it right and it has to be done right." She was half aware that she was talking like a person who had English as a second language or a translator program. "Get someone who can..." do it right, she thought. She looked back at Antonia, who was smiling at her fondly.

"I knew you cared," Toni said. "Don't worry, Kate, my love. You did it ALL right. Everything. I wish I could be there for you, but I can't. I'll never be as strong as you are and that's okay. Let me go, and enjoy me." She got up on her knees and elbows. "Do it, guys."

As the spit entered Antonia, somebody to Kate's left said something in pidgin American. It sounded like 'Woohoo, meat on a stick' and Kate's left hand moved on its own like a scythe. She stopped the move barely in time, leaving the speaker gasping on the grass and not quite dead. Killing him might have caused problems for Antonia's last dance and that would be wrong.

The host - John - turned up. "Oh dear," he said. "Problem?"

"Not any more," Kate said. "He won't be able to talk for a bit."

"You did say you weren't going to beat anybody else up?" John suggested mildly.

"What I said was 'not if nobody bothers me'," Kate said flatly. "He was disrespectful to Antonia. I could say I'm sorry but we'd both know I wasn't, so I won't insult your intelligence by pretending."

John nodded. "You do realise that your friend is going to be roasted and eaten? I trust you have no objection to that?"

Kate shook her head. "No. That was always going to happen. I can't save her. If you don't do it, she'll be taken down one way or another whatever I do, I know that. This is the way she wants it; all I want is to see her through it and I will do that and I will not tolerate anyone being rude to her or spoiling this for her in any way. You can bring in armed guards and have me dragged out or just...." She was lost for words for a second. "Have me shot. Kill me...." For a moment, she felt almost defeated. She could have overplayed her hand. If John really wanted her taken out, he could call in any number of resources, she had no doubt.

"But you have promises to keep, and miles to go before you sleep?"

Kate smiled, a little wearily. She let out a held breath. "Yes," she said.

"I find you refreshing," John said. "Feel free to disable anyone else who's rude to your friend, but don't kill them or try to prevent her being eaten."

"She has to be eaten," Kate said.

"Then we have an understanding?"

"We do."

Henri and his assistants were moving the spit through Toni's innards with practised expertise. Kate picked up a kitchen towel somebody had left on the ground, wiped the oil off her hands and put her coat back on.

"It's an interesting idea," Dave said. "I've never taken a filet like that before. Do you really think it will work that way?"

"I read about it in a magazine," Tracie said. "There was a theory that if you cut it out while the woman is having an orgasm, it will taste better. Or have aphrodisiac properties. Something like that; it was a few years ago."

"What magazine was that?"

"Oh, I don't know. 'Bunty' or 'Girl's Weekly', something like that. You know, lots of stuff about fashion, hairdos and boy bands and a few improving articles on preserving the environment and how to be good meat."

"Not exactly a professional trade journal, then?" Dave sounded dubious. It all seemed a bit like hocus pocus to him. Ground, powdered tiger's penises and rhino horn; Chinese medicine. Bullshit.

When Tracie had proposed the idea, she had expected Dave to be sceptical. "The article did say it was hard to do and not many people had managed it," she said. "But that was because the women didn't keep still while they were being, um...harvested?"

In fact, she'd almost completely forgotten the article, despite its having inspired some of her earliest masturbatory fantasies. She'd googled a few references, as one does, and downloaded them to read later, which she hadn't, and gone on to the usual stuff teenaged girls do: celebrity gossip and pictures of Johnny Depp.

"I see," Dave said. "With the collar on, you can't move about much..." There was a reason the prime cut wasn't usually taken while the donor was alive; it was delicate work. But just maybe....

Tracie sensed that he was actually considering it. Not bad, considering that she'd come up with it from some crackpot stuff she'd half-read ages ago and the sensations she'd felt when Dave had been taking her guts out. Well, you have to think fast when you don't have much time left. "Oh, go on, give it a try, what have you got to lose? Be a pioneer."

The idea did have a certain appeal. It would ensure his place at the top of his trade, on the cutting edge, so to speak. And if it didn't work? One ruined grade A filet. They'd hardly fire him for that, not when he was working with new technology. Would they? If he didn't try it, what would he be? Over the hill, on the downslide.

Tracie saw him struggling with it. She remembered Fiona. "And if another one of your daughters comes in here..." she hinted.

It was a shrewd hit. Dave was a family man; he'd want to give his own kids a good sendoff if he could. He gave her a wry smile. "You're sharp," he said. "I don't think I want to meet your mother if she's anything like you."

"Mum's a sweetie," Tracie said. "Are we going to do this?"

Kate pulled the phone out of her coat pocket and pressed the button that summoned her demon. "Four Sticks," she said. "Right now and very loud. And then...." she thought for a second and rattled off a few more commands. She put the phone back and moved to a position where Antonia could see her clearly as the spit worked its way through her body. There wouldn't be much time and she wasn't about to stand around and wait when there was nothing she could do. Antonia was going to dance for her, so...

The pounding, driving beat of 'Four Sticks' came on, cutting through the very air like a machete mowing down everything in its path, and Kate danced to it. This wasn't something you'd get tranced out to in a disco full of wasted, febrile teenagers on ecstasy, this was a wardance and Kate made it up as she went along. The coat didn't impede her, it became part of the dance as she worked all her katas, all her martial arts training, all her passions into it. She danced for Tracie, for Antonia, for her husband, for all the people who would eat her, for her life. It was something only a very strong woman could have done, it was muscular and dangerous and the paint on her body ran and warped into strange patterns from the heat and the sweat.

The music changed rhythm into something surreal.

And when the owls cry in the night, Oh, Baby, Baby, when the pines begin to cry, Baby, Baby, Baby, how do you feel? If the river runs dry, Baby,

How do you feel?

Kate danced the question to Antonia, as if Robert Plant's vocals were her own voice, and saw the answer in her eyes. Toni was loving the attention she gave her.

The hammering, relentless beat came back.

Craze, Baby, the rainbow's end, Baby, it's just a den For those who hide, who hide their love to depths of life And ruin dreams that we all knew so, Babe.

Kate danced that, too, how she understood that Antonia had been open to love and that she appreciated it.

Ginger Nut finished programming the coming selection in time to catch the performance, or most of it. "Fuck me," he muttered in something like awe. ("Not while there's dogs on't street," somebody quipped predictably) "Did anybody get that on tape?"

Gareth had the videocam running. "Getting it," he snapped.

What Kate did with 'The Immigrant Song' had to be seen to be believed. Some of the onlookers were convinced that she was about to go berserk and kill everybody in sight, so they left.

Kate felt she had just enough time left to perform 'Stairway to Heaven' before the spit emerged from Antonia's mouth. She had to do it so she could pass the dance on, as she'd seen that Antonia was picking it up, convulsing around the spit as if dancing with her, with the music as she interpreted it.

"Who the fuck IS she?" somebody asked.

"Buggered if I know," Ginger Nut said. "But she can have my balls on a plate any time she likes."

"Say that louder; she looks like she might take you up on it."

"If I could shag her first, it would be worth it." He was only half joking. It was absurd, he knew. Or he might have known or would know when he came down, but sometimes you're so high you just don't care and he knew now why teenage girls throw their panties at rock stars. They were just being silly, of course, the boys in boy bands were just, well, boys. Shiny, glittering, talentless ephemerals. Kate was...magnificent. All woman. Nonpareil. She made all the girls he'd ever met look like pale, insipid shadows.

Kate felt the momentary weariness she'd experienced drop away as she danced. Instead of tiring her, the dance energised her. One problem, at least, had dropped off her shoulders; she had found the right way to salute Antonia..

And Antonia gave her the 'thumbs up' and the smile as the spit came out of her mouth. She was meat now and, maybe because she, Kate, had danced for her, happy about it.

"Are we going to do this?"

Dave considered it again. Not being stupid, he knew perfectly well that Tracie was arguing from self interest; she wanted to go out on a high, of course. He could hardly blame her for that, but it shouldn't influence his decision. Or should it? After all, he wasn't some heartless, meat cutting robot, he was a man, and he did rather like the girl. Why not? Besides, her arguments were persuasive. He didn't really believe the bit about filets harvested during orgasm tasting better, but if the proposition wasn't tested scientifically, how would anyone know for sure? He was in the perfect position to do it, and he had a co-operative subject. Some would call this a no-brainer - an obvious choice in the American dialect - but professional pride compelled him to make his own decisions. He really could be a pioneer...

Okay, come on, it WAS a no-brainer. He gave Tracie a wry but not unfriendly smile, like a chess player conceding that an opponent had made a good move. Or was that right? This didn't have to be a zero-sum game. Both of them could benefit. Are we going to do this? He reached the inevitable decision. He'd never forgive himself if he didn't at least try.

"Yes, we are," he said. He selected the tools he'd need to harvest Tracie and then finish her off humanely.

Tracie summoned all her memories of half forgotten self-appreciation classes to brace herself for the task of meeting her inevitable fate. "Go ahead," she said. "Do me proud. Do us both proud." She felt a sense of release that was not unlike erotic surrender. It was literally the ultimate submission. She was about to give her all. Not that she'd had any choice in the matter but, in the end, it did make a difference to how she felt about it.

"You might have to help me a bit," Dave said. "I've never done this before."

"That's two of us," Tracie pointed out. "Two virgins." She smiled. "We'll just have to wing it."

Dave started by examining her filet with his fingers, feeling the texture of the labia and gently unveiling the clitoris. This really was a good one, one of the best he'd had to work with. He bent down and sniffed appreciatively. It was a familiar scent. Healthy young female, with more than a touch of the musk of arousal. "This is very good," he told Tracie. He noted almost dispassionately that he had an erection. Well, that happened sometimes when he was dissecting a particularly good looking girl. His wife knew about it, of course, though he'd never actually told her about it. ("Chopped up a nice one today?" she'd sometimes tease when he was especially passionate in bed.) Wives just know things like that. He usually avoided coming in his pants by concentrating on the job in hand, though there had been a few accidents early in his career. Pleasure deferred; cutters had to master that if they want to stay in the trade. That and a prudent selection of loose trousers. The first time he'd had to chop up a real hottie he'd had a tight pair of Levis on. It was an occupational hazard, like medical students getting over fainting the first time they see a dead body.

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

"No, really," He remembered that this had been pre-booked too. He dismissed a flicker of worry that this might be a problem if he botched it. Faint heart never won fair lady, as they say. "I envy the man who gets it."

"My Dad," Tracie admitted. She sounded just a little embarrassed, with a soupcon of suppressed eagerness.

"Ah, I see," Dave said. The Elektra complex, he'd once read, wasn't so much a psychological aberration as a normal stage of development. All young girls went through it, unless their fathers were seriously unfanciable. The same applied in reverse, of course. A girl would have to be pretty ugly for her father not to fancy her when she hit puberty. Fiona hadn't been ugly at all. "Lucky man," he said.

Lucky? Tracie wondered if her father would see it that way. She remembered her mother saying "Well, if he's losing his wife and daughter, he should at least get a good meal out of it." She also remembered "Look on the bright side". Mum always did have a way of seeing the positive in things, the glass half full rather than half empty. She was sure her Dad would miss her, or at least she hoped he would, but what better memorial could she have than to be delicious when he ate her? It was axiomatic that all fathers would like to eat their daughters; it was in all the Self- Appreciation for Dummies textbooks. Be delicious, it is your duty. With a few minutes to live, she considered her options; be delicious or argue with Dave about it. No-brainer. "Thanks," she said.

Thanks? He was about to kill her. Dave felt a twinge of regret, something he experienced occasionally but usually dismissed as pointless sentimentality. It was the destiny of women to become food, a perfectly natural end, everybody knew that. Silly to get upset about it just because one of his clients was oddly likeable. His job was just to see that she was processed properly, and that was that. He'd heard that pig farmers sometimes felt the same way with pigs they'd become attached to when the inevitable day of slaughter arrived. Maybe it was because this one had stayed alive so long. He'd known Fiona - sired her himself, and hadn't that been fun? - for a lot longer than that. Why did he feel uncertain and....nervous? Because he'd never finished a woman in such an intimate way? Two virgins, indeed. He shook his head and smiled wryly at his own foolishness. "You're welcome," he said. It wasn't as if there was anything he could do to save the girl; she was gutted and limbless. She'd die on her own if he didn't do another thing. He took up a blade and ran it lightly around Tracie's pudendum, looking for the best place to start the final cut. Could he brace the cut by reaching inside her? He slipped his left hand into her belly, feeling for her sweet spot.

Tracie fought the neural collar as best she could. She wanted to buck and thrust, but she was trapped like a sleeper feebly kicking blankets in a panic. She only managed a few twitches, but Dave felt it.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked, concerned.

"No," Tracie gasped. "Can you turn it down a bit? The collar?"

"I. I...suppose that might be possible. But there may be some discomfort...."

"I don't care if it hurts!"

Or ruins the filet if you move too much? Tracie, not being a professional, probably hadn't considered that, Dave thought. He could have told her that, but he didn't have the heart to. He wasn't a sadist. He remembered an old joke:

Masochist: "Beat me!"

Sadist: "No."

"All right," he said. He had glanced briefly at the instruction booklet and he knew that there were no fine controls to allow more movement without lowering the pain block. Somebody really should have thought of that. He'd make a note in his report; maybe they'd add that feature in the MkII. Still, he didn't want her to move too much anyway, so there shouldn't be too much pain. He tweaked a dial on the side of the collar. "How does that feel?" he asked.

"Kinda tingly," Tracie said. She tried to arch her back and could swear she felt some movement. "It's okay."

Dave reached inside her again, feeling around carefully.

"Oh!" Tracie gasped and bucked slightly, causing the smallest twitch of her hips. Dave continued to grope her, causing sensations she'd never felt before. Not like this. "Oh my God!" The familiar onset of a mounting orgasm swept through her like a tidal wave. The intensity was almost unbearable. She felt Dave other hand touch her clitoris. "Yes!" And then her whole body was awash with sensation, every nerve burning as if she'd been eaten alive and was being digested. "Take me," she managed to gasp and instinctively tried to spread the stumps of her legs further apart, trying to split herself up the middle. She wanted to be torn apart. Then she felt the knife entering her flesh, harvesting her centre, and she surrendered to it eagerly. A wry voice in the back of her mind said 'I hope you enjoy this half as much as I did, Daddy,' and then she was beyond thought. Her mind went white.

And Dave harvested her, working with the inspiration of a true artist whose celestial Muse has got her mouth well around his balls, working with the girl's faint twitches as if the pair of them were in concert, as if they were making love. Afterwards, he couldn't quite remember exactly how he'd done it but, when at last he held the filet in his hand, he knew it had been done perfectly. He placed the precious flesh on a tray with something like reverence and went to see how Tracie was doing.

Tracie's eyelids fluttered. She had been away somewhere for a moment. Her whole body glowed as if she were being cooked already. Dave was looking down at her with paternal concern. She smiled. "Is it done?"

Dave nodded. "It's done. A good job too, if I say so myself. Want to see?"

Tracie sighed, not unhappily. "No need. I know it's right. Finish me now."

Dave nodded and picked up the cleaver he'd previously selected for the task. It was both heavy at the back of the blade and razor-sharp at the edge; correctly wielded, it could take a woman's head off with no more trouble than topping a daisy. "Hold your head straight," he said. Tracie gave a bare shadow of a nod and held herself still but relaxed, looking straight up. Dave cupped the top of her skull with his left hand just to make sure and took sight on the slim, pale band of neck just below the collar, and swung. There was a 'thunk!' and it was done. He lifted Tracie's head by the hair.

Tracie felt an undefinable sensation, something like a flashbulb behind her eyes and a faint electric shock, and then a moment's disorientation as her point of view swung dizzily through ninety degrees. She felt light-headed, and she almost chuckled as the thought crossed her mind. Just like Sam. She was looking down at her own body, what was left of it. Limbless, headless, gutted and desexed, it was still oddly beautiful. Did it still twitch or was that her vision blurring? There were trays of neatly cut meat on benches and shelves all around. There was Sam, staring sightlessly into space. Dave let her take a good long look around at what she had become. "Grade A prime if ever I saw it," he said gruffly. Then her viewpoint swung again as Dave carried her to her resting place next to the other girl. "Goodbye, Tracie," he said.

"Goodbye, Dave," Tracie mouthed soundlessly. She watched him pick up her body effortlessly and hang it upside down on a hook that went into the belly and came out through the filleted crotch. Just like a pig's carcasse in a butcher's shop, she thought. But much more elegant. She smiled to herself. I'm meat now, just as I was meant to be. Bye Daddy, bye Mummy...her vision darkened and she died.

Dave turned back from hanging the girl's body up - he could finish it later when there was time - and looked back at the lovely head, now staring sightlessly just like the last one. It would make a nice display piece in a butcher's window. He felt empty for a moment. Then his phone beeped. "What?" he snarled testily. "Yes, I know there's a backlog, thanks. Bit of a delay, new equipment, you know the drill. Really? Take it up with the fucking management. What? Yes, I'm ready. Just give me two minutes, then send her in." He took a slow, deep breath and began swabbing down the cutting table.

Kate watched as willing helpers shouldered the pole carrying Antonia, skewered like a shish- kebab, and carried it over to the roasting pit. Her wrists and ankles had been lashed to cross- pieces, stretching her out and distributing her weight. Kate could hardly believe that she was still alive. In fact she was writhing and stretching slightly, presumably testing her newly limited range of movement.

John appeared beside her, holding two glasses of beer and offering one of them to her. "You look like you could do with a drink," he said.

"My hero," Kate said, accepting the glass and taking a hearty draught. "Mind reader, too. How did you know I'd prefer beer?"

"I saw you dance. And the other stuff. You don't strike me as the sort for half a glass of white wine or a pink cocktail with an umbrella in it."

Kate nodded agreement. The bearers were laying Antonia on the spit supports and fastening things. Toni was flexing her legs. That was odd. The crossbar her ankles were lashed to seemed to move with her. "Did you see....is it supposed to do that? I mean..."

John smiled. "The crossbars can move a bit, but they're not completely free to slide. There's a tricky little mounting in the collar that's spring-loaded. It will move a few inches either way if it's pushed or pulled."

"Very neat," Kate said. There was only one reason she could think of for a device like that. It gave the mounted woman some freedom of movement. "So she can dance?"

John nodded. "Some of the, um, roasters like to put on a show. They seem to enjoy it, too. The motion of the pole inside the, er...."

"I get the picture. I just didn't know they'd invented a gadget to help them do it."

"Well, they deserve a bit of fun at the end, don't you think? Besides," he shrugged, "It's fun to watch. No offense."

Kate laughed. "Oh dear, don't worry about that. Antonia loves an audience. Watch all you like and enjoy it, she would definitely approve. In fact, she'd be disappointed if you didn't."

"Whew. That's good to know," John said, wiping his brow theatrically but actually quite relieved. "Some of them just panic and struggle for a bit and then collapse. Some don't move at all. Maybe they're too embarrassed at the idea of, um, pleasuring themselves in public."

"I don't expect Antonia will have a problem with that," Kate said mildly.

"No, I thought not," John said. "You can usually tell the shy ones as soon as they're stripped for oiling, if they were wearing anything to begin with. They keep trying to cover themselves and want to do it behind a towel or something. You can point out all you like that they'll be showing everything when they're turning on the spit, but it doesn't always help. One girl even kept asking why we couldn't leave her underwear on."

"Even while you cooked her?" Kate chuckled, imagining a girl on the spit with her bra and panties still on. They'd have had to poke a hole in the panties...

John grinned and shrugged. "It's not a rational thing, I suppose."

"I'm surprised she had any on to begin with," Kate said. "Don't they always strip them at the plant?"

"She was the daughter of one of my wife's friends," John explained. "When she got her summons, they placed a rush order so she wouldn't have to go through all that public inspection routine. She'd have died of mortification." He made a rueful face at the tasteless quip.

Kate gave him a wry grin. Antonia's spit was now turning nicely, showing off every part of her athletic body like a rotary display. Antonia herself was twisting and stretching, getting used to the motion. "This way a bit," Kate suggested. "I want to be sure she can see me."

