The howls intensify as we run, coming from all directions, a cacophony of wolfen roars tightening around us like a net. But we don't spot another werewolf until, cutting our way through a small copse, one leaps from a tree without warning and drags Shark to the ground. The pair roll away from us, and though the soldiers in our group swiftly train their weapons on the beast, I'm sure they're too late. I resign myself to the loss of our leader.
But Shark isn't ready for the grave just yet. Staggering to his feet, he shoulders the howling werewolf away. The others can't shoot because he's in their way, and Shark lost his gun in the attack.
"Down!" Stephen yells, desperate to put a bullet through the werewolf's head.
Shark has other ideas. Jerking a knife from his belt, he leaps on the savage beast and drives the blade into its stomach, chewing on its left ear for extra impact. The werewolf screams and claws at Shark's back, ripping his shirt and much of his flesh to shreds. But Shark jabs at it a second time and a third, and its hands drop away. Moments later he shrugs it off and hobbles free.
"Are you OK?" Meera asks as he rejoins us, casting a worried look at his injuries.
"I've cut myself worse shaving," Shark grunts. He retrieves his rifle and pushes up beside Timas, ignoring the blood pooling around the waistband of his trousers.
As we clear the copse, we spot an army of werewolves surging towards us from our far left. The beasts at the front look like they're part of the enhanced breed. We can also hear crashing and snapping sounds in the trees behind us-the pack from the compound has almost caught up.
"There!" Timas shouts, swivelling right. I can't see anything except a lot of rocks jutting out of the ground, but he seems sure of himself. As we hurl ourselves after Timas, I pray desperately that his map-reading skills were as accurate as he led us to believe.
I don't look back as we run, but I hear the werewolves closing in. The creatures who've been chasing us from the compound have merged with those arriving fresh on the scene to create a chorus of howls and screeches that could drown out the sound of a nuclear detonation. I feel hot breath on the back of my neck. I hope it's just my imagination.
Timas reaches a rock, grabs it with his left hand and pivots, lobbing a bomb over our heads as he swings out of sight. The explosion and screams of the werewolves are music to my ears. But as I come in line with the rock and duck around it, I catch sight of the beasts, no more than several metres behind, and my glee shrivels up like the petals of a flower at the heart of a furnace.
There's no sign of Timas. For a horrified second I think he's been snatched by a werewolf. But then I see his bony arm and narrow fingers jerk out of a hole, beckoning us on.
Shark is next to make it. He dives in and Timas' arm disappears. The rest of us come abreast of what looks like just a hole in the rock, less than a metre high. But as I look closer I see that the floor is lower than the ground out here, so you can stand inside. It's more of a tunnel than an actual cave, but I'm not going to complain about that.
Shark pops up like a jack-in-the-box. He aims over our heads and fires at the werewolves. There's a grunt three or four centimetres behind my ear and I realise they're even closer than I feared.
Screaming madly, I wrap an arm around Meera's waist and hurl her into the hole, like a basketball player making a slam dunk. She smashes against one of the walls inside the entrance and cries out with pain. But at least she's out of the reach of the werewolves.
Prae ducks in after Meera and scurries forward. I almost collide with Stephen as we both try to push in at the same time. We pause and I flash on a ridiculous image of us standing here, politely muttering, "No, after you," until we're carved up and consumed. But then Stephen slaps my back and I gratefully dive in ahead of him.
Meera and Prae have shuffled deeper into the cave. Timas is hooking up a series of devices to the walls around the entrance. For once he isn't grinning. By his expression, you might even think he was slightly perturbed.
Shark is still standing half out of the cave, roaring as he empties his cartridge into the hordes of werewolves. Stephen falls into the cave backwards, firing as he topples. He takes out a werewolf which was just about to snap Shark's head off.
"Back!" Timas yells.
Shark immediately withdraws. Liam, who was covering the rest of us from outside, dives into the hole after him. But he comes to a stop mid-air, arms outstretched, legs caught. He screams. Shark curses and grabs for Liam's hands. He catches them and tugs hard. Liam screams again.
"Hold on!" Stephen shouts, wriggling forward, firing around Shark and Liam.
Liam jerks forward a few centimetres. It looks like Shark has him, but then he's wrenched out of the cave.
For a brief moment I'm dazzled by sunlight. Then the hole fills with the heads and upper torsos of dozens of werewolves. They snap and lash at each other, fighting to be first in.
Before the werewolves can sort themselves out and slither into the cave, Timas yells, "Everybody down!" I catch sight of him pushing a button on a tiny detonator as I leap for safety. Then there's the mother of all explosions and the roof around the entrance comes crashing down, muting the howls of the werewolves, plunging us into darkness, entombing us beneath the ground.
