Contest

11.18:20:21 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:08

12. 18:23:57 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:06

13. 18:46:00 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:34

Swain stared at the list, bewildered.

Numbers and times and energy surges and the constant repetition of the word unknown. And presumably it all had something to do with the library.

Thirteen surges of energy in all. One in Connecticut and twelve in New York.

Okay.

Swain looked at the times of the first few surges.

18:03:48. A surge -- source unknown, type unknown -- detected in Connecticut, lasting nine seconds.

Exactly ten seconds after that initial surge began, at 6:03:58 p.m., a surge appeared in New York.

All right. That was easy. That was Swain himself and Holly being teleported from his home in Connecticut to the library in central Manhattan.

Six other surges of roughly the same duration -- five to eight seconds -- accounted for the other contestants and their guides being teleported into the library for the Presidian.

Swain remembered that Selexin had already been inside the library when he had arrived. His teleportation must have occurred too early to be on this list.

But that still left five other surges.

Swain scanned the list further and saw the entries numbered 6 through 9 -- the four two-second surges that had come in rapid succession one second after the other. They had been underlined.

Swain frowned at the fifth surge.

18:14:12. A six-second surge. Nothing special about that, just another contestant and his guide being teleported inside. But twenty-five seconds after that surge came the four rapid surges in quick succession.

The hoods! he thought, realising.

They were small, so teleportation must not have taken very long. Only two seconds each.

And that explained the variation in the times needed for the other teleportations -- some contestants were bigger or smaller than others, so they required more or less time to be teleported into the labyrinth, somewhere between five and eight seconds.

Swain smiled, this was coming together nicely.

Except for one thing.

The last energy surge.

It had come more than twenty-two minutes after all the other surges, which themselves had all occurred within twenty minutes.

And it had lasted thirty-four seconds. The longest surge before that had lasted only nine seconds.

What was it? An afterthought perhaps? Was it something the organisers of the Presidian had forgotten to put inside the labyrinth?

It wasn't the Karanadon. Selexin had told Swain that the Karanadon had been placed inside the labyrinth almost a day before the Presidian was to commence.

Swain couldn't figure it out now, so he let it be for the moment. It was time to go.

He put the sheet of paper in his pocket and with a final glance at Reese's motionless body, he headed for the door marked to stack.

----ooo0ooo------

The study hall was bathed in the yellow glow of a fire out of control.

In the far corner of the wide room, beyond the flames, the janitor's room stood sombrely -- dark and charred, the fire inside it having burned itself out.

Holly shut her eyes as Selexin led her around the bloody corpse swinging from the ceiling. Her feet slipped suddenly on the pool of blood, but Selexin steadied her before she fell.

They could hear the hoods climbing the stairs behind them, grunting, snorting.

Selexin pulled harder, guiding Holly in among the L-shaped desks of the study hall.

'The elevator!' Holly whispered. 'Go for the elevator!'

'Good idea,' Selexin said, pressing on through the tangle of standing and fallen desks.

There must have been hundreds of desks in the study hall, half of which still stood, undisturbed. The other half had not been so fortunate, crushed or thrown by the Karanadon, torn to pieces, smashed beyond recognition.

The elevators were close now.

The doors to the left-hand elevator were still pulled wide, revealing the black abyss of the elevator shaft. The Karanadon must have pulled them open so hard that they had stayed open.

Selexin hit the call button on the run, slammed into the wall, spun around.

In the flickering glow of the fire, he saw Hawkins' body spinning slowly from the ceiling above the entrance to the stairwell.

And beneath the body, stepping slowly and cautiously into the study hall, was a hood.

Through the tangled forest of desk legs, Selexin saw the second hood join its partner and he felt a chill.

They were scanning the study hall very slowly, peering across the room, under the desks.

Selexin watched intently. It was as though the hoods were more resolved now, more serious. It was time to kill. Play was over. The hunt had begun.

Holly snapped round to look at the open elevator shaft behind them.

The cables that had run vertically down the shaft were all gone now, snapped by the Karanadon, probably resting at the bottom with the rest of the battered lift. They couldn't slide down this time.

The numbered display above the other elevator was still working though: one number after the other slowly ignited as the elevator crawled upwards.

LG glowed yellow. Then faded.

G glowed yellow, faded.

1 glowed--

Holly felt Selexin tug on her shoulder. 'Come on,' he said. 'We can't stay here.'

'But the lift...'

'It will not get here in time.' Selexin grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the elevators just as she caught a glimpse of the hoods moving in from the left.

Selexin pulled hard, dragging Holly to the right, watching the hoods through the legs of the desks.

The hoods were twenty feet away, moving with the cold stealth of seasoned hunters.

In the strobe-like light of the fires, Selexin could see them clearly. The needle-like teeth protruding from the spherical head; the bony black forelegs with their bloodied claws scraping on the floor; the powerful, muscular hind legs; and the long scaly tail that swished menacingly behind the black torso as if it had a mind of its own.

The perfect hunter.

Remorseless. Relentless.

Selexin swallowed as he jumped over a fallen desk and found himself standing before the janitor's room. In the corner.

Dead end.

He looked back. The hoods had stopped now, still twenty feet away. They were just standing there, staring at their diminutive prey.

A moment later, they moved again.

In opposite directions.

They were splitting up.

'Not good,' Selexin said, 'this is not good.' It was better when they were together, because at least then he could see them both at the same time. But now...