The Demon Crown

30

“If we keep holing up in medieval buildings,” Monk warned, “I’m going to go rent a suit of armor, so I’ll fit in better.”

Kat smiled, while trying to cover a yawn with her fist. They were all seated around a table in a tiny research library. The chamber was located in the north tower of a quaint thirteenth-century castle. Bookshelves towered all around, so close they loomed above the group, as if peering over their shoulders at the sprawl of old maps on the table.

Kat rubbed her tired eyes.

It was after midnight, and they’d all been running on very little sleep. After resolving a few details in Gdansk, the team had left the Baltic coast and flown to southern Poland, landing in Krakow four hours ago. While they were in the air, their newest teammate — Dr. Damian Slaski — had contacted the management of the Wieliczka Salt Mine and arranged for them to have access to the underground labyrinth after it was closed.

Unfortunately, they were not the first ones to make such a petition. Slaski learned that a subterranean chapel in the mine — the Chapel of St. Kinga — had been rented for a private Midnight Mass. It apparently was not a rare event. Regular church services were held there every Sunday. In addition, the chapel was also available for private weddings, even concerts.

Upon learning of the midnight mass, Slaski had suggested they wait until the ceremony was over before venturing into the mine. At first, Kat had balked at his suggestion, not wanting to lose any more time. To help convince her, the researcher had recommended a short detour.

In hindsight, she now recognized the wisdom of his counsel.

After landing in Krakow, they had traveled twenty minutes to the location of the mine complex. But rather than going directly to the tourist offices, Slaski had led them a couple hundred yards away to the city’s history museum. The Muzeum Żup Krakowskich Wieliczka occupied an ancient set of fortifications known as Zamek Żupny, or the “Saltworks Castle.” For more than seven centuries, the medieval complex of stone-and-timber buildings had been the headquarters for the mine’s management board. The Castle oversaw not only the Wieliczka Salt Mine but also its neighbor, the Bochnia Salt Mine.

Clearly, salt had been big business back then. According to Slaski, the mines had once accounted for a full third of the royal income for Polish kings. Even the word salary came from the Latin salarium, which meant the amount a soldier was paid to buy salt.

Under the tutelage of Dr. Slaski, it did not take long for Kat to learn the full scope of this industry — along with the challenge ahead of them.

That’s why he wanted us to come here first.

She stared across the table at the collection of maps and charts, some dating back to the founding of the mine. Slaski had selected them from the museum’s extensive cartography collection, which held more than four thousand maps. A good portion dealt with the area’s mining industry. It was here that Slaski had conducted his research into the region’s amber deposits for his own museum.

Starting with the oldest maps and moving forward, Slaski had been illustrating the mine’s history, basically rebuilding its labyrinth of tunnels and chambers layer by layer. The sheer scope of the place grew to be daunting.

“Let me show you this for some perspective.” Slaski laid out a newer map. “This chart was drawn by my dear friend Mariusz Szelerewicz. It offers visitors to the salt mine a vision of what lies underground.”

Kat studied the chart’s maze of tunnels, shafts, and chambers that made up the complex.

Elena shifted closer, peering through her reading glasses. Despite the late hour, the librarian seemed energized, her eyes flashing with interest, sometimes clucking her tongue as a new map was presented to the group. She was clearly in her element here.

Contrarily, Sam sat across the table, his chin bobbing occasionally as he struggled to stay awake. For an entomologist, the history of mapmaking and mining in the region must hold little interest, plainly not enough to stave off his exhaustion.

Elena traced her finger over the map, her voice worried. “I see how it would be easy to get lost down there.”

“Indeed,” Slaski said. “And this chart just represents the tourist route through the mine’s upper levels. The lowest level depicted on this map is only some hundred meters deep, but the mine delves three times that into the earth.”

Elena let out a slight groan. “So over a thousand feet.” Her expression was sickly. She clearly did not like the thought of traveling so far underground.

Slaski’s next words offered her no reassurance. “Many areas of the deep mine are off-limits due to old collapses and flooding.”

Kat frowned. “Flooding?”

Slaski nodded. “When the mine broke into the water table, it created a whole series of lakes and pools at the lowest levels.”

Kat began to share Elena’s misgivings.

This just gets better and better.

Slaski wasn’t done. “The tourist route through the mine is about four kilometers long. But there are actually four hundred kilometers of tunnels.” He placed a palm on his friend’s map. “This only represents one percent of the actual mine.”

Monk sighed and leaned back in his chair. “That certainly does give us the perspective you promised.”

Elena shook her head. “How can we ever hope to discover where Smithson found his amber artifact?”

“And what if we’re wrong about this mine?” Sam mumbled, then yawned. “Smithson could’ve found it at the neighboring mine. Or someplace else entirely.”

Kat refused to believe that.

Slaski supported her. “By the eighteen hundreds, tourists were already flocking to Wieliczka. The workers here tolerated the intrusion, but that wasn’t the case with other mines.”

“Still, even if this is the right place,” Elena said, “where do we even begin to look? I mean how many rooms or chambers are even down there?”

“Over two thousand.”

Kat closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this salt mine. She was also nagged by the sense that she was missing something important. She’d had the same impression back in Gdansk.

What am I not seeing?

Frustrated and exhausted, she could not pinpoint the source of this feeling.

Slaski waved a hand over the scatter of charts on the table. “As you can see, all the tunnels and rooms are meticulously numbered or named. From the first excavations near the surface to the later ones at the greatest depths.”

Kat had noted this on the maps, as generations of mapmakers carried this information forward through the centuries. For some reason, this realization stirred up that nagging sense, but it still failed to bring any enlightenment.

Slaski shrugged. “If only your Mr. Smithson had left behind some clue for us to follow…”

Kat sat straighter, abruptly enough to draw everyone’s attention.

Could that be it?

Monk stared at her. “Honey, you got that look on your face.”

Kat reached over to her satellite phone and tapped and swiped to bring up the photos that Painter had sent of James Smithson’s crypt at the Smithsonian Castle. Before they had landed in Gdansk, she had briefly reviewed them. The director was convinced there might be some hidden clue incorporated into his tomb. Painter had highlighted the carving of a serpent, a rock, and a winged insect found on the lip of the crypt, as if Smithson were using such hieroglyphics to hint at what was hidden in his coffin.

On the flight to Krakow, she had even briefly wondered about the scallop shell positioned next to those three symbols. She had toyed with the idea that Smithson might have ordered it placed there as some vague clue pointing to the salt mine, a mine that dug into layers of salt deposited after the ancient Tethys Ocean dried up.

A seashell to represent that ancient sea.

She had eventually dismissed this thought as too fanciful. And even if she were right, how did it help? She was already confident from Smithson’s name being found listed as a visitor here that they were on the right track.

But Slaski’s mention of numbered rooms — more than two thousand of them — reminded her of a mystery surrounding Smithson’s tomb, an error found on his grave that both amused and confounded historians.

She pulled up the photo of the prominent inscription on the marble crypt.

“Look at this,” she said, sharing the picture. She read the last three lines concerning the date of Smithson’s death. “… who died at Genoa, the 26th June 1829, aged 75 Years.”

“What about it?” Sam asked.

Elena, of course, immediately understood. She removed her reading glasses, her eyes huge. “What’s written there is wrong. While the date of his death is correct, James Smithson was born June fifth, 1765.”

Monk calculated the discrepancy. “That would make him only sixty-four when he died, not seventy-five.”

Sam frowned. “Still, what does a difference of eleven years make?”

“Hopefully all the difference in the world,” Kat said. “It’s baffled historians that Smithson’s beloved nephew should make such a glaring error and have it carved onto his uncle’s gravestone. But what if it wasn’t a mistake? What if, like the serpent, rock, and wasp, Smithson ordered this error to be inscribed on his tomb?”

“As a clue,” Monk said.

Kat turned to Slaski. “You said that by the time the mine closed there were over two thousand rooms. I’m assuming that even when Smithson came here that count had to be pretty close to that number, give or take a couple hundred.”

“You are most correct.”

Monk understood. “So, Kat, you’re thinking Smithson left the room number on his grave, like an address, identifying the spot where he found his artifact?”

“If you subtract seventy-five from the date of his death, you get the year 1754, which we know was not the year he was born.”

Elena’s voice grew hushed with awe. “But maybe it points to the room or tunnel in the mine.”

They all turned to Slaski.

“Can you show us on a map where chamber number 1754 is?”

“Of course.” He turned and drew his laptop closer. “I have such information all compiled and cataloged. It should only take a moment.”

He tapped for a few seconds, then stepped back. A familiar map glowed on his screen.

“You showed us this before,” Elena noted. “Back in Gdansk.”

“Yes, it’s the map of the mine drawn by Wilhelm Hondius. Only I’ve highlighted the section of the map designated as 1754.”

He leaned closer to read the handwritten notes in the map’s margin. “This section of the mine also had a name assigned to it. For a rather obvious reason.”

“What’s the name?” Sam asked.

“Kaplica Muszli. Polish for Chapel of the Seashell.”

Kat gasped out loud, picturing the prominent scallop at the center of Smithson’s tomb.

Slaski zoomed into the highlighted section. “Like I said, the choice of name is fairly obvious.”

The map showed an interconnecting loop of tunnels radiating out from a central cavern in the obvious shape of a scallop shell.

“That must be the place,” Kat murmured.

Sam seemed less sure. “Why did the miners carve tunnels like this? It doesn’t seem very practical.”

Slaski shrugged. “When we go down there, you’ll better understand.”

“Then let’s get going.” Kat checked her watch. “It’s after one. Surely the private mass is over.”

Slaski raised a hand. “First, be warned.” He pointed at the image on the laptop screen. “The Chapel of the Seashell may look tiny on the map but it actually covers a full square kilometer. Very large. And most of it is in ruins — crumbled into pieces after it was abandoned.”

“Why abandoned?” Kat asked, wondering whether this could be another connection to what was reportedly unleashed there.

Slaski had a different explanation. “That section of the mine flooded.” He zoomed out the image of the map and circled a section of the neighboring tunnels. “This is all now a lake.”

Kat pictured the vast body of water — and the giant seashell resting on its bank, as if washed ashore there.

“We still have to go,” she said, looking around to see if anyone objected.

Elena’s face shone with trepidation, but she nodded.

With the matter settled, they set off. They were soon hiking across the castle’s parklike grounds toward a sprawling structure glowing through the trees. The lights illuminated a yellow building roofed in red clay tiles with an industrial tower looming high above it. The steel erection was the old head frame for the mine, positioned over the Danilowicz Shaft, which drilled down into the heart of the excavation.

As they crossed the park, the night had turned chilly, requiring them to bundle into jackets. Kat kept a close watch for any sign of a tail. Whoever had been following them in Gdansk had never revealed themselves again once they reached Krakow. Earlier, she had only informed Painter and Jason of her intentions to head to southern Poland. She has asked the director to keep her destination secret, even from U.S. intelligence services.

Perhaps such a cover had helped them lose the tail.

But Kat remained wary.

During that call, Painter had also updated her on the situation in Hawaii. As chaos continued to spread, an evacuation plan had been settled upon, though the logistics were still being worked out. The exodus was scheduled to start in half a day. The plan was to start moving the populace via both airlifts and an armada over to Johnston Atoll. It would be a monumental undertaking, requiring international cooperation, but they dared wait no longer, not if they hoped to contain the situation and keep it from spreading globally.

Monk must have noted her consternation. “If anything’s here, we’ll find it.”

We’d better — and soon.

31

This must be the place.

Seichan fought through a fog of pain to study their destination. She sat in the back of a light transport helicopter — a Fuji-Bell 204B. The namesake for this Japanese variant of the American helicopter filled the skies ahead of them. The snow-frosted cone of Mount Fuji stood out starkly against a stack of dark thunderclouds, as if the mountain were holding back the storm.

A lake below reflected that battle.

She recognized Lake Kawaguchiko. The helicopter descended toward a village along its banks. She struggled to remember the town’s name, but each beat of the aircraft’s rotors pounded in her head, making it hard to concentrate.

Once near the shore, the helicopter swung toward the town’s outskirts. As it turned, morning sunlight blazed into the aircraft’s hold. Dazzled, Seichan squinted her eyelids to slits, refusing to look away, absorbing every detail below.

The lines of a cable car climbed from the town to the summit of a neighboring peak behind it, where the panoramic views must be stunning. On the lower slopes of the same peak, a multistoried pagoda towered above the treetops. Its glass-and-steel structure reflected and shattered the sunlight, looking like a sculpture of ice and fire.

From the helicopter’s angle of approach, she knew it was their destination. She studied the surrounding area. The modern pagoda sat dead center of a walled-off square, easily encompassing a thousand acres. A score of outbuildings dotted the grounds, none taller than two stories, as if refusing to challenge the height of the shining temple.

The aircraft circled to the back of the compound where a helipad blinked with lights. Seichan noted a Japanese garden behind the pagoda, trickling with streams and waterfalls, all surrounding a large koi pond decorated with flowering lily pads. A small wooden bridge arched over the water to a tiny teahouse at the center of the island. The rest of the garden was artfully decorated with maples, cherry and plum trees, and patches of swaying bamboo. In one corner, a rock garden dotted with a plethora of bonsais framed the raked sand of a meditative space.

Seichan tried to absorb the peace and serenity of those gardens, knowing the challenges ahead. She still tasted blood on her tongue, oozing from her lip, split and swollen from Valya’s fist. Her attacker sat up front with the pilot. The woman had ignored her during the five-hour flight to Tokyo, allowing Seichan a couple of hours of fitful sleep. She appreciated the short amount of rest. The hop from Tokyo to this lakeside town had taken only twenty minutes.

From here, she suspected there would only be pain.

Even now, she felt Ken Matsui studying her from the next seat, silently evaluating her every wince, flinch, and gasp. Twenty-four hours had passed since she was parasitized. By now, thousands of larvae had molted into their second instars. In another twenty-four, they would do so again. At that point, the hungry legion would begin migrating into her bones, where they would continue their feast, while also seeding her marrow with cystic clones of themselves.

In twenty-four hours…

As they landed, a gust of wind struck the helicopter. The skids hit the pad hard. The impact jarred through her, enough to awaken the horde inside her. Pain burst in her lower belly and radiated through her limbs. She tried to ride out the agony, but it only grew worse. Pain rebounded from her limbs back to her stomach, stoking the flames inside her — then back out again.

Stop… please stop…

It didn’t.

At some point, she simply passed out. She woke to a clap of thunder and the icy spatter of raindrops on her face. She was on her back, strapped to a gurney near the helipad. Overhead, half the sky was bruised and dark, the other sunny and blue. The storm was sweeping in fast, propelled by cold winds.

Her gurney was rushed toward the open steel doors of a squat cement-block building. Once inside, she was escorted down a ramp to a subterranean tunnel. Fluorescent lights ran along the ceiling, blurring together as she hovered on a razor’s edge of agony. Each bump of the gurney jacked the pain up another notch.

She fought to compartmentalize that torture, to bottle it into a corner of her mind.

It proved impossible.

The pain was too variable. It was a tiger ripping through her insides, lashing out, then going quiet, only to spring again somewhere else in her body.

Hot tears ran down her cheeks. Her breath heaved in and out.

She tried to focus on where she was going, mapping a layout in her head. She suspected she was being whisked toward the pagoda, toward its subterranean levels.

At some point, she slipped into a hazy delirium, only to be snapped back by Ken’s sharp voice. “Where are you taking her?”

She blinked and let her head fall in the direction of his voice.

Valya had Ken’s arm in her pale grip. As the gurney was roughly jerked into a passageway to the left, Ken was being dragged the other way.

Separating us…

Valya’s voice carried over to her. “Med ward,” she answered. “She’ll get a full physical. Including evaluating her pregnancy. With a little luck there, she’ll become our prized guinea pig.”

Apprehension swelled through Seichan, holding back the pain. It wasn’t fear for herself — but for her child. Despite the peril of the situation, she was more than willing to undergo a thorough examination. Throughout the ravages of pain, one question persisted.

Is my baby still alive?

Up until now, with all the strife and mayhem, she had pushed that worry deep down, where it had burned like a hot coal. As each hour passed since leaving Maui, the pressure of that unanswered question mounted.

She needed to know the answer.

Unfortunately, the intensity of that desire could only stave off the agony for so long. As she was shoved into an elevator, the gurney hit the back wall. The jolt struck through her like an electrical shock, amplifying the pain into a crescendo.

The world went gray — then black.

When she woke again, she had no idea how much time had passed. She was now in a hospital bed, her wrists and ankles cuffed to the frame. Someone had stripped her and placed her in a hospital gown, which was folded up to her breasts.

A pair of blue-smocked medical personnel — maybe a doctor and nurse — flanked the bed. The nurse finished swiping an icy lubricant over her exposed abdomen. The sudden chill on her heated skin must have stirred Seichan back to consciousness. The doctor held the wand of an ultrasound, while he calibrated the unit at her bedside.

“All set here,” he said quietly in Japanese and turned to the bed. His gaze noted her open eyes. “Ah, and it seems our patient is awake. She has quite the constitution to withstand Level Two pain without meds.”

Seichan ignored the compliment and merely glared at him. He was a small man with delicate features and a thin mustache. She could’ve broken him in two in a heartbeat, but even if free, she would’ve held off. For the moment, he was the most important man in the world, the only one who could settle the question aching inside her.

“Should I administer a fentanyl patch?” the nurse asked. She was a round-faced older woman with a stern expression worn into her features. “Her temperature is hovering at a dangerous level, most likely due to the pain.”

“Let’s hold off for the moment.” He shrugged. “She’s already gone this long without analgesics, and I don’t want any opioids in her system if she’s pregnant. If this scan proves to be positive, we can always induce a coma afterward.”

“Hai, Dr. Hamada.”

The nurse shifted over to the ultrasound unit, while the doctor reached across Seichan’s body with the wand of the transducer probe. As it touched her skin, the doctor turned to her, addressing her directly for the first time.

“I’m afraid this will hurt.”

“Do it,” she said.

“Very good.” He nodded to his nurse, who flipped a switch.

Seichan braced herself, balling her fingers into the bedsheet under her. At first, there was only a sharp pressure on her abdomen as the probe was rolled across her belly. Then the wand suddenly became a scalpel, carving deep into her core. She screamed, unable to restrain herself. She stared over the edge of her folded gown, expecting to see her bowels bursting from a gaping wound.

There was nothing.

The doctor’s shoulder hunched against her outburst. “The larvae are sensitive to sound waves,” he explained. “It sends them into a frenzy. What you’re feeling is them fleeing from the ultrasonic waves.”

His explanation — while intended to be helpful — only made the experience a hundredfold worse. She pictured masses of larvae ripping through tissue and muscle in a roiling panic.

“Do you need a break?” he asked.

Unable to speak, she whipped her head back and forth, like a wild horse trying to shake off a bit.

Keep going…

He nodded and continued his examination, drawing and quartering her with his probe. Sweat and tears flushed her cheeks. Pain blinded her. Nails dug through the sheets into the skin.

Then suddenly — when she was certain she could take it no longer — the agony ebbed. She gasped with relief, half-sobbing, too anguished to care.

“There we go.” Dr. Hamada leaned back so Seichan could see the screen. With his free hand, he pointed to a fluttering of gray pixels. “Your baby’s heartbeat.”

Still alive…

An indescribable joy flooded through her.

“We know second instars avoid their host’s vital organs, like the heart and brain,” Hamada said. “Luckily, your pregnancy must be far enough along for the fetus’s tiny heartbeats and minuscule brain waves to stave off the larvae. At least for now.”

Hamada must have noted her deep frown at his last words and explained: “Third instars are not as forgiving. Once they’ve ensured their genetic continuance by seeding a bone’s marrow with their crytobiotic clones, they are less concerned with the host’s survival.”

A countdown began to run in a corner of Seichan’s mind.

