“Nothing else of note here,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t actually look as if the lab has been used much.”

“Check the rest of them,” Sam said. “There has to be something more, if only because Rinaldo wanted you two to retrieve it.”

“He might just want the laptop,” I said.

Jackson glanced at me. “He could have taken that when he took the scientists.”

“That’s presuming he has the scientists,” Sam said. “There’s no proof that either of them are even alive.”

“Well, Baltimore did walk out of the morgue.” My tone was dry. “If that’s not proof of life, I’m not sure what is.”

“Maybe I should have said there’s no proof that either of them are still alive.” Sam paused. “Heads up—something is coming your way.”

That heavy sense of wrongness sharpened abruptly. It might simply have been a reaction to his warning, but I doubted it.

“Care to get a little more descriptive than ‘something’?” Jackson said.

“I would if I could,” Sam said. “Whatever it is, it’s moving in a mass and coming at you from two sides.”

“Two? How?” I said. “There’s only one stairwell.”

“It’s coming from both the street level and from the roof.”

“Leaving us the meat in the sandwich. Lovely.” Jackson glanced at me. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”

“You keep searching the labs. Fire still drains your strength too fast.”

He grunted and headed down to the next doorway. I ran back to the stairwell and carefully opened the door. The thick stench of decay hit like a slap in the face and made me gag. We’d obviously left the ground-floor door open for the smell to be this bad. But other than that, there was no sound and nothing that would indicate anything else had changed.

“Sam, are you sure they’re coming up the stairwell?”

“I didn’t mention the stairwell. I said it was coming at you from top and bottom.”

“Then how—” I stopped as an odd sound echoed up from the emptiness below. It was little more than the soft bounce of a stone down concrete steps, but it nevertheless sent a chill down my spine. Sam might not have mentioned the stairwell, but there was definitely something in here.

I sent the sphere in, making it bright enough to light the entire stairwell, then walked over to the metal railings and peered down.

And saw faces looking up at me.

The decaying dead had come back to life.

I swore and called fire to my fingertips. Even as I did, the cloaks roared—the sound oddly garbled and barely resembling anything human—then surged up the stairs toward me, moving so fast that bits of flesh and god knows what else sprayed across the concrete walls.

“Em, report.” Sam’s voice was sharp. “What’s going on? What’s that sound?”