MONSTER CAVE

THE SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITIES DIVISION

BOOK 1

WILLIAM STACEY

BASTARD SWORD PRESS

Copyright © 2024 by William Stacey

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be considered as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

PROLOGUE

“Of Every One-Hundred Men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are nothing but targets, nine are real fighters... We are lucky to have them... They make the battle.”

“Ah but the One, One of them is a Warrior... and He will bring the others back.”

Heraclitus, c. 500 B.C.

He couldn’t die here. Anywhere but here.

Bullets zipped perilously close to Mullah Najeeb Wasiq, ricocheting about the cavern walls. The enemy's smoke grenades and flares cast a disorienting red haze, transforming their advancing figures into looming, ominous shadows. Najeeb's heart hammered against his chest, his breath coming in short, uneven gasps. In all his years of fighting, he had never been in such danger. But Najeeb knew God loved him and wouldn’t let him die in this unholy place.

At dawn, government soldiers had attacked the mountain, and the battle had raged for over an hour now. From the start, events had gone poorly for Najeeb and his Taliban fighters. Backed by artillery and American airpower, the enemy had stormed up the mountain pass, killing many of Najeeb's men and breaching the entrance to the cave system. Inside, the fighting had slowed to brutal close-quarters combat. The end seemed inevitable; the government had sent their elite commandos after Najeeb. If he weren't so terrified, he might have felt flattered.

The battle had been brutal, marked by fierce combat and heavy casualties. Najeeb's forces had been driven back methodically, losing control of the strategic logistics caves. Now, they were cornered in the vast expanse of Tora Bela's hidden cavern, a cursed place dominated by the ancient statue. This colossal edifice, which stood a hundred feet tall and resembled an ominously upright six-legged insect, loomed over them. It seemed almost alive in the shadowy light.

The cavern's entrance was dominated by a steep and narrow rockslide, a treacherous path of jagged rocks and loose gravel. Metal stakes with secured ropes allowed for a hazardous descent, but this arrangement also made the entrance a bottleneck. The government soldiers had to navigate this obstacle one at a time, making them easy targets. Already, Najeeb's men had killed at least ten enemies, their bodies tumbling down to form a pile at the base of the rocks. Najeeb took savage joy in their deaths. “Kill them all, my brave fighters!” he screamed, ducking behind a boulder as gunfire filled the air.

Even if they killed a hundred more, though, the battle was lost. The government had taken Najeeb’s mountain fortress. A lesser commander might die here, but he was too crafty for that.

Another of Najeeb's men fell—a bullet had shattered his head like a ripe melon.

“Fire! Fire!” Najeeb yelled, darting from his cover to hide behind one of his men. “Drive the apostates back!”

Najeeb had started this battle with almost two hundred Taliban fighters, each a battle-hardened warrior. Now, he had fewer than two dozen men left, many already wounded.

An enemy rocket roared out of the smoke from the entrance above, creating a fireball as the explosive detonated among a knot of Najeeb’s fighters. Clearly, the commandos could see through the smoke. The Americans must have equipped them with night-vision glasses.

Najeeb had a dozen of his own night-vision glasses, gifts from the Iranians, but his brother Bakht had taken them for his own mission against a local village that had helped the enemy. Najeeb cursed his stupidity for letting Bakht take them.

Another rocket lit up the cavern—this one aimed right at Najeeb!

He yanked at the shoulders of the man he had been hiding behind—a gap-toothed imbecile named Ali—threw himself down, and pulled the man on top of him. The rocket soared right over them, searing the air like a furnace. It hit the statue and detonated, showering white-hot chunks of metal. Ali screamed, and pain flared in Najeeb's hand. He pushed the screaming Ali off him, brushing the burning metal chunk off his hand and ripping part of the skin away.

Ali's gap-toothed face was now a bloody ruin, dripping red. He screamed in agony on his knees, holding a hand toward Najeeb.

Once again, God had shown His love for Najeeb.

Ignoring the wounded man, Najeeb rose and scurried away, his gaze darting toward the secret tunnel at the back of the cavern, hidden behind the ancient temple.

It was time to go.

He grabbed the arm of one of his few surviving subcommanders, a fool named Najibullah. “Take two men with you and hold them back. Give us five minutes.” Najibullah hesitated, his eyes wide. Perhaps the man wasn't as dumb as Najeeb thought. Najeeb put both hands on the man's shoulders and touched his forehead against the other's. “Brother, God is watching. He will reward your sacrifice.”

“Yes, yes, Commander. God is great,” Najibullah said, although judging by his expression, he wasn't convinced.

Najeeb shoved him. “Hurry!”

The man stumbled but caught himself. He grabbed two of the closest men and dragged them along.

“The rest of you, follow me!” Najeeb yelled to the remaining fighters.

Needing no further prodding, the men hurried after Najeeb. Bullets cracked overhead as Najibullah and the other two men fought a hopeless rearguard.

A hundred feet ahead, illuminated by the group’s powerful flashlights, were the ruins of Tora Bela, an infidel temple built at the rear of the enormous cavern. Six tall stone pillars held aloft a ziggurat-like roof made of black stone. Constructed from the same material, a thirty-foot-wide circular black lid with infidel carvings had been set into the temple floor, its purpose a mystery. The temple was ancient, the stones deteriorating and weathered by time, but the black stone lid remained in perfect condition, its texture like glass. No one knew what it was built from nor what ancient people had constructed the lid or the temple. Najeeb didn't care. Had he not feared a cave-in, he would have long ago dynamited both the temple and its ungodly insect statue.

The secret tunnel behind the temple, though... that he cared about very much. Once he reached⁠—

A detonation as if from God's own hammer sent him and the others slamming to the ground. A billowing cloud of dust roared over them. He was blind, and his ears rang. The blast had knocked the air from his lungs, and he gasped now, his breath coming out in squeaks. When the air settled, he was lying on his side, his men tangled around him, another lying atop his legs. The men moaned and cried out in fear. A flashlight lay nearby, its beam unable to cut through the dust in the air. Najeeb grasped it, shoved the man atop him away, and crawled to his knees, his mind reeling. Each breath he took brought pain, but he was alive. Praise God.

His flashlight beam played across a scene of desolation.

Men lay about, hacking and climbing to their knees. “Commander?” one man asked, clutching Najeeb's sleeve. “What was that?”

“I... a bomb,” he managed, his eyes darting about. It had to be a bomb, a big one. The explosion must have surprised the enemy as well because even their gunfire had stopped. Najeeb could hear them calling out to one another.

The men helped one another up as the dust settled.

“The Americans,” Najeeb whispered, more to himself than to the others. He staggered toward the temple and the passage behind it. The Americans must have bombed the caves. But why?

The bomb had brought down part of the temple, shattering several of the columns that held up its stone ceiling. A portion of the ceiling had fallen into the temple's interior, smashing through the black stone lid and revealing a vast hole, at least thirty feet wide, in the cavern floor. Chunks of stone lay across winding steps carved into its circular interior wall. Najeeb played his flashlight beam on the steps leading down. What was down there? And why hide it beneath that stone?

The men gathered behind him, bunching up and whispering to one another. “What... what ith it, commander?” asked his last surviving subcommander, a stick-thin Pakistani named Amin Khan. He spoke with a distinct lisp, a lasting souvenir from an old bullet wound that had claimed several of his teeth.

“It doesn't matter,” Najeeb snapped. “Let the government soldiers figure it out. We're leaving.” They climbed over the fallen stones to the rear of the temple.

And they stood frozen in place when their flashlight beams illuminated the debris.

Stones had fallen in on the tunnel entrance, blocking it. Najeeb’s entire body felt as though it had been submerged in ice-cold water. They were trapped. Just then, the government soldiers opened fire again.

“What do we do, Commander?” a man asked in a shrill voice.

“We need to surrender,” another said. “Before they kill us all.”

“Quiet, you dogs!” Najeeb snapped. He needed to think. He stroked his beard with one hand as his mind wrestled with options. They could surrender, but although doing so would cause his men to end up in a government prison, Najeeb would be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

How long until the commandos arrived? Five to ten minutes?

Maybe not even that long.

He made his decision. “We go down the stairs,” he told his men, his voice breaking only slightly. “There may be another tunnel out.”

They all stared at him, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.

“Hurry, fools!” He gripped the arm of that lisping fool, Khan, and shoved him toward the stairs. Najeeb shined his flashlight down the opening, but it was too far away for the beam to reach the bottom. The round opening, like a giant hole drilled into the mountain, was perfectly smooth, almost like glass. No primitive people could have done such a thing.

“This ith a bad idea,” Khan said. “We... we should surr⁠—”

“Move, damn you, or I'll throw you over the side,” Najeeb interrupted, grabbing the man's shoulders from behind and shaking him.

Khan climbed over the stones and descended the stairs.

“Now, the rest of you,” Najeeb ordered. He then watched as the men, one by one, descended. He feared the cowards would surrender to the enemy... and he might need them yet.

The gunfire had stopped once more, which meant the enemy was coming.

Najeeb followed his men down, descending deeper with each revolution of the seemingly endless stairs. Najeeb glanced up but saw nothing in the darkness. How far had they come? A hundred steps at least, maybe more? With each step, the air grew colder. Najeeb shivered, rubbing his arms. What devilry was this? He began to doubt there could be a tunnel out of the mountain down here, but maybe there would be somewhere to hide. When the government soldiers had left, he and his men could sneak back up and dig their way out. Najeeb's brother would never abandon him. Bakht would return with his men and help. Najeeb was certain of it.

After all, God loved Najeeb.

Just when Najeeb thought the stairs might go on forever, Khan called out in excitement. “Commander, I'm at the bottom. There'th a tunnel!”

“Take it, you fool,” Najeeb snapped from behind his men, who were all bunched together on the stairs, hugging the wall. “We're easy targets here if the enemy throws grenades.”

“Yeth, Commander,” Khan said, but his voice revealed his uncertainty.

The men moved forward again, and soon, Najeeb saw the bottom and the oddly shaped tunnel through which the men funneled. The tunnel at the bottom of the cavern had five sides, but each side had a different length, so the passage seemed lopsided. The tunnel was cut from the rock with the same precision as the cylindrical hole.

Who built this cursed place?

The tunnel was long. The men chattered nervously to one another, their boots and sandals flapping on the stone surface. Each man held his Kalashnikov rifle at the ready, the barrel-taped flashlights scanning back and forth.

Then the men stopped.

“Commander,” Khan called, a tremor in his voice. “There'th... thomething ahead, a light.”

Najeeb peered past him and could just make out a dim blue glow down the tunnel. “What is it?”

“It'th coming closer,” Khan said in a panicked voice.

The men yammered excitedly at one another. Some claimed the light was the government soldiers, and others said it must be Bakht with the other men, come to rescue them.

The air grew so cold Najeeb saw his breath before his face. The men yelled, began to push and shove at one another; one even vomited.

Then, a distorted voice formed words that reverberated within Najeeb's head: “QUERY. WHERE ARE THE SUBJUGATORS? CAN THE LIFEFORMS AMBULATE OVER THE GRID-FORGE?”

Najeeb gasped, gripping his skull. A moment later, the presence popped like a bubble and vanished.

Men staggered about, falling into one another in the tight tunnel. Several even dropped their rifles, which clattered against the tunnel floor.

Then came a noise like the snapping of thousands of chicken bones.

Something immobilized Najeeb, literally freezing him in place. He could still see and hear, but it felt as if he were trapped in a night terror. His flashlight slipped from his fingers, and he gasped for air as the blue glow intensified.

Someone screamed. A man bolted past Najeeb, knocking into him and spinning him around, yet he still couldn't control his body. A rifle opened fire in a long burst that illuminated the tunnel. In that flash of gunfire, Najeeb saw the demon for the first time.

He wished he hadn't.

The men in front died first. Some screamed; others died silently, but all died quickly. When an appendage larger than a python wrapped itself around Najeeb's waist, he wanted to scream, too, but couldn't. A moment later, it didn't matter; with a single squeeze, the appendage crushed his torso. His stomach, spleen, pancreas, colon, and large intestine exploded from his mouth like toothpaste forced from a tube.

God didn’t love Najeeb after all.

CHAPTER

ONE

Bagram Air Base,

Parwan Province, Afghanistan

2 April 2016, 09:30 a.m.

As Wyatt caught the basketball, Roy elbowed him in the head. This type of glancing blow might have been an accident, but this one wasn't.

Wyatt dropped the ball as he fell back onto the cement court. He executed a breakfall, slapping the concrete at an angle with both arms as he tucked his chin into his chest. The concrete painfully slammed the air from his lungs but at least didn't crack his skull open. He glared at Roy as the other man dribbled the ball and moved toward the net.

Roy Hunter was a tall, heavily muscled good old boy from Florida. With his "aw-shucks" smile, bright brown eyes, and sandy crew cut, he looked like a young Kevin Costner, if Kevin Costner were a slack-jawed backstabber with delusions of competence. Roy tossed the basketball to his teammate, Corporal Pablo “Sticks” Sanchez. Sticks, a tall but painfully thin Hispanic man with comically large ears, caught the ball and set himself up to take a shot.

Wyatt's partner, Lou, tried to block Sticks, but the other man was too fast and darted under Lou's arms.

The ball swished through the torn nylon netting. “Ha!” Sticks yelled in triumph.

“Crap,” Wyatt muttered as he laid his head back on the cement and used his hand to shield the bright sun from his eyes.

They were playing what was supposed to be a friendly game of street ball behind the barracks. Everyone called the barracks “CHU-ville” because they were constructed from containerized housing units—shipping containers turned into living quarters and then stacked atop one another.

An A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft thundered overhead, shaking the windows in the containers. Wyatt sat up and watched the A-10 bank north, its silhouette contrasted sharply against the towering Hindu Kush mountains, whose rugged peaks and snowcapped summits sheltered Bagram Air Base.

“Traitor,” Wyatt said to Sticks.

“It's all good, boss,” Sticks said with a gap-toothed smile.

Wyatt, a sergeant, was Sticks's fireteam commander, the leader of Ripper-1. Sticks was his fire support gunner and second-in-command. Roy, a sergeant like Wyatt, was the team leader for Ripper-2. Lou, a staff sergeant, was the commander for the three fireteams that made up Major General Church's close-protection detail.

Lou offered Wyatt his hand. “Shake it off, Cowboy,” he said in his deep voice. Wyatt took the offered hand and rose.

“Easy for you to say.” Wyatt rubbed his ear.

Lou draped a heavy arm around Wyatt's neck. “You'll live.”

He was Wyatt's best friend in the Corps, but their upbringings couldn't have been more different. Lou, a granite-faced Black man, was a hardened veteran of Los Angeles's teeming inner-city life; Wyatt was a son of Ten Sleep, Wyoming—population almost no one. At six feet four inches tall and over two hundred and fifty pounds, Lou was a presence that filled rooms. Wyatt, at five feet ten inches tall and one hundred eighty-five pounds, was more athletic than big. And while Lou sported a high-and-tight Marine Corps crew cut, Wyatt kept his dirty blond hair just at Corps standards; it was his one small act of individualism.

Roy and Sticks chest-bumped into one another.

“Hold the celebrating,” Lou yelled. “It ain't over yet.”

Grinning insufferably, Roy spun the basketball on his index finger. “Two more for game.”

Roy wasn't as tall as Lou, but he was heavier and more muscular. However, while Roy's muscles were built in the gym, Lou's had been built in the dojo. Lou could twist Roy into a pretzel—and Roy knew it. Roy would play dirty only with Wyatt. Not for the first time, Wyatt wondered if he could take Roy in a fight. Roy was crazy strong and, by all accounts, a talented boxer, but Wyatt had spent most of his childhood on the wrestling mat—before Lou had begun teaching him jiujitsu.

“You can always call the elbow,” Lou said under his breath.

Wyatt shook his head. “No blood, no foul.” He ignored the coppery taste in his mouth.

“Let's play.” Lou swung his arms and twisted from side to side.

The four men took their positions on the basketball court. Wyatt inhaled deeply and settled into an easy balance. They were playing winner's ball, so Roy kept the ball, smiling as if the game were all but over. It wasn't. Sticks was a great b-ball player—better than Wyatt—but Roy wasn't anywhere near as good as he thought he was. And he wasn't the only one who could play rough. Wyatt slapped his hands. “Let's go!”

Roy threw the ball from the three-point line to Sticks. Lou darted in, crowding Sticks, and Roy shifted to his right—exactly where Wyatt had been expecting. Wyatt had been an excellent quarterback in high school, and at twenty-seven, he was in the best shape of his life. When Sticks passed the ball to Roy, Wyatt intercepted it. He spun away, dribbling as he took several steps, and then jumped as he threw the ball at the net. The ball hit the hoop and wobbled along the rim for several heart-stopping moments, but it fell through.

Lou barked in laughter. “Messy, but we'll take it. Tied two up. Next one is game.”

With his mouth open and eyes filled with disbelief, Sticks stared at Roy. “Dude?”

“He got lucky,” Roy snapped then wiped his hands on his shorts as if sweaty palms had somehow been responsible for the score. He glared at Wyatt. “Just play.”

“Someone's a bad sport,” Wyatt said, puffing out his lower lip.

“Fuck you,” Roy said. “Play.”

Sticks stuck with Lou near the net as Wyatt set up behind the three-point line. Wyatt was about to throw the ball when he noticed Roy wasn't watching him but staring behind the court, a creased smile on his lips. When Wyatt looked over his shoulder, he saw Corporal Haley Fowler break from a jog into a quick walk. Even stateside, Haley was a stunner; in Bagram, she was off the charts. More athletic than thin, she wore green shorts and a tan T-shirt, her long brown hair tied in a ponytail. Around her waist, she wore the ubiquitous bright orange safety belt that everyone hated but grudgingly admitted saved lives. Tattoos covered her arms from shoulders to wrists. More tattoos adorned her right thigh, visible beneath her shorts. Wyatt didn't have a clue where the thigh tattoo started, but the possibilities were exciting. He had a tattoo as well—over his left pectoral muscle, reading AB Negative. Her body art was much nicer.

Haley's M-4 was slung over her back for her run. Bagram Air Base was just about the safest place in Afghanistan; but Armed Forces regulations required all personnel to keep a loaded weapon at hand. Wyatt's M-4 was stacked with three others atop a nearby picnic table.

As she caught her breath, Haley placed her hands against the small of her back, arching her spine and thrusting her breasts forward—which was all kinds of unfair. Wyatt looked away. Haley was on his fire team, which made him her boss, and good Marine sergeants didn't leer at their subordinates.

“Hey, girl,” Roy called out. “Looking fine.”

Haley, all class, ignored Roy as she walked past, but Roy’s gaze still turned and followed her ass as she mounted the rusty metal stairs to the second level and her room. Wyatt's room was next to Haley's, and he'd often hear her watching television or listening to music through the paper-thin walls. She slipped inside her ISO container and closed the door behind her without a word.

Lou's face was dark with disapproval. “She's not a girl. She's a Marine, one of my Marines... just like you.”

Roy flashed Lou an insolent grin. “Just sayin' hello to a fellow Marine, Staff Sergeant. Since when is it a crime to be polite?”

“Just play,” Sticks said, sounding exasperated.

Lou turned to Wyatt. “You're up, Cowboy.”

Wyatt nodded. He rolled the ball along his fingers, adopted an easy stance, and then, without a word, shifted to the left and ran two steps. Roy, probably still fantasizing about Haley, chased after Wyatt, but Wyatt spun back to his right, and Roy stumbled past. Lou was already at the three-point line with Sticks rushing to block him. Wyatt tossed the ball to Lou.

“Move!” Roy shrieked to Sticks.

When Roy tried to get around him, Wyatt stepped back onto Roy's running shoe and slammed his hip into him, knocking him down. Lou spun and passed the ball back to Wyatt. Roy leaped to his feet, but Wyatt was already throwing on the net.

The ball hit the backboard and bounced away!

Sticks jumped for the ball, but Lou got it first. His friend spun, putting his back to Sticks and bringing the ball to his chest with both hands. “Nothing but net,” he said with supreme confidence and then threw the ball. The ball arced up, hung in the air alongside the bright Afghan sun, and then swished through the hoop.

Sticks groaned, and Wyatt gave Roy his best fuck-you smile.

“That'd be game!” Wyatt said, noticing a crimson-faced Roy look away.

“Okay, okay, whatever. Good game,” Sticks said, offering his hand to Wyatt and then Lou.

Roy didn't offer his hand to anyone. “Next time.” He picked up his M-4 and headed away.

“Hulk mad,” Wyatt taunted. “Hulk smash.”

Sticks laughed as Roy stormed into his ISO container on the first floor and slammed the door behind him. Sticks retrieved his own weapon and sauntered off to his room.

Lou sidled up alongside Wyatt, looming over him. “Just have to poke the bear, don't you?”

“He's no bear... maybe a douche-monkey.”

“What he is, is bigger and stronger than you—a lot bigger and stronger.”

Wyatt sniffed. “Got a buddy who keeps telling me that proper technique and scientific leverage beat brute strength.”

“Unless your opponent is bigger and stronger than you.”

“I'll try to keep that in mind.”

“Do. You'll live longer.” Lou pushed their weapons aside and then sat on top of the picnic table. Near the weapons lay a pack of menthol-flavored cigarettes and a silver Zippo lighter with a skull and a Marine Corps anchor etched on it. Lou pulled out a cigarette, which he lit with the distinctive snick-snack of the lighter, and exhaled a cloud of smoke and a groan of satisfaction.

Wyatt waved the smoke away and then sat beside his friend. “Speaking of living longer.”

Lou snorted smoke, a sly smile on his lips. “Too tough for cancer.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

A trio of tall, four-wheeled armored vehicles drove past the barracks, belching diesel smoke. The soldiers manning the cupola .50-caliber guns looked ready for action. Someone’s going outside the wire, Wyatt mused with a touch of envy. Since arriving in Bagram two months earlier, his squad had yet to leave the airfield. Their only job was to protect Major General Dylan Church, but the Department of Defense wouldn't allow the senior officer advising the Afghan army to leave the safety of Bagram Air Base. No missions meant not much to do, so Wyatt and his teammates got to play a lot of basketball.

Lou drew on his cigarette and tapped the ashes out of it. “Had coffee with the old man this morning,” he said in an attempt at a matter-of-fact manner that was anything but.

They sat in silence, with Lou smoking and Wyatt waiting. When the silence grew uncomfortable, Wyatt sighed. “You're going to make me ask, aren't you?”

Lou smiled with his eyes and shrugged. “Ask what?”

“Dickhead.”

Lou laughed. “I can see by your sad puppy-dog face that the anticipation is killing you.” He reached over, grabbed a fistful of the blond hair atop Wyatt's head, and yanked on it. “You need to trim this hippie shit. That can't possibly meet regs.”

Wyatt pried Lou's fingers from his hair and smoothed it back in place. “Come on, already. What did the old man say?”

“You think the senior Marine Corps advisor for Operation Resolute Support has nothing better to do than consider your lame-ass paperwork? The general is a busy man, an important man, a legend in the Corps.”

“Dude?”

Lou jumped down from the table, landed lightly on his feet, and ground out his cigarette. He picked up both M-4s and handed Wyatt his.

When Wyatt reached for his weapon, Lou maintained his grip on the stock. “He said...” Lou paused for effect. Wyatt expected to hear the word “sorry,” but Lou smiled, his face transforming. “He said yes. Apparently, the old man has a soft spot for the intellectually impaired.”

“He's going to recommend me?” Wyatt felt lightheaded.

“Just goes to show they'll take literally anyone.” Lou draped a sweaty arm over Wyatt's shoulders. “Color me amazed, but in his infinite wisdom, Major General Church is going to support your request for the Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Program. God help us all.”

“That's... that's... I don't believe it,” Wyatt said, his throat thick.

“Blows my mind too.” Lou shook his head. “Waste of a perfectly good Marine sergeant.” He hesitated. “But...”

That single word carried weight, and Wyatt waited for the hammer to fall. “But?”

“He asked about that incident in San Diego, the one in your records. I told him it was a one-time thing, that sometimes, young Marines drink too much and get into fights over women. I lied and said you weren't hot-headed. I wasn't sure he was going to buy it, but he said he'd write the letter of recommendation based on your tour in Helmand and your performance so far on the team.”

“Really?” Wyatt was still not quite certain that the event Lou described was happening.

“I don't get it, either, but he thinks you have potential, so you got lucky this time. Just keep your nose clean, all right? No more fights.”

“You got it, brother. You got it.”

Just then, Sergeant Abigail Crosby, the last of the squad's fireteam leaders, came around the corner of the barracks. A native of El Paso, Texas, Abigail was a big, tough woman. Stern-faced and perpetually scowling, she'd never be considered pretty, but she outmanned most men and could spit a wad of tobacco half a dozen paces with impressive accuracy. She wore her desert-pattern combat utility uniform with her safety belt around her waist, her M-4 hanging from a two-point sling near her hip. Her fireteam, Ripper-3, was watching the general today. “Need ya over at operations, Staff Sergeant,” she said in a thick Texan drawl that fused her words together.

Wyatt smiled. And they called him “Cowboy.”

Lou pursed his lips. “What's up?”

She shook her head. “Don't rightly know. Somethin' about an ANA op. The boss wants ya, though, that's for sure.”

“Thanks, Abby.”

Abigail turned and walked off. Wyatt's mind was still racing from the news Lou had given him. “You think we're going somewhere?”

“Very much doubt it. Hit the shower, Cowboy. Your team is on in a few hours.” Lou headed away.

Wyatt trotted up the metal stairs to the second level, where his room was. Next door, Haley was playing her music—Drake's new single, “One Dance.” He slipped inside his room; the cool, conditioned air was a welcome relief. His first tour in Helmand Province two years ago had been much different: full-on warfighting in combat outposts with no air conditioning to be found anywhere. This situation was infinitely better. The Air Force knew how to go to war.

This room was little more than a cube with a thin bed, a small window, an even smaller writing table bolted to the wall, and a single metal folding chair. Most of his gear was stowed away in tactical boxes in a corner or stuffed under the bed with his helmet and Modular Tactical Vest—his MoTav. Wyatt’s go bag, a tan assault pack, sat against the wall near the door. The pack held everything he'd need to live and fight for at least three days: spare magazines, a knife, a medical kit, water, food, and his Woobie—a polyester nylon shell that served as a combination blanket, poncho, and cold-weather wrap. No Marine went to war without his Woobie.

Wyatt stripped off his sweaty T-shirt, shorts, and underwear, pulled off his sneakers and socks, and then removed the chain around his neck holding his USMC dog tags and a small triangular plastic LED emergency light. On his first tour, he had learned not to go anywhere without an emergency light, even one as small as the LED. Wyatt wrapped a green towel around his waist before putting on his shower slippers. He grabbed his soap and shampoo and then left his room. He went back down the stairs and around the back of the barracks to the shower unit. As he was about to go through the men’s entrance, Haley, wearing a long pink bathrobe, walked out of the women’s end. Her damp skin was rosy; her dark, wet hair glistened. She smiled and waved her shower bag. “Hey, Sergeant.”

“Hey, Corporal Fowler.”

She paused, her smile replaced by a look of concern as she stared at his chest. “You hurt?”

“Huh? Am I?” He followed her gaze to his chest and then realized what she was looking at—the four dime-sized birthmarks, each separated by several inches, sprayed across his chest in a half circle over his right pectoral muscle and abs. “No, those are just birthmarks.”

“Oh,” she said, looking up. “Sorry.”

“It's cool. Had ’em all my life.”

What he didn't tell her was that as a boy, he thought there had been five birthmarks, not four. When he was ten, he had almost drowned in a swimming accident. Afterward, only four birthmarks were left—or at least that was how he remembered it. He wondered how much of anyone's childhood was real and how much was a mishmash of half-remembered fantasies. The latter was probably significantly more common than people realized.

Haley nodded and turned away. “Oh, okay. See you at the office.”

He watched her disappear around the corner of the barracks with a very un-Marine-like sway in her hips. Lou was both right and wrong when he told Roy she was just another Marine like him. She might have been a Marine, but she was nothing like Roy Hunter.

Thank God.

Wyatt showered quickly, still feeling lightheaded about the prospect of going back and finishing university. A commission as a second lieutenant would follow the degree, and he'd owe the Corps another four years of service. But he enjoyed being a Marine. He felt a momentary pang of regret that his father wouldn't see him graduate. Caleb Hood would have been proud.

As he climbed the stairs back to his room, his shower sandals flapping on the metal, he saw Roy—shirtless, sweaty, and still wearing his gym shorts—standing outside Haley's room. He leaned with one meaty palm against the doorjamb as he spoke to her. Haley, still in her bathrobe, had a tight expression in her eyes and shook her head at something Roy had said.

Wyatt paused. “Everything okay?”

Roy shot an angry glare at him. “Everything's fine, Hood.”

Haley gave Wyatt a tepid smile. “All cool, Sergeant.”

Wyatt kept his gaze on Roy's face, noting the larger man's posture and stance. Wyatt's muscles tensed.

“It's fine,” Haley repeated.

Wyatt nodded and gave her a quick smile of his own. “Right.”

Roy smirked as Wyatt slipped into his room and closed the door. He pressed his ear against the thin wall and heard Roy asking her if she wanted to get coffee with him later. Bagram had a zero-fraternization policy, and the rule was even stricter in the general's protective detail. If Lou found out, he'd kick Roy's ass stateside. When Roy offered to rub Haley’s shoulders, Wyatt's face heated. Not only did Roy outrank Haley, but Wyatt was her boss. Keeping her safe was his responsibility, and Roy knew that. Politely but firmly, Haley said no. Wyatt promised himself to sort out Roy later. He forced himself to stop snooping, but he still heard snippets of the conversation, especially Roy's voice.

Wyatt donned his combat pants and socks then bloused the bottoms of his pants with elastic boot bands. He threw on a long-sleeved, quick-dry tactical shirt and sat on the end of his bed to lace up his desert boots. Just outside the door, Roy's voice took on a pleading tone. Wyatt shook his head. Sad.

Atop Wyatt's reading desk sat a pile of books and pamphlets. Alongside a booklet containing the entrance requirements for the Marine Noncommissioned Officer Course was a battered hardback copy of The Military History of Afghanistan and a worn paperback copy of The Bear Went Over the Mountain, a series of military vignettes produced by the Frunze Military Academy that detailed lessons learned from the Soviet Army's ill-fated incursion into Afghanistan in the eighties.

His head snapped up when he heard Haley's voice rise in an utterance of “No!”

Wyatt's memory flashed back to his sister Summer's face that awful day so long ago. He wasn't thinking as he jumped to his feet and rushed out the door. Roy had one foot inside Haley's door, and she held her palm against his chest, a trace of fear in her eyes.

That look pushed Wyatt past any semblance of self-control.

Haley's eyes widened in alarm. “Wyatt, no⁠—”

Wyatt gripped Roy's forearm, yanking him off balance. The large man's face tightened with surprise, but Wyatt slammed his palm into Roy’s chest, forcing him back. The sensation was like hitting a slab of beef. “Piss off, asshole!” Wyatt hissed.

Haley grasped at Wyatt's arm. “Don't!”

Roy, his face transforming into a mask of rage, reached for Wyatt's throat. But Wyatt stepped back, yanking his arm away from Haley's grip, causing her to stumble and fall to her knees. He caught Roy's outstretched hand, twisted the man's fingers inward, and applied strain to his radioulnar joint. Pain flashed through Roy's face, and he rose on his toes.

“Wyatt! Let him go!” Haley yelled.

Evidently fighting past the pain, Roy threw a left-handed roundhouse punch at Wyatt's head. But Wyatt had already twisted away, letting go of Roy's wrist and bringing his fist up alongside his ear to catch the punch on his arm.

The impact slammed Wyatt back against the metal wall, but he rebounded and tried to knee Roy in the junk. He missed, and Roy wrapped an arm around Wyatt’s neck and pulled him toward him. Off balance, both men fell back—right over the metal railing. For a moment, they were free-falling. Then, he and Roy slammed into a row of stone-filled Hesco bastion barriers below, knocking the air from Wyatt’s lungs but freeing him from Roy's grip. Adrenaline surged through Wyatt as he flipped back off the barrier and landed on his feet. Roy scrambled up, too, and took up a boxer's stance.

Now it was a fistfight—Roy's preferred game.

The two men circled one another. Then Roy came on hard, throwing a series of jabs and crosses. Wyatt blocked the first two jabs but caught a cross in his ribs that hurt much more than he had expected. He recovered and threw his own one-two combination, missing with the jab but connecting with Roy's chin on the cross, feeling the impact through his shoulders.

Roy shrugged off the blow.

Not good.

If Wyatt kept fighting like this, he would get his ass stomped. As Roy threw another series of punches, Wyatt shot in, going for the man's tree trunk-like legs. A fist slammed into the top of Wyatt's skull, nearly knocking him to his belly, but he fought through the pain, wrapped his arms around Roy's knees, and grunted as he lifted with his legs and back. For a moment, he feared Roy would be too big to move, but then the larger man flew up into the air. Wyatt twisted, slamming Roy onto the ground. Roy barked in pain as Wyatt crawled over him and rammed his knee into the other man's groin. To his credit, Roy tried to defend himself, but it was too little too late. Wyatt threw a nonstop series of punches at the other man's head, missing with some but connecting with enough so that, with each punch, the fight slipped away from Roy.

White-hot anger burned through Wyatt, consuming him—and all he could see through his rage was Summer's face. Then someone was pawing at him, trying to grab his arm, but Wyatt wrenched his arm free and felt his elbow crunch into something soft.

Now Roy was no longer even trying to defend himself, but Wyatt kept punching him. A powerful arm slipped around Wyatt's neck and hauled him away from Roy, cutting off his air supply. Then the arm tightened and became a headlock, forcing his head down, choking him.

Lou's deep voice was filled with anger. “Stop fighting or I put you to sleep.”

And just like that, his anger slipped away.

Wyatt went limp and slapped Lou's forearm. “Done,” he wheezed. “Done.”

Lou let him go, and Wyatt fell to his knees. Roy lay on his back, the whites of his eyes exposed, but Wyatt, well accustomed to seeing unconscious opponents, thought he'd be okay; boxers were used to this situation.

When he saw Haley behind them, though, his heart skipped a beat. She sat up against a Hesco barrier, her bathrobe in disarray, blood pouring from her nose and running down her exposed breasts. Moments later, Sticks was at her side, and then others, all trying to help. Wyatt's blood froze as he remembered his elbow crunching into something.

“Goddamn it, Wyatt, you dumb son of a bitch,” Lou said. “You're under arrest.”

CHAPTER

TWO

Chloe Winters stood surrounded by dense clouds of mist. She wore a gray hoodie and jeans, her short red hair tucked under a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. There was no sun here, only a gray haze. It looked as if she was standing in a cloud—except she wasn't really standing anywhere.

There was no “here” here.

She gripped the World Tree talisman around her neck. The object radiated warmth, signaling an active loop. The talisman, a two-inch-long multicolored crystal wrapped in a bronze carving of a tree, was created by Chloe's mother, Esme. It represented the One World Tree of the Goddess, the Earth Mother of Wiccan worship. Esme could have made the talisman out of a lump of coal, and it would have worked just fine. But nobody was as into Wicca as her mother was. Well, maybe Chloe's older sister, Helena. Chloe, too, had been raised a Wiccan but was a casual worshiper at best.

Just then, Christina materialized before Chloe. A slender Asian American in her early thirties, Christina clutched her own World Tree talisman. She wore a knee-high black skirt, a matching business jacket, and a white silk blouse, complete with black high heels, which were likely Italian; Christina always had the prettiest shoes.

“You're late,” Chloe said. “I was beginning to think I'd grow roots.” To be fair, she hadn't been waiting that long. She was just impatient, a flaw her mother often pointed out.

“I'm sorry. It's a dog's breakfast here,” Christina replied in a voice tinged with fatigue, making Chloe regret her words. “I just left Monroe's office.”

“Reno?”

Chloe saw pain in the other woman's eyes. “It's... it's bad, Chloe.” Now was the first time Chloe had ever seen Christina so upset. “Way worse than we thought, and we knew it was going to be bad, but...” She shivered and looked away.

“How bad?”

“Really goddamned bad.”

“You're scaring me.”

“We lost almost the entire Shadowstrike team,” Christina blurted.

“Goddess save us,” Chloe whispered. “But... how?”

“Olympia. It was Olympia. She was after the artifact as well.”

Chloe's skin turned clammy, and her pulse raced. Olympia Kostaki was not just one of the Transcended but one of the most powerful. Several moments passed before Chloe could speak again, and when she did, her voice came out as a squeak. “Is... is Aspen⁠—”

“She's alive. So is Rhino. Olympia spared them. We don't know why.”

“She likes dogs,” Chloe whispered. “At least that's what my mother always said. I don't know why she let Aspen go... the Comity, maybe?”

“Maybe.” Christina sounded unconvinced.

The Comity of Mages—the noninterference pact the Transcended forced on the Children—had held since the end of World War II, but Chloe couldn't imagine it would have stopped Olympia from doing whatever she wanted. Homer had been right: there were no covenants between lions and men. Chloe shivered and rubbed her arms. “The rest of the team?”

Christina shook her head. The gesture was slight, but it carried an immense gravity. “The only other survivors were Brodie and Egon, the sniper team. They didn't go inside with the others.”

Chloe felt the weight of the world. With only a small push, she'd fall apart. She couldn't, though. She had a mission, and Christina and the others—those who were still alive—were counting on her. Victor was counting on her. “How... how is Aspen coping?”

“Badly. Really badly. I'm not sure she'll ever work again—not as a combatant, anyway.”

“Fuck,” Chloe whispered.

“Yeah,” Christina agreed. “Fuck.” Her swearing was another first. She hesitated, her eyes darting down, and then asked, “Do you think your mother might...?”

Chloe shook her head. “Not a chance. Even if she weren't a pacifist, she wouldn’t be suicidal. We need to lick our wounds and be thankful Olympia left us anything. What does Monroe know?”

Christina shrugged. “I don't know. I've tried to convince him it was just another rogue mage, but you know that man. He didn't become the director of the SAD for nothing.”

“Christina, you can't let him go after her. If he⁠—”

“I'm on it,” Christina snapped. “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply…”

Now, Christina shook her head. “No. I'm sorry. It's been a long day, and there are no good choices.” She took a deep breath and composed herself. “Look, you've got your own mission to worry about.”

“Victor and I will take care of it.”

“We wouldn't ask you to do this without backup, but...” Christina sighed. “It is what it is.”

“It's fine. Ancient ruins. Just another day at the office.”

“I never asked. How was Vatican City?”

“A clusterfuck.” Chloe forced a smile onto her lips. “We handled the infestation but had to destroy the scroll.”

Christina nodded, but Chloe could tell she wasn't really paying attention. “Good, good.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“Just what you already know. The Afghan National Army found what looks like a Voth statue in a cave. The video footage shows ruins, maybe an old temple. We know something happened but not what it was. There are reports of mass hysteria and deaths, but we don't know if they were related to the fighting with the Taliban or something arcane. But you need to be careful. It sounds like something gave them the Shivers.”

“If there are pre-Cataclysm ruins down there, it's doubtful there's any residual magic—not after ten thousand years.”

“Unless there's an artifact. If that's the case...”

“You're worried Olympia or one of the others might come sniffing about?” Chloe asked.

“Of course I am. They're much more sensitive than we are. If there is something down there, exfiltrate and report it.”

“Why? What can you do? I mean, if the team is⁠—”

“We'll figure it out. Monroe's working on support, U.S. military.”

“They won't be Shivers-resistant.”

“It shouldn't matter if you keep your distance; just remember what I said.”

“You know, I’ve done this before.”

Christina's eyes narrowed. “Promise me, Chloe. None of your bullshit this time. You're on a recon mission. That's all.”

Clearly, Christina was stressed out. Chloe's face warmed, and she looked down. “You got it. In and out.”

Christina touched Chloe's shoulder, but both women were intangible, so her fingers drifted right through her. “Victor, too, right? That man only thinks he has nine lives.”

Chloe smiled. “Asking me to be responsible for anything Victor Crane does is a bit much, but I'll try.”

“See that you do.” Then Christina let go of her World Tree talisman and vanished.

“You take care of you, Christina Gates,” Chloe said to the mist. “I'll do me.” She let go of her own talisman.

A heartbeat later, she was seated back inside the noisy, cavernous cargo hold of the U.S. Air Force Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy supercargo plane. None of the other passengers were nearby. Victor, her partner and bodyguard, sat beside her, watching her. He was a big man, well over six feet tall and two hundred-plus pounds of hairy, grizzled man's man. Victor was capable of both stunning violence and surprisingly childish humor. In his late fifties, he was still every bit as tough as he had been as a younger man—more so if you asked him. Nor had the years done anything to mar his good looks. He always had a new, if all-too-temporary, girlfriend on the go. Streaks of gray ran through his curly dark hair and three-day growth of beard, but they made him look like a more rugged version of Tom Selleck. Decades of service as a special forces operator had hardened Victor long before the CIA recruited him into its Special Activities Division. He had been her bodyguard-partner for almost three years now, and she loved him like the older brother she never had.

Victor was watching her, concern etched into his dark-brown eyes. “What is it?”

His voice was deep and gravelly, how you'd expect Batman to sound. Others thought Victor crude, sexist, and about as giving as granite—and they were right—but he'd crawl naked over broken glass once you'd earned his loyalty. She had. Victor wouldn't just kill for Chloe; he'd die for her. But, as tough as he was, every member of the Shadowstrike team had been a close friend of his; he had helped train most of them.

“It's bad,” she said.

Then she took his hand between hers and told him about his friends.

CHAPTER

THREE

Victor's headache, which was constant these days, had only worsened upon hearing of the deaths of his friends. The flight engineer stopped in front of Victor and held both hands up, exposing his thumbs and fingers. “Ten minutes to landing, sir,” he called over the roar of the engines.

Victor gave him a thumbs-up. “Got it, brother.”

The engineer moved farther down the line, repeating his message to the other passengers. Technically, he and Chloe were civilians—U.S. State Department—but even in cargo pants and a time-worn tan survival jacket, Victor still possessed an undefined military presence that the flight engineer had detected. Like recognized like.

Unlike the other passengers, neither he nor Chloe was openly armed, but he had a black Pelican case under his seat containing his hand-GLUMP, and Chloe... Well, Chloe was always armed. She wasn't a combat mage like Christina or Aspen, but what she lacked in magical firepower, she made up for with guts—and a decent right hook. He was proud of how far she had come since they became partners. At five foot three inches and maybe a hundred pounds, she looked about as threatening as a stale beer fart, but looks were deceiving. In all the ways that mattered, Chloe Anne Winters was every bit the warrior he was. The difference was that Chloe fought her war in the dark corners of the world—with consequences far worse than death or dismemberment.

She slept now, her ball cap pulled down over her eyes, but he could tell she slept poorly. The C-5’s cargo hold was cold and loud. Victor could sleep anywhere at any time, but Chloe hadn't been a professional soldier, and she shivered in the chilly air. He removed his jacket, set it over her, and pulled the collar up to her chin. He'd let her sleep. The news from home had been crushing… for both of them.

Victor tried to close his eyes, but the pounding in his temples was growing worse. He sighed and cast a quick glance at Chloe, making sure her own eyes were still closed before he fished the small bottle of pills from an inside shirt pocket. He opened the lid and shook two of the green capsules into his hand. Victor swallowed them both dry before tucking the bottle away. Chloe remained motionless.

Now, he shut his eyes and took long breaths, waiting for the pain to lessen. This time, it felt like an eternity, but eventually, relief spread through his skull like a slow-moving fog. The doctor had said the pills would become less effective as the tumor metastasized, but that had been less than a month ago. What a shitty word—“metastasize.” It had no positive meanings. Only death.

He was running out of time. He needed to tell Chloe, break the news to her without breaking her heart at the same time. She put on a big act, but she suffered from abandonment issues because of her father's death. She'd see Victor's plight in the same light. Right now, she had a job to do. So did he, and he’d be damned if he'd let cancer stop him. He'd tell her when they were back in Boston. Only then would he tell Monroe. And he'd pick his own replacement, not that old warhorse. Chloe deserved that much.

Ten minutes later, when the C-5 banked and leveled out, Victor felt the aircraft's landing gear drop. He nudged Chloe's shoulder, and she gave a start, his jacket slipping down. She blinked, still confused from sleep.

“We're landing, partner,” Victor said.

“Good,” she half said, half yawned as she handed his jacket back to him. “Thanks.”

He gave her a grin, his headache gone now... mostly. “For you, the world.”

Minutes later, the aircraft hit the runway with a bump, the tires screeching as the pilot applied the brakes. The huge transport aircraft decelerated, shoving the passengers forward against their seat belts. Chloe, who hated flying but was too proud to admit it, grabbed at Victor’s sleeve.

The landing was fast and professional. The pilots were good at their jobs despite being Air Force pukes. In short order, the aircraft came to a complete stop, and the flight engineers lowered the massive ramp at the rear. The passengers rose, slinging their rifles and shouldering their bags. Victor lifted both his and Chloe's heavy duffel bags before picking up his Pelican case.

“You know I'm not broken,” she said. “I can carry my own bag.”

“You're too pretty to carry stuff,” Victor replied. “You just smile and strut.”

“Dick.”

“Been talking to my exes, haven't you?” He motioned with his chin for her to go first. She sighed, pushed up her ball cap, and got in line behind the others, with Victor just behind her.

They walked off the ramp into the heat of an Afghan summer. Bagram, so close to the Hindu Kush mountains, wasn't nearly as hot as other parts of Afghanistan, but the sun at midday was no joke. Chloe paused when she stepped off the ramp and stared at the mountain range. He remembered how filled with wonder he had felt the first time he saw those mountains, during the Afghan-Russian war. He had been a kid then, near Chloe's age. Today, he felt all his years. He adjusted the strap of a duffel bag and then followed Chloe down the ramp and onto the asphalt.

The line of passengers headed for a massive hangar where about half a dozen Air Force administrative personnel sat behind folding tables.

Chloe stared at Victor. “What is that stench?”

“Sewage treatment.” He looked to the east, toward a plume of black smoke rising several kilometers away. “They burn the shit here.”

“What shit?”

“The shit.”

“Oh.” She looked like she had just bitten into a lemon. “Well... it smells awful.”

A middle-aged woman—wearing sunglasses, tan pants, a gray long-sleeved shirt, and a scarf around her short brown hair—approached. “You're lucky today. Usually, it's much worse.”

Victor set his Pelican case on the tarmac, smiled, and held his arms out. “Alice Watson, you're looking way too fine. Haven't aged a day since Paris.”

The woman hugged Victor. “And you're still a handsome liar, Victor Crane.”

Still smiling, Victor kept his hands on her shoulders. “I may be a liar, but I'm not lying now. It's good to see you, Alice. I'm guessing you're the welcome wagon?”

Alice wore a 9mm Glock in a quick-release holster on her hip. Around her neck hung a State Department ID card in a worn plastic holder. He wasn't surprised that she was the new CIA station chief in Bagram. Alice was both intelligent and ruthless, qualities the CIA coveted. She still looked good, if older than when they had spent a weekend in bed together at that safe house in Paris. But only the good died young, and Alice had always been a naughty girl.

Very naughty.

“I'm your ride,” she said, offering her hand to Chloe. “Alice Watson.”

“Chloe Winters.” Alice let go of Chloe's hand just a fraction too quickly, the smallest tell that she suspected what Chloe was. Alice was too smart for her own good. She gave Chloe a sincere-looking smile.

She's uncomfortable, Victor realized. Chloe's kind freaked some people out.

“Welcome to Bagram Air Base,” Alice said. “I have a car.” She faced the Air Force administrative personnel logging the new arrivals and held up her ID card. “I'm taking these two.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said an Air Force captain, a twenty-something brunette with big boobs.

As Alice walked away, Victor considered the brunette and her boobs then winked at her. “Hey, how are you?”

The Air Force captain returned his smile, blushing and smoothing her hair back.

“Down, boy,” Chloe said, nudging him with her shoulder.

“What? Just thanking the troops for their service.” He hefted the bags on his shoulders and followed Alice.

“Right.”

He frowned at her. “You're worse than my daughter.”

“And she's young enough to be your daughter.”

“Oh, Chloe...” He sighed. “All pretty girls are someone's daughter. That's how it works.”

“Is that how it works? I had no idea.”

They followed Alice to a white Land Cruiser parked on the other side of the airfield perimeter fence. In the vehicle, a driver sat behind the wheel, holding a cell phone to his ear. At their approach, the young man jumped out, came around the rear cargo hatch, and opened it. Victor handed him both sets of duffel bags but kept the Pelican case in hand. He and Chloe climbed into the back seat while Alice sat up front with the driver. Victor placed the Pelican case between his legs.

“How'd you make out, Jacob?” Alice asked the driver.

“Transient Barracks Number 17, ma’am,” he told her.

“Good boy.”

Jacob started the engine and was about to pull away when a long convoy of armored vehicles and supply trucks moved down the road, bringing with them the stench of diesel. Jacob waited. Armored fighting vehicles always had the right of way.

As the vehicles drove past, Alice turned in her seat to face the other occupants of the Cruiser. “I'm assuming we don't need to have this conversation in a SCIF?”

She pronounced it “skiff,” like a small boat, but what she meant was a sensitive compartmented information facility, a top secret facility for discussing the gravest secrets.

Victor glanced at Chloe, who replied with a barely perceptible nod. He looked back at Alice and shook his head. “Isn't necessary.” What he meant was it didn't matter. Chloe would ensure that no one ever heard them. But neither Alice nor her driver were read in on the Division or cleared for Deep Saber. She might be the CIA's Station Chief in Bagram, but some things were need-to-know. “What can you tell us? We've been traveling all day.”

“Not as much as I'd like,” Alice said. “This whole cave business is being driven by an Afghan-led but U.S.-supported, effects-based operation to seize and deny the insurgency in a vital portion of Farah Province. Really, though, it was intended as a chance to show off General Abdul Ahmadi's Afghan Commando Battalion. They’re sort of an Afghan special forces trained and mentored by U.S. Marines.”

“Go on.” He knew that much already.

“The operation had been ongoing for over a week now—with considerable success. My staff has volumes of intelligence reports to sift through, not to mention the interrogation of dozens of Taliban prisoners. But... since the incident in the cave system, the entire operation has stalled out.”

“Anything new about the ruins?” Chloe asked.

“Not as far as I know. But things change at the speed of combat.”

“But they haven't gone back in, right?” Chloe asked in a sharp tone.

Victor patted her knee, and Chloe, her lips tight, looked out the window.

“Again, not as far as I know. Just the initial group that was engaged in close-quarters battle with the insurgents.” Alice shook her head. “It's got to be a mistake. Communications with the commando battalion are all messed up. We think the Iranians are behind it, likely an electronic jammer on their side of the border. It's less than a dozen klicks away from the cave complex.” Alice paused.

Victor grunted but said nothing. Chloe's face was as still as stone.

Alice continued, “What we know is that General Ahmadi, the government's favored son, is pissed—really pissed. And President Ghani is freaking out about the ruins, which makes everything wonderful.”

“I'd be pissed, too, if some Air Force wonk dropped a huge fuck-off bomb on a cave complex that my soldiers were in the process of clearing,” Victor said.

“It was a mistake.”

“No shit,” Chloe whispered.

Victor nudged her leg with his. “Pretty big mistake. A bunker buster, right?”

“GBU-57. In Air Force nomenclature, it's a massive ordnance penetrator, or MOP, but yeah, the effect is the same—a bunker buster. The commandos weren't supposed to be inside. The plan was to level the caves and then sift through the remains. The commandos got a bit... worked up and decided to go after the insurgents.”

Victor snorted. Afghans could be recklessly brave—especially when their blood was hot. Of course the commandos would go after the fleeing insurgents. Someone should have expected that.

“It could have been so much worse,” Alice continued, “if the bomb had detonated.”

“And we're sure it hasn't?” Victor asked.

“The Air Force is certain, but it still might.”

“As good as I am with things that go boom—and I can make an explosive out of tinfoil, baking soda, and gum—even I'm uncomfortable with an unexploded bunker buster,” Victor said. “If it goes off, it'll bring the mountain down—maybe right on top of us.”

“Lovely,” Chloe said, still staring out the window. “And that would be why the Afghan government is so riled up. They think we're going to destroy a priceless heritage they never even knew existed.”

“We don't know what's down there,” Alice said. She inhaled. “The initial reports are... well, suspect. The commandos lost their shit, that's for certain. Mass hallucinations, glowing blue lights... devils. We're thinking maybe a pocket of methane or nitrogen dioxide gas, something toxic. Could still be dangerous.”

Victor shrugged. “Could be.” Other things could produce mass hallucinations—things with big teeth and claws, things that messed with the laws of reality. Methane gas would be much better.

Alice watched him with a stoic expression. Finally, she said, “You saw the GoPro video, I assume?”

Victor nodded.

