'Why? Looks like you've got lots of ink up here already.'
'Er, the white ink, sir. For the spaces. And the middle of the Os.' William leaned towards Mr Pin and shuddered when the hand reached inside the jacket again. 'Look, the dwarfs are all armed, too. With axes. And they get excited very easily. I'm the only person anywhere near you who hasn't got a weapon. Please? I don't want to die just yet. Just do whatever you came to do and go?'
It was a pretty good impression of an abject coward, he thought, because it was casting for type.
Pin glanced away. 'How are we doing, Sister Jennifer?' he said.
Sister Jennifer held a struggling sack. 'Got all the --ing terriers,' he said.
Brother Pin shook his head sharply.
'Got all the --ing terriers!' fluted Sister Jennifer, in a much higher register. 'And there's --ing watchmen at the end of the street!'
Out of the corner of his eye William saw Sacharissa sit bolt upright. Death was certainly somewhere on the agenda now.
Otto was climbing unconcernedly up the cellar steps, one of his iconograph boxes swinging from his shoulder.
He nodded at William. Behind him Sacharissa was pushing her chair back.
Back in front of his case of type Goodmountain was feverishly setting:
Hide[space]your[space]eyes
Mr Pin turned to William. 'What do you mean, white ink for the spaces?'
Sacharissa was looking angry and determined, like Mrs Arcanum after an uncalled-for remark.
The vampire raised his box.
William saw the hod above it, crammed with Uberwaldean land eels.
Mr Pin thrust back his coat.
William leapt towards the advancing girl, rising through the air like a frog through treacle.
Dwarfs started to jump over the low barrier to the print room with axes in their hands. And...
'Boo,' said Otto.
Time stopped. William felt the universe fold away, the little globe of walls and ceilings peeling back like the skin of an orange, leaving a chilly, rushing darkness filled with needles of ice. There were voices, cut off, random syllables of sound, and again the feeling that he'd felt before, that his body was as thin and insubstantial as a shadow.
Then he landed on top of Sacharissa, threw his arms around her, and rolled them both behind the welcome barrier of the desks.
Dogs howled. People swore. Dwarfs yelled. Furniture smashed. William lay still until the thunder died away.
It was replaced by groans and swearing.
Swearing was a positive indication. It was dwarfish swearing, and it meant that the swearer was not only alive but angry too.
He raised his head carefully.
The far door was open. There was no queue, no dogs. There was the sound of running feet and furious barking out in the street.
The back door was swinging on its hinges.
William was aware of the pneumatic warmth of Sacharissa in his arms. This was an experience of the sort which, in a life devoted to arranging words in a pleasing order, he had not dreamed would - well, obviously dreamed, his inner editor corrected him, better make that expected - would have come his way.
'I'm dreadfully sorry,' he said. That was technically a white lie, the editor said. Like thanking your aunt for the lovely handkerchiefs. It's okay. It's okay.