‘We’re doomed!’ cries Fabian, cradling his head in his hands.

  His words set off a chain reaction among the First Ascendants and once more Goggins is forced to call the room to order so that Caleb can be heard.

  ‘Haven’s safety isn’t compromised,’ insists the Soul Seer, having rallied himself from the shock of his friend’s capture. ‘Remember: no Incarnate can enter this sacred valley without prejudicing their soul! The stone circle remains unbroken as it has done for milliennia.’

  ‘In the meantime, we must prepare, but not panic,’ says Goggins, his tone reassuringly calm. ‘Gather any essential belongings and travel documents in the unlikely event of us being forced to evacuate Haven. We’ll rendezvous at the garage. You know the drill.’

  On his command, the Protectors start escorting their Ascendants back to their apartments and the Warriors head off to take up defensive positions around Haven. As Phoenix walks ahead of me, Jude falls in line behind. I glance irritably at her. ‘Phoenix is my Protector,’ I say coolly. ‘I don’t need you.’

  She gives me a perplexed and indignant look. ‘Goggins has ordered me to protect you too.’

  I want to say something about my sister, confront her about what happened, but now isn’t the time. ‘Fine,’ I reply stiffly, and walk on.

  We head outside into Haven’s central plaza. The capstone of the glass pyramid glints like a beacon with the last rays of the setting sun. The six sacred stone pillars upon the valley ridge are now such a dark ochre that the rocks themselves look to be bleeding. Then the sun dips below the mountains, the pillars fall into shadow and, in a portentous sign, the tip of the pyramid ceases to shine.

  Hurrying across the plaza and entering the garden courtyard, I find Nefe by my apartment door, alert and watchful. Acknowledging her with a quick stroke, I dash inside and hastily stuff my passport and money into my pockets. Just as I’m throwing Coco and a spare change of clothes into my backpack, I hear Nefe hiss and spit. Turning, I see her tail is raised and bushy. I race outside to rejoin Phoenix and the others in the courtyard, where I find them staring up at the valley ridgeline. Around the rim stand the army of Incarnates silhouetted against the darkening sky. I immediately spot Tanas, along with Damien and his gang on the nearest ridge, close to one of the stone pillars. They have forced Empote to his knees beside it, his head bowed.

  ‘Why are they just standing there?’ asks Tasha, clinging on to Viviana’s hand.

  ‘They can’t see Haven,’ Viviana explains. ‘Our combined Light cloaks our presence, along with the holographic shield. All they see is an empty valley in shadow.’

  But then a voice echoes down to us from high upon the ridge. ‘I know you’re somewhere down there!’ shouts Tanas. ‘I can feel it. And, believe me, we will find you.’

  She orders one of her Hunters to descend the slope. I take hold of Phoenix’s hand, clasping it tightly as we watch the Hunter pick a path through the rocks. Despite Viviana’s assurance, my heart thuds harder with every step the Incarnate takes towards us. We may be invisible, but we’re not undetectable. Once on the valley floor, the Hunter need only reach out to touch Haven’s walls … Then I notice the red-headed Lena is set up on the roof of Haven’s entrance hall, her assault rifle trained on the approaching Hunter. But before she has a chance to pull the trigger, the Incarnate suddenly stiffens and twitches, loses his footing and collapses to the ground. None of the other Incarnates go to help him. They leave him to writhe like a tortured insect in the dirt.

  ‘A sacred site!’ Tanas shouts in a gloating voice. ‘All the proof I need.’

  My hand goes slack in Phoenix’s, our hopes of remaining hidden crushed by the sacrifice of a single Incarnate. Viviana draws Tasha closer to her and mumbles a desperate prayer, while the rest of us look on in grim, tense silence as Tanas pulls something green and gleaming from her belt.

  The jade knife!

  Standing over Empote, she seizes a handful of his hair and wrenches his head back. With an incantation that carries across the valley like the cawing of a crow, she slices the blade across Empote’s throat. I gasp, clutching my own throat as if the savage cut had been inflicted upon me. Every First Ascendant seems to feel it too, Tasha letting out a soft cry, Santiago wincing and Viviana dropping to her knees. A sharp spike of pain penetrates my soul and the Light within me dims.

