As he dropped down from the control room and scrambled off the roof of the monster enclosure, Fields was intensely relieved to see that somebody—presumably Featherstone—had thought to close its door. He had no idea how long Britney's knock-out potions were good for, and the last thing this particular situation needed was a bunch of fairy-tale bad-boys, beasts or bogeymen deciding to join in the fun. Or even—he thought, with a twinge of guilt, looking back up at Peregrine in the control room—fairy-tale bad-girls, beastettes or bogeywomen.

Which wasn't to say that the vast expanse of the hangar floor, eerily green-lit in the glow of the portal, was free from inter-dimensional ejecta and their sequelae. The split and pulped hull of the wheeled pumpkin lay just ahead of Fields—with a satiated goose dozing peacefully among its shattered innards—while sections of ceiling, shaken loose by the giant's destructive slide into slumber, lay scattered and broken across the cavernous space.

And in the myriad of shadows, scattered around the room's circumference, there was movement. Vague and elusive, and caught only from the corner of Fields' eye, but undeniably present. Clearly, more unexpected portal-emissions had arrived in his absence—emissions however, which seemed a little reluctant to show themselves. And while Fields would have liked to think this was because of his presence, and the clearly assertive authority he exuded—his unmistakable aura of don't-mess-with-me-ness—deep down he suspected it probably had more to do with the enormous freaky portal-thing reaching to the sky, and the bloody great giant having a snooze at its foot, with a fearsome fire-breathing dragon tucked securely under its arm.

To be honest, given the choice, he'd quite like to go find a nice shadow to hide in himself.

But, he thought with a sigh, that was never going to fly. There was still a day to save. Well, a night anyway. Not to mention a princess, a partner, and quite possibly, a planet. He made a mental note to ask for a pay-rise, if he somehow managed to survive long enough to get the opportunity. Drawing his gun, steeling his nerve, he marched up to the giant and the aforementioned fearsome dragon.

Who, it had to be said, was not currently looking his most fearsome. Pressed firmly against the giant's chest, tail wrapped around his mammoth forearm, Graham's writhing had already become somewhat resigned, and at the sight of Fields, stopped altogether.

"Finally. Thank goodness you're here. Kindly get me away from this wretched creature. I'm afraid his body odour is entirely proportional to his size."

A little bemused, the dwarfed agent gazed up at the bizarre tableau. "How the hell did you even get there?"

"Well, I didn't really want to risk coming in through the roof, what with the portal taking up most of the space, so I tried to squeeze in past this blasted fellow's legs. Next thing I knew, he'd scooped me up and turned me into his own personal bloody teddy-dragon. You'd think the scales and the spikes would be some sort of a deterrent, but apparently he's either too thick skinned or too thick-headed to to notice. Now, get me out of here."

"Uh, yeah," replied Fields, scratching his head, "happy to. The only thing is—how?"

"I don't know, do I? Just for a change, why don't you make use of those supposedly highly evolved frontal lobes you lot are so unreasonably proud of, and actually think of something?"

Fields' eyes narrowed. "Oh, I'm thinking of something. I'm very definitely thinking of something."

"Well?"

"I'm thinking that since you got yourself into that mess, maybe you can bloody well get yourself out of it. Why don't you just give the big guy a bit of a roasting or something?"

"Are you mad? I can't do that. After all, he's...he's..."

The battered agent couldn't resist a grin. "Massively stronger than you, weighs at least a hundred times as much as you, and in the next five seconds could tear you limb from limb, crush you, or eat you?"

"I...well..." The jeweled eyes glared at Fields.

"Doesn't feel so good, does it, hotshot? Look, you seem okay there for the moment, so I'm just gonna go check on Embers and Britney. Then I'll see what I can do. Maybe." He turned away.

"What? Seem okay? See what you can do? Maybe? Fields, get back here! Get back here this instant!"

"Hmm..." Fields paused for a moment, as if in thought, before continuing to walk away. His grin became decidedly wicked. "Nah."

"Stay back! Stay back, unless you want a pair of bloody great horns growing right out of your big, fat..." Recognition registering in her eyes, Britney lowered the vial she'd brandished at Fields, as he stepped around the twisted section of wall sheltering her and Embers. "Oh. It's just you."

Given the travails he'd gone through to get there, Fields couldn't help but feel a little deflated by this reception. "Nice to see you, too."

"Oh, suck it up, sonny." The witch flopped down beside Embers' prone form. "Given the stuff I've been scaring away since you buggered off, the last thing I need to deal with is your ego. I just hope you brought your bang-stick with you, 'cause it's your turn for some guard duty. I'm beat. And running out of the strong stuff."

Fields looked warily at the vial she was still holding. "I don't know—a potion for making horns grow out of your...er, horns grow out of you sounds pretty powerful."

Britney managed a tired cackle, as she held up the vial. "This? Ha-ha, shows how much you know. This is actually half a jar of my finest extra-hot mustard. It'll probably make something come out of ya, but I doubt if it'll be horns. When it comes to making threats, it's all in the presentation, boyo."

Looking down at the ragged, black-clad figure, her complexion a disturbingly witchy green in the portal-light, Fields couldn't help but consider the sheer...effrontery, the gall required to hold off hordes of who-knew what with nothing more than a jar of condiment. Admittedly pretty spicy condiment, but still. For the first time, Fields started to see past the warts.

"Why?" he asked. "Why did you stay? You could be long gone by now. She's nothing to you."

Head cocked to one side, Britney squinted up at him. "Dunno how things work around here, sonny-Jim, but where I'm from, a witch don't abandon her victim."

