The Tomb of Shadows

“Thank you for choosing KI Air,” Aly said. “Each seat is equipped with an oxygen mask for use in case of toxic Torquin armpit or fart odor.”

“Oow!” Cass groaned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It hurts to laugh,” Cass said. “Where the heck are we? And don’t say anything funny.”

“We’re over the Atlantic,” I said. “You survived an explosion with some cuts and maybe a mild concussion. We left mainland ops and now we’re headed back to the KI.”

“Mainland who?” Cass said.

“The KI has mobile operatives all over the Mediterranean,” Aly said. “Their job is to stay there and provide backup when necessary. Torquin has been telling us about them. See all the news you miss when you’re asleep?”

“Where were the mainland ops when we needed them in Rhodes and Iraq?” Cass asked.

“We were incognito in Greece, and they had no clue where we were,” I said. “But you did see some of them in Iraq. Remember those teams that took those shifts along the Euphrates?”

Aly swiveled in her seat and reached out to touch Cass’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was just run over by a knat,” Cass replied.

“Knat?” Torquin grunted.

“Backwardish for tank,” Aly said. “Which means he’s feeling better.”

“I’d feel even better with some ice cream,” Cass went on. “Actually, any food.”

Torquin held up a greasy paper bag. “Iguana jerky. Cajun spice flavor.”

Cass groaned. “Any food except that.”

I saw a distant, shining, metallic cigar shape on the water below. A tanker, maybe, or cruise ship. It glinted in the sun, sending up sparks of light. For a moment I thought someone was trying to send us Morse code. Rubbing my eyes, I looked away. I needed to get some rest.

“I can’t figure it out,” Aly said. “How did the Massa escape? Where did they go?”

“And why didn’t my mom tell us we were heading into a trap?” I added. “She could have sent a message to her own phone. She knows I have it.”

“But she’s one of them!” Aly said. “Her mind has been turned.”

I glared at her. “I’m her son, Aly! Parents care about their kids. It’s … it’s just built in.”

“Well …” Cass muttered.

We glanced back to where he was lying.

Cass, who hadn’t seen his parents in years. Because they were in jail. Because they had abandoned him to a life of orphanages and foster parents.

I took a deep breath. “Hey, I—I’m sorry.”

But Cass’s eyes were wide with fright. The plane had begun to shake. We dropped like a roller coaster. My seat belt cut into my gut and I gripped my handrests.

Aly let out a gasp. “Does this mean we’re getting close?”

Torquin nodded. “Entering KI territory.”

“You’re doing that on purpose!” Cass said.

“Magnetic forces,” Torquin said with a shrug.

“Something extremely gross will fly out of my stomach and magnetize to the back of your neck if you don’t fly better,” Cass replied.

I saw Mount Onyx first, rising like a black fist from the water. In a moment we saw home—our new home, an island undetectable by even the most sophisticated instruments.

“What the …?” Aly said.

My eyes locked on the location of the Karai Institute campus, where I expected to see the lush green quadrangle, surrounded by brick buildings.

In its place was a giant plume of black smoke.

THE PLANE BANKED sharply right, away from the campus.

“Where are you going?” I demanded. “The airport is in the other direction!”

“Back of island,” Torquin said. “Change in plans.”

“It’s all jungle on that side!” Cass said. “We’ll never land this thing there.”

“Airport too dangerous,” Torquin declared.

“It’ll take hours to hike through the trees,” I said. “We need to get there fast, Torquin. The institute is on fire.”

Torquin ignored us both, yanking the steering mechanism again.

My stomach jumped up toward my throat. We were out over the water, circling farther away from land. As it vanished over the horizon, Torquin banked again.

We zoomed back in, toward the rear of the island. It was a blanket of green, surrounded by a thin sliver of beach. “The sand is too narrow!” Aly said, her voice rising in panic.

“Banzaiii!” Torquin yelled.

The plane’s nose pointed downward. I gripped the armrest. From behind, Cass grabbed my arm. He was screaming. Or maybe that was me. I couldn’t tell. As the plane dove, I closed my eyes.

We hit hard. My back jammed down into my hips, like I’d been squashed by an ogre. Cass slammed into the back of my seat. A deafening roar welled up around us as water slammed against the windows.

“Sand too narrow,” Torquin replied. “But sea not too narrow.”

