Tunnels 06 - Terminal

stairs to the entrance of thesubway, pressed up against the wall, a radio transmitter still in his hands. All he could see out on the pavement were the lower limbs of the numerous Armagi assembled there. ‘I couldn’t get all the way,’ he replied to Parry, but I’ve done what I can. I tried to send a message to the tank’s shortwave receiver, and I just pray they heard it.’
    ‘I think they did. My son and Elliott appeared outside the cathedral a few seconds ago,’ Parry said, and checked his watch. ‘Keep in touch. We haven’t got long.’
    ‘Ah, my two jolly renegades,’ Hermione said to Drake and Elliott. ‘I assumed it had to be you, going by the reports from the British Museum. My guys,’ she said, waving an arm at the sea of Armagi, ‘gave me a description of you.’
    Drake and Elliott slowly made their way down to the bottom of the steps at the front of the cathedral.
    ‘You don’t need that weapon,’ Hermione told Drake. ‘Lose it now, or the boy gets his throat torn out.’ She pressed her claw down on Will’s chest and he moaned loudly.
    Drake shrugged, then threw down his Beretta. It rattled across the pavement, the only noise in the whole place.
    ‘Good. Now don’t be bashful. Come and join in with the fun,’ Hermione ordered them.
    With the two Limiters now on either side of them, the Old Styx and Rebecca Two were standing together beside the Bentley. They said nothing – the Styx woman was clearly running the show.
    ‘Right, that’s far enough. Stop there,’ Hermione ordered Drake and Elliott. ‘Was there anyone else in the tank with you?’
    ‘What do you want to talk about?’ Drake asked her.
    ‘Answer me first,’ the Styx woman insisted, then almost immediately let the point go. ‘No, I see that it was just the two of you.’ Drake and Elliott wheeled around to see a Limiter at the entrance of the cathedral behind them. He’d obviously been inside to check the tank.
    If either Elliott or Drake was in a less desperate predicament, they might have marvelled at Jiggs’ ability to completely blend into any situation he found himself in. As it was, there wasn’t time to dwell on it.
    ‘Tell us what you want,’ Drake repeated.
    ‘I don’t want anything, and you’re in no position to ask for anything, are you?’ Hermione replied. ‘I just thought your half-breed bitch would like a front row seat as I consummate my union with her beau here.’
    ‘Let Will go,’ Drake said.
    ‘Oh, I intend to,’ Hermione said. ‘In two shakes of a puppy dog’s tail.’ She was rather difficult to understand as the tip of the fleshy tube poked from her mouth and twirled energetically. As she threw herself on top of Will, the tube extended fully from between her lips and pushed its way deep into his mouth.
    Drake and Elliott watched in horror as the muscles in the ovipositor contracted, and a large egg sac quickly squeezed down it. Will was coughing and choking and trying to resist, but then it was done.
    The eggs had been deposited deep inside him.
    ‘That’s for slaughtering all my babies in the warehouse,’ Hermione said, as she straightened up and wiped away the fluids that dangled in glutinous skeins from her black lips with the back of her wrist. ‘Oh, I’ve been saving that pod for a red-letter day like this. Only the very bestest and greediestArmagi will do for naughty Billy Burrows. The little darlings inside him are so ravenous, they’ll be gobbling up his insides before you can say … eat your heart out .’
    Elliott was white-faced with shock, but Drake was shaking with anger.
    ‘We did what you asked. We left the tank and came out here,’ he growled, striding forward. ‘You could have spared Will that suffering. So help me, I’m going to take you apart with my bare hands, you abomination!’
    Hermione cackled unpleasantly. ‘God, you flesh bags are so petulant and so bloody t-e-d-i-o-u-s.’
    With a whiplash motion of her raised insect limb, she made a sound like someone snapping their fingers.
    Two shots rang out almost simultaneously with each other, their reports echoing from the buildings.
    As the bullets caught him in mid stride, Drake dropped onto one knee. He clutched his hand to his chest, blood pouring from the twin wounds.
    ‘Drake!’ Elliott was beside him in an instant, helping him down to the pavement.
    ‘He’s hit,’ Parry said, hardly breathing as he spoke. ‘My son’s down.’
    There was crackling over the radio but no one said a