Mallian stared down at the two dead Kin and his anger was rich and bloody in the colourless shades of night. He kicked at the ground, as if suspicious of her spell and searching for them. Sammi held her breath. But the kicking was simply an expression of his rage, and he, Thorn, and two other Kin who had come with them turned and stalked back into the shadowy remains of Longford.

Sammi felt her glass bridges strengthening, her power settling, and the void around the small core of what she had once been grew denser and more complicated than ever before.

I’ll take everything from you, Mallian, she thought, but at the same time she knew that in doing so, she would be taking every good thing from herself.

* * *

Bone had imagined them coming to the valley with a great show of force. Chinooks whacka-whackaing across the countryside towards Longford, searchlights splashing the ground ahead of them, bellies full of troops and armour. Smaller helicopter gunships escorting them, low and quiet and ready to unleash hell. Ground troops in transporters, deployed at speed and with complete efficiency. Tanks, troop carriers, trucks, field artillery set up at a distance and zeroed in using laser spotters, jets flashing high overhead with heavy ordnance ready to drop at a moment’s notice. He’d never seen anything like that, but he expected it. If he were Jordan, that’s what he would have sent.

Instead, a single car approached him along the road that followed the ridge line to the west of Longford valley. It was a Toyota, big but not ostentatious, and if he’d not received a call from Colonel Miles telling him where to meet and when, he might have hidden away and let the car drive by.

It slowed to a halt, and Bone only revealed himself when the colonel stepped from the back seat. He was an average-sized man, grey hair, and though he wore a uniform, he didn’t seem like a military man on duty. He gave the impression that he’d just woken up, one that was reinforced by a yawn. Bone went to shake his hand but the man did not offer his to be shaken.

“I thought the army was coming?” Bone asked.

The man appraised him with narrowed eyes. It might have been thirty seconds until he spoke.

“Colonel Miles, 3rd Group out of Fort Bragg. You Bone?”

“Yes.” He had the pressing desire to salute. “Yes, sir.” The colonel’s eyes bore into him, sharp points of light in the darkness, as if they gathered starlight and fired it back.

“You’ve seen these creatures?”

“I have. They’re... very powerful.”

“So am I,” Miles said. “Your superior put a lot of faith in you, Bone. I’ve seen the footage, and quite frankly it’s hard to believe, but believing’s not my job. Containing the threat is, and retrieving as many of the items as possible.”