They braced themselves for a dreamt horror, but no dreamt horror came. There was just a frantic race outside as the agency woman fired the Stinger directly into the house. What ensued seemed to be an ordinary foot chase, an ordinary gun battle. How astonishing that these things had become commonplace to Farooq-Lane. How astonishing that the Zeds had not yet unleashed anything worse.

Three: the number of yards Farooq-Lane discovered were between her and Jordan Hennessy. She had been trying to find a place where she wouldn’t get shot in the cross fire—she dimly suspected some of the Moderators might take pleasure in the excuse—and had been pressed against the barn, which still smelled of the turkeys that had lived and died in it. She had no idea where Liliana was. Everything was masks and riot shields and faceless agents like a war zone.

But there was Jordan Hennessy, staring up at two figures moving through the commotion: Bryde and Ronan Lynch. The first dragging the second. Ronan Lynch’s face was still streaming that black ooze, and even from here, Farooq-Lane could see his chest heaving for air. They were being rounded on by Moderators, but Bryde was keeping them at bay with a sunfire sword, one of the two weapons they’d used to get away on the banks of the Potomac.

Its mate, the starfire blade, rested securely in one of Jordan Hennessy’s hands just a few yards from Farooq-Lane, its blade dripping moonlight and malice.

Jordan Hennessy’s eyes glittered with fury as she surveyed the scene.

Farooq-Lane was surprised to feel terror. It liquefied her knees, loosened her fingers. The Zed hadn’t seen her there crouched in the shadow of the turkey house, but she would if Farooq-Lane tried to lift her gun. And Farooq-Lane knew what that sword did. She’d have less of an arm than Bellos before she could even scream.

“Hennessy!” Bryde shouted. “Now, if ever!”

Two: seconds before the nightmare appeared.

In the first second, Hennessy put a little bit of dark cloth over her eyes—oh, it was a mask, Farooq-Lane saw it was a mask now, she’d forgotten the Zeds used them at the previous attack—and slumped to the ground in instant sleep.

After the next second, as Farooq-Lane lifted her gun to shoot the sleeping Zed, there was the nightmare.

It was hell. It was shape. It was non-shape. It was form. It was non-form. It was checkered and growing, it was shriveled and grasping. Farooq-Lane didn’t want to look at it, but she wasn’t going to look away. There was not much of it, and even though it didn’t seem to have a proper body, there was a distinct feeling that it was … abbreviated. There was supposed to be more of it. It was severed. Partial.

And it hated Jordan Hennessy.