I whirled toward the hair-raising cry, boots crunching in the glass and debris strewn across the
lobby, to find myself still alone. More shrieking roars carried through the broken windows, mixing
with the sharp cracks of thunder in a hellish chorus. Human voices, muffled but commanding,
spiked my pulse worse than the ghouls. Afraid I knew exactly what I'd find, I snuck to the wall
beside the window, keeping my stomach pressed to it. I gripped the side of the sill to steady
myself at the crest of the sloped floor and looked down.
The storm tugged at my damp hair and tried to glue it to my eyes, but I shoved it back, peering
through the murky haze of rain to see raden light below. I pulled up my goggles and toggled the
zoom lens.
When the first face came into focus, I crouched low, pulse pounding.
In the overgrown street, Colter, Rhea, Priscilla, and Leon clashed with a small pack of ghouls.
The Calhouns were nowhere in sight—dead or left behind, maybe.
A ghoul nicked Rhea's bicep with the long reach of its freakish, spindly arms, but she slashed
her axes in an X and decapitated it. Strange white steam poured from its spurting neck.
Priscilla had blood staining one leg of her leather pants and a cut on the side of her neck, but it
did little to slow her. She finished two ghouls with quick, precise upward thrusts of her blades
through their soft palettes, her raden aura protecting her wrists from the sharp teeth.
White, foggy moisture obscured my vision, and I rubbed a thumb over my goggle lenses to clear
it. But it wasn't on the lenses. It was moving, floating up from the corpses that crumpled at
Priscilla's feet.
What could it be? Some kind of gas released by the species when they died? A last resort, like
the rift dragon's armor shrapnel?
It didn't seem to affect the ardents. The parabeasts had formidable claws and fangs, but even
bounding on their toes, they weren't as fast as the ardents, and the team was making fairly short
work of them. They were going to cut through, get in here, and find me.
My fingernails bent and chipped as I held the window frame in a death grip, mind racing for what
to do. Flee, hide… drop a desk on their heads.
Colter spun his spear around his forearms in complex slashing patterns that debilitated three
parabeasts coming at him from all sides, then slew a fourth with a powerful thrust clean through
the chest. In my goggles, his face was clear enough to see a self-satisfied smirk curl his mouth
as he yanked his weapon free. My teeth ground together, wishing a ghoul would rip through his
smug face.
I realized I'd leaned my head out too far and jerked it back. One scan of the building, and a
keen-eyed ardent might pick me out.
Leon's face looked pummeled, bruising running from forehead to collarbone on his left side. He
stayed at the back of the party, swinging his hammer to finish off the foes Colter had left
crawling through their own black blood.
The team was heading for the communications room, I was sure of it. That's where I'd been
headed next. It was full of all the next-gen raden-powered tech a paramilitary operation could
ever need to send out emergency beacons. No batteries, chargers, or working electricity
needed, and it all ran on independent power systems..
The ardents were closer and faster. No way I'd make it first. I needed to abort and hope I could
hide long enough to sneak onto whatever transport came for them.
I'd just lifted a foot to take the first step toward the stairs when a new roar cut over the mewls of
the dying parabeasts—a powerful, bellowing scream that reverberated off the buildings. It
dragged out like a wolf's howl, rising to an eerie, uncomfortable pitch that raised gooseflesh
along my arms. And then suddenly it wasn't alone, the shrieks of a hundred ghouls harmonizing.
The pale parabeasts rushed in a thundering stampede from Tower Two's entrance lobby, one
body indistinguishable from the next. The oncoming wave of gnashing teeth and slashing claws
startled the hardened ardents into a sudden backpedal.
Tear into them, I growled in my head, scaring myself a little with the bloodthirsty ferocity. That
wasn't what I wanted, I reminded myself. They didn't get to die as heroes fighting parabeasts in
an evacuated city.
Below, the ardents had pressed tightly together, their weapons blurs of motion.
"Fall back!" Colter ordered, kicking out at a toothy maw snapping for his extremities.
The massive swarm started to surround them, parting into two streams around the ardents.
Colter's group shifted into an arrow-like formation, carving their way back down the street, but
for every body they cut down, two more pressed in.
At the heart of the horde, one ghoul towered over the others. Two extra arms sprouted from its
back and ended in sharp spikes for hands. When the false face slid back as it roared, it revealed
an elongated, more animalistic face beneath. It had to be some sort of pack leader or alpha.
And it had been in the building with me this whole time… I shuddered, suddenly feeling
watched, stalked. I looked behind me, down the slant of the floor toward the stairs, doors, and
branching hallways.
