The cacophony from the Production Floor had reached a fever pitch. Something very large and very heavy was thrashing wildly around above their heads. The lighting had dimmed again and returned to the blue glow that it had been before. However, as George and Rick clambered back up to the catwalk above the cavern, they could see one brilliant source of light. The staircase leading up to the Production Floor glowed with a fierce, furnace-like incandescence.

"What are we going to do up there?" George said, "If we go up that staircase, we're gonna fry! It's too late to do anything, Rick! We're just too late!"

To punctuate this something very large crashed to the floor above and wreckage tumbled down the stairwell. The remains of a gantry now blocked their way up and those spars and struts glowed with the white heat of steel straight from the forge. There was now no way past that superheated barricade.

"I see your point," Rick agreed.

As they looked at the staircase the same tendrils that had pulled Munro to his death emerged from the floor above. Seemingly disembodied, they felt their way over the ceiling around the staircase opening, as well as over the burning remains of the gantry. A low, rumbling growl emanated from the opening that sent wild vibrations through the catwalk and deep into the two men, knocking them off their feet. Something broke beneath them and the catwalk took a wild lurch to the left.

"We have got to go!" George shouted over the noise of the dragon. He began to crawl on his hands and knees in the direction the children had taken.

Rick looked back at the staircase. Was that a snout he could see pushing at the twisted mass of white hot girders? The tendrils he had seen seemed to emerge from it like whiskers. The snout kept pushing at the girders, which wedged as they were at the foot of the steps, stopped the dragon investigating any further. A frustrated scream tore from the dragon and the snout whipped out of sight. There was a short pause as Rick wondered what the dragon would do next. He didn't have to wait long.

Like a jet of liquid steel, a blast of flame stormed the barricade, melting girders like butter in a matter of seconds. The steps collapsed in a steaming, smoking mass, freeing the exit from the Production Floor from the obstruction.

"Run!" the two men yelled at the same time.

Rick glanced over his shoulder as they clattered along the catwalk. Like some dreadful apparition from a nightmare, a long whiskered lizard-like head projected from the ruined stairwell. It turned this way and that on a sinuous neck, long tendrils from the tip of its snout reaching out to the nearest projections and surfaces, caressing them, burning them. It smoked, it was aflame and it radiated intense waves of scorching heat that Rick could feel on his back as he ran. It was like no dragon that Rick had ever seen in a book or a movie. It was not like some bat-winged dinosaur, it was more like a blast furnace made flesh. A spirit of fire had climbed out from Hell.

Turning its head, the beast spied the running men. Eyes like burning coals narrowed and its mouth opened wide to pour forth another torrent of searing liquid fire.

Rick and George made the safety of the emergency exit as the catwalk collapsed under the assault of the dragon's flame. The two men didn't stop for a minute, nor look to see what the dragon did next, nor pause on any landing to catch their breath. They had seen what Hell was and knew that to wait for even a moment was to invite death.

Bursting from the open door into the outside world, they ran from a world of smoke, heat and sulphur into one of driving rain.

They paused, hands on knees, gasping for breath as the rain streamed over them, soaking the two men instantly.

"That went well!" Rick retched, as his body tried to recover from the frantic burst of unaccustomed exercise.

"Yeah, we totally slew that dragon!" George panted, then asked, "Where now?"

"That way," Rick coughed, waving vaguely at the path. "Let's go that way," he added when he saw the fork in the path. The two men headed down the slope into the forest, in the opposite direction to the children.

***

For a moment Savanarolova believed that her race was run. The burnt men in front of her, who eyes and heads were alight with a bright blue flame, blocked the tunnel out of the bunker. As she stepped back, preparing to run back into the complex something about the way they stood delayed her flight.

They were still. Their eyes flickered and their heads moved snake-like, as one, to follow her movements. Savanarolova felt that she was being watched by a particularly dangerous viper.

Although shaken, as well as terrified by these spectres, her own impatience got the better of her. "Well?" she demanded. "Get on with it then! I'm not getting any younger!"

A sibilant voice hissed from the lead figure, "Fool! We do not want to consume you! If we did then we would have done so! We are as one and so you will serve us!"

The creature stepped forward over the threshold of the bunker. As soon as it passed through the door, it erupted in blue fire which flared out from its head and engulfed its limbs and torso. The unearthly flame gave off an intense heat that seemed to burn all the way into Savanarolova's mind. She cringed as it neared her but instead of running she sank meekly to her knees, unable to control her surrender. It reached down to her with twisted, charred fingers. Savanarolova noted with a detached interest the flames that flickered across the hand like flashes of distant lightning, just before the spectre pressed it to her cheek.