John obliged. "Sorry, I know I shouldn't mock," he half-apologised. "It can't have been very funny for poor Olivia. It's just..." he spread his hands.

Kate indicated understanding. "In this day and age," she agreed absently. Well, it WAS absurd. "I don't suppose she was fat or ugly or something?" She made eye contact with Antonia, who raised an eyebrow and winked at her.

"No, actually she had quite a good figure. Not as good as your friend's there." He gave Antonia an appreciative nod. "Tasted fine, too."

"Just not much of a pole dancer?"

"Well, that's the funny thing. Once they put her over the coals, she loosened up. Did quite well, actually. It happens sometimes, so I hear."

"Convent school girls let loose on the town," Kate said. Antonia was warming up now, so to speak. Trying to find a rhythm? Pole dancing - this kind, anyway - wasn't something you could rehearse. She resolved to watch closely and make mental notes; she might need it if she was bought whole. Something was missing, it struck her. She picked the phone out of her pocket and contacted her DJ Daemon. What would be best suited to this situation? She didn't know much about Antonia's taste in music except what she'd seen of her reactions to what she'd played before in the car and doing her own war dance. "How long will she last?" she asked.

"Hard to say. They let them simmer a bit high on the stand before they lower the spit and really get them cooking. Could be twenty minutes or more before she goes. Some last even longer, some pop off after five minutes. Your friend looks strong..."

"Hockey player."

John nodded, factoring that in. "A fighter, then, and fearless. Good stamina. With a top class spit, which this is, and the mounting done right, which it was, we could expect her to go the distance. No guarantees, mind you."

"There never are." She switched to voice mode and her Daemon answered her call.

"Speak and I obey, O Mighty Majestrix."

The irony, if such it was, didn't deflect Kate for a second. "Early Stones, Street Fighting Man. Got it?" Antonia was a fighter and the jagged, dirty rhythms of the song might get her started. There should be something to follow. Sympathy for the Devil? Something else?

"Got it, and next?" her acolyte responded.

"Await my call," Kate commanded and cut the line. She would see how Antonia reacted to the music and change it if necessary. She pocketed the phone. John was staring at her. "What?" she said.

He shook his head. "You just look..."

"Like what?"

"Totally in control." John made a gesture with his open right hand, fingers spread and palm up, indicating, what, helpless, uncomprehending admiration?

If I were in control, Kate thought, I wouldn't be standing here half-naked, having left my daughter for dead and watching a friend make the best of her own imminent death. I wouldn't be painted with butchers' marks while I'm being auctioned off. "All I'm in charge of," she said, "Is what I do with the time I have left." There was an American phrase she remembered about a condemned murderer being taken to his place of execution. Dead man walking. It was a warning, because a man about to die had no need to fear consequences; he could do anything.

The music started and Kate turned her attention back to Antonia, who tried to nod, reflexively, and then settled for a wink before half-closing her eyes as she picked up the beat. She started to writhe on the pole in time to the music, looking a little as if she were an escapologist trying to escape from a strait jacket. Kate wondered if she should have started with something gentler, but decided to give this one a bit more time. She had to admit that Antonia did look rather good spitted. Okay, more than rather good. Many times she'd heard or read of men saying things like a woman was 'born to roast' or that turning on a spit over a fire was her 'natural position' and she'd usually dismissed it with mild annoyance as rationalisation but, looking at the spectacle before her, she could see their point. Antonia did seem to belong exactly where she was now, as if all her previous life had simply been a prelude and a preparation for this. It was an illusion, she knew, born of the endless human capacity to adapt and accept what was and couldn't be changed, but it was a bloody convincing one. "I could do with another joint," she muttered.

"Your wish," John murmured back, producing one from a pocket. "Courtesy of 'James'."

"Which isn't his real name, sorry," Kate acknowledged, hearing the quotes. She accepted gratefully, fishing out the lighter again.

"No, but he doesn't mind. It's an occupational hazard, like a butler being called 'Jeeves'. Just shows you're doing your job right. He quite likes it, actually. Better than 'Alfred', anyway."

His real name or a reference to Batman's butler? Kate decided not to ask, just smiled politely and lit up. "Thanks," she said.

"One endeavours to give satisfaction," John said in a passable imitation of James doing Jeeves as played by Stephen Fry.

Kate's smile twisted into genuine amusement. Obviously they'd known each other a long time. "Another beer wouldn't come amiss either," she suggested, with an arch expression showing that she knew she was trying it on a bit. "I'd go myself, but..." a hand gesture and a slight turn of the head.

John nodded. "Of course, no trouble." Of course she had to stay with her friend and run the show. You don't expect the conductor of the London Philharmonic to nip out and buy his round in the middle of Beethoven's Ninth.

Street Fighting Man was coming to its conclusion and Kate studied Toni's movements closely. She phoned in another order uncertainly. Was she working out her own inappropriate anger through Toni? Of course she knew that female culling was a necessity and there was no point wasting the meat, etcetera, but sometimes it grated on her. It was embarrassing. She kept thinking there ought to be a better way, like those idiot peace protesters who march with banners saying 'No More War' every time the army fires a shot, as if three words could solve all the world's problems in a way that all the politicians and philosophers in history had somehow missed. What was the point of saying 'there ought to be a better way' if you couldn't say what it was?

Sympathy for the Devil, indeed. She'd try for something less obvious next time. Next time? No, now. She phoned again on the last bar of Jagger's lament. She remembered how Antonia had responded in the limousine.

"Interstellar Overdrive," she said.

Antonia would have smiled if the spit coming out of her mouth hadn't made that physically impossible. Kate was still challenging her, still making her think outside her normal patterns, even now at the end. That was so like her, so perfect. She'd stretched herself around the Stones' aggression, it had energised her. She felt she could last for hours, she was strong. Now this. What could she do with it? She recognised something of the style from what she'd heard in the car, but it was different. A simple riff played in a manner that seemed almost crude at first, with an edge of something else underneath. The music built and went in unexpected directions and she associated it with the heat that was slowly cooking her body. She opened her eyes, only now realising that she'd closed them for a moment, and saw Kate, her mentor and love, watching her. Her love was watching her, anxious to see if she appreciated the gift. Her heart lifted and her internal muscles gripped the pole involuntarily. Easy, easy, she thought. Don't abrade the filet too much. Kate will be eating that soon. Wonderful. She relaxed and looked back at Kate, half closing her eyes. Let her know, she thought, let her know that I'll take whatever she gives. She saw Kate opening her hands, smiling. Is it okay? she heard. She tried to smile again and just winked. That should do it. She closed her eyes again and drifted into another world, a world crafted by a madman touched by genius. The music and the dope she'd smoked combined to take her higher.

John came back with the beer and Kate took it. "That pole ventilates her, right?" she asked.

"Yes," John answered and launched into a brief explanation.

"So I could blow smoke down the hole at the end?" This would be tricky. She'd have to take a good hit and release it quickly enough that her lungs wouldn't absorb all the good stuff or replace all the oxygen with carbon dioxide, but not so hard that Antonia would choke on the hot smoke.

"Yes, the spit is a nonconducting synthetic, stronger than steel and..." John broke off and smiled. She didn't need an exposition. "It won't burn your lips," was all she needed to know. "I don't think anyone's ever done a blowback that way."

It wasn't just 'a hole at the end' but four recessed holes spaced around the pointed tip. That meant she wouldn't have to stop the spit turning to do the job.

For a moment, instinctively, Antonia opened her eyes and saw Kate gesturing at the joint in her hand as she pointed to the head of the spit. What was she up to? Oh. She saw Kate look a question, head cocked. She couldn't nod, so she winked again. Go for it.

Kate closed her eyes as she passed air from her lungs to Toni's, laced with tetrahydrocannabinol.

Toni couldn't cough, wouldn't cough. She felt the slight burn and held it, held her alveoli open by sheer force of will while her eyes teared. No problem, she told herself, compared to being cooked alive. Kate's breath in her lungs gave her the strength to go on up to the stars.That's how she told the story to herself.

Kate stepped back, watching Antonia's internal struggles through her body language. She knew that they had connected on a level where they should be able to read each other from the most minimal of clues, but the situation restricted her. All she wanted, all her desire, was directed to giving Toni the end she wanted. No rehearsals, no second chances. And no mercy for anybody who got in her way.

"Relax," John said. "You look like you're about to turn green and burst out of that coat."

Kate snapped her head around and started to say something. John recalled the phrase 'if looks could kill' and wondered if it would be the last thing that passed through his mind before the glare of heat vision from those brown eyes vapourised him. Then She-Hulk or Superwoman with a mad on turned back into the merely formidable Kate smiling wryly.

John noted with surprise that he hadn't been afraid. Well, maybe a bit terrified, but that had just been a transitory shot of adrenaline, a physical reaction that bypassed his conscious mind. She could have killed him and there was nothing he could have done about it. He'd just accepted it.

"That would be a waste of a good coat," Kate said.

Nothing wrong with a strong heartbeat, John thought. Proves I'm still alive. He glanced down and his mind went into temporal fugue. A few seconds ago, Kate's right hand had been a fist, he had seen it and not recognised it. A few seconds before that, there had been a beer glass in it. He looked further down and saw sparkling shards on the grass. Maybe he hadn't seen it because it had happened too fast, or maybe because it was impossible. Nobody human can crush a beer glass in their hand. Mothers lifting cars off kids and all that, just anecdotal and besides...

"Oh, sorry about that," Kate said. Her hand opened fully and she stared at it. "Must have broken it...." Her palm was sticky with beer and diamond dust.

"I'll get you another," John said calmly. Ten steps towards the beer tent, his knees almost buckled and he almost threw up. He didn't. He kept walking while his pulse and breathing and stomach steadied. He could have her thrown out, he mused idly, feeling an almost irrepressible urge to laugh out loud. Sure he could, if he called in armed police or private bodyguards to evict a naked woman in an overcoat. He was quite sure that nothing less could match her. Call in the SAS. Nobody here - he glanced around - no, not a chance. The situation was ridiculous. He was falling in love with a woman who could terrify him with a glance. A woman who could beat him up, even kill him, if she wanted to. What was it about her? She seemed to belong to a different age, when women were bold and dangerous and not...

Not just meat or bitter shrews like Angela. Was he so bloody sick of being married to her that he'd dally with Red Sonja's Evil Twin at the risk of his own life?

Apparently, yes. Then he did start to laugh. His heartbeat steadied to a stronger rhythm and his mood lightened. What the fuck, he was going back to her and he'd bring the beer.

The man at the beer tap asked him what the joke was and he just shook his head. "Two pints of Timothy Tailors Landlord," he said.

Kate looked at her hand. Then she looked at the broken glass on the grass. This seemed to take a very long time. There were no marks on her palm. Once she'd accidentally broken a glass door and she still had a faint, white scar on her wrist to prove it. Nothing there now, no new scars, no blood. She controlled the impulse to read too much into that, as people often do when stoned. She'd been stoned enough times before to know the tendency to see signs and portents in everything. The glass had probably been flawed, she was a strong woman with work-hardened palms and a martial artist's ability to instinctively apply pressure where the weakness was, even in a sudden fit of rage. The skin on the palm of a human hand was hard to break, far tougher than the soft skin on the underside of the wrist. There was no mystery here, she had not become supernaturally strong or invulnerable. The rage, though, that was something she'd have to watch. What was it about, anyway? Antonia was getting the ending she wanted, Tracie was...

Tracie was dead, face it and get past it. Her body was nothing but cuts of meat in a butcher's shop by now, her head probably staringly blindly from a window display. As hers would be soon. That was just the way things were. Relax, stay in the moment. She allowed herself to imagine her own head, neatly severed, next to Tracie's on the tray. That would be nice: a touching tableau of a family reunion. She smiled fondly at her own whimsical sentimentality.

Interstellar Overdrive was winding down and Toni was still working with it, down to the final, drawn out, jarring guitar line, showing no signs of weakening. Kate shook herself and paid attention. She'd missed some of the finer points of the dance, but no doubt the techogeeks had recorded all of it for posterity, profit or their own gratification, or all three. She waited for Toni's eyes to open and seek her out, as they did. She took out her 'phone, mind blank about what she'd do next. For some reason, the Monty Python sketch about Wuthering Heights in semaphore crossed the void. She pointed at herself with one hand and texted a message with the other. It would take a few seconds for Ginger Nut and his crew to do it, so she held Toni's gaze and attempted telepathy. Sometimes just the intention to communicate is enough, because it wasn't long before the song came on. Ginger Nut was bloody good, she thought.

Antonia watched the performance eagerly. She was hot to trot and what on Earth could follow that. Something about...?

The solid, eighties techno riffs of Eurhythmics were the last thing she was expecting after the sublimity of Barrett era Floyd. Still, she'd work with it.

"I've got a delicate mind, I've got a dangerous nature..." Annie Lennox sang.

John arrived with the beer and offered a glass.

"Could you hang on to that a minute?" Kate asked politely, "I need to pee."

"There's a tent over there..." John began, trying to point with both hands full, but broke off as Kate simply squatted down, held her coat back, and pissed on the grass. For a second, John was actually shocked. Then he smiled at the absurdity of his own reaction. There they were, standing next to a naked young woman with a pole up her pussy being roasted alive, and he was shocked because he'd seen Kate pee? She was an animal, after all, a lioness who wouldn't leave her cub just to cower behind canvas out of misplaced modesty.

Kate stood up and took the glass. "Something funny?" she inquired, smiling, eyebrow cocked.

John shook his head, smiling wryly. "Not you, me," he said.

Kate's smile quirked. "One of the benefits of not having underwear on," she commented. "Don't step on the glass." She took a sip of the prizewinning ale. "Perfect," she approved, her attention now back on Antonia.

It was odd, John thought. Was part of his attraction to Kate that he envied her freedom? She had no inhibitions any more, she had no further use for them. He suddenly felt constrained by his own clothes. Of course, that kind of freedom came at a price. The symbol of that price was right there under his nose, so to speak.

"I'm an electric wire And I'm stuck inside your head..."

The lyrics were pointed, Kate thought, but the rhythms a little limited for someone of Antonia's talent. Nonetheless, the consumate athlete did what she could with it. For a minute or two she admired Toni's rotating form: little nuances, like the way her firm breasts moved as the direction of gravity shifted, independently of the efforts of her straining muscles, exhibiting all the textures of her body as she turned, danced and cooked, all illuminated by the the sun above and the fire below glancing off her oiled and sweating skin. Was she imagining it, or was Antonia starting to smell really appetising? Imagining it, probably, she hadn't really started cooking yet. Still, hot human skin does smell good. She felt hungry. There should be some music that said "I want to eat you," that she could fit in somewhere. Until then...she texted a message. Give Ginger Nut some time to look it up.

"I'm a hungry Mohican I've got a razor blade smile So don't come near me I've got a singular style Fifteen senses Are on my plate All the things You love to hate

I'm an electric wire And I'm stuck inside your head...

Where I go to no one knows Find me where the cold wind blows - Regrets

Black is red and red is white In this country I do what I like - Regrets"

"You do have an interesting taste in music," John said. He'd been admiring Antonia's body without any attempt at disguising his interest. No more apologies. Kate wouldn't appreciate hypocrisy, she'd despise it, he'd realised.

Kate smiled warmly. "More to come," she said. "Do you know when they're about to die?"

She never stopped surprising him, John thought. "Sometimes," he said honestly. "You get a feeling when they're about to go. I can't guarantee it."

What came next was, indeed, something completely different. "Pork-U-Pine" by Jeff Beck. Kate had always thought that it sounded like Earth being invaded by intelligent, super-hip dinosaurs from outer space. Let Antonia make what she would of that. She switched the 'phone to voice and said "I want you to prepare something for me." Something for the finale, if she could time it right.

John had pulled an i-padd out of his pocket and flipped it open. He tapped a key or two and raised his eyebrows. "Did you ever wonder how the bidding was going?"

"Not really," Kate said absently. She was composing her finale for Toni, and it was a tricky business. There were just too many options. She talked into her own 'phone. "Blackbird. No, not the Beatles one, the one where Jeff Beck duets with an actual blackbird. It's on...okay, you've got it...no, not right now...Beck's Bolero, that's on...okay...yes, I do like him...just line them up so you can mix them at short notice...what?...oh, yes, 'And so to f...' by Brand X, that's on 'Product'...yes, I know. I'll get back to you."

John waited patiently for her to finish. When she put the 'phone back he showed her the display.

"Bloody hell," she said. "Some people have more money than sense."

John quirked an eyebrow, a mannerism he'd picked up from her. "What would you expect? Even the rich can only eat so many meals a day. When your basic needs cost less than point nought nought one of your disposable income..."

Kate smiled wryly. "And you've got more private helicopters than you'll ever use..."

"You try to buy the Mona Lisa or the original Penny Black. Or..."

"Me?" Kate recalled saying 'I heard Kirsten Dunst's skimpies fetched a packet at Sotheby's after they did her.' That was an aeon ago, back on the bus, when she and Antonia had been trying to cheer Tracie up. So now she was a celebrity? Ridiculous.

"You," John said. "I put in a bid myself, but I'm afraid you may be out of my league."

Kate raised both eyebrows. "You want to EAT me?" It wasn't a challenge, no hostility there. Just as well, she could probably rip him apart with those terribly strong hands.

"Somebody has to," John riposted. Bloody hell, was she flirting with him? And was he holding his own?

"Tough job," Kate said.

"I'm up for it." Was that going too far? Be honest. "I'd rather cook Angela and marry you." There, it was out. Bag, cat, out of.

"That's not very nice," Kate said in mock reproof. "She's your wife and besides I'm..."

"Already married, I know. And about to be sold as meat. Still..." he gave a facial shrug.

"A man can dream?" Kate smiled, teasing enchantingly.

"Can you blame me? Don't you ever...."

"Wish things weren't the way they were?" It was fair enough, Kate thought. She'd rather have seen Angela on the spit than Antonia too, not that she'd have been half as good. "Sometimes." A lyric ran through her mind.

And if you say to me tomorrow, Oh what fun it all would be, Then whats to stop us, pretty baby, But what is and what should never be.

Kate fingered her 'phone uncertainly. There were so many possibilities to choose from and so little time.

John watched her thoughtfully. It really was a pity she'd be dead soon. It wasn't quite the first time the thought had ever crossed his mind, of course. He didn't hate or even dislike women, certain parties excepted, but he did like eating them and that's the way things were so he hadn't dwelled on it too much. What would have been the point? He couldn't change the world and did he really want to? He looked at Antonia, turning nicely on the spit. His mouth watered. Kate had a point, he admitted to himself. It wasn't very nice to wish his wife was there instead, even if he didn't like her very much. Or was it just that she wouldn't have looked half as good roasting as Antonia did? The girl was still moving...

The problem, Kate thought, was getting the timing right. What if her show finished and Toni didn't?

And, John thought, do I really want to marry Kate or just eat her? If Angela wasn't enough, would she be too much? What would it really be like living with a woman like that? The coat shifted as Kate put the 'phone back, showing her strong legs. Being mated to her would be.. what? Like embracing a tigress? Was he strong enough for that? And yet, even if he wasn't, what a way to go. He could almost imagine Kate metamorphising into some fantastic cat-woman and devouring him whole and raw during coitus. An absurd fantasy, of course, but a perversely arousing one and, after all, wasn't that what fantasy was for, to imagine the impossible?

Kate came to a decision. She couldn't fit everything in, and Antonia seemed to be getting on well with Jeff Beck, so keep doing what worked. There was another Beck track she'd sometimes used during workouts, and it was definitely muscular. She flipped the 'phone. "Star Cycle," she said. "It's from.."

"There and Back," Ginger Nut came back.

Kate guessed, "You downloaded..."

"Whole discography, itemised. Not all the tracks are in yet, but I have them queued for fast download."

"And is it...?"

"Coming in, ready before the current track ends. Right now or stack it?"

"Right now." Kate started to close the 'phone and then added "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Ginger Nut said and closed the 'phone. "What I wouldn't give to know what she knows."

"We can get all this stuff ourselves," Gareth pointed out. It was a half-hearted attempt to play Devil's advocate and they both knew it.

