Necropolis

OCEAN TERMINAL

Nobody noticed the hearse as it swung out of the underground car park and began to make its way south towards Victoria Harbour. Everyone’s attention was on the building where Lohan and his friends had been found. The hearse emerged on the other side, turned left at a set of traffic lights and set off down the Golden Mile.

It never did more than ten miles an hour. If anyone had been watching it, the fact that it was moving so slowly would only have made it all the more unlikely that it was being used as an escape vehicle. But very soon it had left the crowds and the police cars behind. In the front, the driver and his assistant gazed straight ahead, their grim faces hiding their joint sense of relief.

For Scarlett, it was less easy.

She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t even move. She was lying on her back, trapped in a black, airless space with the lid bolted into place only inches above her head. She was completely at the mercy of her own imagination. Every time the car slowed down or stopped, she wondered if they had been discovered. Worse than that, she imagined a nightmare scenario where something had gone horribly wrong and she really was taken to a cemetery and buried alive. Every nerve in her body was screaming. She could hardly breathe.

After what seemed like an hour, she felt the car stop. She heard the doors open and slam shut. A long pause. And then suddenly a crack of daylight appeared, widening as the coffin lid was lifted off. A hand reached out to help her and gratefully she grabbed hold of it. Gently, she was pulled out like a corpse returning to life. She found herself trembling. After all she had been through, she wasn’t surprised.

Where was she? The hearse had been parked next to a fork-lift truck in a warehouse, filled with pallets and crates. There were skylights in the ceiling but it was also lit by neon strips, hanging down in glass cages. One of the men had hit a switch that brought a sliding door rumbling down on castors, but before it reached the floor Scarlett glimpsed water and knew that they were near the harbour. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Normally, she might not have recognized it – but there had been plenty of it around in the building she had just left.

The driver was already stripping off his jacket and black tie. The last time Scarlett had seen him, he had been wiping a bloody machete on a cloth up on The Peak. He had been the one with the backpack – long hair and glasses – and he was younger than she had first thought, in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt under the jacket and she noticed a tattoo on his upper arm, a red triangle with a Chinese character inside.

“My name is Jet,” he said. Like all the others, he wasn’t bothering with surnames. He spoke hesitant English but with a polished accent. “I will be looking after you now. This is Sing.”

The other man came over from the door and nodded.

“Where are we?” Scarlett asked.

“Still in Kowloon. This is our warehouse.” Jet walked over to one of the crates and pulled off the tarpaulin that half covered it so that she could read the words stencilled underneath. They were written in Chinese and English.

KUNG HING TAG FIREWORK MANUFACTURERS

“Fireworks…?”

“It’s good business,” Jet explained. “In China, we let off fireworks if someone marries and again when they die. The Bun Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Hungry Ghost Festival and New Year. Everyone wants fireworks! There are one hundred thousand dollars’ worth in this warehouse. I suggest you don’t smoke.”

“You want Coke?” the man called Sing asked. He still had his walking stick with the sword concealed inside. It had been inside the hearse, but he had yanked it out and carried it with him.

“We have a small kitchen and a toilet,” Jet said. “We have to stay here for a while.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-four hours. But nobody will find you here…”

“What about Lohan?” Scarlett had been worrying about him. She knew that it was her fault that he was in danger.

“He will come. You do not need to be afraid. Very soon you will be on your way out of Hong Kong.”

Lohan had spoken of four ways to get out of the city and he had dismissed three of them: the airport, the jet-foil to Macau, the Chinese border. What did that leave? Scarlett had seen the harbour. Perhaps they were going to smuggle her out on a container ship. First a car boot, then a coffin. These people wouldn’t think twice about packing her into a crate of fireworks and sending her somewhere in time for Bonfire Night.

Sing had gone into the kitchen but now he came back with three bottles of water and sandwiches on plastic plates. He was still wearing his undertaker’s suit but he had taken off the tie. The three of them ate, sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor. It was only when she took her first bite that Scarlett realized how hungry she was. She’d had little breakfast, no lunch and it was now six o’clock.

“It is not possible to take you out on a container ship.” Jet had seen her sizing up the crates and must have guessed what was on her mind. “There’s too much security. The ports are all watched day and night, and anyway, it will be the first thing that they expect. We will take you out in public, in front of their eyes.”

“How?”

He glanced at the other man who nodded, as if giving him permission to go on.

