The back wheels of the Land Rover squeaked in protest as I threw it around a corner two gears too high. The old engine was complaining noisily at the constant exertion like a teenager faking a heart attack to get out of P.E (True story. Didn't go well). It was old and arthritic and probably hadn't been driven in twenty years but I hadn't dropped below fifty in over half an hour.

Thounk! A rock kicked up by the harsh terrain bounced off the chasse but hey, at least nothing blew up. It was a good thing we were mainly offroad as well seeing as I, a skilled but very much illegal sixteen-year-old, was behind the wheel and the "responsible" adult was in the passenger seat.

To be fair Shadow was navigating. His compass was in one hand while the other was hanging out of the open window, black tendrils brushing the floor. He could apparently read where darkness had been cast and we had locked on to a group of four, one unresponsive, and three beasts one of whom was definitely the parrot, Monsoon.

I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. My heart was pounding in my chest, blood being forced into my head making me dizzy and I was sure that if my hands weren't on the wheel I'd see that they were shaking. We were going to get her back, we had to. We'd been through so much we couldn't just give up now.

"Take a left!" Shadow barked.

I span the wheel and the car lurched violently towards a dirt path with a broken barrier straddling the dirt. We barreled up and the ride became considerably more unpleasant as we were thrown up and down in our seats.

"How much further?" I asked/yelled above the rattling engine.

Shadow paused to take another reading. "A couple of miles, it's pretty fresh." He concentrated again, "I think she woke up around here, there's a lot more movement and they definitely flew lower just in case. I mean look! Feathers!"

Sure enough, just glimmering in the headlights, was a trail of reflective orange feathers stark in their brightness against the dark earth and scrub. We couldn't be far away now.

"Alright you old beauty," I muttered, "let's see if you can do seventy."

The engine groaned and stuttered as I pushed the gearstick into sixth and then the headlights went out. Oh dear god, I've killed it. Then like nothing happened the engine roared loudly but the lights stayed off, perhaps for the better. I breathed a sigh of relief that we at least had some sort of escape vehicle until we rounded the corner and...

"What the actual hell is that?" I gasped as I finally put the old car out of its misery and killed the engine. It seemed to happily sigh as its load scrambled out to stare at the building.

It looked like the Forgers factory that we'd run into to get the Vulcan Star, only much smaller and belting what seemed to be viscous oil from vast pipes that were poking out of the brickwork. It was windowless and barren with one solitary entranceway ferrying people in heavy overalls in and out of the building while carts of...something trundled around the back. I couldn't see what was in them but it did appear to be moving. It also stank. Think rotten eggs crossed with blood.

But whatever they were working on was clearly important somehow. Four guards marked the door while at least twenty or so others, armed with rifles and glowing whips stalked the grounds with their Beasts at their heels. Never had I been happier that the headlights had died when they did or else it would be open season.

I knew my expression was one of complete horror but Shadow, like always had all the facial personality of a hunk of granite. He even kept this up as he checked his compass and said, "she's in there."

"I was hoping you weren't going to say that." I signed, made my peace with whatever may be ruling the great beyond and resigned myself, once again to fate. "How do we get in? I hope you're not suggesting going through the front door."

"No."

Well, that's a relief.

"We're going through the back."

Scratch that. Oh well, may as well make myself useful. "Alrighty, let's try those carts. Maybe they won't notice us."

Even by my standards, that's a big maybe but even so, getting wasn't the problem. That was a discovery I never thought I would have to make but it turns out breaking in is as easy as blowing up a wall. It was getting out, often pursued by a homicidal maniac or a robot with too many teeth, that proved to be the issue.

Nonetheless, I was still surprised that no one saw the two rather tall individuals (I'm not going on about myself here, Shadow is easily pushing six-four) sneaking through the bushes to the track and hop seamlessly behind one of the carts. Up close the substance they were carrying was more mud-like and the movement I'd seen was just the liquid bubbling merrily away to itself.

