‘You go,’ Tom told her. ‘I’m going back to find Kate.’

Jasmine was squeezing her body through the hole in the wall. ‘She already got chased out the front way with Ramone, I think.’

The fallen thug was rising, a low growl building in his throat. A sudden feral stench filled the room, along with the sound of heavy stitching ripping apart. He was turning ’wolf, Tom realised. The lupine in Tom responded. A shot of excitement tore through him. He shook his head. He had to hold on … He could control this crap –he was a wereling, wasn’t he?

Jasmine was now through into the room beyond. ‘Get in here!’ she hissed at him.

The heavy was no longer human. He was a dark, crouched misshapen figure, panting and snapping his heavy jaws.

Tom darted for the closet door while the creature was still disorientated. He gasped as he landed heavily on the damp debris that littered the floor.

Jasmine helped him up.

‘Jas, that you?’ Rico sounded lost and small somewhere in the darkness ahead. His hoarse breath had an unsettling rasp to it.

‘Stay still, Ric. We’re coming.’

‘Where’s Ramone?’ He broke into a coughing fit.

Jasmine shushed at him desperately. ‘What happened to your inhaler?’ she demanded.

‘Don’t work,’ Rico gasped between awful, whooping coughs. ‘Threw it away.’

‘Jesus, Ric,’ Jasmine began –then an exultant roar sounded behind them.

Tom spun around to find the werewolf that stalked them had pushed its great, bestial head through the hole in the wall. He saw the sick yellow gleam of its eyes, flicking this way and that around the ruined room.

‘Out of here!’ shouted Jasmine, scooping up Rico in her arms and running for the only chinks of light in the darkness. ‘Door’s this way!’

But the doorway was boarded up, great wooden planks placed horizontally across the gap. Behind them, Tom heard wet masonry crumble under the onslaught of the ’wolf’s massive paws.

Tom gestured at the planks. ‘This is prepared?’

Jasmine turned and dumped Rico on to him. The kid locked his arms around Tom’s neck, shaking and wheezing, and the two of them watched as Jasmine knocked two of the planks out with a few savage well-placed kicks.

‘They’re only tacked over the window,’ she muttered. ‘What, you want anyone getting in?’

‘It’s us getting out I’m worried about,’ Tom replied, kicking the last two planks away himself.

A split-second later, Jasmine was leading the way out into the cold dark street. Tom followed close behind, panting with the exertion of carrying Rico.

‘We’ve got to find Kate,’ he hissed at her. ‘Is there a place you go to regroup after a bust or—’

‘Ric’s really sick,’ Jasmine snapped, crossing over to a beat-up old Lexus over the street. ‘We need transport.’

The kid was squirming and coughing in Tom’s arms, struggling for breath. ‘He’s having an asthma attack?’