Twenty-four hours…

Hamada lifted the wand away and the ultrasound screen went dark, erasing the thin fluttering. She would have traded her right arm for another few seconds of seeing her baby’s heartbeat.

Losing the anchor of that heartbeat, she could no longer hold on. The room faded around her.

As she sank away, she heard Hamada speaking to the nurse.

“Her fetus looks vital and unharmed.”

She felt relief at his prognosis, but he was not done speaking.

“It should make an ideal specimen for the next stage of our experiments.”

If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d be impressed.

Ken gawked at the sprawling underground lab. It dwarfed his own facilities back at Cornell, which had taken him a decade to construct through the judicious cobbling together of university grants and funds from corporate sponsors.

His tour guide — Dr. Yukio Oshiro — stood a head taller than Ken, but so thin-limbed, he looked spidery, which was fitting considering Ken was familiar with the man’s published papers on arachnid venoms.

“We’re already moving forward with Phase One clinical trials for an ion-channel blocker to treat muscular dystrophy,” Oshiro extolled, ending with an exasperated sigh. “This way.”

The man plainly resented being assigned this role.

As they continued across the circular space, Oshiro nodded every now and then to a fellow scientist, who stopped to bow more deeply in a sign of respect, which the man clearly demanded.

“Of course, we have groups working on other drugs.” Oshiro pointed them out. “Alpha Team is studying a promising analgesic. Beta, an antitumor medication. Gamma, an agricultural pesticide. I could go on and on. The potential here is nearly bottomless. We’ve barely scratched the surface.”

“And all of these compounds were culled from the venom of the ancient wasps?”

“The Odokuro, as you named them.” Oshiro gave a small dismissive shake of his head. In Japanese corporate culture, it was the equivalent of raising a middle finger at Ken. “We received a memo to start using that name. Seems you’ve won a measure of respect from Takashi Ito.”

And likely why I’m being given this grand tour.

Ken knew he was being groomed to join the staff. From Oshiro’s cold manner, the man must feel threatened.

Ken studied the place with a discerning eye. He didn’t have to pretend to admire the facility. Banks of equipment and tools filled the room. Most he knew; some he didn’t. Besides being larger than his own lab, it was far better equipped.

He quickly noted a pattern to the space. It was divided into two distinct halves, each doing different work on the venom collected from the many incarnations of these wasps. From his own experience, he knew typical poison glands contained hundreds of different chemicals and molecules.

One side of the lab seemed devoted to studying the proteomics—the proteins and peptides — of the wasp’s venom. This was evident from the many humming banks of mass spectrometers, along with a trio of huge gel electrophoresis machines used to separate out proteins.

Still, other pieces of equipment were a mystery.

Oshiro must have noted his puzzled expression. His voice took on a gloating tone. “Over there, Alpha Team is doing flow cytometry, employing femto- and pico-second lasers to inspect and separate out advantageous-looking proteins.”

“Impressive,” he said and meant it.

“And necessary, as you know when faced with such small samples.”

He nodded. It was one thing to milk a snake for its venom, which generally produced a decent investigative sample, but it was another matter when trying to do the same with a spider — or in this case, a wasp.

Ken turned his attention to the other half of the lab, a space clearly devoted to genomics. Here, nucleotide sequencers were being used to study the RNA and DNA associated with venom production, along with gathering valuable transcriptomic data.

He knew from his own experience how tricky venom could be. What was found in a poison gland could vary greatly depending on the sex of the species, the type of food, even the ambient temperature. Sometimes it was easier to sequence the DNA and reverse-engineer the toxic peptide, rather than hunting it down.

Ken nodded over to where Gamma Team was working on a sequencer. “You’ve got some serious next-gen tech. Your lab must be capable of performing some incredible high-throughput analyses of the venom.”

“Certainly, but it’s not like we don’t hit walls.” Oshiro stared over at the group. “For example, Gamma has discovered fragments of a promising RNA transcript, including the gene that produced it — but they’ve been struggling to find the actual protein it’s supposed to synthesize.”

“Like discovering a shadow but not the object casting it.”

“Exactly.” Oshiro offered a rare smile, warming up to Ken, as competing colleagues sometimes do when talking shop. “The gene is ubiquitous across all incarnations of the species, but the protein it encodes still escapes us. It’s why we need the best minds.”

Off the cuff, Ken could already think of several different reasons for the missing protein, but he stayed silent. Especially as he felt Oshiro was dancing toward an invitation to work here… an invitation that Ken dared not refuse. So instead, he quickly changed the subject, pointing to the back of the lab, to a set of prominent red steel doors.

“What’s through there?”

Oshiro put his hands on his hips, his features hardening into a scowl. “Nothing for us to worry about, apparently. All I know is that the team leader on that side — Dr. Hamada — frequently commandeers our entire lab, shooing us out of here like so many flies. It’s very aggravating and disruptive.”

“What are they researching?”

He shrugged. “All I know is that it has something to do with the evolutionary history of the Odokuro.”

Ken frowned. “Why? To what end?”

Another dismissive shrug, as if to state It’s not my research, so why should I care?

Ken allowed himself to be led away. In the past, he had run into such narrow-mindedness among other scientists. It was an easy trap to fall into, one that led to mistakes and missed opportunities. Over the years, he had learned it was better not to suppress scientific curiosity in any form.

A lesson that was especially important here.

As Oshiro continued his tour, Ken kept a sidelong focus on the red doors.

What’s really going on behind there?

Kneeling at his office table, Takashi tented his fingers before his lips as he studied the camera feed on his laptop. The view was into a locked hospital ward, with the lens focused on a single bed. The woman secured there slipped into and out of delirium, occasionally thrashing in her restraints, mostly sleeping. Her brow shone with fever sweat, her lips dried and cracked.

Still, he recognized the beauty behind the illness. Her mixed blood — Asian and European — had seemed to draw out the best of both heritages. Her bruised lips, if painted, would form a perfect bow. Her cheekbones, arched high and wide, narrowed to a perfect chin. Her black hair was cut straight and sharp, both efficient yet accenting her features with a simplicity that reminded him of his beloved Miu.

There was a soft knock on the door before it swung open.

His personal secretary bowed and stepped aside to allow the woman Takashi had summoned into his office. Valya entered like a storm, her ice-blue eyes flashing with lightning. The rain-heavy clouds rolling over Mount Fuji greeted her with a clap of thunder that rattled the windows.

This time, the woman cast aside any pretense of masking her pale features. He was momentarily unsettled. She looked so ethereal, ghostly. It was as if the black tattoo were all that was holding her to this plane.

She bowed deeply and upon his signal, knelt opposite him.

“Chūnin Mikhailov,” he greeted her, using her new title, a position she had inherited from Masahiro.

She kept her chin down. Her head bowed incrementally at this acknowledgment of her raised status.

He returned his attention to the laptop screen and to the captive strapped on the bed. “She is with child?”

“Hai. Dr. Hamada has confirmed her pregnancy.”

“Very good.”

He studied the woman on the screen. She and the others had cost him his grandson. It was only right for him to repay them in kind.

He pictured what would happen next.

Back during the war, he had visited the Imperial Army’s research camps at Zhongma Fortress. There, too, pregnant women — Chinese mothers forcibly removed from nearby villages — were experimented upon with chemical and biological weapons. Afterward, their babies were cut from their wombs without anesthesia. He could still hear their screams, see those weak arms reaching for bloody children before death claimed them.

Back then, new to the Kage, he had to hide his revulsion at such atrocities.

Now I will relish it.

He intended for another to suffer as much.

“The American?” he asked.

“No word. But if he survived, he will come for her.” The woman paused too deliberately, clearly refraining from speaking.

“What is it?”

She glanced to the screen, then back down. “You said before that there was no cure for what afflicts her.”

He understood the question behind this statement. “You wonder why we took such a risk in releasing something we could not control.”

“Hai, Jōnin Ito.”

“It is not out of madness, but calculation,” he assured her. “What was released in Hawaii was only an example. Once the world comprehends the threat, only then will we move forward with the second phase.”

She glanced up, her brows pinched. “Second phase?”

“Ikikauō Atoll was not our only staging ground.”

Her eyes widened with shock.

“Other locations are ready to move upon my order. To spread the Odokuro across Europe, Russia, China, Australia. Unfortunately, we lost control of our site off the coast of Brazil, almost exposing our plan for South America. Still, by our conservative calculations, the world will be overrun in two years.”

She looked aghast, anger threading her words. “So you mean to destroy the world?”

“No.” He matched her anger with cold command. “Like I said, it’s not madness, but calculation.”

He read her confusion and sighed, lowering his voice as if quieting a child. “What drugs do you think are the most profitable?”

She was taken aback by the abrupt change and simply shook her head.

“It is not a medication that can cure a disease. There’s limited profit in such one-time fixes. Instead, consider those drugs needed to treat the symptoms from an incurable disease. That is a guaranteed lifelong revenue stream. It is a lesson I learned long ago as the founder of this company.”

“And you’re applying this lesson here?”

He didn’t bother acknowledging the obvious.

“But how?” she asked.

“I don’t intend to destroy the world, but simply bring it to its knees.”

“Still, if there’s no cure…?” she asked haltingly, trying to understand.

“In a year, when the world is suffering and in chaos, our corporation will offer a palliative for their symptoms. While we have no cure for the parasitized, we have developed an aerial spray that will kill the adult wasp populations. It took us over two decades to perfect. It’s extremely toxic, nearly impossible to duplicate, and will do great damage. Still, it will allow countries to survive, to limp along.”

Comprehension slowly dawned in her eyes. “Yet, they’ll never be safe. With their environment contaminated and parasitized, the Odokuro will rise again and again.”

“An incurable disease that only we can knock back down and hold in check.”

“So, in the end, the world will become dependent on Japan, on your corporation.”

“And if anyone resists,” he said with a shrug, “we hold back the spraying for a few months until they fall back in line.”

“But what about Japan?”

“We will remain unscathed during the initial overrun. We already have the natural advantage of being isolated and quarantined by our surrounding seas, but a secret program of spraying will commence immediately to protect our shores. We will be the only country standing strong in a year, ready to offer relief to those who bend a knee to a new Imperial Japan.”

She sat back on her ankles, absorbing this all. “You’ll have taken over the world without firing a single shot.”

“After nine decades, I’ve learned armies rise and fall. From the Tokugawa shoguns who succumbed to Japan’s emperors long ago, to those same emperors who were brought low by Allied forces. True strength is not found at the tip of a sword or the barrel of a gun, but in ingenuity and innovation.”

Chūnin Mikhailov stared back at him, her eyes unreadable now, reflecting the dark storm beyond the windows. Finally, she closed her eyes and lowered her forehead to the floor.

He accepted her deference by folding his fingers in his lap, knowing soon…

…the entire world will be forced to bow before us.

32

“Off to the salt mines, we go!” Monk said cheerily.

Elena cringed at the clank of the large red elevator doors as they were slammed closed. She concentrated on breathing through her nose and out her mouth, a calming technique she had learned from the old Oprah Winfrey Show. While growing up as the daughter of migrant workers, that was all her family could afford as “therapy.”

Ever since she was a young girl, she could never tolerate cramped spaces. Her parents believed it was a buried memory from when her family was led through a tunnel from a warehouse in Tijuana to San Diego. It was a route used by the Sinaloa Cartel to move drugs — and for the right price, workers and families could buy passage through to the United States.

“How are you holding up?” Sam asked her, keeping close by her side as the elevator sank into the bowels of the earth.

Her fingertips tapped the two crucifixes hanging from the chain of her reading glasses, a nervous tic. She forced her hand down. “I keep telling myself we’re just heading into the basement of a library.”

“Then this place has a pretty darned deep basement,” Sam said with a wry grin.

She scolded him with a look that said, You’re not helping.

“Sorry.” He held out a hand. “Maybe this will serve as an apology.”

She wanted to decline, refusing to be seen as the sort of woman who needed to lean on a man.

Screw it.

She took his hand. His palm was dry and warm. He squeezed with a generous amount of reassurance. She refused to be embarrassed. On the way here, she had made no effort to hide her fear, preferring to be frank with everyone in case she had to abandon the mine and leave this hunt to the others.

Her plan forward was to ignore the bigger picture — like being buried a thousand feet underground — and concentrate on moving one step at a time. Of course, she couldn’t do that while stuck in an elevator. The enclosed space trapped her anxiety, amplifying her fear.

Across the cage, Kat turned to their two escorts. After arriving at the mine, Damian Slaski had introduced them to the mine’s public relations officer, a young pretty blond woman named Clara Baranska. From the way the dour-faced Slaski kept looking doggedly at the woman, he was plainly infatuated. Elena suspected the man’s frequent visits to the nearby museum weren’t entirely based on research alone.

“Dr. Slaski,” Kat said, “you mentioned before that the Hondius map had two amber sites marked on it. Were either of them anywhere near the Chapel of the Seashell?”

Elena focused on his answer, using the conversation to distract her from the descent into the mine.

“No, that does not appear to be the case. Both sites were small and emptied of their deposits long before Mr. Smithson visited here.”

Clara nodded. “No mine would let such a discovery go to waste. While salt was valuable in the past, amber was much more so. Even today, a modest amber bracelet costs the equivalent of a Rolex watch.”

“Because of such value,” Slaski added, “many sites were pillaged by black miners.”

As a Hispanic woman, Elena had a knee-jerk reaction to such casual racism. “What do you mean by black miners?”

Slaski clarified his statement. “I’m referring to miners who raid other excavations or secretly pocket a portion of their own load, then sell the stolen gain on the black market. In fact, two out of every three pieces of amber sold today were acquired illegally.”

The bump of the elevator interrupted the conversation. As the doors opened, music flowed inside, solemn and melancholy. Upon hearing this, Elena felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cool sixty degrees of the mine. The melody had a foreboding quality to it, as if marking all their funerals.

Clara had a more mundane explanation as she stepped out of the elevator. “The midnight mass must be just concluding. I heard they started late.”

Monk followed with a smile for his wife. “So I guess that would make this an after-midnight mass.”

Kat shoved him forward, while Sam urged Elena along with an encouraging tug on her arm. He still held her hand — or rather, she clutched his.

As she exited into a tunnel that stretched to the right and left, she was struck by the salty tang to the air, along with the clammy humidity. It felt like walking along a seabed, where the water had dissipated, leaving only its salty spirit behind.

Still, she breathed harder, as if drowning down here.

Any pretense that she was in some basement was dismissed when she stared up the throat of a wooden staircase that paralleled the elevator and climbed eight hundred steps back to the surface.

Thank God we didn’t have to climb down those like the typical tourist.

“We’re only ninety meters deep here,” Clara said.

Only?

Elena fought not to scoff.

Their guide pointed to the stretch of the tunnel to the left. “That way leads to a chamber dedicated to the astronomer Copernicus. You’ll also find St. Anthony’s Chapel, the oldest in the mine, going back four hundred years.”

Slaski waved in the opposite direction. “But we’ll be going this way, as it’s a more direct path to the chapel we’re seeking.”

Clara nodded. “I’ve sent three men ahead of us, all the way down to the lake to prepare matters for your crossing.” She smiled over at them. “They’re my three older brothers.”

“Sounds like it’s a family affair down here,” Monk said, meaning it as a joke.

Clara took it seriously. “Of course. Salt is in our blood. My father and grandfather before him worked here while the mine was still operational.” She waved them to follow, like a young schoolmarm herding her pupils. “Come, we have far to go.”

As they set off, the music slowly grew louder. Low voices eventually could be heard, singing along with the hymn, echoing up from below. The tunnel transected a series of rooms, chambers, and niches, mostly depicting dioramas of mining life, including full-size models of workers, even horses.

Slaski nodded to one of the four-legged miners. His mood grew even more glum. “Horses spent their entire lives down here. Never seeing the sunlight.”

“And in the early centuries,” Clara added, “so did some miners.”

Slaski shrugged, plainly more concerned about the horses.

As they clambered down a series of wooden stairs into other chambers, some of the original mining equipment was shown to be still functional, including a giant horizontal wheel geared to winches that was used to haul material up and down shafts. Natural forces were also utilized here, as evidenced by a huge waterwheel still turning under a steady stream. It looked like it had been churning there for centuries.

Sam still had hold of Elena’s hand. She didn’t care how it looked. While the mining history was interesting, it wasn’t distracting enough from the weight of rock overhead.

Sam stared up there, too, but his concern was different. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Where’s all the salt?”

She had wondered the same. The rock here was shades of dark gray, offset by whitewashed timber and logs supporting the walls and roof.

Clara smiled at his question and waved an arm. “It’s all around you. Everything you see is salt in its natural form. Go ahead and scrape a finger and taste it.”

Sam matched her grin. “My momma taught me never to go licking walls. So I’ll take your word for it.”

“Why’s all the wood around here painted white?” Monk asked.

“Mostly to better reflect the light from the miners’ oil lamps.” She pointed to the hard hat she wore outfitted with a modern battery-powered lamp. They were all similarly equipped, though they wouldn’t need the lights until they reached the off-limits area of the mine.

Clara patted one of the logs with clear affection. “Over time, salt has impregnated the old wood, making it harder, almost like stone now. Besides its strength, wood was also good because it would talk to the miners.”

Monk raised an eyebrow. “Talk?”

“Logs would often groan when under too much pressure, warning of a pending collapse, offering workers time to escape.” She gave the timber a final pat. “Of course, they’ve grown silent over the years.”

Elena stared at the logs, willing them to continue to remain quiet.

As they delved ever deeper, some of the rooms and niches began to reveal the miners’ artistic handiwork. Sculptures carved out of salt appeared, from fanciful dragons to even Snow White’s seven dwarves. Several of the statues were backlit, making them seem to glow with an inner warmth.

Clara stopped at the entrance to one chamber and clicked on her helmet’s lamp, casting her light across the dark threshold. Her beam lit up the bust of a crowned figure with a prominent beard.

“It is only fitting we acknowledge Casmir the Great,” Clara said. “Especially as it’s considered bad luck not to do so.”

If that was the case, Elena was happy to stop.

“Casmir was the last Polish king of the Piast dynasty. He was a very liberal king. He encouraged science and the pursuit of knowledge, even founding the University of Krakow. In addition, he was the only European leader who openly welcomed and encouraged Jews to settle in Poland, which they did in great numbers.”

Her voice trailed off. She avoided recounting the fate of the descendants of these settlers centuries later when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

In a more somber tone, she added, “Let’s move on.”

After a steep descent down a long tunnel, they began to run into clutches of people heading up. The men were dressed in dark suits, the women in matching dresses. The music they had been following into the mine had stopped at some point as the midnight mass ended. The parishioners were starting to leave. Voices grew louder ahead, carried by the salty acoustics.

At last their party reached the source, stepping out onto a wide balcony that overlooked a cavernous three-story space.

“The crown jewel of the Wieliczka mine,” Clara announced. “The Chapel of St. Kinga.”

Elena gaped at the wondrous site. It was more a cathedral than a mere chapel. Massive chandeliers, glowing with crystals of rock salt, hung from a vaulted roof. At the far end, a giant crucifix loomed over a stone altar, all sculpted of salt. Illuminated niches along the walls to either side shone with great masterworks from generations of miners. There were biblical scenes of Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem, a nativity crèche lit by a tiny salt-carved baby Jesus. Even the walls and floors had been cut and polished to look like bricks and octagonal tiles.

The majority of the parishioners still milled below, easily numbering two hundred — though the room looked like it could hold twice that. A few people trailed up the two sweeping stone staircases on their long journey back to the surface.

For the moment, Elena didn’t even envy their leaving. She let go of Sam’s hand and wandered up to the balustrade to better view this crystalline cathedral, a Sistine Chapel made of salt.

“The chamber is named after St. Kinga,” Clara explained. “Legend has it that Lady Kinga, a Hungarian princess, was betrothed by her father to the Prince of Krakow. Before leaving Hungary, she cast her engagement ring into a salt mine in her home country. Then upon arriving in Krakow she ordered a group of miners to dig. In that new excavation, the workers discovered a large lump of salt — and inside it was Lady Kinga’s ring. Since that time, she has become the patron saint of miners.”

