"Does that mean the sunrise won't bother me?" I asked, only realizing that the horizon was turning pink. We had taken some time getting ready and waiting for Mack to get here.

  "I'm assuming that it won't," Mack said. "I think you only have three hours, so you need to go. Take the uniforms from the ATC agents in the back and change. I'll help you keep them cooperative."

  That was the part I wasn't looking forward to but it had to be done. Xavier and I opened the back door and I realized we were almost helpless without our powers. So this was how a Normal felt all the time. It was no wonder the ATC carried their guns and their tasers and upped security around the headquarters. Normals had to feel helpless and scared knowing there were Abnormals around.

  It was a strange feeling.

  Mack used some Dark Magic to hold the two agents up against the wall of their prison while Xavier and I stole their uniforms. They were both wearing underwear underneath their vests and black slacks, but that didn't make it much better. Mack's Dark Magic swirled around the two of them like a series of narrow black snakes or power lines. The woman's chin wobbled and she looked terrified as the bands tightened around her wrists and held her there. They asked why we looked like them and what we planned to do. I forced myself to ignore the questions.

  “We're not going to hurt you,” I promised, changing and slipping the black ATC pants up over my glamoured legs. I wished Mack's rite had included clothing, but according to him, no matter what magic you did, you couldn't get that from a single hair. “We'll just hold you captive until things calm down. You see, Thoreau is a demon and he wants to end the world and force all the Abnormals you're capturing to work for him. You're not doing what you think you're doing, keeping Normals safe.”

  Xavier helped me out. “The world needs Abnormals. We can all work together.”

  I wasn't sure about that. It sounded too good to be true. Normals and Abnormals had been at odds with each other since the beginning of time. Before, it was the Abnormals who ruled, demanding sacrifices and worship like the Dark Council. Now the Normals were against all Abnormals. Well, not all of them, but a lot of the ones in power, and they were being tricked by the worst Abnormal of all. Now things might swing back in favor of the evil Abnormals all over again and they'd haul our world back into the dark ages.

  We finished changing. Mack's facial features strained as he tried to keep the Dark Magic working and holding our prisoners to the wall, now in their underpants. It didn't do much to calm them down. Both Xavier and I jumped down from the back of the van and Mack closed the doors, letting his magic wear off. The two agents fell to the floor inside, panting.

  Looking down and seeing an ATC uniform on myself was disturbing, to say the least. I had learned to hate those uniforms all the way from the name tags down to the boots. I sniffed and realized I could no longer smell anything, either. My senses were all dulled.

  But at least I had the taser and a real gun. I had never fired a real gun but I turned the taser over and over in my hand. It didn't look hard to use.

  Xavier didn't look comfortable, either. The sky had turned orange by now and dawn was close. I hoped that this glamour allowed me to tolerate it or we wouldn't get very far.

  "The busted windows," Xavier said in the male agent's voice. His name tag read Ernest. I guessed that was the last name of the agent. "We have to do something about them."

  "I can't help you there," Mack said. "Dark Magic isn't the best for, well, fixing things. You had better hurry. Already your time is wearing down. You'll burn half an hour just getting to the bunker."

  "But they'll know this is the stolen van," I said. "We need a cover story."

  "Tell them that you killed those Abnormals who took your van," Mack said with a shrug, like it wasn't a big deal.

  "Is that ATC protocol?" Xavier asked.

  "Just say that you shot them and left them in a field, then came back to get help," Mack said. "You have guns. Fire one bullet out of each one and they'll believe that you discharged some shots."

  We did, after tensing and figuring out how they worked. The guns were surprisingly heavy and threw my hands back when I fired into the lake. I waited for reactions, but I couldn't hear what the two agents were saying in the back of the van. "We need to get them out," I said after I caught my breath. "The agents, I mean. The people at the bunker will figure out that we're duplicates if we don't."

  We had to put both agents in Mack's trunk, which thankfully was rusty and had an air hole near the lock. I apologized again and the woman went into hysterics when we closed the lid. I wanted to get away from here and away from the sound. I felt no better as a fake Normal than I did as my usual self.

  But, the world.

  It came first.

  Since I had driven and gotten some experience, I hopped into the van and started it up. It still had a half tank of gas. I blinked in the coming sunlight and prayed that Mack's rite had eliminated everything about me being Abnormal for the next three hours. It was our only hope of even making it to the bunker.

  And then we needed a cover story. We'd think of that on the way.

  Xavier got inside and I figured out how to back the van up after a couple of tries.

  And then we were off.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sun peeked over the horizon.

  And for the first time since I was two years old, no headache exploded in between my temples, even though it was glaring at the side of my face as I drove back to Cumberland.

  The sun was warm, red and bright, but not unbearably so. Xavier watched me as I drove and I had to remind myself that it was him there and not a real ATC agent. I rolled my window down, letting the rest of the broken glass rain onto the expressway. It looked like we were just trying to enjoy the breeze now. A few people stared at us as they passed us on the left, but they weren't the suspicious stares that we had gotten before. To them, we fit in and our fellow drivers might be wondering what prisoners we had in tow. These commuters might even be looking for the missing van with the teenagers driving it. As far as they knew, we weren't it.

