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Chapter 1
“Volcanoes spew the devil’s flame in our heartland Fire rains from the sky Sinkholes suck sinners into the bowels of hell, while rifts voe of deues of our tins of God’s fury at our wicked—”
The bellow of a reyza acco metal cut off the rest of the protester’s tirade I threw myself to the asphalt as the demon whizzed a tank hatch cover in my direction It careened off the Stryker Are first less than a foot fro lot
“Gillian! Status!” That was the squad leader, Sergeant Debbie Roma
“Five by five!” I shouted as soon as I found my voice—and after I made sure I was still in one piece The red block letters on the quivering metal hatch seemed to mock me DIRT—Demonic Incursion Retaliation and Tactics Yeah, ere retaliating Like kids throwing s “DI
RT” was supposed to represent our willingness to fight hard and dirty, but ten minutes into the skirmish and we’d already lost one tank
But no people, to ed to scramble clear of the tank and take cover behind an abandoned Toyota Both Strykers and the Light Armored Vehicle were still intact, as were all fifteen h at the moment ere pinned dohile the demon threw chunks of metal and arcane shrapnel at us A scant , frost-rienta flames So far, the demon had only flown reconnaissance passes over the small dimensional rift, but I knew perfectly well he hadn’t made a trip frohtsee
Deh the rifts ever since the arcane valve explosion at the Beaulac Police Depart with every other DIRT arcane advisor—still had no fla clue why Rifts opened at unpredictable intervals all over the world, destroying anything or anyone in the location An incursion of de which they harassed and attacked nearby citizens while one or ure out what their end goal was, huy
In the rit and graphene-composite nets
The dee He was, hands down, the biggest reyza I’d ever seen in all my years as a despan four ti as Gestamar or Kehlirik Needle-sharp black horns thrust fros curved fro teeth Broad nostrils flared within a bestial face, and his thick, sinuous tail thrashed back and forth, a weapon as deadly as his claws Scars crisscrossed his skin in patterns that spoke of claws and teeth and frequent battles—unlike any reyza I’d known before And though I’d never heard of a delinted from a half dozen thick hoops in his ears or the heavy bands that circled biceps and wrists
“Two months now since Satan and his de out for you sinners to beg for salvation, lest you be thrown into the lake of fire with the idolaters, the vile, the unbelievers, the sports fans, the comic book freaks, the hypocrites” The protester ranted on frohway, his voice amplified by speakers mounted in the bed of his pickup and punctuated with random squeals and shrieks froled near hins that said, in a variety of ways, that everyone was going to burn in hell except them
Above the protesters, the enta, beautiful and hideous, painted by arcane flao, the Beaulac Country Club tennis courts had cru dimensional rift, the tenth to forhost to Everything within a half-mile radius of the valve blast had been quarantined and cordoned off, and anyone who could leave Beaulac did These days, nowhere was truly safe, but anywhere was safer than here
The rift at the tennis courts was a relatively sed a nuht hours Dozens of kzak, savik, and graa, and less than an hour ago this big ass reyza as deter lot into his own deood two-thirds of the grocery store had been destroyed last week by a tornado that appeared out of a sunny sky, tracked an arrow-straight line for a hundred yards, then disappeared Sadly, that wasn’t the weirdest disaster to hit the area since the valve explosion Hell, that didn’t even make the top five
The reyza leaped into flight from the top of the tank
“The skeeter’s aloft!” Roma shouted “Cover!”
Maroon-fatigued squad h I kept ained altitude, I stayed put My arcane skills were still a long way froth—before I was aed to regain coht That allowed me to assess the little rift and the deiveHowever, there were moments—such as this one—where I felt the loss of h we had no way to close the rifts, it was possible to arcanely “lock” the A rift this small would take about ten minutes of uninterrupted focus to lock it, but unfortunately I couldn’t shape the potency to do so on my own Vince Pellini and I usually partnered up to set the locks, but I’d split off with Alpha Squad to chase the big reyza, and only realized the beastie had been heading toward this mini-rift e damn near fell into it
The reyza swooped past, and I shieldedarcane scattershot he’d peppered us with a dozen tinaled the derenade launcher
No ti, I tucked into a tight ball in the hopes of reducing the size of the deet It was a solid plan except for one tiny detail: the de forup flashes of purple and green
For a heartbeat, nothing changed, then the asphalt heaved and buckled The ring of frost expanded fro crevice, raced toward h, and the fissure screamed like a tortured soul
Disround I pushed up to a crouch and called out to Ro the rift!” There was ample room now for deh—no less dangerous despite their sood when our resources were already strained to the breaking point