“She should’ve just filed an insurance claim for the lost ring,” Monk whispered. “Would’ve saved a lot of backbreaking labor.”

Clara scolded him with a deep frown.

Clearly one didn’t disparage a saint — especially in her own domain.

A bit miffed, Clara led them away from the balcony and back into the tunnels heading deeper into the mine. As they descended through a labyrinth of caves, tunnels, and sculpted rooms, they began to reach chambers flooded with emerald-green pools. Wooden catwalks bridged the still waters, reflecting their scatter of lights. Along the bottom, a layer of coins shone like some lost dragon’s horde, left behind by centuries of visitors casting prayers and wishes into those depths.

“Have we already reached the water table?” Kat asked. “Is that why they’re flooded?”

“No, these small pools were formed from ages of rainwater seeping down here. The much larger lakes lie twice as far down from where we are now.”

Elena groaned. She meant to do so softly, but the acoustics of salt and water amplified her complaint. Sam found her hand again. She did not object.

Clara led them through the last of the tourist route until she reached a long traverse that inclined steeply down. The passageway ahead had no strings of lights or gently glowing salt statues, only a stygian darkness that seemed to go on forever.

“We’ll need our own lamps from here,” Clara said, switching on her helmet light.

They all followed her example. As backup, they also carried flashlights. With her free hand, Elena clutched hers in an iron grip.

As Clara led the way, Monk leaned to Kat and quoted from Dante’s Inferno, reciting the words said to be inscribed at the entrance to hell.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Kat stood at the bank of a wide lake. The scatter of their helmet lamps cast spears of light over the dark water. The beams reflected off its mirror-flat surface and flickered across the low vault of rough stone above. The air here was damp with the seaside scent of saltwater.

The lake stretched so far that she could not make out the far bank.

Its sheer breadth boggled.

Clara shared an anecdote to put the size in perspective. “We entertained windsurfers on this lake a few years back. It was amazing to see their sails sweeping across the dark cavern.”

“Propelled by what wind?” Monk asked. He held up a finger as if searching for that breeze.

Clara smiled. “They brought in big fans powered by generators.”

“In other words, they cheated,” Monk grumbled.

“We sometimes have to improvise to accommodate guests,” Clara corrected. “Like tonight.”

She waved to where her three brothers stood along the bank beside a small Zodiac pontoon boat and a Sea-Doo Jet Ski. Dressed in waterproof gear, the trio — all as blond as their sister and as muscular as wrestlers — had collected the watercraft from elsewhere in the flooded levels of the mine and ridden them here to meet up with Kat’s group. Evidently these lower levels had become series of pools, lakes, and twisting canals, all interconnecting to form a watery labyrinth.

“My brothers have also brought along some excavating tools in case you should discover this lost amber deposit and desire to collect a sample for your museum’s collection.”

Clara nodded respectfully to Elena Delgado.

Kat checked her watch, all too mindful of the passing of time. “Then we should be going.”

It had taken them more than ninety minutes to traverse the lower half of the mine after leaving the tourist route. The paths through these levels were less maintained, frosted with rills of salt. They had to climb down rickety stairs, even a series of ladders that were white with encrusted rime.

Everything looked strangely intact, preserved over the decades, if not centuries, due to the high sodium atmosphere.

Along the way, they also found further evidence of the miners’ artistic bent: a tiny niche shielding the figure of a Madonna with child, a handful of biblical quotes inscribed into the walls. And they crossed the path of many standing figures whose features were blurred by ancient runnels of white salt. They stood like ghostly sentinels along their route, as if warning them back.

Kat was happy to climb into the pontoon boat for this final leg of their journey. According to Dr. Slaski, the Chapel of the Seashell lay on the far side of this lake.

Clara’s brother Piotr untethered the boat and then hopped in the stern. Another brother, Anton, manned the Zodiac’s engine and yanked it to life. Gerik, the last sibling, waded to the Jet Ski, mounted it, and added its engine to the chorus of rumbling.

The noise reverberated off the low ceiling, strong enough to be felt in Kat’s rib cage.

Once ready, the group set off across the lake, led by a swivel-mounted lamp at the bow end of the pontoon. Piotr took up position there, watching from the front for any obstructions hidden beneath the surface.

Slaski interrupted the vague tension by turning to Sam. “Back at the museum, you asked why the miners should dig out such a unique structure as the Seashell Chapel. Perhaps now you understand after all you’ve seen. After spending their lifetimes down here, they sought to leave some trace of themselves behind, a legacy for those who would follow.”

Clara concurred. “Besides the sculptures and decorations, you’ll find other chambers of the mine that were transformed through their labor into pieces of art.”

“Like back at the Chapel of Saint Kinga,” Elena said.

“That’s correct.”

The conversation died down again, as if squashed to silence by the weight of the roof. It also didn’t help that the stone ceiling slowly lowered upon them as they crossed. By the time the boat’s lamp pierced the darkness to reveal the far shore, Kat could have reached up and brushed her fingertips along the salty ceiling.

Everyone instinctively hunkered down.

At first, it appeared this side of the lake ended at a solid wall, but then Piotr guided the boat to the left, revealing a channel exiting the lake and curving out of sight. They were soon off the main lake and idling slowly along the narrower canal. It made an S-shaped path, which ended at a smooth slope of rock.

The bow of the pontoon bumped into it and rode slightly up onto that stone beach.

The slope rose up into a large cavern, though it was only a quarter of the size of the cathedral to Saint Kinga.

Slaski stood and pointed ahead. “The entrance to Kaplica Muszli.”

Kat pictured the map that the museum director had shown them and imagined this cavern must be the pelvis of the scallop shell. Even from here, she could see the dark outlines of passages exiting one side of the cavern, radiating out to form the veins of the shell.

Relieved to have safely reached here, Kat got everyone moving. They clambered out of the boat and scaled the slope into the cavern. Upon seeing the condition of this section of the mine, Kat’s relief quickly faded.

Their lights revealed half the tunnels were filled with rubble from old collapses. Even in the intact passageways, water dripped and leaked from cracks and fissures in the ceiling.

Kat pictured rainwater seeping all the way down here. The dissolved salts had hardened into crusts, caking everything into a snow-white landscape. Frozen sheets of rime covered the walls. Long, fragile-looking crystal icicles hung from the roofs of the tunnels.

She despaired of ever finding the source of Smithson’s artifact. For all anyone knew, it was already buried under tons of rock from the old cave-ins.

“We have to go look,” Monk reminded her, reading her as he always did.

She nodded and clicked on her flashlight, adding its light to her helmet’s shine. Others followed suit.

Sam frowned at the number of tunnels. “I guess from here it’s a matter of eeny, meeny, miny, or moe.”

“Maybe we should split up,” Monk said. “We can cover more ground.”

Elena scowled. “When is that ever a sound plan?”

“She’s right,” Kat said. “For now, we stick together. We don’t have time to waste hunting down anyone who gets lost.”

With the matter settled, Kat set off down the far right tunnel, planning to proceed systemically through this maze. Anton and Gerik stayed behind with a radio, ready to ferry any tools they might need from the boat.

The group forged down the dark passageway. It was wide enough for two people to walk abreast. Still, they had to often break through blockades of salt stalactites to pass. All the while, streams of water ran underfoot, trailing a slow path toward the flooded labyrinth behind them.

Kat searched all around, sweeping both her flashlight and helmet lamp across the walls and ceilings, looking for any clue that Smithson had been here.

While she failed to find anything, she had at least chosen wisely. Though it took them nearly a half hour, they reached the end of the passageway. It had easily been a quarter-mile long. She remembered Slaski’s description of the size of the Seashell Chapel.

A full square kilometer.

They still had a lot of ground to cover.

The tunnel ended at a thin cavernous arcade that swept across what would be the large rim of the scallop. It was here where all the radiating passageways ended. The cavern’s roof sloped from overhead and slanted to the floor, forming the sharp edge of the shell.

Kat started to turn toward the next tunnel, ready to circle back to where they started, intending to crisscross back and forth until she had covered as much of this “shell” as humanly possible.

“Look at this,” Elena said.

The librarian was down on one knee, pointing her flashlight up toward the low roof as it slanted to the floor. Like in the tunnels, salt had formed a blockade of stalactites, spikes, and pillars that barred off the back half of the long cavern. It looked like a frost-coated prison gate that ran the length of the arcade.

Kat and the others joined Elena.

Her beam splashed across the low roof. The light revealed a riotous bas-relief carved into the salt. Kat added her light, as did the others as they spread out along the barrier.

Though rimed in salt and crumbled in places, the surface appeared to depict a great battle. Winged angels flew across the upper half, wielding spears and bows. Below, twisted demons tried to scrabble out of the underworld, with gnashing teeth and clawing limbs. The Gothic grotesqueness of the motif reminded Kat of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, but one sculpted out of salt.

“Did you know this was here?” Kat asked, not taking her eyes from the sight.

Slaski moaned, “No…”

Clara was less firm. “I had heard rumors of some hellish artwork in the deep mine, but few travel this far. Due to the flooding and the risk of cave-ins, I doubt anyone has been to this section in years, and considering all the salt we had to break through to get over to this side…” She shook her head. “I doubt anyone’s set foot back here in decades, if not longer.”

Kat straightened and pointed her flashlight along the curving cavern. It had to stretch a half mile. She knew they had no choice.

“We’ll need to search its entire length.”

No one argued, sensing the magnitude of the discovery.

“Keep an eye out for anything that might be significant or out of the ordinary.”

Sam grimaced as he stared down the length of the macabre decoration. “Like any of this is ordinary.”

They set off single file, with Clara leading. Their flashlight beams bobbed and played across the Gothic masterpiece, adding additional shadow and substance to the battlefield.

Seven pairs of eyes scanned for every detail.

Kat noted the anomaly first, almost skipping past it. She backstepped into Monk to fix her light there.

He spotted it then, too, and whispered to her, “We’ve seen this little bugger before, haven’t we?”

Everyone joined them, adding their lights.

It was hidden among the angels, just another winged figure, hovering above the demon horde.

Kat recognized the symbol — as it had also graced Smithson’s tomb.

It was a winged insect, maybe a moth, but she knew better.

It was a wasp.

“We need to get a closer look,” she said.

In short order, the group smashed through the salt icicles and columns to reach the symbol. Like much of the sprawling artwork, it was crusted with a rime of salt, smudging its details.

Kat reached for her water bottle, intending to try to dissolve and wash away the salt.

Piotr pushed next to her and held out a thermos. “Gorąca herbata.”

None of the brothers spoke English, so Clara translated. “He says to try his hot tea. It should work better than cold water to remove the salt.”

Good idea.

She soaked a handkerchief with the steaming tea and did her best to splash more over the image. To give time for the salt to dissolve, she draped and pressed her sodden cloth over the winged figure.

She turned to Monk as she waited. “Hopefully there’s something under the salt, maybe a message left here by Smithson. If we could only—”

Still pressing against the symbol, she felt it shift as its salty crust gave way. The bas-relief of the wasp sank into the stone. A sharp crack followed as something far larger released behind the wall.

She stumbled back, dropping the cloth and pushing everyone away.

Before her, the entire section of the roof broke loose. It swung down, crushing the stalactites under it. As it opened, the sound of rushing water echoed out, accompanied by the groaning of mighty gears.

She pictured the giant waterwheel she had seen earlier, turning far above.

Apparently it wasn’t the only one still operational.

As the roof’s edge lowered and touched the floor, it formed a ramp going up.

She peered into the beckoning darkness.

Monk turned to her. “Now look what you did.”

33

“Two minutes to go,” Gray warned the others.

He sat astride a Yamaha PES2 motorcycle, powered by an electric motor. Like him, the other four members of the strike team wore smart helmets outfitted with radios. The group was hidden in the woods behind the research campus of Fenikkusu Laboratories.

From the perch of his seat, Gray focused on their target rising from the center of those fenced-off grounds: a glass-and-steel pagoda known locally as Kōri no Shiro, or the Ice Castle.

Though it was midday, the sky was dark. A thunderstorm had rolled down the slopes of Mount Fuji, hammering its flanks with hail. Lightning crackled overhead, reflecting off the Ice Castle.

The storm should serve them well, offering cover for the mission to come. Inside Gray’s helmet, he received visual feed from the main assault force as it raced down the main road and headed toward the campus’s front gates.

“One minute,” he radioed to his group.

Aiko crouched over her cycle to one side, Palu on the other. Aiko had also brought along two other men — Hoga and Endo — to fill out the small team. Both had been handpicked from her personal task force at the newly formed Japanese intelligence unit. Under their helmets, Aiko and her men wore black face masks, showing only their eyes, like a trio of modern-day ninjas. Gray didn’t even know what the two men looked like, only that they were lithe, muscular, and heavily armed.

As Gray counted down the final seconds, his heart pounded in his ears; he was anxious to get moving. Their group had lost valuable time getting here. After surviving the barrage of depth charges, they had radioed for help. Helicopters were immediately dispatched from Midway Atoll to their location in the middle of the Pacific’s garbage patch. Once safely on Midway, Kowalski and Palu’s cousins had been transported to a small hospital to undergo emergency treatment. Tua’s condition remained critical.

Unable to wait, Gray and the others had immediately taken off in a private jet, redlining its engines to cross the remainder of the Pacific to reach Japan. While en route, Aiko had coordinated this assault, alerting authorities in her unit of the involvement of Fenikkusu Laboratories in the attack on Hawaii, pinpointing this research building as the likeliest target due to Takashi Ito’s presence here and the secretive nature of the facility. She had kept this knowledge limited to only a handful, fearing word might reach the enemy. Aiko had expressed concern that Fenikkusu Laboratories might have bribed or blackmailed a few members of the newly formed agency, taking advantage of this transitional period as the country’s various intelligence services were reorganized.

On a phone call earlier, Painter had shared that same worry. He had also updated Gray on the evacuation of Hawaii. Two words exemplified those efforts: panic and chaos. The situation was rapidly deteriorating out there.

Recognizing this, Painter had stressed the priority for this current mission: to discover what countermeasures the enemy had against this threat. Gray had also understood the implied command underlying this order. Even if it means sacrificing Seichan and Ken.

Too much was at stake for this to be a rescue mission.

Hundreds of thousands of lives were in jeopardy.

Through his helmet feed, Gray watched the main Japanese security force reach the campus’s main gate. The group was led by an armored urban assault vehicle. The mini-tank didn’t slow. Equipped with a battering ram, it smashed through the steel gates, opening the way for the brigade that followed. Sirens suddenly flared across the sweep of motorcycles and military police jeeps.

As if responding to the noise, the storm broke overhead. Thunder boomed, and forked lightning ripped open the clouds. A cold rain fell like a heavy drape from the sky, smothering the commotion below.

“Go, go, go…” Gray radioed.

Using the cover of the storm and the distraction of the raid occurring at the front of the compound, Gray and the others swept from the heights above the rear of the campus. They raced through the dark woods with their headlamps extinguished. Pelting rain further obscured their sight. But the head-up display inside the helmet transmitted a night-vision view of the rough mountain trail they descended. Unfortunately, lightning flashes occasionally whited out the views, which was unnerving, but no one slowed.

Not even Palu.

The Hawaiian had already informed Gray of his experience with trail bikes back on Maui. The fireman proved to be a man of his word, impressing Gray with his skill atop the cycle as it bumped and slid across the rocks and thickening mud.

Not having to worry about Palu keeping up, Gray increased their pace the last quarter mile through the woods. With attentions focused up front, no one at the compound raised an alarm as the five bikes crashed out of the forest and braked into a skid before the rear fence.

Hoga leaped off his bike before it had fully come to a stop, letting the cycle topple as he flew forward. He unstrapped a canister at his hip and lifted it to the fence. A nova-bright blue flame shot a few inches out. He swept it across the chain link fencing, melting a way through with a single swipe of his arm.

The tool was no ordinary acetylene torch, but something concocted by Aiko’s new agency, which Gray suspected was in all likelihood a Japanese version of Sigma.

Not that Aiko would admit as much.

With the way open, the group slipped into the grounds and ran low across manicured lawns and through a copse of trees. They aimed for a helipad. According to specs obtained by Aiko, the nearby building had a tunnel into the basement levels of the main tower.

Their goal was to reach the labs buried under the tower before the frontal assault triggered a purge of the facilities. They couldn’t risk evidence being erased or destroyed.

With a final dash through the rain, the group reached the concrete-block building next to the helipad. Sirens could be heard blaring on the far side of the tower, punctuated by orders barked through bullhorns.

Upon Gray’s signal, the strike team burst through an open door into the small hangar. A pair of workers in beige jumpsuits flinched at their sudden appearance, already tense from the commotion of the raid.

Hoga and Endo rushed forward with weapons raised, silently picking separate targets. Hoga fired first. A scatter of thin darts struck his target’s chest. As they hit, a chain of electricity frazzled between them, jolting the worker into a cataleptic seizure, then stillness.

Endo shot at the other worker, striking him in the neck with what looked like a quarter-sized black steel spider. The implant pumped in a load of swift-acting sedative. The target took two steps, then crumpled to the floor.

The attack took all of three seconds.

As Gray rushed past the prone men, he glanced at Hoga and Endo’s handiwork. He admired their weaponry, recognizing that Sigma needed to up its game… or at least compare notes with Aiko’s burgeoning agency.

He faced forward again as they reached a ramp heading down.

He focused on his goal, knowing how much was at stake. While the raid was not primarily a rescue operation, Gray knew the two objectives were likely intertwined.

As they reached the bottom of the ramp and entered a long tunnel, Gray sped faster, leading the team, driven by a fearful question.

Are we already too late?

Time must be up.

Ken watched Dr. Oshiro stalk across the room toward him. At the moment, Ken was seated at a workstation in Gamma Team’s corner of the lab.

As the lab director approached, his very posture was one of dominance, demanding subservience in his little fiefdom. From the hard scowl to the man’s face, Ken could no longer delay the inevitable. This was made even clearer when Oshiro waved a guard at the door to close in on Ken, too.

They want my answer.

Cooperate with them or die.

Earlier, to delay answering, Ken had asked the director to allow him to study some of their research firsthand, to help make up his mind. From the raw suspicion on Oshiro’s face, he had not been deceived by this explanation, sensing Ken was stalling. Nevertheless, the director had allowed it, apparently more than happy to end his role as tour guide.

Still, over the past two hours, Oshiro kept eyeballing him from across the room, studying him, evaluating him, as if this were a working interview.

And maybe it was.

If so, it was a test he dared not fail.

Earlier, Ken had picked Gamma Team to shadow, sensing there was something significant to their research. He sat with a folder in front of him. The label read 農林水産省, or Nōrin-suisan-shō, which was the name of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. The file contained a petition for a research grant, including an abstract about the promising attempts by Gamma Team to bring a new pesticide to market, a toxin derived from one of the myriad peptides found in the venom of the Odokuro wasps.

Oshiro reached Ken’s workstation, standing with his hands on his hips. “So have you gleaned any insights concerning Gamma Team’s research? Something to prove your worth to me?”

Ken leaned back. “Only that this work is a dead end.”

Oshiro’s brows shot up at the boldness of his statement. Even the members of Gamma Team looked upon him with dismay. He felt sorry for disparaging their work, but the conclusions were self-evident.

“How so?” Oshiro challenged him.

“I’ve reviewed the DNA analysis of the ghost peptide.”

That was the colorful term the team had been using for the missing protein they had been hunting for, the one that held such promise as a pesticide. While the group had identified a series of genes that potentially could produce such a peptide, they had failed to find any of it in the species’ venom sacs.

“Gamma Team has indeed been chasing a ghost,” Ken explained. He waved to a computer where he had reviewed the code, reading the sequence like a textbook. “The group was correct in its genetic analysis. The series of genes do seem to code for a biolytic enzyme that targets arthropods and insects. Any prey injected with this toxin would dissolve from the inside out.”

