My hand shook, my finger twitching toward the trigger, but I forced myself to exhale, peering around the edge of the stone rubble as they spread out along the platform. For a brief moment, nobody did anything. Then something came flying out of the darkness. It was a soda can, the popped lid taped shut. Inside, it was loaded with rocks. It struck the rubble to my right with a heavy crash and sent tiny gravel bits scattering across the floor.

  “Auggy!”

  More projectiles followed. The wretches didn’t have guns, but they’d evidently learned to adapt, and the hurled items were no less effective, or better said, no less lethal, than a bullet. They hurled bricks and rocks, loaded soda cans and heavy metal bits comprised of door hinges and pipes.

  I stayed behind cover, unsure if I wanted to open fire. Easton, however, did not share my hesitation. Something metal pinged off the stone near his head, and he raised his hand and fired two quick shots. His gun’s report echoed loudly across the platform, but it paled in comparison to the cry that went up from the wretches.

  In that moment, I understood what Cort had meant when he said his envoys had reported that the wretches weren’t right. They were humans in only the most primal sense. Whatever influence society had imbued into them had been stripped away. They were, quite literally, slaves to their baser emotions, and they confronted violence with rage.

  A deafening cry rose up from their number, and the barrage of hurled projectiles intensified, filling the air with rocks, bottles, and anything else they could think to hurl. They screamed and spat, cursed and swore, threatening to kill us, and worse, with every breath.

  Another rock-filled soda can crashed against my cover, bursting apart and sending a cloud of gravel and dust over my head. I bit off a curse, wiped my eyes clear, and brought my gun up, firing twice around the side.

  On the opposite platform, one of the wretches fell.

  I didn’t have time to celebrate my accuracy, even if I’d felt like it. Which I didn’t. If anything, I felt sick. I dropped back into cover a split second before a rock the size of my thumb impacted against the stone beside my head. Another few inches and it would have hit my skull. My stomach flip-flopped at the realization that the wretches were using slingshots. If one of those caught us flush, it would be lights out for good.

  To my right, Easton continued to fire. His shots were deliberate, precise, and the wounded wretches screamed where they fell. For all that we were better armed, we were outnumbered, and neither of us could get more than a shot or two off before the sheer volume of hurled projectiles forced us back into cover.

  Little by little, the wretches grew bolder. Or maybe angrier. It was difficult to say. The first one to try and cross the bridge was a young man with clumps of missing hair and missing teeth. He raced across the stone arch, gripping a broken sawblade as if it were a knife. Warman stepped out to meet him, and the wretch swept his sawblade-knife forward toward Warman’s belly. Warman might have been older, but he was trained, and he shifted back, letting the rusted blade pass in front of him before slamming his hammer into the wretch’s side. Metal met bone with a sickening crunch, and the wretch toppled over the side of the bridge and crashed down into the brackish cistern water.

  Only a few paces away, Alberad had his back pressed against the stone, staring down at the ground and sucking in deep, fearful breaths. Tobin crouched beside him, one hand on the man’s shoulder, the other on the ring. He peeked his head out from behind the rock every so often, trying to survey the battlefield.

  “Auggy!” I shouted back over my shoulder.

  “I don’t know. It should be working. I’m not sure what’s… wait, what did you say caused the White Oak to fall?”

  “What?” I had to scream to be heard over the wretches’ roar and Easton’s return fire.

  “The White oak. What caused it to fall?”

  “Uh.” I wracked my brain, trying to recall what Penhaligon and Amos had told me. “Cannon fire! At the battle of something or other.”

  “I need a knife!”

  I glanced back, but he waved away my unspoken questions and urged me to hurry. “Come on!”

  I slipped out of cover and raced across the platform, all while taking fire from unseen slingshots. Rocks and stones whizzed past my face and chipped away the concrete near my feet, but I kept running and eventually slid in beside Auggy, bringing my pistol up and aiming back toward the wretches. “In my belt!”