I watched a bubble swell up from the mass, grow to the size of my head and then burst with a squelchy pop and a putrid aroma of bile. I then proceeded to gip even further as Shadow dipped one finger into it and examined it closely. It was smoking on his skin.

"Dude," I hissed, not wanting to draw any attention from the guard who was walking by with a white bear the size of the Land Rover. "Don't touch that stuff! You don't know where its been."

He scowled but wiped his hand on the side of the metal anyway. "I know this stuff. Its called Chiven, it's a paralytic agent that attacks the neurones of the motor cortex."

"I understood precisely half of that."

He sighed. "It's a substance that shuts down any form of voluntary movement."

I looked at the pot of bubbling chiven and then to Shadow. And then back at the pot and then slowly back to him. "You just touched that."

"It has to be ingested dipstick. I'm not that stupid."

I kept my mouth shut on that one. I may be slowly counting this git as a "friend" but the man's still a git.

"What are they using it for though? This stuff isn't cheap and they're moving it like coal..."

"For once I don't think I want to find out. This isn't our priority, remember?"

He took one last look at the residue on his fingertips and nodded. The ceiling had closed over us plunging us into complete darkness. Inside the building, deep thuds and the sound of roaring fire echoed off the walls and the heat climbed that even I was starting to sweat, fire heart and all.

I glanced at the dark spot that was Shadow and tried to catch a glimpse of the hand that had touched the chiven. That wasn't just smoke id seen coming from the spot that flesh had been burning underneath it. I knew he could heal himself but wouldn't even healers feel the effects of their motor functions shutting down? I dunno, maybe that wasn't how it worked.

I peered over the rim of the tub down the line of shuffling carts. Bright orange light glowed faintly from the end of the blackness. Oh no, no, no, I'd seen Toy Story 3 one too many times to know what that could be. The smell all but confirmed it but I stretched out my hand to access my thermal vision anyway.

I made an audible squeak, like a mouse being stepped on, as my vision was flooded with white light.

"Do we need to bail?" Shadow asked.

"Oh yes," I squeaked. "Very much so. Unless you like spending your free time in an incinerator."

"I think I'll pass on that." He glanced around the slowly illuminating walls and jabbed a finger to a ladder melted into the stone. "There!"

We leapt from the train and scrambled up the ladder to safety and I say safety in the loosest possible terms. We were still clearly in satans summerhouse as the moment when poked our heads through a service door I felt all the moisture in my body evacuate through my forehead. It was hot. Hotter than the Forgers factory. Hotter than a car in a heatwave. Hotter than an unairconditioned exam hall with two hundred sweaty teenagers in the hottest summer on record. It was hell on earth I assure you (Someone passed out it was that bad, I blame the exam board).

To make things worse Sheira would be feeling the heat more than any of us. This infernal temperature would weaken her to the point that she wouldn't be able to produce so much as a snowflake. It would be like before we met Shadow only a thousand times worse.

And it's not like finding her would be easy either. Despite being less open-plan than the Forgers lair it was still bustling with people. Some were ferrying barrels and buckets of rocks too and from the various rooms as steam shot from the doorways. Men and women in heavy overalls escorted equipment and people with clipboards and charts through the crowds. I saw Shadow stiffen and when I turned to look a saw why. Two figures in black leather with the symbol of a circle and claw emblazoned on the shoulder strolled down the hall one of them pausing to kick a worker who had dropped his papers while the other one laughed.

The Army was here. We were in one of Molly's bases. Inside the belly of the beast if you will.

I turned to Shadow. He was trembling, frozen in place, eyes burning with fury, black strands spiralling out from his clenched fists where his knuckles were bleached with white. I gently tugged on his jacket and jerked my head along the corridor.

He stood there for a moment, watching the two soldiers until they rounded a corner and faded from sight. Were they old coworkers of his? Or did he just feel that murdery impulse towards them? Either way, I was very happy that this didn't turn into a blood bath in enemy territory.

