‘Where the hell am I?’ The man’s voice was quiet and tired-sounding, his hand still tight on the gun.

‘Hiding in bushes from cultists.’ Brandon answered, glad that at least he had relatively normal clothing on, rather than the diving suits the others were wearing. ‘And why the hell have you got that thing?’ He gestured at the gun, careful not to touch it.

He immediately drew it back, clutching it to his chest. ‘What’s going on? All I can remember is…’ He shivered.

‘Darkness? Yeah, you’ve been in a sensory deprivation tank for a while. Probably days or weeks? What were you doing there?’

His eyes went blurry again. ‘I… I don’t remember.’ He shook his head, as though trying to shake recollection free.

Brandon sighed. ‘Right. Cult of the Halo, creepy woman in white. You screwed up investigating or something, got caught and dunked. Do you remember Amy at all? She went in as well before everything went south. Now, what the hell are you doing with that thing? It was bad enough as a knife, and you made it into a goddam gun?’

The man twisted his fingers, the gun vanishing from sight. ‘Yeah, means not having to get so close to someone to use it.’ He glanced down, noticing what he was wearing. ‘Can I get some clothing?’

‘Unless you can pull some out of your ass, then no. Can you actually tell us anything useful about what was going on or why you were there?’

He frowned. ‘I… I don’t remember.’

‘Please tell me you at least remember your name? Otherwise you’re getting a new one, and it won’t be a nice one. Do you know who we are?’

There was a worryingly long pause before he answered. ‘I’m David, aren’t I? And you’re Brandon and Amy?’

Amy let out a long breath. ‘Well, he’s not completely mind-fucked. That’s probably a good thing, technically. So you didn’t find out anything useful, and what the hell happened to your arm? Was that them?’

He peeled back the sleeve, looking at the tracings of scars and tattoos. ‘No, that was me. It helps me to focus.’

Amy shook her head. ‘I know things were rough, but really? Couldn’t you find anything better to do? Anyway, we need to get out of here. Where’s safe? Brandon, you said they attacked your place?’

‘Probably still have the cops there, yeah.’ There was a shout nearby, groups of cultists spilling into the park. ‘Shit, looks like they’re looking for us now. You got any exit routes nearby?’

Amy answered. ‘Here? I’ve no idea where the hell we’re going to end up, and it’s dangerous.’

‘More dangerous than this?!’ The cultists were getting closer, actually bothering to check the undergrowth properly, lots of them armed with big sticks, thwacking the bushes and trees. ‘We need to not be here. And put that damn thing away!’ David’s gun had appeared in his hand again. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

Amy knelt down, putting her hand on the ground, feeling the grit and grass. ‘This is going to be rough as hell and hurt a lot.’ She started to took slow, heavy breaths, forcing herself to be calm. Lines of light swirled out, the soil starting to shift into a pattern of raised lines and pits.

David looked nervous. ‘Where the hell are we going?’

‘The maze.’

‘Didn’t you tell me never to go there, under any circumstances?’

‘Yes, although I was exaggerating a bit. But there’s no choice right now, and no, you’re not shooting them.’

The light intensified, soil visibly shifting know, crawling over itself to form swirling interlinked circles. Brandon felt himself falling, world fading to black around himself, senses lost in a whirl of madness.

As always, it was impossible to tell how long he’d been out for – could have been minutes, or days. Amy was already up, staring nervously into the darkness. They were underground, a bare stone hallway stretching ahead of them, a flaming torch set into a metal bracket lighting their immediate surroundings. Symbols and shapes had been daubed onto the wall into simple paints, no writing, but predators and prey, sharp-fanged creatures hunting for meat, both human and animal.

Brandon took the torch, glad of something to keep the darkness at bay. The air was heavy, with the smoke of the torch, but also something musky and animalistic, sounds of a soft growl in the darkness, too close for comfort.

She hauled David to his feet, giving him a pinch until he shook himself awake. He looked around, nervous and fearful. ‘I was expecting more… spikes and things.’

‘Let’s hope not. Amy, you OK?’

She moved closer, obviously wanting to be close to the torch. ‘Alive. Probably. These places always creep me the fuck out, and I’ve never seen one this old before. There’s been a settlement in London for, what, millennia? We should be in an estate or a park or old houses or something, not ancient caves.’

Behind them was a dead-end of bare stone, leaving only one way to go. David flicked his wrist, repeating the action several times, looking increasingly worried. Brandon grabbed his wrist.

‘If you’re trying to summon that damn gun, don’t. In this place, what the hell do you think it might attract? Do you think it’ll even do anything? Weren’t you told about the thin places?’

‘That they keep something outside and away from us. That they’re strange, creepy and only sometimes murderous. That no-one knows what they are, how they’re made, and that the Samaha clan can sometimes use them to move around.’

Amy nodded at the use of her clan name. ‘Yeah, I can do, although it’s damn hard work, and a good way to vanish without leaving a body. Even the older, more stable paths were broken after… well, you know. I’ve not seen anything like this though, normally they take the shape of something more recent. And less dark.’

They kept moving, the firelight shifting around, revealing more and more stone passages, the symbols changing at random, suddenly shifting to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Norse runes, Chinese calligraphy and all sorts of other writing. He reached a finger out and carefully touched a symbol, something he vaguely recognised as the rune for ‘sword’. He hissed in pain, blood trickling down his finger, Amy turning around in disapproval.

‘What did you think would happen?’ Something growled, far too close, prompting Amy to take another deep, calming breath. ‘The only things here should be what we bring with us. So try to be less afraid, OK? Otherwise I’ve no idea what’s going to happen.’

