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  “They’re after the girl,” Aleman shouted. “Do not leave my side.”

  The front man nodded. They had all been briefed on Fiona and knew she was under the military’s protection, though they did not know why. “Where to, sir?”

  Aleman had been wracking his brain on this point. They had never assumed someone would actually infiltrate Fort Bragg and hadn’t come up with a fail-safe plan for such an event. They needed to be safe, but more than anything, they needed to hide. Someplace dark. Someplace secure. “Nearest fallout shelter.”

  The three Rangers took the lead and descended the staircase first. They entered the short hallway at the end of the stairwell and made for the lobby. At the lobby door, the last of the three Rangers held out an open hand to Aleman.

  He stopped in the doorway and waited for the men to give the all clear. One man was about to, but his voice caught in his throat as his eyes grew wide. Something outside the lobby had caught his attention, and there was no time to shout a warning.

  The lobby imploded as a large projectile burst through one side, plowed over the three Rangers, and exploded out the other side of the building. Fiona screamed as Aleman turned and shielded her small body with his own, taking a chunk of concrete to the back of his head. He fell to one knee, felt his mind swirl, and then forced himself back onto his feet, ignoring the warm trickle of blood dripping down the back of his neck.

  He ran into the destroyed lobby, holstered his handgun, and picked up one of the dead Ranger’s MP5 submachine gun.

  Fiona’s second scream was directed straight in his ear and caused him to drop her. She landed on her slippered feet and tugged on his shirt frantically. She pointed through the ruined lobby wall, where the large projectile had exited. “Lew!”

  He turned and looked through the opening. A large gray mass, perhaps one hundred feet away, was turning around.

  It heard her scream, Aleman thought.

  Then it charged. In the brief moment he took to look, Aleman saw that it ran on four legs and vaguely resembled a rhino, though perhaps twice the size.

  Hoisting Fiona up again, Aleman ran out the opposite side of the building and into the parking lot. A garage full of Hummers ready to go stood on the far side of the parking lot. Once mobile in one of the tough vehicles, he would make his way to the fallout shelter—after losing the behemoth, which he could hear gaining on them.

  Running down a thin alley of parked cars, Aleman did his best to keep their heads low. Bullets were flying. Buildings were exploding. Bragg had become a war zone. As he exited the sea of cars Aleman turned to look for the large hunter. He saw nothing. But it was there. A car on the far side of the lot exploded into the air. Moments later a second car followed. It was charging straight through the lot, flinging cars out of its way.

  Aleman took hold of the garage doorknob and turned. But it didn’t budge. “Damnit!” He put Fiona down and kicked the door. Once. Twice. His head began to spin as blood seeped from the back of his skull. Knowing he wouldn’t get through the door in time, he turned to face the creature.

  As cars in the middle of the lot were flung skyward, he turned to Fiona. “We’re going to dive out of the way at the last second, okay?”

  She nodded and tried to look tough, despite her shaking lower lip.

  “We’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t die, Lew,” she said with a quivering voice. “Not for real.”

  Aleman focused on the giant gray force approaching them and refused to promise something he knew he couldn’t. “Just jump when I say.”

  The car at the edge of the parking lot shot into the air, spinning madly as the monster burst free and charged toward them. Aleman only had time to see that the creature looked more like a bull-rhino amalgam with bull horns on top of its head and a third horn rising from its snout. But the rest of the features were dull, as though worn by time. Aleman tried to see more, to get some kind of hint about what this thing was, but his vision was blurring.

  Then something amazing happened. A man, dressed head to toe in Special Ops black, charged toward the creature from the side. For a moment Aleman thought it might have been King, but the man was too tall and what he did next, well, not even King could have pulled it off.

  The man took the creature by two of its horns and pushed down. The face, if that’s what it could be called, dug into the pavement. The beast’s forward momentum thrust its backside up and it flipped tail over head, landing on its back with a ground-shaking impact.

