Groves switched her attention to the boy, still obviously surprised by the news. “Is that true, Jasper? You know where Daniel Copeland is now?”

  Jasper nodded again.

  A piece of hair had come loose on Grove’s forehead, and she flicked it back to the top of her head. Marina could hear her heartbeat pounding and smell the sweat which was building across her skin.

  Groves got to her feet. “Umm… Please excuse me, but I need to step out for a few minutes.”

  The door closed and Marina was sure she heard it lock. She presumed that was to stop anyone else from stumbling upon them.

  Jess jumped down from the sofa and picked up a soft green dinosaur.

  “That’s not a dragon,” smiled Marina.

  Jess tutted. “I know that.”

  The sound of boots entered Marina’s ears.

  The door opened again and Groves stood in the gap.

  Marina sensed there were others just outside. She got to her feet. “What’s going on?”

  Jess and Jasper had both froze and looked between Marina and Groves near the door.

  The psychologist walked towards Jasper. “Come with me—”

  Marina gave her a swift push, making her fall back against the door. “I said, what’s going on?”

  Two soldiers ran inside. Before Marina’s eyes had a chance to turn black, her hands became clawed, she heard the faint whistle of darts split the air and puncture her skin.

  As she tried to fight the tranquilizer flowing through her blood, she watched the soldiers pick up a kid each and leave.

  Groves rubbed her back, sneering at Marina, then left, slamming the door closed.

  Marina grabbed at the air in front of her and then fell forwards onto the sofa.

  *****

  Carla’s expression of anger was obvious even in the gloom of the kitchen. “How did he let himself get captured!” she said to Keller and Dalton. The rest of the soldiers were keeping watch from the rooms at the front of the property.

  Keller leaned back on the counter top.

  “He did it to save us,” said Dalton.

  “We were close to being spotted. His only option was to—”

  Carla threw her arms up in the air. “Why can I hear a baby!”

  The sound of creaking boards came from outside the rear of the house. Carla walked outside.

  Darren and Joanne were seated on garden chairs. Joanne holding her baby close to her chest.

  “Hello…” said Darren.

  Carla moved back inside. “Who are they?” she said to anyone who would answer.

  Keller shook his head. “That was all Joel.”

  “We found them in one of the apartments. If we left them behind they could have been found… killed,” said Amos, standing next to Kizzy.

  “Maybe they would have talked,” said Dalton. “It was the right thing bringing them back.”

  “How are we meant to look after a baby?” said Carla.

  As if waking from a dream, Kizzy let go of Amos’s hand. “Baby? I love babies!” she ran outside.

  “I got all this,” said Amos, handing Carla the notebook.

  She flicked on her flashlight and examined the pages, turning at least four before looking up at him. “You did good… but, we can’t leave Joel down there.”

  “How are we going to get him out?” said Keller. “He sacrificed himself for the mission. I respect that. But trying to rescue him would be suicide. And we need to get that book back to base.”

  Silence fell across the room.

  “I… think I can get him out,” said Amos.

  Keller scoffed. “You?”

  “How you going to get him out without being seen? Unless invisibility is another of your abilities!” said Carla.

  Dalton stood silent.

  “Well, I think maybe I can do something like that…”

  Keller frowned. Carla just looked confused.

  “If I can jump in someone’s head quickly enough before they know I’m around, then maybe I can make them forget they saw me.”

  “You done that be—”

  Carla realized she was talking to thin air. She flicked her head left and right trying to see if he had just moved into one of the many shadows inside the kitchen or dining area. She looked at Keller. “Where’d he go?”

  “Where did who go?”

  “The kid!”

  “I’m here…”

  She looked back and her mouth fell open.

  “So it works then,” said Dalton.

  “Wait… do that again,” said Carla. This time she focused all her attention on the young man. Again, he was gone.

  She shook her head and he reappeared as she was observing the same space he was just standing in.

  “Okay, maybe you can get him out. But you can’t go alone. Keller, Kizzy—”

  Kizzy was standing in the doorway. Her figure just a silhouette against the evening sky. “I’m not leaving Amos to go down there again alone.”

  Amos walked to her, holding her hand. “Joel let himself get caught so we could all get away. And that includes the family outside.”

  Kizzy looked away.

  “I need you to help get the notebook and the people back to the camp.” She looked into his eyes and he smiled. “Don’t worry, I got this.”

  “Right, so Keller, Kizzy you go back with the others. Get back to the river, take a boat back to the town, find the vehicles and get the hell back to Jankle.”

  Keller looked unsure what to do.

  “Leave now,” said Carla, driving home the urgency.

  He nodded and walked to the other room to collect his pack and the other soldiers.

  By the time the sun had completely left the sky, Carla, Amos, and Dalton were alone in the house.

  “Right. Let’s get our shit. Leave what you absolutely don’t need. I want to get down there. Find him, grab him, then get out by any means necessary. Which might not be the way we got here. If we find a vehicle we take it.” She looked at Amos. “You sure you can do the witchy thing on different people quickly enough? Because if any of them remember we’re there, we’ll have a problem on our hands.”

