Death Chapter 12 - Cornered

Jakarta

Java, Indonesia

The biggest city in Indonesia was a riot of sights and smells and most of all, sound. The fearsome traffic jams snaked along every road, with shouts and honks filling the air to such an extent the result was just a solid wall of noise hitting the ear. Strong sunlight glinted off the skyscrapers and their glass windows, crowds that swallowed up each individual pedestrian like the ocean engulfs a drop of water choked the sidewalks and side streets. Everywhere you looked, it was full of life.

Coraline had to stifle a giggle as she and Bod passed by a reflective shop window. She was wearing a white sleeveless top, denim shorts and strappy sandals. A straw sun hat and a pair of shades shielded her from the ridiculously hot Southeast Asian sun and completed the look, which was as touristy as humanly possible. She supposed a camera slung around her neck would have been overkill.

It was Bod's idea. He wanted them to look as inconspicuous as they could. Contrary to popular opinion the best way to do that wasn't to slink in the shadows, but to hide in plain sight. He was wearing a simple dark green polo shirt, hideous Crocs and golf shorts, and looked like an utter dork. Anyone observing the pair of them would never guess that they were anything but a happy foreign tourist couple out for a stroll through the city.

She peered into the shop window, as if entranced by the array of shoes on display. Bod was preoccupied however, and walked a few paces further, leaving her behind. Coraline frowned and caught up with him, slipping her arm around his.

"Bod," she hissed.

"What?" he whispered back.

"Loosen up a little, will you? You're so stiff. We're supposed to be a nauseatingly lovey-dovey couple on a holiday, remember?"

Bod stared at her, then nodded and arranged his face in the semblance of a grin. Coraline had seen better grins on corpses.

"Ok that's not going to cut it," she said, squeezing his arm tighter. Bod sighed.

"I'm sorry, honey," he said. "It's just...you know who we're really going to see. I read up on the file you prepared, back at the hotel. It's hard to be in a good mood after that."

"It wasn't exactly the most pleasant thing I've had to read over breakfast either," said Coraline. "But you know what's at stake here. We need to put emotion behind us and focus on getting the job done. Are you with me?"

Bod nodded firmly. "Yes. I am."

"Good. Now kiss me and let's move on." Bod did as he was asked.

Coraline and Bod walked for a couple of blocks, looking for a certain public park. After dodging the never-ending Jakarta traffic and making their way through the twisting back alleys, they finally found it. There were few green and open and pleasant spaces in the country's capital, and a few months ago the Sukarno Park had been one of them. Now it resembled a war zone.

Huge concrete barriers had been set up, with police officers on watchful guard duty at every corner. Old police tape still hung from the odd tree that miraculously managed to survive what had been a massive explosion. The blast had been worst terror attack in Indonesia's history for a long, long time, the most destruction caused since the days of the communist insurrections and the war of independence against the Dutch. Seventy-four people had died instantly, a hundred and fifty-seven more suffered horrific injuries. Coraline had meticulously pored over the police reports, the hospital records, the security footage, the international news coverage. Every video frame. Every drop of blood, every last detail. They would haunt her dreams for a long time, but she considered it a small price to pay to find the person responsible for this carnage.

She had worked for days, taking breaks only to eat, sleep and shower. Ricardo Inez had been a crucial link in her chain, the solid proof she needed to confirm a large number of educated guesses. They had left a long trail of tied-up and strung-up and otherwise incapacitated bunch of terrorists all across the globe, without identifying themselves. The authorities were baffled but knew not to question their good fortune. The emergency systems and clean up efforts were still reeling from the scale of the Eremite's attack.

Confronting and trapping Inez had been a huge risk. It was the closest they had ever approached anyone even remotely connected to the recent attacks. They had debated for days whether or not to do so, and in the end decided to risk it. In the end it had paid off.

Inez had pointed them towards Jakarta, where someone had bombed the Sukarno Park during the middle of a free concert. It was the only lead they had left. Bod had decided to do something he had sworn never to do unless at great need. He was going to use the knowledge taught to him when he was a boy to contact the dead and ask them what they saw in their final moments.

