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“Don’t let her get away!”

Neon lights flashed and pachinko machines rang as Slay raced past game arcades and dive bars, closing in on their prey. They’d left the bright lights and bustle of Shinjuku at the last turn and were now weaving their way deeper into the dark heart of Tokyo. Milly was loving every second of it. The twins, Zek and Niv, were behind her, swords sheathed but ready. She heard a thump from above and glanced up to see Connor jump across the small gap between the rooftops, his sai blades glinting in the moonlight. Up ahead, taking the lead, was JD. All of them were dressed in black combats and half-masks, disguising their identities. Milly’s mask was grey, with the jagged mouth of a shark painted on one side. The whole disguise not only hid her identity, but her gender too. When she’d agreed to join Slay, the world’s hottest boy band, there had been one small problem: she wasn’t a boy. However, thanks to clever styling and a tight-fitting sports bra, Milly had become Milo – Slay’s shy new pianist.

As soon as she’d pulled on the heavy black boots, picked up the compound bow and slipped a quiver of arrows over her back, she’d felt a change. Not just in how she felt but in how the others treated her. They were still protective of her, but only as much as they would be of any of the other boys. They still looked out for Milly, but now they also expected her to look out for them.

“Take the next left.” Tom’s soft voice came over the headsets. Tom had been Slay’s pianist, but after a terrible incident in Mexico he’d needed to take some time out – from performing and hunting. So now, he was back at base, guiding them every step of the way. “Left, now.”

JD skidded mid-run and slammed into a wall on his left, bouncing off it and vanishing down the alley. “A little more notice next time, Tom,” he panted.

Milly heard Tom chuckle over the line. “Keeping you on your toes, JD.”

She followed JD around the corner and came face-to-face with a three-metre-high brick wall. It was covered in graffiti of a panda with flames coming from its eyes.

“Bu—?” she managed to say before JD jumped, zigzagging from one corner of the wall to the next, grabbing hold of the top and vaulting over. Niv and Zek streaked past her. Niv crouched down and boosted his brother up and over, then leaped as Zek grabbed his hand and pulled him up in one fluid, practised move. Connor skipped over from the rooftops, putting in an unnecessary but undeniably cool flip as he too disappeared behind the wall.

That just left Milly.

“Come on, Mills, you got this,” Tom said in her earpiece, gentle and encouraging.

This was exactly the kind of thing she’d been training for over the last month. Scan the environment, find your advantage. She spotted her way over. “The wires!” she said.

“That’s my girl,” Tom said. “I mean, not my girl. I meant, like, the girl.”

She heard Zek chuckle at Tom over the headsets. “Smooth, Wills. Smooth.”

Milly smiled under her half-mask and rubbed her hands against the rough material of her combats. She jumped and grabbed the bundle of wires running from satellite dishes and air-conditioning units, placing her feet either side, and scooted her way up till she was level with the top of wall. She placed her weight on her left side and swung, grabbing the top of the wall and pulling herself up. Her muscles strained, and she knew she’d feel it in the morning, but for now, the adrenaline of the chase was blocking out any pain. She paused at the top of the wall to take a steadying breath, then jumped. As soon as she hit the ground, she dropped into a forward roll, protecting her ankles, and she was up again and on her feet. She glanced back at the wall and grinned. She’d made it over. And without falling too far behind. JD and the others were just up ahead. She put on a burst of speed and caught up with them.

“Wait,” Tom said.

Milly crashed into Zek’s back, and they all came to a sudden halt.

“You should be right on top of her.”

“There’s nothing here,” JD said, drawing his sword.

“Unless she’s transformed into that freaking enormous rat,” Zek said, pointing at a beady-eyed creature scuttling behind a bin. “In which case, I am very much out of here.”

“The tracker shows her right there in front of you.”

Slay had come to Japan nearly a month ago, under the pretence of a publicity tour that would help them break into the country. But the real reason they’d come had nothing to do with sales figures or juicy deals, and everything to do with a nasty demon that had been terrorizing Tokyo. Gail, the band’s manager – a tall, elegant woman who was just as fierce with contracts as she was demon-hunting – had got a call from a Japanese friend asking for help. And just like always, Slay went wherever they were needed.