“Tomorrow morning, a cruise ship arrives in Kowloon. It will dock at the Ocean Terminal on the other side of Harbour City, just ten minutes from here. It spends a day in Hong Kong on its way from Tokyo to the Philippines and then Singapore. That is where it will take you. The ship is called the Jade Emperor and it will be full of wealthy tourists. You will be one of them.”

“How do I get on board?”

“For their own reasons, the Old Ones do not want the world to know that they have taken over this city. That is good. When the Jade Emperor ties up, they will have to be careful. There will be security but it will have to be invisible. They will not want to frighten the tourists. Everything will have to seem normal and that gives us the advantage. We will smuggle you onto the ship with the other passengers. And once you are there, you will be safe.”

“What happens when I get to Singapore?”

Jet shrugged. Sing muttered something in Chinese and laughed. “That is the least of your worries,” Jet said. “First of all, you have to survive tomorrow. And remember – there are a hundred thousand people who are looking for you. This is a trap and you walked straight into it. Now that you’re here, it’s not going to be so easy to get you out.”

He wasn’t being fair. Scarlett hadn’t walked into Hong Kong. She had been deliberately drawn in and there had been nothing she could have done to avoid it. But she didn’t argue. There was no point.

“We will disguise you,” he went on. “We will cut your hair and change its colour and we will dress you as a boy. You must learn to walk in a certain way. We will show you. There is a family joining the boat. Their names are Mr and Mrs Soong and they are part of our organization. Right now, they are travelling with their twelve-year-old son, Eric. You will change places with him and travel on his passport. By midnight tomorrow, you will be in international water and out of danger. Do you understand?”

“How will you make the change?” Scarlett asked.

“We have arranged to meet in a shop in Harbour City. The shop is also owned by us. It pretends to sell tea and Chinese medicine.”

“What does it really sell?”

Jet thought for a moment. He was reluctant to answer the question but for some reason he decided to. “Do you really want to know?” He smiled. “Normally it sells opium.”

Scarlett spent the night on a mattress behind a row of crates that the two men had arranged to form a private “room”. She barely slept at all. It was cold in the warehouse – there wasn’t any form of heating – and she had only been given a couple of thin blankets. Every night is trapped between the day before and the day after and she had never been so torn between the two.

She thought about the creatures she had seen coming out of the lift, the flies approaching the tower block and the people – were they actually living people? – who had followed her onto the roof. How could things like that be happening in a modern city – monsters and shape-changers and all the rest of it?

Then she turned her mind to the people she was with. Despite everything that had happened, she still knew almost nothing about them. There were lots of them and they were well organized. Lohan had spoken about them with reverence, almost as if they were a holy order. And yet she had just been told that they sold opium! Opium was a drug that came from the same source as heroin. Could it be that they were some sort of gangsters after all? They carried machine guns and hand grenades. And although they were helping her, none of them was exactly friendly.

Finally, she thought about the next day and the dangers it would bring, walking onto a cruise ship disguised as a boy. Would it really work and what would happen to her if it didn’t? As far as she could see, the Old Ones didn’t want to kill her. Father Gregory could have done that, and he’d made it clear he had other plans. For some reason, they needed her alive.

Lying on her back, gazing at the skylight, she watched night crawl towards day. In the end, she did manage to sleep – but only fitfully. When she woke up, her neck was aching and she felt even more tired than she had been when she began. Her two bodyguards were already awake. Sing had made breakfast, a plate of noodles, but she hardly ate. Today was her last chance. She knew that if she didn’t get out today, she never would.

Nothing happened for the next three hours. Jet and Sing sat silently, waiting, and for some reason Scarlett found herself trying to remember her lines in the school play. She had lost track of the date but guessed that it would be performed – without her – in a couple of weeks’ time. All the parents would be there along with some of the boys from The Hall. She thought of Aidan. And as she sat there, trapped in a warehouse full of fireworks, Dulwich seemed a very long way away and she wondered when, if ever, she would see it again.

And then Jet’s mobile phone rang. He snapped it open and muttered a few words into it, then nodded at Sing who went and unlocked the door. They opened it just a little bit, enough for Scarlett to see that it had stopped raining outside. Bright sunlight streamed in through the crack, lighting up the dust that hung in the air. Two more people came into the warehouse.