  The man continued toward them without looking back. In his fading vision, Aleman could see the beast trying to right itself. And when it made progress he thought he saw two large shadows descend upon it. But he couldn’t be sure. His attention moved back to the approaching man. Pushing Fiona behind him, he raised the MP5.

  “Lew…” Fiona whispered.

  The man raised his hands. “There’s no need for that.”

  “Just stay back.”

  “I can protect the girl.”

  Aleman’s aim faltered for just a moment, but it was all the man needed. He stepped forward and twisted the MP5 out of his hands, tossing it to the side. Knowing he was about to fall unconscious, Aleman asked, “Who are you?”

  He watched helplessly as the man scooped up Fiona, who had fallen limp, perhaps passed out, and said, “King will know.” He stepped away, and then paused. “I hope he appreciates me breaking my promise.”

  With fading vision, Aleman watched the man retreat with Fiona in his arms. His last thought was of King and how the man would react to finding out his foster daughter had been kidnapped.

  FOURTEEN

  Mount Meru, Vietnam

  A CHILDHOOD FEAR of drowning in a Chuck E. Cheese ball pool returned to Rook as he fought to free himself from a pile of ancient, green-glowing bones. The slippery bones rolled beneath him, making it almost impossible to move. When he felt the stone floor beneath his feet, he changed tactics—from moving forward, to moving up. He pushed up hard, shedding a shower of disassembled skeletons. He was free only for a moment when a second impact sent him soaring again.

  He landed ten feet away in the middle of the street, rolling to a stop on a bed of femurs. Despite his groaning body begging him to stop moving, he climbed onto his feet and spun, looking for the … thing that had attacked him.

  What it was he couldn’t say. He’d only seen a blur of motion as it attacked. But even that revealed nothing. Whatever it was seemed to be hidden within a mass of bones, using them as cover.

  Bones rattled.

  Rook turned, only now realizing he’d dropped his M4.

  The city was quiet. Calm. As though the thing had never been there.

  Rook scanned the roofs of the buildings still standing. They weren’t much taller than he was, so he should’ve been able to see the hulk. But there was nothing.

  The building next to him shifted.

  But it was thin. He could see through it and saw nothing but bones. No body. Nothing living.

  He drew one of his prized .50 caliber Desert Eagles, which he referred to as “the girls.” “C’mon out,” he said. “Just give me a target.”

  A portion of the building shifted and fell. Rook franticly looked for a target within the movement, but saw nothing but bones.

  Moving bones.

  Some of which were moving … up.

  Rook took a step back as he realized the truth. The building was moving. Whatever had attacked him wasn’t hiding behind the bones or inside the bones. It was under the bones.

  Rook opened fire, unleashing seven quick rounds, filling the chamber with the sound of thunder. But the moving mass showed no reaction as it rose up, shedding a layer of ancient body fragments. As the bones fell away, a ten-foot tall stone figure remained, nearly featureless except for the head, which was made from the head of a Neanderthal statue. It lunged for him.

  With no time to reload, Rook did the only thing he could.

  Ran.

  While the Desert Eagle packed a punch big en
ough to put down any man or beast with a single shot, his assault rifle had a 40mm grenade launcher that could put down a whale. Maybe even a stone giant.

  Bones shattered as a strike just missed him, sending an explosion of bone fragments into the chamber. The shrapnel struck Rook’s back, embedding in his flak jacket and pushing him forward. He stumbled through the sea of ancient limbs, struggling back to the spot where he hoped he’d dropped his weapon. His eyes widened as he saw the barrel of his rifle protruding from the debris. He ran for it, but his foot rolled on a femur, toppling him forward.

  The accidental movement saved his life as an enormous appendage swung over his prone body. While the creature recovered from its missed swing, Rook dove forward on his hands and knees. Reaching the M4, he took it up, wrapped his index finger around its second trigger—

  —and held his fire.

