Bazza'Jo

Chapter 20

"Raina?" came Ibli's voice. Raina saw her standing at the top of the stairs looking confused.

"Ibli! We need to find father! Now! Don't come down here, there's-"

"Raina!" Kal interrupted her, "We can't hold them out, they're- look!" The ground about his feet shifted and swirled: the Negators were somehow seeping under the door, melded with the shadows there. Both Kal and Nat abandoned the door to dance back into formation with the last two able-bodied hunters.

"Ibli you have to run! Find father, find anyone!" In her desperation, Raina ran towards the shadows at the door and stood in them, tensed and waiting. The instant she caught sight of a flash of blurred movement at her side she struck out wildly with her fist and to her surprise connected with the soft, fat flesh of a man's stomach. The shadow grunted and sputtered. Kal followed her example and tackled, full force, the next footstep he heard and found himself on the ground grappling with an invisible, but tangible, opponent.

"Ibli!" Raina called again, dodging and weaving with the two hunters, trying to find the man she'd hit, and to avoid a counterattack.

"I said I Called him." Came a voice in her head, Ibli's. Raina staged backwards, startled, and bumped into someone. She twisted and swung at the air again, but missed hitting anything. She looked around and saw Ibli still sitting at the top of the stairs. "I Called him. He's at the warehouse. I think he's coming." Ibli's voice rang in her head, although Ibli's lips did not move.

"What about Nana?!" Raina cried. "Isn't she-" Raina felt something wet and impossibly cold at her elbow and she jerked away, "Isn't she here?"

"She"s out looking for you." Ibli's voice told her. By this time Kal had successfully knocked out the man he was wrestling, and they all moved cagily to find what must have been the last man, listening intently. The man had apparently got wise, and was standing very still in a shadow somewhere. Raina hoped that if he knocked an arrow at them, they'd hear it. A moment passed in total silence, then another. Nobody dared move.

"Raina!" Ibli's voice came in her head again, panicked. "They're coming! More of them, many more- and Mr. Widestock!"

A wave of nausea came over Raina but she steadied herself, unwilling to look weak. "They're coming." She whispered to Kal, relaying Ibli's message. "Widestock is just waiting for back up. More Negators are coming."

"Raina?" Now it was Kal's voice in her head, but she could see his lips moving, not quite in sync with his words. "Raina, are you okay?" Raina tried to ask him what was wrong with him and found her own voice unwilling to cooperate. "She's poisoned!" she saw him say, and thought to herself, I am?

"Your arm, Raina! Please! Raina!" Ibli's voice in her head cut through her foggy thoughts and Raina looked down. Smeared across her elbow was a thick, sticky green paste. But it didn't break the skin, she thought to herself and clumsily started to wipe her elbow on her shirt. She felt someone take her shoulders and half carry her to the middle of the room, where she sat down groggily next to the two hunters who had been shot, both of whom were now unconscious.

Kal, Nat and the two hunters made a semi circle around the pack of them, back to back. Raina tried to focus on a spot to keep the world from spinning. Her heart sank as the front door flew open and Mr. Widestock strode in, surrounded by a blur indistinct shadows and a wreath of blue-tinted mist barely recognizable as the man Johns. Johns' sickly pale skin seeped the ethereal mist and gleamed an eerie silver-blue colour, and when he breathed a cloud escaped his lips.

"Nobody move, they have the girl!" Mr. Widestock's strong voice boomed with authority as the air around them rippled with Negators moving into place.