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and hadn’t been played in months. Nevertheless it was a cave. Angels may hang out on high hilltops, but to another sort of person, a cave is a reassuring place. It reminds them of home.
    Opposite Muddlespot sat the smallest, shabbiest, evillest-looking creature ever to creep down Darlington Row. His eyes were little horizontal slits, somehow bright and black at the same time. His nose was twice the length of his head, curving and pointed like the beak of a wading bird. He wore a battered broad-brimmed hat the same brown colour as his skin and a shapeless, rumpled coat that covered him from his lips all the way down to his toes. His mouth was tiny and sloped a little to one side. When he spoke all his words seemed to drop out of that downward pointing corner, as if they had trickled down his tongue in blobs of yellow spit and then dribbled out under the force of gravity. He looked like the sort of nightmare that a cockroach might get after pigging on bad cheese.
    His name was Scattletail. Like Muddlespot he was an agent from Down Below, from the City of Pandemonium. He was the mouthpiece of Low Command in the mind of Billie Jones.
    â€˜What it means, kid,’ he said to Muddlespot, ‘is he’s been tipped the Pink Heart.’
    â€˜But what does
that
mean?’ asked Muddlespot.
    Scattletail spat. ‘It means cupids.’
    â€˜Uh?’
    â€˜Cupids. They’re another lot of Fluffies.’
    (‘Fluffies’ = angels. As in: ‘Death to the Fluffies’ and other battle cries of the Low Brigade.)
    â€˜. . . What they do is get the humans to fall in love with each other. The pink heart is like their calling card. “We will be working in your neighbourhood” kind of thing. They’re s’posed to give the other Fluffies notice that they’re coming. Guardians don’t like it if their humans go falling in love without warning. They don’t like it even when they
do
get warning. It’s their job to keep humans on the straight an’ narrow. But straight an’ narrow don’t get much of a look-in when a human falls in love. All sorts of funny things start happening. Black becomes white, right becomes wrong.
An’
they start singing.’ He shuddered. ‘That’s usually the worst part.’
    â€˜So this is just between the Fluffies? Nothing to do with us?’
    â€˜Ye-es. An’ no. It depends. Me ‘n Ismael – we have this deal. ‘Stead of fighting or arguing, we play at cards.He wins, he gets to say something to Billie. I win, I do. Keeps it civil. We know where we are. ‘S far as either of us know where we are with Billie. But,’ – he spat again. Out in the darkness, something sizzled – ‘I reckon neither of us’d take it kindly if the cards started flying around or the table started walking or the chairs started chucking themselves. That’s what it’s like when you get hit. Nothing’s where you think it is any more.’
    â€˜Hit? Like with a hammer?’
    â€˜I’ve known it. Cupids – they use arrows mostly. But hammers – yep, I’ve known it. Also harpoons. Knew someone who got done with a wrecking ball once. Anything’ll work, as long as it’s gold.’
    â€˜So – what should I do?’
    â€˜Depends. You winning in there?’
    Scattletail was a sideways kind of person. He looked sideways, spoke sideways, walked sideways, and he could spit to any angle from about 45° to 120°. He was looking sideways now, with his great nose curving off into the night like a toucan’s bill. And his dark little eyes were very, very direct.
    Muddlespot shifted a little. ‘Of course,’ he said.
    â€˜Hm?’
    â€˜Underneath it all,’ Muddlespot insisted. ‘In a subtle way.’
    â€˜Hm.’
    â€˜Oh, I know how it
looks
,’ said Muddlespot. ‘But that’s all part of my plan.’
    Muddlespot knew he