After what seemed like hours, Joe Warbeck reached the top of the stairs.  The whole time, his surroundings hadn’t changed at all- smooth rock walls with circular lights every six feet or so.  And no hint at all of what he was actually heading towards.

It was funny to think of all this being on Colwyn’s property.  To be perfectly honest, Joe had never got to know him that well.  For years, Jackie had tried to make them be best friends, but Colwyn had always been standoffish.  One of those guys who was intimidated by people who told the truth.  He’d always come across as a spoilt rich boy, but Joe had never thought he’d be crazy enough to try and drill a tunnel into a mountain, like he was a Bond villain trying to build an underground lair. 

At the top there was a sign, at least.  It was pinned to the wall directly in front of the stairs, between two sets of double-doors.  The left side of the sign was in Chinese or something, but the right side read:

_{Underhill Towers}

_{First Floor:  Flats 101 – 110}

_{Second Floor:  Shops}

_{Third Floor:  Garden Centre}

_{Fourth Floor:  Flats 120-130…}

Joe laughed out loud.  What was this?  Flats, shops…  And in a mountain?  Was this Colwyn’s idea of a development project?  Was he trying to set up his own version of fucking Disneyland?  Where had he got the money for this?  He must have been in debt up to his eyeballs- even Jackie’s relatives didn’t have this kind of cash to throw around.  Whatever Colwyn had done to get all this probably hadn’t even been legal.

Joe had to go up and see this.  Maybe he could even take some photos.  The big, empty vanity project in the middle of public land… the papers would go wild about that.  Compared to that, the guy back at the house was nothing.

He opened up one of the doors, and saw, as he’d expected, another set of stairs.  He just about jumped them two at a time, he was so keen to get up there.  On the second landing, there was a door that led to a corridor with big windows on one side and a row of doors on the other.  He tried a couple of the doors, but they were locked.  Never mind.  The shops were on the next floor up, he remembered.

Halfway up the stairs, something unexpected happened- Joe started to hear voices.  There were actual people up there!  Who’d have thought?  So, either Colwyn had actually managed to sucker some people into moving in, or his creditors were up there keeping an eye on the place.  Either way, it sounded like a lot of them.  This would be interesting.

It was an actual shopping centre.  A real one, like they had in every high street in the country.  Though, saying that, every single shop name was in gobbledegook again, and the people walking by were some of the ugliest he’d ever seen.  Protruding teeth, sunken eyes, not a chin in sight… the kind of people who looked like they had one set of great-grandparents each.  Maybe Colwyn’s project wasn’t setting up his own Disneyland, but breeding a whole village of mutant mountain people.

Joe went into a newsagent… or at least, that’s what it looked like.  Newspapers near the front, anyway.  He took a look at the front pages, but obviously they weren’t in English.  Nobody he recognised in the pictures, anyway.  There wasn’t a queue at the moment, so he could go right up to the cashiers and get an idea of what this place was actually about.

They weren’t any prettier than the rest of the mob.  A man who looked as if he’d never been out in daylight, and a woman with hair so thin and lank that it was practically see-through.  Joe walked up and tapped on the desk.  “Alright?”

The cashiers looked at each other, and then the woman did her best to give him a smile through those teeth of hers.  “Good evening!  How can we help you?”

“Well, you can tell me what this place actually is, for a start.”  He looked from one to the other.  “Come on.  What’s he up to?”

“Who?” asked the woman.

(“It’s a newsagent,” mumbled her friend.)

 Joe laughed.  “Who else would I be talking about?  Colwyn!”

The woman blinked at him.  “Colwyn Ballantine?  From Dovecote Gardens?”

 “For God’s sake…  Yes!  Him!”

The two of them looked at each other again.  It was as if they couldn’t do anything without checking in with each other every thirty seconds.  Then the man cleared his throat.  “Um, we don’t know much about him, I’m afraid.  There’s an Information Centre on the seventh floor- they might…”

 Joe laughed, and shook his head.  “You don’t know your own landlord?  Jesus.”

The cashiers frowned.  Clearly, Joe had spoken out of turn.  Hadn’t he seen that expression a million times when he was married to Jackie?  The man leaned forward.  “Look, I don’t know what Colwyn’s been telling you, but you’ve got completely the wrong idea.  He’s not…”

“Oh, come on!”

“Look, I know you two are probably friends and everything, but…”

Joe nearly jumped backwards in shock.  “We’re not friends!  Do I look like I’d be friends with somebody like him?”  The assumptions people made.  Joe didn’t think Colwyn had any friends.  Too keen on himself to have room for anyone else.  “Look, call him what you like- I just want to know what he thinks he’s doing with this place.  Because if he thinks…”

All at once, Joe stopped.  He’d just seen something move in the back of the shop.

He hadn’t taken a proper look in that direction before, but now that he did, he saw that there was no back wall where you’d expect it to be.  There were a few rows of stalls, and then it seemed to open up into a much bigger space.

Joe went a bit closer, and saw that there was a kind of balcony at the end there.  Beyond it was a kind of scaled-up version of the newsagent- floor about fifty feet below, news stands the size of car parks, papers you could use to keep the rain off an entire building.  And moving around the aisles, as casual as can be…

They were…

There was a word that Joe didn’t want to use.  Because it was impossible.  He was dreaming.  This was all a big joke.  There was no way that…

He was back at the front of the shop before he’d even noticed himself running.  He’d knocked over one of the magazine stands on his way there.  “What the fuck are you keeping back there?!” he screamed at the cashiers.

They didn’t look at each other this time.  Instead, they just stared at him as if he was mad.  “That’s the Dahut section,” the woman explained slowly, as if she was speaking to a child, “If you don’t want to go in there, it’s fine.  There’s a till right here.”

“What’s wrong with you?  There are…  That place has…”

Dragons.  There were dragons in that place in the back of the shop, standing upright, each one ten times the size of a man.  Shining scales in green, blue, red and gold.  Long claws that could rip a man in two with a flick of a finger.  And wings.  Somehow the wings had been the most disturbing thing of all.

There was a little bit of static from a gadget on the desk, and a rumbling voice came out of it.  Joe didn’t understand what it said.  He was too busy trying to imagine the creature that went with that voice.

The woman cashier pressed a button to reply, said something reassuring in whatever language they spoke, and then ended the call.  They had an intercom.  They talked to the dragons on an intercom.

“This is, what, some kind of experiment?” demanded Joe, “Government stuff?”  That was where Colwyn would have got his money.  He’d agreed to let this happen on his land.  And Jackie had sent their daughters off to stay with him.  Happily, without a care in the world.  Sent them into the lion’s den.

The man reached out to pat his arm.  “You need to calm…”

Joe grabbed the arm and twisted it back.  “You do not tell me…”  He broke off, breathing heavily.  In one quick movement, he moved back a couple of feet, grabbed one of the newspaper stands, and threw it at the desk.  “Those were dragons!  I want to know what this place is about, and I want to know now!”

He turned to pick up the next one- there was plenty of stuff to throw before he ran out- but, as soon as his back was turned, he felt the cashiers’ hands on his arms and shoulders.  He tried to shake them off, tried to kick out, but it was no use.  In ten seconds flat, they had him on the ground.

(To be continued)