Meet, if you have not done so already, Ravenbait: High Priestess of the Triple Goddess of Cycling; genetically engineered progeny of the divine and Sapphic union of Tank Girl and Ellen Ripley from Alien Resurrection; and chief troubleshooter for Raven Holdings Inc, currently contracted out to Óðinn, the All Father of the Norse pantheon.

To her side lies a battered old matte black Raleigh Sun Solo; a bike that looks like it was lovingly crafted from scaffolding poles and rust. A solid black Goldtech chainring forms the front end of a 68" fixed wheel transmission, and the 1983 Cinnelli bars bear a pair of mint Campag Record Aero levers. This is not just a cheap old hack, even if the CatEye Astrale computer is worth more than the frame. The rear wheel is handbuilt on Mavic Open Pro and an EX flip-flop hub with 18- and 17-tooth Miche sprockets; and while the chainset may be a salvage job, and it may be Shimano, it's still Deore quality.

"Can we go home yet?" Huginn, also known as Thought, asks impatiently.

"We've been here for hours," Muninn, also known as Memory, complains. To the average person it would sound just like a couple of ravens croaking.

"We have been here," Ravenbait murmurs, trying to keep her voice low despite her exasperation, "for all of twenty three minutes. You two have the patience and attention span of an American child with ADD who has just had a gallon of SunnyD to wash down his turkey twizzlers. Now shut up."

She gives them a severe Paddington Bear stare and the ravens look suitably chastised.

The target of her observation has thankfully remained oblivious. The wind is in their favour, and the flow of information is coming their way. She knows that, should the wind turn and the creature catch a scent of them on the breeze, it will be off in a flash and she will probably be faced with another exhausting three days of tracking it down through the complexities of this region of A-Time.

That would not be good. A-Time here has as many folds and convoluted twists and turns as the cerebral cortex of a particularly bright dolphin — if the brain of that dolphin existed in 11 dimensions and ignored the standard laws of space-time in a way that would make even the Doctor Who's head hurt first thing in the morning.

The creature settles, and drops its head to feed on the tender cushions of woubit moss that find a home between the tufts of razor-sedge. Ravenbait's Freons scroll out a ream of data regarding its pheromone signature and heart rate, indicating that it has dropped its guard.

She does not need her glasses to tell her that, but she has not yet found the button to turn off all the special features.

With a soft murmur to her bicycle to stay put, she rises slowly into a crouch, eyes remaining fixed on the creature now nibbling delicately at a patch of moss. She springs, ignoring the sharp edges of the sedge slicing open her unprotected shins, and lands on the creature, wrapping her arms around it and bearing it down to the ground as it struggles and kicks.

"Thank fuck for that!" she exclaims, giggling. "I thought we were going to be out here for a week."

The creature is the size of a small goat, and just as feisty. Its eyes are a peculiar metallic green that shimmers like a butterfly's wings and have oddly asymmetric pupils that look a little like the cuneiform for 'ox'.

"Woot," says Huginn sarcastically. "Go you. Yay. You caught the freakin' thing and it only took you..."

"Three days, seven hours, forty-seven minutes and nineteen seconds," Muginn chimes in helpfully.

Ravenbait glares at them as she wrestles the animal into submission. Finally it gives up and lies with its legs pointing towards the sky, its head on her lap.

"It's only doing that to cop a look at her boobies," Huginn opines.

"The boss has seabirds of the genus Sula? When did she go to the Galapagos?" Muninn asks, confused.

"Dumbass," Huginn shakes his feathered head.

"There it is!" After some fettling through the creature's dense pelt, Ravenbait finds the real object of her current mission. Three days, eight hours, nine minutes and thirteen seconds earlier, the animal had run through the middle of a barbecue Loki had been throwing, and had somehow managed to get Brisingamen entwined around its neck.

Somehow. Everyone had a pretty good idea how. It was one of Loki's barbecues, after all, and it wouldn't be the first time he had arranged for Freya to lose her fabled necklace. Óðinn had called RB and sent her off with instructions not to return without it, however long it took.

It had taken — as Muginn had so helpfully noted — three days, seven hours, forty- seven minutes and nineteen seconds.

Ravenbait untangles the necklace, careful not to snag it on the tiny, stubby horns, and looks the animal sternly in the eye.

"You'd better not be my blasted Uncle," she tells it. "If I find out that's you in there, Uncle Loki, I shall be quite cross."

