Azzie swelled himself up to his full height, deciding he'd better impress this child at once. He tried to loom menacingly over her, but the strangely glowing string, one end of which she had tied to a beam, pulled him up short and he fell again. The little girl laughed and Azzie shuddered: nothing sets a demon's teeth on edge quite so much as innocent young laughter.

"Hi, little girl," he said. "Can you see me?"

"Yes, I can," she said. "You look like a nasty old fox!"

Azzie looked at the tiny dial set in his Amulet of Invisibility. As he had feared, it showed that the power was down close to zero. Those fools at Supply! But of course he should have checked it himself.

He seemed in a bit of a fix. But nothing he couldn't talk his way out of.

"A nice fox, though, eh, snubkin?" Azzie said, using a term of endearment common among demon parents. "How nice to see you! Please undo this bit of string and I'll give you a whole bag of sweets."

"I don't like you," the child said. "You're bad. I'm going to keep you tied up and call the priest."

She stared at him accusingly. Azzie could see he was going to have to employ some cunning to get out of this one.

"Tell me, little girl," he said, "where did you come by this bit of string? "

"I found it in one of the storerooms of the church," she told him. "It was on a table with a lot of bits of bone."

Relics of the holy saints! That meant that the string had to be a spirit-catcher! The best spirit-catchers were made from the rope that girdled the robes of saints. It was going to be difficult getting out of it.

"Little girl, I'm just here to look after your father. He hasn't been well, you know, what with dying and coming back to life and all. Now be a dear and undo the cord, that's a sweet good girl."

"No," the little girl said, in that adamantine way little girls have, and some big ones, too.