  While Damien holds up the dying Empote, Tanas cups her hands beneath the flow of blood. Then reciting an occult spell she smears the nearest stone pillar with the gore, inscribing ancient runes and symbols on the rock face. In a final act of the gruesome ritual, she drinks a long draught of Empote’s blood before Damien and his gang toss his lifeless body down the slope.

  A moment later a thunderous explosion rocks the valley. The detonation is so huge the ground beneath our feet trembles. Then one of the far pillars crumbles and topples over, dust billowing from the blast in a huge red cloud. There’s a flicker of an electrical grid in the sky as the holographic shield fails and the stone circle is broken.

  Raising her blood-soaked hands to the coming night, Tanas shrieks, ‘NOW I SEE YOU!’

  48

  With the ground deconsecrated by Empote’s ritual murder and the sacred circle destroyed, the last of Haven’s outer defences falls. The valley that was once our hidden shelter is now laid bare and becomes a trap of our own making.

  As red dust rains down upon us, I turn to Phoenix in panic. ‘What do we do now?’ I scream.

  He takes my hand. ‘We run! As we always have –’

  The sharp crack of a gunshot rings out and reverberates round the valley. I flinch but I know the bullet isn’t meant for me. High upon the ridge Tanas is blown off her feet and lands in a heap upon the stony ground. The Incarnate horde stare in stunned silence at their fallen leader, while we gaze on in hopeful disbelief.

  From the roof of Haven’s entrance hall comes the soft click of an assault rifle being reloaded and, in the gathering red-tinged gloom of dusk, Lena gives a thumbs up to Goggins. He finishes steadying Viviana on her feet, then looks over towards the flame-haired Protector.

  ‘Sharp shooting, Lena!’ he bellows with a wide, white-toothed grin – the first and only time I can remember the Chief Protector ever smiling.

  But our sense of triumph is short-lived. Standing up and dusting herself off, Tanas appears to rise from the dead.

  ‘Well, that’s a nice welcome!’ she shouts sarcastically, inspecting the hole in her black jacket exactly where her heart is. ‘But I’ve learned to take the necessary precautions when turning up uninvited to a party.’

  Phoenix scowls with annoyance. ‘Bulletproof vest!’ he mutters under his breath.

  I curse at how easily Tanas has cheated death yet again. Frustration and anger well up in me. Will we never be rid of this evil?

  ‘And now for my gift of greeting to you!’ Tanas shouts, signalling with her hand.

  A second later there’s a whoosh overhead and the roof to Haven’s entrance hall explodes in a ball of fire as a rocket-propelled grenade strikes its target. We dive to the ground, covering our heads as debris rains down on us and another missile blasts a hole in Haven’s outer wall. Explosion after explosion assault the perimeter. Then, as the dust settles once more, a fearsome battle cry sounds and the Incarnates charge down the slope towards us.

  Ears ringing, I stagger to my feet with Phoenix. My first thought is of Lena, and I turn to where the entrance hall used to be. It’s a smoking ruin, of course. Lena would have been obliterated in a flash. No time to process that now – Jude has her Taser at the ready. Then I spot Tarek with Thabisa and baby Kagiso – Tarek has a couple of Light grenades clipped to his belt. Santiago is standing, mute and in shock, gazing numbly at the decimated roof where his Protector had been moments before. Mick is tugging on his arm, imploring him to leave.

  ‘FOLLOW ME!’ roars Goggins, bearing Viviana in his huge arms, a pistol in his hand.

  We rush out of the courtyard, into the plaza and over towards the garage housing Haven’s fleet of electric cars. But the Incarnates are quick to spot our escape plan. From the ridge another grenade rockets down and destroys the garage, triggering a series of blasts as each car’s cell battery detonates in quick succession. We’re knocked off our feet by the multiple explosions –

  Bombs continue to rain down, the night sky flashing with anti-aircraft fire. The cries of the wounded fill the air, along with the crackle of flames and the crumbling of buildings as the Blitzkrieg pounds London into a nightmarish hell.

  I lie in the rubble, pinned beneath a pile of bricks, blood trickling from a cut to my forehead. Harry, his army uniform torn and coated with brick dust, is sprawled in the street alongside his best mate, George, who clutches his arm and groans in agony.

  ‘Harry!’ I shout, noticing a shard of metal piercing his thigh.

  Weakly he raises his head and coughs up dust. ‘Mary …’ he croaks.