  Being only ten feet away, if he had pulled the trigger, he would have killed himself along with the monster. Crawling once again, he moved as far as he could before noticing the creature making progress. He rolled himself behind the remains of a bone wall and took aim.

  The grenade launcher’s cough was followed by a massive explosion. Bones and rock fragments rained down for several seconds and the air filled with the smell of explosives and the dust of the dead.

  Rook leaned up and found only a bone-filled crater where the monster had stood. Before he had a chance to savor his victory he noticed his body was shaking. Were his nerves really that fragile after not being in the field for a year? But it wasn’t he who was shaking. It was the chamber.

  As he reloaded the grenade launcher he remembered the pulsating vibrations he’d felt before. Whatever was causing the shaking wasn’t getting closer, it was—

  Boom!

  The cavern wall exploded as a twelve-foot giant barreled through it. Rook ducked as stone shrapnel shot through the cavern fast enough to shatter bones, toppling some of the still standing structures. Rook stood and fought to see what was happening through the dust-filled air. A large shape, its form shrouded in the foul air, surged toward him. He couldn’t see the details of its body, but unlike the first, this one wasn’t made from stone. It was crystal. The same kind of crystal that hung above the city of Meru. The same kind of crystal that hung around Bishop’s neck. The healing stones had become a killing machine.

  Rook took aim and fired. The grenade covered the hundred feet to the crystalline goliath and exploded. The force of the explosion pushed the monster to the side, but did no other damage. The crystals were strong.

  Very strong.

  As he turned to run, Rook once again tripped on the bony carpet and fell to his hands and knees. The ground shook with vibrations as the crystal creature pounded toward him, crushing bones beneath its tree trunk–like limbs. It had no trouble moving about the bone city.

  Rook rolled over and emptied his clip at the beast. But the bullets simply ricocheted off. A cloud of dust billowed out in front of the creature as it charged through a sea of bones. With only seconds left before it trampled him, Rook prayed for Queen to show up.

  But it wasn’t Queen who came to his rescue.

  A blur leapt from the roof of a nearby bone building. The dark shape disappeared into the cloud of dust and struck the beast. The giant stumbled from the impact, but remained upright. Dust swirled as snarling howls filled the cavern. Then the howl turned to an ear piercing yelp. The smaller creature roared with pain before it was flung against the wall, where it lay still, a crystal impaled in its chest.

  Though he still couldn’t see more than a vague shape, Rook felt the monster turn its attention back to him. He slowly reached for a grenade, ready to lob it by hand. But there was no need. A sound like breaking glass rang out as the crystal giant fell, breaking into a mass of inanimate shards.

  Rook regarded the pile of crystals for only a moment before running, as best he could, to the prone form of his rescuer. He recognized her immediately, and despite his nightmare experience with her kind, treated her as kindred in the wake of the unreal giants. “Red!”

  He knelt beside Red’s body. He was glad to see her chest still rising and falling, but immediately knew there would be no saving her. The short, but thick female Neanderthal already had a pool of blood around her, oozing from the large chest wound.

  “Red,” he whispered.

  Her red-rimmed yellow eyes opened and what appeared to be a smile, made ghastly by her blood-covered two-inch canines, spread on her lips. “Rook. Father came back.”

  He nodded. “I came back.”

  “Red save you?”

  “You did.”

  She grunted and coughed up blood.

  “What did they want?” he asked. “Why did they come here?”

  Red looked into Rook’s eyes with the closest thing to kindness he’d ever seen in the species. “Bad words.”

  For a moment, Rook thought she was remembering some of the more colorful phrases he’d shouted at her a year ago. But then her expression turned to terror. She took Rook’s arms in her hands and squeezed. Rook almost didn’t hear her past the intense pain she was inflicting.

  “Can’t speak the bad words.”

  Rook grunted in pain, and Red released him, falling back. Her eyes closing. “What are the bad words?”

  “Can’t speak them,” she whispered. “Don’t speak them.”

