Lieutenant Grange burst from the murk again, this time sprinting uphill, and swiped his talons at Romilla’s face. She reared back with a cry, feeling lines of fire rake across her skin. Romilla teetered on the edge of her balance, and the memory flashed up of her tripping in the feasting hall, of her falling as Hendrick was infected and turned. The thought of the same thing happening to Eleanora hit her like a thunderbolt. Anger, absolute boiling fury surged through Romilla, and a halo of blue-white light sprang into being about her temples as the power of the God-King flowed through her. She drove her forehead into Grange’s aristocratic nose with all the force she could muster, caving it in with a crunch of bone and sending him reeling back. Her hammer followed, swinging up under Grange’s chin so hard that it ripped his jaw clean off and sent it spinning through the air. Tongue dangling, foam bubbling from the ruin of his throat, Lieutenant Grange staggered and then toppled lifeless to the floor.

More gunshots rang out as the noblewoman and her victim came at the watchmen with feral howls. Romilla saw that Thackeray had shoved Rechter’s corpse unceremoniously aside and was straining with all his might at the slippery metal of the door’s ring. Grabbing Eleanora, she dashed across the street and threw her strength behind Thackeray’s. The door ring gave a rusted squeal as it finally turned, and then spun.

Romilla looked back. Four watchmen had fallen. Another was staggering and clawing spore-thick foam out of her eyes. She would turn any moment, Romilla knew. Lieutenant Grange’s first victim burst from the murk downslope, jutting jaw thick with new-sprouted tusks, yellow eyes staring. A bullet took the creature in the shoulder, but it kept coming. One of the surviving watchmen screamed at the sight, turned to run and took a taloned fist to the face. He fell like a sack of grain.

‘Get through the door,’ snarled Thackeray. Romilla nodded, understanding.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said and ducked through the doorway, Eleanora close behind. Thackeray followed and, with a last anguished glance into the street he heaved the door shut at their backs. It closed heavily, cutting off a panicked scream from the street beyond. Something hit the door from the other side with a dull clang, which repeated several times then stopped. Thackeray spun the wheel closed from their side, his teeth gritted.

Eleanora stared in shock but said nothing. Romilla laid a hand on Thackeray’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

‘Can those things open this door?’ he asked.

Romilla hefted her hammer and swung it in a tight arc that dented the wheel and buckled it sideways into its housing.

‘Not any more,’ she said.

‘Come on then,’ said Thackeray. ‘And let’s hope that this tunnel of yours exists, Ms VanGhest, or we just entombed ourselves.’