The creature makes a pathetic bleating sound, like a consumptive lamb, and starts kicking again. Ravenbait lets it go and it's off in a flash, disappearing through a gap between two job-job bushes that conceals a mobius strip diversion RB had not detected. If it had got to that before she had caught it, it would have taken more than another three days to track it down. A lot more. They had been lucky.

"Right," says the Priestess. "Best get this back to His Nibs so he can get Freya all indebted to him again. Wouldn't be at all surprised if he'd arranged this himself just so he can get a shag." She hoists Blackbird upright and checks the computer for messages. It's an ordinary CatEye Astrale, but in A- Time information permeates everything, and it doesn't take much for it to find expression. "I'm gasping for a cup of tea."

She puts the necklace in her Timbuk2 and adjusts the straps, vaguely wishing she'd put cross tyres on before leaving. Some of the terrain has proven a bit difficult for the slick Armadillos. She has just pushed off and is clipping in her left foot when a familiar figure materialises from a quantum entanglement gate. Back-pressure on the pedals brings the bike to a stop.

"Very flashy," she says to the Hollow Man. "What's the occasion?"

"The Hierophant has requested the pleasure of your company," the Hollow Man replies.

"Really?" Ravenbait is both astonished and sceptical. "It's been... what? Six, seven years now?"

"Nine, Priestess," the Hollow Man reminds her gently.

"Nine years. Blimey. And he wants to see me?"

"Yes."

"What's the trick? Is this where I turn up, all ready to parley, and he throws me in some oubliette somewhere because he's only just remembered that he's still pissed at me about that thing with Flagg?"

"That incident is so long ago and so many things are changed that it is no longer relevant. No tricks."

"No unpleasant bending?"

"We have no poodles," the Hollow Man replies with exaggerated patience.

"Well, okay, but I have a priority drop for the Ferryman," Ravenbait tells him.

"Yes. I know. Brisingamen. I will take you via Valaskjalf and you can drop it off. That wasn't your uncle, by the way."

"Thought not. Valaskjalf is hardly en route to the House of Fun and Mirrors, Rupert. That's quite a detour."

"Not when you have a quantum entanglement gate," the Hollow Man says with his empty smile, eyes kaleidoscoping from grey to blue to blood-red and back again.

Package duly delivered, Ravenbait walks along beside the Hollow Man as they approach the wide steps that lead to the House of Fun and Mirrors, where the Hierophant holds court. The staircase has a fluid appearance, as if it has only just congealed out of something like liquid iron ore, and might at any moment start flowing down the slope in a turbulent stream. Either side of the staircase stand sculptures in the classical style. The male figures are smoothly muscled and priapic; the female figures graceful and Rubenesque. The warm, humid breeze that drifts down from the bulbous and irregular Hall carries the scent of greasepaint and cotton candy, beer tents and spent condoms, and, above all those, a vicious and visceral top note of fresh blood.

At the top of the stairs is a large flat area, just before the great doors to this peculiarly-shaped edifice. At each side of this is a larger-than life sculpture of a Gryphen, forefoot raised and tail lashing.

Only they are not sculptures at all. The tails are moving, and the heads turn to regard the Hollow Man and his guest as they walk past.

They move into the shadow at the front of the building. Above them hang towers and turrets that appear to have been grown, and are now suspended in defiance of gravity on precarious supports too insubstantial to bear them. The doors are made of great slabs of the sacred yew, warped with exposure to some of the harshest elements in A-Time, and then silvered into perfectly reflective surfaces. Above the doors, in the lintel, is a stele:

It is said that if one looks at the doors for too long, one is likely to come away mad, a poet, or both.

Ravenbait does not look at them at all.

The Hierophant is waiting at his seat in the Great Hall. The throne rests on a raised dais at the back of a room so large it could fit Olympic-sized swimming and diving pools, complete with 10m board. His jester, Party Boy, is lounging across the steps that lead to the throne in his usual costume of a leopard-print thong and a bunny girl tail. The guards either side of the dais are identical, living embodiments of the statues of American Indians that once were found outside American cigar stores. On the walls hang thick tapestries depicting things with tentacles and bizarre scenes for which the only descriptor is 'moist'. It is difficult to tell if the metal objects hung on the walls where one would expect swords and shields are weapons or gynaecological instruments for giant mutant women. Tall, narrow, lead-paned windows filter the sky outside into endlessly shifting tones of purple.