  ‘Thank the Light you’re alive!’ I say, pushing away the bricks and crawling over to him. I tear off a strip of my nurse’s uniform and tie a makeshift tourniquet round his thigh. Then through the smoke and flames I spot shadows moving … on the hunt. ‘Harry, they’re coming!’

  ‘Genna, get up!’ begs Phoenix, pulling insistently on my arm. ‘They’re coming!’

  Blood trickles from a cut on my brow and for a moment I’m totally disorientated, convinced that I’m still in my Glimmer from the Second World War. Then blinking away the blood I see the wave of Incarnates swarming into Haven.

  ‘All our defences have been breached!’ rasps Phoenix as I take his outstretched hand.

  Swaying on my feet, I survey the devastation. A veil of darkness is descending on the valley but the carnage is brightly lit by the flames from the burning cars. Ascendants and Protectors alike lie dazed and bleeding on the ground. Jude is still out cold from the blast. One of the twin Warriors is dead, and his brother rises in fury, a pistol in each hand. He starts shooting from the hip, and three Hunters go down – but there are simply too many for him to stop their advance. When his guns click empty, he is jumped on by a pair of Hunters brandishing heavy clubs.

  ‘Watch out, Genna!’ cries Phoenix, pushing me aside and disarming an Incarnate of a butcher’s knife before throwing her hard to the ground.

  Shaking off my bomb-blasted daze, I turn to confront our enemy. It appears that Tanas has recruited a motley army of FBI agents, truck drivers, farmhands, police officers, construction workers, soldiers, gangsters and gun-toting survivalists to her sinister cause. Their unnatural, dark-pooling eyes are the only thing they all have in common.

  As the Incarnates rush towards us, Phoenix shouts, ‘Remember your Glimmer as Sabina!’

  ‘Claro!’ I reply in Portuguese, and we both drop into the low, shifting stance of capoeiristas. Back to back and in constant motion, we become a frustrating target for the approaching mob. As they attempt to attack, we launch into a blistering series of whirling kicks and strikes. I cut one down with a corta capim, and knock out another with a martelo em pé. Phoenix floors a soldier with a devastating meia lua de compasso, the spinning reserve kick catching the Incarnate totally off guard and breaking his jaw. Like a frenzied spider, we take on multiple opponents at once. But as effective as we are, there are only two of us yet the Incarnates keep coming, and I know there’s only so long we can keep up this frenetic pace.

  Goggins shouts a rallying cry, ordering the Warriors to form a defensive circle round the dazed First Ascendants. Caleb stands at the centre, calling upon the Light to save and protect us. As Clara corrals Tasha to safety, a bare-chested Hunter with a skull tattoo attempts to grab the young girl. Without a second thought, Clara shoots him between the eyes. Viviana stays close to Goggins, safe in his formidable shadow. But Fabian isn’t so fortunate. He’s snatched away by two Incarnates after Zaine, his Warrior, is hit in the head with a baseball bat. They don’t kill the First Ascendant there and then, however. Instead they bear him away to Tanas, who waits at the ruined entrance gates to Haven with Damien and his gang and a sinister group of Incarnate High Priests in hooded cloaks. As soon as Fabian is on his knees, they begin their evil ritual with a chant of ‘Ra-Ka! Ra-Ka! Ra-Ka!’ – and Tanas plunges the jade knife into Fabian’s heart.

  Instantly I’m crippled by a stabbing pain deep within me and I collapse to the ground. I feel the Light dim once more as Fabian’s soul is ripped from him and extinguished forever.

  ‘They’re picking us off, one by one!’ cries Santiago, trying to stop Mick being hauled from his wheelchair by a couple of black-eyed farmhands. Two Warriors rush to their aid but are outnumbered and overwhelmed. Elsewhere, despite Tarek’s furious defence, Thabisa and her son are captured and carried away towards Tanas. In desperation Tarek tosses a Light grenade. The blinding flash stuns the Incarnates fighting nearby and they writhe on the floor, reeling from its effects. While Tarek grabs Thabisa and her son out of their clutches, Clara leads a group of Warriors to finish off the Hunters.

  Still reeling from the loss of Fabian’s soul, I’m barely back on my feet when a heavyset Incarnate grabs me by the hair and starts dragging me away like a sack of bricks. I yell to Phoenix but my Soul Protector is caught up in a three-way fight. I see him knock down one of his attackers in an effort to reach me, but the other two pounce on him.

  ‘Genna!’ he cries as he disappears beneath a barrage of blows.

