Peter Lerangis - The Tomb of Shadows

I felt a tear drop from my cheek onto the dirt. Aly looked at me with concern and put a hand on my shoulder.

“He took one for me,” I said with a shrug. “He didn’t deserve this.”

Aly nodded. As we rushed to cover the hole with soil, Torquin softly murmured, “Good-bye, Wilbur.”

“That’s the monkey’s name—Wilbur?” Cass asked.

Torquin wiped at his cheek with a huge hand.

“Guess he really meant something to you,” Aly said.

Torquin shook his head. “Humid today, is all.”

With a rustle of leaves, another commando emerged from the bush. It took a moment to recognize it was Fiddle, dressed in a Massa outfit he’d taken from an unconscious soldier. “I suggest we all suit up, guys. No time to lose.”

I turned. The four Massa officers were tied to trees at the edge of the clearing, their uniforms piled at their feet. “Four Massa, five us,” Torquin said. “I get uniform later.”

“Better hope they make them in plus sizes,” Fiddle said. “Now, hurry. And take the weapons, in case these guys wake up and break free.”

Leaving the gravesite, we each grabbed an outfit and put it on. The guys were all big, so the garb fit loosely over our own clothes.

Cass rolled up the cuffs of his baggy pants, pulled his belt as tight as it went, and grabbed a commando rifle. As Aly picked up another rifle and strapped it over her thin shoulders, her whole body sagged.

Fiddle gave her a dubious look. “You guys are a bigger danger to yourselves than the Massa are.”

“Try us,” Aly said.

“Follow me,” Cass said, stepping to the edge of the clearing. As we fell in behind, dodging our way around vines and trees, the jungle seemed to grow darker by the second. Under the helmet I was sweating like crazy. The noise from the compound had subsided, which meant the battle was winding down. What would we see? My heartbeat quickened with a mixture of hope and dread.

My rifle clanked heavily against my side, but that was nothing compared to the swarm of mosquitoes around my ankles. “Get away!” I said through gritted teeth, bending to swat at the cloud of tiny bugs.

I stopped in midslap at the sight of a flat rock, nearly as big as a manhole cover. On it was a carving of a fierce griffin, a half eagle, half lion. I bent down to examine it. I’d seen it before—back when I’d first tried to escape from the KI.

“Hm,” Torquin said, looming up behind me. He picked up the rock and scowled at the carving. “Griffin. Pah!”

The burning smell grew stronger. Through the branches now, I could see the winking lights of the compound. Distant voices shouted. From our left came the sound of painful, pitiful groans. Cries for help.

I looked at the others. They had all heard it, too. We changed direction, moving closer. I knew where we were now—just behind our dormitory.

We crouched behind thick brush. Not ten feet in front of us was a scraggly field, where a guard moved slowly back and forth, smoking a cigarette. “They’re using our dorm as a prison,” Aly whispered.

“At least they’re keeping KI people alive,” Fiddle said.

A pinpoint of light shot through the air. Before I could react, the stub of a lit cigarette hit the side of my face.

“Gggghhh—”

Torquin’s beefy hand closed around my mouth, cutting off an outcry. My cheek stung, and his fingers only made it worse.

The guard stopped in his tracks. He came closer to the jungle’s edge. Toward us. I held my breath. His eyes scanned the bushes as he shone a flashlight. From the dorm came a sudden clatter and the muffled voice of a KI captive: “Emergency! Yo, Massa lunkheads—Fritz is having a seizure! Somebody get him his medication!”

Fritz. The mechanic who had been part of my KI training.

But the guard ignored the voice. The beam was coming closer. It would discover my face first. I crouched lower, pressing my hands against the rocky ground. Torquin was to my right. He turned to me and mouthed the words “talk to him.” He gestured to my uniform.

I had almost forgotten. We were dressed like them. But what was I supposed to say?

“I see you …” the guard said, stepping closer.

Torquin glared. Taking a deep breath, I stood. “Of course you did!” I said, pointing to the welt on my cheek. “I … fell.”

Lame, lame, lame, Jack!

A smile grew across the guard’s face. He raised his rifle. “Nice outfit, kid. I know who you are,” he said. “And your face is going to look a lot worse if you don’t tell me where your little friends are.”

He lifted his rifle high over his head. I stepped back, shaking.

A dull gray blur shot across my line of sight. It connected with the Massa’s face with a sickening thud. Silently, he and his rifle fell to the ground.

The griffin rock was resting by his head.

“Now,” Torquin said, stepping triumphantly out of the woods, “we have fifth uniform.”

“HOW DO I look?” Torquin walked stiffly toward us, wearing the fallen Massa’s garb. The pants had ripped at the seams, his arms dangled out of the too-short sleeves, and his belly protruded from an unbuttoned shirt.

“Like a bear in samajap,” Cass replied. “Too bad it’s getting dark. We could kill them with laughter.”

Aly and I were poised at the edge of the jungle. Fiddle had raced into the dorm, which was now unguarded. Around us, the compound was in utter chaos. The place may have been a great research institute, but it wasn’t built to withstand an assault.

A piercing alarm made us jump. Seconds later, Fiddle raced out the back door of the dorm. Behind him swarmed a group of bedraggled KI people. Two of them were holding Fritz the mechanic by his legs and shoulders. As they disappeared into the jungle to our left, Fiddle gestured toward the escapees. “All of you!” he urged. “Get to MO twenty-one, now!”

“Is Fritz okay?” I asked.

“Diabetic,” Fiddle explained, as KI prisoners streamed out of the dorm. “Needs an insulin injection. Fortunately, there are plenty of medical doctors among the KI. We have a couple of hidden shelters on the island. MO twenty-one is near Mount Onyx. There’ll be insulin in the emergency supplies there.”

I could barely recognize some of the KI staff. Brutus, the head chef, had been beaten badly, his face swollen and red. He had to be helped by two others. Hiro, the martial-arts trainer, was walking with a crutch. They looked toward us, weary and bewildered, as if we were a dream.

Fiddle urged them on, then gathered Torquin, Cass, Aly, and me close. We could hear Massa reinforcements clattering in at the front of the building. “We don’t have much time before the goons figure out what just happened. I’ll stay here and get as many KI people to safety as I can. You guys get to work finding Bhegad’s EP assignment. Aly, you know where to go?”

“Building D,” Aly said.

Fiddle nodded. “Right. The systems control center. But I warn you, the info is encrypted beyond belief.”

“Depends on your definition of belief,” Aly said with a small grin.

“Radio me when you find him.” Fiddle fished a walkie-talkie from his pocket and threw it to me. “The uniforms will give you some cover. Be sure you find those Loculi. Bhegad will know where they are. Do you understand this? Good. I can meet you back at the plane. Where is it?”

“Enigma Cove,” Torquin said.

With a nod, Fiddle disappeared in the direction of the dorm. Cass, Aly, Torquin, and I bolted. We followed the perimeter of the campus toward Building D. I was scared out of my mind. The Massa knew our faces. In the light, we were toast. And the baggy uniforms didn’t help. But the gathering darkness might help us pass for Massa commandos.