"The monsters?" I asked, not opening my eyes.

Yes. I don't know what they are, though. My brother says they are not the same as last time.

Her brother? "You mean Brandt's knife-spirit?"

You say that like we belong to you, Tink said stiffly. We don't. If anything, you belong to us.

I was too tired to touch that comment, no matter how much it disturbed me. "So these are new monsters?"

Yes. We get impressionsa"imprintsa"and he insists the imprint is different.

"Good to know," I said. "Can I sleep now?"

Of course, you need rest. Here, let me help.

"I don't needa"

I fell asleep before the last word came.

I woke up around dinner time, feeling like my BDUs had been glued to my body with sweat. If I could've traded my laptop for a five minute shower, I would have. Which was stupid, since I'd start sweating again the second I finished.

When I ran to the chow locker for my MRE, Mike, Johnson and Brandt were sitting in the shade of the command tent, deep in discussion about where to go next.

"Lanningham, Dorland and Tyson followed the blood trail for a quarter-mile. Then it just stopped. Vanished without a trace," Johnson was saying.

"Ghosts in the desert," Mike said. "Brandt, any ideas?"

Brandt looked up and saw me eavesdropping. "No. Archer?"

Surprised he asked me, I shook my head. "Nothing. Tink's being pretty tight-lipped."

Brandt laughed, which surprised me even more. "You call her Tink?"

"Yeah." Grudgingly, my mouth turned up on a half-smile. "She's not the nicest girl."

"Considering she tried to choke the life out of me for dissing you, I gathered that," Brandt said. "Well, we all know my knife's not talking."

The way he said it made me think he was kind of sorry he couldn't hear anything. "So now what?" I asked. Then I had a horrible thought. "Should we go see if Zenka's okay?"

"I sent a crew out right after you turned in this morning. They came back and said everything was fine." Uncle Mike frowned. "Do you think the attack was to warn us off?"

"Doesn't matter," I said. "We're not going anywhere. What matters is making sure we're ready if they show up again."

"True," Johnson said. "I've got Dorland rigging up some tripwires. He's armed to the teeth with grenades and he's handing out flamethrowers like they're candy."

"Just don't give Tyson one," I muttered at my feet. Mr. Monster-Fest had been running around like a lunatic since he saw the hole clawed in the casino tent, wound up because he was certain he'd see his first "real live monster" soon.

Johnson heard my comment. "Tyson's been assigned to the lights."

Relieved, I finished my dinner as fast as I could. I had plans for the evening. "I'm going to go check the trail myself, if it's okay."

Uncle Mike frowned. "You need to take back up. I'm not sending anyone out alone."

I glanced at Brandt. "You want to come?"

"No," Mike answered for him. "We need a wielder here as cover. Take Johnson and Lanningham."

Johnson stood and stretched, blocking out the sun with his ginormous back. "I'll go get my rifle."

I shook my head as he strode away, calling for Lanningham. "When will these guys stop carrying rifles into the field? Bullets have never worked."

"Force of habit, Chief," Uncle Mike said. "There are still some dangers out there a rifle will stop. I don't want to lose a wielder because a pack of hyenas dragged you off for dinner."

Good point. "We'll be back before sunset. I don't want to be caught out after dark."

I took off for the spot at the edge of camp where we lost Peters. Lanningham and Johnson met me there. Johnson had his rifle; Lanningham did, too. Once we were outside the razor coil, I knelt down where the blood trail started. It had congealed in a thick puddle that pulled out to the west as Peters had been dragged away. I followed it, the sound of the wind and the crunch of boots on grass and sand the only sounds in my world. As Johnson had reported, the trail went a quarter-mile, then vanished next to a large rock.

I unsheathed my knife, then motioned to Lanningham. We bent and rolled the rock over a few paces. I wasn't sure what I expected to see underneath it, but I was kind of hoping for something to explain how an injured man just disappeared. I thought maybe these monsters had a tunnel, like the Gators had used in Peru.

What we found under the rock was weirder than that.

A pentagrama"burned into the dirt.

"What the hell?" I murmured, reaching out to touch it.

NO! Tink shouted.

I snatched my hand back. "What is it?"

Our enemy has been here. Tink sounded outragedaand a little frightened.

"Should I put the rock back?" I asked, wondering if monsters were about to start pouring out of the ground.

Yesabut it's too late. They've already been called. I wondered why they arrived before the blood-red moon. Now I understand. Someone was here before us and called the darkness.

