Inside the building there were glass statues, boys captured as they were caught in postures of running or hiding, their bones burst into glass and their flesh fused away.

In the silence, silver dust began to fall.

Around the building, the grounds had been flattened by the blast of transforming energy. Trees and bushes had been ripped out of the soil and flung off into the sky.

The circle of destruction only stopped at the distant boundary wall, still half upright, and the tree line along the top of the nearby hills. The gate lodge had been torn in half, the struts of its roof opened and the brickwork dashed into the road.

The family had followed the ceremony to the letter, walking out of the gymnasium when they had finished feeding, and locating the precise centre of the building, underneath the old clock tower. Serif had dedicated the transformation to the soul of Aphasia, which had now returned to the place from which it had come, the belly of her family.

They’d set the fusion bomb on top of the force dome and closed their eyes, beginning the litany that they’d only just finished. The actual detonation had been almost unnoticed amongst the emotion of the words.

They looked at each other and licked the blood from their lips. Not a scrap of their daughter and mother remained. The ceremony was over.

‘Now,’ August said after a moment’s appropriate silence. ‘Let’s find what we’re after, shall we?’

‘Yes,’ Greeneye agreed. ‘And along the way, we’ll make them pay for Aphasia. Blood for blood.’

‘Blood for blood,’ the family agreed.

‘Not much chance of finding this tunnel,’ Hoff noted, looking around.

‘No,’ August agreed. ‘Well, we can always follow the line of it overground. Still, who knows…’ He tapped the keypad once more. ‘The Pod’s transmitting again, it’s⁠ — ah, now it’s gone. It was somewhere over there…’ He gestured over the hill. ‘Why does it keep doing that?’

‘It is transmitting information,’ Serif hissed. ‘Perhaps to the boy who is carrying it, perhaps,’ he glanced at Greeneye, ‘to others. Perhaps both. We can only detect it when it is processing information.’

‘In that case, we’d better treat this more urgently,’ August ordered. ‘According to Laylock, the Pod’s made of pretty strong stuff. So, as soon as one of us sees the boy⁠ —’

‘We shoot the annoying little crukhead?’ Greeneye asked.

‘Precisely.’

‘Good.’ Greeneye slapped the power on his gun up a few notches. ‘I was starting to think that we were planning to adopt him.’

Chapter Eleven

Castling

Amid a crowd of local people who rushed out of the pub, gesturing and shouting at the shape in the sky, Smith gathered his party together. ‘Bernice, you know what that was. Did they⁠ — the ones who are after the ball⁠ — do it?’