The two of us crept down the corridor, diving behind stacks of wooden crates or barrels of something suspiciously green whenever we even heard the faintest whisper of footsteps. But even as people hurried past us, heads down in their work, we didn't hear the remotest mention of Sheira, or even a prisoner for that matter. For a minute I had a sickening thought that they might have just dropped her off a mountain.

"She must have been taken on one of the general's orders," Shadow said quietly. I swear he can read my mind sometimes.

"What do you mean?"

He crouched down from peering over the edge of the pile we were hiding behind. "No one knows she's here, not the workers at least, this is an Army job if I've ever seen one."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"We wait and we listen. There must be a cordoned off area that the staff cant access. It might be fairly recent."

I'm not going to lie, that was a good plan. Except for the staying sequestered in one spot, that had its flaws of you know, being caught and frogmarched to the bosses office and then it would be off with our heads. The two of us crept along and eventually decided on a dusty semi-circle of empty oil drums that was covered with a sheet of blue tarpaulin.

It had enough traffic for spying but was well hidden enough for us to not be seen. If one of our party's lives hadn't been in imminent danger I think I would have quite enjoyed myself. It was like playing Spy in Hyde Park but now with added death!

The fun dried out quickly after all of two minutes as my leg sparked up with pins and needles that were quickly pursued by a dead leg. Great, I'm scared and now in pain. I tried to stretch it out a little, somehow squeaked when I heard a thin, reedy voice say, "did you hear something?"

I froze. We were going to be caught now and judging by the look on Shadow's face he would be the one cooking my goose.

"It's just the machinery," said another. Clear but toneless compared to her counterpart. "Something probably broke down. Again," she added curtly.

"Hmph, tell me about it. I've just been reassigned from Warehouse C. All my research was in there! I swear if those bastards have–"

"Keep your voice down!" the woman hissed.

"Sorry. I mean, I get why they're here but what do they want with Warehouse C? All that's in there is slag and residue?"

"Well, there were issues with the heating..."

Heating? How much do you want to bet its fifty-plus degrees in there? Where else to keep someone who runs on ice?

"Heating my behind, they're doing something in there and mark my words it's going to be dangerous."

"Whatever you say, man. C'mon, let's get those reports delivered before we run into another one of those assholes."

It was another ten minutes after they walked away before Shadow hopped up, over the drum and into the corridor. I walked around them. Honestly, sometimes I think he just likes to make things dramatic. "You think she's...?"

He nodded. "Definitely. Hurry, we don't have much time before someone knows we're here."

Story of my life mate. I'd found that we were always on a time limit, whether that means getting chased down by the Harpy and the rest of the elementals or running a race against time to save a friend whose life was in imminent danger. Cheery stuff, eh?

Still, we ran like there was an automaton at our heels, only pausing to hide from those who came waltzing down the corridors. We were heading away from the main facility and the crowded rooms towards the back of the building and then out into the fenced compound. Giant aircraft carried sized buildings loomed in front of us belching smoke and steam from chimneys and pipes. Some of them were being fed by steel tubes of phlegm yellow liquid while others stood cold and deserted. Storage use only.

I could only imagine what was in there. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say that they were making the ichor/potion/medicine stuff that Molly used on her victims. I mean just look at the Chiven! It looked pretty much like what I'd seen Molly use on Rose in my vision. The effects lined up too. Paralysis and loss of willing motor function? Sounds just like the perfect scenario for a hostile takeover in this idiot's opinion.

On the other hand, maybe I didn't really want to know.

Warehouse C was one of those closest to the main building. It was identical to its counterparts if you ignored the fact that it was spewing black, choking smoke that had the peculiar smell of copper coins. Or blood if you want to look at it in that way. A giant peeling letter C sat over the firmly shut doors but we slipped down the side of the wall instead until we were out of sight of any camera's.