As the jet’s forward momentum slowed to a stop, the windows cleared. I could see the island shore about a football field’s length away from us, separated by an expanse of ocean.

Cass’s eyes were tightly closed. “Are we dead?”

“No, but I think I sprouted some gray hairs,” Aly said, “aside from the lambda on the back of my head. Torquin, what are we doing here?”

Torquin mumbled something in a hurry. He jabbed a button, and Slippy began speeding toward the island on its superlight aluminum-alloy pontoons.

Cass, Aly, and I shared a baffled look. My heart was racing. As the pontoons made contact with sand, we jumped out. Torquin opened a compartment in the back of the plane and pulled out a huge pack of equipment. I’d never seen him move so fast.

Aly stared, ankle-deep in water. “Torquin, I am not moving another step until you talk to us. In full sentences. With an explanation!”

Torquin handed us each a flak vest, a machete, a lightweight helmet, and a belt equipped with knives and water canisters. “These are for protection,” he snapped. “Island is under attack.”

“You know that just from that smoke?” Aly said.

“Where smoke, fire,” Torquin replied. “Where fire, attack.”

His logic was not perfect, but when I saw the furious glint in his eyes I decided not to argue. Aly and Cass clearly felt the same way. We suited up quickly. Weighted down by the equipment, we waded to the shore. The trees formed a thick, impenetrable wall. No paths in sight.

Torquin stopped, carefully looking around. “Wait. Easy to get lost.”

“Just follow me,” Cass said. “We have the sun, the shore, the slope of the land, and Mount Onyx. More than enough points for geographic triangulation. We don’t need a map.”

We didn’t question him. Cass was a human GPS. He could memorize maps and routes to the inch.

“Need dictionary,” Torquin gruffed, as we all started after Cass.

* * *

I didn’t know which was worse—the smothering heat of the sun, the bug bites that made my legs look like raw hamburger, the screeching of animals we couldn’t see, or the smell of the smoke.

It was all horrible.

I knew Torquin’s analysis had to be wrong. The island was shielded by some force that made it impossible to find by anybody. But what had happened? An electrical short circuit? A lightning hit?

I dreaded what we would find.

Cass stumbled and stopped. His face was bright red, his clothes drenched. Setting his backpack down, he sat on a tree stump. “Dry …” he said.

“Have some water,” Aly said, unscrewing her canteen.

Cass waved it away. “I’m okay,” he said. “I meant, the land is dry. The trees, too. If the breeze pushes the fire in this direction, we’re toast. Literally.”

I nodded. “Let’s stay close, in case we have to retreat to the beach.”

“We have to help them,” Cass said, wiping his head. “We have to be like Marco. He would never retreat.”

“Marco,” Aly said, “retreated from us.”

I helped Cass to his feet. He quickly slipped ahead of Torquin, taking the lead. We were passing Mount Onyx now. Below us were Jeep tracks, where we’d raced back to the campus when the griffin attacked.

Cass picked up the pace. The smell was pungent and strong. White ash floated down through the treetops. Monkey screeches and birdcalls echoed around us. But I could hear other sounds now. Voices. Distant shouts.

“Stop!” Torquin ordered.

We nearly plowed into each other. Torquin passed us, squinting into the smoky air. I followed closer and saw what looked like an enormous spiderweb, strung between trees. “Security fence,” Torquin said. “High voltage.”

“Aly knows how to disable that,” Cass said. “She did it when we tried to escape.”

“From the inside,” Aly reminded him. “Not from here. We’re stuck.”

Torquin crouched silently, grabbed the top of an umbrella-shaped mushroom, and pulled hard. The stalk broke cleanly, revealing a blinking red light, flush with the ground. I heard a soft click. “Voilà,” he said. “Disables. Thirty seconds. For KI people stuck in jungle.”

“You know French?” Cass asked.

“Also croissant,” Torquin replied proudly.

Cass took the lead again. The scent of smoke was growing stronger. We were practically running now. The sweat on my back felt like a lake against the heavy pack. But up ahead, the dense jungle darkness was giving way to the light of a clearing.

A light made brighter by fire.

Cass stopped first. He dropped to his knees, his jaw hanging open.

“This can’t be …” Aly said.

