About a week after we'd fed George into the shredder, Debs had something to show me on her 'phone. It was a video message sent to her by Maise.

"I don't know how much you saw," said Debs, "but I was a little bit naughty at the last Masquerade. After Axiala finished all of you off she challenged me directly, then I buried Lexie in a sandbox as Aunt Betsy's counter play."

"I did see that. I noticed you'd said something just before you finished her off, what was it?"

"I told her, 'Tell your mistress I'm coming for her'."

"OK, fighting words. So what?"

"Lexie was there as an angel, she didn't have an avatar and wasn't supposed to be a particular person for Betsy to kill out of spite. In making it personal like that, Betsy broke the rules."

"On purpose?"

"What do you think? Yes, on purpose. For the same reason I fed her all that bull about being quartered. Well, it all worked, better than I could have hoped for. Look what they sent me last night."

Debs played me a video of Lexie, in angel uniform, tied spreadeagled on a plastic-covered bed while Maise, as Axiala, delivered a theatrical tirade against Aunt Betsy. The gist was that Angel Lexie had been made mortal by Betsy's actions so would now have to be sacrificed, a prospect Lexie was surprisingly happy about. What followed was three minutes of blood spattered horror, as Axiala produced a motor saw and used it to cut her partner into four pieces, first sawing her across the waist, then upwards from her groin to the top of her head, spraying the room with stage blood as she did so. The final image was of a bloodsoaked Axiala in amongst the carnage, challenging Betsy to meet her at the next Masquerade.

"Well, someone got a quartering," I said. "That was pretty full on, did they put that together themselves?"

"Uncle Morbid will have helped them set it up, but the home video was all theirs."

"So now what?"

"Well, Betsy and Axiala have their showdown. It will be competitive, which is what I want - Betsy would never willingly lose to anyone. But if she does lose, it will be a good point to end on, so we can start something else."

"What if she wins?"

Debs sighed thoughtfully. "Some kind of swansong I guess, but I honestly don't know what else to do with Betsy. She really needs to go out fighting, in a blaze of glory."

"Well, the Mortal Masquerade does have some decent fire effects. Is there a way for Betsy to burn even if she wins?"

Debs thought for a moment.

"You know, I think there is."

The showdown between Betsy and Axiala was not the only feature attraction of that week's Masquerade. We were also promised the debut of a new feature swansong featuring Didi the Doll, the flamboyant drag avatar who had buried Maise's Steve in cement back when I first came to the Mortal Masquerade. I now knew that the person beneath the costume was a technician named Chris, a friend of Maise and Lexie's who I'd last seen working with Scott on the particular wonder of insanity he'd be using to dispose of his alter-ego.

For my part, I was in between avatars, but wanted to be free to start something new with Debs once Betsy had been finished off and didn't want to have to make and kill another disposable persona. So I went to Uncle Morbid with a suggestion.

"I don't know if you've thought of this before," I said, "but could we have some kind of status to inhabit between avatars when you just want to spectate without getting in the way of storylines? Sort of like a veiled ghost you appear as before dropping back into your next avatar, when the time is right."

"It's an interesting idea," said Uncle Morbid. "It hasn't really come up because no-one was thinking that communally before about long term storylines. Usually spirits would just come up with a random temp avatar and kill that off, just like you did with George. But I understand why you don't want to do that again so soon."

Between us we came up with the concept of the Unsettled, veiled characters in plain grey robes that could walk around and observe the Masquerade but not interact or draw attention in any way. Spirits could then choose to attend as Unsettled if ever they wished to delay debuting an avatar for whatever reason. Uncle Morbid announced the new rule to members and a couple of spirits agreed to help trial it alongside myself.

From beneath my grey veil I witnessed Aunt Betsy and Axiala meet in a huge spectacle, both entering to music after Maise and Lexie's home video was shown on a big screen. They played a Battleships-style grid game locked in separate firecages set to immolate the loser. But when Betsy emerged victorious, she made a pre-prepared speech demanding to be incinerated alongside her defeated foe. Both cages burst into simulated flame, rising about and concealing both women before leaving a pile of bones and ashes at the bottom of each cage. It was strangely sweet, in its way.

Elsewhere all the usual games were being played. Notable by absence was an obvious Limbo Len avatar. If he was in attendance that night he apparently wouldn't be volunteering as usual. Nor for that matter did I see Gillian, though she could have been convincingly disguised as a number of avatars I'd seen. Maybe they were off somewhere together, following their post-shredding intimacy up in Limbo. I hoped so. They made a good couple.

Then at midnight everyone made their way to one of the hangars to witness the swansong of Didi the Doll. The hydraulic car compactor I'd seen before was set up in a well lit performance area with large video screens suspended from the ceilings, like a TV studio auditorium. A freshly painted car chassis with the windows removed sat beside the crusher, with a forklift loader ready to move one to the other. The lights changed as a dramatic synthesizer chord sounded, then drums kicked in as all eyes turned to a figure dancing into the hangar through a cloud of dry ice. Didi played to the crowd all the way down and struck poses on and around the bonnet of the car before allowing herself to be strapped inside. Then the music ended and the loader was started up, lifting the car and its lone passenger into the crushing position inside the compactor.

