But the blow never lands. There is the scream of metal striking metal. You open your eyes, and like a miracle, a steel spade holds the machete from biting into your skin.

The man holding the spade kicks the madman back.

They circle each other like wildcats, and they slash and parry like swordsmen in a duel. The man who saved you wears body armour under a long coat, camouflaged with paints in green and brown and various twigs and leaves.

“So, have you come to kill me, Grigori?” the madman spits at your saviour. One moment his face is calm, but in the next, one of his eyes twitches irratically and his face convulses in a cruel parody of a grin.

“You have succumbed to the madness. I would hope you would do the same for me,” Grigori says. There is real regret in his voice. “Please, do not make this harder for me than it already is.”

The maniac shrieks in something not unlike glee and bodily tackles Grigori to the ground, stabbing at him with rabid fury.