Two of the Ka-disguised okisaru went over and grabbed Hood, one arm each, like secret service agents helping the president's grandma through a metal detector. The other two did the same to Tanaka. I could tell already that they were being way too gentle.

  “Tanaka,” I said, “they need to play the part.”

  “You always right, Jimmy-san.” He yelled out another order.

  The okisaru hesitated, and Tanaka said it again. One of them let out a sharp screech, and then they obeyed. They grabbed Tanaka and Hood more roughly, and began to stomp through the woods toward the waterfall, dragging their fake captives along like cops after a drug raid. I followed, hoping against hope that our plan went off without a hitch.

  It would all depend on the little secret I had learned in the Storm World.

  The falls were way bigger than they'd looked from the road. As we approached, I felt like some giant had scooped up the entire ocean into a bucket and decided he wanted to dump it on our heads. The okisaru dragged and pushed Hood and Tanaka around its outermost edge, and then headed to the dark space between the mountain and the wall of falling water. All of us slipped a time or two on the wet rocks, and by the time we reached the cold stone of the mountainside, we were soaked to the bone.

  Years of erosion had created a huge abscess in the side of the cliff, so that there was a large pool behind the curtain of the waterfall. It was odd to see it from the back side. The water was smoother, almost like a sheet of glass. For some reason the froth and the mist and the spray were not nearly as prevalent on the inside. It was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

  We waded into the black pool and headed to the back of the cave. The water came to our knees, and the bottom was littered with rocks set at all sorts of uncomfortable angles, making it difficult to walk. We stumbled and bumbled our way across, and then reached a narrow tunnel that shot into the face of the towering mountain.

  Two Shadow Ka stood at the entrance, guarding their hideout. They came forward, yelping out a few screams that of course made no sense to me. Our okisaru answered back, and pushed Tanaka and Hood into the water in front of them. Then they all screamed, the echo of it piercing my ears. I just stood there, anxious with worry, waiting to see if my part of the plan worked.

  One of the guards stepped forward, scanning with its hidden eyes the entire area, looking to see if anyone else had followed. It eyes passed over me several times, but it made no movement of recognition or surprise. Then, satisfied and excited to show its master this new development—these new prisoners, the Ka turned and headed for the tunnel, motioning the others to follow.

  It had worked. The Shield was making me invisible.

  With a sigh of relief, I followed them into the darkness of the mountain.

  So far, so good.

  The tunnel stretched on forever, or at least it seemed like it. The walls of the long passage were black rock, jagged and rough, like it had been dug out by men with no care for things that looked nice. The floor was smooth, as if it had been traveled for years by a secret people who had never seen the sun. Every forty feet or so a light bulb hung from the ceiling by a rope, with no sign of wiring or other source of power. They let off a faint glow, and swayed back and forth in a warm breeze that came from somewhere ahead, creating angled, dancing shadows on the walls.

  The whole place smelled like wet dog, rot, and decay. I kept a slight distance behind the others, and the stench worsened the farther we went. Although I had no reason to know for sure, the smell made me think of decomposing bodies. All in all, it was a real pleasant place to be—if you were a vampire or zombie.

  The tunnel made a turn to the right, and then began to make a slow descent. From that point it seemed to go downward in a steady, wide spiral. We had walked for at least an hour, maybe two, and my legs were aching. The look of the tunnel and the horrible smell never changed, and the magic light bulbs never ceased shining.

  Down we went. Down, down, into the depths of whatever world waited below the mountain.

  Up ahead, one of the Ka screamed, and everyone came to a stop. I moved forward, more confident in my invisibility, anxious to see what was happening. The wonder of the First Gift, the fact that it could not only protect me from bullets and fists but actually repel others’ sight still amazed me. And made me very, very thankful.

  The group had reached a place where the tunnel ended in a massive stone wall with a hole in the middle, and one of the Ka was looking through the hole. It screamed again, and then the rumbling sound of heavy stone grinding against stone filled the air. The wall was not a wall—it was a door, and it was swinging open.