  Auggy reached around my waist and drew Warman’s Blade from its sheath. “It’s the char!”

  “Huh?”

  “Look!”

  Peering closely, I saw what he was talking about. The rightmost side had been near where the cannonball had impacted, and the resulting blast had left the bark charred. Placing the blade against the wood, he began to cut, peeling the blackened edges like a block of cheese.

  The wretches gave a shout and half a dozen of them charged the bridge. Again, Warman rose to meet them. The bridge acted as a bottleneck, nullifying their numerical advantage and forcing them to come two at a time. They swung with knives and chains and broken bottles, but Warman met each in turn, parrying and counter-striking. It didn’t matter where his hammer hit. Wrists, arms, or ribs all broke with heavy resounding thuds, moments before their owners toppled over into the cistern.

  Those who slipped past Warman found Cort waiting for them. Our guide wasn’t as physically dominating as Warman, but he knew the sewers, and he knew how to fight in them. Bracing his feet against the stones, he shot in low, catching the wretches and sending them flying backward, off the platform’s edge and down into the murky water below.

  For the moment, they were holding their own, but the more tactical part of my brain knew it couldn’t last. Once those wretches pulled themselves out of the cistern, they’d be able to scale up to our platform. Once that happened, we’d be overwhelmed in short order.

  “Almost there.” Auggy said in response to my unasked question. He sliced away the damage layer by layer, casting burnt ends onto the floor until only the wood remained. “Okay, that should do it.”

  I extended my hand, and he slapped the knife into my palm, then turned and slid the tree sample back into the nook.

  Nothing happened for a long three count. Then the door buzzed, and the red line across its top turned green. The sounds of several bolt locks turning rang out from the other side a split second before the seal broke with a whooshing hiss. The door slowly opened, revealing a rotating wheel lock on the other side and a long hallway beyond.

  “Warman!” I screamed. “Everybody fall back!”

  Warman nodded to show he’d heard but kept his feet firmly planted on the bridge to cover our escape. Auggy yanked the tree samples free of their nooks and shoved them into his backpack. He leaped through the open doorway and quickly found cover on the other side. Further down the platform, Alberad remained crouched with his eyes closed.

  I ran without thinking, sliding in beside him and grasping the jeweler by the shirt collar. Jerking him to his feet, I fired twice over my shoulder before giving him a shove toward the open doorway. He stumbled forward and Tobin caught up with him, the pair racing through the doorway together.

  “Easton!”

  Cort smacked Warman on the back of the shoulder, then turned and sprinted toward the door. Warman remained just long enough to crack one of the wretches over the forehead with his hammer, then turned and raced back toward the door.

  I opened fire on the bridge as soon as they were clear, aiming low and sending the crossing wretches diving into the cistern. At the same time, Easton raced in from the opposite end of the platform, emptying most of a magazine as he ran.

  Warman slapped me on the shoulder as he passed. I retreated back to the edge of the doorway and fired the last of my magazine into the dark in order to cover Easton’s retreat.

  “Go!” Easton screamed.

  I nodded and leapt through the door. He followed hot on my heels, turning at the last moment and seizing the door. He pulled it shut behind him, then turned the wheel lock, causing the bolts to snap back into place. The sound of the wretches’ howls cut off suddenly, replaced by the sound of our own panting.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked.

  No one spoke, but eventually people started nodding. I did a quick visual assessment. We were dirty and tired, covered in scrapes and bruises, but nothing life threatening.

  “On your feet,” I said to no one in particular. “We need to keep going.”

  “Give them a moment to gather themselves,” Easton said. “Auggy got the trees, right? So they’re not going to be following anytime soon.”

  I shook my head and started to answer, but a heavy crash rang out against the side of the vault door. It struck with the force of a battering ram, emphasizing my point better than I ever could have articulated. We might be done with the wretches, but they clearly weren’t done with us.

  “Feet,” I repeated. “Now.”

