Ptolemy's Gate

They darted this way and that, seeking to evade the darts, Spasms and Detonations, and to get around behind the djinn for further attacks. In this they were hampered by the confines of the corridor, and by a madness that seemed to have infected Cormocodran. With molten tusks and a face that blurred and steamed, he roared and charged, swiping with his fists, grasping tentacles, trampling with his hooves, seemingly insensible to the gouting spray. With such a foe, the heads were up against it. In less than a minute the last one gloopily subsided. The battle was over.
    Mwamba dropped down from the ceiling, Ascobol floated to the floor. I stepped nimbly out from behind the plant. We regarded the corridor. It was going to give next morning's cleaners quite a surprise, whatever plane they operated on. Half the walls were coated with the spray; it hissed and foamed and ran in rivulets to the floor. The corridor was a kaleidoscope of stains, scorches, and congealing slime. Even the front half of my pot plant had been badly burned; I rotated it carefully to present its good side to the world.
    "There!" I said brightly. "Think Hopkins is going to notice anything?"
    Cormocodran was in poor shape, the boar's head scarcely recognizable, his tusks blackened, his nice tattoos quite gone. With limping steps, he approached the door of room twenty-three, where the imp watched blinking in its circle.
    "Now, my friend," he said, "we must decide upon the nature of your death."
    "One moment!" the door guard cried."There is no need for such unpleasantness! Our difference of opinion is at an end!"
    Cormocodran narrowed his eyes. "Why so?"
    "Because the occupant of the room has now returned and you can take up the matter with him personally. Good day to you." The grains of wood shifted and relaxed; the outline of the face was gone.
    There was a second or two while we stood pondering the mystery of the imp's words. Then a further second as we slowly turned to look back down the hall.
    Halfway along it stood a man.
    He had evidently just come in from outside, for he wore a winter coat over a dark gray suit. His head was bare and slightly windswept; a shock of brownish hair fell down across a face that was neither old nor young. It was the same man I'd seen in the park: slender, pigeon-chested, thoroughly unremarkable. He had a plastic bag of books in his left hand. Even so, something about him tugged uneasily at my memory, just as it had last time. What was it? I'd have sworn I'd not met Hopkins before.
    I viewed him on the seven planes. Hard to be sure, but his aura seemed a little stronger than most humans'. Perhaps it was just the lights. He was certainly a man.
    Mr. Hopkins looked at us. We looked at him.
    Then he smiled, turned, and ran.
    Off we went: Mwamba and Ascobol in the lead, Hodge pounding after, me next, conserving as much energy as I could, and finally poor old Cormocodran bringing up the rear.[7] Around the corner we piled, into the alcove with the lift.

[7] It was his wounds that slowed him mainly, but his recent meal can't have helped. He'd really bolted the manager down.

"Where's he gone?"
    "There! Stairs—quick—"
    "Up or down?"
    I saw a flash of sleeve on the turn below. "Down! Quick! Change, someone."
    A shimmering. Mwamba was a bird with black-green wings, diving down the center of the stairwell. Ascobol became a vulture, a less astute choice, since he had trouble turning his bulk in the narrow space. Hodge shrank, climbed onto the balustrade in the form of an evil-looking pangolin. He curled up into a ball, so that his plates protected him, and dropped bodily down the shaft. No such speed for me or Cormocodran; we hurried after them as best we could.
    Down to the ground floor, through swing doors, out into the corridor. I halted, only to be knocked sprawling by Cormocodran charging blindly along behind.
    "Which way did they go?"
    "I don't know. We've lost them. No—listen!"
    Sounds of shouts and screams—always a good indication of where my chums might be. It came from the direction of the dining room. As we watched, a number of humans—a pick-'n'-mix assortment of customers and kitchen staff—came bursting through the arch and fled howling up the corridor. We waited for the tubbiest to wheeze past, then hurried on. Into the dining room, along a trail of scattered chairs, cutlery, and broken glass, and through a set of swing doors into the hotel kitchen.
    Ascobol looked around. "Quick!" he cried. "We've got him