‘We need a fast way down,’ said Vaughn as the tornado in the air and stampede on the ground reached a crescendo. ‘Think!’
‘A giant airbag?’ said Sandie. ‘The kind of thing you see stunt men jump on to from tall buildings?’
‘Too unpredictable,’ said Vaughn. ‘What if one of us lands badly and breaks a leg, or worse? What if one of these flying beasts swoops past in mid-jump and picks us off as lunch?’
Em stared up at the spires and towers, the nooks and crannies of the gruesome gorge. They couldn’t stay up here.
Em suddenly remembered a construction site at one of the old mansions in Kensington Gardens.
‘A slide!’ she said. ‘Like those long tubes they use on demolition sites to get rid of rubbish and debris.’
A million sets of eyes stared down at the four of them, the beasts of the air watching them as if they were field mice. Em grabbed Vaughn’s sketchpad and animated a tubular slide, fusing it on to a thick root jutting out of the rock face. The tube extended like a telescope, one section expanding from another in whirling cracks of light, until the last tube hit the distant ground with a hollow clang.
‘Sandie, you go first down the chute,’ said Vaughn, sketching at the same time as Em. ‘As soon as you reach the bottom, clear out of the way and get inside that for safety.’
He pointed to a cage on wheels that he’d animated round the airy cushion at the bottom of Em’s slide.
Sandie wriggled into the tube first. She disappeared almost at once. Em followed.
The ride was breathtakingly fast. Em rocketed in a wide spiral down to the bottom of the gorge, slewing from side to side, the tube walls a blur. She emerged with a gasp in the cage Vaughn had created, bouncing next to her mother on the cushion. Zach and then Vaughn exploded from the tube behind her, almost cartwheeling into the cage bars.
Way above them, a dragon shot out of a crevice, spewing fire at the very spot where they had been standing moments earlier. The edge of the tube caught fire.
‘What the—’
Vaughn gave an exclamation as the paper in his hand burst into flames. They could only watch as the tube, their protective cage and the drawing flared away to nothing, leaving them alone and defenceless on the rocky, bloodied ground.
The ground trembled. An overwhelming stench of rotting flesh and sewage gusted down the nearest tunnel, causing all four of them to gag and cover their noses.
Through the gloom, a hulking shape was moving slowly towards them.
We have got to move from here fast, Zach. Something really bad is coming. I can feel it.
And then Em heard a familiar shout, deep in her mind.
OH… MY… GOD… EM! Am I hallucinating, or is that your obnoxious voice I can hear?