The quartet rented a car and drove to Genoa. Their first priority was the yzorak production facility. They needed to find it and sabotage it. Then they would deal with Ghaelvord and Malacoda. They hoped that with the production facility stymied that the world’s military forces would prevail over Ghaelvord’s volitionless legions.

To find their target, they would need the lay of the land. They drove south on the Milan-Serravalle highway. As they passed through one of the mountain tunnels, Tiyana began speaking.

“Alright boys, this is it, ground zero. According to the maps, the mountain we are passing through leads to a ridge overlooking downtown Genoa. If we get out after the second tunnel, then we can climb the ridge and look out at the city. We can camp in the woods up there if we need to.”

“It is a good plan.” Hongo said.

“I don’t know what we would do without you.” Hunter said to Tiyana.

As they passed the second tunnel, they disembarked. The climb up the steep slopes turned out to be more difficult than they had expected. Compared to their Himalayan adventure, however, it was a cakewalk. They crested the ridge and wandered through the trees until they found a clearing. True to Tiyana’s navigation, they found a panoramic vantage point for the city. They saw the motionless ships sitting in the yards. They saw the city lit up, but no traffic. People stayed indoors. A curfew was in effect. Ghouls patrolled the streets. The town was frozen in an unnerving silence. Hongo set up two Opticon telescopes with expensive fine-tuned, lead-glass lenses. The scopes brought out the colors of their targets in stunningly clear quality. He and Tiyana used them to survey the city. They had scant idea of what to look for. Prisons, schools, mental facilities, industrial complexes… anywhere that you could store many people and much equipment. That is what they sought.

After some time, Hongo began watching a contingent of yzorak march down the center of the street. One walked in front while four followed behind. They looked from side to side as they walked. The leader periodically lifted his fingers to his ear as if he was talking into a headset. All of a sudden, Hongo saw one of the ghouls in the back crumple to the ground. The others noticed and turned around. Bright flames ricocheted off of the armor of the ghouls and knocked them backwards. They were being hit by gunfire from the rear. The leader motioned. Two ghouls split off and went left; the other two ghouls went right. They found cover behind vehicles that had been abandoned in the middle of the road.

“Tiyana. Did you hear those shots? Look here.” Hongo said.

Tiyana brought her scope around and tried to center it on the action. She saw gunshots beat against the cars. The ghouls popped up and looked around from time to time, but they never fired a shot. It looked like they did not quite know where they were being attacked from. Then she saw the leader drop. A bullet had struck him from the other side. The contingent was surrounded. The shooters could be practically anywhere. The multiple-storied buildings had innumerable windows overlooking the street. After a few minutes, only two ghouls were left. All of a sudden, a ghoul lifted his arm and electric blue rays sprung from his wrist. A chunk of nearby building was vaporized.

“Uh oh. I think they found whoever was shooting them.” Tiyana said ominously.

“Yes, I think so.” Hongo agreed.

Hongo turned to Hunter and Virgil who were talking off to the side as they fiddled with the tents, “Guys, hey guys, we have action.”

Hunter responded flippantly “Hongo, you’re losing your accent, we’ll have you talking like a regular Yankee one day.”

“Just come look.” Hongo was not in the mood for jest.

Hunter looked and saw two of the yzorak firing on a nearby building. The continued barrage of particle ray fire took a toll on the structure. It quickly decayed into shambles. As they continued the attack, one of them fell to the ground. Hunter thought he had been hit from behind. Then, the other ghoul turned and apparently saw their attacker. He raised his vambrace and looked as if he would fire. Instead, he lifted his fingers to his ear and his mouth moved. Then the two final ghouls took cover. Hunter did not like what he saw. He knew why the ghoul had not returned fire. He had called for reinforcements.

“We have a vigilante down there.” Hunter said.

“It certainly seems so. Think he knows anything useful?” Tiyana asked.

“We certainly ought to find out, and if we save lives in the process, then, it’s all in a day’s work.” Hunter said in a tone of mock conceit. “What do you say, Vee?”

“Yes, let us go.” Came the steely reply.

