I came to staring down the barrel of a gun.

Okay, wait, let me back up a little bit. Allow me to explain. It's not as bad as it looks (for once).

First things first, Sheira and I were no longer on the floating death trap. That sucker had been abandoned on some god-forsaken beach after it had rather selfishly run out of fuel about an hour into our adventure. We had made a daring escape, barely making it out with our lives while also fighting with their vampire repelling boss while also not drowning (which is always a plus, in my opinion) ...but we'd also managed to nab the one boat in the entire harbour that was in the red! It was just our luck.

It was also just our luck that when we did run out of fuel, we were in the middle of open water of the world's busiest shipping lane, and poor Sheira had to paddle us back. Yes, only Sheira. I felt awful about it, but the adrenaline had worn off by that point. I was painfully reminded of my *checks list* broken wrist, ribs, nose, a possibly punctured lung and more cuts and bruises than you could shake a stick at.

The only thing that would've made everything a thousand times worse was if I'd lost a tooth from my face first introduction to the side of the boat. I'd already had one of my incisors knocked clean out when I was fourteen. Let's just say I wasn't overly keen on having another replacement. Did you know they don't put you fully under for that stuff? Without a doubt, one of the top ten worst moments of my life was being conscious as the dentist walked towards me with a comically large drill so he could screw my new tooth in.

Ugh...never again.

But with the boat out of commission, we were left with no other option other than to trudge the rest of the way to Stonespire on foot. It couldn't have been more than ten miles, but it could've been a marathon for all I cared and the bitterly cold wind rolling off the channel just really added that perfect touch (It's summer, ocean. Act like it!)

It was a miserable night, to put it bluntly.

At about 3 am my ears popped, and the faint shimmer of the barrier let us pass through. A quaint little village that had been invisible half a second earlier suddenly materialised, the sort of thing Beatrix Potter or Enid Blyton or one of those fancy Victorian types would write about, all thatched roofs and red brick chimneys. It would have made the perfect postcard if it wasn't for the enormous mountain bursting out of the ground like some kind of divine knitting needle.

"Stonespire, huh?" I said staring at the twisting column of rock that by my best guess was half a mile high at least and definitely had an evil villain's lair perched on the top. "It fits."

Sheira frowned at Sauron's summer house. "We're still quite a ways out. If you promise not to die, we can stop and find a place to sleep."

"Heh. I'll do my best," I promised.

That's how we ended up at the location of our stick-up. It was some farmers' hay barn who had conveniently left the window open (Is it still breaking and entering if you don't break anything to do it?) The smell wasn't great but hey it was warm and dry, and I wasn't in the mood for complaining. I was out like a light as soon as my head hit my makeshift pillow.

But did I sleep? Of course not! That would be too easy. I jolted "awake" in an unfamiliar canvas tent, heart pounding until I spotted the woman standing with her back to me. I instinctively reached for my sword until I realised the room was on fire. My dream was further solidified when the red-haired thing turned around, her lifeless eyes staring past me.

Ever since seeing Molly in the factory, I'd kind of hoped my eyes had been playing tricks on me but alas fate is a cruel mistress. Molly was in fact very much alive, not that you'd be able to tell from a first glance. Her skin was a waxy patchwork of different skin tones from God knows how many "donors" and sewn roughly together with thick black thread that was going green at the edges. Her long red hair was either matted like an abused cat or threadbare and falling out in clumps.

But it was her eyes that were the worst part. It was like the pupil and iris had exploded with green fractals swimming about on a sea of bloodshot capillaries. They were glassy and dead without a flicker of anything good or friendly. I'd been forced to stare into those eyes when she'd rammed a needle of serum into my neck last year. That was the only time I'd seen so much as a hint of life in them, and I never wanted to see it again.

The general straightened her tattered uniform and scowled. "Come in! I don't like to be kept waiting," she barked in her cold metallic voice. It was a charming sound. Like nails passing through a meat grinder.