They’d spent their first weeks in Japan researching: poring over old books, hacking police records, interviewing witnesses, finding out everything they could about the demon. How to track it, how to take it down. And while Milly believed Gail and the others when they said this was all a part of the job, she also wondered if it hadn’t also been about giving Milly time to train.

And train she had. Every day, for seven hours a day, she’d practised fighting, evading, shooting with her bow. The rest of the hours had been spent sleeping, eating and learning how to play all Slay’s hit songs on the piano.

Then tonight, in the middle of Connor showing Milly how to do a one-handed chin-up, an alarm had gone off. One of Niv’s rooftop traps had been triggered – the demon had been found.

Gail had winked at Milly, her one good eye flashing as brightly as her diamond-encrusted eyepatch, and said it – the phrase Milly had been desperate to hear for weeks. “Playtime is over, boys. It’s slay time.”

And now here she was, standing in a dark alleyway, her heart pounding, hunting demons with four boys who just so happened to be the biggest pop stars in the world.

“We’re not seeing anything, Tom,” Milly said, agreeing with the others. Apart from vermin, the alley was empty. Maybe the tracker had stopped working. “Unless…”

As one, JD and Milly looked up.

Milly just had time to see a cape of black hair and a swirling yellow trench coat as the demon leaped down at them. She reached for an arrow from the quiver on her back, but wasn’t fast enough. The demon landed on top of Milly, knocking her to the floor and straddling her. Its face, partially obscured by a surgical mask, pressed itself into Milly’s.

“Am I pretty?” A high, scratching voice hissed through the mask, making Milly think of nails on bones.

“I…” What Milly could see of the demon’s face was pretty. Beautiful even. She opened her mouth to answer, then she saw JD standing over them. His sword flashed, slicing across the demon’s back. It screeched and spun to its feet, disappearing in a swirl of yellow coat and dark hair, flying away as if carried on the wind.

JD reached out a hand and pulled Milly to her feet, before giving her a sturdy push forward. Back into the fight.

“Milly!” Tom gasped. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, willing her legs to keep pumping as she ran.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to—”

“She’s fine,” JD said. “Stay focused.”

Milly couldn’t help but smile at JD defending her. She knew she’d just nearly messed up, but as JD had told her before: we all make mistakes. The important thing was not to make the same mistake twice. And there was no way Milly was going to. She pulled out an arrow and lay it across the string of her bow. That demon wasn’t going to get a second chance.

“There!” Connor pointed overhead.

A shadow passed over the large Tokyo moon. Milly levelled the bow, drew back the string, took aim and let her arrow fly. This demon was known as Kuchisake-onna – the slit-mouthed woman. A demon of legend who had been summoned by a man stupid enough to think he could control her. After dispatching him, the demon had begun stalking the backstreets of Tokyo – approaching people in dark alleys, her face covered by a surgical mask, to ask them a simple question: Am I pretty? If they said no, she would kill them. If they said yes, she would lift her mask to reveal her beautiful face, which had been sliced from the corners of her mouth to her ears, then give her victim the same, gruesome smile. The only way to survive unscathed was not to answer.

The demon woman looked back over her shoulder as she flew through the air, black eyes widening as Milly’s arrow headed straight for her forehead. With a soft thunk, it embedded itself between two delicate eyebrows.

“Am I pretty?” the demon said, for the last time, before falling to the floor with a heavy, wet thud.

They all raced to the landing spot. Connor hooked up a shred of what had been the demon’s bright yellow trench coat with the tip of his sai. A white surgical mask rolled out onto the floor. Both were covered in thick, black blood.

“Must have possessed that body for centuries,” Connor said, “to disintegrate like that.”

“Urgh,” Zek said, stepping away from the growing pool of black ooze. “My boots.”

“At least we won’t have to bag-and-frag the body,” JD said.

