The silence in the back office of the Slipgate Diner was not peaceful. It was the heavy, pressurized silence of a bomb squad contemplating which wire to cut. Marcus Hale sat in his leather chair, the springs groaning in protest as he shifted his weight. He felt like a prisoner of war undergoing a particularly strange interrogation.
Three pairs of eyes bore into him.
Eira, still clad only in the precarious white towel that struggled to contain her Valkyrie physique, stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Her wet blonde hair was slicked back, revealing the sharp, predatory angles of her face. Water droplets traced slow paths down her neck, gathering in the hollow of her collarbone before disappearing into the terrycloth.
Liri, the Sorceress, lounged on the edge of his desk. Her midnight-blue silk robe had fallen open just enough to reveal the smooth, pale curve of her thigh. She swung her leg back and forth, the movement hypnotic, her dark eyes glittering with a mixture of amusement and calculation.
Pearl, the Siren, sat cross-legged on the floor near the filing cabinet. She was picking at a loose thread on the carpet, but her large, oceanic eyes were fixed upward on Marcus. The iridescent glowing skin on her shoulders shimmered under the fluorescent office lights, shifting from teal to violet as she breathed.
"So," Liri began, her voice like warm honey dripping from a spoon. "The engineer. The spy. The... shark in a dress suit."
"She is an old colleague," Marcus said, keeping his voice neutral. He reached for his coffee mug, but his hand stopped when Eira shifted her weight. He decided against sudden movements.
"She is a traitor," Eira corrected him. Her voice was a low growl that vibrated in her chest. "She sent you to die. You said this yourself. She left you and your shield-brothers in the fire."
Marcus rubbed his face with both hands. The stubble on his jaw rasped against his palms. The truth was complicated. It was a tangled mess of geopolitical necessity, cartel violence, and the cold calculus of warfare. Rainy had betrayed him, yes. She had used his unit as bait to secure a larger objective. But she had also ensured he had an exit, even if the others did not.
Or so she claimed.
A dark thought had been festering in the back of Marcus's mind since he hung up the phone. He had never seen the bodies. The extraction zone had been glassed by incendiaries. The report said "no survivors" and "unidentifiable remains." But if Rainy had pulled strings for him, was it possible she had pulled strings for the others? Or was that just the desperate hope of a man who missed his friends?
"It was war," Marcus said finally, repeating the line he had used on the phone. "She had orders. I had orders. We were outnumbered by bad actors. She played the board the only way she could to make sure the mission succeeded."
"And her reward for this sacrifice?" Pearl asked, tilting her head. Her voice had that strange, harmonic quality that made the air in the room feel thicker. "Does she seek forgiveness? Or does she seek the bed of the survivor?"
Marcus choked on his own spit.
"She is coming to check the building," Marcus sputtered, his face heating up. "Structural integrity. She is an engineer. The best I know."
"Show us," Eira demanded. She held out a hand, palm up. "The scrying glass. The black mirror you speak into."
"My phone?" Marcus asked.
"Give it to me," Eira commanded.
Marcus sighed and unlocked the device. He handed it to her. Eira held the smartphone as if it were a delicate, explosive rune. She poked the screen with a calloused finger, frowning when the glass didn't immediately yield the secrets of the universe.
"Where is her likeness?" Eira asked. "If she is your... colleague. You must have captured her spirit in the glass."
"I don't have pictures of her," Marcus lied.
It was a smooth lie. A practiced lie. Deep within the encrypted "Vault" app on his phone, disguised as a mundane scientific calculator, there was a folder. It contained three photos. One was of the team in Kabul. One was of him and Rainy in a bar in Berlin, her head thrown back in laughter, her hand on his chest. The third was a photo he had taken of her sleeping on a train to Prague, the morning sun lighting up her copper hair.
He would take those photos to his grave.
Liri leaned over Eira's shoulder, her hair brushing against the Valkyrie's bare arm. "Check the gallery," Liri instructed, pointing a manicured nail at the icon. "Men always keep trophies."
Eira tapped the icon. She scrolled through photos of the diner renovation, photos of lumber receipts, and a few accidental selfies Marcus had taken while trying to figure out the camera settings.
"Wood," Eira muttered. "Receipts. A picture of a sandwich. Another sandwich." She looked up at Marcus with genuine confusion. "You capture the spirits of your meals?"
"I was documenting the menu," Marcus said defensively.
"Nothing," Liri declared, sounding disappointed. She took the phone from Eira and began swiping through the apps. "She is invisible. A phantom."
"When does the phantom arrive?" Pearl asked. She had stopped picking at the carpet and was now tracing the scales on her arm with a fingernail. "And how? Does she ride a beast? A chariot?"
"She drives a Jeep," Marcus said. "And she'll be here tomorrow. Probably around noon."
