And not just because of the heat. The tunnel was naturally occurring by the look of it, with some lofty areas—like the one the portal had let out on—but up ahead the ceiling ducked low enough that it looked like I might have to crawl. It was also lumpy and hot and completely lacking in partners, bad guys, or anything else of interest except some fireflies zipping around the darkness over my head.

They weren’t the only source of light. Once I got away from the portal, I started noticing glowing patches in the walls, like mold if it was the color of fire and sent off heat waves so intense they were almost visible. I found that out when I ran into one, causing the line on the shield’s meter to drop like a stone. I hit the ground and flipped over to see the room wavering through the intense band of heat above me.

Fun.

I was a little more cautious after that, ducking and dodging to avoid draining the shield even faster, until I hit the crawling part. It didn’t have as much of the freaky mold but also didn’t have a floor after a dozen yards or so, thanks to letting out straight into an enormous cavern. Which was when everything started to speed up.

In rapid succession I saw Lawrence all the way at the bottom, near crevices filled with some type of round things in clumps, like golden caviar. A man—or a mannequin, judging by the way the head fell off when Lawrence touched it—was on a chair in front of him. And a huge swarm of what I guess weren’t fireflies, after all, was flowing out of openings in the walls and fissures in the rocks into a spinning, glowing tornado in the air between us.

I showed up right before it dove—straight at Lawrence.

I had a half second to see him turn, his face and body illuminated with hundreds of swirling golden dots, like a disco ball. And then he shattered, coming apart in the time it took to blink. And damn, that was impressive. So much so that for a second I thought he was going to be okay. But then the golden cloud noticed the darker one rising through its middle.

And tightened up like a closing fist.

For an instant, there were two swirls, dark and light, circling each other in a graceful ballet in midair, a living yin and yang. And then Lawrence pulled away, scattering himself in a wide arc, which I didn’t understand until I noticed. The dark ashes were burning.

It was like a fire in reverse—ash catching alight and burning gold, then orange, then red and then nothing as it flamed out, disintegrating entirely. Lawrence scattered further, maybe losing control, maybe trying to minimize the damage, I couldn’t tell. But even if it was the latter, there were too many of them and he had too far to go and—

He wasn’t going to make it.

I tore the cuff off my wrist, glanced at the bar—and shit. It looked like even my cynical estimate had been a little optimistic. Because there was all of thirty seconds left when I hurled it into the heart of the swarm and yelled, “Lawrence!”

I didn’t wait to see if he caught it; I was already turning the instant it left my hand. I’d done what I could and my only job now was to report in and let the other groups know what they were walking into. But for that, I had to get out. Or crawl and scurry and flail and stumble out, because without the shield—

God. It wasn’t like an oven. Ovens had even heat and this wasn’t even close. That damned lichen or whatever it was formed a deadly lattice across the tunnel, shimmering in lines where the 130-degree air suddenly shot up, 20, 50, 100 degrees in almost invisible waves.

There weren’t as many in the low area of the tunnel, but there was also less room to avoid them. I took one of the “cooler” bands across the face and felt it sear my skin, didn’t quite miss one of the hotter ones and smelled my hair start to burn. But I didn’t bother to put it out because there was no time. I reached the part of the corridor where I could finally stand up straight and tore ahead, my half-melted soles barely touching the ground.

I didn’t try for pretty; didn’t care about form. I ducked and rolled and ran halfway up one wall before throwing myself to the hateful floor and rolling another few yards forward, under the worst of the bands. Not that it seemed to help.

In seconds, my hands were a mass of blisters, my jacket was smoking, my eyes were watering so badly I could barely see the deadly heat shimmers. Hell, the whole room was shimmering. Including a watery patch of ground up ahead, glowing like a beacon and wavering like a mirage in the middle of the desert.

My burning hand closed on the burning cord I’d left behind, and a second later I was flying through the portal and smacking face-first into the gently rocking hull. And staggering off. And realizing that anything I could pass through, something else could, too, which was a problem since I didn’t know how to shut this particular portal down.

I didn’t waste time waiting for Lawrence. If he was going to make it out, he’d be right on my heels. And if he wasn’t—

Then he wasn’t. Partner or no, releasing that burning swarm on the city wasn’t in the job plan. I wouldn’t have expected him to risk it for me, and I wasn’t going to do it for him.