Milly smiled. She’d done it. She’d taken down her first black-eyed scumbag. She looked from boy to boy, drinking in their approval. Connor gave her a high five that shook her bones, Zek winked and gave her a smile and Niv held up two thumbs.

There were no smiles or high fives from JD. Just a cool look of admiration. “Good shot,” he said.

“Did you get her?” Tom’s tense voice came over the headsets. Milly could imagine him back at the base, his cup of green tea gone cold as he fretted about them all.

“Milly did!” Connor said.

“Milly!” Tom said. “Have I told you just how amazing you are?”

Zek rolled his eyes. “Oh, maybe once.”

“Or twice,” Connor added.

Niv slashed his thumb through the air, the sign for a thousand.

“Shut up, all of you,” Milly said, but she was glad her mask hid her grin. Suddenly she was itching to get back to base. To pull her mask and goggles off and see Tom. But they had more business tonight.

“We’d better shift,” JD said. “We have to be on air in thirty minutes.”

Demon-slaying done. Now it was time to step back into the spotlight.

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Tom pulled his headset off his mop of strawberry-blond curls and spun his chair away from the desk, letting out a massive sigh of relief. Watching the others through the screens had been like playing the most exhilarating video game ever. Exhilarating and yet excruciating. He wanted to be with them, kicking demon butt, but he still wasn’t feeling strong enough. Not since Mexico.

Only a matter of months ago, the boys had gone up against the biggest demon the world had ever known – a literal demon god called Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca had been summoned from the Netherworld with a single purpose – enslave all of humanity. But the demon god had needed one thing in order to cross over: a human host to possess. It had tried to possess Milly, but Tom had stepped up and offered himself. He’d been willing to sacrifice his life to save Milly’s. To save them all. Had it not been for JD’s quick thinking, Tom would have died right then, on top of the ancient temple, while lightning shredded the dark sky. Instead of losing his best friend, JD had made the only choice he could. Just as the demon’s shadow form was about to creep into Tom’s body, JD had cut Tom’s hand off, denying Tezcatlipoca its host and banishing it back to the Netherworld.

Tom looked down at the prosthetic hand he’d been wearing since getting out of hospital. It looked real enough – they’d scanned his left hand and matched it as carefully as they could. And yet, it wasn’t kidding anyone. Gail had promised Tom that everything would be fine – he’d learn to fight with his left hand, they’d find him a new instrument, and everything would be back to normal. Normal. He wondered if he even knew what normal looked like any more.

He glanced up at the feed from DAD – their Demonic Activity Detector – which was busy scanning all forms of digital communication for any sign of evil. Rows of data danced across the screen: numbers and charts that were a mystery to Tom but could be decoded by their tech genius Niv. All he could tell was that nothing was flashing red. He could risk taking a break.

He left the room they’d set up as the control centre and walked out into the central courtyard, which was illuminated by a string of red lights. The building they had been staying in for the last month had once been a derelict teahouse. It had a swooping, curved rooftop and paper doors. Suzume, Gail’s old friend who’d contacted them about the demon, had taken over the space to save it from demolition, turning it into an art studio ten years ago. The collective who used the space blended traditional Japanese paintings with a modern graffiti style. The artworks, which covered every wall, were hugely popular with young Tokyoites and tourists alike. And one of the most popular paintings had been of a beautiful woman with a ragged, bloody smile. The Kuchisakeonna demon of legends. Only, as Suzume and her team learned, the demon wasn’t so legendary any more. As many as ten people had died after coming face to bloody face with the demon, including one of Suzume’s best artists. After failing to take the demon down herself, Suzume had called Gail for help.

Now the demon was defeated, their job was done and Tom wondered where they would be going next. Maybe DAD would throw up more demonic activity in Japan? Or maybe it was time to hit the road again? It wasn’t that Tom was in a rush to leave. Tokyo was fascinating and he’d often go wandering the streets while the others were training, as much to learn about the city as to have some time to himself. The house was beautiful, if a little cramped with all seven of them living there. There were only two bedrooms. One had been turned into the control centre, the other was where Gail slept. As for the rest of them, they made do. However, compared to Agatha – their tour bus – it was positively palatial.