"Yes, we can get the entire catalogue of the Osmonds if we want it," Ginger Nut retorted. 'It's knowing what to look for' went unsaid.

"You've just got the hots for her."

"And you haven't?"

"What I have," Gareth said smugly, "Is some of the hottest footage ever. Check out what she's worth." He showed Ginger Nut (whose real name was Gerald) the bidding figures.

"Holy Obi Wan!"

"Which is because," Gareth went on, "The processing firm put out some great teasers." He showed Gerald a clip. "So we can do the same."

"Because...?"

"Ours are better. They did them in a room, we have her ouside, dancing and fighting. Well, nearly, but the quality...."

"Fuck me pink and call me Charlie." Gerald's mind reeled with the possibilities. "If we post a teaser..."

"The bidding will get even higher, and then..."

"What they'll pay for the whole package goes up proportionately..."

"And we're..."

Gerald's phone played the opening notes of the Doctor Who theme. "Majestrix?"

"Now."

Gerald activated 'Star Cycle'.

"Is she nearly done yet?" someone asked. "People are getting hungry."

John had been watching Antonia's reaction to the new music. "Ask her," he said, nodding towards Kate.

"She'll be ready when she's ready," Kate said absently.

The someone started to say something, but John cut in: "Do yourself a favour and don't ask who died and put her in charge," he advised. The somebody looked at Kate, closed his mouth, and took the better part of valour.

It's all too much, Kate thought. Hmm, that was an idea. The Steve Hillage version or the original by the Beatles? Antonia should be running out of steam soon, she'd need something less physically demanding, something more subtle but still rhythmic with a touch of transcendence...

But Antonia didn't seem to be running out of steam at all.

"She really is going to set a record," John commented quietly. He didn't want to interrupt Kate's train of thought; she'd hear him if she chose to.

She chose to. "If there's a delay in meat production," she said flatly, not changing the direction of her gaze, "There is a simple solution. Once she's dead, take her down and cut her up. If she's too rare for your taste, grill her parts on an old-fashioned barbecue, she won't care. She doesn't have to be roasted whole when she doesn't know."

Butterfly? That was a good one. Then there was the bit at the end of Aumgn by Can. Jacki Liebzeit kicking the arse out of a drumkit. And the dogs... She couldn't fit it all in in the time she had. She had to talk to Ginger Nut F2F. Learn how to mix the whole thing in, what, five or ten minutes?

She waved at Antonia and put all she had into the gestures. All she wanted to say was "I'll be back." As she walked, she fretted over the idea that she might be wearing Toni out too soon. She wanted to cram a lifetime, the lifetime she would miss, into the girl's last half hour. It was a futile attempt, she knew, but she had to try.

"Shit," Gareth muttered. "She's coming here."

"She?" Gerald inquired ironically.

"SHE Who Must Be Obeyed," Gareth responded in kind.

John watched Kate walk away, his mind a little befuddled. He'd never been sure what 'befuddled' meant before, but now he thought he had the gist of it. Stoned again, he thought happily. Not that he'd done that many times lately, Angela didn't like it. So, what to do? Well...

He'd go and tell the cooks about the new plan for cooking Antonia. That was a good idea, it should please everybody. She'd be ready to eat sooner than anticipated, which meant...something. He shook his head. He'd get it sooner or later. The music...

"Next is St Elmo's fire," Kate said without saying 'hello' first. The sound wizards seemed a little nervous. "That's..."

Ginger Nut had made a gesture of obeisance as she'd entered their enclave. She favoured him with a nod and a friendly hand gesture, noting that there was nothing remotely ironic about it. That might have given her pause for thought if she'd had the time to think about it.

"Eno. Another Green World," GN said.

"You can get it? We need it now..."

"Don't need to get it. Already have it, Majestrix."

John walked towards the cooks standing next to the barbecue and doing whatever it was that they did. The duet between Jan Hammer and Jeff Beck, sounding more and more like a battle, built up until he realised that it was actually an expression of the fusion cycle inside a star and the sun was a star and he looked up briefly, got dazzled and looked down at the grass with a blazing afterimage on his retina. He blinked and looked up again, just not up at the sky. He saw Antonia struggling with or against the same music he was hearing. She looked hot...

Hot as in being cooked? Or...

"Because," Kate said.

"R&R", GN telegraphed.

Brown eyes and I was tired We had walked and we had scrambled Through the moors and through the briars Through the endless blue meanders.

In the blue August Moon In the cool August Moon

Kate was so close that Gareth could smell her. It wasn't a polite, deodorised and flowery girly scent. She smelled of sweat and hot skin and the rude musk of a woman. He wanted to piss himself. Girls were frightening enough. She was beyond scary.

Gerald was doing things with the controls and Kate was talking to him. Gareth felt a wave of relief that she had hardly noticed him until she turned around and saw the screen of his laptop, that he'd forgotten to close. He shrank back in his seat as she leaned towards it.

"What's the plan?" she asked him.

The screen held a shot of a webpage with a picture of her in her berserker moment back at the plant. Below that, there was a list of data on her current value, with links to other sites.

Gareth couldn't find his tongue.

"We were thinking about buying you," Gerald admitted, "By trading on the future value of the memorabilia. The footage we have on you is attracting a lot of bids. The coat..." he shrugged. "That will be worth more than the cloak Alec Guinness wore as Obi Wan."

"Buying me?" Kate mused. "And then what will you do, eat me?"

Please be careful what you say, Gareth attempted to telepath to Gerald. He was acutely conscious of the fact that Kate could take both of them without even trying. Kill them, even. Break a sweat? She wouldn't even raise her heart rate while she ate their livers. With a nice Chianti? What the fuck WAS that anyway? He'd seen what she'd done to Eddie and that had been without going berserk. Eddie was a big guy, people were frightened of him, but she'd treated him like a helpless little boy, like he was nothing much. Compared to that, he and Gerald were nothing at all. So much for male superiority; that only worked on average. Kate wasn't average, she was not only skilled and ferocious, she was probably physically stronger than either of them. He stared at her wrists. No, both of them and can the 'probably'. Face facts, if she turned nasty they were dead meat.

"Resell you when your value goes up, as it will when the stuff we've got hits the 'Net" Gerald said, oblivious to the danger. Well, not quite. "If you don't mind, that is. Look, I'd much rather free you and worship at your feet, Majestrix, but you know that's not possible."

Kate smiled. "I think I might have preferred that you wanted to eat me," she said. Just a slight emphasis on 'eat'.

"Well, I would, if. If, you know...er.."

"If you could....?"

Gareth had never thought he'd see a cat and mouse game played out like this. Cats, he knew, weren't really cruel. Their play was just practise. That's how they taught their kittens how to hunt and survive. This was, what? He was just glad that SHE who must be obeyed wasn't talking to him. He'd have shit his pants by now.

"We couldn't afford you," Gerald said frankly. "If we don't sell you for more than we pay, we're fucked. Pardon my French. It was just an idea...."

It seemed like a harebrained scheme to Kate, and she had no idea if it would work; finance was not her forte. However, she had other fish to fry. File the information for possible future use and move on.

"Yours is no disgrace," she said.

Gerald's mind flipped back into sound wizard mode.

"Yes?"

"Yes."

The creature walked a few paces away and Gareth could breathe again. "Something wrong?" Gerald was giving him a quizzical look.

"She...you..." words failed him.

Gerald got the gist. "Oh, come on, she's not Godzilla...."

"No," Gareth said. "Godzilla doesn't NOTICE you."

Before it tramples you underfoot? Hah. "Or Satan incarnate..." Gerald teased.

"She doesn't need to be. Satan worships HER." It was a reference to a TV show and they both knew it. Feeble humour helps when you're terrified. Gareth smiled back weakly.

"He can join the queue. Get a grip. We're going to be rich, focus on that, little grasshopper."

"Or broke." Gareth shook his head. "Or dead. We're supposed to buy HER? And then sell her again? Even assuming we could, what if she decides she doesn't like it? We're useful to her now, but when she's finished doing what she's doing...."

Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face. Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human race, On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place, If the summer change to winter, yours is no disgrace.

Kate wasn't sure if it was right, but it was her best guess. She frowned. There wasn't time..

Antonia relaxed. Kate was talking to her again, through the music. She knew what her love was trying to do: compress a whole relationship that might have been and never would be into the time she had left, and she loved her all the more for it. She slowed down, took her time.

"Definitely a record," John said when Kate approached.

The heat, the fumes, the cannabis and the fact that she had been skewered through and through and was dying combined synergistically to put Antonia in an altered mental state. All she had to do, she knew, was to attain her destiny and become meat on plates, for which end she had many helpers ready to roast her, cut her up and serve her out. This was what all those self-appreciation classes had been about, she understood. The visualisation exercises made it easy to see herself being eaten and enjoyed, and to rejoice in that. Oh, the benefits of a modern education!

Kate tried to read the dance. Toni had slowed down a little, as was to be expected, but she didn't seem distressed. Maybe her choice had worked, and that was all she cared about.

If she doesn't like it....Gerald had a pause for thought. What would she do? With nobody left to care for and nothing left to lose...what would she do? The old joke about the 400 pound gorilla in the house came to mind. Where does it sleep? Wherever it bloody well likes. Kate would do whatever she chose to do and nobody here could stop her, least of all him. Well, least of all, Gareth. He wouldn't hurt a fly because he couldn't. An angry gerbil could take him out. But...

Hadn't he been her faithful acolyte? Shit. He'd seen enough horror films to know how that works out. They're always the first to go when the shit hits the fan.

His phone beeped and he jumped. The Doctor Who theme seemed oddly apropos and just a bit menacing given his train of thought. Maybe this was like 'The Empty Child' where it's all scary but then there's that bit where Chris Eccleston says 'Everybody lives!' and it's all cool. Or maybe it was more 'Caves of Androzani' where everybody dies. What kind of story was he living in? Shit, he was far too stoned. Only one remedy for that, light up another joint. After he answered the call from the Majestrix. Was she Opal Luna Saturnyne, Empress of the multiverse, or the Spider Queen of the Racnoss? Or, worse, (shudder) Amanda Blake? No, he reminded himself, they are all fictional characters. Women like that didn't exist except he'd just seen one and she'd been standing right next to him when...

Close enough to touch...one touch of her skin...

Fuck it, concentrate. "Yes, Mistress?"

From somewhere out of space and time or his befuddled memory, the phrase "You are the Raven of October" came to mind. And, as it does when you're stoned, sychronicity struck again. He listened to the Empress's orders, and obeyed.

"Just that one bit," Kate said, "Before we segue into..."

Gerald's fingers did the programming while his mind was elsewhere. The interlude started:

Too many times beautiful, Too many times sad, Too many times wonderful.. Too bad...

And the Raven meant she was the Morrigan. He couldn't possibly have misheard that reference on the first Roxy Music album, from which she'd selected an excerpt. Coincidence? The blue coat, like wings. The Great Queen, the invincible warrior goddess of the Celts. Oh fuck, where was his cigarette lighter? He'd been stoned often enough to know that what he was thinking was probably ridiculous in the cold light of dawn but he also knew that knowing that didn't help any more than telling an agoraphobic not to panic. What he had to do was do his job.

Kate was watching for the signs that Antonia was going into her final throes. It wasn't easy; the whole process was a two-way street but there was also feedback involved and she'd never played this out from Antonia's side of things. Dying was something you only got one shot at. Whatever Antonia knew at the end, she'd never be able to pass on.

"Now," she guessed. She sent the message that would cause her Daemon to activate the final program.

Antonia felt it coming. She was athlete enough to know when she'd pushed herself to her limit, but then she'd been able to stop and take a shower, cool down, recuperate for the next round. This time, she wasn't coming back and there was no reason not to go beyond the limit. Dimension jump. Into the beyond...and what a fucking soundtrack to go out on!

(Too many times beautiful, Too many times sad, Too many times wonderful.. Too bad...)

Meaning what? The words ran rings around her mind, but the frantic guitar riff faded out and something else faded in, something that started quietly. Her imagination jumped forward. She imagined her belly being slit and her guts removed after she'd died and was put on to really cook. Her stomach muscles clenched and then relaxed; let it happen.

It sounded like bells at first, she didn't know what the instrument was. Then, underneath, a fast and snappy high bass riff in a time signature she didn't understand but felt anyway. Rising and building like the first intimations of an orgasm that was somehow mystical, and then...

A guitar line like fire in her nerves...

Nothing too complicated, Gerald thought wryly. Just mix "And so to f.." by Brand X with Interstellar Overdrive and keep it coming. Two tracks with so many different characteristics it would have taken a studio full of sound techs a week to do it properly if it was possible at all, and he had to make it up as he went along. His fingers danced over the controls and he watched two monitors with one eye each. Easier when you're stoned, he thought. All he needed was a telepathic link to the Majestrix so he just imagined that he had one. He'd done 'Overdrive' before, Kate was reprising that for Antonia, so he'd just have to find a way to fit it into the tight spots of ASTF without breaking the flow. All in a day's work for the Demon Sorceress' Apprentice, and it would either be brilliant or she'd bite his balls off. She was orchestrating the death of her friend, and if he failed her...

There was nothing more Kate could do; she just had to hope that she'd guessed right and that Gerald could do his part. If he didn't, well, she'd thank him for trying. Maybe I expect too much of you, Mr Spock, she thought. Still...you have the conn..

Antonia stretched out and pointed her toes like a ballet dancer working up to a difficult piece. She inhaled as deeply as she could. Her chest was a bit tight and her heart was pounding. One more mile to go.

"I could have done 'The Final Piece' by Jeff Beck," Kate mused aloud to John. "Lots of things I could have done.."

"You can't do everything," John said. It was trite and sounded pathetic as he said it, but Kate just nodded.

The Interstellar Interlude, Gerald thought, as he mixed the right part of the track in without (hopefully) breaking the flow. The beeping bit in outer space. Don't hold it too long or...

Hmm, the finale? Well that has to be from ASTF because that's just so fucking...

One more pause for breath, Antonia thought. Last break. The driving force came back and she ran with it. Thank you Kate, thank you for giving me this, for being with me at the end..

"Don't," John said as Kate reached over the fire to touch Antonia. The heat was stifling and Kate didn't understand how Antonia had lasted so long. She could hardly get her breath and she could feel the fine hairs on her forearm shrivelling.

"I do not fucking BELIEVE this," Gareth said. "We've been outbid. Somebody called Mister Saxon is sending a fucking helicopter.."

"How the fuck can they do that before the bidding is closed?" Gerald wanted to know. "We've been swindled. There's a fix in somewhere. Find it. Find out when it's coming. Find out who this Saxon character is. If that 'copter arrives before the Majestrix is ready, there'll be Hell to pay."

"And that's bad because....?" Gareth grumbled absently as he got onto the job.

Good question, Gerald thought, somewhat taken aback. What would happen if the Pigs on the Wing tried to take Kate before she was ready to go? He'd pay to see that. Kate versus the Men in Black Helicopters, the shark in Jaws 3,006 or whatever. Other people would pay to see that too. That was worth a thought.

"I have to," Kate said. She touched Antonia.

The rhythms became more urgent, more layered, more complex and then the wordless vocal chorus, chanting, exultant, with the rising, twisting bass line and the guitar snaking around it all, just going up and up...

The music broke like a wave in Antonia's mind. She was overwhelmed, drowning in it. Or riding it....she broke through it, rose on it, heading towards the light...

The magnificent body convulsed one last time on the spit and went limp.

Kate withdrew her hand. John saw tears on her face. He had the good sense not to say anything until she was ready to speak. When she was ready, she turned to him with a face like stone and said "I killed her."

John understood. Kate had challenged Toni to dance herself to death. "You gave her the end she wanted," he said. "Besides..." Should he really say this? "She probably isn't dead yet, just passed out." An athlete that strong woudn't have had a heart attack.

"And she won't wake up." It was not really a question.

"No." It was too late for that. It wouldn't be any mercy if she did.

Kate considered. She could say a word and John would have Antonia cut down and painlessly killed, her throat cut. What if she was dreaming? Should she deny her the last few minutes of her life, even if she was asleep? Maybe she was having happy dreams. What if she was having nightmares? No, she thought. Antonia wouldn't.

"We can wait," John said. "Up to you."

Gerald watched from a distance. He considered putting on 'Isis Mourning' as the last strains of 'And So To...' faded out, but he didn't want Kate getting all bummed out and weepy if she had to fight the corporate raiders, the pigs or whatever. What next, then? The Immigrant Song was a bit too obvious, that might come in later. Oh, what about...

Yes, 'Here Am I' from 'Blind Dog at St Dunstan's'.

"Anything yet?" he asked Gareth.

"This is really fucked up," Gareth said. "There is some weird stuff on the 'nets. Two minutes."

"Until the 'copter or..."

"Until I've got something. Maybe. Shut up and let me work."

As the track started, Kate's mouth twisted in a wry smile. She hadn't ordered that, but it was a neat choice. Caravan were musicians on the same level as Brand X, but the mood was lighter without being sentimental or sugary. She hoped Toni could hear it, the way coma patients are supposed to, in her dying dreams.

"Wait a while, please," she said. She smiled again, not looking fierce at all. "And I wouldn't mind another beer." John started to move and she held up her hand. "No, it's my turn."

"I see you're still infatuated with that big cow," John heard as Kate walked away. He turned and saw Angela, dressed in one of those peculiar outfits that he could only assume she thought was fashionable. Compared to Kate, she looked ridiculous; she sounded waspish and petulant; he couldn't be bothered to answer.

"After what she did to Eddie..." the voice went on and on while John listened to the music. He knew perfectly well that Angela didn't really like Eddie any more than he did; she was just trying to score points. He waited patiently for her to run down. Answering would just prolong the agony.

"Are you listening to me?" Angela whined.

"No," John said. But he did look, and then reality shifted. He saw Angela's outfits and postures for what they were, a defense against the reality of her destiny as a woman, to be eaten.

Kate reappeared bearing beer glasses. "I hope I'm not intruding," she said.

Reality shifted again. Kate seemed to belong somewhere else. Where, exactly he couldn't have said.

Angela saw the tall, barbarian woman from some atavistic nightmare trying to be polite when she was, what, stealing her husband?

"Sorry, I'd have brought you a drink if I'd known you were coming..."

The music shifted to 'A-hunting we will go.'

So nice. The big bitch was half-naked and sweaty, blurred paint stains like woad on her muscular body under that Darth Vader magician's cloak. She was about seven feet tall and her hands looked as strong as a man's.

"Oh, nice job, Ginger Nut," Kate said, smiling.

"Huh..?" John.

"Sorry, Gerald," Kate said, "My pet DJ."

"Got any idea yet?" Gerald inquired.

"Give me a fucking break. Copter's coming soon, no ETA confirmed. And I don't know how they did it. Should we tell her?"

Gerald thought about it. It might really ruin the Majestrix's day if the pigs came before she'd done what she had to do, but if she found out that he knew and hadn't told her....

"S'cuse me a minute," Kate said, setting her beer glass on the ground and hoping it wouldn't fall over. "Talk amongst yourselves." She went to Antonia again and touched her, ignoring the heat. "Rest now, darling," she said. "You did well. I'll be eating you soon."

That was a promise, and it bound her. Nothing would come between her and fulfilling that promise, nothing at all, come Hell or high water. Her 'phone beeped for attention. It was flagged 'urgent'. She absorbed the information without breaking stride. A threat. Well, as to that..

"Keep me informed. Deal with it or I will." She snapped the 'phone shut.

Gareth had monitored the call, a simple job of intercepting the transmission. "Deal with it? What does she expect us to do? Bring the fucking 'copter down?"

"It's a thought," Gerald said. "That or..."

"Muck or nettles?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

"Problem?" John inquired, ignoring Angela's complaints or whatever they were. He was starting to feel sorry for her, but not enough to outweigh his disinclination to actually listen to them.

"Possibly," Kate said. She explained tersely.

"A helicopter?" John recalled 'And you've got more private helicopters than you'll ever use...' from a recent conversation. Prophetic or what? "You mean.."

"Yes, it's happened. The proverbial rich bastard with more money than sense - no offense intended - has swindled the bidding somehow. They don't know how."

