A Shade of Vampire 26: A World of New (9 page)

It sounded like… a bomb. Josh’s eyes were wide with shock and confusion.

And then came another explosion, even more deafening than the last. “Oh, my God!” I gasped, clutching my ears and wincing.

What is going on?

I rushed to the window. In the distance, hovering somewhere above the Port, were swarms of black, wasp-like helicopters. The sky above The Shade’s boundary was choked with smoke, and as yet another deafening boom thundered down on the island’s protective barrier, blinding light flashed. Bombs. They were dropping bombs onto our barrier.
What the heck?

I raced back to Josh and clutched his shoulders, hoping to reassure him. “Everything’s going to be okay, all right?” I said hurriedly.

“What is that?” he breathed.

“The IBSI. The same bastards who took you captive. They are raining down explosives, but don’t worry. Try as they might, there’s no way they can penetrate our island… You just wait here. I’m going to go and see what’s happening, and I’ll come right back to you.”

I didn’t even give him a chance to respond before hurtling out of the apartment and down to the forest ground.

I raced to the Port with all the speed my legs could carry me to find a whole gathering of residents already in the clearing before the jetty. I caught sight of Shayla near the front, her head panned up toward the sky. I rushed over to her, gripping her arms and drawing her attention to me.

“What is this?” I panted.

Shayla looked just as confused as I felt. “I’m not sure. I’m certain that they know they can’t make a dent in our island. I don’t understand why they’re even bothering…”

“Revenge?” I suggested. “For what we’re doing to them in The Woodlands?”

Shayla shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Obviously, they want revenge, but this is the most stupid way to attempt it possible. They know the power of our boundary… I can’t help but think they just want to get our attention.”

Well, they sure got that…

I spotted several dragons standing nearby, including Lethe, who was nearest to me, holding hands with his human wife, Elodie. He was the only ice dragon on the island; he’d come here on a visit some years ago, fallen in love with one of the human girls, and never left. Warm climates didn’t suit him well at all, but in The Shade it was just about tolerable for him due to the spell of night.

“Hey, Lethe,” I called to him. He turned to face me, his frigid eyes fixing on me. “Can you take me up there?” I requested.

He frowned, then looked to Shayla for permission.

“Why?” Shayla asked, grabbing my hand.

“I want to get high enough to talk to them,” I said. “Ask them why on earth they’re here.”

Shayla shrugged. “All right. Obviously, Lethe, make sure you stay within the boundary unless you want to get blown to smithereens.”

With a grunt of acquiescence, Lethe transformed into a blue, scaly ice dragon. I hurried onto his back before he launched into the sky. As another bomb dropped, I feared that I might actually go deaf. Once there was a span of relative quiet again, and Lethe and I had neared the helicopters, I roared up, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

That was pathetic. There was no way they could have heard me beneath those choppers.

“Lethe,” I said. “Can you please call up to them?”

Lethe’s entire body rumbled beneath me as he let out a mighty bellow. “WHAT DO YOU SEEK HERE?”

I was sure that must’ve gotten through to them, even amidst the noise of the choppers’ blades.

Then the door to the aircraft directly above us slid open and a man peered down, a brown-haired hunter I had never seen before.

Shayla followed Lethe’s and my lead and joined us in the air, along with several other witches and dragons.

The hunter held up an amplifier and boomed down, “You have something of ours!”

I exchanged glances with Shayla, and before anyone else could respond, I told Lethe to yell back, “We have nothing of yours!”

“You stole away a specimen of ours from The Woodlands!” the hunter shot back down. My breath hitched.
Josh
. “Give him up, if you want any semblance of peace restored to your island.”

Shayla manifested an amplifier of her own and yelled back, “We do not have any specimen here! The young man we found died on the journey back to Earth. Now shoo, before we set our dragons on you!”

The hunters dropped another bomb, wreaking more havoc on my eardrums.
Ugh
.
They need to stop doing that.

“We know that you are lying,” the hunter yelled back down. “We have a tracker installed in him!”

Oh, my God.
I stared at Shayla. “How did you miss that?” I whispered.