It was risky. It was dangerous. It might not even work. But it was the only option left. And if there was a chance that it might lead to the person behind the attacks, Bod and Coraline were going to take it. Bod wanted to wait until night time, but Coraline overruled him. Time was of the essence, and every hour wasted meant that the shades of the dead, never that stable to begin with, would grow weaker and more irrational. Scouting out the park in broad daylight as soon as they touched down would hopefully allow Bod to communicate with more ease, but it also presented its own set of problems.

"I'm going to need a distraction," said Bod grimly, looking at the scarred-over wound that was the park.

"I'll make one for you," said Coraline confidently. She kissed Bod again for luck, then strode off towards the front entrance of the park. Behind her, Bod took a deep breath and then faded from sight, becoming nothing more than wispy shadow. The guards straightened up and stared at Coraline as she walked up to them, a friendly smile on her face.

"Apa khabar? Boleh kamu...tell me...di mana Hotel Marriott?" said Coraline, slowly and haltingly. Her Bahasa Indonesia was much better than that, but she pitched it so that she'd appear just like another lost and confused tourist.

It worked. The guards left their post and crowded around the map she held out, offering various bits of advice on how to get there. Unseen to all, Bod slipped past them and drifted out onto the park. If all Bod needed to do was to get to the park, he could have faded and floated over without any problems. But he needed to turn solid again if he intended to contact the recently dead, and the moment he did all the other guards on the other sides of the park would spot him instantly. Luckily Coraline had a plan for that too.

She passed her hand over her forehead, as if the heat was just too much for her, then rolled her eyes up in her head and collapsed to the ground. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from hissing with pain at the contact of the boiling hot concrete on her bare flesh. She heard the shocked cries of the guards. The last thing they needed was another dead tourist on their hands. To give it a bit of an edge, Coraline dribbled foam from her mouth, jerking her limbs sporadically. To the untrained eye she looked as if she was in a full-blown epileptic fit.

From where he was standing in the middle of the park, Bod knew what was going to happen and still felt a tinge of concern at seeing his wife seemingly have a stroke on the pavement. But Coraline's excellent acting did the trick. Every guard was rushing over to her side. The ones that weren't had whipped out their walkie talkies and were barking instructions. He didn't know how much time it would take for him to contact one of the shades, so he had to do it immediately.

Bod turned solid once more, crouching down behind a tree stump for some cover. Then he took a deep breath, and let his mind wander. A seemingly simple task, but in reality extremely hard for anyone to achieve when you were worried about getting caught, about your wife in danger, and a million other fears and doubts. Bod pushed them all away and calmed himself, stilled his mind. He disregarded the world around him, and all its sensory input. It was unimportant. What was important was the world that lay hidden behind the one that he lived and breathed in, the world he had first experienced as an orphan boy without a care in the world.

It took a few minutes, but to Bod those few minutes drifted by like hours. He opened his eyes – and saw them.

The shades of the recently dead were everywhere. Not just one or two scattered ones, refusing to accept their fate and unwilling to move on, there were crowds of them, moving around the park at random, some simply sitting in one spot, not moving except to rock back and forth slightly. There were shades that appeared whole, and Bod knew that they were the lucky ones. Those were the people who died instantly, so their body image was still preserved as whole and undamaged. They likely felt no pain when they died. The rest weren't as fortunate.

Shades with missing limbs, torn flesh, gaping wounds and dark, ragged holes where organs were supposed to be. The shades who had to suffer a few seconds of pure agony and horror looking at the red ruin that moments ago were their own bodies before Death claimed them. Except that she hadn't, and they were still inhabiting this park, writhing in agony as mental torture replaced their physical pain, trapped on an Earth they could no longer see or hear or touch.

Bod had a decision to make. If he faded, he would lose his connection to the spirit world. But simply crouching down behind his tree stump and waiting for a shade to wander over seemed like a long shot. He had no idea how much time it would take to get the information he needed from a half-mad spirit crazed with pain.

