“Now,” Hayden said.

  Deputy Cortez threw the palm of his augment into the door, the force of his effort blowing it open and ripping it from its hinges. The door vanished into the darkness of the warehouse as Cortez moved out of the way, allowing a pair of deputies to move in from each side, leading with their rifles.

  Hayden lifted his pair of sunglasses, hanging from a cord around his neck, and put them on. He tapped the side of the frame and the shaded glass immediately filled in with augmented input, giving him access to the same combat network his armored deputies shared.

  He used his eye muscles to work the interface, shifting his left eye to a view through Deputy Solino’s camera feed. His lead deputy was slowly moving into the warehouse with Deputy Kevitz beside him. Both the camera and Solino’s helmet filtered out the dim light, creating a clear grayscale view for both watcher and wearer.

  Visibility was limited by the volume of product inside the warehouse. The place was a mess, filled with pallets of building materials. Drywall, rebar, piping, tile. Most of it remained stacked, stored and forgotten for the last two hundred years, still in the same place where it had been abandoned. A few of the palettes had rotted beneath a leak in the roof, collapsing and spilling their contents across the floor.

  Scavengers had done good work picking items of value out of the surrounding industrial park, and there was little value in the materials here, at least to the common survivor.

  Solino moved deeper into the building, the deputies getting into formation behind him. They paired up against adjacent stacks of boxes.

  “Solino, anything?” Hayden asked. He could see through the deputy’s feed, but he didn’t have the man’s other senses to rely on.

  “It’s creepy as hell in here, Sheriff,” Solino replied quietly. “There’s a smell in the air. Musty and thick. It’s making my spine tingle.”

  “No sign of the target?”

  “Negative.”

  “Head south. I want to see down the aisles.”

  “Pozz.”

  Solino kept moving, reaching the corner of the boxes and swinging around them, leading with his rifle. Most of the rows were identical. Only the material on the palettes changed. Stacks of bagged cement mix stretched into the distance. The deputy went past them to the next row, freezing as he came out into the open.

  The evidence of a small encampment was visible ahead. An old nylon tent rested against the wall, a number of sleeping bags splayed out in front, with a small mountain of refuse beside it. Garbage, mostly old food wrappers, was spread around the site, and a rusted old motorcycle still leaned on its kickstand.

  And bodies. Hayden counted six right away. They were a few steps away from the tent, the cause of death hard to see from the angle and distance. But Hayden didn’t have to guess how they had died.

  The killers were still there.

  A warning flashed across Hayden’s glasses. A sudden outline appeared in the distance, painted in front of the solid brick wall of the warehouse even though the target was on the inside. Judging by the position, it was crouched on one of the stacks of materials, ready to pounce.

  “Kevitz!” Hayden snapped.

  “On it,” she replied.

  She had already seen the target in her visor and was pivoting to defend herself. The enemy leaped down at her, the sound of gunfire reaching Hayden in his place outside the building. The threat vanished from his display.

  “Target eliminated,” Kevitz said, her voice calm.

  Hayden switched to her feed. She was looking down at the dead alien. Slender and lithe, it was a meter and a half long and humanoid in shape with leathery, ink-black skin. It had three long fingers ending in sharp claws and an opposable thumb. While its feet were similar—large and clawed—the big toe was closer to the side of the foot to allow for better gripping. Its head was small, its elongated face possessing beady, dark eyes and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. The creature was naked and genderless, its pelvis and chest both flat.

  A single xenotrife didn’t look all that dangerous. And wasn’t. Their hollow bones were brittle and weak, and their claws weren’t sharp enough to penetrate the Space Marine combat armor the deputies wore. But then they had learned the armor was vulnerable at the joints—especially where the helmet met the body. A claw in any of those places could rip through the spidersteel mesh bodysuit beneath the armor and into the flesh of the wearer. And because of that, a trife slick was incredibly dangerous.

  “Eyes up,” Hayden said. “Where are the rest of the bastards?”

