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

“Those hunters were apparently not lying after all,” Safi muttered.

“What is happening?” I looked to each of their faces desperately. “Why did this happen? What is it in his system that’s causing this?”

Safi shook her head. “There are lots of strange, artificial substances circulating in his body. It could be any one of them.”

“I can’t help but feel that removing that tracker had something to do with it,” Shayla added in a low voice, eyeing the unconscious Lawrence.

I turned on her. “What? How?”

“I destroyed it, so I cannot check it now. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it served two purposes. Not only to trace his location, but also as some kind of regulator. There was an immediate difference in him after I took it out, wasn’t there, Grace?”

I nodded slowly, realization dawning on me.

“He looked much more ill the next day,” she went on, “and his appetite, which had been building up slowly, vanished. And it never recovered. Perhaps, in time, he would have gotten this way even with the tracker still in him, but whatever that thing was, removing it seems to have hastened his degeneration.”

“So what now?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer. Is he actually dying?

When nobody replied, my knees felt weak. I gripped my mother’s arm. She stood beside me for support. We all fell into silence, staring down at Lawrence. If Shayla’s speculations were true, he was a ticking time bomb. He had already lost the use of his limbs, how much longer before the rest of him gave way? Would whatever was breaking his system down attack his vital organs?

There came a sharp knock at the door. We turned around to find Corrine entering, Ibrahim at her side.

“Derek,” she said, looking straight at my grandfather.

“What is it?” my grandfather asked.

“We have a visitor. A human requesting entrance to The Shade.”

“Human?” Derek asked.

“Yes,” Ibrahim responded, exchanging a weary glance with his wife. “A gentleman in his mid to late forties… A Mr. Atticus Conway.”





Grace





My jaw dropped.

Mr. Atticus Conway.

Corrine went on, “He claims his son is here. The boy we took from The Woodlands. He claims he urgently needs to see him. That the boy’s life is at stake. Lawrence, he called him,” she added. “He’s waiting outside the boundary, near the Port.”

“Take us to him,” my grandfather said.

Corrine and Ibrahim grabbed me, my parents and grandparents, and we vanished along with the rest of the witches and jinn. We reappeared at the end of the jetty. It had started to rain.

Corrine pointed into the distance, beyond the boundary. Squinting, I could just about make out the shape of a small boat and a tall figure standing in it, facing our island.

“Well, that’s him,” Corrine said, looking from my grandmother to my grandfather. They and my parents would be able to see the man in detail from this distance, though I couldn’t.

“More than likely an imposter,” my grandfather muttered.

“He could be a hunter pretending to be his father,” Shayla said.

“Whatever the case, now you’ve had a look at him,” Corrine said, “do you want to go and speak to him? Or should I just tell him to get lost?”

“We should speak to him,” Shayla answered before anyone else. “We should be able to detect within a matter of minutes whether he is genuine or not.”

The witches moved us closer with the jinn until we had shot out from the boundary. We hovered in the air above the man’s boat.

Now I could see him clearly. My stomach dropped. It was impossible to miss the resemblance. The man shared the same chin as Lawrence, the same slightly triangular jawline, the same dusty blond hair. Though this man’s irises were icy blue, rather than tawny brown.

He gazed up at us, his eyes shining with anxiety.

“My name is Atticus Conway,” he introduced himself in a nasally voice. But… it was not a British voice. This man had an American accent. Despite his likeness, this sent alarm bells ringing. “I have come for my son, Lawrence Conway. You must let me take him, or he will die. It might even already be too late.”

I narrowed my eyes on him even as his words flamed my angst. My gaze roamed his boat. A speedboat. I half expected to see the letters IBSI painted on the side of the vessel. But I did not.

“Why do you say that he will die?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “What is wrong with your son, exactly? What did the IBSI do to him?” And who are you?

The man’s face tilted to me, his expression earnest. “The IBSI is in the process of developing a formula that, if realized, will enhance a human’s prowess to levels never reached before. Its purpose is to enhance abilities in combat, but also self defense…”