Chapter 9
Every day, for as long as Stryke could remember—and he remembered everything that had happened since he was a year old—he woke at precisely five a.m., no matter what time zone he was in. He’d always been able to get a lot done in the early morning hours, from schoolwork when he was a youth to research when he was in college.
Now, as an adult, he got up, drank precisely eight ounces of water flavored with half a lemon, and worked out in his home gym until six. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, he followed the workout with a forty-five-minute battle-training session with Ares, the Horseman of the Apocalypse known as War. Which was great because the guy was all about fighting and not talking.
Then he showered, dressed, and arrived at his office by seven-thirty, where, if it was a weekday, Kalis would have breakfast waiting for him. Always five pancakes with peanut butter and real maple syrup from Vermont. Four dry-scrambled eggs. A grilled tomato, saucy beans, and a bowl of berries…strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Except on Wednesday, when he wanted pineapple. If it was a weekend, he’d nuke a breakfast burrito she kept stocked in his office fridge.
But last night had been restless, plagued by erotic dreams of Cyan and nightmares about Chaos. He hadn’t been haunted by replays of Chaos’s death in years, but one had left him jackknifing up in bed, panting and screaming. Another had ended as he penetrated Popcorn Girl…except it hadn’t been the human. It had been Cyan.
Rolling over in bed, his cock throbbing, he’d fumbled for the syringe on his nightstand and jammed it into his thigh. As the liquid did its work, he drifted back to sleep, only to be transported back into an erotic dream involving Cyan, except this time she was in his bed. Her hot mouth had taken him deep, drowning him in pleasure. And for the first time since Chaos died, he’d let himself enjoy the sensation of being sucked and licked. Of seeing the pleasure in her expression as she brought him to the brink of release.
There had been nothing but bliss as he rolled her onto her back and settled himself between her creamy thighs. The dream took them to various locations in his house and put them in different positions. In the dream—and in real life—he’d been on the verge of orgasm, a wet dream that would soak the sheets.
But he was a Seminus demon, and no matter how hot the dream was, he couldn’t come unless he was inside a female.
Pain awakened him again. The fiery agony of orgasm denial, as if someone was simultaneously crushing and twisting his testicles while driving a red-hot poker through his gut. The pain had blinded him, locking his spine and joints. And in his thrashing, he’d knocked the tray of syringes onto the floor.
Then Masumi was there, and he’d felt a sting in his thigh. Sweet relief flowed through his veins and soothed his nerves as the medicine took effect.
Nausea came on its heels, and he’d barely made it to the bathroom before everything he’d eaten in the last five years came up.
Exhausted, he’d spent the rest of the night on the cold bathroom floor, his body racked by bouts of dizziness and cramps, which Eidolon said would happen more and more often if he didn’t stop taking the injections.
And, as a result of a shitty night’s sleep, he’d awakened at five-thirty instead of five.
Half an hour late.
He was never late to anything, but this was the second time in a week.
Thrown off his carefully plotted course, he skipped the workouts, showered, and went straight to his office. He was early, so Kalis hadn’t put out breakfast.
Not that he was hungry. Nausea still held him in its grip. Besides, she probably wasn’t even at the office yet.
It was another oddity in his day that would affect the rest of it. He didn’t tolerate change well. Never had.
Taking a deep, centering breath, he flicked on his desktop building monitor, which showed the location of every employee in the building. StryTech operated twenty-four-seven, but here at HQ, during the local business hours of eight to five, the number of staff members increased by a third. Right now, at six-fifteen, there were two hundred and twelve workers in the building.
He scrolled through the 3D screen to the R her concentration was focused on one of the underwater images. She drifted toward it, drawn by the glowing symbols barely visible through some sort of dark, floaty stuff.
“How long have those glyphs looked like that?” she asked.
Taran shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but those images are about an hour old.”
She tapped her finger on one of the symbols. “I’m looking at those. They’re broken. Some are peeling off whatever that surface is.” She looked closer. A pipe, maybe?