She was already cursing herself. “Dammit. I never thought to search him for a tracker. It was the last thing on my mind.”

The Shade’s barrier wouldn’t have allowed the device to communicate once within the island, but the hunters could have traced Josh’s journey leading up it.

“Whether we do or do not have him,” Lethe responded for us, “you have one minute to back off!”

“Know that he will die if you do not hand him over to us,” the hunter replied. “He will die if we do not continue with his treatments. If you want to spare his life, you will hand him back to us now.”

My blood ran cold.
Die?

“They must be lying,” Lethe muttered.

It was extremely disconcerting to me that Shayla hadn’t replied yet. Her large, brown eyes were traced with doubt. I reached out for her arm and grabbed it, forcing her to look at me. “What are you thinking?” I demanded. “Do you think he could be telling the truth?”

She chewed nervously on her lower lip. “As I told you, I don’t know exactly what they did to him. If I knew, it would be more likely that I could find a cure… I can’t recognize for the life of me most of the traces in his blood. I can’t help but think this is merely a ruse to get us to hand him over—for whatever reason they want him so badly—but of course, I can’t say for certain that they’re lying.”

I drew in a sharp breath and gazed back up at the hunters. Handing Josh back to them felt like it would be certain death, surely. Either death, or some kind of prolonged miserable existence. How could we hand him back over?

I took the amplifier from Shayla and yelled, “What did you do to him?”

“Hand him over!” the hunter roared.

“Why? What treatments have you been giving him?”

No response.

Oh, God.
My breathing coming hard and fast, I twisted to face Shayla again. I was so tempted to suggest that we immediately launch an attack on the IBSI and drive them away, but… that hunter’s guarantee of Josh’s death had arrested my mind. I couldn’t shake the biting doubt. What if it really were true? And who was I to make this kind of decision to ignore or accept his words? This wasn’t my life. This was Josh’s. It was only right that I talk to him about this… even though it killed me to lay this kind of stress on him—just when he had been showing some tiny signs of progress.

“L-Let me go and talk to Josh,” I stammered, as the hunters dropped yet another explosive.

“Where is he?” Shayla asked.

“I left him in my apartment. Lethe, please take me there.”

Lethe soared away with me over the treetops. As we reached my treehouse, he paused and lowered to the veranda, allowing me to leap down. I raced into the apartment to find that Josh had moved up to the window and was staring out at the chopper-filled sky over the Port.

He turned to me as I entered, looking just as confused and anxious as he had when I’d left him.

“What is going on?” he croaked.

I drew in a deep breath, buying myself time as I thought about how best to explain this to him. But in the end I figured it was best to just tell him the hard truth and not try to sugarcoat it.

“The IBSI… They admitted that they were using you as a specimen for experimentation, though they refuse to say what for… but they’re demanding that we hand you back to them.”

His eyes bulged. “What? How do they even know I am here?”

I scanned his face, neck, arms, and hands: every inch of his skin that was uncovered by clothing. “They claim to have inserted some kind of tracker in you. But right now, that’s beside the point.” I swallowed hard, steeling myself for my next words. “Josh,” I said, “they’re claiming that if we do not return you, you’re going to die.”

He stared at me, dumbstruck. “Die? Die from what?”

“Well, that’s just it,” I said, blowing out in frustration. “We have no idea. A part of me thinks that they’re simply lying and this is some stupid ruse to get us to give you up, but another part of me is… afraid.” I paused again. “I hate to lay this on you, Josh. I really do. But this is a decision that none of us can make. This is your life. You need to decide.”

He covered his face with his hands, rubbing his temples, even as he let out a low groan. “I
would
rather die than return to them.”

Although that was what I’d expected he would say, I didn’t voice my agreement. He needed to make this decision without any interference on my part.

He raised his head and gazed out again at the choppers, buzzing around in the sky like angry black hornets. He shook his head, shuddering. His brown eyes darkened. “I don’t want to go back to them.”

He might’ve lost his memory, but deep down I believed he must have still been conscious of the trauma they had put him through.

