The gargoyle halted its attack. It stared at Lilou in confusion, then when she turned and walked towards the half-uncovered walk-in fridge it followed. Lilou glanced at Angela and frowned, and even in that glance Angela flushed with desire.

Then she recognised the look. Lilou needed help.

“Bone,” she said.

“Yeah... yeah...” he said from away to one side. He too was caught in Lilou’s thrall, but he was also aware of the delicacy of their situation.

Angela put Sammi down. The girl sat up, one hand braced against the ground.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Go and help.”

Angela hated leaving Sammi in this state even for a second. Seeing her like that, feeling her burning up, only confused her love/hate relationship with the Kin even more.

“We have to get the door open,” she said.

“And we don’t have long.” Bone nodded behind them. Mohserran was still shaking where he stood, but there seemed more sense to his movements now, as if he was trying to extricate himself from some constraining fluid sticking him to the air. The werewolf that Bone had named Francine was still down, but no longer writhing in pain. It moved back and forth, feet slapping the ground, legs lengthening with each movement, hands propped beneath its shoulders once more. It pushed with every roll and came closer to rising up.

They didn’t have long at all, and Angela didn’t think Sammi had any more fight left in her.

They skirted around the gargoyle, both of them doing their best to avoid looking at Lilou. But it wasn’t only the sight of her that made her so alluring. Angela could smell her, like early morning blossoms, ripe fruit, smooth rich coffee. Everything she loved. She could almost taste her on the air, and she experienced a rush of sexual images that surprised and excited her in equal measures.

“Oh hell,” Bone said. “I’ve never known...”

“Nor me. But she’s not doing it for us.”

They climbed the low wall and dropped down the other side, landing in front of the entrance to the old walk-in fridge. From this close it didn’t look very large, but Angela guessed it extended back into the ground behind the wall, the rear half of the building smothered by decades of silt.

The door was largely exposed, but the handle was a rusted mess. Bone worked on it with the chair leg, but the metal merely bent and then cracked.

“Better hurry,” Lilou said. She drew a small knife from her belt and held it hidden by her hand.

“We’re trying.”

“I mean it.”