The door swung open and in walked another one of my least favourite people. He was dressed in the same black uniform but looked less Day of the Dead and more My Chemical Romance. He was about as pale as Molly but unlike her was very much alive with long jet-black backcombed hair that swept moodily over his right eye, conveniently hiding the fact that it was straight up missing. All that was visible was a long red scar peeking out from the bottom of his fringe.

I'd heard a lot of rumours about Leo's missing eye but in this case, the truth was stranger than fiction. It hadn't been Molly in a fit of rage or some wild animal going berserk it had been Sheira. Yes, that Sheira! I couldn't believe it either, but it made perfect sense. When you join the Army, you're initiated by killing a family member and Leo had gone for his twin sister. But Tammara was Sheira's friend and she had, quite rightly in my opinion, responded by gouging out his eye.

This quite understandably left the two with some bad blood.

Leo, a usually snivelling shrimp of a man, stood as tall as he could manage with his chin jutting out like he was about to play the violin. He looked ridiculous. "General, we've just received some news from a band of smugglers on the south coast. Apparently, Nick Hayden and Sheira Winterton were spotted stealing a boat and causing damage to the site. According to their leader, the vessel was spotted heading west."

I groaned. Great, not only had the great vampire repeller thawed out but he'd blown our cover. I mean by now Molly must've figured we were responsible for blowing up her shed but now she knew we weren't with the others. We were on a mission and by the narrowing of her cold dead eyes, I knew that she knew that too.

"Interesting..." Molly growled. "What could they have been up to so far from home I wonder?"

"It might interest you to know general that the smugglers who reported the sighting are also the ones that carry our shipments of Infernal Fire." He frowned, "what if they know about Project Ascension?"

So that's the code name for the Rift huh? Fancy.

And dumb. Did I mention dumb?

Molly waved his concerns away. "So what if they do? You think they can stop us?"

For a moment Leo looked like he was about to say something about how we had royally kicked their asses before. Then he remembered what happened to people who doubted the boss and kept his thoughts to himself (it usually involves a lot of melting and/or having your tongue cut out. If you think that sounds bad just imagine what it would smell like).

Molly tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Did our friends down south mention a certain red-eyed traitor in their message perchance? Or was it only Winterton and Hayden they saw?"

"Err...no ma'am. I don't think so. The leader only mentioned two individuals."

"Now that's interesting." She smirked, "very interesting indeed..." She shook her head still grinning with rotten teeth. "Do not worry about them. After all, in just a few more days, we'll have the power to raze their Stronghold to ash. Then we'll be free of those interfering brats once and for all and our glorious leader will finally be able to take his rightful place in the sun of our brave new world."

That memory made my bile curdle. I'd almost forgotten that Molly wasn't the top dog. Like every evil organisation that's ever existed, there was some higher power lurking in the shadows pulling the strings and making the rest of our lives miserable. It was the Emperor to Molly's Darth Vader, the Hydra to her Red Skull. Who they were we didn't know but if he wanted to rule the world the way the Army were right now then I'm getting the first rocket to mars.

Leo, who was still standing there while Molly zoned out (probably fantasizing about drowning puppies or something equally evil), coughed awkwardly. "What are your orders ma'am? Should we go after them?"

"No," Molly said firmly. "We don't have the time for detours, not when we're so close. Carry on as planned. Take your division to Site B and begin preparations there. Take Erden with you."

Leo gained the look of a man who'd just seen the waiter spit in his food. "Pardon me General but why him? He's a coward and a lunatic! He almost broke my neck during the last mission we were on together. I'd rather take one of the creepy kids."

For nine-year-old Marx who raised an army of the undead and eleven-year-old James who could give people an aneurysm just by looking at them, the phrase "creepy kid" didn't quite cut it.

Molly visible bristled at this blatant sass and glared at her underling. Leo shrunk by a couple of inches. "Mr Thames you must believe I care about what you want. You seem to be thinking that this is a nursery and if we don't like our playmate, we can ask the teacher for a new one."

All of a sudden Leo doubled over, clutching at his stomach, and crying out in pain. Molly had her hand outstretched, her fingers clawed and squeezing tighter and tighter. A trickle of blood began pouring out of her eyes. She grinned like a wolf about to tear her prey's throat out.