The rumble of Tokyo traffic was a faint hum in the background, hidden by the gentle sound of running water and the occasional satisfying thonk made by the bamboo water feature in the courtyard. It beat out a gentle rhythm in Tom’s mind, and he began humming a melody to go with it. It started sweet and light, a gentle song that might be about cherry blossoms caught on the wind or the aching of a lonely heart. But it became harsher, darker. An all-too-familiar strain filled his mind, a high-pitched chanting – the same chanting he’d heard on the top of a pyramid, as dark clouds rumbled overhead and lightning filled the sky. The singing of an Aztec priestess calling to her demon god. Tom pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block the noise out, but it was coming from inside his head. There was no escape.

“No,” he said, “no, no, no!”

“You okay?”

Tom jolted at the sound. Gail was standing in one of the doorways. The chanting had stopped and all he could hear now was the gentle running of water.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, dropping his hands and forcing on his brightest smile. “Just got a song stuck in my head.”

He put his prosthetic hand behind his back, trying to ignore the stabbing pain he felt in his wrist – a wrist that was no longer there. He knew the pain was only in his head. The doctors had called it phantom pain. Demon pain would have been more accurate. The demon had tried to possess him and failed, and yet sometimes Tom still felt its dark shadow trying to find its way into his body.

“They got her. The slit-mouthed woman.”

“Well, of course they did,” Gail said. She’d not doubted they’d succeed for a second. Gail had formed Slay four years ago with one purpose: to rid the world of demons. She’d rescued each of the boys and trained them to become music-playing, demon-slaying machines. And she’d put Milly through the same rigorous process. Gail loved every single one of them as if they were her own children, Tom knew that. But she never seemed to feel any fear for them. Unless she was really, really good at hiding it.

She walked down the steps into the courtyard. “I’ll call Suzume and tell her she can come home. Are the others on their way back?”

“They’re heading to the studio. They’re cutting it fine.”

Gail looked at her watch. “Right, I’d almost forgotten – the interview! We’d better go.”

“Maybe I should just stay here? After all, I’m supposed to be receiving treatment for ‘exhaustion’.” Tom smiled and waggled the fingers of his left hand, making incomplete quote marks to indicate the irony of it all.

Gail had released a press statement when Tom was still in hospital, saying he was receiving treatment for exhaustion and wouldn’t be making any public appearances for a while. Most people thought it was all just PR speak for him being in rehab. Was it better the fans thought he had a drink problem rather than knowing about him losing his hand?

“And you’re not exhausted?” Gail leaned against a wooden column, her wolf-headed walking stick tucked under her crossed arms.

Tom’s forced smile fell. The truth was that since Mexico he was, if not exactly exhausted, then tired. Very tired. His freckled cheeks had lost their usual rosy glow and dark circles hung beneath his green eyes.

“It will be fine, Tom.”

“You keep saying that, Gail,” he replied, dropping any pretence. There was no point with Gail anyway. She saw more with her one eye than most people did with two. “And I keep waiting.”

“Give it time.”

“You keep saying that, too.”

“And when have I been wrong?”

“Oh, I don’t know. That green dress you wore to the Emmys wasn’t exactly your best decision. And then there was that woman in Berlin…”

Tom dived for the ground as Gail swiped at him with her stick, and came up smiling, more himself now.

“That dress was designer. And that woman was… Well yes, she was a mistake. I’ll give you that one.”

She walked forward and wrapped her arms around Tom’s shoulders. “You’ll get there. I promise,” she whispered, placing a kiss on the top of his head.

“I will with you to help me,” he said, returning the hug.

“So, come on then. Groupie time.”

Tom groaned, running his hand through his curls.

The other boys had started calling Tom their number one groupie. “Following us around on tour, dressing like us, it’s sweet, if a little creepy,” Zek had said, teasing Tom about his decision not to join them onstage for a while. And the name had stuck.

