The fog glowed phosphorescent green, eerily energized by its unknown source, but it was shot through with other colors as well. Brief bursts of colors, acinetic white like a burst of fireworks, arterial red like a burst of blood from a severed jugular, pops of green like the lures of the fish who live so deep under the sea that the phosphorescence they themselves generate are the only light they ever see. Once during the night she’d awoken to what she thought was a rumble of thunder and saw a long, sinuous beast, a snake or maybe an eel, with fantastic mouth feelers twitching before its wide-opened jaws, swimming through the night, its lolling tongue lifting a human-sized and -shaped object. She thought she heard a feeble but terrified scream but she was tired and her eyes still smarted from the touch of the fog on the previous day and after she’d blinked both the shape and its perhaps imagined victim were gone.

“Hey, guys,” a feeble voice came from the back, “I gotta pee.”

“Well, go pee,” the Angel managed.

“Can you give me a hand?” Bugsy asked. “I’m kind of tired. Really tired.”

“I’m not?” the Angel said, but she got out of the SUV and went around to the back door and half helped, half dragged Bugsy from the vehicle.

“Why am I so tired?” Bugsy complained. “I didn’t lose that many wasps.”

He leaned on the Angel as they shuffled a few feet away.

“You can’t afford to lose what little muscle you’ve got.” Her face screwed up “You better not be peeing on my leg—”

“Sorry,” Bugsy mumbled.

“It’s this place,” the Angel said quietly, looking around at the desolation. “It’s sucking the life out of everything. Zip up.”

“I gotta have something to eat,” Bugsy croaked.

“I’ve got some food in my duffel,” the Angel said. “Let’s hunt up Tinker.”

“Maybe we better get out of here. I mean, look at us, just three of us, here, and some Kazakhs—”

Tinker came striding from down the road and heard Bugsy. “Guess again.”

“The Kazakhs are gone?” Bugsy repeated numbly.

“That’s what I said, hoon.” Tinker didn’t look pleased. “I was up all night—couldn’t sleep if I tried.” The Angel thought he looked more haggard, more worried, and angrier than yesterday. “I didn’t hear them bugger off last night, but I heard … things moving around us in the buildings.”

“What kind of things?”

“Who the hell knows, sonny boy,” Tinker suddenly yelled. “Awful, horrible, slimy, choking, killing things. And they’re coming after us!”

“What about the others?” the Angel said quietly.

“The others?” They both turned to look at her.

“Bubbles, Earth Witch, Lohengrin, the rest … the ones who already went in.”

Tinker bit his lip.

“How’s the communications with Babel?”