Elena, I could read it first thing in the morning, if you like.

Deena, that presupposes that I will write it tonight. Which I fully intend to do. So, yes, thank you. There may be something in your mailbox in the morning.

A bit more of "Emma, We're Needed", just to show my heart's in the right place:

"Stake through the heart. It has to be the heart?"

"It does. Three: do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, let either of them get and hold your eyes. If you lock stares with either of them? You're dead, probably before I can move. Got that?"

"I'm assuming it's hypnosis? Not some sort of fire-shooting thing?"

"Don't cheek me, girl. I'm as serious as I've ever been about anything." For a moment, Crispin looked every day of his sixty-plus years. "There's one more thing, before we go in. Don't turn your back on that pentagram."

"With Ethan Rayne sitting in the middle of it like a stoned Buddha?" She felt her mouth tighten, and relaxed it. "Not likely, although I do plan on having a nice little conversation with that boy when this is over. Right - they've got superhuman strength. Use kicking and wood and don't bother about the knives, the metal doesn't harm them. They've got Doctor Mephisto meserism capabilties. If that's it, I'm ready. Let's go get that girl. Oh, and Crispin?"

With one hand on the garden door and one hand balancing an applewood stake, he paused. "What?"

"The one person who can taken them on hand to hand. Who might that be?"

"A teenaged girl called Amanda." He shook his head. "And I wish to heaven I'd brought her along."

• * *

And I almost forgot:

that is not without its own element of the tragique.

BWAHAHAHA! So damned Andrew....

Thanks, Deb! I could hear him say it in perfectly mangled French.

Dude, I could see his damned facial expressions.

You do Wes and Andrew to a tee, you know that?

Oh, that's frightening.

But thank you.

Not frightening - Tom Lenk plays his face like an Amadi when it comes to putting Andrew across. And he does it so damned consistently that I can link up just what he'd do with his face when he does certain things with his voice.

You know, I need to finish "Emma, We're Needed" because (among other reasons) I want to send it to Roz as a prezzie. Be warned, I intend to use the traditional Avengers sight gag (them riding off on the whack vehicle at the end of the ep) to killing effect at the end of this story.

Oh dear! I can't wait to see the end, in that case.

I'm writing some now. It's tense, but it also seems to want to be funny, in a '60s Carnaby Street Hard Day's Night" way.

BTW, the demon Giles and Ethan and Dierdre summoned up - what's the proper spelling, do you know? Igon? Eyegon? Eyghon?

I need it.