It was another Monday, maybe that should have been the first premonition that something was going to go wrong, but one can’t really go around being afraid of Mondays, even if most bad things that happen to them occur on that day.

  A few days before the rats had finally left them with Wat-haf Wedon reluctantly in tow, although Rho Dent had stayed behind under the excuse of trying to learn english, although Bobby thought she probably had other reasons too.

  Bobby and the others were making preparations to go to the next graveyard on the list, having just finished raising all the dead in the last one, they were gearing up for some hard work because they didn’t want to transport skeletons across from the other one in case they were seen, so it was going to be a gruelling day.

  After a big breakfast Lucinda sent them off, toddling out of the bastion on their freshly recharged scooters. They were just approaching the terminal velocity of the little vehicles when Bobby noticed movements among the demolished buildings ahead. At first he thought his eyes had tricked him and continued on, but that turned out to be a mistake when they heard a shout.

  The group looked wildly around to locate the shouter, and for a minute could see nothing, but then it came again. “Hands up.”

  A lone man in a brown robe stumbled down one of the heaps of rubble, a greenish metal pipe clutched in his hands. Bobby immediately recognised the man as the dickwad who’d trashed his van. He asked Mcguckin to stop the scooter and got off while stretching out his shoulder and clenching his hand into a fist. It wasn’t gentlemanly but he was going to give the man a piece of his mind… err body.

  Derek seemed slightly startled when Bobby ran at him, but then smiled unnervingly, “I won’t repeat myself, hands up!”

  “You already are”, said Bobby burying a fist reinforced by magic in the man's face.

  Derek went flying and Bobby was just about to pursue when there was a large amount of clicking noises—which he realised were guns being loaded—and around twenty men stepped out from behind various walls and half demolished doors.

  “Oh, shit.” said Bobby, swearing for the first time in a while and raising his hands.

  Derek, who was about three metres away, wobbled back to his feet, his hands pressed over his now folded nose, blood practically squirting out. “Yew bwoke by nwose,” he spluttered, momentarily stopping to spit out one of his front teeth.

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  Derek’s face went more red with anger and he began visibly trembling. He pointed to Bobby and screamed, “SWEEIZE HWIM!”

  None of the men in robes moved, although a few looked uncertainly at the others. “I SWED SEIZE HWIM!” Derek yelled again, taking his hand away to sound coherent, but immediately pressing it back with a wince when a comical squirt of blood emerged.

  The men immediately moved into action, over half turning their guns in Bobby’s direction and two moving their guns to their other hands to grab him by the shoulders. Derek tore off a strip of his robe and wrapped it around his face, stemming the blood flow, but pressing his broken nose flat.

  He glared at Bobby, “Thwow hwim two the fwoor.”

  The two men threw Bobby onto the floor rather ineffectually as he already was standing up so he just stumbled then regained balance. Shit, how am I going to get out of this situation?”

  Bobby looked round at the others, they all had their hands up but there was far less attention on them, he even noticed Gary had begun inching closer to one of the men while they were distracted by Derek.

  Bobby looked back at the man who was badly retying the makeshift bandage around his face, failing to make it any more comfortable. I’ll keep them distracted, so Gary can do his thing. Bobby knew whatever he did to increase the level of the distraction had the very big chance to backfire and make him a holy corpse, so he would have to be cautious about it.

  Derek seemed to give up and immediately began doing what he did best, venting his anger. He walked forward and slapped Bobby right across the face. Seeing as Bobby was currently reinforced by magic and Derek was somewhat of a shrimpily built man, the slap did more damage to Derek's hand than Bobby.

  The man swore and shook his hand, before readying his pipe and hitting Bobby in the side with it. Bobby winced at the blow, but again seemed to do more damage to the tool as one of the telescopic rods popped out and fell on the floor reducing the crude rod to more of a dagger than a sabre.

  One of the men who had been holding Bobby let out a quickly suppressed giggle, and Derek immediately turned on him. “Oh you twink twats funny dwo you?”

  The man's eyes widened and he failed to suppress his laughter this time, collapsing to the ground and dropping his gun as he guffawed loudly. A few other men had begun laughing at the same time, instinctively lowering their guns. Bobby slightly sighed with relief as he realised he didn’t need to aid the distraction.

  Derek got more and more angry, actually beginning to beat the man with what was left of his telescopic sabre while yelling, “WAIT TWILL MY BWOFFERS HWEAR ABOUT THWIS.” The last part of the telescopic rod popped out and that was the final straw as more men began roaring with laughter.

  Bobby shrugged and leaned down, picking up the dropped gun which had miraculously not misfired and pointing it at Derek. “Hmm, good idea, I think I should tell your brothers about this, in person.”

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