“Any idea what kind of messed-up civilization would worship a giant stone bug?”

“Nope,” Victor lied.

“Weird,” Alice said.

“Weird is our jam, darling. Got a briefing package for us?”

Alice turned away and reached for a worn leather diplomatic pouch at her feet. She handed it to Victor over the seat. “This is all I have. It's damned little, I'm afraid.”

Victor unzipped the pouch and scanned through the pages and photographs. Chloe kept staring out the window; intelligence reports bored her to tears.

“It'll do. If our own people have anything else, they'll let you know,” Victor said. He zipped the bag closed again and set it atop his Pelican case.

Chloe turned her face away from the window and looked at Alice. “When can we fly in?”

“Not until tonight,” Alice said. “Major General Church, the senior Marine officer in charge of the mentoring program, is a close friend of General Ahmadi, and he's sending a squad of FAST Marines and Army EOD.”

“FAST Marines?” Victor had been in the Army, not the Marine Corps, but he knew that Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams provided security for embassies and other sensitive sites around the world. “What are FAST Marines doing in Bagram?”

“They're General Church's personal security team. After that screw-up with Church's predecessor last year...” Alice sighed. “Well, the DOD lost their shit. Now, Church can't go anywhere without them—but the DOD doesn't want to let him leave the base anyhow. They're terrified of another kidnapping. Apparently, these guys are sitting around on their hands, dying for a chance to go get some. I'm told they're well trained and experts in CQB.”

“Maybe,” Victor admitted. “But they aren't special forces. What about Delta or SEAL Team 6?”

“Does it matter?” Chloe asked. “They're still not gonna be... you know.”

“It matters,” Victor said.

“Already out on ops,” Alice said. “Both teams. If you can wait until tomorrow afternoon⁠—”

“We can't,” Chloe said.

Alice pursed her lips and nodded. “Then it's whoever's available now, and these guys are available.”

“Well,” Victor said, thinking it through, “they are Marines. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Marines.”

Alice watched him, her lips now slightly parted. “Victor, if this is... you know, your stuff, why not go in with your own people? The Marines are good but...”

He shook his head. Alice wasn't cleared for Deep Saber, but she’d still heard rumors about the Shadowstrike team and people like Chloe. “Out of play. The only reason Chloe and I are here at all is because we were already in Europe.”

Alice nodded. “Okay, so what now?”

“Now, you bring us to our rooms,” Victor replied. “We might as well get some rest.”

“Get some sun,” Chloe said. “I've been stuck in the Vatican's secret underground library for the last week.”

Victor yawned. “Whatever, Chloe. You do you. I'm gonna go to ground for a bit.”

“You should go buy something for Alison, a souvenir,” Chloe scolded him.

“You're as bad as her mother, but you're probably not wrong.”

“No probably about it,” Chloe said. Victor's daughter Alison was the same age as Chloe, but his partner always treated her like a little sister.

As the last of the long line of armored vehicles drove away in a cloud of diesel, the driver pulled the Land Cruiser back onto the road.

The transient barracks were much nicer than Victor had expected. He and Chloe each had a separate air-conditioned room with a full bathroom, including a shower. Chloe was next door, and he could hear her shower running. He sat on his bed, the file folder open before him, reading the intelligence reports from the ANA operation. Alice hadn't lied. There wasn't much. A background on the op's key objectives and phase lines; an intelligence assessment on the enemy in the region—including a bio on a particularly nasty Taliban piece of shit named Mullah Najeeb Wasiq; after-action reports on the first days of the op; and a series of poor-quality, grainy photographs. What was new was the cave system’s name —Tora Bela. It sounded Pashtun, but for all Victor knew, the name could be Dari. He'd ask Chloe about it. A single poor-quality photograph showed the cave opening, a wide oval in the cliff face with teeth-like rock hanging over it. The place had an ill look, but then, so did most places he and Chloe were sent. Next, Victor examined the photograph of the giant insect statue. The shot was as poor as that of the cave entrance. He guessed the photographs were taken from GoPro footage, out of frame and blurry. Victor squinted at the picture, feeling even uneasier than before. It could be a Voth; he had no idea what else it could be. If so, the ruins had to be Atlantean. He didn't know of any other culture that worshipped giant bugs. He sighed, tossing the photo atop the others. The only way to know for sure was to get Chloe closer.

Victor lay back, stretching out and thinking. The soft knock on his door surprised him, and only then did he realize Chloe's shower had stopped. “Come in,” he called out.

The door opened, and Chloe, wearing a too-small red bikini and flip-flops, slipped inside. Her eyes darted to the papers and photographs scattered across Victor's bed. “Anything?”

“You know, you shouldn't wear that here. This country makes the Vatican look progressive.”

Chloe sniffed and picked up the photograph of the statue, frowning at it. Victor watched her face but couldn't read anything in her expression. Like all her kind, she had a marvelous poker face. “What do you think, Voth?”

She flicked a lock of red hair from her eyes. “Oh hell yes. My guess is pre-Cataclysm.”

He sighed. A small part of him had hoped this mission might be a big nothing-burger. No rest for the wicked. “Just how pre-Cataclysm do you think? Like an outpost or something else? Could it be... you know, one of their bases?”

She shook her head. “They didn't come down here; too much gravity.”

“But how can you be sure?”

She met his eyes and shook her head. “They're gone, Victor. They abandoned us ten thousand years ago, and they're not coming back. Whatever we find in this cave system, it won't be a giant bug.”

“What are you not telling me?” She bit her lower lip, watching him with her doll-like brown eyes. Chloe was loyal to the Division, but that loyalty didn't override loyalty to her own kind. He understood that, but he also needed as much detail as he could get—keeping Chloe alive was a full-time job. “Just tell me what you can, partner.”

She frowned but nodded. “Okay, it's like this. There are other entities out there, from other... realities.”

“I know. That's the job.”

“No, what we do is clean up minor problems—dimensional rifts, rogue mages, and lesser supernatural baddies.”

He snorted, flashing a wry smile. “I wouldn't call a werewolf outlaw motorcycle gang a lesser anything.”

“You're not listening. I'm talking about the really big boys—Outer Gods, entities so powerful our tiny little brains can't comprehend their enormousness. These things rarely even notice us.”

“Oh, okay.” His smile slipped away. This wasn't the first time he had been reminded of man's insignificance in the cosmos, but the thought was always humbling.

And terrifying.

“We know that the Voth had competition for this world. The most dangerous was an Outer God known as Kthugi Ba'al, the Whisperer from the Abyss. The Voth fought a war with Ba'al for over a century.”

“Damn,” he whispered, feeling even more insignificant.

“According to the Azorlean Shards, the only records that recount the fighting, this war only ended with the Great Cataclysm and the destruction of Atlantis, the capital of the Voth’s human servants. The Azorlean Shards don’t record why, but almost immediately afterward, the Voth abandoned this world.”

“And their enemy, this Kthugi Ba'al?”

She shrugged. “The prevailing opinion among mage scholars is that the Voth won their war and destroyed Ba'al.”

“Sounds like a dangerous assumption.”

Chloe sniffed, tapping her flip-flop. “It’s been over ten thousand years, Victor. Whatever happened, it was before our time. At any rate, the only people who might have carved a statue of the Voth were their Atlantean servants—and they had some serious magic, way more than we possess. We're gonna need to be extra super-duper careful on this one—and we’re gonna need to move fast. If something is down there, others will come looking for it.”

He cocked his head. “Like the Russians?”

“Maybe, but I was thinking more of rogue mages.”

Now Victor sniffed. “We’re the U.S. government. I think we got this.”

Her expression was serious, her hand on her hip, which she cocked to the side in the same manner she took when she was lecturing her students. The small room seemed to grow darker. Other mages considered Chloe a lightweight, but she knew information he didn't. “No, we don't got this,” she said in a tone that carried an unmistakable trace of fear.

He swallowed and then nodded. “Extra super-duper careful. Got it.”

She flashed him a smile, the somber mood in the room flitting away as if she and Victor hadn't just been discussing world-ending entities and super-intelligent giant bugs. “Cool. I'm gonna go catch some rays.”

Chloe closed Victor's door and stepped out into the bright sun. Everything she had told Victor had been true... if incomplete. Some secrets weren't hers to share. She couldn't tell him about Olympia or the others, no matter the deaths of their friends. The existence of the Transcended was a closely guarded secret among the Children. Some believed the Comity of Mages had been put in place to forestall war between the Transcended and the other mages, but in truth, the Comity protected the mages from the Transcended. There was a reason so few mages were left in Western Europe; breaking the Comity meant unleashing a bloodbath. Christina had been right. There were no good choices.

On the other hand, if that cave system contained a pre-Cataclysm artifact, then it might prove just the weapon they needed against Olympia. That was as good a reason as any to risk her life, better than most. If there was something down there, she intended to bring it back—and her promise to Christina be damned. A war was coming, Comity or not. Her mother might be a pacifist, but her father hadn't been, and neither was she.

And that bitch Olympia would pay for the deaths of Chloe’s friends.

She laid her towel out on the cement walkway in front of the rooms where she could lie in the sun. Then she lowered herself onto her belly, enjoying the heat on her skin. There was one other thing she was holding back from Victor, another closely guarded secret of mages. Tens of thousands of years ago, when the Voth had colonized this world, they had done so from their base on the moon, projecting their consciousness to their human servants to carry out their will. The Voth may have disliked Earth's gravity, but they could suffer it if the need was great enough. And on at least one occasion, the Voth had come to Earth. Her kind knew that better than anyone.

She sighed. This mission was going to be a bitch.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Wyatt perched on the thin cot in his cell, his head cupped in his hands. He had hurt Haley—badly. His fingers trailed over his elbow, and he remembered the feeling of smashing her nose.

The MPs had taken his watch, but they had brought him lunch, so he guessed it must still be early afternoon. Several flies alighted atop the congealing gravy over a grey and otherwise unidentifiable meat dish that he hadn’t touched. His cell, one of three, had a concrete wall with a window slit and bars. It contained only a small, squeaky cot, a plastic pail to relieve himself, and a helmet and frag vest beneath the cot in case of a rocket attack, a near-daily occurrence.

How had he let himself lose control again? What would his father have said about a man who hurt a woman? Caleb Hood would have walked naked through a snowstorm to protect a woman, any woman. Although his father had never said so, Wyatt knew he had been ashamed of him for failing to protect Summer. This time, Wyatt had been the one who had hurt a woman.

What would they do to him now? This was just an MP holding cell, not the infamous Bagram detention barracks for Taliban prisoners, so whatever the Corps decided, they’d fly him to Germany to do it. Was he going to Leavenworth?

He tried to remember who had thrown the first punch—Roy, he thought. But Wyatt had laid hands on the other man first, so... legally, maybe Wyatt had started the fight. He’d find out during the trial, or court martial... or nonjudicial punishment. He couldn’t claim self-defense, not after he had kept punching Roy when the other man was defenseless. Wyatt would never live up to his father’s expectations, but he could be a man about it, accept responsibility, and take what was coming to him. He made a fist and stared at his bruised knuckles. “Sorry, Dad,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

Someone turned the locking bolt with a thick clank. Wyatt jumped off his cot and stood to attention. The heavy metal door swung open, and a bullet-headed MP stepped through just ahead of Lou. Lou’s eyes tightened when he saw Wyatt. Wyatt remained at attention as the MP took a key from a ring on his belt and opened the cell door.

“Anything else, Staff Sergeant?” the MP asked.

“Nah, that’ll do, Corporal.” Lou stepped into the cell. “Thank you.”

The MP left, leaving both the cell and the exterior door open.

“Oh, goddammit, relax, you asshat,” Lou said as he leaned back against the bars, his arms across his chest. “Sit down.”

Wyatt stared ahead. “Haley?”

Lou’s eyes flashed. “Didn’t I just tell you to sit?”

“Lou…”

“Goddamn it! Do good Marines argue with their superiors?”

Wyatt dropped onto the cot, and Lou sighed, pinching his nose and shaking his head. “So, you can follow orders after all.”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”

“Wasn't a question. Corporal Fowler is going to be fine. I won't sugarcoat it—you did a hell of a job on her nose, and the medical staff had to realign it. But I just spoke to the doctor, and she doesn't think there'll even be a bump. Other than a couple of black eyes, she'll be fine. She's on light duty for a couple of weeks, but it could have been much worse if she'd been medevacked to Germany.”

“What do you mean?”

Lou snorted. “You're the dumb kind of cowboy, aren't you? Neither Sergeant Hunter nor Corporal Fowler is pressing charges. Roy says the two of you had a minor dust-up, no big deal. Marines are supposed to fight. If it weren't for what happened to Haley, we wouldn't be here. Because Haley caught your elbow trying to stop you from being a moron and needed medical attention, I had to file an incident report. Brave girl, Haley, but maybe not so smart. Next time you Neanderthals fight, she needs to stay out of the way.”

“Am I going to be court-martialed?”

Lou sighed and considered his fingernails. “You probably ought to be, but no. You're not even going to get ninja-punched.”

Nonjudicial punishment, NJP, was a step below a court-martial and allowed field commanders to levy punishments ranging from reprimands to reductions in rank. Receiving an NJP wasn't necessarily the end of a military career, but it sure didn't help. It seemed impossible that Wyatt would escape unscathed.

He didn't.

“Here's the thing, though,” Lou said, his voice softening as he met Wyatt's eyes. “The old man is pissed, really pissed. He could let the fight pass, but he's old-school and likes it less than you do when women get beat up. He was already leery about the incident in San Diego. Now this...” Lou sighed. “Sorry, brother. He's pulling his endorsement for the commissioning program. You're not going to be an officer, not this time. You'll need to learn how to control that temper of yours first.”

Wyatt closed his eyes and exhaled. It wasn't until now that he realized how much he had wanted the endorsement. One last chance to prove himself to his dead father. Wyatt composed himself and nodded, crushing his disappointment into a ball and burying it deep within. “It's okay. It's all my fault.”

And it was.

“This thing with you, with women, the fight in San Diego, now this... It's happened more than once, hasn't it?”

“A couple, two, three times,” Wyatt admitted. That was an understatement, but Lou didn't need to know just how big a screw-up Wyatt was. It seemed like he had been fighting all his life to protect women.

It didn't take a psychiatrist to understand why.

“You can apply for the commissioning program again next year.”

“Yeah, next year.”

There would be no next year. Both men knew that.

Lou joined him on the cot, making the metal frame screech, and placed his arm around Wyatt's shoulder. “Brother, this thing with you, this need to protect women... It's admirable but only to a point. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you?”

“I just... I couldn't stop myself.” He stared at the floor. His answer was true. Whenever he saw a woman threatened, he lost his shit. Every. Single. Time.

“Listen. Roy is dumber than a box of hair, but he's still a Marine. I spoke to Haley. She said Roy was being his usual dickhead self, but she had things under control—until you went all Bruce Lee on him. You need to learn how to trust women to take care of themselves. They don't all need you to be their white knight.” Lou snorted with amusement. “I mean, would you have pulled that move if it had been Abigail?”

“No,” he said, but it was a lie. He'd have done exactly the same thing if it had been Abigail.

With a heavy finger, Lou tapped the top of Wyatt's head. “This is the weapon you need to start using. Rah?”

Wyatt stared at his hands and their scraped knuckles. “Rah,” he acknowledged in a whisper.

“All right, then.” Lou rose. “Let's go home.”

“Huh?”

“I need your dumb cracker ass on the job. The old man has given me a warning order for Farah Province. We're heading out.”

“Really?” Wyatt felt a sudden lightness in his chest from a rush of adrenaline. They were going on a mission. “Why us?”

“Don't know, but I'm on my way to HQ to find out. You, however, are gonna go find Corporal Fowler and apologize for being an asshole.”

Wyatt's excitement vanished. “Right.”

He'd have preferred another fight.

Half an hour later, Wyatt stood before Haley's door, his knuckles raised. Before he could knock, the door swung open. She confronted him, bandages over her nose, both eyes ringed with black and brown skin. She wore combat pants, a tan T-shirt, and an expression that made Wyatt want to be anywhere else. He opened his mouth but faltered, his face hot.

“Follow me,” she said, pushing past him and storming down the metal stairs. Wyatt followed her to the picnic table. Two other Marines on the squad—Ollie Martin and Jasper Morgan, both in Abigail's fireteam—were smoking and joking as they sat at the table. When they saw Haley and Wyatt coming, they ground out their cigarettes and found somewhere else to be.

Wyatt envied them.

Haley pulled a package of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one. Shit, he thought. She's started smoking again. Must really be pissed.

She considered him, the look in her eyes making him uncomfortable, and then exhaled a puff of smoke. “You are a fucking jerk,” she said in a calm, deliberate tone.

Normally, corporals didn't talk to sergeants that way, but this time was one of those rare occasions when it was appropriate… and true. “I'm so sorry. I didn't... I was trying⁠—”

“Oh, I know exactly what you were trying to do. You decided I needed rescuing from the big bad Marine. Well, I'm a Marine, too, and I don't need your hero bullshit!” She jabbed a finger in his chest, and he took a step back.

“I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit you.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Wyatt. I know you didn't mean to hit me. But you did, and it hurt, but you hurt my reputation more.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Her voice hardened. Judging by the look in her eyes, she didn't believe him.

“I never meant to make you look bad.”

She turned away, took another drag, and angrily snorted out a cloud of smoke. Haley was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer but raw with emotion. “Do you have any idea how hard I've worked to get onto the general's protective detail?”

He did. At least, he thought he did. She had to pass the same course and undergo the same training he and the others had. Being part of a FAST company wasn’t an elite profession like being a SEAL or a Marine Corps Raider, but it wasn’t easy either. “I understand. But it’s just light duties. We've all been injured.”

She sighed, running her fingers back through her hair. “You still don't get it, do you? Do you have any idea how hard it is to be taken seriously by a bunch of brain-dead mouth breathers who are always trying to get in your pants? You'd think I’d be defined by what I've done, not by my tits. Roy is an asshole, but I thought you were better. Now, because of your bullshit, everyone thinks I was fucking someone—him, you, both of you! Everyone thinks I'm a barracks bunny.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Tell me, Wyatt, have you made my life better or worse?”

He said nothing. Although he barely understood women, he knew she wasn’t really asking. And she was right. The others would assume he and Roy had fought over her. “I'll... I'll make sure everyone knows⁠—”

“Oh no you won't!” She rounded on him, her eyes flashing. “You've done enough. Now just keep your goddamned mouth shut.”

Biting his lower lip, he held his palms toward her in a placating gesture. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

She watched him for what felt like an eternity before the anger slipped from her eyes. “I know you mean well, Wyatt,” she said in a gentle tone. “I know you're one of the good guys, but if I want your help, I'll ask for it.”

He nodded.

Just then, Sticks ran into the compound and stopped in front of them. “Hey, boss. Staff Sergeant Armstrong wants you to grab a vehicle and go round up a pair of State Department REMFs over at Transient Barracks Number 17. We’re going outside the wire, brother. Gonna get some!” His eyes were practically glowing.

“Oorah!” Wyatt yelled, pumping his fist into the air.

Sticks darted inside his ISO container, and Wyatt, his face flushed with excitement, turned to Haley, but when he saw her expression, his emotions tanked.

“Well, that's just fucking perfect.” She threw her cigarette butt onto the gravel and ground the stub out with her boot.

“Haley, I...”

“Go get ready, Sergeant Hood. You've got a job to do.”

CHAPTER

FIVE

Wyatt slipped through the double doors of the HQ building. Staff officers and civilians rushed about like ants in a nest that had just been kicked. He eased through the congestion, took a flight of stairs up to the second floor, and headed for the troop room and Lou's office. Whatever this ANA op in Farah Province was, it was a bigger deal than he had realized.

He stopped in front of the frosted-glass door with the words Ready Room 1-B stenciled on it. Wyatt opened the door and eased into the room.

Lou was bent over a folding table they used for weapons cleaning, examining a topographical map. He had removed his combat shirt and hung it on a corner of the table, so he now worked in a T-shirt. He had stacked his MoTav, helmet, and rifle on the floor behind him. Lou glanced up at Wyatt's entrance before resuming his examination of the map and jotting notes into a pad on the table. “You get our civvies?”

Wyatt approached his friend. Three coffee cups and a stapler held down the corners of the map. He saw mountainous terrain, deep ravines, and a border far too close to Iran. “Not yet.”

Lou paused and looked up, frowning. “Why the hell not?”

“I'm going now... I mean, after⁠—”

“After what? I'm busy.”

Wyatt cleared his throat and inhaled. “Haley.”

“What about Corporal Fowler?”

“Come on, man. Can't you do anything? It's my fault, not hers.”

“Corporal Fowler is on light duties because you broke her nose, not me.”

“It was my⁠—”

Lou stood up straight and looked down at Wyatt. “It doesn't matter whose fault it was. I can't just wave my magic Marine hand and overrule a doctor's orders. Sometimes, when you screw up, other people pay the price. You're gonna have to live with what you've done.”

“I'll be short a Marine out there.”

For a moment, Lou's face softened. Then he sighed and looked past Wyatt. “Go get our State Department guests, Sergeant Hood. We're wheels up in a few hours, and I have a mission to plan.”

As Wyatt's hopes sank, he snapped to attention. “Yes, Staff Sergeant.” He headed for the door.

“And get your war gear on!” Lou called out after him, already bent over the map again. “Sure as shit, there's gonna be some shooting. I feel it in my balls, and they ain't never wrong.”

Twenty minutes later, Wyatt parked the armored Hummer at Transient Barracks Number 17. He was in full “battle rattle”—body armor, MoTav, knee and elbow pads, and helmet. His go bag sat in the back of the vehicle. Wyatt turned off the engine and climbed out, adjusting his M-4’s sling so the weapon didn't bang against his hip. He walked around the corner of a double-lined Hesco bastion barrier and entered the compound where he was supposed to pick up the team’s State Department add-ons. Sticks had referred to them as “REMFs”—rear-echelon motherfuckers—which, while accurate, was also a bit much, since neither Sticks nor the rest of the squad had gone anywhere on this tour yet. So far, they were all “Fobbits.”

Wyatt removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his messy hair as he surveyed the compound. Transient Barracks Number 17 looked the same as all the other transient barracks, with rows of ISO containers stacked atop one another and a metal railing running along the upper level. The containers and antirocket barriers were built around a gravel courtyard with four picnic tables. Three heavyset bearded men wearing Oakley sunglasses and baseball caps stood atop one table, smoking and grinning, all looking in the same direction. Wyatt followed their gaze to a line of ISO containers but saw nothing other than the Hesco barrier. What were the bearded men so happy about? And why were they standing on the picnic table?

Each man wore a heavy war belt with a holstered pistol, but the men’s ample bellies strained the wide belts. All three wore cut-off T-shirts, their large arms exposed, and had wrapped desert-pattern shemaghs around their necks. He knew their kind—professional security contractors, ex-military. Bagram was full of them. They were desperately trying for the special-forces-operator look, but in Wyatt's experience, real operators were more the quiet professional type... except for Navy SEALs; those pretty boys were always pimping themselves out for a book deal or television advisor role.

His helmet under his arm, Wyatt approached the men. He walked heavily with all his gear, the gravel crunching under his boots. The men, still grinning, looked at him. Thick cigarette smoke and body odor hung in the air.

“Hey, guys,” Wyatt said, pulling off his sunglasses. “I'm looking for a couple of dudes from the State Department.” He hung his sunglasses from his collar, pulled a notebook from the sleeve pocket of his combat shirt, and flipped the notebook open. “Winters and... Crane. Would have arrived a few hours ago.”

One man laughed. “Don't think you're looking for a couple of ‘dudes,’ but the new arrivals are over there.” He pointed in the direction in which he and his associates had been staring.

Wyatt nodded. “Which rooms?”

Another man snorted, a sly smile on his lips. “Last two on the right, but you'll see. Best show in town.” The men fist-bumped each other.

Wyatt hid his annoyance and slipped his notebook back into his sleeve pocket. “Thanks.” He crossed the courtyard.

Small air-conditioning units had been bolted onto the container walls, each dripping water that stained and rusted the metal beneath. Wyatt rounded the Hesco barrier and came to a sudden stop.

A dozen paces away, a young woman with short red hair lay face down on a blanket between the barrier and the containers. She wore a bright-red bikini, or, more accurately, half of a bikini—the bottom half. Even from this angle, Wyatt could see she was both short and well built—very well built. Her rosy pink skin was flawless, glistening with oil.

Wyatt approached, coming to a stop several feet behind her. She wasn't just small and curvaceous, he realized, but fit as well, with toned legs and arms. When Wyatt cleared his throat, she raised herself, using one arm to shield her breasts, and looked back over her shoulder. She was beautiful, much too pretty for Bagram, even without makeup. She had pulled her short red hair back and tied it with a scrunchie.

“Yes?” She fit both amusement and annoyance into the word.

Wyatt kept his eyes locked on her face. “Uh… looking for Winters and Crane, ma’am.”

She gave him an impish smile. “You found them.”

“You're State Department?”

Her smile turned to a pout. “Do I look like a mercenary?”

No, he thought, not even a little. This was bad. Civilians were a pain in the ass, and this one would be all kinds of problems. Farah Province was Indian country. The locals, among the most xenophobic people on the planet, still lived almost exactly as their ancestors had hundreds of years ago. They rarely ever saw Western women—and none like her. She lay back on her stomach and reached behind her, snapping the ends of her bikini top in place but leaving the two strings meant to go around her neck untied. She held the two strings up, exposing just a bit of side boob. Wyatt's face flushed with heat.

“Little help here, soldier,” she said.

Oh, she's going to be trouble for sure. He bent over, pushing his carbine out of the way as he took the bikini strings and tied a knot. “I'm a Marine, not a soldier.”

She smelled like coconut lotion and perspiration—unimaginably sexy—and he felt his body react. He looked away, watching the three men standing on the picnic table. Understanding clicked, and he glared at them. They weren't terribly discreet, so she must have known what they were doing. They barked with laughter.

With her bikini top in place, she stood up and faced a partially open door, her back to Wyatt. “Victor, our ride's here,” she yelled.

A big middle-aged man with curly salt-and-pepper hair and several days' worth of beard appeared in the doorway. Wyatt stiffened, stepping back into a fighting stance when he saw the big bowie knife in the man's hand.

The man smiled and held up the sharpening stone in his other hand. “Sorry, kid. Just putting an edge on Ol' Bessie.” He slipped the swordlike blade into a leather sheath on his belt.

Marines who named their knives got picked on a lot, but Wyatt doubted anyone would say an insulting word to this guy. “No worries,” Wyatt said, but his stance remained light.

The man offered his hand. “Victor Crane. State Department, but you can call me sir. This is Chloe Winters, a civilian contractor and subject matter expert on all matters ancient.”

She frowned, somehow looking even prettier. “You make me sound old when you say it that way.”

Wyatt shook Victor’s hand, noting the man's considerable strength. “Sergeant Hood… sir.”

“Bullshit. He's Victor and I'm Chloe.” She offered him her hand, too, and he took it, finding her grip surprisingly firm. Her physique held strength.

Wyatt smiled. “Okay, call me Wyatt, then. Nice to meet you... Chloe.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, her big brown eyes twinkling with amusement. “Wyatt Hood? Did you bring horses for us?”

“Chloe, hon, don't be rude,” Victor said. He wore combat pants and a tight tan T-shirt. Muscle corded his hairy arms, and Wyatt noted a three-inch-long scar running down Victor’s left arm, as well as what looked like a scarred-over bullet wound through his right biceps. State Department, my ass, he thought. This guy is a spook.

Victor frowned when he caught sight of the three men on the picnic table who were ogling Chloe. When Victor stared, the men climbed down and turned their backs. “Time to get dressed, partner,” Victor said softly.

“Done, anyhow,” Chloe answered.

“I'm here to take you to flight ops for the premission briefing,” Wyatt said, glancing at Chloe. “Although we weren't expecting...”

“A woman?” She laughed and batted her eyelashes at him. “Sorry, I'm not a fat dude with neck hair.”

Wyatt thought he noticed a slight West Coast accent in her voice. “Yes, ma’am. No offense, just unexpected.”

She arched a thin eyebrow. “I told you, Chloe, not ma’am.” Her gaze darted to Victor. “I don't have a stick up my ass.”

“Go get geared up, Chloe,” Victor said. “As nice as you think your ass is, we're not here to lie around and suntan it. We've got a mission.”

As far as Wyatt was concerned, it was a damned nice ass, but he kept his mouth shut. Chloe huffed but spun away, slipped into the room beside Victor's, and closed the door behind her. Wyatt couldn't help but watch her go.

“Was there anything else, son?” Victor asked, his voice hard.

Wyatt, his face warming, shook his head. “No, sir. I'll be out front.”

“We'll be right along.”

As Wyatt walked past the three dickheads sitting on the picnic table, he considered saying something but kept his mouth shut again, priding himself on his restraint.

He'd been in enough shit for one day.

After the Marine left, Victor approached the three men. Two of them had the good sense to look away, but one—the biggest, a would-be tough guy wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a skull, crossed rifles, and the phrase “Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!”—met Victor with a sneer.

Victor smiled as he stopped in front of the trio. Black T-Shirt sat facing Victor with his thick legs spread wide, his boots resting on the seat, and his groin hanging over the picnic table's surface.

“You know,” Victor said in a jovial tone, his fingertips running along Ol' Bessie’s handle, “you're supposed to sit on the part you're resting your boots on. Just gonna get it dirty that way. Ruin it for the rest of us.”

“The fuck you talking 'bout, old man?” Black T-Shirt snarled.

Victor drew and threw the bowie knife. The knife's tip and half an inch of its blade thudded into the wooden plank just below the man's crotch. The handle vibrated.

Black T-Shirt fell back, his boots going over his head, and slammed hard into the gravel. The other two men froze, their cigarettes falling from their mouths.

Victor wondered if any of them had a lick of common sense. “It's also rude to stare at young ladies while they suntan.” He stepped up to the table and wrenched his knife free. “And dangerous when you do it to my partner.”

He turned to Black T-Shirt, still wide-eyed and lying on his back, and pointed the knife at him. “You get what the fuck I'm talking 'bout?”

For a moment, the other man's fingers drifted toward his pistol, and Victor raised a single eyebrow. To Victor's very great surprise, Black T-Shirt had some common sense after all, because his fingers moved away from the weapon.

“We don't want no trouble,” another of the men said.

“Don't start no shit, won't be no shit,” Victor said, still watching Black T-Shirt.

“Come on,” the third man said. “Let's go.”

Black T-Shirt climbed to his feet, and the three men hurried away, casting quick glances over their shoulders to make sure Victor wasn't following.

He smiled. Still got it.

Feeling much better, he returned to his room and closed the door behind him, his thoughts turning to the mission. He liked the Marine sergeant sent to get them, but then he hadn't been kidding when he told Chloe he had a soft spot in his heart for Marines. No matter how fucked up a situation became, Marines got shit done. He'd still much prefer a Shivers-resistant assault team, but that wasn't going to happen. His good mood vanished when he thought about his friends. Monroe would need to recruit an all-new Shadowstrike team. That would probably take months.

Closing his eyes, he offered a quick prayer for the dead. So many had fallen over the years, and he felt like a cliché—the grizzled warrior lamenting that he was "too old for this shit."

The present he had bought Alison, a hand-crafted Afghan shawl, lay atop his bed. He suspected he had paid entirely too much for it, but even after all the Third World shitholes he had served in, he still hated bartering. Chloe, a world-class shopper, would have argued the price down.

Victor picked up the Pelican case and set it atop the bed then placed his thumb against the electronic pad alongside the handle. He waited for the reader to beep. When the lock clicked open, he lifted the lid, revealing the small futuristic-looking pistol with its squared barrel sitting in the cushion-lined interior. The weapon was officially titled a Gelmann Lunker Magnetic Projectile Accelerator, but everyone just called it a GLUMP. He'd have preferred the much more powerful rifle version, which could punch fist-sized holes through several feet of concrete, but there'd be no hiding a rifle from the Marines. Besides, even a GLUMP pistol was unimaginably lethal. The magnetic coils in the barrel propelled each tungsten-tipped dart over 15,000 feet per second, giving the projectiles a lethal spin to carve through flesh and bone. He could hunt bears with this thing… if he wanted to slaughter some poor, defenseless bear.

Victor inserted a magazine of darts into the rear of the pistol, holding the weapon until the small light on the side flashed green. Then, he slipped the pistol and two more magazines into a concealed-carry holster he took from his duffel bag. He would have liked to include another pistol for Chloe, but she hated guns. Victor had taught her to fight well enough, but she refused to carry a firearm. Chloe could be a world-class pain in the ass, but it was important to remember she was the talent, not him. His job was to kill things and keep her safe.

And he was damned good at that job.

The only other object in the case was a small bronze wristband etched with strange symbols, his Mind-Ward bracelet, courtesy of Chloe's mother, Esme—now there was a woman who could give a eunuch a raging erection. Victor smiled as he strapped the bracelet onto his left wrist and ran his fingers over the symbols. Esme was a strange woman, a real-life witch, but there was no doubting her talents… or her sex appeal. She was too much woman for him, though.

He dug through the duffel bag for his body armor, the best the Division had, and held it up to examine it. The armor was both lighter and stronger than the plate-carriers the Tier-1 Special Forces teams wore and could stop a round from a high-caliber assault rifle, even at point-blank range. He set the armor atop the bed and drew out a lightweight, high-cut Ops-Core helmet. Normally, a night observation device, or NOD, would be attached on a swivel to the helmet, but the Division had its own night-vision gear, a set of lightweight glasses. He removed the glasses from their carrying case and checked them now. They looked little different from a set of wraparound ballistic glasses, being only slightly heavier, with larger orange lenses. Looks were deceiving, though. The internal battery would last a week before requiring a recharge, and the electronics were years ahead of current technology in both visual clarity and image enhancement.

Someone rapped twice at his door. Chloe's voice followed: “You ready?”

As Victor was about to answer, a wave of vertigo washed over him, followed by an icepick of pain stabbing into his skull. He staggered forward but caught himself against the wall with a loud thump.

“Hey! You okay in there?” she called out.

He bit his lip as more pain swept through his skull. Christ, this is the worst one yet! “Fine... I'm… I'm fine,” he called out, sweat coating his face.

“You sure?”

“Old man bowel syndrome,” he answered just before another spasm throbbed in his skull. When the pain passed, he added, “Be out in a minute.”

He stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Then, his fingers trembling, he drew the pill container from his pocket and wrestled with the damned top before getting the bottle open. He spilled four of the pills into his palm—double the recommended dosage—and swallowed them with a handful of tepid tap water. The process took far too long, but the pain finally eased. Victor exhaled, running his palms over his wet face and staring at himself in the mirror, his skin pale, his eyes red. He was running out of time.

“Hey!” Chloe called through the door. “You're scaring me.”

He wiped his face with his sleeve and opened the door. Chloe stood with her fist poised. Like him, she wore combat clothing with body armor fitted for her smaller frame. Her helmet was tucked under one arm, her night-vision glasses hanging around her neck on a cord. She watched him, her gaze probing. “You all right?”

Victor gave her his best smile. The pain was still there, but it was bearable. “Right as rain, partner.” For the hundredth time, he felt guilty for hiding this secret from her. She deserved to know; but it was hard to talk about your own mortality, especially after cheating death for so long.

Her fingers trailed over his cheek. “You look like shit.”

Victor replied with his best hurt-puppy-dog expression. “I look like a grade-A prime warrior hunk. Just some stomach problems is all.” He shut the bathroom door and waved his hand. “You do not wanna go in there.”

“Do you⁠—”

“Took some Imodium. Best thing ever invented.”

She stared at him, her eyes filled with suspicion. “You sure?”

“I'm fine, Chloe. Let's go. That pretty blond soldier boy is waiting out front.”

“He's a Marine. You, of all people, should know the difference.” She paused and then smiled. “He is pretty, though.”

Victor chuckled but motioned for her to lead the way. As she turned her back to him, he breathed a sigh of relief. Last time, he mused.

CHAPTER

SIX

Haley sat upright in bed, propped up by a rolled-up sleeping bag as she ate a bag of barbecue potato chips and watched a romance movie about elves and Christmas love on her laptop. The movie was silly but distracted her from feeling sorry for herself for missing out on the mission.

When someone pounded on her door, she almost spilled her chips. She glared at the door, suspecting Wyatt was there again, come to apologize once more. He was the last person she wanted to see right now, not when he was about to deploy with the others and she wasn't. Besides, her nose hurt, and dried blood crusted her nostrils, so every time she sneezed, bloody snot came out, which was not only painful but also gross and another reason to be mad at Wyatt. “Go away, Wyatt!” she yelled.

The knocking came again, more loudly.

Christ on a cracker!

She set her laptop on the narrow bed, jumped up, and stomped to the door in her socks. How could one man be so endearingly sweet and annoyingly chauvinistic at the same time? She yanked the door open.

And froze.

Staff Sergeant Armstrong towered over her. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked past her to the bed and the open bag of chips. Just behind him stood Petty Officer “Doc” Gibson, the team’s Navy Corpsman. Doc was short, with curly red hair and freckles. Both men wore body armor and tactical vests and carried their helmets by the straps. Their weapons hung from tactical slings. Staff Sergeant Armstrong had always intimidated the shit out of her, even more than the drill instructors at basic and even after he had started training her in jujitsu.

“Staff Sergeant. Is... is everything okay?” Haley said.

He sniffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I could ask the same of you, Corporal. What is this shit?”

A weight settled in her gut. Had she misunderstood her light duty? Was she supposed to be somewhere right now, maybe scrubbing out latrines or answering phones? Her face heated with embarrassment. “I… I...”

Staff Sergeant Armstrong glanced at his watch and then shook his head. “Eating chips and watching movies? We'll be in the Hummer. You got five minutes to gear up. Bring your go bag. We'll be out a few days at least.”

Haley stared at him. “Out where?”

“You've got a mission briefing in sixty minutes, wheels up in an hour and forty-five.”

“I...” She swallowed several times, blinking. “Staff Sergeant, my nose...”

“Right.” He glanced at Doc and then stepped aside.

Doc grinned at Haley and then moved forward and gently held her chin. He turned her head from side to side, his lips pursed thoughtfully.

“Well?” Armstrong asked.

“It’s fine,” Doc said. “I mean... it’s not good, but I’ve seen way worse. Doctors give out light duties for everything.”

Armstrong made a sound halfway between a grunt and a snort.

“What’s going on, Staff Sergeant?” Haley asked.

“Back in Operation Desert Storm—when dinosaurs roamed the Earth—there was this dumb-as-fuck lance corporal who didn’t listen to his staff sergeant and keep his head down when the bad guys were shooting. Anyway, he—I—took a tiny chunk of shrapnel in my ass from an Iraqi mortar. Hurt like hell, but I didn’t want to get sent away from my friends, so I bandaged it myself—badly, I might add.”

Doc sniffed, rolling his eyes.

“Anyway, I stayed with my platoon for five days before my sergeant saw me limping around,” Armstrong continued. “He tore a bigger strip off me than the shrapnel did, but he got a medic buddy of his to stitch it up and give me painkillers on the down-low. He made me promise not to be an idiot again. Don't know if I kept that promise, but I figure a broken nose ain’t nothing compared to a chunk of metal in your ass. Besides, it looks good on you; gives you character. Marines aren't supposed to be pretty.” He smiled. “But... if it gives you even a moment of trouble out there, you sound off, you hear me? If I find out you’re in pain and hiding it, you’ll wish you were still here, eating chips and watching movies. Got it?”

A wave of lightheadedness washed away her confusion. Haley rushed up to him and hugged him. She buried her cheek against his chest, being careful with her nose. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Armstrong stiffened but then patted her on the shoulder. “It ain't no thing, Corporal Fowler. Sergeant Hood is an idiot, but he doesn't deserve to go out short a good Marine. You just remember what I said. Doc will sort you out with whatever you need. He's got all the best drugs, or so he says.”

“It’s true.” Doc patted the medical bag on his hip. “Missed my calling as a dealer.”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant.” She stepped back, turning away from him and wiping her eyes.

“Like I said, we'll be out front.”

Haley closed the door and spun around, her pulse racing.

She had a mission to prep for.

The briefing room was in a small hangar alongside the tarmac where the 2nd Helicopter Aviation Support Squadron conducted flight ops. In the air hung a heady mix of engine fumes, aviation fuel, and too-strong coffee. Wyatt and the others entered the room in single file and sat in folding metal chairs facing a large whiteboard at the front. The group’s assault packs and weapons were outside on the tarmac, but the chairs still creaked in protest under the weight of all the Marines. A roll-out flat-screen television sat in front of the whiteboard. Taped to the whiteboard was the same map Lou had been studying in the troop room. Now, tactical markings covered it—blue for friendly, red for enemy. Wyatt squinted at the map, memorizing the tactical markings that displayed an ongoing search-and-destroy mission: the focus of all the action was a small mountain near the Iranian border. The others joked and chatted, making the undercurrent of excitement palpable, but Wyatt knew the banter hid nervous energy.

A jet flew overhead, shaking the walls and windows.

Having learned all he could from the map, Wyatt considered the others. Haley was here. He had been both relieved and worried when he saw her get out of the Hummer with Lou and Doc. Now, she sat with her teammates, BB and Sticks. All class, Abigail had teased her about looking like a raccoon—or at least that was what Wyatt thought she had said. Even he struggled with her accent some days. Haley's excitement was palpable, and with her on board, Wyatt wouldn't be a Marine short. Still, a nagging worry clouded his thoughts. He chided himself for being irrational—after all, Haley was as much a Marine as he was. Despite knowing that, he couldn’t shake off the lingering unease.

A quick head count showed him nineteen people were in the room. BB was his Ready Team Scout, Haley his Assist, and Sticks his second-in-command. Roy led Ripper-2 and Abigail Ripper-3. Three fireteams to one squad, all led by Lou, with Doc as their Navy Corpsman. Thirteen Marines and one squid: the five add-ons consisted of a pair of Army combat engineers Wyatt didn't recognize; Rami Perooz, their Afghan civilian interpreter; and Victor and Chloe. The last two had seated themselves at the rear of the briefing room and were whispering to one another as they considered the map. Both wore what had to be state-of-the-art body armor and tactical helmets. Odd-looking glasses that looked like sci-fi ballistic spectacles hung from lanyards around their necks. Those two had better gear than a Tier-1 Special Forces outfit. No way they're⁠—

Someone kicked the back of his chair leg. Roy bent down on one knee behind Wyatt, his lips near Wyatt's ear. “You’re still an asshat, but I'm sorry Haley got hurt.”

Wyatt glanced at the other man, met his eyes, and nodded. He held his hand out over his shoulder, and Roy took it in a quick handshake before slipping away to sit with his own fireteam. Haley was watching Wyatt, and she gave him the barest hint of a smile before turning to say something to BB.

Wyatt removed his high-cut helmet and set it on his knee. He slipped his Peltor headset and boom microphone down around his neck, pulled his notepad from his sleeve pocket, and held the pad and a pen at the ready in his gloved hand.

At 4:30 p.m., Lou swept into the briefing room. “Eyes front, Marines!”

The room went silent.

Lou picked up the TV remote and pointed it at the monitor; the screen flashed to life. Wyatt and the others leaned forward. They were looking at GoPro footage, he realized, probably helmet-mounted. Most units deployed with a camera of some type these days. The simple technology made after-action reports much more accurate. The jerky footage showed Afghan soldiers—commandos, judging by their weapons and gear—as they moved in tactical formation in mountainous terrain.

“What you're seeing,” Lou said, “is footage from a search-and-destroy operation conducted by the 1st Battalion of the Afghan National Army Commando Brigade in Qala-i-Kah District, Farah Province. General Ahmadi's men have just fought their way to a major insurgent cave complex.”

The camera panned over still-smoking fighting positions, each one filled with corpses of dead insurgents. “We had a pair of Reapers providing air support. The UAVs hit several entrenched fighting positions, including what intel assesses was a ZU-23-2 antiaircraft gun.”

Subdued muttering arose, and for a moment, Wyatt was back in Helmand Province on his first tour, the stench of burned flesh in his nostrils, his pulse racing. He clenched his fists, focused on breathing, and forced his attention back to the video feed. On the screen, the commandos moved with skill and courage, covering one another.

Lou paused the feed and looked at the two combat engineers. “What you don't see is the impact hole left in the summit by a B-2-launched massive ordnance penetrator, an MOP GBU-57A with a five-thousand-pound high-explosive warhead.”

Wyatt's sphincter tightened, a reaction shared by the others, judging by the startled looks they gave one another. A bunker buster? How was the cave entrance still there? How was anything still there?

Lou hit Play again. The screen went black as one of the men on it entered a cave. “The commandos have switched to NVGs here,” Lou said. “You're not going to be able to see much for a bit.”

That made sense. There were night-observation-capable cameras out there, but you saw that level of technology only among units like Delta or SEAL Team 6. Wyatt and the others listened to the rustle and footsteps, the quiet conversations of the Afghans. Since he spoke only a few words of Dari, Wyatt couldn't understand them, but he knew they were conducting CQB. Their voices were excited, punctuated by quick bursts of gunfire that lit up the otherwise black camera feed. FAST Marines were experts at CQB, and Wyatt could imagine the commandos clearing each cave, but the process dragged on. How big was this cave system?

“There's a lot of this,” Lou said. He thumbed the remote, and the screen flashed forward. Lou hit Play once more, and now, the Marines saw the commandos were using the powerful flashlights attached to their assault rifles instead of their NVGs. The beams shined across a large cavern filled with supplies. At least a dozen insurgents’ corpses lay scattered about the cavern's surface. Smoke drifted through the air, painted crimson by the light of still-burning road flares. At first, Wyatt assumed the fighting was over, but the commandos still moved in tactical bounds, covering one another, their weapons held at the ready. They entered a long tunnel at the rear of the cavern.

“Why they usin' white light?” Abigail drawled, raising an eyebrow.

“Don't know. Maybe this is after the Air Force dropped their bomb. Could be the commandos assessed the insurgents weren't a threat,” Lou answered, his gaze locked on the screen.

The man with the GoPro came to the end of the tunnel, which now opened into another large open cavern. Just in front of the opening, built atop a pedestal-like stone formation, stood a giant statue of an insect. Several of the Marines swore; others gasped. The flashlight beams played over the statue’s surface. The insect stood taller than the length of a city bus. Its surface was rough, unfinished, but the figure looked like a roach or tick standing upright. Horns sprouted from its head, resembling a crown. Six long stone legs on either side held the insect upright.

“The fuck?” Roy asked.

Based on the commandos’ excited chatter, they were just as bewildered as the Marines sitting in the briefing room. Wyatt turned in his seat and stared at Rami. The young Afghan interpreter wore desert-pattern combat clothing, with body armor and a load-bearing vest. His wild dark hair was stuffed under a green Boston Celtics baseball cap, his gaze fixed on the screen. Wyatt glanced at Chloe and Victor and saw they had their heads together, whispering to one another. Neither looked surprised.

“Focus, people,” Lou ordered.

Wyatt returned his attention to the video. The commandos now moved past the statue, shining their flashlight beams around the cavern. The corpses of insurgents lay in pools of blood; spent casings were scattered everywhere. Smoke hung in the air and settled on the cavern’s surface like fog. Then, Wyatt realized that something had been built into the rear of the cavern: a structure, now partially collapsed, but manmade. Stone columns lay haphazardly, several toppled. The ruins resembled an old Greek or perhaps a Buddhist temple, with pillars and an overbuilt ziggurat-style roof. But what was it doing underground?

The commando with the GoPro moved closer, shining his weapon-mounted flashlight on the fallen structure. The commandos were yelling now. The GoPro-wielding man gave orders and pointed at the ruins, but the others shook their heads, screaming back at him in Dari.

Lou paused the video. “Rami, what’s that word I keep hearing?”

All heads turned to the young interpreter.

“They say it’s Jahannam,” Rami said in a hushed tone, “a place of punishment for evildoers, basically the entrance to hell.”

“This just gets better and better,” Roy said.

The commandos stopped chattering. The officer gave an order, and the men turned off their flashlights, plunging the cavern into darkness. A blue glow emanated from the ruins. The strange light grew in intensity. Some men yelled in excitement. Static, like radio interference, burst through the screen’s speakers. Wyatt heard men screaming just before the video went dark and ended.

The briefing room was silent for only a moment. Then the Marines began talking over one another, filling the briefing room with excited chatter of their own. Lou moved in front of the monitor, his expression grave.

“What the hell was that blue glow?” Roy demanded. “Some new Taliban weapon?”

“Intel assesses it was just a camera defect,” Lou answered.

“Bullshit,” Roy said.

“Attention to orders!” Lou barked, his deep voice reverberating throughout the room.

The Marines snapped to attention in their seats.

“Situation,” Lou said. “The 1st Battalion of the Afghan National Army Commando Brigade, under the leadership of General Abdul Ahmadi, is engaged in Operation Freedom’s Heart in Qala-i-Kah District, Farah Province. The cave system you’ve just seen is here.” He moved to stand beside the map taped to the whiteboard and used his pen to indicate the end of a ravine in a mountain. “Intel assesses the cave system is considerable, with tunnels and caverns—a major insurgent communications and logistics hub.

“The footage you just witnessed is from yesterday. Since then, the operation has stalled, and the commandos have pulled back from the cave entrance, establishing a combat outpost. To the best of my knowledge, no one has gone back into the cave. Here’s your key takeaway—the Air Force now assesses their massive ordnance penetrator did not detonate, which means there’s a live five-thousand-pound bomb down there as well as insurgent holdouts.”

The two combat engineers sat stone-faced. The Marines exchanged nervous glances. Now, Wyatt knew why the combat engineers were there—they were EOD technicians, explosive ordnance disposal.

Lou continued, “General Ahmadi’s troops are equipped with Western communications gear, but communications have been less than adequate. Fortunately, we have a Marine Embedded Advisory Team with the 1st Battalion—four Marines. They’re carrying satellite communications gear, but even that has been inconsistent because of unknown interference. It’s only because the Marines uploaded the video feed from the GoPro that we know about the ruins. The Iranian border is here.” Lou played his pen over the border to the west of the mountain. “Intel assesses Iranian jamming may be at play. Despite the jamming, General Church did receive a single satellite call from General Ahmadi, and our Afghan ally has asked the old man for help.”

Wyatt had seen General Ahmadi once before at Bagram. The Afghan fighter was a friend of General Church’s, even though he was at least a dozen years younger. Scuttlebutt was that the old man had decided to mentor the Afghan general personally.

Lou added, “The Afghan government believes the ruins in the cave system are ancient, far too valuable to risk destruction if the bunker buster detonates.” He flipped open a notebook and read from it. “Two thousand years ago, this region of the world was part of the Meridian Empire⁠—”

“Median,” Chloe called out. “The Medes lived in this region circa 1000 B.C. I think Meridian is a kind of minivan.”

“Median Empire,” Lou continued dryly, and Wyatt suppressed a smile. “And may predate Alexander the Great. If so, then the ruins constitute a...” His gaze swept his notes again. “Cultural and natural heritage considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.” He snapped his notebook shut. “This is the very definition of complicated, people. We can't just storm in there and fuck shit up.”

The Marines looked at one another, their faces pale. Someone muttered “Semper Gumby” under their breath, and soft laughter filled the room.

“Consider the cave complex unsecured and filled with bad guys,” Lou said. “That's why we're going in. As FAST Marines, we are the undisputed experts in CQB and have the skill set and weapons to fit the mission parameters of underground knife fighting.”

More laughter followed.

Lou introduced the combat engineers. The sergeant in charge was a beefy guy with huge hands and a thick mustache, named Jack “Blowout” Rogers. The corporal was a short, stocky Asian American named Chuck Zhen. “Blowout and Chuck are gonna deal with the unexploded ordnance,” Lou said.

“Deal how?” Roy asked.

Blowout turned in his seat and faced Roy. “Thermite charges.”

A stunned silence fell over the room's occupants.

“It's cool,” Chuck said. “This kind of bomb detonates only when it reaches a certain depth. It burrows deep so that it can do maximum damage to underground infrastructure. If it didn't go off by now, the guidance system is probably fried. Could be it's so deep, no one's ever gonna see it again.”

Blowout slapped a meaty hand on Chuck's shoulder. “Mi amigo is right. If we find the GBU, we'll burn through the electronics and guidance system at the front of the bomb. Without electronics, the warhead ain't a problem.”

“Thanks for that, Blowout,” Lou said. “You let the combat engineers do their thing. You do yours.”

The Marines shifted in their seats. “Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant,” Abigail said.

“We have two State Department experts to help us catalog the ruins. I'm sure their contribution will be invaluable.” To his credit, Lou said the last sentence with a straight face.

Victor cleared his throat. “Victor Crane. But only I'm with the State Department. My colleague, Chloe Winters, is a professor on contract from Arkham University. She's an archeologist, ethnologist, and all-around subject matter expert on ancient civilizations.” He smiled. “I'm just a paper pusher.”

