If you meet me, have some sympathy 15

We shouldn’t have chosen the forest road – there were too many shadows and I was on edge when we reached the town. It was raining heavily which helped keep us inconspicuous but Mephisto’s scouts would be similarly obscured.

Stealing a computer would have attracted too much attention so we ended up in the local library – a dismal place, full of desperate parents in the children’s section and depressed would-be authors everywhere else. But there was a terminal free which was the main thing.

I don’t know how they caught on to us so quickly but within minutes angry demon-scum were pouring in through the door. I nodded to Theresa and she faced them while I tapped the keyboard furiously, searching for coordinates. Amidst the oblivious children and authors, the battle raged and the air stank of dead souls. I ducked as a bolt flew past my ear, vaguely aware of the perpetrator crumpling beneath Theresa’s counter-blast. But more were coming all the time and I could tell she was tiring.

Just as all seemed lost, I sensed the opening on the web. Shouting to her, I entered the remaining code, then grasped her still-smoking hand as we dived into cyberspace.