She angrily switched channels to talk to the helicopter pilots. The Z-20s closed on the fortress, moths against the dragon. ‘This is Major Wu! Get in close, find a weak spot – and fire!’

A compartment in the throne room’s rear wall had once contained medicines and bindings for wounds, but everything within had long since turned to dust. Sidona ended up tearing off part of her gown to bandage her husband’s mutilated hand. He grimaced at the pain, but said nothing, concentrating on flying the vimana. The strange city grew steadily larger ahead. So many tall towers! They couldn’t all be temples, surely?

The highest were at its centre. They would be the first targets for his vengeance, an example of the Nephilim’s power. After they fell, he would obliterate all the others, one by one—

‘Gadreel!’ Sidona shouted, running to a window. ‘There’s something out there!’

Zan hesitantly followed. ‘It is one of our flying machines.’

Gadreel remembered that the aircraft carried objects resembling the noisy human weapons. ‘Does it have a gun?’ he said, using Zan’s own odd-sounding word.

‘Yes, a . . . turning cannon?’ The human was far from confident he had translated correctly, but the concern in his voice told Gadreel it was something powerful.

But he had something powerful of his own. ‘Use the lightning spears!’ he shouted into the speaking crystal. ‘Destroy those machines!’

‘In range!’ said the lead helicopter’s gunner, bringing his minigun – a near-clone of the American M134 six-barrelled Gatling gun – to bear on the fortress. Major Wu had said the dragon’s eyes were the windows of a control room. He squinted down the gunsight, finding the elongated porthole – and pulled the trigger.

Fire blazed from the whirling sextet of muzzles. Tracer rounds lanced across the gap between the helicopter and its target like laser beams, hitting home—

The UFO’s port side was engulfed in a dazzling fireworks display, a hundred rounds per second producing a storm of sparks as they slammed into the iridescent energy field. The second Z-20 opened up from starboard.

The dragon banked as if trying to escape – but the barrage seemed to be cutting through its shield. He saw metal spall below the window as fire hosed over the area. A weak spot! He fixed his aim upon it. More shards ripped away under the onslaught.

‘I’m getting through the shield!’ he cried. ‘Keep firing, it—’

Movement in his peripheral vision. Finger still tight on the trigger, he glanced at the fortress’s nose – to see one of the long fangs pivot towards him.

Nina ran around the looping passage, seeing the way to the outside ahead. But the Nephilim were catching up fast.

A trikan whirled—

A hideous noise – and the fortress banked, pitching her towards the wall. She caught herself, then staggered onwards. One of her pursuers fell, barking a Nephilim curse as his trikan clanged to the deck. The other grabbed a pillar for support.