"Indeed? How could that have happened?"

"Remember those seals that King Solomon bound some of the fellows with? Well, they haven't all been retired."

Hermes told him the story, adding at the end, "So what can I do?"

Zeus rustled his leaves and said, "This human pretty well has you right now. Play along, but watch what goes on. When something happens that you can use, then you must act immediately and drastically."

"I know all this," Hermes said. "Why are you stating the obvious?"

"Because I know your scruples, my son. You've gone along with these new people and their complicated ideas about the old gods. You've been taken in by their big talk. You think it's all very profound, this magic stuff of theirs. Well, let me just tell you, it's all a matter of power, that's all magic is, and power is nine tenths a matter of trickery."

"All right, enough already," Hermes said. "How am I supposed to get hold of this witch woman for Westfall?"

"Of course, a spirit catcher! What will I do with it?"

"You're the great magician. Figure it out for yourself."

Some time later, Hermes appeared in the graveyard in York, disguised as an eccentric old gentleman.

Under his arm was a parcel, neatly wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. He walked up to Ylith and said in an altered voice, "Miss Ylith? Your friend asked that I give you this."

"Azzie left a present for me?" Ylith said. "How nice!" She stripped away the wrapping and opened the box without thinking. In the lid was a mirror, a sparkly, hazy, multicolored mirror of a type she remembered seeing in Babylonia and in Egypt, a magic mirror, a soul catcher, damn it, someone had pulled that old trick on her! Quickly she averted her eyes, but it was too late; her soul, flying out of her mouth at that instant like a tiny transparent butterfly, was caught by the mirror and pulled in, and in that moment Ylith's body collapsed.