Captain DeShawn Franklin of the Chicago Police Department was not having a good day.

It had begun hopefully enough. The sun was out, a cool yet soft breeze was in the air, and there wasn't a single report of a stabbing or shooting waiting on his desk when he got in.

Then the head of the local branch of PETA had sent yet another irate phone call to his precinct's station, demanding to know when the police were going to investigate the cats that had been found dead a few years back. That was aggravating, but routine, and easily handled.

It continued with more on the news about the kids that had gone missing in Oregon. The entire West Coast had been eaten up by the story, and the firestorm of publicity meant that manhunts were going on all over the place. Franklin wished them success, and spared a thought for the unresolved cases of disappeared children that haunted the city. One of the strangest things about the Oregon kidnapping was that one of the children concerned matched the description of a child who had recently gone missing in Chicago.

And then, a wide-eyed, haggard young man had burst into the police station, yelling that he'd just come from a kidnapping attempt. Once he'd been calmed down, the man, who was of university age, had given a brief description of the kidnappers and the kidnapped. His descriptions matched up perfectly with the children who had gone missing in Oregon.

That had made the day a lot more interesting, and a manhunt had swept across the city, with police forces mobilised everywhere to find the kidnappers. Calls were made to the forces in Oregon and to the kid's parents and guardians, and the young man voluntarily placed himself in police custody and confirmed that his own van had been used as the vehicle in the crime. Sure enough, eyewitness accounts collected a few hours later confirmed that a van of his description had been in Ashland.

And in the middle of all this, a panicky call had come from one of the officers on patrol.

"Captain Franklin, sir? It's … it's the Merch Mart."

"What about it?"

"It's … you'd better come down, sir."

That had been five minutes ago.

Now it was five minutes later, and the Merch Mart was surrounded by a police cordon. It had been entirely evacuated, and the thin barrier of police officers barely kept a curious and bewildered throng of hundreds at bay.

The Mart was shaking, as if caught in the throes of a minor earthquake. From its top to its bottom, streamers of green-gossamer lightning sparked and banked, trails curling off and banking in windows. The huge structure rumbled and pulsed with chaotic energy, the lightning winding around it and snapping in the heavy wind that had sprung up. From deep within, a faint and irregular chiming pealed out onto the street.

Franklin looked up at it from a short distance away on the street. Next to him stood the liaison between the police department and the mayor's office, Josiah Willows, a sinewy grey-haired man who was an old friend of Franklin. All around them, officers barked out orders, people surged and called out questions, blocked lanes of traffic sounded their horns in a constant rolling din, and the chiming of the Merch Mart added the final piece of musical backing to the whole mess.

"I'd ask what exactly was happening," said Franklin, dragging on a much-needed cigarette, "Except that I'd have to include some sort of profanity in the question, and I don't know any bad enough."

"Isn't there something you can do?" asked Willows.

"Well, damn. I must have been off ill when we covered this scenario in the academy." Franklin theatrically scratched his head. "Do you have any ideas? Shall we take the Mart in for causing a public disturbance? Do you want to read it its Miranda rights, or shall I?"

"Screw you, Shawn."

"That's your wife's job." He dropped the cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it under his heel. To his left, a nice man with a sandwich board proclaiming the apocalypse was cheerfully adopting the Mart's current condition into his proselytising. Cars tooted. People yelled. The Mart chimed. Lightning crackled.

"Nobody's been hurt. We're keeping everyone at a distance. We're keeping an eye on things. I think that's all we can do." Franklin looked up. Streams of teal light flared where emerald lightning met blue sky.

"What shall I tell the mayor?"

"Tell him we're assessing the situation. At length."

Neither of them, preoccupied as they were, saw the small dark shape that flashed between their legs, and which ran at a full tilt under the police barrier and to one of the Mart's open doors.

Toot, yell, chime, crackle, etcetera.


The halls of Wells Street Station pulsed with a constant, arrhythmic beat, that flowed out through the walls like a heartbeat. It matched the volume of Coraline's own as she ran down a stone corridor, keeping ahead of the ravening Beldam.

The Beldam's button eyes were fixed upon Coraline's fleeing back. Her open mouth slavered, her face was drawn and taut, her only vocalisation was a hoarse and inarticulate hiss. Her sharp needle-limbs hit the stone floor with a constant click-click-click.

The Czarina would have planned for this, a part of Coraline noted as she fought to outrun the Beldam. She would have wanted us to fight each other. She would have kept her own sister as hungry as possible, tormented her with the few scraps of food or soul or whatever she gave, and made sure she was ready to rip me to shreds if necessary.

She saw a corner peeling off to the right up ahead, and she ran faster. The Beldam hissed and sped up.