Bod risked poking his head above the stump to see where the guards were, made more difficult by the fact that while he was concentrating on the spirit world, people and objects in the material world appeared hazy and less focused. It looked as though all the guards were trying to help Coraline. It was now or never.

Staying low and moving quickly, he scurried to the middle of the field and approached the nearest shade he saw. A young woman, still 'whole', wearing the memory of a T-shirt and jeans. He hoped she wouldn't just scream at him and float away.

"Hello? Excuse me?" began Bod hesitantly.

To his delight, the shade turned, as if with great effort, to look at him. "Kau boleh nampak saya?" (You can see me?)

Bod quickly switched to speaking in Bahasa. His command of it was shaky, but Coraline had made sure he brushed up on it before they arrived.

"Yes, I can see you," he said to the shade. "I need to speak to you."

"What is going on? I don't understand. Please help me," said the shade, slowly and painfully. Bod steeled himself, and told her everything that had happened. All the details he could remember of the explosion and the attack. Instead of making her more frightened and unresponsive, the information seemed to bolster the shade in some manner. As Bod spoke, her outline grew stronger and clearer, as if she was deriving strength from his words.

"What happened to my son? Do you know?" she asked finally.

Bod bowed his head. Sometimes he hated his job. "I don't know where he is."

"How can you help me, then?" she asked. "Answer me that, ghost man."

"I will look for him," said Bod quietly. "I will find him and bring him to you. Dead, or alive. And I will make sure you move on, away from this world. Please. You have to trust me."

The shade considered for a long moment. Then after a maddeningly long moment, she spoke.

"Thank you. I will tell you what I saw."

Bod listened as she told him that she had taken a day off from work because she wanted to see the free concert, Peter Pan and Macy Gray. How she had brought her son along. How it was supposed to be a nice day out, just the two of them. Then she had seen something out of the corner of her eye, a man who looked like he didn't belong. He wasn't paying attention to the musicians on stage, but waving complex patterns in the air with his hands. She thought he was just enjoying the beats, but then she saw a pure white globe appear out of nowhere and encase him completely.

Then a flash of light, so bright that it felt like the sun itself had fallen out of the sky. Then nothing for what seemed like an eternity.

"That's all I know. That's all I saw," said the shade. Bod nodded. It was more than he could have hoped for. Finally, he had a lead, a solid lead to work on.

"Thank you. I will find your son. I won't forget," he promised.

"Please," said the shade. "You're all I have."

"Hey you! Sir, how did you get in there?" yelled someone else, with a voice far too loud to have come from any shade.

Bod swore under his breath, and fought to break his connection to the spirit world. It felt like rising up through deep water and breaking through the surface. The shades vanished from his field of vision. The sun shining down on him suddenly felt hotter. The wind felt stronger. And he could clearly see the angry security guard bearing down on him, one hand on the holster of his weapon. Bod thought about fading from sight, but at the last minute decided instead to talk his way out of it.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to take some pictures," he said, raising a hand in apology. The guard was not convinced. He started yelling at Bod, shoving him away from the park area as roughly as possible. Bod continued to make apologetic noises, but then he saw something that made him stop.

Where Coraline had been lying at the front of the park, there was nothing but a bare patch of empty concrete. They had taken her away.

It was an effort to keep still and not wipe the flecks of foam from her lips, but Coraline made it. She was strapped onto a gurney in the back of an ambulance, rolling and shifting with every turn the vehicle made. Apparently she had played her part too well. The guards must have felt she was really about to die.

So far they had taken her blood pressure, but done nothing else. Coraline would have dearly loved to open an eye and see if they had brought her handbag along, but she resisted the temptation. If they had brought along her handbag, she hoped like hell they weren't curious enough to open it. They would find something more deadly than lipstick inside.

In the meantime she would be still and quiet and allow them to bring her to hospital. Then she'd assure them everything was alright, be discharged, find Bod and hope he managed to find something useful in the smoking crater that used to be a public park.

Coraline lay still. In the absence of anything to do, she listened hard to what the paramedics and the driver were saying to each other.

"Are we going to the general hospital?" asked the driver in Bahasa.

