'Speak you fairy tongue?'

'Gnommish,' corrected Artemis. 'And better than you, I might add.'

The demon fell silent, regarding Artemis as though he was some kind of fantastic creature. Which, of course, he was. Artemis, for his part, spent what could possibly be the last few moments of his life, observing the scene before him. They were materializing at a building site. It was the

Casa Mila, but not yet completed. Workmen swarmed across scaffolding erected at the front of the building and a swarthy bearded man stood scowling at a sheet of architectural drawings.

Artemis smiled. It was Gaudi himself. How amazing.

The scene solidified, colours painting themselves brighter.

Artemis could smell the dry Spanish air now, and the heavy tangs of sweat and paint.

'Excuse me?' said Artemis in Spanish.

Gaudi looked up from the drawings, and his scowl was replaced with a look of utter disbelief. There was a boy stepping from thin air. Beside him a cowering demon.

The brilliant architect absorbed every detail of the tableau, committing it to his memory forever.

'Si?' he said hesitantly.

Artemis pointed to the top of the building. 'You've got some mosaics planned for the roof. You might want to rethink those. Very derivative.'

Then boy and demon disappeared.

Butler did not panic when a creature stepped out of the hole in time.

Then again, he was trained not to panic, no matter how extreme the situation. Unfortunately nobody else at the Passeig de Gracia intersection had attended Madam Ko's Personal Protection Academy and so they proceeded to panic just as loudly and quickly as they could. All except the curly-haired girl and the two men with her.

When the demon appeared, the public froze. When the creature disappeared they un-froze explosively. The air was rent with the sounds of shouting and screaming. Drivers abandoned their cars, or simply drove them into store windows to escape. A wave of humans withdrew from the point of materialization as though repelled by an invisible force. Again, the girl and her companions bucked the trend, actually running towards the spot where the demon had shown up. The man with the crutches displayed remarkable agility for one who was supposedly injured.