  Tanaka looked back and caught my eyes. I quickly shook my head, scared that he would give something away. His face betrayed how scared and nervous he felt. With a look of dejection, he turned back toward the stone door.

  With a loud boom, the door slammed into the wall of the tunnel. A reddish light came from the opening, and the Shadow Ka moved the small company out of the tunnel and into whatever lay beyond. They weren't even all the way through before the massive door began to close. I hurried and ran forward as it swung closed. It came to a rest with a loud boom.

  We stood on a wide ledge that jutted out from the door into open air. From both sides of the ledge, a set of stairs curved down and out of sight. My curiosity overcame my fear, and I stepped to the side of where everyone else stood, and walked up to the edge of the landing.

  My eyes tried to tell me what I was seeing, but I couldn't believe it.

  We were at the very top of a cavern so large that it seemed to break every known rule of physics or natural law. It stretched forward and beyond even what I could see, as if we had reached the center of the earth and it had been hollowed out like the pit from a peach. For miles and miles there was open air, and the bottom of the cavern lay far below, the stairs to our sides winding down to the bottom with what must've been thousands of steps. Along the sides of the cavern I could see other openings similar to the one from which we'd just come, all with the same set of twin staircases leading to the bottom.

  All of them were full of Shadow Ka. And all of the Ka were carrying human bodies, whether dead or asleep, I couldn't tell for sure. But my gut told me they were alive and in the Coma of the Stompers. I leaned over and tried to see the bottom, to see where they were carrying all of those people.

  It was far, far below me, but I still knew in an instant what was down there, covering the width and breadth of the entire cavern floor.

  Thousands upon thousands of rectangular blocks of stone.

  Stone beds. And most of them were occupied.

  I jumped when the Ka next to me let out a piercing wail. The group then headed for the staircase to the left and began the long descent to the bottom. Tanaka and Hood were exhausted, dragged along more than led now. I felt so bad for them, and frustrated, knowing that I had the ability to rescue them with almost no effort.

  But I knew that was not an option. We had come for our other friends, for Rayna and Miyoko. But what if they were deep in the Coma—what if we were too late? My heart sinking lower by the minute, I stepped back from the edge and followed the sordid company down the stairs.

  The stone beneath our feet was dusty and covered with loose rocks. The cut stairs were wide but not very deep, making the trip down a cumbersome one because of the constant need to watch my step. As I followed the Ka, some real and some impostors, down toward the bottom of the cavern, my thoughts turned to the next phase of our plan. The hard part would be finding our friends amidst the countless victims below.

  The trip down took even longer than I'd thought it would. Switchback after switchback, hundreds after hundreds of stairs, down we went. The ceiling of the cavern hung above us like storm clouds made of earth, defying all sense of what should be physically possible. It made my head spin when I looked up, and so I refocused my sights on what awaited us below.

  As we got closer, the sheer numbers of Shadow Ka and people became more apparent, and more staggering. I tried to think of a time when I had seen so many people in one place. The first thing that came to mind was when I had been very little, and the Braves had won the World Series. A few days after that there had been a parade in Atlanta, and my family watched from the top of a ten-story building. For as far as I could see, thousands of people had been packed in the streets—a sea of bodies in every direction. I knew without a doubt that there were more people in the cavern than I had seen that day.

  Except for one big difference. Most of the ones I saw now were in a deep sleep.

  More than half of the stone beds were occupied, the people lying flat on their backs, eyes closed. No tubes or IVs or anything were attached to them, and I wondered how the Ka kept them all alive.

  The Ka were carrying countless others to the empty beds, their lifeless bodies slumped over the black shoulders of their captors, flopping with each heavy step. Many Ka also carried bodies in their huge talons, flying to and fro. It all looked like some massive production plant, with the workers participating in organized chaos. It made me sick.

  My resolve deepened, and I swore to myself that we would win this war.

