I waited for hours. My plan, what little I had, was to stay in hiding until the first sign of inactivity, at which point I would leap into action. Trouble was, wherever this box was located turned out to be a bustling place, and I ended up wishing I'd stowed a packet of crisps somewhere about my person.

So I listened, attempting to glean whatever I could from the conversations that filtered through the cardboard. I heard long lists of medical equipment being ticked off as it was unloaded, with plenty of names too long and full of Latin for me to make sense of. The haulers bitched and moaned and laughed and joked. I got a vague sense of an upstairs-downstairs dynamic – the men and women unloading the trucks didn't sound on the best of terms with the people they were unloading them for.

The other people who worked in this building sounded like science types. That fit with the equipment lists. Was this where they made their drugs?

I dozed a little. A cardboard box can be surprisingly comfortable when you're used to hunkering down in a car seat every night. Eventually all noise died down, and I awoke to tune in on people bidding each other good night, and welcoming the new shift in.

New shift? Ah, shit. Now was my chance to move, or I wouldn't get another.

It's not easy to gracefully exit a box, but I like to think I managed it. One swift motion up, casually swing the leg over, round the corner of a stack and now I'm just a regular person-who-was-never-in-a-box.

The night shift was definitely lighter on the ground, and it was much easier to stay out of sight until I found the door at the back of the storeroom.

I rattled the handle and groaned. Locked. Time to get creative.

Slipping behind another set of shelves, I picked up several discarded sheets of paper from the debris of packaging and smoothed them into a respectable sheaf I could carry, and pinched a ball point pen off one of the shelves.

Dodging between aisles when their backs were turned, I crept round to the unloading bay again. Here a youngish man and middle-aged woman were crushing empty boxes for recycling.

I cleared my throat noisily. They both jumped, certainly not expecting any company at this hour. 'Who the hell are–'

I interrupted immediately. 'Let's get this done quickly. I'm on a tight schedule and already running late. Your friends next door took forever to complete the audit.'

Their faces went white. 'Audit?'

I flourished the pen over the blank pages in my hand. 'I appreciate your assistance.'

There are certain Words of Power that the universe acknowledges as indomitable, and 'audit' is surely one of the most powerful. It strikes fear into the hearts of administrative lackeys everywhere. You don't always need a string of incomprehensible Latin to bend a person to your will.

The pair jumped to attention as I began listing off names of equipment I'd heard earlier. 'Where's your PPE store? How many surgical masks? I want to see all the petri dishes and volumetric flasks. Did a spectrometer arrive today? What's this mark on the box? Any damages? Who keeps track of inventory? No, this won't do.' I tutted loudly at a disorganised shelf of half-piled stock. 'I'll need to speak to someone inside, please.'

'We're just in the middle of unpacking that, actually.' They hurried after me anxiously. 'We'd've had it tidy if we'd known. No one said you were coming, see?'

I stopped short at the door I'd tried earlier, and switched my severe expression for a generous one. 'No one told you about the audit? You had no notice at all?'

'None, sir!'

'Now that certainly won't do. Listen chaps, someone's stuck their foot in it round here – and it's not you. You both look like hard workers. I won't mention any names, eh? But I need to talk to a manager and get this place ship-shape right away!' I lowered my voice conspiratorially. 'Between you and me, this mess could cost the company millions if they don't get on top of it sharpish.'

They nodded with pale faces. The lad unlocked the door for me. 'Um. The lab manager will have gone home for today, sir. But you'll find the overnight staff upstairs.'

'Thank you so much.'

I strode purposefully down the hall. The door clicked closed behind me. I halted and let my shoulders sag as I looked around properly. Very hospital-like hallways, all plain and clean with a lingering smell of disinfectant.

So, this was a lab?

I started cautiously into a section marked I tried every door handle – all locked – and peered into any window available. The few sights I gleaned were of chemistry gear; lots of funny-shaped glassware and incomprehensible apparatus. I wondered whether they were testing or making things here.

Goosebumps pricked on my arms and neck, followed by a tickle down my spine. A familiar kind of buzzing sensation filled my head. I was close to something unreal – or to something more real than real.

I traced the feeling to a particular door sealed with a keypad. Beyond my traditional lockpicking skills, then.

However, humans can be a bit predictable.

I started with 0 0 0 0 on the keypad. It blinked red and reset.

Hmm.

1 2 3 4

Still no good. Perhaps I was being a little optimistic. These were smart people, right? Scientists, and whatnot. They could probably be trusted to remember a security code.

Even smart people get lazy, though.

What was that date on the sign?

1 9 7 6

It flashed green and I grinned. There was a clack as the door opened and I stepped inside. The buzz intensified and turned into a whistling in my ears, like wind in a tunnel. It was difficult for my eyes to adjust to the scene in front of me.

A transparent tube reached from floor to ceiling. Thick cables attached to its base and cap, and snaked across the walls and into ducts where they disappeared from sight. A few wires connected the tube to a computer terminal which displayed a series of metrics over three screens. They seemed to be capturing data about the thing inside the tube. I skulked forward and stared.