"You can't escape!" she screamed with fury that ripped out of her throat. "You have no friends with you now! You have no stone, no cat, no chance to cheat! No one is coming to save you, Coraline! You're going to -"

Whatever the Beldam had been saying was cut off abruptly as Coraline suddenly swerved at the last moment to run around the corner, and the Beldam, unable to correct her own momentum in time, plunged face-first into the wall with a heavy thump and a cut off screech.

Coraline drove down at her with the baseball bat while she lay stunned, bringing it down in a double-handed overhead swipe. A metal claw sprang out with supernatural reflexes from the tangle of silver limbs that was the Beldam, however, and seized the bat with a grip like a vice. It tightened, and then lunged forward, sending Coraline tumbling backwards and the bat flying further along the corridor.

Coraline rose quickly to her feet and backed away, looking behind her for the bat. She saw that the corridor became a wide flight of stone stairs running downwards. The bat was rolling down them.

She turned and ran for it at a dead sprint, only slowing down marginally when she started descending the stairs. Behind her, the Beldam rose to her feet. Her limbs shot out and dug into the wall, and with a heave, using her remaining hand for support, she started scuttling along the wall.

They ran, both of them, each with a single-minded focus, Coraline on the bat, the Beldam on Coraline, both of them nearing and nearing...

The Beldam's metal legs unfolded with the force of steam pistons, and she sprang from the wall right at Coraline. Coraline's own reflexes saved her just in time, she ducked and the Beldam flew just over her head and caught herself on the other wall.

Coraline grabbed for the bat with her left hand and swiftly brought it around in a clumsy blow that met the Beldam's head just as the creature turned, hissing, to Coraline. It connected with a solid thunk, the force of impact throwing the Beldam back just as it unbalanced Coraline. She almost fell, fighting to keep her balance, and flew down the remaining steps at a half run – half tumble.

She ran down and righted herself on the lower stretch of floor, and looked to see where it led. Before her, twenty feet away, a door was at the end of the corridor. A sign on it said Engine Room.

A familiar click-click-click noise made Coraline turn back to the stairs. The Beldam descended on her four legs, her face marked by the bat, her eyes gleaming with hunger and hatred.

Coraline ran for the door, the Beldam's words following her.

"No one is coming to save you, Coraline."


"Keep up with me!" Maria called to Wybie as the two ran through endless thin corridors, the sounds of Mr Bodkin's relentless pursuit in their ears.

"Where-are-we-going?" he panted, struggling to keep track of where they were. You'd need a peculiar mind to keep track of this sort of maze, he thought.

"Somewhere he can't follow us! It's this way." She pulled him on, and they dove through a little metal aperture, like a tiny door left open.

They scrambled into the room beyond the little door, and while Wybie tried to get his bearings, Maria turned back to the little doorway and grabbed for its metal door, which lay wide open on its hinges. She slammed it shut, and drew bolts across it closed as quickly as she could.

Wybie watched her close it, and turned to look at the room they were in.

"Woah," he said.

Unlike the entry hall, in this room it was possible to see the roof through all the grime in the air. The roof was high and arched, almost like a cathedral in its scale, and made from the same red brick as most of the building. It was long as well, the other end looked at least two hundred feet away.

And between them and the other end of the room, long rows of seats ran all the way.

They were made from dark metal and wood. At a rough guess, there were at least three hundred of the joined-together seats. Each of the three rows of seats was about fifty seats long, and each seat was connected to another at the back. It was like an old-fashioned waiting room in a station.

Three hundred. That jogged a memory in Wybie's head, one uncomfortably near at hand.

Then it came to him, as he looked down into one of the seats, and saw a pile of grey dust, embedded with tattered scraps and rags of old clothing. And in the middle of the pile, a tiny smoky marble glinted.

A child's soul.

"Maria?" he said, with trepidation. "I … I think this is it. This is where they're kept."

"What?" she said, hurrying over. She looked down into the chair, saw the pile of dust and clothes and the little shining marble, and looked up at all the rest of the chairs. "Oh. Oh, God."

"Come on," said Wybie. "I'll get the ones on the left, you get the ones on the right. We'll meet in the middle."

They rushed to the furthest sides of the room, to the beginnings of the rows of seats. Maria had her bag ready and hanging open, and Wybie thanked his stars for all the pockets in his coats. He reached out and began to seize the little souls from each seat, stuffing them into a different pocket each time. He never stopped moving, he snatched them on the run.

Every time he did, the soul stirred and glowed in his gloved hand, and each time a tiny voice whispered in his ear.

