Natasha sniffed and looked at Happy. “You can stop that now. Just stand there till I have need of you.” She put a hand to her forehead. “You have no idea what it’s like inside that man’s head, Erik. So many chemicals, so many reactions, so many side effects . . . his thoughts rise and fall like tides, and his emotions surge back and forth like icebergs. It’s a wonder to me he still knows who he is. No, Erik; no more taser, no more playtime. Revenge is one thing, giving in to our baser natures is quite another. Control, Erik, control; discipline at all times. We must always be in control of our passions and not the other way round.”

Erik raised an eyebrow, considered a very cutting comeback, then quickly decided against saying it. He put the taser away and recovered his pointing bone.

“You’re no fun any more,” he said accusingly. “How else are we supposed to make them talk?”

“Who cares what these two have to say?” said Natasha. “I doubt very much they know anything we don’t. No; we’ll use them as bait to get what we want, then kill them. That is what we’re here for, after all. Now, did you happen to see where JC went?”

“Last I saw he was running for the exit,” said Erik. “Chasing that ghost woman.”

Natasha frowned and tapped a single pink-leather-gloved fingertip against her lower lip. “Why would he abandon his fellow team members to go haring off after a ghost? I mean, what’s so special about her?”

“Nothing I could see,” said Erik. “Maybe he fancies her.”

“Oh please!” said Natasha, curling her upper lip magnificently. “One of us and one of them? I don’t think so. Necrophilia is so . . . tacky. And JC is, after all, a professional.”

“You’re jealous!” said Erik delightedly. “You are!”

“You want a slap?”

Erik took a careful step backwards. Natasha turned her back on him cuttingly and considered the motionless Happy and the still-twitching Melody.

“On the whole, I don’t think Vivienne MacAbre will be at all pleased with us if we give up now. We were sent down here to kill JC. Having to admit that we let him get away while we concentrated on these two lesser fish . . . would not go down well. So, we use them as bait, to draw him back.”

“I could still make use of them,” said Erik, hopefully. “I have a full surgical kit in my back-pack. I could do all kinds of interesting things with them. Really. You’d be surprised.”

“Quite possibly,” said Natasha. “But we don’t have the time. There’s something really big, and really powerful, down here in the dark with us, something Vivienne never even mentioned. And I want it.”

“I don’t know,” said Erik. “That wasn’t the mission. You heard the cat head. Something very old. Something from the afterworlds.”