When I'd assured myself nothing was there and looked back down, the alpha was shoving
through its underlings toward the ardents. It stabbed out viper-quick with its middle arms. Rhea
barely stopped one with her axes. The other left Leon clutching his freshly punctured side. He
almost dropped to one knee, but Rhea swung her axe clean through a ghoul that tried to bite
through Leon's spinal cord and tugged him upright by the arm while Colter drove back the alpha
with retaliatory jabs of his spear.
Colter's mouth moved with orders I couldn't make out over another boom of thunder. Priscilla
tucked in beside him, facing the Towers, the two of them using dizzying blade movements to
hold back the main crushing line of the horde, making just enough room for Rhea and Leon to
execute sweeping spinning moves with their heavier weapons at the flank. The thinner lines of
the horde at the team's back broke, and the ardents charged through the gap, disappearing
behind a crumbled building across the street that was held up solely by tree roots threaded
through one wall.
This was my shot! I could still get to the comms room first…
But the horde hadn't given chase. Most had shifted back on their heels, swaying as they stared
at the place where the ardents disappeared. The alpha's false face slid back over his muzzle,
and with a growling command from him, the others shambled back the way they'd come. Right
back into Tower Two's lobby.
Was that even all of them? How many were in here with me? Would they stay down there, or did
they consider this whole building their territory?
I was transported back into the cramped space beneath that tree, staring into the icy white lights
in the wounded ghoul's dark sockets, its black tongue slithering between three-inch fangs.
Maybe I ought to abandon the Towers altogether, go back to the roof, scout for a new place to
hole up?
And do what?
Sit around starving, eating grass and drinking rainwater while I waited for Colter to make
contact? Then wait for the transport copter, rush out, hope they saw me before they took off,
and then get handcuffs slapped on me thanks to Colter's lies? And that was if I didn't die of
infection.
I looked down at my leg wound and my crappy patch job, which I'd dragged through standing
water that was probably riddled with bacteria. I was sure the rest of me didn't look so hot either.
I needed medical attention. And food. The Towers were my best shot at both.
I really didn't feel good. Weak, faint—with hunger, fear, or oncoming illness, I wasn't sure. I
needed to get out of the city quick, get to Hanna, and inform someone about Seth's body before
that hell beast found it. If it hadn't already.
I had to chance going deeper into the building. And be quick about it. Colter had tried to get in
here once. What would prevent him from regrouping and trying again?
But first things first.
I carefully stretched my cupped hands out the broken window and slurped water until my
parched throat felt better. Then I scoured the room for something sharp or heavy. On the floor
beside one of the desks, I found a dense ball with swirls of cobalt inside it. A secretary's
paperweight, maybe? I tossed it and caught it once, testing its heft.
What do you expect to do with that? Seth's voice asked in my head.
It was a pitiful weapon, but it was all I had for now. Its weight in my hand felt good enough that I
could almost convince myself it would buy me a spare second or two.
I'll be fine, I told myself, more a demand than reassurance. Parabeasts weren't interested in me.
Without raden, I didn't check any of their instinctual boxes. The wounded ghoul had left me
alone. Why not the others?
Yeah… sure. No way for that to go wrong…
I headed back to the staircase, each crunch of the leaves underfoot way too loud. My wet hands
squeaked on the railing, setting my teeth on edge as I cut through the brief enclosed space and
came out in the ballroom. Stray wiring and raden pipes dangled from the ceiling. Somewhere
water dripped with soft plunks. The chairs and tables were little more than kindling. It looked like
something big had rampaged through here.
Pulse ticking, I stepped off the staircase, my paperweight clutched tight at my side, and looked
around for any signs of a real weapon. I'd seen event staff set up for parties several times, and
every now and then, they'd put a weapon or two on display—whether they were trying to show
off a new design or impress investors with authentic rift trinkets, I didn't know or care.
Nothing on the walls. Maybe they'd fallen off? I moved toward the back wall where I'd seen the
displays before. There were decorative mount hooks, but a mess of blackened, terribly
degraded tablecloths—maybe fancy curtains—lay beneath. I put a toe under one of the folds
and cautiously started to lift it, bits of the synthetic fabric crumbling away to nothing.
Screek!
My nerves clanged like discordant piano keys. The scrape of claws drew my eye to a moving
bulge beneath the fabric.
With a cry, I dashed toward the stairs, swinging myself over the railing to put something beneath
me and the beast. I hunkered there, the paperweight raised by my face, eyes darting around for
whatever it was.
A flash of lightning lit the room, and I caught a glimpse of long spikes and short, thick claws
skittering beneath a pile of busted table pieces.
It was small, maybe the size of a cat. Maybe it wasn't a parabeast, just a normal, scared animal.
It didn't re-emerge, but I knew it was there, and I couldn't seem to make my feet leave the stairs
to go check for a weapon again. I hadn't seen any trace of a bone blade in the brief seconds I'd
peeked beneath the curtain.