The first of them was Lohan. He went straight over to Scarlett. “Are you OK?” he asked.

Scarlett was relieved to see him. “How about you?” she asked. “What did you do with the pendant?”

“The pendant is on a flight to Australia. Hopefully the Old Ones will follow it there.”

“I’m glad you’re OK.”

“And I will be glad when you have gone.”

He gestured at the man who had come with him. He hurried forward, carrying a canvas suitcase about the size of a weekend bag. This man was quite a bit older than the others, wearing a crumpled cardigan and glasses. He placed the suitcase on the floor and opened it to reveal scissors, hair brushes, lots of bottles, pads of cotton wool. There were clothes packed underneath.

It was time for Scarlett to change.

Jet dragged one of the crates over and Scarlett sat down. The older man examined her for a moment, using his fingers to brush her hair back from her face. He nodded as if satisfied, then reached for the scissors.

Scarlett would never forget the way he cut her hair. She wouldn’t have said she was particularly vain, but she had always taken care of how she looked. There was something brutal about the way he attacked her, chopping away as if she had no more feelings than a tree. She looked down and saw great locks of her hair hitting the ground. Although she knew that it was necessary and that anyway it would all grow back soon enough, she still felt like a victim, as if she were being assaulted. But the man didn’t notice her distress – or if he did, he didn’t care.

He kept cutting and soon she felt something she had never felt before: the cold touch of the breeze against her scalp. He finished her hair with a scoop of Brylcreem, then set to work on her face, turning it first one way, then the other, his fingers pressing against her chin. There was absolutely nothing in his eyes. He had done this many times before. It was his business and he did it well. He just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

He painted her skin with a liquid that smelled of vinegar and stung very slightly, then added a few splodges with a thin brush. After that, he set to work on her eyes. Just when Scarlett thought he had finished, he muttered something to Lohan, the first time he had spoken. His voice was completely flat.

“He wants to put in contact lenses,” Lohan explained. “They’re going to sting.”

They did more than that. The man had to clamp Scarlett’s head while he pressed them in, the lens balanced on the end of his finger, and when he backed away the entire room was out of focus, hidden behind a blur of tears.

“Now you must get dressed,” Lohan said.

They didn’t allow her any privacy. The four men stood watching as she stripped down to her underwear and then the man in the cardigan dug a white, padded thing out of his case. Scarlett understood what it was. The boy whose place she was taking must have been quite a bit fatter than her. She slipped the pads over her shoulders and saw at once that she had a completely new body shape and that the slight curve of her breasts had gone. The man handed her a shirt, linen trousers, a blazer and a pair of black leather shoes that added about three centimetres to her height. Finally he gave her a pair of glasses. The disguise was complete.

“Look in the mirror,” Lohan said.

They had brought a full length mirror out of the kitchen. Scarlett stood in front of it. She had to admit that the transformation was incredible. She barely recognized herself.

Her hair was now short and spiky, held rigidly in place by the Brylcreem. Her eyes, which were normally green, were now dark brown, the colour magnified by the spectacles which were clumsy and old-fashioned, in plastic frames. There was a touch of acne around her nose. She had become one hundred percent Chinese; a slightly pudgy thirteen-year-old who probably went to an expensive private school and dressed like his dad. She even smelled like a boy. Maybe they had put something in all the chemicals they had used.

“Now you must practise walking,” Lohan said. “Walk like a boy, not like a girl.”

For the next two hours, Lohan kept her pacing up and down with slouching shoulders, hands in her pockets. Scarlett had never really thought that teenage boys were so different in the way they walked, but she was sensible enough not to argue. Finally, Lohan was satisfied. He crouched next to her. “It is time for you to leave,” he said. “But there is something I must tell you before you go.”

“What?”

She was alarmed, but he held up a hand, reassuring her. “There is a boy who is coming to meet you,” he said. “He is on his way already, travelling from England.”

Her first thought was that it was Aidan – but that was ridiculous. Aidan knew nothing about what was happening.

“His name is Matt.”

The boy out of her dream! The boy who had led her through the door at the church of St Meredith’s. Scarlett felt a surge of hope and excitement. She didn’t know why, but if Matt was on his way then she was sure that everything would be all right.

“He is not coming to Hong Kong,” Lohan went on. “It is too dangerous here. But he will be in Macau. He is being protected by the Master of the Mountain. He will remain there until he knows that we have been successful and that you have escaped. Then he will follow you and our work will be done.”

