You know, I like the cliffs as much as the next man, but I could probably do without my nose being an inch away from the surface, clinging desperately to a (funnily enough) crumbly bit of rock and my feet dangling over a two million foot precipice determined to turn me into an ex-Nick.

What can I say? I appreciate things better at a distance. Preferably on solid ground. With a telescope.

With my arm burning with enough lactic acid to fill a swimming pool, I slowly and painfully eased myself down the terrifying rock wall to the nearest ledge. And by ledge, I mean a narrow piece of rock as wide as my will to live and just as fragile. Why did we think this was a good idea?

"You doin' okay there, buddy?" Sheira's voice said using the furry face of Ice the snow leopard.

It was taking all my effort (everything that wasn't focused on me plunging to a horribly painful death, that is) to not say something snappy back. She was doing just fine, what with Ice being designed for scaling stupid cliffs. I'd seen the documentaries! Those mad cats can climb up and down an 89° drop with no hindrance. None at all! She must be part goat.

Fortunately or unfortunately (I had yet to decide which), lions weren't so good at mountaineering which is why I was suspended from a rope, scrabbling down a three hundred-foot wall of nope and hoping, more than anything, that Sheira had been paying more attention in knot lessons than me.

Swallowing hard and voice wobbling like jelly in an active earthquake zone, I squeaked, "just peachy," and slowly inched down to the next ledge.

I just want to point out that this was not my idea. I had been in favour of the boat, but Sheira had insisted that in my current condition, we keep my exposure to the wet stuff as low as humanly possible. How rock climbing was any better, I had no idea, but I digress.

Long story short, we'd found the smugglers cove. Not that it had been hard, what with the assistance of Sapphire and the Royal Navy. No, it was everything else that was starting to prove problematic.

When Sheira kicked me awake in the cold dark tunnels in the small hours of the morning, I could've sworn I'd drunk my way through Chip's hidden vodka stash (top right-hand corner under the floorboard that squeaks). I was colder than I'd ever felt in my life, my right arm was almost entirely numb, and despite not eating a full meal in over twenty-four hours, my stomach was churning like I needed to throw up. Either I was hungover, or I was about to have a heart attack (wait, that's the left arm, isn't it?).

Speaking of hearts, there was definitely something wrong with mine. Last year Shadow and Sheira had shoved me off a dam (okay, there was a giant man-eating robot trying to carry out its prime directive right behind us, but that's not the point). When my primal heart hit the water, I pretty much went into cardiac arrest. Shadow had to restart my heart using a handful of dark fire, and the black goo spluttering aftermath where I felt like someone had performed open surgery on my chest with a sledgehammer was identical to waking up on that dirty temple floor.

The black veins had grown too. Now, the fringes were up to my elbow, and my fingertips were almost completely black. Like frostbite but hotter.

To really hammer home the point on the walk out, Sheira quietly admitted that when she woke up, she thought I was dead. It didn't look any better in the light either. At least in the dark you couldn't see my sunken eyes, dark circles and grey skin. So much for my summer tan, eh?

The walk to Southampton was relatively painless and thankfully absent from any enormous man-eating bat monsters. Hiking without the searing heat was absolutely incredible, but my body still felt like it was burning, only this time from the inside out. Just bear in mind that getting down to the coast should have only taken a few hours, four at most.

It ended up taking eight.

Yeah, I'm screwed, aren't I? And you know what? My day was only getting screwier because, wouldn't you know it, but the smugglers just had to put their super-duper secret base in the least convenient place known to mankind. It was almost like they planned it.

The main chunk of the base was stuffed into this sea cave that, partly because it had taken us so damn long to get here, was completely cut off from the tide. Complicating matters was the no doubt present cloaking shield that meant no self-respecting human sailor had the foggiest idea that this place even existed.

Long story short, this is why I'd decided on my impromptu rock climbing adventure (and wishing I was never born).

