Ituri pushed through the scrubby bushes around the creek; branches reached for her, trying to get a hold. Weird shit, plants that moved. She watched thorns and suckers slide off her armor, one reaching out to slap itself across her face shield. Tearing loose, she made the creek crossing—narrow here—in one long leap. Grinned. So much for having to scrap mud from her armor.

“Something’s up people,” Abu Sassi called. “Do you hear the change in the chime? How it’s gone slightly off key?”

Ituri didn’t, but then she’d never had a musical ear. Still sounded like a sick symphony to her.

“Got a signal!” Zhao Chin called from his position in the line. He was following his transect fifty meters south of Ituri’s.

“What kind of signal?” Abu Sassi asked.

“I, uh, don’t know, Corporal. I mean. I had it. Reading an IR source about sixty meters ahead. Then, poof. Gone.”

“Thought I had one, too,” Bambo Asaana announced. “But mine was behind.”

Ituri wondered what would radiate a thermal signal and then go cold. “You seen this before, Corporal?”

“Negative on that. Quetzals usually give us a solid IR. While we talked about their ability to camouflage in the visible spectrum, IR always gives them away.”

Ituri powered up a slope, weaving her way through the chabacho and aquajade, delighted when a couple of scarlet fliers burst from the treetops. Coolest looking flying things Ituri had ever seen, with their four wings and neon-bright blood-red color.

She noted the barest flicker register on the IR sensor in her heads-up display. Just as quickly, it was gone. “Same ghost that Chin saw?” she wondered. But this one had come from behind. Maybe ten or fifteen meters, if the fleeting signal could be trusted.

Cresting the terrace, Ituri kept her bearing, ensuring she was still online.

“Got movement!” Huac Than screamed. “Front and back!”

Ituri lost the rest, drowned by the other cries, all of them mingling together on her com. She was too busy with her own HUD, images of a blur coming right at her. A half second later, her armor was flashing an attack from the rear.

Ituri, by instinct, brought her rifle up.

And then the impact. Something hit her from behind, smashing her forward. Off-balance, she was reeling, trying to catch herself, when a creature burst from the screen of trees. The thing, giant, burning crimson, might have been a dragon. Ituri had the momentary sight of a great triangular head. Open jaws filled with rows of serrated teeth and a flared collar like a sail.

Then it smashed into her, hit her high. The impact blasted her off her feet.

The armor cushioned her body as it slammed into the ground.

Ituri, too panicked to move, stared up as two nightmarish monster heads loomed over her. One was standing on her armor. The second reached down with those gaping and tooth-filled jaws.