+are you here to take us out to take us away from her+

+hollow it hurts it hurts she wouldn't stop hurting+

+please I want my mommy why can't I leave+

Each one left a little scar on Wybie's soul as he heard it, as he yearned to reach out to each tiny voice and reassure it, You're not alone. You're free. You're going wherever souls go.

And what his eyes witnessed as he sped past each metal chair didn't help. Disturbingly personal touches surfaced from time to time among the rags of clothes amidst the dust. The remains of a little flower bonnet here. A real, tiny, wooden button. A scrap of carefully embroidered lace.

Once, he saw something lying at the foot of one chair. He stopped to look at it, and saw it was a dusty teddy bear.

Next to it, there lay a pair of shoes hardly big enough for a three-year old.

He fought the urge to dry-heave, grabbed the little soul, +want teddy it's cold+, and ran on through the endless memories, through the endless horrors.

He rounded the end of the row, and hurtled down the other side. Maria did the same thing at her side of the room. In a matter of moments, they had finished these rows as well, and both of them raced to the final double-sided row of chairs running along the centre.

They met up again at the far end, by which time Wybie was rattling as he walked. He dived into his pockets and brought out handfuls of souls which he dropped into the open bag. Maria shivered as she stood still, her own mind on the voices of the souls as well.

"We've got them all," said Wybie, as he drew out the last soul from an inside pocket (+run+) and dropped it into the bag. "So if you make a break for it, and I go and help Coraline out, then we might ..."

There was a sudden hollow banging from the far door, and Wybie and Maria jumped and looked at it in alarm. The metal door pulsed with the blows, then bent out with a shrieking of metal, and was then ripped clean off its hinges with one final strike. A suited arm waved out from the opening, and helped pull the rest of its body through. Mr Bodkin crawled out from the door, and staggered upright. One of his eyes had been ripped off when he had pulled himself through the tight space.

"Crap," breathed Wybie. "You take the bag and circle around. Run for the door once I've got his attention." He began to walk slowly forwards, his hands falling to his sides.

"What are you doing?" Maria hissed. She clenched the bag tight to her.

"I told you. Getting his attention." Wybie kept up his slow, steady pace between the rows of seats. His eyes were fixed on the shuffling Mr Bodkin, and he waved his arm slowly to get his attention.

"Hey," said Wybie in a loud, clear tone. "Ugly."

Mr Bodkin's eye locked straight on him. The snarled grimace sewn onto his mouth didn't look so feigned.

"Heh, I said 'Hey, ugly' and you looked," said Wybie, his words and manner concealing his jack-hammer heart rate. "You want me? Come and get me." Out of the side of his mouth, "Go. Quickly."

Maria looked at him fearfully, then slowly began to circle around the row of seats, towards the far exit. Mr Bodkin's eye flicked briefly to her-

-Which was the split-second Wybie needed. His hands blurred and held the aerosol can before him, and the lighter tip a few inches from the end of the nozzle. He jammed hard on the button on the top of the aerosol in the same instant that he flicked the lighter to life.

It caught first time. A spray of aerosol flew out and a tiny flame sprung up from the lighter. The two met, and air ignited, and the hiss of the aerosol became the roar of a tongue of flame that spat into the air between Wybie and Mr Bodkin.

Holy crap. He hadn't been sure if that would actually work.

The sight of the fire seemed to trigger something in Mr Bodkin, and he lurched forward into a charge directly at Wybie, the stitches on his mouth splitting open in a spray of tarry sawdust, releasing a bestial roar. Maria saw this and, after she looked as though she may run in to help Wybie, she reluctantly followed the plan and made straight for the door.

Wybie kept the fire trained on Mr Bodkin, the heat of which he could already feel beating on his face. If the puppet-man was stupid enough to run right into it, then this could be ridiculously easy.

But even as wounded and maddened by torture as Mr Bodkin was, he was nobody's fool, and as the flame drove right at him he leapt to his left, landing on a chair amidst a row and buckling it with the impact. He then jumped and twisted in the air, leaping for Wybie's throat.

Wybie panicked with the sudden turn of events, and his finger lost purchase on the aerosol button, extinguishing the flame and leaving only a solid wall of heat and a hazy after-effect in the air. He turned frantically to track Mr Bodkin, all but jumping backwards in his haste to avoid the man. Mr Bodkin slammed into the ground scant inches from Wybie and was instantly up and fighting to get to him, his arms thrashing at the air. Wybie saw that the man's hands were bent into claws, that his nails had lengthened and sharpened and become as black as lacquered wood.

He barely avoided the first blur of blows from Mr Bodkin, and reacted too slowly to avoid the second. The full length of Mr Bodkin's arm slammed into his chest with the force of a freight truck, and picked Wybie up and sent him sprawling through the air. He landed with a rush of breath and explosive pain stitching its way across his chest. Through blurry vision, he saw Mr Bodkin striding closer to him.