'They', John gathered, were her personal acolytes, the techno-geeks, the two G's. He turned to Angela. "Did you have anything to do with this?" The implication was unspoken; she didn't like Kate. Revenge.

"Me?" Angela paled. It suddenly occurred to her that she might not have to wait until her number came up if the eight-foot tall brown eyed barbarian decided to toss her into the fire. "I didn't..I don't know how.."

"Of course you don't," John almost sneered.

Angela was practically gibbering with terror. "I didn't..I don't know..."

Kate's brown eyes regarded her impassively, without sympathy. She was dead meat. But then..

"She's probably telling the truth," the creature said. "She's mean spirited and vicious enough, but she hasn't got the bottle."

"Which leaves?" John wondered, while Angela wondered if she'd survive the heart attack.

"Buggered if I know."

"Eddie? But..."

"If his brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow his nose. Can't be the Gee-Gee brothers, they're the ones who told me and, as I see it, this really fucks up their plans for me..."

"Plans?" John wondered.

Kate shook her head. "They had their own game going. I'm guessing the publicity they put out caught Saxon's eye and he just cut in on the game."

"Unless they're in on it and not telling you," John suggested, trying to catch up.

"Doubt it. They're smart but not subtle. Ginger Nut - sorry, Gerald - has a thing for me and the other one practically shits himself when I go near him."

Angela could sympathise with that.

"So what do we do about it?" John wondered.

"We eat Antonia," Kate said.

"And if this famous helicopter shows up?"

"I'll deal with it." She began stalking around the barbecue pit like some predatory animal working out how to snatch some meat out of the fire. She had to eat Antonia. Had to. Nothing else mattered. "Are you dead yet, darling?" she crooned. "Are you sleeping? Are you dreaming?"

Angela looked at John who was watching Kate with an unreadable expression on his face. "Don't you see?" she hissed, hoping that the monster wouldn't hear her. "She's insane. She'll 'deal with it'? Who the f...who does she think she is?"

John gave Angela an ironic smile. "If you'd shown this much passion in bed..."

"Don't you dare.."

John waved a hand wearily. "Watch and learn." He didn't really think that was possible.

"She's gone," Kate said returning from her survey, "She's empty, just meat now. Or maybe she'll know.." She shook her head. "Take her down and cut her up." Tears were streaming down her face, but her expression was blank.

Angela gave John a Look which John dismissed. He signalled the cooks "Do it."

It seemed like a bit of a shame to dissect such a perfect roaster, but if that's what She Who Must Be Obeyed wanted...

When had he started thinking of her like that? He needed another beer.

Kate stayed to watch Antonia being cut up, with mixed emotions. The final destruction of that beautiful, dynamic body seemed a little like vandalism, but it was a necessary part of the process and the woman inside was gone. If she didn't go on to become meat, her death would have been for nothing, so she held her peace and just stood watching. The cooks, she could see, knew their job. She'd done a fair bit of cooking herself, though nothing on this scale, so the spectacle was instructive and she concentrated on appreciating their skill. Occasionally, one or another of them gave her a wary look, to which she responded with a faint smile and minimal, dismissive head movement indicating that she would not interfere. In what seemed like both a very long and a very short time, there was nothing left of Antonia but a butcher's assortment of cuts of meat, some recognisable as female body parts and some no more distinctive than pork chops or beefsteaks.

The cooks lowered a barbecue grill over the fire and started putting chunks of Toni meat on it. At this point Kate noticed that the music had changed to 'Firebird' by White Noise.

Firebird, fly high, fly free I can't hold you down You're too wild for me..

Kate couldn't help smiling. White Noise had been the first experimental band using electronic music, masterminded by the same Delia Derbyshire who had produced the original theme for Doctor Who. Gerald, of course, had thought of that. The King of DJ's.

The meat on the grill had already started to smell like any other barbecue: appetising. Kate's mouth watered. She wondered how the cooks would manage the filet, but she decided to leave it to them. Hopefully, it wouldn't take long. That blasted helicopter would be coming and she should...

What? Gird up her loins for battle? She glanced down and grinned wryly. Her loins were bare and she didn't have anything to gird them with, whatever that meant.

But I'm just as high In a rut looking up As I was on a cloud looking down..

Her 'phone demanded attention. Oh, the call this soon? She opened it.

"Speak."

"De plane, de plane..." Gerald, sounding anxious and trying to hide it.

"Cut the comedy. Nice tune though. It's coming?"

"Don't shoot the messenger, Majestrix. It's here. Look up."

Kate looked up. It was hard to pick anything out against the summer-bright sky, but she saw it She could hear the sound too, coming closer. Okay, then. "Got it," she said and snapped the 'phone shut.

"Trouble?" John had come back bearing gifts of ale.

"Possibly," Kate said. "Hang on to my pint for a bit." She stalked off to where she expected the 'copter would come down.

"Now what happens?" Gareth worried.

"Now the Galactic Stormtroopers arrive and engage in battle with the naked Majestrix. I pity them."

"You are fucking well off your head."

"But waving, not drowning. Roll another one and make it snappy. I want to see this."

It took a while. Gareth programmed one-handed while rolling a joint with the other, or so it seemed. Gerald lined up some music and keyed it to his 'phone's remote command. Thus equipped, the intrepid pair set off to view the upcoming engagement. Gareth had his digital videocam on hand, just in case he lived long enough to profit from it. Some people would kill to see what happened next. He just hoped he didn't get killed before they paid him.

Somewhere up ahead, the Majestrix was talking to some big ape in a suit. Bodyguard? Hit man?

You could have cut the air with a knife.

"I hope you're not going to make any trouble," the besuited ape said, smiling. He pulled his jacket aside to reveal a holstered firearm, putting one hand out of action and himself off guard. Presumably he'd been briefed that she was a bit difficult.

Idiot. Why be difficult when, with a bit of effort, you can be bloody impossible, Gerald thought. It was too late to warn the moron even if he'd wanted to.

"There won't be any trouble," Kate replied. In between 'won't' and the rest of the sentence, her right hand moved. The ape was faster than she'd expected, fast enough to start a blocking move before fingers like steel rods hit his larynx; not fast enough to stop it.

The thing was, Gerald had seen this coming, or at least he told himself he had. Kate wasn't putting on demonstrations any more; this was the real thing and it lasted some small fraction of a second. The ape was dead or dying, broken larynx, gasping out his final breaths on the grass, and she..was cold beserk...was...

Was moving on as if nothing had happened at all. Juggernaut. The helicopter pilot shrank back in his seat and Kate beckoned him out of the cockpit with one crooked finger.

"I hope you're not going to make any trouble," she said.

He could have taken off.He could have taken off. He could at least have tried. He came out. You just don't argue with some people. He wasn't getting paid enough to take on somebody who'd taken out Big Al like she was swatting a fly.

"Bugger," Gareth said. "That's it? The big fight?"

"Ever watch a karate contest?" Gerald asked rhetorically. No, of course not. He went on. "They last a couple of minutes at most."

"But..." That only lasted half a second, Gareth didn't have time to say. He didn't need to.

"That's because it's a sport with rules. The big guy is - was - twice her size. Do you think they're going to jump about doing handsprings or break tables over each others' heads like in a cowboy film or a Marvel comic?"

"Nothing wrong with Marvel comics," Gareth grumbled. He was fiddling with the vidcam.

"Not if it's Spiderman vs Doctor Octopus, no. This is real."

"It's not going to look good on film. I've slowed it down and I still can't see anything.."

"What happens now?" the pilot asked.

Kate thought about it. She saw the two G's fussing with their equipment. "Over here, boys." Gerald came over with Gareth trailing. "How do we slow them down?" she asked.

"Whoever 'them' are," Gerald said ungrammatically. "We still don't know how.."

"Wing it. We don't have much time. Think on your feet."

"Well..." Gerald mused. This whole situation was crazy. There was a dead man on the grass, alas, and he didn't want to end up the same way, but surely she wouldn't...

He gulped. "Okay. We get Joe here to radio back that there's been a slight delay but he's working on it and then he fakes a radio failure. That might buy Mighty Mouse here," he glanced at Gareth who still didn't seem to want to come anywhere near Kate again, "Time to figure out what's going on while you..." Get to eat your girlfriend, he didn't say.

Kate moved again, apparently faster than light, and snatched the vidcam out of Gareth's hands. "Forget the money making schemes for a minute," she said. "Get back to work. You can have this back when I'm done. You," she turned to the pilot, "Do what he said. What's your name, anyway?"

"Joe," he said.

Right. It was going to be one of those days. "Okay. Do what he said and don't even think about taking off. Sorry about your friend, but.."

"He wasn't my friend." That was an understatement. Not that he'd have wished Big Al dead, really, but he wasn't about to cry himself to sleep over the stupid, bullying dimwit. "What happens to me after that?"

"You stay here with me until I decide what to do." She glanced at Gerald. "Move."

"Just cueing the music," Gerald said, touching his 'phone.

'See My Way' by Blodwyn Pig came on. It seemed appropriate.

A dead man on the grass. Miles to go before she could sleep. Suddenly, Kate wished she was back home, in the kitchen, making dinner for her husband and daughter. Gone, all gone. Tracie was dead and she'd never see her husband again.

"If I stumble... Over those things that are set before me, Home, take me home..."

Somebody said "She killed him! She just killed that guy.."

She had. She'd killed a man, never done that before, at least as far as she knew. That mugger or rapist she'd beaten all those years ago, she'd never found out what happened to him, she'd just left him in the alley groaning. This was different, the man was definitely dead. It had been so easy. And what did she feel about it? It was just another complication, another obstacle, something she'd have to deal with.

"Who are you, anyway?" Joe asked warily.

"Kate. The piece of meat you came to collect."

Joe shook his head, whewed, and looked at Big Al. "He should have brought a bigger gun."

Kate caught the reference to 'Jaws' and smiled faintly. "He shouldn't have brought a gun at all. It just made him slow and stupid."

Joe didn't think Al had needed much help in that regard. "So, if he hadn't been carrying...?"

Kate shrugged. "I don't know. I've never fought anybody that big before. If he'd got a good hit in, or grabbed me..." Even a big woman can't match a big man in sheer power.

"He might have beaten you?"

"We'll never know," Kate said. Might-have-beens, who needed them? She'd won. She turned round and John handed her the glass of beer he'd got for her.

"Problem?"

"Just killed a man," she said. "No big deal. I don't suppose I'll live long enough to face a murder charge." She took a swig. "Nice. What is it?"

"Something I had imported from Germany. Murder charge?"

"Well," Kate waved at the body. "He's dead, I did it. Open and shut."

"Self defence," John said, setting his glass down carefully on the grass. "He was waving his gun about and threatening people." He took a pen out of a pocket and took the weapon out of Al's holster and put it on the grass a few feet away from the body. "I'd guess that his fingerprints are on it."

"Watch a lot of CSI?"

"Just a bit. So, heroically, you stopped him and saved us all. Right, Joe?"

"Fine by me. I was sitting in the cockpit and Al was arguing with Kate here and he pulled out his gun, I think...I don't know what happened after that, I couldn't see much."

John looked around. "Anybody else have a problem with that?"

There was a general rhubarb of "No problem", "Didn't see anything" and "Fine by me". It was John's party. They weren't about to risk not being asked back

"Now I file a complaint about trespass. I didn't give Saxon's goon permission to land on my property. The fuzz won't be in any hurry to investigate that, they'll ask if it's an emergency and I'll say not exactly, not mentioning the fight because it's not a problem NOW, but I'll phone my lawyers and get them to contact Saxon's lawyers, who will contact him, which they'll do in their own good time..." To Kate: "Update your pet wizards so they're on the same page."

Kate gave him a look of approval that he treasured and stored away in his memory as something to savour forever. "Delay and obfuscation. You're good at this," she said.

"I didn't get where I am today by NOT being good at this."

"You're not worried about antagonising this Saxon character?"

On any other day, John might have been. He made a dismissive hand shrug. Saxon HAD been trespassing and he'd had enough of it. "Fuck him," he said, lip curling slightly in an involuntary snarl. It felt good.

Kate smiled and gave him a nod. "Party on, then." She flipped her 'phone and made the call. She couldn't quite see her way, but she was getting there.

"What happens to me?" Joe asked again after he'd made the call to Saxon. "What do I do now?" He seemed to have stepped into another reality. The big, brown eyed woman with hands that killed glanced back at him. They didn't pay him enough for this. Meat package, yeah, just a pickup...he tried to avoid looking at Big Al's remains. The thought of escaping had entered his mind and skittered away, terrified. He wouldn't know a geas if it bit him on the arse but he understood it intuitively, you don't fuck with people who can do that and if She said jump he'd ask how high and...

"Relax," Kate said with a quirky smile on her face, head cocked. "Come and eat with us. Nobody you know. Just another piece of meat like me." She turned away and walked off. Her coat swirled about her like a magician's cloak. She was barefoot on the grass and in his head. Beer glass in one hand, vidcam in the other.

Afterimages of her lingered. Joe followed, trying to sort them out, trying to stave off a panic attack. Relax, yes, right. Everything seemed too real, too intense, too bright. Breathe. Walk. Follow her.

"Got it!" Gareth crowed. "The Saxon git had a hacker who cut off the bidding."

"Which is illegal," Gerald mused, "So if we can prove it.....?"

"I suppose we'd be able to stick it to this Saxon bastard somehow. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't have one. He probably has a whole flock of them." Gareth paused. "Flock? That's sheep. What do you call a lot of lawyers? You know, like a gaggle of geese?"

"A bloody nuisance, usually," Gerald said. He took a drag of the latest joint and considered. "We don't have lawyers but John does. See if you can pin this down."

The cooks had laid out trays of rare Toni steaks for people who didn't like their woman meat overdone. They'd been grilled in the brief time it had taken for Kate to deal with the minor problem of a helicopter with an armed gorilla in it.

Angela saw her coming back with bile in her throat. She might have known, she thought bitterly. It would have been too easy if they'd just taken the bitch away but, no, that would have been too good to be true. Things never worked out that way. Not in real life.

Kate put the vidcam down on the grass very carefully. Her pet wizards would want it back. Treat your familars with respect. It wasn't their fault that Tracie was dead, dead, dead...oh no, not the red mist before the eyes...such a cliche....she would not go berserk...

"You okay?"

Kate dismissed the mist. It was just John. Tracie learning to ride a bike, that was just memory. Gone, all gone. "I'm fine," she said.

"Sure you are."

"Let's eat."

Joe stayed a respectable distance away. He seemed to be seeing waves of heat coming off the woman and distorting the air. It was probably just the heat from the barbecue, his fragmenting rationality told him. There was no reason why this woman should be able to warp reality, and the afterimages when she moved were just products of his imagination. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the pop psych tabloid disease. He'd seen her kill, he had a breakdown coming. He deserved it. He wanted a hospital bed and a lot of friendly nurses or at least a week's holiday in the Bahamas on full pay.

The cooks had put a lot of effort into preparing Antonia's filet for Kate. Most of this had gone into not overdoing it. They had excised the girl's genitals with the skill of long practice, like Japanese chefs preparing fugu fish. Not that any part of Antonia was poisonous, but if they'd burned the labia to leather or fried the clitoris...well, then they'd deserve it if she killed them. Kate had never eaten pussy before. Not literally, anyway. What had happened in the car was just play. She'd never had filet, that was for rich people. She'd promised Antonia that she would eat hers, but what if she didn't like it? What if it was just expensive because it was rare and symbolic? Essence of woman. Gourmets made a big thing about truffles, some subterranean mushroom, but what did it really taste like? Kate had never eaten that either. She barely noticed that the cooks looked nervous when one of them handed her the plate. She could barely control her hands. This was the prize she had literally fought for. The Holy Grail.

John noticed. He'd never seen Kate looking nervous before and it seemed incongruous. She hadn't batted an eyelash while she terrorised Eddie, took his DJ's into her thrall and pulled down a helicopter with her bare teeth. Well, sort of.

The music changed. Piper at the Gates of Dawn again, Chapter 24:

All movement is accomplished in six stages And the seventh brings return.

The mad genius Barrett had based that on the Tao Te Ching. Like all oracles, it was obscure enough to mean anything you read into it.

"It's okay," John said. "I've had filet before." He knew perfectly well that there was more to it than that, but he didn't want to overdo it. He left Kate a space to ask the question.

"What did it taste like?"

"It tasted like a woman's cunt lightly cooked, what do you expect me to say? I'm not a food writer on some silly, pretentious TV show. Yes, I enjoyed it. Very subtle flavours and textures. What you really want to know is what does it FEEL like. I can't tell you that. I've never eaten a woman I loved. I can't tell you how to feel about it."

The first time John had eaten filet it had made him so horny he could hardly stand up. He'd gone into to town and bought a prostitute, a girl called Tara with caramel skin and dark eyes. He had come close to biting her nipples off, or so it had seemed at the time. She had been a little frightened by his intensity at first, but he hadn't actually hurt her and in the end she had seemed to enjoy it. In the aftermath, lying in the bed, finally sated, he had heard her say "I thought you were going to kill me."

Could she really have enjoyed the sex as much as he thought she had if she'd really believed she was about to be killed? He still wasn't sure. Women were strange. Well, if she had just been acting, she'd done it well. He'd paid her double what she asked and he sometimes still thought about her.

I can't tell you how to feel about it....Kate nodded to herself. John was right. She gave him a nod too, and a wry smile. She lifted the plate awkwardly and the knife and fork fell off. Somebody tried to pick them up for her but she waved him away, shaking her head. She sat down on the grass cross-legged, folding down gracefully into a half-lotus position, trying to focus.

"Okay, Toni, this is it," she muttered to the piece of cooked flesh on the plate. "What you wanted, what we fought for..."

"Oh, for fuck's sake just get ON with it," Toni said, smiling. "EAT me."

"If I do that, you'll be gone. Everybody's gone..."

"Who the fuck is she talking to?" Joe asked nervously. "Is she going to go mad again?"

John shrugged. He was getting the hang of this. "No madder than the rest of us," he said unhelpfully. He was out of sympathy for Saxon's minions. Still, he had a duty as a host and manners were manners after all. "Want something to eat? There's some good thigh meat being carved over there. I could get you a sandwich and a beer.."

"I'll be gone any way you slice me," Toni said. "Unless I'm inside you. Oh, come on Kate, don't wimp out on me now. I came all this way just to be with you. I trusted you. Don't let me down."

Kate picked the filet up with her fingers. It was hardly warmer than it had been on Antonia's body when she was alive. She bit into it and chewed. As soon as the taste hit her tongue, something inside her relaxed. "You're gamey, Toni," she mused. "But I like that in a woman."

She'd just eaten a piece of the labia. "Get deeper," Toni urged. "Get all of me."

Kate found the clitoris and licked it.

"Oh, nice," Toni said. "But don't just play with it..."

"You asked for it," Kate said. She put the whole filet in her mouth and rolled it around on her tongue.

"Take your time," Toni said. "I can wait. Then swallow me. All my power is yours now. Don't forget."

Kate stood up without knowing why or what she was about to do. She chewed Toni's lightly cooked pussy thoughtfully, rolling it around her tongue, as she surveyed the whole of the party, taking everything in. Very subtle flavours and textures, John had said. She wanted to get them all. "You know, I'm enjoying this," she told Toni without speaking. "I was afraid I wouldn't."

"You didn't think I'd be delicious?" Toni gave her a flirtacious wink and a wiggle of her rump. "Have some faith in me. Don't be afraid. Of anything. It's just not you."

"You're going down," Kate said, and swallowed. As the organ slipped down her throat, she said "But you're right." She turned to John, back to reality, and saw the look in his eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked warily. The look in HER eyes was barely readable. Sorrow, whimsy, aggression, madness? Hard to say. She was beyond him.

"I am but mad North by North West," Kate said lightly. "When the wind's in the South I know a hawk from a handsaw. Any rump meat left? We need sandwiches for the crew."

"The crew?"

"The crew who will take Saxon down. You..." she addressed Joe, who flinched visibly, "Are you one of us?"

"One of..?"

"We happy few. We band of buggered. Whatever you like. Wanna be in MY gang?" She smiled.