“Who is the Master of the Mountain?” Scarlett asked.

“He is a very powerful man.” That was all Lohan was prepared to say. He straightened up. “Don’t speak until you are on the boat. If anyone tries to talk to you, ignore them. When you are with your new parents, hold your mother’s hand. She alone will talk to you and you’ll smile at her and pretend that you understand. When you are on the Jade Empero r, she will take you straight to her cabin. You will remain there until the ship leaves.”

“Thank you,” Scarlett said. “Thank you for helping me.”

Lohan glanced at her and just for a moment she saw the hardness in his eyes and knew that whatever else he was, he would never be her friend. “You do not need to thank us,” he said. “Do not imagine that we are helping you because we want to. We are obeying orders from the Master of the Mountain. You are important to him. That is all that matters. Do not let us down.”

They opened the warehouse door and, remembering her new walk, Scarlett went out. She found herself in a concrete-lined alleyway. It was after five o’clock and the light was already turning grey. As she stood there, a car drove past and she flinched, afraid of being seen. But she was a boy now: the son of Chinese parents. Nobody was going to look at her twice. Jet and Sing had joined her. The three of them set off together, making their way towards the main road.

The alleyway came out at the very tip of Kowloon, where the Salisbury Road curved round on its way to the ferry terminals. The harbour was in front of them. Scarlett could see all of Hong Kong on the other side of the water with The Nail, the headquarters of Nightrise, slanting diagonally out of the very centre where it seemed to have been smashed in.

“Walk slowly,” Jet whispered. “If you see anyone looking at you, just ignore them. Don’t stop…”

They walked down the Salisbury Road, passing the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, a huge, white-tiled building that looked a little bit like a ski slope. The weather had changed again. The sky was clear and the evening sun was dipping down, the water shimmering silver and blood-red. Despite the horror of the last thirty-six hours, everything looked very ordinary. There were several groups of tourists on the promenade, enjoying the view. Crowds of people were pouring out of the terminal for the Star Ferry, on their way home. Young couples holding hands walked together. Newspaper and food sellers stood behind their stalls, waiting for business. A fleet of ships, all different shapes and sizes, were chugging back and forth.

And all the time Scarlett was thinking – what is real and what isn’t? Which of these people are shape-changers? How many of them are looking for me? She walked on between Jet and Sing, trying to behave normally but knowing all the time that there were a thousand eyes searching for her. She was already beginning to sweat with all the padding pressing down on her. It made it difficult to breathe.

They passed the Peninsula Hotel. Just a few days before, Scarlett had gone there with Audrey Cheng. They had sat down for tea and sandwiches. It felt like a lifetime ago. They turned into a wide avenue and she found herself walking past a police station. Two men came out, chatting together in dark blue and silver uniforms. Both of them carried guns. Scarlett remembered what Lohan had told her. The Old Ones controlled the police as well as the government and the civil service. These two men would have her description. If they recognized her it would all be over before they got anywhere near the ship.

But they didn’t. They continued past and it was only when they had gone that Scarlett realized she had stopped breathing. She felt completely defenceless, waiting for someone to shout her name and for the crowd to close in. A few inches of padding and a handful of make-up was all that stood between her and capture. She was terrified that it wouldn’t be enough.

Harbour City lay ahead of them. It was just another shopping centre, though much bigger than any she had visited with Mrs Cheng. They strolled in as if that was what they had always intended to do, as if they were just three friends out for an evening’s shopping. The interior was very ugly. It was brightly lit with small, box-like shops standing next to each other in corridors that seemed to go on for ever. They were selling the usual goods: jeans and T-shirts and sunglasses and souvenirs, with fewer famous names than could be found in Hong Kong Central and presumably lower prices.

They continued past a luggage store and there, ahead of them, Scarlett saw a neon sign that read TSIM CHAI KEE HERBAL REMEDIES and knew that they had reached the place where the exchange would happen. The shop was directly in front of them. It was filled with cardboard boxes and glass bottles. Three people were standing with their backs to the front door. A man, a woman and, between them, a boy.

The woman was plump with grey hair, dressed in black. The man was smaller than her, laden down with shopping bags, with a camera around his neck. Their son was dressed exactly the same as Scarlett. They were waiting while the shop assistant wrapped up a packet of tea.