If a whirlwind could look humanoid, this was it. Fine dust particles zipped along air currents to give the vague impressions of human shape – the contours of a torso, the line of a squared jaw – constantly shifting and reforming with every frenzied gust.

This was the source of the buzzing sensation in my head. The droning of it now filled the room.

'What are you?' I said into the ethereal hum.

The wind stilled suddenly in the tube. Dust motes collected into more features: a wave of hair and the hollows of eye sockets, but no mouth. Instead, it spoke through the air around me, entering my ears like a whisper of wind.

I AM SHU.

I AM THE DRY AIR OF DESERTS. I AM THE COOLING WIND OF THE OASIS. I AM THE FATHER OF GEB AND NUT. I HOLD APART THE EARTH AND THE SKY SO THAT LIFE MAY PROSPER.

'My god,' I said, and reiterated the thought to myself. 'You're a god, aren't you? I'll bet you're what hatched out of that phoenix egg of theirs.'

I HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED FOR MANY EONS.

'Looks like you're still imprisoned now. Or are you here by choice?'

Shu's form exploded against the glass. I stumbled back, expecting it to break. But it remained contained, now a furious squall within the tube.

THEY MURDER ME.

THEY DRAIN ME.

THEY FEED ME TO THEIR MACHINES.

'Yikes.' I inched away. I wasn't totally sure I was safe, despite the containment measures of Baines and Grayle. They must be mad, thinking they could incarcerate a demi-god. Thinking they could use it to their own ends. 'What's their purpose?' I asked. 'Do you know?'

If a breeze could sneer, it did so.

THEY STUDY ME. THEY FUNNEL ME. THEY SEEK TO CONTROL WEATHER WITH ME.

I shook my head, feeling for the door handle behind me. 'Utterly mad.'

FREE ME.

'Sorry pal. Above my pay grade.'

FREE ME

The words battered against my ear drums as I ran from the room and tore down the corridor. Whatever Baines and Grayles' nefarious plans might entail, I wasn't here to rescue demigods or other supernatural beings. I was here for Ang and her friends, and I couldn't afford to get side-tracked.

If only I could find them.

I spotted my next opportunity in an open doorway. Some kind of break room. A man in a white coat sipped coffee from a mug while staring idly at his phone. He was alone.

I wasn't going to be proud of this next stunt, but the encounter with Shu had severely rattled me. If that's what these people were willing to do to a god, then what might they do with a coblyn?

From the lining of my jacket, I pulled out the slim blade. It was an athame from my stick, a ritual knife inscribed with mystical symbols on the handle. The blade was going to be the important part, however.

I slunk up behind the unwitting coffee drinker and pressed the knife against his back. My other hand firmly gripped his shoulder. 'Put down your phone, and don't make any noise.'

He startled, sloshing coffee down his shirt. 'Wh-what are you–'

'Put it down, or this gets messy,' I said.

I could feel the way he tensed. Fight or flight, or cool-headed compliance?

Slowly, he placed his phone on the table.

'I suppose that's a knife?' he said in a very nearly calm voice.

'Bloody sharp gun, if isn't.'

'What do you want?' His face was reflected in the dark window of an office. He had a square jaw and prominent brow, and bushy sideburns that led into a neatly trimmed beard of grey stubble. The hair on the back of his head was flecked with strands of white.

'Tell me what you do here,' I said.

'I'm a scientist.'

'And what do you do?'

'Science.'

I didn't quite push the knife, but I did turn it against his back as a reminder. 'Listen, my good fellow. If you don't give me some useful answers this is going to go very badly. So you'd better change your attitude, sharpish.' It wasn't strictly a lie. Things would go badly – for me.

'I take samples from specimens,' he replied tersely.

'Specimens? Like that god you've got locked up down the hall?' I caught the way his eyes widened in the reflection. 'That's right, I know a thing or two. What do you make here?'

His hands flexed wildly at his sides. 'Drugs! Medicine! Exactly what a pharmaceutical company does!'

'How are you using a god to make medicine?'

He squirmed. 'That's not . . . The Preternatural Power Source is part of the bigger plan.'

'Bigger plan?'

'What do you want? Are you with the animal rights people? These aren't like animals, you know. They're preternatural quantum constructs!'

'You'd better start speaking English, pal.' I pressed the knife in a little harder. His reflection grimaced, though the eyes darted about for an escape line. I added another not-quite lie. 'I've got friends with me, elsewhere in your lab. So even if you got away from me now, you'd run straight into them. Your best bet is to answer my questions.'

'And then what?'

'I'll probably let you go. You can mosey on home and claim back compensation for a stressful work environment. Hazard pay, right? They'll give you a few weeks off to recover, I should imagine.'

He exhaled. 'We're helping the world, you know. I don't know what your agenda is, but you're on the wrong side.'

'Ha! I know there's something wrong with your medicine,' I hissed in his ear. 'I know it made a werewolf turn against her will. What's that about, huh?'

This seemed to genuinely stump him. His eyes met mine in the reflection, and a note of curious concern entered his voice. 'The Panaceatemol? It shouldn't . . . Well, it's not made for werewolves. But I suppose it might cure them.'

'What the hell does that mean? You can't cure lycanthropy!'

