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pounding on the outer door of the photocopying room.

He turned to face the Internet room.

'Sorry,' Hawkins said, lowering the weary-looking Balthazar to the floor.

The Internet facility of the State Library of New York -- a relatively new addition to a relatively old building -- was little more than a wide empty room, with open-ended wires hanging down from an unpainted ceiling and bared electrical outlets on the walls. No computers. No modems. Even the light switch next to the doorway was merely a stumpy metal housing with lots of frayed wires. A corner room, there were windows along two of its sides, but no other doors.

There was only the one entrance.

It was a dead end.

Wonderful, Swain thought.

The banging outside continued. He looked back out through the small rectangular window in the door. The photocopying room's outer door was still, except that every few seconds it would vibrate suddenly as the hoods rammed it from the other side.

Hawkins and Holly were standing at the windows, gazing out helplessly over the park outside.

Swain pulled Holly back protectively. 'Don't get too close,' he said, pointing at the window frame, at the tiny blue talons of electricity that lashed out around its edges.

'Uh, excuse me, but I think we have more pressing problems than the windows,' Selexin said impatiently.

The pounding of the hoods on the outer door continued.

'Right.' Swain's eyes swept the room, looking for something he could use. Anything he could use. But there was nothing here. Absolutely nothing. The room was completely bare.

And then, with a sudden, loud crash, the outer door to the photocopying room burst inwards.

'They're inside,' Hawkins said, racing to the door, peering out through its small window.

'Christ,' Swain said.

In an instant, the first hood hit the door. Hawkins stepped back as the whole door shook.

'Get back!' Swain said. 'They'll go for the window!'

The second hood went for the window set into the door.

Shards of glass sprayed everywhere as the window exploded inwards. The hood clung to the broken window, reaching into the room, lashing out indiscriminately with a single claw.

The other hoods were ramming the door, pounding it repeatedly.

'What do we do?' Hawkins yelled. 'It won't hold for long. The other door didn't!'

'I know! I know!' Swain was trying to think.

The hoods continued to pound loudly on the door. The door's hinges creaked ominously. The hood with its arm inside the broken rectangular window was now trying to stick its head through, but the gap was too small. It hissed and snarled maniacally.

Swain spun. 'Everyone to that corner,' he pointed to the far corner. 'I want--'

He stopped -- listened to the sound of the soft rain pattering against the windows. Something had changed. Something he almost hadn't noticed. He listened in the silence.

The silence.

That was it.

The pounding had stopped.

What were they doing?

And then Swain looked at the door.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the doorknob began to rotate.

Hawkins saw it, too. 'Holy shit...' he gasped.

Swain dived for the door.

Too late.

The knob continued to rotate and then...

...click!

It was locked. Swain breathed again.

The knob turned again. Clicked again.

Turned. Clicked.

They're testing it, over and over, he thought in horror.

It was at that moment, as Swain was staring up at the door from the floor, that a long black claw slid slowly and silently through the broken window.

The bony black arm reached downward, slowly flexing its jagged razor-sharp fingernails. The lethal black claw was moving across and down to the right when suddenly Swain realised what it was doing.

Swain snapped round to look at Balthazar -- to see if the big man could throw another knife at the claw. But, having thrown the two knives earlier, Balthazar was now spent. He just sat on the floor with his head bowed. Swain saw the knives on his baldric, thought about using one, but then decided he didn't want to get too close to the hood's vicious-looking claw.

'Quickly,' he said to Hawkins. 'Handcuffs.'

Puzzled, Hawkins reached for his gunbelt and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Swain grabbed them.

The clawed hand edged slowly downwards, coming closer to the doorknob.

'It's trying to unlock the door...' Hawkins breathed in awe. As soon as it turned the knob from the inside, the door would unlock straight away. Unlock. And open...

Swain reached up to the door, trying to prise open the cuffs. But the cuffs wouldn't open.

The doorknob rattled again and Swain jumped, ready for it to burst open.

The door remained shut.

It had come from the outside. One of the hoods outside was trying to turn the knob again. The door was still locked. But the clawed hand on the inside was still getting closer to the knob on this side.

'They're locked! The cuffs are locked!' Swain shouted in disbelief, fumbling with the cuffs.

'Shit, of course.' Hawkins pulled some keys from his pocket. 'Here. The smallest one.'

Swain took the keys, hands shaking, and tried to insert the smallest key into the cuffs.

^'Hurry up!' Selexin said.

The claw was at the knob now. Feeling.

Swain's hands were shaking so much that the key slipped out of the cuffs' keyhole.

'Quickly!' Selexin yelled.

Swain inserted the key again, turned it. The cuffs popped opened.

'There!' he said, moving across the floor, sliding underneath the doorknob.

The clawed hand was moving over the knob now, trying to get a grip on it.

Swain reached for the light switch next to the door. Its wired remains flowed out from a solid, stumpy metal housing. Swain clamped one ring of the cuffs through a gap in the metal housing.

The clawed hand slowly began to turn the doorknob.

Swain reached up to the knob, sliding the second ring of the cuffs in behind the clawed hand and around the narrowest part of the doorknob -- the part closest to the door itself.

Then he clamped the cuff tightly around the doorknob just as the clawed hand turned it fully. There was a loud click! as the door unlocked. The door swung slightly inward, opening an inch.

And then suddenly, shockingly, the door was rammed from the outside.

The handcuffs went instantly taut, securing the door to the metal housing on the wall.

The door was open six inches now and Swain fell backwards as one of the hoods swiped viciously at him through the narrow gap between the door and its frame.

The hoods were snarling loudly now, scratching at the doorframe, hurling themselves bodily at the door.

But the cuffs held.

The gap between door and frame was too narrow.

The dog-sized hoods couldn't get in.