“You—you some kind of werewolf?”

  “More like part lupine deity. It’s a long story.”

  “Dude, I’ve gotta hear it!”

  “Eventually. Why don’t we meet the other team?”

  Our brawl, which the women had wanted nothing to do with, pushed them into a remote corner of the auditorium. Would suck to win over one team, I thought, only to alienate the other. As commander, it was my job to remedy that. But before I could step toward them, Boz gripped my forearm.

  “I already tried,” he whispered. “They totally cold-shouldered us. Bunch of weirdos.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at myself. That would teach me to make assumptions. “Regardless, we’re going to be working together,” I said. “Fighting together. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  At that moment, my sat phone rang. It was Purdy.

  “Hold on,” I told Boz, already moving away. “I’ve gotta take this.”

  “Captain Wolfe,” Purdy said when I answered.

  “I understand DAWA’s talking again. What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to explain everything to the teams in a moment. First, I wanted to tell you that I received your report and message about the attack. I couldn’t send anyone to investigate. I’m keeping my people away while we look into a possible security breach.”

  “Do you think the attack was connected to the tech?” I asked.

  “Very likely, yes. We’re also in the process of moving your wife to a secure location.”

  “Where?”

  He hesitated. “We’re conducting a full review to determine how the attackers came to target you. In the meantime, we’re on a reserve system for communicating. Reasonably secure, but I’d rather not divulge sensitive information until I receive the green light from my team that I can do so safely.”

  “Understood,” I said. “And her parents?”

  “For now, they won’t be able to visit. They would be too easy to follow.”

  I’d figured that would be the price, for them as well as Dani, who was alone now.

  “I’m going to ask a favor of you, though.” Purdy said.

  I tensed reflexively as I refocused on the call. “What’s that?”

  “Legion knows about the attack, of course, but I’d prefer you not tell the other teams. Not yet. I need them focused on the upcoming mission. Your prep time is going to be fairly tight, unfortunately.” I looked at his ask from several angles before deciding it was reasonable.

  “All right,” I agreed.

  “Early impressions of the teams?”

  “I’ve only met one so far,” I said, not getting into the brawl part. “How tight a prep time are we talking?”

  “I can give you ten hours, but then we’ll need to move. Give your loading lists to Paula’s team. They’ll take care of that part.”

  Ten hours was really tight, considering I didn’t know either team’s capabilities. “I’ll do the best I can,” I said. “What about Sarah?”

  “She’ll remain in Florida, working on a treatment. I have a security detail on her.”

  We would miss her, but the clinic was her laboratory. She would be able to bring any potential treatments to trial immediately on the three remaining patients. One of them was Shayne, whom I still felt responsible for.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” Purdy said.

  “What?” My patience was scraping bottom.

  “The lumina. Even though it’s effective in infinitesimal amounts, our supply is limited. A fresh shipment is on the way, but we’re holding some back. I want only your sharpest shooters armed with the ammo.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “But how did you know the lumina would be effective against those things?”

  He paused as if considering the question. I pictured his kerchief passing over his lips. “I didn’t,” he said at last. “Not exactly. I acted on the idea that if a world-destroying being were coming, it would be resistant to conventional weapons. Otherwise, how would it manage to destroy the world?”

  It sounded logical, but something in Purdy’s voice told me he was withholding.

  “Considering the collateral damage it caused in Drochia,” I said, “that was a hell of a hunch to act on.”

  I was pushing, like I usually did in these situations, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “I’m ready to start the mission presentation,” he said.

  18

  A beam of light shot from the AV booth at the back of the auditorium and lit up the large screen. Purdy appeared, much as I’d pictured him in our just-finished call. If my final comment had rattled him, though, it didn’t show.

  “I see that everyone has arrived,” he said from a computer station in his command and control center. A lens at the top of the screen was broadcasting the auditorium back to him. Everyone moved in for better viewing angles. Even the women’s team crept from their recess.

  “I’m Reginald Purdy, Coordinator of the United Front against Doomsday Threats. It’s an alliance of the three most established monster hunting divisions in the world: Gaia, Legion, and Magnum. And since it makes a poor acronym, we’re going with the Front.” His slight smile straightened. “Our doomsday advanced warning algorithm went quiet after Gaia and Legion successfully completed their respective missions—missions that involved the discovery of sophisticated technology. Our team has since ID’d the tech as powerful electromagnetic nodes. More on those in a moment. With the nodes out of commission and the outbreaks contained, DAWA’s silence led us to believe we’d stopped the progression—until a new alert appeared.”

  A satellite map showing South America filled the screen, reducing Purdy’s presence to a box in the lower right corner.

  “DAWA’s lead was a report from a researcher on isolated Brazilian tribes,” he said. “The researcher noted recent conflicts between several tribes in the state of Amazonas. Bloody conflicts. Two tribes had migrated into a third’s territory. Food scarcity and famine seemed to have been the driving forces.”

  I caught Yoofi whisper to Rusty, “But there is so much food in the Amazon, yes?”

  Rusty shrugged and whispered back, “The heck should I know?”

