Hellhounds. Trilby had not believed in Hell and its better half since he was fourteen, and an entity talking about demons and dragging around a pair of great bloody flaps of feather and bone was not going to change his mind.

"Back door," he said. "Come on." He would have to come back for Jim's body later.

He ran lightly down the hallway, trusting that he would be followed. He caught glimpses of other rooms as he passed by: The restaurant had turned into an opium den, a meeting room had become a glowing white landscape spattered with blood, another was now a hospital ward. And everywhere, little whispering voices, just on the wrong side of audible...

At the end of the hall, there was a loud crack! and a burning beam fell from the ceiling, cutting off the path and singeing Trilby's clothes.