Nah . . .

Not yellow. No black slits.

Jax looked harder.

No death. No rage. No thirty-three souls. They were not the same eyes he had seen in the clinic. Or in this cell. These eyes were sad eyes. They were desperate eyes. They were defeated eyes – like eyes Jax had seen in Afghanistan after a swap deal with the Taliban.

Hostage eyes.

‘Please,’ the Serpent continued. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Leave. Now. Before it is too late.’

Jax could not believe what he was seeing. What he was hearing. And now saying: ‘Professor Wensley?’

‘For now,’ Wensley said. ‘But he could be back any moment. I can’t stop him. You really have to leave. Please. I beg you.’

This hadn’t been in any of Jax’s plans.

‘Not until you tell me what this means.’ Jax lit up the wall.

‘Means?’ the Professor said. ‘Nothing, something, everything, who knows? He is a lunatic. And so are you. Leave. Please. Too many already. I don’t want any more. Please. Before he takes you too.’

‘851,’ Jax said urgently. ‘Does 851 mean anything to you? Have you seen it written anywhere? 851 followed by another two numbers?’

Wensley began blinking. An involuntary twitch of the eyelids.

‘He’s almost here. Last chance. Please. GO!’

Jax took a step back when Wensley stopped blinking. His eyes were no longer sad, desperate or defeated, they were deathly.

Fuck this . . .

Jax didn’t believe in any of this, but Wensley did. And if Wensley said the Serpent was coming, then Jax was leaving. He had what he needed in his head. He kept both his eye and the flashlight on Wensley as he backed towards the door. The Professor had still not moved when Jax let the darkness swallow him, taking one last look as he swung the torch away from the madman and towards the electronic lock.

Beep. Beep.

An electronic acknowledgement.

Then snap, the lock opening. But there was more.

The sound of feet slapping hard against the floor. The sound of the Serpent.

Fuck.

Jax dropped the torch and heaved at the heavy door. He saw yellow eyes and fangs again, as he slipped through the opening. While he might have been imagining the teeth, the terror was real.

The Serpent was two steps away.

With one foot in the corridor and one still in the cell, Jax pulled the door with one hand and reached back for the external keypad with the other.

One step away . . .

Beep. Beep.

The Serpent went crashing into the door just as the lock snapped the cell shut. Jax waited for the tantrum. For the banging, bashing and shouting. Instead the Serpent disappeared into the darkness. All Jax could see was his torch. It had rolled into the middle of the cell and it lit up the Serpent’s hand as he bent to picked it up.