“I have to see this for myself, anyway. JD being interviewed on Japanese national TV is going to be hilarious.”

JD hated interviews. He always froze up and barely managed to say more than three sentences. Tom had been the chatty, easy-going one, who would cover for JD and keep Zek from being too sarcastic. He was happy to answer the same old questions over and over again, whereas JD had said that if he got asked about how the band was formed one more time he was going to scream. But Tom knew if he did an interview now, the only question anyone would ask would be about what happened to his hand. He couldn’t face that quite yet.

No, he was happy to stay in the wings for a little while longer. Just until he got his smile back.

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Milly arched up in her seat, peeling her jumpsuit off to reveal a pair of black trousers and a plain white T-shirt. To her left, Zek and Niv did the same – only they were a little more practised at the quick change and neither of them got their trouser legs caught around their boots. Milly struggled to yank her foot free, as Zek laughed.

“You have to take your boots off first, Mills.” He shook his head. The patterns he had shaved into his fade were growing out a little, which Milly knew was frustrating the usually pristine bassist, but they hadn’t been able to take their stylists with them to Japan.

“Do what I do,” Connor called back from the passenger seat. He grinned and pulled at his jumpsuit – with a ripping sound it tore in two neat parts along the seams.

“Velcro?” Milly said. “Nice!” Despite being the youngest of the group, Connor was easily the biggest, and seemed to be getting bigger every day. If he got any more muscles, Milly thought, they might just burst out of that jumpsuit without any help.

“Yup, I got the idea from my shoes,” Connor said.

“Yeah, he has to have Velcro because he can’t tie his laces,” Zek said, grinning as Connor stuck his tongue out at him.

It still didn’t solve the problem – that Milly was stuck inside her jumpsuit. They were in a hired truck, parked opposite the entrance to the TV studio, and they had only a few minutes before they were supposed to be in make-up, and ready for the interview.

Niv tapped his forehead with his fist. Idiot. Milly could spot the difference between Niv and his brother easily now. Niv’s cheeks were a little fuller, his skin a touch darker, and he didn’t have his brother’s constant sardonic smile. He rolled his eyes, then pointed to himself before reaching out with his right fist placed on his left palm, thumb up, his delicate eyebrows raised and quizzical. Can I help?

Milly reached out her tangle of boot and material, and he yanked. The boot went one way and Milly went the other, banging her head against the blacked-out window of the van. She was going to have to get a lot better at this. She sat up and adjusted her clothes, straightening her T-shirt and flattening down her hair.

She didn’t remember seeing JD wriggling to get free of his combats or tear them off like Connor and yet he was sitting in the driver’s seat, already in his “civilian” outfit. He pulled down the visor to check his dark hair in the mirror and Milly met his intense grey eyes in the reflection.

“The hair’s looking good, Milly,” he said.

Milly ran her fingers through her newly cropped pixie haircut. She’d had a chin-length bob before, but they’d gone even shorter to help with her disguise as a boy. Connor had gleefully offered to shave it off for her, but she’d managed to keep him and his clippers away.

Zek considered her hair. “Yeah, it just needs…” He leaned over the back of the driver’s seat and, before JD could do anything, started running his fingers through JD’s hair.

“Oi!” JD said when Zek had finished, before trying to smooth his perfectly coiffed quiff back into place.

“You had too much hair gel on anyway.” Zek turned to Milly, his hands now sticky, and began artfully tousling her hair. When he finished, he leaned back. “That’s better.”

Milly slipped on a pair of large, black-rimmed glasses, tied a flannel shirt around her waist and slipped the heavy black boots back on. Now she not only looked like a boy, but a cool one.

“Perfect,” Zek said. “We shall call this look…shabby geek.”

“You make a very good boy, Mills,” Connor said.

Milly wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. When she’d first looked at herself in the mirror in her Milo outfit it had been a shock to see a young man looking back at her.

“Ready?” JD asked.