“We aren’t technomancers.” Twila flicked the photo Cyan fingered off to the side and magnified the area Cyan had indicated. “We can’t see what you’re seeing.”
Right. Cyan always forgot that others couldn’t view magic that was as visible to her as printed text was to them. She looked closer at the drill casing and the odd bulge the glyphs were adhered to.
“Can you see the object connected to the drill casing?”
Taran nodded. “That’s a nanomachine injector.”
“A what?”
“It’s new tech,” he said. “It’s doubled oil production at some sites.”
She expanded the image and focused on the spherical casing. “How does it work?”
“The injector drops nanomachines into the well,” Taran explained. “Once they reach the oil, they form vein networks to reach smaller pockets.”
She was glad the injector created an electronics-adjacent surface for the glyphs, but the location didn’t make sense.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to inject the nanomachines from the platform instead of deep underwater?”
Stryke came up behind her and studied the image. “There’s a minimum safe distance requirement. No one wants them to crawl back up the pipe.”
“Crawl up the pipe? And do what?”
“They’re programmed to drill,” he said. “If they aren’t contained, they could start drilling anything full of liquid. Like us.”
That was incredibly disturbing. She side-eyed him. “I’m guessing it’s a StryTech invention?”
“Hardly.” Stryke shot her an offended look. “This tech is an abomination. Demonovation was reckless and irresponsible.”
She could say the same about some of StryTech’s products, but she had more important matters to deal with.
“Okay, well, then what I’m seeing on the casing is broken code. But it’s not just broken.” She frowned at the glowing, twisted outlines. “It’s…rearranged. I don’t understand it. Why would someone do that?”
“You think it was a some one , not a some thing ?” Stryke asked. “Maybe a whale hit it, or a seismic event—”
“It was intentional,” she interrupted, a little annoyed that he’d questioned her. She knew her shit, dammit. And she also knew that now wasn’t the time to get pissy, so, setting her irritation aside, she pointed out the telltale pattern in the images as if he could see it. “Definitely done on purpose. But who could have done it?” She glanced at Taran. “Stryke said you have mages on board?”
“Yes,” Taran said. “But mage magic doesn’t work underwater.”
“Not usually,” she murmured. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a workaround. They could be teaming up with aquatic demons who live in the human realm. Rusalkas or mermen.” Although, as far as she knew, neither of those species was inherently proficient in magic, and whoever had done this was a master and a Cyberis demon. “You said you don’t have another technomancer on board?”
Taran shook his head. “We haven’t had one since the last time Quillax was here.”
“When was that?”
“About two weeks ago.” Stryke wandered over to the communications center, which seemed surprisingly high-tech for being on an oil platform. “He flew out to make sure everything was secure before he went on leave.” Stryke pointed at a red light. “Why is that flashing?”
Taran let out a vile curse. “It means the comms are down.” He crossed the room in half a dozen strides, punching a technician in the shoulder on the way by. “Why the fuck aren’t you manning the radio?” He flipped a series of switches, and the screen went dark.
Cyan peered over him. “What are you doing?”
“Rebooting the system.” Taran’s fingers flew over the controls. A moment later, the screen lit up again, and he leaned into a mic. “Dire Wolf One, this is Sea Storm . Can you hear me?”
“Wolf One, affirmative, Sea Storm .” Cyan recognized the pilot’s voice. “We are on approach into Aberdeen after dropping off Mr. Stryke and passenger.”
“Copy that, Dire Wolf One. Safe flight.” Taran punched another button. “Dire Wolf Two, can you hear me?”
Cyan glanced at Stryke. “You named your helicopters after Dire Wolves?”
“I always wanted one as a pet.” Stryke gave her a sheepish look. “I was jealous of Logan’s hellhound.”
Er…yeah. Neither sounded like a fun time.
“Dire Wolf Two,” Taran said, more urgently this time, “this is Sea Storm . Can you hear me?”
Static filled the suddenly tense silence.