"We're nearly there, Nick, just hold on," Sheira said, effortlessly hopping down the cliff. Show off. She paused briefly beside one of the little climbing spike things and pulled it out with her teeth. What are they called again? Pistons? No, that's not right. Pitons? (Can you tell I'm trying to distract myself?).

Sheira leopard scurried closer to me, jammed the spike into the rock and let me tug on the line to make sure it was going to stay firmly put. I took a moment then to glance down at the patchwork of tin roofs below us. Most of the cove was hidden beneath a rocky outcrop, but the parts I could see were at least twenty feet below us. Oh well, at least I didn't have to worry about being instantly pancaked anymore.

I gritted my teeth and kept climbing. "So we get in here, what's the plan?"

The snow leopard made a face. "Um..."

"Please tell me we have a plan."

"40 per cent."

"40 per cent!" I hissed. "Sheira, where are we going? What do we do when we get caught?!"

"When?"

"You know our track record," I fired back.

"Well, if experience has taught me anything, the bad guys always keep their important documents in the biggest, shiniest place they can. Think posh boat or the Fort Knox of sheds. That kind of thing."

Letting out something resembling a sigh crossed with a growl, I bonked my stupid face into the dusty rock. "We're doomed."

"We will be fine," she insisted like we weren't clinging to a cliff by our fingernails.

"Fine?" I snapped. "Sheira, we are about as far from fine as we can get! I'm dying, and the only way I can somehow un-die myself is to close a magic portal but not before dunking myself in it, which might just cause me to die quicker, and the only way to find this magic portal is to break into what is essentially a pirate den and hope they don't kill us both! We are strapped into this rollercoaster of pain, and fine is a two-hour queue in the other direction!"

Sheira glared with all the ferocity of her catty counterpart. "Don't get snarky with me, mister. Need I remind you this is all your fault."

"I know I'm just incredibly stressed right now!"

"Well, cut your whining and hurry up. It's a miracle no one has seen us yet!"

"I know, I know, I'm moving."

However, moving does not necessarily equal looking where you're going. One minute my foot was on the outcrop, and the next, I was plummeting down to a very sudden stop. Thankfully the sudden stop only came about ten feet later as the rope caught me with a jolt so sudden I made a sound that can only be described as embarrassing. Thank the gods the rope was tied around my waist and not...around anything else...

"Nick!" Sheira cried out.

Still suspended (and needing new underwear), I grinned weakly up at her, "I'm alright, I'm alright, just a little–" and then, even though I didn't think it was impossible, my stomach dropped to the ocean floor. I started waving my hands up and the cliff, spluttering and squeaking, "Sh- Sh-Sheira!"

"What?!"

"Th- Th-The spike!" but by the time she processed the words, it was too late.

The climbing spike, already loose in the chalky cliffs and certainly not helped by my full ten stone weight slamming down on it, just popped out of the cliff face. And just like that, time froze, but it didn't stay that way for long. I had just enough time to let out one loud, short swear word as gravity did what gravity does best.

CRASH!

I think I passed out. Either that or my lungs forgot that they were meant to have air in them. The only thing I could rule out was being dead because methinks that isn't supposed to hurt.

Oh, and I'd definitely broken a rib. The only reason I knew that was because that was Shadow's friendly greeting for me the first time we met. I think he got six of them alongside just about every bone in my body. I took a short, shallow breath and instantly fought the urge to scream as stabbing pain ripped through my stomach. Yep. Broken. Very, very broken.

Still flat on my back a la Loki from the first Avengers movie, I stared up and the bright blue summer sky. A pretty view but not one that you're necessarily expecting to see when you're indoors.

Splintered wooden beams dangled from their shattered posts, and two rusted tin plates (think corrugated iron) clung desperately onto the remaining sheets. One of them looked like it had just up and vanished, but it wouldn't take Sherlock freaking Holmes to work out where it had gone. I don't know what it is with falling, but I always, by some miracle, manage to hit the one part of the roof that won't kill me instantly.

Lucky me.

