"I was walking?" he said, tongue-loose like a woken drunk, "Remind me never to do that- that on a bridge or a... rooftop. Nothing with a steep drop. Okay?"

Jake eased lazily onto his elbows, he might well have been reclining on a poolside sunlounger. His breathing was steady, but deep, in his head it sounded like rowing strokes. The concrete floor was just a concrete floor. The portal and its monsters were gone. They had done it. Tension splintered in every muscle and dispersed until it tingled like sand in his fingertips and toes. His head rolled back with a sigh of release. But the respite was to be short-lived. High above, in the jagged remnants of window panes flashed veins of steely blue light.

"Aidan, we really oughta haul ass."