Tilting his head to one side, he saw that he was lying next to the central row of seats. Each chair had a gap beneath it, and the legs were widely spaced. He started scrabbling backwards beneath the seats, checking desperately that he still had the can and lighter. If he didn't, then his end would be as quick as it would be horrific.

But by some unconscious act of his mind, his hands had closed tight around them, and he was still in the fight.

Much as he wished he wasn't.

Mr Bodkin kept striding towards Wybie as he saw him disappear under the chairs. Such a barrier might have slowed down another man by making him climb over it. Mr Bodkin lashed out with his hands, and ripped away chunks of metal and wood in a storm of sudden violence. Shrapnel and splinters flew everywhere, and Mr Bodkin stepped right through the gap.

Right into the path of Wybie's aerosol.

Wybie, lying helpless and praying to whatever god felt like fielding it, hammered on the button and ignited the lighter. The lighter, as cheap as it looked, held reliable, and once more sparked to life. It caught the gas spray of the aerosol, turned it to rushing light and heat and sound and fury, and drove it full into Mr Bodkin's torso.

It cascaded down him and spiralled around him, catching cloth in a storm of orange, wrapping around Mr Bodkin and engulfing him entirely. The man flailed and clawed at the fire, while Wybie watched, horrified by what he had done.

Mr Bodkin spun and clawed and roared out futile defiance, but the fire was having none of it. It caught at an open wound, courtesy of the Czarina's chastisement, and licked at the tarry sawdust that was his innards. After that, it was all over, as Mr Bodkin went up like a candle. He fell to his knees, flames ripping him apart from the inside out.

His last ever act was to pull up one hand, and gently touch the burning blonde hair that hung around his neck. His expression looked almost peaceful.

Then he fell apart into a pile of burning ashes, and Wybie leaned back and gasped out a drained cough.

The air was like a sauna. Wybie had never felt so horribly homesick in all his life.


Maria ran. Her feet hit the ground in a percussive beat, and her breath came out in ragged gasps as she retraced her steps, once more seeking a way out of Wells Street Station. The bag hung around her, surprisingly light for how full it was.

She turned a corner, dashed down a flight of stairs, her memory throwing up directions as fast as she thought.

Left, then right, then down, then left, then past the clock to the next one on the right, then down the stretch of corridor, then left one last time and into the entry hall.

She threw the door open and didn't stop to look, to see if the Czarina was there, aware that any delay would mean that the children's souls would never get free and she'd be taken by the Czarina.

In any case, she didn't need to look. She heard the clacking of metal feet against the flagstone floor as soon as she entered, and as she sped towards the exit, heard "Leaving again, dearest Maria? But we cannot have that. We cannot have that at all."

She sped towards the doorway and positively threw herself onto the great bronze handle to slam it open, and caught herself and ran out onto the rails as she heard the Czarina coming after her.

She knew she would be followed, that the Czarina had every chance of outrunning her, that she would almost certainly never win alone against that monster.

She ran anyway. She ran out across the rails, a lone figure amidst emptiness. A sharp click-click-click sounded from behind her.

She neared the entry from the Merch Mart, and all but hurled herself inside. She once more broke into a flat-out run, hope rising within her like a star. But suddenly, her foot slipped between ties at the wrong angle, and when she pulled it forward, it erupted with a stabbing, wrenching pain, and she pitched forward onto the track.

"No, no, no!" she sobbed, her voice trembling as she fought to pull herself bodily forward, while click-click-click came closer and closer.

From the darkness up ahead of her, a shadow moved. It moved down, coming at a four-legged sprint, resolving itself into the shape of a cat with white markings on the chest and paws.

It was Shane from the Grimalkin Council, and the blaze in his olive eyes turned to concern and confusion when he saw Maria.

"Wha-" he began.

"Here!" she gasped, thrusting the bag at the startled cat. "You want to help? You want to hurt her? Then get them out – get them all out! Everyone she's taken, everyone she feeds on."

"But-" started Shane.

"I'll look after myself! Just get them out!"

Shane looked at her, at the tunnel mouth behind her – then he reached down and grasped the bag's handle, and turned with it and started running. It wasn't a heavy bag, and he was a strong cat, and each little soul inside was as light as a feather. He broke into a sprint, and vanished up the tunnel.

Maria lay still and alone. She heard the click-click-click behind her slowing, knew that she was trapped, knew that the Czarina was looming over her. In this place of pure shadow, hers was greater than any of them.

"I'm not scared of you," whispered Maria.

"How very foolish," came the throaty purr from behind Maria, and a metal skeleton of a hand reached out through the darkness to seize her.