That explanation made a bit more sense, but somehow, Wyatt couldn't see the young woman lecturing university students. She was too young.

“Staff Sergeant,” Abigail drawled, her face all puckered up like she'd just swallowed a mouthful of her chaw. “This here mission... Well, it ain't 'xactly in our wheelhouse, y'know? So why⁠—”

Just then, the outside door opened, and Major General Dylan Church swept in ahead of a small entourage of his staff officers.

“Attention on deck!” Lou barked.

Wyatt and the others jumped up and stood at attention. Several of the metal chairs fell with a crash. Victor and Chloe remained sitting.

“At ease, Marines,” Church called out as he barreled through the room to join Lou at the front. No one relaxed. “Mind if I say a few words, Staff Sergeant?”

“Sir, the room is yours, sir.”

The bullet-headed, middle-aged Marine was short but had wide shoulders and a face like stone. His hands on his hips, he faced the occupants. “Okay, you're no doubt wondering why I'd send my personal protective detail to clear an insurgent cave complex. I have a ton of good reasons, but the only one that really matters is because I friggin' want to.”

Wyatt's heart surged with affection for the old man. Church was old-school. All he was missing was a half-chewed cigar clenched in his teeth.

“Here are the other reasons anyhow,” Church continued. “First, you're Marines, and you're wasted here sitting around and waiting for me to go somewhere and do something. If I'm sitting on my fat ass in Bagram, none of you are out there kicking Taliban butt—and that's just all kinds of wrong.”

The Marines shared wide grins.

“Second, General Ahmadi is a friend of mine. This operation is important. Those ruins need to be secured. You hardasses can go there and do it for me.

“Third, you've got the skills, the weapons, and the drive to succeed. You are the very definition of flexible and mission capable. Rah?”

“Rah!” the Marines parroted. Even the two Army combat engineers and Doc repeated the Marine mantra. So did Rami. The old man had that effect on other people.

“So,” Church said, “I want you all to get on that bird, fly to Farah Province, and do whatever you have to do to get this train back on its tracks. Rah?”

“Rah!” they repeated, the echo thundering in the room.

Church turned to Lou. “We good, Staff Sergeant?”

“Raring to go, sir!”

Church nodded and gripped Lou's hand and forearm with both of his. “Wish to God I could go with you. Go get some, Marine!”

“Yes, sir.” Lou faced his team. “You heard the general. Assholes and elbows. Get on the bird.”

The room exploded into action. Wyatt slipped his headphones back over his ears and turned them on. The headphones would tune out noises like gunfire and explosions, making the Chinook's turbines bearable. He adjusted his ballistic glasses and positioned his boom mic over his lips. Then he activated his PRC-152 multiband portable combat net radio and heard a quick hiss through the headphones. After donning his helmet and tightening the chin strap, he jumped in place to test the fit. Satisfied, he ensured his team was ready then met Lou's eye.

“Get 'em on the ready line, but you hold back a minute,” Lou said.

“Roger that,” Wyatt answered. He faced his second-in-command. “Sticks, get 'em out there.”

Sticks nodded. “Let’s go, Ripper-1.” Sticks led the others out of the building and onto the runway, with Roy and Abigail bringing up their teams behind them. While Lou spoke with General Church, Wyatt moved to the window and watched the squad pick up their weapons and strap on their packs.

Most Marines carried M-4 carbines with foot-long sound suppressors—also known as “shorties with silencers.” Those assigned to the assist role also carried a variant of the Mossberg M500A2 pump-action shotgun, designed for shooting locks and hinges off doors during breach operations. The shotguns were shorter and lighter than the standard model. Wyatt, Abigail, and Roy also carried M320 grenade launchers, short, four-pound, single-shot weapons that could lob 40-mm grenades up to four hundred meters. Each Marine carried two fragmentation grenades, road flares, at least one smoke grenade, and several flashbangs. The squad shared the load of specialized kits among them, including medical, climbing, and breaching equipment. The breaching kit contained a sledgehammer, bolt cutters, and a hand-held ram. If the tools didn't work, the kit also included an explosive package with det cord, remote detonators, and strips of shaped charges. The seconds-in-command also carried AT-4s, unguided, single-shot 84-mm rockets. Despite complaints from some of the junior Marines about the weight, Wyatt knew they were going in light compared to what he'd carried in Helmand Province.

Their ride, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, sat on the tarmac about a hundred meters away, its engines running as the flight crew prepped for takeoff. Just beyond the Chinook idled two Boeing AH-64 Apache gunships, sleek and ready for action.

The Marines formed three sticks to board the aircraft: Rippers-1, 2, and 3. The add-ons joined the second stick, those who stood right in the middle.

Wyatt turned away from the window and watched Lou converse with the general. Whatever the general was saying, Lou didn't look happy. The general shook his head in response to something Lou said, and Lou's face took on a look of quiet resignation. The general reached out, squeezed Lou's shoulder, and said something else before turning away. He and his staff officers departed, leaving Lou to join Wyatt.

“What was that all about?” Wyatt asked.

Lou waited until the general's entourage had left the briefing room. “Apparently,” Lou said in an unhappy tone, “our large friend from the State Department is in charge of this op.”

Wyatt's eyes narrowed. “You're shitting me.”

“I wish. The old man doesn't like it, either, but his orders were very clear. Victor Crane says jump, we jump.”

“Goddamn.”

“Goddamn,” Lou agreed. “Listen, I don't believe for a hot minute that this guy is from the State Department. Everything about him screams black ops.”

“My thoughts as well.”

“I don't trust CIA spooks. They have a different view of acceptable collateral. Keep an eye on him for me.”

“You got it, brother,” Wyatt said, shaking his head. “Shit. This is all kinds of messed up.”

“Could be worse. We could be working for that hot little redhead.”

“I don't know. She strikes me as the reasonable one.”

Lou's expression hardened as he stared at Wyatt. “Right. About her, Haley—hell, about Abigail—I need you to keep your head in the game. You're my second-in-command, and I need to know your focus is on the mission, not on trying to protect the women.”

Wyatt nodded. “You got it, brother. I promise.”

And he meant it; he would never lose control over a woman again.

Lou considered him, his gaze thoughtful, before nodding. “All right, let's go to war.”

CHAPTER

SEVEN

The sun had set long before the group reached Farah Province. Wyatt leaned forward in the cargo seating of the Chinook and looked out the open rear ramp, past the helmeted door gunner perched behind his minigun. A bright moon in a cloudless sky framed one of their Apache guardians behind them; the other wasn't in view. They had been in the air for seven hours, making quick refueling stops in Kandahar and Helmand Province. Now, they were only minutes out from their destination, although they were still flying at considerable altitude. The Taliban didn't really have man-portable air-defense systems, but this close to Iran, the pilots didn't want to take chances. Wyatt didn't blame them. Nothing ruined a perfectly good flight more than burning to death.

No lights or settlements were on the ground, only dark mountains and desert. It was almost as dark inside the aircraft, with only red tactical lighting. Wyatt could just make out the others’ individual faces beneath their high-cut helmets and ballistic goggles. They all wore their AN/PVS Monocular Night Vision Device, or MNVD, affixed atop their helmets. The MNVD was a single-eye night vision device, so it was kind of crap; but the Marine Corps had long learned to make do with the Army's leftovers. Whether it was shoddy or not, the Marines knew the gear well, and when using their weapon-mounted “mini green” infrared lasers, the MNVDs would let them see in total darkness—like, say, within a cave complex.

Wyatt considered Victor and Chloe, both sitting almost directly across from him. Victor looked at home, his arms crossed and eyes closed, but Chloe looked tiny, wedged between her partner and Abigail. Abigail wore her prized collector's-edition Marine Corps KA-BAR fighting knife taped upside down to her MoTav, the handle coming down over her left chest. She was so damned proud of that knife and had paid way more for it than it was worth. Wyatt didn't have the heart to tell her that in a year of warfighting during his first tour, he had never even heard of anyone using a knife for anything but poking holes in cans. But the Corps still taught knife fighting as part of its Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, so maybe Abigail knew something he didn't. Abigail held a plastic Coke bottle between her large thighs, and every so often, she'd spit chewing tobacco into it. She did so now, but a small dribble ran down her chin unnoticed. Chloe watched her with a look consisting of equal parts disgust and awe. Wyatt smiled. Abigail was special.

Chloe's eyes widened, and she looked up in alarm at the fuselage above her and its exposed cables and pipes. “Something just dripped on me!” she yelled to Abigail, her words barely audible over the whine of the turbines.

Abigail grinned, exposing a solid-gold front tooth. “Ain't no thing, honey cheeks,” she said. “That's just how these birds work. Y'all gotta worry if they stop drippin' shit.”

The Marines sitting nearby grinned, and Chloe slipped farther back into her seat. A shiver of excitement coursed through Wyatt when he met her eyes. He broke eye contact and glanced at his watch. It was almost ten p.m. He exhaled, his thoughts racing.

Wyatt had done some research in the scant time he had, but what he learned wasn't much. Farah Province was one of the poorest regions of an already poor country. While the province was almost half the size of South Korea, the area contained fewer than a million people, mostly members of the Pashtun and Tajik tribes. Its mountainous terrain was suitable for little more than poppy cultivation, which fueled an out-of-control insurgency. The province was almost entirely cut off from the central government, receiving only the most basic services—and most of that was siphoned off by corrupt officials. The abject poverty, drug trade, isolation, and barely educated rural population created a perfect storm of insurgent activity.

The flight engineer stepped past the Marines, holding his hand up and extending his thumb and fingers. “Five minutes,” he yelled.

Wyatt patted down his gear—his M-4, the grenade launcher, and the pockets of his MoTav and plate carrier—making sure everything was where it needed to be. His headset crackled and hissed, and Lou's deep voice followed. “All call signs, this is Ripper-0. Radio check, over.” Lou sat near the ramp, on the same side of the aircraft as Wyatt. Lou leaned forward, watching his Marines.

Wyatt's radio was clipped to his left shoulder, and he keyed the device now. “Ripper-1, loud and clear, over.”

Roy's voice came through his headset. “Ripper-2, loud and clear, over.”

Across from Wyatt, Abigail stretched out her long legs and keyed her own radio. “Ripper-3, loud and clear, over.”

Lou's voice came back. “Ripper-0, all call signs, roger. Let's act like pros. Don't embarrass me in front of the Army engineers.”

Abigail brayed with laughter, grinning and elbowing Chloe, who stared at her with wide eyes.

The Chinook's turbines whined as the aircraft banked, executing a tight 180-degree turn and dropping altitude. Wyatt, holding his M-4 between his legs with one hand, used the other to further tighten his already tight seat belt as the aircraft's tilt pushed him forward. His stomach lurched as the aircraft shook in crosswinds. He understood the pilots were just going through a combat landing—he had done at least a dozen heliborne insertions on his Basic Reconnaissance Course, including a helocast jump into the water—but he never liked these rapid descents.

The door gunners scanned the terrain with their NODs. They weren't firing, which meant no one was shooting at the aircraft—a pleasant change from his first tour.

The red tactical lighting went out, plunging the aircraft into darkness. Wyatt and the others lowered their MNVDs into place over their shooting eyes and switched them on. Wyatt's vision took on a green tint and gave him a nearly crystal-clear, if somewhat constricted, view of the interior of the aircraft and its passengers. The monocular night-vision gear produced some tunnel vision and flared out in bright light, but he could always look through his other eye, getting the best of both worlds.

The flight engineer moved between the Marines once more, now holding up two fingers. “Two minutes!”

Once again, the aircraft banked, and once again, Wyatt's stomach lurched. Then, the aircraft leveled out, dropped quickly, and came to an abrupt halt. Moments later, almost as a surprise, its wheels touched the ground, and the Chinook settled.

Lou stood up. “Go, go, go!”

Wyatt knew the drill in his sleep. He unbuckled his seat belt, jumped to his feet, and threw his assault pack over his shoulders, yanking the straps tight. Because his team had boarded first, they'd be the last ones off. Roy's fireteam, Ripper-2, stormed down the ramp, followed by Abigail's Ripper-3 and the combat engineers, Doc, Rami, and the two civilians. Lastly, Wyatt led his three Marines off the aircraft, his weapon at port arms.

“Thanks for the ride!” Haley yelled to the ramp gunner as she shuffled past.

The seated man waved an arm in response.

Once outside, Wyatt guided his fireteam to join the others at a safe distance from the aircraft. Roy and Abigail's teams were already protecting their flanks, each Marine on a knee with weapons held to their shoulders. The prop wash blew wisps of colored smoke about, and Wyatt saw at least a dozen soldiers, Afghan commandos, standing and watching the Marines from about thirty paces away. Several hundred meters behind the commandos stood dozens of vehicles and tents—General Ahmadi's combat outpost. Wyatt positioned his fireteam to watch their rear. BB carried the AT-4 rocket launcher tube slung on his back, and Wyatt took a knee beside him, his M-4 at the “low ready,” and looked a foot over his weapon's tactical red-dot sight. You could aim through the monocular night-vision scope, but it wasn't easy, and with the IR lasers, it wasn't necessary; the Marines could just place the laser on an enemy and fire away.

One of the Apache gunships flashed overhead, blowing away the last of the smoke the commandos had used to mark the landing zone. The Chinook's turbines whined, and the aircraft rose several feet above ground. Then it climbed and sped away, the roar of its turbines receding.

Wyatt glanced over his shoulder and examined the Afghan camp. It was dark; their night discipline was excellent. The Afghan National Army struggled with tactics—and sometimes even common sense—but General Ahmadi's commandos seemed cut from a different cloth. Ideally, that meant there would be no danger of a “green-on-blue” attack when a compromised Afghan soldier unloaded his assault rifle into the closest American.

Dozens of vehicles surrounded the tents—a crazy mash-up of open-topped Canadian Iltis jeeps, Russian BTR-80 armored vehicles, and American Hummers. There were even two Russian T-62 main battle tanks. Most of the vehicles would be useless in the mountains. Still, better to have and not need...

A handful of commandos moved forward to meet Lou.

With the helicopters gone, the night was nearly silent. Only the wind howled, bringing with it a bone-chilling cold. Anyone who thought the desert was always hot had never spent time in one at night, especially at elevation.

For long minutes, Wyatt and his team watched the surrounding terrain. Nothing moved. Then Wyatt's radio chirped, and Lou's voice emerged from it. “Ripper-1 Actual, on me.”

Wyatt pushed his push-to-talk button once, making it beep. He rose, pausing only long enough to tap Sticks on the helmet, letting him know to take over in his absence. In reply, Sticks grunted and raised a fist.

Wyatt walked toward Lou, who stood with a small group that included several Afghan commandos, a Marine he didn't recognize who had to be one of the embeds, Rami, and Victor. Lou tossed his head toward Wyatt as he joined them. “This is Sergeant Hood, my second-in-command. Sergeant Hood, this is Major Sayed Durani of the 1st Afghan Commando Battalion.”

The man was tall and dark skinned, with a long mustache that extended almost to his chin. The mustache might have been the most macho Wyatt had ever seen. Major Durani extended his hand to Wyatt. “A pleasure, Sergeant. Welcome to Farah Province, the last bastion of democracy you'll find before the ruin of what was once Persia,” the man said in a clipped British accent.

Wyatt shook his hand, finding Durani’s grip firm. “Pleasure's mine, sir, but I'm not sure the Iranian mullahs see it that way.”

“Because they are savages,” Durani said, with a flash of teeth in the moonlight.

The embedded Marine, sporting at least a month of beard, offered his hand as well. “Corporal Aiden George, but you can call me Georgie.” He tossed his head toward the Afghan officer. “Major Durani learned to speak good American in England, better'n me.”

“Cambridge,” Durani said in a hurt tone. “And I don't speak any American. I speak the Queen's English.”

Georgie smelled as bad as you'd expect for someone who’d lived in the field for weeks. “My apologies, sir. Cambridge, not England.”

“Oorah, Georgie,” Wyatt said, shaking the man's hand.

“Oorah,” Georgie said. “Nice to see some fellow jarheads.”

“We done?” Lou asked in a tone that implied they were.

“We done, Staff Sergeant,” Georgie answered, stepping back.

“What's the tactical situation?” Victor asked.

“Safe enough here,” Major Durani replied. “But there's at least one insurgent band moving through these mountains that we've yet to run down and destroy. Bastards attacked a village last night, killed at least thirty people—men, women, and children. But this close to our camp, I think we're safe enough. We should move, though. They must have heard the helicopters.”

“Where's this cave?” Lou asked.

Major Durani turned and pointed. “There. About two kilometers to the west.”

In the distance, highlighted against the stars, the terrain rose sharply and culminated in a singular peak. As far as mountains went, these formations looked more like tall hills. “There's a pass that leads up to the entrance, but you can't see it at night.”

“Got eyes on it?” Lou asked.

The Afghan officer hesitated. “Yes, but we should move. We can discuss these matters with the general.”

“Yes, sir,” Lou answered. “Lead the way. Wyatt, you bring up the rear.”

“Roger that,” Wyatt said, turning and heading back to his team.

He heard the unmistakable howl of a wolf. Wyatt had never heard a wolf in Afghanistan before, but then again, he had never been this far west before. Moments later, the rest of the wolf pack took up the call, their cries reverberating in the night. The sound almost made him feel that he was back in Wyoming.

Almost.

Chloe waited, breathless with excitement, as Victor spoke to the Afghans. The flight had been awful and the quick descent terrifying, but the moment she stepped off the helicopter, she felt a rush of arcane energy wash through her body, as if she’d been dunked in ice-cold water. Something was bleeding immensely powerful magical energy into the surrounding countryside.

Wyatt stood just behind Lou as General Abdul Jaleel Ahmadi extended his hand in greeting to the staff sergeant. Ahmadi was young and handsome, with dark, narrow eyes, sharp features, and a large hooked nose. He smiled, displaying very white teeth. The general was clean-shaven, his hair trimmed short, and his uniform, if not clean, was cleaner than anyone else's in the large command tent. Ahmadi looked more like a banker than a warlord—until you looked into his eyes. Those eyes held no compassion in them.

“Ah, you are Major General Church's personal bodyguard,” he said as he shook Lou's hand. “How did he phrase it, his ‘professional ass-kickers’?” Ahmadi spoke in excellent but heavily accented English.

“Sir, General Church sends his warmest regards,” Lou said.

Besides the embedded Marine Georgie and Major Durani, General Ahmadi's sergeant major was present, looming near the general. He was a tall, broad-shouldered beast of a man with a long scar running through the socket where his right eye had been. Though bald, he sported a bushy black beard and looked like a pirate—only much tougher. Wyatt would not have been surprised had the man carried a saber instead of the battered World War II-era M3 submachine gun that hung from a sling over his shoulder.

Lou introduced his team leaders: Wyatt, Roy, and Abigail first and then Blowout and Rami. The general shook each person's hand, greeting them and repeating their names. Rami, he barely acknowledged. The general was still polite, still shook the Afghan man's hand and said hello, but the greeting sounded insincere to Wyatt. Rami kept his gaze low, his voice almost obsequious, and when Ahmadi let go of his hand, Rami slunk back.

The two civilians stepped forward. “Sir,” said Lou, “allow me to introduce Mr. Victor Crane and Miss Chloe Winters. Mr. Crane is with our State Department, and Miss Winters⁠—”

She stepped forward, offering her hand to the general, and spoke in what sounded to Wyatt like perfect Dari. The only word Wyatt recognized was “Arkham.”

Whatever she had said had made an impact. Even the sergeant major's one good eye widened.

Ahmadi recovered first, his teeth flashing in a smile. He took her hand between his, bent low, and kissed it. “Your tongue is perfect, Miss Winters, your words like the breath of God's heralds; but our guests...”

“Of course, General,” she answered, taking her hand back. “I'm a student of ancient civilizations. My government hopes I can help you with the ruins.”

Ahmadi gestured to a massive hand-woven Persian rug covered with pillows along a section of the tent wall. “Please, tea?”

The group sat cross-legged with Ahmadi and Durani. The sergeant major took a seat behind Ahmadi, glaring at Wyatt and the others. Major Durani and Georgie joined them, and an aide in traditional Afghan clothing brought everyone cups of steaming tea, fragrant with honey. Wyatt sipped his, surprised at how thirsty he was.

Ahmadi made small talk in the Afghan way. He asked about General Church's health and the health and families of Wyatt and the others, particularly Chloe. It turned out she had an older sister named Helena and held a doctorate in ethnology and a graduate degree in archaeology. Victor talked little, offering only sparse answers, but Ahmadi didn't press him. He ignored Rami. Afghans had their own Byzantine customs, with their own rigid hierarchies and class systems, and Wyatt could never understand them from reading history books. But his father had always said that knowing you didn't know something was half the battle. Wyatt had never asked what the other half was, but he suspected it was keeping your mouth shut and listening.

Ahmadi smiled with his eyes. “Praise to God for bringing you to help us, Miss Winters. My accommodations, poor though they may be, are yours while your friends are in the cave.”

“Unnecessary but well received,” Chloe said. “I'm here to appraise the ruins, and I can't do that from here.”

Ahmadi stiffened.

Victor leaned forward. “Sir, Miss Winters has helped the U.S. State Department for several years now. Don't worry. This isn't her first outing or her first cave system. Besides, the Marines will provide all the security we'll need.”

“Praise God, I suspect you have never seen caves like these,” Ahmadi said.

“Sir,” Lou said, “we've seen the video footage. What else can you tell us?”

“Not as much as I'd like, I'm afraid; the cave system is ancient. The locals call it Tora Bela,” Ahmadi responded.

“Really?” Chloe asked, tilting her head. “Do you know why?”

“These are simple people, Miss Winters, prone to superstitions. You must not draw conclusions from a name,” Ahmadi cautioned.

Wyatt had no clue what they were talking about, but Rami looked unhappy.

“What else do the locals say?” Chloe asked.

“They say that those who sleep in the caves have nightmares and go mad,” Ahmadi said, smiling. “But the insurgents have been there for months, and while they are filth, they are not insane.”

Chloe opened her mouth to say something else, but when Victor touched her forearm, she remained silent.

“Anything else you can tell us about these caves, General?” Victor asked.

“The mountains, made from limestone, are filled with large natural caverns formed over many eons. Over hundreds of years, men have reinforced some of these caves, connecting them with tunnels,” Ahmadi explained.

“Locals?” Lou asked.

Ahmadi shook his head. “The locals don't go near Tora Bela. But... others do. Long, long ago, a trade route to the Persian Empire ran past these mountains, and bandits and warlords used Tora Bela as a base from which to harass merchant caravans, not unlike the Taliban scum today.”

“How do you know this?” Chloe asked.

“I am an educated man, Miss Winters. But we also have informants among the locals who know the history of Tora Bela. The Butcher of Janabad only thinks he has the populace cowed,” Ahmadi replied.

“Sir?” Lou asked.

“Mullah Najeeb Wasiq, the Butcher, is the local Taliban commander. The man is scum, a filthy animal. We believe it was his brother, Bakht Mohammed, who led the attack on the village last night. Both men are bloodthirsty cowards. Praise God, they will soon be food for the wolves,” Ahmadi said.

Chloe tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. "So, this Mullah Najeeb Wasiq and his brother are using Tora Bela as a base?"

“Indeed, and I have little doubt they spread rumors of devils and djinn within the caverns to frighten the uneducated. Wasiq has put considerable effort into expanding the cave system, adding ammo chambers, storage rooms, and even a field hospital.”

“Really?” Wyatt asked, speaking for the first time in this conversation. He immediately felt self-conscious.

If General Ahmadi was upset that a lowly sergeant spoke out of turn, he gave no sign. “We captured wounded prisoners in the battle for the mountain. They insist it is so.”

“But your men fought inside the cave system already,” Wyatt said.

This time, General Ahmadi hesitated, looking pained. “I... I regret to say none of those men made it back.”

“But the GoPro footage we saw?” Lou asked.

“The insurgents must have mounted a counterattack…” General Ahmadi's voice trailed off.

“I found the camera,” Georgie said. “When I got the sat phone call advising us that the Air Force had already launched their bunker buster, me and the other embeds went into the cave system to warn the Afghans. Didn't realize it at the time, but the bomb had already hit. Must've been a dud.” He paused and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Didn’t find nobody alive, not a soul, but we found the corpse of the man wearing the GoPro in a cave the insurgents were using for generators.” Georgie shivered. “Not a mark on him, but Jesus, his face, like he had seen the devil…”

“If not for the courage of this man,” General Ahmadi said, looking at Georgie, “we’d have no idea what happened to the others.”

“What did happen to the others?” Lou asked. “We saw a blue light and heard screams.”

General Ahmadi raised his palms, his expression pained again. “God willing, you will find out for us.”

“I sent the video from the GoPro over the satellite link,” Georgie said. “Figured it might help.”

“We saw it,” Chloe said. She shared a look with Victor, who nodded, and once more, Wyatt was certain they were hiding something.

“None of our high-frequency radios work near the cave system,” General Ahmadi said, sounding disgusted. “That’s... one reason we’ve moved back this far.”

That made no sense. If the jamming was coming from Iran, then moving away from the cave should make no difference. But Wyatt was a gunfighter, not a communications specialist.

“But you still have eyes on the entrance, right, sir?” Lou asked, leaning forward.

“As well as we are able,” General Ahmadi said.

“Wait, what the hell does that mean?” Victor asked, his eyes narrowing.

General Ahmadi’s face darkened, as did Major Durani’s. The one-eyed sergeant major looked like a statue. “It means,” Major Durani began. Then he halted, exhaling and staring at the teacup in his hands. “It means our shame and dishonor are almost too much to bear.”

“Sir?” Chloe asked.

“My men fear getting too close to the cave entrance, particularly at night. They believe it's filled with devils,” he said, sipping his tea. His hand trembled with rage. Wyatt understood; for a man like Major Durani, who could trace his warrior lineage back dozens of generations, the shame must be unbearable.

“So…” said Lou. “The surviving Taliban could have escaped.”

“Or been reinforced,” Victor said, his tone accusatory.

General Ahmadi's right eye twitched, but he inclined his head and looked at his hands.

“There's no shame here,” Chloe said, glancing at Victor. “Your men have honored their families with their bravery.”

“She's right, sir,” Lou said. “We'll take it from here.”

“That cannot be,” General Ahmadi said. “Honor compels me.”

“Sir…” Victor started.

General Ahmadi raised his hand in a slight gesture. He closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself. Then he opened his eyes and stared at Victor, not Lou. “We have many problems,” the general continued. “First, we must clear that cave system, and it is extensive.”

“My Marines will handle that for you, sir,” Lou said. “We're trained for this sort of thing.”

General Ahmadi inclined his head. “The battle legends of the Devil Dogs are well known, even in my country. But the insurgents are only one problem. Even if those cowardly dogs have fled, the unexploded bomb remains a threat.”

Blowout leaned forward. “If it's there, we'll deal with it, sir.”

“Praise God, it is so, but there is also the matter of those ruins. My president has demanded I secure them intact.”

Blowout looked miserable. “That may not be⁠—”

“Of course,” Victor said. “I understand.”

“And then there is this,” Ahmadi said. “The men of the 1st Commando Battalion are the best and bravest in my country. We must reclaim our honor. An Afghan must lead the way into that cave system.”

Wyatt stiffened.

“Who did you have in mind?” Victor asked, unfazed.

Wyatt saw the glare Lou gave Victor, but Lou said nothing.

“Major Durani has volunteered,” the general said. “You will find him both well trained and brave.”

“It would be my great honor to fight alongside the famous U.S. Marines,” Durani said.

Wyatt watched Lou, wondering if General Ahmadi knew just how much he was asking. At this stage, throwing in an unknown command element, even a highly trained Afghan commando, was wildly dangerous.

A vein in Lou’s neck throbbed, but he inclined his head. “The honor is ours.”

General Ahmadi clapped his hands, signaling an end to the meeting. “It would be best for you to go immediately, before any difficulties with the unexploded bomb arise.”

And just like that, it was decided. They were going into battle led by an unknown man with unknown skills, only minutes after meeting him.

As the others rose, Abigail slipped next to Wyatt.

“Goddamn. This is some grade-A, for-real bullshit,” she whispered in his ear.

He couldn’t have said it more eloquently.

Deep underground, the Guardian ambulated through the ruins of its prison. For thousands of this world's cycles, it had hibernated, dormant and hungry, dreaming of an ice world with crystal mountains. Then, something incredible happened—something shattered the ward-stone above its prison. It had tried to leave then, even feasting on fresh kill, but the binding spell had forced it back, the pain so severe it screamed in psychic torment.

The captors might be long gone, but their magic remained and would continue to exist as long as the treasure lay within the Star Vault. Now that the ward-stone was gone, other life forms would come, drawn by the treasure. The captors might have returned to the stars, but their servants remained.

The Guardian had waited this long; what was a little longer?

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Wyatt found Rami standing outside the general’s tent, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Hey, Cowboy,” Rami said as he saw him. Rami, more than anyone else on the squad, found an endless interest in Wyatt’s background, believing all Americans should be cowboys. “You got a light?”

“You should be careful about smoking at night.” Wyatt fished a disposable lighter from a pocket of his MoTav and handed it to the other man. “Might be surprised how far a cigarette glows in the dark. Could get your handsome face shot off by a Taliban sniper.”

Rami snorted, cupping his hands and lighting his cigarette. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and handed Wyatt back his lighter. “Those Taliban dogs can suck my nut sack. Trust me, my cowboy friend. They are running for the Iranian border with their pants filled with their own excrement.” Rami snickered and took a drag, his face glowing red.

Wyatt shrugged. “Your call, but you might want to move a few feet from me.”

“You worry too much, Cowboy.” But Rami took a step back.

Wyatt considered the young man. Rami was pudgy, with a short, patchy beard and the epicanthic fold of Asian eyes so common among the Hazara tribe. Some people believed the Hazaras could trace their origins to Genghis Khan’s conquest of the region. Maybe so, but Afghanistan’s other ethnic groups treated them exceptionally poorly, often making them the butt of jokes. “Rami, tell me about Tora Bela.”

“Don’t worry about silly superstitions. Worry instead about this man, this Tajik fool, who will lead us to our deaths.” Rami exhaled a cloud of smoke, shaking his head. “I did not volunteer to serve some Tajik pig.”

Hatred pervaded the young man’s voice. Of all the tribes, perhaps the Tajiks, Afghanistan’s ruling elite, had been the hardest on the Hazaras. “Focus, Rami. What does ‘Tora Bela’ mean?”

The other man snorted smoke through his nostrils. “It means this province is filled with stupid mountain clans, barely literate ass-bandits, worse even than Tajiks.” He chuckled as if he had just made a clever joke.

Wyatt, long familiar with the rampant racism among the many multiethnic tribal groups of Afghanistan, sighed. “Rami. When the general mentioned that name, I saw your face.”

Rami looked down. “‘Tora Bela’ means ‘monster cave’... more or less. The locals call this place the Monster Cave.”

Wyatt smiled. “Okay, I’ll ask. Why?”

“Why? Because they are uneducated peasants, fearing devils, demons, and afreets, even.”

“What’s an afreet?”

“Read a book, Cowboy. Afreets are like djinn. What you’d call genies.”

“Like the big blue guy who lives in a lamp and gives three wishes?”

Rami sighed and stalked away, muttering under his breath.

Wyatt smiled again and ducked back into the tent. He found Lou taking notes from a military topographical map pinned to a wooden frame. Just outside the tent, a generator was running, and its gasoline fumes drifted through the opening. A lone commando wearing headphones sat beside a radio set. The man nodded at Wyatt. At the far end of the tent, Major Durani briefed a squad of commandos, the twelve men who would accompany the squad to the cave entrance.

Wyatt joined Lou.

“Don’t say it,” Lou warned without looking up.

“This is a bad idea.”

Lou sighed. “What did I just say?” He placed his hands against the small of his back, arched it, and groaned. “The old man sent us here to help. We’re helping.”

“Still bullshit.”

Lou snorted. “Ya think?”

Wyatt sighed. “What do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do? I want to follow my orders, Sergeant Hood. Mission hasn’t changed.”

“Bullshit! We’re going into combat commanded by a man we’ve never trained with.”

“No, we’re going into combat commanded by a CIA spook. Durani just thinks he’s in charge.”

Wyatt groaned and ran his hands over his sweaty face. “That’s way better,” he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

“It may not be as bad as you think. I spoke to that embed Marine⁠—”

“Georgie?”

Lou nodded. “Georgie. He told me Durani spent three years at the British army school in Sandhurst. Says he’s got his shit together.”

“Doesn’t make him a Marine.”

Lou raised an eyebrow, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “No. No, it does not, but we have our orders. Rah?”

“Rah.” Wyatt chewed his lower lip, watching his friend as he jotted notes on a tactical pad.

“Something else?” Lou asked, still looking at the notepad.

“Our civvy guests...”

“Let me guess, you don’t trust ‘em?”

Wyatt nodded.

“Me neither. Mr. Spook I get, but I can’t figure the girl.”

“Woman.”

“Whatever.”

Lou was right. Chloe didn’t fit, and that wasn’t just because she had spoken perfect Dari and treated the aristocratic General Ahmadi like an equal. She was hiding something.

Just then, Major Durani finished briefing his commandos, and the Afghan men broke away from him.

“At least we’ve got some backup,” Wyatt said, “even if they’re not going into the cave with us.”

“There is that.” Lou tapped his notepad with his pen. “Okay, here’s what I want. The commandos will lead the way up the ravine, but once we get closer to the cave entrance, I’ll set an ORP.”

Wyatt nodded; they would establish the objective rally point just out of small-arms range from the objective. From there, they’d drop packs and prepare for the assault.

“I want your team in first, with Roy supporting you. There may be booby traps, so I want you and Roy to take an engineer. We keep the civvies and Rami back with me and Major Durani. Abigail brings up our six.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Go sort the others out while I clear this with our new Afghan commander.”

Wyatt turned and then hesitated.

“Something else?”

Wyatt struggled for the words. He wasn't frightened—well, he was; only an idiot wasn't afraid before combat—but this situation was different. Unease ate at him. “This mission, brother. Spelunking and all…”

Again, Lou’s eyes shone with amusement. “Semper Gumby, Marine. Semper Gumby.”

“Aye, aye.” Wyatt went to find Roy and Abigail.

CHAPTER

NINE

The trek from the Afghan camp to the summit took over three hours. When Wyatt and his fireteam reached the location that Lou had picked as an ORP, about three hundred meters from the cave entrance, they were all drenched in sweat. Thankful for a break, he and his fireteam took a knee, observing the cave while the Afghan commandos provided cover on their flanks. Wyatt considered his group’s objective.

The cave entrance had been hard to see on the GoPro footage, but now, looking through the green tint of his night-vision gear, he understood why the locals had given the cave system its name. The cave entrance was triangular, with a wide twenty-foot base. Two man-sized rock formations jutted upright from the base, looking like fangs. The cave entrance resembled a predator's open maw—the Monster Cave. Mystery solved.

After all that buildup with Rami, Wyatt was kind of disappointed.

The insurgents had constructed a series of fighting positions before the cave entrance. Battle damage from artillery and Reaper UAV strikes had destroyed all of them. Even now, a day after the battle, dead insurgents lay about, the stench of rotting flesh cloying in Wyatt’s nostrils. A pair of wolves, smaller than the ones Wyatt had grown up with in Wyoming but every bit as savage, defended the corpses, baring their teeth at the intruders. The wolves' eyes glowed green through his night-vision scope.

“Goddamn,” whispered Haley, who knelt beside Wyatt.

“Not a threat,” Wyatt answered. Unless they were starving, wolves didn't attack people, and with all the corpses lying about, these wolves couldn’t even be hungry. “Focus on the cave.”

“Roger that.”

The wolves snarled, advanced several steps toward Wyatt and Haley, but then turned and fled. The site was secure, or at least as secure as it was going to get. Wyatt keyed his radio. “Ripper-0, this is Ripper-1. Eyes on the objective.”

His headset beeped once in reply. Less than a minute later, Roy's fireteam joined them, kneeling and assuming their own overwatch positions, and soon after that, Major Durani, Lou, and the others arrived with Abigail's fireteam.

Lou squeezed Wyatt's shoulder. “Good job. Drop packs here.” He moved toward Roy.

Wyatt gave his team the hand signal for an ORP and then removed his go bag and set it on the ground. The others placed their bags beside his. They'd return after clearing the caverns and rearm.

He glanced at Haley and said a silent prayer that all of them would come back.

Chloe knelt on the ground, feeling overwhelmed. She pushed her night-vision glasses up so she could peer out from under them. The glasses were more hindrance than help, and she wore them only to stop people from asking how she could see in the dark. One of the first spells mages learned after connecting with Astaris was how to enhance their senses. With her spells in place, Chloe saw better than an eagle, but her mage-born affinity with Astaris was what set her nerves aflame. Unimaginable eldritch energy resonated from the cave entrance. What is this place?

Victor joined her, handing her his open water canteen. She had her own water, so she pushed his canteen away. “You all right?” he whispered.

She couldn’t see his eyes because, unlike her, he needed the night-vision glasses he wore, but she guessed if she could, she’d detect his concern. What would she ever do without Victor? She drew the sigil for Aura of Silence around them. “Not really.” She told him about the magical energy coming from the cave entrance.

When she finished, he nodded, rubbing his chin and scrutinizing the cave.

“Maybe we should just call it a mission now,” he said. “We came here to find out if anything eldritch was down there, and I think you just answered that question.”

Chloe was silent for a long moment, giving his suggestion some serious consideration. She didn’t want to go down there. But she also didn’t want to live in a world where monsters like Olympia Kostaki killed her friends with impunity. She shook her head. “We have to get closer. If this is an Atlantean outpost, there could be an artifact down there.” She hoped the cave contained a weapon. The Atlanteans had forgotten more about magic than the Children would ever know. “We need to do this now,” she said. “With all the resonance this place is giving off, every mage within a thousand kilometers will be here in a month, sniffing about.”

Victor bit his upper lip. “Okay, but you give the word, and we’re gone. Monroe can send Aspen with the 101st Airborne as backup.”

“I think Aspen is out of the game now,” Chloe said sadly.

Wyatt moved to the center of the defensive perimeter, where the combat engineers and civilians knelt. The two civilians were ready to go, but the engineers were still prepping their equipment. Drenched in sweat, both men carried more gear than any of the Marines. Chuck had made the trek while carrying a small unmanned ground vehicle, a SUGV, strapped to his already heavy backpack. They may have been Army pukes, but the two combat engineers were hardcore.

Wyatt knelt next to Chuck and placed his lips near the other man's ear. “You're with us.”

Chuck nodded, finished his work, and then joined Haley, BB, and Sticks as Blowout joined Roy's fireteam. Wyatt didn't like having a new man on his team, but an engineer would be invaluable if the group encountered booby traps. He returned to his team and then considered the two civilians. Chloe had removed her night-vision glasses and sat cross-legged, her hands on her lap, her eyes closed. What the hell is she doing, meditating?

When her eyes opened a few seconds later, they seemed to flash green for a moment.

What the⁠—

Just then, Lou waved at Wyatt and then raised his hand shoulder high, palm to the front, and swept it toward the cave entrance.

Wyatt's pulse raced. Game time.

He tapped BB, his scout, on the back. BB—Bernard Backhouse—was of Pennsylvania Dutch descent and claimed his family were hardcore Quakers, but he had never really bought into the whole “thou shalt not kill” thing. Short and squat, with huge upper arms and thighs, he could move with alarming speed when he wanted to. He was also quieter than any man Wyatt had ever known, and Wyatt had grown up among hunters. When BB looked over his shoulder, Wyatt repeated the hand signal. Without a moment's hesitation, BB rose and slipped forward. After he had walked about fifty feet, Wyatt followed, leading Haley, Chuck, and Sticks. BB entered the cave first but was only out of sight for several seconds. When he reappeared, he motioned the others forward. Wyatt led his team into the Monster Cave.

The cave entrance throbbed with the stenches of rotten garbage, feces, and blood. In the complete darkness, the group members needed their weapon-mounted IR lasers to provide the light for their MNVDs to function, kind of like shining a flashlight only you could see. Even with the night-vision gear, Wyatt almost tripped over a corpse. The cave surface was covered in dead insurgents. The Taliban had fought hard here, that much was certain. Anyone who thought Pashtun men were poor warriors had never fought them. Battle was in their blood.

The natural cave was long and low, shaped like a wedge, and at least eighty meters wide and maybe twenty deep. In places, the low-hanging ceiling forced Wyatt and the others to walk bent over. Ammo boxes and wooden crates sat about. Dozens of rifles, mostly the ubiquitous AK-47 of the third world, were stacked upright against several crates or lying in the dirt. There was even a single rocket-propelled grenade launcher, an RPG-7. The weapon was unloaded, but Wyatt didn't doubt there would be grenades somewhere. It'd be dangerous to use in such a confined location, but if the insurgents were desperate enough...

A single tunnel lay at the rear of the cave, reinforced by thick wooden beams. Wyatt motioned for BB to lead the way again. Holding his M-4 at the low ready, BB slipped into the tunnel, keeping tight against the wall to minimize his silhouette. Wyatt followed, keeping to BB’s opposite side, and the others, in turn, followed Wyatt. Behind them, he saw Roy and his fireteam enter the cave complex.

The tunnel, at least a hundred feet long, sloped downward and curled to the right, with the wooden support beams set every half dozen paces. Well-trodden wooden boards lay across the floor, and the insurgents had bolted electrical cords with cold bulbs to the rock ceiling. They had generators down here, Wyatt realized. He ran a gloved hand over one of the support beams and noted it was so old it appeared fossilized. Just how sturdy were they?

Ahead, BB dropped to a knee and raised his left hand.

Wyatt and the others mimicked him, lowering their profile. BB pulled a glow stick from his MoTav, broke the stick, and shook the chemicals within to create a soft orange light. He set the glow stick atop one floorboard and pointed at the metal wire running across the tunnel at ankle height.

Wyatt's heart raced. He turned to Chuck, mouthing the phrase “booby trap.”

The combat engineer nodded, removed his pack with the SUGV strapped to it, and set the pack on the tunnel floor before slipping past Wyatt with a multitool in his hand. Chuck knelt in front of the trip wire, blocking Wyatt's view, but under thirty seconds later, Chuck gave a thumbs-up.

Wyatt motioned for BB to move on, and the other man slipped forward. Wyatt brought Chuck his heavy pack and then considered the now-inert booby trap—a hand grenade hidden in a recess in the wall. Simple but effective. Pull the wire with your foot, and you'd pull the grenade's pin. First man to pass by activates the grenade; three to five seconds later, the grenade goes off, killing whoever's next in line. In the tight confines of the tunnel, the shrapnel would find someone, likely several someones. But the commandos had already been down this tunnel—at least twice—which meant the grenade had been set after the commandos had come through.

There were still insurgents down here.

Wyatt drew his right hand, palm down, across his neck in a throat-cutting motion from left to right—danger present. Haley repeated the gesture to Sticks, who repeated it to Roy and his team farther back in the tunnel. Wyatt keyed his radio. “Ripper-0, this is Ripper-1, over.” He kept his voice low, barely a whisper.

A loud burst of static came in reply, but Wyatt made out Lou's one-word response. “Go.”

“We've got an IED in the tunnel. Consider this place hot.”

“Always did,” his friend answered, once again garbled by static.

“Ripper-1, roger, out.”

They left the orange glow stick in place. Its light wouldn't travel very far, and, if nothing else, it would remind everyone to watch where they put their feet. Then they followed the tunnel for another fifty meters, which sloped downward all the while. When BB stopped, he dropped to a knee again, and Wyatt saw him waiting at the opening to another cave. Wyatt motioned for BB to go on, and the other man slipped out of sight.

Although the air was cooler down here, sweat still coated Wyatt's skin. Time seemed to stretch on; BB was taking too long, and Wyatt considered going after him. But just then, BB reappeared and motioned for them to move forward.

Wyatt led the others into the second cave, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet wide, almost twice the size of the entrance cave. This one was circular, with a high overhead ceiling. The insurgents had built up a section of the chamber with plywood walls, creating an enclosure stacked with rows of jerry cans—containing diesel and gasoline, judging by the smell. Seven ancient generators, all covered in dirt and rust, sat against the far wall with a rat's nest of cables running toward them. The insurgents had patched the wires together with what looked like packing tape and huge globs of tin or copper soldered over them. An oil can had fallen over and spilled its contents beside one generator. The rest of the chamber was filled with crates, barrels, and other detritus. Wyatt approached the closest generator, placed the back of his gloved hand against it, and found the metal cold. He motioned for BB to go to the left-hand side of the cavern while he moved along the right. The others divided themselves behind him, and they cleared the chamber, scanning each obstacle for a hidden enemy. Their IR lasers moved back and forth like a green laser show. More insurgent corpses lay scattered about the cavern, but now, the members of the group saw their first dead commando. It must have been the man with the GoPro, Wyatt realized.

The dead man's face was locked in a rictus of horror, the flesh stretched wide around his bared teeth. What the hell did you see, friend? Another tunnel sat at the rear of the cavern, but this chamber was empty.

Wyatt keyed his radio. “Cave clear,” he whispered.

A burst of static was the only reply he received.

So much for the radios.

Wyatt reached into his vest, pulled out a green glow stick, and snapped it. He shook the stick before tossing it into the center of the chamber. Orange for traps, green for clear.

Just then, he felt something odd, as if a nebulous presence washed over him. Emotions swept through him before they vanished like smoke: anger, hunger, and... anticipation. It was as though the shadows themselves had momentarily entwined with his soul. He shivered from the lingering chill and pushed on.

The next tunnel was longer than the first, and this time, they came upon several smaller storerooms built along its length, each chipped out of the stone. The group paused only long enough to clear each one and throw a glow stick within it. One storeroom, about ten feet wide, was a weapons cache stacked with rifles, a pair of light machine guns, and more wooden ammo crates—all sporting Iranian markings. Links of machine gun ammo lay about in piles. The insurgents had clearly planned on staying here for a long time.

Ahead, the tunnel narrowed and turned right, heading, Wyatt guessed, north. He had to guess because the compass on his watch spun wildly.

After about a hundred meters, the tunnel opened into another cave, which BB once again scouted first before motioning Wyatt and the others forward.

This cave, even larger than the others, was wedge shaped, with a single tunnel leading from it on the group’s left. More dead bodies lay strewn about, this time just as many commandos as insurgents. The air throbbed with the scents of rot and feces. A hard fight had taken place here. Rows of homemade bunk beds filled half the cave, each covered in old blankets and sleeping bags. There must have been more than a hundred beds. If the insurgents had been hot-bunking, two hundred or more bad guys could have been living here. Medical equipment and piles of supplies, including bloody bandages, lay strewn about the floor. There was even a homemade bakery and cooking pit along the far wall, complete with sacks of flour and tins of food. Wyatt had to admit, the insurgent base impressed him. In 2001, just before the Battle of Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden's infamous cave base, intelligence believed Laden's cave system to be impregnable, holding thousands of fighters, a hydroelectric power plant, a hospital, offices, extensive ammo stores, and even a hotel for visitors. That had all been bullshit. Once the special forces had taken it, they realized that the much-feared cave system was little more than a series of natural caves with some small rooms built into them, hardly a mountain fortress.

This place was a fortress.

Wyatt and the others entered the cave, splitting apart and moving through it, ready for anything as they swept their IR beams about. Wyatt pointed at Haley and then the tunnel on their left. She nodded, dropped to a knee, and directed her M-4 at the opening while the others searched the chamber. Aside from the corpses, the vast cave was empty. BB stood near a recess at the rear, and Wyatt joined him. The stenches of feces and urine were a punch to the nut-sack. “Jesus,” Wyatt swore.

“Filthy bastards,” BB muttered, sweeping his IR beam over a foot-wide gap in the recess's surface, a natural crack. Human feces was splattered on both sides, marking the insurgent latrine. “Who shits where they sleep and eat?”

“Bad guys,” Wyatt said before tossing another glow stick into the chamber's center. Then Wyatt and BB joined Haley at the tunnel entrance. This tunnel looked different from the others—newer, with more recent support beams. It turned right then straightened out again.

Wyatt tapped BB on the shoulder and motioned for him to go ahead. BB disappeared around the corner but returned in less than a minute.

“You're gonna want to see this for yourself, boss.”

CHAPTER

TEN

Half an hour into the cave system, the large staff sergeant—Armstrong, Victor thought his name was—signaled for them to wait in place while the first team cleared a large cavern. Victor knelt in the tunnel alongside Chloe. So far, the Marines impressed him with their tactics. They weren't a Division Shadowstrike team, but they'd do in a pinch—just so long as they didn't run into anything that could give them the Shivers. If that happened…

When he felt a presence brush against his mind, he stiffened. Victor wasn't special, like Chloe, but the Division had trained him to recognize telepathic intrusions. Chloe looked in his direction, her eyes tight; she, too, had felt the intrusion. The presence wasn't strong, so it probably wasn’t an attack, but he treated it as hostile anyhow. He brushed his fingers over the wristband on his left arm, touching the arcane sigils carved into the band’s bronze surface, and recited the activation mantra under his breath. “Beautiful Goddess, mother of might, mother of all things…” By the time he finished, several verses later, the presence had been forced away.

Chloe drew the sigil for Aura of Silence. The closest Marine was about ten paces away. If anyone looked, they might see Victor and Chloe's lips moving, but no one would have heard a word. Chloe and Victor would have to take the chance that there were no lip readers in this group. “Definitely something down here,” she said.

“Living?”

She shrugged. “Define ‘living.’”

His mind flashed back to the statue of the Voth on the video footage. “Do you think maybe it's... you know, them?”

“Them who?”

“The Voth. Could they still be...”

“No.” Chloe shook her head. “Not possible. They're gone.”

“Maybe they came back.”

“We'd know. My mother would know.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so. They may have left something behind, though.”

“You think they left the oven on?”

“Maybe. More likely, it's a counterintrusion mechanism, like a ward. Whatever it is, we'll need to be careful.”

Victor's unease became a weight in his gut. “What do you want to do?”

She considered his question in silence for a few moments, her lips tight. Then she said, “I'll risk a probe; a quick one shouldn't set off any traps... I hope. Give me some cover.”

“Take it.”

Chloe lowered herself onto the tunnel surface and sat cross-legged. She removed her helmet and placed it on the ground beside her. An astral probe was quick and relatively easy—at least she wouldn't have to take her clothes off.

Armstrong must have seen her, because he moved back to join them. “What⁠—”

“It's fine,” Victor said, moving in front of the man. “She needs a minute. I'll let you know when we can move on.”

Armstrong watched Victor through his monocular night vision, looking unhappy, but then he nodded. “You're the boss.”

“Yes,” Victor replied in as deadpan a manner as he could.

The staff sergeant walked forward again to speak to the Afghan major. Chloe rested the backs of her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. Victor ran his fingers over his hidden GLUMP pistol and the hilt of his bowie knife. His weapons were where they were supposed to be, but it was nice to be certain; some habits never died.

After about a minute, Chloe's eyes snapped open. “We got a problem.”

Wyatt followed BB into the tunnel, wondering what had spooked the other man. He rounded the corner and saw that the end of the tunnel had collapsed into another cavern below—a rockslide, maybe the result of a cave-in. But just in front of the opening, in the cavern below, was the giant statue of an insect. The way the statue was placed, it looked like the insect’s formless head was staring down the tunnel. “Oh,” Wyatt said.

“Nearly shat myself when I saw it,” BB said.

Where the end of the tunnel had collapsed, a perilous-looking ramp of loose stones led some twenty or thirty feet to the cavern surface below. Ropes, fraying and decades old, had been bolted to the tunnel’s walls, creating guides that led down the rockslide. Wyatt moved to the edge and played his IR beam over the rockslide the group would need to navigate to get to the bottom.

“Fuck my life,” he said.

“Was thinking just the same thing,” BB said from beside him. BB considered the frayed ropes bolted to the walls. “Looks like the tunnel fell through a long time ago. That cavern is natural. Even got stalag, stalac... icicle-thingies.”

He was right. While the other chambers had been mostly carved out of the rock, this cavern had been created by nature. The chamber was enormous, at least as large as an auditorium, so big their IR beams couldn’t reach all of it. The massive insect statue stood at the bottom of the rockslide. It had been impossible to tell from the shaky GoPro footage, but up close, the statue defied simple description. Not a single bit of the enormous structure looked hand-carved. Nor did it look realistic. The statue was formed from large clumps of stone somehow fused together. It reminded Wyatt of a melted plastic figurine.

Scattered on the ground at the base of the rockslide and around the statue were dozens of corpses, all commandos, lying in bloody pools. Even from up here, Wyatt smelled the blood.

“You tracking those bodies?” BB asked.

Wyatt nodded. While many of the corpses bore the obvious signs of combat, bullet wounds and the like, others were ripped apart, arms, legs, and entrails lying nearby. Some of the bodies even looked crushed. He considered the rockslide before them. Anyone climbing down would be vulnerable. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll go first this time.”

