These hunters and their mutants, although they posed as protectors, were evil. Devils in disguise.
As my eyes roamed the scorched backyard, I noticed something odd in a far corner that was as yet untouched by flames—a dark rectangular shape etched into the soil.
“What is that over there?” I yelled through the chaos. I squinted through the smoke. A ceiling?
I directed the dragons toward the shape. As they touched down on the ground, I realized that it was indeed a ceiling. A tinted glass ceiling to some kind of underground room.
My mother, grandparents and I slid off the dragons.
“We need a couple of witches or jinn over here!” Derek shouted.
Mona manifested beside us a few seconds later along with Shayla.
“We need to check out what this is,” Derek said, indicating the glass.
With a mighty crack, the witches blasted open the covering. They peered inside, palms at the ready. Then Mona called, “There’s someone down here… doesn’t look like a hunter.”
The rest of us joined the witches in peering down into a small, square bunker. It was illuminated by fluorescent strip lights. The room’s walls and floors were stark white, and it was empty, bare of all furnishings, except for a wheelchair in the center, in which sat a man. His head, crowned with fine, dusty blond hair, was leaned forward, toward his chest. Were it not for the slight heave and sigh of his chest, I might have even thought him dead. Glass had rained down on him from the roof, and some shards had pierced through the black robe he was wearing.
We leapt inside. Now, kneeling in front of him, we could see the man’s face. A young man—I would have guessed he was in his late teens, maybe early twenties. His jaw was rough and unkempt—he looked like he hadn’t shaved for at least two weeks—and his eyes were closed. His skin was thin and pale. Almost as pale as my mother and grandparents’. Yet, as Mona lifted his upper lip to reveal a set of clean, white teeth, he had no fangs. Clearly not a vampire. As I reached out to touch one of his limp hands that rested on the arms of his wheelchair, he was not ice cold. He was closer to lukewarm.
“What do you think he is?” my mother asked. “A half-blood?”
Shayla reached out to feel his pulse. “Possibly,” the witch replied. “I’d need to take a closer look at him.”
“Let’s get him out,” Derek said. “He clearly doesn’t belong here. Looks like he’s been a victim of some kind of experiment.”
The witches used their magic to lift his wheelchair out of the room. Then my mother bundled me onto her back and leapt up to ground level along with my grandparents.
“Shayla,” Derek said, “I suggest you escort him back to The Shade now. Obviously be sure to keep him isolated until you figure out exactly what’s wrong with him. Grace, why don’t you go with her? Shayla might be able to use your assistance.”
“Uh, okay,” I said. I wasn’t too happy about leaving my family here but it seemed I would be more useful returning home with Shayla than here, where my limited powers were really not required with all these fire-breathers.
I hugged my mother briefly before eyeing the sickly man again. I gripped the handles of his wheelchair and pushed him to Shayla. Then the three of us vanished from the hunters’ base, away from the smoke and the fire.
Sofia
After Shayla and Grace left with the boy in the wheelchair, we returned to the center of activity, above the buildings.
The brightness of the blaze made my eyes hurt. Once the buildings had been thoroughly destroyed, all enemy lives clearly taken, the dragons relinquished their fire.
The witches and jinn worked together to extinguish the flames so that we would not wreck the woods further. Then we descended to the charred ground. The buildings had collapsed, the basements caved in and scorched. The compound was unrecognizable. The area was nothing but rubble now.
We headed to the portal located in the front of the compound. Our witches already knew what had to be done next. They gathered round the portal and began performing a ritual to close it. After about half an hour, where there had been a gaping hole in the ground was flat soil.
The hunters would not be returning to this part of The Woodlands anytime soon.
As I looked around at the debris, I felt surprised at the lack of guilt I felt for what we had just done. Twenty years ago I was sure that I would have felt more remorse. But over the decades, we’d had ample opportunity to see through these hunters. Their corruption. Their mercilessness, even when it came to human casualties. They were much like the old hunters of Aiden’s time, except a hundred times more powerful. And things were only getting worse.
More than anything… I just felt relief.
But our job was not done yet. We’d targeted what we’d figured to be their main base in The Woodlands, but now we had to travel to Rock Hall, where the hunters had discovered the gathering of werewolves.
I dreaded to think what state that place might be in now. It had been an inferno already at the time our small group had fled. And I dreaded to think what they had done with the werewolves. Would we discover them dead or alive? Held hostage?
We would soon find out.
Grace
Shayla vanished me and the unconscious young man to the portal in the ogres’ realm. Now we could not just leap through the gate. We did not know what was wrong with this man. We had to be gentle with him. Shayla used her magic to glide us down, slowing us down against the suction, while keeping a firm hold of his wheelchair and maintaining its upright position.
Arriving at the other end, in a field on the outskirts of some human city, we located our invisible helicopter. I climbed aboard briefly to check in on Kyle. Having nothing else to do but wait here for the League, he was resting on his bed, reading a book. He had a shelf full of them in the compartment above his bunk. He was used to hanging around.