The buildings were on the northwest edge of town, up in the foothills of the mountainous ridge that they had crested. Hunter and Virgil moved quickly, Hunter in his Dahjaat form and Virgil with inexplicable dexterity. Tiyana and Hongo brought up the rear, carrying as much gear as they could without sacrificing too much speed. Hunter and Virgil came upon the scene in the nick of time. A much larger contingent of yzorak reinforcements had arrived. The building with the vigilante or vigilantes had been isolated. The surrounding buildings had been decimated. It seemed that the ghouls wanted their attackers taken alive.

They saw Hunter coming at them from an alley, but not in time to do anything about it. Hunter’s swords whisked through the air briskly. Two ghoul heads fell to the cobbled old street. As Hunter turned, he saw electric blue beams coming at him. He jumped and they passed harmlessly beneath his feet. As he jumped, he threw his boomerangs. When he hit the ground, he threw knives. The knives dropped two more ghouls while the boomerangs swept around in wide arcs.

The ghouls never fired a second volley at Hunter because they heard a loud shout from behind. The turned to see Virgil standing in the middle of the street with his staff pointed at them. The leader grunted loudly and they all fired at Virgil’s apparition. As the decoy absorbed their blasts and evaporated, Hunter’s boomerangs returned. The ghouls who remained alive saw the boomerangs bury themselves deep in the skulls of those less fortunate.

With their mates down, they turned a final time to face Hunter. They unleashed another volley in his general direction. He dove forward and rolled beneath the blasts. As the blasts passed above him, he leapt to his feet. Having closed the gap between himself and the ghouls, he made quick and thorough work of them with his blades.

The battle was brief, but it gave Tiyana and Hongo time to catch up. They came running down the slope and through the alley to the street where they saw Hunter and Virgil standing over the whole defeated contingent. They collapsed and heaved for breath. Both carried heavy guns and other supplies, and both were utterly winded.

Hunter approached and said glibly, “You snooze, you lose, we already got them all, sorry.”

“Shut up.” Tiyana said between gasps.

Hunter laughed. He laughed infectiously and it caught on. The quick victory left a trail of endorphins in its wake and the group felt a brief, fleeting high. Even Virgil chuckled tersely.

“I suppose we should greet our new friend.” Hunter said as the laughter died down.

He started walking toward the front door of the formerly besieged building.

Tiyana stopped him, “Hold on there bushranger! You can’t greet anyone like that. Look at yourself; you’re liable to scare whoever it is out of their skin.”

Hunter was still Dahjaat. He was about Ghaelvord’s height, actually, which was a similarity that could be highly suspicious to anyone who recently watched Ghaelvord’s broadcast.

“Well you can’t send Virgil in there.” Hunter replied.

Virgil, as he did when they were not in public, wore his robes and carried his staff. He looked like an ancient Roman patrician. He spoke excellent English, but had an inimitable accent.

“No, certainly not. I’ll go.” Tiyana said.

“We don’t know these people. It could be dangerous.” Hunter’s words suggested that Tiyana act more cautiously than he had ever acted himself.

She replied, “I can take care of myself, but thank you for the concern. It’s sweet.”

With that, she strode to the door. Hunter and Virgil, meanwhile, slunk back into the alley, out of sight of the building’s face. Hongo joined them. Tiyana pounded loudly on the door.

“Hello! Anyone there?” She called out. She went on, “It’s safe now. They’re all gone.”

No response came at the door. Tiyana knocked again and waited. Then, a blur came out of a window above her. She turned and saw that a man had jumped from a second floor window. He landed hard on the head of a bleeding ghoul. The ghoul had a bullet hole in the side of his neck, but he had stumbled to his feet after the battle ended and crept toward Tiyana as she knocked. If the man had not crushed him, the ghoul may have reached her. With a gut-wrenching stomp, the man put the ghoul out of commission permanently. Tiyana was stunned.

“It not safe after all.” The man said gruffly in passable English.

The man had a thick Italian accent. He was portly, but strong. He had a thick black mustache to match his jet black hair. He had attacked the ghoul with a ferocity that could only be personal.

“Thank you.” Tiyana said. “Thank you very much. I don’t know who rescued who.”

She could not believe that she had been so careless about the downed ghouls.