  Legs kicking and arms flailing, I tear at my assailant’s hand where he’s holding my hair, but his grip is as strong as steel. Relentlessly he hauls me towards Tanas and her eager circle of High Priests. Damien is there among them, welcoming me with open arms. I’ve almost given up hope when the Incarnate abductor convulses and collapses to the ground beside me.

  Confused but grateful, I scramble away and look up to discover Jude, a spent Taser gun in her hand. She offers to help me up. I know she just saved me, but I’m still too angry about Aya to accept her proffered hand and get to my feet myself. I mumble a begrudging thanks.

  ‘All part of the service,’ she quips, before an FBI agent in dark glasses jumps her and she’s lost in the maelstrom of fighting.

  Tanas roars her fury at my last-minute rescue and sends two Incarnates to retrieve me. But a second Light grenade goes off, stunning them mid-stride. With a safe path cleared by the grenade, I dash back to the ever-diminishing group of Warriors and Protectors.

  My fellow First Ascendants are now reduced to nine.

  ‘Where’s Nam?’ I ask Sun-Hi, who clutches Song desperately to her chest, her daughter wide-eyed and weak with terror.

  ‘He’s been taken!’ she cries, pointing towards Haven’s blasted gates.

  I look beyond the circle and see the young lad being forced to his knees before Tanas. I turn to the Warrior nearest me. ‘We have to save him!’ I yell, but she’s caught in a furious fight for her own life.

  I search frantically for Phoenix and find Tarek instead. ‘Light grenade?’ I ask in desperate hope.

  Tarek shakes his head. ‘I’m all out!’ he replies as he retreats with Thabisa and Kagiso in the face of the Incarnates’ brutal attack.

  Powerless to break through their ranks on my own, I can only watch as Tanas thrusts the jade knife into Nam’s young chest and rips his soul from him. ‘NO!’ I scream, feeling yet another agonizing wound within my own soul and the Light of Humanity fade a little more.

  ‘FALL BACK!’ Goggins is bellowing as our resistance crumbles under the relentless onslaught. Bloodied and limping, the Chief Protector leads the retreat to the pyramid – our last and only sanctuary.

  49

  With victory in her grasp, Tanas commands the remaining ranks of Incarnates to attack, turning our ordered retreat into a desperate fight for survival.

  Somehow Phoenix battles his way back to my side, leaving his two attackers writhing in pain on the ground. ‘Thank the Light you’re OK,’ he says, a nasty cut now marring his cheek.

  ‘It was Jude who saved me,’ I grudgingly admit, glad to have my true Protector once more as my shield.

  ‘Looks like I owe her yet again,’ he says, fending off an Incarnate with an elbow strike. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I reply. Then I feel a twinge of guilt at how cold I am to her fate. I glance around and spot Damien and his gang striding through Haven’s ruined gates. Dark glasses glinting in the flames, they move quickly to cut us off.

  ‘I can’t see Jude,’ I say. ‘But I do see Damien! Look – over there,’ I warn Phoenix as we retreat rapidly through the haze of smoke and red dust.

  ‘Follow me,’ orders Phoenix, changing course in the direction of the Glimmer Dome.

  ‘But the pyramid’s the other way,’ I say, worried that we’re leaving our fellow Ascendants and Protectors behind.

  ‘We won’t make it before Damien intercepts us,’ Phoenix replies. ‘Besides, there are no weapons in there.’

  With Damien and his gang hot on our heels, we split from the others and race across the training ground and into the Glimmer Dome. The chamber is dark and quiet as a grave; the muffled silence is eerie compared to the frantic noise of the battle outside. The flicker of flames from the still-burning garage casts a wavering ghostly light through the stained-glass windows in the roof.

  ‘If we’re going to stand any chance of surviving this night,’ says Phoenix, leading me on to the Glimmer platform, ‘we need to fight to our advantage. Arm ourselves from the past!’

  I wait on the platform as he dashes up the spiral staircase, two steps at a time. Suddenly the doors crash open and Damien and his gang march in.

  ‘Well, this is a fine collection!’ declares Damien, lifting his dark glasses to peer round at the numerous artefacts on display. He casually picks up a white Ming dynasty vase decorated with blue lotus flowers and gives it an admiring glance. ‘Someone certainly likes to hoard relics of the past. But I’m afraid there’s no future in it. At least not for you, Genna.’