"This job isn't for kiddies Mr Thames and if you can't handle that I suggest you take a stroll into the Rift, understand?"

Pale as a ghost and sweating profusely Leo nodded. Molly unclenched her fist and her captain collapsed to the ground gasping for breath.

Molly lowered herself so she was eye level with him still grinning and speaking with a sweet soft voice that made every cell in your body want to run. "Leo. Take yourself, Erden, and a battalion to Site B, please. And don't dilly dally will you? Time is of the essence, and you don't want to miss the big day, do you?"

"No ma'am."

"Good, good." She stood quickly and delivered a sharp kick to his ribs that must've broken something. "Go on! Get moving you useless worm before I lose my patience! MOVE!"

Leo moved alright. He got up and practically sprinted out of the room, tripping over a guide rope on the way out. Molly cackled hysterically like a witch on laughing gas.

"Yes," she muttered. "Soon. Soon the world will be yours."

***

And that's when I woke up to the gun barrel being pointed at my face.

Considering what I'd just been through that was the complete opposite of what I wanted to see first thing in the morning, followed quickly by the fact it was still pitch black out. Now I'm not a morning person and by the looks of the farmer who looked like he'd been tarred, feathered, and then pulled through a hedge for good measure, neither was he.

I slowly put my hands up.

"Uh, Sheira?" I kicked her gently in the knee.

"Wassup?" she replied groggily.

"We've got a new friend."

In a split second, she went from the land of nod to ready to kill every creature in a square mile. Puffs of nitrogen cold air exploded from her fingers, the start of a beam crystalizing on her palms. However, the intimidation check was ruined slightly by half a hay bale sticking out of her hair.

"Don't try it, missy," the farmer growled in a heavy Devon accent. "This thing's rigged for split shots. I'll have you and your friend bringing messages to the reaper before you even snap your fingers."

"I honestly pal you'd be doing me a favour," I muttered. The dream had let me forget the pain of the previous night. The waking world wasn't so considerate.

Meanwhile, while the guy holding the shotgun took a moment to be confused by my Gen Z humour Sheira started explaining. "Look I'm sorry. We were trying to make it to town, but my friend is injured, and we just needed somewhere to get some rest. We're sorry we broke in, but we haven't touched anything I promise!"

While Sheira was talking, I became aware of something cold and wet on the exposed part of my arm. I looked down and was very surprised to see a...rabbit. No, a hare, freaky eyes, and all nuzzling at my sleeve.

It also appeared to be made of grass.

"Hello?" I said.

The Beast hopped away to its masters' feet and bopped him on the foot until he paid it some attention.

"What it is it now, Meadow?"

The hare bristled. "She ain't lying chief. The boys hurt real bad. I can smell the blood on him from a mile away and I think he's burned something awful too."

"Actually that might just be me."

But either way, it was enough for him to put down his weapon which was perfectly fine by me. "So you're telling the truth?"

"We have no reason to lie to you, sir. We're just looking for a doctor." She paused. "There is a doctor in town, right?"

He nodded. "Town square can't miss it."

"Thank you, Nick c'mon."

Even though this guy was letting us leave I couldn't blame Sheira for wanting to get out of dodge as fast as possible. My body it seemed had other ideas as no sooner had I taken a step did my legs just go 'Nah mate' and I went tanking forwards. My already broken nose would have somehow become more broken if Sheira and the farmer hadn't caught me and hauled me upright.

"Nick, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said to Sheira. "Although I'm not sure I'm meant to be seeing three of you."

"Your nose is bleeding!"

"So that's why I can taste pennies."

The farmer, perhaps realising that we posed all the threat of a zombie sloth, dragged my arm over his shoulder and with Sheira's help started walking/carrying/dragging me towards the now open barn door. "You weren't kidding miss about your friend. Tell you what, you don't tell me how this happened, and I'll give you a lift into town. Gotta pick something up anyway."

"That's incredibly kind of you–"

"And I don't want some kid bleeding out on my property."

