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'Er, steady on, Thursday – aren't you taking this just a little bit too seriously?'
'The Supreme Evil Being must be stopped, Spike – you said so yourself!'
'I know I said that, but we can come back tomorrow with a plan C instead!'
'There is no plan C, Spike. It ends now. Close your eyes.'
'Wait!'
'Close them!'
He closed his eyes and I pulled the trigger and twitched my hand at the same time; the slug powered its way through three layers of clothing, grazed Spike's shoulder and buried itself in the wood of the old door. It did the trick; with a short and unearthly wail an entity emerged from Spike's nostrils and coalesced into an ethereal version of an old dishcloth.
'Good work!' muttered Spike in a very uncertain voice as he took a step back. 'Don't let it get near you!'
I ducked as the wraith-like sprit moved in my direction.
'Fooled!' said a low voice. 'Fooled by a mere mortal, how utterly depressing!'
The thumping had now increased and was also coming from the vestry door; I could see the hinge pins start to loosen in the powdery mortar.
'Keep him talking!' yelled Spike as he grabbed the holdall and pulled out the vacuum cleaner.
'A vacuum cleaner!' Sneered the low voice. 'Spike you insult me!'
Spike didn't answer but instead unravelled the hose and switched the battery-powered appliance on.
'A vacuum cleaner won't hold me!' sneered the voice again. 'Do you really believe that I can be trapped in a bag like so much dust?'
Spike sucked up the small spirit in a trice.
'He didn't seem that frightened of it,' I murmured as Spike fiddled with the machine's controls.
'This isn't any vacuum cleaner, Thursday. James over at R&D dreamt it up for me. You see, unlike conventional vacuum cleaners, this one works on a dual cyclone principle that traps dust and evil spirits by powerful centrifugal force. Since there is no bag there is no loss of suction – you can use a lower wattage motor; there's a hose action – and a small brush for stair carpets.'
'You find evil spirits in stair carpets?'
'No, but my stair carpets need cleaning just the same as anyone else's.'
I looked at the glass container and could see a small vestige of white spinning round very rapidly. Spike deftly placed the lid on the jar and detached it from the machine. He held it up and there inside was a very pissed-off spirit of the Evil One – well and truly trapped.
'As I said,' went on Spike, 'it's not rocket science. You had me scared, though, I thought you really were going to kill me!'
'That,' I replied, 'was plan D!'
'Spike you you you Bastard!' said the small voice from inside the jar. 'You'll suffer the worst torments in hell for this!'
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'Yeah, yeah,' replied Spike as he placed the jar in the holdall, 'you and all the rest.'
He slung the bag round his body, replaced the spent cartridge in his shotgun with another from his pocket, and flicked off the safety.
'Come on, those deadbeats are starting to get on my tits. Whoever nails the least is a sissypants.'
We flung open the door to a bunch of very surprised dried corpses who fell inward in a large tangled mass of putrefied torsos and stick-like limbs. Spike opened fire first, and after we had dispatched that lot we dashed outside, dodged the slowest of the undead and cut down the others as we made our way to the gates.
'The Cindy problem,' I said as the head of a long-dead carcass exploded in response to Spike's shotgun. 'Did you do as I suggested?'
