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and firing it. "Hi-explosive."
    Detonating as it struck the chalice, the hi-ex round exploded, turning what had once been an exquisite piece of artisanship into a hail of shrapnel. Its look of triumph disappearing as jagged shards of silver peppered its face, chest and arm, the demon screamed, smoke pouring from a dozen burning wounds. The screams grew louder, the mouth in the demon's face opening to join its belly-mouth in a shrill duet of pain. In a flash of eldritch light and the stench of yet more brimstone, it was gone, the only sign of its passing a smoking pile of ash.
    Leaving Anderson to think that, as far as desperate last-ditch plans went, it had not been half bad.
     
    The boy's eyes were closed. As she approached the altar, for a moment Anderson feared Himmie was dead. She noticed the rise and fall of his chest and realised he was still breathing. Checking his pulse, she was reassured to find he was just unconscious.
    He probably fainted at some point during the ritual, she thought. At least I hope he did. That way he wouldn't have seen the demon. Poor kid's probably traumatised enough without having the memory of that to add to his nightmares.
    "So I guess this means we killed Satan?" a voice said behind her. "Or you did, anyway."
    It was Whitby. His left arm held in an improvised sling, he looked shaken but not too worse for wear.
    "Thanks," she said. "It would look good on my rep, but I'll have to pass on that one. That thing was no more Satan than I'm the Chief Judge. Just some low-class demon who lucked by when these idiots opened a portal and thought he'd have himself a free lunch. How you holding up?"
    "Busted shoulder," he shrugged reflexively, then winced at the movement. "Nothing fifteen minutes in the speedheal won't fix. So, what next? We take the boy back to his family and it's a happy ending all around?"
    "Something like that," she said, looking down at Himmie Durand and remembering the face of Hammy Blish.
    A happy ending. It felt good to have one of those every once in a while.

TWO
     
    CUSTODIAL INTERFERENCE
     
    "Control to any unit vicinity Gaultier Megamart. Mass brawl at Crazy Egbert's House of Fashion. Available units please respond."
    "Control to any unit vicinity Alvin Toffler Block. Futsie on the rampage. Be advised, subject reported to be armed with flamethrower. Available units please respond."
    "Control to any unit vicinity Kevorkian Precinct. Suspected homicide at Florrie Nightingale Crock Block. Available units please respond."
    By the display of the wall clock opposite his desk, it was seventeen minutes past midnight. The graveyard shift. It looked to be a busy night at Sector House 12. Sitting alone in his private office on the twentieth floor of the Sector House, Sector Chief Joseph Franklin heard the staccato bulletins issuing from the comms-feed beside him and wondered if he should break with habit and turn it off.
    The feed was patched into the radio frequencies Sector Control used to communicate with the Judges on the street, spewing endless updates on every crime and emergency as it happened. For fifteen years, ever since he first made chief, Franklin had kept the comms-feed running routinely in his office night and day. Normally, he found it soothing. With the feed blaring constantly in the background he felt connected to the pulse of his sector. More than that, it reminded him of his own days on the streets - days he increasingly looked back upon with rosy nostalgia. Listening to the feed at night as he tried to catch up with his paperwork, it no longer seemed a comfort. The feed taunted him, acting as a barbed reminder of all the things in his life he stood on the brink of losing forever.
    "Judge Farrow to Control. Responding to that call of a suspected homicide at Nightingale Crock Block. Make that multiple homicides. Eight bodies so far, all eldsters. Looks like we've got an 'angel of mercy' on our hands-"
    He had heard enough. Switching the comms-feed off, Franklin