“Exactly,” Oshiro said. “Such a compound would make a perfect agricultural pesticide.”

Ken didn’t back down. “But remember the Odokuro eventually learned it was better to keep their prey alive. What Gamma accidentally discovered was a fragment of junk DNA, old code that is no longer viable but remains cached in the wasps’ DNA. Didn’t you ever wonder why the team failed to actually find this protein?”

Oshiro stammered, mumbling about difficulties and challenges.

Ken cut him off, beyond caring if he insulted the man and the work. “Like most species on the planet — including us — the Odokuro’s DNA is a hodgepodge of active genes, junk, and pieces of code gained from exposure to viruses and bacteria. In fact, it was infections in the wasps by ancient Lazarus microbes that gifted the species with its ability to hibernate for ages.”

Oshiro shrugged. “And what’s your point?”

“The missing protein — this ghost peptide — can’t be found because its code is an evolutionary dead end.” He pointed to a member of Gamma Team. “You showed me the methylation of the DNA in those genes, how the gene sequence is locked up by epigenetic markers.”

“Hai,” the man nodded.

“Those epigenetic markers — which decorate the DNA like Christmas tree lights — regulate whether that code is ever expressed, whether the DNA will ever produce a protein like the one you’ve been hunting.” Ken stared across the group before settling his gaze on Oshiro. “In other words, this old bit of useless code was locked up long ago and the key thrown away.”

Oshiro visibly swallowed.

Ken shrugged. “Without that perfect key, this sequence will never produce any protein. And to forge such a key — one that basically has the equivalent of a million facets and permutations — is all but impossible.”

Oshiro looked at the worried faces of the group. None of them would meet the director’s eye. “If you’re right…”

“This research is a dead end,” Ken concluded.

The muscles along Oshiro’s jaw visibly tightened. He spoke as if each word pained him. “Perhaps Takashi Ito was right about you. Maybe you have some use after all.”

Oshiro nodded to the guard. Apparently after passing this test, Ken was about to be offered a permanent position, one he could not refuse.

Still, how could I ever work for this group?

Steel coursed up his spine as he prepared to accept the inevitable.

Then a loud siren burst across the space, ringing with alarm and urgency.

Everyone froze, momentarily stunned.

Ken was the only one to let out a sigh of relief.

Talk about saved by the bell.

As the Klaxon continued to blare, Gray crouched atop the landing of a basement stairwell. Above his head, large steel blast doors closed off the way into the tower’s upper levels. He imagined similar doors were sealing all other exits.

They’re buttoning this place up.

While Gray’s strike team had managed to slip inside here in time, what could they do now?

Aiko sought to gain that information. She knelt over the cowering form of a lab tech on the landing. Hoga held a blade against the frightened man’s neck, while Aiko spoke rapidly in Japanese. While she interrogated the man, Endo guarded the outer hallway, firing three-round bursts to encourage any evacuating personnel to seek another exit.

Both of Aiko’s men had removed their helmets but continued to wear their black masks, still looking like faceless ninjas. The team had encountered very little resistance getting here. As they had hoped, most of the building’s security had been drawn to the firefight at the main entrance.

The alarm suddenly fell silent.

The resulting quiet was unnerving.

Aiko finally straightened and sent her captive scurrying out into the hallway. She turned to Gray. “He said a man matching Professor Matsui’s description was taken to subbasement four.” She pointed down the stairs. “To a toxicology research lab.”

“And Seichan?”

Aiko shook her head. “He didn’t know.”

Gray had no choice but to accept this, knowing Aiko had done her best. He could only hope that Ken and Seichan were still together. “Let’s go.”

They ran down three more flights to reach the fourth level. Access to a fifth was blocked by a set of locked red doors. They ignored that mystery for now and continued out into this level.

Aiko gave curt directions, following the intel gained from her interrogation. They crossed through a series of empty corridors. Occasional faces peered out of rooms, then ducked away at the sight of the guns.

“At the end of the hall.” Aiko pointed to a set of double doors emblazoned with a biohazard symbol. “That should be the place.”

Gray increased his pace. He reached the doors first and burst through into a large biolab full of high-tech equipment and instrumentation. He kept his SIG Sauer leveled, sweeping the room as the others spread out to either side.

The place had been hastily abandoned. Papers were scattered across workstations, and glassware was shattered on the floor. One computer station smoked, as if someone had fried its hard drive.

Gray turned to Aiko, a cold stone weighing down into his gut.

They’re not here.

Ken ran low along one wall of a darkened hallway.

What am I doing?

Four minutes ago, he had made a rash decision. As the evacuation siren sent the lab into a state of panic, Ken had sought to get out of everyone’s way, fearing he might be trampled. For that brief spell, he was the least of anyone’s concern. Even Oshiro had claimed the armed guard for himself, drawing the man in his wake as he crossed to a tall wall safe.

Ken took advantage of the distraction to shift to the set of red double doors at the back of the lab. Since arriving here, he had wanted to get a look behind there, to discover what research was being kept hidden from Oshiro.

Still, at that moment, a new motivation spurred him.

As he had hoped, someone inside responded to the Klaxon and burst out those doors. Ken had imagined there must be other exits, since no one had come or gone during the hours he had spent in Oshiro’s lab. But for at least one tech, the red doors were the closest exit.

Ken used the chance to duck through the entrance behind the fleeing man. As the doors shut behind him, a lock engaged with a buzz of gears. He knew Oshiro did not have the clearance to follow him. With a barricade now between him and his captors, he set off into this secure area.

As he snuck down the corridor, he heard voices rising from an open doorway ahead. Light spilled into the hallway. He approached cautiously. With the sirens ominously quieted, he feared being heard.

Once he reached the doorway, a quick peek revealed a tiny room lined by a bank of sinks. Shelves held packs of green gowns and boxes of gloves. The place smelled strongly of soap and iodine. It was clearly a surgical scrub room.

Past a window into the next room, a broad lamp illuminated a pair of gowned and masked figures working around an operating table. From their hurried motions, the evacuation alarm must have caught them in mid-surgery.

Ken was about to continue past, not wanting to be spotted, when the taller of the two stepped aside, revealing the patient draped on the table.

Seichan…

Fearing the worst, he slipped into the scrub room and peered through the window.

“We have no time to induce a coma and prep her,” the surgeon said with clear exasperation. “We’ll have to abandon using her as a test subject.”

“Hai, Dr. Hamada,” a nurse responded. “What about the fetus?”

“If we’re quick, we should be able to harvest it. She’s already passed out from the pain. While she’s strapped down, we’ll simply perform a hysterectomy without anesthesia. We’ll remove the uterus and fetus as a whole. It’s not ideal, not what I had hoped, but the fetal stem cells will still be of great use.”

“I’ll prepare a surgical pack.”

“Be quick. The bunker below could become compromised at any moment. They’ll only hold the exit through there for so long.”

“Hai.”

As the nurse shifted over to a set of shelves, Dr. Hamada loomed over his patient, still plainly frustrated.

“I hate to lose this opportunity,” he told the nurse. “But maybe it doesn’t matter. The MRI showed signatures in her musculature suggestive that the second instars are beginning to thicken, preparing to molt into the third instars. Some larvae probably have already started the process early.” He shrugged. “It’s a shame. Though in all likelihood, we’d have been hard-pressed to learn much from the viable embryo before it was consumed by the next hatching.”

Aghast at these plans, Ken searched the small room, looking for a weapon. He kept one eye on the operating room. The nurse returned with a sealed pack, placed it on a stainless steel tray, and ripped it open.

Out of time…

He grabbed what he could, swallowed hard, then slammed into the room. The nurse was closest to the door. She jumped around, crying out in surprise. He lifted the nozzle of the fire extinguisher and blasted her in the face. Blinded, she clawed at her eyes, stumbling backward.

He swept past her and swung the extinguisher by its handle. He clubbed the doctor in the side of the head. Metal clanged against skull, and the man went down to his knees, then crashed headlong to his face.

Ken returned his attention to the nurse. The woman had cleared her eyes enough to see her boss on the floor. He took a threatening step toward her. It was enough. She turned tail and ran for the exit. Ken didn’t have time to chase her down. He could only pray the chaos of the evacuation would delay her ability to raise any significant response.

Still, he hurriedly undid the straps binding Seichan to the table. Her head lolled drunkenly as he freed her ankles, her lips twisting in a rictus of pain. For now, she remained lost in a delirium of agony and exhaustion.

He moved next to the IV line that ran from a fluid bag to a catheter in her arm. His fingers closed over the line, about to rip it away. His initial plan had been to drag her bodily off the table and over to some hiding place.

But what then?

He realized such a scheme would likely end with them either recaptured or dead. So instead, he turned to a crash cart standing nearby. He yanked open the top drawer, revealing an array of emergency drugs. His fingertips ran over the bottles as he read the labels. He paused at an ampule of morphine, weighing the effectiveness of the pain reliever against the risk to the child.

Not yet…

He moved on, settling instead on epinephrine. He had to trust that if he could jump-start Seichan out of her pain-induced fugue, she could handle the torment on her own. At least long enough for them to escape from here.

He loaded a syringe, crossed to Seichan, and poked the needle into the injection port of her IV. He clamped the line and pushed the plunger. He didn’t know how much to administer, so he titrated the drug in slowly.

Such caution was excruciating.

He breathed through clenched teeth.

C’mon…

On the floor next to him, Dr. Hamada groaned, echoing Ken’s own sentiment. He remembered the doctor’s warning about the pending threat to Seichan’s unborn child, how the larvae inside her were already beginning to transition from the second to third instars.

He stared at Seichan’s exposed belly.

Dear God, please be wrong.

The larva moved slower through the macerated muscle. Its gut was distended, packed full, unable to hold more. It had grown tenfold since its last molt — now a healthy half a centimeter in length — but its segmented exoskeleton could stretch no farther and had begun to darken. The strain in the underlying epidermis triggered glands behind its brain to excrete a hormone, ecdysone, to ready the larva to shed its skin once more.

Compromised, it moved slower now, feeding less — both because it could no longer use the fuel to grow and because its mandibles had begun to harden, making it difficult to chew. A thick lubricating gel built up between its soft epidermis and tough outer cuticle. Glands in its head and thorax swelled with liquid silk, readying for when it would weave a bed upon which it would imbed tiny claws. At that point, it would grow quiescent for several hours, until it was ready to split out of its old skin and wriggle free.

Still, the time was not quite right. Its body was still undergoing changes. Faint white patches — imaginal discs — had formed along its flanks, marking where wings would eventually grow. Silvery strings wound through its length, waiting to become future trachea.

As it slugged dully through the tissues, it bumped into something hard. Mandibles tested and probed the obstruction in its path, defining the oblong shape.

It identified the dense packet of silk in its way. Smelling through that woven mat, it sensed what was hidden there.

As it squirmed around the obstruction, more details emerged, revealing the metamorphosis that was under way inside that silk nest. Another larva lay rooted inside there.

This other was quiet and unmoving — but only on the surface. Inside that dead husk, life continued to change and incubate. A fresh layer of cuticle formed under there. A new set of mandibles grew, designed for drilling through bone.

Once the larva was past this obstruction, its progress continued to slow, approaching the moment when it, too, would spin a nest and begin its own transformation.

As it forged ahead, an evolutionary certainty grew.

It would not be long now.

34

Seichan woke with a stab of pain between her eyes, bright enough to blind her. Decades of brutal training with the Guild had taught her to control her autonomic reflexes. Despite the throbbing in her head and confusion, she remained still, forced her breathing to remain even, to give no sign she was awake.

She slivered her eyelids open once the initial flare died away.

Bright lights hung over her head. A hard, cold table chilled the bare skin of her back. The strong tang of antiseptic struck her nose. Her heart pounded fast—too fast — racing when it shouldn’t be.

A frantic voice whispered a mantra to her left: “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…”

She recognized Professor Matsui’s accent, heard the urgency and panic in his voice.

Still, she remained quiet, taking in her environment for another breath. Using her peripheral vision, she absorbed every detail in a glance.

I’m in an operating room.

Ken stepped fully into view. He held a syringe in one hand and fumbled with a glass bottle in his other. “Can’t risk giving her too much,” he mumbled to himself as he stabbed the needle into the bottle.

She again noted the unnatural flutter to her racing heart.

Drug-induced.

Adrenaline…

Realizing the man must be trying to wake her, she shifted her face toward him. As she did so, a shadow rose behind Ken. The figure’s features were masked, his form draped in a surgical gown.

Still, she recognized him.

Dr. Hamada…

Hands reached for Ken’s throat.

Seichan moved.

With her agonized muscles already tensed, she sprang off the table, shedding surgical drapes from her half-naked form. Without ever taking her eyes off of Hamada, her hand lashed out and grabbed a scalpel from an open surgical pack. An IV pole toppled over, ripping the catheter from her arm. As she leaped, her other arm pushed Ken out of her way, then hooked around Hamada’s throat.

She whipped behind the doctor and pressed the tip of the scalpel under the angle of his jaw, positioning it against the man’s pounding carotid.

A drop of blood formed there.

“Do we need him?” Seichan asked through cracked lips.

It took Ken a moment to collect himself and realize the intent of her question. His gaze flicked between the scalpel and her captive’s face. Hamada tensed in her grip, clearly recognizing that his life balanced on Ken’s next words.

“I don’t… maybe…” Ken searched back toward a set of swinging doors leading out of here. “There was a siren, an evacuation. I heard him mention something about a way out, through some bunker.”

“You’re going to show us,” she hissed in the doctor’s ear. She kneed him in the back of the legs and dropped him to the floor, then passed the scalpel to Ken. “Guard him.”

He took the blade with trembling fingers, but his grip firmed quickly.

She dashed over to a discarded pile of gowns in a bin marked with a medical waste symbol. She quickly donned one, ignoring the dried spray of blood across the front. She tucked her hair under a surgical bonnet and tied a mask around her neck, letting it hang loose to her chin. She could always lower her face into it to further obscure her features. She hoped her half-Asian heritage would allow her to pass as part of the Japanese medical staff.

Once ready, she had Ken do the same. The professor dashed to the next room and returned in less than a minute in surgical scrubs.

She forced Hamada to his feet. “Show us the way out of here — and you might live.”

The doctor nodded vigorously. “There’s an elevator at the end of the hall.”

They set off in a tight group. She balled a fist in the back of Hamada’s gown and pressed her scalpel into his side. She trusted the doctor to recognize that a stab and twist into his right kidney would produce a mortal injury.

As they headed off, blood dripped from her wrist, flowing from where her catheter had ripped away.

She felt little pain — suspiciously so.

She turned to Ken. “Did you shoot me up with something? Morphine, fentanyl?”

She remembered Hamada’s concern about the risk of strong analgesics to the child inside her.

“No,” Ken answered. “Just epinephrine. Why?”

“Doesn’t matter. Pain’s just not as intense as before.”

Ken and Hamada shared a look.

“What?” she asked, noting the worry on the professor’s face.

“Before molting into the third instars, the larvae will grow quiet for a short spell. That might be what you’re experiencing. But when those new instars hatch…”

His voice died away, speaking volumes to the pain and threat to come.

She understood. Right now, she was experiencing the calm before the storm.

Any further discussion ceased as they reached the elevators at the end of the hall. She used the key card hanging from Hamada’s neck to call the cage. Once the doors brushed open, they hurried inside.

Seichan noted the elevator only went down one level — not up toward the surface. She had Ken block the doors from closing and dug the scalpel through the cloth of Hamada’s gown until the doctor winced.

“Is this a trap?” she asked.

“No, no,” he insisted with a pained expression. “In case of an enemy incursion, the basement labs are all locked down. Only top personnel have access to Sublevel Five. The research bunker below has its own evacuation route, to ensure the survival of critical assets to the company.”

Seichan glanced to Ken to see if he had any additional insight.

He looked worried as he nodded to Hamada. “I overheard him say the exit down below might not be open for long.”

“That’s true,” the doctor warned.

With no other recourse and time running short, she moved deeper into the elevator and nodded for Ken to do the same. As the doors closed, a loud explosion echoed down the hallway, as if trying to stop them.

Too late now.

Gray waved smoke from his face. He crouched halfway across the circular lab, shielded behind a stout workstation. Aiko and Palu flanked him. The team’s other two masked members, Hoga and Endo, were closer to the damage after slapping charges onto the locking mechanism of a set of large red metal doors.

As Gray watched, the doors toppled into the room, falling through the smoke.

“Get up!” Palu ordered, speaking to the man crouched at his side.

His name was Yukio Oshiro, the head of the research lab. Several minutes ago, after they had discovered the lab was empty, the man had rushed into the room, yelling in Japanese that all the exits from the basement levels had been blocked. His tone was demanding, believing them to be members of the facility’s security unit.

That misconception was quickly dismissed when weapons were leveled at his chest, and Aiko ordered him to his knees, with his hands on his head.

She took two minutes to efficiently interrogate him. She quickly learned of his role here and forced him to open a wall safe where research files had been stored per evacuation orders. The safe’s lock required a retinal ID. The man’s right eye was already swelling from where Endo had slammed the scientist’s face into the reader when he tried to resist.

After all the files had been gathered and secured in the team’s backpacks, they continued their hunt for Ken and Seichan. Oshiro knew nothing about Seichan, but from his deep scowl, he knew Professor Matsui. It seemed Ken had slipped away during the confusion, locking a door between him and any pursuers.

Smart…

Gray waved toward the blasted doors. With the way now open, they set off into the secured section of the facility. Oshiro had no clearance beyond those doors, so he likely could offer no guidance from here, but Palu dragged him along anyway. The scientist surely knew more about the ongoing research than could be found in the files alone.

So for the moment, he was of value.

As they continued down the hallway, they passed a series of empty surgical suites and medical labs. They called out furtively for Ken but got no reply.

Gray grew concerned, knowing they had only a limited window to execute a rescue. The files and Oshiro were too important to risk. If there was any information in them that could help with the Odokuro scourge, it had to be brought to light.

Aiko seemed to recognize this and cast a hard glance at Gray, her concern easy to read. They still had enough explosives to blast their way out of the sealed basement. But with every minute they delayed down here, they risked everything — all for a hunt that might be futile.

What if Ken had been caught and was already dead?

Hoga paused a few yards ahead and dropped to a knee. He lifted a pair of fingers in the air, the tips wet and dark.

Blood.

Despite the risk to their mission, Aiko pointed forward, willing to follow the trail for now. The hallway ended at a set of elevator doors. They were painted red, like the ones they had blasted through to get here.

Endo waved to a small door off to the side. A thin window revealed a series of stairs leading down.

Not up.

If Ken had made it this far, there was only one direction to go from here.

Unfortunately, the door was locked.

As Hoga and Endo prepared another charge, Gray confronted Oshiro. “What’s down there?”

The researcher shook his head. “I don’t—”

“There had to be rumors,” Gray said, cutting him off. Even in top-secret government facilities, everyone whispered and wondered. “What have you heard?”

Oshiro looked down.

Palu shook him by the collar. “Tell him.”

The man’s answer was meek with shame. “Human… human experimentation.”

“Proceed with Phase Two,” Takashi ordered over the scrambled phone line.

“Hai, Jōnin Ito.” The speaker was the commander of the company’s island base in the Norwegian Sea. “It will be done.”

As Takashi knelt at his desk, he pictured a dozen planes lifting off from icy airstrips. In a matter of hours, the fleet would spread far and wide, seeding their colonizing loads of wasps across major cities throughout Europe.

With the command given, he ended the call.

It was his seventh and final.

Already planes should be rising from the other islands owned or leased by Fenikkusu Laboratories around the globe. With the exception of Antarctica, no continent would be spared.

