Blood

10. The Island

We pulled the canoe up the beach. Hedges slipped and got even wetter but he didn't say anything.

"Thanks for coming," I said.
"It's my truck," he said.
"I don't want to get you killed," I said. "Shut up, you two," Amira snapped.

We followed her over the beach and up a mossy bank to a pine-needle-covered path that wound around some big tree trunks and came out at a stone patio littered with yellowed old pine needles too. There was a big door made of rough cut pine boards varnished amber, and a bunch of windows all with shades so you couldn't see inside. Amira tried the door but it was locked.

"This way," she said and led us around the building to where a wider walk came up from a low building down by the water. Boat house, I thought. We went up some rough stone steps and under a porch roof and she flipped up the cover to a black metal box and tapped in some code.

There was a click. And then she pushed open the door.

Complete anticlimax. The room was boringly empty. A dark red rug muffled our footsteps as we entered. Little clusters of brown leather armchairs around low coffee tables filled the room, along with a gigantic stone fireplace that seemed cold and unused.

"Looks like a summer camp for the wealthy," Hedges said.
"The Council pays for it. We come here in the summer for training."
"What kind of training?" I asked.
"The basics, mostly. Self-defense, self-control, weapons-practice, evasion."

"Huh," I said.

"Where are we going?" Hedges asked as she led us across the room and down a set of stairs.

"Control room," she said. "Encrypted phones. And I want to try to track the Council members."

The stairs led to a long underground room. A row of soft circular lights ran down the middle of the ceiling. There were monitors and keyboards and big black phones on a long table. At the far end, behind heavy, padlocked wire doors, a wall rack held weapons, from antique guns and rusty swords to modern rifles and pistols.

Amira picked up a phone receiver and poked at a number pad. "I've never used this," she said with a frown. "I help my grandfather with the computers, but I use my own cell for calls."

"Let me see," Hedges said, taking the receiver from her. "Password protected," he added. "Same kind of security interface as the front door. You entered six numbers there. What were they?"

"I can't—"
"Tell a human," he interrupted, sounding annoyed. "So tell Falcon instead."

She hesitated, then turned to me. "1-1-5-4-3-2."

Hedges tapped it in. "That's not it," he said. "But..." He tapped again. "No. But this is the second phone in the row." Tap tap tap tap tap tap. The keypad lit up and we could hear a dial tone coming from the receiver.