"No," replied the medic. "We've received new orders. We're to take her straight to Police HQ."

"HQ? Why?"

"No idea. Seems like a security thing. We're to bring anyone sighted near the park there for further questioning."

"Even patients?"

"Even them."

"It's your call," said the driver.

Coraline managed to keep still, but she was wondering what the hell was going on. Straight to the station? Just for being seen near the park? She had a feeling she wasn't going to enjoy this 'questioning' they had in store for her. Coraline made up her mind to do something about it.

Without looking, she managed to slowly wrench one hand free. She opened her eye a crack, and saw her handbag sitting in the corner of the room. Thank goodness for small mercies. That was all she needed.

"Hey. Hey! You're not supposed to be awake!" said the medic, noticing what she was doing. Quick as a flash, Coraline reached for the front of his shirt in the cramped confines of the ambulance and yanked downwards viciously hard. The medic's head bounced off the metal railing of her gurney with a loud thunk and he fell to the floor, groaning in pain. Coraline turned her attention to her other restraints. She had mere seconds.

The driver had noticed the commotion. "What's going on back there?" he yelled over his shoulder. Coraline had no intention on answering, not while she was still trapped. She freed her other hand, and then a leg. But it was enough to stretch out and hook the strap of her handbag.

The ambulance had braked to a sudden stop, and the driver was moving from his seat to the compartment behind. He flung open the door, and came face to face with the barrel of Coraline's handgun.

"What the hell?!"

"You," said Coraline in perfect Bahasa, her hand and the gun as steady as a rock. "Take off all your clothes. Now."

"Are you insane?"

Coraline shoved the barrel of the gun right into the driver's face, squishing his nose and making him yelp with terror. "Do I have to tell you twice? I will shoot and kill you right now if you don't."

The driver tore at his clothing like a man possessed, wanting to get out of his ambulance as fast as humanly possible. Coraline freed her other leg and opened the door, satisfied that the driver had no other communication devices on him. Now he couldn't contact his superiors, it would buy her a few minutes of previous time.

"Out. Now."

The driver leapt from his vehicle in terror. The medic was rising by now, rubbing his head and trying to get his bearings. Coraline slammed the butt of her gun directly on his skull, sending him crashing to the floor. She placed a foot on his back and kicked him out of the ambulance and onto the road. Then she swung into the driver's seat herself.

"Come in Unit 79," crackled a voice from the intercom. "What is your current position?"

Coraline stared at the communicator. "Uh, we're fine now. Everything's fine over here. How are you?" she stammered.

"Wait, what did you say? Who is this?" came the sharp reply. Snarling, Coraline smashed the communicator with the butt of her gun, causing it to short out. They knew she was free, whoever they were. And they would find her in short order.

She had to find Bod, and quickly. Then they had to escape the city. Coraline gunned the ambulance's engine and swerved out onto the road. Far off in the distance behind her, she could hear sirens.

Jakarta Police HQ

"Where is she?" demanded Ms Sherman. Her brilliant white suit was the only bright thing in the dark security room, her vivid red hair the only splash of colour. She had heard Coraline Jones' voice for the first time, over the ambulance intercom, before they lost contact.

"The driver last radioed in near Bandung neighbourhood," said the officer at the bank of computers.

"My express orders were for your men to immediately arrest anyone who went near Sukarno Park," snapped Ms Sherman. "I've been searching the world over for this woman and now she slips out of my fingers, again! Mobilise the police. Alert the army. Lock down this city. Block off every road leading in and out. I'm going out there myself."

"Lock down the city?" said the officer, incredulous.

"LOCK EVERYTHING DOWN!" roared Ms Sherman, striding out of the room. "Do it or I'll skin you alive!"

Her long, pale finger jabbed frantically at her phone's screen, summoning her team. They would not fail the Teacher again. She would not fail him again.

Jakarta Streets

Bod always said that she drove like a crazy person. Whenever they were out in the field, he usually took the wheel. He was the better (and safer) driver, but today it came down to Coraline's skill at handling a vehicle. She barrelled through the traffic-choked streets and prayed that she wouldn't die in a fiery conflagration.

