It pointed something at her, a squat implement it gripped with both twisted hands, connected to a spool held by another weasel.

Almost like a gun, Lee thought, and then the creature shot her.

The Stig woman got between it and her. The scatter of sharp metal flechettes thudded into her heavy body, though a couple tore long scratches in Lee’s cheek. Mrs. Stig didn’t seem to be hurt, and she had her own weapon, which looked more like a knuckleduster than a gun.

“Go!”

She shoved Lee hard enough to knock her down. Then she pointed her armed fist at the weasels and Lee went momentarily deaf. She heard no sound from the weapon. Her head ached instantly, though, and her eyes flashed with dark spots as though a migraine had risen through her brain and was clawing at the inside of her skull. Three of the weasels dropped, either killed or knocked cold by the discharge, and the rest were reeling, scattering, but getting their senses back nonetheless. Mrs. Stig was backing off, pointing her weapon at them. The tunnel thundered silently, an echo without a sound. Metal slivers were flying back at her companion, and then something else struck the woman hard, knocking her over.

Lee didn’t wait to see any more. She ran.

She fell onto the rails three times, bloodying shins and palms. Then, without warning, there was a light, a green-white flare that dazzled her.

“What’s going on?” Dr. Khan said.

Lee blurted idiotically, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

Blinking, she saw Khan, a stiletto silhouette against the light. Caught in its uncompromising glare were Stig and another woman of his general stamp, crouching down near the impossible light. Her hands made deft, elegant moves in the air, like a conductor, or a magician. She had a heavier face and body than the Mrs. Stig Lee had just left, and she wore a robe of pale grey that was definitely not standard Londoner issue. It looked seamless, filmy, stretched over the woman’s sagging breasts and paunch, flowing over her broad, sloped shoulders.

Her hands moved. The air glinted where they had gone, revealing shining depths where the ice fell away in uncountable frozen fathoms. She saw intricate crystalline circuits that existed in the here for only as long as they were needed, before being banished like obedient demons back there where they had come from.

“What’s coming, love?” Khan asked.