McGee let go his two cowering charges and ran for the man. He stumbled and fell, picking himself up and scrambling along the rubble towards him. Rocks fell on him and he shielded his head with an arm.

‘Sam!’

The shaman muttered on.

He lunged forward and grabbed the Kinchuinick by the wrist. With all his strength McGee pulled at the big man and wrestled him backwards towards the light. The tunnel was caving in with increasing force. As Craig pulled the muttering man free into the light, only he and Sam saw the huge section of wall fall that split the misshapen head of that bellowing horror and buried its screaming blackness beneath a mountain of living rock.

The naked man collapsed in his arms, and as Craig held him, with Katie and Billy sobbing at his back, the tunnel closed like a mouth and swallowed up its secret.

She held him, three coats wrapped around his bleeding body, and her head was bent, sobbing into the thick fleece of Billy’s jacket that was lovingly, if ineffectively, laid over Sam’s chest.

It was Craig who noticed it: their breath swirling around their faces, invisible breath turned to visible mist by the magician cold, was being expelled by only three mouths.

‘Katie. Lay him flat. Quick.’

High. So incredibly high. From here he could see the whole Wolf River Valley. The snow was stopping. The last lonely flakes were leaving their mother cloud and spiralling down to earth.

He watched them fall towards the flashing blue-and-red lights that were moving along the highway. He watched them fall around the blades of the choppers that were hovering like bugs over the tunnel.

And he saw them fall on the four tiny figures, huddled in the centre of those straight, black lines that cut through the white snow so far below on the earth.

It was so very far away. Up here, where the sun was emerging from behind the retreating storm clouds, it was warm and fresh and beautiful. The peaks of the Rockies were endless. They stretched before him like waves on a stormy lake, their white and blue points casting shadows and painting gullies. Rivers and lakes sparkled in the light, and the world lay beneath him like an offering created for his approval, poured into a mould and made anew for his eyes. His eagle eyes.

Hunting Wolf.

Eden’s voice. From somewhere. Somewhere in the sun, too bright for him to see.

Hunting Wolf. Hear me.

Sam stretched a mind that was already lazy with the warmth, dazzled by the light. He tipped his wings and circled, trying to see Eden. The sun blazed at him and he failed. His world was growing brighter, the details of the beautiful earth below him becoming more difficult to see.

Eden. I hear you. He spoke in his mind, knowing the voice that addressed him was also not one that had sound.