Oh fuck, Joe thought. She really has gone off the rails. And that means I have to choose. Saxon is all-powerful but this woman is mad. If I betray Saxon I'm fucked. This woman is standing right next to me and she's dangerous. Beyond dangerous, she's scary. Lethal.

One of the cooks brought a plate of Toni sandwiches. People work fast when they're under pressure. Kate took the plate and handed a sandwich to Joe. "Take of Her body and eat," She said.

This was probably not the right time to say he was a vegetarian. He accepted.

John couldn't help shaking his head in admiration. No amount of assertiveness classes could account for what Kate was doing now. And..

"You too," Kate said, handing a sandwich to him. He took it. No problem eating girlmeat but he hesitated before he took a bite. This wasn't just casual cannibalism. It was a committment, a communion. Now he knew how Jeanne D'Arc had done it. Froggie propaganda, of course. It had been the French who'd burned her before she became a national heroine, symbolic of the futile resistance against the English...

They'd burned her for heresy. Something the English hadn't cared about at all. But Kate..

She wasn't even looking at him. She had flipped her 'phone, calling in all her minions, acolytes, admirers, whatever.

John took another joint out of his pocket. This was getting completely out of hand.

"Message from the Majestrix," Gerald said. "Battle horns of Rohan."

"Oh fuck." Gareth had been afraid of this since the first time he'd come close to her. "This is it?"

"Yup. The real thing. She's going after the Dark Lord. Get your stuff together."

"You're going with her?"

Gerald shrugged. "She's the Majestrix." He cued 'Joanni' from 'Aerial' by Kate Bush. Flipped the switch, stood up and went to meet the Fellowship. He didn't forget to take his 'phone, of course. Every modern techno-hobbit carries one. He just hoped that John would take good care of his equipment in case he ever came back. It didn't seem likely, but sometimes a hobbit's gotta do what a hobbit's gotta do. He strode off to rendezvous with the female Aragorn or whatever she was. Those mad brown eyes, that battle cloak...oh fuck.. the Morrigan, yes. Images and archtypes slipped and sled...slid....slided.

He took another toke on the joint. Things became clearer. Her luminous grin had put him in a spin. No, that was...

Gareth fought with his disintegrating reality for about five minutes before he succumbed to the gravitational pull of the Dark Star that was Kate. Before he left his station and followed, he did a few things, mostly left handed. The grass reproached him because he had shoes on. The Majestrix had no shoes. Her feet... There was a moment when he wondered whether he was stepping on grass Her feet had touched. Did he have the right to take his shoes off? He stopped and unlaced them, feeling conflicted. There was a helicopter to deal with and the Dark Lord and was he on the right side?

He could see the 'copter from where he sat trying to unlace his shoes. An evil insect from Outer Space squatting down on their innocent girl-eating party. That had changed everything. Kate had changed everything. She had brought it here...

"Kate, what exactly are you proposing to do?" John asked.

Kate smiled. "I'm going to see Mister Bloody Saxon, of course. He wanted to see me, now he will. Joe, how many people can that 'copter carry?"

This was more like it, a question he could actually answer. Joe took refuge in professionalism. "Seats six in comfort, eight at a squeeze. Lift capacity is quite a bit more than that, actually. It's a good bird, power to spare."

"Armed?"

Joe was shocked. "Armed? Good grief no, it's transport, an air limousine, not a warbird. The only shooter on it was the one Al had. We weren't tooled up for an assault. We didn't expect..." He spread his hands. Didn't expect YOU. Who could have? In the back of his mind he heard Michael Palin doing the Spanish Inquisition sketch. 'Noooobody expects...'

Kate nodded, she'd expected that. "Had to ask," she said.

"And then?" John persisted.

And then? Kate wondered.

"Wing it," Toni murmured back. "Just do whatever you want."

"Right," Kate answered the ghost out of time lost. That magic time in the car, so long ago.

"What?"

"I'm winging it," Kate said to the present.

John shook his head. "What can I do?"

"I don't know yet." She turned her head. Gerald had arrived and she offered him a sandwich.

"Majestrix," Gerald started to say and then took the sandwich. "Your friend?" Kate nodded and he took a hearty bite and chewed. Girlmeat, certainly, there was no mistaking it. Lean and slightly rare. Probably thigh or rump. "Good stuff," he said after he'd swallowed. "She's tasty." What the fuck, the Majestrix wouldn't want mealy-mouthed platitudes about being sorry for her loss. Kate nodded again, approvingly. Suddenly, he felt stronger and his sinews stiffened. "What do you want me to do?" He took another bite. Fuck, this really WAS good stuff. He'd got a case of the munchies. Stoned and hadn't eaten since breakfast. He really needed this. He bit again.

"Not sure yet," Kate said. "Got your 'phone?"

Gerald had his mouth full of more Toni meat so he just stuck a thumb up. Of course he had. His 'phone could access his computers.

Kate evaluated. She had a 'copter and a crew. One handgun, still lying there on the grass. Possible access to lawyers. Woo fucking Hoo.

Gareth turned up barefoot, looking wary and confused. Kate offered him a sandwich. He looked at it as if she'd offered him a live scorpion to swallow. He shook his head. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry," he said. "What do you want me to do?"

"Stay here," Kate said. "Keep in touch with Gerald. Work with John on the legal stuff and all that techno-whatsits you do. You're the ground support."

Gareth felt a wave of relief. It wasn't until later, after the Crew had departed, that it came to him.

Not the Morrigan, Gerald thought, perspectived shifting. Boudicca? She'd gone up against an arguably evil empire, against all the odds, and she'd lost, just barely. Lost in the short term, anyway. Rome had passed away and Britain had endured. The RAF overcoat recalled the time when the few, the happy few, had defied another evil empire and won. The running blue meat marks on her muscular legs were battle paint, woad. Whoah. Getting a bit ... crazy here..

"I've got to go," Kate said. She surveyed the remains of the demolished woman she'd made love to. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Toni said. "Didn't you hear it? Firebird, fly high, fly free, I can't hold you down You're too wild for me.."

Kate smiled. "I heard it."

"Fly, then."

"Coming with me?" Kate asked Gerald.

Going where? the rational part of Gerald wondered. Off into the wild blue yonder with a lunatic - oops, no, the Majestrix - to do what? "Do I have a choice?" he asked, half seriously.

"We all have choices," Kate said absently, as much to herself as to him.

"Got a plan?"

"No. I've got you for that."

Oh, great. Put me on the spot, why not? "And Gareth?"

Kate smiled enigmatically. "He knows what he is."

That was a puzzle and Gerald pondered it while Kate quizzed Joe on procedures. If he saw Kate as the Majestrix or Boudicca, how did she see Gareth, or him? Or Mister Saxon, for that matter. The Saxon colonisation hadn't destroyed Britain, it had recreated it after the fall of the Roman Empire, one contributing factor of which had been the overcommittment of troops and resources after the Iceni revolt. Britain had taken more legions to control than half the rest of the Empire combined. Like every invasion of Merlyn's Isle of Grammarye it had simply been absorbed. What if Mister Saxon wasn't the bad guy, just a necessary part of history? And what if it was for Christ's sake just a fucking name and he was overthinking it and going off on a tangent as he usually did when he was stoned? Muck or nettles time. Shit or get off the pot. Choose a side to be on.

Having eaten Antonia had put Kate in a peculiar position, a fact that she was aware of in the way you are when you're lucid dreaming. She had kept all the promises and walked all the miles you have to go before you sleep, and she was still here. Toni had found a resting place in her belly, as she'd wanted. Tracie was going home to her father's dinner plate. She, Kate, could never go home again. She wasn't the same person she had been. And yet, she kept walking and talking. One side of her mind kept on planning and fighting. What was she fighting, pigs on the wing? In which case, who was she now?

Joe found it slightly reassuring to be supplying information that this - his mind shied away from defining her - this person wanted. It was less reassuring that she didn't seem to see him as a person at all. He was just a tool that she could use.

"We should rename the copter if we're going to use it," Gerald suggested. He was thinking of the Star Trek film where they use a pirated Klingon ship. Hadn't they renamed it "The Bounty" after a famous mutiny?

"Good idea," Kate mused. "What do you think...."

"Firebird?" Gerald hazarded.

But if she was going to huff and puff and blow the capitalist pig's house down..

Kate bared her teeth and grinned. Joe took a couple of steps back and almost fell over. He had never seen an expression like that on a human face.

"Bad Wolf," she said.

Oh fuck, Gerald thought. The Bad Wolf scenario. That's the one where nearly everybody dies. Whether Kate is the hero or the villain, she's not somebody it's safe to be with. Well, that was hardly news, he chided himself. Consider yourself a Master of the Bleeding Obvious. He'd had dreams like this, who hadn't? You start off at a Jimi Hendrix concert and then you end up flying a Harrier in a final battle against the Devil. Or you suddenly realise that you're really The Doctor. You wake up from dreams, usually. This was actually happening, or at least it seemed to be. There was a touch of unreality about the whole thing. He was standing next to a Major Character in the RPG of life. Who was he, the faithful assistant, the Companion or the bit player who gets killed off? He didn't want to be red-shirted. But the alternative?

"You fly," Kate told Toni. "I have to do something else now. Be something else now. Flying is just a part of the score..." How to pick a crew? Logical mode enabled. Joe to pilot, Gerald to do communications, what else? Provisions? Barrel of rum for the mutinous crew? Arrhg, me hearties...

"I want to come with you."

Kate heard the voice and came down to see who'd spoken. It was a thin girl with thick red-brown hair, dressed in the bottom half of a green bikini and an open, white blouse that showed her small, freckled breasts. Her nipples were erect.

"As what, my lunch?"

The girl didn't even shrug or change expression. "If that's what you want."

"No panties allowed," Kate said. "Take them off." The girl complied without comment. "Do you have any talents we can use?"

"I can play the piano," the girl said, deadpan.

"Just what we need." A groupie, Kate realised. Insane, but who was she to comment? It wasn't that she'd lost touch with reality herself, it was something she could use sometimes. "What's your name?" she asked, knowing the answer before it was spoken by about half a second.

"Emily."

"Of course it is. Okay, you're in. Anyone else for the Skylark?" Okay, four are our weapons. Me, the berserker leader, a mad girl, a cowardly pilot and Gerald the techno-mage. Dream team. Wizard of Oz or Blake's Seven?

"You're forgetting me," Toni pointed out. "Still here."

"I'll never forget you," Kate apologised. "As long as I live, anyway. Five, then."

This was getting a bit too strange for John, but sometimes a man's gotta do etcetera. The coward John Wayne might have dodged the draught but he wouldn't. He stepped up to the crease. "I'll come," he said bravely.

Kate gave him a look of infinite compassion. "No, you won't," she said. "I do appreciate the offer, but this is a desperate venture, a quest for madmen. You're not mad enough."

Which leaves me where? Gerald thought.

On the way to the 'copter, Kate picked up the handgun and stuck it in her pocket. She probably wouldn't need it but who knows? Be prepared, as they say in the Scouts.

Joe fought to keep his hands steady as the 'copter prepared for takeoff. The automatics did most of it, the flight computer talking to itself as the rotors spun up. Gerald was fiddling around with the controls to the sound system. "Got it," he muttered as he plugged in a wire from some gadget in his pocket.

"What the..." Joe shook his head. He didn't need to know.

"Gotta sing, gotta dance," Gerald said absently.

"All essential functions nominal," the flight computer announced. "Manual control ready. But it would be safer if you selected an automatic flight plan..."

"Dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?" Kate suggested.

"Not recognised," the flight computer said.

"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun?"

"Not recognised," the flight computer said.

"Home, James?"

"Command accepted." The 'copter lifted off. The sound system burped and cut in. What was coming? What was Gerald up to? Ride of the Valkyries? Kate wondered. No, of course not.

"I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like...." Syd said.

That made perfect sense.

"Do you mind telling me why you're here?" Kate asked Emily conversationally.

"I'm part of you now," Emily said. "Or I will be. I have to be here."

Part of me? Of us? How? "Not until you take the sandwich, you're not," Kate said, taking one out of her pocket. And if the girl didn't eat of the host, what would she do? Throw her out of the door to her death?

Emily took the sandwich. "I've already partaken," she said without concern. "I had her left breast. I won a raffle." She put the sandwich to her mouth and said "But I don't mind eating some more. She's me. She's yours and so am I. We all eat each other. We are family."

Gerald was beginning to get the hang of it. "It's a dog eat dog world, isn't it?"

Emily just stared at him. She was somewhere else. He was just observing, she was somewhere really, really else. He tried again. "Who are you, Little Red Riding Hood?"

Emily said nothing. He might as well not have existed. She was so close he could smell her skin and the scent of her arousal but as far as minds meeting went he might as well have been talking on the radio to someone from Alpha Centauri. Oh well, bugger that for a game of soldiers. He didn't really care whether she liked him, he wanted to eat her. Not cooked and prepared in a civilised manner, he wanted to eat her raw. Rip her throat open. Bite her nipples off, chew her slender thighs, feel her blood pumping down his throat. She was prey and he was...what?

The Big Bad Wolf? The real one was sitting next to the pilot. He couldn't take Emily because she was hers. That was one reason, anyway. His erection was almost painful, in a pleasurable way, but his survival instincts weren't yet dead. Challenge the alpha female? He took a deep, relaxing breath.

Kate felt the back of ner neck prickling.

"He sees it," Toni said.

"What the fuck does he see?" Kate muttered irritably. She didn't bother to ask who. She knew.

"Who he is and who you are."

"And you know who everybody is," Kate sardonically. "Because?"

"Because I'm you, and you knew that already. Stay awake, Kate."

Kate nodded to herself. She looked over her shoulder and gave an order to her acolyte.

"Four Sticks," she said. "Again." It was a reminder. She didn't want to have to throw him out of the door. There was another side to the ineffable track that made it sound to her like a flight or a hot pursuit through time and space and other dimensions. When she was sufficiently stoned, anyway. And some people still thought it was the weakest cut on the sublime Led Zep 4? Philistines. An idea came to her. She picked out her 'phone and called Gareth.

'Ground support' had grated a bit on Gareth when he'd realised what the reference was. "Oh yeah," he muttered to himself. "I'm the fucking Tin Dog. Very funny. Let's see how far you'd get without me." But he worked on, fingers flying, not even caring that John was looking over his shoulder. The call came, as he'd known it would. Would it have come sooner if he'd eaten the muffin sandwich? But then he might be up there with them...his stomach lurched and he fought it down. It hadn't been the idea of eating girlmeat that had bothered him, but what it meant. The King's shilling. Once you take it, you're draughted. Gerald wanted to fight in the Last Battle against the fucking Dark Lord? On your own, mate. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

"Yes? Okay. Right on it. Done. Poof! You're invisible. Bad Wolf?"

John heard Kate's voice tinnily over the 'phone. "Yes?"

Gareth sang, off tune: "I'm just as high In a rut looking up..."

John heard a faint, tinny snort.

"Well done, Ricky," Kate said.

"What was that about?" John wanted to know.

"GVPS," Gareth explained. "Global Vehicular Positioning System. All vehicles on ground and air carry a transponder that lets the traffic controllers know where they are via satellite link. Nobody relies on radar any more." He shrugged. "Wankers."

"And you hacked it."

"Hacked?" Gareth grinned. "Such a crude word. I cast a spell." He waved his arms. "Abracadabra."

Take a pinch of keyhole And fold yourself up You cut along a dotted line You think inside out And you're invisible..

"Which means, in non-technogeek?"

"Bad Wolf can see the GPVS net but it can't see her. The callsign isn't recognised. It's a one-way mirror."

"What the f.."

"Kate can do anything with it. They, whoever they are, won't see it coming."

"Any progress on the legal stuff?"

"Oh, what would you like next? Jump through hoops?"

"Please?"

"What you said earlier. Saxon's goons had no right to land here without permission and now their lawyers are saying it didn't happen. If this gets to court, they'll have to explain how they fixed the bidding. Heads will roll."

"How did they do that? Fix the bidding?"

Gareth shrugged. "Fucked if I know, but it's usually an inside man, somebody bought."

"We still have a corpse on the lawn."

"So get a fucking lawnmower. I'm not one. Chuck it in a ditch. Not my problem."

And if Saxon's lawyers reported the missing thug, they'd have to admit that they'd been making a pickup on a technically illegal warrant, while trespassing. Which meant...

It would take some work, but he could tie Saxon up in knots over this. He smiled, not nicely. There were so many options. It was like a game of chess. He wasn't going to make a hasty move.

"Good work," he said. "See if you can find out how the bidding was fixed if you get a minute. First..." Well, what was the first priority? Gareth gave him an exasperated look. He shrugged, almost apologetically. "Do whatever She tells you to."

Gareth heard the capital in the 'She' and just snorted, but he worked on.

John had to admit that Gareth was right. Disposing of bodies was not his area of competence, and why should he care anyway? It was NOT his problem. Think. The murder....no, not murder, self defence...shit, he was thinking like a lawyer. That wouldn't work. What would Kate have done if she hadn't gone flying off? She'd have done something sudden, startling and outrageous..

Or....John started to smile. Obvious and outrageous. Outside the box. He remembered an old argument with Angela on one of the few occasions they'd discussed the matter. Well, not so few if you counted the times she'd brought it up and he'd refused to answer.

"It's all very well for you men," she had carped in that nagging tone he hated.

Here we go again, he'd thought. You don't know what it's like to bear a child, oh the pain, far worse than any mere male can comprehend, you don't know what it's like to get roasted and eaten, blah blah blah. Women bear children, women get eaten, fact of life. Get OVER it.

"It never stopped you eating them," John had said, "It's all right as long as it's somebody else, isn't it?" That was the core of it, as far as he was concerned. Angela's moral outrage had nothing to do with real concern for anybody other than herself.

"I'd just like to see a man get roasted for once and see how he liked it," Angela had spat out.

Well, that did happen sometimes, but it was very rare and only done by volunteers. John had never seen it done himself. It might be interesting. His smile twisted into a wry grin. The idea that anything Angela had said might come in handy as a source of inspiration was a delicious irony. He might even let her in on it. He moved.

"You're serious?" the head cook asked.

"Yes. Strip the body, burn his clothes and cook him. I don't care how. I want nothing left that could be identified." Not that that would fool the police if they really took an interest, but you had to make an effort to cover the bases, make a plausible defense, whatever. If nobody pressed the matter he could get away with it. Too many variables. Wing it, look decisive and keep the jolly old fingers crossed. If Kate won her battle it might never matter. On the other hand, if you just left a body on the lawn and the Plod stumbled over it, it might be an embarrassment. They would have to take notice, like in the old days when cannabis was illegal but they didn't usually get excited about it unless you blew smoke in their faces and dared them to arrest you.

"I've never cooked a man..."

"View it as a challenge, Henri. Surpass yourself. Or I'll find somebody else who will."

John didn't mistake this for anything that would impress Angela. She'd carp that the man was already dead and he didn't have to suffer the agonies of whatever and it wasn't the same and blah blah blah etc. Too bad. Men solve problems, they don't talk about them. Of course, he could offer her the goon's bollocks on a plate. That might shut her up for five minutes. It would be worth it just for that. Gobstoppers. He grinned. Worth it just for the laugh. But Angela never really laughed, he recalled, and the grin turned sour. Well, do it anyway. He'd never eaten roast man and it might be interesting. It was odd, he thought, lighting up another joint. Everything was strangely strange yet oddly normal. You just tell somebody to get on with it and, if you say it convincingly enough, they do. Henri and his crew had stripped the goon's body and were cutting it up. Apparently, roasting a man whole might have attracted too much attention so they were going to barbecue him in parts. Since nearly everybody was either drunk or stoned or both, it seemed unlikely that many of them would even notice when they came for more meat and got man- instead of woman- flesh. Or would they?

Henri, he noted, was very careful about cutting the goon's genitals off. Here's where men are supposed to wince, he thought. What he felt was hard to define. What if it really was him on the cutting table? Would he hope he tasted good as the knife bit? Was that how the ladies felt? It was an odd thought, perversely arousing, and something else tickled the edges of his mind. He couldn't quite catch it.