  Kevitz began looking around, focusing on the top of the stacks. The other deputies did the same.

  “We’re clean, Sheriff,” Deputy Solino said after a quick search. “No sign of any more.”

  “There are always more,” Hayden replied. Trife didn’t travel alone. Not ever. Where the hell were the rest of them hiding?

  “We did a sweep, Sheriff. We’d see them on the grid if they were in here.”

  “Color me unconvinced. Stay sharp. I don’t trust...”

  The AR on Hayden’s sunglasses lit up again, showing a pair of trife emerging from around the side of a stack of something that had managed to block the networked armor’s sensors. Deputies Kevitz and Nan were on it in a flash, moving into position and catching the two trife in a crossfire.

  “Told you so,” Hayden said.

  “Scouting party,” Solino said. “There are probably a few more.”

  “Solino, check out the bodies. I’m on your feed.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come in here with us, Sheriff?”

  “Negative. You can’t rely on me always being there to back you up. You’re doing a fine job, Nick.”

  “Roger that.”

  Hayden switched his view back to Solino’s camera feed. The deputy approached the small campsite, the bodies coming into view. Solino looked down at the closest corpse—a young man, probably still a teen.

  “Sheriff, are you seeing this?”

  Hayden’s heart started to pound.

  “Fall back,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm. “Now. Quick and quiet. I’m on my way.”

  “R...Roger,” Solino replied as Hayden urged Zorro forward at a gallop.

  Quick and quiet. The gunfire coming from inside the warehouse was anything but.

  And the kid had been nearly torn in half.

  A normal trife couldn’t cause damage like that. But a Queen? A Queen could do that and worse. What was she doing down there?

  He could see his deputies in the augmented reality overlay of his glasses.Their green outlines grew larger as they moved closer to him, both from his forward motion and their retreat. A red outline suddenly appeared from the northwest side of the warehouse, followed by another and another.

  Nearly a dozen trife appeared in the area within seconds.

  “Solino, you’ve got company,” Hayden said, charging the building.

  “Roger,” Solino replied. “Targets acquired.”

  The sound of gunfire split the air, muffled inside the warehouse. Hayden approached the building, but things were going from bad to worse in a hurry. The first dozen trife weren’t the end of it. More of the demons were pouring out of the area, multiplying and spreading. They had to be climbing up from a hole in the floor. If a Queen was down there, it meant there was a nest in that hole. And if there was a nest in the hole, it meant there was a power source down there too.

  And the target they had come here to find, a murderer called Halsey, was already dead.

  At least there was a silver lining.

  The gunfire intensified as the trife charged the fleeing deputies, the entire scene playing out in color-coded outlines in front of Hayden’s eyes. He could see how the red outlines approached the green ones and vanished.The constant report of gunfire got louder as he closed the distance. The trife were still coming, his system counting nearly a hundred already in the warehouse and more on the way.

  “Sheriff, help!” Nan cried out.

  Hayden switched to her feed in time to see trife jaws descending on the vulnerable neck joint. Nan screamed, and then the trife was thrown back by a sudden shower of bullets. By the time he pulled her vitals up on his HUD, they were flat.

  Son of a bitch.

  3

  Hayden

  Hayden pulled back on the reins, bringing Zorro to a quick stop at the entrance to the warehouse. The deputies were desperately trying to reach the door through the sudden onslaught of trife.

  If he didn’t do something, they weren’t going to make it.

  According to his HUD, nearly two hundred of the demons had appeared in the building, making their way toward the deputies by any means possible. They tried to flank them on the floor while also leaping from pallet to pallet. A few even clung to the warehouse rafters, hanging upside down to make their way forward.

  It was nothing Hayden hadn’t seen before. He had spent the last two years hunting trife, clearing out nests and trying to regain some of the land they had taken in the name of humankind. He had been successful too, turning hundreds of kilometers of land into a safe zone the trife had yet to penetrate.