I closed my eyes a moment. It was like all the rules were changing yet again. Every time I thought we had a handle on things, the war took a flying leap forward. The first eclipse opened the door to these creatures. No, the eclipse and the knives had opened the doora"Jorge had allowed more than just the knife-spirits into our world when he made the blades. And the dark creatures kept flooding in, no matter what we did. I shuddered, wondering what the second set of lunar eclipses would bring.

No time to waste, Matt, Tink insisted. We must prepare. They will come tonight.

Of course they would.

"Lanningham, we need to put the rock back," I said. "Then we need to return to camp. We've got incoming."

Chapter Fourteen.

"A pentagram, burned into the dirt?" Both of Mike's eyebrows shot up. "Burned into the ground?"

I nodded, chugging at a full canteen of water. The sun had sunk below the horizon and twilight had set in. Unfortunately, the heat hadn't abated much, and I had to be hydrated and ready for a fight if Tink was right. "Tink said someone had gotten here first and *called the darkness.' Whatever that means."

"I'll tell you what it means," Brandt said, chewing on a toothpick and looking pensive. His expression clashed with his tough guy flattop and hard, dark eyes. "It means this this is going to be a long night."

"Maybe not," Lanningham said. "Maybe the call was for the monsters that came last night."

My knife flashed blue and an itching burn flared up the nape of my neck.

"No such luck, Lanningham." I unsheathed the knife. "They're on the way in."

I turned to Johnson. "Tell everyone to move to the middle of camp, close to the fire. And let Dorland know we'll need every bit of ordinance his has rigged up."

Johnson nodded and set off for the tents.

"Any idea what's out there?" Uncle Mike asked. "I'm tired of this ghost crap. We need to know what we're dealing with."

I closed my eyes to see if the knife-spirit would show me anything. Flashes of shadows, running low to the groundathat was it. "No. But they're fast." I opened my eyes and nodded at Brandt. "You getting anything?"

Brandt put his hand on his knife's handle, then shook his head. "Nothing."

I listened for irony in his voice. To my surprise, there wasn't any. "Try checking again, because my knife-spirit is pinging me like crazy."

All I got from Brandt was a grunt. I didn't have time to worry about it, though, because the brush around camp rustled with the passage of several creatures. I peered out into the night beyond the razor wire and glowing orange eyes stared back.

Eight pairs of eyesaso far.

"There are more on the back side of camp," Uncle Mike muttered in my ear. He slammed a cartridge into his automatic rifle. Like he said, force of habit. "I counted five."

Thirteen. Now that was expected, at least. Monsters' lucky number.

"Get everyone set, Major," I told him, having gone into full Army mode. "Brandt, go around to the back side. I'll cover this end. Oh, and Johnson?"

"Yeah," he called from near the fire.

"Tell Tyson to hit the floods." I focused on the nearest pair of eyes. "I want to see what we're dealing with."

I opened up my consciousness to Tink a little bit more than usual and allowed her to latch on. The zip of angry magic stinging my nerves made me gasp. I slowed my breathing, trying to quiet my pulse. No dice; my body was on red alert, man battle stations, and my heart stuttered in my chest. Maybe letting her so far in had been a mistake. Too late to worry about that, though.

The glowing eyes moved about, like the beasts were stalking on all fours, waiting for the right moment to strike. I wrapped my fingers tighter around my knife's handle. It vibrated in a steady, low hum. Anticipating.

The first floodlight came to life, illuminating our camp. It didn't penetrate the darkness enough to reveal our visitors, but it made an impact. A keening growl started, growing in volume. The sound was some nerve-wracking mix of a lion's roar and fingernails on a chalkboard, and the hair on my arms rose in response.

Steady, the spirit commanded.

I jerked as she hit me with more power. I pushed back, but the knife-spirit was having none of that. Tink would ride point tonight, and I couldn't do anything about it. She always freaked me out when she did this; it was scary to be thrown aside at a whim, especially when she started working some kind of voodoo on my senses. My vision sharpened such that I started to see figures in the dark. The shadows outlined felines of some kind, but much, much bigger than your everyday leopard. My hearing increased, too, turning that horrible growl into a train derailment. I fought the urge to plug my ears as the noise pounded my skull.

Then the growls went silent.

Here they come, Tink whispered.

The first beast leapt out of the darkness, clearing the razor wire by six feet, to land in a crouch behind me. I had a split second glance of powerful back legs, a muscular chest and a mouth full of pointed teeth before two more jumped the barrier.

The first Lion, or whatever it was, didn't engage; it headed for the team instead. Major Tannen barked orders, and the sky lit up orange from the flame-thrower. I couldn't turn to help, though. The two new monsters came straight for me.

