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clicked shut behind me he turned.
    â€˜What do you think?’
    That was it. No greeting, no offer of a coffee, no remark on the dark, spiritual look I had spent two hours getting right. I bit down a trace of irritation as I dumped my skates on the settee and crossed to stand beside him. He continued to stare at the paper, whichshowed a creature half-way between a pelican and a pterodactyl apparently in earnest conversation with a man in a bizarre multi-tiered hat. It was beautifully drawn, but I had no idea what it was about and couldn’t think of anything to say beyond simple flattery. He saved me the trouble.
    â€˜Fantasy art, for a calendar. Not really my thing but it sells well. When nobody had heard of me I used to try everything I could, and nine times out of ten I’d be rejected. Now I get people asking for all sorts of stuff, album covers, portraits, even adverts.’
    â€˜You don’t have to accept them.’
    â€˜I don’t. Not all the time, but it’s hard to turn the money down.’
    â€˜I bet. This place must cost a packet.’
    He shrugged.
    â€˜It has a good north light, and it’s quiet. Not very inspiring though, not like All Angels. Coffee?’
    â€˜Sure. Black, two sugars.’
    He nodded and moved off towards the kitchen, leaving me to look around. I’d been expecting a sort of shrine to Gothicism, black witchcraft, diabolism and all the other things he expressed so well in his drawings. Instead it was very much a work space, simple and functional. It was in his pictures that his personality and imagination were expressed, and stared from every wall. I went to look, first admiring the haunting beauty he’d projected into a picture of a black-skinned demoness crouching naked among twisted and thorny roses. Next to it was a landscape that could just have been real, with the crumbling ruins of a monastery rising above a valley shrouded in mist, the tendrils of which hinted at ghostly shapes. I was still admiring it when he came out with the coffee.
    â€˜The cover for my graphic novel version of
Nightmare Abbey
.’
    â€˜Neat. I’m not surprised you get plenty of work.’
    I took a coffee and went to sit on the settee, curling my legs up to leave enough thigh bare to pique his interest, hopefully. Not that I was up for anything then and there, but his offhand attitude got me, making me determined to get his attention. He simply went back to studying the fantasy art piece, sipping his coffee with the same brooding expression as before. It was a very different reaction to Stephen Byrne’s openly lecherous approach, and I found myself wondering if he had taken my rejection to heart. More likely he was just an egotist. After maybe five minutes of complete silence I broke into his reverie.
    â€˜So how’s the Goat of Mendes going?’
    â€˜Fair. I just wish I could put more into it.’
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜I’m contracted to twenty episodes, each one a double-page spread, so I can only do so much in the way of plot.’
    â€˜Oh, right. So you can’t just do as you like?’
    â€˜Not entirely. I can do what I like, write what I like, but that only goes so far. It still has to be a certain length and a certain format, and there are subjects I can’t touch. That means I have to keep it simple.’
    â€˜So how does it go?’
    â€˜I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but essentially the modern cabal believes that the Regency one were in possession of important knowledge and are trying to summon their spirits. What they don’t know is that the leader of the Regency cabal, who styles himself the Goat of Mendes, was in fact an incarnation of the Devil. As I said, it’s primarily a vehicle for visualeffect. I open with the modern cabal meeting, a ritual, then the group drinking and talking afterwards, that’s to ground it, bring the unreal closer to what’s real for the