“Dire Wolf Two. Can. You. Hear. Me? Dire Wolf, this is Sea Storm . Come in .”
“… Storm …Dire…Two.”
Stryke swore under his breath, his frustration at a situation he couldn’t control making the muscles in his jaw twitch. She got it. She didn’t like being helpless either.
“Wolf Two, Sea Storm , say again. I repeat, say again.”
“…lost…instruments…where are…storm?”
Cyan shouldered her way past Stryke and Taran, firing up her spellcaster energy.
“I can boost the signal.” She activated her third eye, and the inner workings of the communications system—the wires, microchips, and switches—instantly appeared to her as a schematic overlay. And while she couldn’t explain any of it, she instinctively knew how to manipulate its electricity.
“Wolf Two,” Taran shouted. “Say. Again.” He shot her a look. “Anything?”
“I’m working as fast as I can.” She let out a frustrated breath. “The signal is being blocked and warped by a forcefield. Some kind of dark power.” She cast a wave of magic to convert her commands into actionable spells. When the spell framework inside the comms device lit up in a series of symbols, she nodded. “Try now. I compensated for demonic energy.”
Stryke smiled, a slow, sexy tilt of the mouth that inexplicably made her pulse spike a little. “Clever. I wouldn’t have thought about evil interference from the breach.”
“ Sea Storm !” Dire Wolf’s pilot shouted over the radio, his voice broken but still considerably clearer than before. “We hit a wall of…fog…storm…we lost…navigation…altitude. Mayday, mayday, mayday!”
“ Taran !”
At Twila’s shriek, they wheeled around to the forward window. A dim light in the sky pierced a veil of thick, undulating fog that hadn’t been there just sixty seconds ago.
“It’s coming in fast,” Stryke barked. “Get down!”
Suddenly, he was on her, taking her to the floor as an explosion of sound and light detonated all around her. Glass and stinging rain pelted her face and arms, but Stryke’s heavy body shielded her from the worst of it. Beneath them, the floor trembled.
Lights dimmed and flickered, things sparked, and Cyan dazedly tried to sit up. A strong arm forced her back to the floor.
“Stay down.” Stryke shoved to his feet.
She did not stay down.
The devastation was incredible: wrecked equipment, groaning metal, tinkling glass. And the stench of smoke, fuel, seawater, and brimstone.
Stryke turned to her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said numbly. Her ears rang, and her stomach churned, but she wasn’t injured.
Taran stumbled around the space, checking on his people as Stryke wrenched open the door, its twisted hinges creaking and groaning. She followed him out to the railing, holding her forearm across her face to shield it from the dark, oily plumes of smoke. Down below, burning, mangled wreckage and fuel created a debris field in the roiling sea.
“I see movement!” She pointed to what appeared to be someone swimming in the waves. “There! We need to help them!”
She looked desperately for a life preserver. Yes! Found one—
“Wait.” Stryke grabbed her by the wrist. “Those aren’t people.”
Confused, she looked down. At first, she didn’t see what he was talking about, but shapes slowly formed out of the darkness. Figures with slick skin and monstrous teeth and claws. First, just a couple. Then a dozen. Then the water churned with dolphin-sized creatures that screeched as they tore apart the aircraft’s remains…and its passengers.
Horror crawled up her spine, paralyzing her as the reality of the situation sank in. Those poor people. And if this got worse, the poor planet.
“We got lucky,” Taran shouted from behind them. He jogged up, limping and holding his elbow. “The mages can erect a shield to stop the wind and rain from damaging what’s left of our operations center.”
“Lucky?” Stryke asked quietly, but his voice somehow carried over the roar of the storm and the shrieks of the demons below. “We just lost a lot of good people.”
“It could have been worse, sir.”
Stryke stared down at the sea, which had claimed almost everything now. Even the fires waned.
“Oh, it’ll get worse.” His voice became distant. Haunted. “The initial disaster is just the beginning. The real carnage comes after .”