The Master was nearly overwhelmed with a wave of nostalgia. He bowed his head in obeisance to his ancient deities. "It has always been my most fervent desire to serve the true masters of the world. May I be so bold as to ask with whom among the great Old Ones I now speak?"

The eye sockets of the child in the party dress glimmered as if filled with jet-black ink. "I am Laibach, him who brought the blood rains to Markatha-Vol, him who crushed the armies of Gaorg the Usurper and fed upon the virgins of -"

"No dancing this day," a screeching voice interrupted, issuing from the little boy seated at the end. "A time for rejoicing it will not be."

"Silence, Ereshkigal!" Laibach bellowed. "Your words of disparagement are not welcome here!"

"Gigim-Kutu will hear no more of this loathsome prattling," the third demon snarled through the lips of the eldest child. "Now is the time for readiness, now is the time for ritual, now is the time to make it all ours once more."

The Master sidestepped Lorimer, who still stumbled about trying to correct his face, and calmly walked to the centre of the altar. He positioned himself within an intricate circle upon the wooden floor. It had been laid there earlier, constructed of a fine white powder derived from the pulverized bones of a demon prince who had once succeeded in opening the Hellmouth - if only for an instant.