"What will she be wearing?" Liri asked. This seemed to be of critical importance to the Sorceress. She smoothed the silk of her own robe, her eyes narrowing. "Does she wear armor? Or does she drape herself in silks to hide her dagger?"
Marcus thought about Rainy. She favored practical cargo pants, tight tank tops, and a leather jacket that had seen more combat than most soldiers. She was sharp angles and efficient movement.
"She dresses... practically," Marcus said. "Like a soldier who isn't on duty."
"So she is a warrior," Eira said, nodding with begrudging respect. "Good. If she attempts to invoke the rite of claiming, I will challenge her to single combat. The circle of salt or the circle of steel. Her choice."
Marcus stood up. "Absolutely not. No combat. No circles. No salt. She is a guest. We are going to be polite. We are going to be professional."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"Eira," he said. "You have a... tentative agreement with me. The Sky Bond. We shook hands on it. Sort of."
Eira puffed out her chest, the towel straining dangerously. "The bond is written in the stars, Marcus. It merely awaits the blood seal."
"Right," Marcus said, quickly moving on before she could elaborate on the blood seal. "And Pearl, you have... whatever the High Veil claim is."
"I saw you first," Pearl said simply. "In the water. You are mine by the law of the tide. I just haven't dragged you down to the deeps yet because I like your pancakes."
"Comforting," Marcus muttered. He turned to Liri. "And you..."
Liri offered him a slow, sultry smile. She hopped off the desk and walked toward him, her hips swaying. She placed a hand on his chest, right over his heart.
"My clock is ticking, Marcus," she whispered. "The lineage of the Sorceress Supreme must be continued. I require a partner of strong stock. You have proven... resilient."
"I'm feeling very objectified right now," Marcus said, stepping back until his spine hit the filing cabinet.
"Good," Liri said. "Then you understand the stakes. This 'Rainy' woman is an interloper. She is the past. We are the future."
Before Marcus could respond, the room shifted.
It wasn't a large movement. It was a subtle, grinding lurch, as if the entire building had settled an inch into the earth. The coffee mug on the desk rattled against the wood. The window pane buzzed in its frame.
But it was the sound that froze them.
It came from beneath the floorboards. A deep, resonant groan, like the stomach of a leviathan digesting a meal. It was a mechanical, geological grinding that vibrated through the soles of their feet and up into their teeth.
Eira dropped into a combat crouch instantly, her hand flying to an imaginary sword hilt at her hip before she remembered she was unarmed and unclothed.
"The earth screams," Eira hissed.
Liri's eyes widened. She raised her hands, purple sparks dancing between her fingertips. "That is not natural tectonics. That is... magic. Or something like it. It tastes metallic."
Pearl pressed her ear to the floor. Her eyes darted back and forth. "Water," she whispered. "There is water moving down there. Deep water. But it is heavy. Thick."
Marcus pushed himself off the filing cabinet. The fear of Rainy was instantly replaced by the fear of the Slipgate. He knew that sound. It was the sound of the barrier weakening.
"The crawlspace," Marcus said. "The vibration is coming from the sealed section in the basement."
"The place where the Glimmucks refuse to go?" Liri asked, the sparks fading from her fingers.
"Yes," Marcus said. "We need to know what's happening down there before Rainy gets here. If this place collapses, or if something comes through while she's eating a burger, my cover story about 'geological shifts' is going to fall apart."
"Consult the oracle," Eira said, pointing at the phone she had discarded on the desk. "Ask the great network of minds."
Marcus grabbed the phone. "It's the internet, Eira. Not an oracle. And it doesn't know about interdimensional rifts."
"Try," Liri urged. "Search for... 'vibrating earth Texas'. Or 'monsters in basement'."
Marcus unlocked the phone again. He opened the browser. His hands were shaking slightly. He typed Weedfield Texas seismic activity.
"Nothing recent," Marcus muttered, scrolling. "Last report was three years ago. Fracking related."
He typed unexplained vibrations West Texas.
"Just conspiracy theories," he said. "Some guys on a forum talking about government tunnels."
"Government," Eira said, latching onto the word. "The Iron Men. Your Rainy serves them, does she not?"
"She works for the Army Corps of Engineers," Marcus said. "Technically."
"If the earth is shaking," Liri said, looking at the floorboards with suspicion, "and the common folk do not know why, then the rulers know. The military knows."
Pearl stood up, dusting off her knees. "If the bad lady is coming," she said, "maybe she brings the answer. Or maybe she brings the earthquake."
Marcus looked at the three women. They were right, in their own chaotic way. The timing was too suspicious. The vibrations had increased in frequency just as Rainy reappeared in his life. She was working in Northern Mexico, "cleaning up messes." Was it possible the mess she was cleaning up was connected to the same fault line, the same tear in reality that sat beneath his diner?
