I looked up sharply, as one by one the monitor screens on the walls that should have shown trouble spots across the world turned themselves on, and vaguely familiar faces appeared on the screens, looking down at me, watching me with cold, angry, judgemental eyes. When I looked at any face directly it vanished, reappearing when I looked somewhere else. I was surrounded by a sea of faces, grim and condemning, but none of them could face me directly. I looked quickly back and forth, but all I could do was catch glimpses of my accusers out of the corners of my eyes. Glimpses of cold, scowling faces watching me with bad intent.

I almost jumped out of my skin when I suddenly realised there was someone in the War Room with me. I spun round, putting my back against the nearest workstation, and there facing me was the Blue Fairy. Half elf, thief, traitor . . . sometimes a friend, and sometimes not. That’s often how it is, out in the field. He looked very smart, almost fashionable, in his own ratty way; but his face was ravaged by time and far too much good living. He looked at me and shook his head sadly.

“Eddie, dear boy, what are you doing here, pursued by the dead, at the mercy of old friends and enemies? So much bitterness and unpleasantness, and all for a few secrets that probably never mattered that much, even when we were alive.” He looked about him. “Terrible place, no sense of style. Tell them what they want to know, Eddie, and then we can both get the hell out of here. I don’t like this place. Don’t like being dead, for that matter. When I first discovered what being dead was like, I cried and I cried and I cried. . . .”

“There has to be a way out of here,” I said. “Help me. I helped you. . . .”

“Did you, Eddie? Did you really? Yes, you rescued me from the depths of depression and disgrace, gave me new life and purpose . . . but did you think I’d be grateful? You should have left me as I was: a broken man, dying by inches and not giving a damn. You woke me up, gave me hope . . . just so I could die anyway a few years later in one of your stupid spy games. You should have left me as I was. It would have been kinder.”