We all sank down beside Cass, at the edge of the jungle now. The Karai Institute spread out before us, but it looked nothing like the stately college campus we’d left. The grassy quadrangle was chewed up by boot prints and speckled with glass from broken windows all around. I could see figures moving through the brick buildings, white-coated KI technicians fleeing into the woods. Flames leaped from Professor Bhegad’s second-floor collection of antiquities.

Fires raged behind the quad buildings, from the direction of the airport, the dorms, the supply sheds, and support buildings. The tendrils of smoke twined skyward, disappearing into an umbrella cloud of blackness.

“Leonard …” Cass rasped.

“Leonard?” Aly said. “All you can think about is what happened to your pet lizard? What about the KI staff?”

An anguished cry from across the quadrangle made us all instinctively duck behind a thicket. I peered through the branches to see a man in a ripped white KI lab coat tumble out the game room entrance. His hair was matted with blood.

As he scrambled to his feet, there was no mistaking Fiddle, our resident mechanical and aeronautical genius.

“We have to help him,” I said, rising, but Aly grabbed me by the collar.

From the building entrance, behind him, stepped a man dressed in black commando gear, goggles, and a helmet emblazoned with a black M.

“Massa …” Aly said, pointing him out to me.

“But how?” Cass asked. “The island is undetectable by human means.”

“Massa not human,” Torquin said.

Now I could see more of them—in the windows of the lab buildings, running across the basketball court. I could see them dragging KI scientists into the dorm, throwing rocks through windows. One of them, racing across the campus, tore down the KI flag, which stood in front of the majestic House of Wenders.

Fiddle staggered closer toward the jungle. He looked desperately around through the broken lenses of his glasses. I wanted to call out to him, but the commando grabbed Fiddle by his lab coat and yanked him down from behind.

“We have to help him,” I said.

“But it’s four against a bazillion,” Cass said.

Torquin crouched. “But this four,” he said, pulling a wooden case from his pack, “is very good.”

TORQUIN PULLED A long, slender pipe and a handful of darts from his pack. He moved through the jungle, crab-walking silently away from the thicket.

Dropping behind a fallen tree, Torquin put the pipe to his lips, and blew.

Shissshhhh!

Fiddle’s captor crumpled downward instantly, felled by a small, green-feather-tipped tranquilizer dart. “Eye of bull,” Torquin said.

I scrabbled to my feet and raced out of the jungle toward Fiddle.

As Fiddle saw me approach, he turned to run away. “It’s Jack McKinley!” I called out as loudly as I dared.

He stopped and squinted at me. “I must be dreaming.”

I took his arms and pulled him toward the trees. Behind us I could hear doors opening, voices shouting. Torquin’s tranquilizer darts shot out from the jungle with impossible speed, each one followed by a groan.

With the sharp crrrrack of a gunshot, a tree branch exploded just over Torquin’s head. We all dove into a thicket. “Why are we using darts when they’re using bullets?” Fiddle screamed.

“KI not killers,” Torquin replied. He reached out and lifted Fiddle onto his back as if he were a rag doll. “Go! Deeper into jungle. Hide!”

We followed Cass back the way we’d come. Behind us, an explosion rocked the jungle and we were airborne in a storm of dirt and leaves. I thumped to the ground, inches behind Aly and Cass. A tree crashed to the jungle floor exactly where Torquin and Fiddle had been.

“Torquin!” I shouted.

“Safe!” his voice replied from somewhere behind the tree. “Just go!”

Flames leaped up all along the pathway we’d just taken. As we ran blindly into the jungle, I peered over my shoulder to see Torquin and Fiddle following us. Cass was taking the lead, his head constantly turning left and right. Honestly, I don’t know what he was seeing. Every inch of the jungle looked the same to me. But Cass knew. Somehow.

Panting, he stopped in a clearing and looked around. The explosions were like distant thunder now, barely audible above the animal noises and the sound of our own breaths. “Did you know this place was here?” I asked.

“Of course,” Cass nodded. “Didn’t you? We’ve been here before. We’re near the beach where we saw the dead whale. If we have to, we can follow the coast around to the plane.”

“Whoa, dismount!” Fiddle said as Torquin stomped into the area. Sliding off the giant’s back, Fiddle grimaced. He took off his broken glasses and pulled a tiny shard from his cheek. “This really hurts. That means it’s not a dream, right? Which is a bummer.”

