Gadreel returned to the throne room to oversee the hunt for Wilde as Sidona worked. He looked ahead. A large bridge spanned the road between the woman’s strange chariot and the tallest towers, a vast building of unknown purpose nearby. ‘Destroy that bridge,’ he ordered. ‘Bring it down in front of her. She will have nowhere to run!’

Nina glimpsed movement on an overpass ahead, an eighteen-wheeler heading across it. But she was concerned only with what was at ground level. A large shopping mall rose to one side, an English sign beneath neon Mandarin proclaiming it as the Frozen Wonderland Leisure Experience. Giant posters of skiers and bobsledders reminded her that Cheng had said the city was home to an indoor ski run.

But she was already past its gate, dismissing it from her mind as she looked ahead—

The bridge blew apart.

Both the fortress’s cannons fired simultaneously, enormous bolts of energy tearing into the overpass. The carriageway lurched, its supports giving way . . .

Then fell.

A section of roadway slammed to the ground with earthquake force directly ahead. The speeding police car was kicked into the air by the impact, landing hard enough to collapse a suspension strut.

Unrestrained, Nina was thrown from her seat. Her forehead struck the windscreen, leaving a smear of blood. Dizzied, she fell back, grabbing the wheel as the decelerating car swung across the road—

Something large plunged into the destruction ahead. She recognised it as the tanker truck from the overpass in the split second before it exploded.

A wall of seething flame erupted from the chaos. Nina screamed and jammed her foot on the accelerator. The police car mounted the high kerb with a bang and leapt across the sidewalk into an almost empty parking lot.

Flames gushed after her. She kept the pedal hard down, seeing a glass-walled atrium beyond one of the mall’s entrances. A ten-foot fibreglass figure of a cartoon animal holding skis loomed in her path. She shrieked, demolishing the luckless creature, but held her course—

The car ploughed through one of the lobby’s giant windows – the fireball smashing the others a moment later. Flames boiled upwards as the tall atrium became a chimney. Nina ducked, driving blind as heat scoured the back of her neck.

Fire alarms wailed – then she simultaneously heard and felt a flat thump as glass ruptured a front tyre. The police car veered sharply. She raised her head to see turnstiles rushing at her—

She stamped on the brake. The car skidded into a spin, smashing sidelong through the barriers before pounding to an abrupt halt against a wall. The impact flung her across the cabin, the gearstick jabbing painfully into her thigh.