Nobody says anything for several minutes. We can't-the air's clogged with dust and bits of debris. We crawl away from the rubble in search of cleaner air, heads low, covering our faces with jackets and T-shirts, breathing shallowly. The roof slopes downwards and after a while we have to bend. When that becomes uncomfortable, we sit and wait for the air to clear. I'm exhausted. I could happily fall asleep where I'm sitting.
Shark breaks the silence. He coughs, spits out something, then says, "Who's still alive?"
"Me," Timas answers brightly.
"Me," Prae Athim gasps.
"Me," Stephen says morosely-I think he was good friends with Liam.
"Me," I mutter through the fabric of my T-shirt, not ready to chance the air yet.
"Me," Meera groans, "though I feel like half my ribs are broken. What the hell did you throw me in for, Grubbs?"
"I was trying to save you," I growl.
"I could have saved myself," she snaps.
"Ungrateful cow!"
"Chauvinist pig!"
We laugh at the same time.
"Cute," Shark huffs. "Now somebody tell me they brought a torch." Nobody says anything. "Brilliant. So we're stuck here in the-"
Something glows. I tug my T-shirt down and squint at the dim light. It's coming from Timas' gun, from the small control panel I noticed earlier. Humming, Timas makes a few adjustments and the glow increases, just enough to illuminate the area around us. He looks up. His grin is firmly back in place, though it looks a bit eerie in the weak green light.
"Remind me to kiss you when this is over," Shark says, struggling not to smile.
"Me too," Meera adds. "Seriously."
Timas shrugs as if it's no big thing, then raises his rifle so we can see more. We're in a tight, cramped cave (or spacious tunnel, depending on how you look at it). The roof is much lower than it was at the entrance and dips even more further back. The rocks are jagged and jab into me. The floor is sandy and littered with sharp stones. It's humid and dusty from the explosion. But I'm too grateful to be alive and in a werewolf-free zone to feel anything but utter delight-love, almost-for our surroundings.
"How far back does this run?" Shark asks.
"That information wasn't on the charts," Timas says, then sets his rifle down. "Wait here." He crawls away from us. We wait, breathing softly, nobody needing to be told that air might be precious. Timas is gone for what feels like two minutes... three... four.
I see him returning before I hear him. He can move in almost perfect silence when he wishes. He returns to his rifle, picks it up and sets it on his lap. "The news is both positive and negative," he says. "The cave is approximately thirty metres long, but it doesn't finish with a wall. There's a small gap between roof and floor. Air is blowing through from the other side. So we needn't fear suffocation."
"That sounds good to me," Shark says. "What's the bad news?"
"The floor isn't solid." Timas scrapes a nail through the layers of sand, grit and small stones beneath us.
"So?" Shark growls.
"This area is riddled with small caves and tunnels. I've no idea how large the opening on the other side of the hole is-it wasn't on any of the maps-but if it's large enough to permit entry, or if it can be enlarged, and the werewolves catch our scent, they'll be able to burrow through."
Shark frowns. "If the hole's small, we could block it."
"Yes," Timas says, "but that won't hold them. As I said, the floor isn't solid. With their claws, it wouldn't take them long to dig through. We could shoot the one in front and use its body to jam the entrance. But the soil here is extremely poor. Others would be able to dig under or around it.
"But, hey," he adds with a shrug. "It might never happen."
"Let's assume it will," Shark sniffs, then peers around for me. "What about that window you promised?"
"I'll get to work on it." I lean against the wall and rotate the creaks out of my neck. I'd kill for paracetamol.
"Do you need us to be silent, get out of your way or anything?" Shark asks.
"No." I close my eyes, reaching down to the magic within me. As the others start discussing the situation, I drown out their voices. There are all sorts of ways to open windows, depending on the mage or magician. Some need to sacrifice a human or even themselves. Most just use spells. A powerful mage can open a window in half a day, no matter where they are, while others need several days.
I've only opened windows twice before, once in the cave where Beranabus was based before he started searching for the Shadow. The other was in an area within the demon universe. Both times there was plenty of magic to tap into, and I managed to complete the window within a couple of hours. It will be hard and slow this time. I told Shark I could do it in a few hours but it might take me-
Between seven and eight hours, says the voice of the Kah-Gash, startling me.
"Where were you when I needed you?" I growl silently.
It won't be enough time, the Kah-Gash says, ignoring my criticism.
"What do you mean?"