“Are you okay?” Aly asked.

“Yeah, I think.” Fiddle nodded. “Although I should have bought safety lenses.”

“What happened here?” I demanded, catching my breath.

Fiddle’s eyes seemed drained of life. His face was taut, his voice distant, as if he were recounting a horrible nightmare. “I’m … sitting in the airport minding my own business—and these turkeys fly in. No one expected it. We were caught totally unaware. Someone must have given us away …”

“Marco,” Torquin said.

“Marco doesn’t know the way here,” Aly protested. “None of us do. It’s got to be someone else.”

“It is.” Cass eyed me warily. “It’s … Jack.”

I looked at him, speechless.

“Not you, personally,” Cass said. “Your phone. The one your mom gave you, in the Massa HQ. You turned it on while we were here.”

“Wait,” Aly said. “And you left it on?”

“Okay, maybe—but so what?” I said. “No signal can get through to the island. It’s totally off the grid. Any grid!”

Aly groaned, slumping against a tree. “It’s not about location, it’s about vector, Jack—meaning direction. When we got in the plane, the signal traveled with us. Once we left the protected area around the island, the Massa could pick up the signal.”

I imagined a map, with an arching, beeping signal, traveling slowly from the middle of the ocean toward Egypt. Like a big old arrow pointing where to go. “So they just followed the path backward and kept going … until they discovered the island …”

“Bingo,” Cass said.

I felt dizzy. This whole thing was my fault. If it weren’t for my boneheaded move, we wouldn’t be in this danger. How could I have been so ignorant? “I—I’m so sorry. I should have known.”

Cass was pacing back and forth. “Forget that now, Brother Jack. Really. It’s okay. Actually, it’s not.”

“Need to counterattack,” Torquin added, looking back in the direction of the compound.

“You and what army?” Fiddle asked. “You got zombies hidden away? Because the Massa are all over the explosives supply now. I say we run. However you got here, let’s get out the same way.”

When Torquin turned, his face was lined and his eyes moist, as if he’d aged a few years. “Never leave Professor Bhegad behind.”

“Or the Loculi,” I said. “Where are they?”

Torquin and Fiddle both looked at each other and shrugged.

“We gave them to Bhegad,” Aly said. “He didn’t tell you where he put them?”

Cass sagged. “There goes that plan.”

“Okay … okay …” I said, rubbing my forehead as I tried to think this through. “Bhegad probably kept the location of the Loculi to himself—one person only, to avoid a security leak. So we find him first, and he’ll lead us to them.”

“Unless the Massa get to him before us,” Cass said.

“Bhegad tough,” Torquin said. “Won’t crack under pressure.”

“We need to find his EP assignment,” Fiddle said. “Emergency protocol. We all get one. It’s where we have to go in case of an attack.”

“These EP assignments,” Aly said. “Are they stored somewhere?”

Fiddle shrugged. “Must be. The assignments are changed randomly from time to time. We’re notified electronically.”

“I’ll need to get to the systems control building.” Aly looked up. “The sun is setting. We have maybe an hour before it gets too dark to see outside. That’ll help us.”

“But the control building will be full of Massa,” Cass said.

“We clear it,” Torquin declared.

Fiddle looked at him in bafflement. “How? With darts? You guys are out of your minds. We need an army, not a sneak attack with a half-blind geek, a caveman, and three kids barely out of diapers.” He looked toward the water.

Aly’s jaw hung open. “Did you say … diapers?”

“Caveman?” Torquin added.

Fiddle backed away slowly. “Oh, I forgot—feelings. Guess you guys want sensitivity. Fine, it’s your funeral.”

He turned, lurching into the jungle.

“Hey!” Torquin cried.

As he lumbered after Fiddle, I followed. Aly called me back but I kept going. “Torquin, let him go!” I cried out.

After a few turns, deeper into the dense-packed trees, I felt my foot jam under a root. I tripped and landed a few feet from Torquin’s pack. I guessed he must have dropped it to lighten his load. But I couldn’t leave it there. Not with those tranquilizer darts inside. We could use those.

Wincing, I sat up. I could hear movement—footsteps? I wasn’t even sure from which direction the sound was coming. The sky was darkening. I looked over my shoulder, but the jungle was without paths, and even my own footsteps were lost in the dense greenery. “Aly?” I called out. “Cass?”

