Nightrise

them from the main unit. Jamie didn't even try to resist. He was flung into a cell half the size of the one he had left. This room had no mattress. And although there was a narrow window, the glass was frosted, so there was no view.
    "Let's see how you feel after a week in here," Koring said. "And in the future, you call me sir."
    The door slammed shut.
    Jamie stayed where he was, curled in a ball on the floor. He had hit his head against the bunk when he fell and his nose was bleeding. He was utterly alone. And his power had let him down. Had it gone — or was there something about the prison that he didn't know? Maybe it had been built in this part of the desert purposefully. There could be something in the water or even in the soil that was playing with his mind. It made sense. If they were locking up kids with powers, they would have to be certain that those powers were under control.
    Eventually, almost reluctantly, he crawled onto the bunk and fell asleep, his knees close to his chin, his arms loosely folded around his legs. And that was when he had the second dream.
    He knew where he was immediately, and he was almost grateful for it even though this world — this dream world or whatever it was — was as alien to him as Silent Creek. There was the sea in front of him, the island once again, the sky as empty and as dead as ever. Jamie didn't know what it all meant or why he should find himself here again, but somehow he understood that it was important. He remembered the two boys in the straw boat and searched for them, hoping they would come into sight.
    Maybe, at the very least, they could tell him where he could find Scott.
    Something moved close to the water's edge and Jamie's heart sank. It was the man he had encountered the last time he had been here. He was already straightening up — all seven feet of him — moving across the shingle, the hollow eyes staring out of the gray, puttylike face. The man was holding his bowl.

    This time there was no sign of the knife.
    "He's gonna kill him," the man said.
    Despite everything, Jamie felt a spurt of anger. "That's what you said last time," he called out. "But I can't stop them from killing Scott unless you tell me where he is."
    "No, boy. You don't understand…"
    The man was about to go on but he never got the chance. There was a lightning strike. No — it was more than that. It was as if two giant hands had seized hold of the universe and ripped it apart like paper.
    The whole world — the sea and the sky — was torn in two. Jamie felt the ground convulse underneath him — an earthquake more powerful than anything the world had ever known. Everything was shuddering. He could feel his teeth rattling in his head. He was thrown off his feet and as he fell he tried to catch sight of the man, but he had already gone. At the same time, an earsplitting scream echoed all around him. He would have said it was a shout of triumph except that there was nothing remotely human about it. Jamie was deafened. He was clinging to the ground, which was twisting in turmoil beneath him.
    In the next few seconds, a series of shapes suddenly appeared, plummeting through the sky — flying or falling…he couldn't tell. It was as if a great hole had opened up on the other side of the universe and flames were bursting out. The whole sky was on fire. He thought he saw a gigantic spider, another animal like an ape or a monkey, something that looked like a huge bird…it was impossible to tell.
    Thousands of tiny specks followed them, a great dark swarm of them, twisting and cartwheeling in the air.
    And there was something else. Jamie was aware only of an approaching blackness, a sense of something so terrifying that he could no longer bear to look. He closed his eyes and hugged the ground. The sea had gone, the water rushing away from the coastline. The wind was howling all around him.
    It seemed to go on forever. But there was no real time here and it could have been all over in a minute.
    As the storm died down and the waves returned, he lay where he was, completely exhausted.
    Jamie knew nothing of the Old Ones, the five
    Gatekeepers, the struggle that had been going on for thousands of years, and the part that he had been chosen to play. He knew nothing about a stone circle called Raven's Gate or the second gate that had been built in the Nazca Desert in Peru. Nor did he know that it was now midnight on June 24th — the day known as Inti Raymi.
    The second gate had just