Raven's Gate

time the villagers had absorbed what was happening, they had disappeared through the one door of the chamber that was still open.
    Mrs Deverill recovered herself. With a howl of fury she launched herself after them. Mr Barker, the chemist, tried to follow her. But he had left it just too late. He had only taken three paces across the chamber when the ground in front of him broke apart, fragments of metal and concrete flying upwards. Orange flames roared and a dense cloud of white smoke poured out, smothering him. Screaming, he collapsed to the floor and lay still.
    A siren wailed and lights set all around the dome began to flash. A radiation warning. The levels were already lethal and were rising with every second that passed. “Stay in the circle!” Sir Michael bellowed. He was sobbing, still cradling his ruined hand. “The radiation has broken free. But we’re protected in the circle!”
    The orange flames climbed up, higher even than the stones, licking against the ceiling. Smoke belched out, forming a living carpet. A sprinkler system had come on automatically and thousands of litres of water were showering down, soaking and blinding the villagers. Still, it wasn’t enough to put out the fire. Not this fire. The flames leapt through the water, hissing and crackling. The whole building began to shake.
    Claire Deverill was the first to break. With a panic-stricken cry she threw up her arms and ran between two of the stones, making for the same door that her sister had taken. But the moment she was outside the magic circle she was no longer protected. The heat of the flames blasted into her and her clothes caught alight. The smoke grabbed at her legs, dragging her down. She screamed and tried to scream again. But there was no air in the room, only smoke and fire. Her face contorted and her eyes went white. She fell and lay there, convulsing on the floor.
    “Stay in the circle,” Sir Michael repeated. “The doors are locked. They can’t escape.”
    Beneath the floor the gigantic creature punched and punched again at the invisible barrier. But it couldn’t break through. It had ritual. It had fire. But the blood of the child had been denied it, and it didn’t have the strength.
    And that was when Sir Michael noticed the knife. The tip had penetrated Matt’s shirt and skin. Matt’s power had stopped it, but not before it had drawn blood. There was a single red drop at the very tip of the blade. Sir Michael’s eyes widened. With a cry of pleasure he leapt forward and snatched up the knife. The blood was still wet. It glistened beneath the arc lamps.
    Sir Michael laughed and brought the knife crashing down towards the gate.
    The power was surging through Matt and nothing could stand in its way. Locked doors were torn from their hinges as if struck by a tornado. Steel plates bent and crumpled as he approached. Omega One was a labyrinth but he seemed to know exactly where he was going. Down a flight of metal stairs, along a corridor, through an archway and on towards a set of automatic doors that hissed open as he approached. It was as if he had worked here all his life.
    Richard was close behind him. The journalist no longer knew where they were going but he could tell that their general direction was down. Already they had to be well below ground level. The warning sirens were still sounding all around them, and lights flashed red and white at every corner. Steam hissed out of pipes. Water cascaded down from the sprinkler system. The whole power station seemed to be trembling, on the verge of breaking up, and he was worried that they were going to trap themselves. There couldn’t be an exit under the ground. But he knew that this was no time to argue. He kept his mouth shut, following Matt in grim silence.
    They passed through a room stacked from floor to ceiling with banks of machinery, then down another corridor. A door at the end flew open, beckoning them on.
    It led to a metal gantry above a tank of water. But it was like no water that Richard had ever seen. Pausing to catch his breath, he leant over it. The water was blue – a fluorescent, unnatural blue – and it was crystal clear, without so much as a speck of dust on the surface. The tank was square and about three metres deep. At the bottom was a row of metal containers, each one stamped with a series of numbers. Half of them were empty. Half contained twisted bars of metal, packed tightly together.
    Richard knew what he was looking at. This was