Valkyrie dived, rolled, came up and threw herself into Mercy. Mercy grunted, the stream cut off, and they went down. They grappled, throwing elbows and pulling hair. Mercy grabbed a handful of Valkyrie’s hair and yanked and Valkyrie slammed her forehead into Mercy’s face. Mercy screamed with pain and rage and Valkyrie was on top now, Mercy trying to push her off. Valkyrie trapped one of Mercy’s arms and moved up, too fast for Ryan to work out what was happening, but somehow she swung her leg over Mercy and was now leaning back sharply. She snapped Mercy’s elbow and Mercy howled, and then Valkyrie was scrambling towards Ryan, pulling him to his feet.

Ryan wished he could have said something intelligent to her at that moment, but all he could manage was “Muh”. It was not very impressive.

Around them, the good people of the library cowered behind cover or ran for the exits. Ryan would have given anything to be allowed to cower. His entire body ached to find a dark corner and collapse into it like some kind of jelly. But the pretty girl who was gripping his hand kept pulling him on through the stacks, and Ryan was suddenly determined not to embarrass himself in front of her. So he forced his legs to stay strong and when Valkyrie hesitated, he overtook her.

“This way,” he said, and now he was pulling her through the stacks, and she was probably thinking what a great guy he was, and look how take-charge he is, and even though he’s a year or two younger than I am he’d probably make a great boyfriend and when all this is over, I’ll probably want to kiss him or something. Ryan nodded to himself. Yeah, she was probably thinking all that as he led her through the aisles and the stacks, and then they came to a wall with a nice picture on it.

“Moron,” Valkyrie snapped, turning and yanking him after her.

“Sorry,” he said.

“I thought you knew where you were going!”

“I thought there was a door here.”

She stopped suddenly and he ran into the back of her. He was halfway through apologising when he saw the accountant standing ahead of them.

Elsewhere in the library, the thin man was still battling the others. There were a lot of crashes and yells and screams and grunts. But here, with Ryan and Valkyrie and the accountant, it somehow seemed really, really quiet.

The accountant took a step forward. Valkyrie took a step back. She stepped on Ryan’s foot and he said “Ow” and then apologised. She didn’t hear him.