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The vial struck the girl and she glowed momentarily with a light that the soldiers seemed unable to see. Her mouth opened in a scream and a wave of sound burst from her. The windows in the high rise block shattered and the sonic wave struck the soldiers with bone crushing force. The glass falling from above conspicuously avoided the girl and the Kithreian even skittering off at odd angles when it came close to them as if bouncing.

Most of the patrol was incapacitated or dead – Lydia wasn’t sure which – but one of them struggled to his knees and aimed at the girl again and fired. The bullet bounced just as the glass had. She screamed again and his torso exploded.

Lydia retched and nearly fell out of the merge but Karen grabbed her mind.

It’s not over, Lyd.

A black woman ran out of the building screaming for the girl to stop and trying to pull her back inside. The girl seemed to wake up then and looked around in horror as another patrol appeared and trained their guns on them. She seemed in total shock as she and the older woman – presumably her mother – were herded into a truck.

The vision ended then and they sat in silence for a while before Tarian spoke.

Julie, do you think you can change the orientation so we can work out where this is?

I can, she replied. But that doesn’t mean we’ll see anything helpful. I’ve noted the name of the block of flats – maybe we’ll find it on Google image search. Now let’s see if we can narrow it down. Feed me the vision.

The vision started again but didn’t stay focused on events, instead turning around so they could scan the horizon.

I can see Canary Wharf in the distance! Daniel said. It’s somewhere in London.

Good, Julie said. Once we find out where the flats are we can work out if it’s sunset or sunrise. Either way we have a few hours to make a plan. Let’s separate – we’ll get your cousin looking for the flats and discuss a plan.

***

“We’d best take Jason,” Karen said as they waited for Ian to identify where they needed to go. “He’ll be able to damp her sound down if we can’t stop the explosion.”

“That’s a good idea,” Lydia agreed. “And Dan can conceal us, but more importantly her and her mother from the soldiers. And we need to stop that Kithreian throwing that vial – I want to know what’s in it. Naria, Tarian can you handle that?”

“I’ll bring Kelaria as well,” Daniel said.

“Good idea,” Lydia said. “Can anyone think of anything else we can do to prevent the mess we saw?”

“I doubt it,” Julie said. “It’s a pretty good plan. The only thing I can think of is to snap the girl out of it – I suspect Jason can manage that – and bring her and her mother here if they’ll come. Persuade them to keep their head down if they won’t.” She gave Lydia a reassuring smile. “I see why your mother wanted you in charge. You’re good at this.”

“Thanks.” Lydia felt herself blushing. “So now I guess we just wait and hope Ian finds out where it is.”

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