  At least, he had thought the trife hadn’t gotten in. But the warehouse was fifty kilometers south of Sanisco—too close to home to contain a nest of the demons. How had they managed to stay hidden for so long?

  He pulled his twin revolvers from their holsters as he slid off Zorro and charged through the permanently opened door. He immediately turned left, toward the sound of the fighting echoing through the building.

  “Solino cut left,” Hayden said, coming around the side of one of the stacks. “I’ll cover your egress.”

  “Roger,” Solino replied.

  Hayden could see both Solino and Cortez on his HUD, just on the other side of a stack of shingles, their outlines running parallel across his lane. The trife followed close behind, hissing as they gave chase.

  One of them lunged at Solino as he crossed the intersection. Hayden didn’t hesitate, firing a round that caught the trife in the shoulder and knocked it away. It hit the floor and rolled, staying down when another round hit it in the chest.

  Hayden kept shooting, cutting down seven trife while emptying the two revolvers. He swung back behind cover and quickly reloaded, using speedloaders to drop full cylinders of bullets into the guns.

  The demons were still coming, closing on the defending deputies. The red outlines on the HUD left Hayden’s immediate view a stained blur, the quantity of trife nearly overwhelming the system’s ability to reflect their positions.

  Hayden turned to follow one of the outlines, getting a glimpse of Cortez a few meters away. The recruit was using his augment to full advantage, throwing hard punches that crushed the bones of the delicate aliens, putting them out of the fight. Hayden’s attention shifted to the rafters as a pair of trife dropped from overhead, reaching out to slash at Cortez with their claws. Hayden adjusted his aim and fired, rounds cutting through their skulls. Cortez stepped out of the way as they crashed into the floor.

  “There’s too many,” Kevitz said, getting closer to Hayden.

  “Pozz,” Hayden agreed. “We’re pulling out. Cortez, let’s go!”

  Cortez started toward Hayden, but then he turned to look down the aisle. And froze.

  “Mierda,” he said, eyes wide with fear.

  Hayden’s HUD picked up the threat an instant later. Shit was right.

  The queen had emerged from the hole and was charging toward them.

  “Move!” Hayden roared. But Cortez stood there, static.

  Terrified.

  “Solino, Kevitz, get the hell out of here!” Hayden said, charging toward the motionless deputy.

  “Sheriff, you can’t make it,” Solino replied.

  “I’ll make it, just go. Keep our escape route as clear as you can, and radio HQ for backup.”

  “Roger.”

  Trife tried to block Hayden’s path, leaping at him from the top of the stacks. He shot them as they came, nearly point-blank, the rounds tearing through their flesh and blasting them away. His HUD went wild as a pair of demons tried to tackle him from behind. He spun around, coming down in a crouch and shooting the two trife. Revolvers empty, he holstered the guns with practiced ease and leaped up to race the queen to Cortez.

  It looked like the queen was going to win.

  “Cortez!” he shouted again, desperate to reach the man first.

  The deputy finally snapped out of it, maybe because his life was about to end. He leveled his gun at the queen and fired. Hayden couldn’t see her yet, but the screaming hiss told him Cortez had only made her more angry.

  A moment later, a claw the size of Hayden’s head slashed out, catching Cortez in the face, cracking his visor, and turning his head aside so violently Hayden could hear the bones of the man’s neck snap. Cortez’s body was thrown into a pallet of boxes, the top three tumbling off into the next aisle over. The man’s body came down on top of the boxes, his head twisted grotesquely to one side.

  Hayden’s momentum carried him toward the queen as she emerged from around the stack. Screaming almost directly into his face, he stood there, staring at a mouthful of long razor-like teeth.

  He didn’t hesitate, throwing a solid punch toward her face, needing to aim upward to reach it. The queen was nearly three times the size of the other trife, her skin tougher and body more muscular. She took the blow off her cheek, moving with it. Hayden felt the solid contact right before she returned the favor, catching him in the chest with her claws.