The police were on her tail, making her already difficult task all but impossible. She needed to get back to Sukarno Park to find Bod, but he could be anywhere, either hiding from the police or already captured by them.

Coraline heard a loud crash and the back of her ambulance suddenly had a new hole in it. She recognised the sound of gunfire. They were shooting at her in broad daylight! Coraline bit her lip so hard she could taste blood. If they were willing to risk killing innocent passers-by just to slow her down, she was in more trouble than she had anticipated this morning.

She swung her wheel around, narrowly missed killing a pedestrian and squeezed through an alleyway. If she remembered the map correctly, it would lead to an alternate road. Despite the fact that she had only acquired her knowledge of Jakarta's maze of streets just days ago, it might be the only thing preventing her from capture. Coraline had a number of inventive 'accessories' in her bag, but only one gun, and she had a feeling she was going to need a lot more firepower.

Coraline skidded to a halt, barely avoided toppling the entire ambulance over and raced off again down the street. She glanced at the rear-view mirror and groaned, more police cars were thundering down the street after her. Coraline began to weave dangerously in and out of the traffic, swerving first around one car and then the other, missing the other drivers by mere inches, hearing them blare their horns and swear at her from open windows as she zoomed past them.

There was more gunfire behind her, ricocheting off the ambulance. Coraline's mind was in overdrive, a part of it concentrating on nudging the wheel just right so she wouldn't careen off the road, another part of it struggling to contain her terror, and the rest frantically thinking of a next move. One of her strengths was thinking up plans on the fly, while Bod tended to take the long view of things. Given enough time, she could usually come up with a way to escape from most sticky situations.

Then she looked up, and realised that there was no time left to think. The street she had turned into was free of cars. Someone had cleared the entire road. But they had also constructed a barricade at the far end. Coraline's quick eye caught sight of spike strips, a wall of police cars, and armored vans that were likely full of armed men.

"Oh dear," she said under her breath. She stepped on the brakes and decided to let the ambulance come to a complete halt.

"STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE, LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND FACE-FIRST AND PLACE YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD," blared a voice from the barricade, enhanced by loudspeaker.

"Bod baby, it sure would be nice if you were here right now," said Coraline to herself. She braked abruptly, and killed the ignition. Breathing heavily, she opened the door and got out slowly, her hands well above her head.

"Look at me, all unarmed and helpless," she muttered. "Please don't shoot me."

Coraline lay face down on the blistering hot road and heard the heavy bootfalls of the security forces come ever closer towards her.

Shibuya Station

Tokyo, Japan

"Do you think he's around here?" asked Delirium. She had an ice-cream cone in her hand and ice-cream all over her face, and was balancing on one foot on top of a stone bench.

Jamie was trying to focus, but it was difficult. Tracking one soul amongst billions was an impossible task. Utterly impossible. But it was something he was going to have to do if he wanted to see Didi again.

"Shh," he said, trying to plead for quiet. But even if Del did simmer down, it wouldn't help all that much. Shibuya was one of the busiest districts in Tokyo's metropolis, with throngs of people streaming in and out of the station on their way to other parts of the city. Tokyo seemed much more organised than New York was, at least to Jamie. The traffic was less noisy and the air much cleaner. But still, trying to find one person here was like looking for one particular piece of seaweed in the Pacific Ocean.

He had brought Del and Barnabas to Earth with him, essentially picking spots at random as he tried to hone in on Nobody Owens and Coraline Jones. They had been in a lonely Lithuanian field, the Sahara Desert, a village in Nicaragua and an island near New Zealand. Each time, Jamie could sense that the errant couple were somewhere on Earth, but nowhere near where he was. Then Del had wanted her ice cream, so he'd made the jump to Tokyo.

It might turn out to be the right move, after all. The presence of Nobody and Coraline was definitely stronger. Not by much, almost infinitesimal...but he could feel it. It was straining every ounce of his concentration, but he was almost sure he could narrow down their location to...somewhere in Asia.

Well at least that was more than what he had before.