I gave him an update on what had happened before informing him that Shayla and I were heading back to The Shade. Then I returned to Shayla. She vanished us again, and when we reappeared this time, we had arrived within The Shade’s boundary, in the vibrant sunflower field bordering the entrance of Meadow Hospital. Shayla pushed the man’s chair inside and together we headed to the uppermost floor, where the isolation wards were located. We did not have any patients in isolation at the moment—in fact, the whole hospital seemed pretty empty. The last batch of humans we’d had here—those poor cargo ship workers who’d been trapped by ogres—must have already either died or recovered and been returned to the outside world.
Shayla pushed his chair into the room at the far end of the corridor, and I closed the door behind us. Meadow Hospital really was a unique place. Unlike most hospitals, all of these rooms had been designed to feel cozy, like home. Warm lighting. Soft bedding. Bold paintings adorning the walls—mostly artwork by The Shade’s elementary school children. Waking up in one of these rooms, one would hardly think that one was in a hospital at all. I’d never visited a regular hospital before, but I had heard that they were usually bare and stark, more like prisons than a place to heal.
Shayla pushed the man up to the bed. Walking around the wheelchair, she joined me in staring at him. Still, he was unconscious, breathing only very lightly.
Shayla’s face was traced with concern as she moved to him again. She levitated him out of his chair and laid him down flat on the bed. She stood on one side of the bed while I stood on the other. Placing two thumbs gently against his mussed brows, she lifted his eyelids and gazed at his vacant eyes. I gathered the blanket at the end of the bed and pulled it up to his waist. Shayla undid the buttons of his robe and pushed it aside to reveal his bare stomach.
I was surprised by what I saw. His chest was broader than I had expected beneath that baggy robe he had been engulfed in. Shadows of what appeared to have once been toned muscles were visible on his torso, now worn and faded from lack of use. The back of his neck was also broad, like that of a fighter. Who is—or was—this man?
Shayla examined
his arms, particularly his wrists. He had faint scars the size of pinpricks near his veins.
“Yeah,” Shayla muttered darkly. “Those hunters have been injecting him with something.”
She proceeded to measure his temperature, as well as prod and poke other parts of his upper body, looking beneath his armpits, checking his pulse again, performing a number of other external examinations. Finally she concluded, “I’m pretty sure that your mother was right. He seems to be half-blood.”
“Where would the hunters have found him?” I wondered. “And why did they keep him down in that bunker?” And, for that matter, why was he in a wheelchair? Was he paralyzed?
“We’ll need to wake him to find out,” Shayla replied grimly. She stood back, taking another moment to look him over. “Stay with him while I go mix something up. Won’t be a but a minute.”
“Okay,” I murmured, feeling a little disconcerted to be alone with this strange man, even though he was unconscious.
As Shayla left the room, I leaned in toward him, peering into his face. His cheekbones were sharp, his lips shrewd and pursed. My eyes rose to his pale, slightly perspiring forehead, and then to his dusty blond hair. It was overgrown and unkempt, like the scruff on his jaw. And it looked unnaturally thin. Weakened and worn, just like the rest of him.
How long did those hunters keep him down there? I was burning with questions. I hoped Shayla would hurry up.
The witch returned after about five minutes, manifesting herself on the other side of the man’s bed. She was holding a cup of frothing beige liquid. She crouched over the man, parting his lips before pouring in a few drops. Then she clamped his jaw shut again and set down the cup on the bedside table.
We both watched him intently as the potion took effect. Gradually, his tired face began to show signs of life. His mouth twitched. Then his eyelids flickered. Gradually, they lifted open to reveal a pair of glazed, tawny-brown eyes.
For the first time, I witnessed expression on the man’s face. It twisted and contorted, coming alive with alarm and confusion. As I was standing closer to his direct line of vision, it was me he first set his eyes on. Yet, even as he looked at me, it felt as though he was not really seeing me. He blinked hard, his irises glassy and distant. He raised his hands to his face, brushing his fingers harshly against his eyes, before they shot down to the bedsheets. He gripped them, then, with an alarming clicking of his joints, he attempted to sit up. Before Shayla or I could ease him back down, his elbows collapsed beneath him. His head descended on the pillow and he began coughing violently. Specks of blood landed on his chest. Coughing blood.
“Need to fetch more medication,” Shayla said before hurrying off again.
There was not much I could do in the meantime but place a hand over his and try to offer him a thread of comfort. I had no idea what kind of trauma he had been through, and right now, I just wanted him to feel like he was safe. That we did not wish to harm him but only help him.
“Hey,” I said softly. “It’s okay.”
He seemed quite oblivious to my words as he continued to cough.
Shayla returned and fed him another potion. He resisted swallowing, but then, after Shayla insisted, he gulped hard and gradually his coughing diminished, giving way to heavy breathing.
I grabbed some tissues and dabbed the blood away from his chest and mouth.
I exchanged glances with Shayla.
“What’s your name?” the witch asked gently.
He squinted as his eyes fixed on her again. “My name,” he murmured. His voice was rasping and… British. “I-I don’t know.”
Shayla looked taken aback. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I… I don’t remember.”
I bit my lower lip. He appeared to be suffering from some form of amnesia.
