Jacob longed for his trusty service revolver, or better yet a Vickers machine gun; crystals tied to a three-foot stick felt hopelessly ineffective.

The snapping of the beast’s jaws mere inches from his nose reminded him to focus.

“You got him yet?” Harry shouted.

“No!” Jacob replied. The strength of the creature they faced was overwhelming, only with the pair of them working together could they hope to subdue it. He resisted the temptation to turn and run, wielded his staff (don’t call it a magic wand, the trainer had repeated) and summoned the energies latent within it. With a glance at Harry he drove this power forward into the monster’s chest.

It staggered, its roars halted, and it regarded him with a quizzical look for a second before Harry’s own blast knocked it lifeless to the ground.

“Great show, lads,” Christopher Grey shouted from his position on the sidelines. He checked the stopwatch in his hand, made a few notes on a clipboard and nodded his approval. “And a new record.” He shook the hands of the other men around him, but made no move towards the men now getting their breath back. Harry and Jacob exchanged a handshake of their own and walked over to inspect the defeated beast.

Seven feet long and barrel-shaped, matted black hair hid its powerful muscles and made it appear even larger than it was. As he poked at its head with his staff, Jacob saw the once jet-black eyes beneath its thick fringe had faded to a milky-grey colour.

Mr Grey gestured to a small man beside him who separated from the group of observers and strode over to the beast. With a quiet “scuse me, gents,” he reached under the creature’s fur and unclipped a thick metal collar.

“In the field they won’t have one of those, so there’s no chance of us restraining it if it gets too much for you,” Grey said. Harry gave Jacob a glare that said we know that already, mate, but didn’t say it. Training drills were getting more intense by the day; tempers ran short at the best of times and they didn’t want to antagonise the “brass” any more than they already had.

With the collar removed the creature was fading back to its normal state of invisibility. Before it vanished the small man acting as the creature’s keeper wielded his staff and immolated the corpse with a word. Harry compared his own stick to the other’s ancient oak staff with deep inset jewels; Jacob willed him not to speak up, in vain.

“Here, boss, when do we get the proper kit then? I think my amethyst almost came off on that one!” The faces of the observers bore stony replies to Harry’s grin.

“You remember we’re pressed for resources, Mr White,” a man carrying a cane snapped. “What you have now is fine for training, but you’ll get what you need before you’re sent out in the field.” He turned on his heel and stalked away to watch another small group of men battling a large creature a few hundred yards away.

Mr Grey walked over to them and gave them a watery smile. “Mr Black is right,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “but I understand your concerns. The lads in the workshops are working flat out to prepare the essentials.” With that he hurried off to rejoin the rest of the group.

“I wish you wouldn’t joke around,” Jacob sighed when they were out of earshot. “Mr Black doesn’t like us much as it is.”

Harry scoffed. “Yeah well, if Mr so-high-and-mighty ‘Black’ had fought in the war he might have a better idea why I’m so worried. We can’t train with this rubbish,” he shook his staff, and the gemstones rattled. “If we’re not ready when they send us to Stonehenge it’ll be a massacre. You remember what happened at the Somme, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” Jacob shuddered.

“Right, yeah, I didn’t mean…” Harry stared at his shoes in embarrassment for a moment. “These flipping magic wands are a joke. If we don’t get time to train with the real thing you’ll have blokes popping spells off in all directions when they get too excited. Then again perhaps you’d like to spend a few days as a frog? I can just see you sitting under a rock, eating flies…”

Jacob smiled at that despite himself. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, just… try to be more professional, won’t you? You remember their type, all certain they’re better than us because they attended the right school, or mixed with the right people.”

“Ah, Grey’s all right - he understands. It’s just that hoity-toity Mr Taylor. Black. Whatever, I can’t keep these damn names straight. Don’t think we need them, eh Mr ‘Brown’?”

Jacob groaned. “You know damn well it’s for our own protection. Names have power, so we keep our true names a secret and use the colour system.”

“Yeah, I’ll just have to remember. Black like his heart, Grey cos he’s only half as bad. I’m White like fresh snow, and you’re Brown like your trousers.” He laughed at his own joke, until he saw Jacob’s expression. “Wait, I didn’t mean…” he started.