  We were coming upon the last few stairs when one of the Ka from the floor below noticed our group and walked toward us. He was bigger than the others, and the way other Ka deferred to his movements gave him a sense of authority. Our group came to a stop, and waited for the big Ka to speak. The constant sounds of screaming Ka, flapping wings, and shuffling feet had made the whole place loud and irritating up until now, but everything seemed to quiet down in that moment.

  The leader Ka looked over Tanaka and Hood, his interest in these new prisoners very high. His black eyes passed over me as well, and I couldn't help but hold my breath in fear that maybe he could see what the others could not. But if he did, he made no sign of it. Then something strange happened. The air around his black skin wavered, like heat waves coming off a flame.

  Then he began to change.

  His body seemed to draw back in on itself, shrinking into a smaller version of a Shadow Ka. The blackness of his skin ebbed into lines all over his body, leaving gray skin behind. His wings shrunk until they disappeared, and his features melted and morphed into those of a human. The black lines receded until they were gone.

  Seconds later, what had been a Ka was now a human being again. And I knew this man, although he looked even more evil than the last time I'd seen him, when I'd blasted him away from our ship on the ocean with a burst of Ice.

  It was Kenji, leader of the Bosu Zoku.

  Tanaka must have been as shocked as I was based on Kenji's first words.

  “Yes, Tanaka-san,” he said. “We have the fortune of meeting once again.” He took a step forward and lightly touched Tanaka's face. “For your sake, I want to appear in my lesser form, so we can talk and share stories. Do you like my trick? Does it make you feel more comfortable?”

  Tanaka spit in Kenji's face. I almost wanted to yell out and cheer him on.

  Kenji laughed as he wiped the gray spittle from his cheek. “Yes. Now I know why it is that your breath reeks of death, my fellow countryman. It's in your very saliva.” He barked out another laugh, and it reminded me of some cheap movie where the bad guy always lets out his evil chortle.

  “You have caught us, yes,” said Tanaka. “But what good are we? You don't have the boy, and Jimmy-san all that matters.”

  Kenji's eyes focused in on Tanaka's, like he was trying to read some deeper meaning from the words. Then his smile returned.

  “My friend, I know of his weaknesses. We can always count on your hero to put the lives of his meaningless friends before the fate of the world. We have you, we have others. We have killed most of the Alliance. The more I can make Jimmy waste his time on finding insignificant bugs like you, the greater our chances of success. Don't you see? His time has almost run out. Our victory is all but assured.”

  “You count eggs before they chickens,” said Tanaka, and I winced at his bad attempt to use an American phrase.

  “I think you mean chickens before they hatch, you idiot,” said Kenji. “You should've paid more attention in school.”

  “Whatever. It not over. This I promise.”

  Kenji quit smiling and replaced it with a mocking frown. “Your word means a lot to me, Tanaka. Come. I will let you cry your promises to my masters as you feed them with your fear.” He snapped his fingers, and motioned toward the endless sea of beds behind him. “I've saved your daughter and your friend for when you arrived.” The smile came back.

  “It's time for all of you to sleep.”

  The okisaru holding Hood and Tanaka followed Kenji as he turned and walked away from the stairs. After a few seconds, his body vibrated and then quickly morphed back into the full and hideous shape of a Shadow Ka. His great wings flailed behind him and whipped in the air to show his power. He led the group through a hundred or so occupied stone beds. I looked down at the sorry people as we walked, searching for signs of life.

  Their chests rose and fell ever so slightly, and their skin seemed pale and damp. Their eyes shifted back and forth under closed lids, and every once in a while their heads would jerk to the left or right. But that was not what was most disturbing.

  All of their faces looked terrified, a permanent scowl of fear and anguish dominating their features. I couldn't imagine what was going on inside their minds.

  Kenji stopped in front of two empty beds, and motioned to them with his claws. Then he screamed a command to the okisaru holding Tanaka and Hood.

  Improvising well, the fake Shadow Ka dragged the two humans forward and threw them onto the stone blocks. Knowing there was no point in resisting, they didn't attempt to escape or get up from the beds.