He blinked. "Er, don't you mean her patient?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Them too."

Deciding this was a conversation unlikely to end well, Fields was pondering how exactly to get out of it, when he was saved the trouble by a thunderous blast of noise rocking their little shelter—a thunderous blast of noise accompanied by a shower of what Fields could only assume was rain.

"What," he demanded, wiping the disturbingly sticky precipitation from his eyes, "the hell was that?"

Face protected from the downfall by her pointy black hat, Britney shrugged dismissively. "Beats me. And if it ain't got teeth or an attitude, I can't say I care too much, either."

Fields gave this line of reasoning due consideration and found it hard to disagree with—on the day's list of weird, sticky rain was way down the charts. Particularly given it had already stopped. After a brief shake, he knelt by the unconscious princess. "How's she doing?"

With surprising tenderness, Britney brushed a lock of golden hair from Embers' now quite clammy forehead. "Well, she's young and strong. And she's a plucky one. But she's lost a fair bit of blood. And she could really do with having whatever that bang-stick put in her taken out—the sooner the better. How's the rescue-plan coming along?"

Fields wasn't sure he'd be willing to dignify the vague collection of nebulous hopes, ideas and speculation he'd half-formulated regarding their possible escape by calling it a plan, but this didn't seem the time to say so. "Yeah, yeah—good. All sorted. Featherstone's just shutting the portal down, and—"

"Who?"

"Feather...the chinless wonder."

"Oh, him. And?"

"And help's on its way."

Given Fields didn't actually know this to be true, it was technically a lie, but as the portal had to be pretty much visible from space by now, he felt it was probably reasonable to assume somebody would be on their way. And if that somebody didn't actually constitute help, then they should at least have its phone number. And hopefully a sat-phone. To show his confidence, or—more accurately—to cover his lack of confidence, he gave Britney his best nonchalant grin.

The witch sighed. "Oh, shit. We're all screwed, aren't we?"

"Not if I can help it."

Stunned, Fields spun around to find the source of the voice, standing at the edge of their shelter. "Peregrine! What the hell?"

Rain-slicked and glistening in the green light, his partner grinned at him. "Well, I couldn't let you have all the fun, could I? Good old Frankie's got the science-shit covered up there, so I thought I'd come and see what you guys are up to."

Fields gaped at her. "But...but...how? You couldn't climb down the way I did. You're too...too..."

"Awesome? I know, right? But as it turns out, no climbing required. I took the stairs."

"But...what...how? The hatch was jammed!"

Features sympathetic, Peregrine gave him a consolatory punch in the arm. "Well, I guess you could say it was jammed. But strictly speaking, to be totally accurate, it was, kind of, you know—not. Jammed, I mean. It was just shut. Featherstone showed me the button to open it."

Fields glared at her in silence for a moment, before filing that nugget of information away with all the rest of the day's little injustices. "Right. Okay. Whatever." Suddenly feeling slightly better, he realised there was an unexpected perk to his recent fobbing off of the dragon. "Listen, since you're here, you can help me rescue Graham from the giant."

"Ha! No need." Beaming happily, Peregrine shaped to punch Fields' other arm, but seeing the expression on his face, not to mention his uncharacteristic lack of evasive action, stopped short. "Er, yeah," she went on, expression sobering. "I kind of already did."

"You what? How?"

"Wasabi, Fields—wasabi."

"Wasabi?"

"Yeah. I had some left over from this morning's sushi, so I rubbed it on a brick, and tossed it into the big bugger's nose. When he sneezed, Graham got clean away."

Fields absorbed this. "So," he breathed, "you actually are a wasabi-wielding crazy lady."

"Huh?"

He blinked and shook his head. "Nothing, doesn't matter. So, you're saying the giant...sneezed?" The liquid coating his face and body suddenly took on a whole new and remarkably unpleasant meaning.

"Yeah. I'm surprised you guys didn't notice."

"Oh, we noticed." Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. "Right. Er, good idea, I guess. But where's Graham?"

Peregrine shrugged. "Buggered off. As soon as that big old arm relaxed its grip, he took off like a shot, and didn't look back. I think he may have officially resigned from Section F."

With a tired sigh, Fields sat down beside Britney. "So, that's an option, is it?"

With an audible squelch, Peregrine sat down too. "Retirement? Nah—how could you possibly want to leave all this glamorous stuff behind? Never."

"Oh yeah—so much glamour." With a conscious effort, Fields forced his overloaded brain to take stock of their situation. Strangely, it seemed as though there may actually not be any immediate crises to address. "Okay. So, I guess we sit here until Featherstone does his thing, we scare away or shoot any monsters that come calling in the meantime, and then we wait for the cavalry to arrive?"

Peregrine drew her gun. "Sitting on our arses for a bit? Sounds like a plan to me, partner."

With a clear course of inaction to dynamically not act upon, Fields felt himself relax, just the tiniest bit. Yes, he was covered in giant-snot, yes, he was surrounded by unknown creatures, and yes, he was sitting just metres away from a gigantic tear in the fabric of space and time, but compared to good chunks of the day, this was practically luxury.

And when, after a few minutes, no bogeymen had crashed their little mucus-party, he relaxed just a bit more. Eyelids drooping, he was becoming quite remarkably relaxed when he was startled back to wakefulness by the sound of the hangar's speaker system crackling to life.

"Er, agents? Hello? Frank here. Frank Featherstone, from the control room."

The three conscious members of the party exchanged a look, which although wordless, possessed a very clear what-a-dipshit vibe.

"Um, I'm afraid I have a problem. By which I mean, we all have a problem. A very, very big problem. Oh dear."