"Fair enough," I wheezed although I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

I say that because I can't really remember the journey in the back of our new friends' Jeep. One minute we were thundering down a dirt track, the next my MRE lunch became fertilizer for whatever field we were passing by and a moment later I was in a warm, bright room being dazzled by the small suns they were using as lightbulbs surrounded by what my exhausted brain could only process as ghosts.

I didn't come round for a while after that.

When I did wake up (for real this time) the first thing I was aware of was the pain. Largely because it wasn't there, or at least not as badly. Do you know when you get so used to something it just becomes normal? Like when you've slept for eight hours for the first time after surviving off power naps and Red Bull for the past six months and suddenly you don't feel like death anymore. (Just me then?)

Oh well. Hurray for not dying, I guess.

Gingerly I eased myself upright and unlike the last time this happened I wasn't in someone's kitchen. No, whoever had patched me up was a bit more professional as the room was basically a GP's practice crossed with a witch doctor's hut. Posters of different element-specific injuries decorated the walls alongside groaning colourful bookshelves with interesting titles (my favourite was "Dr Crane's Guide to Stoneskin: Treatments, Pigeon Protection and Possible Careers as a Living Statue").

A book of sigils was splayed open on the desk, so I decided to do some snooping. It quickly became abundantly clear that this was the sort of book that the Harpy would only trust me with if I stole the key to her office (if you catch my meaning). Total invisibility sigils, marks of mass destruction, there was even one for exorcising vampires of all things and each was more complicated (and more catastrophically dangerous if it went wrong) than the last. Considering I couldn't even draw stick figures this was well above my paygrade.

Judging by the open page and the still angry red mark on my hip I'd been hit with the old Mark of Total Restoration, a "symbol taken from angelic writings capable of healing any and all ailments a body may have."

"Yeah," I said bitterly as I stared at my smouldering fingers with a mix of disgust and disappointment. It tastes like stomach acid if you need to know. "Fixes everything wrong with you huh?"

My coat and gloves and a new t-shirt were draped over a nearby chair. I put them on, not looking at the black veins that were almost at my shoulder, yanked open the door and stormed out.

In the waiting room, I found Sheira talking animatedly with three people, two women and a man with her audience adopting a perfect look of shock and horror. She'd also been fixed up. Her busted open lip and shallow cuts from her fight with Simon were nothing but faint scars and she was no longer going for the scarecrow look. The performance however stopped dead as soon as I rounded the corner and Sheira jumped up, ran over and threw her arms around me.

"Thank God you're awake! I wasn't sure if you were going to wake up."

"That bad huh?" I said, hugging her back

She rolled her eyes. "You've no idea."

One of the women, a thin brunette in her mid-forties and wearing a blue lanyard and one of those nurses' watches wandered over to join us.

"A dislocated wrist, broken radius, six fractured ribs, major concussion, a broken jaw. Not to mention dozens of lacerations and a punctured lung. In my entire career I've never seen anyone with that many injuries walking and talking, never mind, what was it? Stealing a boat and escaping from pirates?! I may not believe in God, but you've got a guardian angel young man."

"If only he could step in when I'm actually getting punched." I grinned, "thanks for the patch job doc."

She shrugged. "Don't mention it. You've also got an abnormally high temperature, but I've been told that's normal for you?"

I tapped my chest. "Primal Heart."

"Glad we didn't use hydrotherapy on you then," said the Arabic man who judging by his uniform was the resident nurse.

"Hamza, Dr Bates, and Shannon Morgenstern," Sheira introduced me. "She runs Stonespire. I figured someone should tell her about the highly dangerous substance being ferried through her town."

"That would probably be wise."

We took a seat opposite Hamza and Shannon. I hate to admit it but the woman running Stonespire reminded me a little bit of a badger. Her short black hair was going prematurely grey in tufts, and she had a sharp pointed face that was basically the Harpy but without the "I will eviscerate you" stare. Shannon's dark brown eyes sparkled as she smiled at me.

"I'm glad to see that you're awake young man. Your friend's just been telling us about this weapon that the Army found. What do you know about it."