  He nodded. “I can do this.” It was a lie, but right now he knew they needed to hear it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Joel sat in the back of the army truck, his hands and feet tied with rope. Those who bound him had no idea he could break the binds instantly, but he was constantly surrounded by soldiers, and sometimes the occasional Alkron. So far there had been no chance to slip away.

  Despite his fatigue, the fact that it was now night gave his limbs energy. His senses too were heightened and he listened to the conversations that were happening just outside.

  “Three hundred miles I gotta take one guy! One!” said a man.

  Joel’s hope grew. He was sure to have one chance to disappear into the night without them even realizing he was gone.

  “Yeah, I guess the corporation don’t really care about saving on fuel,” said a second man.

  “I say just feed him to them now. I mean, why not? They’re hungry, and they got this—”

  Joel sensed a third person had come close, making the first man stop talking.

  “Change of plans—” The sound of paper being unwrapped came to Joel’s ears. “Mathews says you’re to take him to this address,” said a third voice.

  “Oh… so maybe they do want to eat him then,” the first man chuckled. Then came the sound of the cabin doors opening and closing, quickly followed by the engine starting.

  Joel waited for the truck to pull out of the lot where it was parked and onto the street. He then went to snap the rope around his wrists but stopped.

  If they deliver me to some vamps, they will think I’m dead. I can probably circle back around to the house.

  It was a sound plan he thought. And he could sense them. Vamps. Not many of the basic kind but a good number of those that had more of their minds still intact. But even if it was an Alkron he was being delivered to, he was confident he could get away.

  The two soldiers were still talking, but it was not anything of any importance so he tuned it out, and instead shuffled to the rear and peered out through the flap in the tarpaulin. It was raining. Gray needles fell from the sky, just visible against the black of the night. Stores and businesses passed by and after the truck had traversed across some train tracks and into a more industrial part of the small town, they stopped. He quickly slid back to his original position.

  Truck doors opened and boots clattered across the wet concrete then stopped just outside the tailgate.

  “Note says we should take him inside.”

  “Inside? Nope, not doing that.”

  “You just want to leave him on the sidewalk? What if he gets away?”

  “He—”

  There was a gust of wind then the first man produced half a scream as if he had seen a Gorgon.

  Joel sensed there was someone or something just a few yards away outside the back of the truck. He readied his arms to break the ropes.

  “Hybrid! Why don’t you stop pretending to be bound and come out.” This was a new voice. It sounded artificial, and followed another vocal sound, which he swore was in a foreign language.

  “Who’s out there?” shouted Joel.

  Slowly a rip started to grow across the back part of the tarpaulin, and then the whole piece was torn away, revealing a solid looking man, his blonde hair tied back into a long ponytail. Blood dripped from his mouth. Joel straight away recognized another hybrid, although this one was unlike any other he had come across. Whoever this was, they had a confidence that most infected by the Scourge never had.

  “Come! Don’t be shy. You are among friends!”

  Joel slowly got to his feet, kicking one leg out to break the ropes across his ankles, and then doing the same with his arm for his wrists. He lowered his head slightly. “I don’t want any trouble. Just want to be on my way, sir.”

  The hybrid’s face was one of bemusement. “Trouble? Well, I was hoping we would cause some trouble, but no harm will come to you from me I can assure you.”

  Now it was Joel’s turn to be bemused, but he hid the emotion, instead, he walked across the back of the track and climbed down to the road.

  The first man was nowhere to be seen, but the second was propped up against the rear wheel of the truck, one bloodied hand around his throat which blood was oozing from. The man looked up at Joel and held out a hand.

  The blonde-haired hybrid in one movement that was just a blur leaned over, twisted the man's head, then was standing in front of Joel once again. He smiled and placed his hand across Joel’s shoulder. “Finally, someone to properly have fun with! Eltir is so damn boring! But you know, older brother and all that.” He removed his hand then started walking away.

  Joel looked at the warehouses surrounding him. He calculated he could probably make it to one fairly quickly, but the strange hybrid a few yards away intrigued him. So instead he started walking in his direction. “Where we going?”

  “To where the food is!” shouted the hybrid over his shoulder.

  Joel ran forward to catch up. “Hey, what’s your name?”

  “Tyror!” he said with a smile.

  *****

  Carla looked out from the side of the dark gray storage container, her hair sticking to her face from the torrent falling from above. The damp streets ahead were empty, but there were zero places to hide if someone suddenly came out of one of the buildings dotted around.

  She looked back to Amos behind her. “Anything?”

  “I can’t sense him yet. There are a few human and Alkron patrols a mile or so from us, but most of the activity is where we thought at the school.”

  “They got to have him at the school,” said Dalton.

  “That’s where we’re heading,” said Carla. She looked back to the streets. Grass, gravel, and concrete were all there was for a hundred yards before buildings cast shadows for them to hide in. She pointed at the dark angular shape of a church in front of them. They nodded in reply.

