He heard the Vandal’s nose break and the little man howled and in the pitch darkness, Jack’s metal hand found its throat and grabbed it.

With his other hand, Jack levelled his pistol at where he thought the Vandal’s head was and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

In the tight confines of the tunnel, the shot echoed loudly. Jack’s ears rang.

There was the sound of a splatter and the Vandal in his grip went limp. From point-blank range, he’d blown its head off.

Boom. Boom.

More dull thuds. Heavy footsteps.

Tossing away the body of his dead attacker, Jack turned, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, and by the very dim light of the red orb in the previous under-tunnel, he could just make out the shadowy figures of Lily and Easton engaged in a struggle with the second Vandal.

He was too far away to help, but then he saw Smiley step up from the under-tunnel, snatch the Vandal off Lily and hurl it down the stairs, back into the under-tunnel.

The Vandal tumbled down the eight steps and splashed into the watery floor of the under-tunnel.

In the dim red light down there, Jack saw it scramble to its feet and look back the other way—

—when it froze.

And screamed, in both terror and pain.

Boom. Boom.

‘Argh! No! My eyes!’ The Vandal clutched its eyes, fell to its knees and began to wail in agony.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

And suddenly Jack saw a pair of gold legs arrive in front of the stricken Vandal and stop above him.

Because of the angle of the ceiling, Jack couldn’t see the goldman’s face—which might have saved his life—but he saw the big thing’s golden claws reach down and lift the Vandal from the floor and calmly rip the little man in two.

The Vandal shrieked.

Blood gushed.

‘Lily, Easton, run!’ Jack whispered as he pulled them the other way and they raced down their tunnel toward the next under-tunnel fifty metres away.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The goldman was coming.

Jack saw its shadow rising from the steps, silhouetted by the low crimson light. He spun, not daring to set eyes on the thing’s face.

They reached the next under-tunnel . . .

. . . and paused.

It was different from the others and in a significant way: this under-tunnel had been completely clogged with greystone.

A perfectly flat layer of greystone lay flush against its upper rim, like freshly poured concrete.

Jack could see what had happened instantly: this under-tunnel had filled with water and that water—after it had touched the greystone pellets in the under-tunnel’s ceiling—had then been turned to greystone.

Only, thankfully, someone had dug through it.

A crude round hole—created by a jackhammer of some kind and just big enough for a person to crawl through—bored through the greystone like a jagged stone pipe, down and into the under-tunnel.