“Maxwell needs medical help,” said Amanda. “Steve too. That door can wait, surely.”
“She’s right,” said Tori, a whiny note in her voice. “What’s so important in there?”
Peri spoke quickly, before anyone else could answer. “That’s none of your business. We’re not discussing it.” She shot a warning look at Amanda.
They were all startled to hear Maxwell try to speak. “Tori,” he managed to say, lifting his head a little way.
Amanda bent down to him again. “What is it, Maxwell? What are you saying?”
“He’s asking me to help him,” said Tori, and she knelt beside him and placed the palm of her hand on his cheek.
He made some unintelligible sounds, and slumped back again with a groan. Peri could have sworn she felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck briefly stir. The sensation was so brief that she wondered if she had imagined it. She leaned in close to Gus, and murmured, “Watch the woman. I don’t trust her.” He nodded in response.
Peri turned to Steve. “How are you doing, sailor? Are you compos mentis yet, or still one sausage short of a fry up?”
He groaned. “Did you have to mention a fry up? I’m more than a bit queasy, but at least my head stopped spinning.” He stood and moved closer to the barred doors. “Right, Troy, let’s see if we can shift the bar. You take that end.”
“Let me help,” said Tori, and she moved to the centre of the huge iron bar.
Troy counted to three, and he and Steve strained to lift the bar. Tori also had hands on the bar, but was not visibly straining – Peri assumed she was going through the motions for the sake of appearances – and the bar was lifted clear. They backed away from the door a couple of paces, and Peri called out, “Far enough, let it down.”
Tori said, “Shouldn’t we move it a bit further? The bar’s obstructing the door, so it’ll only open a couple of feet.”
“That’s deliberate,” said Peri. “It’s wide enough for a man to get in, but not so wide that anything big can get out.”
“Right,” said Steve. “Stand back, we’ll get it open a bit so we see what’s what.”
Troy pointed at some lettering that had been exposed by removing the bar: ‘θάνατος περιμένει εντός’. “What’s that? Is that Greek?”
Tori glanced at it, and said, “Thanatos perimenei centos. Death waits within.”
“Very cheerful,” replied Troy.
Amanda suddenly stood up straight, and gave Tori an odd look. “Is that what Maxwell told you?”
Tori’s eyes narrowed and she looked straight back at Amanda. “Oops,” she said coolly. “From the look on your face, Maxwell doesn’t speak Greek, does he. So silly little air-head Tori shouldn’t know what that says, should she.”
“What the fuck…” Peri started, but before she could go on, Amanda clenched her fist and smashed a punch into the middle of Tori’s face with an audible crunch of bones and cartilage. Surprised, Tori rocked back against the door and slid down onto the floor of the cave. She laughed, breaking off to lick blood off her top lip.
“Oh, I bet that felt good,” she laughed at Amanda. “I bet you enjoyed that! Got to give you credit, bitch, I wasn’t ready for that one.” She put her hands on the iron bar, and laboriously got up onto her knees.
“What the hell did you do to Maxwell?” Amanda demanded.
Amanda laughed again. “Not Owain? Not Gilda? You don’t care about what I did to them, do you? Just Maxwell! Admit it, bitch, you’re like his mummy, always fussing over him, getting him out of trouble, over and over, again and again. Well, I’ve well and truly fucked him, in every sense of the word, and you won’t be saving his miserable ass this time.”
Peri felt her stomach lurch and her vision blur; she knew something bad was happening. She stretched out towards Tori. The others were busy gawping at Tori, and were taken completely by surprise when she hooked both hands under the heavy iron bar and flipped it straight at Amanda. Steve and Troy had struggled to lift the huge mass of iron, yet the slight blonde had just tossed it like a twig. Peri managed to change the direction of her lunge, and seized Amanda by one wrist, yanking her to the side. The iron mass struck her a glancing blow, hard enough to send Amanda down in a heap on top of Peri.
Gus reacted by swinging his pistol round to aim at Tori and cracked off a snap shot. But Tori was moving impossibly fast, and the bullet went wide. He aimed again, this time leading her movement, but as his finger squeezed the trigger, Tash somehow tangled himself in the old man’s legs and his second shot was high.
Tori laughed, throwing both arms wide, releasing a cloud of chemicals. At the same time, she sent out a mental shockwave that slammed into everyone else, throwing them back and filling their minds with excruciating pain. She looked at Tash, and said, “Thank you, father.” Turning to the door, she grabbed its handles and heaved. The iron bar was no longer in place on the floor to block it, so the door swung wide. Tori grabbed Maxwell, pulled him to his feet, and propelled him into the open doorway.
Peri blinked away the blinding pain of Tori’s mental flash-bang. She managed to get out from under Amanda, and tried to work out what was happening. She could see that Steve, Troy and Gus were down, she could hear Tori’s footsteps behind her running up the stairs, and she was horrified to see Maxwell, blinking in confusion, standing in the doorway. Something sinuous and black whipped out of the darkness and wrapped itself round his torso.
She started to rise, but then her stomach lurched in that familiar way and her vision greyed out, forcing her back to her knees. She managed to say, “Look out!” But her premonition of danger had come too late; another long black tentacle shot out, this one having spines along its length and teeth at the end. It wrapped round Maxwell’s legs, and Peri saw blood spurting as it the spines bit into him. Steve pushed past her, and grabbed at Maxwell’s leg, swinging a combat knife at the spiny tentacle. The knife was razor sharp, and its seven-inch blade sliced right through. There was a spurt of black ichor, accompanied by a sharp hiss from within the cave. A three-foot length of tentacle writhed and fell away from Maxwell. It instantly started squirming across the cave towards Steve, who realised that he was looking at the creature they had christened the chain snake: black, lined with blade-like spines, its tip opening into a circular mouth full of sharp teeth. He stumbled backwards as it launched itself at his face, its maw gaping, but at the last moment it suddenly changed direction and flew past the tip of his nose, closely followed by Peri’s foot, and then the rest of her landed on the ground in front of him. Steve realised that she had managed to knock it aside with a flying leap.
Gus stepped past him and his foot slammed down on the snake right behind its head, pinning it. He pointed his pistol down, and fired twice, catching it no more than an inch from his own foot, and splattering its head-end across the cave.
Troy had grabbed Maxwell’s arm in both hands and was trying to heave him back out of the blackness. Another slender black appendage shot outward and wrapped around Maxwell’s face, while another spiky tentacle appeared, hovered for a moment, and then made a grab for Troy’s arms.
Amanda jumped straight at Troy’s body, slamming her weight into him, so that their combined momentum carried him clear of the grasping limb. She turned and lunged towards Maxwell, but was horrified to see him being pulled into the inner cave, encircled by several tentacles, his face a picture of abject terror and hopelessness. He disappeared into the blackness.
“Flash bang,” called out Steve. “One away!”