As he ran, his brain idly turned over the prayers his mother had taught him in case he 
should need one, but the years had eroded them: they were all but gone.
  
  'My name,' said the goat-coated man, 'is Gregory Burgess. Member of Parliament. You 
wouldn't know me. I try to keep a low profile.'
  'MP?' said Cameron.
  'Yes. Independent. Very independent.'
  'Is that Voight's brother?'
  Burgess glanced at Voight's other self. He was not even shivering in the intense cold, 
despite the fact that he was only wearing a thin singlet and shorts.
  'Brother?' Burgess said. 'No, no. He is my - what is the word? Familiar.'
  The word rang a bell, but Cameron wasn't well-read. What was a familiar?
  'Show him,' said Burgess magnanimously. Voight's face shook, the skin seeming to 
shrivel, the lips curling back from the teeth, the teeth melting into a white wax that 
poured down a gullet that was itself transfiguring into a column of shimmering silver. 
The face was no longer human, no longer even mammalian. It had become a fan of knives, 
their blades glistening in the candlelight through the door. Even as this bizarrerie 
became fixed, it started to change again, the knives melting and darkening, fur 
sprouting, eyes appearing and swelling to balloon size. Antennae leapt from this new 
head, mandibles were extruded from the pulp of transfiguration, and the head of a bee, 
huge and perfectly intricate, now sat on Voight's neck.
  Burgess obviously enjoyed the display; he applauded with gloved hands.
  'Familiars both,' he said, gesturing to the chauffeur, who had removed the cap, and let 
a welter of auburn hair fall to her shoulders. She was ravishingly beautiful, a face to 
give your life for. But an illusion, like the other. No doubt capable of infinite 
personae.
  'They're both mine, of course,' said Burgess proudly.
  'What?' was all Cameron could manage; he hoped it stood for all the questions in his 
head.
  'I serve Hell, Mr Cameron. And in its turn Hell serves me.'
  'Hell?'
  'Behind you, one of the entrances to the Ninth Circle. You know your Dante, I presume?
  "Lo! Dis; and lo! the place
  Where thou hast need to arm thy heart with strength."'
  'Why are you here?'
  'To run this race. Or rather my third familiar is already running the race. He will not 
be beaten this time. This time it is Hell's event, Mr Cameron, and we shall not be 
cheated of the prize.'
  'Hell,' said Cameron again.
  'You believe don't you? You're a good church-goer. Still pray before you eat, like any 
God-fearing soul. Afraid of choking on your dinner.'
  'How do you know I pray?'
  'Your wife told me. Oh, your wife was very informative about you, Mr Cameron, she 
really opened up to me. Very accommodating. A confirmed analyst, after my attentions. She 
gave me so much . . . information. You're a good Socialist, aren't you, like your father.'
  'Politics now -'
  'Oh, politics is the hub of the issue, Mr Cameron. Without politics we're lost in a 
wilderness, aren't we? Even Hell needs order. Nine great circles: a pecking order of 
punishments. Look down; see for yourself.'
  Cameron could feel the hole at his back: he didn't need to look.
  'We stand for order, you know. Not chaos. That's just heavenly propaganda. And you know 
what we'll win?'
  'It's a charity race.'
  'Charity is the least of it. We're not running this race to save the world from cancer. 
We're running it for government.'
  Cameron half-grasped the point.
  'Government,' he said.
  'Once every century this race is run from St Paul's to the Palace of Westminster. Often 
it has been run at the dead of night, unheralded, unapplauded. Today it is run in full 
sunshine, watched by thousands. But whatever the circumstance, it is always the same 
race. Your athletes, against one of ours. If you win, another hundred years of democracy. 
If we win . . . as we will . . . the end of the world as you know it.'
  At his back Cameron felt a vibration. The expression on Burgess' face had abruptly 
changed; the confidence had become clouded, the smugness was instantly replaced by a look 
of nervous excitement.
  'Well, well,' he said, his hands flapping like birds. 'It seems we are about to be 
visited by higher powers. How flattering -'
  
  Cameron turned, and peered over the edge of the hole. It didn't matter how curious he 
was now. They had him; he may as well see all there was to see.
  A wave of icy air blew up from the sunless circle and in the darkness of the shaft he 
could see a shape approaching. Its movement was steady, and its face was thrown back to 
look at the world.
  Cameron could hear its breathing, see the wound of its features open and close in the 
murk, oily bone locking and unlocking like the face of a crab.
  Burgess was on his knees, the two familiars flat on the floor to either side of him, 
faces to the ground.
  Cameron knew he would have no other chance. He stood up, his limbs hardly in his 
control, and blundered towards Burgess, whose eyes were closed in reverent prayer. More 
by accident than intention his knee caught Burgess under the jaw as he passed, and the 
man was sent sprawling. Cameron's soles slid on the floor out of the ice-cavern and into 
the candlelit chamber beyond.
  Behind him, the room was filling with smoke and sighs, and Cameron, like Lot's wife 
fleeing from the destruction of Sodom, glanced back just once to see the forbidden sight 
behind him.
  It was emerging from the shaft, its grey bulk filling the hole, lit by some radiance 
from below. Its eyes, deep-set in the naked bone of its elephantine head, met Cameron's 
through the open door. They seemed to touch him like a kiss, entering his thoughts 
through his eyes.
  He was not turned to salt. Pulling his curious glance away from the face, he skated 
across the ante-chamber and started to climb the stairs two and three at a time, falling 
and climbing, falling and climbing. The door was still ajar. Beyond it, daylight and the 
world.
  
  He flung the door open and collapsed into the hallway, feeling the warmth already 
beginning to wake his frozen nerves. There was no noise on the stairs behind him: clearly 
they were too in awe of their fleshless visitor to follow him. He hauled himself along 
the wall of the hallway, his body wracked with shivers and chatterings.
  Still they didn't follow.
  Outside the day was blindingly bright, and he began to feel the exhilaration of escape.