Satisfied nothing could stop the wrath he had unleashed, he rose slowly from his desk. He needed his cane to support him. He reached to where it rested against his low desk. His thin fingers clasped hard to the fiery rose-gold phoenix crowning the cane’s head. The sharp feathers and beak of the symbol pinched the thin skin of his palm as he leaned on the cane’s length, taking deep breaths.

Even this small effort taxed him.

Once he caught his breath, he thumped across a series of tatami rugs that covered the teak floor. The mats were made of woven dried rushes, wrapped around a core made up of a traditional rice stalk, unlike the cheaper modern versions that used synthetics.

He reached the wall of his office and slid aside a shoji screen to reveal his personal safe. It took him two tries to use his right palm to unlock it. He silently cursed the new security system his grandson had insisted on installing.

Look where such caution got you, Masahiro.

Feeling suddenly older, he opened the thick door and removed the lone contents of the safe. Sealed in a chunk of Lucite was a broken piece of amber, which in turn trapped the bones of a prehistoric reptile. The creature had been identified as a juvenile Aristosuchus, a small crocodile-headed dinosaur from the early Cretaceous Period. Its bones and skull were found to be rife with cysts from the wasps.

Still, Takashi preferred the original, more elegant name for the relic.

The Demon Crown.

He leaned his cane against the wall, knowing he would need both hands to carry the treasure to his desk. Though heavy, it was only a fraction of the original artifact stolen from the tunnels under Washington, D.C. The rest had been consumed over the decades by the research into its deadly mysteries.

He cherished what remained, knowing the blood spent and the life lost to bring it to Japan. Finally, a promise made long ago, one frozen in amber, had been fulfilled. The operation realized these last days served as both personal vengeance and a long-overdue national triumph.

Once at his desk again, he glanced over to his abandoned cane.

He stared at the phoenix, a symbol of the wasps’ eternal nature, of the Odokuro’s ability to rise from their own ashes, undying and eternal.

As will be the new Japanese Imperium.

It was his gift to Miu, for her sacrifice, for her love.

Even from the heights of his office, he could hear the continuing battle on the ground floor as Japanese forces attempted to assault the Ice Castle. Explosions and gunfire echoed to him, but they sounded so distant, so petty and small.

Instead, he stared out the window toward the summit of Mount Fuji. Lightning played across the mountaintop, illuminating vast piles of black clouds. The storm’s force made a mockery of the feeble fight below.

Still, it would not be wise to linger any longer.

He retrieved his phone and made one last call before he headed to his personal helicopter atop the pagoda. It waited to whisk him to a secure facility. He was done here. He needed nothing more from this place than what rested on his desk, representing a piece of Miu’s broken heart.

He placed his palm atop the Demon Crown.

It is done, my love.

He heard the telltale click on the phone as the connection was made. The head of the facility’s security answered curtly. The man had been awaiting this call, ready to receive Takashi’s final command. He gave it, ordering the incendiary charges built throughout the structure of the pagoda to be ignited.

It was time for the Ice Castle to burn.

35

Abandon all hope…

Elena remembered Monk’s words from when they’d first entered the mine. She could not help but think of Dante’s warning as she followed the others up the ramp and into the cavernous space beyond.

Tension and a vague sense of dread quashed any conversation. Clara’s brother Piotr remained at the entrance, in case the secret door decided to close on its own.

As the rest of the group ventured inside, their lights pierced the darkness, the beams scattering away in all directions. The sound of splashing water drew Elena’s attention to the left. A giant wooden waterwheel hung high on the neighboring wall, turning in a stream of water flowing from the roof and draining down a hole in the floor.

She pictured a secret lake above her head and noted the open hatch in the roof through which the water poured. The hatch must have been triggered when Kat pressed the wasp-shaped button, setting the wheel and wooden gears in motion to lower the ramp.

The old mechanism was frosted white, suggestive that the passing ages had petrified the wood with salt, like the logs Clara had patted earlier.

Only this wood still talked—or more aptly moaned.

The gears creaked ominously, while the revolving wheel groaned a low complaint.

The mournful tone sent a shiver through her. Or maybe it was the sudden chill. The air in the cavern was far colder, smelling of salt and dampness, along with something bitter and acrid.

Like an old campfire doused with water.

The team continued across the threshold into the cavern. The roof arched three stories overhead. The space’s volume easily matched that of the Chapel of St. Kinga, but within a few steps, it became clear this chamber was no cathedral to a saint.

The stone underfoot grew darker, blackened by old fires.

A number of piles dotted the floor.

Kat examined the closest. “Charred bones,” she concluded and cast her light across the scores of other mounds. Some were curled tightly; others stretched longer.

“Must be the remains of the miners who were trapped here.”

Monk had stepped over to a larger heap. “Their horses, too,” he added with a sad shake of his head.

Elena remembered the story of the miners and their horses, how they seldom, if ever, saw the light of day. Such an arrangement was a ready-made isolation ward. It was no wonder the mine had been able to contain the contagion released here.

And keep it secret.

As they tread carefully through the grave mounds, Clara made the sign of the cross, tapping her fingertips to her forehead, chest, and shoulders. Elena followed her example a second later, praying for protection.

Kat stopped to scuff a toe on the oily layer of soot surrounding a tall pile of ash. “To purge this place, they must’ve stacked wood in here, then flooded the chamber with lamp oil, before torching and sealing the cavern.”

Elena tried to imagine those trapped workers, studying the pattern of the mounds. She could read no panic in the spread, no rush toward the door. From what she could glean from Clara, the miners were a close-knit family. Most were probably too sick or recognized the threat they posed to the rest of the mine and sacrificed themselves for the greater good.

Elena made the sign of the cross again — only this time out of respect for the dead, knowing their suffering had saved the world back then by keeping this scourge from escaping the mine.

She looked across the bodies.

Here are the mine’s true saints.

“Come see this!” Sam called over from one side.

After entering, he and Dr. Slaski had chosen to avoid the graveyard and had shifted to the wall instead. A layer of soot obscured the lower quarter of the wall, as if those old flames had crashed like waves against there, blackening the stone.

As the rest of the group angled closer, the two men concentrated their lights higher. The bright beams seemed to penetrate the wall, igniting the stone to a rich ruddy glow.

Kat let out a small gasp, while Monk whistled sharply.

The two men stepped back, sweeping their lights higher and farther to either side.

“Amber,” Slaski said, glancing back to them. “It’s all amber.”

The shock of the sight drew everyone to splay their beams across the walls and roof. Everywhere they pointed, the stone absorbed the light and shone it back out with an inner fire.

“It’s like we’re in a bubble of the gemstone,” Elena whispered.

“Maybe we are.” Slaski traced his fingertips along the wall. “Feel how smooth it is.”

Elena did. “It’s as if the amber melted and cooled.”

“Exactly,” Slaski said. “Amber softens at 150 degrees Celsius. It becomes moldable. Modern fabricators use this trait to heat slivers and small pebbles of amber. Once soft, they fuse the rubble under high pressure into larger pieces.”

Kat stepped back and craned around at the huge expanse. “You’re saying that’s what happened here?”

“Only on a far grander scale.” Slaski’s voice grew awed. “If this cavern is truly the source of Mr. Smithson’s artifact, it would make this deposit hundreds of millions of years old, formed before tectonic forces pushed the continents into their current positions, when this region was a pine-covered coastline of the ancient Tethys Sea. Heat and compression from those tectonic forces could’ve squeezed the soft amber along this stretch of the coastline, until gas and pressure molded it into this giant bubble.”

“That’s all well and good,” Kat said. “But if this is indeed where James Smithson acquired his sample, where was it excavated from?”

Clara pointed her flashlight toward the back of the cavern. The wall there was all dug out and crumbled. They headed in that direction.

As they traversed the cavern, iron cartwheels and the heads of pick-axes appeared half-buried in mounds of ash. Elena pictured the abandoned mining equipment being set aflame, burning away until only these iron skeletons were left behind.

Next to her, Sam and Slaski continued their examination of the wall. It seemed the cavern had preserved other remains, ones far more ancient.

Sam’s footsteps slowed as he pressed his flashlight against the amber, setting it aglow. He came to a sudden stop, his voice hushed by awe and excitement. “My god, I think that’s an intact Cyllonium.”

They all clustered around him.

Floating in the amber was a fist-sized winged insect.

“It’s a giant cicada,” Sam explained. “From the early Cretaceous Period.”

They barely had a moment to examine it before the entomologist hurried forward.

“And look over here. A whole flock of Austroraphidia, an extinct species of snakefly from the same period.”

Elena stared across the stretch of wall, where the creatures appeared to have taken flight through the amber. Each fly was five inches long, carried aloft by wings twice that length.

Sam continued, moving along in fits and starts, his flashlight flicking here and there. “Kararhynchus, a genus of beetle from the late Jurassic… Eolepidopterix, an extinct giant moth… Protolepis, one of the first true butterflies…”

He led them through this prehistoric terrarium frozen in amber: lines of massive ants, a centipede as long as Elena’s arm, a giant spider that was the stuff of nightmares. Amid this encyclopedia of extinct bugs, beetles, flies, and moths were also preserved pieces of ancient forests. Twigs and branches. Primitive cones. Giant broad leaves. Elena paused at a huge flower, whose snow-white petals appeared as fresh as the day they had first budded.

But that wasn’t all.

Kat pointed her flashlight at a leathery skull the size of a bowling ball, with a pointed crocodilian jaw lined by shark’s teeth. “Definitely saurian,” she whispered.

Monk nodded. “It’s like someone took a blender to a piece of Jurassic history and preserved it all in amber.”

“And all of it appears to date back to the same time period as Smithson’s artifact,” Kat added.

Sam waved from a few yards ahead. “Over here,” he said, his voice now grimmer.

As they joined him, Elena caught his eye, noting a flicker of fear there. Her heart began pounding harder.

He pointed his flashlight’s beam deep into the amber, revealing the horror hidden there. Captured in the stone was a dense swarm of familiar shapes, their carapaces striped in black and crimson.

Soldier wasps.

“The Odokuro,” Sam pronounced. “They’re here.”

So this is definitely the right place.

Kat was both relieved and horrified. For the past three minutes, she and the others had followed the curve of the wall. With every step, more and more incarnations of this infernal species appeared, from tiny males to huge breeders. As the group progressed, the number of competing species receded, replaced by the ravaging horde, until only the Odokuro were left.

And it was plain to see why.

“Ugh.” Elena turned her face from the sight of a small lizard whose belly had been ripped open, bursting forth with a frenzied mass of wasps.

The Odokuro had clearly burned through its prehistoric environment, consuming and utilizing all the biomass before it.

Two members of the party showed little interest in this alarming tableaux. Instead, Slaski and Clara had ventured farther ahead. The museum director had stopped, dropping down to one knee.

As Kat approached, she heard him speaking angrily in Polish to Clara, plainly aggravated. “What’s wrong?” Kat asked.

Slaski stood with a final spat of Polish that had to be a curse. He quickly collected himself and pointed to the next expanse of wall. Several blocks had been crudely hacked free, cutting through the blackened section near the floor to reveal the fresh amber beneath.

“This was not the handiwork of the miners who died here,” Slaski explained. “But thieves who came later.”

Kat understood. Someone had come here after it was all burned. Opportunists who must have heard of the priceless deposit and risked coming here in secret afterward.

“Black miners,” Clara explained, sounding as upset as Slaski. She glanced back to the entrance. “Maybe it is why someone went to such efforts to seal this place later.”

Monk leaned to Kat. “It could also explain how James Smithson had acquired his artifact. Maybe he bought it off one of these black miners.”

She nodded.

If so, Smithson probably learned of the tragedy here from the same source.

Kat pictured the first group of miners here, imagining their horror as they cracked through the prehistoric bones trapped in the amber, releasing and aerosolizing the cryptobiotic cysts. The men’s deaths must have been agonizing as those cysts hatched inside them, releasing a scourge of larvae — until finally their hollowed-out bodies burst forth with adult wasps.

While Kat stopped to inspect the damage along the wall, Sam continued past, sweeping his light high and low. From the corner of her eye, she noted him stop, back up a step, then lean closer to the wall, checking several spots with his flashlight.

He finally called over to them. “Guys, something… something’s wrong here.”

Now what?

Kat led the others to him, drawn by his dismay. As they joined him, their combined illumination brightened the section of amber before them, revealing swaths of Odokuro in all their horrendous incarnations.

She frowned, unable to fathom what so distressed the entomologist.

He drew closer to the wall, fixing his beam upon a few specimens. “I think these were already dead before they were trapped in the amber.”

“Why do you think that?” she asked.

“If you study them closer, you can see they’re malformed. Look at this soldier. Its exoskeleton has collapsed. The surrounding amber is stained.”

Kat squinted, while Elena lifted her reading glasses into place.

He’s right.

The wasp looked crushed, its shell cracked. A vague wisp darkened the surrounding amber, as if it were the insect’s spirit leaving its dead corpse.

“I think that’s blood,” Sam said. “As if the wasp bled out before it died.”

Monk peered closer, too. “Could it have been crushed by the pressures that molded and formed this bubble?”

“No.” Sam stepped back. “Look how all the wasps throughout this section show the identical damage, while the few other species found in this same section—Palaeolepidopterix over here, Tektonargus over there — show no such mutilation or injury.”

Sam faced them, his expression firm with certainty. “Whatever killed them did so before the amber preserved their bodies.”

Kat slowly nodded, accepting his conclusion. “If we could find out what that was…”

She stared across the group. She didn’t need to state the obvious. Here was the very purpose of this journey. Something in the prehistoric past had kept this apex predator from spreading, from completely dominating the ancient world.

But what could it be?

They continued forward as a group. Even Slaski and Clara followed, frowning at them, perplexed by their sudden urgency and distress.

Their lamps lit up the neighboring amber wall, revealing the ongoing destruction of the Odokuro. No incarnation was spared. Tiny scouts by the thousands formed mountainous piles of carcasses. More soldiers lay broken and shattered. A score of breeders hung in mists of their own blood.

But what was the source of this damage?

Several yards ahead, a flash of color on the floor caught Kat’s attention. She swung her flashlight in that direction. By now, others had noted it, too, adding their lights.

It was a body — but not the charred remains of a miner.

The dead man’s clothing was intact, his skin pale and sunken, contrasting with his coarse dark hair and beard. His expression — forever preserved by the high-sodium atmosphere — was one of shock and horror. A pick-axe lay nearby, long abandoned. Not that the man could have wielded it as his wrists were bound by rope.

The cause of his death was easy enough to discern.

His throat had been slashed open.

The reason for his execution was also evident.

Not far from his body stood a waist-high cube of amber, hacked from the nearby wall. It would have been worth a king’s ransom back then.

“One of the black miners,” Slaski said.

Clara shook her head sadly. “Such thievery was dealt with harshly.”

Sam had shifted over to examine the damaged section of the wall, which appeared to be darkly discolored, but not from the old fire. He then crossed over to the block of amber that matched that hue. He rested his flashlight atop the cube and began to kneel beside it — then he cried out, stumbling backward, falling on his rear end.

Under the glow of Sam’s flashlight, the block glowed like a lamp. The shine revealed the treasure inside. No wonder the dead miner had attempted to steal such a huge piece. How could he not with what was preserved inside it?

Sam rolled to his knees, never taking his eyes from the sight. His words were forlorn and dismayed. “Professor Matsui was wrong… everyone was wrong.”

36

“We’re far deeper down than just one floor,” Ken said as he stepped from the elevator onto Sublevel 5. He had felt the pressure change in his ears during the minute-long descent from the fourth subbasement to this lowermost section.

Even the temperature down here was several degrees cooler.

He checked the short corridor that led to a set of steel sliding doors.

Empty.

He waved for Seichan to follow him out. Dressed in a surgical gown and loose mask, she brusquely escorted Dr. Hamada by the arm. She had her other fist pressed against his side, where she threatened him with a hidden scalpel.

“How far down are we?” Seichan asked their captive.

“Seven… seventy meters,” Hamada stammered.

Ken inwardly cringed. That was equivalent to a twenty-story building buried underground. “Why so deep?”

“To serve as a bunker for our most sensitive work. It’s said this level could withstand a tactical nuclear strike. But it was also chosen for the natural insulation offered by the unique geology of this location.”

“What do you mean?” Seichan’s forehead shone with sweat, revealing the level of pain she was still experiencing — even after the larval load inside her had grown quieter.

“You’ll see for yourself.” Hamada waved to the sliding doors. “It’s on the way to this level’s emergency escape station.”

As they crossed the short distance, the doors glided open before them, revealing a circular lab identical in size to the one above. It had already been evacuated. A blinking green arrow pointed to another exit on the far side, likely leading to Hamada’s promised emergency exit for this level’s key personnel.

As they hurried toward it, Ken searched around him.

To the right and left were adjoining rooms holding banks of caged laboratory rats and rabbits. The workstations in the center held rows of centrifuges, thermocyclers, and autoclaves. Shelves were stacked with all matter of glassware, pipettes, and bottles of molecular enzymes, reagents, and buffers.

Ken’s feet slowed as he noted two significant labels: CAS9 and TRACRRNA PLASMID.

He turned to Hamada. “You’re performing Crispr/Cas here.”

Hamada shrugged.

Seichan looked questioningly at Ken.

He explained: “It’s a technique for ultrafine genetic engineering. With this equipment, you could cut and splice DNA as accurately as cutting letters out of an encyclopedia. And nearly as effortlessly.”

“What are you experimenting with here?” Seichan asked, drawing them momentarily to a stop. From the urgency in her voice and glint in her eye, she clearly hoped it had something to do with a cure.

“We’re doing a deep study on the wasps’ genetics,” Hamada said. “To tease out the secret to their astounding longevity.”

Cold dread iced through Ken. “You mean you’ve been experimenting with the section of the insect’s DNA that they borrowed from the Lazarus microbes that infected them ages ago.”

“Precisely. Over the past decade, we’ve had the chance to thoroughly study the borrowed fragments of DNA and found the Odokuro utilize them in a unique and amazing manner. The discovery holds great promise not only for life extension, but possibly even resurrection.”

Ken cast a harsh look at the man. “You’re insane.”

“I prefer forward-thinking,” Hamada countered. “Unfortunately, it’s taken until the development of sophisticated genetic tools — like the Crispr/Cas technique — before we could proceed with clinical trials.”

The doctor nodded to a bank of dark windows near the doors leading out.

Seichan pushed Hamada forward. Ken didn’t want to look through those windows, but he couldn’t stop himself. The edges of the glass were lightly frosted with ice on the far side, as if the neighboring room was kept at or below freezing.

Beyond the window, muted lighting revealed a long line of hospital beds. The patients were men and women, ranging in age from pubescent to elderly. They lay lifeless, hooked to all manner of monitoring equipment, IV lines, and EEG machines that traced their brain activity, which even from here looked leaden.

Hamada confirmed this. “They’re all in an induced coma. We’re not monsters. We maintain strict guidelines for pain and stress management of our subjects.”

Ken wanted to argue, but he could not talk.

Each patient exhibited signs of extreme brutalization. Both arms of one man had been burned, his skin blackened and cracked. Another’s abdomen lay open, the viscera inside dried like jerky. The closest woman had her lower half frozen in a block of ice. Everywhere Ken cast his gaze, the horrors compounded: mutilations, weeping boils, stripped skin, radiation burns.

He had remembered reading about Japanese camps in China during World War II, where scientists had performed ghastly biological experiments on prisoners and local villagers. Clearly someone had updated that program for the new millennium.

Hamada tried to justify his work as they passed along the windows, but from his halting manner, he could not fully hide his shame. “We’re performing stress challenges. On tissues, on organs. Establishing baselines before we begin testing in earnest the ability of the Lazarus genes to repair damaged bodies.”

Seichan had seen enough, her face a mask of fury. She knew this was where Hamada had been planning to take her, to be experimented upon — along with her unborn child.

Hamada gasped as Seichan jabbed him with the scalpel to get him to take the last steps to the exit. Ken was more than ready to leave. They had delayed long enough and learned nothing that would help Seichan.