“The fuck you will, fat-ass.”

Before Wyatt could stop him, BB picked up the rope and proceeded down the rockslide, pebbles and stones skipping ahead of him. Wyatt ground his teeth and repressed the urge to shoot BB himself. But Wyatt had to admit, BB had descended more quickly than he could have.

Once on the bottom, BB moved behind the base of the statue, using it for cover.

One down. So far, so good. Wyatt turned to Haley. “You and the others wait for my signal.”

She bobbed her head, looking like a cyclops with her night-vision scope. Wyatt lowered himself down the rockslide—maybe not as quickly as BB but well enough. He reached the bottom without falling or otherwise embarrassing himself and joined BB behind the base of the massive insect statue.

“This don’t feel right, boss,” BB whispered. “Place makes my balls itch.”

“I don’t love it either.”

BB considered the dead commandos’ mangled bodies. “This wasn’t no weapon, no bomb. Not even a bunker buster.” He spat on the floor. “Something living did this, something big. You can see how the blood and guts are shoved about.”

He wasn’t wrong. Something large had moved about the cavern, leaving long smears in the blood. “We saw wolves outside,” Wyatt said.

BB snorted. “Ain't no wolf ever lived what did this. Cave bear, maybe?”

“I don't know. We'll figure it out.”

The cavern before them was the largest yet, its depths well beyond the range of Wyatt’s IR or night vision. That was going to be a problem. Broken stones and piles of rubble littered the cavern surface, but there must have been another cave-in at some point, because much of the debris had fallen in the center of the cavern, creating a natural wall-like barrier that stood ten feet high. Car-sized stalactites hung from the ceiling. Corpses of both insurgents and commandos littered the ground in front of the barrier.

Wyatt heard a whisper, but it was too soft, too indistinct.

He glanced at BB and was about to ask him to repeat himself, but BB was staring out over the debris before them. Wyatt shivered. Losing it down here. These freaking caves were messing with his head. He forced his attention back to the task at hand.

Wyatt signaled for Haley to descend. With considerably more skill than either man, she lowered herself down the rockslide, not even bothering to use the ropes. Haley was a long-time rock climber, so this task must have been easy for her. In moments, she moved behind cover on Wyatt’s left. Chuck came next, followed by Sticks. Both men moved to Wyatt's right. His entire team was now on the ground. Time to clear the cavern. Wyatt was about to send BB when his radio popped, followed by a long hiss. He depressed the push-to-talk button on his vest. “This is Ripper-1, say again, over.”

Another long burst of static ensued. This time, Wyatt heard Lou's voice at the end. “—in place, over.”

Wyatt met BB's gaze and shrugged. “Ripper-1, holding in place, over.”

No answer came, but none was needed because under a minute later, Roy's fireteam moved forward atop the rockslide. One by one, Roy's team climbed down. Each man lay prone and took firing positions on Wyatt's right. What was going on?

He got his answer when Lou, Major Durani, and Blowout climbed down and joined Wyatt behind the statue, followed by Chloe and Victor. Rami and Doc must have stayed up top with Abigail's team.

“What's up?” Wyatt asked Lou.

Lou placed his lips near his ear. “We've got a problem... maybe.”

“What kind of problem… maybe?”

“The kind where bad guys shoot at you.”

Wyatt stared at his friend, shook his head, and then peered forward once more. The debris barrier was about two hundred feet ahead. The cavern floor before it was uneven, with broken boulders. The spot would be good for an ambush. “Okay, how do we know this?”

Lou tossed his head toward Chloe.

“What, is she a psychic?” His voice might have carried a touch of unintended derision.

“No,” Chloe retorted. “Someone who just saved your ass.”

Victor glared at Wyatt.

“It is... unusual,” Major Durani whispered in a placating tone. “But let's apply some caution.”

“We're gonna send Robby the Robot in first,” Lou said. “Just in case.”

Wyatt considered the barrier and shrugged. “Be my guest.”

Blowout and Chuck unstrapped the SUGV and prepared it for use. In less than a minute, the SUGV was ready. Blowout held out a remote control with a small camera screen and twin joysticks. He looked to Lou, who deferred to Major Durani. The Afghan officer nodded, and Blowout pushed one joystick forward. With barely a sound, the SUGV advanced on its tracks, the camera panning back and forth on the elevated arm. Blowout piloted the SUGV around the rocks and corpses.

For a while, nothing happened.

The small vehicle was fewer than fifty feet from the large debris barrier when an assault rifle opened fire in a long burst. Bullets struck the ground around the SUGV, but at least one hit it, knocking it onto its side. Then a dozen more assault rifles opened fire from the barrier. Bullets cracked past the Marines.

Chloe had been right.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

"Contact front!" Wyatt yelled, using his M-4 to fire off a long burst that was unlikely to hit anything but might disrupt the enemy's aim.

Lou and BB also opened fire. Wyatt fired several more bursts until his weapon clicked empty. Dropping behind the base of the statue, he ejected his spent magazine and loaded another, all while enemy gunfire cracked around his squad. “Smoke front!” he yelled.

BB popped a smoke grenade and threw it into the kill zone. The grenade detonated with a crack and began filling the area with thick smoke. The barrage of gunfire lessened.

“They're behind the debris barrier in the center of the cavern,” Lou yelled, his deep voice carrying over the gunfire. “Ripper-1, take your team left. Ripper-2, go right. Ripper-3, overwatch from the tunnel entrance. Space is limited. Watch friendly fire!”

The antiambush drill was a textbook scenario—something they had practiced hundreds of times before. Combat was chaotic, so keeping matters simple was crucial. Wyatt screamed over the gunfire, “Ripper-1, on me. We're going left!”

As his fireteam moved to support him, Wyatt began firing shorter, aimed bursts, placing his IR laser where he saw gun flashes over the rocks. Insurgent bullets cracked overhead.

“Moving!” BB replied, dashing forward and taking cover behind a boulder.

Wyatt took a quick glance around. Haley, Chuck, and Sticks were flanking him. Lou and Major Durani remained in the center, coordinating the fight and laying down their own fire. Roy's fireteam had spread out on the right. Victor and Chloe lay prone behind the statue base, with Victor shielding Chloe. Abigail and her team fired on the enemy from the tunnel above. Their combined fire was effective, suppressing the enemy to the point that they returned only sporadic shots.

Each Marine's M-4 was equipped with a foot-long suppressor. Although the suppressed gunfire was still loud, the modification allowed the Marines to hear themselves shout. In battle, communication was almost as important as shooting. Wyatt rose from cover. “Moving!” he yelled, charging forward.

“Covering!” BB shouted, opening fire.

Wyatt threw himself prone behind a low pile of rocks alongside BB. Guessing from the sound of gunfire that the enemy carried AK-47s, Wyatt activated the thermal imager on his MNVD. After a moment of blurriness, his vision sharpened. He saw orange heat signatures behind the rocks. A torso-sized shape appeared, followed by a flash of gunfire. Wyatt aimed his IR laser at the man's chest and fired individual shots.

At the Marine Corps School of Infantry, instructors taught the Failure Drill: two bullets to the center of mass then one to the head. Wyatt emptied at least eight rounds into the man's torso until he fell away.

Combat was rarely as simple as Failure Drills.

Wyatt targeted another figure then another, causing two more insurgents to drop. When no more heat signatures appeared, he fired rounds into potential hiding spots. Upon emptying his magazine, he yelled, “Reloading,” and rolled to another pile of rocks to reload behind cover. BB suppressed the enemy while Haley, Sticks, and Chuck advanced as an impromptu team.

They were about a hundred feet from the debris barrier now. A quick look around showed him most of his fireteam were behind cover, but Haley and Chuck lay prone as they fired their weapons. Only the smoke protected them, and that wouldn't last forever.

His radio crackled. “Ripper-2, moving forward to engage,” Roy called out calmly. Wyatt hated it when he both disliked and admired someone.

“Ripper-1, roger,” Wyatt acknowledged.

Wyatt rose from behind his cover and laid down a barrage of covering fire. When he ducked back down, he saw that Haley, Sticks, and Chuck were now behind cover too. On their right, Roy's fireteam moved forward in tactical bounds.

Just then, the thunderous roar of a machine gun—something big like a belt-fed 7.62-mm PKM—opened fire. The large-caliber rounds and green tracers ripped through the cavern. Being in this cave was like being in the heart of a metal storm. Far to the right, where Roy's fireteam engaged the enemy, someone flew back at least twenty feet, his body cut in half.

Wyatt's heart leaped into his throat.

The enemy gunner was shooting at Roy's team, but that couldn't last. Judging by the green tracer fire, the machine gun sat atop the center of the debris pile, maybe a hundred feet away. The weapon had an unobstructed field of fire on the Marines, and while the smoke still provided them with some concealment, the enemy gunner, in this enclosed space, was going to kill more of Wyatt's friends. He needed to do something now.

Wyatt let his M-4 hang by its sling and grasped the M-320 grenade launcher slung over his back. With long-practiced ease, he opened the side-loading chamber, inserted a 40-mm HE grenade, and snapped the chamber shut, priming the weapon. He didn't bother extending the rear stock; he had no time. As another burst of machine gun fire ripped through the cavern, Wyatt aimed and fired. “Grenade!”

The weapon made a distinctive thump.

If Wyatt had guessed the range wrong, the grenade would have no time to prime and would be about as effective as throwing a rock. When the grenade exploded atop the barrier with a tremendous detonation, the machine gun fell silent.

Wyatt felt a savage satisfaction surge through him.

Roy's fireteam surged forward again, and Wyatt slung his grenade launcher and grasped his M-4. “Go, go, go!” he yelled then opened fire with short bursts.

Haley, Chuck, and BB sprinted several paces past Wyatt and then threw themselves prone. As the former three opened fire, Wyatt and Sticks ran forward. The incoming enemy fire was now only the odd, angry shot, and Abigail's team kept up a steady stream of M-4 fire from above the rest of the group, suppressing the enemy. They'd be shooting high, but the enemy wouldn't know that.

Wyatt and his team needed to get through that debris barrier and clear it.

The Marines had reversed the ambush, taking back the initiative through speed of action and violence. Now, they needed to fight through the objective.

The debris barrier was irregular, with gaps the group would need to climb over. It wasn't as bad as room clearing, but it would slow them down.

Wyatt surged forward, slamming up against the left of the closest gap, a two-foot-wide space. BB slid behind him, and Haley and the others stacked up on the other side. Wyatt's lungs burned, and his heart felt ready to burst through his body armor, but he forced himself to take several deep breaths and then flipped up the thermal intensifier on his MNVD. Now came the dangerous part—the Fatal Funnel. He reloaded while Haley took an M-84 flashbang grenade from her MoTav. She discarded the pin and held the grenade handle in place. He nodded, and Haley leaned around the edge of the gap and tossed the flashbang into it. They all turned away and closed their eyes. Several seconds later, the grenade detonated. Stones rained about them.

Wyatt ran into a room-like space in the center of the barrier. He made an instant assessment and moved left. Just behind him, Haley moved right. Two insurgents lay unmoving on the cavern floor, but two live ones stumbled about, clutching their ears. All four insurgents wore night-vision devices.

Wyatt put his IR laser on the chest of the closest man and dropped him with two shots to the chest and one to the face, executing a textbook Failure Drill.

How about that? Sometimes, combat was that simple.

Haley plugged round after round into the other man until he stopped moving. BB and Sticks shot the other two men in the head, technically committing a war crime, but Wyatt wasn't judging anyone today. The sharp tastes of cordite and blood sizzled in the air. Sticks broke open a green glow stick and tossed it into the center of the cleared space. A path led to their right. Wyatt and BB stacked on either side of it, with Haley, Sticks, and Chuck stacking behind them.

Wyatt's thoughts raced. The insurgents have night-vision gear. He had never seen that before. Again, he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

This time, he prepared a flashbang grenade, which he primed for action. “Flash out!” he yelled then threw it through the open gap.

The grenade detonated with an ear-splitting roar. Once more, Wyatt stormed through first, this time going right. Another cleared space awaited the group, as did two dead insurgents.

Wyatt shot both in the head anyhow.

Garbage, debris, and spent casings lay scattered around, along with sleeping bags and ammunition boxes. The insurgents had used half a dozen wooden crates to create a platform to stand on and shoot over the rocks. Wyatt saw the PKM machine gun that had been firing on them atop the platform; its gunner lay nearby, his head missing. Two more pathways led out of the cleared space, one to the rear and another farther into the debris. To their right, they heard another flashbang grenade, followed almost immediately by aimed shots as Roy's team cleared the debris. Momentum was the key to CQB. They couldn't let up now, but the last thing anyone wanted was to engage a friendly.

Wyatt keyed his radio. “Ripper-2, this is Ripper-1. We are clearing the obstacle on the left. Watch for friendlies, over.”

Roy's voice came back, sounding half asleep. “Ripper-2, got it. Meet you on the other side... if you're not dead.”

Wyatt used hand signals to direct the others. He and Haley stacked on either side of the left-hand passage, while BB, Sticks, and Chuck took the one to the rear. Good Marines could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. The group would hit both funnels at once.

Haley threw a flashbang grenade, and Wyatt surged into the funnel. The path was longer, lined with boulders. As Wyatt moved forward, holding his carbine in the low ready so he could shoot over the sights with the IR laser, an insurgent wearing night-vision goggles stepped around the end of the path and raised his AK-47. Wyatt fired, but not before the insurgent had pulled his own trigger. Something punched Wyatt in the chest, slamming him onto his back and driving the air from his lungs. He lay there, gasping for air, half blind with pain, only vaguely aware as Haley advanced over him, firing short bursts with her M-4.

Only seconds passed, but it felt like a lifetime before he could breathe again. He saw Haley drive aimed shots into three insurgents lying in a pile at the end of the pathway. She swept her weapon around the corner, aiming at anything that moved on the other side. Haley fired three more quick, aimed shots then hurried back to Wyatt and knelt beside him.

“Don't move,” she ordered, patting him down, running her hands over his torso and neck.

“Feels... feels...” he gasped, reaching for her wrist.

“I said don't move!” she snapped.

He lay back, trying to breathe.

Haley yanked open his MoTav, exposing his shirt. “No blood,” she said in a tone of disbelief. Then she opened the ballistic pocket that contained his ceramic trauma plate. She sat back, flashing her teeth in a smile. “Plate's smashed. You took two to the chest, but the plate stopped both. You are one lucky bastard!”

He groaned and, with her help, sat up. “Don't feel... lucky.” It felt like a mountain lion had clawed his lungs out.

“Consider the alternative.” Haley pointed with her M-4 at the three dead insurgents.

“Point taken.”

BB and Chuck appeared from behind. “Other path clear,” BB said. “One exit. Sticks is covering it.”

Now sitting with his back against a rock, Wyatt pointed at the three dead insurgents. “Finish clearing the area.”

“Already did,” said Haley. “Nothing there but another firing position and corpses.”

BB helped Wyatt to his feet. Although it hurt each time he took a breath, he didn't think his ribs were broken.

No more gunfire ensued. As if on cue, Roy's voice came over Wyatt’s radio. “Ripper-0, this is Ripper-2. Took down a half dozen bad guys. All clear right.”

“We're... we're good on the left,” Wyatt transmitted. “All clear.”

“Hey, boss,” Roy said over the radio. “We've got eyes on the ruins, that temple-looking thingy. Maybe a hundred meters on the other side of the obstacle.”

“Roger that,” Lou announced. “Put some light on it. We're coming through.”

With BB supporting him, Wyatt and the others retraced their steps and came out the pathway at the rear of the obstacle belt. Sticks knelt there, covering the open ground Roy had just called in.

As he heard the pop of a grenade launcher, Wyatt closed his eyes. “Illumination flare,” he warned the others.

A second later, the 40-mm “Star” flare Roy had just launched ignited with a sharp crack. The cavern's ceiling must have been too low for the parachute to deploy, because the flare rebounded from the ruins, illuminating the ground in front of the group.

Wyatt raised his MNVD scope and shielded his eyes from the glare as he considered the ancient structure. It was bigger than he had realized, standing as tall as the insect statue. Stone columns held a massive ziggurat aloft, but several of the columns had fallen in, as had a large portion of the stone ceiling. Whatever this place was, it had to be the archaeological find of the century.

“You all right, boss?” Sticks asked.

“I'll live.” Wyatt squeezed Sticks's shoulder. “Set up a defensive line here. Keep eyes on that structure, and pat everyone down for injuries—and get me an ammo count.”

“On it.”

As the members of Wyatt's fireteam took up their positions, Sticks moved from one Marine to another, running his hands over their torsos and limbs. In the excitement of battle, Marines could be shot and not know it—until they passed out from hypovolemic shock. About a hundred feet to their left, Roy's fireteam was going through the same drill. When Wyatt recognized Roy's enormous frame among his men, he waved to him; Roy flipped him the bird.

Wyatt sighed and then checked his own ammunition pouches.

After Sticks checked Haley, she joined Wyatt and knelt beside him. “Took this from one of the bad guys.” She handed him a set of bloody night-vision goggles.

He examined the gear. The goggles were battered, the paint flecking away, but the cursive script inscribed along the set’s length was still legible.

“That look like Persian to you?”

“Iranian would be my guess.”

She sighed. “Pricks.”

“Well, they don't love us.” Wyatt turned away from the flare's glare and held the enemy's gear to his face. He saw the others well enough, albeit blurrily. “Not much good down here without IR lasers. Did you see any?”

“No. Maybe they don't understand how the technology works.”

“Maybe. If so, it would explain why they couldn't hit shit.”

“Didn't miss everyone,” she said sadly.

He remembered the man cut in half by the machine gun. “Who?”

She shook her head then looked away. “Whoever it was...” She trailed off.

Sticks returned. “All good, boss, not even a scratch. Down about three mags each.”

That was just under half of each man's combat load, about the same as Wyatt. They'd need to get more ammo from the packs. He wondered just how big this cave system was.

Lou came through the path in the debris belt, accompanied by Major Durani, Doc, Rami, the two civilians, and Abigail's fireteam. Roy and his team joined them as well, all still amped up on adrenaline. For most of the squad, this taste of combat had been their first.

“Shot 'em up right good,” Abigail said with a grin.

Lou considered Wyatt and stared at his mangled MoTav. “What happened?”

“Plate took a beating.”

Lou snorted and fingered the ripped ballistic cloth over Wyatt's chest. “That's coming out of your pay. Anyone else hurt?”

Wyatt shook his head. “We're good. But who⁠—”

“Sergeant Rogers... Blowout,” Lou said bitterly.

Wyatt closed his eyes and sighed; his emotions were too wound up to process the loss right now.

“Fuck!” said Chuck from where he knelt, having heard Lou. His shoulders trembled with emotion. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Wyatt's heart ached for Chuck. Losing a friend was a bitterly hard thing.

“A hero,” said Major Durani. “He will be honored, I promise you.”

Chloe and Victor stood just behind them. Chloe whispered something to Victor, pointing at the temple. They didn't seem worried, didn't act like civilians who had just gone through a firefight.

Wyatt turned to Lou. “Want to tell me how she knew about that ambush?”

“Damned if I know,” Lou said. “But she saved⁠—”

A bright flash lit up the cavern, coming from just behind one of the temple columns. In a single moment of perfect clarity, Wyatt saw a man surrounded by a halo of smoke, with a now-empty RPG-7 launcher on his shoulder; Wyatt even saw the grenade coming at them, trailing smoke.

Chloe darted in front of Wyatt, her palm held out.

He threw himself forward, tackled her, and covered her with his body as the grenade swept past.

The grenade detonated behind them with an ear-splitting roar. A shock wave of expanding gases rolled over Wyatt and Chloe, sending them both tumbling away. His ears rang, but he was alive. Chloe lay nearby, shaking her head.

As the insurgent loaded another grenade, Victor staggered forward, holding the strangest-looking handgun Wyatt had ever seen. Wyatt didn't see a gun flash, but the insurgent dropped.

Wyatt crawled to Chloe, who lay on her belly and stared at him with a look halfway between confusion and anger. Black soot covered her cheeks and chin. Her lips moved, but Wyatt couldn't hear her over the ringing in his ears. He sat on his ass, pulled off his helmet, shoved his headset down around his neck, and rubbed his ears. He didn't see any blood.

The air was thick with the harsh stench of explosive residue. Wyatt looked around, blinking. The others were moving, rising to their knees and shaking their heads.

Except for Lou, who lay on his back... with blood spurting from the stump of his left knee.

CHAPTER

TWELVE

Wyatt staggered to his friend and dropped to his knees beside him. Only ruined flesh with exposed bone remained beneath Lou's left knee. The injury wasn't spurting blood so much as draining—much too quickly. Wyatt ripped Lou's individual first aid kit from his MoTav and tore the lunchbox-sized pack open. He spilled its contents onto the cave surface and fingered through the bandages, ketamine, and other items until he found the combat tourniquet. His heart hammering, Wyatt slipped the tourniquet over Lou's knee and then used the six-inch-long plastic rod to tighten the self-adhering band. Lou screamed and thrashed, and Wyatt worried he'd hurt himself more, but someone else held Lou down—Abigail.

The flow of blood slowed, and when Wyatt wrenched the plastic rod one more turn, the bleeding became a trickle. Someone gripped Wyatt's shoulder and pulled him back. “Got it, Sergeant, I got it.”

It was Doc. As Doc took over, Wyatt slid away. Abigail and one of her team remained to help the Navy Corpsman.

Feeling disoriented, Wyatt gazed about himself. At least two others were injured: Sticks and another man, one of Roy's guys. Other Marines were tending to the two men, but their injuries didn't look life-threatening. Haley held a bandage to the side of Sticks's neck. Sticks stared at Wyatt with a glassy, shell-shocked look in his eyes, blood dripping from his chin. He smiled tepidly and waved. Wyatt waved back.

Hands patted Wyatt down, running over his limbs and back. A moment later, he saw the hands were Major Durani’s. The Afghan officer looked Wyatt in the eye, his hands on Wyatt's shoulders, holding him still. “Soldier, can you hear me?” he asked in his British accent.

“I... yes, yes, I can hear you.” He almost corrected the man by telling him he was a Marine, not a soldier, but Wyatt resisted the urge. His ears still rang, but the sensation was much less now. He lifted his Peltor headset back over his ears, and it magnified the major's voice.

“Are you in pain?” Major Durani asked.

“Check the girl.”

“The girl is fine,” Chloe snapped from behind him. A single trickle of blood dripped from one of her nostrils.

“You sure?”

Her sad brown eyes reflected the light of the flare as she looked away and watched Doc and Abigail work on Lou. “You shouldn't have tackled me,” she said so softly he almost missed it and would have if not for the augmentation of his headset.

But he had saved her life.

Hadn't he?

Victor appeared and gripped Chloe's arm, his eyes flashing. “Are you hurt?” He was no longer holding that strange pistol, and Wyatt guessed he wore a concealed holster.

“I'm fine.”

Victor watched her, clearly unhappy, but then he released her arm. “You're bleeding.”

She wiped her forearm across her upper lip, smearing the blood. “I'm not… It's okay. It was just a lot for me.”

“You're sure you're okay?” Victor asked.

“Yes, Mom.”

“We got lucky,” Wyatt said. “The grenade missed.”

“A miracle, praise God,” said Major Durani. “It seemed to change direction at the last second.”

Rocket-propelled grenades didn't just change direction, but combat was chaos, and the mind played tricks on you. Wyatt watched as Doc gave Lou a shot. Within a minute, Lou's thrashing lessened. Wyatt made a fist, stared at it for several moments, and then exhaled. Although he felt sick to his stomach, he had a job to do. He activated his radio. “All call signs, this is Ripper-1. I am assuming command.”

Abigail, holding Lou's hand between hers, looked up, met Wyatt's eyes, and nodded. His radio clicked, and he heard Roy's bored voice. “Roger.”

And just like that, all of these people’s lives were now in Wyatt's hands.

Wyatt turned to Major Durani. “Sir, we've got one dead and three injured, and one of the injured needs emergency medical attention. The dead man was our EOD expert, the guy who was supposed to disarm the bunker buster. We have an unknown number of enemy insurgents remaining⁠—”

“Doubt that,” said Victor to Major Durani. “I'm thinking these guys were the same assholes who hit your village last night. All dead now.”

Major Durani stroked his chin. “You may be correct.”

Wyatt said, “Maybe, but I recommend we call the mission.”

Major Durani considered him, and just for a moment, Wyatt saw him wrestling with indecision.

Before he could answer, Victor shook his head, his face resolute. “Not happening. This mission proceeds.”

Chloe stood behind Victor, looking every bit as determined as he was. Anger heated Wyatt's face, and he stepped closer to Victor. “The fuck it does. I'm⁠—”

“Not in charge of this mission. I am,” Major Durani said.

He wasn't really, but Wyatt didn't argue; there was little point. All Wyatt was in charge of was the tactical situation... maybe. The others would follow if he pushed the issue, but then what? Would Roy and Abigail be in shit as well? Could he do that to them? The sinking sensation in his gut was all the answer he needed.

“If that bunker buster is still functional,” Victor said, “we need to get to it before those peckerhead insurgents start kicking it or doing something equally stupid.”

“Mr. Crane is correct,” Major Durani said. “We still have the other combat engineer. I'm sorry for your loss, sergeant, but this is war, and we're still combat effective. I have my orders.”

Wyatt choked down his emotions. “Roger that, sir, but we're gonna need to rearm and medevac Staff Sergeant Armstrong and the other two. With all the blood he's lost, he'll go into shock.”

“Bring him to my men at the cave entrance. They'll carry him to the camp and our aid station. The rest of us must search those ruins.”

Wyatt felt ill but inclined his head. “Yes, sir.”

Knowing the decision was made, Wyatt turned away while Victor and Major Durani spoke in private. Wyatt gave his orders to Doc and the two wounded, who insisted they could carry Lou on a makeshift stretcher. Wyatt assigned two more men, Martin and Gardner, to help them and then collect more ammunition from the assault packs outside. Doc had already inserted a plasma bag into Lou's arm and held it over him as he walked alongside the stretcher. Wyatt didn't like losing their medic, but Lou would die without Doc. Every Marine was trained in combat first aid. They'd make do because they had to.

Rami approached Wyatt. “Maybe I should go with them. You know... make sure the commandos understand the staff sergeant needs urgent care.” As he spoke, Rami stared down.

Wyatt reached out and squeezed the man's shoulder. “There could still be bad guys here, Rami. I'm gonna need you.”

“That Winters woman speaks better Dari than I do. Use her.”

“You know it doesn't work that way. You're the interpreter!”

Rami opened his mouth but then shut it and turned away without another word. Wyatt understood. He didn't want to be here, either, and Rami wasn't even armed. Then Wyatt saw Doc had readied Lou for transport, so he headed over to say goodbye.

Lou was conscious but stoned. Wyatt gripped his friend's hand and squeezed it. “You hang in there, you hear me?”

Lou's lips moved, but Wyatt couldn't make out the words, even with his headset. He removed his helmet, dropped his headphones around his neck, and put his ear next to the man's lips.

“...take care of my Marines,” Lou whispered.

“You got it, brother.”

Lou let go of Wyatt's hand and gripped his hair, tugging on it. “And get a haircut.”

Wyatt forced a smile he didn't feel onto his lips. “Don't die.”

“Don't... plan to.” Lou's hand fell.

“We gotta go,” Doc said.

Wyatt motioned them on, and the five men headed out of the cave system, using the powerful flashlights attached to their rifles. “Keep your guard up on the way out!” he urged.

Doc raised his thumb as the men marched away.

Wyatt sighed, wondering if he was up to this.

They couldn't do anything for Blowout besides collect his remains, take his dog tags, and cover his body with a poncho. Chuck was devastated, but he soldiered on, taking what gear he needed from his friend. To Wyatt's surprise, the SUGV was still functional... mostly. The camera could no longer move. Chuck secured the device to his pack again.

Roy and Abigail approached Wyatt. “What are we doing?” Roy asked.

“We ain’t leaving, are we?” Abigail asked.

Wyatt shook his head.

She spat a wad of chewing tobacco on the ground.

Wyatt considered the temple ruins at the rear of the cavern. The flare had burned out. “Let's save the NVG batteries. Get your people fed and watered. We'll wait here for Martin and Gardner to return with the spare ammo. Then, when we're full up again, we can search those ruins. Hopefully, that'll be enough for our civvies.” He glanced at Major Durani, who knelt alone, praying, his back to them. “And our new commanding officer.”

Abigail walked away, but Roy remained, watching Wyatt. “Something else?” Wyatt asked, not up for more of Roy's shit today.

Instead, Roy put a meaty hand on Wyatt's shoulder and squeezed it. “Armstrong is just about the toughest Marine I know. He's gonna be fine.”

Not knowing what to say, Wyatt swallowed and nodded. Maybe Roy wasn't a complete dick.

Roy smiled. “But you're still a pussy.” Then he turned and walked off.

Wyatt sighed and returned to his own fireteam. Haley thrust a heavy, flat object into his hands. He stared at a curved ballistic plate.

She must have understood the confusion on his face because she said, “Staff Sergeant's. Not gonna do him any good now.”

He bit his lower lip, forcing his emotions down, and tossed the broken pieces from his plate carrier and slipped the heavy object into it.

Haley had a puzzled look on her face. “What?”

“What what?”

“What did you just say?”

“Didn't say anything.”

She sniffed. “Great. Now I'm hearing voices.”

“Just stress. The mind plays tricks on you.”

“Just as long as you don't tell me it's PMS.”

He smiled. “Get something to eat. We could be down here a while.”

Victor joined Chloe, who sat away from the others. He handed her an MRE consisting of cold lentils and masala sauce, a long plastic spoon, and a small water bottle. Then he ripped open his own MRE, the much less palatable pork with sauce and rice, and squeezed the contents into his mouth, spilling some down his chin.

She stared at the foil-wrapped contents in distaste.

“Eat,” he said, his mouth full of pork. “You'll need food, especially after all this hiking.”

“Looks like something you'd find in a baby's diaper.”

He chuckled. “Tastes about the same, too, but it's got calories. Besides, it's vegetarian, so a hippie tree-hugger like you should be just fine.”

“You're mistaking me for my mother. I eat meat sometimes.”

“Not talking about your boyfriends.”

“Don't be a pig.” She forced a spoonful of the glop into her mouth and then chewed and swallowed it. “This is really gross.”

He grunted and then sat beside her on a large boulder.

They ate in silence for some time. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and watched her face for long moments, thinking through what he needed to say, choosing his words carefully because she could be so damned touchy. “Chloe...”

“Don't say it,” she warned in a defensive tone.

“My job is to keep you alive. Can't do that if you're taking unnecessary chances.”

“Fine,” she answered, her voice laced with the kind of irritation he'd heard from his exes when they were especially pissed.

“Come on, partner. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I ought to save some lives—so I did. If that cowboy Marine hadn't tackled me, I could have deflected the grenade away entirely.”

He bit back an angry retort. She was too brave for her own good, but the problem was that she was an astromancer, the supernatural version of a recon specialist, not a combat mage like Aspen. “Your job is to take astral readings and divinations, not get into battle.”

“Is that what my job is?” she asked sarcastically.

Victor sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What do you think?” he said, changing the subject.

She stared at the temple ruins, which were now lit by a road flare, and shivered. “I think there's something immensely powerful down here, like nothing I've ever felt before. Practically takes my breath away.”

“Something ripped those commandos to pieces. Maybe something that my GLUMP pistol won't be able to deal with.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“We could go back right now. You could use your talisman to contact Christina. Maybe even your mother could send help. We could return with the big guns. I like these Marines, but...”

“Trust me, I'm not being brave. I would love to go home and soak in a tub.” She removed her helmet, ran her fingers back through her hair, and then shook her head. “Those ruins are Atlantean. This was one of their outposts. We need to keep going.”

He climbed to his feet. “Okay, just remember, I can't keep you safe if⁠—”

A white-hot lance of pain shot through his skull, and he collapsed.

When one of the primitive intruders entered an unplanned sleep cycle, the Guardian, ever vigilant, recognized the opportunity. It had been testing the intruders, seeking a weakness to exploit. Now, it surged its consciousness forth, brushing past the life-form's mental barriers and burying its mind down within organic depths.

The Guardian worked quickly, building and reinforcing a neural network—a pathway that would permit easier access to the life-form's consciousness and even allow it to alter its perception of base reality. But it wasn't time for that yet. For now, the Guardian scanned the life-form's prefrontal cortex and played back images of another, a smaller intruder. It recognized the life-form as a female of the species—a female who could touch magic.

A plan formed within the Guardian's vast organic network. For the first time in thousands of cycles, escape became a real possibility.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

When Victor fell, Chloe dropped the rest of her MRE and bolted upright, her heart racing. She felt like that same helpless little girl who had stood by, doing nothing, as her father was killed. But then the moment passed, and she sprang into action. “Man down!” she called out. She then dropped to a knee beside Victor and placed the back of her hand against his mouth. He was breathing—thank the Goddess.

Abigail Crosby, the big Marine woman she had sat next to on the helicopter, knelt on Victor’s other side; additional Marines were rushing over as well. “What happened, hon?” Abigail asked, her voice surprisingly gentle.

“He just collapsed.”

“Okay, let me see.” Abigail drew a small penlight from a pocket on her vest and turned it on. It blinded Chloe for several moments, and she blinked as the magic coursing through her retinas adjusted to the new light. When her vision cleared, she saw that Abigail was shining the penlight on Victor's ashen face. She then unstrapped his helmet, pulled it off, and handed it to Chloe. With her thumb, Abigail pried at and opened his eyelid, and she peered into his pupil. “Shit,” Abigail said. “His pupils aren't dilating. He's nonresponsive.”

“Do something,” Chloe urged.

“I am, hon, I am.”

Wyatt rushed over, as did Major Durani. “What's wrong?” Wyatt asked Abigail.

“He passed out—nonresponsive but breathin’,” Abigail answered.

“Let me,” Chloe insisted, placing her palms on the sides of Victor's head. She closed her eyes and cast an ethereal scan, a spell that was akin to an astral probe but focused inward on a person rather than an area. Normally, a spell like this would have been an unforgivable intrusion into Victor's privacy, but the situation was desperate. Chloe needed to understand what they were dealing with. Had the same eldritch consciousness that was probing them earlier attacked Victor? When she felt the malignant tumor buried deep within his parietal lobe, she gasped just before drawing back and staring in disbelief.

Abigail was watching her. “You okay, hon? You look like you've seen your own ghost.”

No, she thought, I've seen his.

“He's breathing better now,” Wyatt said, and then he, too, pried open one of Victor's eyes and shined his own penlight into it. “Pupils are dilating.”

“They weren't a minute ago,” Abigail said.

“Not doubting you, Abby.”

They removed Victor's body armor and unbuttoned his shirt. Chloe placed her ear against his hairy chest and heard his strong heartbeat, but it wasn't his heart that would kill him. It was that tumor.

“Could sure use Doc 'bout now,” Abigail said.

“I made the best choice I could at the time,” Wyatt shot back.

“Not sayin' you're wrong. Just sayin' we could really use Doc right now, is all. I'm not much help if it ain't a bleedin' issue.”

“Not the time!” Chloe snapped. A sick feeling passed through her as she realized Victor had been ill in his room earlier. He had lied to her, hiding his tumor. And the size of that damned thing! Victor was dying. She doubted any sanamancer could help at this point, but she'd use up all her favors finding out.

Victor moaned and then inhaled, his eyes fluttering.

“Coming to,” Abigail said.

Victor's eyes opened and focused on Chloe. She saw the realization on his face. The time for secrets was over. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I... not the time, partner,” he whispered, his eyes darting toward Abigail, Wyatt, and the major. “Help me sit up.”

“Maybe you should stay down,” Chloe said.

“I'm fine. Help me sit up.”

“You're not fine. You have a—” She glanced at the others. “You're not fine.”

They helped get Victor into a seated position, his back against the boulder they had been sitting on.

“What happened?” Wyatt asked Abigail.

She shook her head. “Just keeled over.”

“I'll be okay,” Victor said. “Just need a few minutes to pull myself together. Been a long day.”

Wyatt took a small plastic water bottle from his vest and helped Victor drink from it. “Slowly,” Wyatt said.

Chloe told Wyatt, “We're done here. We need to head back.”

Major Durani looked ill. “But... we have to search the ruins.”

“None of that matters now,” she replied.

“That's not how my government will see it.”

“I don't give a shit how your⁠—”

Victor grabbed her sleeve. “Chloe. No. Not for me. Finish the mission. Going back won't change anything. I just need my pills. They're in my pocket.”

“Painkillers?” Wyatt asked.

“Exactly,” Victor said.

Chloe found the pills, shook two into her palm, and placed each in Victor's mouth. He swallowed them, taking small sips to help. She looked at the others. “Can you give us a minute?”

“Sure,” Wyatt said. He, Abigail, and Major Durani moved away and conversed with one another.

Chloe whispered, “Why? Why hide this from me?” She felt as if she were breaking in half.

He gave her a paternalistic smile—like the big, stupid ape he was. “Chloe, what's gonna happen is gonna happen. That's just how life works.” He closed his eyes for a few moments, breathing deeply. When he opened them again, the color had returned to his face. “Help me stand up.”

She sniffed but helped him to his feet. He took several steps and nodded to himself. “Pills are kicking in. I'll be fine. Let's finish this thing.”

“You're an idiot,” she whispered, wiping her eyes.

He chuckled. “I've made a career out of it.”

She wrestled with the desire to strangle him.

“Come on, Chloe,” he said in a whisper of his own. “Be professional about this. You wanted to keep going earlier. Don't stop for me now. If there is a weapon down here, we have to find it. It'll be worth any price if we can avenge our friends—or protect others.”

She looked away and breathed deeply. He was right. It broke her heart, but he was right. “Okay,” she said softly, hating herself.

Wyatt, Abigail, and Major Durani joined them again, and Wyatt looked from Victor to Chloe. “So what are we doing?”

“We're finishing the mission, son,” Victor said.

Wyatt pursed his lips as he considered Victor. “You sure? Not too late to go back. I can send someone with you, and you can wait for us at the camp.”

Victor sniffed. “Waiting's not my style; getting shit done is.”

Abigail snorted. “Puh-lease.”

With a rakish smile on his face, Victor winked at her. “Now you remind me of my second wife.”

Abigail burst out laughing. “Honey, you ain't got the boots to handle me.” She handed him his body armor.

“Probably not,” Victor said with a sigh.

Wyatt looked at Major Durani. “Your call, sir.”

Just then, the flashlights of the two Marines Wyatt had sent with the wounded came into view. Both men wore packs, no doubt loaded with ammunition, water, and food.

“We keep going,” Major Durani said.

Chloe felt like a helpless little girl once more. Victor must have seen a look on her face because he took her hand and squeezed it. “It's fine.”

It wasn't fine.

But it was necessary.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Wyatt led the party to the temple ruins. A road flare burned in front of the structure, but the Marines also swept the beams of the powerful flashlights attached to their carbines back and forth.

The corpse of the insurgent Victor had shot with his odd pistol lay at the bottom of the steps, the rocket-propelled grenade launcher beside him. The man wore Iranian NVGs, and the hole in his chest was wide enough for Wyatt to shove his leg through. What kind of souped-up gun did Victor have?

Major Durani used the barrel of his assault rifle to dislodge the dead man's NVGs, exposing the body’s bearded face and a nearly comical expression of surprise.

“I know this man,” whispered Major Durani. “This is Bakht Mohammad, the brother of the Butcher, the same scum who attacked the village last night.” He spat on the corpse.

Wyatt focused on the job at hand: the temple. Tall stone columns, each at least twenty feet high and four feet wide, held aloft the remaining stone ziggurat. The structure looked dodgy as hell to Wyatt. He didn't know what purpose the ornate roof served, but if it fell while anyone was inside, it would crush them. An ancient tile courtyard lay in front of the columns, the tiles now black with age. Wide stone steps led up to the entrance. The temple reminded Wyatt of the ancient city of Petra, built into the mountains of Jordan. The stones looked too solid to be mud brick or sandstone, two materials ubiquitous in Afghanistan. He guessed the temple was made from granite or maybe even limestone. Hauling the stones down here would have been a Herculean effort, possibly even the result of decades of backbreaking labor.

And all to build a temple no one could get to.

Wyatt sent Abigail's fireteam to circle the large structure. Only a couple of minutes later, Abigail and her team came back. She slid next to Wyatt.

“There’s a tunnel in the cavern wall behind the temple, small and narrow. Looks like it took a hit, maybe a cave-in, but someone’s gone and cleaned it up.”

“Any idea where it goes?”

“Out. Saw steps. Smelled fresh air. It's gotta be a fast way out, a back door.”

“That would explain how Bakht Mohammad and his men got ahead of us,” Major Durani said.

“Want me to leave a couple of people to watch it?” Abigail asked.

Wyatt thought about it. He didn't like leaving a tunnel unsecured in their rear, but he disliked splitting his squad even more. He had too few people as it was. “No. We'll keep eyes on it as best we can from here. That'll have to do.”

Abigail slipped back to rejoin her fireteam.

“What do you want to do, sir?” Wyatt asked Major Durani. “That temple looks ready to come all the way down.”

The Afghan officer seemed to consider the temple. Then he looked at Victor and Chloe. Victor, in turn, deferred to Chloe, who shook her head.

“There's something, but we're going to have to go inside.”

What did she mean by “there's something”? Wyatt wondered. Around Chloe Winters, nothing made sense.

“You heard the lady,” Victor said. “Let's have a look-see.”

Beginning to really dislike Victor, Wyatt turned and pointed at BB and then to the temple's entrance. BB turned off his flashlight and lowered his night-vision scope over his shooting eye. Then he scooted up the steps and slipped inside.

Less than a minute later, BB reappeared and hurried over to Wyatt.

“Clear?” Wyatt asked.

BB nodded. “Yes, but...”

“I don't like that 'but.'”

“But there's another opening inside—with stairs.”

“Stairs?”

“Stairs going down.”

Wyatt sighed. “Of course they are.”

Major Durani pointed at the partially collapsed roof. “How solid does it look?”

BB shrugged. “Well, sir, bad, but if we don't go around kicking walls and shit, we should be okay.”

Wyatt considered the temple, feeling a heaviness in his gut.

“We need to go inside and assess the situation,” Major Durani said.

“Maybe we limit the number of people entering,” Wyatt said.

Major Durani looked around, his lips pursed. “Agreed. You, me, and our two experts.”

Wyatt motioned to Victor and Chloe, who rose and moved closer to him. “We're going in. Touch nothing.”

“Not our first ruins, son,” said Victor. “How about you watch our backs and let us do our jobs?”

Wyatt forced down an angry response. “Follow me.”

He led them up the worn stone steps, past the towering columns, and into the temple's expansive interior. The chamber, a vast hexagon stretching a hundred feet wide, lay under a blanket of rubble and broken stones. Wyatt’s flashlight swept across the room, casting light on ancient wall murals etched with faded markings, strange symbols like Egyptian hieroglyphics—pictograms. In the center of the chamber, his beam settled on something unexpected—a smooth black stone lid, circular and about thirty feet in diameter, set into the floor. Parts of the ceiling had collapsed onto it, smashing through the lid and revealing a shaft beneath, with downward-spiraling stairs carved into its side. He inhaled sharply. The pit looked like a mining shaft, but the meticulously crafted stairs suggested something more intentional—why were they there?

“Got another flare?” Victor asked Wyatt.

Wyatt pulled a road flare from his MoTav and struck it. The flare hissed and spat, casting a bright-red glow across the downward steps. They went deep, beyond the reach of his light.

“Toss it,” Victor ordered.

Wyatt let the flare drop. The red light fell for far longer than he had expected before it finally stopped—at least a hundred feet below the party. The stairs wound around the interior of the hole, stretching all the way down.

“Well, damn,” Chloe whispered in a tone close to reverence. “You don't see that every day.”

“Careful,” Wyatt said, moving alongside her, ready to pull her back. Up close, the stench of death and rot from below was unmistakable.

“Careful is my middle name,” she answered, making a face when she caught a whiff of whatever lay beneath.

“Anne is your middle name,” Victor said, moving past Wyatt to peer over the edge of the hole. “But the kid's right. Be careful.”

“Kid”? Kiss my ass.

Major Durani placed his hand on Wyatt's shoulder. “God save us,” the major whispered in awe.

“Well?” Victor asked Chloe.

All three men watched her, waiting.

After a long pause, Victor prodded her. “Chloe, is it what we thought?”

She moved away from the opening, approached a wall mural, and trailed her finger over the pictograms. Then she paused, looked up at Victor, and met his gaze. “It's exactly what we thought it might be.”

Victor smiled, and Wyatt wanted to scream at them both. What did they know?

Chloe returned her attention to the markings and studied them for long minutes.

“Can you... can you read these?” Major Durani asked.

“Some,” Chloe answered. “My Atl—my pre-Median isn't as good as it could be, but to be fair, no one's is. The phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics are—well, let's just say it's a dead language.”

“That's ancient Iranian, right?” Wyatt asked. “The Medes?”

Chloe cocked her head and considered him, the trace of a smile on her lips. “You're a very strange kind of Marine, aren't you?”

“I've read a book or two.”

“You are correct, Sergeant,” Major Durani said. “The Medes were an ancient Iranian race. They lived in this region around the tenth century BC.”

“Eleventh,” Chloe corrected him. “I think these may be older.”

“Really?” Surprise filled Major Durani's voice. “Babylonian?”

“Older.”

“What's older than Babylonian?” Wyatt asked.

“Lots of unpleasant things,” she whispered so softly he almost missed it.

“That doesn't seem possible,” Major Durani said. “But then...” he trailed off.

“What do they say?” Wyatt asked. “The markings?”

She traced her fingers over several of the illustrations. “A ‘Star Vault,’ ” she said. “Could be sky stone, or sun palace, or well, a hundred other things.”

“If this place is not Mede or Babylonian, what then? What race could create such a wonder here?” Major Durani asked.

“All good questions,” Victor said.

Wyatt caught the look of warning that passed between Victor and Chloe. Definitely keeping secrets.

She sighed. “I don't have answers. Not yet.”

“I guess we can rule out Alexander the Great, then,” Wyatt said.

Chloe sniffed. “Alexander was too smart to come down here.”

“Whatever people lived here long ago,” Major Durani said, “this is now a priceless heritage of the Afghan people.”

Victor moved closer to Chloe. He lowered his voice, but Wyatt still heard him through his headset. “What do you want to do?”

She sighed. “I think I need to have a look.”

“A look?”

She nodded. “A special look.”

Victor glanced over his shoulder at Wyatt and Major Durani then returned his attention to Chloe. “You'll be vulnerable.”

“Always am.”

“Okay, you're the expert. Call it.”

“I'm going astral.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Wyatt asked, his annoyance at the two beginning to simmer over.

“It means, son,” Victor said, raising his voice and extending his arms to either side, “that you and the major need to clear out. The lady has a job to do.”

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

“I can't just leave you two alone here,” Wyatt said. “We have no way of knowing who may be down that hole. There could be more insurgents.”

“We'll take that chance,” Victor said.

Wyatt remembered the strange but powerful pistol the man had concealed on his body, but even armed, Victor was taking too big a risk. No matter what these two thought, their safety was Wyatt's responsibility.

Near the circular opening, Chloe sat on a broken chunk of stone, removed her helmet and body armor, and unlaced a boot.

“This is very irregular,” Major Durani protested. He glanced at Chloe and looked away as she removed her sock.

“Afraid I'm going to have to insist,” Victor said. “Can't explain, so I'm not going to bother trying. All you need to know is that I'm ordering you to clear out, go wait out front with the others. We'll be fine.”

“Bullshit,” Wyatt said. “No way I'm leaving you unprotected.”

Victor looked as though he were about to say something Wyatt wouldn't like, but instead, he glanced at the entrance, at the bottom of the stairs where the others were waiting. “The two women, the big one and the young one. They can stay. That make you happy?”

Wyatt wasn't, but he didn't seem to have a choice. “Fine.”

Chloe had removed both boots and socks and now stood barefoot as she unbuttoned her shirt, exposing her T-shirt and some skin around her belly where the shirt rose.

“Let's go,” Victor ordered, raising his voice and holding his arms out. He ushered Wyatt and Major Durani back out of the temple.

Wyatt stalked down the steps.

“What's going on, boss?” Abigail asked.

“I need you and Haley to go inside and provide security for our two civilians. Watch out for a big opening in the floor. It's a long way down.”

Both Abigail and Haley gave Wyatt a confused look, but then, Abigail shrugged and spat a wad of chewing tobacco on the ground. “Roger that. Let's go, hon,” she told Haley. They both followed Victor back into the temple, leaving Wyatt, Major Durani, and the others outside.

“Most irregular,” Major Durani said.

Chloe was stepping out of her pants as the two female Marines entered. She was relieved neither of the women said a word despite the confusion on their faces. Each took up a sentry position at different sides of the temple and watched the outside as Chloe continued to undress. She stood in bra and panties now, her skin puckering in the chill.

Victor rejoined her. “You need some help?”

“Can you set up the ward for me? Salt and candles are in my vest.”

“On it.” He opened the vest pocket she had shown him and removed three small white candles and a metal tin the size of his fist.

Chloe removed her bra and set it atop her pile of clothes. Victor, who had seen her naked more times than her doctor had, was unfazed. The younger female Marine—Haley, she thought her name was—did stare before shaking her head and looking away. Chloe sighed. She hated, hated, hated when people looked at her like that.

Victor set the candles upright on the floor, about three feet from one another, creating a triangle. Then he opened the lid on the tin and drizzled the salt from it in a circular line around the candles. He fished a lighter from his pocket and lit the candles' wicks. A citrus smell danced in the air.

Chloe, now naked, considered the circle. Some astromancers—the powerful ones—could astral project fully clothed, but Chloe had always found the tactile sensation of clothing on her skin too distracting. According to her mother, that was because she didn’t trust herself enough to commit to her craft. Her mother might have been correct; she was one of the most powerful mages in North America. But her mother was a transmutationist, not an astromancer, so what did she know? Despite the all-knowing, all-powerful act she put on for others, sometimes, her mother was full of shit. The most important lesson Chloe’s mother had ever taught her about magic was that everybody was guessing—or faking.

Chloe stepped over the line of salt, made sure the circle was complete, and then lowered herself onto the cold tiles of the temple floor and assumed the lotus position. The backs of her hands rested on her knees.

Victor squatted outside the circle, taking care not to disturb the line of salt. “You ready?”

In reply, she batted her eyelids once. Then she inhaled several times, composing herself, doing her best to achieve the serenity necessary to separate her Kae—her mage-spirit—from her body.

She closed her eyes.

Astral projection wasn’t so much a spell as an inherent talent that only astromancers possessed. She couldn’t toss fireballs like Aspen or transmute material like her mother, but Chloe could go just about anywhere and see anything. Those who thought her magic too weak for combat didn’t understand just how powerful it could be. Her back straight, she relaxed her mind and breathed deeply. She focused on her Kae, near her heart, and imagined a light glowing and growing within her. She pictured the light within her becoming golden energy, envisioned it spreading from her core and filling her, down to her toes, her back, arms, and neck. She felt the energy, her spiritual manifestation of her Kae, spread to her face and the crown of her head, filling her. Then she imagined the energy leaving her body.

The vertigo caused by separating her Kae from her physical body lasted only a moment; then, formless, her consciousness existed independently of her body. She could still see, hear, and move, but those sensations were distorted and artificial. Her Kae had no physical form, no flesh-and-blood organs with which to interact with the world. She existed as a manifestation of the flesh-and-blood Chloe. Her Kae could move about, see, hear, smell, and sometimes even touch echoes of the physical world—but not alter it.

She didn't need to alter anything, though; she just needed to investigate what lay at the bottom of those winding stairs. The ancient Atlanteans had gone to great lengths to ward whatever it was. Whatever was down there was the source of the magical energy bleeding into this world. The stone lid over the opening had been a seal; she was certain of it.

She considered her physical form, still sitting in the lotus position with closed eyes. When she astral projected, her physical body was vulnerable, and it was the main reason she had a bodyguard. Victor would keep her body safe. If something happened to it while she was projecting... well, no one knew because you didn’t come back when your physical body died. Victor, his hand on the handle of the GLUMP pistol concealed in the small of his back, paced about, watching for threats, his expression grimly serious. A dark nimbus of energy that she could see only while in astral form surrounded Victor; it was the aftereffect of a lifetime of violence. She didn't judge. The Goddess only knew she had done many questionable things herself.

Chloe didn't turn—she had no actual physical form with which to turn—but she altered the facing of her Kae to observe the two Marines. Both women were looking away, watching their surroundings, but Haley glanced over her shoulder at Chloe's physical body, looking right through Chloe's Kae. She wasn't just a beautiful young woman but also a beautiful spirit, her body glowing with health and energy. Ideally, life wouldn't drain that from her. Abigail’s nimbus was dimmer, more like Victor’s.

