Free Kill Fish Jones by Caro King

though small, was chock-full of adventure stories, and Grimshaw had experienced all of them at least twice.
    Grimshaw sent a quick glance around the room, looking for Tun. It was always easy to pick him out because, although the Avatars who hung out in the club tended to be the sort with dark robes, cowled faces and a stare that could turn hot coals into ice cubes, Tun was bigger and more terrifying than any of them.
    â€˜Hmm,’ said another, with a voice like hissing snakes, ‘let’s take him into the library. We could throw him into an encyclopaedia and see if his head explodes!’
    Under the combined gaze of five Avatars, Grimshaw swallowed nervously.
    â€˜You’ve already done that,’ he said. ‘You know it does.’
    As the demons began to drift towards him in a menacing kind of way, he spun the dials on his chronometerand hit send. Clearly, Tun wasn’t at the Lock-Out Club, which left only one place to look. The Limbo desert.
    Tun hardly ever went to the desert, because he didn’t get on with Hanhut, the leader of the Ancient Egyptian Avatars, who usually hung out there. At least, a lot of them actually lived in the Limbo version of the British Museum, where all the Architects had been moved to as exhibits. But it was so crowded in there these days that most of the Architects took it in turns to banish their Avatars to the desert so as to make a little space.
    Many of the Ancient Egyptian demons were mere second-raters, but Hanhut was the Avatar of a first-rate curse and every bit as famous as Tun. He had been created for an Ancient Egyptian queen with the impressive words ‘Death shall come on swift wings to him that toucheth the exalted one’. As a result, Hanhut was a study in terror, tall, jackal-headed, with massive wings and eyes that struck fear into any heart. Including Grimshaw’s.
    When Grimshaw landed with a thunk on the sand that was sand-coloured but with a kind of grey quality about it, Hanhut turned his fearsome head and stared. Some of the other Ancient Egyptian curse demons were there too, sitting amid the dunes that rose against the grey sky like blocks of powdery concrete. In the distance Grimshaw could see the pyramids, their grey, triangular shapes jutting against the grey sky.
    â€˜It’s that odd little creature again,’ said Hanhut in his low voice that seemed to have a lot of snarl in it. Heknew Grimshaw’s name perfectly well, but pretended not to because he thought he was too important to address a third-rater by name.
    Three over-tall figures in slightly unravelled bandages turned to peer at Grimshaw with the dark holes that served them for eyes. For some reason, second-rate Ancient Egyptian Avatars often came out looking like old horror-movie versions of revenge-crazed mummies.
    â€˜The third-raters are all odd,’ said one in a bored voice.
    â€˜Some are odder than others, though,’ said another. ‘Have you seen that weird one like a lopsided pig?’
    â€˜His name is Wimble,’ muttered Grimshaw, a little crossly. If the Mighty Curse was top of the curse-demon tree, then Wimble was the bottom – so lowly that even a demon of Grimshaw’s standing could look down on him. Grimshaw was so relieved it wasn’t him at the bottom, that he tried to stand up for Wimble whenever he could.
    Hanhut took a step forward and put on a reassuring look that nearly made Grimshaw throw up with fright.
    â€˜Tell me, O cat creature with no fur, how does it feel to be so … mediocre?’
    Grimshaw didn’t know what mediocre meant, but he could take a pretty good guess. He flipped his ears and swished his tail, making ripples in the sand.
    â€˜Um … kind of … depressing.’
    Hanhut nodded his jackal’s head and ruffled his wings in a sympathetic way that made Grimshaw thinkhe was about to be ripped apart. He swallowed hard, but managed to say, ‘What does it feel like to be so …