Through the next set of doors, a maze of hallways led through offices and smaller labs. Blinking green arrows indicated the emergency evacuation route. The hallways grew colder as they went. With each turn, they began to move more quickly, sensing time was running out.

Finally, another set of red doors opened at the end of a hall.

A wintry rush of icy air washed over them.

They hurried through the doors and into what could pass as a pristine Japanese subway station. The long tubular chamber stretched before them, with a narrow platform running beside a sleek chain of seven white pill-shaped cars. Through tiny windows, figures could be seen standing there, packed inside.

Must be the last of the evacuating crew of this level.

Ken also spotted men with rifles slung over their shoulders. He kept his face down, his eyes diverted as they crossed toward the caboose of this train. Seichan did the same, balling her fist tighter into the back of Hamada’s scrub gown.

As they crossed the platform, the lead car suddenly zipped away, shooting silently down the dark tunnel. It was clearly electrically powered, but rather than running on a rail system, small spiked wheels on the undercarriage propelled it, stabilized by pairs of large skates on top and bottom.

Only then did Ken realize that the surfaces of the tubes were lined by polished ice. He remembered Hamada’s comments about the site being chosen for its natural insulation offered by the unique geology.

He now understood.

This was one of Mount Fuji’s many lava tubes. Colleagues back at Ken’s lab in Kyoto had shown him pictures of their trips to the Narusawa Ice Caves, on the volcano’s slopes, where caverns and tunnels were forever covered in ice and draped in crystalline stalactites. It was said the entire mountain here was riddled with such perpetually frozen passageways.

Clearly Fenikkusu Laboratories had taken advantage of this natural feature of the mountain, both for its constant refrigeration and for its ready-made tunnel system, perfect for engineering a secret escape route. He pictured the vanished car shooting under Lake Kawaguchi to some distant place of safety.

Now if only we could get there, too…

As they approached the last car, the doors opened before them. It appeared only half-full, offering plenty of room for three remaining stragglers rushing to safety.

Unfortunately, the half inside were heavily armed.

And led by a familiar figure, who stepped out to greet them.

Valya Mikhailov.

She was dressed in a white parka, the hood thrown back. Along with her pale face and snowy hair, she looked the queen of this icy station. Her haughty smile added to her guise of royalty and power.

Seichan drew Hamada in front of her, using the doctor as a shield. “Get back,” she warned Ken, urging him behind her.

Ken didn’t bother, remaining where he was.

Behind Valya, a team of hard-faced men and women, all armed, backed her up. He recognized a few from Ikikauō Atoll. These were her handpicked team, loyal and merciless.

Ken also recognized another face.

Valya held a large pistol in one hand, but clutched an older woman in blue scrubs. It was the nurse who had escaped the surgical suite. It seemed the woman had found someone to alert during the evacuation after all.

A muffled Klaxon sounded as another of the cars zipped away.

Ken glanced back and saw the last of the illuminated green arrows start to blink rapidly in red.

Valya noted the alarm and his attention. “It seems our illustrious leader has ordered the final destruction of this pagoda dedicated to science.” She leveled her pistol at them. “Not that it’ll be any concern of yours.”

She aimed and fired.

That can’t be a good sign.

Gray led the others at breakneck speed down an endless flight of steps. After Hoga and Endo had blown the red stairwell doors on the fourth subbasement level, they’d discovered a descent that appeared never-ending. He had already counted a dozen flights when the series of green glowing arrows they’d been following suddenly began blinking an angry red and a Klaxon rang out.

“Faster!” Gray goaded the others. He leaped steps, colliding off walls and bouncing around turns in the stairwell.

Aiko raced ahead, proving more fleet-footed. Hoga and Endo kept at her heels. Palu trailed behind them all, compromised by his panicked captive, Dr. Oshiro. The Hawaiian half-carried the researcher, with a thick arm around the man’s thin waist.

Then the expected BOOM… a whole series of them.

Gray crashed across the next landing as a cascading series of explosions rocked the tower’s foundation. He twisted around to check on the others.

Palu was sprawled headfirst down the stairs. He had saved himself from a concussion by snatching the handrail, but he had lost hold of his prisoner. Oshiro sat on his backside on the upper landing. The man’s eyes were huge with panic, but he also looked at his hands, as if acknowledging he was free.

Gray read the man’s next move. “Don’t!”

Oshiro hopped to his feet and bolted like a jackrabbit up the steps, fleeing his captors. The man quickly vanished around a turn.

Palu began to stand, ready to pursue him.

“Forget it.” Gray pointed down. “No time.”

This was confirmed as Oshiro howled above, his scream echoing down the stairwell. Gray felt the pressure change in his ears.

“Run!”

They fled again, even faster now, leaping from landing to landing, crashing around turns. The air grew hotter and denser. Each breath soon scorched. He heard a dragon roar behind him.

Gray pictured a wall of flames closing upon them from behind.

Then they finally reached the bottom of the stairs. The group banged out its lower doors and into a short hall.

“Keep going!” Gray hollered.

They raced in a tight group. A set of steel sliding doors opened before them, as if welcoming them into the security beyond. They fled through into a lab. A low whoosh drew Gray’s attention around.

The dragon had caught up with them.

Flames shot into the circular space, blistering the air as they leaped out of the way. Then the steel doors clamped closed again, stanching the flames, trapping the inferno outside. Sprinklers overhead responded to the blast and began spraying the space.

Better late than never.

Gray gathered everyone together. “We should—”

A volley of gunfire drew him around, echoing through an exit on the far side of the lab. His heart clenched in his chest.

Without him needing to order it, they all ran for the door.

With each step, the firefight grew louder.

Fight or die.

That had been Valya’s order as she slapped a SIG Sauer into Seichan’s palm. Seichan still didn’t understand the situation, and for the moment, she didn’t need to.

Seconds ago, Valya had fired her pistol at them. Her first shot dropped Dr. Hamada with a slug to his chest. Seichan had tried to hold him up as he collapsed, using his dead weight as a shield. Then Valya’s second shot blew away half the skull of the stunned nurse in her clutches.

As Valya shoved the body aside, she pointed her smoking weapon toward the last car. “Get inside.”

Seichan hadn’t moved, too pain-addled and surprised to make sense of it all.

Then doors opened along the chain of neighboring cars and armed gunmen came barreling out, more than two dozen, drawn by the blasts and murder. At first the security force — who were likely assigned to protect the key members of the research staff — had milled around in confusion.

Valya’s team took advantage and fired at them, taking down half in a savage volley. During the ensuing firefight, Valya had grabbed Ken and shoved him into the protection of the car and passed Seichan a weapon.

She crouched at Valya’s side now. Both of them sheltered in the open door of the last car. Valya braced high, Seichan low, down on one knee. Together they fired at the remaining handful of guards. Valya had lost four of her crew, who were sprawled on the platform. Others were wounded behind them in the car. Four more hid behind poles outside, trying to flank the enemy.

Valya cursed with every shot she popped off.

Seichan smelled the sweat and gunpowder wafting off her. Clearly Valya had underestimated the vigorous response from the security force down here. It had cost her dearly and put them all in jeopardy.

Another of her men tried to dash from his hiding place to get a better angle, but a crack shot dropped him before he could take four steps.

Valya growled her frustration, clearly recognizing this was becoming a stalemate. And time was not on their side.

Then the doors into the station opened. A new group burst forth between the two entrenched forces.

Seichan stared at the impossible sight.

Gray and Palu slid low across the platform, accompanied by a masked trio. They fired at the train of cars, aiming for the obvious threat of the armed guards.

Taking advantage of the newcomers’ arrival, Valya hollered to her remaining three men. “To me!”

They immediately obeyed and pounded into the car. Valya continued to offer fire support for Gray’s assault, picking off another guard. Seichan did the same.

In seconds, the fierce battle ended.

As if this were some signal, the lead train car jetted away down the tunnel, then the next, whisking on sharp blades across the ice.

Gray and the others came running toward the last car, weapons bristling.

He immediately spotted Seichan, relief shining from his face, but his eyes never left the pale form of the woman beside her. He leveled his weapon at Valya as he closed the distance.

Seichan stood up, blocking his shot, shielding the woman.

“Get out of the way,” Gray warned.

Seichan faced his fury. “Not yet.”

Gray scowled, baffled by Seichan’s reaction. When he had first burst in here, he had watched the pair firing in tandem from their shelter in the caboose of this sleek train. Apparently, with a common enemy to fight, the two adversaries were temporarily working together.

But that was over.

Gray’s group trained their weapons on the clutch of men inside, some wounded, others unharmed. The enemy, in turn, threatened them in the same manner.

What the hell was going on?

Valya holstered her pistol. With exaggerated care, she reached to a pocket and removed a small thumb drive. She tossed it at Gray, who caught it one-handed, while never lowering his gun.

His fingers closed over the drive. “What’s this?”

“A ticket out of here for me and my team.” She nodded to the device. “It contains the location of a warehouse holding barrels of gas canisters.”

“Gas?”

“Insecticide. Developed by Fenikkusu Laboratories. Effective against the wasps, but highly carcinogenic and toxic to many other species. It’ll cause a lot of heartbreak and environmental damage on its own, but it’ll get the job done.” She stared over at Aiko. “Fenikkusu Laboratories was planning to use that storehouse to protect these shores in the coming months and years, but it should do the same for Hawaii.”

Gray was suddenly glad he hadn’t shot Valya outright, especially with her next words.

“The drive is quantum-encrypted and will destroy itself upon any attempt to jailbreak it.” Valya glared at Gray. “I’ll send you the code once I’m safely gone.”

“And how can we trust you’ll do that or that there’s anything even on here?”

“I don’t want the world to end any more than you do. It doesn’t suit my own plans for the future. So I need you all to save it for me.”

Gray understood.

The cunning bitch intends for us to be tools for her own ambition.

He studied her crew. He recognized their hard countenances, having seen shadows of the same with Seichan at times. These were all former Guild. To have survived the worldwide purge of their organization, they had to be its most dangerous core.

Led by a woman with a heart as icy as her skin.

How can I let them leave, a seed that’ll grow into something far worse?

He sighed, knowing the answer.

That’s tomorrow…

He lowered his gun and waved for the others to do the same.

Valya’s lips thinned into a self-satisfied sneer. “As a sign of goodwill, I already sent an auto-destruct signal to a fleet of planes rising from islands around the globe, destined for major cities with their deadly cargo.”

Gray understood, picturing the trio of Cessnas flying pilotless toward the Maui coast.

“So you see,” Valya continued, “I’ve generously taken care of that problem so you can concentrate on the situation in Hawaii.” She shrugged at Seichan. “Unfortunately, the pesticide has no effect on the parasitized.”

Gray had feared as much. He reached over and took Seichan’s hand, feeling the feverish heat in her palm and fingers.

“Which means,” Valya said, “the threat already entrenched in Hawaii will rise again and again. Requiring constant retreatment with the toxic gas to stamp it back down. The cumulative environmental damage will be severe, and a quarantine will have to be maintained to protect the rest of the world.”

Gray glanced over to Palu, whose face had gone ashen. Such a course was not the best solution, but it was the only one they had.

By now, the three remaining train cars had already zipped off, leaving only the caboose. Knowing he had no choice but to cooperate, Gray waved his team inside with the Guild.

As the doors closed, Valya turned her gaze up. “Oh, and I granted you one additional parting gift.”

Takashi Ito stood before the windows of his office, staring out at the storm raging over Mount Fuji. Flashes of lightning crackled through dark clouds. He listened to the thunder, felt it through his palms pressed to the glass.

It echoed the rage inside him.

When he had first stepped to the window, the pane had been cold, swept by rain and thin patters of hail. Already it had become warm, heated by the flames in the tower below as the incendiary charges burned their way through the pagoda’s steel infrastructure. Fires raged below. Glass shattered in bright shards, reflecting the flames.

Behind him, smoke poured under the door from the hallway behind him.

No one had come for him.

When he had tried to leave, he found the door blocked on the far side.

He pictured his private secretary dead, likely the same with the helicopter crew atop the tower. Even prior to that, he had watched on his laptop as calls came in from various installations, passing on feed from the dispatched fleet. Video showed plane after place exploding in midair and raining down into seas around the world.

He knew only one hand could have orchestrated all of this.

A hand as white as the finest porcelain.

Chūnin Mikhailov.

He now suspected the woman had not been entirely truthful about the fate of his grandson, Masahiro. Even still, he respected her ambition, which was apparently boundless. From her actions, she clearly refused to settle for a world in ruins, one where her options would be limited, her future confined and forever restricted by Japanese overlords.

Still, she must be punished.

He had already taken measures to ensure that, knowing the most likely route she would take to escape. The facility had been engineered with one last fail-safe, intended for a worst-case scenario. But it would not be a cleansing fire this time.

Instead, something equally purifying.

Contented in this matter, he turned from the window and headed back toward his low desk. Smoke fogged the room, making it difficult to breathe.

He dropped to his knees, meaning to do so gracefully, but he struck the floor hard, jarring his bones. He ignored the pain and sat before his desk. As he stared out at the storm, knowing it would be his last, he reached for a thick piece of paper.

Without looking down, he made one crease, then another. His fingers moved from memory. He studied the storm, but he could no longer echo its rage. Fold after fold, he worked. Slowly shape took form.

When he was done, a white origami lily rested on his desk.

Miu’s favorite.

He gently lifted it and placed it atop the block holding the last fragment of the Demon Crown. For him, a fractured piece of his wife’s heart.

Flames now crested the windows, dancing brightly.

It will not be long now.

Smoke already choked his throat and lungs. His body would soon burn, becoming one last offering of incense to his beloved.

Miu…

The nineteenth-century words of Otagaki Rengetsu returned to him now, speaking to the wonders and mysteries of incense.

He prayed now, dropping his eyes from the ferocity of the storm to the gently folded blossom, to what it represented.

Please let me go there.

Ken clutched a strap hanging from a rail overhead. As the car whisked through the frozen lava tube, the inside of the cab remained starkly divided. Valya’s group took up residence at the front, their team at the back. No one spoke; no one took their eyes off the others.

The only noise was the rattle of the car and low whine of its electric engine. The sound grew grating after the first few minutes.

He shouldn’t have complained.

The car suddenly went dark, and the engine died.

The sudden deceleration threw everyone forward, forcing the two parties together. After a moment of confusion and jostling, lights mounted on assault rifles flashed on, illuminating the dark cab.

“What happened?” Palu asked, climbing to his feet.

Gray craned around. “Someone must’ve shut us down.”

“But who?” Seichan asked.

Valya had a two-word answer. “Takashi Ito.”

The car began to move again slowly — but backward. Without power, the car was sliding down the sloped tunnel toward the station.

Gray had crossed to the door. “If we can pry this open, we could still hop out and go on foot.”

“We’ll never make it,” Valya said, cocking her head. “Listen.”

Ken strained to hear past the pounding of his heart. After a breathless moment, he heard a low rumbling coming from behind them. “What is that?” he whispered.

Gray’s posture stiffened. “Water.”

“Lake water,” Valya corrected.

Earlier, Ken had imagined the path of this subterranean train, picturing it passing under Lake Kawaguchi.

Valya scowled. “Ito must have drilled and planted charges along the lava tube. Right under the lake above our head. Engineered to flood the place in case of emergency, to wash away any evidence of his activities below the tower.”

Including us, Ken thought.

The car continued sliding toward certain doom.

Gray ordered Valya’s men. “Help me with the door.” Then he turned to Aiko’s partners. “Hoga and Endo, how many demolition charges do you have left?”

One held up four fingers, the other two.

“It’ll have to do.”

With Palu helping, Gray and the others forced the door open. Walls of ice glided past. Gray addressed the entire group. “Out. We’ll need everybody’s weight and strength to stop the cab while we still can.”

No one argued.

Ken followed everyone out. As the car slowly picked up speed, they all edged to the back of the car and hurried to positions behind the lower skates. As one, they shouldered into the car, bracing with their legs.

Their boots slipped on the ice underfoot. They were like ants trying to halt a tantalizing morsel from rolling downhill. Even with the car mostly made of a lightweight plastic composite, it was still too heavy to stop.

Then Ken had a thought.

He fell out of position and dropped onto his back. He let the car roll over him, its large spiked wheels passing ominously to either side. He searched the undercarriage.

C’mon…

Then he saw it.

A hatch near where he imagined the engine block was located.

He quickly yanked the releases but hung from the door’s edge as the car continued to slide. As he had hoped, row after row of battery packs filled the compartment. With his free hand, he began prying them out, letting them drop to the ice, leaving a trail in the sliding car’s wake.

Each weighed thirty pounds.

By the time he had freed fifteen or so, lessening the cab’s weight by a quarter ton, the car began to slow — then finally stop.

Sighing with relief, he shimmied back to the others. Palu grabbed his ankles and dragged him the rest of the way out, giving him a bear hug.

“Quick thinking,” Gray acknowledged.

“I… I own a Prius,” he said with a shrug. “Swear half its weight is batteries.”

He glanced several yards back. Hoga and Endo were quickly planting their charges around the circumference of the tunnel. As the pair worked, Gray instructed Valya’s men to collect several of the abandoned battery packs and jam them against the rear wheels to hold the car in place.

Once everything was ready, Gray waved. “Everyone back in!”

He had to yell to be heard above the approach of rushing water. By now, the draining lake must have flooded the lower level of the tower and it was shooting toward them.

Breathless with fear, Ken followed the others into the cab.

As the doors closed, Gray pointed to Aiko’s partners. “Blow it.”

A button on a detonator was pressed.

The explosion rocked the car forward a foot. Even through the insulation of the cab, the blast was deafening, pounding eardrums and chest. Ice and rock pelted the car’s stern and rattled past the windows.

As it ended, Ken stared back. “I don’t understand. Will the cave-in be enough to dam all that water?”

Gray shook his head. “Not a chance.”

“Then what—?”

“Think of a cork in a champagne bottle.”

Before he could imagine it, the raging waters struck the blockage of ice and rock with a thunderous strike. The plug only held for a fraction of a second — then was blasted forward.

The mass hit the rear of the car like a battering ram and drove them forward hard. The two groups tumbled to the back, tangled together.

The force of the flood pushed the cab up the tunnel. Water splashed alongside the window, but so far, the car continued to race in front of the worst of the deluge.

No one tried to get up, remaining on the floor.

Finally, their flight slowed — as equilibrium was reached between the draining lake and the elevation of the tube. No longer propelled by the force of the water, the car came to a halt. Gray herded everyone out again. A hundred yards ahead, lights beckoned.

They hurried in that direction, carrying the wounded.

Even Gray had one arm around Seichan and the other around the waist of one of the enemy.

The tunnel emptied into a long concrete-block warehouse. The other cars waited there, having arrived safely before the power was cut. They were all empty, abandoned by those fleeing.

Their group headed outside into a sullen rain.

The storm was dying down, rumbling with some final complaints. Off to the side, Gray conversed with Valya, their heads bowed together. He was likely exacting a promise from her, to keep her word.

Her response reached Ken as she stepped away with her men. “This is not how I wished matters to end.” She cast a hard, pitying look at Seichan, who only glowered back. “Better it be a bullet. But at least, you’ll be able to say your goodbyes.”

As they left, Gray hooked an arm around Seichan. She leaned her tired head on his shoulder. It seemed the two had already begun their long and painful road to that goodbye.

Unable to watch, Ken wandered away. They were somewhere high up the slopes of Mount Fuji, which offered a panoramic view across Lake Kawaguchi. Its waters were now banded by wide, muddy banks as the lake drained below.

Beyond its far shore, a fiery beacon glowed under low storm clouds.

It was all that was left of the Ice Castle.

As Ken stared at the burning structure, a suspicion nagged at him, growing slowly into a certainty.

We missed something.

And now it was too late.

37

Elena crouched with the others around the giant block of amber. Sam’s flashlight still rested atop it, setting the stone to glowing.