  “Dad!” someone yelled from several beds away.

  Miyoko.

  She was there, she was alive. A Ka held her captive, dragging her along, and Rayna was with her, also alive and well. The Ka had wanted everyone to be there, to share in the misery of the Stompers at the same time. It was sick and cruel, but we knew that's what they'd do. And our plan depended on it.

  The Shadow Ka pulled and yanked on Miyoko and Rayna and brought them over to two stone blocks next to Tanaka and Hood. Without a care, they threw them onto the beds.

  “Jimmy!” yelled Rayna to Tanaka. “Is Jimmy okay?” She still hadn't noticed me, standing as I was behind all the others.

  The Ka nearest her slapped Rayna on the head, and she fell onto her back. She lay silent.

  “Yes,” Tanaka replied.

  A scream from Kenji shut everyone up for good. He began to roar a constant screeching of sounds, and I knew in an instant what he was doing.

  It was the song of the Shadow Ka. The spell that made people fall into the Coma, the preparation for the Stompers to enter their minds. We all knew what to do.

  Tanaka's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and then his eyelids began to close. Hood swayed to the right and put his pale hands over the place his eyes would be. Rayna closed hers. I closed mine. Four okisaru that looked just like Shadow Ka brought great wings up to shield their eyes.

  It was time.

  A light brighter than the sun exploded out of nowhere, and our plan went into action.

  Tanaka had never really told me all of the details about how and when Miyoko and Rayna were kidnapped by the Shadow Ka. Hood and Tanaka had gone looking for them, and had found them just as a massive raid by the Ka intercepted their efforts. Without being able to get to me, our enemy's second alternative was to get the next best thing—those who were close to me, in hopes of using them as collateral.

  What happened during that raid was terrible—so bad that Tanaka found it hard to talk about. But I did know that most of the Alliance—whom Rayna and Miyoko had worked so hard to gather and reunite—had been killed. The only reason those two survived is because they were useless against me if they were dead. If anything, it would only increase my efforts to get payback.

  In those tense moments, when Tanaka and Hood barely escaped while they watched the almost unbearable act of seeing their loved ones taken, Tanaka had been able to get a note to Miyoko by using one of the okisaru. It had said, “We will come for you. When you are ready, use your eyes.”

  And that was what she had just done.

  All of the members of the Alliance had a gift. Some had more than others. Miyoko's was the ability to shine unfathomable light from her eyes, a power that defied any common sense I had in my little brain. The source of that light was a complete mystery—another one of the millions I'd chalked up in the last few months of my life. But it had come in handy before, and it worked perfectly as a beacon for all of us to begin our actions at the same time.

  No one but us expected it. Just as she felt the first tingle of sleep flow through her, Miyoko opened her eyes and exerted the full force of her Gift, throwing all of her power into it like she'd never done before. Compared to the relative darkness of the cavern, the light that burst forth from her eyes was like the brilliance of the sun after an eclipse.

  As the place seemed to erupt into flames, Kenji's song was halted in an instant. With a different scream than before, one of agony, he pulled his wings over his beastly head and fell to the ground. All around us the other Shadow Ka did the same, falling left and right, dropping human bodies from their grasp, screeching and wailing.

  We waited for a few more seconds, knowing that Miyoko would end it soon.

  The light disappeared. Even though our eyes had been closed or covered, it was still like walking into a theater from outside on a bright, sunny day. It was hard to make out much at all, but every second was precious, and we sprung into action.

  Everything happened at once.

  While Kenji and the other Shadow Ka wallowed in their temporary blindness, the four okisaru jumped forward and grabbed Miyoko, Rayna, Tanaka, and Hood—one apiece. They grasped them in their huge shadow claws and immediately took flight into the vast space of the open cavern. Even as they did so, Kenji stood and shook off the short-lived daze caused by Miyoko's light. The other Ka around him were also recovering, and it didn't take long before they realized what was going on.