Getting my breathing under control, I left the ballroom behind, keeping my steps as quiet as I
could. With every drop to the next stair, my calf lanced pain up my leg. I'd pushed it too hard the
last twenty-four hours, sprinting from monsters and hiking through an urban jungle.
The cafeteria was below, and the knowledge made my stomach give a particularly demanding
gurgle that echoed in the enclosed space between the floors.
As I tiptoed down into the cafeteria, I took an unconscious deep breath through my nose—habit
dictating that I'd get a whiff of something delicious. Instead, I breathed in stale, dusty air tinged
with a faint but rancid scent like something had curled up and died somewhere in the next room.
Lip curling, I ducked my head below the landing above and peered into the abandoned
cafeteria.
My neck prickled.
Nine pairs of glowing yellow eyes stared back at me from the gloom, sitting atop tables or
hunkered against counters. The size of cats, their backs and paddle-shaped tails were lined with
quills like porcupines, but their skinny heads and elongated noses looked more like ant-eaters,
except they ended in two sharp buck teeth sticking out below their black noses. The windows in
here were filthy, blocking much of the pitiful daylight, but in flashes of lightning, I could make out
straw-slender tongues flicking out of their snouts. One by one, they turned back to foraging,
ignoring me.
Some started rooting around under debris on the floor, particularly around growths on the walls
that gave off a faint raden glow. A few were shuffling around inside the restaurant booths,
standing sentry by the supply doors. It looked like they'd chewed a big hole in at least one.
Nearby, several creatures gathered around a drink machine, mole-like claws reaching around
the back, scraping at something.
They seemed docile toward me now, but if they were eating something in there, I doubted they'd
take kindly to me scrounging around for my own food. I had other priorities anyway. Colter could
be preparing to charge the lobby again right now. Or he could be climbing the crater to enter
through the roof like I'd done.
I'd come back here after I got my message out, preferably with a better weapon than this stupid
paperweight. Of course, the foundry where I worked would be the best place to find them, but it
was underground. I'd have to bypass the lobby where all those ghouls were hanging around.
I dropped back into the dark of an enclosed portion of the stairwell, leaving the cafeteria behind.
A little way down, the stairs curved, and I couldn't see what lay around the bend. I hugged the
wall, ears pricked for any sound. I took the next two steps at a glacial pace, good leg going first, injured leg trailing behind. My own breathing filled my ears, and every roll of distant thunder
sounded like someone else breathing just out of sight.
At last, I could peek around the curve and see the landing to the medical bays. Clear. So was
the lobby beyond. I hovered on the landing. My leg was really throbbing, that last dash through
the ballroom taking its toll. My calf felt hot and swollen, the makeshift bandage cutting into my
skin.
If I ran into anything bigger than those porcupine things between here and the comms room, I
was going to need to be fast. Maybe I ought to grab some antiseptic spray and numbing cream
at the very least?
This floor looked way better off than the others I'd seen. That damp, moldy smell wasn't nearly
as prevalent, though bits of golden moss clung to a few corners. One leg of the receptionist's
desk had buckled, and some of the recessed lights had fallen out of the water-damaged ceiling,
dangling by wires, but it appeared mostly untouched by the rift's influence. It didn't have any
windows, though, letting shadows lurk in every corner.
I tried the lights, heard the raden-power kick on inside the pipes—groaning like rusted hinges
instead of the usual humming. The two dangling lights spit sparks. Thankfully, one light above
the receptionist's desk shined murky, but steady, light through the gunk on its glass cover.
Creeping through the lobby, I paused at the swinging double doors leading back into the exam
rooms. Paperweight raised, I used two fingers of my other hand to push one door open just a
crack.
The far side of the hall was in total darkness, but in the sliver of light leaking through the door, I
didn't see any movement, just dingy floors, cracked paint on the walls, and a closed exam room.
I pushed it open wider, enough to see one edge of the nurse's station jutting around the corner. I
might find what I needed there and not have to go any further through the maze of halls.
Pushing the door wide, I stepped through and found the light switch on the wall. The pipes
labored. Two lights flared, but one popped with an electric crackle and tinkle of glass that
shocked my senses, drawing out a quiet cry from my tightened throat. The other stayed on, but
barely, flickering like a dying candle and casting a sickly glow over the nurse's station.
Heartbeat cantering, I limped toward the big desk, the acrid scent of burnt wiring stinging my
nose. As I turned the corner, I froze, pinned by a spike of terror that drove through my whole
body.
A ghoul walked behind the nurse's desk, dragging its longest two claws along the floor as it
shambled toward the flickering light in the ceiling, head cocked.
Its neck twisted toward me just before the light guttered out for good.