  They then took off, running down the alleyway they were in, across the road and then the sidewalk until they were plunged back into darkness at the side of the church.

  In the shadows, Carla reached out and felt the cold metal of a vehicle parked up against the wall of the building. Beyond the lot were more roads and then homes. She stood to run again when a hand held her back.

  “There’s a vehicle coming!” said Amos.

  As soon as she crouched again, the sound of an engine became clear amongst the noise of the rain hitting everything around them.

  “Get ready to do your thing!” she whispered.

  He was already inside the minds of the two individuals driving a Humvee in their direction. One was human, the other not. This was their second time moving along this road since they started their patrol and both just wanted to get back to the school and change shifts.

  The car drove past without slowing, its headlights illuminating the side of the church then moved off, its sound being quickly masked by the downpour.

  “Clear?” said Carla.

  “Yup.”

  She pointed ahead. “The house on the corner!”

  They nodded and all three ran again, out of the lot, across the road and the overgrown lawn, only stopping when they reached the porch of the building. They all immediately crouched, then ran around to the back of the property and through a gate to the garden.

  Lights from the school twinkled in the dark just beyond the garden fence twenty yards away.

  They knelt within a series of drenched bushes.

  “Now?” said Carla almost desperately.

  Amos took a deep breath, the rain dripping off his nose and concentrated his mind outwards. Minds came and went as he slid between them, looking out of the individual's eyes, or searching their memories for the sign of a captive. Then he found something. A human officer had given an order to two others to take a human to a particular location across the tracks. There was something else as well. This human had references to kings?

  He pushed the last snippet of information away, focusing on where the human was taken. “I think I have some—”

  Before the words could finalize, he was again standing in a desert, the sand being blown up stinging his face.

  “What the fuck…” he said into the sharp wind. He swung around and staggered backward, he was at the entrance of a huge temple, its pillars surging skyward. He was with two others, they were hybrids… like… himself. Now he was running with them, towards salvation…

  “Amos!” shouted Carla who was shaking him by the shoulders.

  His mind returned to the rain-soaked garden, but the sensation of whoever’s mind he was just in this time stayed with him.

  He sprang upwards and walked out to the long grass scouring the other fences and buildings around him. “Where are you…”

  Carla and Dalton emerged as well.

  “What is it? Have you found Joel?” said Carla.

  “Not Joel but… something, or someone. They’re old, real old.”

  “We need to find Joel! Is he in the school!”

  Amos tried to push the strange ancient beings thoughts away, but they clung to his own mind like a web. He held his arm out to Carla. “Just give me a moment, this is important…”

  “Important!” The words came out louder than she meant, and she immediately looked into the darkness for any sign of movement.

  Amos did his best to relax his mind, trying to get a lock on this person who belonged in a time long before.

  Ah… got you.

  This time he was ready, and his consciousness moved into the being's mind, but this time the memories did not overwhelm him. This person was a hybrid… and he’s moving towards one of the barracks at the back of the school, towards where the humans are and—

  The hybrid was looking at Joel. The shock made Amos lose his grip and he was back in the garden with a frustrated looking Carla looking back at him.

  “I found Joel, he’s with… another hybrid.”

  Confusion flowed across Carla’s face. “He’s being taken somewhere by the hybrid?”

  “I think this hybrid likes Joel… but I don’t think he knows who Joel really is, other than he knows he is a hybrid… they’re moving towards where the humans are sleeping. I think the hybrid means to kill some…”

  Carla shook her head. “Okay, whatever. Where is this?”

  “Behind the school.” He pointed. “Over there. Northwest.”

  Carla looked at the other properties’ gardens lined up in a row just visible from the school lights. “We go over those fences, that takes us towards the back of the school.”

  Amos and Dalton nodded, and they ran forward, climbing over the first obstruction, then the second, moving ever north, until finally, they reached the end. A street which ran to the school sat on the other side of the last fence.

  Carla climbed up on it. The street was dark, but they would be completely exposed, literally a hundred yards from any Alkrons in the school building and the human soldiers in the building behind that. She went to climb over when Amos tugged at her backpack once again. She dropped down. “What?”

  “They’re already inside. If we wait here, they might come back this way when they leave.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Joel stood in the dimly lit hallway which had a series of entrances to dorm rooms. Tyror looked through the glass panel of one door to the sleeping bodies inside.

  “Look at the human food!” he said gleefully.

  In the twenty or so minutes since he had dropped out of the back of the truck, he had been told from the hybrid standing a few feet from him, that he was a king, had lived thousands of years ago, had two older brothers, and was fed up being told how to act.

  Joel was now certain he was also insane. Another hybrid, like Josh, who had been driven crazy by the change. Chances to kill the hybrid came and went, but Joel couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he waited for a chance to escape, but the hybrid always kept him in his view. Crazy he might be, but stupid he wasn’t.

  Now though he was back inside the dragon's cave. Back inside the school, and the crazy hybrid was about to get both of them in a lot of trouble.