  “Also deadly disease,” Purdy continued as the map zoomed in on western Brazil. “DAWA took a closer look and found this.” The map showed large swaths of devastated forest, vapors rising from the edges.

  “Fires?” Boz asked. His men grunted their agreement.

  But while it did look like a slash and burn operation, I’d seen something similar recently.

  “A reasonable presumption,” Purdy said. “DAWA accessed air-monitoring drones near the destruction site, and they reported normal amounts of atmospheric carbons. With fires you’d see much higher concentrations. Furthermore, the destruction pattern matches that on the Chocasukee reservation. We believe the damage to have been biologically inflicted. Which brings us to the hostiles in question.”

  The screen switched to video feeds taken from Rusty’s drone of our final battle. They showed the massive beings fumigating the island as they advanced toward me, reducing the site to a disintegrating wreck.

  “Holy shit!” Boz exclaimed.

  His teammates responded excitedly, the guy with the eyebrow piercings throwing punches. This was their first time seeing the beings we’d faced. The women’s team watched the screen with stoic expressions, all business.

  “Examinations of their remains show they share a similar protein makeup as the pathogen,” Purdy continued. “And they can spread the pathogen through contact as well as weapons that appear to inhere in their makeup. Note the blades and cannons. For lack of a better term, we’re calling the beings Defilers.”

  “But what are they?” Boz asked, still staring.

  “Captain Wolfe obtained info that would seem to rule out interdimensional beings,” he replied, referring to my conversation with Prof Croft. “They’re not like any supernaturals any of our teams have faced before. That coupled with their makeup suggest the Defilers are from another part of the universe.”

  “Wait a sec,” Rusty said. “So the End Times is a danged alien invasion?”

  I hadn’t thought about it in quite that way, but I paused to consider the progression: disease followed by war, famine, and death. Practically Revelations. I then considered the Defilers’ resistance to conventional attacks. With enough of them, they could repeat the pattern the world over, wiping out everyone and everything.

  “It would appear so,” Purdy replied.

  “Alien invasion?” Boz looked from the screen to his teammates in amazement before exclaiming, “Fuck, yeah!”

  “Can we assume they arrived through another breach?” I asked.

  “Yes, and a longer-standing breach,” Purdy stressed. “In this case, the Defilers have been here for a while, perhaps weeks.”

  “How come DAWA didn’t detect it?” Rusty asked.

  “You must understand, the Defilers arrived among premodern peoples. That is, peoples lacking computers, phones, servers. No matter how omniscient DAWA may seem, it remains heavily tech dependent. It was only by virtue of the researcher’s obscure report that DAWA became aware of the anomaly when it did. In the meantime, the Defilers have had an opportunity to establish themselves.”

  I leaned forward as the image zoomed-in.

  “We found this,” Purdy said, indicating a complex on the edge of the devastation. It looked like a collection of mud nests, the kind hornets made, except these were smoother. “We don’t know what they’re used for, but they appear to house the Defilers at the very least.”

  “Have you located the node that opened the breach?” I asked.

  “We have some candidate sites in the area, ranked by probability.” Colored boxes appeared over the image, ranging from red to a more muted yellow. “We believe the nodes are anchoring a larger system, something our team is still investigating. But to revisit a question you asked when I first explained DAWA, why now? How is it that DAWA is identifying doomsday events only years after its development? Well, it seems we have our answer. The same technological age that made DAWA possible has also introduced a system that can open breaches to world-destroying beings.”

  “Shit,” Rusty said, looking over at me. “He’s right.”

  Purdy addressed the auditorium now. “Your mission will be to travel to Amazonas, terminate the invaders, and locate the node. I’ll have a team on standby to deactivate and remove it. We’re uploading all of the mission info to the secure server now. Captain Wolfe will command. He’ll be in charge of strategy and preparation as well as decision-making on the ground.” Boz made eye contact with me and nodded. On the other side of the auditorium, a woman’s hand went up, the oldest member of Gaia.

  “Yes, Jana?” Purdy said.

  “Why him?” Her gray hair had been pulled back from a face lined by age and weather. She squinted her striking blue eyes as she awaited his response.

  “Experience and proven leadership,” Purdy said. “He’s one of the most successful spec-ops captains to come out of the U.S. military in the last fifty years. And in his time with Legion, he’s led fourteen missions against some of the most formidable creatures in existence, never losing a teammate. He and Legion are also the only ones here to have faced the Defilers and destroyed them.”

  “Damn straight,” Rusty said.

  When Jana remained silent, Purdy said, “Are there any other questions?”

  “Anyone else ready to go fuck up some aliens?” Boz asked, drawing a roar of agreement from his teammates.

  “Captain Wolfe will take it from here, then,” Purdy said. “Good luck, everyone.”

  As the feed ended, I stood, already sectioning off crucial blocks for the ten hours we had until departure. I would need to review the mission info, compile a packing list, and develop an attack plan.

  But first I needed to see what I was working with.

  “I want everyone to report to the Grounds in an hour,” I announced. “Dress in full battle gear, weapons included.”

