Tunnels 06 - Terminal

the installation up ahead. ‘And who said we’d go in through the perimeter? Watch this.’
    The Old Styx and Rebecca Two stepped away from her as she lowered her coat from her shoulders. Her insect limbs extended to their full length and came together, beginning to vibrate.
    When Danforth caught his first glimpse, he assumed that the wind had whipped up the passage of the clouds in the sky. It quickly became evident that what he was seeing was nothing to do with the weather conditions, and something very sinister.
    In a vortex Armagi were swarming up high, their forms refracting the grey-blue of the sky. They began to converge together and then to descend, a solid gyre of them, like an upside-down water spout, straight into the opening in the middle of GCHQ.
    ‘I wonder what your fellow flesh bags will make of that,’ Hermione smirked, ‘for the remaining minutes they have left to live?’ She suddenly swung to the Old Styx. ‘We can jettison this fool now. We have no need for him, and I find his presence tedious.’
    The Old Styx raised his hand and a pair of Limiters appeared from nowhere, one on either side of Danforth. Then the Old Styx turned his dead eyes on Danforth. ‘It’s true. We never needed you, and we can’t allow you to stay with us. There isn’t any room for humans.’
    ‘We had a deal,’ Danforth replied, keeping his voice even. ‘You’re going to renege on it?’
    ‘If you’d handed us Drake’s, Elliott’s, and the Burrows child’s heads on a platter, we’d have been more convinced of your commitment. But you didn’t.’
    ‘Nevertheless, they’re all dead,’ Danforth insisted.
    The Old Styx gave him a sceptical look.
    ‘You haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since I came over to you, though, have you?’ Danforth pointed out.
    ‘That may be correct, although we still have had no word from our party sent into the inner world, which is surprising. And our subsequent teams despatched to find them have not reported back either,’ the Old Styx said. ‘That makes us suspicious that all is not as it seems.’
    ‘If something’s happened to them, it’s nothing to do with me,’ Danforth argued. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’Although he remained outwardly calm, his mind was racing. Top of his list was how he could remove his tooth and make an SOS transmission with the Limiters watching his every move.
    ‘Take him away and finish him,’ the Old Styx ordered, then lowered his voice. ‘And while you’re about it, get rid of that New Germanian at the same time. Make sure the bodies are hidden out of sight.’ He’d lowered his voice to ensure that Rebecca Two hadn’t overheard his order, but in any case she was too intent on the deluge of Armagi.
    As one of the Limiters began to push Danforth down the street, in the opposite direction to GCHQ, he managed to grab another glimpse of the continued cascade of Armagi from the sky.
    ‘Move it,’ the Limiter growled, striking him in the kidneys with the stock of his rifle.
    Despite the pain, Danforth allowed himself a small smile. At that very moment, the Styx woman was under the impression that she was going to achieve a significant victory. But she was about to get a rude awakening. If everything went according to plan, at least he’d have helped to deal a major blow against the Styx before he lost his life. And he still hadn’t given up all hope; if the timing fell to his advantage and the strike took place before he’d been killed, it might create enough of a diversion for him to escape.
    No. He sighed. That was hoping for too much, with this pair of deadly soldiers on the case. They were too well trained for that. Nothing, short of an armed intervention, would put them off their mission. He was dead. He accepted that.
    He pretended to stumble.
    ‘Faster,’ one of the Limiters scowled. ‘Stop sandbagging.’
    The soldier was right. Danforth was trying to buy time. He peered up at the rooftops of the buildings around him, wondering if Parry had a camera on him. He though it unlikely – he was too far from the Doughnut.
    As they went past the entrance to the underground car park, one of the Limiters peeled off. The other soldier continued to shove Danforth along the main street, then took him around a corner and into a side road.
    There the Limiter slammed him against the wall of the building, with such force that he fell to the pavement.
    ‘Stay down,’ the Limiter growled, slipping a scythe from the scabbard