“For all I know,” he went on, “they could wipe my brain all over again. Lock me back in some tiny, airtight bunker for God knows how long.”

As more explosions were let off, I said, “Are you sure about this? Don’t feel you have to rush to make a decision. These hunters might be causing a disturbance, but they can’t get inside. No matter how hard they try. You have time to think about this.”

He took another moment to think, but then met my eyes, his mouth set in a thin hard line, his expression resolute. “I would rather assume that they are lying than take the risk that they are not.”

I held his gaze for several moments longer, trying to verify whether I really saw true conviction in them. I did. He had made up his mind. “Okay.” I nodded. “I’ll go and tell Shayla your decision.” I was about to rush out again but I held back to give his hand a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of this.”

Then I turned on my heel and returned to the veranda before resuming my seat on Lethe’s back.

As he carried me back to the Port, I tried to fill my mind with only positive thoughts. I tried to reason with myself. We were seeing small signs of improvement in Josh, like his being able to hold in solid food, and his stamina slowly rebuilding. If the hunter really was telling the truth, how would that be possible? Wouldn’t he only be getting worse?

Descending on the crowd that was waiting for us, I informed Shayla, “He doesn’t want to be handed back. He is staying with us.”

She nodded, not looking in the least bit surprised. Then she fixed her eyes on the hunters, her jaw setting in a grimace. “Then it’s time to give these bastards an ass-kicking… Shade- style.”

N
either Lethe
nor I were needed for this task. This was a job for the fire dragons. I doubted even the jinn and witches would be required for this.

The fire-breathers burst through The Shade’s boundary, unleashing an unholy storm of flames. It engulfed the choppers completely, as well as every patch of sky within sight. It had become a sky of fire.

Shouts abounded, along with the firing of bullets and the dropping of more explosives, but from what I could make out through the blaze, the fire dragons were already above them and had blinded the hunters far too much with their fire to make their aim anywhere near accurate. Besides, the dragons’ scales were so tough, they were practically magical. They could withstand the spells of witches, which in their own way were just as powerful as these explosions the IBSI were raining down on us.

After five minutes of chaos, the dragons relinquished their flames just a little bit. The helicopters that had survived were rapidly fleeing the area. The dragons didn’t bother chasing after those who had escaped, but they did burn all who remained within easy reach to cinders. Several aircraft crashed down against the roof of the island’s barrier, along with the limp bodies of men. The dragons swept down, clasping the wreckage and the bodies within their claws, and flung them miles away, into the ocean.

As my hands trembled, I realized how in shock I was. It was not even so much their sudden arrival, nor what they had said about Josh. I just could not get over the fact that they had been so ready and willing to walk right into such danger. They knew how deadly our security was. They knew we were equipped with an army of dragons, jinn and witches who could take them down from the sky. And yet they had come to aggravate us anyway.

We didn’t know exactly what they had done to Josh, but whatever it was, their actions confirmed to me that we were definitely right to keep him here. The fact that they were willing to risk the lives of God knew how many dozens of men for the sake of one young man who was supposedly at death’s door spoke volumes. They were desperate to get him back. And if they were desperate enough to launch such a fatal attack, they were certainly desperate enough to fabricate wild lies.

And that was what we had to believe the hunter’s statement about Josh was. Nothing but a lie.

Once the fire-breathers’ business was done, the witches allowed the dragons back into the island. They soared down and dumped themselves into the ocean, mists of steam releasing from their bodies.

Lethe descended to the ground with me, along with Shayla and the other witches who had been hovering in the air to witness the scene up close.

“All right,” Shayla called out to everyone—there really was quite a large crowd by now. Vampires, werewolves, humans, even Brett and Bella had trundled out of their caves. “Nothing to see here anymore.” Then she took my hand. “Let’s go to Josh. The first thing I want to do now is get that tracker out of him. Should have done that the day we brought him here.”

“Good idea,” I agreed.

She vanished the two of us and we reappeared on my veranda. As we entered the apartment, we found Josh still sitting by the window. He would’ve witnessed the entire battle from this height.

“They’re gone,” Shayla said, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Now, I would like to take you back to the hospital.”