“Is there anything that you do remember?” Shayla asked.
The man groaned, shaking his head. Then he struggled again to sit up. I was afraid that he might start coughing up blood again, but Shayla assisted him, easing him up slowly, until he was resting at a forty-five-degree angle. He didn’t show signs of descending into another fit. His breathing was still labored, however. His lips parted slightly, his eyes glossing over, as though losing himself to a distant memory. “Needles,” he replied hoarsely. “I remember needles. And men. Men in black uniform. And coldness. Awful coldness.” He shivered even now. Of course, if he was a half-blood, he would suffer from acute coldness. I grabbed another blanket and placed it over him.
“That’s all you remember?” Shayla pressed.
“Yes… that is all. That is…” His eyes returned to me. And then he gazed for the first time around the room that he had woken up in. “Where am I? Who are you?”
“You’re safe,” I assured him. “Far away from those men in black uniform. You’re on an island called The Shade. Have you ever heard of it?” Or perhaps a better question would have been, Can you remember ever hearing of it?
He shook his head, causing a deep crinkle in his forehand as he frowned. “I don’t know.” Then he ran his hands over his face, covering his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “God,” he whispered. “What happened to me?”
“I’m guessing that you were kidnapped,” Shayla replied. “From where, I was hoping you’d be able to tell us. Going by your accent, you’re not from America. You were taken to a room where you were locked up and apparently served as the object for some kind of experimentation… I’m hoping to nurse you back to health so that you can remember everything you have forgotten.” She reached for his arms and held his palms in her hands, studying them. She flexed his fingers and then his wrists. “Mobility seems okay in your arms and the upper portion of your body. Are you able to move your legs?”
Panic flashed across the man’s face as his eyes shot down to his legs. As he winced, I realized that he was trying to move them. They didn’t budge.
He exhaled a breath. “I can’t,” he rasped, his brown eyes shining with alarm.
Shayla moved to his feet and began examining them. Then she moved up to his knees, feeling them through the fabric of his pants. “Do you feel any sensation at all?” she asked.
“No.”
She pursed her lips. “Yes. As I feared, your legs have been paralyzed.”
His breath hitched.
“It should not be anything that we can’t fix, however,” Shayla said, giving him a warm smile. “I’m going to leave you with Grace here while I go fetch you something to eat. You’re terribly weak.”
With that, Shayla marched out of the room. I noted how she had not been using her magic to leave and arrive. I guessed she didn’t want to lay too much on the man at once. His head was already in a tailspin. I wondered if he had ever encountered witches before.
“Why would they have taken me?” he asked me. “And who were they anyway? Why would they paralyze me? Why do I feel so cold?”
I let out a slow sigh. Where do I even begin? He was still in such a daze right now, I doubted he could handle all the answers—and of course, I didn’t know all the answers anyway.
“I’m not sure why they took you or why they paralyzed you. But those people are part of a, um, kind of research organization. A very ruthless one.”
I was glad when Shayla returned to the room before I could make further headway in my response. She emerged in the doorway, holding a tray filled with a plate of sandwiches, a jug of water and a glass.
Shayla first gave him some water to drink, which he downed readily. Then she handed him the sandwiches. He raised a slice to his lips and took a bite, chewing slowly. He finished the first sandwich, then reached for the next, but as he was halfway through this one, he retched and upchucked all over himself.
“Oh, dear,” Shayla said, hurrying to take away the sandwich plate and clean him up.
I wondered when the last time he’d ingested solid food was.
“All right,” Shayla said, after she had finished cleaning him. She walked over to a clo
set and returned with a syringe. “I’m going to take a blood sample from you, if that’s okay. I need to begin a full diagnosis. We will try to feed you something again later. Sandwiches were too much of a shock to your system.”
Looking weaker than ever, he allowed her to take his arm. She inserted the needle and filled up the syringe halfway with his blood. Then she left the room again.
He appeared too worn out even to talk after vomiting his guts out. He had a pained expression on his face as he sank back against his pillow. His eyelids drooped. I thought that he might be on the verge of falling asleep, but then he murmured in a low voice, his eyes still closed, “I need more answers.”
I thought back to the questions he had asked me before Shayla entered. I guessed that I could give him a brief overview and try not to go into too many details. And so I began to explain more about the IBSI, as well as supernaturals in general and the state of the world today.
He did not speak a word the whole time, and by the time I was finished with my brief overview, he looked shell shocked.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He stared blankly at the opposite wall, not acknowledging my question. I hoped I had not just blown his fragile mind. Of course the truth of the world around us was so much to take in, even a watered-down version.
Then Shayla returned to the room again. I wondered whether she had had time to inspect the blood sample yet, but since she did not offer information, I didn’t ask. She took a look at the young man and leaned over to take his temperature and pulse again before turning to me. “I think we should let our guest rest for a while,” she said to me. “Give him some time on his own.”
I nodded before grabbing another blanket, since he was still feeling ever so cold, and placing it over him.
“I’ll be back to check in on you soon,” Shayla said as the two of us headed for the door. “For now, get some rest.”
He didn’t respond.
The two of us left the room, closing the door gently behind us.