‘Fair enough.’ Maxie straightened and peered into the shadows. ‘So how many sickos got in, d’you think?’

She was getting bad vibes from the place. Echoes of her childhood fears. This central hall was massive, the vaulted ceiling disappearing into darkness. It was full of giant fossils and weird stuffed things that threw eerie shadows on to the walls.

‘No idea,’ said Jackson, wiping blood from her face. ‘I’ve seen at least ten others, but I reckon there’s more.’

‘And you think they got in downstairs somehow?’

‘A guy called Robbie usually looks after security, but he’s injured.’ Jackson looked at Brooke. ‘I guess things have slipped a little.’

‘Do you have any more fighters, or is this it?’ Maxie asked, checking out Jackson’s crew.

‘This is it.’

‘All right,’ said Maxie, raising her voice. ‘Listen up. I know you’re all knackered, but before we get to beddy-byes we got some work to do.’ She pointed at Brooke. ‘Take the smaller kids and put them with your people where they’ll be safe.’

‘In the minerals gallery?’ said Brooke.

‘If you say so.’

‘It was designed to keep precious stones safe,’ Brooke explained. ‘It’s built like a bank vault.’

‘Sounds good. Round everyone up, Whitney.’

‘You got it, girl.’

Maxie now turned to Jackson. ‘We need to split up and search the museum, look for any surviving kids and any more grown-ups. How many groups do you think we’ll need? I don’t know the layout of the place.’

‘We’ve closed down the red zone and the orange zone, so this part of the museum’s sealed off from the rest, but it’s still pretty big. There’s the whole of the blue zone and the green zone. We’ll need one group to go upstairs, two more to search this floor, taking one zone each, and another group to go down and lock the lower-level doors. That’ll be the hardest bit. Don’t know what to expect down there.’

Blue stepped forward.

‘I’ll go down,’ he said, ‘but someone’s gonna have to show us the way.’

Jackson put her hand on the shoulder of the boy next to her.

‘Boggle,’ she said, ‘you go with him. You know the lower level best.’

The boy they called Boggle nodded. Maxie did a quick check of who was left.

‘Big Mick,’ she said. ‘You and me are going to take one squad and cover the left side of this floor.’

‘That’s the blue zone,’ Jackson explained.

‘OK.’ Maxie was working now, all tiredness forgotten. ‘Lewis,’ she said, ‘you take the other side, the green zone. Jackson, we’ll need some of your guys to help us.’

‘Take as many as you want.’

‘What about me?’ said Achilleus.