I watched as Shadow placed his hand against the brick and pulled a Diagon Alley as he had done at the Forgers Guild. It was still just as impressive seeing it done a second time around, and slightly irritating as I realise not for the first time that I'd got this far on sheer dumb luck. And my friends. Shadow had kept me alive even if he did irritate me and did punch me in the face on more than one occasion. And Sheira? Well, I would have gone at it alone if she hadn't chased after me. I think I owed her as much to come and get her. I owe her my life and can say that without any doubts.

We slipped through the gap and into the warehouse. If you've seen Terminator: Judgement Day (And if you haven't, watch it now. Trust me you won't regret it) you'll know what I'm on about. This was clearly where they sent things to be melted down. Tracks ferrying lumps of material dumped their cargo into these twenty by twenty-foot chambers where they were melted down into magma and left to bubble and stew under their own heat.

Other than that there was only one other thing to note. It was empty. Dead. No signs of human life at all.

All except for the sound of a high pitched, slightly frantic, female voice. "HEY! JACKASSES! LET ME GO OR I SWEAR TO EVERY GOD YOU CAN THINK OF–"

"Found her," I muttered just as I pegged it towards the source.

Then I saw her and my stomach dropped to Australia. Mounted on a rope, thirty feet up and suspended over a tank of molten rock, was Sheira Alicia Winterton. I almost fell up the stairs of the adjacent platform in my hurry to reach her.

"Sheira!" I yelled as quietly as I could.

Her head whipped around. Now that we were face to face I could take a good look at what they'd done to her. She was a little worse for wear, a black eye was just starting to form and there was a cut over her eyebrow but other than that she was looking rather well all things considered. "Nick! Shadow! Help!" there was a hint of desperation to her voice, something that I'd never heard from her before. It was jarring frankly.

I held out my hand, "can you swing to us?"

She shook her head and then gestured upwards with one hand. It was no easy feat considering her arms were bound to her sides with a length of cabling. I followed her line of sight and felt my shoulders sag at the sight of the light ring imprisoning the rope. The giant saw blade poised to strike didn't exactly up my confidence either.

"Let me guess..."Shadow sighed.

"Break that line and its bye-bye to me," she finished. "Guys I'm so sorry, I didn't see them coming and I lost the communication stone so I couldn't warn you. It was Jack and Leo, they found me but I didn't say anything about you guys–"

"Sheira, bigger priorities right now," I said gently.

"Don't worry about. Now let's get you out of here," Shadow added.

We stood back and gazed up at the Saw-like contraption. "We just need to pull her over here without breaking the line..." I said quietly. "Could you hold the rope in one place at the top and then pull her over with the other hand?"

He looked the system up and down, contemplated for a moment and then nodded. "You'll have to catch her."

"It's alarmed too!" she yelled.

"We'll keep that in mind."

Shadow raised one hand blended it into darkness and then shot it out to just below the line of the laser. Then he did the same to the other hand and looped it around the cord at Sheira'swaist. Then began the tensest game of Don't Touch The Line of all time. Shadow tugged at the cord, making minute movements between each pause. I crouched low, half keeping an eye and him and half coiling myself like a loaded spring just in case I needed to make a frantic dive for her. Sheira kept lookout.

This continued for about five minutes until the sense of imminent danger could be sliced through with a blunt butterknife. And it was going so well too. And then several events correlated to form one giant domino effect of disasters.

Firstly, bang! The door at the end of the hangar with such a force it scared the pigeons up in the rafters. Secondly, one of the flying rats hurtled past Shadow causing him to leap back. Thirdly, that jerking movement tugged at the cope which, of course, fell into the line of the laser which expertly trigger the saw to fall, slashing the rope and starting a shrieking alarm. Fourthly Sheira dropped like a stone screaming in pure terror as she did so. And last but most certainly not least I performed what could only be described as pure idiocracy. I threw myself after her.

