“Hunters.” My father spat the word like a curse.

The humans. Our witches. They were still on the ship.

We were all in a state of shock.

“Mona! Brock!” Kiev roared. He looked like he was about to dive into the ocean and swim toward the burning ship when our witches manifested themselves about twenty feet away from us. We all let out a sigh in unison. Hovering over the water, each of them appeared singed, but thankfully for the most part unscathed. The remaining humans, on the other hand, could not have survived that blast.

All our attention—our shock, fury and indignation—was directed at the hunters.

What the hell do they think they’re doing?

Derek

I could hardly remember feeling more furious than I did in that moment. As the helicopter descended toward us, I caught a glimpse of Bradley Thornton’s bald head through the opening side door. Oh, how I hated this man’s guts. He was an “officer” of the IBSI in charge of operations in Australia, all the way up to Japan. Although he was not supposed to be in charge of the ocean, he had been known to encroach before… but never like this.

My hands were twitching to get on the phone to Fowler so I could yell myself hoarse until I got Thornton fired, when ropes unraveled from the helicopter and four hunters slid down—Thornton included—landing with a thunk on the roof of our sub.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ben and I bellowed at once.

“This mission was allotted to us,” I seethed, taking a step closer to Thornton and glaring daggers into his eyes. “We were in the middle of an operation. Your actions have just murdered possibly a hundred innocent citizens.”

Thornton eyed us with an infuriatingly calm expression. “And that is regrettable,” he said, his voice nasally. He glanced toward the wreckage of the ship, which was now beginning to sink. “I’m aware that this mission was allotted to you, but we happened to be passing this way.”

I waited for him to continue. Nothing. That was his explanation.

My hands practically shaking with fury, I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I dialed Fowler’s number.

He picked up after a few rings. “Fowler,” I bellowed into the phone, possibly a little too loudly, but the chopper’s blades were deafening. “Officer”—I hated to use the word—“Thornton and his men have jeopardized our entire operation, slaughtered possibly up to a hundred humans, and almost killed my colleagues in the process.”

Silence.

“Fowler?” I shouted.

I heard him draw in a breath. “I’m here, Novak,” he responded.

“What is going on?” I roared.

He cleared his throat. “Let me speak to Officer Thornton.”

I shoved the phone into Thornton’s hands. Thornton raised it to his ear. “Yes. Hm. Of course. I understand. Yes.” Then he passed the phone back to me, his face still punchably calm.

“I’ve spoken to Thornton,” Fowler said. “He will not interrupt a mission again.”

“And what of the human casualties?” I growled. “You’ll just forget about them? Brush them under the carpet?”

There was a pause on the other end, and then I felt the chill run down my spine as he repeated the same words as Thornton. “It is… regrettable.”

I hung up the phone before recasting my glare on Thornton.

The basic problem was that the IBSI—which, in my opinion, should have just been shortened to “BS”—was more powerful than the governments. The latter were dependent on the organization. If the IBSI withdrew, the governments would be completely helpless. Through all their funding, they had created a monster.

Technically, they still had to obey the laws, but what Thornton had just done should have been cause to immediately fire him on the spot, along with all of his men. They would’ve withdrawn their sanction of us if we’d done the same thing, but it was different rules for different people. The hunters outnumbered us astronomically, and, unlike us, they were not disposable.

The IBSI had always taken advantage of this fact, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it so blatantly displayed.

There was nothing more I could say to Thornton than what I was already saying with my glower.

“Get off our submarine,” I hissed.

Stepping back, Thornton and the two men who’d come down with him gazed up at the helicopter. I was expecting them to grip back onto the ropes so they could be pulled up. Instead, to my shock, with a giant thrust of their legs, they leapt about ten feet in the air. Grabbing hold of the runners beneath the open door, they swung themselves back up.

We stood, still gaping, as they swung out of sight and the helicopter flew away.

It was Sofia who finally voiced what we were all thinking: “That was an awfully high jump for a human.”

I narrowed my eyes on the disappearing aircraft. Something is going on with these hunters.

Victoria

This mission had certainly gotten eventful quickly.

After the bomb went off, Kyle and I were left scrambling to steady the submarine. Once Kyle could manage by himself, I raced to the hatch to see Uncle Derek yelling at three hunters.

Once they left in their chopper, the rest of us retreated into the sub. We headed toward the chamber of the submarine we kept especially reserved for injured humans found on excursions. I wasn’t sure when the tradition had begun, but whenever we found wounded humans we tended to take them to The Shade to nurse them back to health before returning them to their own world.