A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)(25)

And then came another explosion, even more deafening than the last. “Oh, my God!” I gasped, clutching my ears and wincing.

What is going on?

I rushed to the window. In the distance, hovering somewhere above the Port, were swarms of black, wasp-like helicopters. The sky above The Shade’s boundary was choked with smoke, and as yet another deafening boom thundered down on the island’s protective barrier, blinding light flashed. Bombs. They were dropping bombs onto our barrier. What the heck?

I raced back to Josh and clutched his shoulders, hoping to reassure him. “Everything’s going to be okay, all right?” I said hurriedly.

“What is that?” he breathed.

“The IBSI. The same bastards who took you captive. They are raining down explosives, but don’t worry. Try as they might, there’s no way they can penetrate our island… You just wait here. I’m going to go and see what’s happening, and I’ll come right back to you.”

I didn’t even give him a chance to respond before hurtling out of the apartment and down to the forest ground.

I raced to the Port with all the speed my legs could carry me to find a whole gathering of residents already in the clearing before the jetty. I caught sight of Shayla near the front, her head panned up toward the sky. I rushed over to her, gripping her arms and drawing her attention to me.

“What is this?” I panted.

Shayla looked just as confused as I felt. “I’m not sure. I’m certain that they know they can’t make a dent in our island. I don’t understand why they’re even bothering…”

“Revenge?” I suggested. “For what we’re doing to them in The Woodlands?”

Shayla shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Obviously, they want revenge, but this is the most stupid way to attempt it possible. They know the power of our boundary… I can’t help but think they just want to get our attention.”

Well, they sure got that…

I spotted several dragons standing nearby, including Lethe, who was nearest to me, holding hands with his human wife, Elodie. He was the only ice dragon on the island; he’d come here on a visit some years ago, fallen in love with one of the human girls, and never left. Warm climates didn’t suit him well at all, but in The Shade it was just about tolerable for him due to the spell of night.

“Hey, Lethe,” I called to him. He turned to face me, his frigid eyes fixing on me. “Can you take me up there?” I requested.

He frowned, then looked to Shayla for permission.

“Why?” Shayla asked, grabbing my hand.

“I want to get high enough to talk to them,” I said. “Ask them why on earth they’re here.”

Shayla shrugged. “All right. Obviously, Lethe, make sure you stay within the boundary unless you want to get blown to smithereens.”

With a grunt of acquiescence, Lethe transformed into a blue, scaly ice dragon. I hurried onto his back before he launched into the sky. As another bomb dropped, I feared that I might actually go deaf. Once there was a span of relative quiet again, and Lethe and I had neared the helicopters, I roared up, “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

That was pathetic. There was no way they could have heard me beneath those choppers.

“Lethe,” I said. “Can you please call up to them?”

Lethe’s entire body rumbled beneath me as he let out a mighty bellow. “WHAT DO YOU SEEK HERE?”

I was sure that must’ve gotten through to them, even amidst the noise of the choppers’ blades.

Then the door to the aircraft directly above us slid open and a man peered down, a brown-haired hunter I had never seen before.

Shayla followed Lethe’s and my lead and joined us in the air, along with several other witches and dragons.

The hunter held up an amplifier and boomed down, “You have something of ours!”

I exchanged glances with Shayla, and before anyone else could respond, I told Lethe to yell back, “We have nothing of yours!”

“You stole away a specimen of ours from The Woodlands!” the hunter shot back down. My breath hitched. Josh. “Give him up, if you want any semblance of peace restored to your island.”

Shayla manifested an amplifier of her own and yelled back, “We do not have any specimen here! The young man we found died on the journey back to Earth. Now shoo, before we set our dragons on you!”

The hunters dropped another bomb, wreaking more havoc on my eardrums. Ugh. They need to stop doing that.

“We know that you are lying,” the hunter yelled back down. “We have a tracker installed in him!”

Oh, my God. I stared at Shayla. “How did you miss that?” I whispered.

She was already cursing herself. “Dammit. I never thought to search him for a tracker. It was the last thing on my mind.”

The Shade’s barrier wouldn’t have allowed the device to communicate once within the island, but the hunters could have traced Josh’s journey leading up it.

“Whether we do or do not have him,” Lethe responded for us, “you have one minute to back off!”

“Know that he will die if you do not hand him over to us,” the hunter replied. “He will die if we do not continue with his treatments. If you want to spare his life, you will hand him back to us now.”

My blood ran cold. Die?