The Amulet of Samarkand

would have needed the help of imps to find me under my Concealment; and, finally, he would have had to conjure up a fairly heavyweight djinni to subdue me. If he dared. But this girl and her boyfriends had done it all on their own, without seeming particularly fussed.
    I should have let fly a full-strength Detonation or something, but I was too tired for anything fancy. I fell back on empty bluster.
    I laughed eerily. "Hah! I'm toying with you."
    "That's empty bluster."
    I tried another tack. "Despite myself," I said, "I confess I'm intrigued. I applaud your bravery in daring to accost me. If you tell me your name and purpose, I will spare you. In fact, I might well be able to help you. I have many abilities at my command."
    To my disappointment, the girl clamped her hands over her ears. "Don't give me your weasel words, demon!" she said. "I won't be tempted."
    "Surely you do not want my enmity," I went on, soothingly. "My friendship is greatly to be preferred."
    "I don't care about either," the girl said, lowering her hands. "I want whatever it is you have round your neck."
    "You can't have it. But you can have a fight if you like. Apart from the damage it'll do you, I'll make sure I let off a signal that'll bring the Night Police down on us like gorgons from hell. You don't want their attention, do you?"
    That made her flinch a bit. I built on my advantage.
    "Don't be naïve," I said. "Think about it. You're trying to rob me of a very powerful object. It belongs to a terrible magician. If you so much as touch it, he'll find you and nail your skin to his door."
    Whether it was this threat or the accusation of naïveté that got to her, the girl was rattled. I could tell by the direction of her pout.
    Experimentally I shifted one elbow a little. The corresponding boy grunted and tightened his grip on my arm.
    A siren sounded a few roads away. The girl and her bodyguards looked uneasily down the alley into the darkness. A few drops of rain began to fall from the hidden sky.
    "Enough of this," the girl said. She stepped toward me.
    "Careful," I said.
    She stretched out a hand. As she did so, I opened my mouth, very, very slowly. Then she reached for the chain round my neck.
    In an instant I was a Nile crocodile with jaws agape. I snapped down at her fingers. The girl shrieked and jerked her arm backward faster than I would have believed possible. My snaggleteeth clashed just short of her retreating fingernails. I snapped at her again, thrashing from side to side in my captors' grasp. The girl squawked, slipped, and fell into a pile of litter, knocking over one of her two guards. My sudden transformation took my three boys by surprise, particularly the one who was clutching me around my wide scaly midriff. His grip had loosened, but the other two were still hanging on. My long hard tail scythed left, then right, making satisfyingly crisp contact with two thick skulls. Their brains, if they had any, were nicely addled; their jaws slackened and so did their grasps.
    One of the girl's two guards had been only momentarily shocked. He recovered himself, reached inside his jacket, emerged with something shiny in his hand.
    As he threw it, I changed again.
    The quick shift from big (the croc) to small (a fox) was nicely judged, if I say so myself. The six hands that had been struggling to cope with large-scale scales suddenly found themselves clenching thin air as a tiny red bundle of fur and whirling claws dropped through their flailing fingers to the floor. At the same moment a missile of flashing silver passed through the point where the croc's throat had recently been and embedded itself in the metal door beyond.
    The fox ran up the alley, paws skittering on the slippery cobbles.
    A piercing whistle sounded ahead. The fox pulled up. Searchlights dipped and spun against the doors and brickwork. Running feet followed the lights.
    That was all I needed. The Night Police were coming.
    As a beam swung toward me, I leaped fluidly into the open mouth of a plastic bin. Head, body, brush—gone; the light passed over the bin and went on down the alley.
    Men came now, shouting, blowing whistles, racing toward where I'd left the girl and her companions. Then a growling, an acrid smell; and something that might have been a big dog rushing after them into the night.
    The sounds echoed away. Curled snugly between a seeping bin-bag and a vinegary crate of empty bottles, the fox listened, his ears pricked forward. The shouts and whistles