“Born ready!” they all replied, including Milly. She felt a thrill at being one of the group.

JD started the truck up again and drove towards the entrance to the studio. It was only five hundred metres and yet he slammed on the accelerator and screeched to a halt in front of the barrier. A rather unimpressed guard peered out from the security box. He was so large Milly wondered if he was wedged in there permanently. JD slid the window down and the man grunted at them. JD handed out a sheet of paper, their invitation to be on Close-up With Nomura, the late-night chat show.

The man grunted again, handed the sheet back, and pointed towards a stage-door sign across the parking lot.

“Arigatou,” JD said, thanking the man. As soon as the barriers were up he hit the accelerator again as if he was in a drag race.

“JD!” Milly shouted. She went sliding across the back seat as JD threw the truck into a handbrake turn before finally screeching to a halt.

“Can you chill it with the stunt driver stuff?” Zek said.

JD unclipped his seat belt and smiled back at Zek. “Where would the fun be in that?” He threw open the driver’s door and the rest followed.

“Show-off.”

Milly smiled to hear Tom’s voice and turned around. He was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses to help him keep a low profile, in case there were any snooping paparazzi around. But she’d know those dimples anywhere. She hadn’t been sure if he was going to join them tonight, but was glad he had. This was their first public appearance since it had been announced that Slay had a new member. The fan forums and gossip sites had run wild with rumours about what they were doing in Japan and when were they finally going to make an appearance. And so Gail had set this evening up to soothe the speculation. Milly had no idea what to expect of her first interview and could already feel her nerves building. She was grateful that Tom would be here to help her through it.

“You look great, Mil — …Milo,” Tom said, correcting himself.

“Thanks,” Milly said, tugging at the shirtsleeves tied around her waist.

“Okay,” Gail said, stepping up to adjust Milly’s glasses. “Just remember what we practised. Keep your voice low and your answers short.” She pushed the buzzer to get access to the stage door.

“And if in any doubt, just scratch your groin and burp as often as possible,” Zek said. “Like Connor.”

“I don’t burp and scratch my groin. Not at the same time, anyway.” Connor let out a small burp.

“Dear God, Connor,” Zek said, waving away the smell. “What have you been eating?”

“Sushi,” Connor said.

The stage door opened and a slim young woman wearing a headset and holding a clipboard stepped out. She looked stressed, and rattled off a string of Japanese.

Japanese was one of the languages Milly didn’t speak, but she could get the gist of it: You’re here, at last.

“Sorry we’re late,” JD said. “We had an appointment that overran.”

“Yeah, by about three weeks,” Connor said under his breath. The hunt for the slit-faced woman had taken a lot longer than any of them had expected.

“Welcome,” the woman said, switching to English. She gave a small, polite bow. Slay returned it, matching the depth of her bow as they’d been taught. “If you could come with me.”

She led them through the door and down a white-walled corridor. Pictures of a man with purple eyes, a huge grin and straggles of black hair dragged across a nearly-bald head lined the wall. In each one, he was pointing out at the camera, an exaggerated grin twisting his wrinkled face. He was easily in his late sixties, early seventies, and yet dressed like a man more than half his age. This was Nomura, the man who was going to be their host tonight. His show Close-up was, they’d been told, the freshest, hottest show on Japanese TV. Nomura had been a news anchor for years, known for serious pieces exposing corrupt politicians, but had suddenly decided he needed to reinvent himself and his show format. He had dyed what was left of his hair black, thrown away his glasses and started wearing purple contacts. After being on air for only two weeks, A-list celebrities were lining up to be on the show.

“Oh God,” JD said as they passed a picture of Nomura pulling his same grin while a figure stood next to him completely covered in bright pink gunk. “What have we let ourselves in for?”

Tom let out a laugh and Milly turned, surprised and happy to hear it. Tom hadn’t laughed much since Mexico.

“Your face, JD.” Tom pointed at JD’s suddenly pale complexion. “This is going to be brilliant. I am so glad I came.”