Searing pain exploded in her face as her flesh burned. She screamed in agony but was unable to pull away from the cursed creature. Her mind filled with swirling images of pain, death and tortured screaming. Faces in flame flashed past her eyes. Young Japanese and American men, horribly mutilated, succumbed to the same touch of the Dragonkin, as she now knew these creatures called themselves. She saw the last moments of her mercenary band, screaming defiance as the Dragonkin bore down on them. She shared in the memory of their slaughter and felt the surge in power within every Dragonkin as each man's soul was stripped from his body, devoured in a frenzy of hunger and assimilated into a kind of hive of the damned. She could feel them, distantly, as if shrieking from an unfathomable abyss.

"You are ours! Seek out our brothers and sisters! Gather them together! Save them!" Each time the voice spoke, it felt as if her mind as writhing in a cauldron of fire. She screamed with agony. "Leave this island and await us! Our mark is upon you. We will find you wherever you may be."

Savanarolova slumped, drained of will and resistance, her face burning with agony. Nodding submissively, she held plunged her face into her hands in an attempt to sooth away the pain, as well as the memory of those men, slaughtered like cattle. She was barely aware of the Dragonkin as they stepped past her, progressing further into the bunker, giving her as much attention as they would to a fly. She had been made to look at herself through the window of the Dragonkin's eyes and she had seen her insignificance. In one moment, her schemes, her plans and her desires had been swept aside and made subservient to the will of the Dragonkin.

Gradually, she became aware that she was alone. Suddenly startled by her isolation, she sprang to her feet and ran out to the lakeside. Leaving the bunker, leaving the crater, leaving Solitude became her most fervent wish. Running through the driving rain she became aware of a wellspring of power within her. Like an ember from a fire, she could feel it pulse and she knew that it beat in harmony with the Dragonkin. She could sense the potential untapped within her. An ecstasy coursed through her and as she ran, she screamed her defiance up at the sky, the mark of the Dragonkin's hand fading slowly on her face. She had survived!

***

Going down the remains of the mountain path took them a lot less time than they thought. Someone had obviously kept it reasonably clear of plant growth and the children certainly did not have to fight their way through vegetation as they had done only the day before. Slipping in the slick, thick mud, they made excellent progress. At one point, soon after their encounter with J J Jones, they emerged onto another ledge, about halfway down the volcano.

Sandbags had been used to build a low wall, several feet thick. This emplacement was shrouded in thick camouflage nets, suspended from the trees around on long ropes. In the centre of the construction, overlooking the bay, where the Catalina could be glimpsed far below, was a green steel tube on a thick metal base, supported by a heavy-duty tripod.

"What's that?" Carmen asked, puzzled.

"I think we've found what was firing at us when we escaped from the Cat," said Charlie. "That's a mortar."

"A what?"

"A mortar. It's a kind of cannon for lobbing bombs down on people. I think that's what was used on us. I mean, look at where it's pointing."

It was hard to argue differently. The huge weapon was undoubtedly pointing towards the beach where they had disembarked the mercenaries.

"Who shot at us? Do you think it was Suzuki?" mused Carmen.

"Dunno, but look at the size of this thing," Charlie said as he looked down the muzzle of the weapon.

"Yeah, it's pretty big. Why don't you stick your head down it and we'll see if there's a shell in there which we could fire!" a familiar voice rang out cheerfully from the other side of the emplacement.

Charlie's heart raced with excitement. He'd know that voice anywhere. A kind of wild joy burst from him in an excited shout, "Trev! Trev!" He bounced over to where his friend had been sitting, partially obscured by the mortar. "I thought you were dead! I mean...I thought..." Words failed him but his old friend smiled.

"It's all right, Charlie! Calm down you mad git! I'm still dead but I've not gone yet."

Charlie halted in front of his friend and grinned happily. He did a kind of little skipping dance that reminded Carmen of something that one of her little brothers might do on their birthday. She smiled too and then she her breath caught in her throat. She could see a dim shape, an outline of someone that seemed to be composed of mist, or smoke, that sat on the sandbags before Charlie.

"Oh, my God!" Her jaw fell. "I can see him, Charlie. I can see Trev!"

The outline of the figure's head, through which she could quite clearly see the treetops beyond, turned in her direction. A faint, wispy hand raised and gave her a casual wave, almost indistinct in the gloomy daylight. It was like looking at a shadow that was cast across the falling rain. "Hi, Carmen, how you doing?" she heard faintly, like a whisper carried beneath the steady pattering of the rain.

"Er...fine, thanks! And you?"

The wraith nodded, "Cool!"

Charlie couldn't wait any longer. He almost burst with his need to ask Trev what had happened, "Never mind that now! It's not like you've not been introduced already!" He turned back to his friend, who it had to be said looked a lot better than he had previously. In fact, Trev almost looked like he was glowing with health. "What happened, mate? Where did you go? What were those blue things? My Dad says they're call janjanbi or something. Boy, have we seen some freaky, weird stuff. You wouldn't believe it if I told you! We've even met some other dead guys and a crazy Japanese bloke!"