I waited. High overhead a monkey screamed. It dropped from a branch and landed on its feet, jumping wildly up and down. Eeee! Eeee!

“Go away!” I said. “I don’t have any food.”

It was slapping its own head now, gesturing wildly back into the woods.

“Do I know you?” I said, narrowing my eyes at the creature. During my first escape attempt from the island, I’d been lured to Torquin’s helicopter by an extremely smart chimp. Who looked very much like this one. “Are you showing me which way to go?”

Oooh, it grunted, darting straight for the backpack.

So that was its game—distracting me so it could steal the pack! “Hey, give me that!” I shouted.

A loud crack resounded, followed by a familiar scream.

Aly’s voice!

Ignoring the branches and vines that slashed across my face, I ran back toward the noise. In moments I saw the dull glow of the clearing.

Silently I dropped into the brush. I had a sight line. Cass and Aly were where I’d left them. Aly’s arm was bleeding. Cass was holding a branch high like a spear. Around them were four helmeted Massa, armed with rifles. They grinned, jeering, taunting my friends in some language I didn’t know.

My muscles tightened, ready to spring.

No. No way you can jump in there alone.

Where was Torquin?

I felt something jam into my back and nearly screamed aloud.

Whipping around, I came face-to-face with the monkey. It was holding out Torquin’s backpack to me.

I grabbed it and spun back toward the clearing. Shaking, I pulled out the blowpipe. My hands were sweaty. As I reached for a dart, the weapon slipped out of my hand. It clattered onto a rock. Behind me the monkey screeched in surprise.

From the dense jungle, a rifle emerged, pointing directly at my face.

“YEAAAGHHH!”

Torquin’s roar blotted out all sound. He leaped from the brush into the clearing, about twenty yards to my right.

The four soldiers wheeled around. Torquin landed full body on the one who’d found me, squashing the guy to the ground. Behind him, another Massa soldier was trying to take aim at Torquin, but the two bodies were too close. Instead he raised his rifle high and brought it down on Torquin’s head. Hard. It hit with a solid thud.

Aly ran toward Torquin to help, but the assailant backed away, the weapon still in his hand.

Its barrel was now bent, forming the shape of Torquin’s skull.

Torquin stood, scratching his head in puzzlement. Then, grabbing the rifle, he flung it against a tree, with its owner still holding tight. The guy folded without a whimper.

“Two down,” Torquin grunted.

As the other two men maneuvered in the confusion, I snatched up the blowpipe, jammed a dart down the tube, and blew. It sailed into the clearing, nearly hitting Aly and Cass along the way.

Eeee! chided the monkey, holding out another dart.

The men couldn’t seem to decide where to point their rifles, at Torquin or me. I aimed carefully, firing once again. Cass and Aly dove to the ground, out of the way. But my shot sailed true this time, catching one Massa in the side of the neck.

EEEEEE! The monkey was jumping up and down now.

“My feeling exactly,” I said.

The monkey began gesturing frantically into the trees. I turned to see the remaining commando on his knees, lifting his rifle.

I ducked behind a bush, reaching for a dart. But I had used the last one. The monkey was grabbing my shoulder, leapfrogging over my head. “Hey!” I shouted.

Crrrack!

I flinched as the creature’s body jolted backward. It hit me in the face, knocking me to the ground. As I fell, a warm liquid oozed downward onto my neck.

I turned to see Torquin pummeling the last attacker with his massive fists. Cass and Aly were screaming, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“Little man, are you okay?” came Fiddle’s voice.

I blinked the blood from my eye. Fiddle was kneeling over me, cradling my head in his hand. “F-fine,” I said, spraying his face with red dots. “I thought you were going without us.”

“I was, until Gigantor got ahold of me,” he replied. “Dude, you totally rocked the Massa. I am impressed.”

“It wasn’t just me,” I said, sitting up.

Above, the setting sun had cast the sky orange. The waning light illuminated the small body of the monkey, lying in a twisted position on its back.

* * *

I watched Torquin quickly dig a hole with a bayonet. As he lowered the monkey’s body into it, distant shouts and explosions filtered through the thick jungle. The sky was darkening, which would only be to our advantage. By my calculation, the battle for the island had been under way for hours. We had little time and less hope of defeating the Massa. But in that moment all I could think about was the bravery of the little creature.