The Ring of Solomon

was a blobby mass, which sported two mouths and several watchful eyes. The creatures passed at random back and forth around the perimeter of the garden. I shrank back against the trunk of the beech tree instinctively, but I knew they were unlikely to spot me from there. At this distance I should look like a blackbird on all seven planes. It was when I got closer that they might break through my illusion.
    The sixth plane was clear. But the seventh … that was curious. I couldn’t see anything obvious – the house, the road, the night all looked unchanged – but, call it intuition if you like, I was sure something was present there, lurking.
    I rubbed my beak doubtfully against a knot of wood. As expected, there was a good deal of powerful magic at work here. I’d heard of Lovelace. He was considered a formidable magician and a hard taskmaster. I was lucky I had never been called up in his service and I did not much want his enmity or that of his servants.
    But I had to obey that kid.
    The soggy blackbird took off from the branch and swooped across the road, conveniently avoiding the arc of light from the nearest lamp. It landed on a patch of scrubby grass at the corner of the wall. Four black bin bags had been left out there for collection the next morning. The blackbird hopped behind the bags. A cat that had observed the bird 2 from some way off waited a few moments for it to emerge, lost patience and scuttled curiously after it. Behind the bags it discovered no bird, black or otherwise. There was nothing there but a freshly turned molehill.

    1 I have access to seven planes, all co-existent. They overlap each other like layers on a crushed Viennetta. Seven planes is sufficient for anybody. Those who operate on more are just showing off.
    2 On two planes. Cats have that power.

3
    I hate the taste of mud. It is no fit thing for a being of air and fire. The cloying weight of earth oppresses me greatly whenever I come into contact with it. That is why I am choosy about my incarnations. Birds, good. Insects, good. Bats, OK. Things that run fast are fine. Tree-dwellers are even better. Subterranean things, not good. Moles, bad.
    But there’s no point being fastidious when you have a protective shield to bypass. I had reasoned correctly that it did not extend underground. The mole dug its way deep, deep down, under the foundations of the wall. No magical alarm sounded, though I did hit my head five times on a pebble. 1 I burrowed upwards again, reaching the surface after twenty minutes of snuffling, scruffling and turning my beady nose up at the juicy worms I uncovered every couple of scrapes.
    The mole poked its head cautiously out of the little pile of earth it had driven through the immaculate surface of Simon Lovelace’s lawn. It looked around, checking out the scene. There were lights on in the house, on the ground floor. The curtains were drawn. The upper floors, from what the mole could see, were dark. The translucent blue span of the magical defence system arched overhead. One yellow sentry trudged its stupid way three metres above the shrubbery. The other two were presumably behind the house.
    I tried the seventh plane again. Still nothing, still that uneasy sense of danger. Oh well.
    The mole retreated underground and tunnelled below the grass roots towards the house. It reappeared in the flowerbed just below the nearest windows. It was thinking hard. There was no point going further in this guise, tempting though it was to try to break into the cellars. A different method would have to be found.
    To the mole’s furry ears came the sound of laughter and clinking glasses. It was surprisingly loud, echoing from very close by. An air vent, cracked with age, was set in the wall not half a metre away. It led indoors.
    With some relief, I became a fly.

    1 Once each on five different pebbles. Not the same pebble five times. Just checking. Sometimes human beings are so dense .

4
    F rom the security of the air vent I peered with my multi-faceted eyes into a rather traditional drawing room. There was a thick pile carpet, nasty striped wallpaper, a hideous crystal thing pretending to be a chandelier, two oil paintings that were dark with age, a sofa and two easy chairs (also striped), a low coffee table laden with a silver tray and, on the tray, a bottle of red wine and no glasses. The glasses were in the hands of two people.
    One of them was a woman. She was youngish (for a human, which means infinitesimally