Myrnin was lurching toward Dr Davis, and he – through accident or design – fell before he could be shot. Behind him, though, came Shane. He’d picked up a thick, splintered length of tree branch, and he stepped up and swung it like he was planning a home run with the second gunman. Score. That one fell, too, as unconscious as the one Michael had clocked.

Dr Davis focused not on Shane, but on Oliver, the last vampire standing. Claire leapt over Michael’s curled-on-its-side body and put all her strength into a shove on Dr Davis’s shoulder as she landed.

It was just enough that he missed. But Dr Davis wasn’t done, not by a long shot; he yelled, slammed an elbow back into her ribs, and simultaneously with the eruption of white-hot pain, Claire heard Shane yell, too.

Only Shane’s cry was a warning. ‘Reinforcements!’ he said, and grabbed Claire’s arm on the fly to shove her toward the exit. ‘Just go, get the hell out of here!’

Pete, Liz and Eve were already gone, though if Claire knew Eve at all, she knew that Pete would have his hands full trying to stop her from plunging back in to defend Michael. There were more men pouring out of the tunnel, and Michael and Jesse and Myrnin were down, and Oliver was leaving …

‘Get Myrnin!’ Shane yelled. He paused to grab Michael’s arm and pull him up. It was like pulling a sack of wet noodles – wet noodles that weakly resisted the help. ‘Claire, get out of here!’ There were too many coming, and Shane knew it. He’d already made one command decision … Jesse knelt helpless and out of it farther down the tunnel, and he knew they couldn’t reach her and get out in time. She realised with horror that he’d already written her off. He was saving what he could.

But he was right. She had to save one of them, and it had to be Myrnin.

Claire helped him up, and although he was clumsy, he kept himself moving as they ran/stumbled for the end of the run-off tunnel where Oliver had already gone. She looked behind her. Shane had dragged Michael’s weight into a fireman’s carry, and was moving as fast as he could, face contorted with effort. Michael was as limp as a corpse.

Claire saw men with guns forming up behind him, and knew with heart-stopping certainty that she was about to see Shane die. If they wanted Michael, which she thought they did, then it wouldn’t mean much to them to shoot them both. Shane wouldn’t make it. Michael would.

She screamed in horror, because she could see it, as inevitable as a train crash – the roar of the guns, the blood, Shane going down in a lifeless heap.

But it didn’t happen.

‘Hold fire!’ Dr Davis said sharply. ‘Let them go. We’ve got what we need.’

They needed only one vampire, then. It didn’t matter which one.