At that moment, a furry face stuck itself over the hole. I don't know if you've ever seen a snow leopard look nothing short of horrified, but she'd somehow managed it. With much more grace than my bone-shattering entrance, the big cat leapt down and turned back into my best mate with a puff of mist. I instinctively shuddered, which went well, and I desperately bit back the shriek of pain.

Sheira knelt down beside me and just stared at me. "How are you not dead?"

"I've been asking myself that for a year," I tried to force a laugh, realised that was my second dumb idea of the day and made a mental note to keep the sass to a minimum. "I've broken another rib. I don't know which one, but it hurts to breathe."

Ever the practical one, Sheira already had her backpack open and was rummaging around inside it. "You sure?"

"I'm being stabbed here."

"Alright, I got you. Ah-ha! Here they are," and she pulled out two small objects. One was a strip of what looked like those horrible, cardboard chewing gums that always tasted of watermelon for some reason (nothing against watermelon but the fake stuff is nasty). The other was an old fashioned ink nib pen, or at least that's what it was supposed to look like but with a scalpel glued to one end. I leaned away from it, all to familiar flesh searing, burning pain inflicted by the stylus on their victims.

I would've escaped, but Sheira had a handful of my coat sleeve with all the steely determination of a parent who'd just discovered her child had been using his dad's new garden plant pots for penalty shoot-out (I was a fun child to raise. Sorry Mum and Dad). "Come on, you know the drill. Let's get you up. If someone didn't hear that racket, I'll eat Sophie's hat."

As fun as it would be to see tiny Sheira recreating Matilda with Sophie's stupid wide-brimmed floppy hat that was as tall as my little sister, she had a point. And if by some minuscule, universe-shattering chance no one had heard my spectacular dive-bomb through the roof, then my subsequent barely muffled screams of agony would certainly tip 'em off.

I tried to keep my breaths shallow but that my friends is a one way trip to a panic attack, so call me a masochist but pain it is. As soon as I was upright (or at least at a John Mulaney first position), I shoved the chewing gum strip into my mouth, closing my eyes as the painkilling plant did its thing. It was like ketamine but didn't make you stupid (not that I needed any help with that).

It also dulled down the pain from the stylus, the funky sigil making pens, that Sheira was using to carve a symbol into my side. This one was a healer and was one of the three that, between the two of us, we knew how to make. I glanced down at the newly decorated spot as the burst of flame indicated it had taken hold. Besides this, I had two other marks, one on my foot to make me untraceable and one behind my ear so that no one could listen in on me. Long story short, this means you're invisible, which is great for Molly but not so great for the Harpy's stress levels.

With that ordeal done and over with, I dropped my shirt and stared around at our new surroundings. It was one of those structures that made you wonder how exactly it was still standing (especially now with a dirty great hole in the roof). It was old, the wooden walls were rotting, it stank of saltwater and mould, and every surface had an almost slimy sheen to it. I wiped my finger down on Sheira's sleeve.

There didn't seem to be much to the place, though, just a wall rack full of keys, an upturned chair and, oh yes, a full human being lying face down with my missing roof sheet flat on top of him.

Suddenly I remembered about the bottle of the decidedly murderous fire that was just sitting in my pocket and went through five seconds of the desperate "oh god, I'm halfway across town, and I can't find my wallet" pat-down before I found it, still in its box, perfectly intact and very much still trying to get out. Thank god for Koba and his idiot-proof test tubes.

Where were we? Oh yes. Possibly dead dude that I may have accidentally flattened.

"I think I figured out what broke my fall," lifting the sheet, I gingerly tapped the body with my boot. He didn't react. "Oh god, do you think he's dead?"

As the only one who could crouch down, Sheira felt for a pulse. "I hope not. That's just what we don't need." She breathed a sigh of relief. "Just out cold."

"Should we help him?" I suggested.

We both maintained a solid five seconds of continuous eye contact before coming to the unspoken conclusion that unconscious dudes tell no tales.