“What is it?” she asked as she peered inside.

Sam stalked around the group, as if physically seeking a solution to the mystery presented. “It’s a chrysalis,” he answered. “A cocoon.”

Elena had already guessed as much. Preserved in the stone was a large, densely woven mass that was plainly a pupa of some sort. A darker halo of amber enclosed it, as if trying to hide the horror inside.

From a rupture along one side of the chrysalis, a creature the size of a small dog pushed out. Long antennae lay curled atop its bowed head. Huge black faceted eyes stared out at the party gathered around. Long-veined wings, which looked damp, remained forever folded over its arched back. A pair of jointed front legs perched at the top of the chrysalis.

Elena imagined it struggling to drag its body out of the cocoon before sap from some prehistoric pine trapped and consumed it.

Clearly it had lost that struggle.

Kat nodded to the monstrous beast. “Sam, I think Elena meant what’s emerging from that cocoon.”

He glanced at them as if the answer should be obvious. “It’s clearly Odokuro. Look at the characteristic pattern along its abdomen. Black and crimson. Even the mandibles — which are as unique as fingerprints in the insect world — mark it as a member of that species. A genetic analysis would confirm it, but I’m already sure.”

Monk rubbed his chin, loudly scratching his beard stubble on the plastic of his prosthesis. “I read Professor Matsui’s dossier on the Odokuro. He reported nothing like this.”

“Because this incarnation never made an appearance in his lab.”

“But what is it?” Elena pressed him again.

Sam gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry. I think we’re looking at a never-before-seen Odokuro queen.”

“Wait.” Monk frowned. “I thought Professor Matsui said the Odokuro had no queen.”

“Not that he knew of. He had already determined that Odokuro were an intermediary species between ancient solitary wasps and their more social descendants, those who learned to swarm and evolved a variety of multipurpose drones.”

Monk nodded. “But Professor Matsui believed the Odokuro’s breeding was based on the behavior of older solitary wasps. That the species propagated through a group of egg-laden female wasps, instead of a lone queen.”

“But he must’ve been wrong,” Kat said.

“Maybe not entirely.” Sam continued to circle the amber block, examining the creature from every angle. “Professor Matsui was right that this species does share characteristics of both solitary and social wasps. He just never thought there was a version of a swarm queen in their lineage. Maybe such a creature only arises in a natural environment, versus a lab.”

“But why?” Elena pressed. “What’s its role with the swarm?”

“I don’t know, but it must be important. Maybe the answer to everything.”

Elena thought so, too. She straightened from her crouch, too anxious to remain so still. Her knees complained, and she almost lost her balance.

But Sam was there, catching her hand, steadying her.

She turned to him. “Thanks for—”

He yanked her before him, startling her. He hooked an arm around her waist and pressed the cold barrel of a pistol against her neck. “No one move.”

He tilted his head and spoke rapidly in Japanese.

Behind them, lights flared. Dark shadows rushed into the cavern. Boots pounded on rocks. Thin red beams pierced the darkness, rising from laser sights mounted atop assault rifles. The crimson spears danced wildly, then quickly settled upon the group standing stunned beside the block of amber.

“Down on your knees,” Sam ordered. “Hands on your head.”

Elena gaped at the arriving force, then back to the others. One by one, they dropped to the floor, empty hands rising and clasping the backs of their head.

Kat was last, glaring menacingly at Sam, murder in her eyes.

Then she, too, lowered slowly to the stone floor.

“Why?” Kat asked after her weapons had been stripped from her.

I’ll at least know that.

She had already figured out the seven-man assault team must have hidden themselves among the parishioners at the midnight mass, sent there in advance by this traitor as their group had reviewed the old maps at the history museum. From the way Sam cocked his head and ordered the force in here, he must have a sophisticated radio buried deep in the canal of his right ear, advanced enough to both communicate and allow him to be tracked.

“Why?” Sam asked, focusing on her, stalking through his men. With the assault force now guarding them, he had shoved Elena forward to join them. “I call it payback. Against a government that would rip away the heritage of a hardworking American. Between inheritance taxes and a backlog of property taxes, the ranch owned by my family in Montana for four generations was about to be foreclosed upon by a bank — a bank that when they were in crisis was bailed out with my tax dollars. So what do I owe such a government?”

Off to the side, two men lifted the block of amber. It seemed an impossible feat of strength, until Kat remembered how light the low-density stone actually was. The pair began to haul it across the cavern, intending to leave with the treasure.

She frowned after them.

It seemed the dead miner on the floor wasn’t the only thief here.

Sam noted her attention. “Fenikkusu Laboratories came calling after Matsui emailed me about his discovery in Brazil. They were already keeping tabs on him. There is very little that escapes Takashi Ito’s attention or reach. He cleared all my debt for no more commitment than keeping his corporation abreast of any developments in Matsui’s work.” He shrugged. “Then you all called me, and the offer became much more lucrative.”

Kat nodded toward the block of amber. “What do you hope to gain there?”

“Considering what Takashi Ito is planning, to be in his good graces when this is all over will be payment enough.”

“What is he planning?” Kat pressed.

Sam laughed, retreating step by step, following after the two men and his prize. “Oh, trust me, you’ll be happy for a quick death.” He turned to one of the other five men and spoke rapidly in Japanese, clearly fluent — but so was Kat. “Once we’re clear, shoot them and blow the entrance on your way out. We don’t want their bodies found too soon — not that it will matter shortly.”

The leader of the assault force nodded. “Hai.”

Kat cursed herself for not vetting the entomologist more thoroughly before including him on this mission. In her haste to leave, pressured by the time constraints, she had put too much trust in a scientist working for the National Zoo, a part of the Smithsonian Institution.

She watched Sam exit with the two men carrying the prize. As their lamps illuminated the ramp out of here, Kat spotted a body sprawled at the foot of it.

Piotr…

She feared the same fate had befallen Gerik and Anton at the shore of the lake.

Kat glanced to Clara, who had also spotted her brother. The woman was shaking, her eyes shining with tears. Slaski’s normally dour face had purpled with fury. Elena simply looked stunned and shell-shocked, both at the situation and at the betrayal. Kat knew the librarian had warmed up to the duplicitous entomologist.

Her eyes finally settled on Monk.

She nodded, signaling him.

Sam may have fooled her prior to the expedition, but a moment ago he had inadvertently given himself away, letting his mask slip at the shock of the discovery of an Odokuro queen. Professor Matsui was wrong… everyone was wrong. His choice of words had struck her as odd. Who was this everyone? Sam had only been in contact with Ken about this species.

Still, she couldn’t be sure, so she had stayed silent, hoping to lean on his expertise regarding this discovery before challenging him. She knew this never-before-seen incarnation of the species had to be significant. Though, in hindsight, perhaps she should’ve been more cautious. She hadn’t expected the man to grab Elena so suddenly.

Not that I don’t have a backup plan.

Elena knelt on the ground, sitting on her ankles, too weak to even hold herself up. Despair and regret hollowed her out. Her arms trembled as she continued to hold her hands atop her head. She wanted to lower one of them, to touch the pair of crosses hanging from the chain of her reading glasses, to cast one last prayer to her daughter and two grandchildren, to wish them a long and fruitful life.

She found it hard to concentrate on such a last plea to God, not with five rifles pointed at the group. She caught Kat’s small nod to her husband, a final silent expression of love and affection, which the two had amply demonstrated throughout this journey. She also knew the pair had two children and added those girls to her prayers.

After acknowledging his wife, Monk faced their executioners, his hands clasped behind his head. She blinked, realizing her mistake. There was only one hand cradling the back of his skull. The fingers of that hand fiddled with the titanium wrist cuff, where the man’s prosthesis was normally attached.

It was gone.

When Sam had ordered the assault team to strip the group of their weapons, he had forgotten in the rush of events to inform them of a hidden threat. She also suspected Kat had kept attention on herself by questioning Sam, distracting everyone so Monk could detach and drop his prosthesis.

But where and how—?

Then she spotted movement behind the legs of the armed men: the skittering of a pale plastic spider across the burnt amber floor.

She remembered back at Sigma headquarters in D.C., how Monk had demonstrated his ability to remotely control his disarticulated limb. He clearly had some skill. His disembodied hand danced on its fingertips and drew closer behind the line of men.

Elena also remembered the library museum in Tallinn.

Monk whispered one word, “Boom.”

On this signal, Kat leaped at Elena, while Monk flung himself at Slaski and Clara. The concussion of the explosion deafened her; the flash in the near-darkness blinded her. She landed hard on her side, shielded by Kat. Even before the blast echoed away, Kat’s weight rolled off her.

Elena remained on the floor, blinking away the flare. Before her, Kat slid on a hip across the stone, scooping up a rifle from one of the armed men whose back was cratered and smoking. From the ground, she fired nearly point-blank at another, who was climbing to his feet. He sprawled backward.

The farthest gunman, relatively unscathed, had only been knocked to his knees. He leveled his weapon at Kat — then his chest exploded, the point of a pick-axe protruding out his shattered rib cage. His body slumped forward, revealing Monk standing there, holding the handle of the salt-mummified miner’s axe.

The other two members of the assault team, both closest to the explosion, were already dead.

Monk hurriedly collected two rifles and shoved one at Slaski. “Do you know how to use this?”

He backed up a step, shaking his head.

Elena had gained her feet already and stepped forward. She took the weapon, did a quick check, then nodded. “Not a problem. I grew up in the barrio of East L.A.”

Monk grinned at her. “You are a librarian of many skills.”

Kat remained cold and serious. “Follow us out, but stay near the ramp.”

“What are you going to do?” Elena asked.

She nodded to her husband. “We’re going to work.”

As the group exited the accursed cavern, Kat quickly changed tactics.

The surrounding mine groaned around them. The ground trembled underfoot. Fragile stalactites of salt broke from the roof and shattered. The concussion of the blast must have destabilized this fragile corner of the mine. Half of the scallop shell had collapsed in the past, and now the rest threatened to do the same.

Still, Kat paused at the bottom of the ramp long enough to check on Piotr, noting the blade imbedded in the back of the poor man’s neck. Monk drew Clara to the side, keeping her from the sight.

Kat gritted her teeth as she stood. “Okay, new plan. We’re all getting out of here, but Monk and I’ll take the lead. You all follow but hang several yards back.”

She didn’t wait for confirmation. She firmed her grip on the stolen rifle and set off down the passageway they had used before. She set a hard pace, knowing Sam and his men would’ve heard the explosion. But would they believe it was just their teammates blasting the cave opening, as Sam had ordered?

She had no way of knowing, but she could not let that traitor escape with the treasure stolen from here. If there truly was an answer to be found preserved in that block of amber, they had to acquire it.

As they traversed the quarter-mile-long tunnel, the quaking continued, jolting ever stronger. The blast must have set off a cascade effect, as one section undermined the next, spreading throughout the area. The air filled with fine salt crystals, shining like diamonds in the beams of their headlamps.

The ground suddenly bolted violently under Kat’s feet, throwing her against the wall. The others suffered the same, but at least kept upright. A wash of smoke and more salt dust flowed over them from behind.

The tunnel must have collapsed back there.

“Faster,” Kat urged.

They set off again at a near run. She sensed they must be nearing the exit — when the shine of her headlamp revealed a jumble of rock blocking the passageway ahead. It had already caved in.

Monk drew alongside her as she stopped. “What now?”

“I don’t…” She shook her head, despairing.

He hooked his arm around her waist. “Use that big brain of yours to get us out of here.”

She stared down at her toes — not out of defeat, but to note the flow of water running past. It was fast and heavy. Even as she watched, the flow increased.

She glanced back, waving a trace of salt dust from her nose. The earlier jolt had clearly collapsed the tunnel behind them, but if water was continuing to flow…

“Back,” she said. “We have to go back.”

She got everyone retreating along the passageway.

In less than a minute, they reached where the tunnel wall had collapsed. But rather than fully blocking the passageway, the break had cracked through into the tunnel that paralleled this one. Water flowed underfoot from that neighboring vein of the shell.

“Go, go, go,” she urged.

As she scrambled with the others into the next tunnel, she thanked the old miners for their engineering skills. Once together, they set off again. Their progress through the new tunnel was slowed by blockages of old salt formations, but the quaking had shattered enough of the brittle and delicate formations to allow them to move briskly.

At last, they reached the pelvis of the shell. Kat proceeded cautiously, her rifle raised, fearing Sam might have left one of his men behind. But her search revealed no hidden sniper, only an empty cavern. Two bodies lay near the shoreline of the canal that led out to the lake.

Gerik and Anton.

Her fingers tightened on her weapon.

The Jet Ski was still beached beside the bodies, but the Zodiac pontoon was gone, taken by Sam to transport his prize. She also noted a pile of discarded scuba tanks, knowing now how the assault team had made their silent approach to ambush Clara’s brothers.

Kat waved the others out. “Elena, stay here with Clara and Dr. Slaski.” She nodded to the rifle in the librarian’s hand. “Stay hidden. If anyone besides us returns—”

Elena hefted her weapon higher. “Oh, the bastards will regret it.”

Good.

Kat turned and headed to the Jet Ski. She silently apologized to Gerik as she unsnapped the watercraft’s keys from his vest. She and Monk then pushed the Jet Ski back into the dark water and quickly mounted it. Unable to pilot the craft with his missing prosthesis, Monk climbed in back. He cradled the SIG Sauer he had recovered from their captors in his other hand.

Kat dropped behind the controls, resting her rifle across her knees.

Monk leaned forward. “Hon—”

“I know. We have no element of surprise.”

Out in the open water, it would be an all-out assault.

“No, I just wanted to say I love you.”

“Oh.” She leaned back and pecked him on the cheek. “Me, too.”

Monk settled back. “Now let’s go shoot us some bad guys.”

She leaned down.

That’s why I love you… we’re always of one mind.

She ignited the engine, squeezed the throttle, and shot forward down the canal. She didn’t slow through the S-curve of the waterway. She gained speed with every turn. By the time she hit the lake, the craft flew across the water, all but skimming above the flat surface.

Ahead, she spotted her target: a lone light racing across the black lake. She had already doused her helmet lamp and raced her craft dark toward her quarry. The others closed in on the far shore, but they appeared to be proceeding slowly, having to balance their cargo aboard their craft.

Kat had no such disadvantage and sped faster, the needle of the speedometer cresting toward sixty. The pool of light ahead grew swiftly. Though she ran dark, there was no masking the scream of the Jet Ski’s engine.

By the time the enemy decided the approaching watercraft might not be piloted by one of their own, the Jet Ski was nearly atop them. Rifle blasts pierced the engine’s roar, but Kat wove the ski back and forth, challenging their aim at the small craft.

Monk returned fire, his SIG Sauer’s retort deafening in her ear. Luckily he had a much larger and brighter target. He dropped one sniper and drove the other down with the first volley of shots, emptying his weapon. He then reached around and took the rifle from her lap.

He lifted it one-handed, balanced it across his other forearm, and sprayed a barrage of automatic fire — strafing the pontoon along one side, ripping it to shreds. The boat quickly foundered, spinning toward the damaged side.

The second gunman tried to drive them off, but he lost his balance as the dragging pontoon suddenly sank, jolting the boat. As he toppled toward the water, Monk shifted his aim and plugged him twice in the chest, a parting gift before sending him to a watery grave.

But the gunman wasn’t the only passenger to lose balance.

Kat watched the block of amber teeter, then crash on its side. Momentum rolled it over the deflated pontoon. It vanished with a splash into the dark depths of the deep lake.

Panicked at the loss, Monk shoved his rifle at her, then leaped off the back of the Jet Ski as it raced past the foundering boat.

She didn’t have time to tell him it was a wasted effort.

Instead, she hunkered down and continued toward shore. At the start of the attack, she had spotted a splash near the bow of the boat. A rat leaving a sinking ship. From the corner of her eye, she had followed Sam’s path as he swam for safety.

By now, he had already reached the far shore and clambered out. He sprinted for the tunnel leading out. She sped toward him, but he had the wherewithal to douse his helmet lamp. His figure was a slightly darker mote against the inky darkness.

Once he reached the tunnels, it would be nearly impossible to catch him.

The Jet Ski struck the sloped bank at near-top speed. She rode it far across the rock, keeping her seat by squeezing her thighs. She lifted the rifle and emptied her weapon in a final barrage — but she didn’t bother aiming for such a small target.

Instead, she fired at the huge array of salt stalactites hanging along the roof near the opening to the cavern. The formations rained down in a wide swath of sharp spears.

A sharp, startled scream followed.

As the Jet Ski slowed, she hurtled off the seat and ran toward the source. She kept her own lights doused, knowing Sam was armed. She ran low, trying to discern where he was. Her boots crunched through sharp shards of broken salt.

Then a sharper cry erupted ahead, agonizing and tortured.

She easily followed it to a body writhing on the ground. She flicked on her light. Sam struggled with a broken lance of salt through his neck, another pierced his shoulder, a third impaled his upper left thigh. His struggles weakened as blood pulsed from his wounded throat — but the pain plainly grew worse.

His agonized screams echoed across the cavern.

She knew what tortured him — something beyond the certainty of his impending death.

Salt in the wounds.

She turned her back and let him scream. By the time she reached the lake, the last of his strangled cries died away.

Good riddance.

Out in the dark water, she saw Monk paddling back and forth near the half-sunk boat. He noted her approach and hollered.

“I can’t find the block! We’ll need divers.”

She cupped her mouth and called over to him. “Just wait!”

“For what?”

She searched the lake. After another breath, a large object burst to the surface, startling her husband. It rocked in place beside him.

She shouted across the water. “Amber floats!”

Its density was less than salt water. It was why so much amber was found along the Baltic coastlines, where waves washed floating bits to its sandy shores.

“Now you tell me,” Monk groused.

He swam to the block and began pushing it toward her.

She sighed with her hands on her hips. They had secured the prize, but what had they truly accomplished? She pictured the queen frozen in amber.

What did it mean?

38

Two hours after escaping the destruction of the Ice Castle, Gray paced the length of a conference room at the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Their headquarters was located in central Tokyo, in the Chiyoda ward, the city’s equivalent to the U.S. National Mall. Out the window was a commanding view of the Imperial Palace. Elsewhere in the same ward stood their Supreme Court and the prime minister’s official residence.

He awaited a videoconference call with Painter Crowe. Earlier, Gray had updated the director on all that had happened. Now there was this sudden new request. He feared the worst. Prior to this summons, he had been working with Aiko and a cadre of her inner circle. Shortly after arriving in Tokyo, Valya had fulfilled her promise, transmitting the code to unlock the thumb drive. Aiko had sent a military force to secure the identified warehouse, discovering a vast stockpile of the pesticide developed by Fenikkusu Laboratories.

An airlift of those canisters — accompanied by a Japanese squadron of tanker planes to distribute the pesticide — was already en route to Hawaii. Though the chemical should eradicate the adult populations of the colonized wasps, it promised no relief for those already parasitized: human, animal, or insect.

Aiko had also translated some of the corporation’s feasibility studies and toxicology reports found in the documents they’d recovered. According to the findings, the pesticide was highly carcinogenic and toxic to a wide spectrum of other arthropods. Use of the chemical would wreak havoc on the island’s delicate ecosystem. But worst of all, the Hawaiian chain would be forever contaminated, needing constant monitoring and retreatment as the larval stages rose again and again.

Maybe it would be better if the place was simply nuked, Gray thought grimly.

And he wasn’t the only one advocating this.

Aiko had shared some confidential communications between the U.S. military and various intelligence agencies. While the pesticide put a thumb in this proverbial dike, the threat of the contagion breaking loose and spreading remained. For many countries, this was still too much of a risk.

And now this sudden call from Painter.

Gray studied those gathered in the room. The director had asked for Professor Matsui to be present, along with Seichan and Palu. The Hawaiian still looked shell-shocked upon learning the grim future of his native lands. Seichan sat stoically, but from her haunted eyes and tight lips, she knew she was mere hours at best until the pain returned tenfold, marking when the third instars would begin ravaging her body. Ken kept glancing her way, as if trying to read her every twitch and breath for some warning of the end.