I was ready to jump, that was the only reason my reaction time was fast enough to catch her mid-fall hands clasping desperately at the of bindings at her waist, but now I was going down with her. Tumbling into the lava with no way of stopping the fall. I closed my eyes, waiting for the searing temperature when a force at my back brought my momentum down to zero.

I whipped my head around and my mouth fell open. With one hand gripping onto the railing, joints visibly popping under the sheer strain of holding two people over a chasm of death, Shadow, sweat dripping down his face, wasn't going to let us go.

His face screwed up from strain and like goddamn Captain America holding onto a helicopter somehow dragged the two dead weights up and away from the pit of certain doom and threw us back over the side onto terra firma. No sooner had I felt the warm steel at my back I was up and sprinting towards him, Sheria hot on my heels to grab at his wrists and haul him to safety and then collapse into a pile of exhaustion.

I lay back and wheezed.

"Can't you two stay safe for five minutes?" Shadow's muffled voice emanated from somewhere.

My dad once told me that when the world gets on top of you sometimes all you can do laugh and right now that fit the bill perfectly. The three of us, sprawled out of the floor like rag dolls that had just had a good kicking from a tantrum-throwing toddler, lay back and bust into exhausted, near-hysterical laughter. There's something scientific behind it that I can't be arsed remembering but you get the gist. We're tired, and Shadow said something funny. I think we deserve a moment of peace.

"Well, well, isn't this a lovely sight."

From a moment of peace, and dare I say happiness, to a surge of adrenaline that may as well have been delivered by syringe straight to my burning heart that sent the three of us jumping to our feet. Stood, arms folded and a slimy smile on his were Jack and Leo.

Jack looked just the same as when I had first met him outside the flat, spiky overly gelled hair, baggy tracksuit but this time there was a strange burn like mark on his jawline. It looked as if part of the flesh had been rasped away by hand. I glanced at Sheira. There was blood under her fingernails.

Leo looked just as miserable as always. His floppy black hair was still brushed over one eye, but this time he was in his official Army leather instead of a hoodie and jeans. Even though there was a slimy smile on his lips his voice was flat and monotone, devoid of anything that sounded remotely human and yet he was as flesh and blood as I was.

They weren't alone either. Two cronies kitted out in charcoal grey uniform stood obediently behind them, a chain in one pair of hands and a staff in the other. They didn't move. Neither did their leaders.

"Hello, again you two. Still alive I see?" Shadow spat.

The three former allies regarded each other cooly. Once upon a time they may have stood on the same side, but now it was clear to see that there was no love lost between the three of them.

"Unlike you, we are essential to our great General's plans. Not like a certain someone who runs from greatness," Jack glared at him. "And look where cowardice gets you, two children stumbling in the dark of there own stupidity."

"Funny," I said, "I could say the same thing about you."

There was no particularly violent movement from either of them but the muscle at Jack's eye twitched. I glanced behind me into the pit of molten metal. There was no way out, they were standing between the only exit and us. How were we going to get out of this one?

"Oh Shadow," Leo sighed, "we are on the edge of glory, standing on the shoulders of giants! You had power like no one had ever seen before–"

"That wasn't me. That was him," his voice cracked.

"Perhaps, but you have to admit it was pretty glorious."

Shadow didn't reply to that. We'd seen him kill, he was good at it, horribly good at it. What did glory look like to him? A Dark unleashed, to me that sounded like nightmare fuel, and it was his past, a red road that stretched out like a web, but it didn't have to go forward. We make our own future, its the only thing we can do. Live brilliantly, move on, regret nothing.

I took a step forward. "Go to hell. We don't want your glory. We don't want anything to do with you."

Leo scoffed. "Now you're letting children talk for you?"

"That's rich coming from the man who let a child take his eye," Sheira snapped back.

That struck a nerve with Leo at the same time a pang of realisation smacked me straight in the face. She did it. Sheira took Leo's eye.