Very slowly, Sheira poked her head around the edge of the door, stale sea breeze wafting in as she did so. "Looks clear to me. I can see more buildings towards the back; that'll be our best bet. Oh, and put these on," she whipped around, brandishing a set of leather gloves and a tattered oilskin coat that I think had been attached to the coat hook.

"Thanks, but they're not my colour," I pushed them away, "oh, and it's thirty degrees out. Let's not forget that."

"Let's also not forget that your right hand is almost completely black, and this," she wafted the jacket, a scrap of leather dropped to the floor with a splat, "is better than awkward questions."

"Oh, right."

She threw on her own coat and grimaced. "Exactly. Now let's do this."

The world outside the dingy shack was somewhere between Brighton pier and one of those pirate boat rides that hadn't been cleaned in twenty years (I mean, they were smugglers. If you're going to stick to the aesthetics, do it properly). It wasn't pitch black, more like 4pm in winter and you're in your bedroom kidding yourself you can still see five inches in front of you. Water dripped from stalactites plinking rhythmically into the water beneath us, the reflection of which gave the ceiling that really cool rippling effect you see at aquariums and turned the whole world slightly blue.

It also gave us plenty of dark corners to lurk in when the voices got too loud because spoiler alert here, we weren't alone, and the residents weren't exactly trying to be sneaky. I mean, we were, but everyone else was shouting to each other in booming voices and stomping past our hiding place with massive trolleys or lugging around barrels and boxes of who knows what. Once or twice I could've sworn a Beast picked up on my pounding heart, but it slinked away as soon as its master caught it dawdling, and I could stop being stabbed in the chest by my own bones.

Also not helping matters was that the entire complex seemed to be floating. We kept bobbing up and down, losing sight of the large office-y shaped sheds shoved into the back as the platform we were standing on suddenly sank four feet until I was eye level with Sheira's shoes. Why did it always have to do it when I was mid-step as well? Yo, world, I've actually got a broken bone here. Cut me some slack!

But whoever was in charge of the universe today just said 'Nah mate' and did it again, tripping me up and causing me to land on my chest with another loud crack. Not entirely sure how that scream stayed in me, but my bleeding tongue might have something to do with it.

I wanted to turn into Flame so badly, but as Sheira wrestled my hand away from the amulet, she correctly pointed out that my injuries would carry over to Flame. Plus, since we were stealthing, a fully grown African lion with his head on fire would have the same effect as a flashing neon sign saying, 'the two biggest idiots in the world are creeping around somewhere they're not meant to be. Bon appetite lads!'

Not for the first time on one of these stealth missions, I found myself missing Shadow and his ability to blend into the darkness like batman...and his ability to knock out six goons with the wave of his hand...and the super intimidating twelve-foot tall rhino wouldn't go unappreciated either.

Anyways, with only one other rib smashed to kingdom come and my painkilling root failing to do its one job, we got to the back of the cave unscathed (or should I say unscaved?? Eh, eh, eh?... I'll go home). The buildings we'd spotted on the way over were nothing new but what was weird was the dock, which was at the back of the cave...behind a floating island...with no apparent way out.

Now I may not be the saltiest seadog planet earth has ever seen (truth be told, my heart starts panicking if I'm in the shower too long), but even I know for a boat to be a boat, you kinda need to have access to open water. And some of these things were huge too! Yeah, there were some rickety wooden dinghies, but there were also a couple that were about the same size as one of those tanker towing, fisherman rescuing lifeboats. The biggest was even larger, like yacht sized and at one point had probably been just as fancy. However, this one had been given the customary algae green paint job (free for anyone too lazy to buy a power washer) and was firmly anchored to the dock.

"Are your Spidey-Senses tingling?" I whispered, pointing at the S.S. Needs a Wash.

She peered over the edge of the crate we were lurking behind and nodded. "Looks like a good a place to start as any. And If I've listened to Sapphire enough times, then what we're looking for will either be on the bridge or in the main cabin."

