Doctor Unthank feels the change in the air before the thing moves, a prickle of hairs, a shiver of damp darkness curling around his neck. It's as well that he can, because it can't be seen, amongst the shadows; part of them, made of them, the worm in the heart of all houses. But even if he couldn't feel it, a moment later, it's jerked Johnny to the floor and the boy is writhing and screaming and jerking, and Unthank stands immersed in the pools of shadow, watching him, eyes a little too wide and intrigued to be sane.

There is a part of him that's afraid. It is not, he's sure, coincidence, that this shadow-beast looks so like the things that lurk in peripheral vision when he walks between times, hungry for the death he's denied for long years. But that part is easily quelled, and after a moment of simply watching, rapt, he steps forward and speaks, drawing on old words, powerful words.

'Forþfēre!'

This is, after all, but a dream. Any mind of sufficient strength may bend a dream to its will, and so he turns to the shadow and intones into the darkness, a priest at a black mass.

'Ic i hæfe gewald cwealmen; wiþhabbest nā ānweald hēr. Forþfēre, oþþe ic willan ābrēote þū. Ic willan bregde þū geond deorcest heolstorhof and macian þū giernan feorhbealu.'

The shadow seethes, claws extending out of nothing, stretching for him, but all dissipate into nothing, and a moment later, there is only Johnny, splayed out in the dust, and Unthank bends to catch his wrist in long fingers. The pulse hammers beneath the thin skin, and his grip, for a moment, convulsively tightens as he jerks him close and up.

'Come on,' he growls, 'unless you'd like another go against that thing.'