"My dear, you have no idea what I plan to put you through." Flat but simultaneously filled with malice, there was hatred to Leo and it just happened to be directed to my friend. Meaning? If he tries anything I'm going to kill him myself.

However, it seemed Shadow was already one step ahead of me. "You want to hurt them, you'll have to go through me," he snarled. There was something new in his voice I noticed, something confident. Something powerful.

Leo shrugged. "Fair enough," and a roar of thunder raced from his clasped palms.

It was like a shockwave hurtling towards us that force us to dive out of the way from the cacophonous blast. I glanced over my shoulder at the iron railing that had been split open like it had been hit by a truck. Right, don't get hit by cheetah boy.

Speaking of the cheetah, it launched itself from nowhere and pounced on Sheira's shoulders but was thrown off by an expert shifting of her weight. It sprawled across the steel, lept up and was thrown aside by a wave of blackness. Jack ducked under it and jabbed a right hook at Shadow's jaw but he like a martial arts expert Shadow blocked it with his elbow and followed it by a boot to Jack's gut.

I sprang to my feet and faced down the two underlings. Two problems, they were a lot older and a lot bigger than I was. Fantastic but maybe, just maybe, I could use that against them. I flicked my amulet, the burning aroma of smoke indicating that Flame had joined the battle and then drew Incaendium. I didn't trust myself to not barbeque my allies in such a tight space but I could definitely kebab a few of these asshats.

"Right," I surveyed the two of them carefully, "who wants to go first?"

The one with the staff did the honours. He moved with frightening speed, propelled along by some form of wind blast that was emanating from his staff, almost exactly like Miles had done. He drove the weapon towards my feet only for it to slam into the burning metal of Incaendium which lodged into the wood so I could drive my elbow into the back of his skull.

Flame jumped onto his back, using his forward momentum to rip him off his feet and pull him tumbling forwards. He shrieked in pain from the lion's teeth burying themselves into his neck. Blood gushed from the wound as his howls echoed around the room.

I quickly peeked at Sheira. She was going fist to fist with Leo, her ice forming brutal boxing gloves as she threw blow after blow at his head. Leo was countering with expert precision and speed but couldn't do anything other than block. Ice was tearing at Sparks' fur sending a shower of snow and electricity into the air around the two tussling big cats.

The man with the chain looked like he bench-pressed tanks for fun and the weapon in question wouldn't have looked out of place at the Greencoast docks. Great! How the Hell am I going to deal with this?

The chain struck the sheet of metal beside me as I ducked out of the way, a sizable dent left behind that was at least three inches deep. Powerful, but lacking the same precision a sword did. Hmm...The chain struck again, lacerating a support beam in the process. He was frantic, berserker-like, he just wanted to hit me and the mess could be cleaned up later. Maybe that would work. If it didn't I was going to get torn in half but battles don't get won by playing it safe.

I sprang up towards him, driving Incaedium down. Those beady black eyes lit up like two polished obsidian lumps, and the chain swung towards me. Yes! He took the bait! I pulled Incaedium into the path of the chain, one link catching my hand, the sudden pain almost causing me to drop my weapon but I hung on.

"Do it!" I yelled.

You got it, Icaendium replied as he released the full power of the Vulcan Star into the chain.

I watched grinning like a madman as the golden flames charged down the length of the steel engulfing the soldier's hands and arms in pure elemental wrath. He roared like a wounded bear, muscles spasming and weakening so the chain could be ripped from his blast and into my now outstretched hand. He barely had time to react as the heavy metal whip caught him on the hinge of his jaw. Judging from the way he spun like a top that did the trick but I still plunged Incaendium into his thigh. The wound was cauterized instantaneously and he didn't get up.

I turned just in time to witness Jack being flung against a wall and a torrent of dark jabs pummelling his slender frame with unrelenting rage. His cowardly parrot was nowhere to be seen but that didn't concern me right now. What did concern me was that Sheria was locked in a grapple with Leo that was steadily creeping closer to the torn railing to the molten metal below.

