She held her breath, and in the silence, there came a sibilant gurgle that might have been ‘yes’ and probably wasn’t a ‘no’. She pulled at Dalip, and they backed down the stairs to the bottom room.

Dalip heaved a table upright, and put it on its legs between the end of the stairs and the broken-down door. He stationed himself behind it, and put the knife in the middle of the table. Mary immediately leaned across him and took the knife. She held it, point down, behind her back.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You don’t get to decide that.’

He nodded, and then faced the stairs again. Something, someone was coming.

30

30

It looked like him. It had the same close-cropped bullet head, the same bull chest with a mat of grey hair, the same muscular arms and short, thick legs. But his own mother would have taken one look and realised that this wasn’t her son.

Or rather, it had been, and now wasn’t. Something else was wearing his skin, and it fitted badly.

Dalip pulled at his beard. This, this whole thing was a miscalculation. It might remember being Stanislav, but there was no way he could count on it ever being him, on knowing the difference between reason and instinct, right and wrong, friend and enemy.

Still he had to try.

‘Stanislav?’

His head came around, slowly. He blinked his blue eyes at Dalip, and tried to get them to focus on him, but they kept wandering. Literally wandering, because they should really have stayed under his prominent brow bone and either side of his nose, but had a tendency to slide in all directions before returning: down the cheek towards his mouth, off towards his ear, up his forehead.

It made Dalip feel nauseous. It was only the lack of food in his stomach that kept him from doubling over and vomiting at his feet.

‘I need to talk to Stanislav. Is he in there?’

The face shifted again, like a Picasso portrait. The eyes – suddenly three of them, then back to two – settled, and for the briefest of moments, it was Stanislav. The man even gave an uncertain smile, before his teeth began to dance in his gums.

‘I can’t do this,’ gasped Dalip. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

Stanislav’s demeanour changed, and stubby fat tentacles erupted from his mouth, writhing obscenely, questing in the air for prey. Then they were gone again, swallowed up.

‘I think you’re going to have to,’ said Mary. She stood very close behind Dalip, her bare shoulder touching his arm. ‘He doesn’t like “no”.’

‘Right.’ The light flickered outside like a broken fluorescent bulb, the electrical storm so intense now that objects were glowing on their own. Stanislav’s changing form was still ill-lit but visible. Dalip could see, and how he wished he couldn’t.

He tried again to find the person inside.