Solid plan, check out two obvious places and then book it. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, first things first, we needed to get on the boat, which turned out to be surprisingly simple as even though the main gangplank was guarded, we could just shimmy up the anchor chains and onto the main deck. We'd done something similar last year, only this time the chain was smaller, and we weren't being pursued by an army of the undead and a team of soulless husks trying to murder us all. We vaulted the railing, knocked out two oblivious guards using the old sleeper hold method and started creeping towards the open door.

At the door, we discovered that the yacht was not only caked in algae but was essentially a floating rust bucket held together by sheer determination and cosmic luck. It took the combined effort of both of us to haul the door open, which did so with a rust chocked scream that froze us to the spot for a good minute. When no angry pirates came charging around the corner to gut us, we guessed we were in the all-clear and slipped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar when we inevitably needed to make a hasty getaway.

That being said, it became apparent very quickly that what we needed was not on the bridge. Everything up here was coated in black mould and stank of stagnant water and dirty socks (much like my bedroom back in Demoney Tower, or my bedroom right now if you ask my mother). Safe to say, I didn't see any self-respecting business owner keeping essential documents in here.

"Yuck," exclaimed Sheira, a limp piece of soggy paper dangling from her outstretched hand. "You'd think these guys would have some sort of filing system."

"They do. If it's not useful, dump it in here." I wandered round to behind the wheel, took a few seconds to play at being Captain Jack Sparrow, and started hunting for a way to get into the bowels of the ship.

There did seem to be another door, not as rusty as the one outside and definitely better used. The handle was shiny from years of constant use, and when I slowly pulled it open, the hinges barely squeaked. Someone's been using the WD40.

"Hey Nick," Sheira said as we headed downstairs. "How do you feel when you go underwater, but you're in a boat? Like some Earth Hearts can't go on planes without sand in their shoes."

"Well, I'm not sure. Not had many experiences, to be honest, and my last encounter with a glass-bottom boat was when I was two, so yeah." I thought about it for a moment, "although I do feel a bit funny going through that tunnel in the Sea Life Centre, but that just might be me and my aquaphobia."

We kept heading down, and while the scenery didn't really improve, it at least got a bit drier. The carpet stopped squelching, the mould was confined to a few damp corners, and the fishy smell was now tolerable. Now, this wasn't a big yacht by any stretch of the imagination. It probably had a few bedrooms, a kitchen, and a designated hang-out zone. Since I didn't see the kitchen or the bedrooms being helpful, we headed to the latter.

Now, this was more like it! Okay, maybe not quite, but it was better than the festering ooze fest that only the Creature from the Black Lagoon wouldn't complain to the front desk for. The lounge, for lack of a better word, had one of those semicircle desks you always see the evil CEO of your bog-standard [insert generic megacorporation name here] brooding behind (squashy black leather executive chair included). Other than that, there were a couple tastefully stocked bookshelves, a half dozen silver filing cabinets and some red fabric sofas.

That being said, the place was definitely more practical than luxurious, like with everything else in the cave, come to think of it. Everything looked a little weather-beaten like it had been repaired at least twice and was relying on nothing but superglue, duct tape and WD40 to keep it ticking along smoothly. If you'd just looked at the room on its own, you'd never be able to tell it was in a top-secret hidden pirates cove filled to the brim with possibly very grumpy smugglers.

Sheira and I decided we shouldn't stick around for much longer. We set to work on the filing cabinets immediately, Sheira explaining the type of document we needed to find.

"It's most likely going to be a shipping ledger," she said, slamming one drawer shut and yanking open the one below it. "Small shipment, starting a few months ago, probably marked as dangerous cargo."

I moved onto my next cabinet, frowning. The files were organised by date, and by this point, I'd gone back three months. "Here's a thought, what if they, y'know, burned it? Molly wouldn't want a paper trail, and neither would these guys if they're doing something shady."

