Half Wild by Sally Green Page A

slow speed. There are four people in the boat nearest and two in the one further off, and they’re all looking to the shore, toward me; they all have binoculars.
    Hunters!
    And there’s something about the stance of the most distant Hunter that tells me who it is. She’s tall and slim and straight.
    Jessica.
    I race back to the house and into the kitchen. The bowl of nightsmoke by the window is like a beacon. I pick up a cloth and smother it. Nesbitt begins to object and I tell him, “Hunters! On the lake. Six of them at least.”
    Nesbitt is already leaving the room. “Get Gabby and come to Van’s room. There’s stuff to take. We leave in five minutes.”
    “If they’ve seen the nightsmoke we won’t have five minutes,” I reply, running after him.
    “Then hope they haven’t seen it.”
    Less than a minute later Gabriel and I are in Van’s room. She’s carefully packing vials into an already full carpetbag. She says, “Nesbitt went into Geneva yesterday to buy some provisions. I think he must have been spotted.”
    She opens the drawer by her bed and takes out the Fairborn. She drops it into a large leather bag, which she then picks up. As she strides to the door she points to a pile of leather-bound books and the carpetbag. “Bring those.”
    We all head to the garage at a fast pace, meeting Nesbitt on the way, a large bag slung over his shoulder.
    A minute later Nesbitt, Van, and I are in the back of a black limousine. Gabriel is wearing a chauffeur’s cap and is driving. And we’re out of the sunken garage, climbing into the pre-dawn light, along the drive, and out through the electric gates. It’s probably only five minutes since I saw the Hunters but it feels like twenty.
    The road looks normal but Hunters aren’t likely to be driving up and down in tanks.
    Gabriel pulls out and turns right, away from Geneva. Half a minute later a van drives past in the opposite direction and Gabriel calls to us. “Hunters in that. Three in the front, who knows how many in the back.”
    No one replies and we all scan each vehicle that we go past. Half an hour later we’ve left the lakeshore road and are heading north and we’ve not seen any more Hunters.
    “Where are we going, by the way?” Gabriel asks.
    Van says, “North is fine for the moment but soon we’ll need to turn east. I know the perfect place. It’s an old castle but nicely secluded and remarkably well maintained. It should be free at this time of year.”

Slovakia

    We arrive at the place just as it’s getting dark. We’ve been driving all day, apart from when we stopped to change the limousine for a less conspicuous car. The castle looks more like a large country house with turrets. Set in a thick forest at the end of a long drive, it definitely is secluded.
    Van and Nesbitt go inside. Nesbitt says he’ll have some food ready in ten minutes. I’m hungry but I’ve spent all day in the car and I don’t want to be inside now when I’ll have to use the nightsmoke. I tell Gabriel that I’m going to sleep in the forest. When he says he’ll come with me, I shake my head.
    “No. I’m better off alone, Gabriel. You stay in the castle.”
    “But—”
    “Please, Gabriel. I’m too tired to argue. I need to be alone.”
    I go into the trees and find a sheltered place. I’m almost dizzy with tiredness but this place is good. It’s old and quiet and I know Gabriel won’t come when I’ve asked him not to. I close my eyes and welcome sleep.
    I wake to a faint noise. Footsteps. Not human but small and hesitant. A deer.
    My animal adrenaline rises quickly but I breathe slowly in and out—really, really slowly—and hold my breath, and hold it and hold it and say to myself, “Calm, calm.” I don’t want to stop the animal taking over; I’m noticing the increasing adrenaline as it’s released into me and I’m letting it build slowly. I hold my breath and then breathe out. The slower the transformation the better, I think. I don’t want to