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"Ahoj, holka, ahoj," rang the male voice through the Prague night.

The woman winced. Her friends had left her alone, downtown, her increasingly frantic texts unanswered. She'd come outside hoping to spot a cab, but the side street she found herself on was entirely unoccupied, by cab drivers or anyone else.

--Except for this idiot, who was now darting across the street. "Hey, I'm talking to you," he insisted in Czech, seizing her wrist and making her drop her phone.

She faced him. He was young, like her, with unwisely sprayed blond hair and an unlikeable smirk. "Leave me alone!" she shouted, trying to make it more of a command than a plea.

"Why you gotta be like that?" he wheedled. "I'm just trying to be friendly."

"You'd better leave me alone before the Devil gets you," she warned. Not out of superstition: Prague was said to be haunted by a devilish figure who meted out terrible, bloody justice to abusive men, like a Jack the Ripper in reverse. The newspapers described him as a serial killer: "The Devil of Prague." The rumours were more fanciful, and probably had a lot to do with the emptiness of the street.

The blond man appeared to be unaware of them. "Ha! The devil?" he grinned derisively. "Well, if he shows up, he'll have to wait his turn."