A woman in a smart black suit bumped into him, knocking him out of his reverie. "Gomenasai," she said, bowing hurriedly, and disappeared as fast as she'd arrived. Jamie sighed and rubbed his head. He didn't think he was going to find them in Japan, so it was time for another move.

"Come on Barnabas, let's go," he called to the dog. It was staring up at a little silver statue of what looked like another dog. There was a plaque there detailing its life story, but Jamie didn't have the time.

"Paragon of loyalty?" sniffed Barnabas. "It's only because he had good press that he gets a bloody statue. And a movie too."

"Barnabas, where's your mistress?" asked Jamie.

The dog looked around, nose in the air. "Over there," it replied.

Jamie hurried over. Del had wandered off and was talking to a salaryman who looked completely mystified.

"I'm looking for Nobody," she said in perfect Japanese. "Can you help me to find Nobody?"

"I apologise, but I cannot help you," said the office worker, bowing and then hurrying away.

"Aww," said Del, watching him go. "I thought he could help."

"I don't think we're going to find them here," said Jamie. "God, this is difficult."

"Perhaps going somewhere quieter might help your efforts to concentrate," suggested Barnabas.

"Yeah, good point. Ok guys, let's go."

In a blink of an eye, the three of them vanished.

Jakarta

Java, Indonesia

The city was in chaos.

Jakarta was home to more than ten million people, a transit point for dozens of flights every day, and all of that had been locked down by the people who had Coraline in their custody and were searching for Bod, getting closer with each passing day.

He hadn't gone back to his hotel, although it was a wrench to give up his nice comfortable bed and everything they had brought over on their trip here. It was too risky. The people who captured Coraline were probably watching everyone who moved in and out of the hotel. Instead Bod kept to the back streets and slept in alleys. It was difficult, but nothing he hadn't endured before. What he couldn't endure was the loss of his wife. It tortured him, knowing that she was in the hands of the enemy. He had no idea what they were doing to her, and he couldn't help but imagine the most horrible ordeals in the long watches of the night.

Bod could run, a physical lockdown of the city presented no barriers for him. At any moment he could cross over to the spirit world, pass through their checkpoints, and leave the place. But he could no sooner leave Coraline in harm's way than he could tear his own arm off. He had been drifting around, trying to look for some clue as to where they were keeping her. Tailing policemen and security forces was easy for someone of his skills, but there were thousands of them and he simply couldn't track them all. As the time passed he was becoming increasingly desperate.

He bought a pack of rice and curried mutton from a roadside stall and sat down in an alleyway to eat it, while poring over his notebook. It was damp and dark and smelled bad, but it at least provided a little bit of cover from the squads of heavily armed men who roamed the lit streets, all of them looking for him.

"Come on, Bod," he said softly to himself. "Come up with something."

The tattered notebook was a far cry from the high-powered laptop he had been forced to abandon, but it would have to do. For the past few days he had been mapping out the routes and patrol timings of the security squads, trying to triangulate a location where they could be holding Coraline. He had lurked near every prison, jail cell and kept his eyes open for any place that seemed to be more heavily guarded than usual. He wasn't having any luck at all, but every fact he discovered went into that notebook, to add to the pieces of the puzzle.

Bod munched on his dinner and tried to focus on his notes, but his thoughts kept drifting, and inevitably they settled on his wife. Wandering the world had been all he thought he ever wanted until the day he met Coraline. For the first time in his life, he found himself not caring where he went next, just as long as it was with her. It hadn't been quick and it hadn't been easy, but eventually Coraline opened up to him and let him into her life. They had been by each other's side ever since, sharing in each other's happiness, supporting each other through the tough times. Bod couldn't imagine a life without her. Knowing that she was in pain somewhere was more than he could bear.

Later he would admit that if hadn't been lost in his thoughts about his wife, he wouldn't have gotten into trouble so easily. Then again, that just wasn't in his nature.

"You! Hey you! Who are you?" came a shout from the mouth of the alley. Bod dropped his packet of food and hastily got to his feet, at the same time discreetly tucking away his notebook. There was no way he was going to give that up.

