It was hard to find the power to make a significant barge. She was freezing cold and there was a monster fourteen paces down the corridor. A fierce, maniacal animal who could burst from its cave and devour her any second.

It was true that your imagination could make objects stronger or weaker and she needed this object to be weaker. Her mind concentrated, her body tightened. One shot. One chance. One moment to decide whether she lived or died.

She jumped into the door with great force, but it didn’t yield. A loud iron echo erupted and charged down the corridor. She felt as though it was happening in slow motion, the ripples of sound like an unstoppable wave travelling towards the lair. Towards the beast. Towards her destruction.

It was game on now. No surrender. She started to barge the door over and over again with her shoulder, her whole right side, her head and her sheer force of will.

In the darkened cell, the beast woke to an immediate awareness of the noise. He heard the low thud, thud, thud up the corridor. His hand moved around him. Nothing. She was gone. It took him a moment to recover his senses.

‘Levene!’ he roared at the top of his voice. It was like the cry of a wolf. It meant her death.

At the other end of the short corridor the terrifying voice pinned her to the door. Her hands were shaking so much that she felt she was going into some kind of fit.

Sebastian was disorientated in the blackness. He flailed around, searching for the door.

She had time to try once more, then he would be there. She took three paces back. He screamed her name again. It seemed to propel her against the door.

‘Levene! You’re dead! Now!’

She hit the iron door with all her strength and power. It pushed forward about an inch and then stopped. It was her last chance. She heard him claw through the bars at the end of the corridor.

Then the beast was in the tunnel and there was no way out. Nowhere to run.

‘Levene!’

Her mind seemed to throw her a lifeline. One idea. One advantage. She could move in the dark better than he could. She took a few steps towards him and lay down on the ground. She just had to know which side of the tunnel he was striding up and she could try to avoid him, roll out of the way.

She listened. His hand slapped on the left wall, so she moved to the other side, but then she heard his hand on the right wall. Which side? He was changing sides. Two more paces.

She gambled and threw her body tight to the right wall. He passed her in the dark, not noticing.

‘Levene, you bitch!’

If he found her, he would rip her apart.

She lay still. Would her plan work? He reached the end of the tunnel and with a mighty shoulder barge flung the door open. He carried on.

It had worked. He’d broken out for her. She crawled up the tunnel and crouched by the door. There was light here. A low orange light. The corridors ran in three directions. From the noise, she knew that the beast had gone straight ahead.

She looked left and right. She presumed that he was taking the only route out and began to follow him. Along the way, she found a half-brick lying on the floor and picked it up. The corridor came to a T-junction at the end. Then she heard another sound, quite close. A mechanical sound. It was an elevator.

She peered round the corner. He was to the right, at the end of a short corridor, standing by the elevator. There must be stairs if there’s an elevator, she thought. Somewhere. But how would she find them?

She peered to the left. The tunnel ran away into darkness. As the elevator arrived, Levene threw the brick as far as she could left into the left-hand tunnel. The monster turned and screamed out her name, then ran back down the corridor.

He went straight past her. The elevator doors opened. She turned the corner. Twelve feet to freedom.

She ran now and burst into the elevator, pressing the single large red button. The beast heard her and turned quickly. She could hear him screaming as he ran up the tunnel back to her. The doors seemed to move so slowly.

He was so near. She crouched in a corner, her heart thudding desperately. Close! Please! Close!

He smashed into the door as it closed. The elevator started rising. Out of hell, out of the grip of this devil. Into the light. She was crying again. She watched the red light roll round. Any moment now and she would be free.

The elevator continued to rise slowly as Denise looked around the cage. Under the metal operation plate there was an old security sticker asking all personnel to display their security passes. At the bottom of the sticker, the name of the company. Mace Crindle Corporation.

Suddenly, the elevator shuddered to a halt.

He’d cut the power. She was stuck. Stuck between heaven and hell. She was going to be dragged back into hell. She banged on the elevator door, over and over again, hoping that someone would hear her.

No one did. She sat down and shook with fear as the tears ran down her face.

Sebastian had cut the power and was now in the lift shaft, climbing the internal access ladder up to the motionless elevator car. He shouted out to Denise as he passed and then clambered on to the roof of the car and opened the hatch.

He saw her crouched on the floor. ‘Hello, Denise. Seems you’re stuck.’ He lay there on top of the elevator and looked down at her, excited by the thought of seeing her face. She wouldn’t look up at him. She was crouched filthy and naked in the lift, terrified and in some kind of trauma. ‘Let’s take you back,’ he said.

Sebastian felt the much-loved surge of desire as he jumped down into the car. He was so close to her now, he could smell the fear. He wanted to bite her throat open and rip through her sternum. He pushed the feeling back down. He would have her heart, but not now. He wanted Harper to arrive first.

He stooped to pick Denise up. She tried to close her mind as he pushed her through the hatch and dragged himself out after her.

‘Down the ladder, Denise, unless you want me to push you down?’

Back down in the dungeon, Sebastian’s hand moved over her skull. ‘Do you know what a hunger trace is, Denise? No? I can feel one in your skull. A time when food was short perhaps? Your bone stopped growing so rapidly, a slight rise and fall. A hunger trace, Denise. Were you hungry once upon a time?’

In the dark, she nodded. She had often been hungry. Many kids had been hungry. Being hungry was no big deal. You got used to it and ate when you could.

Sebastian laid her back down on the bed. ‘I always give them a chance to get away,’ he said. ‘But they all fail.’

Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen

Mace Crindle Plant

December 4, 12.40 p.m.

A fleet of thirty vehicles streamed across the city, flashing their lights and running their sirens.

The Hostage Rescue Team and Blue Team Task Force raced through the streets. They were prepared for action. They were ready to take out the American Devil.

The old chemical compound to the north of Manhattan was quiet and still. A faint breeze moved across the East River and through the old buildings. A heavy line of metal fencing scarred the landscape in every direction.

Harper sat in the back of the HRT truck. It was too much to bear and too much to hope. And hope was all he had. In the noise of the speeding convoy, he allowed himself a prayer.

The quiet of the compound was suddenly ripped to tiny pieces as the vehicles smashed through the barrier of the Mace Crindle plant and sped across the gravel and sand. Just as quickly the convoy screeched to a halt and the doors flew open.