The room seemed to go still and cold. Again Vermishank tried to control his face, but again, Isaac saw the raw fear inside him. Vermishank was terrified. He knew what was at stake.

A little way away, the construct was rotating, hissing and clattering. It seemed to be leaking dust and dirt, and moving in random directions trailing a stiff litter-spike behind it. Broken again, thought Isaac, and turned his attention back on Vermishank.

“When will they breed?” he hissed.

Vermishank licked the sweat from his upper lip.

“They are hermaphrodites, I am told. We’ve never observed them mating or seen them lay eggs. We only know what we’ve been told. They come into heat in the back half of the summer. One designated egg-layer. Around about Sinn, Octuary. Usually. Usually, that is.”

“Come on! There must be something we can do!” shouted Isaac. “Don’t tell me Rudgutter’s got nothing in mind…”

“I’m not privy to that. I mean, of course I know they’ve plans. Why, yes. But what they are I simply can’t say. I have…” Vermishank hesitated.

“What?” yelled Isaac.

“I have heard that they approached daemons.” No one said a word. Vermishank swallowed and continued. “And were refused help. Even at the highest bribery.”

“Why?” hissed Derkhan.

“Because the daemons were afraid.” Vermishank licked his lips. The fear that he was trying to keep hidden became visible again. “Do you understand that? They were afraid. Because for all their power and their presence…they think as we do. They are sentient, sapient. And as far as the slake-moths are concerned…they are therefore prey.”

Everyone in the room was still. The pistol sagged in Lemuel’s hand, but Vermishank made no attempt to run, lost as he was in his own miserable reverie.

“What are we going to do?” said Isaac. His voice was not quite steady.

The grating sound of the construct grew stronger. The thing spun for a moment on its central wheel. Its cleaning arms were extended and clattered against the ground in staccato motion. Derkhan, then Isaac and David and the others looked up at it.

“I can’t think with that fucking thing in the room!” yelled Isaac, enraged. He strode over, ready to take out his impotence and his fear on the construct. As he approached it, it spun to face him with its glass iris and its two main arms extended suddenly, an errant piece of paper on the end of one. The construct looked disorientingly like a person with outstretched arms. Isaac blinked and continued towards it.

Its right arm stabbed down at the floor and the rubbish and dust it had strewn idiotically in its path. It jerked down again and again, violently tapping at the wooden boards. Its left limb, with its broom end, jerked out to block Isaac’s path, slowing him and wagging, he realized with utter astonishment, to hold his attention, and then its right, a litter-skewer, jerked down once more to point at the floor.

At the dust. In which was scrawled a message.

The point of the skewer had traced its way through the dirt and even scored the wood itself. The words it had scribbled in the rubbish were shaky and uncertain, but entirely legible.

You are betrayed.

Isaac gaped at the construct in complete consternation. It waved its litter-spike at him, the scrap of paper on the end whipping back and forth.

The others had not yet read what was written on the floor, but they could tell from Isaac’s face and the extraordinary behaviour of the construct that something strange was happening. They were standing, gazing curiously.

“What is it, Isaac?” said Derkhan.

“I…I don’t know…” he murmured. The construct seemed agitated, by turn tapping at the message on the floor and flailing the paper on its spike. Isaac reached out, his mouth wide with amazement, and the construct held its arm still. Gingerly, Isaac plucked the crumpled paper from it.

As he smoothed it out, David leapt up suddenly, horrified and aghast. He rushed across the room.

“Isaac,” he shouted. “Wait…” But Isaac had already opened the paper, his eyes had already widened in horror at what was written. His mouth grew slack at the enormity of it, but before he could emit a shout Vermishank moved.

Lemuel had been caught up with the bizarre drama of the construct, his eyes had left his quarry, and Vermishank had seen it. Everyone in the room was staring at Isaac as he fumbled with the rubbish the construct had handed him. Vermishank leapt up from the chair and bolted for the door.

He had forgotten it was locked. When he yanked at it and it would not open, he cried out in undignified panic. Behind him, David peeled away from Isaac and backed towards Vermishank and the door. Isaac spun on his heel towards them, still clutching the paper. He glared at David and Vermishank in lunatic hatred. Lemuel had seen his error, was bringing his pistol to bear on Vermishank when Isaac moved threateningly towards the prisoner, blocking Lemuel’s line of fire.

“Isaac,” shouted Lemuel, “move!”

Vermishank saw that Derkhan had leapt to her feet, that David was cringing away from Isaac, that the hooded man in the other corner was standing with legs spread and arms out in a weirdly predatory fashion. Lemuel was invisible to Vermishank, behind the looming threat of Isaac.

Isaac looked from Vermishank to David, his eyes oscillating back and forth. He waved the paper.

“Isaac,” Lemuel screamed again. “Get out of the fucking way!”

But Isaac could not hear or speak for rage. There was a cacophony. Everyone in the room was yelling, demanding to know what was on the paper, begging for a clear shot, growling in rage or keening like a great bird.

Isaac seemed to be debating which of David or Vermishank to grab. David was breaking down, begging Isaac to listen to him. With a last desperate pointless tug at the door, Vermishank turned and defended himself.

He was, after all, a highly trained bio-thaumaturge. He babbled an incantation and flexed the invisible, occult muscles he had developed in his arms. He hooked his hand at the arcane energy that made the veins of his forearm stand out like snakes beneath the skin, made his skin twitch and tighten.

Isaac’s shirt was half undone, and Vermishank plunged his right hand through the uncovered flesh below Isaac’s neck.

Isaac bellowed in rage and pain as his tissue gave like thick clay. It became malleable under Vermishank’s trained hands.

Vermishank dug inelegantly through the unwilling flesh. He gripped and ungripped his fingers to grab hold of a rib. Isaac grabbed hold of Vermishank’s wrist and held it. His face was set in a grimace. He was stronger, but pain was disabling him.

Vermishank was wailing as they wrestled. “Let me go!” he screamed. He had had no plan, had struck out in fear of his life and found himself committed to a murderous attack. It could not be undone. He could do nothing but scrabble for purchase inside Isaac’s chest.

Behind them, David fumbled for his key.

Isaac could not pull Vermishank’s fingers from his chest, and Vermishank could not push them any further in. They stood, swaying, tugging at each other. Behind them the confusion of voices continued. Lemuel had stood, had kicked away his chair and was feinting to find a vantage point for a clean shot. Derkhan ran over and pulled violently at Vermishank’s arms, but the terrified man curled his fingers around the bones of Isaac’s chest, and with every pull Isaac screamed in pain. Blood was spurting from Isaac’s skin, from the imperfect seals where Vermishank’s fingers punctured his flesh.

Vermishank and Isaac and Derkhan wrestled and howled, spraying blood across the floor, fouling Sincerity, who bolted away. Lemuel reached over Isaac’s shoulder to shoot, but Vermishank tugged Isaac around like some grotesque glove puppet, knocking the pistol out of Lemuel’s hand. It hit the floor some feet away, scattering its black powder. Lemuel swore and dug urgently for a powder-case.