The words chilled Angela. To see Lilou’s fear scared her more, and she found it was Sammi she turned to, the poor girl who had lost her parents, been kidnapped by a spirit and then hauled into an alternate world by a mad fairy. Sammi, who she knew had been changing since that moment.

“Here,” the man said, looking around. “We can defend ourselves here.”

“Against them?” Lilou asked. The two of them swapped confused glances, as if sizing each other up.

“And with what?” Angela asked. “You got weapons?”

“Nothing that’ll be effective,” he said. “They’ve just woken up. They’ll be confused.”

“And hungry,” Lilou said.

Angela could see the two shapes now, coming down the hillside after them. The first was staggering from left to right, its wings hanging loose behind it as if heavy and broken. An old tree trunk crumbled beneath its impact, tipping slowly to the left and smashing across the hardening ground. A haze of dust rose around it and the figure stopped, staring at the spreading cloud as if searching for something within its expanse.

The second shape remained on all fours, zig-zagging down the hillside towards the town with its nose to the ground. It continued snorting and sneezing dust. Its front limbs were bent, elbows arching almost above its back and tipped with pale white points like bare bone. Its rear limbs were thicker, and stronger. It was gaunt, and she was amazed it had any strength at all.

“They’ve been down there all this time?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lilou said.

“But why aren’t they dead?”

“We don’t have long,” the man said.

“Just who the fuck are you?” Angela asked him. His arrival angered her. If he wasn’t here, if he hadn’t gone down into the caves and perhaps woken them, maybe they would still be asleep down there. Or in hibernation. Or whatever it was insane Kin infected by human fucking biological warfare fucking shit did.

“He’s Bone,” Lilou said. “You’re him, aren’t you? The one who escaped.”

His eyes went wide and he blinked at the nymph.

“You can help us,” Lilou said. “We need to find somewhere to trap them and barricade them in. One of these old buildings, maybe a basement, or we could see if there’s somewhere more solid beneath the church where we can—”