Oh no, you don't. I knew Sheira was watching my every move, that was the only reason why she jumped as I tossed the chain across the corrugated iron towards their feet. Leo saw at the last possible moment and tried to hop clear but his feet were just caught on the metal, taking his legs out from underneath him.

A mass of hollering baggy tracksuits was tossed over the railing by black tendrils. Jack didn't fall. With a flick of his wrist, he had shifted into his Beast form and sailed over the molten liquid instead of becoming KFC. Ice and Flame were pulling chunks off the yowling Sparks, blood gushing like it was being fired from a power washer and coating their fur with red.

We needed to go. There had to be reinforcements coming, they couldn't have gone in alone. And only four people against us, no correct that, against Shadow. We needed to get the hell out of dodge. Now!

"Come on!" I yelled, gesturing towards the open hangar door.

Sheira nodded, "got it!"

Shadow paused at the moment, gazing down at the whimpering Leo, his breathing heavy and laboured. Oh god please don't decapitate him, there's been enough bloodshed for one day and we really didn't need to piss off the big boss more that we had already done.

"Shadow!"

He looked up at us, then back down to Leo. For a second, just a second his fingertips morphed into black claws, poised and gleaming. And then they retracted.

"Yeah, ...lets go."

He looked back at Leo one more time before he took one step towards us. And then a blade burst through his chest.

Sheira and I both let out a shriek of alarm as Shadow looked down at the curved, glass coloured blade that had split his sternum in half. He seemed confused and then he coughed and scarlet blood coated his lips. It didn't look real, it couldn't be, I'd never seen him bleed, you just didn't think it was possible. It wasn't possible!

A streak of orange morphed back into Jack, a tall lanky form who advanced on the stunned Shadow, a shiny silver object in one hand that I'd only seen in movies.

"NO!"

Too late.

BANG!

The shot reverberated around the steel walls as Jack drew back the handgun, the barrel still smoking, moving just enough to let me see the empty black hole between Shadow's eyes. Leo pulled the sword awkwardly, steel scraping against bone and stepped aside. Now limp and lifeless my friend rocked on his heels and fell back, tumbling into the molten pit below.

It was shot to the gut before being drenched in ice-cold water.

Sheira was screaming next to me but all I could do was stand there, numb.

So the rules still applied. You want something put down, you shoot it in the head.

Leo flicked blood off the weapon, limping and wincing in pain. He jabbed the sword at the henchman who was being mauled by Flame. "You, go seal the vat. We don't want our little friend crawling back out of there."

"You just shot him..." Sheira whispered, not talking to anyone in particular.

The mauled soldier scoffed. "Oh come on, you really think he's getting up from that?"

"JUST DO IT!" Leo screamed.

The guy tripped over his own feet to get away. "Alright, alright, I'm doing it, I'm doing it."

Jack kicked the other one who remained firmly unconscious and glanced to the spot the soldier had just been stood. "Do you think that's actually done it?"

Leo didn't respond instantly. "Head and heart at the same. That usually does the trick." He shook his head like he was trying to drive out a bad thought. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. We've got what we need."

His eyes flicked towards us and this time all I could see in them was this crazy glint that sent my stomach spiralling.

"Yeah, I think the boss is going to be very, very pleased with us."

Instinctively I leapt forwards, arms outstretched in front of the still trembling Sheira. There was supposed to fire in my hands but not even a spark pushed through my skin. Perhaps my hands were shaking too badly to light anything.

Leo looked scornfully at my pathetic act of bravery and howled with laughter. "After all that you think you can do anything to harm us?"

"No," I stuttered. "But this is better than nothing."

Jack snorted from over Leo's shoulder, "you really are pathetic, aren't you."

The smile had dropped from the scarred boy's face. "Whatever let's just get out of here."