  I followed my own orders and started walking. The others got to their feet, and quickly caught up. We reached the end of the hall, and the corridor in front of me began trembling as I rounded the corner. At first, I thought I might have taken a headshot that I couldn’t recall, but a quick check revealed no unexplained lumps forming on the back of my skull. As I let my hand drop, I realized what was happening.

  I wasn’t disorientated.

  The ground was literally shaking.

  Not hard enough to knock us off balance, but there was a definite tremor beneath our feet, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the heck might be causing it. We were already deep underground. Whatever was causing the tower to do the shimmy was coming from below even that.

  Which… shouldn’t have been possible.

  And yet, here we were.

  The corridor led us to a short chamber with an ascending stairway at the opposite end. The floor was painted in the depiction of some sort of map. Like an inverted mural beneath our feet. There was a perimeter of black tiles, and brown squares alongside green open spaces.

  “Don’t move,” Cort said from behind me.

  “Why?” I asked, peering around. “You see something?”

  “Trap.”

  “Where?”

  “Right in front of you.”

  I blinked and looked around for several seconds before my eyes dropped to the tile floor. “Oh. What is it?”

  “I think it’s Harvard,” he said.

  “The campus?”

  He nodded. “It’s a map. I recognize the buildings. Not all of them, but enough. Step back.”

  I did as he bade, and he shifted into my spot. Behind us, I could hear the sounds of the wretches continuing to batter at the door. They were coming at it with a vengeance, and I knew we didn’t want to be here when they eventually broke through.

  “We’re short on time, Cort,” I said.

  “I’m aware of that. Let me think.” He peered at the room, eyes narrowed in thought. “Nine rows long. Nine rows across. Twenty-seven feet. What’s the connection?” He lapsed into thought for several seconds before he said, “I have an idea.” He drew in a breath, then stepped forward, setting his foot down atop the brown colored tile. He came down, and a long second passed where nothing happened.

  “Okay,” I said. “So we stick to the buildings?”

  I raised my foot to take a step, but Cort threw out a hand and screamed, “Stop!”

  I froze.

  “Not just any buildings,” he said. “The nine.”

  “What are the nine?”

  “When Harvard was founded, there were nine disciplines built into their curriculum.” He took another step, eyes searching the map before he found his next tile. “Latin, literature, Rhetoric & Logic.” He did an abrupt right turn and counted them off as he stepped. “Ethics, politics, arithmetic, astronomy, law, metaphysics & theology.” He reached the opposite side and stepped off the final tile, turning and giving a little bow.

  “Nicely done,” I said. It made sense on some level. The rings were entrusted to Harvard professors, meaning that any of them coming through should have known the details of the university’s history. Of course, it didn’t tell us what would happen if we stepped on the wrong tile, but I thought that might be one mystery I was okay not knowing. “How the heck did you know to do that?”

  Cort smiled. “Didn’t I mention it? I graduated from there.”

  “You graduated from Harvard?”

  He nodded. “It was a long time ago. I had a full scholarship.”

  “Then how did you….” I cut off before I could finish asking him how he ended up living in the sewers, but he got the gist of it.

  “Life works in mysterious ways.”

  “I guess so. Now do you mind repeating that?”

  “Just step where I tell you to.”

  I did as he bade and reached the other end without incident. Tobin came next, then Auggy. Cort guided each member of our party through each step until we were all safely on the other side.

  “Okay, easy peasy,” I said. “Next stop, the tower’s top, and then—”

  I never got to finish.

  As I ascended the first step, the shadows suddenly came alive. They rose up around me, enveloping our party before forming themselves into a trio of shadowed figures. The sounds of their swords being drawn echoed through the stairway, dry, metal rasping as it prepared to descend across our necks.

  Ascending the Tower. Saturday, August 8th 0048hrs.

  You can’t really prepare for those moments when the darkness comes to life.