Now I got an up close and personal view. They looked like a mix of lion and leopard, with tan fur and a cat's eyes, but they stood on their hind legs with ease, each more than a foot taller than me. Both Cats whipped at my head with front paws the size of baseball mitts. I'd never survive a two-on-one fight, so I circled around to keep them from flanking me. They bared their teeth and growled, but I was quicker on my feet, and they weren't able to corner me.

This dance went on for a minute, then Cat-1 sprang and went for a knockout blow. Three-inch claws whistled past my ear. Rolling into a ball, I tumbled out of its reach and stabbed it in the thigh. The knife flashed green and an inhuman cry spilled from my mouth.

Snarling, Cat-1 pounced. Somehow I got my hands up and its stomach came down on the blade with the force of its full weight. My arms nearly snapped under the strain, but I rolled sideways, dragging the knife through its gut. The cat gurgled, spraying blood all over me. I kicked up at its hip and knocked it to the ground.

Cat-2 was waiting. It leapt, paws out, and for one hysterical moment, I thought it looked like Scar from The Lion King, just without the mane. The knife-spirit gave me a quick snap behind the eyes to remind me to focus, and I went down on one knee. The cat swiped air instead of my head, and I stood as it passed over, knocking it off balance by butting it hard in the chest with my shoulder. It slammed into the dirt, and I was on it before it had a chance to regain its feet. It batted at my shoulder with its paw, drawing blood, but the knife had me on override, and I hardly felt it. My hand moved of its own accord, slitting the beast's throat.

Something whistled over my head and seconds later, a ball of fire exploded across the plain outside camp. Two dark figures ran in jagged circles, screaming as they burned.

"That's two, sir," Dorland shouted. "The rest are too close to be in range for grenades."

I spun around to find four Cats actively attacking the team. Somehow the guys had managed to kill two more, but nobody had their rifles out. Instead, everyone except Lanningham waved torches at the creatures, while he hosed anything that got too close with the flame-thrower. Dorland was busy reloading a grenade launcher, standing at Lanningham's back. Another body lay to one side, a human. The solider had been raked open across the back and in the orange light, I could see bone. I held back a gag; one more person I failed because, even with Tink, I wasn't fast enough.

Pissed now, I took a quick look around to get my bearings. I couldn't see Brandt at all, but shadows whirled and danced on the far side of camp, so he must've been holding his own. Free to do other things, I charged the nearest monster, jumping just before I reached it, and stabbed it right between the shoulder blades.

As I rolled off, Lanningham hit it with the flame thrower and the Cat dropped to the dirt, char-roasted and very dead.

The other three beasts realized a bigger threat had shown up, because they wheeled around to face me. "Someone check Brandt," I shouted. Then, in a voice not my own, I rasped, "I've got this."

The last thing I remembered with any clarity was seeing Major Tannen's eyes go wide.

A bizarre ballet raged around me, seen through a haze of anger that burned lightning-hot. I danced around the cats and their whirling paws. My arms swung and stabbed, parried and slashed, directed by a puppeteer with divine reflexes. This was the first time I was even somewhat conscious inside the vortex and a feeling of immense power grew inside my body until I let out a battle cry that made the cats cower. They backed away, but I grabbed one by the tail and dragged it backward until it was close enough to slice open from shoulder to hip.

The two remaining beasts tucked tail to run, but we wouldn't allow that. No, they dared cross into our camp. They had stolen the lives of men, women and children. We would have vengeance.

"We?" I croaked.

Yes, the knife-spirit said, impatient. Now run.

I took off after them. Under Tink's influence, I was shocked to find I could see in the dark. The savannah glowed a pale blue as I ran through the brush, chasing the silver heat signatures in front of me.

And I was gaining on them.

I had no idea how fast I was running, but the Cats were sprinting flat out on all fours. When I caught the first one, I jumped onto its back and rode it just far enough to catch up to the second one before stabbing it in the back of the neck where its spine met its skull. As it crash landed midstride, I kicked off from its back and pounced on the second Cat so hard that we tumbled over and over in the dirt.

Once we stopped rolling, the monster landed on top of me and growled low in its throat. With something that sounded like a chuckle, it boxed my ears between its giant paws. I saw three Cats for a second after that. I stabbed weakly at the one in the middle and the beast on the left scratched my left arm. The pain was distant, but enough to refocus my eyes so that I only saw one Cat. I tried to roll away, but it pinned me with its back legs, pushing the air out of my lungs with a whoosh.