  They dug deep into the hardened plates of the combat armor hidden beneath his shirt, catching on one of the seams and throwing him sideways. He hit a separate group of trife, knocking them over as they softened his fall.

  They grabbed at him as he pulled himself up, their lesser strength preventing them from piercing his body armor.

  “Get out of there, Sheriff!” Solino shouted over the comm. “Bronson’s on the way in the chopper.”

  ‘On it!” Hayden cried out. He wrapped one metal hand around his vulnerable throat, threw the other one up to protect his face and charged almost blindly toward freedom

  He didn’t get far. The queen wasn’t about to let him go.

  Like all Relyeh, the trife communicated across an organic system called the Collective, which operated much like a computer network. A trife queen here could receive signals from another queen on the other side of the world, sharing information about threats and tactics, and helping one another mutate their genetics to better survive those threats. While the trife in the warehouse were hardly mutated from their original form, the reaction of the queen when she got a better look at him suggested she knew who he was.

  She also knew how many of her kind he had killed.

  She screamed and hissed, rushing Hayden. He would have run, but the trife had closed in around him, cornering him. They didn’t attack. Not now. The queen wanted him for herself. But they weren’t going to let him escape.

  He braced himself, getting into a fighting stance. The queen swiped at him and he ducked below her claws then sidestepped her tail as it whipped around at his face. She screamed at him, teeth darting toward his neck. He didn’t make the same mistake twice, backing away instead of retaliating. Her other claw slashed at him and he smacked it down.

  “Solino, ETA?” he asked, the light on his badge still green. Still connected.

  “Three minutes, Sheriff.”

  In the middle of a fight, three minutes was an impossibly long time.

  Too long to try to stall.

  The queen stood in front of him, rising to her full three-meter height. Her mouth opened wide, and she screamed in anger, ropes of yellow saliva stringing between her jagged teeth. She came at him again, claws slashing, tail whipping, mouth angling at him as she launched an all-out assault.

  The queen’s tail smacked Hayden and began wrapping around him. He didn’t move. Her left hand sailed through the air to slash him in the side. He still didn’t move. Her face dropped toward his, mouth open as if she intended to take his head off with one bite. And he still didn’t move.

  Instead, he threw his right arm up and into the queen’s mouth, reaching to the back of her throat. She bit down on it, teeth pressing hard into metal at the same time he squeezed his hand into a closed fist. The motion activated the alien metal that coated his augment. It expanded out into a pair of blades that stretched through the back of the queen’s mouth and up into her brain.

  Momentum carried the queen’s head down his arm until her face was only centimeters from Hayden’s. Black eyes regarded him with shock, the sudden weight of her dying form pressing down on his arm.

  He stared back at the queen. He didn’t hate her. She was only doing what she had been created to do. He hated the ones who’d made her. The Relyeh Ancients. The Hunger. They had delivered the trife to prepare humankind. To subdue them and keep them weak.

  Hayden refused to be weak.

  He grabbed the queen’s head with his other hand, holding it as he yanked his arm free. There were indents in it where her teeth had come down, but it was otherwise unharmed.

  He opened his fist. The Axon liquid metal sank back onto his hand, coating it in a grayish-black sheen. The augment was unique. The only one of its kind. He had paid a high price to earn the prosthetic. Too high a price. The death of a friend was always a price he never wanted to pay.

  The lesser trife reacted as expected. The loss of their queen confused them, and for the first dozen heartbeats they stood around him in shock. Then that shock turned to fear, and they hissed and began tripping over one another, fighting to get back to their nest and away from him.

  “Sheriff, my ATCS is telling me the trife are running,” Solino said.

  “That’s right,” Hayden replied. “The queen is dead.”

  The deputy laughed. “You killed the queen?”

  “It was her or me. It’s nothing to celebrate. We lost two good deputies today.”

  “Pozz that,” Solino replied, voice dropping as the excitement washed away.

  Hayden reached up and tapped his badge. “Bronson, do you copy?”