"We need to go down there," Eira said. She stood up straight, tightening her towel. "I will retrieve my blade. We will descend into the under-realm and silence the groaning earth."
"No," Marcus said firmly. "Absolutely not. Last time you went down there, you punched a hole in the septic tank thinking it was a swamp monster."
Eira looked offended. "It gurgled at me."
"We are not going into the crawlspace tonight," Marcus said. "It's too dangerous. And if Rainy gets here tomorrow and sees us covered in mud and slime, it's going to raise questions I can't answer."
"So we do nothing?" Liri asked, crossing her arms. "We wait for the floor to open and swallow us?"
"We wait for the engineer," Marcus said. He hated saying it. He hated relying on anyone, especially her. "If there is a physical reason for this—pressure, water table, unstable foundation—she will find it. If it's magical..." He looked at Liri. "...then we deal with it quietly."
"Quietly," Liri scoffed. "You have a Valkyrie, a Siren, and a Sorceress living in a diner. Nothing we do is quiet."
Marcus walked to the window. He looked out at the parking lot. The sun was fully set now, leaving the Texas sky a vast, bruised expanse of purple and black. The stars were coming out, hard and bright.
Somewhere out there, four hours south, Rainy was packing a bag. She was checking her pistol. She was thinking about him.
And beneath his feet, the Slipgate was waking up.
"Go get dressed," Marcus said to Eira, not turning around. "And tell Nix the Glimmuck to stop eating the insulation in the attic. We have a long night ahead of us."
"And tomorrow?" Pearl asked softly.
Marcus watched a pair of headlights cut across the distant highway.
"Tomorrow," Marcus said, "we face the music."
The diner was quiet by midnight. The girls had retreated to their respective rooms—or in Pearl's case, the large, claw-foot bathtub Marcus had installed in the upstairs bathroom. Eira was likely sharpening something in the guest room, and Liri was meditating, or perhaps online shopping for combat-appropriate lingerie.
Marcus lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling fan. It spun lazily, chopping the humid air. Whup, whup, whup.
He couldn't sleep. The vibration from the basement was fainter up here on the second floor, but he could still feel it in his teeth. It was a low-frequency hum that set his nerves on edge.
He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his phone again. He opened the calculator app. He typed in the code: 80085. Juvenile, yes, but easy to remember.
The hidden folder opened.
He clicked on the picture of the squad. There was Kowalski, grinning with a cigar in his mouth. Hernandez, cleaning his rifle. And Jenson, the kid, looking terrified and brave all at once.
They were gone. Vaporized in a flash of heat and light.
But Rainy had said, I made sure the official story was a training accident. She had said, I dealt with the cartel contacts.
Why? Why go through the trouble of a cover-up if they were just dead? Unless the cover-up wasn't for the families. Unless the cover-up was for them.
Marcus zoomed in on the photo. He looked at the background. Just sand and destroyed concrete.
If they were alive, where were they? A black site? A prison? Or were they working, like Rainy, in the shadows, cleaning up messes that shouldn't exist?
He swiped to the next photo. Rainy.
Her eyes were green. Not a soft, mossy green, but the sharp, electric green of a warning light. In the photo, she was laughing, her head thrown back, exposing the long line of her throat. Marcus remembered that night. He remembered the smell of her perfume—jasmine and gun oil. He remembered the way she tasted.
"You played me," Marcus whispered to the digital image. "You played us all."
But as he looked at her face, he felt that familiar pull in his chest. The gravity of her. Despite the betrayal, despite the danger, despite the three supernatural women currently occupying his home who wanted to mount Rainy's head on a pike, Marcus missed her.
He missed the way she understood him without him having to speak. He missed the way she could look at a schematic and see the flow of the building instantly. He missed the only person in the world who knew who Marcus Hale really was before he became the keeper of the Slipgate.
He closed the app. He set the phone down.
The floorboards creaked in the hallway.
Marcus tensed, his hand sliding under his pillow to the handle of the .45 he kept there.
"It is only me," a voice whispered through the door. It was Eira.
"Go to sleep, Eira," Marcus said.
"The earth has stopped screaming," she said.
Marcus listened. She was right. The humming had stopped. The silence was absolute.
"It is waiting," Eira said through the wood. "It knows she is coming."
"That's crazy," Marcus said. "Dimensions don't care about ex-girlfriends."
"Everything cares about power," Eira replied. "And she has power over you. Therefore, she has power here."
He heard her footsteps retreat down the hall.
Marcus rolled over. He punched his pillow. He stared at the wall.
Tomorrow, Raina would arrive. She would bring her tools, her sharp wit, and her questions. And if Eira was right, she might be bringing something else entirely. She might be the key that unlocked the basement.
Or she might be the dynamite that blew the whole thing sky high.