Chapter Three

Blake locked the front door behind him as he let himself into the apartment he and Hunter shared. He'd used the excuse of wanting to check on his sick brother to get himself away. The others were all still frantically worrying about Dustin and Blake was scared he might accidentally let something slip. It hurt so much to be lying to his friends. When they'd broken free of Lothor's control, he'd promised himself he'd never lie to them again.

He went through to Hunter's bedroom and took in the sight of Dustin struggling in his sleep. Hunter was crouched beside the bed, drawing something on Dustin's forehead with his finger in a substance that looked far too much like blood. The book at dark ninja spells was open beside him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Blake demanded.

He crossed the room and snatched away the book. Hunter jumped at the sound of Blake's shout, his finger smearing the symbol he was drawing.

Blake looked at the page the book was open to.

"A mind reading spell?"

"I just want to see what's happening," Hunter said. He picked up a cloth and wrapped it around his finger. Blake quickly skim-read the details of the spell. The crimson substance had been blood; Hunter's blood. The spell required him to prick his finger to draw the symbol in his own life force.

"These are forbidden spells, Hunter. Forbidden. They're not called 'use if you really feel like it' spells."

"I can't do nothing."

"We've given Dustin a fighting chance. That's enough. It's up to him now."

Blake turned to walk from the bedroom, still holding the book.

"What are you going to do with that?"

"I'm taking it back. We've done the spell we needed it for. Now I'm locking it away again." And Blake strode from the room. As he crossed the doorframe, his foot trod on the line of symbols drawn there, causing a tiny smudge. Once he was gone, the ink shifted itself as though it were alive, reforming the marks so that, moments later, all trace of the smudge had vanished.

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"I thought I had something for a moment there," said Cam. He was running various search programs on the central computer, trying to get a location on Dustin, his morpher or any energy readings that could give a reason for his disappearance.

"What sort of something?" Tori asked.

"A brief reading on Dustin's morpher. It didn't last long enough for me to get an exact location."

"Did you get any sort of location?" Shane was peering over Cam's shoulder, though he really stood no chance of understanding the graphs and numbers that were flowing across the screen. Cam pulled up a map.

"I think it was somewhere around here."

"That's near Blake and Hunter's place," said Tori.

"We'll check it out," said Shane, "Maybe they've found something."

"Wait a minute!" Cam said quickly, as a frantic beeping began to emanate from the computer. He typed in commands and brought up a different map. "I've just got a reading of dark ninja energy at the site of the Thunder Academy."

"Be careful, Rangers," Sensei warned them, "whatever this dark presence is, if it is behind the disappearance of Dustin then it is probably very powerful."

"You go to Hunter and Blake's," Shane told Tori, "see if you can find any sign of Dustin, but get Blake and Hunter if he's up for it to join me at the Thunder Academy."

"I'm coming with you," Cam said, typing in the commands to activate his cybernetic duplicate, "Dad's right, this thing is almost certainly dangerous."

Cyber Cam appeared and began a greeting of, "Yo, dudes, wassup," but the real Cam had already activated the teleportation system.

Cam and Shane appeared at the edge of the ruins of what had once been a mighty ninja school. Now there was just rubble and dust and, near a raised stone slab in the middle of the wreckage, a familiar figure. Blake stood, clutching a large object to his chest, staring at the new arrivals.

"Blake?" asked Shane, "I thought you were going home to check on Hunter."

"I was. um. I did. um. This isn't what it looks like."

"What does it look like?" asked Cam, walking across to him. The item Blake held was an ancient book, the front cover against his chest so he couldn't see the title. At his feet was a gaping hole where the slab had lain and a set of steps leading down to a hidden room.

"Don't go down there," Blake said, but Cam wasn't listening. He walked down the steps and into a store room lined with shelves. His eyes scanned over the objects that were shut away down here, recognising some of them from legends and stories. There was a weapon that supposedly killed by making the victim's blood boil in their veins. There was a stone that could trap souls. There were others that Cam didn't know the purpose of, but he knew that ninjas had been given the order to destroy them if they were ever found.

Cam felt almost sick that such a place could exist, much less beneath a ninja academy that supposedly trained the world's protectors. Blake and Shane had followed him down the stairs. Cam tried to suppress the feelings of rage and revulsion until he at least knew more, but he yanked the book out of Blake's arms and looked at the cover.

"Dark ninja spells?" Cam wished there was a way to explain this, but Blake had been accessing a room full of forbidden objects and holding the key to powers that had been banned centuries ago for very good reasons.

Shane had clearly reached the same conclusion as Cam, but he was less in control of his temper. He grabbed hold of Blake's t-shirt and slammed him hard into the wall.

"What the hell have you done with Dustin?" Shane demanded. Blake didn't answer. He didn't even meet their eyes, which filled Cam's heart with fear. If Dustin were safe, surely Blake would be saying something.

Blake had done some foul things under Lothor's influence. Cam still harboured some residual anger over the kidnap of his father, but he'd come to trust them despite that. He knew that what had happened before hadn't been their fault. But this was and that made the betrayal cut all the deeper.

Then Cam's communicator beeped and Tori's voice came through in a shaken whisper. "I've found Dustin."

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Tori had let herself into Blake and Hunter's apartment, using the spare key Blake and once told her was kept on the top of the doorframe. At first, it appeared that no one was home, which would explain why no one had answered her knock. She headed to Hunter's room, thinking that maybe he was asleep. She could at least check he was OK before continuing a search for Dustin.

She got a glimpse through the open doorway and then darted back, pressing against the wall and praying she'd only imagined what she'd just seen. She glanced round again, seeing Dustin on the bed, his back brutally cut. And there was Hunter, sitting beside him, doing nothing while Dustin writhed in pain.

Tori reached for her communicator. "I've found Dustin," she whispered.

"Where are you?" came Shane's voice. Clearly he hadn't noticed from her whispering that she was trying not to be overheard because his voice came through at a normal volume.

"Who's there?" Hunter demanded from inside the bedroom. Aw well, no sense trying to hide now. Tori stepped into view, taking up a fighting stance. Whatever was going on here, Dustin was clearly hurt and it didn't look like Hunter was going to help her get him to Ninjops.

Hunter's face paled with fear when he saw Tori. Then he uttered a strange word. Tori just had a moment to wonder what it meant, when a line of inky symbols across the doorway started to glow. A second later, and a wall of bright energy shot up from them. She stepped up to it, peering through this shield to see more symbols, forming a dome around Hunter and Dustin.

"Hunter, what's going on?" she asked. She reached out to touch the energy, but snatched her fingers back, stung from an instant of contact.

"I can't let you interfere," Hunter said. He was standing now and bent to scoop up Dustin's prone form from the bed.

Tori spun a kick at the energy barrier, but only succeeded in being flung backwards with great force when her foot made contact. She scrambled back to her feet, determined to fight the instant Hunter let down that energy shield to escape.

But he didn't lower the shield. He said another sequence of mysterious words and then a black smoke emerged from nowhere, enveloping him. When the smoke cleared a few seconds later, both Hunter and Dustin had vanished.