Tunnels 06 - Terminal

far … appears to be have some form of empathy with your friend. Except for her, none of us has any degree of control over it. And the reason for that has to be because she has the blood of the invaders in her.’
    ‘You mean the Styx,’ Will said, tightening his arm around Elliott to comfort her. He’d have preferred that she wasn’t hearing any of this. But he also felt that it would be unreasonable to ask the now slightly inebriated New Germanian to put a sock in it, as he might take it badly.
    And, besides, Will’s mind was buzzing with all the possibilities too.
    ‘Yes, the Styx.’ Jürgen took a single step forward as if bracing himself. ‘So, Will, does that mean that the Styx – or their predecessors – were …’ His voice seemed to give out. He cleared his throat. ‘Are we talking about …?’
    Will met the man’s eyes, waiting for the next word.
    ‘Talking about …?’ Jürgen half-whispered.
    There in the shadowed lee of the tower, with just the calls of the birds and the odd snatch of Woody’s muttered prayers reaching them, neither Will nor Jürgen felt prepared to say the word.
    It was just too outlandish, too bizarre, and how did it tie in with the evolution of humans?
    And with the history of the world?
    The implications were too great to contemplate.
    Will tightened his arm around Elliott again.
    ‘Aliens?’ he said.

 
     
     
    Chapter Ten

    W ith Stephanie tagging along at a distance behind them, Chester and Martha had been walking briskly down a fenced-off track between two fields.
    ‘Nearly home, my sweet,’ Martha cooed, as Chester spotted the small farmhouse up ahead.
    Then, as he happened to glance over the fence to one side, he stopped dead as something caught his attention. ‘My God! What on earth did that?’ he gasped, recoiling at the sight of carcases of the dead sheep strewn around the place. They had been eviscerated, their bodies brutally ripped apart and all their organs strewn over the ground. ‘Armagi?’
    ‘No, that was my Brights,’ Martha answered proudly. She hadn’t slowed as she headed towards the farmhouse. ‘They have to eat – just the same as us.’
    ‘Not quite the same as us,’ Chester whispered. Remaining where he was, he continued to watch as, further along the track, Martha gave a couple of low whistles and waved her hand. She could have been directing sheepdogs, not the weird and strangely wonderful creatures from the depths of the Earth.
    The Brights zipped over Chester’s head, so fast that it wasimpossible to see them clearly, like smoke or mist caught in a high wind. Martha whistled once again, then flicked her fingers in the direction of the field.
    ‘Oh, there they are,’ Chester said to himself, as several of the Brights appeared over the field, as if they’d just materialised out of thin air. They were hovering some hundred feet up or so, and for once remaining in one place long enough for him to make out their long bodies and their white wings as they beat the air.
    ‘What are they doing?’ Chester muttered, then noticed a small herd of sheep grazing directly beneath the Brights. The sheep stared vacantly in Martha’s direction, probably wondering what the crazy woman was doing, making silly noises and waving her arms around.
    They had no idea what was about to hit them. With another whistle from Martha, the Brights simply plummeted towards the ground as if in a deadfall. Chester had a glimpse of the nearest of Martha’s fairies , its mouth wide open and displaying vicious rows of jagged spikes. With their ivory-white wings outstretched, each Bright landed on the animal it had selected and pinned it flat to the ground so that it was nearly impossible to make any of them out against the rime-covered grass. And it was also impossible to see what they were doing to the poor sheep under them, something for which Chester was very grateful.
    ‘That’s sick,’ he mumbled, looking at the mutilated sheep closer in the field once again as Stephanie stopped alongside him.
    ‘Yeah, gross,’ she agreed, as she leant against a fencepost. ‘But I’m just so very glad I managed to catch up with you, Chester,’ she said, smiling. ‘I really didn’t think I was ever going to see you again.’
    From where the nearest Bright was feeding on a sheep, there was that sucking sound that flesh makes when it’s torn. As the Bright beat its wings once, then settled again as it continued to gorge itself, something glistening with