Faction Paradox — Lawrence Miles

Faction Paradox: A group of time-travelling ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers -- essentially, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults. The Faction seeks to subvert history to its own ends, preferably by letting its rivals kill each other off, then swooping in to seize whatever's left -- presuming the Universe survives...An examination of ritual and suburban horror, This Town Will Never Let Us Go features the 19-year-old Inangela, a city-dweller who's under observation by Faction Paradox's elders and archons. Before this story's done, Inangela's going to encounter the Great Urban Horror--an unidentified force seeking to tunnel its way out of the ground and feed on the surface world.