The werewolves will work their way through within the next hour. They have your scent and a few of the smarter creatures are already searching for another way in. They'll find it.
I curse, then ask the Kah-Gash if it can help us.
You can help yourself, it replies with typical vagueness. First, get out of here. I'll explain the rest when I have to. You must trust me and act quickly when I give the order. There won't be much time.
"Then why not tell me now?" I grumble, but it's gone silent again.
Sighing, I open my eyes and debate whether I should try to build a window regardless. Beranabus is wary of the Kah-Gash. He's not sure if we can use it or if it might attempt to use us instead. Maybe it's trying to trick me. Perhaps it wants me to die here, so that Juni can harvest my soul and present it to her new master.
As I'm mulling over my decision, I listen to the conversation around me. Prae is outlining her fall from grace, how Antoine Horwitzer outfoxed her.
"I knew about some of the experiments," she says, "but I didn't know he'd taken things this far. I sensed something foul when I found out he was training packs to hunt. That served no curative purpose. I delved deeper, exposed more of the rot and revealed my misgivings to the board."
"Let me guess," Meera says dryly. "They betrayed you?"
"I don't think they were all involved," Prae scowls, "but most of the members were on Horwitzer's side. Next thing I knew, I was being packaged up and posted here, where I've been stewing for the last month or however long it's been."
"Dervish thought the Lambs were rotten at the core," Meera says bitterly. "That's why he had so little to do with them. But he never guessed they might be in league with the Demonata."
"I knew nothing about that," Prae protests. "Dervish never told me anything about demons, even though I pleaded with him to share his information. If he'd been more forthcoming, perhaps-"
"Don't you dare," Meera growls. "This isn't Dervish's fault. And even if you weren't dancing to Antoine's tune, you certainly played along when it suited. You already confessed to knowing about some of the experiments. I bet you knew about the breeding programme, right?"
"Not that they'd been bred in vast numbers or to such an altered state," Prae says quietly.
"But you knew the basics. You approved the general aims of the project. Yes?"
"We needed more specimens," Prae sighs. "Where else could we get them?"
"I bet you didn't let your daughter breed," Meera sneers.
Prae stiffens. "What do you know about Perula?"
"Nothing," Meera says. "But she wasn't one of those picked to be experimented on, was she? You wouldn't do that to your own daughter. It wasn't a case of progress at any price. You spared your own."
Prae looks at Meera miserably and, to my surprise, I feel sorry for the deposed Lamb. I sense guilt stirring within her. Prae believed she was following the path of righteous experimentation. Now she's seen the flipside. Antoine Horwitzer could never have made his move if Prae hadn't done so much of the groundwork. She's responsible for a lot of this, and awareness of that must hurt like hell.
But that doesn't matter. If the werewolves dig through, the innocent will perish just as gruesomely as the guilty. I have to decide whether I can trust the voice of the Kah-Gash. Since I don't have any real alternative, I choose to heed its advice.
"I can't build a window."
The others look round at me, startled.
"What's wrong?" Meera gasps. "Has Juni cast a spell against you?"
"No. There isn't time. The werewolves will find the other entrance. They'll be on us inside an hour."
"That's an interesting prediction," Timas says. "What are you basing it on?"
"Magic." I lock gazes with Shark. "We have an hour. I can't open a window that quickly."
"Try," he snarls.
I shake my head. "I'd just waste my power. We need to find another way."
"There isn't any," he says icily. "You were our only hope once we chose this cave over the other options."
"I don't think many werewolves are going to gather at the other side," I tell him. "Only the smartest ones have thought of looking for another entrance. I doubt if they'll share their find with the rest-they'll want us for themselves. If we can get through those few..."
"What?" Shark laughs cruelly. "Fly out of here? Find another cave?"
"There isn't one nearby," Timas says.
"See?" Shark spits.
"But we're close to water," Timas adds. "Maybe a three- or four-minute run. The cliff is much lower there than around the compound. We could jump and probably survive the fall. From this point we're out of sight of those in the compound, so we could swim to another island."
"Where I could open a window!" I cry, excited.
"I don't like it," Shark says stubbornly. "We should stay here and stick to our original plan. You can't know for sure that they'll find..."
A vibrating howl stops him. It drifts to us from the narrowest point of the cave. Seconds later we hear the echoes of soft scrabbling sounds, distant, but not distant enough for comfort.
"An hour," I repeat glumly.
Shark sighs and raises a weary eyebrow at Timas. "You held back some of the explosives?"
"A few, for an emergency," Timas confirms.
"Good." Shark cracks his knuckles. "I think we're going to need them."