His lips pressed into a thin line. 'We might. We're still improving the formula. What happened to the werewolf, exactly?'

'She–' I caught myself. 'No, I'm asking the questions. This pana-whatsit, what does it do?'

'It cures people,' he said sourly. 'Have you heard of medicine before?'

'But what does it cure people of?'

'Everything!' Then he corrected himself. 'That's the aim, at least. The trials are going very well. We might be able to make a public announcement soon. Look . . .' He slowly raised his hands and inclined his head to the side, trying to look me properly in the eye.

'Can you imagine, finally, a cure for cancer in all its forms?' he said. 'To do away with childhood leukaemia, with Alzheimer's and HIV, with diabetes and liver failure and heart disease – and all the rest? We're on the cusp of all this. That's what panaceatemol is.'

I'd forgotten about the knife as I tried to process this. He must have noticed the lack of pressure from it, as he carefully stepped away and turned to face me.

'You didn't know this, did you?' he said.

I found myself staring blankly at his lab coat. An employee badge hanging round his neck declared his name was Rupert and he was a lab technician. 'Rupert' wasn't the right name for a maniacal villain, and his motives didn't sound like the machinations of an evil corporation. It was all wrong. 'And the . . . Egyptian demi-god back there?' I said, stilted. 'What's that grand plan?'

His eyes gleamed with a fervour that I found unnerving. 'Climate change. It's not there yet, but we can find a way to save the whole world. Do you see?' He stepped closer – the knife had dropped to my side. 'We might be able to adjust the very temperature of the earth. Control weather patterns to redirect storms, to end draughts. This is the way humanity survives. Are you so sure you want to destroy that future? To impede the cure for all ills – just in the name of saving a few anomalous organisms?'

I was sucked in, for a moment. Humans could be gods, I thought. We already very nearly are. We've taken reality and bent and reshaped it until the world suits us, multiple times over, pushing all other creatures out onto the fringe in the process.

Ang's people hid themselves away because humans took over their landscape; they couldn't keep up with modern machinery and the technology that took work away from them. Goron's knockers lived in abandoned mines because we'd farmed out all our mining needs to other nations: we created our own dearth of purpose for them to exist. The kind of creatures, people, beings, that make a living on the Black Market are now irregularities, striving to make a path for themselves in a world that's steadily leaving them behind.

What's an anomalous organism?

This thought punched my heart into my throat – and it was the wrong time to choke, because my science friend had pressed a button on the wall.

'Security!' he said urgently into an intercom. 'Armed intruder in the first floor break room! I repeat–'

'Shit.'

I dropped the knife – it was blunt anyway – and legged it.

I was halfway down the stairs when the lights cut off and an alarm began blaring. I stumbled the last few steps and banged a knee as I hit the floor in green-etched darkness. Urgent shouts echoed down the corridors, but it was impossible to pinpoint their direction. I was utterly disorientated anyway, so it barely mattered.

'This feels like overkill,' I said to no one. But then again, I had threatened a man with a knife and claimed to have multiple comrades infiltrating the building. Hopefully this panic would keep them busy.

I ran to the end of the hall; stopped short as I spotted flashlights hurrying past the corner. They didn't see me in the dark and ran on, barking orders into radios.

'Seal the doors.'

'Coming past Biolab 4 now.'

'Check cameras on the perimeter.'

'B1! B1! Targets sighted in area B1!'

Targets? They couldn't be referring to me.

Another crackle of radio and one of the flashlights separated from the pack. It turned back in my direction. 'Say again, Shane? Trespasser where?'

From my jacket I pulled the small tin monkey. I carefully wound the key and set it in the middle of the floor. Taking several steps away, I pressed my back into the wall and clamped my hands over my ears.

The torch light fell onto the monkey's grinning face. It drew apart its cymbals . . . and clapped.

'Thank you, Merouda,' I said as I leapt over the security guard's prone form. He moaned and clutched his head. I snatched up his torch and followed in the wake of his friends. They were shouting.

'Up ahead, there they are!'

'Hold up, release the koromo.'

The group drew apart in front of me, holding a lattice-like thing between them. Its edges stretched as if it was waking up, and then strained against the men holding it back. I flicked up my torch and saw small bodies hurrying around the corner, further down the passage.

Planted firmly between them and the living net, was Ang.

She clasped something in her fist.

She was winding up for a throw.

I ducked as it hit the ground and was spared a collision with anyone's hard bits as a seismic wave threw us all off our feet.

'Bloody hell,' I murmured, though the words distorted into drunk slurs in my ears. I rose amid a sea of groans and saw Ang also lurching to her feet. Her eyes locked with mine. 'Run,' I mouthed.

A brief hesitation – she wanted to say something. But her window of escape was closing fast. She gave me a curt nod and slipped away.

That just left me, all these sore security guards at my feet, and one Egyptian deity calmly staring me down.

* * *

Author's Note

That wraps up Ep. 9. This chapter looks like it will end up with some of the biggest revisions. In particular, Hansard's reasoning throughout needs some close attention. Which parts did/didn't hang well together for you?

Only one more episode to go! Who's ready to see how it all ends?!