Mr. X’s carcass slammed into Barbile’s back, sending her sprawling. He landed heavy and lifeless across the door. His eyes were open.

Lemuel, Isaac and Derkhan broke for the door.

They were shouting simultaneously in a cacophony of registers.

Lemuel leapt over Barbile, who lay supine and desperate, trying to kick free of Mr. X’s huge torso. She rolled onto her back and cried out for help. Isaac and Derkhan reached her simultaneously, and began to tug at her arms. Her eyes were tight closed.

But as they pushed Mr. X’s body free and Lemuel kicked it savagely out of the way of the door, a hard, rubbery tentacle snaked into their vision and wrapped with a whiplash motion around Barbile’s feet. She felt it and began to scream.

Derkhan and Isaac pulled hard. There was a moment of resistance, and then the slake-moth yanked at her with its tendril. Barbile was whisked out of Derkhan and Isaac’s grasp with humbling ease. She slid at breakneck speed along the floor, splinters tearing at her.

She began to scream.

Lemuel had forced the door open, and he raced out and away down the stairs without glancing back. Isaac and Derkhan stood quickly. They turned their heads simultaneously to look into the mirror.

Both gave a little cry of horror.

Barbile was squirming and screaming in the complex embrace of the slake-moth. Limbs and folds of flesh caressed her. She wriggled and her arms were held, she kicked out and her legs were pinioned.

The huge creature turned its head gently to one side, seemed to regard her with hunger and curiosity. It emitted tiny, obscene noises.

Its final pair of hands crept up and began to finger Barbile’s eyes. It touched them gently. It began trying to prise them open.

Barbile shrieked and wailed and begged for help, and Isaac and Derkhan stood paralysed, gazing into the mirror, transfixed.

With hands shaking violently, Derkhan reached into her jacket and brought out her pistol, primed and ready. Staring resolutely into the looking-glass, she pointed her gun behind her. Her hand wavered as she desperately sought to aim in this impossible fashion.

Isaac saw what she was doing, and reached quickly for his own gun. He was quicker to pull the trigger.

There was a sharp bang of igniting black powder. The ball burst from his muzzle and passed harmlessly over the slake-moth’s head. The creature did not even look up. Barbile screamed at the sound, and began to beg, eloquently and horrendously, for them to shoot her.

Derkhan set her mouth and tried to steady her arm.

She fired. The slake-moth whirled and its wings shook. It opened that cavernous maw and a foul, strangulated hissing emerged, a whispered shriek. Isaac saw a tiny hole in the papery tissue of the left wing.

Barbile cried out and waited a moment, then realized that she was still alive and began to scream again.