"I'm sorry?" he said in halting English. The two police officers came closer, eyeing him with interest. They had orders to search and possibly detain any caucasian tourist they could find who was acting in a suspicious manner, and as far as they were concerned eating dinner in a dark alley counted as highly suspicious.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Edward Rankin," said Bod, matching the fake ID Coraline had created for him. "I'm a tourist from Australia." He hoped the policemen weren't skilled enough to pick out the differences in accent, as he sounded nothing like an Australian.

"Let me see your ID," said one of the officers. Bod fished it out of his pocket and they pored over it carefully, glancing back at him now and again.

"Which hotel are you staying at?" the other one asked. Bod wasn't about to tell them the name of the first-class hotel they had initially stayed at, which was probably under heavier surveillance than the CIA's headquarters. Instead he gave the name of a small backpacker's place he had passed by a couple of times.

"Is that right?" asked the first officer. "Let's bring you back there and check it out."

Oh, hell, thought Bod. The minute the hostel receptionist denied he ever stayed there, they would haul him away in chains. There was only one thing left to do. Concentrating hard, he felt himself slip free of the links of the mortal world, and vanished from human sight.

"What?!"

"Where did he go?!"

"Call HQ immediately, this is exactly the kind of thing they're looking for!"

This was getting worse and worse. Now Bod knew they were on the lookout specifically for someone who could do what he could do. The list of people (and some people who weren't quite human) who had information on the full extent of his abilities might have been short, but every name on that list had enough power to blast entire cities from the face of the Earth.

The two policemen fled, barking loud instructions into their radios. Bod looked wildly around for a way out of there. Sooner or later he had to stop the Fade and when he did so he needed to be somewhere safe. Making up his mind, he passed through the dirty wall in front of him and found himself in a dark corridor. Moving slowly, as he now had to remember he no longer needed to worry about things like gravity and solid floors, he sank downwards until he reached a basement room that seemed to be filled with filing cabinets and old chairs and little else. He crouched behind a large cabinet and in another breath, came back to the world of the living.

Bod fought to keep his heartbeat and breathing under control, sweat pouring down his face. He had no weapons, no tools. He needed a moment to think and this pitch-black basement seemed a good a place as any. The police would never think to look for him here – judging by the look of the heavy padlock on the door it hadn't been opened in years.

His options, which weren't good to begin with, had shrank even further. He briefly considered staying Faded until the security forces gave up looking for him, but doing that would present its own set of challenges. The longer Bod remained a shade, the weaker his connection to the world of the living became. There was the danger of permanently severing that link, unable to remember that he was a man, not a ghost – and a man whose wife remained captured by the enemy.

Bod wished with all his might that his old guardian, Silas, was here to tell him what to do. The enemy had an army out looking for him, but he wouldn't bet on them if they went up against Silas.

Staying in the basement wasn't an option either, sooner or later the police would have men searching every inch of the block. He had to keep moving. Bod decided to Fade and keep heading in one direction until he was sure he was out of the dragnet. Then he could regroup and continue his search.

"Oh hell," he swore, as something struck him. His notebook! He had left it behind when he made his escape. The two officers were probably flipping through the pages even now. He could not leave it with them, or risk letting their target discover his plans. Bod had used a code while writing down his notes, but they could eventually crack it.

Running out of time, Bod crossed over to the spirit world, swam upwards, up through the basement ceiling and all the underground levels, and emerged on the street once more.

The first thing he noticed was the heavy, ominous sound of chopper blades whirring through the air. On some level, it was almost flattering that they were rolling out the big guns just to hunt him down. On another, more immediate level, it was freaking terrifying. He had no weapons and no way to fight back if he was cornered.

The two officers who had initially tagged him were nowhere to be seen. Bod ran up and down the street, looking everywhere for the officers and his notebook. But there was nothing but rubbish and oil slicks. He could see searchlights in the distance, their powerful beams turning night into day as they swung back and forth, intent on lighting him up like an ant beneath a magnifying glass. He was trapped, and there was nowhere to go.