The growling abated slightly, but still rumbled and echoed along the hallway. They moved faster now, every twist and turn revealing some other type of writing. The passages were getting wider and wider, the roof vanishing into darkness above them, now only one wall visible, some other light visible ahead of them.

They stopped, Brandon looking at Amy for guidance. She shrugged. ‘No idea. Anything happens, I’m throwing David in front of it first.’

It was like pale sunlight, shedding a constant soft glow. Outside, they were in a bowl valley, surrounded by high, bare mountains, pockmarked with other caves and passages. And beneath them was a vast pit, a hole going deeper into the earth, a winding causeway spiralling downwards towards it. Above them was an open cloudless sky, filled with a river of stars. Amy held her arm up, blocking them from progressing.

‘We shouldn’t be here.’ She was looking around, although the place seemed to be simple rock, the only other thing Brandon could see being three large, flat rocks, piled together to form a simple almost-building, like a primitive bus-shelter. ‘I’ve heard about this place. It’s mentioned a few times in the family books, at least the bits I can remember before they were destroyed. It’s said to be the beginning. Where something started. Something huge happened here, so big it left a permanent mark in whatever and wherever the thin places are.’ She slowly walked forward, Brandon and David following behind.

The pit was vast, easily a mile across. The bottom was out of sight, the causeway spiralling downwards into the darkness. Brandon looked up, looking at the thick band of stars above. There was a darkness in the centre, a circular patch that was dark. He squinted – there was something there, in the centre, a pale red gleam, an angry star in the heavens. And then downwards, stone, and darkness, and the barest gleaming hint of a fire at the bottom.

‘A massive crater beneath a gap in the heavens?’ His voice sounded strange, both too quiet and too loud, an unwelcome intrusion into an ancient place of silence. ‘David, you know anything? Your family was supposed to know all sorts of secrets.’

‘That burned before I was shown any of it.’ He was hanging back cautiously, hand still flicking, fingers in shape to shoot. ‘And I wasn’t the heir, so didn’t get taught anything. What about this stuff?’ He pointed at the construction. ‘This is crazy!’

The inside of it was covered with writing, all sorts of languages and symbols cut into the rock, on top of each other, at crazy angles, nothing of any sense, just words on top of words. A few were in English, French, Latin or other languages he could read: “earth”, “porto”, “gracias”, symbols that looked Japanese, other things that looked vaguely modern, amongst all sorts of other runes and glyphs and swirling shapes.

Brandon very carefully reached out to touch one. It felt dry and coarse, the stone warm to the touch, like it had been left out on a sunny day. There was still dust in some of them, as though freshly carved. Amy approached, tapping the stone.

‘We shouldn’t be here. I don’t think anyone should be here. This place is old, and I think in a way that can’t be measured by time. My ancestors kept trying to find this place, but only ever got here by accident. Last time was about five hundred years ago, I think. But every time has been when weird shit happens. And it’s never anything good.’ There was a distant rumbling, the ground starting to vibrate, grit skittering out of the inscribed words.

The construction remained stable, everything else shifting around it. The red gleam in the sky above seemed brighter, a baleful red eye surrounded by darkness. The words started to shift and change, the incisions warping and flowing, letters and symbols rearranging themselves, some of them fading and vanishing, others appearing from the rock and taking their place.

David and Amy both started twisting and squirming, the tattoos on David’s arm breaking apart and reforming, even the scars shifting themselves, his skin bleeding as it was pulled around. Amy was squirming as well, her shoulders twisting and wriggling.

‘Amy? Are you OK?’ She reached around and felt down her back.

‘Feels like my skin is shifting around!’ She twisted and jerked around.

‘You got a tattoo? With some writing on? And can you get us out of here?’

The rumbles and quakes returned, a sudden gust of heat spilling forth from the bottom of the pit, a sulphurous exhalation. Amy was still twisting and writhing around uncomfortably, trying to concentrate. ‘Yes. Shit, it aches.’

Blood was tricking down David’s arm now, his scars and tattoos realigning themselves into new patterns. It looked painful, although he was managing not to make any noise despite the expression on his face.

‘Can you get us out?’

‘Are you sure?’

There was another gush of hot, eye-stinging air, the light at the bottom definitely getting brighter. The letters were moving even faster now, just a few shapes he recognised amongst the chaotic swirl. ‘As long as it gets us back to the real world, I don’t care. We can’t have moved that far!’

Something bit his hand, and he looked down to find black writing scrolling onto his hand, some language he didn’t recognise, burning across his skin, like being raked with a claw. He tried scratching it back, but it didn’t do anything, the thing seething across his hand still.

Amy yelped in pain, dark shapes spiralling across her own hands, skin turning red and angry in their passage. She closed her eyes, obviously trying to focus, biting her lip to concentrate through the pain as her skin twisted and puckered.

Droplets of blood fell from David’s hand, hitting the dry earth. The quaking intensified, the blood darkening the stony floor far more than it should have. Amy raised her fingers to her mouth, biting down, her own blood welling out. It stopped before hitting the floor, droplets suddenly expanding and spreading out, forming a long, looping circle. She slashed her hand through the air, leaving a trail of red, trying to draw a gateway through the air.

Brandon grabbed David, ignoring the flesh-crawling sensation of moving skin, as the blood hung in the air, twisting into spirals. A slight whisper of air, fresher than whatever they were breathing here. The stone construction started to shake, the stones grinding together, starting to shake.

Amy gasped in pain, something black trickling across the back of her neck, dragging red weals behind it. Then the portal took, light shining forth, as Brandon shoved David forward, Amy following close behind.