‘Maybe we can trust the Novice,’ said the man with the Thumper, who seemed to have changed his tune. ‘I didn’t sign up to all this in order to start killing Consuls.’

‘I’m with Lopez on this one,’ said Foulnap, giving a name to the third man in the room.

‘We can’t risk any of us being discovered,’ said Logan. ‘Besides, Aurora’s in town.’

Lopez and Foulnap exchanged nervous looks.

‘She is?’ said Foulnap. ‘How did she get wind of us?’

‘We don’t know that she did. I’ll deal with Worthing, you deal with Mrs Tiffen. Get up, Charlie.’

I climbed unsteadily to my feet and he gestured for me to leave the room.

‘You should have listened to me earlier,’ he said as we padded around the circular corridor, ‘and just let it all go.’

We stopped outside the elevators and Logan pressed the call button.

‘Can I ask a favour?’

‘What?’

‘Will you tell Sister Zygotia where my body is?’

‘You’re being overdramatic, Worth—’

Bing.

The bell sounded and the elevator doors opened to reveal Aurora, who looked about as surprised as I’d seen anyone for a while, and her hands instantly went to draw her Bambis. Logan had the advantage and swung his weapon in her direction. He had a clear shot, could have thumped her dead there and then – but he paused.

What happened next seemed to occur with treacly slowness: I dropped to the floor as the twin pressure waves that erupted from Aurora’s weapons plucked at my clothes like a rush of wind before impacting on Logan’s chest; I heard every atom of air expelled from his lungs with a crack, then saw him blown at incredible speed into the wall opposite with a sound like a log falling on wet leaves.

There was a momentary pause. Logan was still upright, partially embedded in the lath-and-plaster, a look of bitter resignation etched into his features, the whites of his dead eyes livid red with burst capillaries. Aurora dropped the used power cells from the butts of her Bambis and quickly reloaded; the smell of hot electrolyte filled the air and mixed with the coal-smoke to create a sickly-sweet aroma.

‘Shit,’ I said, defaulting to pointing out the bleeding obvious with my sudden change of fortunes, ‘you just killed Jack Logan.’

‘Shit,’ she said, as surprised as I was, ‘so I have. Toccata will be seriously pissed off.’

She took a step closer to where Logan was embedded, shrugged and said:

‘Well, can’t be helped.’

‘What can’t be helped?’ I asked as I climbed to my feet. ‘Logan dead or Toccata being pissed off?’

‘Both. Where was he taking you?’

‘I think he was going to kill me.’