Before Blade's mind could form another thought, Lord Leighton's hand descended smoothly onto the red master switch and drew it even more smoothly down to the bottom of its slot.

The floor beneath the booth dropped away into a swirling black nothingness. The booth and Blade inside it seemed to hang suspended above the blackness, with the room and the computer consoles and Leighton and J still clearly visible all around.

Then the blackness began to turn red and come alive with dark fumes that swirled around Blade without burning or choking or even brushing against him. They seemed to swirl right through him, for suddenly he was as intangible as they were.

Beneath the redness a fiery yellow began to glow, rising up through the redness, rising up through the fumes, pouring a fierce light over the computer and the men. They seemed to dissolve in that light, as if they'd been dropped into boiling acid.

The light grew brighter, and Blade saw that the booth was gone from around the chair, and then the chair was gone from under him. He was alone, seated on nothingness in the middle of raw yellow fire that should have burned but did not.

He was still alone when the yellow fire faded slowly away into blackness and the blackness swallowed him up and blanked out all his senses.

Chapter 2

Richard Blade awoke slowly, with his head throbbing as usual. The sun was out-he could feel it on his skin. So he lay quietly on his back, his eyes closed against the light, while the headache faded and all his other senses built up a picture of the world around him.

There was the sun.