  Cumberland loomed larger. We had already been on the road for about thirty minutes and the traffic was slowing with commuters trying to get to their jobs on time. We slowed and I gripped the steering wheel. I still had the same impatience and aggression as before. Inside, I was still the same Alyssa. I just didn't have access to any of my Abnormal powers.

  Or weaknesses, for that matter.

  "How are you feeling?" Xavier asked in that male agent's voice. It was so weird and I had to remind myself that it was him with the neat haircut and the mustache.

  "I'm okay," I said as a tear slipped down my face.

  I was in the sun and not in agony.

  Full daylight was beautiful. Sure, I had been out in the daytime before, but on cloudy days that made most Normals want to hide in their beds and sleep. Even on cloudy days, headaches happened. Weakness happened. Even on those days, I shuffled around, not looking at anything so I could avoid hurting my eyes.

  Now I could see everything that the sun illuminated.

  The skyscrapers of Cumberland glittered with fiery light. Clouds had turned pink and orange and every shade in between and if I squinted, there was another tower of pink light rising from the sun, barely visible on the clouds that it illuminated. I hadn't realized there were so many effects the sun could cast on the sky.

  And for a while, I was free to enjoy all of them.

  "You're in tears," Xavier said. Even though his voice was different, the concern was still there.

  "That's because I've never had the chance to do this before."

  "Watch a sunrise?"

  "I've sort of seen them, but I've never really seen one, you know?"

  We drove in silence as traffic picked up, then slowed again. I wasn't enjoying the traffic jam part of the morning but at least we were getting fewer stares the closer we got to the city. ATC vans were more common here. We had just a couple of miles before we reached the exit that would take us to the old neighborhood and the bunker. I wiped away my tears, feeling stupid that I had reacted this way to something Xavier must have seen a thousand times. I sat up all the way in my seat as we waited for the traffic to move forward.

  Tension set in.

  We must have a little over two hours left to infiltrate the bunker and get our people out of there...and that was if they weren't inside a portal. Just in case they were, I had a vial of demon blood in my pocket. If we got searched and questioned by the ATC, I had an excuse ready. We had found it on the girl that we shot. And as for why we didn't have the bodies, it was because she ran off into the countryside, carrying the boy. We felt unsafe out there in the dark so we decided to come back to the base. Our captors had even destroyed our radio and taken our phones, leaving us unable to call for help.

  I really, really hoped that Death was nearby and I could ask her this one favor, or we'd be doing more missions like this.

  The exit came up and in silence, I turned off. The air smelled of dew but nothing else. I could no longer smell Xavier's fear, even though he was grabbing onto the armrest in his vote of confidence. I drove through the old subdivision. There were no police and the party house had vacated, probably because they had been here earlier. The search had moved on to another area.

  The authorities would still be searching for their missing agents, who were about to turn up.

  My stomach heaved with nerves as I drove closer to the bunker area. It took me a while to find the road that turned off with this duller Normal vision, so I drove at a crawl and turned down the narrow drive. I hated how details were no longer obvious to me, but Mack had made our disguises as convincing as he could. I hoped that the spirits he had called upon--whatever they were--had some mercy on us and didn't drop our disguises early.

  I didn't even have my sword. I had left it back with Mack. All I had was the taser and a gun with limited rounds. If I had brought it, it would have brought us too much suspicion, even if I said I plucked it away from the girl we shot.

  We drove for what felt like forever through the trees. At last, the forest cleared and I noticed the low form of a gray building ahead. I was still seeing with full Normal vision. That was a good sign. I couldn't stop the waves of nervousness going through me. So this was how Normals felt tension. I'd remember this for the rest of my life.

  There were no vans in front of the bunker. I drove up to the closed, chain link gate and stopped. There was a guard shack right there and an ATC agent sitting inside. He didn't give us a second glance at first, but then the guy snapped his gaze to me and Xavier and his mouth fell open.

  "Agent Sanders. Agent Ernest," he breathed. "Are you all right? We all thought the worst."

  "Yes, sir," I said in Sanders's voice. "We have a story for you."

  "Do you have any patients?" the man asked. His name tag read Peters. That was easy to remember.

  "The patients have...escaped," Xavier said. "The two of us have had a very long night."

  "I can imagine," Peters said. There was still some suspicion in his voice. "May I inspect the patient carriage?"

  "Of course," I said. "We wouldn't want to have any Abnormals sneaking in here, would we?"

  Peters got out of his guard shack, radio at the ready. He evidently didn't have a sense of humor. Something beeped and he unlocked the back door. He climbed in, said something into his radio, and climbed back out. I wished I could hear what it was. Despite the beautiful sunrise, I already missed my supernatural hearing.

  The doors closed and Peters appeared at my window. "Did you obtain any bites or have any exposure to magic?"

  I got the story ready. "No, sir. The Abnormals attacked out of nowhere. They broke our windows and threw us into the back of the van. There was a girl and a boy. Then they drove us out of the city. We heard the police sirens and the van turned several times. They must have driven for thirty or forty minutes with us. When they opened the doors and ordered us out, we were in a field, not far from a farm. I still had my gun. I managed to get a shot off on the girl. She grabbed the boy and they ran into the wilderness. Ernest and I attempted to follow, but the girl moved at an inhuman pace."