The Atlantean pictograms on the wall now glowed with arcane power. Not for the first time, Chloe wished her language skills were better, but few mages besides her mother and a handful of others could read more than a smattering of Atlantean. Just the same, she figured the bit about the “Star Vault” was a threat or a warning. Neither option was good.

She beheld the circular opening in the floor and the steps leading down. Although she had no physical body, the memory of a chill spread through her, a trick of the mind. The opening resonated with power that distorted the surrounding air, making it hard to focus. So much power.

Chloe moved her Kae closer to the opening's edge. She didn't walk so much as project a sense of movement. Walking didn’t happen in astral projection any more than standing or floating did, but the human brain, even a mage's, required a base of understanding, so “walking” worked.

She considered the steps for long moments, her intuition warning her she was about to make a mistake. She took a deep breath—another artificial sensation because she had no lungs—and descended.

Sometimes, you had to take chances.

While Victor guarded Chloe's physical form, the pain surged back, feeling worse than ever. He staggered and gripped the sides of his head.

The younger female Marine rushed to help him. “What's wrong?”

Victor ground his teeth. If he tried to speak, he'd scream.

As the life-form's tumor aggravated and intruded into the surrounding tissue, the Guardian recognized an opportunity. It had already established a neural pathway into the life-form's subconscious and now used that connection to suppress the pain within its anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, and insula. The Guardian couldn't alter the cancerous growth or even slow down the inevitable demise of the life-form, but it could suppress the pain stimuli.

Victor inhaled deeply, the pain in his head miraculously vanishing. He looked at the young female Marine’s concerned face. “What?”

“I asked if I could help.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I'm fine.”

He felt better than fine. He felt... normal.

Chloe made it only twenty steps before movement became harder, as if she were trying to walk through quicksand. She willed herself to project farther, the astral version of pushing through an obstacle, but she made it only three more steps down before an unseen force brought her Kae to a halt. Oh, shit. This isn't good.

She redoubled her efforts, straining to break through the barrier. This time, she managed a few inches. In all her years of astral projection, she had never experienced anything like this. The resistance existed only in the astral plane, but here, it was like being stuck in wet cement. She had no idea the Atlanteans could create a trap just for astral travelers, but if anyone could, it would have been them. The implications of a trap remaining after over 10,000 years were staggering. What the hell was down there?

She tried to move forward once more but then gave up. There was no way to astral project any further. The only way to continue was to proceed in physical form. Well done, Atlanteans. You win.

Now, it was time to return and tell Victor. Only she couldn't. Whatever magic had stopped her from projecting farther now also stopped her from retracing her steps. She had no heart to beat faster, but she felt genuine fear just the same. Chloe redoubled her efforts, but her Kae remained still. She fought down her mounting panic, but it was almost impossible. Without her Kae, her body would remain an empty vessel. Victor could carry it from these caves, but she'd still be trapped. Maybe forever.

She forced herself to be calm, to think things through. She spoke to herself as if she were her mother, lecturing her in that condescending tone she used: “Panic will kill you, Chloe. You need to reason this out. You can't go forward, and you can't go back. But what else could you try?” Up didn't work, and neither did down, but she found she could still rotate. She turned in place and looked up the winding stairs to the broken opening at the top. Where the stones had fallen through the stone lid, they had also damaged the edge of the hole's wall. If this ward-trap had been woven into the wall, which seemed likely, since it grew in power the farther she descended, then the damaged lip might be a vulnerability. Chloe couldn't move, but maybe she could refocus her Kae where the lip was broken and potentially weaker. Doing that wouldn't be moving so much as performing a temporal-spiritual transformation, like walking through a wall. She closed her eyes and inhaled—or, more correctly, imagined herself doing both. Then, she dissolved her Kae.

For a terror-filled moment, she didn't think she'd be able to pull her Kae together again; whatever spell interfered with the astral projection also made it harder to manipulate her Kae. But then, her Kae reformed—more slowly than it should have, but it reformed. And this time, she stood atop the lip, back in the temple. Relief coursed through her like a wave of cold water. Thank you, Goddess!

Before the spell could seize her again, she returned to her body. Her eyes snapped open. Her heart pounded far too quickly, and her skin tingled, but she was back in her corporeal form.

“You're done already?” Victor asked in surprise.

“Felt like an eternity to me,” she said, taking his hand and pulling herself up onto shaky legs.

“Well?”

“They warded the stairs against astral projection.” She picked up her bra and panties and shook them out. “We're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“I do everything the old-fashioned way. It's how I roll.” He took a long pause, considering her face. “You sure you're okay?”

“I haven't been sure of anything since I stepped off that helicopter.” She dressed hurriedly, doing her best to forget she had just escaped an eternity trapped in astral form. “If whatever is down those stairs is important enough for a spell like that… well, this place probably holds something we're gonna want to secure for America.”

“Y'all wanna tell me what the fuck that was about?” Abigail asked. Both Marine women stared at her.

“No,” Chloe said. “I really don't.”

Victor stepped in front of Chloe and placed his hand on her shoulder. “You ladies go get your friends. We're all going down the rabbit hole.”

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

“That’s a big fuckin’ hole.” Roy leaned over the edge of the circular opening and spat.

Wyatt stood next to him, with Abigail on his other side. All three sergeants considered the near-bottomless pit and the stairs leading into it. Far below, the road flare still burned red, but the sergeants couldn't see anything else from their vantage point.

“Ain’t that what yer last boyfriend said?” Abigail snorted with laughter, showing tobacco-stained teeth. She gripped Roy’s arm, spooking him, and then started laughing harder.

“Knock it off!” Roy snarled as he yanked his arm free and moved back from the edge.

“Both of you knock it off,” Wyatt said. “The kids are watching.”

The rest of the squad waited nearby, staring at the three sergeants. Near the entrance, Victor was talking to Major Durani.

Roy removed his helmet and scratched behind his ears. “What’s it doing here? I mean, why build a temple in a cave and then dig a huge hole? And how’d they do it? Looks friggin’ machine tooled to me.”

Abigail snorted again. “Sheet. This whole place is messed up. Who worships giant bugs?”

“I don’t have any answers,” Wyatt said. “I think, maybe, this part of the cave system used to be separate from the rest. That rockslide near the statue looks like the result of a cave-in… or an earthquake. Hell, I don’t know, but whoever built this place didn’t want it accessible.”

Victor approached the sergeants with Major Durani and Chloe. “We just about ready, son?”

Wyatt sighed. “If you're sure you want to do this.”

“Wouldn’t say it if we weren’t,” Victor replied.

Wyatt turned to Roy. “Your team leads. I want white light from here.”

“What about the bad guys?” Abigail asked. “They’ll see us comin’.”

Victor snorted. “I’m tellin’ ya, sweetie, they’re all dead.”

Abigail gave him a contemptuous look. “Says you.”

“Not his call. It’s mine,” Wyatt told her.

Victor smiled but didn’t challenge him. “Like Roy said, that’s a lot of stairs. I don’t want anyone falling because their depth perception is messed up.”

“Roger that,” Abigail said.

“Fuck my life,” Roy said as he strapped his helmet back on.

Roy and his fireteam descended the winding stairs first, lighting the way with their flashlights. They moved slowly and carefully, taking almost ten minutes to reach the bottom.

Wyatt's radio beeped, and Roy’s voice came through, his transmission crystal clear this time. “Ripper-2, we’re on the bottom. Got another tunnel, a long one.”

Wyatt keyed his radio. “Ripper-1, roger. We’re coming down to you now.”

Roy keyed his radio once in acknowledgment.

Wyatt turned to Abigail. “Cover our six until we’re on the bottom.”

“Don’t fall,” she said.

“Don’t plan to.” Wyatt faced his team and the civilians. “Move slowly, people. Watch where you put your feet, and if anyone does fall... well, just don’t take everyone else with you.”

Haley smiled and elbowed BB in the ribs. BB frowned at her and shook his head. Victor looked bored, and Rami looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. To Wyatt’s considerable surprise, Chloe looked even more worried than Rami—which was saying a lot, considering she was the same woman who had run in front of an oncoming rocket-propelled grenade. Wyatt gave her a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine. Just be careful on the way down.”

She smiled back, but it looked forced. “Same to you.”

Wyatt led the way down the worn steps, walking slowly and keeping close to the wall, choosing each step carefully. Haley went next, with BB and Chuck behind her, followed by Rami, Victor, and then Chloe. They moved deeper and deeper beneath the earth. The red glow of the flare below gave Wyatt the impression that they were descending into the bowels of hell. How far underground were they?

Haley, in little more than a whisper, said, “That stuff that Winters chick said about Medes back in the mission briefing... you believe any of that?”

Wyatt paused, glanced over his shoulder, and saw the others were too far away to hear them. “The Medes were real enough, but I don’t think they ever had anything to do with this place.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“What happened in the temple after we left?”

Haley sniffed. “That little redhead did some naked new-age meditation bullshit. You and the rest of the guys would've loved the show, but it was damn weird.”

Everything that had happened since setting foot in the cave system had been weird. His mind returned to the dead commandos, their bodies pulled apart. He wouldn’t let that happen to his Marines, especially Haley and Abigail. No matter what, he’d protect them. He’d protect Chloe too.

Victor, he wasn’t so sure about.

When Victor stopped just ahead of Chloe on the spiraling steps, she paused as well. She ran her fingertips over the smooth inner wall, marveling at the Atlantean construction. Other Children had discovered Atlantean ruins before, but this was her first time. The experience both excited and terrified her. Something of immense power was down here; so was something dangerous—an entity with telepathic abilities. The list of creatures that it could be was longer than her arm: anything from the Mere to a demon. This location was thousands of kilometers from an open-water source, so the creature probably wasn't the Mere. However, she didn't entirely discount the possibility; a Mere Queen possessed unimaginable telepathic ability. On the other hand, even minor demons enjoyed playing tricks on human minds. She wasn't sure which would be worse. Probably a demon.

Probably.

Victor resumed his descent, and Chloe inhaled before following her partner.

Wyatt stepped off the stairs at the bottom of the pit, walked around the still-burning road flare, and approached the odd, six-sided tunnel. Roy and his team had entered the tunnel and were kneeling along its sides, aiming their weapons down its length. The tunnel extended at least three hundred meters, farther than the reach of the group’s powerful flashlights. Wyatt shook his head; this place defied expectations. The hexagonal walls were impossibly smooth. He knelt alongside Roy. “What do we know?”

“You can't smell it?” Roy asked.

Wyatt could. That sweet yet unmistakable stench of rot. Something—or someone—had died down here.

“This ain’t no place for men to be,” Roy whispered.

“We can't go back, not yet.”

“I know it, but I don’t like it none neither.”

Nor could Wyatt shake the feeling that someone was watching them. He squeezed the big man's shoulder. “Go dark from this point. Assume anyone down here is hostile. You see something you don't like, you light it up. Don't wait for permission.”

Roy snorted. “Trust me, wasn't gonna ask.”

Wyatt keyed his radio and told Abigail she could bring her team down. The Marines all turned off their flashlights and set their night-vision scopes in place, waiting several minutes for their eyes to adjust. Then Roy rose and motioned for his team to follow him.

Wyatt waited in place, watching Roy's team move along the hexagonal tunnel, their green IR lasers cutting back and forth. Then Wyatt's radio beeped, but the transmission that followed was garbled.

He keyed his radio. “Ripper-1, say again, over.”

More static followed, but this time Wyatt could make out the last few of Roy's words: “—a problem. Come forward.”

It was impossible to be certain, but Roy had sounded frightened.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

Wyatt tried to step around the gore spread over the tunnel’s surface, but at least a dozen corpses and pieces of bodies lay strewn everywhere—blood, guts, and limbs intermingled; some of the flesh even looked… partially digested, with pieces of bone revealed. An insurgent’s severed head sat in the center of the tunnel, facing Wyatt and still wrapped in a striped turban. The dead man’s eyes reflected the light of Wyatt’s IR laser, making him appear to watch Wyatt. Some of the dead men wore expressions of horror, but others looked peaceful. Several even smiled, but those had to be death rictuses.

“Jesus wept,” Wyatt whispered.

“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this,” Roy answered. “And I’ve seen what’s left of hunters after gators been at ’em.”

This time, Wyatt was certain of the fear in Roy's voice. The bored bluster was gone.

At the sound of footsteps, Wyatt turned and saw Major Durani, Victor, and Chloe approach.

“God keep us safe,” said Major Durani.

“It's just dead men,” Victor said. “I've seen more than I can count.”

“It's not just dead men,” Wyatt said. He looked at Major Durani. “Any bears in these mountains, sir?”

“Nothing that could do... this.”

“Some of them fought back,” Roy said as he picked up a spent brass cartridge from an assault rifle. Blood coated the brass. “Didn't seem to make a difference.”

“No,” Wyatt said. “No, it did not.”

He gave up trying to avoid the carnage, and as he walked, the congealing blood sucked at his boots. The twisted torso of a dead insurgent lay propped against the wall. The man’s chest was crushed, forcing his internal organs out of his mouth. His glistening organs hung over his chest like a macabre necktie. Wyatt couldn’t even guess at the amount of force that must have taken.

“You picking up on what's missing here?” Roy asked Wyatt.

Wyatt nodded. “No rodents, no bugs.” Not a single insect or scavenger had been at the corpses. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember seeing a single living creature in the entire cave complex, even a spider. Why the hell not?

As with the carnage near the insect statue, something large had left long trails in the blood—in both directions. Wyatt knelt and considered the bloody smears. “Whatever did this killed these men then went up the stairs to kill the commandos.”

“Came back down again too,” Roy said. “Which means it’s still down here.”

“You’re guessing,” Victor snapped.

“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” Roy answered.

“He’s not wrong,” said Wyatt.

Major Durani walked past Wyatt and stared at the dead insurgent with the crushed torso. “This is Najeeb Wasiq, the Butcher of Janabad.”

“That a fact?” Victor asked, sounding bored.

The organs had distorted the man’s bearded face, expanding his mouth to twice its size. The effect was both surreal and horrific.

“I... yes, I think so.” Major Durani turned away, shaking his head. “I would have killed him myself—and counted myself lucky to do so. Now…” He shivered. “Now... now, I have no words… None of this makes any sense.”

“Bunker buster probably went off after all,” Victor said. “The overpressure in the tunnel just made it worse, crushed the bodies. Saw something like this once in El Salvador.”

Wyatt resisted the urge to call bullshit. “Well, what are we doing?” Wyatt asked.

Chloe moved forward, her head tilted up in a way that made Wyatt suspect she was merely pretending to use her fancy night-vision glasses. “We keep going,” she said. “At least until we see where this tunnel comes out.”

Wyatt sighed, not at all surprised. Whatever game she and Victor were playing, it had nothing to do with cataloging ancient ruins for the Afghan government.

“Fuck that shit,” Roy said, glaring at her and then at Victor. “We were sent here to clear insurgents from caves. Ain’t no more insurgents.”

“Figure you get to decide, son?” Victor’s hand drifted to the large bowie knife on his belt.

Wyatt stepped between the two men. “You and your team take center,” he ordered Roy. “I’ll lead from here.”

“Fucking bullshit,” Roy muttered, but he stalked off.

Victor, his hand still resting atop his knife hilt, motioned with his chin up the tunnel. “Well, then... off you go, son,” he said cheerfully.

Chloe frowned at Victor, and Wyatt made a point of ignoring him. He motioned for Haley and the others to follow him.

BB approached Wyatt. “You want I should go first?”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, I do not.”

This time, BB didn't argue, a testament to how frightened he must be and how frightened they all were.

Wyatt led the others past the carnage, farther down the tunnel. Only the soft plodding of their boots disrupted the eerie silence. The tunnel continued for several hundred meters before opening out above yet another cavern.

He cautiously approached the opening, his pulse racing, and came out onto a worked-stone balcony, twenty feet wide with a three-foot-tall parapet. The balcony overlooked an enormous cavern below. Hundreds of seamless, smooth steps led down from the balcony to the cavern surface, cutting back and forth in a zigzag pattern. The cavern was too large for Wyatt’s IR beam to illuminate, but what he could see was hundreds of meters wide and at least that deep—so large it dwarfed the cave with the statue and temple.

The sight was both surreal and terrifying.

Haley and BB followed him onto the balcony, with Chuck waiting in the tunnel just behind them. Major Durani, Victor, and Chloe slipped past Chuck and joined the others.

The Afghan officer placed a hand on Wyatt's shoulder to steady himself. “Praise God, what is this place?”

“Let's find out.” Wyatt unslung his grenade launcher and prepped it for firing.

When Major Durani saw what kind of grenade Wyatt had inserted, his eyes widened.

Chloe slipped closer to Victor on the balcony. Even ill, Victor had been acting uncharacteristically short-tempered; she put that down to his sickness. He had a cancerous tumor in his brain. That entitled him to a little anger. Had it been her, she very much doubted she'd be holding herself together so well. They needed to finish this damned mission. If she could get close enough to the source of the magical resonance, she'd conduct an astral probe, the magical equivalent of a sonar ping. She hadn’t told Victor, but she no longer harbored any hope of laying her hands on an Atlantean weapon, not with a dangerous eldritch entity on the loose and sure as hell not with Victor as ill as he was. No, she'd find out what was down here and then leave.

She could return with Christina—maybe even her mother.

Chloe peered out from beneath her glasses. Even with Mage Sight, she couldn't tell how large the cavern was, which meant it had to be enormous. She watched Wyatt ready his grenade launcher.

Major Durani turned to Victor. “Any objections, Mr. Crane?”

Victor shook his head and then turned to Chloe. “Close your eyes. He's launching a flare.”

Wyatt raised the weapon to his shoulder and aimed out over the cavern. “Fire in the hole!”

She turned away, shutting her eyes. The grenade launcher made a loud thumping noise, followed by the whistling of the grenade through the air.

“Keep 'em closed,” Victor said.

Several seconds later, she heard a faraway pop—hardly the detonation she had expected. She peered out through her fingers as a bright nova slowly descended on a parachute, illuminating the cavern. Chloe gasped, a sudden coldness washing through her. The cavern was much larger than she had imagined, but that wasn't what had taken her breath away. Nor was it the deep chasm that cut the cavern in half or the stone bridge that crossed that chasm—it was the hundreds of stone buildings on the far side of the bridge.

It's a settlement, she realized in astonishment. Not an outpost, an honest-to-Goddess Atlantean settlement!

No mage had ever discovered a settlement. Now, she understood why this place resonated with so much arcane power. If Olympia or any of the other Transcended even suspected the place existed, they'd kill thousands to lay claim to it.

As the flare descended, it cast moving shadows over the ruins. The buildings looked... wrong, as if the stone blocks had melted and run together like candle wax. There were no char marks and no indications of a great fire, an explosion, or even a volcanic eruption; but every single building had been melted and fused with the others. What could have generated so much heat?

A single black tower at the far side of the settlement stood above the ruins. This tower alone was undamaged. Built in the style of a ziggurat, with receding levels stacked atop one another, it rose to a flat summit. A shiver coursed through Chloe as she realized this tower was almost certainly the mysterious “Star Vault” described in the pictograms. It must be the source of all the magical energy.

Carved into the rock of the cavern wall behind and above the tower was a series of triangular openings, some at least ten feet wide. Together, they looked like a giant honeycomb. The openings made her uneasy, but to be honest, everything here freaked her the hell out.

The flare landed out of sight, but its radiance still shone over the ruins.

“Well,” said Wyatt, holding his grenade launcher near his leg, “you don't see that every day.”

“No. No, you do not,” said Haley in wonder.

Major Durani staggered forward and then dropped to his knees. “Glory be to God. The wonders of His creation are beyond comprehension.”

Victor stared at the man, a half smile on his lips. “Ditto.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Chloe warned him.

Victor shrugged and then peered at Chloe. “You all right?”

“Feeling overwhelmed,” she whispered.

“You close enough for what you need to do?”

She shook her head.

“That's what I was afraid of,” Victor said. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to get the fuck out of here. But we're gonna have to get closer to that tower. Much closer.”

Victor sighed. “Nothing is ever easy.”

Just then, the large Marine woman, Abigail, arrived with her team. When they saw the ruins, their faces reflected the same wonder Chloe felt.

And the same fear.

The flare continued to blaze, creating an eerily beautiful sight. “How much longer will it burn?” Chloe asked Victor.

“About a minute.”

But then, the light was snuffed out immediately, bringing the darkness rushing back in.

“That didn't seem like a minute to me,” Chloe said.

“No,” Victor agreed. “No, it did not.”

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

The others started talking all at once, crowded together on the wide balcony.

“Quiet,” Wyatt ordered. “Everybody shut up and let me think.” He spun in place, looking at his associates’ faces. They seemed as agitated as he felt. This was like finding the Great Pyramid of Giza—only underground and melted. And what was up with the para-flare? Could it really have burned out that quickly?

Wyatt had no answers.

He turned to Major Durani. “Sir, we should go back. This is beyond us, beyond even the Afghan government. This is an international find. It belongs to the world. The UN needs to send a scientific team.” Wyatt shook his head, feeling overwhelmed. “We're way out of our depth here.”

Uncertainty flitted across Major Durani's face. “I... I don't... well, my orders⁠—”

Victor stepped forward. “We're not pulling back just yet. We need to recon that tower on the far side of the ruins. Then we can exfil.”

Heat rushing to his face, Wyatt turned on Victor. “We can't get to those ruins without crossing that chasm.”

“There’s a bridge,” Victor snapped, his eyes flashing. “Don't be such a pussy!”

“Victor's right,” Chloe said. “We just need to get closer to that tower, maybe within about a hundred feet.”

“And do what?” Haley demanded. “More of your naked meditation? Who the fuck are you people?”

“You need to belay that shit, Corporal,” Victor said. “Way above your pay grade.”

“Bullshit,” Haley retorted, sounding neither intimidated nor impressed.

Maybe she didn't realize how dangerous Victor was, but Wyatt did. He edged closer, ready to throw down if Victor so much as flinched. But then, Abigail slid up alongside Haley and rested her hand on the other woman's arm. “Y'all need to calm the fuck down.”

No one calmed down.

Instead, everyone began talking at once again, each offering their own opinion. The Marines, like Wyatt, all wanted to go back, but no one vocalized more about the need to leave than Rami, who lunged at Major Durani. Wearing an apoplectic expression, the young Hazara man gripped the major's load-bearing vest. “This is insane, you Tajik fool! Did you not see the corpses in the tunnel? There is a devil here. We must leave now!”

Wyatt had been half-certain Major Durani was considering pulling back, but now, anger flashed across his features. The major shoved Rami so hard that the young man fell onto his ass. “Don't give me orders, Hazara dog. Touch me again, and I'll beat you.”

Wyatt stepped between them. “Sir, this isn't helping.”

Major Durani stalked away, and Wyatt offered Rami his hand. The hate-filled glare that Rami cast at Major Durani's back spoke of trouble.

Then Wyatt saw Chloe whispering to Victor.

“Something you want to share with the rest of us, Miss Winters?” he asked.

She returned his stare. “No, not really.”

“I'm not sure I like that sass in your voice, son,” Victor said.

“I'm not sure I care,” Wyatt said. All the others had stopped arguing and were now watching Wyatt and Victor.

Chloe held onto Victor's arm. “Don't.”

Victor kept his gaze locked on Wyatt, but a promise of violence hung in his voice when he spoke: “Chloe, what have I told you before about this sort of thing?” Chloe reluctantly let go of his arm, and the big man advanced a step toward Wyatt. “I can make you care.”

“Please, Victor,” Chloe pleaded. “We're on the same team.”

“Are we?” he asked, still glaring at Wyatt.

Roy and Abigail slid behind Wyatt, silently backing him up. Victor didn't seem intimidated in the slightest. What the hell was wrong with this guy? Did he think he could take on all of them?

Somehow, the answer was yes.

And then Chloe stepped between them and put her hand on Victor's chest. The man stiffened in anger but remained still.

“We can't fight among ourselves,” she told him.

Just for a moment, Wyatt feared he might attack his own partner, but then, Victor drew back.

“Chloe...” he said softly, deflated.

“We finish the mission,” she told Victor, her voice firm. Then she looked over her shoulder at Wyatt. “You take me to the tower; that's it. Then we go home.”

“Why? What difference does it make?”

“Wyatt, please.” The hint of desperation in her voice made him feel like a complete asshole.

Wyatt sighed. “Just to the tower.”

Abigail groaned, and Roy swore.

A feeling akin to pleasure surged through the Guardian's neural pathways. Its connection with the intruding life-form had grown stronger. Already, the Guardian could influence the life-form's cognitive reasoning and plant false narratives. The tumor near the life-form's frontal lobe interfered with its primitive organic reasoning. The Guardian's efforts were working; the life-form was drawing closer, bringing with it the female.

The one who could walk the Grid-Forge.

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

The hundreds of stairs cutting back and forth down to the cave's surface took Wyatt and the others almost twenty minutes to descend. The process was nerve-wracking and torturously slow. By the time the group reached the bottom, their uniforms were soaked in sweat. But they had all made it. Once they were all down, they turned off their lights and activated their night-vision gear once more. Whatever had killed the insurgents in the tunnel was still down here, and Wyatt wanted every advantage he could get.

Unlike the cave that housed the temple, this cavern's surface was clear of boulders, rocks, and stalactites. A worn path led from the base of the steps to the bridge crossing the chasm and to the ruins on the other side. Wyatt motioned for the others to follow him as he led them to the bridge. He didn't know what had killed all those men, but he recalled the giant stone insect. Could there be an undiscovered species of giant cave bug down here? And if there was, would the group’s weapons even be effective against it?

He really didn't want to find out.

When he reached the end of the bridge, he raised his hand, signaling the others to stop. Water hung in the air, as did an odd chemical smell. Here, broken stones and rocks lay scattered, as if a portion of the cavern's ceiling had caved in. Great, now they had to worry about cave-ins.

Wyatt aimed his IR beam upward, but the ceiling was well beyond the light’s range, meaning it was at least three hundred meters high. The edges of the chasm were smooth, as if worked by tools. He leaned over the side and aimed his IR laser into its depths. Far below, he saw the reflection of his laser on water, maybe a hundred feet down or so. Whether it was odd to find water down here or not, he didn't know, but at least the liquid wasn't molten lava, which had been his first thought upon seeing the melted ruins. Small miracles.

The bridge, twenty feet wide, was made of stone but strangely formed, as if its builders had melded it into shape, twisting and extending it like putty. Its surface was uneven, resembling a child's creation. Wyatt motioned for the others to wait while he stepped onto the bridge and moved about twenty feet across it to test its footing. Whatever had melted its surface, the bridge remained solid. He crossed to the other side and then motioned for the rest of the group to follow him.

An open space, like a courtyard or plaza, lay before them, with the melted ruins on the other side. Only a large half-melted building, reminiscent of a guardhouse or keep, stood near the bridge. Though the building had suffered the same heat damage as the other ruins and its upper level had partially collapsed, its lower interior remained intact. The result gave the impression of a cave opening and could have been a good defensive position had it not been for the upper level hanging precariously over its entrance.

He inspected the ruins surrounding the plaza. They looked in much worse shape than the guardhouse, as if they had endured the brunt of whatever had destroyed the settlement. Most were simple stone dwellings, like family homes, but some were two or three levels high, perhaps temples or estates. Now, the buildings were all lumps of melted stone, their ceilings collapsed inward like melted wax, their doorways gone. Like Pompeii, he thought, only much scarier.

When he was satisfied that no immediate threat was present, he led the party across the courtyard and toward the tower they had seen on the opposite side of the ruins. Nothing else moved around them, yet Wyatt couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him.

A melted stone street led the group deeper into the settlement. Wyatt gave the tactical hand signal for a staggered column, and the Marines fell in behind him, with every second person on the opposite side of the path.

The street led them in the direction they wanted to go for several hundred meters but then came to an abrupt halt at an enormous pile of half-melted stone—also likely a former estate or temple. The members of the party retraced their steps and found a way around the collapsed building, but doing so took them another half hour.

And then Wyatt's MNVD battery died.

He ordered a halt to rest, drink fluids, and swap out batteries. Some of the group took the opportunity to wolf down a cold MRE pack or an energy bar. Major Durani moved among the Marines, chatting with them and making sure they were okay. He had turned out to be as good an officer as any Wyatt had worked for—better than most, in fact. Despite his earlier misgivings, Wyatt had grown to trust Durani.

Wyatt joined BB and Haley. He wondered how Lou was doing. Was he even still alive?

“Hey, boss,” BB said between bites of his MRE.

Wyatt grunted.

BB spooned another mouthful of what looked like cold Asian beef strips into his mouth. “Maybe there's a reason there're no bugs down here. Maybe they know something we don't.”

“Maybe you shouldn't speak with your mouth full,” Haley said.

BB waved a hand at her. “We're all jarheads here. Manners are for the civvies.” He glanced toward Chloe and Victor, who were sitting by themselves against a wall-like lump of melted stone. As if on cue, Chloe took a small bite from an energy bar and then wiped her lips with her sleeve.

Haley nodded sagely. “True dat.”

“What do you suppose they're talking about?” BB asked.

Wyatt was wondering the same thing. Obviously, the two were keeping secrets, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Victor was growing increasingly hostile. If it came to it, orders or not, Wyatt might have to confront the man, and if he did, the conflict would likely end in a physical fight. The mission mattered, but so did Wyatt’s responsibility to get his Marines home. That was what Lou would have done.

A few minutes later, Wyatt rose and motioned for the others to get ready to move out. Once again, he led them through the strange ruins, squeezing past thin chunks of disfigured stone or climbing over others. The day had been long, and everyone was getting burned out, but the Marines were tough. Victor, sick as he was, proved to be a beast. The man seemed to be all muscle and grit. To Wyatt's surprise, even Chloe was hanging in better than he had expected, reinforcing his earlier assessment that she was physically fit. Rami, though, was slowing everyone down. The young Afghan just wasn't cut out for this type of exertion.

His watch showed the time was just after 3:00 a.m. They had been in the cave system for over two hours now.

Wyatt's thoughts had been drifting, and it took him several steps to realize he had walked into another cleared space, the remains of another plaza or courtyard.

His heart leapt into his throat when his laser fell on the ten-foot-tall insect in front of him. Instinctively, he brought his rifle to the firing position, fixing the IR laser on the insect's torso and tightening his finger on the trigger. Only then did he realize it was just another statue, albeit much more detailed than the first one. “Shit,” he whispered. “Get a grip.”

Wyatt lowered his weapon and examined the statue, stunned by its detail. The statue's material, black and glossy, resembled opal or onyx and had somehow escaped the heat damage that had melted the buildings around it. As large as a car, the statue had six articulated, lobster-like legs. The four large rear legs ended in sharp needle-like points, while the front two had three articulating digits that held a carving of a box-like instrument. The insect’s body was egg-shaped, and the head was thrust atop the thorax without a neck joint, covered by thick plates of chitin armor. Atop the small triangular head, four barbed horns extended back, giving them the appearance of a king's crown.

Why is it holding a box?

Wyatt drew closer to the statue, amazed at the detail that had gone into this nightmare. Even the mandibles in the jaws, each the length of his finger, had been carved realistically. “There are no eyes,” he said to himself, noting only a hardened, knobby skull plate. “It’s blind. What kind of messed-up cave bug has no eyes?”

“It's not a cave bug,” Chloe said from behind him.

He had been so preoccupied that he hadn't heard her approach. The others stood farther back in a nontactical gaggle, staring open-mouthed at the statue—all except for Victor, who sat on his haunches, holding his head between his hands.

“It wasn't blind either,” she continued, slipping past Victor to approach the statue. She trailed her fingers over it without touching it. “At least, not in the way you would think.” Then she placed her palm against the skull plate, gasped, and snatched her hand back. She moved several feet away, holding her hand and staring at the statue as if it had bitten her.

“You all right?” Wyatt asked.

“Right as rain.” She flashed him a smile but took another step back, casting a wary glance at the statue.

“What is it, then? Don't tell me you're sticking with pre-Babylonian.”

“Oh, this definitely predates Babylon.”

He moved closer, keeping his voice low. “Look, I'm not an idiot. I know you and Victor know more than you're letting on. Tell me what this thing is.”

She faced him and, once again, tilted her head up in a manner that made him suspect she wasn't really using her glasses. “I know you're not stupid, Wyatt, but trust me, you'll sleep better not knowing.”

“If something like this killed those men⁠—”

“Nothing like this killed those men.”

“How do you know that?”

Chloe's mouth opened, but she hesitated, and her eyes darted behind him. Then he heard heavy footsteps and saw Victor approaching.

“What are we doing, partner?” Victor asked Chloe, ignoring Wyatt.

“Nothing.” Chloe shook her head. “There's nothing left here but the ghosts of impressions. Not pleasant, but there are no memories.”

“Seriously,” Wyatt said, “you two are starting to freak me out.”

“First smart thing you've said all day.” Victor crossed his arms and stared at Wyatt. “We should get moving. Burning daylight.” Now Victor snickered at his own joke.

Wyatt turned his back to him without another word.

When Wyatt walked away, Chloe touched Victor's sleeve. “You're in pain,” she said. “I can see it in your face. Can you take another pill?”

Victor shook his head. “Too many already. Making my thoughts fuzzy.”

Her heart ached for him. What he felt must be torture. She needed to keep going, if only just a little bit farther, but she didn't need to put Victor through this. It wasn't like he could help her with the magic. “Listen,” she said softly, choosing her words to avoid embarrassing him, “I think you should go back. Let me finish with the Marines. I'm almost close enough, anyway. When I'm done, we'll all exfil and call for backup.”

He stiffened, glaring at her. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

She drew back, shocked at the hostility in his voice. “I'm not saying⁠—”

“Leave it? In over thirty-five years, I've never left a job half done. I'm not starting now!”

She nodded quickly. “Okay, okay, sorry.”

Just then, Wyatt motioned for the others to follow him again, and they continued into the ruins. She stumbled after Victor, wondering how well she knew her partner.

Just for a moment, she had been certain he was about to hit her.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

It took Wyatt and the party another half hour before they finally reached the tower. The structure rose before them like a dark sentinel, sitting atop a raised islet of rock. A water-filled moat fifteen feet wide surrounded the islet. A single stone bridge crossed the moat, with a series of foot-long triangular capstones set along its parapets, giving them the appearance of jagged teeth. Even from here, Wyatt could see that stagnant water filled the moat. Both the bridge and the tower—undamaged by the heat—looked to be built from the same onyx-like black stone as the second insect statue.

He edged closer to the bridge and aimed his IR beam into the foul-smelling water. Just for a moment, he thought he saw movement but then realized nothing could survive in such filthy water. He was overtired, his mind playing tricks again. He turned from the moat and scanned the tower, which he lit up with his IR laser. The tower was built in a series of mismatched levels, widest at the base, but each level narrowed as it rose, forming an obelisk. Uneven stairs carved into the front of the tower led to its flat summit, some forty or fifty feet up, reminding Wyatt of an Aztec pyramid.

The tower's levels seemed... wrong somehow; the angles didn't meet properly. His vision blurred, and he staggered back, overcome by vertigo. He squatted before he fell, bracing himself with one arm against the ground, and shook his head. Haley knelt beside him and grasped his arm. “You all right?”

He nodded, rubbing his eye beneath his scope. “A bit disoriented. Looking through a night-vision scope for hours on end messes with your head.”

“No. It's that building. Makes me sick too.”

She was right. Everything about the tower was wrong. It looked and felt... foreign to this world. So what are you thinking, then, Wyatt... aliens? He forced that thought away. He had a job to do. Later, when his people were safe, he'd ponder the meaning of life in the universe.

On the far side of the bridge, just before the base of the steps, sat an enormous black stone disc at least six feet wide and half as high. The disc, also glossy black, was built from the same material as the tower and bridge. More of the strange pictograms were carved into the disc’s flat surface, and a long channel ran down its center. The disc looked exactly like what it had to be—a sacrificial altar.

“I'm going to take a closer look,” Wyatt said. “You guys hold firm here.”

“Maybe I should go,” Haley offered. “Or BB. He is your sco⁠—”

Wyatt was already moving away. He kept his M-4 tight against his shoulder and looked over the barrel. Haley was right, but sending Marines to fight insurgents was one thing; exploring ancient underground ruins was a different matter.

Crossing the bridge, Wyatt stepped out into a warped stone courtyard. The heat damage was most intense here, judging from the uneven bubbles of hardened stone, reminiscent of melted plastic. How hot did fire have to be to warp stone? This question lingered in his mind without an answer.

No entrances leading inside the tower were visible, but he guessed one would probably be at the top of the stairs.

When he heard footsteps, he turned to see Abigail and Roy crossing the bridge. The rest of the squad was still in place, kneeling and watching their surroundings. When they reached Wyatt, he said, “You guys don't know what ‘hold firm’ means?”

“You know what 'suck my balls' means?” Roy said sarcastically. Then he approached the black altar. “Goddamn.”

Abigail eyed Wyatt and shook her head. “You're takin' some real risks here. You're the one in charge, ain't ya? That's why you've got a full squad of Marines behind you. Just thought we'd remind ya, in case it slipped your mind.”

“Yeah,” Roy said, his back to Wyatt. “Can't lead if you're dead.”

“Didn't know you cared.”

“Didn't say I did,” Roy replied. “Just want to make sure Abby and I don't have to fight over who's in charge when something eats you.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

“It'd be me,” Abigail said in a pleasant tone then joined Roy at the altar. “Shit. That's for killing people, ain't it?”

“That'd be my guess,” Wyatt said.

“This place,” Roy whispered, shaking his head. “This fucking place.”

That was pretty much what Wyatt was thinking.

“Whatcha wanna do?” Abigail asked.

Three more figures—Major Durani, Victor, and Chloe—were now crossing the bridge to join them. They must have decided they'd waited long enough too. Wyatt sighed. Any sense of control he had down here was an illusion. “Bring them all over,” he told Abigail. “Secure this courtyard. We'll let the experts do their thing, and then maybe we can get the hell out of here.”

“I'm with you on that,” Roy said.

Wyatt considered the tower once more and stared up at its summit. He realized he must have been daydreaming when Abigail shoved him, jarring him. “Huh?”

“I said, what's wrong with you?”

“Need some sleep is all. I'm losing focus.”

She snorted. “I hear ya. Hell, I keep thinking I'm hearing voices.”

“Let's get this done.” He faced the new arrivals.

Chloe stood before the altar. Victor hovered behind her, with Major Durani and Wyatt just a few feet back. The other Marines knelt behind cover in the clearing, guarding them, but Chloe was certain they, too, were watching her. Even the Afghan interpreter was watching her—when he wasn't pacing back and forth in front of the bridge. Everybody stare at the circus freak, she thought bitterly. She could do nothing about any of them, so she turned her attention to the task at hand.

She lifted her night-vision glasses atop her forehead and beheld the tower with her Mage Sight. Faint lines of occult energy coursed through the structure, running up and down it like currents of electricity. The geometry of the tower was wrong, its engineering unlike that of all the other buildings. She didn't know what that meant, but it scared the shit out of her. The magical power resonating from within the tower made her head spin. If there's an artifact, a weapon, it'll be inside, she thought. So where's the eldritch entity that's been messing with us?

Not knowing was a problem.

Unlike the tower, the altar was of Atlantean construction, with their pictograms carved into its surface. She recognized the phrase “Star Vault” once more, as well as something about “serving the masters” and “noble sacrifice.” A black nimbus surrounded the altar, reflecting the fear and suffering absorbed by the stone—no great wonder there. Nonsentient objects couldn't become evil, not in the same sense as a person, but they did soak up negative emotions over time, especially if the objects were used for dark purposes. Like sacrificial altars.

Victor cleared his throat. “Close enough?”

Chloe considered the distance between her and the tower. Usually, line of sight was more than close enough for an astral probe—a lesser but safer form of astral projection that didn't require the caster to separate their Kae from their physical body. She didn't want to risk that a second time. The other benefit of a probe was its speed. A probe was a directed projection of her consciousness, so she could send it at literally the speed of thought. But that speed was also its weakness. While she could project her consciousness through walls and other barriers to scout out what was on the other side, she'd get only a momentary insight. Often, that was enough; that was how she had known of the insurgent ambush. But astral probes never provided real insight.

Here, a probe would have to do.

“Think so,” she told Victor. Then she removed her helmet and handed it to him. She sat cross-legged on the ground, doing her best to ignore the others’ stares. “Be ready in case I set off magical defenses; or if something strikes back at me; or, well, anything.”

“Always.”

Chloe gave him a smile. Victor had been on edge earlier, but he'd never harm her. He was her rock. She closed her eyes, drew a mental image of the tower, and then cast her consciousness toward the picture in her head. Her awareness flew forward, but rather than passing through the black stone of the tower, she felt something stop her cold. Her eyes flashed open in surprise. “Shit,” she whispered.

“What?” Victor asked.

“Something's blocking me.”

“Another ward?”

She watched the eldritch lines of power cascade through the tower's walls. “I'm not sure. Maybe. I've never felt anything like this before, but it felt more… organic.”

“What does that mean?” He helped her up.

She stood in place, hands on her hips, watching the tower. “I don't know. Let me think.”

Another astromancer or maybe even a mentalist could block her probe, but she very much doubted any other mage could have beaten them down here. The sole remaining possibility was the unseen eldritch entity that had been messing with them.

What are you?

Whatever it was, it possessed telepathic abilities on par with a mentalist. Most mages were at least partially resistant to telepathy, and Victor had his bracelet for protection. Unfortunately, the Marines had no such protection. Nor were they Shivers-resistant, which made them vulnerable. If she tried to lead them inside that tower, she'd get them all killed. If her probe didn't work—and she couldn't risk another astral projection—that would leave only the least desirable course of action: she'd need to do an astral reading, starting with the altar and then trying the tower itself. But reading something that foul would be the astral equivalent of getting kicked in the junk.

“Well?” Victor prodded.

“I guess I'm going to have to read that altar. Whatever happened here would have left echoes... even after thousands of years.”

Victor sighed, his lips forming a hard gash of displeasure. He might not have been a mage, but he had been her partner long enough to understand the risks of messing around with things like she described. “You sure about this?”

She considered the stone, her heartbeat quickening. “Not really, but it's the only way to find out what's here.”

“Be careful.”

“Careful is my middle name.”

This time, Victor didn't answer with his usual quip about her real middle name—which bothered Chloe more than she would have thought, since he believed it was hilarious. We need to get out of here, she thought. He needs a doctor.

Chloe moved in front of the altar and steeled herself, but Rami's pacing near the bridge distracted her. “Watch the interpreter. He's trouble.”

“You sure? Seems like a pussy to me.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, got it. You focus on you.”

“Goddess, keep me safe,” she whispered and placed her palm against the altar's dark surface.

Snap!

Victor and the others turned to smoke and drifted away into the ether. Chloe was still there, still in the present, but she was also a spectral witness to the past—the strongest emotions imprinted into the altar. Muted light from braziers and hand-held torches flared around her, illuminating the silhouettes of people. Hundreds of them stood gathered around the altar. The shadows were indistinct, but she knew who they were: Atlanteans, the most powerful mages ever to walk the Earth.

Something drew her attention to the black tower, the Star Vault. Someone was up there, watching—a group, but she couldn't make them out from here. Atlantean royalty?

A form lay spread-eagled, bound to the altar, writhing and straining. The sacrifice, a man, she thought, screamed, his words distorted by time. Other distorted voices rose around her, chanting. The words were indistinguishable except for a name they kept repeating: Kthugi Ba'al. The Outer God who had caused the Great Cataclysm that had destroyed Atlantis and scattered its people.

What was she seeing?

A shadowy priest wielding a knife approached the altar. The priest cried out and then stabbed the knife into the victim's chest. Crimson energy exploded from the wound and washed over the priest. The force released by the ritual sacrifice rebounded through time and hit Chloe like a train wreck—far harder than should have been possible, hammering her with unimaginable force.

Unconscious, she fell into darkness.

The Guardian worked its influence through all the life-forms one by one. When it recognized one already in a heightened mental state of fear and anger, the Guardian intensified those base emotions, guiding the life-form into a course of action against its own self-interest, just as the Guardian had back on its own world when it forced prey out of hiding. It influenced the life-form's temporal lobe, enhancing recent memories and intensifying perceived slights to create rage. Then, once the anger became all-consuming, the Guardian flashed a mental image of the source of the life-form’s rage.

As Chloe touched the altar, her body stiffened. Victor's concern spiked, but this wasn't the first time he had watched her do an astral reading. Her job was the magic stuff; his was to keep her safe.

Once again, his head was killing him, the pain now constant. Durani was talking to Hood, but neither man was paying attention to the skinny Afghan interpreter who was moving surreptitiously closer behind the officer's back. When Victor saw a flash of steel in the young man's hand, the opportunity to do a bit of violence perked him up.

Chloe had been right.

Smiling pleasantly, he approached Major Durani and Hood. Behind Durani, the interpreter paused, hiding the knife behind his thigh.

Durani watched in confusion as Victor reached out to him. “Is something wrong, Mr. Cra⁠—”

Victor gripped Durani by the front of his body armor and yanked him forward, crashing him into Hood. Both men fell tangled together.

Rami stared as Victor stepped forward, still smiling, and slammed Chloe's helmet into Rami’s face, knocking him onto his ass. Satisfaction coursed through Victor—followed a moment later by white-hot pain.

He dropped the helmet, grasped the sides of his head, and screamed.

Rami rose in the darkness, blood pouring from his nose, his night-vision scope knocked askew. That tall American bastard had struck him! The humiliation, the degradation, the abject hatred of foreigners and Tajiks—they all came rushing to the surface of Rami's psyche. He wouldn't stay down here in this unholy place a moment longer.

COMMANDMENT, a strange voice declared in his head. GENERATE RADIANCE.

He didn't even realize he had pulled one of his road flares from a pocket on his load-bearing vest. He had even removed the cap, exposing the striking surface beneath. When had he done that? Rami stared at the flare, his confusion surging. “I... what...?”

“What are you doing, you filthy Hazara donkey?” Major Durani screamed at him from where he had fallen, entangled with Wyatt. “Put that down!”

In a spiteful rage, Rami struck the flare against the striker on the cap. The flare sparked once in the darkness and then caught and burned like a star in his hand. The others were yelling now, crying out that they were blind. Rami didn't care. Satisfaction overtook him, and he spun in place, holding the flare away from his body. Nobody could tell him what to do! He was finished being their servant.

But then, Rami saw that dog of a Tajik climb to his feet and advance toward him, fury in his eyes. Rami thrust the flare toward the other man. “Stay back!”

A massive glowing blue tentacle snapped out of the moat, spraying water. The tentacle wrapped around Rami's chest and squeezed it with a sickening pop.

Rami's ribs shattered inwardly, and one broken end speared his heart. The pain, although excruciating, was blessedly temporary.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Wyatt’s vision returned just as a glowing tentacle shot out of the moat and crushed Rami. The road flare Rami had been holding fell to the ground, casting a horrific scene as the tentacle dropped Rami's lifeless body with a wet thud.

Then, half a dozen other tentacles shot out from the water-filled moat. Accompanied by a hideous cracking noise akin to the sound of breaking bones, a truck-sized slug-like monster with glowing blue skin hauled itself out from under the bridge and onto the courtyard, scattering water everywhere.

The air turned so frigid that Wyatt's breath frosted in front of him. Dizzy with shock, he stared at the creature; he had been convinced that a giant bug had killed all those men.

A bug would have been better.

Initially, Wyatt mistook the beast for a monstrous cave octopus. But he realized it was formless—a shifting mass of hardened, armor-like blue flesh with dozens of yellow eyes, teeth-filled mouths, and tentacles. Simultaneously, the mouths let out a shrill gibbering wail. Then, before his eyes, the creature grew two new tentacles, forming them from its own mass to pull its body toward the Marines.

To Wyatt's horror, his friends stood frozen, their mouths open and weapons hanging idly by their sides. Corporal Jasper Morgan, Abigail's scout, didn't even attempt to flee as the monster plowed over him, leaving a wet smear in its wake. A tentacle lashed out at Wyatt, who dodged just in time to avoid being struck. Having missed him, the tentacle grabbed Major Durani's leg and hoisted him upside down. The Afghan commando offered no resistance, not even a scream. His expression remained vacant as another tentacle seized his other leg. With a single sickening pop, the monster pulled the man apart, spraying blood and internal organs. Only now did someone scream, releasing a long, drawn-out wail of abject terror.

Wyatt raised his M-4 and fired a long burst at the monster, continuing until his weapon was empty. Someone else also opened fire.

Operating on autopilot, Wyatt ejected his spent magazine, reloaded his weapon, and resumed firing. He observed the impact of his bullets and felt a savage satisfaction as they tore into the creature's thick flesh. Methodically, he aimed his shots, which punctured two of the monster's yellow eyes and dislodged its teeth.

However, the monster seemed unfazed by the wounds.

It pulled itself forward with its tentacles, crushing two more Marines. The sound of their bones snapping sent a wave of revulsion through Wyatt. The monster left a trail of bloody gore in its wake as it changed direction, heading for the altar, where Chloe lay helpless.

Another tentacle whipped out and slammed into BB so hard that he crashed against the tower's wall with a bone-shattering impact. Wyatt emptied his second magazine in a sustained burst, leaving a trail of ichor-oozing bullet holes on the monster. He reloaded, but before he could fire again, he watched the bullet wounds close up and heal completely. Stunned, he lowered his weapon.

They couldn’t hurt it.

The sudden boom of shotgun blasts snapped him out of his daze. Haley advanced on the monster, discharging her Mossberg. She pumped the action and fired again. Unlike his 5.56-mm rounds, her shotgun slugs tore fist-sized chunks out of the monster, wounds that didn't heal over. Pus sprayed from them.

Still a dozen feet from Chloe, the monster veered toward Haley. Haley fired twice more before her weapon stopped. She pumped it, tried to fire, but it was empty!

A tentacle rose high above her. Wyatt darted forward, knowing he wouldn't reach her in time. But then the tentacle disintegrated, a foot of it vanishing in a shower of gore.

Victor, holding his unusual pistol in a two-handed grip, yelled at Haley, “Run!” Haley stood her ground, reloading her weapon as the severed tentacle regenerated. Victor's gun produced no muzzle flash, no shots, yet massive wounds appeared in the monster's hide as if by magic. Again, the monster raised its tentacle.

Wyatt tackled Haley and rolled away with her just before the tentacle struck. Victor circled the monster, firing repeatedly, tearing away more large chunks of flesh.

Wyatt helped Haley to her feet. She stared at him in wide-eyed horror, gripping his arm. “What is that thing?”

Damned if he knew.

How many of his friends were dead? He honestly didn't know. Even now, others stood as if hypnotized, staring open-mouthed at the monster. The only people fighting back were Wyatt, Haley, and Victor.

Victor's shots disintegrated another tentacle. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder at Wyatt. “Get Chloe. Get her out of here!”

Wyatt's gaze snapped to Chloe, who lay helpless near the altar. He sprinted to her and knelt by her side. Just then, Roy finally moved. He shook himself as if coming out of a trance. Despite the surrounding horror, his expression remained serene, even bored. Mechanically, he unslung the AT-4 from his back.

“No!” Wyatt yelled. “You're too close!”

Roy either couldn't hear or didn't care. He released the safety pin at the rear of the tube, unfolded the cocking lever, and raised the weapon to his shoulder. The sight was surreal, as if Roy were on a firing range. He even glanced over his shoulder and called out, “Back-blast area clear!”

But it wasn't clear. Victor stood less than ten feet behind him.

“Look out!” Wyatt yelled.

Roy fired the antitank weapon.

Flames shot out from the rear of the tube. Victor threw himself to the ground, but the flames still caught him. His shirt aflame, Victor rolled along the ground, beating at the fire.

The missile punched into the monster and embedded itself deep within its flesh. Wyatt shielded Chloe with his body.

But the missile didn't detonate.

Roy had been within the AT-4's minimum arming range. The monster surged toward Roy, who continued to depress the firing trigger as if the weapon contained more missiles. His expression stayed the same as the monster picked him up and raised him high into the air. One of the monster's teeth-filled mouths grew as large as a trash can.

“No!” Wyatt screamed.

The monster stuffed Roy head-first into its mouth. The teeth clamped down, cutting through Roy's body armor and his torso. With a series of sickening crunches, the monster devoured the rest of the man, boots and all. Roy hadn't even screamed.

Two tentacles whipped out and struck two more Marines so hard that their bodies exploded. Wyatt didn't even know which of his friends had just died. Haley ran to Wyatt and knelt beside him and the unconscious Chloe. “We can't fight it!” she yelled as she loaded a shell into her shotgun. “What do we do?”

What could they do?

Nothing.

Wyatt made the only decision he could, hating himself for it. “We run.”