"Trust me," Kate said. "What I tell you three times is true."

He actually thought he'd heard her say it, just for a moment, and caught the edge of a dangerous smile. Only a memory. This had to make some kind of sense, he thought, without any urgency. The music changed and he couldn't remember what it had been before. It was 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', the original one by the Beatles, and that was right because everything that happened was inevitable because it had happened. You just had to see it.

"Fuck me, stoned again," he thought. Which was true but altered nothing. He had already gone through the Looking Glass. Which had started when Kate first appeared. She altered reality. Gerald had seen that from the start. It was all so obvious in retrospect. She was a Magician. Daughter of Merlin, Vivian, Lilith, Witch Goddess, Majestrix, whatever...Gareth had seen it too and rejected the revelation out of fear...

Revelation? Fuck me, really stoned. Next stop, Angels of the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon. Didn't she ride on a Beast of some kind? Bugger it, gone mythical. Usually happens after the seventh joint. The Beast would be the helicopter. No. That didn't work. It was on the tip of his tongue. Or it wasn't. Kate didn't really fit any set pattern. Which was why what would happen would happen, whatever that was. He wouldn't see it coming and neither would anybody else. Just like being in an episode of Doctor Who. WooHoo. Cue spooky music.

"Got a call sign," Edwin said. "Faint. Chopper's coming back."

"They made the pickup?"

"No idea. Nothing on the radio. Something funny about it." Edwin felt uneasy.

Adric was not amused. "Funny how? The boss isn't going to like this."

"No ETA, no location. Just the call sign that says it's there. Wherever 'there' is."

Adric didn't understand all the tech stuff and didn't want to, or at least that's what he told himself to avoid admitting that he couldn't understand it. He was a manager, goddamit. "What the fuck does that mean?"

Explaining things in detail would have taken too long. "It means something that has the chopper's call sign is coming. I think. Something is coming. We don't know what it is or where it is or when it will arrive." He couldn't resist adding to his manager's anxiety. Why should he be uneasy on his own? "Or what it will do. In layman's terms, it's invisible."

"When will it be here?"

Edwin had already explained that there was no ETA. He suppressed a sigh. "It will come when it will come." He shuddered involuntarily as he realised what he had said and what it meant. "Sooner than you think."

"Did you ever read 'The Wind in the Willows'?" Kate mused dreamily.

Oh fuck, Gerald thought, not for the first time. Now I know. She thinks she's Amanda Blake. I read that one. She's mad and so am I for being here at all. Sorry, Gareth, you were right.

"Bear with me here," Kate continued. "You remember the bit where they're passing out weapons before they take on the weasels? I think it was weasels. And stoats. Well, bit of a problem. We don't have a lot. Here's a gun." She handed it to Gerald. "And a knife for the loony chick. No offense." She took a carving knife out of her pocket and handed it to Emily. "I purloined it."

Emily smiled. "Purloined," she said, licking her lips at the taste of the word and fingering the edge of the blade. "I like it. Thank you."

Joe didn't want to be any part of this. He just wanted to set the bird down and get out before the shit hit the fan. What was she going to give him, a peashooter?

"Cut the autopilot, switch to manual control," Kate said sharply. "Land the bird on visual where I tell you to. Can you do that?"

Joe swallowed bile and nodded.

Bad Wolf descended.

"Sooner than you think," Edwin said and the lights flickered. Everybody in the security room started slightly. It was still daylight outside, but the light in here was artificial and it felt like the chill you get during an eclipse, when the birds stop singing . All the screens flickered too, went out, rebooted and came on again. "Just a power interruption," he said, more to reassure himself than anyone else. Didn't they have surge protectors? His skin crawled. He thought he could almost hear something. A beat, a dangerous rhythm with something unsettling underneath it. Probably just his coward's heart fluttering and his imagination. The lights seemed dimmer than before. He tapped the keyboard. There was nothing on the screen but blobs of dim light swirling and then shooting towards him as if he were falling into a void. Somewhere behind it, there was a hint of a face, a wild and savage face, like something seen in a nightmare.

A chorus of voices spoke from every speaker in the room, sounding somehow as they were behind him and whispering in his ear. It was a mocking, teasing chorus and its words were incomprehensible, distorted. They focussed slowly as if coming from a long distance in space and time. Then he heard the words, close enough to tickle his ear. A light, male voice.

"The Big Bad Wolf is coming, little piggies. Coming to blow your house down. Run, little piggies, run fast." There was a burst of insane laughter fading and then a sonic spike that seemed to blow the speakers.

The lights flickered again and the screens rebooted.

"What just happened?" Adric asked tightly.

"Guess we got hacked," somebody suggested tentatively. His eyes looked haunted.

That had to be it, Edwin thought. Of course it did. He looked around the room. The light still seemed too dim and everything was unfocussed. Sonic attack? Who could do that? He could smell vomit and saw that somebody had thrown up on the floor.

The speakers crackled. A voice spoke, not the same one, sounding strained. "This is Bad Wolf. Permission to land?"

"What the fuck is this 'Bad Wolf' shit?," Adric demanded. "Is that our bird or not?"

"Sounded like Joe," somebody offered.

Edwin nodded. "Joe, is that you? What's going on?"

There was a crackling sound and then the same voice, louder and urgent. "Get out. Run. It's.."

The sound stopped.

Joe's heart was pounding. He was holding the aircraft steady by sheer instinct, resigned to the fact that he had just signed his own death warrant. Kate had disabled the radio. He supposed he could just crash, but it went against all his instincts as a pilot.

"Well done," Kate's warm, rich voice pronounced approvingly. "I didn't think you had the balls."

Joe took a deep breath. He imagined that if she liked his balls that much she'd probably have them for tea later. "I had to try," he said. In fact, he'd surprised himself. He reverted to the defense of professionalism. "I don't think we're going to get permission to land after that."

Gerald had been 'phone conferencing. "Brilliant," he said. "We couldn't have made that bit up." To Kate, he explained what was happening, briefly.

Part of it was having all the right stuff available, Gareth acknowledged to himself, but it's always like that with programming. Be prepared. He'd been messing about with the theme tune to Doctor Who for years on and off. It was an absolute classic of electronic music, long before they'd had all the easy-to-use digital sound synthesisers you could get nowadays for the price of a secondhand TV. There was a considerable Internet community devoted to discussing the subject and people who swore they couldn't listen to the original without becoming uneasy, excited or simply terrified. Not being a psychologist, Gareth hadn't tried to analyse why that was, he'd just played with the idea and found out what worked. Oh yeah, easy. Just mix the right bits low enough to be perceived subliminally, other bits loud enough to cover it, patch in visuals of Kate's face when she was near berserk under the visual feedback opening sequence from 1963 Doctor Who, distorted enough that you don't quite know what you're looking at, and then...

Oh yeah, the multi-tracked 'choir' of voices. Piece of piss. Got that idea from a Modesty Blaise novel, written back when you'd need hardware to do it. He'd written a program to do it instead.

Just put all that together on the fly, hack Saxon's net and stick it to them...easy, right.

If you're the fucking Maestro. He grinned and punched the air. If only he could see their faces.

The faces were mostly grey and pallid. Don was the first to say it. "Sorry, chaps, but I'm going. About to take my annual holiday. I'll be back tomorrow if there's anything left to come back to. I'm sure I have a few days coming."

Adric was furious. "You can't just..."

"Yes I can, and I'm going to," Don said with studied control. "You can stay and face....whatever it is...if you want to. I'm a devout coward and I'm off."

"Face what?" Adric yelled after him. "We don't know...."

"Exactly. We don't. And I'm not sticking around to find out." He left.

"Bad...er, XP-401, you do not have permission to land," Edwin said. "Hold your position and await instructions. Acknowledge." There was no reply, of course. He hadn't really expected one.

Joe heard the instruction but couldn't reply. He looked at Kate. "Now what?" He had a sneaking suspicion that he'd just been thrown off the back of the troika to slow the wolves down.

"Whose side are you on?" Kate asked.

It was a fair question. Kate and her merry gang had hijacked his bird and shanghaied him into flying it, but could he blame her? He had no doubt that Saxon regarded him as expendable if he thought about him at all. He'd given fair warning to the others, what more could be expected of him?

Emily leaned forward, touching the knife.

"No," Kate said. Emily froze.

"I'm on my side," Joe said. "I just fly for whoever pays me. Saxon didn't pay me enough to get into this shit. I resign. I'll do whatever you tell me to."

"And what am I paying you?" Kate's voice was neutral but Joe imagined an undertone of danger.

"My life back. I want a nice, quiet job doing postal drops to the Shetland Islands. I'd settle for running guns in Zimbabwe."

"I won't kill you unless you cross me," Kate said. "Deal?"

"Deal." Joe could curl up in a foetal ball and cry sometime later. If he survived. "Where do you want to set down?"

Kate could see Saxon's manor out of the window. He'd occupied an old building and vandalised it with modern additions, like a heliport on the roof. She bared her teeth and made a barely human noise deep in her throat. "Anti-aircraft fire?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

Kate mused for a moment and then brightened. "Set us down on the lawn," she said. "I'll use the front door."

The next bit was problematical. Gareth wished he'd had more time to work on it. A subsonic feed into all the comm systems in the house? He was working blind, just shooting arrows and hoping he hit something. If it worked. The visuals were easier. "Do call me Kate," Kate said again in the video feed he'd downloaded from the publicity put out by the meat company when they'd auctioned her, with a smile that was too bright to be entirely sane. The meat markings on her athletic body had looked like a kind of warpaint, woad for an avenging warrior Goddess. A Fury. Maybe that's what had attracted Saxon to her in the first place. Well, be careful what you wish for. Gareth pressed 'Enter'.

Joe set the 'copter down neatly on the front lawn. Kate patted him on the head and said 'Good job.' She disembarked, followed by her technogeek and the mad girl. That's it? Good job? What was he supposed to do now?

"Fly away," Kate said. "Shoo!"

She was going away. That was good. The mad woman was going away. But she looked so beautiful in her armour.

Gerald had heard about things happening like this to people tripping on acid. It never had to him before. The house looked really big and very far away, as if he were very small, and then it was normal sized and he was six feet tall again, or sixty. He was walking with ghosts, Gods or the damned. Or just a mad woman with a grudge. Choose your reality. The front door opened just before Kate reached it. Well, that fitted the pattern. Mere doors don't stand in the way of the Majestrix. They wouldn't dare. Kate walked in and he followed. Emily came with him. Behind the door was a broad, carpeted hallway and there was a big man standing there, dressed as a butler. Well, of course. That or the absurdly knowing dwarf from the last two episodes of 'The Prisoner' or a David Lynch movie.

"Whom shall I say is calling?" he asked. There was an edge to it that Gerald didn't quite get, but he didn't like it.

"I'm here to see the Master," Kate said, unperturbed. "I believe I'm expected."

Gerald pulled the gun for emphasis, awkwardly.

The big man looked amused. "Do you even know how to use that thing?"

"Hmm, let me see if I've got it right," Gerald said tightly, nettled. "You point it and pull the trigger? Difficult concept, but I think I get it. Let's see." He angled the gun up and fired a shot into the ceiling. Plaster fell. The noise was shocking but he didn't flinch. He pointed the gun at the big man. "Now, if I point it at you and pull the trigger again.....how am I doing? Would you like a practical test?" The big man no longer looked amused. Another overpaid goon in a monkey suit trying to rattle the geek, Gerald thought. Just give me a reason...

"Steady," Kate said mildly, patting him on the shoulder. "Save the artillery for when we need it."

Gerald felt the weight of that powerful hand and was subdued.

The big man looked again. His perpective shifted somehow. The woman seemed bigger now, and he had an unsettling sense that he was out of his depth. The lights seemed dimmer and red- tinged, with only the fading daylight from the front door, still half-open, throwing odd shadows from the visitors onto the walls. They seemed to have come from a portal into somewhere else. To gain some time, he said "I believe you ARE expected, excuse me."

Kate smiled. "Well, I am and I'm not. Long story."

Gerald couldn't resist. "Nobody expects..."

"Us," Emily hissed.

The naked mad girl was playing with a knife and looked mad enough not to care what she did with it. The geek had a gun. The big woman....

Kate evaluated Jeeves. Big, strong, not entirely stupid. As an opponent, nothing much. She could take him, but why waste time and effort? "This is not your problem," she said gently, "Unless you make it so. Take me to your leader."

There was a moment when they sized each other up. A flicker of movement, countered before it was seen by the others. Grandmasters psyching each other out?

Gerald didn't know how he knew but he could see that Jeeves knew he was outmatched even though he didn't know how either. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife, pardon the cliche, and mad Emily had one. Oh, fun. His balls tightened.

It had taken Gareth some time to come up with this stroke before he'd been struck by inspiration. There are some music tracks you don't need to do anything to in order to make them unsettling and most of them are on the original White Noise album or The Dreaming by Kate Bush. Well, that or most of the other Kate Bush albums. There were several obvious choices. Electric Storm in Hell? Too obvious. The Visitation? Closer. There was something even better. If the light trick had worked, this should get them starting at shadows. Cut the subsonics. Cue:

Every speaker in the house started broadcasting 'All the Love'.

The first time I died..

The background voices echoed eerily.

Jeeves wasn't someone to be rattled easily. He knew he was being psyched out, somehow. Knowing that didn't alter the fact. They were using cheap tricks to make him uneasy. It had worked, he was. The geeks in the basement were probably shitting themselves. It didn't help that the Warrior Goddess looked imperturbable. And when had he started thinking she was..

Just a fairly big, half-naked athletic woman in an old military overcoat of some kind. With woad on, like Boudicca...

He met her eyes for a second and then looked away. There was no weakness there at all. No fear. Some patience, not inexhaustible. He'd lost.

Jeeves nodded. "You want to see the Master? This way."

"Looks like Guido has folded," Tessa remarked laconically, watching a monitor. There were a lot of them. Some of them still worked, on and off. Odd things were coming over the sound system. Spooky things. Ghosts lamenting. It was unsettling.

"Guido?"

"Big Strong Guy? Lurch?"

Saxon shook his head. "This isn't going quite the way I'd hoped it would," he remarked.

Tessa gave an ironic arched eyebrow to the understatement. "Delaying tactics?"

Saxon nodded. "Shut the door." He needed time to think.

The party of the damned, the band of buggered, followed Kate who followed Jeeves to the end of a fitfully lighted corridor. Jeeves tried the handle. It refused to move. "It seems to be locked," he said apologetically. One more off the back of the troika, Kate thought. Saxon doesn't mind how many minions he throws to the wolves.

"If this is a trick.." Emily snarled.

Kate lifted a hand and she subsided. "Let me try," she suggested.

"I don't see how..." Jeeves began and then shrugged and stepped aside. She was in charge of the party. It wasn't just a matter of being afraid of her. He was beyond that. She was something else, something that couldn't be stopped. He could have tried to fight her earlier but the moment had passed. If he'd tried then, he would have failed, he knew that now. Now he might as well have tried to stop the sun rising.

Gerald had a flash from an episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer where Buffy just breaks the lock by brute force. Kate looked strong enough to do it. She looked strong enough to huff and puff and blow the house down.

Kate turned the handle and the door opened easily. Just like King Arthur took Excalibur out of the stone.

Saxon put the antique black telephone back down on its cradle, very carefully. He stared at the numbered dial and rubbed his eyes. The staff in the basement weren't answering. Cut off or deserted? He'd just seen Kate opening a door he thought he'd locked. He could see her on one of the monitors, from an oblique angle, a shadowy figure in a coat that looked like a cape. The words 'Eleventh hour' crossed his mind. "Any idea how she did that?" he asked in a determinedly conversational tone. The obvious answer was not what he wanted. He could do that for himself.

Tessa could have told him that the electronic locks she'd activated from her desk had just been neutralised, but her Lord and Master presumably knew that. She said, "She's the Morrigan. A Fury. Whatever. Lots of names for it." Tessa was a very competent secretary, but Saxon really kept her around because she sometimes had insights. That and the fact that he fucked her occasionally, when she let him. Long story.

"Which means what, exactly?"

"An Avenger."

"How can we control her?"

"We can't. An Avenger can't be controlled or stopped. Killed, maybe, but if you fail.." Tessa shrugged. The rest didn't need saying. If the snark is a boojum, you're fucked.

"Can she be killed?" It wasn't what Saxon really wanted to do, but as a last resort...and why was he even asking? Can she be killed? Good grief. She wasn't Superwoman. She wasn't invulnerable. Keep telling yourself that, he thought.

Tessa shrugged. "You can try. Things will go wrong. Guns will misfire, people will panic and miss, doors will jam open. Locks will fail. It will all seem perfectly natural. On one level, it probably is."

"So, She's, what, lucky?"

"You could call it that, I suppose."

"What would you call it?"

There were several ways Tessa could have explained it. She'd read a fair bit of science fiction. Most of it involved technical details about quantum physics that took hours to explain and which nobody understood. She could have resorted to cod mysticism, stuff about destiny and so on.

"She doesn't belong here," she heard herself say. "She's something else. It's as if the whole world is wrong to her and she wants to change it."

"Lots of people feel like that," Saxon said. A long time ago, he had. Everybody wants to change the world at one time or another, if they have any juice in them at all. The rest are just zombies.

"But the world believes her," Tessa said. "She wants it so much that she changes reality. She'll invoke any Daemon she needs to do it."

"That doesn't even begin to make sense," Saxon said.

"I know. It doesn't make sense to me either. But it's happening. She's doing it. I don't know how but my gut instinct says she is."

"What would you recommend?"

Tessa shrugged. "Face her or run for the hills? Up to you. I'm not the Master here."

"If you were me..."

"I'm not you. If I were you, I wouldn't have called up something I couldn't put down. First law of Goetics."

Saxon gave her a look. "Not exactly my field of expertise," he noted dryly. "I was under the odd but I hope understandable impression that she was a woman, not a thing from Hell."

"Same principle. The Romans thought the same thing about Boudicca."

"But they stopped her, didn't they?"

"Just barely. With a brilliant general and a large helping of luck. If they hadn't, the world's mightiest Empire would have been thrown out of Britain and humiliated. As it was, they had to station more legions there than anywhere else in the world in case it happened again. Boudicca was reincarnated as Britannia, ironically, the icon of the Victorian British Empire, long after the Romans were gone. A mightier Empire, ruled by a woman."

"The point of this being....?"

"Who really won?"

"I do like these little chats," Saxon said (actually, he did), "But how is this relevant, exactly?"

"Did you ever wonder why Boudicca did what she did?"

Saxon shrugged. "Not really. Obviously some sort of home rule thing...."

"Not quite. Boudicca's tribe, the Iceni, were on good terms with the Romans until they were treated like slaves after her husband the King died. She protested and the Roman governor had her beaten and humiliated and her daughters raped. They didn't take Queens seriously. She got a bit ticked off about that."

"It was personal, then?"

"It always is. Where do you think these legends start from? Who was the Morrigan, really? It's just Anglicised Irish for Great Queen. It's an archtype because it's real. Maybe she was Boudicca. Maybe some other woman."

The monitors all showed the same image. A shadowy figure in a cape that look like wings in the wrong light was stalking towards the citadel.

"The other name for her is the Raven," Tessa said.

"You do have a taste for the melodramatic," Saxon noted. "Why Raven?"

"War symbol. In Britain, anyway. Ravens eat the eyes of the dead on battlefields, apparently. It's part of the language now. Ravening horde, etc. At least I think that's where it comes from. Ravening." Tessa's mouth twisted.

"And a taste for the gruesome. I believe you said that with relish."

Tessa didn't deny it. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Ever wonder why ravens are the guardians of the Tower of London?"

Saxon had, briefly, sometime or other. He hadn't really given it much serious thought. It was all tradition and mythology. Except that something out of myth and legend seemed to have come alive. How do you stop a myth?

"Which brings us back to how do we stop her," he said.

Tessa couldn't resist. "You're supposed to say 'Surely we should be safe in here'".

"And why would I say that?"

"Oh, kill the joke, why don't you? Forbidden Planet. The ID monster is coming to get them. Somebody says 'Surely it can't get us in here', because they're in a vault or something."

"And?"

