We roused the team, Wizbit momentarily complaining that he had yet to get a full nights sleep. Lathain was more interested in who was looking for us, his mind obviously on the drake that had been looking for him earlier. Wizbit and Whisperer assured him that it seemed to be a local force, if there was supposed to be anything reassuring about that.

"I warded the room" Wizbit said "they shouldn't see anything, but to be safe we should try and stay out of sight" everyone in agreement we pushed ourselves against one of the walls of the room and held our breath. A shudder of footprints echoed up the stairwell, pausing only a moment on our level before moving upwards

"One will return momentarily" I heard the whisper of Bob in my ear making me shudder, and with that he simply disappeared, I didn't really know how to react, I had no idea what Ghoul's powers were but I was pretty sure invisibility wasn't one of them

"The guys are searching the rooms upstairs, and there are two more troops below us" Lathain said, hand to his comm. unit "We need to take out the guys above us so we can get to the roof"

"How do we do that?" Whisperer asked "the second we start a fight the guys downstairs will hear and come running . . . " he trailed off, Wizbit looked at him and nodded, moving into the middle of the floor, Whisperer's eyes glazed over white and he looked up "Cast down" he told Wizbit "Bob has upstairs covered"

Wizbit murmured a spell and a slight glow flashed across the flooring, he nodded to Whisperer and the two started to head to the stairwell, "I wouldn't wait too long if I were you" Wizbit said

We wasted no time in following, as we hit the stairs the sound of men screaming filled the air, blood curdling, they were screams of fear. I shuddered at the sound, which must be Bob; I didn't dare imagine the fate that those poor souls were having to go through. We raced for the roof, hitting it at a run, Wizbit took only a moment to locate the planks which stretched between this building and the next and headed over. Bob appeared behind me, his dark clothes splashed with blood, his fangs very much evident, I almost screamed aloud, he looked utterly terrifying.

"One has bought us time to cross" he hissed

"How come the guys downstairs aren't following?" KC asked as we got to the planks, Whisperer testing the plank with his weight and starting across

"Silence spell" Wizbit told her "they can't hear above the floor we were on, but they'll reach the next floor in the next few minutes so we better move before they cotton on" he all but shoved her onto one of the planks

"The device must have a tracking unit" Lathain said "Either a weak one, or one that we activated when we played around with it, they got to us pretty quickly"

"We need to shut the gun down then" Whisperer said jumping off the end of the plank to the other building

"I know!" Lathain yelled at him "Ghost any ideas?" I stood on the plank and started to shuffle across the roof

"I'm thinking" I said

"Think quicker" Lathain said

"What about a barrier?" Wizbit asked

"A Physical barrier to shield any comm. trace?" I asked, just edge a little closer "That could work" I said aloud "Can you cast a barrier?"

"No" Wizbit answered taking up his feet on the plank behind Bob

"Well why suggest it then?" Convoy snorted

"I can" Whisperer said, extending out a hand to help me over the last section, I ignored it, concentrating on my footing too much, he simply shrugged and helped the ghoul who took the offered hand

"We need a failsafe" Lathain said "A bomb to put in with it would be good, something I can set off with a comm. link if it's broken open"

"Can't guarantee it'll work, blowing the device up sounds good but ideally we'd like to keep it intact until we know how to destroy it safely" Wizbit said making the last leap, landing next to KC, Whisperer removed the plank cutting them off from following, we had a few moments to spare.

"What about an EMP?" I asked

"Would be perfect, except we don't have one" Lathain said trying to pull the plank across the roof so we could cut across to another building

"I do" I said "Turn your head"

"Turn? Whoah!" Every guy on the team suddenly went beetroot red and swung their heads away as I pulled off my top

"Here hold this a second" I handed a flushed Lathain my top whilst I began to detach a strap just under my bra.

"Hey Ghost you know I could help you with that" he began, I shot him a look and he turned away again, I removed the strap and snatched my top back, on my other side I could hear Whisperer

"So why am I not looking?"

"Because I'll shoot you if you do" Lathain warned him

"K sorted" I told them, a few relieved sighs, one or two of the guys wouldn't meet my eyes, whatever. "K I'd like a ball barrier just big enough to cover the gun and the EMP" I told Whisperer "Lathain, rig it so it goes off if the barrier is forcibly broken"

"Will do" he said

"Why do you even have this?" Whisperer asked

"Less talk more work" I told him, "KC can you keep an ear out on the guys tailing us, see if their mutterings about the trace come to an upheaval"

"You mean we won't be taking them down?" She sounded disappointed but kept her hand to her comm. link. The barrier sealed and the chatter went AWOL

"Looks like they can't sense it" Lathain said "Not a bad idea"

"Neither is getting out of here" Wizbit said "Come on" he picked up the ball of energy and stuffed it under my coat which he balled up in the rucksack "I'll follow you guys" he then disappeared from sight, damn invisibility being better than mine! Oh well

Lathain checked the chatter and decided it was best to cross to the next few buildings before heading down, the planks from our last trip were hauled to each opposite side and we shuffled across

"We should consider if the astral signature of the device is detectable by anything" Wizbit's voice carried over to us

"But it's shut up in a case now" Whisperer said

"Yes but if they have a mage with them then that mage will be able to trace all the signatures of everyone here" he said

"You mean like a sniffer dog?" KC asked

"Something like that yes" he said "We should head to water, that'll break the signature" we raced down the stairs of the desolate building and headed west towards where Lathain said there should be an old overflow for the nearby lake, the storm drain would be wide but there should be some flowing water.

"This is our time to split" Hacker grunted to Lathain as we reached the water's edge, shallow, around shin deep and slightly murky, but it was a flowing current.

"With any luck the guards will follow us instead" Geraldine said, Bob grinned showing his sharp teeth. Adam made clear that he wasn't sure where else to go so left with Geraldine and Hacker

"One will find you later" Bob hissed, they didn't wait for us to call them back, without waiting for a thank you they simply raced off in the other direction. We had no time to waste, the remaining people slid down the drain sides into the water, a dark purple cloud upstream chose our course for us, unwilling to be too close to a mage cloud we decided to go downstream. Wizbit cast a soft tracer spell leading away from the water; with luck they would follow that rather than us. About a hundred meters away there appeared to be a tunnel where the water flowed into it, deciding this would be better than wading across in the open we headed towards it