“Not too late for you to join us in the interview,” Zek said. “You can have a miraculous recovery.”

“Oh, I’m good,” Tom said. They passed another picture. This time Nomura was standing next to a woman who had been wrapped from head to toe in neon green tape. “Oh, I’m very good.”

Milly wasn’t sure she quite believed Tom, but it was nice to see him smiling again. Even if it was at their expense.

“The deal was a five-minute interview,” Gail said. “One game. No goop.”

The woman with the clipboard smiled and nodded. “Of course.”

Milly didn’t buy it for a second.

“I’m up for some goop!” Connor said.

Zek shook his head. “Why does that not surprise me?”

The woman pressed a key card against a lock and opened a door that led into a small room with two grey sofas. A large bowl of fruit sat on a low table in the middle of the room and a sideboard was filled with a huge variety of drinks and snacks. Connor was straight in there, sorting through the bottles.

“You can watch the show from here,” the woman said, pointing at a slim screen on the wall. “I will collect you in…” She checked her watch. “…five minutes for hair and make-up and then the interview.” She bowed again and left the room.

Milly sunk onto the sofa. Her stomach was suddenly filled with squirming butterflies, and a thin film of sweat coated her skin. “Is it hot in here?” she asked. “It feels really hot in here.”

Tom sat down next to her. “It’s okay, Mills. You’ll do great.”

“What are you worried about?” Connor said, opening a can of neon green drink. “You just went up against a demon.”

“This is worse.”

“Worse than a demon who goes around slicing people’s faces?” Connor asked.

“Much worse.”

“Take a deep breath,” Tom said. “It’s no different to your training. Stay calm, stay focused, look for ways to use the situation to your advantage and, if that all fails, throw JD under the bus.”

“Huh?” JD said, mid-sniff of a pack of mysterious snacks with the picture of a cartoon octopus on the front.

“Ooh, yes,” Zek said. “Say his favourite singer is Dolly Parton and that he has a tattoo of a unicorn on his butt cheek.”

“That before he was in Slay, he was a…a…”

“One of those people who paint themselves silver and pretend to be a statue!” Connor said.

“Yes!” Zek said.

“You’re all aware I can kill every last one of you,” JD muttered, staring into the silver packet.

“And then just sit back and enjoy as his face gets redder and redder,” Tom said.

Milly laughed so hard she felt the butterflies evaporate. “Stop it!” she said. “I can’t breathe.”

“Har, har,” JD said sarcastically, but Milly saw a smile itching at the corner of his mouth as he looked at Tom. Things had been so tense between the two of them as of late, so this felt like a breakthrough.

On screen, Nomura was running up and down the stage, throwing something out into the audience.

The door opened again and clipboard woman was back. “Please come with me.”

Milly stood up, and as she did, Tom took her hand. He gave it a squeeze. “Good luck.”

She returned the squeeze and held onto his hand a fraction longer than was strictly necessary. “Thanks.”

Milly and the others were whizzed into a make-up room, where Milly was caked in more foundation than she’d ever worn in her life. Ironic, she thought, given here she was pretending to be a boy. Barely minutes later, the producer collected them and led them down a dark corridor. She stopped at a pair of heavy black curtains with a red light above them and held a finger to her lips.

“When the light goes green,” she whispered, “that’s your cue.”

Zek and Niv stood at the front, Connor behind them, his hand over his mouth to make himself stay quiet, which left Milly and JD at the back.

She smiled at him and he returned it. “You’ll be fine,” he mouthed.

The light turned green. Zek pushed aside the curtains and stepped forward.

“Welcome, Slay!” Nomura shouted.

“So this unicorn on your butt,” Milly said to JD as she stepped out into the bright studio lights. “Does it have a name?”

She walked onto the stage, waving, leaving a gawping JD behind her.

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Tom rocked back and forth on the sofa, tears rolling down his cheeks. Slay had only been onstage a couple of minutes and already they were covered in fake snow, hats and scarves, and had been split into teams to make a snowman out of foam for a reason Tom couldn’t work out. It wasn’t even close to Christmas. Not that he cared. The look on JD’s face was priceless.