"The Captain says 'It can burn through the door. And don't call me Shirley.'"

"Nearly there," Kate told Antonia.

"That's good, I suppose," Antonia said. "You do realise I'm not really here, I hope? I mean, I'm dead, you ate me. I tasted good. Job done. Move on."

"I thought you were one of the crew."

"I was. I am. I'm always yours now."

"Until I die."

"Don't, please. Spare me that fatalistic stuff. All that's left of me is you and even if I'm gone I don't want you to. I love you."

"I know," Kate said aloud.

Gerald and Emily looked at each other.

Guido looked at Kate, thoughtfully.

"He thinks you're weakening," Antonia said. "He thinks you're mad."

""When the wind's in the South.."

The thought had occurred to Kate, of course. Mad people are not supposed to know it. Sane people are supposed to be the ones who doubt their sanity. Bullshit, of course. Somewhere over the rainbow her husband was coming home. Somewhere in the past she was making breakfast for her daughter. Her only child. Everything would be fine again. She could turn back time. Not.

It had been a long day. She'd killed people and eaten her daughter's friend. It would be nice to wake up and find that it all hadn't happened. But was the earlier Kate any more sane? Walking down to the bus stop, waiting for the bus that would take them both to the slaughterhouse. In that pretty blue dress. Mutton dressed as lamb. Or wolf in sheep's clothing.

Kate looked back at Guido. "Don't even think about it," she said.

"You don't want to mess with her, really, trust me," Gerald said.

And that was odd, Guido thought. The kid's tone wasn't threatening at all, it was like he was just giving friendly advice. He hadn't even bothered to raise the weapon he carried. A geek with a gun who had discovered that he had the guts to fire it should have been cock-a-hoop and swaggering, but he seemed to have accepted that he was an insignificant threat compared to the big woman. There were several possible explanations for this, the most obvious one of which was that it was true. He'd been in a few tricky situations in his life, but nothing quite like this. He'd folded against her once and it had grated on him, but sometimes first thoughts are right. She, whatever she was, was something he couldn't explain and they weren't paying him enough to test the matter and end up dead. He nodded to Gerald and to Kate. The mad girl just glared at him. He ignored that. "So what happens now?" he asked.

"I'm going to meet your boss," Kate said. "What happens then is up to me. You can try to stop me but you won't get another warning. Been there, done that, out of patience."

There was no music now, no excuses. Could he take her? He was bigger, of course, and he was no coward, but how she moved....she was a martial artist or something beyond that. He'd never fought a real master, his size and strength had always been enough. She was probably far more skilled and there was something else. More intelligent than he was, no surprise, he'd never considered himself the sharpest tool in the box. Something more. Couldn't put his finger on it. She was an animal, a cat with a human brain, something...else.

"Muck or nettles?" Gerald inquired sympathetically. "Been there.."

"I have a sister in Colorado," Guido said. "I'd like to see her again."

"Join the Crew or get the fuck out while you still can," Emily hissed.

"I like her," Antonia said. "Are you going to eat her too?"

Guido looked at Kate.

"Maybe, we'll see," Kate told Antonia. To Guido: "What she said."

For about a tenth of a second he entertained the idea that he could just say he agreed to join the party with the jolly old fingers crossed behind his back, but it came as no surprise when Kate said "I'll know." It came as a relief. He shrugged.

"Saxon pays me," he explained. "I can resign, I guess, but I can't turn on him, you can't expect me to. He did say he wanted to see you, I don't know why, he never tells me anything. That's okay, he's the boss. Never bothered me before."

"And now it does? Crisis of conscience?" Gerald inquired mildly.

Guido saw Kate turn her head just a little and shake it reprovingly, like a schoolmistress admonishing a student for rudeness. Half-naked, with sweat-smeared skin and tangled brown hair, her powerful, statuesque body clad in an incongruous RAF overcoat, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even if he could have hurt her, he wouldn't want to. She was...

He shrugged again and looked at Kate. "You scare me, lady, leave it at that. There's the next door and there's a flight of stairs." He walked away.

The door to the stairs was locked. Kate tugged at the handle and it didn't move. Gerald reached for his 'phone, Gareth must have been asleep at the switch. Kate braced her feet and pulled again. The door frame broke with an audible crack. Instead of swinging open, the door was wrenched away from its hinges and Kate dragged it aside.

"Interesting feed from the 'net," Tessa said. "Pictures of a man being cooked. Must say I wouldn't mind munching him myself. Quite a piece of beefcake. Balls deluxe."

"Which is relevant because?"

"Looks like the same party you lifted Kate from, or tried to. My guess, it's your goon. Now we know how she got the bird. He ran into her and now he's a crispy critter."

"Your command of the vernacular never fails to amuse me," Saxon said in a tone that implied the exact opposite. "What do you think really happened?"

"My vernacular says 'Duh,'" Tessa said. "You saw the feeds from the fight in the processing plant, didn't you get it? They only stopped her because she was concerned about her daughter, who is now dead. She could have killed everybody in the room. She won't get fooled again. What happened was your goon met Kate and that's all she wrote, as the saying goes. The details don't matter, getting the drift yet?"

The monitors now showed grainy images of the fight between Kate and Big Al. The non-fight. There he was, showing the gun, and then a blur of motion and he was down. Dead meat. The screen showed Kate from the back, mostly just the coat and her legs, walking towards the helicopter and then the POV shifted all over the place and cut off.

That's when they heard the sound of the door breaking at the foot of the stairs.

"I told you it could burn through the door," Tessa said. "Sort of."

Saxon gave her a wry look.

Well, it's not exactly Buffy style, Gerald thought, but it will do for me, t'is enough, t'will serve. If science fails, back to the caves. The whole situation seemed unreal. If he faltered for a moment he'd realise just how insane it all was. Things like this only happen in comic books. Following an Avenging Goddess in a crusade against an Arch Villain? It had almost made sense until the Majestrix had ripped a door off its hinges. She wasn't Superwoman. He'd heard about things like that happening, women lifting tractors off kids, blah blah. Maybe the hinges had been faulty, there was a structural weakness, and Kate was pretty big...well, really big.

Shit, rationalising. Coming down. He needed another joint. He would have to be high enough to ride the tide or he'd wake up dead. Fortunately, he had one in his pocket, crumpled and half- smoked. He fumbled it out with shaking fingers.

Emily gave him a mocking smile. That burned. She handed him a cigarette lighter. Where had she got that from? Oh, her thin white blouse had a pocket. "Want a blindfold as well?" she asked.

Eat her raw, Gerald thought. That would be nice. Wipe that smile off her face. Tear that pale flesh off her slender bones with his bare teeth. Starting at her inner thighs. Chew off her teensy weensy tits. Okay, maybe fuck her first. Have to take that knife away...

"Thanks," he grunted and lit up. He had the impression that Emily knew exactly what he was thinking about.

"You're welcome," Emily said. Her smile widened. Maybe she was thinking about eating him, too. It was a perversely intriguing notion. She was quite good looking, really, in a weasely sort of way. Wiry, mad and sharp featured, with good teeth. Bright eyes of a muddy green, grey, brown non- colour, like a pool in a forest.

...........................I was lost and now I look For the turning and the signpost and the road which takes you down To that pool inside the forest in whose waters I shall drown.......

"Get a room, you two," Kate said, climbing .

Gerald and Emily looked at each other in mutual indignation.

"Mad buggers, the next generation," Antonia said. "Heartwarming, isn't it?"

"Don't you start," Kate told her.

"Oh, you started it," Antonia pointed out. "Eat of my body? Come on, what did you expect? I mean, my body, not yours. Not that there's any difference now. I am he and you are she and we are all together...sing along. 'I am the eggman, they are the eggmen..', come on."

"Meaning what?"

Antonia laughed. "They're yours now. Kill them before they breed. Or not."

"That's very helpful," Kate said.

"Oh, don't mind me," Antonia said. "I'm quite happy being digested. Maybe my RNA has migrated to your brain. Maybe you're imagining this. You work it out. Get the drift? You're in charge now. You always were. You just didn't know it."

He could lock the door, Saxon thought. Then what would happen? It was thicker than the other one, maybe it would hold, for a while at least. Then what next, cower in here, besieged in his own office, while she found a battering ram or some other way in? Call the police? He picked up the phone experimentally. No dial tone, of course, just the kind of digital noise you get from a computer transmission.

He was going to have to meet her sooner or later, better face up to it like a man. Saxon opened a desk drawer and pulled out a revolver.

"What are you going to do with that, shoot yourself?" Tessa asked, amusedly.

"I'll shoot her if I have to," Saxon said, ignoring the gibe. "Or do you really think she's bulletproof?"

Tessa shrugged fatalistically. "She's whatever she needs to be." In the next few minutes she might be killed, but she had been living on borrowed time for so long that the prospect didn't bother her unduly. The door opened. Through it, the crew emerged. There was the ringleader, the Monster from the ID, the Thing no barrier could resist.

A tall woman in an old RAF overcoat and nothing else. Shadows and unheard thunder followed her in as if she came with a storm hanging round her. She looked bigger than she had on the monitors. Some people can walk into a room and you know they're there. SHE came into the room and you could hardly see anything else. Unruly hair like a crown of brambles, a cloak of shadow colour, faded blue warpaint running down her muscular body. But behind her...two others followed her in. One of them, could it be?

"Hello," Kate said. "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin." She surveyed the room, taking in the layout automatically. A large and well-appointed office, done in the restrained good taste of someone who hadn't let money go to his head. Two desks, the smaller and less central occupied by an attractive, dark haired woman dressed in some kind of fetishist erotic lingerie. The man behind the larger one was obviously the boss. "Mister Saxon, I presume?" The man was better looking and younger than she'd expected. About forty something, dark blond and rugged. "Nice decor." She indicated with a glance the plaques on the wall behind him, displaying the nicely mounted heads of three beautiful women.

"Thank you. Please stay where you are." Saxon pointed the gun at Kate. She smiled and shook her head slightly. It was unnerving. Her assurance was uncanny; suddenly the gun felt like a peashooter aimed at a shark. It was probably a myth that vintage RAF overcoats were designed to resist bullets and even nuclear attacks, but much of her skin was visible anyway. He should be able to hit something vulnerable. Her stomach. He couldn't put a bullet into that face. That would be sacrilege.

Gerald had pointed his own weapon at Saxon. "This is probably an unnecessary precaution," he said, in a carefully level voice, "But if you pull that trigger, I'll pull mine. Maybe you'll miss. Maybe I will. Do you feel lucky?" He didn't add 'punk' to that in case the Dirty Harry reference was too obvious. Thank God he hadn't attempted the accent, Saxon would just have laughed. Eat your heart out, Clint. You just did it in a movie, I'm really here. At least I think I am. The jury is out on that one. Was this what they called a Mexican standoff?

"Tessa?" Emily cried.

"Emily? I almost didn't recognise you..." The naked girl standing behind the Invincible Terror rushed past the Majestrix. The girl behind the desk got up to meet her.

Gerald and Saxon gave each other a look of mutual male incomprehension. What the fuck?

"Put the gun down," Kate told Saxon casually.

"Not until he..."

"I am not going to tell you twice," Kate said, more firmly.

In person she was not only more beautiful than she'd looked on the vids but a thousand times more terrible. One glance from those brown eyes and a sharp word and he, master of all he surveyed, felt like a ten year old schoolboy. Maybe Tessa had been right. Maybe. Saxon put the gun down on the desk. He knew people and he believed the geek really would pull the trigger.

Kate looked at Gerald, who put his weapon back in his pocket.

"Now," Kate said to Saxon, "You are going to tell me what this was all about. Or there will be Hell to pay."

"And maybe even then," Antonia added.

"Let's not overdo it," Kate told her silently.

"I wanted to save you," Saxon said simply.

Kate glanced at the heads again. "I'm sure I'd make a fine addition to the set."

"No, that's not what I meant..."

Emily and Tessa were hugging each other tearfully.

"You're supposed to be dead," Emily protested. "You were called in, you went to the plant.."

"Where I was graded as a whole roaster and sold to my Lord and Master here," Tessa said. "He wanted to fuck me first." She shrugged, no big deal. Lots of people did that. "He liked it. A lot. I was supposed to be served at a dinner party the next day but he ordered somebody else instead so he could fuck me again. She got cooked, I got screwed."

"But that was months ago," Emily said, shocked. "You should be..."

"I know. I'm well past my 'eat by' date." Tessa looked a bit embarrassed. She should be a pile of bones and some fond gastronomic memories by now.

"Dad was going to order some of your best cuts," Emily reminisced. "We were going to have a lovely family memorial dinner for you. Then we heard you'd been booked. All of you." Her face twisted with remembered grief and disappointment. "I cried for ages."

"I'm sorry," Tessa said sympathetically, though of course it hadn't been her fault. She well remembered the moment on the inspection line when the grader had picked her for a whole roaster. She had protested. "Roast me? Don't you waste a lot of meat like that? Lots of bits overcooked or raw and too much leftovers. People will get tired of eating me cold in sandwiches, with or without Hellman's mayonaisse, like Christmas turkey in February. Properly butchered, I'd make a whole heap of juicy steaks, joints and organ meat, not to mention two nice tits and a prime cut. You could cook me all sorts of ways and eat all of me fresh....." The grader had ignored her and moved on. "On the other hand, I suppose I'll look good spitted," she had muttered to herself in consolation. Always look on the bright side, she'd been taught in self appreciation class.

As a confrontation between the heroine and the arch-villain, this lacked something in Gerald's estimation. "Would anybody mind telling me what the fuck is going on here?"

"Family reunion, at a guess," Kate said. Saxon had started to say the same thing. They looked at each other.

Sisters? They didn't look much alike, Gerald thought, but then sisters sometimes didn't. The dark haired one, Tessa, looked a few years older and fuller-figured, a fact emphasised by her costume. He didn't know what you'd call it, being male, but he recognised it from the X-Men comic as the outfit worn by the Black and White Queens of the Hellfire Club (or was it the waitresses?), based on the one Emma Peel wore in an infamous classic episode of the Avengers. It suited her, and also served to emphasise the contrast with her skinny sibling's unkempt appearance.

"You've been a naughty boy," Kate reproved Saxon.

Saxon shrugged. "So I bent the rules a bit. I really did buy her for a dinner party, but she was very good in bed..." Gerald couldn't help noticing that Tessa didn't mind hearing that. "...and I kept putting it off. After a while, she wanted something to do until I got around to cooking her and it turned out she was a pretty good secretary. Where's the harm? Yes, I know, you're not supposed to keep the meat this long after you've bought it, but it not like she's going to go off or something like a pot of yoghourt left at the back of the fridge."

"What a charming image," Tessa said with a wry smile. Gerald couldn't help smiling too.

Emily frowned indignantly. "That's slavery!"

Kate gave Saxon a raised eyebrow of reproof. There was a good reason live meat was supposed to be consumed within three days of purchase. Keeping a woman as a sex slave, forced to submit in humilating ways in order to stay alive day to day, was considered inhumane.

Saxon shrugged again, offering no defence.

"It wasn't quite like that," Tessa put in. "Sometimes I threatened to go on sex strike until he cooked me as he properly should, but I could never keep it up for long. He's pretty good in bed too, you know, and I've always been a horny bitch. It's not like he had to force me."

Emily's indignation was somewhat deflated. "And the sexy bitch-goddess getup? Not that it doesn't suit you, of course. God, I wish I could fill an outfit like that...."

Both Gerald and Kate guessed what was coming next.

"My idea," Tessa said. "He was going to go for the charcoal woman's business suit thing, with plain glass spectacles. Yuck. I said I'd rather be boiled and served with mint sauce."

"It's true," Saxon admitted disarmingly. He was standing up.

"I like that girl," Antonia said. "Can we eat her?"

"Is that all you ever think about?"

"Fuck her first?"

The idea was not without its appeal, Kate had to admit. After all, the girl was overdue and she did look quite delicious.

Gerald was suddenly uneasy. They were all getting a bit too relaxed. Emily had put her knife down and looked more lost and confused than the 'mad as a stoat' he was used to, while Kate seemed distracted and Saxon...

Saxon was moving. "Look out!" he shouted. Out from behind the desk, it was easier to see that the man was quite big, at least Kate's height or an inch or two more, and heavier set. Not like some lard-arsed fat-cat capitalist, more like a retired rugby player in a brown leisure suit. He was sizing Kate up, feet apart and hands slightly out from his sides, looking for a way to tackle her.

"Look out!" Antonia warned, but Kate had already half-turned and stepped back, spreading her balance automatically.

Gerald drew his gun again. Could he shoot Saxon when he was unarmed? He glanced at the gun on the desk; it was still there. He looked at Kate, but she was watching Saxon. It looked like he was going to get the confrontation he'd expected and maybe even wanted. Be careful what you wish for, he reminded himself, you just might get it.

Tessa and Emily were on the further side of the room, looking taken aback.

"I'm sorry, Kate," Saxon said. "But I can't allow you to do this."

"Do what? You have no idea what I intend to do." And neither do you, Antonia whispered.

"Take over," Saxon said.

Take control, make me the victim, the slave, the oppressed, Gerald read into that. Saxon was used to being in control and wouldn't let it go like he had.

Kate nodded slightly, not letting her eyes wander from her opponent. Was that what she wanted? To be in charge? At the moment, it didn't matter. She had been challenged and the priority was not to lose, not to be defeated. Any other questions could wait. How had Saxon been trying to save her, what had he intended, and so on. "You intend to fight," she stated in a flat tone. It was not quite a question.

"Battle mode enabled," Antonia said.

Saxon said "Yes" and watched as something changed in Kate's eyes. They were as implacable as a shark's, giving nothing away. His heart rate rose.

And now we get down to the knuckle, Gerald thought. Muck or nettles time and this time it's serious. Saxon won't fold like the goons did. He won't underestimate her either. He's bigger than she is, looks like he can handle himself and he's neither a coward nor stupid. Fuck, you could cut the tension in here with a chainsaw. Watching the prelude to the clash of the Titans was stressing him out. He needed a joint. He needed...well, a fucking cigarette would do.

The lights went out. All the speakers in the room came alive with an electronic *urp* and started playing music. 'Blackbird', by Jeff Beck. Emergency lighting came on and both Saxon and Kate had moved.

Emily grabbed Tessa's hand. "Mummy, I'm scared," she said.

Mummy? Gerald thought. And...

Kate stalked forward, hunting, and Saxon took half a step back, then caught himself. He couldn't let her back him off and corner him. He braced himself and stood his ground, feeling slightly wrong-footed. This felt wrong in so many ways. He was twice her size, she should be backing off from him. He felt the desk at his back...

...that was good, Gerald thought, wasn't it? She had established dominance. He hoped.

Saxon reached blindly for the gun. Gerald fired his at the desk. Saxon's hand snapped back and he threw himself forward against Kate. His weight bore her back but she was twisting and moving..there was a flurry of blows, grabs and moves that his eyes couldn't follow. He'd watched some karate matches, long enough to know that you have to be an expert to know what was going on, not long enough to become one. A cat fight? They go so fast that no human eye can follow one. How about cat versus dog? Dogs are bigger, cats are smarter and faster. Any day now he'd run out of analogies. Well, it wasn't karate, he was fairly sure, and it surely wasn't cricket.

Kate had rather hoped that Saxon would make a fight of it. "Be careful what you wish for," part of her mind - Antonia? - teased, but she was too busy to answer. Saxon was charging, but not like a bull. He had his forearms up in a boxer's guard position. He intended to use his greater weight and strength without leaving her any easy openings. There wasn't much room for fancy footwork and this was his territory. She stepped back and then forward again, meeting him at close quarters. Her right elbow snapped upwards.

Saxon felt the impact on his face, only slightly muffled by passing between his guarding arms. He couldn't block it completely, she was FAST. He felt Kate falling back under his momentum as their bodies met and tried to grab the arm that had hit him. His fingers caught the thick fabric of the coatsleeve on her right arm, but he couldn't get a solid grip. He threw a punch at her chest as she stumbled backward, but he didn't have the range to put all his force into it. It hit her coat again. The fucking thing was practically armour, it was like fighting underwater or in a dream. He couldn't get a solid punch in.

