Giant Killer. John McNally

him from wolves and nursed him back to health. Later, when she was dying, she brought him here. He knows nothing else.”

      “I got dragged across half the world by a mad Tyro – I’ll make it,” said Carla.

      The Primo, not used to being challenged, tilted his perfect chin and turned his blind eyes on her. She felt as if they were staring through her.

      “For every runaway the Siguri catch, they let the Tyros kill another five Carriers for sport. To set an example.”

      Finn sank back against Carla’s scalp, challenge fading in the face of such cruelty. A lump rose in Carla’s throat.

      “Baptiste was the worst,” the Primo added, more conciliatory. “We are grateful he is dead. He would have killed me, but the tutors stopped him.”

      “Why?”

      “They need me. For the Carriers to be effective slaves, they must be led,” he said simply.

      Carla looked around at the ragged Carrier kids. They were all shapes and sizes, all colours, all abilities and disabilities. They certainly needed someone.

      “This place is like an evil fairy tale,” Finn said in Carla’s hair.

      “We’ve got to help them,” Carla insisted. “Primo, if I can get one message to the authorities, important people – and soldiers – will come, will stop this.”

      The Primo silently considered the matter and Carla stared at his face and wondered what it must be like to be without sight in such a place, a darkness within darkness, and yet be so strong.

      “Nothing can be done before the spring melt.”

      “Before spring?!”

      “Follow Olga. Tomorrow we will make you a Carrier. Live as she lives, do as she does. As long as you work hard, you will be safe.”

      FEBRUARY 20 03:17 (GMT+2). Hull of the Shieldmaiden, Mediterranean Sea

       Kaparis did not by nature sleep.

       He seethed.

       Usually Heywood would knock him out with a powerful sedative, but Kaparis had refused, wishing instead to pickle himself in fury and self-pity. He considered that he had got everything he had in life through application, imagination and sheer hard work. But never once had he had any luck – despite having inherited his vast wealth, good looks, charm and a brain the size of a small planet.

       It wasn’t fair. Other people got lucky all the time, while he had to slog his guts out. Or at least other people’s guts, which was frankly messy.

       Nothing was fair …

       Then Heywood interrupted his musings and said, “Sir? The Abbot is on the line.”

       “At this hour?”

       Moments later, coloured bars of data danced on his life-support monitor, like nymphs in spring, and Kaparis ordered: “Bring me the head of Baptiste!”

       On the screen above him, the Abbot presented the gory remains of the Tyro’s head on a cushion, like some precious jewelled thing.

       “We retrieved it from a bear den on the Kalamatov Ridge!”

       “HAAAHH!” Kaparis laughed, baring his teeth like a hyped primate.

      “And where is she? Are you keeping her back as a surprise? Oh, I can barely stand it!”

       “Who, Master?”

       “THE SALAZAR GIRL!” Kaparis roared.

       The Abbot was clueless.

       “Three of them disappeared in China,” he explained to the Abbot, as if to a fool. “Baptiste, Carla Salazar, and, very likely, Infinity Drake. If Baptiste walked all that way, do you think for one moment he would have left them behind?”

       “We carried out an extensive search, Master …”

       “RUBBISH!”

       Fools. Morons. Scum. Could they not FOR ONCE match the scale of his intellect? He gurgled with rage, unable to speak a moment, as the Abbot whimpered …

       “We scoured the mountain! We can assure you he was quite alone. All we found was a dog …”

       Kaparis almost suffered a seizure.

       A dog?

       A dog?

       A dog with a supernatural sense of smell that had successfully traced its 9mm master before? A dog idiot enough and faithful enough to follow that scent for three thousand miles?

       “Get me a picture of Infinity Drake’s dog!” snapped Kaparis.

       An image flashed up on the screen array. Yo-yo. A vision of joyous furry idiocy.

       “Was it, by any chance … this dog?” asked Kaparis.

       The Abbot gulped. It was a thousand times cleaner than the one they’d found, but it was the same dog.

       “We thought he must have picked it up along the way …” the Abbot tried to explain.

       “WHERE IS IT?”

       The Abbot’s mind was blank. He dimly remembered someone kick it aside. He scrabbled around for some consolation. “Perhaps the Carrier children have it? They have value as rat catchers. We will have the whole complex searched! If there is a dog – if there is a girl – we shall slay them!”

       The Siguri chief beside the Abbot was nodding vigorously, but Kaparis slammed on the brakes—

       “NO! Don’t you see what this means?”

       His mind was a spinning Catherine wheel. If the dog was there, then Drake was there. If so, where? If Baptiste had brought the girl with him then was Drake somewhere on the girl? But where was the girl? On the mountain? In a bear?

       “Find the bears, slice them open. The Salazar girl has to be somewhere—”

       “Or Santiago found her!” exclaimed the Abbot.

       “Santiago?”

       “The idiot boy. The trapper.”

       “The hunchback?” said Kaparis, vaguely remembering the wretch.

       “Sometimes he finds lost souls. He was out late on the mountain – we questioned him. But not about a girl …”

       “Brilliant!” gasped Kaparis.

       “Really?” said the Abbot.

       Kaparis’s voice fell to a rasping conspiratorial whisper. “If Drake is hidden somewhere in the monastery, we’ve caught him, with or without the girl.”

       No one was dumb enough to ask the obvious question: how? How do you catch someone 9mm tall in a complex the size of a cathedral? Nobody asked, because they knew the Master