Page 24

When Lyra and I took a step toward the voice, Jessica let out a cry of protest. What is her problem? The man groaned from somewhere in the rubble, and I gave her the fiercest glare I could manage.

“We need to be looking for Dan,” she snapped. “What if this is a trick from this weird bubble?”

The man”s call came again. I could smell him now—bloodied, which meant he was injured. He was somewhere nearby in the ruins.

“We have to check,” Lyra said, but it was in a low voice. As selfish as Jessica was, she could have been right about it being a trick of the environment. We had to investigate, though. It was our duty to help any survivors, and we knew of one survivor in particular who’d had a recent tangle with the Ghost that Jessica didn’t know about. Of course, that was assuming Joey had lived after disappearing through what I now suspected was a portal, but I’d seen humans survive against impossible odds before.

I pushed forward with Lyra, ignoring Jessica”s panicked complaints. If she didn”t want to use her strange powers right now, then I had no more patience for her.

“He”s hurt,” I told Lyra. My senses were fragile and frayed at the edges, but I could tell that our survivor was not in good health. The stench of death hit me as we moved closer to the ruins. A sliver of an entrance revealed itself as we cautiously inched toward the side of the building where a pile of rubble lay. The debris concealed a partially destroyed part of the building. Someone had used the large punched-in wall of this part of the building to serve as an open den.

“Joey?” Lyra called tentatively. I could feel the hesitation coming off her and remembered the knife she’d picked up. It was the only clue to the survivor from the Black Rock office, but… he had to be dead, right? We had seen so much blood at the site of his fight with the Ghost. I couldn’t believe we might have actually found him, but then again, maybe we hadn’t. There were a lot of people missing, but Lyra seemed to have pinned all her hopes on finding the survivor who had slipped through our fingers.

Sike, Bryce, and Cam followed us with careful movements, sensibly hanging back. We were in a bizarre world. What if the monster could do more than invisibility, and had the ability to create scents or voices? I took another step forward, and my eyes found the rough shape of a figure as he limped out of the darkness.

“Human,” I called back. “Definitely human.” I hated that my ability to identify auras was strained. I should have picked up on his energy long before this. He”d been so close to us, but perhaps his weakened state had affected his aura.

Jessica stamped her feet. “We don’t have time for this. I”m going after Dan.” No one made a move to stop her. She stormed away, but her temper was merely a scratch to the back of our minds. There was another survivor now, and we needed to help him, whoever he was. I frowned. I hadn’t been imagining it; his aura was very weak.

Lyra called out again to the man.“Are you okay, sir?” It was perfectly polite and normal, the kind of greeting that a confused human might need in the chaos of a strange new world. It was rewarded with a strained groan.

“It”s been so long,” the man croaked. His voice was dry and weak. He moved out of the darker shadows, and I finally saw him. He was in his late fifties, I guessed, with bedraggled hair strung over a balding area on his head. His eyes were sunken and tired, slightly mad as they flickered between Lyra and me. He was bloodied, in a tattered Bureau outfit that looked like it had been cobbled together by grabbing a few pieces from different uniforms. The Bureau patch was faded terribly.He shielded his eyes from the light as he moved forward, as if it pained him greatly.

Again, Lyra cleared her throat. “What’s your name?” She enunciated carefully, since the man appeared not to have heard her before… or perhaps he couldn”t hear over the sound of his own wild mutterings.

“I can”t believe… you”re really…” He focused on Lyra with an intense gaze that made me wary for a second. “I thought… did you say Joey, before? My father used to call me that.” He leaned against the entrance of his den, and the material underneath him bent slightly. He let out a tired sigh.

I couldn’t believe we’d actually found him. I supposed he was the most recent person to disappear, but still. What were the odds?

“Joey,” Lyra said, more firmly now. She was trying to connect with him. “We’re here to help.”

The man gave a soft sob. “I haven”t been called that in… years… My name is Joseph.”

Lyra”s eyes softened with sympathy. ”I found your knife.” She dug it out of her pocket and gently offered it to the man. He hobbled forward, and now I saw where all the blood had come from. A newly cauterized stump of a left arm swung into view. Lyra let out a low sound of surprise, but Joey seemed not to notice it. His eyes were on his knife. He gently took it from Lyra, making me relax even if he continued to mumble under his breath. His eyes were haunted. What had happened to Joseph?

“Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely. He glanced at the others. “Do you… any water? Haven”t had any.” He rubbed his eyes with his dirty hand. “I still… can”t believe you”re here…” His head fell limply forward.

Lyra took out her canteen, and Joseph took a swig from it, still clutching the knife alongside the canteen in his hand. He passed it back to her. A tiny bit of clarity broke through his distant gaze, but now he looked back and forth between all our group members.

“Joseph, how did you get here?” I asked calmly. I didn’t want to frighten him with my appearance, but I doubted he was registering things coherently. Lyra and I probably looked equally strange to the man. If he was Bureau, we’d be able to explain the vampire working relationship, but he didn’t even look stable enough to hold a conversation.

“Bureau research. I’m a physicist. I was at the Black Rock office looking at readings from Moab,” he said, sinking to the ground. Sweat coated his brow.

“You have a fever,” Lyra said worriedly and stooped down to give him a onceover. Cam came to her side, approaching cautiously to help. He had a small medical kit with him that he’d managed to save from the crash. He could at least give Joseph a pain reliever to take. Lyra had to insist Joseph take it, as he seemed confused about our presence here.

