The Power of Five Oblivion

of torches leaping through the darkness. He took his time. Everyone would be concentrating on the generator and the loss of power. They wouldn’t have any time for him and provided he made his way carefully, he would be able to slip out before anyone realized he had gone.
    The stockade was open. There was no need for locked gates when you were in the jungle, far from anywhere. And the drug lord had enough protection to hold back an army. Matt could have walked out, there and then – but as much as it exasperated him, he couldn’t do it. There had been the other boy in the truck with him. Matt hadn’t even learnt his name but somehow he still felt responsible for him. Right now, Matt could have been in his place. It was just his bad luck that the doctor had chosen him first, as casually as if he had flipped a coin. He had to know what they were doing to the boy and, if possible, prevent it. If it wasn’t already too late, they could escape together.
    He had to cross the compound, to the arches on the other side. This was where he had seen the laboratories and it was to somewhere here that they had taken the boy. Matt didn’t dare walk straight across. There were too many men coming from too many directions, converging on the generator. Instead, he continued around the very edge, keeping close to the covered passageways, then hurried across the front of the house, passing the swings and the slide. He heard someone from inside calling out, a man’s voice, deep and gruff. Was it the drug lord, waking from his sleep, wondering what was going on? A guard ran past, only a few metres away, but didn’t see him. In the distance Matt heard a dog barking and that made him stop and turn round anxiously. Dogs wouldn’t be tricked by the darkness. They would find him by smell. If the drug lord kept guard dogs anywhere near the house, he might be in trouble after all.
    He still hadn’t been seen so he quickened his pace, following the arches opposite where he had been. About half a dozen torches had converged on the generator building, the beams criss-crossing in the darkness, and he caught glimpses of men with unshaven faces and crumpled clothes, peering in to see what had happened. Matt knew that they would be confronted by cogs and pistons that had inexplicably bent themselves out of shape, cables that had been torn in half – and unless they had a back-up system, the only light they were going to see out here would come from the rising sun.
    But as he continued on his way, he saw that one room was illuminated. There was a soft yellow glow coming from behind the glass windows … either candles or an oil lamp. Matt crept forward, his feet making no sound on the tiled walkway. He reached the window and looked in.
    From the day that he had been arrested by the police and sent to be fostered in North Yorkshire, Matt had seen many horrors. The last minutes that he had spent at Raven’s Gate, his first encounter with the King of the Old Ones, had been enough for a lifetime. But he knew that he would never forget what he saw on the other side of the window. He was almost sick. It was hard to believe that any human being could be so monstrous, so cruel.
    The drug lord had been buying boys to act as drug mules, to carry drugs inside them from country to country, crossing borders without being suspected or stopped. Matt knew that drug mules had flown into London and other major cities years before his adventures had begun. But the drug lord had taken things one step further. The Brazilian boy was lying on an operating table with a doctor and two male nurses leaning over him, their gloved hands bright with blood. His operation had been interrupted by the sudden loss of light.
    He had been cut open and his body used to provide a hiding place for many packets of white powder. The plastic bags were packed into the cavities beneath his ribs and around his stomach. Anything that wasn’t vital had been removed to make room for more. Right now the boy was a glistening mess of blood and plastic, but Matt knew that he would be sewn up again and that he would live. He would make the journey to wherever the drugs were being sent and then he would be operated on again and the bags removed. How many times would he manage it before he died?
    And he had been next. If the doctor had decided otherwise, it would be him lying there, unconscious and anaesthetized. Matt had to force back the fury he was feeling. If he released it, he would kill