We hit Williamstown Road and things slowed down a bit. This part of Melbourne is home to container terminals and all sorts of warehouses, so even at night the roads are thick with big trucks, B-doubles muscling up to B-doubles to make sure we get our cornflakes delivered to our supermarkets on time, otherwise we’d have riots on our hands.

Grey buildings line the sides of the road, warehouses, delivery centres, often with big yards for all the trucks. Petrochemical plants, too, with those big cylinders and globes full of stuff that’d probably burn really well.

Oh, come on, we’ve all thought it, haven’t we? Everyone has a little pyro, deep inside, is what I say.

Our destination was near the Yarraville Oil Terminal, the very border where the residential area began. Cheaper than the rest of Yarraville, and as long as you didn’t mind the smell of napalm in the morning, not a bad place to live.

We cruised past the address and Rani let me take in the buildings that stood out in this neighbourhood of mostly 1950s and 1960s houses, with some recent townhouses thrown in. Our target was a series of linked modern portable buildings that had obviously been erected not long ago.

‘Looks like an office with some living quarters attached,’ I said. ‘Say what you like about them being a murderous cult, it looks as if they know how to move into a new area and set up business.’

‘It also says they have money behind them.’ Rani signalled at the next corner so we could go around the block and roll past again. ‘Any lights on?’

‘A few.’

We dawdled past one more time, which is probably a big no-no in the housebreakers’ manual, then we parked a little way up the street. This facility – I couldn’t call it a home, not really – was on a corner block, so we had a couple of avenues of potential entry exploitation.

Avenues of potential entry exploitation. After using jargon like that for a while, I always get an inexplicable urge to wear camo gear. And I hate camo gear. Clashes with my eyes.

Keeping to the shadows is second nature for ghost hunters, and we flitted around the rear of the nearest building, where the windows were mostly dark, rather than try an assault on the building that had most of its lights on. Sneaking up appeals more to me than the full-on frontal charge.

Hostile intruder alarm systems were neutralised and inress effectuated within seconds, thanks to our handy dandy ghost hunter amulets. Rani, naturally, took point position with her sword unsheathed. We both stopped inside the doorway with the door closed behind us, listening. I did my best to detect anyone creeping up on us from any direction, but all I could hear was the standard electrical hum – buggy lights, a heating system of some sort, maybe a screen or two that hadn’t shut down properly.

I could smell something, though; something that I was getting all too familiar with. ‘Blood?’ I whispered. Rani nodded. ‘Oh, lovely.’

Those little surveillance cameras were everywhere, and I was glad to see that our ghost-hunting magic had gone to work and their blinking lights were shut down. Yes, they’d know that someone had been in and messed with their stuff, but as long as they didn’t know it was us, that was cool. And if they were unsettled by the idea of some super-stealthy intruders who could wander in and poke around in their stuff, that was a good thing. Unsettled bloodthirsty maniacs were so much easier to deal with than totally relaxed and in-control bloodthirsty maniacs.

It was outrageous, though, the way they’d left lights on when they’d gone out. Mad and bad they might be, but how about a little eco-consciousness, guys?

Rani slid along the wall before peeking through the first open doorway. I did my best to mirror her on the other side of the narrow corridor that ran up the middle of the accommodation unit. The six doors opened onto narrow individual cubicles, and each one was totally empty. No bunks, no dirty robes on the floor, no Cultist Monthly magazines all over the place.

Rani was grim. I was beginning to actively hope that this was a wild-goose chase, but as soon as I started thinking like that the possibilities multiplied and started running around in my head. It was a trap, of course. Tonnes of explosives underneath the units. A pack of zombie ghosts on the roof ready to tear their way through. The walls attached to some sort of mechanical device so that, any minute now, they’d start to inch in and crush us.

When we got to the last door and nothing had appeared, moved or jumped out at us, my knees were on the verge of trembling, giving a minor shake now and then as a warm-up. Rani stood to one side, I stood to the other, and she swung it open.

I reeled back, gagging. Chains dangled from a heavy-duty steel beam that had been roughly installed, breaching the walls on either side at ceiling level.

No bodies, but dried blood spattered the walls of what had been a shower area and was crusted thick on the floor. I started breathing through my mouth, but that hardly helped at all, so I took a step or two away to give myself a bit of breathing space. That smell. It’s not coppery, or metallic, it’s – not to put too fine a point on it – meaty. If you’ve ever been in a butcher’s shop, you know what it’s like.

‘These people are fiends,’ Rani whispered. ‘We must put an end to them.’

I let out a breath I knew I’d been holding. I mean, of course I knew I’d been holding it. Who wouldn’t know they’d been holding their breath? It’s hard, not breathing, and it goes against years of habit, breathing in and breathing out being an essential part of staying alive. Besides, I was going red in the face with the effort. ‘Looks like they’re all out on the town or something.’

‘It’s the “or something” that I’m not chuffed about,’ Rani said. ‘Let’s see if we can at least get some idea what they’re up to.’

The door that joined the office block to the accommodation unit was a reinforced steel one, but the Ragged Sisters might have needed a refresher on security, because a heavy steel door is no use if you don’t lock it.

We pushed through and the metal door slammed behind us.

This time, it locked.