'I hate swimming,' said Six.

'That’s interesting. I hate being poisoned. Also the whole process of dying sucks balls,' said Five as he helped Six out of the freezing water of the bay. Five turned and examined the cliff above them as Six sat panting in its shade.

'You can’t be planning to climb it straight away?' said Six.

'I’m going up that just as soon as I can plan a route. I don’t know how long I have, do I?'

'You want me to fly up and scope out the route, boss?' said the raven.

'Can’t hurt. And keep an eye out for loose rocks and guards walking the cliff,' said Five.

'Making friends?' said Six as soon as the raven was out of earshot.

'The way I look at it if we don’t find out who’s behind all this before the poison gets me I can always wring its neck,' said Five, still inspecting the cliff face.

'Fine. Just get it to send me back first. I’ve got a hot bodyguard to get back to,' said Six.

'Selfish fuck,' Five murmured under his breath. Six seemed not to hear him.

The raven returned. It landed on Six’s head looking as proud of itself as it’s possible for a disgraced carrion bird to look. 'I found a path,' it said, 'An actual path down to the beach. They must come down from the castle to gather seaweed or shellfish or something.'

'You are starting to grow on me,' said Five, 'did you see anyone walking about?'

'Not outside the fortress. I didn’t want to take the time to look inside. I thought you’d want to know about the path as soon as,' said the Raven.

'On your feet, Nancy, time to storm the castle.'

'Don’t call me that,' said Six as he struggled to his feet. The raven flapped off to lead the way.

'Why not, it’s your codename,' said Five.

'Only because you bribed one of the foetuses from IT to delete the A and change the spelling. It’s Anansi you uncultured swine,'

'I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me do it. There’s no way you can prove anything,' said Five as he followed the raven.

'Everyone else I know quotes Shakespeare and Chaucer. Why am I following the one that keeps quoting Bart Simpson?' said Six.

Five ignored him. The path was an easier route than scaling the cliff face but it was still a tricky climb. The stones were damp and slimy and a moment’s carelessness could send him tumbling to the rocks below.

The land at the top of the cliff was a sloping, uneven mess of rocks and tufts of grass. The outer wall of the fortress was only a few feet from the cliff edge. Barely enough space to allow Five to inspect the wall.

The castle walls had been well made, once. The stone blocks were large with straight edges that fit closely together, but time had not been kind. Centuries of weathering had cracked the stones and eroded the corners and left him plenty of hand holds. He looked up at the raven circling overhead, and wondered what it could see from up there. He was still watching the raven when Six caught up with him.

'You’re really going to climb that without equipment?' said Six, looking up at the wall.

'The day a wall like this is beyond me is the day I die. Which is a coincidence'

The raven returned. It swooped down to perch on Five’s shoulder. 'I can show you where to go over the wall to get inside but you were right about the gate. It is guarded and she’s alert. You won't be able to get inside without her noticing. Not without a distraction.'

'That’s what I thought. Right, Nancy, get round the front and give the guard something pretty to look at.'

'I think it’s going to take a bit more than that,' said Six.

'So? Charm her,' said Five.

'How?'

'I don’t know. Pretend you’re Seven or something. Or Two if needs be. But legend has it that the guard is Uathach.* She shagged Cù Chulainn** in spite of him killing her bloke and shagging her mother and her aunt. She clearly likes pretty scumbags. You could just be yourself.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Six winced. 'Fine. Two conditions. One, you survive this. Two, you fix my fucking codename.'

'Well if you’re going to make a big thing of it,' said Five.

'Promise,' said Six.

'I promise.'

'OK. Just let me get into character.' Six ran his fingers through his unruly reddish blond curls a couple of times until they fell into place. He stood up a little straighter and squared his shoulders. He adjusted his cuffs and his tie and Five noticed that his funeral suit was dry. How did that work? He’d only been out of the water for 10 minutes.

'Right, get moving,' said Six.

Five swarmed up the wall. It really wasn’t a hard climb. He sat on the top next to the raven. 'Did you see that?' said Five.

'If you mean the way he suddenly looked exactly like yer other friend in spite of looking nothing like him then yes,' said the raven.

'His voice went all weird too. He sounded exactly like Seven,' said Five.

'What did he say about you fixing his name?' said the raven.