The two of them grabbed at us. We were hauled to our feet, kicking and lashing out but was all we could do. Flame and Ice were pinned under Sparks and Monsoon and Jack had a gun. I'd fancy my chances against a sword over a gun any day of the week but even so, we'd come too far to give up now.

Over the din of screaming insults and curses came the sound of someone hurrying up the stairs. At one point the owner of the feet fell over with a dull thud before scrambling up onto the landing. It was the henchman and he honestly looked like he'd seen a ghost. His face was so drained of colour and drenched in sweat he resembled a piece of raw cod at the fishmongers. His eyes were so wide and white his pupils were just pinpricks and he was shaking like he was on the verge of passing out.

"What wrong with you?" Leo snapped.

The henchmen were having trouble forming a coherent sound, let alone a sentence. "H...h...it...g...go..not..."

"For god's sake man speak up!" Leo barked impatiently.

The henchman looked straight at him, his terrified eyes locking with Leo's lone one, took a deep breath and said, "he's not there."

"...what?"

Was that panic I heard?

The henchman went to clarify but never made it to his next word. All at once over twenty blades pushed through his flesh and bone (Imagine that scene from Final Destination 5 only a thousand times worse). His lungs and heart were pierced instantly as he was given one moment to spasm helplessly and then his head lolled forward, eyes glazed over as his life faded from view.

The blades were made from solid shadows.

Leo and Jack shrieked in alarm, shoved us to the ground and backed away from the floating corpse. Driven by some unseen hand the body was tossed aside, slipping over the floor and over the edge of the railing to burn in the molten metal. The tendrils slithered back to their master and for a second we all watched transfixed, some of us dared to hope in the impossible while the others begged for the opposite.

And then came a hand. Chared and flecked with cooled lumps of metal it pulled itself upwards and over the edge. I gasped. The form was gradually healing its broken skin, bone vanishing under knitting flesh and muscle. The hole in his chest and heart were gone, impossibly gone, and those eyes were blazing like my own fire.

"Don't you think someone would have tried that already?" said Shadow.

Leo and Jack were in full-scale panic mode. The two generals screamed and bolted for the nearest exit but our smoking friend wasn't about to let them go easy.

Jack shifted into Monsoon faster than any transformation I'd ever seen which was lucky for him or else he would have been turned into a pincushion by the cloud of thorns that pierced the reinforced steel like a hot knife through butter. The bird flew upwards at breakneck speed through a skylight and into the evening air.

Leo made for the stairs but couldn't dodge the whip of blackness that slammed into his chest and pinned him against the wall. This was quickly followed by hammer-like fists pummelling into the emaciated frame before them. Leo was pummeled again, and again, and again until his face more closely resembled strawberry jam with the chunks left in than a human being.

Summoning whatever strength he had Leo slammed his hands together, unleashing a rolling wave of thunder into Shadow. He sidestepped it but that one moment of broken concentration was all Leo needed. He lurched forwards took one last panicked, terror-filled look at Shadow took a strange cigar-shaped object from his pocket and snapped it in half. He was immediately engulfed in thick purple smoke and even though Shadow ran to stop him it was too late. Leo had vanished.

They'd gotten away.

But now without the distraction of near-certain death all attention turned to the man who was still alive after being very much dead. Any doctor will tell you that being shot usually does the trick but an insult to science itself Shadow stood in front of us very much still breathing. In fact the only evidence that he'd gone swimming in the tank of doom were his clothes which were just shreds at this point. But other than that there wasn't a scratch on him.

It was like it had never happened.

He leant back against the sturdiest part of the railing, his breathing laboured and heavy, and looked at us. Neither of us flinched but all we could do was stare straight back at him. Now I'm not a betting man but I had a feeling that we were both thinking the same thing, the same impossible reality that was staring us straight in the face. It was very unnerving, like trying to understand a paradox or the ending of Inception.

In the end, the universal anomaly was the one who broke the silence. "Let's just get the hell out of here."

And that we did.