A feed appeared on the video screens showing Didi in close up inside the car. This became our only view of her as the crusher was activated, the walls rising up and hugging the car with a crunching sound. Even in her full face doll mask, Didi was clearly excited as the metal buckled and twisted around her, her arms and shoulders being pressed inwards as the car compacted. Then there was a shift of gears and two more crushing plates engaged at the front and back of the car, pushing the sausage of metal into a cube with Didi sat inside. As this happened, the camera showing the live feed sputtered, shook and finally gave out completely, leaving only a dead, black screen as the crusher mechanism was reversed and the crushed cube retrieved. As I watched the loader pick up the cube and take it away out of the hangar, I realised Uncle Morbid was stood watching beside me.

"You know Chris came up with this himself?" he said. "The method, the staging, that entrance... Maise and Lexie helped make it happen and it was Lexie's idea to have the camera cut out at the moment of 'death', so you could think of it as a trio effort from the three of them, with Scott facilitating."

"Is he alive in there?"

"Yes, he is. It will take a while to cut him out, but we've tested it a couple of times with Lexie so we know how to do it. This is a whole new level for us, by the way, I'd never have thought it possible. The next stage will be to mix their invention and sense of drama with the in depth storylines you and Debs have been coming up with. If we do that we'll have total immersive theatre. Next week Wilco's coming back from sabbatical, he's the guy I told you about who came up with the pit of worms and all the atmospheric sets we use. His current project is building people eating plants and monsters up in the woodland area, I'm going to assign Chris and Lexie to work with him and then bring you and Debs in when the time is right. For now, watch this space, but if all goes according to plan we'll be needing your expertise very soon."

The following week Debs and I went together to meet Uncle Morbid, who confirmed that Chris, Maise and Lexie had all hit total recall following the last Masquerade and were now planning what would be their awareness initiation, being buried together in the Masquerade's special cement. Debs went along for that - I still didn't know them that well, but she was a close friend - then, according to plan, Lexie and Chris went to join Wilco in his workshop where they immediately hit it off as a creative team. Debs sold Maise and Lexie on the idea of a pair of Victorian lady adventurer avatars who could be shaped into the heroines of a Lost World-style adventure, while we secretly discussed ideas for villainous characters that could become their antagonists. As Lexie had another week of angel duty before they could start in earnest, Maise had the idea (heavily influenced by Debs' Machiavellian manipulations) to be killed under a sacrificial avatar by the same villain they would go on to face under their new avatars. And out of the shadows stepped I, right on cue, ready and willing to become her dastardly murderer.

Of course we didn't tell them half of what we had in store for them. Where would the fun have been in that?

---

Elbert Makabra (Esquire) started out as a stereotypical melodrama villain in the vein of Snidely Whiplash or the Hooded Claw, in black hat, eye mask and opera dress. The specifics of the character would develop according to needs, but for now he needed to be charismatic, dastardly and socially pretentious. Elbert would under no circumstances play by the rules, instead taking arrogant satisfaction from hoodwinking others into doing his bidding. Debs meanwhile took inspiration from an illustration in an old book of adventure yarns showing a pirate queen in a frilly white blouse, big red skirt and leather boots. From this she created the character of Amethyst Annie, a ruthless femme fatale. We imagined a shaky alliance between Elbert and Annie, who would be partners in crime but eminently capable of betraying the other should the need and opportunity arise.

Unlike Elbert, a conceited coward who would never willingly put himself in harm's way, Amethyst Annie channelled Debs' confidence into a reckless gambling streak and insisted on playing a game properly to set up the character. If she lost she would be dead from the outset, so we had a vague backup plan where Debs could rejoin Elbert in another role. But if she won, it would add to her character's killer image. Meanwhile Maise had named her temporary avatar Jen-Erica and asked Lexie to pick out the game Elbert would be using to murder her. And that is where we commenced our discussions.

I'd last seen Lexie being carved up on their home video message to Debs. Meeting her in person, the brazen sense of mischief and spirited self-destruction was on full display, I knew she'd be up for pretty much anything we threw at her. She'd picked out a sawmill game for Jen-Erica which would see her sawn in half lengthways with a circular buzzsaw, which I thought was rather appropriate for my villain character. Then, when I found out I'd be competing with her on a similar belt with its own sawblade, I knew I had to get Lexie on there instead so we could carve the pair of them up together. I wondered if this was what she was tacitly hoping for.

Debs and I made a call to Uncle Morbid who agreed to let us run any shenanigans we wanted in order to advance the narrative. So we decided that Elbert would pay off Uncle Morbid for the opportunity to take his place as quizmaster, leaving a vacancy on the conveyor belt to be filled by the nearest available angel, who of course would just so happen to be Lexie. What would then follow would be a quiz in name only - Debs and I drafted out a list of ridiculous unanswerable questions so that Jen-Erica and angel Lexie alike would be helplessly fed into the sawblades as Elbert (and Annie, if she was still alive) taunted them. Then we could commence the main story with Lexie and Maise taking us on under their new heroic avatars.

Amethyst Annie began the evening by defeating three other players in a genuine quiz game played on a set of guillotines rigged with three coloured ropes holding the blade. When a question was answered wrong, a rope would be cut, bringing about either decapitation or stay of execution. Debs played with her usual confidence, control and menace, when she stepped down from the platform with her head intact she had acquired an air of deadly malevolence that completed the character. Amethyst Annie made Aunt Betsy look sweet and harmless by comparison. Then, according to plan, we carved up Jen-Erica and Lexie together in the sawmill, Annie joining me to mockingly run through our list of stupid questions. After the saws had ripped through both their middles and they lay there playing dead, Annie ad-libbed a final insult which almost had the corpses corpsing. I could see them both trying to hold in a laugh.

The villains having taken first blood, the time had come to begin the heroes' journey.