Again, I swallowed down my urge to run flat out. This narrow space was a death trap. We would be caught here. Crushed between these blind walls with no room to move. Nowhere to run. We were kicking aside litter and debris as we went.
‘Nearly there,’ whispered Kal and, with heart-stopping speed, the light at the end of our tunnel disappeared again.
I just had time to shout, ‘Kal, he’s back,’ and a shape was upon us, looming above, smelling of blood and earth. I zapped him and he fell back with a hiss.
‘Move,’ I said, pushing her. ‘Go, go, go.’
She took off and I followed, running crab-wise, watching her back as she was watching mine. Trying to cover all angles at once, heart pounding, desperate , desperate to get out of this enclosed space.
It was such an old movie cliché. To die on her last assignment. I wasn’t going to let it happen to her. I was scared, and when I get scared, I get angry. Nothing would happen to Kal. I would get her back safely. I swore it to myself.
We erupted out of the alley into a wider street, skirts bunched high. Kal had her pistol. I had my pepper spray. We stood, back to back, staring into the night, ready to take on anything that followed us out.
Nothing happened. Nothing followed us out of the alleyway. The street was empty. A few dim lights showed in nearby houses, but all good citizens were in bed. It was just us on the streets. I stood panting, my ribs struggling in that bloody corset. Where did he go? How could he disappear? Had the jolt from the stun gun seen him off? He would not be used to women who fought back. We circled slowly, back to back. Nothing. We circled again. Still nothing. We were alone. Slowly, my breathing and heart rate returned to acceptable levels.
‘Well,’ said Kal, tucking her little pistol back into her muff. ‘That was fun. Do you think it was him?’
I inspected her arm while she kept watch over my shoulder. It wasn’t deep but, as we say, it would sting in the morning.
‘I don’t know. I do know I didn’t like the look of him. Or the smell. And what are the odds there would be two maniacs wandering the streets of Whitechapel tonight?’
‘Other than us?’
Brave words aside, she was beginning to shiver. The sweat drying on my face and back was making me cold, too. We took a final look up and down the street. Whitechapel seemed strangely deserted. I suspected that pre-Ripper these streets were never quiet. Even after dark, all sorts of nocturnal transactions would have been taking place. But not tonight.
I was my usual directionally challenged self. ‘Where’s the pod from here?’
‘Not far, actually. Just past that corner. On waste ground.’
Arm in arm, striding determinedly down the centre of the street, we set off. Our footsteps echoed off the buildings. An eerie sound. A small breeze stirred the ribbons of fog. I kept looking over my shoulder, unable to believe we had escaped that easily. Instead of being lost in the mazed streets of Whitechapel, we were exactly where we needed to be.
Because we’d been herded.
Chapter Two
Ages ago – when I was a kid – I was hiding. I remember crouching in the dark, eyes tight shut, not breathing, not thinking, fighting the overwhelming awareness of someone close by. I had exactly the same feeling now. Something was close by and – ‘There!’ said Kal. ‘There’s the pod. Over there.’
Good old Number Five was sitting exactly where we’d left it, which, when you’ve been to the Cretaceous Period and watched your pod sliding down a mountain without you, is always a relief.
We tripped and slipped our way over the rough ground, constantly turning, weapons raised. I could see dark blood running off Kal’s fingers. She looked pale and was moving more slowly than usual. However, once I got her back inside the pod, dressed her wound, and got something alcoholic inside her, she’d be fine.
We were nearly there. We stopped about twenty feet from the pod. Kal called for the door to open and we did a slow 360-degree turn, just in case anything was still hanging around, but we could see nothing. Whatever it was had gone. And bloody good riddance too.
Half disappointed and half relieved, we backed slowly towards the pod. I darted the torch around. It seemed to take a very long time to get through that door. All the hair on my neck stood on end. I was physically fighting the urge just to drop everything and run.
‘Keep going,’ said Kal softly, patting my arm. ‘We’re nearly there.’
And then we were. The door closed behind us, shutting out the night and the monster. We were warm and safe at last and this was something to tell them back at St Mary’s.