“Stop pissing about, for God’s sake,” Jacob snapped, “I’ve had it up to here. You’ll get us both kicked out at this rate.”

Harry raised his hands. “Look, I know you’re no coward and so do they,” he said gesturing at the distant figures. “You’ve nothing to prove, and you seem to work wonders even with the lousy equipment.” Jacob unclenched his fists, and his jaw lost its tension. “Here, no-one will miss us now if we slope off for a pint, so what do you say? If anyone asks we’ll say we’re going to re-tie our jewels,” he added, rattling his staff.

Jacob thought for a moment and then strode off towards their barracks with a deep sigh.

“Bleedin’ fairies, I tell ya! Dancin’ around all over!”

Jacob and Harry had been enjoying a pint in the local pub until the man at the next table started sharing his drunken opinions. His latest was whether mythical creatures existed or not, and he was debating it with anyone within earshot.

“Some girls up in Yorkshire, it says here,” the man continued, slapping his newspaper and hitting it on the second try. “Took some pictures of fairies at the bottom of their bleedin’ garden. Dancin’ about and handin’ ‘em flowers and suchlike. Bleedin’ nonsense if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked you, Bert. Nobody ever does,” his companion stage-whispered to the rest of his table. This didn’t go unnoticed by Bert himself, who forgot his tales of fairies in favour of asking his companion to step outside. They calmed him with the promise of another drink.

Harry leant over to Jacob and whispered. “What do you reckon?” he asked, “doesn’t sound like our sort of thing, does it?”

“No. Dancing and flowers isn’t what we’ve come up against so far. None of the things we see would leave two little girls unharmed either.”

“It’ll be a repeat of that ‘Angels of Mons’ fuss during the war. A rumour gets out of hand, some newspaper reporter gets the wrong end of the stick and then it’s all anyone can talk about.”

“As if you’d ever have seen anything heavenly in the trenches,” Jacob said. They sat in mournful silence for a moment before Jacob downed the last of his drink and stood. “Another?” he asked Harry, not waiting for an answer before wobbling to the bar. He returned, placed Harry’s drink next to the half-empty one in front of him, and sank into his chair. He then swallowed a third of his own pint in one go.

“Steady on,” Harry said. “It’s not a race.” Jacob snorted and borrowed the newspaper from the table beside them. He found the short article about the fairies and tossed it onto the sticky table.

“Look at this, feels as if there’s something new every week,” he said. “This one might be a hoax, but we both understand there’s plenty of the real stuff out there. And the more we find, the more the idea’s growing in people’s minds, and the more they do this nonsense,” he added, gesturing at the article. “In my opinion, it’s been getting worse since the War.”

“Well, that’s not surprising,” Harry said. “Every family in the country lost someone, near enough. It’s not surprising they’d turn to believing in a perfect spirit world where their loved ones can live on, happy and safe.”

“Yeah, sure. But that doesn’t explain how busy we’re getting. No amount of belief creates things like that great shaggy beast we faced today. No, I’m saying that something’s causing it, something big. More fae means more sightings, more people believe. It doesn‘t work the other way around.”

“Well yeah, that’s what we’re training for, isn’t it?” Harry explained. “We knew that with the damage already done to Stonehenge there’d be leakage, and that’s what we’re seeing.”

Jacob shook his head. “No, it’s bigger than that - and nastier. Can’t you feel it? It’s like in the trenches, something big’s coming.”

“No-one knew what the big push would be like until we were in it. Don’t tell me you knew what was going to happen.”

Jacob waved a hand to dismiss Harry’s statement and almost knocked their glasses to the floor. “We all felt it, we just thought it was excitement at doing our part at last.” His voice was quieter now. “I should’ve known it wouldn’t be like we expected, should’ve known.”

“We did what they trained us for,” Harry mumbled. “We did our duty.”

“Fat lot of good that did us,” Jacob shouted. “We didn’t know what we’d face. Nor did those bloody officers. And now it’s all happening again, don’t you see?” His voice was louder still and people were turning to watch.

Harry stood up and placed a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s be getting back,” he urged. “We ought to report this fairy thing, just in case.”

Jacob shrugged Harry’s hand away and finished his drink. “All right,” he conceded. “But you mark my words, we’re walking blindfolded into another colossal fuck-up.”