Simon took a deep breath, but, this time, not on his bong. Through the window he watched as Magenta sat huddled in her old shawl, on the bench, gazing at the moon. His bones were weary, weary of problems. Magenta, she was a good woman, he knew that. But she'd been laying a lot of crap on him lately, and he'd had enough. He knew what the problem was, he, JennyO, JennyG, Sandra, they'd all been pretending that everything was okay. But when he saw her gazing deliriously at that pasty faced pointy shoed Bat freak, Simon knew. Magenta had somehow been possessed by this manipulative Transylvanian poseur, he had taken over her will somehow.

Simon knew about these things, about the power of the mind, pointing the bone, ouija boards and that. He knew that, while nothing had actually happened to Magenta, the problem was, she THOUGHT something had happened to her. The placebo effect, if you get it. And this Vlad, this reptilian rubber scrubber, this weak arsed sabre toothed beanpole, he had her wrapped round his little, er, bat claw.