He slid his arms under Chloe's shoulders and lifted her into a fireman's carry. His M-4 hung at his side. He steadied her with his left arm, freeing his right. She wasn't heavy, but running while holding her would be awkward. The monster was to their left, potentially leaving a path to the bridge open—if the beast didn't move to block them. “Go!” he yelled to Haley. “Grab whoever you can and drag them with you. If they don't come, leave them.”

“But—”

“And go infrared!”

With his free hand, Wyatt lowered his night-vision scope over his eye and switched it to infrared mode. Then, using the same hand, he pulled a smoke grenade from his vest, held it between his thighs as he yanked out the safety pin, and tossed it between the group and the bridge. The grenade began emitting a cloud of smoke. Please, don't let it see through smoke, he thought.

“Now!” He moved out, Chloe over his shoulders, Haley alongside him.

Wyatt almost tripped when the monster began emitting a deafening shriek like an air raid siren. Then he and Haley were in the smoke. He saw Haley's heat signature beside him. A tentacle smashed into the stones behind them, hitting so hard he heard the ground crack.

Haley bolted away, but then he saw her connect with another heat signature, another Marine, and drag the person back with her. The thermal image of another person was in front of him—Abigail! He could barely make out her face. She stood like a statue, expressionless, holding her M-4 tight against her shoulder, mechanically pulling the trigger repeatedly. The weapon's breech was open; it was empty.

Still holding Chloe, Wyatt grabbed Abigail's arm and pulled her along. She followed but slowed him down. Haley had found a second Marine and led both behind Wyatt.

They heard the monster behind them, its shrieks piercing the air, tentacles slamming into the ground like wrecking balls. Then the party was on the bridge and stumbling across it. Moments later, they were in the half-melted ruins.

They kept going.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

Jarring movement woke Chloe.

She was in complete darkness, disoriented and flush with panic. It took her several moments to realize someone was carrying her. It had to be Victor. His arm was wrapped around her thigh, and he gripped her wrist so tightly it hurt. What had happened? Memories of her astral reading and the ritual sacrifice remained fresh in her mind. Why had the psychic backlash hit her so hard? That had never happened before. “Stop, Victor,” she said. “Put... put me down.”

Victor stopped midstep, grunted, and then knelt. He lifted her over his head and set her down on the ground, panting. She heard others milling about. Then a female voice, Haley's, asked, “Why are you stopping? It might be following us.” The fear in her voice set Chloe's nerves alight.

“Can't... can't see it,” the man who had been carrying her answered. Wyatt—it was Wyatt, not Victor.

Where was Victor, then?

Chloe focused on breathing, on staying calm. “Wait,” she said, holding her hand out in the darkness. She closed her eyes, pulled magical energy from Astaris, and drew the sigil for Mage Sight over her eyes with her index finger. When she opened them again, she saw with near-daylight clarity.

Wyatt, Haley, Abigail, Chuck the EOD engineer, and a young man whose name she didn't know stood watching her in the ruins of the Atlantean settlement. They all wore their monocular night-vision scopes and looked terrified.

She drew a second sigil, tying the first spell in place. Her Mage Sight would remain active until she dispelled it or fell asleep. Or died.

Chloe sat up and rubbed her wrist. “Where's Victor? And where are the others?” From the look of abject misery on Wyatt's face, she feared the answer. “What... what happened?”

“Dead,” Wyatt said. “At least... I... maybe they're⁠—”

“They're dead,” Haley insisted. “You know they are. Don't do this.”

Wyatt turned away and stared into the ruins. “I should go back, make sure.”

The anguish in Wyatt's voice was heart-wrenching, and Chloe's fear for Victor threatened to push her over the edge. “Tell me what happened!”

Haley gripped Wyatt's MoTav and shook him, forcing him back a step. “You go back, and you'll be dead too. We need you!”

“Haley's right,” Abigail said. “Don't remember most of what happened—and what I do remember is bat-shit crazy—but I know you can't go back.”

A storm of emotions ran through Wyatt's face, and his fingers opened and closed. Chloe looked from Wyatt to Haley to the others. “Someone needs to tell me what's going on.”

Wyatt inhaled and nodded. Then he told her what had happened, how a monster had burst out of the moat to attack them. As he described the monster—its shifting blue mass, tentacles, yellow eyes, and sawlike teeth—her fear escalated into bone-shaking terror. When he finished, she knew three things: One, Victor must be dead. Two, some idiot had summoned a Shoggoth to this cavern. And three, they were all going to die.

Wyatt led the survivors to a large walled compound. Most of the structure at the end of the compound was destroyed and now halfway melted and collapsed, creating a precarious-looking pile of rubble almost a hundred feet high. The same heat damage had also melted and disfigured the compound’s walls, but even half melted, they offered some protection and left only a single opening to guard. He asked Haley to provide sentry duty with her shotgun because it was the only weapon that had even slowed down the monster. Then he considered the survivors.

Everyone was exhausted, including him, but they couldn't rest for long. The monster might be hunting them. Abigail sat on a chunk of melted sandstone, cupping her face in her hands.

“Abby,” he whispered, dropping to one knee beside her and touching her forearm. “Are you combat-effective?”

She considered him for long moments, watching him through her monocular scope. Finally, she sighed and gave him the ghost of a smile. “Reckon so. Bit... wrung out, though.”

“I need your help. Can you make sure everyone gets water and eats something?”

“Got it,” she said, rising.

He grabbed her forearm, stopping her. “You too.”

She bit her upper lip and nodded.

“And get me a weapons and ammo count.”

“Sure, Wyatt. Sure.”

She stumbled over to Chuck and Ollie Martin. The latter man was her second-in-command and now the only surviving member of her fireteam. Roy’s fireteam was gone, as was most of Wyatt’s. He forced down the surge of emotions threatening to bring him to his knees.

“Save who you can,” he whispered.

He went to Chloe, sitting by herself, hugging her knees. She had removed her body armor and helmet and placed them on the ground beside her. Her night-vision glasses hung over her chest from a strap. She looked up as he approached, staring at him with wet eyes.

“You all done pretending you need your fancy glasses?” he asked.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, nodded, and lifted the cord from her neck, holding the glasses out to Wyatt. “You might as well take them.”

He raised his monocular scope atop his helmet and put the glasses on. They were like sunglasses, only heavier, but he saw nothing through them.

“Power switch is on the right arm.”

He found the switch and activated the glasses. In a moment, his vision snapped into a crystal-clear blending of blue and white, infinitely superior to the green-tinted world he saw through his scope. There wasn't even a hint of depth-perception problems. “How do they work?”

“Don’t know. I never paid attention to the technical stuff. Something to do with creating ambient light.”

These glasses were beyond next-generation. “So… how is it you can see in the dark?”

“It’s a lot to explain.”

Her voice cracked with stress. This situation was hitting her hard. Hell, he was only just holding himself together, and that was only because he was responsible for everyone else and couldn't afford to lose it. He took his last water bottle from his MoTav and handed it to her. “Drink.”

“You need it.”

“I have more,” he lied.

She upended the bottle and finished it in several long swallows.

Wyatt found his last two protein bars and thrust one into her hands. He sat beside her on the chunk of stone, ripped open his own bar, and chewed it. The sugar rush went right to his head, feeling better than sex... well, almost. “Eat,” he said, his mouth full.

She sighed but did as instructed, taking small bites and then eating faster, with greater urgency.

They remained like that for several minutes. When he spoke, his voice was soft and gentle. “Chloe, as my father used to say, it's time to come to God. What was that monster?”

She remained silent, biting her lower lip. He was about to prod her again when she said, “I... think it's a Shoggoth, at least based on your description. I can't imagine what else it might be.”

“A Shog-what?”

Her lower lip trembled with emotion. “Shoggoth. What the Division would identify as a Class-B nondimensional, nonterrestrial visitor, an NTV.” She snickered, sounding ready to lose her shit. “‘Visitor’ is a terrible designation for something so alien and hostile. It shouldn't be here, not after all this time. It defies the laws of magic.”

“I... what?”

“It's how summoning works,” she continued, speaking in a rush as if she were explaining something trivial, like a bus route. “The universe always course-corrects for dimensional intrusions. The same thing would happen to us if we traveled to its dimension. Something—some unknown force—would bring us back to our own world, usually within two or three days. For the Shoggoth to still be here—thousands of years after it was summoned—is impossible.” She shook her head. “None of this makes any sense.”

He watched her, understanding almost nothing of what she had just said. Magic, Division, dimensions? He didn't know what question to ask first, so he settled on the obvious. “Who... who are you, I mean, really?”

“Who we said we were... kind of. My name is Chloe Anne Winters. My partner is... was Victor Dean Crane, but neither of us works for the State Department—although I do work for Arkham University. Technically, we work for the CIA, but that's not exactly right either. We work for a covert division within the CIA, one that almost no one knows exists.”

“What division?” Wyatt’s head spun as he tried to make sense of everything she’d said.

“Its official title is the Special Activities Division, the SAD—although we always refer to it as the ‘Supernatural’ Activities Division because of its mandate.”

He made a go-on motion with his hand.

“To investigate, contain, and cover up cases of paranormal or occult manifestations or interdimensional intrusions.”

That sounded impossible, but given where they were and what they had just faced, he accepted it. He'd worry about how crazy it was later. “Okay, why you?”

“Why me what?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re... well, you’re hardly the black ops CIA type. Victor, I get, but you...”

Chloe’s sigh was equal parts exhaustion and indignation. “You sound just like my mother.” She rubbed her eyes with her palms and shook her head. “I will admit, I’ve had better days, but I’ve been doing this for three years.”

“This? This what? Fighting... Shoggoths?”

“Nobody fights Shoggoths, Wyatt. At least, no one I’ve ever heard of. There are damned few tales of mages who have summoned one and survived the encounter. Interdimensional creatures like Shoggoths are often the source of demon legends.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Something’s very wrong here.”

“You think?” Abigail asked from behind them, her voice dripping with scorn.

Wyatt turned and saw Abigail and Haley standing behind them. He had been so occupied with Chloe that he hadn't heard them approach.

Chuck now guarded the entrance with Haley’s shotgun. “How bad are we, Abby?”

She kept her attention on Chloe while answering. “Well... no injuries, some scratches is all. We’ve all got our primary firearms still, so there’s that.”

“How much ammo?”

“Almost full combat loads. Haley fired a mag of 5.56 before she switched to the pump-action.”

“I saw my bullets weren’t hurting that... whatever that thing was,” Haley said.

“I’m down a mag myself,” Abigail added, “which I don’t remember firing at all.”

Wyatt nodded. “Go on.”

“Otherwise, we got our pistols, two spare mags each,” Abigail said. “Haley’s got her shotgun but only has what’s left in it for ammo. You and I still got our grenade launchers... so there’s that. I still got a Star Round.”

That left two 40-mm frag grenades for him and three for Abby.

“We’ve got three hand grenades between us all, five flashbang grenades, three smoke canisters, and eight road flares, and there’s anything you still got.”

“Grenades are good,” Wyatt said, but then he wondered if even a grenade would have hurt Chloe’s Shoggoth. He resisted the urge to pat himself down. He knew he still had at least one road flare. “What about the specialist gear?”

“Haley’s got the climbing kit, but one of Roy’s guys was carrying the breaching package; that’s gone.”

Wyatt considered that. Climbing gear might prove useful, but he’d have preferred the explosive charges. He could have used them as an improvised bomb against the monster and detonated them remotely. “Okay, what else?”

“A bit of good news,” Abby continued. “Ollie's got the AT-4.”

Wyatt remembered Roy’s misguided attempt to use the antiarmor weapon on the Shoggoth. Had Roy been farther away, he might have killed the damned thing. Bullets were one thing, but he doubted the monster could heal damage it took from a weapon designed to destroy tanks.

“Maybe not as good as you think,” Chloe said. “Don't assume explosives will kill it.”

Abigail and Haley exchanged puzzled looks, so Wyatt summed up what Chloe had told him about the Shoggoth. To their credit, everyone else seemed to take it all in stride.

Haley cocked her head and considered Chloe. “Let’s go back to this magic thing.”

“And the insurgents,” Abigail added. “You knew about their ambush. How?”

Chloe ran the fingers of one hand back through her messy hair. “I'm gonna be in so much shit.”

“Chloe...” Wyatt said, doing his best to imitate his father’s stern-faced lectures. “No more secrets.”

Chloe’s shoulders slumped. “I'm a mage, a wizard—although my family prefers 'witches.' The terminology varies around the world. For example, the Division classifies me as a Tier-3 Spectral Reconnaissance Operator, but other mages call me an astromancer. My inherent talent is in magical surveillance. Scrying, sympathetic magic... wards.”

Abigail stood in place, a lopsided grin on her face. Haley stared. Wyatt made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh. “Chloe…”

Chloe sighed and rested her left elbow against her knee, her cheek on her palm, her head at an angle. Then she raised her right hand, palm up, and touched her thumb to her index finger. She made a gesture as if she were drawing in the air. A tingling sensation ran along the nape of Wyatt’s neck. Then the cover of the pocket holding his grenades opened, the Velcro making a ripping noise. In a moment, one of his M67 hand grenades rose out of the pocket and floated in the air, revolving.

Wyatt fell back off the stone he had been sitting on and landed on his ass. Haley stumbled back, her fist rising to her mouth. Abigail’s eyes went vacant, and she froze. Wyatt stared wide-eyed at the spinning grenade.

Chloe smiled, but it looked forced. “Told you. Witch.”

“I'll be goddamned,” Wyatt whispered.

“Me first,” said Haley.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

Victor woke in agony.

He lay on his side, curled into a fetal position. Spikes of fire burned in his skull, clouding his thoughts and making every movement, every breath torture. Then, miraculously, the pain began to lessen. When it finally ended, he rose to his knees, clutched his head, and beheld his surroundings. A dark chamber more than fifty feet tall towered over him. There were no openings of any kind, but a single set of black stone steps was carved into the wall, winding its way up to a hexagonal opening in the ceiling at least six feet wide.

Dominating the center of the chamber, floating several feet above the floor, was a black orb the size of a basketball. The orb radiated an eerie blue-violet light that shimmered in the surrounding air. Dozens of glistening triangles that seamlessly fit together covered the orb like a mosaic. Thousands of points of light, like stars, glistened within each triangle. Beneath the floating orb, a strange, weblike pattern of glowing golden lines covered the floor. The lines shifted and changed constantly, forming impossibly intricate patterns, before reforming new designs, each more detailed than the last. The effect was mesmerizing… The glowing pattern covered most of the chamber’s floor but left a ten-foot border close to the walls free. Victor remained within the cleared space. He didn’t know what the glowing, shifting pattern was, but he suspected it would fry him like a bug zapper if he touched it.

“Shit,” he whispered, realization dawning. “I’m inside that black tower.”

He wore only pants and his combat boots. His shirt and GLUMP pistol were gone, but he still had Ol’ Bessie in his belt sheath, as well as his multitool. A greasy substance coated his entire body and slicked his hair back. Even his pants were coated in the slime.

The last thing he remembered was fighting the monster, keeping it from Chloe. Then he had somehow caught on fire, beating at the flames with his bare hands.

He stared at his hands now. They were clearly burned, the skin burst and leaking pus, but he felt no pain. Remarkably, he still wore his Mind-Ward bracelet. When he ran his fingers over his torso, he felt fluid-filled blisters and more burned skin. First-degree burns over most of his chest, he guessed. He should have been in agony but wasn’t.

Did that have something to do with whatever covered him?

If so, the slime had done nothing for the pain in his skull. Maybe it was like a local anesthetic.

He drew his bowie knife, feeling better with naked steel in his hand. He considered the glowing black orb and recognized it for what it had to be—an Atlantean artifact. Unfortunately, there was no way he and Chloe would carry it out of here.

If she was even still alive.

A new onslaught of pain lanced through his skull, and he cried out, falling onto his knees, clutching his head. His pills, which had been in his shirt pocket, were now gone. I'm in hell, he thought. I'm in hell...

EMENDATION, a strange alien voice announced in his head. THE VICTOR-DEAN-CRANE INHABITS AN EDIFICE DESIGNATED BY THE SUBJUGATORS AS THE STAR VAULT. THIS EDIFICE SAFEGUARDS THE KEY-ORB.

Victor’s fingers brushed over his Mind-Ward bracelet, but instead of chanting the mantra that would activate it and protect him, he made a fist. This entity had helped him with the pain once already; could it do so again? “Please,” he gasped. “The pain.”

OBSERVATION. THE MALIGNANCY HAS EXPANDED, ENLARGED, RETROGRADED. ANNIHILATION IS INEVITABLE AND EXPECTANT.

Now, it felt like a white-hot knife seared through his skull. He screamed and screamed. When the pain faded, he lay on his side, drooling and heaving huge gasps of air. “Please... please... please…”

A noise like hundreds of branches snapping came from above. He peered up through blurry eyes to see the glowing blue monster that had attacked the party. The beast forced its bulk through the opening at the top of the tower, poured onto the stairs, and used its tentacles to pull itself down. Dozens of yellow eyes fixated on Victor with alien indifference, and he nearly fouled himself.

The monster reached the bottom of the stairs and slithered, oozed, crawled toward Victor, keeping against the wall and away from the strange pattern on the floor. It doesn't want to touch that pattern either, he thought. It's afraid.

EDIFICATION. THE GUARDIAN FEELS NO FEAR, NO BASE EMOTIONS.

So, as he had suspected, this other monster—the Guardian—could read his thoughts. The pain surged once more, and he cried out, gasping and clawing his fingernails through the skin on his face and scalp, ripping away hair. Blood ran down his face.

It was doing this, he realized, hurting him. His fingers raced to his Mind-Ward. “Beautiful Goddess,” he gasped, finding the words difficult to speak, “mother of might, mother of all things, mother of gods and giants, mother of creation and of destruction…”

EXPOSITION. THE VICTOR-DEAN-CRANE IS INCORRECT, ERRONEOUS, IMPRECISE. THE GUARDIAN IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE MALIGNANT GROWTH.

The Guardian's voice was softer now, muted, which meant the Mind-Ward was beginning to work. All he needed to do was finish the activation mantra. But when the pain intensified, he screamed in agony, and his fingers fell away from the Mind-Ward.

INQUIRY. THE GUARDIAN CAN ADJUST, DIMINISH, MITIGATE THE MALIGNANT GROWTH, BUT NOT IF THE VICTOR-DEAN-CRANE CONTINUES ITS COURSE OF ACTION. DOES THE VICTOR-DEAN-CRANE DESIRE SUCCOR?

“Yes,” Victor gasped. “Please help me.”

The pain receded once more, leaving Victor shell-shocked and drained, gasping for air.

INTERROGATIVE. DOES THE VICTOR-DEAN-CRANE COVET CONTINUANCE? DOES IT INVOKE APPEASEMENT? THE MALIGNANCY CAN BE AMELIORATED, EVEN EXTIRPATED.

“I... what? I don’t understand.” But then, he grasped the Guardian’s intent—it was offering to cure him. Could it?

OBSERVATION. AN ACCORD REMAINS VIABLE, CONCEIVABLE, DESIRABLE. THE VICTOR-DEAN-CRANE IS NOT A DESCENDENT OF THE SUBJUGATORS’ SERVANTS, YET THE FEMALE LIFE-FORM DESIGNATED THE CHLOE-ANNE-WINTERS IS. THE CHLOE-ANNE-WINTERS MAY TRAVERSE THE GRID-FORGE. FAILURE IS IMAGINABLE, YET ASCENDANCY REMAINS ACHIEVABLE.

The Guardian was asking him to betray Chloe. “I... no, never.” He shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fists. He’d die first.

EVIDENTIARY DEMONSTRATION. THE ORIGIN OF THE MALIGNANT GROWTH IS THE CHLOE-ANNE-WINTERS. ITS INEPT TRANSFERENCE OF EMPYRIAN REALITY HAS PRECIPITATED THE LIFE-FORM’S CELLULAR BREAKDOWN. ANNIHILATION IS INEVITABLE WITHOUT INTERVENTION, WITHOUT AN ACCORD.

Chloe had caused his tumor? That didn't seem possible... yet he had been healthy before beginning to work with her. Could she have...? Victor gripped his bloody skull and shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no.”

The pain returned, far worse this time. He fell to his side and curled into a ball. When the agony crested, tears covered his face, and his throat was raw from screaming. “Yes!” he whimpered. “Okay.”

Two of the monster's tentacles shot forward; their tips gripped Victor's skull. An unimaginable cold coursed through him, and he shrieked in pain. When the Guardian removed its tentacles, Victor felt drained again, but the pain had vanished. All that remained was rage—and the certainty that Chloe had been the source of his tumor. Her inept use of magic had almost killed him.

He ripped the bracelet from his arm and threw it aside as if it were poisonous. “You cured me?”

OBSERVATION. THE ASSUAGEMENT REMAINS TEMPORAL, TRANSITORY, PROVISIONAL. WITHOUT FURTHER THERAPEUTICS, THE GROWTH WILL RECAPITULATE. ANNIHILATION WILL BE ASSERTED.

“I... I understand.” Victor wasn't healed, not completely. He was still going to die, and it was all Chloe's fault. She had always been a weak mage. Compared to Aspen or Christina, Chloe was nothing more than a joke. And that prick Monroe had saddled him with her!

DIRECTION. BRING THE CHLOE-ANNE-WINTERS TO THE STAR VAULT. IT WILL REMOVE THE KEY-ORB, NULLIFYING THE OUTER WARDS. DECAMPMENT FROM THE SUBJUGATORS' INCARCERATION IS FORESEEABLE.

Still on his knees, Victor shook his head. “I... how? She has others with her, armed Marines. I only have a knife.”

The monster’s bulk drew back several feet, leaving a trail of slime. Lying glistening in the slime was a disgusting pile of half-digested bones and an assortment of equipment—including his GLUMP pistol. Victor crawled closer, shoved the slimy bones out of the way, and beheld the rest of the equipment: there were two 40-mm Star Flare grenades, several lengths of shaped charges for blowing doors, and a green cylindrical object with a yellow stripe and six stabilizing fins. Painted above the stripe was the designation 84 mm HEDP—a high-explosive, dual-purpose projectile, good for light armor, buildings... or enemy personnel.

He smiled. “I can work with this.”

Somewhere deep within a mind that the Guardian had twisted and corrupted, the real Victor screamed.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

As Wyatt climbed back to his feet, Chloe cut off the flow of magic from Astaris, ending her spell. The hand grenade dropped into her open palm. She handed the grenade back to Wyatt, who took it carefully, as if it might bite him, and slid it back into the pocket of his vest.

Abigail shook herself, as if coming out of a trance—which, in a way, she was. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking about.

“Uh, it’s a bit hard to explain,” Wyatt said. “You zoned out.”

“I what?”

Haley stared at Chloe with an expression of profound disbelief.

Chloe’s face heated. “Please don't stare at me like that. I... I don't like it.”

“So... magic... so... so...” Wyatt hesitated, his mouth open, his confusion clear.

“Sewing is for needles,” Chloe said, but no one laughed. She sighed. “Look, I know this is a lot to take in, but we need to focus on how to get out of here.”

“What else can you do?” Haley tilted her head, eyeing Chloe. “Can you fight?”

“A bit,” Chloe answered. “But I'm not a combat mage.”

“There are combat mages?” Wyatt asked.

“We don't have time for that now.” She felt naked, as if she were on display. Her emotions were shattered, and she still couldn't bring herself to accept that Victor was gone. Her thoughts raced, threatening to overcome her. Right now, only fear kept her going—fear for her own life and for the lives of these men and women. She considered the others. “Look, this is a very dangerous situation.”

Abigail snorted, looking incredulous. “Ya think?”

Wyatt raised his palm to the woman. “Okay, we exfil. What can you do to help us?”

“My talent is astromancy, spectral reconnaissance. I astral project—it's kind of like spiritual projection, going places and seeing what's there without actually moving.”

“Okay, that could be helpful,” Wyatt said.

She shook her head. “Not here. I tried it once already and got stuck. I almost didn't get free. There's something... weird down here. It messes with my projection.”

“There's a whole lot fucking weird down here,” Haley said bitterly. Radiating anger, she stood with her arms folded.

Chloe realized Haley didn't like her, guessing the woman blamed her for the deaths of her friends. And she wasn't entirely wrong either. Chloe had been the one who just had to get closer to the source of the eldritch resonance, had to find an artifact. If not for her, Victor would still be alive, and all the others...

“Okay,” Wyatt said in a gentle tone, frowning at Haley. “We're all stressed out. What can you tell us about that thing, that Sho-Shogit⁠—”

“Shoggoth. Damned little, to be honest. It's not from this world. And it's not supposed to be here, not after what must be thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands.”

“Why shouldn't it be here?” Wyatt asked.

“It's hard to explain in layman's terms.”

“Try.”

She exhaled in frustration and struggled to find the right words. “Okay. There are many realities. Some are reflections of this world, but others are abstract—imagine acid lakes and razor-sharp glass mountains, and then imagine what kind of horror could evolve to survive there.”

“I'm with you... kind of.”

“This is our reality. We belong here,” Chloe said. “The Universe, God, the Goddess, Mother Gaia, a Supreme Being—pick one—something, some force, acts to keep us in our own reality. There’s a balance in every dimension. No mage really understands what controls this balance; they just accept that it exists. Some mages say they know, but they’re almost always full of shit. Power perceived is still power.”

“Chloe…”

“The Shoggoth doesn’t belong here. It can be summoned, usually through sacrificial magic, blood magic—very dark shit—but the Shoggoth’s presence is an obscene warping of our reality. It. Does. Not. Belong. The Universe always self-corrects to send dimensional intrusions back, but I think the Shoggoth has guarded these ruins for thousands of years.”

“Okay, but how can we fight it?”

Chloe stared at him in shock. “Fight it? No.” She gripped the front of his vest in both hands and pulled him closer, shaking him. Didn’t he get it? Wasn’t he listening? “Wyatt, you run from it.”

He gently pried her hands from his vest. “But if we had to?”

She sighed again, feeling even more overwhelmed. Even her mother had never faced a Shoggoth. “I don’t know. Few mages have tried to summon them. It usually ends badly.”

“Define ‘badly,’” Haley asked.

Chloe shrugged. “Pulled-apart-like-chicken-wings-and-eaten badly.”

“Oh.”

“The first mage to summon a Shoggoth and survive the encounter was a pyromancer named William Bloch. In his grimoire, De Vermis Mysteriis, Bloch wrote that he used fire to hurt the Shoggoth. He said it healed its other wounds but couldn’t easily heal burn damage.” She glanced up, just now remembering something else Bloch had written. “Light. Bloch said it couldn’t see in complete darkness but didn’t like bright light, either, and that he thought it might have been deaf.”

“That would make sense for something with lots of eyes,” Wyatt said. “Maybe that’s why it never attacked us until Rami lit that flare. That might give us an advantage with the NVGs.”

“It went after Rami first,” Haley said. “And what the hell was he thinking, activating a flare?”

“He may not have been thinking anything,” Chloe said. “The Shoggoth probably made him light the flare so it could see its dinner. Bloch claimed the Shoggoth he summoned was a telepath that could influence unguarded minds. Since the moment we entered these caves, it’s been testing us.”

“I’ve heard a voice in these caves,” Haley said, bobbing her head. “I thought I was going nuts.”

“Can't recall much,” Abigail admitted. “I mean, Rami lightin' that flare sticks out, but after that...” She shook her head.

“It’s the Shivers,” Chloe told her. “Extreme dissociative anxiety, EDA. The human brain can’t process the existence of magic and nondimensional entities; normal people’s brains just... kind of go into limbo. It’s a protective measure. Some people even carry out rote movements without realizing what they’re doing. Those who survive interdimensional incursions rarely remember anything. It’s one reason people don’t know about the supernatural world.”

“I remember the monster,” said Haley.

“Me too,” said Wyatt.

“You must be Shivers-resistant. Some one to two percent of the population are. Same with animals. Just lucky, I guess.”

Haley sniffed and looked away.

“So what's the deal?” Abigail said, pausing to glance at Chuck and Ollie. “If we run into that thing again, we just gonna lock up or what?”

Chloe paused, trying to find a way to tell her the truth without offending her. Clearly, Abigail was not used to weakness. “Maybe. It’s hard to say for sure. Sometimes, repeated exposure to the supernatural can reinforce resistance. But most people never get used to it. I'm sorry. Best to avoid it.”

“No shit,” Abigail said.

Wyatt reached over and squeezed Abigail’s shoulder. “We’ll deal with this. I promise.”

“Sure, sure,” Abigail whispered, but she looked away.

“What do you want to do?” Haley asked.

Wyatt looked around at the ruins and the other two men. “I want to get the hell out of here, but we’re all turned around. Lost. I don’t know which way is out.”

“Neither do I,” Haley said.

“Me too,” Abigail lamented.

They all looked at Chloe.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t see well enough to tell you where we are. This is an enormous cavern.”

Wyatt sighed and stared up at the half-collapsed structure above them. “I guess we do this the hard way, then.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

Haley stood with Wyatt and Abigail near the collapsed pile of half-melted stones that had once been a large structure, maybe an ancient temple or estate. She aimed her shotgun-mounted IR laser upward, scanning the green beam across the summit some fifty feet above her. Loose chunks of fallen masonry, three or more feet in diameter, lay scattered around the base of the structure.

She had been into rock climbing since she was a teenager and had done it all: indoor, scrambling, bouldering, even some sport climbing. She understood just how dangerous this undertaking would be. No matter how many centuries this collapsed pile of stone had stood here, it remained unsettled and would eventually come down—and when it did, it would be spectacular.

She turned to Wyatt, who was trying to tie a Swiss seat around his groin. “This is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea.”

“She ain't wrong,” Abigail said then spat a wad of chewing tobacco near her boots.

Wyatt looked up from his attempt to tie the complicated knot. He wore Chloe's next-generation night-vision glasses, so she couldn't see his eyes, but if she could, she knew she'd detect the famous Hood stubbornness in them.

“I'm all out of good ideas,” he said. “We can't use white light, or the monster will see us, but we're also running out of batteries for the scopes. We need to find the bridge—before we stumble into this Shoggoth.” He paused, staring at the ends of the rope in his hands.

“Gimme.” Haley took the ends from him and finished tying the Swiss seat. Then she yanked on it hard enough to pull him forward against her. Happy with the fit, she placed her hands on his hips and shoved him back a step. “I'm not saying that climbing for a better vantage point is a bad idea... well, it is, but mostly, I'm talking about you climbing it. I'm the rock climber. If we had horses to ride, then you'd be the man.”

“Sheeit,” Abigail said. “Not even.”

“You're not helping,” Wyatt told Abigail.

“Ain't trying to. Haley's right. She oughta go. She's a better climber, not in charge, and weighs a whole shit-ton less than you do.” Almost under her breath, Abigail added, “Fat ass.”

“Why is everyone calling me fat today? Listen, this has to be me, okay?” Wyatt threaded the rope—the only length of sixty-meter nylon rope they had—through the carabiner.

“Why?” Haley demanded.

“'Cause I'm in charge, and I said so,” he told her in a tone that she recognized meant he wouldn't change his mind.

God, he was infuriating! Haley rubbed the sore back of her neck and turned away. Wyatt was trying to protect her again. The idiot! She'd be damned if she could figure him out. Something in him always made him try to protect women. It was like a bull and the color red. Someday, it would get him killed.

Maybe today.

Haley played out the belaying rope for Wyatt. As the squad's climbing subject matter expert, she had been carrying the climbing kit, but there wasn't much in it. The gear was intended for rappelling down the side of a building. It sure as hell wasn't meant for scaling sketchy-looking rubble piles. The tools in the kit consisted of one length of rope, half a dozen carabiners, and a dozen climbing spikes. If Chloe was wrong and the Shoggoth wasn't deaf, it would hear Wyatt hammering in the spikes and then come for some tasty low-hanging cowboy yummies—if the entire structure didn't come crashing down around the group. “Fuck,” she muttered as she looped the rope on the ground before her.

“Ayup,” Abigail said.

Wyatt readied himself. He had removed most of his gear: his armor, MoTav, M-4, and pistol belt. All he carried now was his grenade launcher slung over his back. When ready, he jumped in place several times then looked at Abigail. “Flare?”

Abigail handed him a 40-mm Star Flare grenade, and he slipped it into the cargo pocket of his combat pants. He leaned back and looked up at the debris pile.

One last try, Haley told herself. “Wyatt, listen. I know you think you're doing the right thing, but⁠—”

“See you in a bit,” he said as he walked past her to climb over the fallen stones.

“Dumbass,” she whispered.

“Ayup,” Abigail agreed once more.

Wyatt began to scale the debris. Haley picked up the end of the rope and wrapped it around her waist to belay him. As she had suspected, Wyatt wasn't much of a climber. He kept missing the most obvious hand- and footholds.

“God damn it, Wyatt Hood,” she said.

Abigail nodded sagely. “Ayup.”

Wyatt struggled with his climb, making slow progress. Years ago, he had completed the Marine Corps Assault Climber's course at the Mountain Warfare Training Center, but his climbing skills had only ever been average. Haley was much better at this, but there were some things he couldn't delegate.

At least, so he told himself.

He moved from hold to hold, using Chloe's wonderful NVGs to help him find solid grips and footholds. Dust and the occasional stone tumbled beneath him, and he hoped the women were keeping well out of the way. After about ten to fifteen feet, he placed the first spike and used a loose stone to pound it in. To his surprise, the spike slipped into the gap he had chosen after only three hits. Wyatt slipped a carabiner through the end of the spike and then clipped it to his rope. As Haley took up the slack, he climbed again. So far, so good.

When he judged he was about twenty feet up, just under halfway to the top, he paused and drew out another spike. He hammered it in with the stone he had used earlier. This time, the spike took dozens of hits to set. The echoes of stone on metal rang out across the ruins. When it was in place, he slipped the stone back into his pocket, attached a second carabiner to the spike, slipped the rope through it, and moved on.

He tried to always keep three points of contact, but sometimes, he had to make do with two as he transferred his hold. With his right hand, he reached for a new handhold, a broken ledge about three feet above his head, balancing precariously on his left foot as he did so. Almost got it.

Wyatt strained further, reaching…

His foothold gave out, crumbling away beneath him in a sudden shower of debris.

Wyatt fell.

At almost the moment Wyatt slipped, Haley hauled on the rappelling line, throwing her weight back against it to arrest his fall. She couldn't stop him until he fell almost ten feet and dropped beneath the second spike. The rope snapped taut, and Wyatt bounced in the air, the nylon rope stretching with the sudden stop. Wyatt spun in the air, hanging from his Swiss seat, his arms and legs akimbo, his grenade launcher dangling.

“Oh, shit!” said Haley, her heart skipping a beat. “Take the rope!”

Abigail slipped in, trading places with Haley and wrapping the rope around her waist, taking up as much slack as she could. The rope slipped another couple of feet before Abigail stopped it, her face a mask of determination. “Got it!”

Haley stripped away her gear, dropping her weapons, armor, and MoTav, keeping only her helmet and night-vision scope.

“Whatever yer gonna do, do it fast!” Abigail warned.

Haley didn't bother to answer, already scrambling over the fallen stones and approaching the rubble. She chose her holds and began to scale the ruin. If she fell, there'd be no rope to stop her, but climbing was what she was good at. She moved with the practiced ease of a pro, taking seconds to do what had taken Wyatt minutes. A quick glance showed Wyatt still spinning above her. More dust and stones rained down. If that spike gave way...

She focused on the climb, choosing the best hand- and footholds. And then she was beside him. Haley reached out for Wyatt, grasped his arm, and pulled him toward her. He was conscious and gripped her wrist, and she guided him to a secure handhold. When he found purchase with both boots, she let out a breath of relief, one arm around his waist, supporting him.

“You hurt?” she asked.

“Just my pride.”

“You wanna go back down?”

He looked up, and she followed his gaze. The summit was only about fifteen to twenty feet away. “After coming all this way?” he asked lightheartedly.

She knew he had to be in pain, but instead of pushing the issue, she said, “Okay, but follow me this time. Put your hands and feet where I put mine. Got it?”

When he hesitated, she resisted the sudden urge to push him off and let him fall again.

He sighed and nodded. “Sure. Lead the way.”

Small miracles, she thought as she climbed upward. Who'd have thought Wyatt freaking Hood would listen to a woman?

Not her.

The Guardian left Victor alone in the tower. He didn't know where it had gone, but he guessed it was searching for Chloe and the others. Having his own task to perform, he considered the explosive material laid out before him. Most people were nervous around explosives, but Victor had always enjoyed messing around with things that went boom. One time, in Cambodia, he had jury-rigged three Russian antitank mines together and used them to open a vault door inside a warlord's mansion. Now, that had been fun!

He had already removed the warhead from the 84-mm HEDP projectile and wrapped it in several lengths of flexible strip-shaped charges. The improvised explosive device was already lethal, but it needed some extra zing, a little of the old hot sauce. He used his multitool to open two 40-mm Star illumination grenades, separating the projectile body with the parachutes from the flare candles containing the fuel: strontium nitrate mixed with aluminum powder. Nasty stuff, that. Once ignited, it would burn like the fires of hell.

Victor whistled as he secured the fuel to his IED.

Wyatt took Haley's hand as she pulled him to the top of the structure. His back felt like a donkey had kicked it, but he had made it... thanks to Haley.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

From here, he couldn't see more than a hundred feet, even with Chloe's NVGs. That was why he had brought the grenade launcher. He unslung it now and readied the parachute flare for firing.

“I don't see the Shoggoth,” Haley said. “If it glows blue, shouldn't we still see it in the dark?”

He didn't have a clue. “Maybe it's in a building.” He placed the launcher's stock against his shoulder but then hesitated.

“What is it?”

“I don't know which direction to launch the flare. If I choose wrong, we may not see the way out.”

She took a long pause to consider him and then said, “Trust your instincts.”

Wyatt brought the weapon back up to his shoulder and fired.

The grenade shot out, whistling in the darkness. Moments later, it burst into bright light, illuminating the ancient settlement, the black tower, and—there, in the exact direction Wyatt had launched the flare—the chasm with the warped bridge and the partially collapsed guard tower, not nearly as far away as he had feared. As the flare descended on its parachute, the path to the stairs and the way out was also lit up. “Feel like getting out of here?” Wyatt asked.

“You know it.”

He watched the shadows move as the flare dropped lower. “You see the Shoggoth?”

“No, nothing. Maybe it's gone back under that moat near the tower.”

“Maybe.”

The flare dropped the rest of the way and fell behind a building near the chasm, but its glow still illuminated the ruins.

“Shit. There!” Haley said, pointing at a glowing blue form that flashed out of the darkness and sped toward the flare's light.

“I see it.” The Shoggoth had been waiting near the bridge. The monster disappeared, and a second later, the flare's glow vanished, plunging the cavern into darkness once more.

“It's guarding the way out,” Haley said.

“It's intelligent, not just a monster.”

“What now?”

“Thinking.”

His mind raced. The monster was smart enough to guard the only way out, but it either disliked the bright light from the flare or thought it would lead to them. If the Shoggoth was blind in the dark, maybe they could sneak out with their NVGs, but what if it felt vibrations like a snake? He couldn't risk his friends’ lives on a hunch. Then he inhaled as the kernel of an idea formed. “Damn,” he whispered.

“What?”

“The road flares.”

“What about them?”

“The monster will go after them, right?”

“I guess so. Are you thinking of distracting it?”

“Not exactly.”

“What, then?”

“Help me climb down, and I'll run my idea by you and the others,” Wyatt said.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

Wyatt led the survivors through the ruins toward the bridge over the chasm. He had spent much of his childhood hunting white-tailed deer in the forests surrounding Ten Sleep, Wyoming, and could move reasonably quietly. Now, he led the group once again, acting as a scout. With Chloe's next-generation NVGs, he saw the ruins through a blue-white clarity that still amazed him.

This Special Activities Division Chloe worked for rocked gear that any Tier-1 special forces unit would kill for. But this outfit had also sent a squad of Marines into danger without warning them about what they might face down here. When they got out, Wyatt planned to include some strong words in his after-action report—exceptionally bad cuss words.

He dropped to his knee and watched and listened. He saw nothing but ruins and heard nothing but several of the others. They had left behind almost all their equipment, especially their armor and helmets, using head harnesses to strap their MNVDs in place. Ballistic plates and fragmentation vests wouldn't protect them from a monster that could rip them apart, but the reduced weight might save their lives if they had to run—and if his plan failed, running would be their only option.

Abigail, another long-time hunter, moved like a ghost. To his surprise, Chloe and Haley were almost as quiet as Abigail was. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the two men. Ollie, who had grown up in Chicago, where hunting wasn't a thing, and Chuck, who was lugging the heavy SUGV, were less stealthy. Every time one of them kicked a stone or scraped a boot, Wyatt's fear spiked. So far, though, nothing else had moved in the ruins. Ideally, the Shoggoth was still guarding the exit.

When the others caught up, Wyatt moved forward again. Sweat coated his combat shirt, making it stick to his back. As he moved, his M-4 tight against his shoulder, the AT-4 he carried bumped against his spine. His M45A1 pistol was the only other weapon he had. The heavy .45-caliber slugs might do more damage to the Shoggoth than his carbine's 5.56-mm rounds could, but if he had to use the pistol, they were already screwed.

Wyatt paused to readjust the sling of the antiarmor weapon so it hung more comfortably. He scanned his surroundings once more. The trek was taking longer than he'd expected. They needed to approach the clearing opposite the keep for his plan to work. This strategy was starting to feel like a bad idea, one that could get the others killed. He glanced over his shoulder and saw them about twenty paces back, kneeling and watching, waiting for his signal. He couldn't let them down. In the cargo pocket of his combat pants, he had a road flare. If he needed to, he'd light it and draw the monster away while the others fled.

He rose and crept through the ruins. After another fifteen minutes or so, he squeezed past the corner of a melted building and saw the courtyard before him. They had made it!

Across its open expanse, maybe a hundred paces away, lay the bridge and the half-collapsed keep. The wide chasm was on his left. The courtyard was empty, but the Shoggoth was probably hiding again. Wyatt knelt behind cover and watched the courtyard, waiting long minutes, forcing himself to be patient.

Nothing stirred.

He motioned for the others to approach, using hand signals to indicate they should stay against the side of the building. Abigail dropped next to him, while the others remained farther back. Wyatt nodded at Chuck, and the engineer removed the backpack-mounted SUGV and prepped the robot for use. While Chuck was doing that, Wyatt unslung his AT-4 and was unfolding the shoulder stop when Haley scurried forward.

She placed her lips near his ear. “Chloe needs to talk to you.”

Wyatt paused, his heartbeat racing, and turned to see Chloe sitting cross-legged about ten feet away, watching him. What now? He bit his upper lip, tasted the sweat beading there, and nodded. He handed the AT-4 tube to Haley. “Watch front,” he whispered.

He crawled to Chloe. “What is it?” he asked, his mouth next to her ear.

“I've cast an astral probe, but something's blocking me.”

He didn't know what that meant, but the group was about to go live. “Not now.”

As Wyatt was turning away, Chloe gripped his forearm. “You don't understand. The same thing happened at the tower. I think it might be the Shoggoth.”

He watched her face, thinking the matter through. If it was the Shoggoth, that meant it was close. It also meant that now wasn't the time to change the plan. “What are you asking me?”

“Let me get closer and try again.”

He looked from her to the bridge and the keep. They were just far enough away for his missile to arm. If they moved closer, they’d risk drawing the monster's attention—and then they'd really be in the shit. He shook his head. “No.”

“Wyatt...”

“I said no. You stay back here, where you're safe.”

Her eyes flashed, but before she could argue, he crawled back to Haley. He took the AT-4 from her and motioned with his head for her to move back with the others. Haley did, leaving him with Abigail.

“Sure you don't want me to take the shot?” Abigail whispered.

He shook his head. Abigail was a better shot, but he couldn't take the chance she might freeze up again. The Shoggoth was out there; he was certain of it—especially after Chloe's warning. His adrenaline surged, heightening his senses. He detected that same chemical odor he had smelled the first time he and his associates crossed the bridge. Something about the scent bothered him; it felt as if he had missed something. Probably just nerves. He needed to focus, or he'd get everyone killed. Once again, he began to doubt his plan.

But it was the only plan he had.

Wyatt gripped the AT-4 in both hands then unfolded its cocking lever and adjusted the rear sights to the shortest-range setting. The action made only a slight metallic click, but in the darkness, the noise seemed magnified tenfold. He remained still, but nothing moved. Then he lifted the AT-4 to his shoulder and glanced back, making sure his backblast area was clear. “Go time,” he whispered to Abigail.

She gave Chuck the go-ahead, and the electric motor on the SUGV engaged, emitting a soft whine. The tracks clicked as the SUGV moved forward, its volume increasing as it sped past him and Abigail and headed across the courtyard. The damned thing was fast!

Wyatt set the first two fingers of his right hand on the launcher's safety catch. The SUGV pivoted around rocks, moving toward the bridge, but the Shoggoth either wasn't taking the bait or couldn't see the robot. Maybe it's not even here, he thought. Realizing he was holding his breath, Wyatt exhaled and cocked the AT-4. He placed his thumb against the firing button.

The SUGV reached the bridge and sped past it, heading straight for the keep. Wyatt lifted his NVGs onto his forehead. “Now,” he said.

When nothing happened, he thought Chuck hadn't heard him. Just as he was about to repeat his order, the road flare tied to the SUGV's broken arm lit up with a pop. Bright-red light flooded the courtyard. The SUGV drove into the keep, its interior awash in burning crimson.

Creating the perfect target.

He heard the Shoggoth before he saw it—the creature’s hideous cracking noise. Then its blue glow appeared from the chasm where it had been hiding. The monster's tentacles shot out to grip the courtyard and pull it out of the chasm. It launched itself toward the red glow within the keep, coming on like an out-of-control train. The opening was too small for the monster, and when the Shoggoth forced its bulk inside, it dislodged stones, nearly collapsing the structure for the group. Wyatt depressed the firing button.

The AT-4 trailed smoke as it propelled its high-explosive antibunker projectile at the keep. Wyatt's aim was perfect, and the projectile detonated on impact just above the monster, sending a massive concussive force into the weakened structure. The entire building fell with a roar, trapping the Shoggoth, maybe even crushing it.

God, he hoped so!

“Now, Abby!” Wyatt yelled. He tossed away the empty tube and snatched up his M-4, setting his battle sight on the collapsed building.

Abigail rose and, in one smooth motion, activated and threw a road flare onto the courtyard, making sure it landed far to their right. If they hadn't trapped the Shoggoth, the flare might still distract it. Abigail bolted past Wyatt, with Ollie just behind her. In seconds, Abby and Ollie crossed the courtyard and reached the bridge, where they took up firing positions on the still-smoking keep.

“Haley, go!” Wyatt ordered.

Haley rose, hauling Chloe with her. The two women sprinted past. Chuck hung back with Wyatt, providing cover. Haley and Chloe were only about thirty feet from the bridge, still covered by Abby and Ollie. Chloe and Haley would cross first, followed by Wyatt and Chuck. When they were across, Abby and Ollie would follow last.

Time to move! Wyatt rose and glanced back at Chuck. “Go!”

Chuck sprinted behind the women, with Wyatt only steps behind. Goddamn, Wyatt thought, this crazy plan is going to⁠—

An enormous explosion and a bright-orange fireball erupted at the end of the bridge. The concussive force knocked Wyatt off his feet, sending him flying backward and knocking the air out of his lungs. He lay on his back, disoriented and breathless, and raised his head to see two figures—both wreathed in flames, their arms flapping—stagger out of the thick black smoke. They collapsed, unmoving but still burning.

Abby and Ollie.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Victor climbed down from the ruin where he had been hiding, his GLUMP pistol in hand. His ambush had worked perfectly. The Marines had been so focused on the Guardian that they hadn't noticed his hidden explosive charge. Killing them had been a crying shame, but they were in his way. No hard feelings, kids.

He eyed the fallen structure. Trapping the Guardian like that had been clever. He had to admit, he was impressed. The rocks shifted and moved as the Guardian sought to free itself. The rubble wouldn't hold it for long, he guessed. Victor surveyed the aftermath of his explosion. The two Marines who had been on the bridge were still burning husks; his “hot sauce” had worked like a charm.

Chloe and three others lay on the courtyard near the edge of the chasm. She shifted and tried to raise her head.

Victor smiled and strode toward her. “Hey, partner,” he called out cheerfully.

Wyatt rose to his hands and knees, his vision blurry, his ears ringing. Thinking was hard right now, but he needed to do something. A fire blazed at the end of the bridge, filling the cavern with thick black smoke. Pain shot through his forehead and down to his jaw, where he felt blood dripping. He tried to breathe but choked on dust and fumes. Chloe's night-vision glasses were gone.

A scream pierced his stupor.

He staggered to his feet, rubbing his eyes. His M-4 was missing, its sling broken. Ahead of Wyatt, Chuck sat upright, cradling his left hand against his chest. Three of his fingers were bloody stumps now.

Chuck cried out in pain again, and Wyatt stumbled toward him, pausing just long enough to squeeze his shoulder.

“Apply pressure,” he said weakly. He couldn't help him now; Wyatt needed to check on the others first. Were they even still alive? Abigail and Ollie were gone; that much was clear.

Through the smoke, he saw Haley. She lay on her side, about three feet from the edge of the chasm, her arms flung out. Several feet away, her shotgun was jammed barrel-first into a pile of rocks. Nausea and fear made Wyatt dizzy. Is she⁠—

And then Haley's leg jerked, bringing Wyatt a surge of relief. She raised her head and met his eyes. The bandage over her broken nose was red with blood. She looked terrible, but she was alive! He hurried to her, knelt beside her, and placed his hand on the small of her back. “Are you hurt?”

“What... no,” she said, shaking her head, and pointed through the smoke. “Chloe... Who...?”

A shirtless man was carrying Chloe over his shoulder.

What the hell? Wyatt rose and staggered forward.

“Wait,” Haley said, attempting to rise. “I'll help.”

“Stay down. You're hurt.” He caught up to the man carrying Chloe, grabbed his shoulder, and spun him around.

It was Victor Crane!

Simultaneously, Chloe kicked her legs free of Victor's grip and fell back while Victor swung at Wyatt.

Wyatt partially blocked Victor's swing with his forearm, but the handle of the pistol Victor was holding caught him on the side of the head. Pain sliced through Wyatt's skull, and he staggered back and nearly fell.

“Victor, stop!” Chloe yelled.

Wyatt shook off the pain just in time to see Chloe struggling with Victor. He had his arm around her neck, choking her; her face was red. Wyatt reached for his pistol, but just as his fingers touched the grip, Victor spun Chloe around and aimed his weapon at Wyatt's face.

“Hold up there, son.”

“What the hell are you doing, you asshole?” Wyatt demanded. Chloe continued to struggle in Victor's one-armed headlock, her movements slowing. Wyatt, experienced in choking out opponents, knew she'd be unconscious in seconds.

“None of your goddamn business,” Victor snarled. “Now, before I put a giant fucking hole in your face, walk away. I've killed enough Marines today.”

“Not gonna happen.” Wyatt's fingers remained on his pistol grip. He knew he was fast, but he wasn’t that fast.

Victor sighed. “Your funer⁠—”

A rifle shot rang out. Victor spun Chloe to face Chuck, who staggered forward along the edge of the chasm, behind Wyatt. Chuck held an M-4 by the pistol grip with his good hand and used his injured arm to brace the stock. “Let her go, or the next one goes through your head,” he said.

But it was Chuck’s head that suddenly disintegrated in a burst of blood, flesh, and bone. His headless corpse remained upright for several wrenching moments and then toppled over and fell into the chasm.

Wyatt drew his pistol, his speed fueled by adrenaline, but Victor was faster. Once again, the strange weapon emitted no flash or retort; Wyatt's pistol blew apart in his hand, the impact sending him stumbling backward.

Over the cliff.

Chloe put up a brief fight, but Victor kept his forearm tight against her windpipe. When she passed out moments later, he let her slide to the ground. If he were to be honest, he was somewhat disappointed in her performance; after all, he had taught her to fight.

Running footsteps announced a new threat. The young female Marine with the bandaged face was charging at him.

Today must be amateur day, he thought, aiming his GLUMP pistol at her. With all the blood on his hands, one more life wouldn't⁠—

An unseen force yanked the pistol from his grip and sent it flying over the chasm.

Chloe, still very much conscious, had pushed herself to her knees, her hand still extended toward him. She'd been faking!

Angered yet impressed, he kneed her in the chin, making her head snap back. Chloe fell to her back, her eyes closed. “Fake that!”

The female Marine—Haley, he thought her name was—collided with him, and they both tumbled to the ground. She attempted to mount him and tried to control his limbs with her legs while pummeling his face with fists and elbows. Now, he was impressed; she wasn't bad. With more training, she could become good.

But this wasn't training.

He caught Haley’s wrist, forced her own arm up under her chin, and used it to choke her. Then he flipped her onto her back, her arm still choking her. With his free hand, he drew Ol' Bessie from his belt sheath. One quick thrust through her ribs and into her heart would end her.

