| Blood-Soaked Stage.

Maski's pink eyes stared out from his severed head, fixed on Jack in hatred.

Before Jack could even react, Zubbe was charging for him again, filling his ears with a deafening roar. The purebloods looked on helplessly in panicked silence.

Jack skittered aside and dodged nimbly past the Great Wolf. But he was tiring. His body ached and throbbed. He couldn't keep this up for much longer. The acrid smell of smoke caught in his nostrils. There was no time to work out where it was coming from. Zubbe was coming for him again.

And then he saw Ava and Amon running out from the wings and onto the blood-soaked stage.

*****

The fire was taking too long to get going, even with the extra rags they'd taken from the cleaner's closet. It wasn't about to distract anyone, and Jack was in trouble. So Ava and Amon had come running out here to try Plan B; or as Amon put it, Plan God-knows-what-that-might-B.