We decided to walk to the house where, according to Michael, Eddie Starr was currently filming for his show; Haunted: Live!

To be honest, the idea of having Michael around to help was starting to grow on me. I couldn't explain it, I just felt safe around him. The fact that he also happened to be a freaking all-powerful Archangel definitely helped with that idea...

"Where did you send them?" I asked as we headed into a small village "Dorian and M, I mean."

"I'm not quite sure." Michael replied "Albuquerque, Amsterdam, Adelaide... somewhere beginning with 'A'. I wasn't really focusing on anywhere in particular to send them. I was just buying us some time."

"And the boggart?" Victoria asked.

"It went with them." Michael assured her "Come to think of it, it might have been the Arctic I sent them to..."

As we headed into the village that a sign helpfully told us was called 'Pleasant Hill' we passed a small Post Office and village shop, two pubs sitting on opposite sides of the street from one another, and a dozen thatched cottages. We stopped at the gate of the last cottage in the row.

The cottage, number sixty-six, looked like it had been abandoned for several years. The grass in the small front garden had been left to grow tall and overtake the narrow stone path that led up to the front door. Several of the windows looked like they had been smashed in by rocks and the front door itself, like the outside of the cottage, was in desperate need of a paint job.

Sitting on the road outside the cottage was a black van with the words 'Haunted: Live!' printed in bold white letters on one side of the van's back door, the other side was covered with the smiling white outline of a human skull.

Yeah, we were definitely in the right place...

Victoria wasted no time, she marched right up to the back of the van and threw the door open.

The inside of the van had been kitted out with two monitors on a desk that took up the whole left side, a comfy looking office chair and a set of headphones were all visible, but there was no sign of anybody inside.

"They must be inside already." Victoria said, jumping up inside the van "Let me see..."

After a few clicks of the mouse and a moment of glaring intently at the monitors, Victoria found what she was looking for.

"Got the bastards." She said, turning to jump back out of the van with a smile "They're in one of the bedrooms. Let's go."

Victoria led the way, I followed her and Michael took the rear. I felt the nettles sting through my jeans as we pushed through the thick growth over the garden path. The door, the colour of which was hard to tell because of how much had flaked off, opened with a groaning creak that set my teeth on edge.

The inside of the cottage was dark and smelled heavily of damp. I'm pretty sure there was some piss mixed in there as well. The threadbare carpet did little to mask our footsteps as we headed down the corridor.

As we went through we passed several open doors. One that I looked into led through to a kitchen that looked like it hadn't been redecorated since the eighties. The cupboard doors were all missing and several of the orange tiles on the walls and floor were cracked. For some reason, the door had a bolt on it.

This place was giving me the bloody creeps...

Victoria led us deeper inside until she stopped outside the last door on the left side of the hallway.

"I think they're in here." She whispered, "Keep behind me."

As she pushed the door open we all found ourselves suddenly blinded by several bright flashes of light.

Crap! That fucking hurt my eyes. I could almost see stars dancing in front of me.

"Damn it!" I heard a familiar voice with a heavy New York accent shout "Daryll you fucking idiot, turn that camera off!"

As my eyesight recovered I saw who the familiar voice belonged to. Eddie Starr. He was a short, stout man dressed in a purple tracksuit with a thick black toupeé on his head that stood out a mile. Behind him was a young-looking man who I didn't know with short stubble and long greasy ginger hair to match. I guessed from the video camera in his hand that this guy was Daryll Curtis.

He fiddled around with the camera until the red light went out.

"Sorry about that." Eddie said "You guys do know that this property is a filming location, right? I have all the proper documentation from the Council and everything..."

"Sorry, who do you think we are?" I asked him.

"You're from the Neighbourhood Watch, aren't you? Come to try and protest against us filming."

"No." Michael interjected, "I'm an Angel of the Lord, Alec here is a werewolf and Victoria is a witch."

Yeah, why don't you just fucking shut it out to the world...

I saw a brief flash of recognition in Daryll's eyes as Michael mentioned Victoria, but for a moment, Eddie looked at us like we were mad.

"Oh my God." Eddie said, suddenly dropping his American accent for a very British one "You lot are bloody fans, aren't you?"

"Sorry, I'm confused. How exactly do we represent a way of keeping oneself cool?" Michael asked, looking from me to Victoria "The All-Seeing Eye..."

"The what now?" Eddie cut in with a raised eyebrow.

"The All-Seeing Eye, it's the name of our group." Victoria replied before Michael could dig us into an even deeper fucking hole "We've been following your work for years."

Huh, good save Vic...

"No way." Eddie said with a smile "Well, it's always fun to meet passionate people." his eyes skipped momentarily onto Michael "Look, I go live here in about an hour, why don't you guys stick around and watch. You never know, we might just make contact with the other side."

Jesus, this guy was fucking delusional...

Eddie reached into the pocket of his tracksuit pulled out several small cards and handed one to each of us.

"Here, take one of my cards."

He handed us each a heavy laminated card that read:

Eddie Starr, Psychic Investigator

Leading Star

And on the back were the words Haunted: Live! and the same image of the skull that was on the back door of the van.

"We'll meet back here later." Eddie said with a wide smile "Daryll, with me."

Eddie headed past us, out into the hallway. Daryll stayed rooted to the spot for a moment, seemingly about to say something to us, but he jumped as Eddie's voice floated back in from the hallway.

"Daryll! Hurry the fuck up!"

Without a word, he barged past us and followed Eddie's calls.

"Well, that was bloody awful," Victoria said after a moment of silence following the sound of the front door of the cottage shutting behind Eddie and Daryll.

"You're telling me." I agreed "We need to get Daryll away from Eddie. He's not going to talk to us otherwise."

"I can deal with the human." Michael said, "They are so easy to manipulate."

"Actually," I said cutting him off, "I think I should distract Eddie. No offence, but we wouldn't want you to accidentally shoot him off to Sydney or something..."

Michael's blue eyes flashed for a moment until he eventually nodded in agreement.

"Your wisdom is hard to conflict, Alec." he replied "I will let you distract the human. Me and Victoria will deal with the magician."

"Sounds like a plan then." Victoria said, "We have an hour to wait now, might as well make ourselves comfortable."

That hour felt like a bloody lifetime, I can tell you. Victoria spent it going around all the rooms in the cottage to set up various wards, while I was tasked with figuring out how to distract Eddie and lure him away from Daryll. Michael just sat cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes. I had no idea what he was doing, but he just sat there and I could swear that I could hear voices muttering around him.

Strange.

I still had no fucking idea what to do about Eddie. Maybe we could rig up some kind of trap to keep him and Daryll separate... I wasn't sure. Leaving Michael to his weird meditation session I headed back out into the hallway.

The house was eerily empty. Victoria appeared from the door that led to the kitchen looking annoyed.

"There's something not right about this place." she said "Not all of my wards are taking. It's like there's already some kind of magic here, but, it's difficult to tell."

Bloody great! That's all we need...

"You think that's strange, our Guardian Angel is sitting on the floor meditating back there, it's doing my fucking head in," I said.

"Any ideas about how you're going to deal with Eddie?" She asked.

"Nope." I admitted "At this point, I'm thinking we just shove a bag over his head as he walks in the door, and then lock him in the kitchen. It's the only room in the house that we can make secure."

"Actually," Victoria said after thinking about it a moment "That might not be such a bad idea."