'Yeah, that'd be good. I will.'

into the woods.

It's two days until the attack on the Council building. After my confrontation with the trainees I sleep in the woods outside the camp. Gabriel says I shouldn't let them bother me, shouldn't let them drive me out. He thinks that him saying that will annoy me enough to make me stay; it annoys me a lot but not enough. I make a den by growing brambles, have a small fire and Gabriel stays with me. In the morning we go for a run. I go ahead and then drop back and stay with him for a while and then peel off to the left or right and go faster before dropping back again. Gabriel keeps up a good steady pace. Finally he slows and I race off and come round to his left to sneak up on him: it's what we do.

I go fast but not far before looping back round. He'll know what I'm up to, and will probably expect me to come from the high ground, but I'm hoping he might discount it for that reason my double bluff. I move across and up the slope, expecting to get sight of him down to my right, but can't see him yet. I stop. The forest is still and silent.

I'm still too now. Which way will he have gone? I have an idea he might have worked out what I'm doing and be trying to get higher than me. The top of the gentle slope isn't visible through the trees. I move further along and up to the top of the rise. I look back but can't see Gabriel. Everything is very quiet. The slope down into the next valley is much the same as the one I've come up. I move down into that valley thirty metres, intending to come back on myself but then I hear it. Hissing. A phone.

I freeze.

Listen again.

It's definitely the sound of a mobile phone. Faint. Maybe two hundred metres away.

It could be fains but somehow I know it's not. It's Hunters.

Shit!

And where is Gabriel? Oh shit.

And then I feel an arm round my neck, fingers in my hair pulling my head back. It doesn't hurt; I'm protected but I don't fight. I know it's Gabriel even though I can't see him. It's his signature move.

I relax back into him and say, 'Hunters, two hundred metres away.'

He holds me still; I think he's unsure if I'm tricking him.

'You win. I give in. I surrender,' I say.

'Really?'

'Gabriel. Keep your voice down.'

He releases his hold on me and I sink to the ground knowing he'll copy me. I look at him and he sees then that I'm serious.

'Go back to the camp. Warn Celia. I'll try to work out how many there are.'

He nods, but hesitates. 'You think they're going to attack the camp?'

'I don't know. Go. Be careful. Watch out for more of them.'

'They'll be invisible.'

'Go back the way we came, fast. I didn't hear anything along that route.'

He presses his hand on mine and then leaves, running back up the slope and over the top out of sight.

I become invisible and move further down the slope. Taking it slow, trying to work out where they are, I move in the direction of the sound, scanning left and right as I go. Then I see a footprint. A boot print. Definitely Hunters.

But I still only sense one phone. She must be hunkered down in the trees to my left. I take a couple of steps in that direction. And a few more. And a few more. The hissing is loud now and I should be able to see the Hunter, so I'm pretty sure that whoever is here is invisible. I can't see any signs of a camp. Nothing except that one boot print.

Is this the front of an attack or is it a scouting party? If they were planning on attacking the camp I'd expect there to be loads of Hunters. Tens if not hundreds. I'd have heard something.

I listen again. There is only one phone. Just one Hunter, who is still and invisible.

But they always work in pairs so her partner must be around. And if they're scouting then her partner is probably looking for our camp or already watching it. I have to hope that Gabriel doesn't come across her on his way back. But he should be safe. One won't attack. They're here to watch.

I move slowly away from the Hunter, then go further into the valley, listening for more of them. I make my way back in a curving sweep, trying to cover as much ground as possible, but I find nothing.

Thirty minutes later I'm back at the camp. Gabriel is with Greatorex and Celia. Celia has had the mock-up of the Council building pulled down, but apart from that the camp is behaving much as it always does. I'm surprised. I thought she'd be packed up and ready to go or dug into six-foot-deep trenches by now.

I tell Celia, 'I've found one. There's no camp that I can see. I think there is only one pair, very good and very quiet, travelling light. They're not here to attack.'

'We'd be fighting by now if they were going to attack,' Celia says. 'But more will be here soon. And there's no way of knowing how long they've been here, how much they've seen.'

Celia turns to Greatorex and says, 'Ideas?'

Greatorex replies, 'We patrol every morning and evening. The trainees know to look for any sign. They've seen nothing. And if the scouts had found us more than a few hours ago, we'd already be dead. Odds are they arrived this morning but they'll have phoned in a report and more Hunters will be on their way here right now.'

'We need to leave. Will they be able to work out what we're planning from that?' Celia nods at the broken-down pile of tarps and wood.