  You can train, and stay in good physical shape, but neither of those can guarantee that you won’t still be caught flat-footed when the time comes. Because it’s not about courage, or determination. Sometimes it just takes your body that extra split second to catch up with what your brain is seeing. Unfortunately, that split second can often be the difference between life and death.

  I froze, caught in a dazed stupor as three of the wraiths emerged from the shadows, rising up in front of us with swords held at the ready.

  I froze.

  But Tobin didn’t.

  He launched himself forward with a wordless cry, grasped hold of the nearest wraith’s hands and shoved with all his might. Tobin wasn’t the biggest of guys, but he was aptly named, and the wraith’s balance on the staircase was precarious. He fell over backward, crashing to the stair a split second before Tobin came down on top of him.

  And as if it had been some sort of signal, we all sprang into action.

  Warman launched himself forward and brought his hammer across the nearest wraith’s head. It impacted against the side of the cowled head with a meaty thump and the wraith dropped like a puppet with cut strings. It collapsed to the floor, sword crashing down around it.

  Auggy followed Tobin’s example, and launched himself forward, but the third wraith was a hair faster than the others, and he swung his arm up, catching Auggy in midair with one gauntleted hand and holding him suspended. Luckily, that was as far as he got before Easton and Cort hit him. They rushed the wraith, drove him back to the stairway and proceeded to pummel him.

  “Sergeant!” Tobin’s cry reached my ears, and I jerked my head around. The wraith had managed to turn the stout gardener and was using its hand to hold him at bay, creating just enough distance to bring his sword around and run him through.

  I acted without thinking, throwing myself forward and wrapping my arms around the wraith’s midsection. I pressed my chest against its back, tightened my grip, and hurled it up with all the force I could muster.

  You hear about how adrenaline does funny things to people. How it can give them moments of intense strength, allowing mothers to lift fallen cars off their children, or sending fathers racing back into a burning building time and time again.

  I didn’t actually register the wraith’s weight as I picked it up and hurled it over my shoulder. Something in my brain blocked out the feel of the strain, and as a result, I ended up tossing it further than I ever would have believed I could.

  The wraith flew off the stairs, hit the ground once, and bounced onto the reverse mural. Specifically, a green tile. Not one of the nine buildings Cort had used to lead us across.

  The instant its form crashed down, the ground underneath exploded. I didn’t know if it was a landmine, or a claymore, or some sort of improvised one-off explosive device. All I knew was that it was effective and, unfortunately for the wraith, extremely lethal.

  It shredded the wraith, casting its innards up toward the ceiling tile and leaving us all frozen. Time got strange for a moment or two, but eventually, the sounds of the wretches hammering against the door brought us back to ourselves.

  The wraith Warman had struck was still down. As was the second, pummeled into unconsciousness by Cort and Easton. I took both their swords and hurled them across the room, being sure to clear the reverse mural. Last thing I wanted to do was set off another explosion. Once that was done, I seized their hoods and yanked them off their heads.

  I don’t know what I expected to find. Monsters, similar to the wretches, or something else that could explain all this.

  They were just kids.

  College-aged kids, if I had to guess, although it was difficult to tell amidst the growing bruises. Both were in good shape, athletic, but otherwise totally normal.

  “What do we do with them?” Tobin asked.

  “Cuff them,” I said. I had a pair of handcuffs on me, and Easton had zip-ties. The ground started shimmying again as we secured their hands behind their backs, and I hesitated as I straightened, peering down at their forms.

  “We can’t take them with us,” Easton said to my unspoken question.

  “Can’t leave them here, either,” I said. Eventually the wretches would break through the door, and I didn’t want to think what they might do if they found them in this state.

  “And why not?” Easton asked. “They’re here of their own volition.”

  “Chloe’s right,” Warman said. “They’ll tear them apart.”

  “So?” Easton asked. “I suspect they would have no compunctions about leaving us to die at the wretches’ hands if it meant they got this ring they’re after.”