“Ace-wrap that fucker and walk it off,” Sam ordered like any good SEAL would. “This casino is drifting in dreamland, but you can still fly out. You’ll need to piss the monster off good so it’ll chase after you, but knowing you, that shouldn’t be a problem. Mordechai pulled some strings and will have what you need waiting. He’s sort of your guardian angel. Turns out there’s a lot invested in you, Z, so when it comes to meddling in your particular business, we get a little more leeway. You’ll find backup on the way. Me and the boys need to go waste some demons. We’ll hold them off as long as we can. Tell Milo I said hi, and I’m really honored he named his kid after me. That was mighty cool of him.”

I could see through Sam. “Wait—”

But then Sam Haven simply vanished as if he’d never even been there at all.

My radio had only been turned back on for a few seconds when I received, “Was that Sam?” from Julie. “I mean, visibility is garbage and the wind keeps moving the fog around, and it took me a while to find you in all the debris, but…Sam?”

“Yeah.” I was limping along as fast as possible, Abomination in hand, just waiting for something to pop out of the fog. “It was Sam.”

“But Sam’s gone.”

“We got reinforcements.”

There was a pause as Julie took a deep breath. “I thought I’d lost you for a minute there. I…”

“Me too.”

The rest went without saying. Julie didn’t have time to get emotional. This was business. “Hang on. This stuff is pissing me off. I’m switching rifles…Milo and Nelson got most of the innocents away from the breech. Earl’s got nearly everyone boarded up on the main floor. They’re holding the demons in the lobby. There were a few other teams out, but there’s nobody close to you.”

“Tell Skippy to warm up the chopper. I’m on my way to meet you. I’ve got a plan.”

I’d sliced my forehead open, but my armor had kept me from getting cut in too many places. However, I’d whacked myself really hard in several spots during the ride down. I’d pulled muscles and wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a few bones cracked. There wasn’t any part of me that wasn’t hurting, but there weren’t any bones sticking out and nothing was squirting blood, so I could do this. It was weird, though, I felt stronger than I probably should have. Either I was in shock and working through the pain or there had been something else to Sam’s help than just the memories from my brother.

Hang in there, Mosh. I’m coming.