Somehow, he overcame the agony and shock, stumbling along the wall into the passage leading to the hatch. Dust gusted past him in a stinging vortex. He tripped, thudding face-first to the dirty floor when he tried to catch himself on an arm that was no longer there. Whimpering, he shuffled forward on his knees.

Gadreel rounded the corner behind him. He saw the wounded man and stopped. The trikan, blood dripping from the softly glowing blades, remained in its grip. Wu glanced back, hoping to see some glimpse of mercy in his pursuer’s eyes – but instead he knew he was about to die.

The knowledge galvanised him. He staggered to his feet and faced the towering Nephilim. ‘Well? What are you waiting for, you shit? We should have burned you and your bastard breed the moment we found you!’

Gadreel’s lips curled in disgust – then he burst into a run with the force of an Olympic sprinter, scooping up the colonel like a child in his free arm.

He didn’t stop, charging through the hatch and across the fortress’s upper hull. The surrounding landscape opened out before him. He barrelled onwards as if to hurl himself over the edge with his prisoner – then halted abruptly just short of the sixty-foot drop.

A rasping cry escaped from the injured man. Gadreel grabbed his chest, buttons popping and seams tearing as he clutched his uniform like a claw. Wu gasped again – then cried out in fear as the Nephilim held him over the edge.

‘Major!’ said a soldier, pointing. ‘Up there, look!’

Wu Shun broke off from her call over the helicopter’s radio. She saw two figures on top of the hovering fortress. One was Gadreel, the Nephilim leader holding a man over empty air.

Her father.

She dropped the handset and ran towards the crater. ‘Father!’ she shouted. ‘Dad!’

Colonel Wu dimly heard his daughter’s cry. He forced open his agony-clenched eyes to see her running towards him.

Knowing she was there ignited a last spark of defiance. He would not die without a fight – especially with his only child watching. He kicked, trying to overbalance the giant and send them both over the edge—

Gadreel suddenly stepped back – and let go. Wu landed heavily at the hull’s lip. He groped at the shimmering surface, feeling an odd vibration even before he touched it, but then his hand found the strange metal.

He looked up. The Nephilim towered over him, staring down dismissively as if he were nothing more than a bug . . . then turned and walked away.

Despite his pain, fury rose within the colonel. This thing had attacked him, maimed him – and was now insulting him, not even bothering to finish him off. He managed to stand, swaying in the wind. ‘Hey,’ he snarled. ‘Hey! Look at me, you coward! You piece of pigshit! Face me!’

Gadreel kept walking . . . but then the trikan slid from its guard.