Necropolis

crumpled.
    Matt looked all around him, wondering where the next attack was going to come from. At the same time, he smelled something. His eyes had begun to water and he was aware that it was getting more difficult to breathe. The temperature had risen too. Richard fired again, hitting one creature, then used the revolver as a club, smashing it into a second. "The house is on fire!" he yelled.
    Matt didn't need to be told. Smoke was pouring down the staircase, sucked into the ground floor by the turning fans. He could already hear the crackle of burning wood. Stretched out in the hot Nazca sun — it almost never rained in this part of Peru — the professor's house would be bone dry. There were fire extinguishers in all the rooms, but they weren't going to be given a chance to use them. Left to itself, the fire would consume the whole building in minutes.
    Richard fired two more shots before the gun clicked uselessly in his hand. He rummaged in his pocket, searching for more ammunition. Professor Chambers blasted off another round, but she too had only a few bullets left. And the creatures kept on coming. Kill one and another two or three would take its place. There seemed to be no end to them. Matt saw another one appear on the stairs, holding an iron post similar to the one that had killed Ramon. It had been torn free from the garden fence. He watched as the creature lifted it up to its shoulder, and realized too late what it was about to do.
    The creature flung the rod like a spear, aiming straight at Pedro. Matt shouted a warning. Pedro twisted round.
    The missile turned once in the air and then struck him a glancing blow on the side of the head. He cried out and fell to the floor, dazed and bleeding. Another creature — dressed bizarrely in the rags of a dinner suit — closed in on him. Matt couldn't reach him. He was too far away. But Scott was there. He still had the kitchen knife. He was standing between Pedro and his attacker. Matt waited for him to move.
    Scott did nothing. He stood where he was, frozen to the spot. He wasn't even blinking. Matt could see his chest heaving and his hands seemed to be locked in place, the fingers bent. His whole body was rigid.
    Matt knew what was happening. He had seen it before. Scott wasn't afraid. He wasn't a coward. But he had spent weeks with Nightrise, with the woman called Susan Mortlake, and in that time they had gotten into his mind. It was hard to imagine how much pain they had put him through, trying to turn him against his friends. This was the result. In moments of stress, he simply shut down. Even Pedro had so far been unable to help him. The wounds were too deep.
    Pedro was lying still. There was a gash on the side of his head. Jamie was lashing out with the baseball bat, using it like a club or a sword. Matt looked for a weapon but couldn't see one. The man in the dinner jacket had reached Pedro and was standing over him. He had produced a second weapon, an axe which had been hanging for decoration on the wall. Desperately, Matt searched across the room, saw a jagged piece of broken glass on the floor and — using his power — swept it through the air and into the creature's throat. The creature screamed horribly and fell back in a fountain of its own blood.
    "We have to get out of here!" Richard shouted.
    The air was full of smoke. It was getting harder to breathe inside, but running out into the fresh air would be suicide. Nobody would be able to see anything in the darkness — and if these creatures had night vision, they would be in total command. Matt stood there, cursing himself. He knew that this was happening because of Scarlett. He had been expecting it. So why hadn't he been better prepared?
    At any event, he knew that Richard was right. They had to get out of the house before they suffocated.
    The smoke didn't seem to have any effect on the attackers. It was as if their lungs had rotted away and they didn't need to breathe. Jamie threw the baseball bat at one of the creatures on the stairs, then ran over to his brother. Matt reached Pedro and helped him to his feet. At least he didn't seem to be too badly hurt. Professor Chambers blasted away with the rifle, clearing a way to the French windows.
    "Look out!"
    It was Richard who shouted the warning. Matt looked up just in time to see part of the ceiling come crashing down in a chaos of orange fire and black smoke. The flames were leaping up at the night. It seemed that most of the roof and