Trev smiled, "You met Mr Suzuki. He's all right. Goes on a bit but then he doesn't really talk to anyone else apart from the dead blokes in the bunker. I had a chat with him several days ago. It was him that told me to be careful of the blue weirdies."

"He's a git who locked us up!"

"I'm sure he had his reasons. After all, a few minutes in your company and most people want to lock you up, Charlemundo," Trev said as he slipped off the sandbags and walked over to his friend. "There's something I've wanted to do for a while and I might not be able to do it for much longer, Charlie." Tears stated from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He slipped his arms around Charlie's shoulders and hugged him.

Charlie was amazed. He could feel Trev's arms over his shoulder and in response he returned the hug, "I miss you, mate!"

The ghost nodded, sniffed and then wiped his eyes, stepping back from Charlie. "That's enough of that girly stuff!" he coughed. "There's things that need to be done and I've got to help you get away."

"What's to be done, Trev? You can't hang about here, there's a dragon loose inside the volcano and it wants to get out."

"A dragon! Have you been drinking, Charlie? A dragon?"

"No!" Charlie protested. "There really is a dragon. You can ask Suzuki if you don't believe me, since he's your new best mate!"

"Come on, mate! Don't be like that. Why not tell Old Trev all about it?"

Together, Carmen and Charlie related their adventures to the ghost. Intermittently, Trev would whistle disbelievingly, to which Charlie would glare angrily at him but pressed on with his story.

"So up there's a genuine, fire-breathing dragon?"

"Yep!"

"And so is old Mr Suzuki, and the dead soldiers?"

"Yep!"

"Right, I'm off. I've got places to go and people to see!" Trev exclaimed. "When I left you up at the top of the volcano, something happened to me. I'm not sure that I can explain it but I couldn't stand the thought of you being...being eaten by those blue weirdos. Somehow that anger spilled out as a kind of force or power and it chased the blues away."

"That's what gave us the time to get away from them," Charlie said.

Trev nodded and continued, "It didn't just make me able to annoy freaks, it's given me a kind of understanding of what's happened here. Everything is kind of stuck. Humans don't really die. Their bodies do but their spirits don't. They have to die too to move on." When he saw their blank faces he paused and collected his thoughts, "I don't think I'm explaining this very well. I think that this is all because of the dragon. When it was trapped, the souls were trapped. The blues are connected to the dragon but I'm not sure how. I can sense them and their really excited about something. If the dragon's free then perhaps the souls will be free too."

Charlie shook his head, "Suzuki said that if the dragon was free it would consume everything! It eats souls, Trev!"

"Then someone has to free the souls before the dragon gets to them." Trev said quietly. "I think that might be my job. I think that's why I could stop the blues. I can do something to slow them down."

"What? What can you possibly do to slow down a pack of ravenous monsters or a flippin' red hot T-Rex?"

"I don't know, mate, but I know I can do something. I'm sure I'll figure something out. The other night, sitting with you in the hole under the tree I thought about how life is just unfair for some people. Did you know that there was a dead body in there with us? There wasn't much of it, but I had a chat with a very upset bloke from Idaho, or somewhere like that, in America. I couldn't get much out of him apart from the fact that he pretty much hated everyone for leaving him there in the state he was. Then it hit me: who knew what had happened to this guy? Had his family had a chance to say goodbye? See him buried? Did I want to stay trapped in a world of hate and confusion, like him? For ever?

"I forgave myself then."

"You forgave yourself? What do you have to forgive yourself for?"

"For being so bloody thick and getting myself killed! For causing all that grief for my family! I could have looked behind me when I ran out into the road but I didn't!"

"That wasn't your fault! It was Darren's!"

"Yeah, and who got him so narked off? If I hadn't been so flippin' clever then maybe I would still be here. I mean here properly. With blood...and able to eat stuff...and," Trev said and looked up the slope at the great ash cone above them. "What I'm saying is that I think I can help some of the guys up in the volcano. They need to let go, to forgive the people who killed them, for trapping them here, for cutting short their lives, for killing off their chance at happiness."

He smiled oddly and Charlie was reminded of stained glass windows depicting saints that he had seen on a school visit to a local church. He looked very peaceful. Somehow, Charlie knew that Trev had to go and that it was right that he did.

"I've got to go, mate. I'll see you around, yeah?"

"Yeah," Charlie mumbled, afraid to say more in case he broke down.

"Year...er...right then, I'll be off," Trev turned to leave and then turned back as if remembering something. "Charlie, about Darren?"

"Yeah?"

"You've got to forgive him. He didn't kill me. He was just a prat."

"Oh."

"And you've got to forgive yourself. You're my best mate, and you always will be. We had great times! Think on them and be happy. You didn't kill me, it was the Number 49 to Brockley High Road. I don't want see you unhappy, Charlemundo. Forgive yourself."

With that, Trev smiled one last time, waved at Carmen, who, glimpsing the gesture waved back uncertainly, and then melted away into the rain.

---

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