There are explosives that work specifically on portals, but I didn’t have any. What I did have was a sawed-off shotgun and a lot of spare clips, and I used them, shooting the boards around the portal with slug after slug, at almost point-blank range. Plexiglas flew, some kind of Styrofoam-looking guts were gouged out and my ears felt like they might be bleeding. But within moments, water started bubbling through and then spilling over. Faster than I would have believed possible, I was up to my knees and there was what looked like a sinkhole doing its best to siphon the Atlantic into wherever-the-hell.

Which was good, because something was doing its best to come through from the other side. I scrambled out of the trapdoor, watching as something bloomed under the water, something massive and glowing. But while passing through a portal is usually instantaneous, whatever it was seemed to be having a little trouble. Maybe because of the tsunami currently slapping it in the face.

Burn that, I thought viciously, and fired again, sending both barrels straight into the glowing heart.

And then tried to duck as something flew out at me, something huge and black and smoking. I staggered back, hitting the flooded hallway with a splash and a yelp, because whatever was on me was hot, hot, so fucking hot. But I couldn’t see because steam was rising from the water and the damned boat was sinking and the explosion must have done something to the electrical, because the lights were blinking on and off—

But I didn’t need them when I found myself staring into a pair of glowing red eyes.

“Lawrence!”

“Did you have to fucking shoot me?” he snarled, and then we were running and splashing and half drowning—at least I was—back down the hall and through the living area, and out onto the dock, which was within easy reach now that half the craft was underwater.

I pulled up, gasping and choking, having swallowed almost as much as the portal, and dragged myself onto the pier. My half-melted jacket was still smoking, but at least the dunking had put out my hair. I ripped the damned leather off, what parts weren’t already welded to my hide, as Lawrence collapsed beside me.

“It was a trap,” he gasped.

No shit, I didn’t say, because he looked bad. Not bullet-wound-bad, which he didn’t have because he’d still been half dissolved when I shot him. But he was gasping and retching and generally looking like a guy who might have left some important bits behind.

And carried a few others along for the ride. The suit had mostly burnt away, allowing me to see bright spots moving under pale skin, as if someone was shining tiny flashlights through him. One thigh disintegrated in a cascade of black ash, isolating something that twitched and writhed in a puddle of seawater for an instant before flaming out. Others blinked out inside him, probably choked by the fluids in his body, but one—

A brief burning scent was all the warning I had before something burst out of the flesh on his arm. It shone against the blue darkness like a living ember for a second, still smoking from the blood sizzling on its body. I jumped up, getting a glimpse of fine, fire-lit traceries of wings, a solid golden carapace and black, opaque eyes—before it disintegrated under what remained of my left boot heel.

“Fuck!” I said, breathing heavily as Lawrence struggled to sit up.

“Those were…Varus’s clothes…” he rasped. “But on…a dummy. We were…”

“Shut up,” I told him, checking my cell phone because he was in no shape to call for help himself. And neither was I, thanks to the latest in a long line of busted pieces of crap having drowned along with me.

“Have to…warn the others—”

“I said shut up!” I rasped. He needed his strength if he was going to last until I got back. “I’m going to find a phone and call in. Just stay—”

“Dorina!”

I didn’t need the warning. The look on his face told me it wasn’t good even before a bullet slammed into my shoulder. It was large enough caliber to send me sprawling over Lawrence for half a second, before I was rolling, trying to raise a gun with an arm that no longer worked, and then switching hands and still not getting a slug off because the powder was—

Another bullet tore the gun out of my hand as I scrambled back, trying with my left hand to find a weapon that wasn’t soaked, which would have been easier if I could have reached my damned jacket. But I couldn’t even see it; someone had a light blazing in my eyes, bright as a—

“Dory!”

—searchlight, blinding me as I grabbed Lawrence, trying to drag him into the water because if he was able to disintegrate again he’d have done it already and we needed—

“Take her out!”

—to buy time. But red was blooming on Lawrence’s shirt, two, three, four places, as they concentrated fire on him because they weren’t stupid, no, no, not stupid, just fucking assholes—

“Radu, take her out!”

“I’m trying!”

—and I was out of usable weapons, except for the knife in my boot, which I threw almost blind, just zeroing in on the location of those shots. I heard someone curse—