Finally, the large screen on the wall before the table bloomed to life, drawing everyone’s attention. Gray stiffened, surprised. He had expected to find the director staring back at him. Instead, the crystal-clear image revealed a slim figure leaning against what appeared to be a table in a small laboratory.

“Kat?” Gray stepped closer. “Where are you? What’s this about?”

“I’m in Krakow, at a small amber museum. Painter arranged this call, knowing the urgency.”

“Why?”

“We found something out here. Something that makes no sense. But it’s beyond any of our expertise. The only man who could’ve helped… well, I killed him. So I was hoping Professor Matsui might offer some insight.”

Gray scrunched his brow. “What did you find?”

Kat quickly explained the events in Poland, about a salt mine, a vast amber deposit, and a block of stone holding a unique specimen. “Let me show you.” She waved to the video operator. “Monk, bring the camera over to the table.”

The image jiggled as the view swept high, then lowered to a wide table holding a giant cube of glowing amber. It was lit from multiple angles to reveal what was frozen inside.

A chair crashed behind Gray.

“My god…” Ken rushed around the table to join him before the screen. He leaned closer, his hands rising as if wanting to grab the object. “That’s a prehistoric chrysalis. Captured in the process of hatching.”

Kat returned to the edge of the screen. “Professor Matsui, could this be the birth of an Odokuro queen?”

“What? No. There’s no such—” He stepped closer again. “Wait.”

He studied the image for a long breath, then asked Monk for different angles, for the lights to be shifted.

“Ken,” Gray pressed, needing him to reach a conclusion. “Is it or isn’t it?”

The man licked his lips, his voice hushed. “Yes… yes, it must be.” He searched the screen and found Kat. “Tell me again in more detail about what you saw, about the state of the dead wasps.”

She repeated her story, answering questions from Ken along the way. “Sam thought they had bled out,” she finished. “Or at least something had oozed out of their bodies.”

“Dissolved from the inside out,” Ken mumbled to himself.

Kat heard him. “That sounds about right.”

Ken retreated and fell heavily into a seat. “I was wrong. Wrong all along.”

“About there being an Odokuro queen?” Gray asked.

He nodded. “That certainly, but I suspect such a queen would never appear in a laboratory setting. She would rise only within an established swarm, one in a natural environment.”

“But why?” Kat asked. “What does it mean?”

He stared at her. “It means I was also wrong about Gamma Team’s research. They had the answer all along. The lock, but not the key.”

“What are you talking about?” Gray asked. “What team’s research?”

“One of Fenikkusu’s drug groups was investigating a series of genes for a missing protein, what they named a ghost peptide. They called it a ghost, because they found the genes, but never the protein it coded for. Analysis of the sequence suggested it was a strong biolytic agent capable of dissolving a prey’s tissue.”

Kat glanced to the block of amber. “From the inside out.”

Ken nodded. “I thought it was a piece of old code, ancestral junk from a time when the Odokuro killed their hosts. I believed, once the wasps evolved out of this behavior, they had set aside this toxic peptide, locking it away with a bunch of epigenetic markers. I thought Gamma Team had been wasting their time, that they’d never in a million years find the key to that lock.”

“And now?” Gray asked.

Ken shrugged. “At least I was right in one regard. The key is actually two hundred million years old.” He pointed to the screen. “She’s the key.”

“How?” Kat stared at the block. “What are you talking about?”

“I should’ve seen it, or at least suspected it.” Ken shook his head. “I sensed I had missed something. What I forgot was basic Hymenoptera behavior, whether you’re talking wasps or bees.”

“What behavior?” Gray asked.

“In social wasps — those that have a queen — it is only the queen that survives winter. The rest of the swarm dies during the harsh freeze. Only she hibernates and overwinters, waiting for the warmth of spring to awaken her. Already pregnant, she rises and brings the hive back to life.”

Gray remembered Ken explaining this behavior back at the cottage in Hana, when he revealed the true horror of this species.

Ken stood again and approached the screen. “It’s why none of us saw such a queen before. She only appears when conditions are harsh, when the colony is threatened. She is the colony’s means of moving to a new home.” He turned to Gray and the others. “But only after she first makes sure the old colony is wiped out. If a freeze doesn’t do it, she takes matters into her own hands.”

“How?” Kat asked.

“I can’t be sure yet, but I suspect she releases a potent pheromone. Didn’t you mention that the amber surrounding the site where the block was excavated was darker than elsewhere? Even in this block, I can see the stone around the queen is several gradations richer in hue.”

Gray understood. “You’re thinking the chemical she was emitting stained the amber.”

“A chemical that I believe is the key to unlocking the genes of the ghost peptide. With the key in the lock, the genes would begin producing this biolytic protein. Before I thought the peptide was meant as a weapon against other prey.” He shook his head. “Instead, it’s a suicide pill for this species. Once exposed to this chemical, every incarnation of the Odokuro that carries this sequence of genes would die.”

“And all the wasps carry these genes?” Kat asked.

Ken ignored her and turned to Seichan. “Even their larvae.”

Gray felt a slight surge of hope but stamped it back down, not wanting to get his expectations up.

On the screen, Kat called to someone out of view. “Dr. Slaski, as I recall, your lab is one of only two in Poland equipped with a sophisticated mass spectrometer for analyzing the authenticity of amber artifacts.”

“That’s correct. We can judge quality, analyze impurities, even date samples.”

“So if you cored a sample of the stained amber, could you determine what chemical is in there?”

“With enough time and resources, certainly.”

“I can supply you with all the resources you need, but time… that I can’t give you.”

The speaker seemed to understand. “I’ll do my best.”

Gray turned to find Seichan standing next to him.

She took his hand.

To hell with it.

He squeezed her fingers, and with all his heart, he allowed himself to hope.

For her, for him, for their unborn child.

“That’s it,” Ken pronounced.

He shook his head as he stared at the molecular diagram on the laptop screen.

Of course, that’s the chemical.

Ken was still in the conference room. None of them had left. They all clustered around the laptop. On the wall, the video feed from Poland continued to run. The lab in Krakow was packed with all manner of experts summoned by Kat: molecular biologists, genetic scientists, organic chemists. New equipment had also been hauled into the lab.

Still, the sepulchral figure of Dr. Slaski had orchestrated the chaos with an iron hand — until four hours later, the group had finally teased the answer from the amber.

“Are you sure that’s the right chemical?” Gray asked. “Not some other impurity.”

“I’m sure.”

“How can you be certain?” Gray pressed, anxiety straining his voice.

“Because I recognize this organic compound. It’s a derivative of 9-keto-2-decenoic acid.” Noting Gray’s confused expression, Ken explained. “It’s also known as queen substance.”

Gray glanced over to the creature aglow in the amber.

“So, yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Ken said with a tired grin. “The compound is very much like the aromatic ketone released by honeybee queens. Many other Hymenoptera species release some variant of this same pheromone.”

“What does it do in bees?”

“When a new queen flies off to establish her own hive, she casts a pall of this chemical over the old hive, where the hormone sterilizes all the workers left behind.”

“Why?”

“So the queen ensures her own genetic legacy, erasing the lineage behind her.” Ken nodded to the screen. “What the Odokuro queen does is not all that different. But as this species has multiple subqueens who are capable of breeding and parasitizing — like the big wasp that attacked Seichan — a more aggressive tactic is employed, a nuclear option if you will. When a swarm is threatened, she clears the genetic slate and moves on to perpetuate the next generation based on her own genes.”

Ken shrugged. “While sounding callous, it makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. When an environment is threatened, the best chance for a species is for one individual to pack their proverbial bags, erase any trace of its existence, and move on to greener pastures with a new set of genetics. For countless millennia, some version of this strategy has worked for all manner of wasps, where their swarms are killed off every winter to start anew. Or in the case of bees, they simply sterilize their way to a new genetic heritage.”

“And this pheromone? Will it be effective as a treatment?”

“Exceedingly so. Not only should this derivative be safe, it’s specific to the Odokuro. It shouldn’t harm any other species. Plus the aromatic nature of the ketone will draw the swarm to the pheromone. Like moths to a flame.”

Ken leaned back. “Best of all, any lab should be able to easily manufacture this organic compound in vast quantities. And once it’s sprayed across water, spread over plants, and soaked into dirt, any parasitized creature that drinks, eats, or grooms the chemical will absorb the compound into its bloodstream, where it should destroy the internal larvae.”

“What about people?” Gray reached over and took Seichan’s hand.

Ken noted her eyes shining with the threat of tears — not from resurgent pain, but from the agony of hope. “No different,” he assured them. “I wager a single intravenous or intramuscular injection should be enough. Though I’d recommend repeating this a few days in a row to be sure.”

Gray leaned into Seichan, sighing loudly. “So this is the cure.”

Palu grabbed Ken by the shoulder. The Hawaiian’s grin demonstrated he understood what this meant for his native lands. “Brah, it’s not just the cure. It’s our motherfucking salvation.”

Ken matched his grin.

You’ll get no argument from me.

39

Kat sat beside Monk in the Chapel of Saint Kinga. The subterranean cathedral was packed for the memorial mass. Above the altar, a salt cross glowed with an inner fire. A children’s chorus sang a hymn that echoed from the walls, seeming to defy the tons of rock to rise to heaven.

Clara sat in the front row, draped in black, her head bowed. The caskets of her three brothers rested before her. Each was sculpted of amber, priceless in their own right, more so from the men inside, who gave their lives so the world might have a future. They were to be buried here, new saints for this holy place.

“Piotr, Gerik, Anton,” Kat whispered, acknowledging them aloud, intending never to forget their names.

Monk squeezed her hand. They had flown in last night from D.C. for the service and would leave again this evening.

Though two weeks had passed, there was much still to be done. Hawaii was recovering, treated daily with aerial sprayings of the organic compound. As Professor Matsui had predicted, the queen substance had eradicated the Odokuro, the fragrant ketone drawing the wasps out of every nest and colony. Hospitals across the state were treating everyone with intramuscular injections as a precaution. Ecologists and biologists were monitoring wildlife for signs of any resurgence.

With Hawaii safe, Kat had concentrated her attention on tracking down the other research installations run by Fenikkusu Laboratories. She worked closely with Aiko to coordinate an international response. In addition, such work helped Aiko solidify her covert intelligence agency in Japan, which she had christened TaU — or Tako no Ude—which stood for “Arms of an Octopus,” an apt name for a new spy agency. But Kat also knew that tau was the next letter in the Greek alphabet after sigma, a clear shout-out to their American counterpart.

While the choir sang, she glanced over to Professor Matsui. He was seated down the row next to Dr. Slaski. Ken had been working closely with the museum director to examine the mysteries frozen in the amber below. It was proving to be a treasure trove of prehistoric life. In addition, Ken had been offered a new position in D.C., one he was still debating to accept, to fill a certain seat left vacant, as head of the entomology department at the National Zoo.

She hoped he took it.

Slaski leaned down and whispered to Ken, who nodded. They both glanced to Clara. Kat knew the two had been doing their best to console the bereaved woman, but only time would dull such a pain. Kat was relieved another woman did not have to experience that particular agony. She had heard news yesterday out of Tallinn that Director Tamm was out of the hospital, back at home with his daughter, Lara.

She sighed heavily.

Thank god…

Kat settled back as the choir finished the hymn in a transcendent chorus. A lone boy then strode to the balustrade beside the coffins. He was blond, apple-cheeked, like a young ghost of the dead brothers. He sang “Ave Maria” in Polish, without accompaniment. His single sweet voice spoke to the loss here more powerfully than any words.

As the boy sang with all his heart to the heavens, Kat lowered her face.

Monk drew her closer.

Tears fell from her eyes… to the hands of her husband clasped to hers.

She held tightly to him.

Don’t ever let me go.

“Now remember,” Elena warned, “we don’t touch anything without asking first.”

Her two granddaughters nodded vigorously as she held open the door to the Smithsonian Castle. “Sí, abuela,” they sang in unison.

The fragrance struck Elena as soon as she followed them inside. A sweet perfume of roses, lilacs, and lilies filled the marble hall, drawing her to the crypt not far from the door.

She herded the two girls toward the men waiting for her there: Painter Crowe and the museum’s curator, Simon Wright. At their feet and spilling across the floor were bouquets of flowers and scatters of loose stems. The small room that housed James Smithson’s crypt was full of even more.

“And who might these young women be?” Painter asked, bending down as she joined him.

The girls slunk bashfully behind her legs. Once safely out of view, the older of the two risked pointing to her young sister. “That’s Olivia. And I’m Anna.”

“Are you both librarians like your grandmother?”

Olivia giggled. “No.”

Anna stamped a foot. “But I’m gonna be.”

“Going to be,” Elena corrected.

“I don’t doubt it,” Painter said as he straightened. He glanced back at the overflowing crypt. “But I wonder which of you could collect the most yellow flowers. I really like yellow.”

“I can, I can,” the girls chimed together, pausing to confirm with their grandmother that they could touch things.

Elena shrugged. “Go ahead. But be careful of rose thorns. Can’t have your mother calling Child Protective Services down on me.”

The girls dashed into the pile of flowers, trailing giggles.

Elena shook her head. “They’re a handful.”

“That I also don’t doubt.” Painter waved to the bounty. “Clearly your op-ed in the Washington Times had quite the response.”

“Or maybe it was your appearance on Good Morning America,” Simon added with a grin.

Elena blushed. “Just trying to get your founder some publicity.”

“That you did,” Simon concurred.

After arriving back in the States, she had shared her story of their adventures in Europe, how they had followed what were literally cryptic clues left by James Smithson to save the world. She had ended her piece in the paper by suggesting the man be properly honored: He should be showered with flowers.

It seemed the curious who had come to view the symbols for themselves had followed her directions.

Painter nodded to Simon. “We thought you deserved a small reward yourself. It’s why we asked you here before the Castle opens. It only seemed proper to do that here.”

“That’s silly. I don’t need—”

“Dear god, woman,” Simon said with an exasperated sigh, “let the man give you what he’s got.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

Painter reached to a pocket of his suit jacket and took out a small box, no larger than a deck of cards. He held it out. “For a lady who has everything… including two rambunctious grandchildren.”

Curious, she took the gift.

“Open it,” Simon urged, bouncing a bit on his toes.

She hinged back the lid to reveal an obsidian-black metallic card resting atop a red silk cushion. As she tilted the box, a holographic silver symbol rose from the card’s surface.

It was a single Greek letter.

Sigma.

“Keys to the kingdom,” Simon explained.

“In case you ever tire of being a librarian,” Painter said. “And want a little adventure.”

She cast him a jaundiced eye.

He shrugged. “Or maybe you just want to come down for a cup of coffee. With that key, my door’s always open.”

She snapped the lid closed. “Director Crowe, coffee sounds like plenty enough adventure for me.”

“I don’t know. You’ve never tried Kowalski’s brew. It’ll make you wish you were being shot at.”

She grinned. “I’ll take my chances.”

With crickets burring and fireflies flickering in the neighboring hydrangeas, Gray stood before the FOR SALE sign posted in the yard of his parents’ craftsman bungalow.

A smaller SOLD! sign rested atop the crossbar.

He headed across the expanse of yard. He remembered mowing the lawn, the fresh smell of cut grass, shoving a push mower around because his father had been too cheap to buy a gasoline-powered one. He reached the driveway. At the end of it, the garage at the back of the house stood closed and dark, but he could still hear his father hammering away inside, cursing, as he tinkered with his vintage Thunderbird, which was still parked there. He pictured his mother watching her husband work from the kitchen window, burning the family dinner, preferring her books and grading papers to learning how to cook properly.

Everywhere he looked, there were ghosts.

It was why nine months ago he had decided to take a sabbatical with Seichan. More than needing a break from Sigma and its responsibilities, he had fled from here. A month ago, he had finally agreed to allow his brother Kenny to list the house.

What do either of us need with this place?

With no reason to remain any longer, Kenny had returned to California, chasing a new job in the tech industry. The only people through the house these past weeks were real estate brokers and potential buyers.

Since arriving back in the States, Gray had avoided coming here. He hadn’t even stepped foot inside. But with the pending sale, he needed to inventory what was left in the house. He didn’t know what to do with all the old furniture and the lifetime of accumulated knickknacks that seemed so important. He considered charity, using an estate sale service.

He sighed.

He knew a large part of the reason behind his foot-dragging and hesitation.

Promise me…

He could still feel the pressure of the syringe as he induced the fatal overdose. He remembered his father’s fingers relaxing as he held his frail hand, the feel of his calluses, the thinness of his bones. As much as Gray accepted that it was the right decision at the time, he still could not escape the guilt.

Even traveling the full breadth of the globe, he could not escape his ghosts.

And now I’ve come full circle.

No wiser, no less guilty.

He accepted this was a burden he would carry with him the rest of his life. Unable to delay any longer, he headed toward the front door. Seichan was already inside, needing to lie down. Her treatments were finished. Though the larval load was dead, it would take her body some time to clear what was inside her, challenging her immune system. But at least the tests this morning seemed to indicate the baby inside was faring well.

Despite his melancholy, he smiled softly, remembering the tiny flutter of a heartbeat on the ultrasound.

Our baby…

He shook his head at the impossibility of it all.

Both were safe. Even Kowalski was recovering from his injuries, as were Palu’s cousins. Earlier in the day, Gray had spoken to the big man, who was still on Maui. Gonna finish my goddamn vacation, Kowalski had told him. He had joined his girlfriend, Maria, who was helping with efforts out there. They were staying with Palu’s family.

Kowalski had only one major complaint about his care: They got me wearing pantyhose. Maria had explained, trying to calm the man’s dismay. Apparently Kowalski had been ordered to wear medical compression stockings for six weeks, to help heal his many bite wounds. Gray had insisted that Maria send him photos. In case he ever needed to blackmail the guy.

Gray reached his parent’s front door and tugged on it.

It didn’t budge.

He was about to knock when the door opened.

Seichan stood there, cocking an eyebrow. She dangled a key from a finger. “I changed the locks.”

“What? Why?”

She stepped back to let him inside. In his mind’s eye, he knew exactly what his parents’ home looked like.

But with a blink, it all vanished.

The furniture was gone. The carpets had been ripped up and replaced with hand-scraped hardwoods. The large fireplace had been re-rocked. Even from the doorway, he could see the kitchen had new granite counters and cabinets.

“Seichan…”

“Shut up.” She grabbed his hand and drew him toward the stairs leading to the second floor, but not before she nodded outside to the yard, to the sign posted out there. “Who do you think bought this place?”

Before he could respond, he was hauled up the stairs.

Everything was changed. The wood banister was now wrought iron. The wallpaper stripped. Everything was freshly painted.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Your father’s Thunderbird is still in the garage. Wasn’t about to part with that beauty. Plus there are boxes of personal items. You can go through those later. But first…”

She stopped at a closed door. “It’s time to stop running from your ghosts.”

Gray felt a chill at how well she could read him.

She opened the door and pulled him inside. The tiny bedroom was as empty as the rest of the house. Only a single item of furniture stood there.

A pure white crib.

“While you can’t escape those ghosts,” she said, “you can invite them into your life, let them share your joys and sorrows.”

Gray felt a sob rising up and fought against it. He looked around, breathing deeply. “All this effort… and I didn’t even have a clue.”

She shrugged. “You’re not that difficult to fool, Gray. Besides, for me, doing all this was more of a vacation than hopping around the world.”

He shook his head, smiling now, tears rising. “Then we’d better enjoy it while we can. This peace won’t last for long.”

“You’re right.” Her face grew grim. “Valya’s out there. No doubt plotting something.”

Gray turned to her, dropped to his knees, and lifted the lower edge of her blouse. He kissed her stomach and whispered to her belly.

“That’s not what I meant.”