Gail watched the screen, her hand covering her mouth, muttering things like “We did not agree to this” and “He is going to kill me”. But Tom could see by the twinkle in her eye that she was almost as entertained as he was.

Connor was throwing himself into the glorious absurdity of the show, as expected, giving it everything he had. Rather than build a snowman, Niv and Zek had decided to turn Connor into one instead. The boy was now covered in foam, had a carrot stuck in his mouth and a top hat on his head. Niv was trying to shove black buttons into Connor’s scrunched-up eyes, but they kept falling off. JD and Milly’s creation was more lump than man and whereas Milly had a large smile on her face, JD looked highly unamused. All the while, the host Nomura ran back and forth, throwing more fake snow onto the scene.

“This is amazing!” Tom said, feeling more himself than he had in a month. And all it took was the humiliation of his friends on national television.

The door opened. Clipboard woman stepped in and held it open for a young man with delicate features, thin-frame glasses and dark hair that fell in front of his eyes. He carried a silver case and was dressed in a beautiful, dark suit. Yet something about the way this young man wore it made it look more like a school uniform than the bespoke tailoring it clearly was. It was like the suit was wearing him, rather than the other way around. His nose twitched, pushing his glasses up, and Tom couldn’t help but think of a bunny rabbit.

The young man bowed as he passed the clipboard woman and entered the room. He and the woman talked quietly in Japanese, then he shook his head, reassuring her of something, his nose twitched again and he nodded, before saying, “Sayonara.” The woman left and the three of them were alone.

There was a moment of awkwardness as Tom tried to stop laughing at the onscreen antics and the man looked from him to Gail.

“Hello,” he said in perfect English.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Gail said. “You must think us so rude. My name is Gail Storm and this is Tom Wills.”

The man nodded to Gail and Tom in turn. “My name is Hideyoshi Makoto. I am pleased to meet you both.” He placed his silver case on the floor, slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a leather card case. With slim, nimble fingers he opened it and took out two black cards.

He handed the first to Gail. She took it with both hands and gazed down at it as if holding something of great value. When the man handed the second card to Tom, he tried to copy Gail’s approach. At first, he couldn’t see anything on the surface. Then, as he moved it, holographic lettering appeared, showing the man’s name and a logo. IKIR10.

“Wow, cool card.” The man smiled, accepting the compliment. Tom fished out his wallet from his back pocket and slipped the card inside. “So, are you going on the show?”

“Me?” Hideyoshi said, putting his card case away. “Oh, not really. But my band Ikiryō are. Tonight is their first appearance on television.”

“Cool,” Tom said. “We’re in a band too. I mean, well, they are.” He pointed at the screen. He could no longer make out who was who, as all he could see was a sea of white foam.

“Oh, no, I am not in Ikiryō. I merely manage them.”

Tom saw Gail flinch at the mention of “merely” managing a band and was quick to change the subject. “What kind of music do Ike-rio play?”

“Ah-kee-yo,” Hideyoshi said, gently correcting Tom’s failed pronunciation. “Pop mostly. With an electronica edge. What we call J-Pop. The band isn’t fully formed yet – which is why Nomura and I are auditioning for new girls.”

“Nomura?” Gail said, pointing at the TV host on the screen. “What’s he got to do with your band?” she asked.

“He owns Ikiryō,” Hideyoshi said. “I owe everything to him.”

“News anchor, TV host, music Svengali. Are there no ends to his talents?” said Gail, looking back at the screen, her amused expression somewhat muted.

“So how goes the auditioning?” Tom said.

“Very well. We are introducing the seventh member tonight. We hope to have found the remaining three girls by the end of the month.”

“Ten girls?” Tom said. “That’s one big group.”

“It is Nomura’s vision. It’s why we spell Ikiryō IKIR10.”

“Clever,” Gail said, hardly looking at Hideyoshi as she was too busy watching Nomura run around onstage. “Nomura seems like an interesting man.”