'They'll know we're up to something. They'll go through the possibilities and work out that we're practising an attack. The Council meeting is the obvious target.'

'Will they think we're strong enough to attack it?'

'They'll believe we're desperate enough.'

Celia rubs her face. 'There's nothing we can do about it. We need to move now. Evacuate the non-combatants to Camp Two immediately. I want them gone in fifteen minutes. Close the cut behind them. All attack personnel prepare to move out on my orders. But first ' and Celia looks at me 'I want those two Hunters. Greatorex, send out your top trackers. Scour the area. I want that second Hunter traced and hounded down. Nathan, you go to the first one and wait there. They'll reunite if they feel threatened. I want you to take them both out. We can't have prisoners; they'll slow us down. If you detect any more Hunters, the start of an attack, you come straight back and we all leave.'

I think that this is the first time Celia has given me a direct order to kill someone. And it occurs to me that it's a strange thing to be ordered to do.

'Are you OK with that?' Celia asks.

I meet her gaze and say, 'Sure.'

I leave without a word to Gabriel, without even looking at him. What can I say? 'Back soon I've got to go and kill two people.'

I go quickly back to the Hunter, turning invisible before I leave the camp. I can't think about right or wrong, just about doing the task. For all I know, a hundred Hunters might already be waiting for me.

I slow when I reach the rise and then stop and listen. The hiss of the phone is still there. I get my breath. I've run flat out most of the way. I calm my breath to make it slow, smooth, silent and regular. Then I move closer to the source of the hissing. The Hunter is still and silent, possibly asleep. I consider killing her now, but then she'll be visible and I think the other Hunter will come back to warn her once she knows the Alliance fighters are on to them.

I decide to wait. If she moves I'll kill her.

It's not long before I hear footsteps coming from behind me and I'm not sure if this Hunter will be visible or not.

Visible! A woman in black. She runs close to me and straight to her invisible partner. Then stops and says, 'Floss? Floss, are you here? We need to move out.'

Floss appears close to the other girl's feet. She's dressed in the same way and is sitting on the ground, back against a tree.

The Fairborn is in my hands without me thinking about it and I stride up to them and slit the throat of the one standing. I'm still invisible and Floss probably can't work it out; all she sees is blood and her dying partner, who now falls to the ground. But Floss is a Hunter and her automatic reaction is to pull her gun and shoot. I stab her in the neck. She shoots again and the bullet taps my shoulder and she lashes out at my face with her other hand, a final strong swipe with all her energy, but it feels like a gentle pat to me and she bleeds out over my hands.

I let her body fall. I know they couldn't have hurt me but my orders were to kill them. That's what I've done. And they would have killed me without a second thought. They're Hunters, the enemy. But ... Shit, I can't think about this now. I've got to get moving.

I check their pockets. Floss has energy bars, a phone and lip salve. The second girl has no orders, no maps, but she does have a notebook and a phone. It looks like she's been writing up times and then notes against those, but I haven't got time to spell out any of the words. The phone is locked, but I bet she's taken photos on it. I put the blood-covered phones and notebook in my pocket and head back to camp.

They were sixty-five and sixty-six. I repeat it as I run. Sixty-five and sixty-six. If I say numbers, I think numbers, not bodies, not blood, not dead people caressing my face.

Sixty-five, sixty-six. Sixty-five, sixty-six.

the break-in.

We're in a new camp, only established a few hours ago but already looking organized. Celia has been through the things I've brought from the Hunters. From the notebook she works out that the Hunters had only found us that morning, like Greatorex thought. They'd been travelling alone and were many miles from any cut. But they had phoned in that they'd found a camp, had our numbers and location, with comments about the replica of the Council building, though they hadn't guessed what it was.

'We're still going on with the attack?' I ask.

'You want to call it off?' Celia replies.

'No.'

'Neither do I. We stick to the plan. The Council meeting will go ahead. They may expect you to get in. Soul might even want that, but they don't know you're indestructible. That's the advantage we have. Just make sure you use it to maximum effect.'

We all patrol the area that day, everyone nervous that we've been followed, but Celia's system of moving and closing cuts seems to have worked. At night, me and Gabriel stay in the camp with the others. We don't talk. He lies down by the fire and I sit and watch it. I go for a run in the dark to tire myself out and then come back to him. I know I'm doing the right thing. If this can be over soon, then me and Gabriel can leave here for good and find somewhere to live together.

We're on our way to the Tower. 'We' being all the members of the Alliance who are trained to fight, plus two healers, Arran and another witch, who will tend to any wounded.

