Almost at once, a shadowy circle of darkness formed and grew behind the twitching Wraith who held poor Kim on its back. The blaze of light and heat was growing wilder. A portal was opening. It had to be Halogi-Kari’s secret borehole into the realm of the Quantum Anvil.

Halogi-Kari’s laughter carried above the maelstrom. He was trying to send her back inside.

‘I won’t!’ Ace yelled.

But suddenly the newly anchored Wraith was looming over her, Kim’s empty white eyes staring over its shoulder. Its scratchy fingers closed on her arms, its twisted ebony face pressed up against her own, as the portal opened like the mouth of hell and swallowed her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Chantelle was almost starting to feel better. She and her fellow prisoners had all piled in to huddle in the middle of the space, locking arms, proper Greenham Common spirit – We Will Not Be Moved. Even the girl with the dark fringe was held in the grip of fellow travellers either side.

While Chantelle didn’t know how much resistance the group would offer – in all honesty, probably not so much – just feeling there was some way of standing up for themselves … it helped.

Any cosy feelings snapped dead as the door in the wall slid open. Chantelle felt a stab of fear as the same faceless, hovering robot appeared again and lashed out its metal tongue. The flexible frond wrapped around the shoulders of the girl with the long black fringe with horrible precision. Her head jerked back, hair jumping over her wide blue eyes. Shocked by the sudden movement, the people either side of her recoiled, let go of the girl’s arms.

Chantelle screamed, ‘No—!’

But as the girl hurtled back towards the robot, wound in like a flounder on the end of a line, the faceless head caved in and spewed bright blue sparks like a firework. The girl fell sprawling on the stone floor, shocked and dazed, as the robot clattered down beside her in the open doorway, smoke pouring from the blackened cranium.

‘What the hell …?’ Chantelle began to rise as a familiar figure stepped through the smoke.

‘Whoa, this thing’s got a hell of a wallop.’ Ryan stood awkwardly in the doorway wielding a silver baseball bat. ‘There’s gonna be some rat-monsters not happy about that …’

Even as he spoke, Chantelle saw the Ratt coming up behind him.

‘Ryan!’ she screamed.

Ryan actually smelled the Ratt before he saw it. He turned round quickly, caught a glimpse of the shock on its face, watched it harden to anger. The noise must’ve disturbed it – it had food round its face and a bottle of something frothing gripped in its tail.