But when he looked at her, he saw his daughter Alison's face.

He hammered the knife's brass pommel against Haley’s skull instead, making sure not to use too much force. Killing someone with a head strike was surprisingly easy. Her body went limp.

Victor climbed to his feet. His weakness annoyed him as he looked at Haley. She wasn't Alison, wasn’t his daughter. On the other hand, maybe he could use her as leverage against Chloe.

The stones of the fallen structure kept shifting.

He checked Chloe's breathing. Strong and steady.

“Glad you're not dead, partner. Got a friend who wants to meet you.”

He considered her face. She looked so innocent, so peaceful, but it was all bullshit! She would have killed him if not for the Guardian. The temptation to kill her right now was so powerful it took all his willpower to resist it.

Instead, he stripped away the two women's gear, belts, boots, socks, and combat shirts, leaving them barefoot in pants and T-shirts. He used their bootlaces to tie their hands and ankles. Then he ripped away the cord holding Chloe's World Tree Talisman around her neck and dropped it on the ground. “No calling for help,” he told the unconscious woman.

He searched Haley. A multitool, road flare, a handful of shotgun shells, and a flashbang grenade—useless to him. Discarded. In a pocket of her war belt, he found a Bic lighter and a pack of cigarettes. “Shouldn't smoke, honey,” he told the sleeping woman as he nodded toward the burning corpses at the bridge's end. “Just ask your friends.”

He laughed then sighed.

It was a shame no one was around to appreciate his wit.

He dropped the cigarettes but kept the lighter.

Victor took the woman's pistol and stuffed it under his belt. He considered taking her M-4 but decided he didn't need both a rifle and a pistol to handle two chicks. Instead, he disassembled the M-4, removing the barrel assembly and wrapping one of the combat shirts around it. He then broke the top off the Bic lighter and poured its flammable contents over the makeshift torch.

When he was finished, he examined Haley. If someone was flexible, they could slip their bound wrists past their ankles and use the greater leverage to break free. Considering her fighting skills, he suspected she was flexible enough. He untied her wrists, slipped the laces through the belt loops at the small of her back, and retied them—maybe a bit too tightly, but he didn't need her to be comfortable.

Victor did a quick sweep of the area but found nothing else useful. He glanced at the still-smoking bridge, where blue flames engulfed the two corpses. He contemplated searching them but figured their ammunition would cook off in the fire at any moment. “Best not be around when that happens, Victor, me old boy,” he told himself.

He crossed his arms over his chest and considered his options. How much did the two women weigh? He sighed, already feeling fatigued.

Just then, the Guardian burst out of the rubble, tossing huge chunks of stone aside. It surged forward until it stopped before Victor, its yellow eyes watching him with alien indifference.

A half smile lifted the corner of Victor's mouth. Maybe he wouldn't have to carry the women after all.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

When Wyatt hit the frigid water in the chasm, the impact drove the air from his lungs, and he swallowed a mouthful of foul water. He sank in darkness, choking as he felt the pressure build.

His mind snapped back to the day he almost drowned in a swimming hole in Ten Sleep, Wyoming. He had been ten years old, and Bill Bryson had dared him to jump off the cliff into the water, a drop of only about ten feet. On the way down, however, Wyatt had struck his head on an outcropping and been unconscious when he entered the water, remembering only a snatch of a dream about an impossible landscape. When his friends pulled him out, they swore he had been underwater for more than ten minutes. That obviously hadn't happened, but he had coughed up what felt like a bathtub full of water. Now, all these years later, he was going to drown after all. The universe had a shitty sense of humor.

No! he railed internally as desperation energized him. Don't give up. Chloe and Haley need you.

He was in peak physical condition and could hold his breath far longer than most men. Panic would kill him, so he resisted the urge to swim for the surface while still weighed down by his gear and boots. Drop the belt first. Then the boots. You can do this! He knew he'd never get the laces untied, so he'd need his utility knife first. A small part of him was amazed he could still think clearly, but a much louder part was screaming to open his mouth and breathe.

He tried to draw his knife from the belt sheath, but his fingers wouldn't work properly, so he used his left hand instead. Fumbling the holding strap free took longer, but then he had the knife in hand. After gripping it between his teeth like a pirate, he fumbled for the belt's quick-release tab. Opening it felt like an eternity, but then the heavy war belt fell away. Resisting the urge to kick for the surface, he shoved the knife point under the laces of his left boot and cut them. Heat seared the top of his foot; he guessed he had just cut himself, but he ignored the pain and kicked the boot free, the cold water already dulling the sensation. Then he cut the laces of the other boot and kicked it free as well.

The need to breathe had become unbearable. If he didn't swim for the surface now, he would drown. But he was disoriented in the darkness and didn't know which way was up. With no other choice, he dropped the knife and held his open hand over his mouth as he released what little air he had left, hoping he could feel the bubbles rise. Instead, the pressure forced water down his windpipe.

One spasmodic, surprised breath was all it took. Water filled him, weighed him down, and he sank once more. He felt dizzy and then, oddly, calm. A burning sensation intensified in his chest, and in his delirium, he thought he saw light.

And then he saw nothing at all.

Wyatt came to on the shoreline of an impossible world. Behind him, a calm black waveless sea extended to the horizon, with the light of a large pair of moons glittering on its dark surface. The sky above the sea was bloodred, the color of madness. He staggered upright, still dizzy, his fingers trailing over his chest, remembering the agony from only moments before—now gone. He had been drowning, dying, and now he was here. Heaven? Or somewhere else?

Four spots of green light shone through the wet fabric of his combat shirt. He pulled it over his head, letting the garment fall onto sand the color of emeralds. The green light came from his birthmarks, four dime-sized marks scattered across his chest and abs. As he stared in confusion, the glow faded and disappeared. His pulse throbbed in his ears. “Am I dead?” he whispered.

Complete silence was his only answer.

If this was Heaven, it was nothing like how Sister Sophia had described it in Bible class. Jagged purple mountains rose in the distance, their peaks like needles, tall and thin. Extending from the shore of the lake, a vast field covered with tall stalks of vegetation topped with mossy orange bulbs the size of his head surrounded him. The stalks swayed in place despite the lack of wind.

When he turned, he gasped and nearly fell. A black pyramid so colossal it covered the horizon dominated the landscape. The vast, mountain-like structure seemed to consume the surrounding light, giving the sky a dark gray nimbus. A single triangular entrance, glowing with orange light, sat at its base—like a monstrous eye watching Wyatt. A path built from interlocking hexagonal stones cut through the tall fields of alien flora, leading from where Wyatt stood to the opening.

Someone or something was waiting for him within that pyramid. He didn't know how he knew, but he was certain. He was meant to take this path.

To his destiny.

“All paths lead to the black pyramid,” he whispered, having no idea where the words had come from.

As his vision tunneled in on the glowing entrance, cold sweat coated his skin, and his pulse raced. The pyramid was pulling at him, calling him. Before he even realized he had moved, he had taken several steps forward. Only a sudden, unearthly animal shriek from above jarred him from his stupor. He looked up and gasped as a massive, winged creature, larger than a 747, flew high through the air.

Dragon, his mind screamed! It was impossible, but that was what it was.

Primal terror swept over him, and Wyatt bolted from the path into the tall stalks of vegetation. The creature screamed again, its wings beating like thunder as it banked and dove for Wyatt. He sprinted through the fields, the stalks whipping at his face. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw the dragon bearing down on him, so large it covered the red sky. It opened its jaws, exposing teeth the size of cars.

Wyatt tripped, falling hard as death bore down on him.

When he opened his eyes again, Wyatt was surrounded by darkness once more. Lying on his side, cold, wet, and aching, he coughed up foul water. He groaned, inhaled, and then wished he hadn't. So much pain.

“That was the weirdest goddamned nightmare I ever had,” he gasped, each word hurting.

He rolled onto his back, panting and shivering, waiting for the pain in his lungs to ease. Once it finally did, he noticed the green glow from the plastic LED attached to his dog tag chain. He was shirtless but didn't remember pulling his shirt off in the water. He had been kind of busy not drowning, though. The small plastic LED had been the source of the green light he'd seen, not his birthmarks. He must have activated the LED when he hit the water. When he tried to remove the chain, he found the fingers of his right hand wouldn't bend. Using his left instead, he held the LED over his other hand. He still wore his gloves, but his first two fingers were bent backward, clearly dislocated, maybe even broken. They were going to swell, but for now, it was best to leave the gloves on as a makeshift bandage. He felt no pain, but that was likely due to the cold water. The pain would come, he knew.

He remembered his pistol shattering under the impact of Victor's strange gun. All things considered, Wyatt was lucky to still have fingers at all—or a hand.

Wyatt used the small LED to examine his surroundings. He had no memory of dragging himself out of the water and onto this stone platform—a three-foot-wide lip carved into the side of the chasm at the water's edge. Somehow, though, he had managed to pull himself out before losing consciousness and dreaming of an alien world and a giant pyramid.

He had used up a lifetime's supply of luck today.

The cut on his foot wasn't as bad as he'd first thought; it had already stopped bleeding. He staggered to his feet, using the wall for support. Someone had leveled the chasm wall with tools, doing a good job for a primitive culture. Built into the wall, going all the way up its side, was a series of metal hooks—no, not hooks. They were rungs, handholds for climbing. Interspersed among the handholds were what looked like spouts. No way had a primitive culture built this.

Far above, he saw flickering light at the top of the cliff—a fire. It had to be from the blast that killed Abigail and Ollie. He couldn't tell how far up the fire was but guessed only a hundred feet or so. Any higher, and he wouldn't have survived his impact into the water. About halfway up the cliff, a large dark shape blocked the light from the fire. He heard an odd clicking and whirring noise, and a moment later, he smelled the same sharp chemical odor as before.

Then he remembered the road flare in his cargo pocket. He looped the chain around his neck again and pulled the flare out. It was soaked, but these things were designed to burn wet. Unscrewing the cap was a bitch—but his injured hand's thumb, ring finger, and little finger still mostly worked. He held the cap with the striker between his thumb and pinky while striking the flare against it. Fortunately, the flare ignited on the first try, hissing sparks. Bright-red light blazed around him.

Wyatt held the flare up, illuminating the water-filled chasm. Halfway up the chasm wall, a long metal tube, twenty feet wide and the length of a bus, had been driven into the cliff face. The flare exposed the damaged side of the tube, with its exposed electronics and wiring, and he could even read the markings painted along its length: U.S. Air Force GBU-57A. Dangling by the strap of a backpack from one of the four jetlike stabilizer wings was Chuck’s headless torso.

The bomb hissed and clicked; tendrils of smoke rose from its ruptured frame.

“Fuck my life,” Wyatt whispered.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Chloe awoke slowly, her thoughts foggy, every part of her body sore. When she tried to move, she realized her wrists were bound behind her back and her ankles were tied together. She bolted into a seated position, her heart pounding. A thin layer of slime and dirt coated her. What in the Goddess's name? A heartbeat later, she remembered—Victor! The Shoggoth had corrupted him. That shouldn't have been possible, not if he had used her mother's bracelet. Then she realized Victor must have been responsible for the explosion. And he had shot Chuck and Wyatt!

She looked around. Her Mage Sight spell had ended when she passed out, but she had enough ambient light to make out the person lying beside her, facing away, also bound hand and foot. In the dim light, it took Chloe several moments to recognize Haley. Like Chloe, Victor had taken Haley's boots and socks, leaving her in combat pants and a T-shirt. The same slime covered Haley; the fabric of her T-shirt stuck to her skin.

“Haley,” Chloe whispered, her throat raw. “Are you awake?”

No answer came, but Haley's chest rose and fell.

They were in a large, tall chamber; the ceiling towered above them. Black stone steps circled the stone walls up to the tapered ceiling. We're inside the Star Vault!

Dominating the center of the chamber, floating above the ground, was a dark orb covered with sparkling lights. She knew instantly that the orb was the source of the eldritch power she had felt—the Atlantean artifact. The arcane energy it emitted nearly took her breath away. The effect was like nothing she had ever felt before, almost divine.

A series of glowing patterns covered most of the floor beneath the orb. The patterns moved and altered, creating new designs, constantly shifting and rebuilding. A light darted about within the lines, ricocheting like a pinball. It was a ward, she realized, but what did it do?

Nothing good.

Whatever this place was, whatever the orb did, she was an idiot to think she could claim it, let alone use it against someone like Olympia. She and Victor should have turned around the moment she learned he was sick.

Chloe rolled closer to Haley, putting her back to the woman so she could grip her shoulder with her bound hands. “Haley,” she hissed, “wake up.”

The other woman woke slowly, her eyelids fluttering. Even in the dim light, she looked awful—black eyes, a filthy bandage over her nose, blood smeared across her cheek. “Wha...? What's going on?” Haley mumbled.

“We're prisoners. Keep your voice down.”

Haley groaned but pulled herself up into a seated position. She looked around in confusion. Fear flickered in her eyes when she saw the black orb floating in the center of the chamber. “What is this place?”

“We're inside the tower. I think Victor brought us here.”

Haley scrunched up her face. “What's that smell? What am I covered in?” She yanked at her wrists behind her back and then tested the bonds on her ankles. There was no give in the laces. Haley glared at Chloe. “Your buddy did this. Why?”

“I don't think it's Victor... at least not the Victor I know. I think the Shoggoth has taken control of his mind.”

“How?”

“I told you it was a telepath, that it's been testing all of us. Well, Victor's sick; he must have been too weak to resist.”

“Jesus,” whispered Haley, shaking her head. “You people.”

Chloe looked away, her face warm. Haley was right. Christina had sent them here to do recon, but Chloe had insisted on going farther. Good people had died, and now, the monster had not only Victor but Chloe and Haley as well. Why? Why not just kill them both?

“Okay,” said Haley. “We need to get out of here—before your buddy and his new friend return.” She attempted to slip her bound wrists down her legs but couldn't. “Shit. He's run the cord through my belt loops. Prick's smart.”

“He's been around.”

“What about you? You have powers... right?”

“I need my hands free to draw sigils.”

“What?”

“Cast spells.”

“Okay, feel in my pant pocket for my multitool.”

Chloe did as she asked but found nothing. “Not there.”

Haley swore, but her voice carried a slight tremor of fear. She sat there in silence for several moments, then she said, “Can you get your wrists past your ankles?”

“Maybe.”

“Hurry! I can show you what to do. We're trained for escape and evasion, but I can't do anything with my hands behind my back.”

Chloe bucked her hips, thrusting her bound wrists down her buttocks and behind her knees toward her ankles. The position was uncomfortable but not painful. Her mother had started her on Vedic yoga when she was a little girl, insisting the discipline would improve her concentration. Chloe had kept the practice up all her life. She felt a slight discomfort in her shoulders as she worked her bound wrists past her feet, but a moment later, her hands were in front of her—ta-da!

“Well done! Now, hurry. Use your teeth to grip the knot; pull it as tightly as you can. The tighter you can make it, the easier it'll be to brea⁠—”

They both froze at the heavy thud of footsteps descending the stairs.

Chloe cast a glance over her shoulder, her heart sinking as Victor came down the staircase, a torch burning in his grip. He was bare-chested and bloody, glistening in the same filth as them. He looked like a wild-eyed barbarian. A pistol was jammed under his belt, next to his oversized Rambo knife. His expression was slack, devoid of emotion; his eyes were like black glass.

He tossed the burning torch to the ground next to the women, where it clattered like metal and kept burning, throwing off an orange light. The stench of burning oil hung in the air. Victor—the ultimate survivalist—could be dropped naked on a tropical island and still live like a king. He squatted in front of Chloe, grabbed her bound wrists, and shook his head. “Oh, Chloe, you always were a pain in the ass.”

As he raised her wrists, she noticed his bracelet was gone. “Victor, please. Resist! Put the bracelet back on. Say the mantra.”

He snorted. “You'd like that, wouldn’t you? For the first time in a long, long time, I know the truth—partner.”

He spat the last word at her, his voice filled with venom.

She tried to make eye contact, to find the real man. “It’s the Shoggoth, Victor. It’s messing with your head, twisting things up. You have to fight.”

Victor laughed, but his grin was mocking. “Fighting is what I do best.”

“I can help you,” she said, hearing the desperation in her voice.

His smile disappeared, and he drew his large knife. The torchlight glinted on its metal surface. “I think you've helped me enough.”

At the sight of the thick blade, her heart skipped a beat. “Wait⁠—”

He placed the edge of the knife between her wrists and slashed away the bootlace. Then he cut away the binding over her ankles.

As blood rushed back into her extremities, waves of pain followed. She gasped, rubbing her hands together and flexing her fingers and toes.

“Don’t get any stupid ideas,” he warned, tapping the side of the heavy blade against the top of her head. “The Guardian needs you, but I’ll still—” He stiffened, looking past her with vacant eyes.

She turned but saw nothing.

He nodded. “Okay,” he said, but not to her; his gaze was still focused elsewhere. “She’s ready.”

An obscene cracking noise came from above. A shiver of primal terror ran down Chloe’s spine, and her skin turned clammy.

He was talking to the Shoggoth.

When the monster squeezed through the opening at the top of the stairs, it took every ounce of courage she possessed to remain still. The Shoggoth pulled itself down the stairs, its mass oozing and sliding. She had never seen one before, and while Wyatt had described it, seeing was believing.

Its tentacles were bad enough, but the hate-filled yellow eyes and mouths full of sharp teeth were the stuff of nightmares, an insane god’s concept of biology. A large, shifting mass of protoplasm, it had evolved perfectly for an alien world—but was utterly out of place on this one. The Shoggoth pulled itself across the floor toward them, but Chloe noticed it stayed close to the wall, away from the glowing magical ward on the floor.

It's afraid of the ward.

The Shoggoth stopped several feet before her. Its stench almost made her gag. The air grew impossibly cold, and she shivered. Victor, however, seemed perfectly at ease. Whatever the Shoggoth had done to him, her partner was still somewhere inside. But how to reach him? She focused on Victor, forcing herself to ignore the Shoggoth. “It’s messing with your head, Victor.”

“It’s shown me the truth, told me what you did to me.”

“What I did?”

“Your pathetic attempts at magic use put this tumor in me.”

“I... what?” Her mouth fell open.

“After all we’ve done together, all the times I saved your life, this is how you repay me? You’d leave my Alison without a father.”

“I... It’s lying to you, Victor. That’s what these things do. They're little better than demons.” But a small part of her wondered if that was true. Could her magic have caused his tumor?

“No. You're the demon.” He lunged forward, taking Chloe by surprise, and pinned her arms behind her back. He shoved her toward the Shoggoth. “She’s all yours.”

The Shoggoth oozed closer, reaching for her with a single tentacle. Chloe struggled, but when the tentacle touched her forehead, she screamed.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

Wyatt stared up at the Air Force bomb embedded in the chasm's wall and wondered if God was playing a joke on him. How the hell did it end up here?

Blowout had told them the bomb burrowed deep underground before detonating. As impossible as it seemed, the bomb must've punched its way down here, passing through the insurgent caves. If the explosive had detonated on impact, there'd be no cave system to explore, no ancient ruins, and no shape-shifting tentacle monster. But it hadn't.

Yet.

What now?

Wyatt’s plan to trap the Shoggoth might've been half-baked, but he hadn't considered the possibility of a wild card like Victor. Chloe had tried to warn him something was wrong, but he'd refused to listen. He had told her there was no time to change the plan, but no plan ever went smoothly, and combat was all about making the least shitty choice at the time. In truth, he didn't want Chloe to risk her life. Because of his stubbornness, Abigail, Ollie, and Chuck were dead. He would do anything to protect women.

Except trust them.

How many unnecessary fights had he gotten into over women? That was why he'd been kicked out of university and why he'd gotten into so much trouble as a junior Marine. He should've trusted Haley to handle Roy's advances. Instead, Wyatt had defaulted to violence, the only thing he was good at. That lack of trust had cost him his commissioning program.

He shivered, drenched, exhausted, and miserable. Everything became crystal clear: all his failures. Haley should've climbed the ruins, not him. He had been trying to protect her. Then he remembered Chloe darting in front of the incoming RPG round, and he gasped with sudden understanding. She had been trying to deflect it with her magic—and he had tackled her! It was his fault Lou and the others had been injured. He groaned; the magnitude of his mistakes added to his misery.

“Pu... pull yourself together,” Wyatt said, his teeth chattering. “Ha... Haley and Ch... Chloe still need help.”

He could fix his mistakes. But first, he had to stop feeling sorry for himself.

He had to man up.

Wyatt examined the rungs and spouts. He should be able to scale the rungs to the top of the chasm, which would be best to do while he still had the light of the flare—maybe another ten minutes. After that, he'd need to rely on the weak glow of his LED.

He pulled off his socks, discarded one, and wrapped the other around his dislocated index finger. He gritted his teeth and inhaled. Then he yanked on the sock, pulling the disjointed finger straight. Pain shot through his hand like molten lava, and he gasped. Bone ground against bone, but then unimaginable relief swept through him as the socket slipped back into place. He gasped for air. The pain hadn't dissipated completely, but it was manageable.

Knowing he couldn't wait, he wrapped the sock around his middle finger and began the process again. This time, it hurt much more. The bone just didn't want to slip back into its socket. He stopped the slow, steady pull and gasped, sweat streaming down his face and running into his mouth. “Do it,” he said between gasps. Then he yanked on the sock with one quick, hard pull. He cried out in agony as the finger snapped back into place.

Wyatt stood there, leaning against the wall, panting, waiting for the pain to subside. There was nothing else he could do, so he wrapped the sock around all four gloved fingers, using his teeth to pull it as tight as he could, splinting the damaged fingers to the other two. At this moment, he didn't think he had ever hated anyone as much as he hated Victor Crane. Then Wyatt gazed up at the bomb and gritted his teeth. “It's nu... nu... not gonna climb itself.”

But as his gaze swept over the headless corpse of Chuck—and the backpack filled with EOD supplies—an idea occurred to him. It was crazy, but sometimes, craziness was what you needed.

Wyatt gripped the closest rung with his left hand, placed his bare foot against a spout, and climbed.

As soon as the Shoggoth's tentacle touched Chloe's forehead, its consciousness forced its way into her mind, brushing past her mental defenses as if they were paper. The assault—magnified tenfold by the physical touch—tore open her psyche, and Chloe's scream of fear became a drawn-out howl of agony. Bright light overwhelmed her.

And then Chloe was gone.

She had become the Shoggoth.

The sensation was almost indescribable. Heightened awareness coursed through her. She experienced the world through sight, touch, and vibration, but each of those sensations was magnified far beyond its previous experiences. Her dozens of eyes, each evolved to magnify trace amounts of ambient light, allowed her to see the near-dark world with clarity. She formed new tentacles to pull herself along the ice-covered terrain and ambulated with remarkable speed and dexterity. When her biomass felt the telltale vibration of nearby prey—a meter-long caterpillar-like creature—she struck with her tentacles, catching it and snapping its spine in one lightning-fast strike. A moment later, she rammed the carcass into a newly formed mouth, ripping the body’s armored hide apart with sharp teeth, and consumed it. She felt such pleasure, akin to being a god in this alien world.

It was so beautiful!

Mountains of blue crystal rose in the distance. Supersonic winds scoured a barren, icy valley before the mountain range. The cold air caressed her biomass, bringing unspeakable delight. Others of her kind, glowing blue tentacled biomass-life-forms, moved through the frozen valley, leaving furrowed trails in the ice and snow, existing in silent fellowship, communicating through thought. It was comfort, bliss... rapture.

She was home.

But then, the multicolored sky broke apart with a clap of thunder, splitting in a wedge of blinding light, hurting her. A vast rift formed and hung over the landscape. Through the rift, she saw the underground cavern, the Atlantean settlement—but it was complete and whole, undamaged by heat or fire. And towering over the settlement stood the strange black tower.

AMENDMENT, SPURIOUS TERMINOLOGY, an alien voice that shared her consciousness corrected her. THE STAR VAULT CONTAINING THE KEY-ORB.

With a sudden, wrenching pull, something drew her through the rift in the sky. In a single vertigo-inducing moment, she was drawn into the cavern. She was now atop the Star Vault, and all around her, standing in a circle, were thirteen large, crowned insects—the six-legged, eyeless Voth. Humanity's ancient masters.

They had left their base on the moon to come here.

Their long feelers waved about in front of their mandibles, and their horned tails swept back and forth. They were casting a spell, manipulating vast flows of magical power.

But to what end?

ELUCIDATION. THESE ARE-WERE THE SUBJUGATORS. THEY RENAMED-REPURPOSED-RECONSTITUTED THIS ONE, CAPTURING AND BINDING US. WE BECAME THE GUARDIAN.

Through the Shoggoth's eyes, she saw the thousands of humans below the tower, chanting and swaying in place, willing participants in this ritual. A man was tied spread-eagled to the altar. An Atlantean priest holding a long black dagger stood over him. This memory was the same one Chloe had touched at the altar, but now, she was witnessing it firsthand. She had assumed the man's sacrifice had brought the Shoggoth to this world, but the Voth had summoned the Shoggoth before his death.

So what purpose did the ritual serve?

As the ritual reached its peak, the priest stabbed his knife into the bound man's heart. A crimson band of energy lanced from one Voth to another as they linked their magic. The red band splintered, sending trails through the crowd below. The people screamed in horror, their eyes wide. They didn't know, she realized. They had no idea they'd be part of the ritual.

The energy swept over the Atlanteans, multiplying to connect each man and woman in the crowd. They screamed in agony, bloody tears flowing from their eyes. The energy multiplied a thousandfold, exploding outward in waves of unimaginable heat, tidal waves of fire, magical flames so hot they melted the stones and fused them together.

The thirteen Voth directed their stolen life force into her—it—the Shoggoth. Now, she understood: the ritual wasn't meant to bring the Shoggoth to this world; it was meant to keep the Shoggoth here. The Voth had sacrificed all their human servants in this settlement—thousands of men, women, and children—to keep the Shoggoth in this dimension.

Why?

TO SAFEGUARD THE KEY-ORB, the Guardian told her, ONE OF THEIR GREATEST TREASURES. THIS ENTITY, THE GUARDIAN, IS BOUND TO REMAIN CLOSE TO THE KEY-ORB, TRAPPED FOR AS LONG AS THE KEY-ORB REMAINS WITHIN THE STAR VAULT.

With the ritual complete, the thirteen Voth floated into the air. Each rose to one of the triangular openings in the honeycomb-like structure carved into the ceiling of the cavern. As each Voth crawled into an opening, a bright flash of light filled the hole. She was watching the Voth leave this world, witnessing the Great Migration firsthand.

Soon, only she remained, bound to this cavern.

Her sorrow was beyond description.

Then the Guardian withdrew its consciousness. Chloe fell forward onto the floor of the Star Vault. The Shoggoth—the Guardian—loomed before her. Behind it stood Victor, next to the bound Haley, his knife in his hand, madness in his eyes. And behind her, the Key-Orb floated over the Grid-Forge.

Chloe considered the Guardian, forcing herself to meet its dozens of yellow eyes. “I understand. You're trapped here. But what do you want from me?”

JUSTIFICATION-EDUCATION-CLARIFICATION. THE GRID-FORGE PROTECTS THE KEY-ORB. NOT EVEN THIS ENTITY CAN TRANSVERSE THE GRID-FORGE WITHOUT RISKING DESTRUCTION. NONE BUT A DESCENDANT OF THE SUBJUGATOR'S THRALLS CAN.

An icy wave of fear coursed down her spine. Although mages referred to themselves by many titles in countless languages around the world, they all shared one common appellation—the Children. But that wasn't the complete name. It had been shortened over time. The long form was “the Children of Atlantis.” All mages were descended from the same genetic bloodline that the Voth had altered for their servants.

The Voth had created human mages.

Like her.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

Wyatt's one-handed climb to the bunker buster was tough, but the regularly placed rungs helped tremendously. His flare burned below, lighting his way, but it couldn't last much longer. He didn't understand why an ancient civilization had carved a stone lip at the edge of the water in a chasm or why they would build rungs and spouts leading down to it, but it reminded him of a building's maintenance level. Perhaps thousands of years ago, the spouts regulated the level of water in the chasm or controlled irrigation on the surface. That was just a guess, however. Even now, no civilization could do that.

As he climbed, he heard a series of gunshots followed by what sounded like a hand grenade going off. Someone's still alive, still fighting! His excitement spiked, and he redoubled his efforts. But then the gunshots began going off all at once, and he realized what he was really hearing—cook-offs. His friends were dead, not fighting.

He forced down his disappointment and concentrated on climbing. The sharp stench of chemicals grew stronger as he climbed closer to the bunker buster. The exposed wires in its frame sparked and hissed, emitting small tendrils of smoke. The bomb had embedded itself at an angle into the chasm wall, all the way to its middle aerial wings. The explosive made a constant clicking noise, and an internal gear whined. If the bomb detonated right now, he wouldn't even have time to notice. It was surreal, but somehow, that thought helped. If he couldn't do anything about it, he might as well get on with his plan.

He climbed higher, until he was level with the bomb, and then he slowly draped his right leg over the top of the cylindrical fuselage. He let go of the rung, snatched at a twisted chunk of metal on the fuselage, and caught himself just before he fell. The position was awkward—balancing on the toes of his left foot with his right leg braced against the bomb and gripping across his body with his left hand. Now or never.

Wyatt cried out with exertion as he pulled himself up onto the bomb and faced the chasm. His balance was precarious and his breathing rushed, but he was riding the bomb—just like Slim Pickens in that old Cold War movie.

He leaned forward, balancing on his chest and belly as he brought his right leg up and began to turn around. Doing so took forever, and he almost fell twice, but he somehow managed it and was now facing the rear of the bomb. The flare fluttered and went out. “Perfect,” he whispered. Now, his only source of light was the small LED around his neck. He clicked the device on.

Moving with utmost care, he eased his way up the shaft toward the rear stabilizer fins and Chuck's dangling torso. The bomb creaked but held. When he reached the stabilizer fins, he stretched his good hand out for the quick-release tab on Chuck's pack. Wyatt’s fingers brushed the tab, but he couldn't quite reach it, not without bracing himself with his injured hand.

He gripped the fin as well as he could with his thumb, little finger, and ring finger, and he reached forward once again with his left hand. Pain shot through his hand, but Wyatt ignored it and grasped the quick-release strap. This time, he caught it and pulled it from its Velcro pad. Chuck's headless corpse fell free and dropped into the water with a splash.

“Sorry, brother. No one deserves this.”

Holding the pack against his chest with his good hand, he slid back down the length of the bomb and stopped when he reached the middle stabilizer fins. He opened the backpack and rooted through the combat engineer's equipment. Near the top, encased in bubble wrap, were four timers, each the size of a watch. The blasting caps, a half dozen of them, seemed simple enough and were like the ones in the squad's breaching kit. The pack contained other tools and gear, most of which Wyatt didn't recognize. Then, he found a large yellow roll of det cord. He could use this, but it wasn't what he had been looking for, so he kept searching. And then, near the bottom, wrapped in silver foil, he found another roll of det cord, but this one was red and much thicker. With his LED light, he could just make out the faded lettering along the plastic on the top of the roll: Primacord Exothermic-4B20. It was thermite. Jackpot!

According to Blowout and Chuck, this quantity was more than enough to burn through the bunker buster, rendering it inert. If so, that meant the thermite could burn through the Shoggoth as well. But how to do it without getting pulled apart first? He didn't have a clue, but he'd figure it out. Semper fucking fi, monster. I'm coming for you.

He placed the thermite back in the pack and considered the yellow det cord. Wyatt had no intention of rendering this bomb inert. He didn't know if an explosive charge would set it off, but it was the best he could come up with in the moment. He wrapped every inch of the yellow det cord around the stabilizer fin. Then he wired a blasting cap to the det cord and attached a timer to the cap. He set the detonation time to six a.m., a little over three hours from now. If that wasn't enough time to save the women, then no amount of time would make a difference. Besides, sunrise seemed fitting. He depressed the “arm” button, and the timer began to count down.

Wyatt slung the pack over his shoulders, tightened its strap as well as he could with one hand, and then reached for the closest rung on the wall. He pulled himself off the bomb, dangling in the air for several seconds until his foot found another rung. Luckily, getting off the bomb was much easier than getting onto it, and he was soon climbing up the chasm wall again. The fire on the surface had to be dying out, because the red glow was much weaker, but he guessed he had only about thirty feet to go.

On the clock now, he climbed as quickly as he could, taking stupid chances. Then, more quickly than he would have thought, he reached the top. He groaned as he pulled himself up on his belly and swung his legs over. For several seconds, he lay there, panting. Every bit of him hurt, and he wanted to close his eyes... if only for a minute. The stench of burned flesh gave him the strength to keep going.

The fire was almost completely out, and only two smoking husks remained of Abigail and Ollie. God damn you, Victor!

He forced his gaze away and focused on the living. Haley and Chloe were gone, which he hoped meant both were still alive. Wyatt staggered forward, searching the clearing. He found two sets of gear and boots alongside Haley's combat shirt. Victor had already gone through Haley's gear and tossed bits and pieces on the ground. Her shotgun was nearby, driven barrel first into the stones, but when Wyatt pried it loose, the barrel was bent. He tossed the weapon aside to clatter against the stones.

God was being a real dick today.

Wyatt returned to Haley's discarded gear and searched through it. Her war belt was there, but the pistol was gone. He extended its ends to fit him and buckled it in place, thinking the spare magazines might come in handy. The gear included little else of use: a first aid kit, a single road flare, and two flashbang grenades. He found her M-4 magazines, but all that remained of her carbine was the pistol grip and rear assembly. He stuffed the first aid kit, flare, and flashbang grenades into his cargo pants pockets and considered the boots. Both pairs were much too small for him, but he pulled on a pair of discarded socks and then ripped Haley's combat shirt into strips, which he wrapped around his feet. He used a roll of electrical tape from Chuck's backpack to secure the strips in place. The arrangement was better than nothing. He stuffed the two pairs of boots into his backpack. The women would need them if—when—he found them.

He was about to turn away when he saw a small gold necklace with a crystal lying discarded. He picked it up, and a current of energy coursed up his arm. He dropped the chain and rubbed his fingers. What the hell? When he picked up the chain again, he felt nothing. Maybe he was losing it. Wyatt held the necklace up to his eye and considered it. An inch-long crystal hung from the chain, with gold thread wrapped around it in the shape of a tree. It must be Chloe's—and Victor doesn't want her to have it. Wyatt pocketed it. Now, he needed a weapon.

He moved back along the edge of the chasm, searching for more gear—especially his M-4. He didn't find it, but he did find his grenade launcher, which still had a single fragmentation grenade loaded in it. He slung the launcher. Lying several feet from the grenade launcher were Chloe's night-vision glasses. It would be too much to expect the sophisticated electronics not to be damaged, but when he put them on, they still worked perfectly. Maybe God wasn’t a complete dick today. When Wyatt was finished searching, he faced the smoking corpses of his friends and sighed. He had put this part off until last.

He approached the charred corpses. Little was left of either of them. Abigail's grenade launcher lay several feet away, thrown there by the explosion. He opened the breech and found a second 40-mm grenade. He removed the grenade, pocketed it, and then discarded the launcher. Wyatt had hoped to find a rifle, but the only one he found was fire damaged, the plastic melted. Just as he was about to drop the weapon, he had an idea. He pulled the front pin away, removed the upper receiver and barrel, and discarded the rest. He tucked the barrel under his arm and considered the two corpses.

Wyatt was only able to tell them apart because Abigail had been larger than Ollie. He didn't want to touch them. Besides, there was no way anything of use had survived the fire. Then he saw something gleaming from Abigail's charred torso, partially covered by one of her blackened arms.

“I'm so sorry, Abby,” he whispered as he used the barrel of the M-4 to break her charred arm loose, hating himself.

Another reason to kill Victor.

And there was Abigail's prized Marine Corps KA-BAR fighting knife. Using the barrel, he pried the knife free. It was still hot, but the tempered steel cooled quickly, and he held it up and inspected it. The fire had charred the leather around the handle, but the eight-inch heavy-duty steel blade was undamaged. “Thank you, Abby. I'll put it to good use.”

The last thing he did was remove their blackened dog tags and stuff them both into his pocket.

Wyatt was done. He stuffed the barrel and upper receiver into Chuck's backpack then checked his watch. Only two and a half hours before the bunker buster detonated. He turned from his dead friends and set off at a light trot toward the black tower.

Wyatt had other friends to save.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

Chloe trembled under the gaze of the Guardian's alien eyes. Victor stood just behind Haley, his large knife gleaming in the flickering torchlight.

“Listen to me,” she said to the Guardian. “What you're asking is impossible. There's just...” She paused, her heart pounding and mouth dry. She shook her head. “There's no way I can cross that ward you call the Grid-Forge.” Her gaze darted to the shifting eldritch pattern beneath the Key-Orb. “It'll kill me if I try.”

Victor thrust his knife toward the Key-Orb. “Bullshit! Go on. Go get that thing. Whatever the hell it is.”

She stared at Victor in confusion. He wasn't making any sense. Even if she could reach the Key-Orb alive, how was she supposed to retrieve it? The Voth had sacrificed thousands of their human servants to bind the Guardian to this place and protect the Key-Orb. Completing that ritual was the last thing they had done before abandoning this world. Whatever the artifact was, it had been of critical importance to them. She shook her head, ignoring Victor and addressing the Guardian. “I'm not going to touch that thing.”

The Guardian didn't answer, but its vast bulk trembled as if it was angry. Victor gripped Haley's hair and yanked her head back, exposing her throat. “Oh, Chloe, the things you make me do.” He held his knife against her throat, and Haley's eyes grew large. “Go on, get moving. My new friend needs you to remove that thing before it can heal me of the cancer you gave me.”

“This is insane, Victor.” She curled her hands into fists, her panic swelling at the sight of the terror in Haley's eyes. “I can't!”

Victor pressed the knife blade harder into Haley's throat. A drop of blood welled along the blade, ran down her throat, and stained the collar of her T-shirt. Victor's eyes were dark pits. “You don't get to kill me.”

“I didn't give you that fucking tumor!” Emotion caught in her voice, and she swayed in place, dizzy with fear.

“Last chance,” Victor said.

Chloe knew with absolute certainty that he was moments away from cutting Haley's throat open to the bone. For a moment, she considered using magic to draw the knife to her, but he was holding it too tightly, and she just wasn't that strong. Besides, even without Victor, there was still the Guardian. She held her palms out. “I'll do it. Don't hurt her. Please.”

Victor's grin was pure madness, but he removed the knife from Haley's throat. “That wasn't so hard, was it?”

Wyatt ran through the ruins, making better time than he had expected thanks to Chloe's night-vision glasses. His feet hurt; his improvised footwear could do only so much, but at least the exertion had warmed his muscles, so he wouldn't die cold.

When he came within about a hundred meters of the bridge leading to the tower, he broke into a quick walk, panting from the exertion. A quick glance at the blood soaking through his foot wrappings told him he would find it tough to get out of here in time. His mind replayed the route they had taken to get here—the different tunnels, caverns, and stairs. How long would it take to get out? He didn't have a clue, but either there was enough time or there wasn't: the ultimate zero-sum game. “This is the only play you've got,” he whispered between pants. “Just do your best.”

He approached the bridge over the moat. Keeping one eye on his surroundings, he slipped the backpack from his shoulders, pulled out the gear he'd need, and set it on the ground before him. When he was ready, he paced out a spot roughly halfway across the bridge and used a roll of electrical tape to secure one of the two flashbang grenades to a capstone on a parapet. Then he taped the second flashbang grenade to the opposite parapet. After that, he looped wire through the safety pin and then across the bridge to the second safety pin. Finally, he stepped back and considered his work.

As far as booby traps went, this one was kind of shit. But to be honest, his entire plan was kind of shit.

At least he was consistent.

Wyatt moved back to the far end of the bridge, where he picked up the M-4 barrel and roll of thermite det cord. He wrapped the det cord around the barrel and upper receiver repeatedly until he had used every last bit of it, securing it in place with the electrical tape. Then he taped a blasting cap and a timer to the improvised firebomb. Chloe had said fire would hurt the Shoggoth. If so, this much thermite would create a metric fuck-ton of fire and heat.

There were two problems: One, he'd need to set the timer for about ten seconds, giving himself just enough time to arm and throw it. And two, he would need to somehow get the bomb inside the Shoggoth; otherwise, it would just bounce off the monster's thick hide. One problem at a time, Marine.

He stuffed the bomb into his pants’ cargo pocket then secured the button flap over the barrel to hold it in place. The barrel stuck out awkwardly, but it was the best he could do. He put the backpack containing the boots back on. If this plan worked, Chloe and Haley would need the boots. His own bleeding feet were proof of that.

Chloe approached the edge of the Grid-Forge with Victor and the Guardian watching her every step. She hesitated, her heart pounding, certain doing this would be like stepping onto molten lava. The Voth had created the Grid-Forge to protect this black sphere. Despite what the Guardian thought, there was no way she'd survive walking on it. Having Atlantean ancestry didn't make her an Atlantean, and she was nearly sure she was about to die. But if she didn't try, Victor would kill Haley. He was too deeply under the Guardian's control. She had never felt more helpless.

“Screw it,” she whispered and stepped onto the Grid-Forge.

Her world exploded with light, blinding her... but to her great surprise, she wasn't vaporized. Unimaginable power coursed through her. Chloe took another step, and the moment her foot landed, she was no longer within the Star Vault; instead, she stood among the stars. A galaxy of heavenly bodies, nebulae, comets, and supernovas blazed around her, their color and beauty staggering. Yet she stood on... something. When she glanced down, she saw glowing lines of occult pattern beneath her bare feet—the Grid-Forge. It was still there.

She gasped with wonder, only then realizing she could breathe. Chloe raised her hand above her head, feeling the short ends of her hair floating around her as if she were underwater.

Or in zero gravity.

This is Vothian magic, not Atlantean, she realized. Even the Transcended couldn't work such miracles. And there, in the very center of the shifting Grid-Forge, was the Key-Orb. She took a step toward it, and as her foot landed, sparks erupted all around it and rose to the level of her knee. When she took another step, more sparks flowed. With each step, the Grid-Forge's arcane pattern altered, creating new sigils and designs. Magic washed up her legs, filling every molecule of her being with eldritch power. Each step made her feel... reborn.

Power flowed through Chloe, bringing knowledge. The spell was woven through the Grid-Forge, and while she didn't understand its entire purpose, she knew it was meant to educate her.

“Okay,” she whispered to the cosmos. “Tell me.”

And with her acceptance, the spell pulled her consciousness from her physical body, ripping it free and hurling it back through time. No longer did she stand upon the Grid-Forge, surrounded by stars. Now, she became a spiritual witness to a past most humans didn't know existed. The spell brought her back to ancient Atlantis.

The gleaming white towers of the city rose above the jungle on its small island, surrounded by storm-tossed waves. The spell had given her knowledge, making her understand she saw the island nation at the height of its glory.

Just before its fall.

She saw the people of Atlantis, each one a powerful mage. But she didn’t just see them; the spell made her a part of each citizen, every man, woman, and child. She felt their wishes, shared their dreams, grappled with their fears, and suffered their ambitions. The mages of Atlantis were far more powerful than those of her time. Yet even they paled in comparison to their masters, the Voth, who ruled from their moon base through their genetically altered human servants—Chloe’s ancestors. The Voth, however, were like absent landlords; in all the ways that mattered, Atlantis was ruled by its mages. And they ruled with breathtaking cruelty.

The Atlantean mages sent envoys to the emerging kingdoms of Earth, conquering those who resisted through magic. Wars between Atlantis and other kingdoms were short and bloody, their outcomes never in doubt. Those born without magic grew to hate those who had it. And the Voth, uninterested and isolated on their moon, ignored their human subjects as those subjects slaughtered one another. The Voth were preoccupied with their own centuries-long war against a powerful being, the Outer God Kthugi Ba’al.

The great enemy, the Whisperer from the Abyss.

The ritual that bound the Guardian to this world involved Kthugi Ba’al. Chloe remembered people chanting the Outer God's name. Though Kthugi Ba’al coveted Earth, the Voth had kept him at bay. Their cosmic war persisted, but the Voth’s combination of magic and technology matched their enemy's might.

Humanity, however, was weak.

Chloe sensed Kthugi Ba’al’s corrupting influence in Atlantis. The first to fall was a man with a vulnerable, shattered mind. Kthugi Ba’al whispered dark promises, offering forbidden knowledge and unimaginable power. Upon sacrificing his children to the Outer God, the man's magic intensified, transcending human limitations.

If Chloe had a physical body, she would have gasped: she was witnessing the first Transcended. That meant that all modern Transcended—including Olympia Kostaki—originated from the corruption of Kthugi Ba’al or other Outer Gods. This explained their heightened magical abilities, which came not from Astaris but from an Outer God.

Years passed. Chloe saw a cult form around the first Transcended, each member growing more powerful as they were corrupted. Even among traitors, there was a hierarchy.

The Voth, hindered by their alien mindset and isolated on the moon, either didn’t notice or didn’t understand the Outer God’s festering influence. Thus, Kthugi Ba’al's servants grew stronger.

The thirteen most powerful among the corrupted mages became Atlantis’s first Mage-Kings, ruling over the others. Yet it was all subterfuge. Kthugi Ba’al, from his cosmic realm, guided his servants, aiming to wrest Earth from the Voth. By the time the uncorrupted mages realized the danger, it was too late. The Mage-Kings ruled mercilessly, annihilating anyone who opposed them and exterminating entire mage bloodlines. Driven by Kthugi Ba’al, the Mage-Kings prepared for a fateful night of blood. On that night, they betrayed the Voth, performing a forbidden rite that sacrificed hundreds to open a portal to Kthugi Ba’al’s dimension—right in the heart of Atlantis.

In horror, Chloe watched as the sky split over Atlantis, seeing the darkness that was Kthugi Ba’al as the Outer God forced its way into this dimension. Kthugi Ba’al—unspeakable, indescribable, abhorrent—was a distortion of reality, a blackness that filled the sky. The Outer God was rage, hunger, and madness; his appearance was world-shattering.

Within a single night of fire and horror, Kthugi Ba’al’s unholy presence destroyed Atlantis. Chloe witnessed the Great Cataclysm firsthand, watching the waves wash away the gleaming white towers and the island sink beneath them. She saw the death of an empire.

To their great surprise, the thirteen Mage-Kings died along with the others.

The Voth counterattacked, teleporting to Earth from their moon base. Chloe saw them appear in the stormy skies over the tumultuous waves where Atlantis had once been. Flashes of light appeared in the sky as the Voth engaged in battle. Fire and lightning scorched the atmosphere. Hundreds of Voth died, reduced to ash. She could feel the Outer God’s growing sense of triumph as its ancient enemy perished. Once the Voth were gone, Kthugi Ba’al would consume this world.

But the Outer God had never realized that the Voth it battled were merely a distraction.

Other Voth had gathered in secret at three preordained locations around the world, bases of great arcane power. The betrayal of their human servants had blindsided the Voth, but they had long foreseen Kthugi Ba’al’s eventual invasion and had prepared for it. The Voth cast the most powerful spell their race had ever woven—creating a temporal prison. Kthugi Ba’al, reveling in triumph, failed to recognize the danger in time. The Voth completed their ritual and trapped the Outer God in a time loop. In a fraction of a millisecond, Kthugi Ba’al was gone, torn from this dimension. The damage, however, had already been done.

Atlantis was destroyed.

Those Voth who survived, a pathetic remnant of their once-great race, renounced humanity. They had granted their servants magic, but the Mage-Kings had betrayed that gift by pledging their service to the enemy.

The Voth abandoned this world forever, leaving even their moon base behind.

Their final act was to fragment the counterspell that would free Kthugi Ba’al from his temporal prison and imprint its pieces onto three relics—three Key-Orbs. They stashed each Key-Orb in a secret location, each protected by a different guardian with immense power.

With the spell complete, Chloe found herself back among the stars, standing on the Grid-Forge and facing the first of the three Key-Orbs, the first part of the counterspell that would release Kthugi Ba’al.

Compelled by a need to touch the black orb, she approached it. Part of her psyche screamed at her to resist, warning her that touching such a relic could be fatal, but she placed her palm against the orb. She gasped in wonder as a series of arcane sigils imprinted themselves into her mind, flashing in and out of existence in a heartbeat.

And now, she understood everything.

This Key-Orb would lead her to the next one and then the final Key-Orb. With all three relics, all three parts of the counterspell, a mage could release Kthugi Ba’al and possess power that would dwarf even Olympia’s, becoming akin to a god.

That power was hers for the taking.

Chloe lowered her hand and shook her head. “No. Not for any price.”

She stepped away from the Key-Orb then turned and fled.

The moment she stepped off the Grid-Forge, she found herself back in the Star Vault. The stars and cosmos had disappeared. Once again, the Guardian stood before her, its yellow eyes focused on her.

Victor stood behind Haley. “Well?” he demanded.

What had they seen? Had she truly been transported to the stars? It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered.

“No,” Chloe told him. “I’m not going to remove that artifact, not for anything in the world.”

The Guardian's bulk shifted and flowed closer. She recognized the hatred in its yellow eyes, the desire to tear her apart.

Victor sighed and drew his pistol. He aimed it at the back of Haley’s head. “Go get that artifact!”

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, but she was speaking to Haley.

With the last flare in his hand, Wyatt readied himself. He gripped the cap's striking surface between his right thumb and little finger as he held the flare in his left hand. “Now or never.”

He stared across the bridge at the black tower. If he was wrong and Victor and the women weren't inside, they were going to die. But life was like combat: all you could do was make the least-shitty choice available at the time.

Wyatt struck the flare against the cap. Once it ignited with a blinding flash of heat, he tossed it away from him. The flare landed in front of the tripwire, bathing the bridge in a blood-red glow. Wyatt readied the grenade launcher.

“Hey, asshole!” he yelled at the tower. “You missed me.”

He didn't know whether he was calling out to Victor or the monster, but it didn't really matter. A moment later, an alien shriek echoed from the tower. The creature was in there after all.

And it was coming for him.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

“I'm sorry,” Chloe repeated to Haley. She wanted to look away but didn't. She couldn't stop Victor or even save herself, but she could give Haley a friendly face to look at in her last moments.

And then a man yelled from outside, his words distorted through the opening at the top of the stairs. Someone was still alive!

The Guardian reacted faster than Chloe would have thought possible. It released an ear-splitting shriek, launched itself up the stairs, and squeezed through the opening. At that moment, Victor was looking away from Chloe.

Now was the only chance she would get.

She extended her hand and drew the sigil for Wraith Pull, the same spell she had cast near the chasm to get rid of his GLUMP pistol. This time, though, she pulled the gun toward her, intending to catch it. Instead, the gun flew at her like a missile, impossibly fast! She just managed to throw herself down before the pistol sped past and hit the wall on the far side of the Grid-Forge. Chloe rose to her hands and knees to see Victor holding his gun hand, pain on his features. Then, she saw the blood dripping from his hand and realized his trigger finger was gone, ripped free by the force of her spell.

She sure as hell hadn't meant to do that!

Victor looked across the chamber at the pistol on the far side of the Grid-Forge. Then he looked at her, one of his eyes twitching. He drew his knife with his left hand.

Wyatt watched as the Shoggoth crested the summit of the black tower, glowing with otherworldly radiance. The creature crashed into the ground with a wet thud, but the impact didn't pause its advance. He had wanted its attention, and now, he had it! Wyatt readied himself to shoot the grenade launcher left-handed. As the Shoggoth reached the bridge, it was an unstoppable force. A second before the monster hit the tripwire, Wyatt closed his eyes, certain he'd never open them again.

Chloe jumped to her feet just as Victor charged her. Even injured, he was ready to fight. She wasn't surprised; Victor was the toughest man she'd ever known, a legend among other Division agents. A missing index finger wouldn’t slow him down.

Reacting on instinct, she cast the sigil for the only offensive spell she knew—Kinetic Blast. But Victor was too fast; he had almost reached her before she could finish drawing the sigil in the air. Her spell went off, and a powerful bolt of telekinetic force lanced from her palm. The brunt of the bolt missed Victor, but a small portion caught him in the hip, lifted him into the air, and made him spin like a top before slamming him into the stairs, at least twenty feet away.

He fell forward onto his belly, dropped the knife, and shook his head as if a prizefighter had just clocked him.

Chloe stared in wonder at her still-extended hand.

What the hell?

The Shoggoth hit the tripwire, pulling the flashbangs’ pins, and the grenades detonated with blinding flashes of light and deafening explosions. Even standing at the other end of the bridge, the force of the bursts knocked Wyatt onto his ass and stole the air from his lungs. An unearthly wail of agony cut through the cavern, and Wyatt opened his eyes to see the Shoggoth stopped in place, its tentacles waving about, its yellow eyes frozen open, and its many mouths screaming.

Wyatt froze in disbelief. It worked?

Then, one by one, the Shoggoth’s yellow eyes vanished, withdrawn into the monster's thick hide.