The Hierophant himself has cunning, intelligence and cruelty in his eyes, which are a blue as pale as the top of a winter sky and the only constants in an ever-changing appearance. One moment he looks like a Mafia thug with an exceptional tailor; the next he looks like Iggy Pop's grandson in Samadhi.

"You wanted to see me, sir," Ravenbait says. The two years she had spent at boarding school were the two years of her life she hated the most. They had, however, taught her how to use words such as 'sir' without implying any sense of respect whatsoever. Huginn and Muninn shuffle to huddle together on Blackbird's handlebars, pressing as close to their mistress as they can get.

"I summoned you because you are Raven's top dog," the Hierophant drawls, putting the emphasis heavily on the 'dog'. "I have a problem. It's your fault. So you're going to fix it."

"My fault?" RB repeats with disbelief. "Is this a bit like 'the speed camera made me do it' gag?"

"Your fault, Priestess. Yours and your Old Man's. If your shifter father had not decided to cheat to win that bet..."

He stops, leans forwards on his elbows.

"Have you noticed what has been happening lately?"

"I've been busy," Ravenbait tells him flatly.

"Some creature has infected A-Time," the Hierophant hisses. "My domain. Some creature is using A-Time in ways no one is allowed to use A-Time but me. No one except me is allowed to cause change like this. And this creature would not, would never, could never have done this if your cheating father had not used A-Time to create you the way he did."

He slouches across his seat, one hand absently patting Party Boy on the head.

"I thought giving the Hollow Man an entanglement gate to bring you here was suitably ironic."

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Ravenbait asks. "As you say, A-Time is yours, Hierophant. You are the Grand Architect. Me, mostly I'm just a messenger."

"Fix it, Ravenbrat," the Hierophant tells her. "Tell Backstabber he has just been outbid for your services."

"You've made a contract with the Old Man?"

"He gave me a very good price," the Hierophant says using Richard O'Brien's face. There is an evil gleam in his pale blue eyes.

Ravenbait pulls a dubious expression and holds out her hand. "Better let me see the paperwork."

The Hollow Man hides a smile behind elongated fingers while the Hierophant rummages around under his throne, muttering to himself. Eventually he pulls out a pink sheet of A4 that has been folded several times and has the powdery, dirty finish of a carbon copy. The Priestess makes a show of checking all the details.

"Fine," she says. "That seems to be in order. Usual terms and conditions apply. You can request a copy of our contract policy by calling this number during office hours local time," she hands over a business card. "You didn't sign the exclusivity clause," she points to a section in the small print, "but that's okay. I don't think it would make much difference to a job like this anyway." She hands the piece of paper back, passing it across via Party Boy. "I recommend you keep that for your records."

Party Boy winks at her, lascivious tongue snaking around his lips.

"I'll be off then, if there's nothing else," RB says brusquely, ignoring the jester.

"Fix it quickly, little crow," the Hierophant tells her, his tones laced with threat. The crumpled pink sheet dangles from his moodily drooping fingers.

"I'll see myself out, shall I?"

"I will take you," says the Hollow Man softly. "It may be a while before news of your temporary assignment to our staff filters through and we would not want anything to happen to you on the way out."

"No," murmurs the Priestess, not able to feel relief because she's not out of there yet, even though the Hierophant's attention now appears to be elsewhere, his mind drifting out into the landscape of his domain. "We certainly wouldn't."

Outside the House of Fun and Mirrors the Priestess maintains a dignified pace until they are out of direct line of sight of the main stairway. Only then does she breathe a heavy sigh of relief and start laughing with that release of nervous tension that creates mirth even when there is no humour.

The Hollow Man watches her, amused.

"Tell me, Priestess. What is 'local time'?" he asks, already somewhat certain of the answer.

"Wherever the Old Man happens to be at the time, of course," she grins. "Never try getting through to our customer service division, Rupe. They're even worse than Ribble. Come on then."

She shoos the ravens off Blackbird's handlebars and clips in her right foot.

"Come on?"

"You are coming with me, aren't you? To report back on progress and ensure I don't run up a huge bar bill on expenses?"

"I suppose... where?"

"The hub of the universe, silly, to find out what your Boss is wittering on about."

"Where's that?"

Ravenbait grins and settles her Rudy Projects on her nose.

"The Cake Stop. Where else?"