'He wants me to put back the proper spelling of his codename. He forgets that no-one ever called him Anansi even when that was the official spelling. It’s always been shortened to Nancy.'

The raven fluffed up its feathers and then smoothed them back down again. 'Well that explains a lot. Whoever picks your codenames wants to be more careful with them.'

From the top of the wall Five could see down into the courtyard of the fortress. The outer walls enclosed several small buildings and one large, round tower. At the front of the walls, where they met the narrow and terrifying bridge, there was a gate house. Standing in the archway that cut through the gate house was an imposing woman. She was at least as tall as Two had been and looked even broader though that might have been a false impression created by padding under her mail shirt. She wore no helmet, perhaps because she wouldn’t have been able to fit her mass of bright red curls into one.

One of the buildings in the courtyard had to be a forge. He could smell the charcoal and hear someone beating hell out of something made of metal. Which presumably meant the lady of the house was busy. As soon as Six made his move the way to the tower would be clear.

#

'I’ll drop you at my lock up and then dump the car,' said Number Seven as he drove the ‘borrowed’ Jaguar out of the car park.

'Will you fuck,' said Sorrow from the back seat. 'We will dump the car then we will go to your lock up. I’m not letting you out of my sight. And we need to stop at the statue of Boudicca by Westminster bridge on the way.'

'Ok. Statue first then we dump the car. And right now you explain why we’re keeping the yPhones.'

'Because getting rid of them makes me look guilty and won’t stop the Department from finding us. Once it gets its claws into you it will find you if it wants you,' said Sorrow.

'And what about SIS finding us?' said Seven.

'SIS can’t track a yPhone unless Cepha wants them to.'

'We shouldn’t risk it. You’re betting our lives on the security of a couple of glorified walkie talkies,'

'You do not want to find out what will happen if we get rid of them.'

'Can it really be worse than my Boss finding us?'

'You don’t know who you’re dealing with,' she said and he heard something like pity in her voice.

'You, or Cepha?' he said.

'Either.' In the rear view mirror he could see her staring out of the window and he couldn’t tell if she was watching the lights of London slide by or looking beyond the lights to something else entirely. 'The yPhone isn’t tracking me. It’s my alibi. It proves where I’ve been and to some extent what I’ve been doing. Your yPhone proves that you’re still alive and not under duress. That’s why I’m still alive.'

'You’re that sure Cepha would have you killed if she thought you’d turned?'

'You don’t understand what I am,' she said.

'The living vessel of a Goddess?' That was never going to stop sounding ridiculous.

There was a short, sharp laugh from the back seat. Something more like a bark or a curse word. 'What I am is a monster.'

'No.' But he remembered as he said it that ‘monster’ was the designation on her file.

'That’s not just what they call people like me, it’s not just a codeword, it’s a reminder. We work for the Department and in return the Department allows us to live. We are too dangerous to be just running around. If they didn’t know where we were every single second of the day they’d have to kill us. It wouldn’t be easy. They’d either lose a lot of personnel or have to make deals with things even more dangerous than us. Things like the Wild Hunt. But they would get us in the end.'

'If Cepha has you on the end of a chain then why did she let my Boss corner you like that?'

'You really think your Boss went through proper channels? There’s four and a half pages of contingency document on me. You think that any of it involves locking yourself in the room with me?'

'Coming up on Westminster Bridge now,' he said.

'I’ll get out here. Keep driving, slowly. I should catch up with you before you’re off the bridge,' she said. She was out of the door and running towards the statue before he could answer.

Traffic crawled across the bridge. Seven couldn’t have got away from Sorrow if he’d tried. He watched her in the rear view mirror. She ducked behind the bus tour ticket stall that stood against the base of the statue. She was only out of sight for a moment and when she reappeared she was holding a Bergen. She ran along the bridge to catch up with him. She got the door open and dived into the back seat before he’d driven off the bridge.

'If you really believe that Cepha will take your side then why aren’t we running for a Department Y building?'

'This isn’t the first time this sort of inter agency bullshit has come up. We have… guidelines. Neither Cepha nor the Department can be seen to be taking my side until my innocence can be proved. If I run to the Department they’d have to turn me over. But if I lay low for a bit and then make contact with someone further down the chain of command that allows Cepha to claim that the Department has been cooperating fully even though she’s been strenuously objecting to the situation. For tonight we’re on our own but tomorrow maybe not'