The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

expected, and a squad of stadium staff people were running from an open gateway.  There was a discontented murmur sounding from all sides of the arena.
    “I will call you Kecil, because today I am your friend,” Alec told her.  He reached around and placed an arm around her shoulders, drawing her in close to him.
    “What are you doing?” she asked apprehensively.
    “Kecil,” Alec paused and focused his attention and his Light energies momentarily, then began to walk towards the open gate, and the attendants that were running towards them.  “Kecil, be very silent.  We are invisible at the moment, and,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “if we don’t say anything, we can walk right past them all and walk out of this place.”
    The crowd gave a scream of astonishment as the two figures vanished from sight, and the approaching attendants halted in their tracks in confusion.
    “Do you take me for a fool?” Kecil asked in a hiss.  She squirmed out from Alec’s grasp and stepped away from him.  “This is just some cruel, evil trick to make me think I’m saved before I get killed!  You’re an evil, evil man!  All you humans are evil!” she cried.
    She stepped further away from him, and as she did, she moved outside the small area that Alec had protected with invisibility by bending light around it.  As she suddenly appeared visible to the rest of the stadium, the crowd gave full throat to its demand for her death, and the attendants on the stadium floor shouted and pointed and started running again.
    “Just trust me, you little fool!” Alec shouted at her.  She looked around in confusion and defeat, shocked by the new wave of hateful voices, while Alec stepped towards her, and engulfed her in his bubble of invisibility once again.  The crowd screamed in a new tone, and the attendants stopped running once again.
    Alec grabbed her arm with a firm grip.  “I’ve saved a lacerta before, and if you don’t screw this up, I’ll save you too!” he told her, as he began to drag her to the side, out of the path the attendants were headed on.  “Rosebay was much more accommodating that this.”
    “Rosebay?  Rosebay the queen?  What do you know of our myths?” Kecil asked.
    Alec continued to drag the girl to the side.  They slipped between two of the lion cages, out into the open floor space of the stadium.
    “Look,” Alec directed his companion’s attention to the attendants.  The group of men were spreading out, and cautiously directing all their attention towards the center of the stadium, near the abandoned post, though the target of their attention had moved off to the side.  “They don’t see us,” Alec emphasized each word one at a time in a percussive whisper.  “Now come quietly, and we’ll get out of this mess.”
    He held firmly to Kecil’s’ arm, conscious of the dry, scaly skin beneath his fingers, and he walked with exaggerated steps, raising each foot deliberately so that he didn’t leave any telltale scuff marks in the sand, and he motioned for Kecil to do the same.  They walked slowly, in a wide circle, around the stadium staff, as the staff members wandered towards the center uncertainly, their eyes roving wildly in all directions as they sought their quarry.
    Alec guided the submissive Kecil to the open gateway and the pair stood by the side for a moment, as they turned to watch the bewildered attendants wandering around and between the cages and the post, at a loss, while the crowd hurled insults and objects at the field.
    “Let’s get you out of here,” Alec said softly. 
    “Can you stop squeezing my arm?  I promise I won’t try to run away?” Kecil said pitifully.
    Alec immediately loosened his grip.
    “I’m sorry,” he apologized, and he slid his hand down to the girl’s hand, then interlaced his fingers with her long fingers, and began to lead her through the dim maze of passages beneath the stadium stands.
    “That’s where they kept me,” Kecil said