I glanced at Sheira who nodded reassuringly. Taking a deep breath I explained everything as best I could from finding out that Molly had somehow opened a portal to a world that made hell look a bit chilly to learning that a positively eldritch collection of monsters had crawled out of it, including the Maw which A) had almost eaten us and B) may have been brought through Stonespire. Shannon went as pale as the milky-watered-down abomination she was calling tea.

"So it's true." She swallowed hard and set down her cup. "No offence dear but when you were explaining it the first time round, I didn't want to believe you. It was just too awful to think about."

"And from what we've seen you're very lucky nothing went wrong. You see we fought this creature and it had taken out at least twenty before we killed it and they were all highly skilled elementals," Sheira said gently.

I leaned back in my chair. "Saying that why would they be using Stonespire to smuggle this stuff? I mean you're not a big place but surely this place has got to be packed with people. Right?"

Shannon scoffed. "Oh, I wish. You see last year when the kidnappings were going on Molly and the rest of those bastards were using our little village as their own personal buffet. A third of our population, maybe about five hundred people or so, vanished over the course of six months. And that's not including the people who moved. Only about twenty came back and we've been struggling to make up our numbers ever since. It's the same story up and down the country."

I knew what she was on about. Sheira, Shadow and I made a trip back up to Ashwood Dale and Greencoast last October to try and find and thank the people who helped us. Ashwood Dale, the town where we'd met Shadow, was a shell of its former self and still bore the scars of the battleground. Truespear Hollow seemed to be doing better but they still had the zombie wall up.

Greencoast was just dead. I didn't see Maverick or his daughter Rebecca, who reminded me painfully of my little sister. I remembered Rebecca's innocent brown eyes and pictured them safe and sound in Whitecliff. The alternative was just too horrible to think about.

My heart squeezed painfully. Maxie and Lilah. I never said goodbye.

I tuned back into the conversation a few minutes later. Sheira was asking about protection.

Dr Bates sighed like a woman at the end of her rope. "Oh we do have guards but not like we used to. Once upon a time, we had a fifty-strong force, but now we can barely manage ten on a good day. It makes perfect sense to me why those lowlifes would use our home as a port."

"Plus there's the curse," said Hamza.

I could almost feel my ears prick up. "Curse? What curse?"

Dr Bates scowled at him. "Don't listen to him, there's no such thing. Just a silly story that the young ones and outsiders like to tell to explain something perfectly rational."

Sheira leaned forwards in her seat, eyes sparkling like they always did when something weird was going on. "Explain what?" she pressed.

The good doctor looked to the heavens for some sort of sign, sighed and then looked at her watch. "Wait twenty seconds."

We waited.

"Er is something supposed to be–"

I began to say before this god-awful rumbling came out of nowhere just like some primordial beast had just stubbed its toe on a coffee table. Then the room started shaking. Sheira and I cried out in shock, with her gripping my arm as light bulbs flickered in their sockets and books tumbled off the shelves.

It should be worth mentioning that the three locals barely flinched.

After a few seconds, the shaking subsided and I let go of Sheira's hand. Dr Bates calmly got up to replace the fallen books but other than that nothing was out of place. Come to think of it there wasn't a knickknack in sight. A clock on the mantlepiece had tipped over but as Br Bates righted it I saw the base was covered in blu tack. How often does this happen? I thought to myself.

"What the hell was that?" Sheira demanded.

"It's the curse," said Hamza spookily. This earned him a smack on the head from his boss.

"Well it sure as hell wasn't an earthquake," I said. "Now I never claim to be a geography expert but I'm pretty sure good old Great Britain is slap bang in the middle of a tectonic plate. We don't get earthquakes that strong. And how did you know exactly when it was going to happen?!"

Shannon nodded. "We call it the Tremor. Every day, every week, the area is hit by small routine earthquakes. Now they are weak, usually not above a magnitude four, so we can feel them, but they rarely cause damage. Call it a local quirk."

"They're so routine in fact you can set your watch to it," added Dr Bates. "That one was the Friday twenty-seven past ten."

I stared at these superhumans "I can barely sleep when it's raining, and you guys just deal with it? I'd go crazy in a week!"

"You get used to it."

