Gabriel Gruber frowned. “What are you thinking of?” he said to the Spaghetti brothers nastily. “Go fetch ‘em. Teach the Carver kid a lesson, why don’t you? Put him in the cell with the new recruit. That’ll be entertaining.”

The halogen lights in the maze of passages had been killed by Gruber. It was as black as midnight in a coal mine; Nat didn’t stand a chance. Woody pulled him along, guided only by old memories and instinct.

When the Spaghetti brothers caught up with them, they were cornered. Gabriel Gruber watched in mild annoyance as Vincent Spaghetti dragged Nat Carver back to the cells. Gabriel flicked off the screen, bored with the boy’s ranting; the Carver child was really of no importance now. As he waited for the Wolven to be delivered, he wondered idly what would happen when the new recruit woke up to find Carver in his cell.

CHAPTER 25
DEATH’S DOOR

The first thing Woody noticed when Angelo dragged him into the laboratory was that every single member of the staff, even the geekiest, lowliest lab assistant, was armed to the teeth. They ignored him, almost as if they were under orders not to acknowledge him. The second thing was that there were more pods. This time the sides of the containers flexed and bowed as though whatever was inside was stretching or, more worryingly, trying to get out. When he looked closer, he was relieved that none of the shapes seemed to be Wolven. From what he could make out, the creatures within were long and distinctly reptilian. Woody decided he didn’t want to know what the pods contained.

Angelo handed him over to Lucas Scale, and then someone else in the room spoke.

“At last!”

Woody looked away from the pods and saw a man with extremely white teeth and girly blond highlights in his hair. He wore an immaculate lab coat, its tails flapping briskly as he came tearing across the floor, his hand outstretched to shake Woody’s. Woody stared at the proffered hand in undisguised hatred.

“As you wish,” said Gruber regretfully, dropping his hand. “Time for that later.”

“Who are you?” asked Woody dully.

“I am Dr. Gabriel Wentworth Gruber,” said Gabriel, smiling mistily, “and the last time I saw you, you were this big.” He opened his beautifully manicured hands and used them to outline the size of a wolf pup.

“Drop dead,” growled Woody. “You’re crazy if you think you can get away with this.”

Gruber frowned. “Get away with what, exactly? This isn’t an episode of Scooby-Doo, you know,” he said. “Everything we do here at Proteus is within strict government guidelines.”

“How many boys does Scale kidnap and re … recruit to your sick project?” snarled Woody.