Scarlett walked in. Jet and Sing didn’t follow her but continued on their way. At the same time, the boy walked forward, further into the shop and disappeared. The man and the woman stayed exactly where they were so that as Scarlett entered, there was a space between them. And that was it. A moment later she was standing between them. The woman paid for the tea. The shopkeeper handed over some change. The three of them left together.

A mother, a father and a son had gone into the shop. A mother, a father and a son walked out of it. As they left, Scarlett glanced up and noticed a TV camera in the passageway trained down on them and wondered if there was anybody watching and, if so, whether they could possibly have seen anything that might have aroused their suspicions. But for the first time, she was feeling confident. She was no longer on her own. She was part of a family now. She would be joining hundreds or even thousands of tourists returning to the Jade Emperor. Even the Old Ones with all their agents would be unable to spot her.

The family left Harbour City through a set of huge glass doors that brought them straight out onto Ocean Terminal. And there was the ship, tied to the quay by ropes as thick as trees. The Jade Emperor was massive, with at least a dozen decks, each one laid out on top of the other with two smoking funnels at the very top. The lower part of the ship was punctuated by a long line of tiny-looking portholes, but further up there were full-sized sliding windows that probably opened onto state rooms for the multi-millionaires on board. The Jade Emperor was entirely white, apart from the funnels which were bright green. Crew members, also in spotless white, were hurrying along the corridors, mopping the decks and polishing the brass railings as if it were vital for the ship to look its best before it was allowed to leave.

Scarlett examined her surroundings. The ship was on her left, blocking out the view over to Hong Kong, with a single gangplank, slanting down at its centre. On the right, running the full length of the quay, was a two-storey building lined with flags. This was the back of Harbour City, the shopping centre she had just visited. Between them was a strip of concrete about ten metres across, which they would all have to walk along if they wanted to go on board.

The way was blocked by a series of metal fences that forced passengers to snake round to a control point where half a dozen men in uniforms were checking passports and embarkation slips. The sun was beginning to set now, and although it still sparkled on the water and glinted off the ship’s railings, the actual walkway was in shadow. So this was it. Five minutes and maybe fifty paces separated Scarlett from freedom. Once she was on board the Jade Emperor, it would be over. Matt was waiting for her. Help had finally arrived. She would set sail and she would never see Hong Kong again.

The woman acting as Scarlett’s mother, Mrs Soong, said something and reached out for her hand. Scarlett took it and they began to walk towards the barrier. Nobody stopped them. Nobody even seemed to glance their way. They passed a restaurant with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows and tables and gas umbrellas outside. It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner so there was hardly anyone there, but as they continued forward Scarlett noticed a man with grey hair and glasses, sipping a glass of beer. He was partly obscured by the window but there was something familiar about him, the way he sat, even the way he held his glass. She stopped dead.

It was Paul Adams.

Maybe if she hadn’t stopped so abruptly, he wouldn’t have noticed her. But now he looked up and stared at her. Even then he might not have recognized her. But they had made eye contact. That was what did it. Even with the spectacles and the contact lenses, the strange clothes and the short hair, the two of them had made the link.

And Scarlett was glad to see him. For the past week she had been worrying about him, wondering if he was dead or alive. She had hated the thought of skulking out of Hong Kong without letting him know and if there had been any way to warn him what was happening, she would have done so. This was her opportunity. She couldn’t just leave him behind.

A second later, he burst out of the restaurant and onto the quay. He still couldn’t decide if it was really her. The disguise was that good. But then she smiled at him and he came over to her, his face a mixture of bafflement and relief.

“Scarly… Is that you?”

Scarlett felt Mrs Soong stiffen beside her. Mr Soong stopped, his face filled with alarm. None of the guards at the passport control had noticed them. Tourists were streaming past on both sides, taking out their documents as they approached the fence. Scarlett knew she would have to be quick. She was risking everything even by talking to him but she didn’t care. She felt a huge sense of relief. Her father was alive.

“Scarly…?” Paul Adams spoke her name again, peering at her, trying to see through the disguise.

“Dad…” Scarlett whispered. “We can’t talk. You have to leave Hong Kong. We’re in terrible…”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

To her horror, Paul Adams grabbed hold of her, dragging her hand up as if to show her off. His face was flushed with excitement – and something else. He looked demented. There was a sort of terror in his eyes. He was like a man who had just committed murder.

