"You stupid bastard!" he bellowed through the inch of open window. "Get out of here! There is a reception for a really important person. The outriders should be here at any minute. Get this vehicle out of here before I have you mucking priv-aaaagh!"

"Indade, I cannot stand this being yelled at," muttered Eamon, licking blood off his fangs with a long red tongue.

No one really heard him. The others were all too busy singing. As O'Niel and Bronstein were singing "Casey Jones" and the rats were singing a bawdy version of the same, which involved a conger, the noise in the cab was pretty horrendous.

They screeched to halt-a belated halt, as the truck mounted the first step. The reception party showed its mettle and fell over each other in their haste to get out of the way.

Chip opened the cab door, and they all piled out.

As the singing died away, the enormity of the sea of brass they'd nearly driven into dawned on Private Chip Connolly. There was an awful silence. The kind of silence that presages serious repercussions.

And then one of the stunned cameramen said: "That's her! That's her! That's Virginia Shaw!"

When she'd been trapped in the scorpiary, walled into a tiny cell, Virginia had dreamed of being free. Of getting back home. As their madcap adventure through the scorpiary had continued, being with her new-found comrades had become more important to her than anything else. She'd never had actual friends before. And finding love had made escape-while certainly desirable-not really something she had thought about much.

Now she realized she hadn't thought about dealing with the reality at all.

The camera-flashes, the barrage of questions. The people crowding around. She found herself desperately wishing that she was merely facing certain death at Chip's side on a little vineyard tractor without any brakes. She was suddenly aware that both her skirt and blouse had been partially torn up for rags and were now very skimpy indeed. She was muddy. She had a bandage around her head.