“Hallucinations,” Joseph mumbled. “I don”t… you can”t…” Cam got him to take the pill into his mouth, and Joseph swallowed the rest of the canteen down with his medicine. Now that I was up close, I could feel that he was radiating heat. He had a fever, but I was surprised we had found him this well off. I can’t believe he’s alive with that arm.

“The kids helped…” Joseph went on hoarsely. “My arm was mostly off… I was bleeding so badly. They finished the amputation… sealed the wound. They tried to… I was studying the creature, and it attacked me.” He brought his knees up to his chest and gently rested his head on them. “So tired. I tried to run. Wasn’t strong enough.”

”The creature found you and brought you here,” Lyra prodded. Joseph gave a wicked cough and nodded weakly. He wiped his sweat on his dirty pants, which were partially ripped at the knees. The scent of the monster was on him faintly, but it wasn’t recent. Interesting. So, it brought him back here and then left him alone? I wanted to know why.

“You said kids,” I pressed. “What kids?” If there were children, we needed to find them too.

“The kids… were strange,” Joseph muttered weakly and glanced around, as if expecting to see children around him. Perhaps he”d hallucinated them, but if so, the question remained: Who had helped him? “I”m tired.” He sank back against the entrance to his makeshift home and rested his eyes. We pulled away for a moment.

“The medicine is probably hitting him fast, if he hasn”t had anything to eat or drink in a while,” Cam told us, and darted a look back. There was no need to be sneaky, since Joseph was in and out of consciousness now. “I don”t understand. That cauterization is pretty well done. There”s no way actual kids could”ve done it.”

Lyra frowned as she thought. “They might not have been mortal kids, and Joey—

Joseph—is older. He might be saying kids but mean teenagers or young adults. Either way, we”ll probably have to get him medical attention before we can really get a good answer out of him.”

“He was studying the Ghost while being the sole survivor of the Black Rock office,” Cam said in awe.“I bet he’s the one who owned the laptop. Imagine what he could tell us.” Lyra flinched at the words “sole survivor” but kept a straight face. We didn’t know if her parents were among the group that was with Joseph.

Bryce rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So, the beast attacks him and brings him here. Why not eat him? Why does the creature target certain people? He was out there for a month before he got attacked.” He looked more recovered without Arlonne nearby, and I wondered if that was one of the reasons why she had gone with Chandry.

“Joseph was the only one in the Leftovers on the Mortal Plane side,” Lyra mused. “Maybe the creature thought he smelled different, or something. It didn”t seem to want to eat any of us, really. It only attacked a few people. It went for Joseph, eventually, and targeted our group except for Sike and Chandry.”

Sike looked to Lyra. “There was that incident when we camped in the woods.”

“Oh, I nearly forgot, after everything that happened,” Lyra said, and shuddered. “Sike and I heard children”s voices in the woods. There was a mention of Joseph”s name, and they really did sound young. After we figured out the trees were kind of sentient, I assumed it was some kind of mind game.”

This mystery was growing stranger by the day. I studied Joseph”s arm as he rested. The infection was localized to his amputation site, so it hadn’t spread far above his elbow. Had the creature targeted Joseph’s arm specifically? Then again, it didn”t take much for a monster that big to do damage, even if it was just trying to grab him. It could have done a lot more damage if it wanted to, but it hadn”t attacked anything other than his arm. Why drag him off here? It seemed to snatch people up and bring them back to its lair like a bird collecting shiny objects.

“We need to move him,” Lyra said finally. Sike and I went over to Joseph and eased him upward. He was half coherent, but he took a few weak steps to help us move him. Sike gently took his knife and slipped it into Joseph’s pocket. Joseph gave a weak thanks.

The familiar sound of frantic footsteps hit my ear. Already, annoyance rose within me like a fire.I knew that scent.

Jessica crossed her arms and threw a distrustful look at Joseph. Still, her alert eyes said she was interested. Her stupid desire for a show was powerful, even with Dan missing in this madness. I was sure that if Joseph had been awake, she would have been quizzing him about his experiences without regard for his state.

“I can”t find Dan,” she announced bitterly. “Those other two won’t even help me. They said they were coming back soon.”

Lyra pinched the bridge of her nose. “We”re a little busy at the moment. Dan is next, but this man is severely injured. We need to get him medical attention.”

For the first time, I witnessed genuine tears flooding Jessica”s eyes. She blinked them back. She actually did care for Dan, on some level. ”Dan”s going to need medical attention, too.” She sniffed. “How are you even planning on getting us out of here? None of us can leave without a portal. There’s no exit in this place.”

I wasn’t sure how she knew there was no other exit, but somehow, I figured she was right. Her inexplicable knowledge made me more frustrated with our situation than relieved. Nothing was more unsettling than knowing how hard it would be to get Joseph medical attention. I gritted my teeth together, and Sike shot me a knowing look. Jessica’s delivery wasn’t kind, but she was right. I don”t think we”d met a human this stubborn since Roxy, but at least Roxy had good sense and a kind heart underneath it all. Jessica seemed only concerned with her own needs … and possibly Dan.

I glanced worriedly down at Joseph, who mumbled about the children again. We’d promised to get him to safety, but we were all stuck here.

“We’ll figure something out,” I whispered, both to Joseph and Jessica. This guy had been through enough. I hoped we weren’t too late for Dan, but I was determined to finish our mission by at least saving the lives that we were able to.