Dionysius DeSaxe—the wicked son of Hades, the loyal protégé of Sphinx, the cruel prince who, with his brother Zaitan, had tortured women and hunted minotaurs—was finally dead.

Using the hand-rungs in the ceiling, Jack, Easton and Smiley crossed the shaft and joined Lily on her ledge.

When Jack landed beside her, Lily rushed into his arms and wept.

‘Oh, Dad, he—’

Every fear, every ache, every raw emotion she felt toward Dion came rushing out in great wrenching sobs.

‘—he was a monster.’

‘He sure was, kiddo,’ Jack said, holding her tightly. ‘But he’s not any more. You got him good. That bastard’s not gonna hurt anybody any more.’

He held Lily away from him. ‘Having said that, young lady, isn’t it strange how his shot missed you from point-blank range? I was wondering where that old Warbler had got to. I actually searched for it at the farm a while back but couldn’t find it. You took it.’

Lily pulled a disc-shaped device from her chest pocket. It was one of Wizard’s old inventions, called a Warbler, a device that disrupted the flight of subsonic projectiles, like bullets.

Lily said, ‘I found it one day last year in the work shed at the farm. It reminded me of Wizard, so I kept it on me. I didn’t know if it even still worked, but I’m sure glad it did.’

Jack shook his head. ‘I think Wizard would be very pleased to know he just saved your life. After all this time, he’s still with us.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, and Lily,’ Jack added, ‘you’re never going first ever again.’

They examined the doorway to their tunnel.

The two stone statues standing to attention on either side of it were unmoving, still. If there were silvermen or anything else inside them, they weren’t emerging yet.

Cracking a new glowstick, Jack peered into the tunnel.

It was maybe ten feet wide and a faint breeze blew out from it. Beyond that, it was especially dark and eerie.

As he did this, Easton brought Smiley over to Lily, pointed at her and said, ‘Bronzeman. I order you to protect her, too.’

Lily nodded. ‘Thanks, Easton.’

Jack was still looking down the dark tunnel.

‘The Endless Tunnel,’ he said. ‘Something tells me we’re in for a long walk, folks.’

The four of them entered the tunnel.

The Endless Tunnel

While perhaps not literally endless, the tunnel turned out to be very, very long.

It was square in shape, maybe eight feet to a side, so Jack could walk upright.

It had walls made of huge stone blocks positioned together so perfectly that Jack and the others could barely spot the seams.

There was one other thing about this tunnel that was particularly noteworthy: it was not entirely dark.

Embedded in its ceiling every fifteen metres or so were small glowing spherical orbs, each the size of a golf ball.