  Her head fell to the side.

  Red, last of the Neanderthals, was dead.

  Queen returned moments later, weapon at the ready, but unnecessary. After working her way through the sea of bones, she stood over Rook, who was still kneeling over Red.

  “You okay?”

  “Thanks to her.”

  He moved, giving Queen a clear view.

  “Red?” she asked.

  With a nod, he added, “She said they wanted the ‘bad words.’”

  “Bad words.” Queen thought back over their last year of training; training that was supposed to have prepared them for the strange and unusual events they were encountering. But the reference was too vague to even speculate about. “Could be anything.”

  “Yeah,” Rook said. “Well, I can think of at least one bad word that’s applicable after what I just experienced: we’re fucked.” He closed Red’s eyes with his fingers, stood, and looked at Queen. “God help anyone else who tangles with these things.”

  FIFTEEN

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  TO THEIR CREDIT, King’s mother and father didn’t say a word as he pushed his car to one hundred twenty miles an hour. As they reached the highway exit for Fort Bragg, his mother’s only comment was that it was miraculous they hadn’t been pulled over. En route, King had put in calls to every member of the team, including Deep Blue, and finally to the office at Bragg itself. No one picked up. It could mean the team was engaged in a phones-off meeting, but Bragg not answering combined with the warning he’d received was ominous and he kept his foot pressed heavy on the gas pedal.

  As they sped down the entry road to Bragg, disregarding the thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit, King saw the first security checkpoint ahead. He took his foot off the gas, intending to have the men there send word ahead. But as they drew nearer he saw that the metal gate lay broken and bent on the side of the road. The guardhouse still stood, but one of the walls had been shattered. He stopped next to the small building and saw the two guards lying dead in the grass.

  “Stay here,” he said to his parents before opening the door.

  As soon as the door opened, the distant sounds of battle filled his ears. Despite his urge to hop back in the car and tear off into the thick of it, his training kept him rooted. First he checked the downed guards for pulses. Finding none, he collected their M4s. Before heading back to the car he stopped by the shed, kicked through the rubble, and found a handheld radio. He turned it on and shouting voices filled the air. He quickly dialed through the channels and found the same on each; soldiers shouting orders, asking for reinforcements, describing large, fast-moving
objects that couldn’t be stopped.

  King dropped the radio. The strangeness of the attack confirmed the warning he’d received. Someone was after Fiona.

  He rushed back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat. He handed one of the M4s to his father. “Can you handle this?”

  Peter gave a curt nod. “Been a while, but I’ll manage.”

  King shut the door and put the car in gear.

  “Hey,” Lynn said from the backseat. When King looked back at her, she glanced at Peter’s M4. “I’m a better shot than Davy Crockett here,” she said, motioning to Peter.

  King’s father smiled and looked at him. “It’s true. She could give Annie Oakley a run for her money.”

  With no time to waste wondering about his parents hidden abilities, he drew his Sig Sauer pistol and handed it back to his mother. Then they were off, speeding past the main entrance to the base, where a statue of a soldier usually stood. King gave the missing statue’s base a quick glance, then veered hard to the left as a car rolled ass over teakettle past them on the right.

  “Whoa!” Peter shouted as he watched the spinning car crash into the welcome center and explode.

  King ignored the explosion filling his rearview mirror and focused on driving through the chaos. Soldiers ran in every direction, some firing over the car at something he couldn’t see. Explosions plumed all around, some bearing the telltale signature of fragmentation grenades, but other, larger and more fiery explosions looked like fuel depots or large vehicles exploding. And others, composed primarily of brick and concrete debris, looked more like invisible wrecking balls were tearing the base apart from the inside.

  Which wasn’t far from the truth, King realized, as a dark blur ran up beside the car. With the car, and the object outside it, moving so fast he couldn’t make out any details, but its intentions were clear. “Hold on!” King shouted, intending to hit the brakes, but never getting the chance.