Once we're through the cut and in London, Greatorex, Arran and the trainees go off to some place I don't know, but they aren't with me and I don't need to think about them. The advance party is here: me, Gabriel and Celia.

It's dark by the time we get to the Tower. There's going to have to be two stages to me getting into it. At the midnight changeover of guards, I need to check if the password has changed; given that Soul probably knows our plans, a change seems guaranteed. To find out the password I'll have to stay inside for about ten minutes, maybe more. I've no idea how I'll cope with that, but I've told Celia I can do it. I did wonder if the amulet might protect me against feeling sick and went inside a shop for a few moments when we got here. Within a minute I felt dizzy and within two I felt like puking. It's a full moon just my luck.

So, anyway, I have to find out the password at the midnight changeover and then we have to wait until the 8 a.m. change of guards for me to go in.

The towers are hard to distinguish from one another in the dark; lights are on in lots of the flats but the top of Roman Tower is all in darkness. There hasn't been much movement into or out of any of the buildings.

Celia is watching the far side of the residential estate. I'm standing with Gabriel where we had our curry. Now Gabriel has a bottle of cider. Some local yobs hang around near us and Gabriel swigs from the cider and offers me some. I shake my head and say, 'It's disgusting.'

He smiles. 'I'm trying to fit in.'

And of course he does fit in, anywhere he likes, but I tell him, 'You're very good but not perfect ... try not to sound so happy.'

He laughs. 'I could learn so much from you.' And now he copies my voice, saying, 'Is this better?'

I swear at him and he creases over in laughter. The youths look our way but when I look at them they wander off and Gabriel sniggers again.

There's a cold wind but at least it's not raining. We just have to wait. I pick up the bottle of cider and wander up past all the shopfronts, trying to look natural bored and mean, I guess. It can't be far off midnight by now. I go back to Gabriel and stand with him.

At 11:47 I go invisible and walk to the Tower. The door is still broken and the stairwell still stinks of piss, but I get to the third floor before I notice my headache. I'm at the seventh floor when I feel the first wave of nausea. I have to hold on to the wall for a second. Then I hear footsteps on the stairs behind me. I take a deep breath and carry on upward, feeling sick but not too dizzy. I get to the top floor and move to the far end of the corridor.

The guards wander up, not in a hurry. I'm wedged in the corner concentrating on breathing, on staying invisible.

'Jez late again?' one says. I look up now and see there's five of them.

'Just get in, will ya?'

But then there's a shout from below in the stairwell. 'I'm coming. Hold on.'

There's general swearing and complaining. My stomach is churning. The walls are closing in on me and it's taking all my strength to tell myself that walls don't fall in; that it's some kind of mind trick or illusion but whatever it is the walls are not falling in!

And I've got to stay invisible. My stomach cramps and I'm bent over, and someone says, 'Hurry up, will ya?' And I hear, 'Thrott' and Jez is shouting, 'Wait up.' And my stomach heaves and I have a taste of sick in my mouth and all I can concentrate on is breathing in and staying invisible. Then they're going inside and the door shuts behind them and I run for the stairs and half run, half fall down them and get to the next level and keep on going down and I throw up. The walls are closing in and the noises are starting and my stomach's cramping again and I throw up again and I know I've got to get out but I'm not sure which way is out and I can't stand so I crawl and then I'm rolling downstairs and crawling some more and falling some more and the noises in my head are banging away and I want to shout back at them but I can't here and I can't even crawl now. And the screeching gets louder and my stomach is cramping more and I curl up in a ball and scream back and then I feel hands on my back and Gabriel's voice saying, 'I'm here. It's OK.' And I'm being pulled up, hands going under my arms, and Gabriel's voice is telling me, 'We've just got to get down two flights and then we're out.' But I can't stand so he drags me backwards down the stairs and through the door and the second I'm outside the cramps ease and I heal myself of the headache and nausea and I feel fine. I feel more than fine. I feel fantastic.

Gabriel doesn't complain, though I know he's desperate to. When we're back at our post by the shops he asks, 'Did you get the password?'

'"Throttle back", I think.'

'You think?'

'"Throttle" for sure.'

'"Back" not for sure?'

'It might have been "attack".'

'Or "sack"? Or "hack"? Or "tack"? Or something else entirely!'

'Throttle back.'

I think.

Then it's back to waiting. The shops are shut now. No one and nothing is around except for the cold. Gabriel and I go down an alley and sit on the ground close to the wall. Neither of us can sleep.

Gabriel says, 'Someone once said that war is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.'

'Minutes of terror, I'd say.'

'Yes, minutes, maybe hours if it's bad.'

'I think today might be bad.'