The Golem's Eye

it was, they were helpless. Rats in a trap.
     
    A flurry of air beside her, a lightly descending figure. The demon Bartimaeus folded its gauzy wings behind its back and nodded to her politely. Kitty flinched.
    "Oh, don't worry," the boy said. "My orders were to prevent your leaving in that car. Go anywhere near it and I'll have to stop you. Otherwise, do whatever you like."
    Kitty frowned. "What's happening? What's this darkness?"
    The boy sighed ruefully. "Remember that golem I mentioned? It's turned up. Somebody has decided to intervene. No prizes for guessing why. That wretched Staff is the root of all our trouble." It peered out through the smog. "Which reminds me... What's he—Oh, he's not. Tell me he's not... He is as well. The little idiot."
    "What?"
    "My dear master. He's trying to activate the Staff."
    Roughly opposite them, not far from the limousine, the magician John Mandrake had retreated to stand against a wall. Ignoring the activities of the skeleton— it was now prancing back and forth across the cobblestone, declaiming insults against the ever-advancing cloud—he leaned upon the Staff, head bowed, eyes seemingly closed, as if asleep. Kitty thought she could see his lips moving, mouthing words.
    "This is not going to end well," the demon said. "If he's trying some simple activation, without Reinforcement or Muting spells, he's asking for trouble. He hasn't a clue how much energy it contains. Two marids' worth at least. Overambition, that's always been his problem." It shook its head sadly.
    Kitty understood little of this and cared even less. "Please... Bartimaeus—is that your name? How can we get out? Can you help us? You could break through a wall."
    The boy's dark eyes appraised her. "Why should I do that?"
    "Erm... You... you don't mean us harm. You've just been following orders..." She did not sound very confident.
    The boy scowled. "I'm a wicked demon. You said so. Anyway, even if I wished to help you, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves right now. Our friend the afrit has forgotten us for the moment. He's remembered the Siege of Prague, when golems like this one caused havoc among Gladstone's troops."
    "It's doing something," Jakob whispered. "The skeleton..."
    "Yes. Heads down." For some moments, the cloud of darkness had paused in its advance, as if considering the antics of the capering skeleton before it. As they watched, it seemed to make a decision. Tendrils flowed forward, in the vague direction of Mandrake and the Staff. At this, the skeleton raised an arm: a brilliant stream of pale light shot out and slammed into the cloud. There was a muffled thump, as of an explosion behind strong doors; fragments of black cloud dispersed in all directions, twisting and melting away in the suddenly renewed warmth of the morning sun.
    Bartimaeus made an appreciative sound. "Not bad, not bad. Won't help him, though."
    Jakob and Kitty caught their breath. Standing in the center of the courtyard they saw revealed a giant figure, man-shaped but much greater, stocky and crude of limb, a colossal slablike head perched upon its shoulders. It seemed put out by the destruction of its cloud; it swung its arms uselessly, as if trying to scoop the darkness back around itself. Failing in this endeavor, and studiously ignoring the whoops of triumph uttered by the skeleton, it set off with lumbering steps across the courtyard.
    "Mmm, Mandrake had better hurry with his conjuration..." Bartimaeus said. "Whoops, there goes Honorius again."
    "Keep back!" The skeleton's cry echoed across the courtyard. "The Staff is my property! I defy you! I have not guarded it for a hundred years to see some coward rob me. I see you staring through that eye! I shall pluck it out and crush it in my fist!" With this, it fired several blasts of magic at the golem, which absorbed them without any ill effect.
    The stone figure strode on. Kitty could see the details of the head more clearly now: two nominal eyes and above them a larger, far more defined third eye, planted in the center of the forehead. This swiveled left and right; it shone like a white flame. The mouth below was little more than a corrugated hole, token and useless. The demon's words came back to her—somewhere in that terrible mouth was the magical paper that gave the monster its power.
    A scream of defiance. Honorius the afrit, apoplectic at the failure of its magic, had flung itself forward into the path of the advancing golem. Dwarfed by the great