  "What did she look like?" Peters asked. He was very close to me. So close, in fact, that he'd notice the moment this glamour started to slip away.

  "She had black hair, sir. She must have stood a little over five feet tall and she carried a sword."

  "Then you are lucky to be alive," Peters said. "I believe you had an encounter with Alyssa Choy. You'll need to report this to Don."

  "I was afraid of that," I said. So I was feared in the ATC. Of course. I had escaped them numerous times and broken into the headquarters twice. Now I was about to make my third, and probably my most dangerous, break-in. "Yes. I want to speak to him right now."

  "Are you certain you haven't obtained any bites or fallen under magic?"

  "We're certain, sir," Xavier said with a professional nod. He was good at this acting thing.

  Peters waved us through. "We're glad to see you back," he said. "Be ready for the protocol. I'll spread the good news."

  I drove through and parked the van on the side of the bunker, where about a dozen others were parked now. It looked like the ATC was done hauling people out of the Underground for now. I hoped that some had managed to escape. One thing was for certain: the number of free Abnormals in Cumberland was a lot lower than it had been when Xavier first introduced me to this world. Thoreau wouldn't have much resistance at all when it came time to merge the worlds. I still wondered how exactly he planned on it.

  If all went well, it wouldn't go that far.

  We got out of the van and stood there for a second, not sure what to do. Even with Normal vision, I knew that the entrance at the front of the bunker wasn't an employee entrance. But I was also aware of Peters out in the guard booth. I wondered if he was calling the rest of the ATC to let them know of our safe return. The news might follow, wanting interviews with the heroic agents who had survived horror. We had to hurry. I didn't need to say anything for Xavier to know. I took his arm and looked around, at last finding a door on the side of the building that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  It was unlocked. It was an employee door, of course, but right inside was another closed door, a steel one with a scanner hanging next to it for fingerprints. Xavier and I were able to get the scanner to unlock the door with no problem. This glamour was good. Mack's spirits had done a great job, recreating every detail of these agents.

  "This is easy," Xavier whispered. "I wonder if there are magical wards."

  "They shouldn't detect us." The ATC headquarters had them just inside the doors, designed to go off whenever an Abnormal who wasn't Bound to Thoreau entered the place. It had doomed Xavier's parents and everyone else who had gone in to assassinate Thoreau so long ago. That, and Allunna hadn't had a problem betraying them all, giving them bad directions that led to their capture.

  I sniffed the air, but there was no scent except for faint brewing coffee. My supernatural sense of smell was gone for now. I would have to rely on these dull senses.

  For the first time, I felt helpless.

  I opened the scanner door and we entered a narrow room with twin glass walls. Xavier and I stepped inside and I realized the glass was frosted. I couldn't see who was behind it on either side, though I knew that my regular vision would have allowed me to.

  "Remain still," a voice said over an intercom.

  Xavier and I did so. A second later, beams of orange light swept over us. They were scanning. Checking us out. I tensed and remembered the vial of demon blood in my pocket. It was corked and airtight but I wasn't sure if the scanner would pick it up or even what it was scanning for.

  "Congratulations," the bored guy said over the speaker as if he had done this a million times before. "Neither one of you are infected with lycanthropy or vampirism. You may proceed."

  "Thanks," Xavier shouted, waving at the glass and managing a smile.

  They sure had good security around here. Without this strong glamour, neither one of us would have made it inside. I wondered how much time we had left.

  Another set of doors opened onto an office with a half dozen people sitting at computers. We stepped through and a woman sitting at the nearest computer turned to look at us. Her mouth bloomed into a smile and she shot off her chair, hugging me.

  "Cristoff!" she squealed. "You're safe!"

  I hugged her back. I could smell her perfume. Her name tag told me that her name was Cristoff. She must be only in her mid twenties. "I'm glad to see you again," I said, sounding stupid.

  "I thought the worst," she said, full of emotion. One of her huge striped earrings was in my face. She was shaking. Little did she know that her real friend was lying in the trunk of Mack's car, scared out of her wits. "We have to do lunch as soon as you're rested." She let go of me. I glimpsed her computer. It was a prisoner log, complete with a list of names and cell numbers. I searched for Thorne's name but I couldn't find it. Trish, either.

  "We definitely do," I said. "Which place?" Even with Normal senses I could feel every gaze in the room on me. The office was just a few cubicles but people were leaning over them for a peek of us.

  "Oh, that Italian one we tried last time sounds good," Cristoff said. "I'll ask your brother if he wants to come. Heck, your whole family. We can have a big celebration!"

  "That sounds good," I said. This was what it was like to have a Normal family. It was something I'd never have for real. This whole glamour was turning out to be an unexpected torture. I was getting a tour of a life I could never have.

  I would never see another sunrise or have dinner with a family, even if I got Dad out of the Infernal.

  Cristoff's phone rang and she turned away from me. I struggled to breathe again. I didn't even have my amazing breath-holding ability right now.

 

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