“It’s her!” he shouted. “I’ve got her! She’s here!”

“No, Dad…”

But it was already too late. The uniformed policemen had heard. They were already heading towards them. The tourists had stopped moving and in an instant Scarlett saw that half of them weren’t tourists at all. They began to close in, their faces blank, their eyes shining with triumph. More people appeared, pouring out of the shopping centre. Matted hair. Dead, white skin. Their mouths hanging open. Dozens of them. And the flies. They burst into the air like a dark geyser and spread out, swarming overhead.

“Dad… what have you done?”

He clung onto her, one hand on her wrist, the other around her neck, strangling her. Mr and Mrs Soong stood there, paralysed, then tried to run. The woman was the first to be brought down. One of the tourists grabbed her. A few seconds earlier he had looked like a grandfather, an Englishman enjoying his retirement. But the mask had slipped. He was grinning and his eyes were ablaze. He was holding her with terrible strength, his hooked fingers gouging into her face, forcing her down to her knees. Then they were all onto her. Mrs Soong disappeared in a crowd that was moving now like a single creature. Mr Soong had taken out a gun. He pointed it at one of the approaching policemen and fired. The bullet hit the policeman in the face, tearing a huge hole in his cheek, but he didn’t even flinch. He kept on coming. Mr Soong fired a second time, this time straight into the man’s chest. Blood spouted but still the policeman came. Mr Soong was trapped. He had nowhere to run. Scarlett saw him push the barrel of the gun into his own mouth. She closed her eyes a moment before he fired.

It was easy to tell who were the real tourists now. They were screaming, in hysterics, dropping their new purchases and scattering across the quay, unsure what was going on, not wanting to be part of it. A woman in a fur coat slipped and fell. She was immediately trampled underfoot by the rest of the crowd, trying to get past. Two men were knocked over the side into the narrow space between the ship and the quay. Scarlett heard them hit the water and doubted that either of them would ever climb out again.

Her father was still holding her. She couldn’t believe what he had done. He had deliberately told them she was there. He had been waiting for her all along. And she had helped him. There had been one final trap and she had fallen into it.

“I’m sorry, Scarly,” he was saying. “I had to do it. It was the only way. They’ve promised that they won’t hurt you, and my reward, the reward for both of us – we’re going to be rich! You have no idea how much power they have. And we’re going to be part of it… their new world.”

Of course he had been in it all along. He worked for Nightrise. He had invited her here, made her leave school early with no explanation. He had been skulking somewhere nearby, leaving her in their clutches. And finally he had been positioned here, just in case she tried to get onto the ship…

Scarlett thought of all the people who had tried to help her, all the people who had died because of her. Mr and Mrs Soong had spent just a few minutes with her but it had been enough. She had killed them.

She listened to this pathetic man – he was still jabbering at her – and she spat in his face.

Then someone grabbed her from behind. It was Karl. She didn’t know where he had come from, but the chauffeur was unbelievably strong. He lifted her into the air, then dashed her down. Her head hit the concrete so hard that she thought her skull must have cracked. A bolt of sheer pain ripped across her vision.

In the final moments of consciousness, she saw a whole series of images, flickering across her vision like an out-of-control slide show. There was Matt, the boy she had never met in the real world, on his way to Macau. There were the other three – Scott, Jamie and Pedro – gazing at her helplessly. There was the beach where she had found herself night after night. And there, once again, was the neon sign with a symbol that was shaped like a triangle and two words:

SIGNAL EIGHT

The letters flared in the darkness and looking through them she saw the chairman, Audrey Cheng, Father Gregory and, for one last brief moment, her father.

“It’s coming,” she managed to whisper to them.

Then the darkness rushed in, slamming into her like an express train and at that moment she felt something unlock inside her. It was like a window being shattered and she knew that she would never be the same again.

And five hundred miles away, in a place called the Strait of Luzon, between Thailand and the Philippines, the dragon heard her. It was there because she had summoned it. The dragon had been sleeping in the very depths of the ocean but it slowly opened one eye.

SIGNAL NINE

The letters burned in brilliant neon light. There was a symbol beside it, an hour glass and Scarlett almost wanted to laugh because she knew what it was saying. Time’s up. The countdown has begun.

The dragon began to move. Nothing could get in its way.

It was heading for Hong Kong.