Nightrise

finishing a war. He wondered how he would ever explain it all. Where would he even begin?
    Matt stepped forward. Although he was trying not to show it, it was obvious that he was in pain. So that made three of them. Scott needed help. And Jamie still had a large hole in his shoulder. He wondered how many of them would be hurt, how many of them would have to die before this was all over.
    At last, they stood facing each other.
    "Jamie," Matt said. "And Scott."
    He reached out a hand. Jamie took it.
    Four of the Five had come together. The circle was almost complete.
    TWENTY-THREE
    Departures
    The girl in the business class lounge at Heathrow Airport was dressed in a short white jacket, a pink T-shirt, and pants cut off above the ankle. She had a backpack on the seat beside her and a book open on her lap although she hadn't read any of it in the thirty minutes she had been there. There was a glass of Coke on the table in front of her but she hadn't touched that either.
    It was now the second week in November and the weather had suddenly turned nasty, blustery showers hitting London and sending the commuters running behind umbrellas and clutched hats. Even now the rain was rattling against the windows of the lounge, dripping off the wings of the waiting planes. The runways looked even grayer than usual. Most of the flights had been delayed.
    The girl carried a British passport yet her features were anything but. Her looks were very striking, partly Chinese with long, black hair tied at the back and eyes that were an unusual shade of green. She was small and thin but there was a confidence about her, a sense that she could look after herself. She was making the flight as an "unaccompanied minor"— that was what the airline called her — and they had given her a plastic label to wear around her neck. She had pulled it off the moment she had sat down.
    Her name was Scarlett Adams and she was fourteen years old.
    She wasn't usually a nervous flier but she was nervous today. She still didn't know why she was making this journey. Only the day before she had been at the expensive, private school in Dulwich, where she had been sent when she was thirteen. St. Genevieve's was an all-girls' school, housed in a rather grand Victorian building with ivy growing up the walls and extensive grounds at the back. Although the school did have a boarding wing, she was a day girl. Her parents lived abroad but they had a house five minutes away and a housekeeper who looked after her during term time.
    Yesterday, just before lunch, the headmistress had asked to see her in her study. As Scarlett had climbed the stairs to the waiting area that everyone called the graveyard because there were so many portraits of dead teachers, she had wondered what sort of trouble she might be in. Was it that argument with Miss Wilson, the geography teacher? Or the physics homework she had "left on the bus"? Or the fight in the computer room — even if it hadn't been her who'd started it?
    But when at last she was shown in to the cozy room with its gas fire and view over the front drive, it was the last thing she had expected to hear.
    "Scarlett, I'm afraid you're going to be leaving us for a few weeks." The headmistress didn't look at all pleased. "I've just had a phone call from your father. He was very mysterious, if you want the truth. But it seems some sort of crisis has arisen. He's well — but he needs you to be with him. He's already arranged the flight."
    "When am I leaving?"
    "Tomorrow. I have to say, it's very inconvenient. You've got your exams to consider and we're going to have to recast the Christmas play. But he was insistent. He said he'd talk to you tonight."
    Scarlett had spoken to her father when she got home but he didn't add much more to what the headmistress had already said. He needed her to come out for a week or two. He would explain why when she got there. The housekeeper — a dark and rather sour-looking Scottish woman — was already packing. It seemed that there was nothing to discuss. Scarlett had spent the rest of the evening e-mailing and texting her friends and went to bed in a bad mood.

    And she wasn't feeling much better now, waiting for her flight to be called. She looked around her.
    There was the usual collection of business people, some of them hitting the free alcohol, others catching up with the day's news. A plasma TV stood in one corner of the lounge and she glanced at the screen.
    "Today, the new president-elect