‘Well, there’s this for starters,’ said Seamus, holding up his spear. ‘But why would you want to go and do something nasty like that? Hmm? Can’t you see we don’t have the sickness in us? We’re the good guys.’

‘Who wrote that stuff on the door through there?’ Ollie asked.

Seamus hesitated, thinking this over.

‘Why do you want to know?’ he said.

‘Did you?’

‘Who else is going to do something like that?’

‘Who were you trying to warn off?’ said Achilleus and Blue heard Ollie swear under his breath. Blue wondered what had made him angry, and then realized that Achilleus had told Seamus something about what the writing said. Blue was learning that, while Achilleus was a fearsome fighter, he was something less than clever.

‘We wrote it there to try and warn off anybody who might want to come and get hold of what we had here,’ said Seamus. ‘It worked for a long time. Until the monsters came.’

‘But grown-ups can’t read any more,’ said Ollie. ‘Normal grown-ups. The only people who could read it would be kids. Why warn off kids?’

‘Do you know everything that’s going on in the world? Huh? Do you, Mister Clever-sticks? Do you know every threat? Every twist in the tale? You never knew there were any like us, did you? No. Now get the bloody keys and open up. We’re hungry and thirsty and knackered and we want to smash those stinking monsters to pieces for what they done to us.’

‘Why can’t we check them out before we go hammering in there?’ Blue asked and the man responded with a harsh bark of laughter.

‘Would you try and chat to a shark if you fell in his tank?’

‘No, but …’

‘You can’t talk to them, sunshine. You can’t argue with them or reason with them. They’re stone-cold killers. They don’t ask questions first. They’re clever. An animal kind of cleverness. If you hesitate for just one moment they’ll be on you and you’ll either be dead or in one of their cages. You got to go in quick before they even know you’re there. You understand?’

‘The quote on the door?’ Ollie asked. ‘Where’s it from?’

‘No more questions.’

‘Where’s it from?’

‘Yeah,’ said Achilleus, ‘where’d you get the old six-six-six bollocks from?’

Once more Blue heard Ollie curse.

‘The holy sodding bible,’ said Seamus. ‘Where d’you think? Any more questions?’