Strong, a detached part of Kate noted without surprise. That last punch had hurt, bruised her ribs. She let him force her back, not that she had much choice, and smacked the cupped palms of both hands into his ears. If she could rattle him long enough to get some space...her back came up against a wall and Saxon's bulk forced the breath out of her lungs. He was off-balance too, and his head was on her shoulder. His arms, stronger than hers, were trying to get around her, pull her into a bear hug. She tried for a knee to the crotch but he blocked it with his leg. She bit his ear, hard, feeling gristle crunch between her teeth. The grip slackened just for a moment and she threw him back, both hands against his shoulders. It was an effort.

Saxon's head was ringing. His left ear was in agony and he could hardly hear. His nose was bleeding and that didn't help his breathing. He was panting slightly. But he'd fought her and survived. She was breathing a little heavily too.

"I suppose we could agree a draw?" he heard himself say, somewhat nasally, which detracted slightly from the civilised nonchalance he'd been aiming for. Good grief, the woman was tough. And vicious. Quand on l'attack, il s'defend. Shit, trying to remember irony in schoolboy French? Bad sign.

Kate peeled herself off the wall and shook herself. "No," she said. There was no draw here. It was win or lose. She flexed her hands and inhaled through her nose. No serious damage. Her heartbeat was strong and steady. She felt better.

"Oh shit," Antonia said. "We're going to berserker mode? Scream and leap?"

"Muck or nettles," Kate said aloud. "Stand back."

Jeff had finished playing with the blackbird and segued into 'Suspension'.

"It doesn't have to be this way," Saxon said.

"Yes," Kate said, "It does."

Saxon had the absurd impression that he was acting a part in a movie. Terminator 2, maybe. Kate seemed to be reassembling herself like the T-1000 did after being hit by a truck. His greater size hadn't stopped or even impressed her. She was indestructible.

"Why?" Saxon asked.

There were any number of reasons and Kate wasn't interested in a debate at this point. "Because it does," she said.

I might have known, Gerald thought. Okay, I did know, or I thought I did. That was just the testing phase, the warm up. This time it's for real, total war. Like the Battle of Trafalgar. He remembered the Hollywood version, with Mel Gibson as the heroic but doomed Admiral Villeneuve taking his huge but pathetically inept Franco-Spanish fleet out to fight the smaller but far stronger British force commanded by the terrible oppressor Admiral Lord Nelson, portrayed as a comic book version of Darth Vader. Well, it hadn't been any worse than 'Braveheart' and the sea battles had been fun, but....

What followed made the love taps of the previous fight look like a tea party at the Vicar's. Not that he'd ever been to one. It seemed as if he was missing half of a lobe of his brain. Saxon and Kate were operating on another level and mere mortals like him could only get the fuck out of the way. The gun wasn't an option any more, The Majestrix and the Dark Lord were battling for the Fate of the Universe or something and moving too fast for him to get a bead on. If he fired, he'd probably hit Emily or the gorgeous Tessa. That would be a waste of one or two hot babes. He took Kate's advice and stood back.

Saxon was on the floor and Kate was standing up. Some items of furniture appeared to have sustained damage.

"Nice try," Kate said.

"Thank you very much," Saxon rasped, "Now what?"

"You yield," Kate said. "Submit, surrender, topple your King, resign."

"Or else?"

"Or else I will kill you."

The punch Kate had thrown to Saxon's throat had been gauged to disable, not kill. It had taken a few seconds for her to get the shot in precisely, after reading his body language, but she had done it. She could do it again. Whatever defenses he put up, she could analyse and defeat. The first time, she had been taken off guard. The second time, she had taken his measure, beaten him and let him live. The third time...

Saxon was a realist. The third time, the chances were that he would not survive.

"I yield," he said. "What happens now?"

"Don't hurt him," Tessa said. She had a knife against Emily's throat. The same knife Emily had come in with and laid down on Tessa's desk.

"Mother!" Emily protested indignantly. She squirmed in the grasp of Tessa's other arm around her waist.

"Sorry, Em," Tessa said, "But..."

Kate strode over to the pair and held out her hand. "Knife. Give me. Now. Capice?"

"I'll slit her throat..."

"Go ahead," Kate said. "Slit her throat. Then I'll kill you, I promise." Emily gave Kate a glare. Kate shook her head. "That sort of thing only works in stupid American cop movies. 'Drop the gun, copper or I'll kill her, swear to God I will'. Jesus wept."

"Drop it, Tess," Saxon rasped. "She's right."

Tessa let Emily go and dropped the knife. Emily glared at her indignantly, teenagers are good at that.

"If it makes any difference, she wouldn't have done it," Kate told her. "But you can go and sulk in your bedroom if you like."

"And you know this because?" Emily sniped.

"I had a teenaged daughter once. I felt like killing her sometimes. I didn't. Somebody else did it for me."

"She's not my real mother," Emily put in sulkily, arms crossed.

"Oh, Em..." Tessa said, hurt. "I wouldn't have..."

"Wait a minute!" Saxon protested, voice still hoarse. "I didn't do that!"

"I never said you did," Kate said. "But now you mention it.."

"Oh, come on, be fair. I didn't get you or your daughter called in. Why would I? I'd never heard of you. I only got interested in you after I saw the stuff on the 'net."

"And then you fixed the auction," Kate stated.

No doubt one of her pet tech wizards had found out. No point lying, there was no telling what she would do if she caught him out. Something lethal, probably. "Yes," Saxon admitted. "I did do that. So what? You were going to be sold anyway, what's the harm?"

"How do I know you wouldn't have?" Emily was still upset.

"For one thing, she was holding the knife backwards," Kate said aside without turning, "So she wouldn't cut you accidentally." To Saxon: "Where's the harm?"

Saxon let that pass for a minute. "She was bluffing? What would you have done if she'd been serious?"

"Exactly the same thing," Kate said. "I don't bluff."

"Sorry, Boss, I could never hurt Em," Tessa said. "I'd rather die."

"Oh, Mum," Emily said.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry I scared you," Tessa said, hugging her.

Gerald's head was starting to spin. Tessa was Emily's sister, then her mother, then she wasn't, or maybe she was. "Is there an Evil Twin in there somewhere?" he complained.

"Oh, for God's sake," Kate said. "Tessa is Emily's stepmother. Her natural mother died or got called in some years ago and her father remarried. Emily hated her at first, but Tessa tried hard and won her over. It probably took a couple of years before she called her 'mum'. Emily felt guilty for liking her more than her birth mother. When Tessa got called in too, Em went off the rails a bit. When she found out Tess had been booked and she couldn't have a memorial meal of her, she went right over the edge. Now you don't have to watch 'Days of Our Lives' or 'Home and Away' for at least a month."

"Bloody Hell, you're good at this," Antonia said. "I'd never have guessed."

"I'm older than you and a mother."

"Is that true?" Saxon asked Tessa.

"Yes," Tessa said. "Well, it didn't quite take two years..."

"How did you know?" Emily wondered.

"I'm a Master of the Bleeding Obvious," Kate retorted. "She doesn't look remotely like you and she isn't old enough to be your mother. Then you said 'She's not my real mother' when you were mad at her. The rest was just routine."

"You don't look old enough to have a teenaged daughter either," Saxon said.

"Come off it. I look good for my age but I've easily got ten years on Tessa. Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Worth a try. Besides, you look better than a lot of women half your age. Why else do you think I made such a big deal of acquiring you? You're special."

Gerald's phone beeped and he answered it. It was Gareth.

"What's happening?" Gareth wanted to know.

"The Queen has taken the Castle," Gerald said.

"And the Snow Goose flies South in September," Gareth retorted. "Leave out the Spy vs Spy John le Carre crap. Did we win? What do we do now?"

"SHE won, and other than that, buggered if I know. I'll get back to you." "SHE won, and other than that, buggered if I know. I'll get back to you."

The music changed to 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene'. A bootleg version from a live Floyd performance, Gerald guessed, one of the most sinister versions. He grinned.

"So," Saxon said, "There you have it. You won. What are you going to do now?" It was an odd situation for him. He hadn't lost in a long, long time. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like. He got up, feeling shaky and weak. What the fuck was that music? It was creepy and unnerving. Kate didn't seem to be affected at all. She looked stronger than ever, as if his energy was passing to her. A ridiculous idea, of course.

"I'll need a few answers first," Kate said. The ache from her bruised ribs had faded. She'd always healed fast. "Why send a thug by 'copter to pick me up? You could at least have waited a while."

"For what? The bidding was over - okay I fixed it, I've already admitted that, mea culpa - so what was the big deal?"

"For me to eat my friend Antonia as I'd promised to. Did you miss that small point?"

"Actually, I had. Is that what all this is about?" Saxon wondered incredulously.

"I had a promise to keep. You tried to stop me."

"You tell him," Antonia said.

"Big mistake," Gerald said to Saxon.

"Apparently. You did all this for that? I didn't even know it was that important to you."

"You even didn't bother to think about it. You've seen what I've done before and you might have guessed why if you had. The 'net must be flooded with phonecam footage by now and I bet you've watched enough of it. You just didn't put it together. You're the classic example of a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Other people are just toys to you. That offended me. What did you think you were going to do with me, anyway? You said you wanted to save me. As what, a pet? Did you really think you could own me the way you did her?" She indicated Tessa with a flick of the hand.

"Call it owning if you like," Saxon said, "Or just an offer of a stay of execution. Yes, I wanted to keep you, but you could have refused and gone to the spit in the usual way."

"And if I'd accepted, what about Tessa? Into the oven with her? Out with the old, in with the new?"

Saxon shrugged. "I was planning to keep her too, actually, but if that's what you wanted..."

"Thanks a lot," Tessa said sourly. She wasn't really surprised. She'd seen the way the wind was blowing.

Saxon just gave her a mildly apologetic look and another shrug. To Kate, he said, "I still don't see what real harm I've done. Yes, I fixed the auction, but you would have been sold anyway. Maybe I was hasty sending an armed man with the 'copter, but you were technically my property at the time and I didn't think Joe could take you if you refused to come. I had no way of knowing that Al couldn't either. What do you want from me? You did get to eat your friend after all, and I can't bring your daughter back, can I?"

"Except for the parts of her you've got in the meat locker," Tessa said snidely. Toss her aside like a used tissue, would he?

Kate froze. "What parts?"

"Steady," Antonia said.

Saxon stiffened slightly. "Does it matter? She was dead anyway. Did you want some?"

"Oh, yes, yummy!" Antonia exclaimed. "She'd have liked that."

Kate couldn't blame her; to be fair, she had a point. Toni had said exactly the same thing to Tracie on the bus: Hell, I'd order a slice of you myself if I wasn't going with you. Tracie had replied: I wish you could.

"It matters because I ordered her prime crosscut for her father," Kate said stiffly.

Saxon visibly relaxed. "Is that all? Calm down. I didn't override your order, or anyone else's. I just ordered from what was available of her after I got interested in you. All above board and legal. Some steaks, a breast, various other bits. Her filet was already taken, by your order, presumably. I could see if there's any more on sale but I doubt there's anything left of her by now, she was an 'A' prime."

Kate nodded, feeling a quick, fierce flush of maternal pride. Of course she was! "If I find out you're lying.."

"Yes, I know, you'll kill me," Saxon said wearily, "I'm not. Check on it if you like. Why is everybody so bloody suspicious these days?"

"I can't imagine. Check on it?" Kate asked Gerald, who nodded and picked out his phone. She gave her order number. She suspected that Saxon was actually telling the truth, but she wanted him to know that he couldn't get away with anything.

"Take your daughter's meat if it means that much to you," Saxon said. "With my profound compliments," he added ironically. "Anything else, your Majesty?"

"Everything else," Kate said. "I'm taking over. I want it all."

"What? You can't do that!"

"I've found lately that I can do pretty much anything I want to," Kate said. "And you're in no position to refuse me."

"No, I mean it's impossible. I couldn't sign everything over to you even if I wanted to. You're.." he spread his hands helplessly.

"Dead. I don't exist. Yes, I know, I'm legally a non-person. I'll have to work around that until I can create a new identity, and it would be easier if you helped. Nothing is impossible, some things just take a bit longer..."

"I'm impressed," Antonia said.

"Hang on," Gerald said. "You're staying here and leaving him alive? The first time you turn your back he'll stab you in it, and I don't mean figuratively."

"Simple," Kate said. "Dead man's handle. You're my contact on the outside. If you don't hear from me on a pre-arranged schedule, you and your hacker friend send all the dirt you've dug up on Saxon to the papers, the 'net, the Plod and anybody else who's remotely interested. And you," she turned to Saxon, "Will spend the rest of your life in jail, if you live that long. Assassinations can be arranged on the same basis. I'll specify a very nasty one."

"Majestrix," Gerald pointed out, "I may be your faithful acolyte, but Gareth works for whoever pays him.."

"I'll pay him," Kate said, "And you. With Saxon's money."

"What happens to me?" Tessa wondered. Maybe Kate would have her for supper. She wasn't entirely sure that she'd mind. Her borrowed time with Saxon was over one way or another.

"You can stay on as my secretary or go back home to your family. Some of you, anyway. Say, enough for a really good memorial dinner, any more than that would look suspicious. I'll see the rest of you doesn't go to waste. That's the best I can offer, sorry. You can't go home alive any more than I can, you know that."

"I know," Tessa nodded. "Thank you. How about it, Em?"

"What?" Emily looked shocked. "You want me to decide?"

"Yes," Tessa said simply. "I left you once, I won't do it again."

Emily shook her head, tears in her eyes. "I want you back home, Mum, but I know I can't have that. I don't want you dead. I only wanted a memorial dinner because I thought you were gone. Stay here and work for Kate if it's what you want to do."

Gerald thought that was very touching but he'd half hoped that Tessa would opt for being carved up. He might have been able to have some of the leftovers. The image of her being slipped into the oven and roasted until golden brown lingered in his mind. A few offcuts would have sufficed. Oh well, might as well be a good sport about it. Besides, it might get him into the pants Emily didn't have on. Slippery weasel. "Go for it, Tess," he said. "Join the crew. You're no madder than the rest of us."

Tessa looked at Emily. Emily kissed her fondly. "What the geek said," she said.

Tessa nodded to Kate. "Count me in," she said. "I'm yours."

"Do you really think you can get away with this?" Saxon asked incredulously.

Kate gave him a look of honest puzzlement. "Do you really not understand yet? Get away with it? I already have. This morning I was going to the meat plant with my daughter and expecting to die by lunchtime. I'm still here. I've lost everything I had or cared about and I should be dead by now. I have nothing left to lose and there's nothing you can threaten me with. You can't frighten me so you can't control me. You can try to kill me but if you fail you're dead and if you succeed you're ruined. If I fail, I'm no more dead than I would have been if I hadn't fought. Clear enough?"

"You broke the principle rule of Goetics," Tessa said helpfully. "Don't call up anything you can't put down."

That was too much for Saxon. "So what do you think you're going to do?" he sneered. "Change the world?"

"I changed," Kate said dreamily. "Why can't the world?" Her manner changed and she stalked forwards. She reached towards Saxon and he flinched. "Don't ever speak to me like that again or I'll wipe that look off your face. Permanently."

**************

Gerald flinched at the snap in Kate's voice and it wasn't even directed at him. The Queen of Air and Darkness was back. His 'phone buzzed and he held up a hand while he took the call.

"Gareth says the order went through and is marked 'delivered'," he told Kate at last. "He was telling the truth."

The look of relief on Saxon's face said it all. He didn't even say 'I told you so'.

It was amazing, he recollected thinking later, just how much can be organised in an hour or so by properly motivated people with the right expertise. Like all good secretaries, Tessa knew almost as much about Saxon's dealings as he did, including a few things he didn't know she knew, which meant it wasn't safe for Saxon to try to put one over on Kate. He might just get away with it but he might not and, if he didn't, she might just decide he was more of a liability than an asset and pull his plug for good. So Saxon, harnessed under Kate's yoke, had to pull with the team or die. Gerald's own abilities were not inconsiderable and were backed up by those of Gareth, who was motivated by a mixture of enthusiasm, greed and survival instinct. If Saxon ever got out from under Kate's thumb, he might be in serious trouble. If he tried to change sides and Kate found out, what she'd do to him didn't bear thinking about. Behind it all was the natural intelligence, physical and psychic presence and driving will of the Majestrix herself. People did what she said or got out of her way. Opposing her was not an option if you were fond of living. She was beautiful and terrible, like Galadriel if she'd taken the One Ring.

"Do you really think it will work?" Emily asked later. They were on their way back to the party grounds. Somehow, Kate had persuaded Joe to come back and join the team, bringing the 'copter (now officially Bad Wolf One) with him.

"We'd better hope so," Gerald said. He was glad to be leaving. Being with Kate had been wonderful and he wouldn't have missed it for all the tea in China but it was also exhausting. It was like contact tripping with a demiGoddess. One minute she was human, the next a walking Storm. He considered himself lucky to have survived it. "I wonder how the party's going?" He peered out of the window in the ruddy evening light.

"Probably out of meat and into the serious drinking and fucking," Emily said offhandedly. "I wouldn't mind a drink myself if there's any left."

"Oh, don't worry, John always keeps plenty. Come to that, I'd like a joint and something to eat," Gerald said. "I didn't have that much of Toni and I'm getting the munchies. Fancy hopping on the barbi? We might scrape enough meat off your scrawny bod for a decent burger."

Emily snorted. She was considerably saner since meeting her stepmother, but otherwise the same. She was still nearly naked and still unbothered by it. She had also kept the knife.

"Okay, how about a shag?" Gerald suggested.

"How romantic," Emily retorted. "Are you asking me for a date?, Sorry, I don't do geeks."

"Personally, I prefer the term International Man of Mystery," Gerald said. "Gareth's the geek. Besides, you're not exactly Helen of Troy yourself, ferret face. You could do worse. You probably have."

"Hah! Ten minutes ago, you were still drooling over my mum," Emily pointed out.

"Who wouldn't? She's seriously hot. Out of my class, though." She'd probably end up in bed with Kate, he thought. There was a mental image that would stay with him. Having Kate's daughter for supper too, he'd bet. His stomach rumbled.

"I won't argue with that. So you'd settle for me as a consolation prize? I'm so flattered."

"Better than a dog on the street. Besides, I quite fancy you in a weird sort of way. Buggered if I know why."

"That's easy. You're a guy, I'm female, nearly naked and I've got a pulse. Not that I'm sure the pulse is strictly necessary where you're concerned....."

"Good idea. I could strangle you and have a bash at necrophilia," Gerald suggested. "At least then you'd shut up. And I'd get ferretburger for supper."

"I've still got the knife," Emily warned. "How do you like your balls, still attached?"

"Approaching destination, Sir and Ma'am," Joe said.

"Take her down, Joe, nice and steady," Gerald said authoratively. Gareth had cleared it earlier with John.

"It was funny about the heads though, wasn't it?" Emily giggled.

"Who'd have guessed that one of them was Saxon's ex-wife?" Gerald agreed.

"And the look on HER face when she saw it was the one who looked a bit like her..."

"And the look on his before he explained that she'd been called in anyway...."

"I thought he'd shit himself."

"Hey, look, the fire's still in, just. Should be hot enough to cook a scrap like you, anyway. We wouldn't need a spit, I could oil you up in a jiff..."

"You're not getting your grubby hands on me...."

"...and just toss you on the coals as you are. Well, without the shirt, obviously. You'd be done in five minutes, flame grilled. What do you say?"

"Sorry, love to, but I promised Mum I'd e-mail her tomorrow and besides I've got the washing up to do. Give it up, jerk, you're starting to sound obsessed."

"No, I'm just hungry and you're meat on the hoof. Well, sort of meat. What do you expect if you go round not dressed like that? Okay, a date then. Doctor Who marathon. You can even wear panties this time if you like but if you don't want to, I won't insist. I could help you look for them.."

"Doctor Who?"

"I suppose you'd prefer..."

"The classic ones with Chris Eccleston? He's hot."

Bad Wolf descended, light as a feather. Gerald and Emily spilled out, still talking, still arguing. It would be a long time before they really came down.