  Team Magnum poured rowdily from the auditorium while Gaia stood and filed out quietly. Jana, who took up the rear, peered back at me. I hadn’t had time to introduce myself, and she’d only asked that one question during Purdy’s presentation, but her gaze remained on mine with an intensity at odds with her grandmotherly face. It wasn’t until a growl rumbled in my chest that I realized it was a look of challenge.

  19

  I stood on a shipping container in full sun at one end of the Grounds: a large dug-out section of field surrounded by an earthen berm. With the help of Sigma’s staff and some forklifts, we’d arranged the scatter of remaining containers and junked vehicles into a simulation course with iron targets. Boz and team Magnum were poised at the start.

  “Go!” I shouted.

  They advanced on the course in their “beast suits,” enormous black battle suits with synthetic muscles, hydraulic joints, and tons of tech. Boz was right to be excited about them—they were badass—but they were also heavy. The men had to remain in almost superhuman condition just for donning and doffing. Right now, though, I wanted to see how they handled the basics of movement, communication, and shooting.

  According to the info Purdy sent, their training had included instruction in military maneuvers. Sure enough, their hand signals and formations were sound as they entered the first section, but it wasn’t long before the men were bunching up. They then wasted ammo taking down the two targets.

  “Watch your spacing!” I called. “And more discipline with your firing sectors!”

  Boz made the proper adjustments going into the next section, but the team’s discipline deteriorated again. By the fifth and final section, they were downright sloppy. Boz himself went full auto on the last target. The men bounded back toward us, whooping and congratulating themselves.

  Boz peered up at me. “What did you think?”

  “I like the enthusiasm,” I said, hopping down from the container. Out on the course, the staff were already resetting the targets. “As far as fundamentals, they’re there, but some areas could use tightening. The best way to do that is in real time. I’m going to take point beside you on the next run and give movement-by-movement feedback.”

  “We don’t need a damned babysitter,” one of the men grumbled.

  Boz wheeled so suddenly, I thought he was going to deck him. “Captain Wolfe is talking!”

  My lupine face had probably done more to bring him around than our melee earlier, but either way, I welcomed the new attitude.

  There was still the matter of Jana, who stood back with her team, arms crossed. I’d introduced myself and asked about their mission in Crow territory, but she remained cool, that subtle look of challenge never leaving her eyes. One way or another, I’d have to rein it in.

  I addressed her now. “Any questions from Team Gaia? Observations?”

  She was in the same tight suit she and her teammates had been wearing in the auditorium, only now the hoods were up. Clear shield attachments anchored by rebreathers covered their faces. The material blended them into the landscape, but unlike the chemical camouflaging properties of our own suits, theirs operated on some sort of reflection tech. The material was also covered in a network of slender monofilaments.

  According to their info, the women had been recruited for technical expertise in areas that Gaia deemed important for monster hunting. They’d also scored high on precognitive tests, but I wasn’t sure how that played in. At stark odds with Magnum’s core philosophy, Gaia believed fighting proficiency ranked lower in the hierarchy of essential skills, though all the women looked comfortable enough holding assault rifles.

  Jana stepped forward. “Why sugarcoat it?”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “They looked like amateurs out there. You need to tell them.”

  On my other side, Boz barked a sharp laugh. “Amateurs? You think amateurs could’ve wiped out a vampire nest in Wichita? Could’ve blown a ghoul infestation to shit in the Paris catacombs? What has your little knitting group accomplished?” Behind him, his men laughed and shouted their agreement.

  As a captain, there were times to step in and times to see how two parties worked things out. Instinct told me to go with the second. I remained back so as not to show bias and awaited Jana’s response.

  “Are you familiar with fae lords?” she asked.

  “I’ve heard of ’em,” Boz allowed.

  “We neutralized one in Buenos Aires.”

  Boz looked at me for confirmation. “They did,” I said.

  “Well, if they’re such hot shit,” he said, “let’s see them run the course.”

  A fresh look of challenge gleamed in Jana’s eyes as she turned toward me.

  I nodded. “Go ahead.”

  As Jana led her teammates down to the start of the course, I leapt back atop the shipping container for a better view. Boz joined me from a dead jump, demonstrating another of his suit’s capabilities, and landed with a clang.

  “This ought to be good,” he chortled.

  At my command, Gaia began the exercise. The women moved in step, weapons covering every position as they flowed into the first section. Two shots sounded, then ping, ping. By the time the metal targets dropped, the team was moving onto the next section. As the course grew more complex, I watched for breakdown. But if anything, Gaia became more synchronized. They were a little slower, due to their age, but they made up for it with efficiency. It was like watching a ballet performance.

  Beside me, Boz’s shoulders slumped. “Shit.”

  They completed a near-perfect run and returned quietly, no celebrations. I climbed down and Boz followed. Our respective teammates gathered behind us.

  “Not bad,” Boz grumbled as Jana and Gaia arrived.

  “Impressive, actually,” I said. “But how were you communicating? I didn’t see hand signals.”

  “That’s right!” Boz perked up. “No radio commo allowed, remember? You guys cheated!”