"It's not illegal what they're doing," Sheira pointed out, "even the Stronghold uses middlemen like these to get weapons and stuff around under the radar. Besides, it wouldn't make sense to burn it. You've done bills before. You keep everything on the slimmest off chance something goes haywire. Mark my words. It'll be here somewhere."

And the lady wasn't wrong either. We'd broken out Ice to do some of her own snooping when she stuck her head under the desk and sniffed. "There's a secret compartment. It smells like Nick."

"Not sure if that's a compliment."

"It isn't."

"Gotcha."

Meanwhile, Sheira had pried open the drawer and was stabbing at any conveniently sized holes with a pencil because why have a library full of magical locking sigils when you can use the technology of 1950s James Bond. But hey, some people like the old fashioned way. The really, really, really stupid old fashioned way. Also, I'm not one to argue with people who just insist on making our lives easier.

Sure enough, with a bit of light prodding and a faint click, the false bottom of the drawer popped up, and Sheira gently eased out the file. Aside from being obviously super-duper important (what with the whole shoving it into the secret hideaway I'd always dreamed of having), it was much newer than the other dog eared mounds of yellowed shipping documents. Unsurprisingly it also smelled better.

"It's all here," Sheira whispered. "All of the smugglers' interactions with the Army, payment details, the cargo. Everything! It's exactly what we- oh."

"Well, that doesn't sound good," and I went to peer over her shoulder.

My icy friend gulped. "No, it isn't. There's no source for the fire. All it says is where the boats came from, and that's it! Lionsgate, Gunndale, Stormfield Ridge, even Greencoast!"

Ah, Greencoast, just one of the many places I got my ass handed to me last year. All royal butt whoopings aside, it made sense why Molly would choose to use it as a smuggling route. All of the villages Sheira mentioned were small elemental settlements that we had a habit of installing when the humans weren't looking. And by tiny, I mean tiny. These things had a thousand people tops. Plus, after the spate of disappearances and the ever-looming threat of the Army marching down the high street, most of these places had been abandoned.

But Sheira was right. While this was cool info to have, it really wasn't helpful. Like at all.

"Where did the last shipment come from?" I asked.

She flicked through the document. "Somewhere in Cornwall...Stonespire?"

"Jesus, who comes up with these names," I muttered.

"It's not one of our strong suits," she admitted, "but it does mean we have a lead. We get out of this cave, find Stonespire, then finally figure out where this Infernal Fire is coming from."

"Not to mention we've only got three days to do it."

"I'm looking for the positives here."

"I know, I know. Now let's get out of here before someone figures out we're here."

That, however, turned out to be a very poor choice of words. Well, no, actually. A poor choice of words is walking out onto the deck to be surrounded by a small gaggle of security having a wander down to investigate the loud noises coming from the hull of the ship. We could deal with a "poor choice of words" situation. This, on the other hand, was a "me and my big mouth" situation.

What's the difference? Well, let me tell you. Chiefly it involves strolling up onto the bridge and promptly making peace with whatever god might be listening as you're faced down by what can only be described as every smuggler and their mother standing on the deck. Oh, and to add the cherry on top of this proverbial crap cake, they're all armed with an assortment of weapons that looked like what a medieval torturer would buy if they ever won the lottery.

"Ah," was all I managed to get out.

"Yep."

"You don't think me falling through a roof gave it away?"

Sheira laughed nervously. "Either that or the unconscious guy on the floor did the trick."

I surveyed the scene with all the enthusiasm and hope of an anchovy in front of a great white shark. I waved at the surliest looking smuggler, a Barbosa looking fella, if Geoffrey Rush let himself go a bit (otherwise known as On Stranger Tides).

For the briefest of moments, I wondered how many of them I could take on a good day. Fireball here, sword swing there, all done and home in time for tea. But this wasn't normal. I was walking around with broken bone shards in my chest, and I still felt weird. Sheira might stand a better chance, but there were so many of them.

We weren't strong enough. We hadn't been for about six months.

I gulped and turned to my best mate. "Surrender?"

She nodded sadly. "Surrender."

And we both put up our hands.