My relief at seeing Dee was mixed with guilt at having left him behind. He’d been listening outside the cell door for the last fifteen minutes. He leant against the gantry railing, arms crossed. Looked pretty relaxed, all things considered.

“Dee, I am so sorry,” I said, forgetting for a second that I was still standing between two men who were dancing around the edge of killing each other.

Dee shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it, mate. I told you to get out of there. You did.”

“I didn’t want to...” I began, but Dee held up his hand, waving it off.

“Seriously, drop it,” he said. “I mean look it at this way: I finally got to do my job of protecting you, even if it was after you fired me.”

I smiled. Fair point.

“So, I take it things didn’t exactly work out the way we planned?” Dee continued.

“No. Victoria was playing me all along. She murdered Marian. The barrier has come down. Now the Pryces are onto the next part of their mad plan. Taking over the world. And it’s all my bloody fault.”

“Ah, don’t be so hard on yourself. You were trying to do the right thing. Anyway, that explains why I’ve been feeling so weird for the past hour. I felt it happen. Magical energy is starting to return to the world, seeping in through the cracks. I unlocked my cell door.”

“You used your telekineticesis thingy?”

“Telekinesis. Yeah,” Dee replied. “It’s just slightly stronger than before. Enough to turn a lock, maybe pull a few bolts back.”

“You unlocked your cell door?” George exclaimed, “Oh, no, that’s not right at all. You have to go back to your cell right now. I have to report this.”

“Yeah, right,” Dee replied.

George yelped as Wilson picked him up and deposited him at the far end of the cell.

“You, stay there,” Wilson said.

George opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and sat down on the floor, hugging his knees and looking up at all of us with pensive eyes.

“Telekinesis. Old school,” Balthazar said, “standard for a genie.”

Dee scowled.

“Get lost, yeah? Some of us didn’t feel the need to take a side in the war,” he replied.

“It’s called sitting on the fence,” Balthazar said dismissively, “But the genie’s right. I felt it, too. Already feeling stronger than before.”

“Much good that did you,” Wilson scoffed.

“Whatever,” Dee waved. “Look, the point is that I might have enough energy to turn the wheels on that vault door. Maybe, if I concentrate hard enough,” Dee said.

“So, can we do this now?”

“Don’t see why not,” Dee replied. “Where’s Jess?”

“Somewhere in the mansion. We have to find her.”

“We have to stop the Pryces,” Major Wilson said. “That’s the mission.”

“That’s your mission,” I replied. “My mission is to keep my friend safe. It’s my fault she’s here at all. You stop the Pryces. I’ll deal with my thing.”

Major Wilson raised an eyebrow. “Are you giving orders as well now?”

“Yes,” I said.

The word came out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. I was still on an adrenaline rush over getting both Wilson and Balthazar to stand down. For a few seconds there, as bizarre as it sounds, I’d been the alpha male in the room. It was a position I wasn’t used to. Wilson’s eyes flickered over to Balthazar. Balthazar held up his hands with a bemused expression.

“Kid wants to go rescue his friend, let him. He’s alright. I’m still going to kill you when this is over. But yeah, stopping Victoria and Vincent comes first.”

Wilson grunted.

“If we get out of here, people are going to die,” Wilson said. “Are you ready for that, Ethan? Are you ready to be responsible for that?”

“You have to stop them. That’s all there is to it. I have to find my friend and get her to safety. How many supernaturals are locked up in here?”

“Thirty at the last count,” Wilson replied.

“Well, that’s thirty with a serious grudge against the Pryces. If we can get out of here...”

“That’s still a big if,” Wilson replied.

“...then you’ll have to lead them.”

Wilson shook his head. “Some of them have been here for years. They’re weak, tired, easy pickings.”

“You’ll have to make do,” I said.

“If we can get to the portal, I can take them home,” Balthazar replied. “Get them out of here for good.”

“Saves me the bother of hunting them down later,” Wilson agreed in an amicable tone.

Balthazar bared his teeth. “One day...”

“Enough,” I cut in before the two of them forgot their temporary truce. “Dee?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“We’ll have a minute, two minutes at best, before they hit us with the knock out gas. We need to make this fast,” Wilson said.

“Dee and I will go first. There’s less chance anyone watching will think anything suspicious is going on if it’s just two kids. Sorry George, but you’re staying here. Can’t have you raising the alarm.”

George whimpered as Wilson put a firm hand on his shoulder.

Dee and I snuck along the gantry as stealthily as we could. Although there were no windows to the outside world, the guards still kept the prisoners to a day and night schedule. As we walked back along the length of the prison, I expected an alarm to go off any second and for gas to seep into the complex.

It didn’t happen.

When we stepped into the waiting room, there was nothing. No alarm, no announcement, no telltale hissing. It was as if no-one was paying any attention.

“This feels too easy,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” Dee agreed. “Still, no point complaining about some good luck for a change. Maybe the guards have fallen asleep.”

He stood in front of the huge metal door, frowned.

“I saw two circular handles on the other side when they brought me in,” he said. “If I can reach them with my mind, I might be able to turn them from this side.”

He stood in front of the three metre wide vault door for a few seconds, his brow furrowed in concentration. He lifted a hand, palm facing the door, fingers spread outwards.

“Come on, come on,” he said. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He closed his fingers about halfway to a fist, as if holding one of the metal rods on the other side of the door. Gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes.

“Come on...”

His half clenched hand trembled with exertion as he tried to turn the unseen wheel.

I heard a satisfying swiiiiiish of bolts sliding backwards and then a clank.

“You did it!” I shouted.

Dee shook his head, his face anxious.

“No, mate, that wasn’t me. Someone opened it from the other side.”

“They’re coming in! We have to fight!”

“With what?” Dee said, “they’ve got the guns, remember?”

I swore in panic as the vault door swung open. We both took a step back.

There was only one person on the other side of the door. Alice the vampire stood in the open circle.

She was wiping blood off her hands.

With her lips.