Hogfather

     'Oh, don't you start,'  said Medium Dave.  'Anyway, you ain't afraid of the  dark.  You're famed for it.  I been  working  with you in all kinds  of cellars and  stuff. I mean, that's how you got your name. Catseye. Sees like a cat.'

     'Yeah, well... you try an'  make up for  it, don't  you?' said Catseye. "Cos when you're grown you know it's just shadows and stuff.

     Besides, it ain't like the dark we used to have in the cellar.'

     'Oh,  they  had a special kind of a dark when you was a lad, did they?' said Medium Dave. 'Not like the kind of dark you get these days, eh?'

     Sarcasm didn't work.

     'No,' said Catseye, simply. 'It wasn't. In our cellar, it wasn't.'

     'Our mam used to wallop us if we went down to the cellar,' said  Medium Dave. 'She had her still down there.'

     'Yeah?'  said  Catseye, from somewhere far off.  'Well, our dad used to

wallop us if we tried to get out. Now shut up talking about it.'

     They reached the bottom of the stairs.

     There was an absence of anybody. And any body.

     'He couldn't have survived that, could he?' said Medium Dave.

     'I saw him as he went  past,'  said Catseye. 'Necks aren't  supposed to bend that way...'

     He squinted upwards.

     'Who's that moving up there?'

     'How are their necks moving?' quavered Chickenwire.

     'Split up!' said Medium Dave. 'And this time all take a  stairway. Then they can't come back down!'

     'Who're they? Why're they here?'

     'Why're we here?' said Peachy. He started, and looked behind him.

     'Taking our money? After us putting up with him?'

     'Yeah...'  said Peachy distantly, trailing after the others. 'Er... did you hear that noise just then?'

     'What noise?'

     'A sort of clipping, snipping... ?'

     'No.'

     'No.'

     'No. You must have imagined it.'

     Peachy nodded miserably.

     As he walked up the stairs, little shadows raced through the stone and followed his feet.

     Susan  darted  off the  stairs and dragged the oh god along a  corridor lined with white doors.

     'I think they saw us,' she said. 'And if they're tooth fairies  there's been a really stupid equal opportunities policy...'

     She pushed open a door.

     There were no windows to the room, but it was lit perfectly well by the walls themselves. Down the middle of the room  was something  like a display case, its lid gaping open. Bits of card littered the floor.

     She reached down and picked one up  and read: 'Thomas Ague, aged  4 and nearly  three quarters,  9  Castle View,  Sto Lat'.  The  writing was  in  a meticulous rounded script.

     She crossed the passage to another room, where there was the same scene of devastation.

     'So now we know where the teeth were,' she said. 'They  must've taken  them  out of  everywhere and  carried  them downstairs.'

     'What for?'

     She sighed. 'It's such old magic  it  isn't even  magic any more,'  she said.  'If you've  got a piece of someone's  hair,  or a nail clipping, or a tooth you can control them.'

     The oh god tried to focus.

     'That heap's controlling millions of children?'

     'Yes. Adults too, by now.'

     'And you... you could make them think things and do things?'

     She nodded. 'Yes.'

     'You could get them to open Dad's  wallet and post the contents to some address?'

     'Well, I hadn't thought of that, but yes, I suppose you could...'

     'Or  go downstairs  and smash all the bottles in the drinks cabinet and promise never to take a drink when they grow up?' said the oh god hopefully.

     'What are you talking about?'

     'It's all right for you. You don't wake up every  morning  and see your whole life flush before your eyes.

     Medium  Dave  and Catseye ran  down the passage and  stopped  where  it forked.

     'You go that way, I'll...'

     'Why don't we stick together?' said Catseye.

     'What's got into everyone? I saw you bite the throats out of a coupla guard dogs when we did  that job in Quirm! Want me to hold your  hand? You check the doors down there, I'll check them along here.'

     He walked off.

     Catseye peered down the other passage.

     There  weren't many doors  down  there.  It wasn't very  long.  And, as Teatime had said, there was nothing dangerous here that they  hadn't brought with them.

     He heard voices coming from a doorway and sagged with relief.

     He could deal with humans.

     As he approached, a sound made him look round.

     Shadows were racing down the passage behind him. They cascaded down the walls and flowed over the ceiling.

     Where shadows met they became darker. And darker.

     And rose. And leapt.

     'What was that?' said Susan.

     'Sounded like the start of a scream,' said Bilious.

     Susan threw open the door.

     There was no one outside.

     There was movement, though. She saw a patch  of darkness in  the corner of a wall shrink  and fade,  and  another shadow slid around the bend of the corridor.

     And there was a pair of boots in the centre of the corridor.

     She hadn't remembered any boots there before.

     She sniffed. The air tasted of rats, and damp, and mould.

     'Let's get out of here,' she said.

     'How're we going to find this Violet in all these rooms?'

     'I don't know. I  should  be able to... sense  her, but I can't.' Susan peered around the end of the corridor. She could hear men shouting, some way off.