I don't understand humans." Caradoc shook his head. "It takes their brightest minds decades to plan an unmanned voyage to the nearest planet, which can take a year to travel each way. Yet they expect there to be aliens travelling distances it takes light decades to reach us, just for a weekend of bum fun with a total stranger without asking their permission, before dropping them off where they found them. They're just dying to believe the weirdest, least plausible things possible.

Curious about these new entities, the elementals asked why the gods were in the shape they were."We are bipedal," Erebus said. "We wish to be distinguished from the animals.""What are animals?" an elemental asked."We're not sure yet, but they will have more than two legs. Unless we give them less than two... or maybe not. Anyway, it's just a concept we're playing with at the moment.

It was one of those decisions that shouldn't have been so easy to get so wrong. Go on your own or take the half wasted waif. She was wearing denim hotpants with a pink vest top, and was hanging off his arm, more for stability than closeness, so he propped her up against the wall next to the counter and reached inside his coat pocket for his badge. It was definitely his badge, he clearly remembered stealing it two years before whilst in California.

Ready?" Aeron called over.Michael span to see him giving a thumbs up to the booth. His eye was drawn down to the huge war hammer hanging from his other hand."How about we start with a chase? Try to touch the far wall and get back here before I cripple you." He smiled as if he'd said 'tag you', not 'cripple you'.

The silent horror of Archie's ordeal had been temporarily replaced by the howling, agonising pain of the blood refusing to drain from his penis, the end of which was a deep purple verging on black where Officer Griff had tested how hard it was by using the back of his hand to give it a solid twang.