“Have you been fighting these things?” She asked.

“Yes. I run out of bullets.” The man motioned as if he was shooting a rifle. “They know. They know I am empty. Then they call for more. They surround me.”

Suddenly, the man seized her arm, “We must leave now. We go. I see others come. They kill those ones.” He gestured at the ghouls lying sill in the street.

“About that,” Tiyana started slowly, “I know the others. They are friends.”

“Friends?” He looked at her askance. “The big one?” He gestured with his arms.

“That’s Hunter. That’s my husband. Listen, we do need to get out of the street, but could we talk to you? All of us?”

The man shrugged in a look of indifference.

“Is there somewhere that we can go?” Tiyana asked.

“Yes. We go now?” Came the response.

“Now, yes.” Tiyana said. “Hunter! Hongo! Come on out!” She called out to the hiding trio.

If the Italian man was surprised at the sight of Hunter, he hid it admirably. Hunter had changed back into his regular human form. If the man recognized him as the same one who cleared the street, then he did not let on. He merely started running down the street. They followed. They zigzagged through alleys and across streets. Periodically, they stopped and either Hongo or their new friend would peek out to check the streets. They would wait for the ghouls to pass and then dart across. They came to a beat up garage near the docks. Their new friend led them down an alley to a staircase. The stairs led to a small vestibule set deep into the ground. Their friend took a large ring of dangling keys out of a pocket of his overalls. He opened a door in the vestibule and led them into a windowless shop. He flicked the lights on as Hongo closed the door behind them and locked it.

“This is my shop. I hope you like it.” The man said.

Brass knobs, steel bars, planks, and saws hung on the walls. Tools were strewn about everywhere.

“What do you do?” Hunter asked.

“I am a carpenter. I work downtown and sometimes I work on the bigger boats.” The man’s English seemed to be coming back to him, as if he knew it all along, but rarely used it and had to ease his way back into it.

“We are archaeologists, except for him. He’s a wizard.” Hunter said in a matter-of-fact tone.

The man’s brow wrinkled, “Wizard? On any other day, I would not believe you.”

After an awkward pause, the man ambled over to a small refrigerator and opened it.

“You want a drink?” He asked.

“Sure.” Hunter and Tiyana said simultaneously.

“Yes.” Hongo said.

Virgil said nothing, but as the man handed out water bottles, Virgil accepted one.

“My name is Vito,” the man said, “Vito De Luca.”

“Hunter, Hunter Price.” Hunter gave Vito’s hand a firm shake.

“Hongo Ochuka.” Hongo shook hands as well.

“I am Tiyana Price. The better half of the Price family.” She said with a charming grin.

“You may call me Virgil.” Virgil said.

Virgil stood in a corner of the shop, surveying the scene with the cool gaze of a sentinel. He looked like a marble statue in the dim corner of the room. His hawkish countenance showed no emotion. He made no move to shake hands.

Hunter said about Virgil, “Ignore him. He’s not accustomed to manners. He’s from another planet, not literally, but, yeah, he is friendlier than he looks. So, you’ve been attacking these things?”

“They took someone from me. What do you know of them?” Hunter could hear a strong twinge of anger in Vito’s voice.

“Did you see the broadcast today?” Hunter asked.

“Sì.”

Hunter’s tone was serious, “That man is converting people into those things. We want to stop him.”

Hunter could see that Vito’s hands were quivering. He had obviously been through a lot in the last couple of days.

“What are they?” Vito suddenly screamed at Hunter with uncontrolled rage.

The force of the emotion that Vito had hurled at him made Hunter flinch. The man lunged at Hunter, invading his personal space. Hunter fought the urge to push the man back violently.

“Hey Vito. It’s okay. Calm down.” Tiyana said as she put her hand on his shoulder.

Vito burst into tears. The strong, heavyset man with the gruff appearance and thick mustache crumbled into a bubbling mess.

“They took her, they took my Paola, my life.” Vito said between sobs.

Something clicked in Tiyana’s head. Vito’s loss might be their gain. They may be able to help each other.

She said, “Vito, where did they take her? Can you tell me that?”

Between sobs, Vito began telling his story.