“Oh no, too goddamned late for that,” Wyatt snarled.

He climbed to his feet and aimed the grenade launcher, putting the iron sights on one of the open mouths—a target at least two feet wide. He fired. The grenade hit the monster's thick hide a foot above the mouth and ricocheted upward, detonating above the monster, spraying shrapnel over it but doing no actual damage.

Wyatt fumbled the grenade launcher's chamber open. The monster had ceased its siren-like shrieking and vibrated angrily. He pulled Abigail's grenade from his pocket but couldn't hold it with his bandaged fingers and dropped it.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

His heart nearly skipped a beat as he grasped at the grenade, and he snatched it just before it rolled away. On the second try, he fumbled the grenade into the chamber and closed it. At almost the exact moment that he primed the weapon for firing, one of the monster's yellow eyes reappeared and stared right at Wyatt.

“Nothing but net,” Wyatt whispered as he pulled the trigger.

The grenade flew true, punching right through the monster's large eye.

Moments later, the grenade detonated, blowing open a gaping wound several feet wide in the monster's hide. Bits of Shoggoth flew like rain, and its bright-blue glow dulled to a sickly gray hue.

Wyatt dropped the now-useless launcher and snatched at the barrel wrapped in thermite. He had injured the Shoggoth, but now, he needed to finish the job. He'd shove his homemade firebomb into the wound and burn the damned thing out from the inside. His adrenaline spiking, he activated the timer and charged forward.

But before he could take ten steps, the Shoggoth gripped the side of the bridge with two of its tentacles and, with a roar of breaking stone, pulled it loose. A moment later, the Shoggoth threw itself into the moat.

Wyatt ran to the edge and peered over it, but the Shoggoth was already gone. In his excitement, he almost forgot the firebomb in his hand. He fumbled the counter off, stopping it with only five seconds remaining. Then, he stared into the dark water in disbelief.

He had done it! He had defeated the thing. His crazy, stupid plan had worked... mostly. He grinned, amazed he was still alive.

His euphoria vanished when he heard a woman scream.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

Victor climbed to his hands and knees, his head still spinning from Chloe’s spell, one far more powerful than she should have been capable of performing. Normally, her magical attacks were the equivalent of hard slaps. Something had changed.

Chloe stood several feet away. “Stay down,” she ordered, her hand held ready to cast another spell. “Just stay down.”

The emotion in her voice emphasized her stress. He was fast but not fast enough to reach her in time—and if she hit him full on with her new magic…

Two detonations echoed through the cavern, occurring so closely together they sounded like one. When Chloe's head jerked toward the sound, Victor struck. He balanced on his uninjured hand and used his leg to sweep her feet out from under her. Chloe fell back but executed a breakfall.

Victor tried to follow through before she could recover, but when he pushed himself up onto his feet, he used his injured hand. Pain shot up his arm, and he gasped, allowing Chloe time to recover. She scrambled to her feet and began drawing a sigil in the air.

He struck first, executing a snap front kick that missed her hand but caught her forearm, interfering with her spell. She drew back, trying to find room to cast another spell, but he followed through, throwing a punch with his left hand.

She blocked the punch, but that had never been his real attack; he was already sliding to her left, chambering his knee for a side kick to her ribs. He shot his foot out, but Chloe slipped back, and his heel only caught her hip in a glancing blow. It wasn't the fight-ending, rib-shattering impact he'd hoped for, but it was enough to send her stumbling backward.

He slid forward, snapping a back fist to her face, but she surprised him by catching the blow with a cross-body block. Then she struck him with her own hammer fist to his nose, snapping his head back.

Now, he was proud of her!

He was still going to beat her to death, of course.

When they heard the Guardian's siren-like wail, Chloe hesitated, and Victor threw a right cross. He connected with her jaw but once again forgot his hand was injured. The moment his fist made contact with her, a spike of fire shot up his forearm. He screamed in pain but followed up his punch with a kick between Chloe's legs—a spot equally vulnerable on both men and women.

Chloe dropped, curling into a ball to protect her head with her arms.

Victor kicked her in the thigh and side, and then he kicked her again and again wherever he found an opening. Chloe screamed, her cries like music to his ears. He'd kick her to death. He'd⁠—

Someone hit him from behind, sending him falling forward, tripping over Chloe, and smashing into the steps with his face. Blood dripped down his nose and into his mouth as he glared over his shoulder. Haley was on her belly alongside Chloe. The other woman’s wrists were still bound behind her back, but she had broken the laces around her ankles. He snorted, blowing bloody snot bubbles and shaking his head. Idiot, he told himself. That's what you get for underestimating Marines, even the chicks.

His gaze landed on Ol' Bessie lying near his foot, and he grinned as he picked it up with his uninjured hand. As he climbed to his feet, blood dripped into his mouth. “Okay, girlies. No more playing.”

Haley climbed to her feet, even with her hands behind her back. “Eat a bag of dicks, asshole!”

Wyatt heard Haley’s profanity-laden screaming, and he sprinted up the stairs to the summit of the black tower, now armed only with Abigail's KA-BAR fighting knife. At the top, he found a large opening that led down to a set of stairs. He was a good enough Marine to know he needed to move carefully, to clear corners before proceeding. However, the desperation in Haley's voice overrode his caution.

Knowing he would probably soon get into a fight, he slipped the backpack from his shoulders and clutched it with his injured hand. Then he entered the opening.

From the top of the stairs, he saw the entire tower was one large chamber. A glowing pattern covered most of the chamber's floor, and in the center of the pattern floated a large black orb.

More importantly, Victor and the two women were at the base of the stairs. Haley's arms were bound behind her back, but she stood in front of Chloe, who lay curled up behind her, her face bleeding. Victor, also bleeding, held his large bowie knife as he advanced on the two women.

White-hot rage burned away any remaining self-control Wyatt had, and he rushed down the stairs.

Victor saw Haley’s eyes widen with surprise. He spun around just in time to meet the attack of the young blond Marine, the one that had fallen over the cliff. The kid must have been the luckiest bastard of all time, but his luck had run out. Victor was going to cut him a new asshole—a big one.

Wyatt descended the stairs and tossed the backpack at Victor, but the other man easily batted it aside. He sneered at Wyatt.

“Looky, looky who’s still alive. Come on, then, you punk-ass bitch.”

Wyatt took up his own fighting stance, holding Abigail’s knife before him.

Real fighting was nothing like the movies, and knife fights were fast and bloody—and usually, both opponents ended up getting cut. The Marine Corps was the only service that still included knife fighting in its Martial Arts Program, but that wasn't a core element. Worse, Wyatt had to hold the KA-BAR in his nondominant hand. Victor also held his knife in his left hand, and Wyatt noticed that Victor's right index finger was severed. Both men held their knives like hammers, fingers wrapped around the hilts. They circled each other, keeping their knives in the “box,” the area from their shoulders to their waistlines. Each man held his injured right arm forward to protect his neck, head, and ribs. Using your own flesh as a shield was terrifying, but it was better for your arm to be cut or stabbed than your heart.

Knife fighting was all about tight, controlled movements, not wide swings. The goal was to close quickly with your opponent, using forward pressure and body weight until you were close enough to stab. Slashes were rarely fatal and were often feints or counterattacks.

Wyatt kept his blade pointed at Victor's eyes before launching the first attack. He slashed low at Victor’s thigh, but Victor danced back out of range and counterattacked with a cut at Wyatt’s knife arm. Wyatt pulled back just in time, avoiding Victor's heavy bowie knife.

The two men circled each other again, sliding their feet to avoid crossing them. Victor lunged, slashing up at Wyatt’s guard arm. Wyatt parried with his blade, casting sparks in the dark chamber. Victor tried to maneuver around Wyatt to strike from a vulnerable angle, but Wyatt turned and slid back, parrying a second slash but missing the third and allowing Victor to cut Wyatt's right shoulder. Heat seared through Wyatt’s upper body, followed by blood running down his arm. Victor followed up with a stab aimed at Wyatt's ribs, but Wyatt blocked it and then cut Victor’s forearm with a slashing counter.

Victor drew back, blood trickling down his arm as well. “Okay, kid. You’ve got some moves. I’ll give you that.”

“I don’t⁠—”

Victor lunged again, stabbing at Wyatt’s throat. Wyatt reacted by instinct and desperation, turning sideways and parrying. He knocked Victor’s blade to the side and followed through with a cut to Victor’s hand. As Victor drew back, pain flickered across his features. Now, blood dripped down both of Victor’s hands.

But then, he did something unexpected. He tossed his blade from his left hand to his right—the one missing its index finger. Gripping the blade with only three fingers and a thumb, Victor drew back and threw the blade at Wyatt's throat. Wyatt tried to turn away, but the large bowie knife flashed past him, and heat seared his cheek. When Wyatt touched his face, his fingers came away sticky with blood.

Victor had missed!

His missing finger must have thrown off his aim.

And now only Wyatt was armed.

Both men were injured and unsteady. Blood flowed down their arms and torsos, making the floor slippery.

If Victor was worried, he showed no sign. He glared at Wyatt, making a come-on gesture with his hands. “Let’s go. Gonna take that knife and shove it up your ass.”

Doubt gnawed at Wyatt. His gaze shifted from Victor to Chloe and Haley. Haley’s wrists remained tied behind her back, and Chloe was still curled into a ball. Even unarmed, Victor might still beat him—the man was a beast. If Wyatt lost now, the women would be helpless. Wyatt hesitated.

“Finish him!” Haley yelled.

“Come on, kid,” Victor taunted. “You heard her. Finish me. What are you waiting for?”

All his life, Wyatt had fought to protect women—whether they wanted it or not. He remembered Chloe trying to deflect the rocket-propelled grenade, remembered fighting Roy, remembered Chloe trying to warn him something was wrong at the bridge. These memories and others flashed through his head in a heartbeat. He saw the madness in Victor’s eyes, knew the older man would keep fighting, even with mortal wounds. And Wyatt was losing blood. Even now, he could feel himself becoming lightheaded. How much longer could he stay on his feet? Long enough to finish Victor?

Maybe.

Wyatt made a snap decision. He drew Abigail’s KA-BAR back past his ear, preparing to throw it at Victor. Victor's eyes widened and his posture stiffened as he turned sideways, away from Wyatt.

But then Wyatt turned and tossed the knife underhand toward Haley and Chloe. It hit the floor and slid toward them.

Victor threw a roundhouse kick that hammered into Wyatt’s ribs. Despite the searing pain in his side, Wyatt caught Victor’s leg, and both men tumbled to the ground, entangled.

To Haley's astonishment, instead of pressing his advantage over Victor, Wyatt had tossed his knife toward her and Chloe. Both men went down together and started wrestling. The knife had stopped a foot from Chloe.

“Chloe,” Haley urged, adrenaline coursing through her, “get up. Get the knife. Hurry!”

Now, Victor mounted Wyatt, using his forearm to strike Wyatt's head.

Wyatt was losing.

Haley rolled onto her side, trying to reach the knife handle with her bound hands. She knew she couldn’t cut her way free without being able to see what she was doing, but she had to try.

As a jiu-jitsu fighter, Wyatt should have found that a ground battle was his forte, but Victor was larger, stronger, and very well trained. Victor straddled Wyatt, gripping his hips with his thighs as he threw forearm after forearm at Wyatt's head. Wyatt tried to bridge the larger man, bucking his hips to create enough space so he could roll onto his side, but Victor couldn't be moved. Wyatt did his best to block Victor's blows, but each time one of Victor's meaty forearms got past his defenses, it became harder to block the next one. Victor was now in almost the exact position Wyatt had been in when he had fought Roy. The longer the fight continued, the more obvious it became that Wyatt would lose. And when that happened, the women were going to die.

He needed to change the dynamics now.

Wyatt caught Victor's injured right hand with his left and squeezed the wound where his finger had been. Victor screamed, and Wyatt bridged again, this time rolling onto his side and creating the space he needed to maneuver. He slid his leg across Victor's foot, catching the other man's ankle and pulling it away from his hip. Then he shot in for the underhook, trapping Victor's knee as he scooted out from under the large man, and came out behind his back. Wyatt punched at the back of Victor’s head with his good hand, but Victor spun about, elbowing Wyatt in the face and nearly taking his head off. Once again, Victor mounted Wyatt—the man was a master fighter, the best Wyatt had ever fought! Better even than Lou.

Victor choked Wyatt, ignoring his injured hand as he ground his thumbs into Wyatt's carotid arteries, cutting off his oxygen. Wyatt's vision dimmed; his hearing muted. One final idea came to him, a last desperate chance. His dislocated fingers slipped into the pocket of his pants and drew out the thermite-bound barrel. He tried to ram the barrel against Victor's side but managed only a single weak blow before it fell from his fingers.

And with it went his final chance.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” grunted Victor, malice gleaming in his eyes as he strangled Wyatt.

And then Victor stiffened, releasing Wyatt's throat. A heartbeat later, the large man fell away.

Wyatt lay on his back, gasping for air as someone else rolled him onto his side. He coughed, heaved in large breaths of air, and rubbed his throat, amazed his larynx wasn't crushed.

Haley's face appeared before him. “Wyatt, Wyatt,” she repeated. “Can you breathe?” She held Abigail's KA-BAR. Then Chloe appeared, bruised and bloody but alive.

“I... yes,” he said, his throat raw with pain.

The women had saved him.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

“V... Victor?” Wyatt asked, his voice coming out as a squeak while he massaged his throat.

Chloe knelt over the man's prone form, her ear close to his face. Oddly, she had a smile on her bloody face when she looked up. “He's not dead.”

“Not from lack of trying,” Haley said. “I brained him hard enough to break his skull. Should have used the blade.”

“It's not his fault,” Chloe said. “The Shoggoth corrupted him.”

Haley helped Wyatt sit up. Victor lay on his side. The hair on the back of the man's head glistened with blood. Chloe remained kneeling beside the man, looking concerned. Bastard had just tried to kill all of them, and she was worried about him. Wyatt would never understand some people.

Haley held Wyatt's shoulders and peered into his eyes, examining him. She looked awful, with her black eyes, bloody bandages, and a lifetime's worth of scratches and bruises, all covered by dirt and filth.

“Beautiful,” he mumbled.

Her eyes narrowed, and she drew back. “What did you say?”

“Bo… Boots,” Wyatt stammered. “Your boots are in my backpack.”

“You wonderful bloody man,” Haley exclaimed as she sprinted to the backpack. She drew out both pairs of boots and tossed one pair to Chloe.

“We need to get Victor out of here,” Chloe said, but she quickly put on the boots, as did Haley.

Then Wyatt remembered the bunker buster. Nothing else mattered, not this strange room with the shifting glowing lines along the floor or the floating black orb in its center. He peered at his watch but couldn't focus his battered eyes well enough to read it, so he held his wrist up to Haley. “What time is it?”

“Huh?”

“The time, Haley! It's important.”

She rushed back to him, took his wrist with both hands, and drew it to her face. “04:58 a.m. Why?”

Wyatt groaned. “One hour.”

“One hour until what?”

Haley helped him to his feet. They had to get moving, even though walking would hurt. “Until that charge I set on the Air Force bunker buster detonates and buries this goddamned place.”

Haley's eyes widened. “Can you run?”

Pain throbbed with each of Wyatt's breaths. He shook his head. “Think my ribs might be cracked... or broken. Bastard hits hard.”

“But you can at least walk?” Haley asked.

“Not well.” He grimaced as he beheld the stairs. “You two go on. I'll follow as fast as I can.”

“The hell you will.”

“Corporal Fowler, don't argue with me.”

She snorted. “You're combat ineffective, Sergeant Hood. I'm in charge of the mission now. And I say you're coming with us.”

“Haley...”

“Do good Marines argue with their superiors?”

“No,” Wyatt admitted.

She pulled her T-shirt over her head, exposing an athletic frame and a green sports bra. Then, she used the KA-BAR to cut the shirt into strips that she wound around his ribs. He gasped from the pain and had to brace himself against her. “I'm sorry,” she said. “This is gonna suck, but it's the best I can do.”

“Med kit in my pack,” he said, focusing on his breathing as the pain surged through him.

She pulled the kit from the backpack and dumped most of the contents but slipped a fentanyl lollipop into his mouth. “Suck on this.”

“We have to go,” he managed.

“I know.”

“I can't leave my partner,” Chloe said, her voice raw. “This wasn't his fault. I can't⁠—”

“It doesn't matter if it was his fault or not,” Wyatt said. “In less than an hour, a huge bomb is going to bury this place. If we're still here, it'll bury us as well. I can't carry him, not with my injuries, and you sure as hell can't.”

“We can drag him on a stretcher. We'll make one.”

“We can't, Chloe,” he said as kindly as he could. “You know we can't.”

Haley put her hand on Chloe's shoulder and lowered her voice. “He's right, Chloe. There's no way we can make it with him, even if we had Wyatt's help.” She shook her head. “I'm sorry. I truly am.”

Chloe opened her mouth as if to argue again, but instead, she nodded. She knelt alongside Victor and kissed him on the forehead. After she whispered something to the unconscious man, she climbed to her feet. “Let's go.”

“What about the monster, the Shoggoth?” Haley asked Wyatt.

“Dead... I think.”

“Well, thank God for that.”

Wyatt took the KA-BAR from her hand and slipped it under his web belt. His eyes darted to a pistol still lit by its powerful LED flashlight, which lay on the other side of the chamber—across the weird shifting pattern. “We could use that pistol. Is it safe to walk across⁠—”

“No,” said Chloe. “It absolutely isn’t.” She extended her hand; the pistol flew across the chamber, above the pattern, and Chloe snatched it out of the air. “Well,” she said, handing the pistol to Wyatt as she massaged the hand she had used to catch it. “That'll take some getting used to.”

“Gimme. I’ll do the shooting,” Haley said, taking the pistol from Wyatt's grip and eyeing his bandaged right hand. “What’s wrong with your hand?”

“That’s a later problem,” he said. “We need to go now.”

The two women climbed the stairs with Wyatt between them, supporting him. His ribs hurt, but he could walk; so maybe they weren't broken, or maybe the fentanyl was kicking in. They made it out onto the summit and then descended the outer stairs. The trio came down to the base of the tower and the sacrificial altar. But leaving was taking too long; Chloe and Haley needed to go on without him.

Just then, two tentacles shot out of the water from the moat, gripping the side of the bridge. Wyatt’s breath caught in his throat.

The Shoggoth wasn’t dead.

He watched in horror as the monster pulled its dark mass, dripping wet, out of the moat and in front of the bridge, blocking their path. The horrific wound created by the grenade was partially healed, but maybe Wyatt could still ram his firebomb into it. When his fingers shot to his pants pocket for the barrel, they came away empty. He had dropped it while fighting Victor.

The Shoggoth’s shriek echoed across the cavern.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX

Alison kissed Victor on the forehead. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, baby. Now, go open your present.”

Giggling, Alison ran from him to the big present under the tree. Victor sipped his coffee and smiled.

It was Christmas morning, one of the few times when Victor wasn’t deployed. They were in the little house in Brooklyn, the one with the ugly yellow floral-pattern wallpaper Karen had endlessly asked him to tear down and paint over. Karen had turned the radio on, and “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby was playing. Alison, only five and wearing Powerpuff Girls pajamas, crawled on top of her largest gift, giggling again and pulling handfuls of wrapping paper away to reveal a Barbie Dream House. She shrieked with joy, and Victor laughed so hard he spilled some of his coffee on his pajamas.

Karen, wearing a ratty old bathrobe and huge fluffy slippers, sat on the floor beside Victor’s chair, her arm on his thigh, her hair a tousled mess, without makeup. She had never been more beautiful.

He watched Karen, somehow surprised that he found his wife attractive. How long had it been since he had thought of her that way? The feeling was surreal.

Alison ran into him, hugging him where he sat in the old brown recliner, and he handed Karen his coffee before he spilled it.

“Thank you, Daddy,” Alison said, burying her face in his chest.

Victor wrapped his arms around his daughter. “Not a problem, baby. For you, anything.”

Finding the gift had been a problem. He had been to all the big stores in the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Newark areas. He had finally found the toy set—the last in stock—in Westbury. Another man had it in hand, ready to buy it. Victor had offered him three hundred dollars more than the damned thing had been worth, but the man didn’t want to sell it. Luckily, that man had been a retired sailor, and when Victor told him he was a serviceman home for the holidays, he had relented. It was one of the few times Victor hadn’t hated the Navy.

“Your father loves you, Alison,” Karen said, leaning in and kissing Victor on his unshaven cheek.

“I know,” Alison said, but then her smile faltered. Sadness filled her big brown eyes.

“What is it, baby?” Victor asked.

“Would you ever hurt me, Daddy, try to kill me?”

He stared at her in confusion. The house was silent now. The music had stopped. Alison watched him as well, her own smile also gone. “Baby, I would never hurt you, never.”

“Then why are you trying to kill Chloe?”

Alison opened her mouth and released an impossibly loud scream, like a siren. A moment later, Karen screamed too. Victor jerked upright⁠—

—and sat up in the black tower, the Guardian’s shrieks still cutting through the air.

A thick layer of cold sweat coated his skin. Blood trickled from the stump where his index finger had been. Every part of him hurt—especially his head. He looked about himself in wide-eyed confusion. What was he doing here? All at once, the memories flooded back. He had tried to kill Chloe. He had murdered those Marines. His heart pounded in his chest; his breathing quickened. “What have I done?”

A series of pistol shots rang out.

Chloe! Chloe needed him.

He climbed to his feet and looked for a weapon. His gaze landed on an M-4 barrel wrapped in what looked like thermite det cord. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands. An explosive timer wired to the thermite read: 00:05. Five seconds.

As Wyatt and the women drew back against the side of the black tower, the Shoggoth pulled itself forward, trapping them. From his belt, he drew the KA-BAR and one of the pistol magazines and handed the latter to Haley. She reloaded the pistol and opened fire again, once more emptying the entire magazine into the Shoggoth.

Her bullets accomplished nothing.

A tentacle snapped forward at Haley. Wyatt lurched forward, knocking Haley aside with his hip, and lashed out at the tentacle with his knife, cutting its end free. Another tentacle came crashing down at him, but it struck something above his head with a resounding thud and slid away.

What the hell?

Then Chloe stepped forward, her palm extended.

“Run!” Wyatt shouted. “Get out of here.”

But instead of fleeing, Chloe traced a symbol in the air with her thumb and first two fingers. An invisible force, a spell, slammed into the Shoggoth, hitting it with such an impact that it compressed the monster's amorphous form, crushing several of its eyes into jelly.

“Run,” Wyatt urged once more, but neither woman moved.

Chloe cast another spell, but this time, its effect was significantly weaker. The Shoggoth, now seething with fury, loomed before them.

“I can't stop it,” Chloe admitted.

Then a man's cry pierced the air from above, a battle cry!

Wyatt looked up and saw Victor launch himself off the tower toward the Shoggoth.

But whatever Victor had intended, it failed. The Shoggoth snatched him out of the air with a tentacle.

Chloe attempted another spell, but the Shoggoth shrugged it off. One of the Shoggoth's mouths stretched impossibly wide, revealing sawlike teeth. The monster lowered Victor feet-first into the gaping maw. When the teeth closed around Victor's waist, he screamed in agony, blood spraying. Chloe screamed as well, but then Wyatt noticed the improvised firebomb that Victor held against his chest.

Victor locked eyes with Wyatt. “Get... get her... out of here.”

And then Victor lowered himself into the gnashing mouth.

A heartbeat later, the firebomb ignited.

The heat was overwhelming, akin to standing before an open furnace. Chloe must have used her magic, because the worst of the heat dissipated abruptly. The Shoggoth emitted a deafening scream that threatened to rupture their eardrums. All three of them fell to their knees, hands clutching their ears. The Shoggoth recoiled, dragging itself toward the moat, but the firebomb burned within it like a star, consuming it from the inside, leaving sizzling, half-melted masses of slime in its wake. Still, it struggled to reach the moat, inching forward. One of its tentacles dissolved then two more, followed by substantial chunks of the rest of the creature’s body. The Shoggoth, unable to generate more tentacles, ceased its movements. The flames intensified into an inferno.

Haley grabbed Wyatt's arm and draped it over her shoulder. “Now, move, move!” she shouted. Chloe took Wyatt's other arm, and together, they hurried past the blazing Shoggoth toward the bridge, where an indescribable stench lingered, its form liquefying and hissing.

They stumbled across the bridge, their sole source of illumination the flashlight on Haley's pistol. The Shoggoth was finally dead, but they would meet the same fate if they didn't hurry.

They had made better time than Wyatt had hoped for, but the escape was still taking too long. By the time they reached the bridge across the chasm, the painkillers must have kicked in, because Wyatt began to trot alongside the women, no longer needing their support. His renewed energy had to come from a combination of adrenaline, fear, and fentanyl, but that couldn't last.

It didn't.

Halfway up the stairs leading to the balcony and the six-sided tunnel, his head swam, and he stumbled. He dropped to a knee. “Go,” he mumbled, gasping for air.

Haley tugged on his arm. “Help me,” she said to Chloe.

Chloe took the other arm. Both women groaned with exertion but somehow hauled Wyatt back to his feet.

“Leave me.”

Neither woman answered him. In silence, they climbed the steps, one after another. There was only the next step and then the next. When they reached the balcony at the top, it came almost as a surprise.

“Need... need rest,” he said.

Instead, Haley and Chloe hauled him on through the tunnel. Minutes later, when they reached the spiraling steps leading up the borehole, it seemed like a cruel joke. “I... ca... can't,” he gasped.

“Semper fucking fi, Marine!” Haley urged. “Man up!”

He groaned, but with the two women supporting him, he climbed the steps. Once again, he lost track of time, lost track of everything but the ascent. At some point, the fentanyl stopped working, and pain surged through his ribs with each step. Oddly, however, the pain gave him clarity and strength. Somehow—impossibly—the next things he saw were the wall murals within the destroyed temple.

They had made it.

Here, the women finally let him rest. Again, he dropped to his knees, gasping, his chest heaving with exertion, his muscles trembling. The women were talking, but he caught only a snippet of their conversation. They sounded as tired as he felt.

“… never, too far,” Chloe said.

“… tunnel behind the temple,” Haley said.

“We don't know…”

“… no other…”

Wyatt jerked awake under the impact of a slap. Haley slapped him again.

“I said, wake up, Marine!”

He caught her wrist before she could hit him a third time. “Up,” he mumbled, his thoughts a fog.

Once more, the women hauled him to his feet, each with an arm around her neck. They stumbled out of the temple. But instead of crossing the cavern and going through the insurgent caves, they moved around the back of the temple. There, half blocked by rubble, was a narrow entrance, the other tunnel.

“Wa… wait,” he mumbled, trying to tell them something, but he couldn't remember what he wanted to say, so he just stumbled along with them.

They climbed over the rubble—more accurately, the women hauled him over the rubble—and then they came upon more steps.

His heart ached.

Was this entire cave system just steps?

Everything from that point was a blur. One step after another and then another. Life was only another step. After what felt like an eternity, he suddenly breathed clean, crisp air once more.

They were outside.

Stars filled a dark sky, but a red glow lit up the horizon. That meant something important, but Wyatt couldn’t remember what. Utterly spent, he fell from the women and hit the ground. He lay there, panting. The bomb, he remembered. There’s a bomb. Isn’t there?

“Hey!” Haley yelled. “Someone help us!”

Moments later, men surrounded them. Afghan men, commandos, screaming at them in Dari, clearly astonished to see them. When Chloe answered them in their language, they stared open-mouthed at her, their eyes wide—and then they picked up Wyatt and sprinted down the mountain.

Wyatt saw only quick snatches of other Afghan commandos, at least a squad, and the two women as they ran.

One moment, Wyatt was being carried by the commandos, and in another, he was flying. Something slammed the air from his lungs, and the ground shook nonstop. He tumbled and rolled, dust and dirt obscuring his vision, choking him. For what felt like an eternity, he lay on his back, wheezing, his thoughts muddled. Eventually, the ground stopped moving, and the dust settled.

He was alive. Everything hurt, but he lived. He looked for the others and saw the commandos crawling and coughing. Then he saw Haley and Chloe, both alive, hugging one another. The summit was gone, leaving only a crater.

Tora Bela, the Monster Cave, was gone.

Haley laughed. At first, her laughter was a soft chuckle, but then, it became near-hysterical giggles. Chloe stared at her as if she were insane.

“What… what’s… funny?” Wyatt asked.

Haley stopped and shook her head, a huge smile on her bloody features. “Never thought I’d live to see the day two women rescued Wyatt Hood—twice.”

Chloe laughed then, too, so hard she cried. The tears left furrows in the dirt on her face.

Wyatt lay back and laughed as well. The Afghan commandos stared at them in complete befuddlement.

And in the east rose the most beautiful sunrise Wyatt had ever seen.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

A day later, Wyatt sat propped up in his hospital bed in Bavaria, reading the paperwork the two stone-faced U.S. government officials, a man and a woman, had given him. His ribs were neither broken nor cracked, but they were bruised and still hurt. He had minor cuts and scrapes, particularly on his feet, and several deep knife slashes. The knife cuts had needed stitches—a lot of stitches—especially the one in his shoulder. The cut in his cheek was less bad than he had first thought, but it still might leave a scar. He had been right about his fingers. They were both broken and dislocated, but according to the very efficient German doctor who had set them, they'd mend, and he'd keep their full use. All in all, he had come through his ordeal well... better than his dead friends. He didn't know how Lou and the others were doing, since only Wyatt and Haley were in this private clinic.

And that pissed him off.

When he had given Chloe back her odd crystal pendant, she had been so relieved she hugged him. Then she told him she'd arrange their transportation. Wyatt had thought she was losing it, but sure enough, less than six hours later, three Blackhawk helicopters had flown in: one for Lou, Doc, and the other two wounded; one for Wyatt and Haley; and the third just for Chloe. The crew had no details for them—clue number one that he and Haley were in a lot of shit. The Air Force flew them to Kandahar airbase, and from there, a waiting Gulfstream V executive jet took them—just the two of them—to this private clinic, surrounded by green fields and snow-capped mountains. It was surreal, like being in The Sound of Music. Clue number two that he and Haley were in big trouble.

The two federal agents had arrived an hour ago. Both claimed to be from the U.S. State Department, but they had only given their first names. The pair reminded him of Victor, who had also pretended to be State Department—and they had come with paperwork. Clue number three.

The man, George, was a balding, unhappy-looking gorilla with huge shoulders, the broad, flat nose of a boxer, and a chin that looked like it could crush stones. He was the nice one. His partner, Susan, was a dour-faced scarecrow with the meanest little dark eyes Wyatt had ever seen. Her blond hair was pulled back and tied into a bun so tight it seemed to stretch her face. She was neither large nor intimidating, but everything about her set Wyatt's nerves on edge.

They hadn't asked him questions, just given him papers and ordered him to sign them. His impression was that they didn't really care if he read them or not. He read them... and he took his time doing so. One was an emergency indoctrination to a program identified only as “Deep Saber”—no other details and no mention of the Special/Supernatural Activities Division Chloe had told them about. The other was a nondisclosure agreement. Both forms threatened lengthy prison sentences for anyone who broke them.

When Wyatt finished reading the forms, he dropped them on his lap and shook his head. “No, I don't think so. I want to see a Marine Corps officer, or any other armed forces officer.”

“Not sure you understand your predicament, Sergeant Hood,” George said, looming closer. “It’s called ‘emergency indoctrination’ for a reason. You are hereby ordered to sign them, or you will face charges, prison-time charges.”

Wyatt, who had just fought a glowing blue slug-monster with tentacles, might not have been as intimidated as he should have been. “And you are hereby welcome,” he said, “to take these papers, roll them up tightly, and shove⁠—”

Susan cut him off. “Sergeant Hood, we could talk prison sentences, use terminology like ‘exceptionally grave damage to national security,’ but I think I'll be blunt.”

“Please do. Because I’m pretty sure I have rights.”

“You do,” she said, “but you also don’t, not really. Not now, not anymore. You and Corporal Fowler have been exposed to things no one is supposed to see. Ever. There’s a bad, scary world out there, and you’re part of it now. You’re gonna have to learn to live with what you’ve seen, what you know, what you’ve guessed.”

“I don’t⁠—”

“We have already debriefed Miss Winters,” Susan interrupted. “She’s admitted to telling you about the Division, about our work. We're aware of the ruins and NTV.”

“What?”

“Nonterrestrial visitor, the creature. Why it was there we don’t know.”

“You think I do?”

The look in her eyes held no hint of compassion. “No. No, we don’t. How could you? That’s not our problem. You are.”

“I don’t have to sign anything.”

“You kind of do. Because if you don’t, we’re gonna drop both of you into a CIA black site in some third-world shithole and keep you locked up until you babble like crazy people. Now, maybe you’re a tough guy and you don’t care, but I promise you, that young lady is going to grow old behind bars.” She picked up the papers and held them out. “Or you can sign the fucking forms, keep your fucking mouth shut, and go back to fucking work.”

“Jesus Christ. Who are you people?”

Now, she did smile, which creeped him the hell out. “Believe it or not, we’re the good guys.”

Wyatt ran his fingers back through his hair and shook his head. “Give me the pen.”

After Wyatt signed, everything changed. Now, the medical staff let him and Haley wander about the grounds unsupervised. The clinic had only a handful of staff and no other patients, so they left Wyatt and Haley to themselves for hours at a time. The food was excellent and abundant, and the scenery was beautiful… so there was that.

On the evening of their second day, Wyatt found himself in the garden, surrounded by tall plants and bright flowers. He sat on a bench, watching a breathtaking sunset over the mountains and trying to work through his emotions. So many of his friends had died, slaughtered by the Shoggoth or murdered by Victor. To what end? He didn't have a clue. It all seemed pointless.

Haley appeared, dressed, like him, in a white bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers. The skin around her eyes had turned from black to a sickly yellow, and her nose was no longer bandaged. With her dark hair hanging down her back, she looked almost normal… until you saw the sorrow in her eyes. She gave him a small smile as she joined him on the bench. They remained like that for long minutes, neither feeling the need to talk.

When she finally broke the silence, it was barely more than a whisper. “We're in a lot of trouble, aren't we?”

He didn't answer, which was an answer.

“All I ever wanted was to be a Marine,” she said.

“You'll always be a Marine. No one can take that from you, from us.”

A moth flitted past, graceful in the sunset; the air carried the smell of fresh-cut grass; and the silence was serene. She took his hand. “What are we gonna do?” For the first time since the Marines had entered Tora Bela, she sounded frightened.

Wyatt squeezed her hand and looked her in the eye. “We'll figure it out together.”

He wanted to kiss her but chickened out. Then, she kissed him. Minutes later, they ended up back in his room, with their pajamas and bathrobes on the floor.

Sometime later, Haley laid her head against his chest.

“Umph. Watch the ribs.”

“Sorry,” she said as she raised her head. Her eyes narrowed. “Weird.”

He smiled. “That's exactly what every guy wants to hear in a moment like this.”

She trailed her fingers over his abdomen. “No, not you. You were fine.”

He snorted. “Fine? I think I preferred ‘weird.’”

“I mean your birthmarks.”

“What about my birthmarks?”

“I thought you had four.”

“I do.”

“No, you don't.”

He sat up, and she pulled her head back. Wyatt stared in confusion at the three—not four—dime-sized birthmarks on his chest and abdomen.

“Weird,” he whispered.

Chloe sipped her mint chocolate café mocha through its straw and shifted her buttocks on the uncomfortable metal chair. No matter which way she sat, she was all bruises. She wore blue jeans, Canada Goose short boots, a button-up blue cotton shirt, and a white padded faux-fur-lined winter parka she had picked up for a steal at Serenella’s in downtown Boston. Normally, she’d take the coat off inside, but the basement interrogation room in the Division’s operations complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska—known colloquially as the Lakehouse—was so cold, she could almost see her breath. She mused that they probably kept it that way on purpose to intimidate prisoners.

Was she a prisoner? She didn’t think so. The Order would lose its collective shit. Hell, even her mother might forget she was a pacifist and come burn the joint down. No, she decided, she wasn’t a prisoner.

But she wasn’t not a prisoner either.

This situation was complex.

The room was concrete, its ugly mustard paint peeling away. The only other furniture was a single metal table bolted to the floor and two empty chairs on the other side of the table. On the wall opposite her and the table was a one-way mirror, which she assumed she was supposed to pretend she didn’t know about. She flicked her hair away from her face and smiled at the mirror.

Monroe thought she was holding back details about the Atlantean ruins, which she absolutely was. She had no intention of telling anyone about the Key-Orb—or what it freed. Those secrets she’d take to the grave. She might not even tell her mother.

Or at least, she wouldn’t yet.

She didn’t bat an eyelash when the metal door banged open, and the two agents stormed inside. They wore cheap pants with button-up shirts, their ties removed, their collars unbuttoned, and their sleeves rolled up as if they were about to get physical with her.

As if.

She leaned back in her creaky metal chair, crossed a leg over the other, and sipped noisily. She knew both men and wasn’t worried about either. Rupert Hodgins, probably the good cop today, was a heavyset middle-aged man with a thick brush-like mustache and a crewcut that covered his receding hairline. He placed a manila folder on the table and then slid it across to her. She leaned forward, glanced at the folder, and then flipped it open to see service pictures of Wyatt Hood and Haley Fowler, both in their impressive Marine Corps uniforms, the deep-blue jackets with red trim and white caps. Wyatt had double rows of ribbons, more than Haley, who had only a single row.

“Why are you showing me this?” Chloe scanned the service records beneath their Marines’ pictures. Wyatt had been awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart during his tour in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, two years earlier. She didn’t know much about that sort of thing—Victor would have—but she knew it was a big deal.

“They’re both safe and in Germany,” Rupert said. “I thought you’d like to know.”

“I do. Thank you.” Rupert wasn’t what she’d call a good guy, but neither was he a dick. He reminded her, in a much less impressive way, of Victor.

The other man, Dillon Cooper, sniffed.

Dillon was a dick, nothing like Victor.

Dillon leaned forward, resting his overly muscular and hairy forearms on the table. Rupert was the typical Division agent, ex-military, ex-cop... ex-wives, but he was also a straight shooter, an honorable man. Dillon was a bodybuilder and a bully. Victor had always derided him as a “roided-up nancy boy.” His dark hair was swept back and held in place with too much gel. His several days’ worth of beard always looked perfectly groomed, and his eyebrows looked better maintained than hers. Dillon spent too much time in front of the mirror for a man who wasn’t even especially good-looking.

Dillon stabbed a thick finger on the files. “Here’s the problem, sweetie. You’ve gone and left us a mess to clean up—two messes.”

Her face heated, and she stiffened, rising from her seat. “Don’t you fucking dare touch them!”

“Calm down, Chloe,” Rupert said, holding both palms out. “No one is going to hurt anyone. They’re Marines, for Christ’s sake. I was a Marine.”

She inhaled and nodded, embarrassed over her loss of control. Her mother was always going on about Chloe’s composure or lack thereof.

Rupert gave Dillon a quick glare before continuing. “You asked about them earlier. I—we—wanted you to know they’re fine. They’ve both signed the emergency indocs for Deep Saber. No one is going to touch them.”

If they keep their mouths shut, she thought. Chloe bit her lower lip but forced a smile onto her lips. “Great, then. Fine. Thanks. So, we done?”

Dillon rolled his eyes.

Her gaze darted to the mirror. What was Monroe up to?

“No, we’re not done. Not yet,” Rupert said. He clasped his large, knobby hands and leaned forward. “You said you believed there must have been an artifact in the cave system, yet you saw nothing?”

“Little busy not getting killed by the NTV.” She sighed. “Look, there probably was an artifact, but it doesn’t matter now because that bomb buried the ruins. So unless you want to excavate that mountain...”

“Not a thing we can do,” Rupert said. “Not given the current tactical situation in-theater. Maybe at a later point.”

Sure, she thought, right after peace breaks out in Afghanistan. Should be about two, three hundred years. With luck, the Key-Orb was destroyed. “What else is there, then?”

Rupert’s sigh was her answer. Nothing.

“Oh, come on,” Dillon said, staring incredulously at his partner. “You know she’s lying.” He jabbed a finger at her face. “Maybe you’re the one who should spend time in handcuffs and chains.”

She snickered. “Been looking at my day planner? You’re not my type... sweetie.”

“Don’t get smart with me, witch! A man is dead, a good man.”

Heat flashed through her body, and hot mocha drenched her hand as the Styrofoam coffee cup exploded in her grip. She threw the remains of the cup aside, shaking her hand in the air, and glared at Dillon. “Yes, a good man, Victor, is dead. He died saving me. But don’t get confused, Dillon. He was my partner, and I knew him better than anyone else in this chickenshit outfit. He didn’t like you. In fact, he thought you were a pussy. And if he were here right now, if he heard the way you’re talking to me, he’d be stomping your stupid face in—and I’d fucking let him.” She took a deep breath, her pulse racing. “So take your fake moral outrage and shove it up your ass.”

“Chloe,” said Rupert calmly.

“Screw this.” She stood so quickly that the metal chair fell over. She stalked around the table, behind the two men, and faced the mirror. Both men stood, but neither was stupid enough to put his hands on her.

“Chloe, don’t,” Rupert said, more harshly this time.

With her left hand, she drew the sigil for Kinetic Blast; with her right hand, she drew the sigil for Mage Shield. The blast shattered the mirror, and the shield stopped the shards from going farther into the other room. The broken glass slid down the invisible barrier, exposing that other room and its two occupants—Director Ewan Casey Monroe and Assistant Director Christina Gates. Neither moved as the pieces of the broken mirror clattered to the floor like rain.

Monroe was middle-aged, gray-haired, and very masculine, with piercing ice-blue eyes and a weathered, rugged face. His long handlebar mustaches and even longer sideburns should've looked ridiculous, but on him, they fit. With his expensive tan business suit and leather bolo tie, he looked more like a Texan oil tycoon than the government bureaucrat who had managed the Division for more than a decade. Christina, with her long dark hair, flawless composure, and navy-blue skirt suit, resembled a New York banker.

Neither was what they appeared to be.

“Gentlemen,” said Monroe in a deep, husky voice Chloe had always found sexy. “Please give us the room.” The smile he gave Chloe was all politeness. Christina could have been a statue.

Both Rupert and Dillon filed out of the room, leaving the door ajar.

Monroe rose and exited the observation room, entering the room where Chloe was. Christina followed.

“Was that really necessary, Chloe?” Monroe asked, frowning like a disappointed parent.

“I wanted your attention,” she said, but she was already regretting her outburst.

“Well, my dear, you have it. Doesn’t she, Christina?”

“Yes, Director,” Christina said, giving Chloe a light shake of her head from behind Monroe, a warning.

“I don’t deserve this,” Chloe said, her breathing rushed, her heartbeat fast. “I volunteered to work with the Division. My father died in your service. Victor died in your service.”

“I know,” Monroe replied. “They were both patriots. Hell, they were both friends. I apologize. We should have done this differently, but...”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Christina said. “This entire business with the Shoggoth bound as a guardian. What was it protecting?”

“I don’t know,” Chloe lied, amazed she could do so with perfect composure. Her mother would be proud. “There was something... a weapon, maybe. But now...” She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Whatever it was, it’s gone.”

Monroe watched her in silence for a long moment and then looked away. “Pity. With what happened to the Shadowstrike team, we could have used a weapon.” He sighed. “Well, what’s done is done. It’s not like we haven’t dealt with rogue mages before.”

Rogue mages, yes, Chloe thought, but never a Transcended and especially not Olympia.

Monroe placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll honor Victor’s memory. And we’ll take care of his family, of course. Full pension. His daughter...”

“Alison,” Chloe said.

“Alison will have a full university scholarship. Wherever she wants to go.”

“Thank you, sir. He’d want that.”

“It was supposed to just be recon,” he said softly, sadly, and squeezed her shoulder. “Sometimes, this goddamned job...”

“Yes, sir. I’m not a child. I knew the risks. So did Victor.”

The smile Monroe gave her made her regret her outburst even more. So much pain resided in his weathered features. How many of his friends had he buried over the years? Victor, her father... a hundred others?

“You’ll need a new partner,” he said, changing the topic.

“Don’t say Dillon.”

This time, both Monroe and Christina laughed. “No,” Monroe said. “Maybe not Agent Cooper.”

“What now?”

“Now? Now, we rebuild. We recruit a new Shadowstrike team,” he answered.

“Any leads?” Chloe asked, but she was only making polite conversation. Shivers-resistant gunfighters weren’t her “part of the ship,” as Victor would say.

“Well, there are these two Shivers-resistant Marines recovering in Germany,” Monroe said. “Thought maybe we’d offer them a position.”

Chloe paused, taken aback. She wasn’t certain what she thought of that idea, but it made sense. “You know… Victor always had a soft spot in his heart for Marines.”

Monroe gestured toward the door. “Come on, Chloe. Let’s go to my office. I have some lovely tequila. We can drink a shot in his memory.”

Chloe walked out, arm in arm with Monroe.

Christina remained behind, listening to Monroe and Chloe’s footsteps as they headed for the elevator. She picked up the remains of the Styrofoam coffee cup Chloe had discarded. The cup wasn’t crushed; it was decomposed, portions of it having transformed once more into their original pulp format. Christina rubbed her thumb against the edge of the paper, removing a smear of what looked like particles of wood grain. Her eyes flicked to the door. “Chloe, what aren’t you telling us?” she whispered.

She placed what was left of the Styrofoam cup in a pocket of her jacket and left the room. Everything had changed. She just didn’t know how yet.

But Esme Winters might.

EPILOGUE

Command Post Tent

1st Bn, Afghan National Army Commando Brigade

Qala-i-Kah District, Farah Province, Afghanistan

13 April 2016, 13:45

General Abdul Jaleel Ahmadi was in a good mood. The delay caused by the incident in Tora Bela had ended, and his operation was now a resounding success. Unfortunately, this prattling fool of a village elder was threatening to ruin his day. The man was trying to claim compensation for a grain storage building that one of Abdul’s tanks had accidentally damaged. The building was little more than a mud hut, but according to the way this old fool was going on, it had been the finest storage facility in the entire country. Abdul considered having him taken outside his tent and whipped for his insolence. The thought brought the ghost of a smile to his lips. Alas, he couldn’t do such a thing—not politically correct these days. Besides, Georgie, his American advisor, was sitting in the back of the tent, watching, and would no doubt report to General Church that Abdul was abusing the locals, which would lead to yet another of Church’s earnest yet onerous lectures about “winning hearts and minds.”

He sighed, shifting where he sat on the blankets. Even if they stayed here a hundred years, the Americans would never understand his country. Afghanistan would always be Afghanistan, and the Americans were nothing but another foreign intruder. They had bottomless bank accounts and marvelous weapons, but they were still infidels.

A handful of Abdul’s staff officers sat on either side of him, and Sergeant Major Kapoor stood just behind Abdul with his submachine gun, the only weapon permitted in Abdul’s command tent. Kapoor was such a threatening presence that the elder kept darting frightened glances at him, wringing his hands and licking his lips. The tent’s only other occupants were a pair of commandos manning the radio and updating the large map taped to the wall. Two guards stood outside the open tent flaps. Through the opening, Abdul saw the bustle of movement as his men prepared to move the headquarters to a new location.

The region was clear of insurgents, and now, it was time to move on. Of course, the Taliban would return—almost as quickly as the commandos left—but that was the way of the world. He had lost an excellent officer in Major Durani, but the commandos had regained their honor, a more-than-fair trade.

When the village elder finally asked for a sum ten times what the grain storage building had been worth, Abdul decided maybe he would have the man whipped. Just then, a woman walked into his tent.

Abdul stared in shock.

She was tall and thin, middle-aged but well maintained, with her hair framing her sharp features in blond curls frosted with grey. Her nose was long and Romanesque, reminding Abdul of his own noble mother. No one would call this woman beautiful—at least not anymore—but she was stately and carried herself as though she were the general, not him. She wore shiny black capri pants and red heels, a gray blouse, and a long blue cashmere cardigan. Around her neck was wound a floral-pattern silk scarf. The temperature outside was well above a hundred degrees, and she should have been melting, but instead, she looked unperturbed, even bored.

Several moments passed before Abdul realized the village elder had stopped talking. Silence hung in the air as everyone stared at this strange woman.

She stopped alongside the elder, placed a hand on his elbow, and gave him a polite smile. “Thank you,” she said in Dari. “You may leave us now.”

To Abdul’s sheer amazement, the elder bowed so low that his long white beard touched the rug. He scurried back from her, still bent over, and bolted from the tent. Incredibly, his moronic guards still stood outside the tent door.

The woman faced Abdul and his officers. When her blue eyes settled on Abdul, a shiver coursed down his spine. She smiled, but it was the same smile a hungry wolf gave sheep. “General Ahmadi. I had hoped we might have words.”

“You... you can’t… can’t be here,” he stammered.

She arched a single eyebrow. “Oh, but I can. I can be anywhere, at any time.”

He felt... almost drugged, dizzy. What was happening? Abdul gave himself a shake. “Sergeant Major Kapoor, escort this woman from my tent. Then arrest my guards!”

The fierce one-eyed sergeant major stepped forward, one hand on the pistol grip of his submachine gun, his other reaching for the woman. But rather than show fear, she cocked her head to the side, raised her hand with palm extended and two fingers bent inward, and drew a quick symbol in the air. Half a dozen small mirrorlike cubes appeared, each reflecting the startled faces of Abdul and his men. The woman twisted her hand, and the mirrored cubes turned on their sides, exposing edges like razors. The cubes shot forward—cutting Sergeant Major Kapoor and his submachine gun into foot-sized chunks that fell with thuds on the carpet. Half of Kapoor’s bearded, one-eyed head landed near one of the woman’s red shoes. She edged the head away with her toe. The sharp stench of burned blood hung in the air.

Now, the woman repeated the same gesture with both hands. More mirrored cubes appeared, dozens this time. The general’s officers tried to rise and flee, but before any of them could move, the cubes shot forward, cutting them apart as well.

This isn’t happening, his mind screamed. It’s impossible!

She faced Georgie.

The American sat frozen, his mouth open.

“Hello,” she said pleasantly, as if she hadn’t just slaughtered all of Abdul’s men. “How nice to see another American.” Then she made a fist, and Georgie’s head burst, his skull bones cracking. His headless torso fell over, blood and crushed bits of brain spilling onto the rug.

The radio operator and map marker died next, their skulls also crushed. Now, only Abdul remained, and as she turned her attention to him, he wet himself.

“Now, let’s try again,” she said. “My name is Olympia, Olympia Kostaki. Please tell me everything you know about the Tora Bela cave system and especially about the American woman who entered it.”

The End

The story continues in Eldritch War: Book Two of the Supernatural Activities Division.

Enjoyed Monster Cave? Dive right into Eldritch War, where the stakes are higher, the magic darker, and the battles more intense. With his Marine career at a dead end, Wyatt joins a supernatural special forces team, training to face unspeakable horrors. Meanwhile, Chloe is on the hunt for her friend’s killer, only to uncover an ancient foe lurking in the shadows. Ready for more secrets, danger, and supernatural thrills?

DISCOVER CHLOE’S BACKSTORY WITH A FREE NOVEL

Curious about what happened before Monster Cave? Sign up for my newsletter to get Void Beacon, an exclusive prequel starring Chloe Winters in an adventure you won’t find for sale anywhere.

Set just before the events of Monster Cave, Void Beacon follows Chloe and her partner Victor in a deadly chase from Rome’s catacombs to hidden temples, after her ex-lover steals an alien artifact from the Vatican. Along the way, she uncovers horrors, betrayals, and the artifact’s true purpose: a beacon for void terrors.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born on Vancouver Island and raised between Montreal and Vancouver, I joined the Canadian Army at 17 and served for 32 years, working my way up from private to major. I’ve done operational tours in Bosnia and Afghanistan, exchange tours with the US Navy in San Diego, and even braved Arctic isolation in Alert, NWT (just like the setting in The Thing, but without the monsters… I think).

I’m a husband, a father, and a big fan of military history, medieval warfare, exercise, and video games. My first book, Black Monastery, was an Amazon 2014 Breakthrough Novel Award Quarter-Finalist. Since then, I’ve written more than 14 books across three series.

Curious to know more? Visit me at www.williamstaceyauthor.com and say hello!

ALSO BY WILLIAM STACEY

The Vampire Queen Saga (Dark Fantasy):

The Queen of Blood and Fire

The Shield of Serl Raven-Eye

The Mouth of the Gods

The Dark Elf War Series (Military Fantasy):

Starlight

Gunz

Ranger

The Awakened World Series (Urban/Military Fantasy):

Source Mage

Shade King

Firestorm

The Supernatural Activities Division Series (Urban/Military Fantasy/Cosmic Horror):

Monster Cave

Eldritch War (Coming early 2025)

Marine Corps Magic (Coming early 2025)

Blood Coup (Coming mid-2025)