Then, she seemed to make up her mind. She turned towards the door.

‘All alone,' she said, and drifted back to join her sister. With every foot of ground she covered he was certain she'd think better of her retreat, and come in search of him again. But she disappeared through the kitchen door, and they left to get on with business elsewhere.

He waited for a full minute until the last vestiges of their phosphorescence had faded. Then, gasping for breath, he stepped away from the refrigerator.

From above he heard shouts. He shuddered to think what entertainments were afoot here. Shuddered too at the thought that he was now alone.

IV

BREAKING THE LAW

1

It was Jerichau's voice she heard, Suzanna had no doubt of that, and it was raised in wordless protest. The cry startled her from the murky pit that had claimed her since Hobart's departure. She was at the door in seconds, and beating on it. ‘What's happening?' she demanded. There was no reply from the guard on the other side; only another heart-rending shout from Jerichau. What were they doing to him?

She'd lived all her life in England, and - never having had more than a casual acquaintance with the law - had assumed it a fairly healthy animal. But now she was in its belly, and it was sick; very sick.

Again she beat a tattoo on the door, again it went unanswered. Tears of impotence began, stinging her sinuses and eyes. She put her back to the door and tried to stifle the sobs with her hand, but they wouldn't be quelled.

Aware that the officer in the corridor could hear her sorrows, she started across to the other side of the cell, but something stopped her dead in her tracks. Through her watery vision she saw that the tears she'd shed on the back of her hand no longer resembled tears at all. They were almost silvery; and bursting, as she watched, into tiny spheres of luminescence. It might have come from a story in Mimi's book: a woman who wept living tears. Except that this was no faery-tale. The vision was somehow more real than the concrete walls that imprisoned her; more real even than the pain that had brought these tears to her eyes.

It was the menstruum she was weeping. She hadn't felt it move in her since she'd knelt beside Cal at the warehouse, and events had proceeded so speedily from there she had given little thought to it. Now she felt the torrent afresh, and a wave of elation swept her.

Down the corridor Jerichau cried out again, and in response, the menstruum, bright to blinding, brimmed in her subtle body.

Unable to prevent herself, she yelled, and the stream of brightness became a flood, spilling from her eyes and nostrils, and from between her legs. Her gaze fell on the chair which Hobart had occupied and it instantly flung itself against the far wall, rattling against the concrete as if panicking to be gone from her presence. The table followed, smashing itself to splinters.

From outside the door she heard voices, raised in consternation. She didn't care. Her consciousness was in and of the tide, her sight running to the edge of the menstruum's reach and looking back at herself, wild-eyed, smiling a river. She was looking down from the ceiling too, where her liquid self was rising in spume.

Behind her, they were unlocking the door. They'll come with cudgels, she thought. These men are afraid of me. And with reason. I'm their enemy, and they're mine.

She turned. The officer in the doorway looked pitifully frail, his boots and buttons a weak man's dream of strength. He gaped at the scene before him - the furniture reduced to tinder, the light dancing on the walls. Then the menstruum was coming at him.

She followed in its wake, as it threw the man aside. Parts of her consciousness trailed behind her, snatching the truncheon from his hand and breaking it in pieces; other parts surged ahead of her physical body, turning corners, seeking under doors, calling Jerichau's name -

The interrogation of the male suspect had proved disappointing for Hobart. The man was either an imbecile or a damn good actor - one minute answering his questions with more questions, the next, talking in riddles. He'd despaired of getting any sense from the prisoner, so he'd left him in the company of Laverick and Boyce, two of his best men. They'd soon have the man spitting the truth, and his teeth with it.

Upstairs at his desk he'd just begun a closer analysis of the book of codes when he heard the sound of breakage from below. Then Patterson, the officer he'd left guarding the woman, began yelling.

He was heading down the stairs to investigate when he was inexplicably seized by the need to void his bladder; an ache which became an agonizing pain as he descended. He refused to let it slow his progress, but by the time he reached the bottom of the stairs he was almost doubled up.

Patterson was sitting in the corner of the passageway, his hands over his face. The cell door was open.

‘Stand up, man!' Hobart demanded, but the officer could only sob like a child. Hobart left him to it.

Boyce had seen the expression on the suspect's face change seconds before the cell door was blown open, and it had almost broken his heart to see a smile so lavish appear on features he'd sweated to terrorize. He was about to beat the smile to Kingdom Come when he heard Laverick, who'd been enjoying a mid-session cigarette in the far corner of the room, say: ‘Jesus Christ', and the next moment -

What had happened in that next moment?

First the door had rattled as if an earthquake was waiting on the other side; then Laverick had dropped his cigarette and stood up, and Boyce, suddenly feeling sick as a dog, had reached out to take the suspect hostage against whatever was beating on the door. He was too late. The door was flung wide - brightness flooded in - and Boyce felt his body weaken to the point of near collapse. An instant later something took hold of him, and turned him round and round on his heels. He was helpless in its embrace. All he could do was cry out as the cool force made gushing entry into him through every hole in his body. Then, as suddenly as he'd been snatched, he was let go. He hit the cell floor just as a woman, who seemed both naked and dressed to him, stepped through the door. Laverick had seen her too, and was shouting something, which the rushing in Boyce's ears - as if his skull was being rinsed in a river - drowned out. The woman terrified him as he'd only been terrified in dreams. His mind struggled to recall a ritual of protection against such terrors, one he'd known before his own name. He had to be quick, he knew. His mind was close to being washed away.

Suzanna's gaze lingered on the torturers for only an instant

- it was Jerichau that concerned her. His face was raw, and puffed up with repeated beatings, but smiling at the sight of his rescuer.

‘Quickly,' she said, extending a hand to him.

He stood up, but he wouldn't approach her. He's afraid too, she thought. Or if not afraid, at least respectful.

‘We must go -'

He nodded. She stepped out into the corridor again, trusting that he'd follow. In the scant minutes since the menstruum had flowed in her she'd begun to exercise some control over it, like a bride learning to trail and gather the length of her train. Now, when she left the cell, she mentally called the wash of energy after her, and it came to her.

She was glad of its obedience, for as she began along the corridor Hobart appeared at the far end. Her confidence momentarily faltered, but the sight of her - or whatever he saw in her place - was enough to make him stop in his tracks. He seemed to doubt his eyes, for he shook his head violently. Gaining confidence, she began to advance towards him. The lights were swinging wildly above her head. The concrete walls creaked when she laid her fingers on them, as though with a little effort she might crack them wide. The thought of such a thing began to make her laugh. The sound of her laughter was too much for Hobart. He retreated and disappeared up the stairs.