I grinned. "You guys are badass."

"For once I agree with him but I'm failing to see how this is a 'curse'. Unless the curse is sleep deprivation," said Sheira.

The three locals went quite silent. The two women shared a concerned glance. Dr Bates mouth something to Shannon and with my very very verrry rudimentary lipreading skills (thanks again Gio) I just made out "should we tell them?" The mayor nodded and turned back to us.

Her expression was grim.

"You see every now and again, and I'm talking extremely rarely as in once or twice a year after a Tremor something crawls out from under the mountain."

Sheira and I glanced at each other. "What sort of something?" Sheira asked cautiously.

I meanwhile was having flashbacks to being almost eaten. Twice.

"As in a monster," said Dr Bates. "Creatures made of earth and rock that always come from the same place, the heart of the Needle."

"And they wreak havoc on us. They destroy everything they see and only stop when they're dead. We have to hire mercenaries to deal with them for us. Why wouldn't we call it a curse?" Hamza scoffed. "Then of course there's the fact that the mountain just appeared one day..."

Wait a second. Hold up and rewind just a second. "What the hell did you just say?"

"An entire mountain just appeared?!" said Sheira, believing as much as this nonsense as I was.

Now don't get me wrong, weird stuff happens in the elemental world all the time but a mountain dropping out of thin air, especially one the size of the Needle, was just a bit out of the realm of possibility. No one could be that powerful. I mean for god's sake they'd be able to break a continent in half.

But Hamza had receipts. He whipped out his phone, scrolled around and presented a picture taken at an art gallery. It showed two simple charcoal landscapes, obviously where Stonespire would sit in the future. And wouldn't you know it? Mountain gone...mountain there. Now you see me, now you don't.

Even so, Sheira didn't buy it (not that I blame her). "This doesn't prove anything. It's just a painting of a local legend, nothing more."

Ah, Sheira ever the pillar of logic.

But Hamza wasn't done. He zoomed in so we could read the dates. Any retort Sheira had died on her tongue as her eyes widened in surprise. If the picture was to be believed the drawings were two hundred years apart. Unless our mountain had hit puberty and shot up a mile over two centuries then the whole "something put it there on purpose" idea suddenly wasn't looking so stupid.

"But...but..." poor Sheira was utterly flummoxed. "How? Why?"

"No one knows. There are a thousand stories though. Some say it's the tomb of a mighty army. Others say it's weighing down some terrible monster. Then there's the story of the Needle being made to cover some gateway to another world. Or–"

But we weren't listening. Sheira leapt to her feet, finger pointing straight at Dr Bates. "What was that last one?!" she demanded.

The doc took a step back from the crazed woman in front of her. "What?"

"What was the story!" I yelled, also up on my feet.

"I- Er- well the legend goes that about two thousand years ago the ground split open and all these monsters came pouring out. The entire south coat would've been destroyed if we hadn't been saved by a single elemental warrior who came, slayed the creatures, drove them back into the chasm and then made the Needle to seal the breach. But you've got to understand that of all the stories that one's the least likely. One person against an army and then making a mountain? It's impossible."'

But I wasn't thinking about stories. I was thinking about my dream. A gateway to another world? Sounds like a rift to me. A closed rift with weakened scar tissue that lets the occasional monster claw its way through.

"Site B." I gasped.

The others looked at me like I was insane. Only Sheira looked concerned. "What's Site B?"

My heart skipped a beat. My throat was filled with ash. "I had another dream," I breathed.

BOOM!

The windows exploded inwards showering the room in broken glass. Sheira and I dove to the floor, covering our heads while the others screamed. Dust and plaster rained from the ceiling, but I noticed that the ground wasn't shaking.

We scrambled to our feet to survey the carnage. Dr Bates, who had been closest to the window was on the floor, clutching her arm as blood seeped through her clothes. Shannon and Hamza were also cut up, albeit not as badly and were taking care of the Doc. They'd also brought out their Beasts, a chameleon, a monkey and one of those birds of paradise you see dancing on the TV. Not sure what good a bird doing the cha cha cha would do but there we go.

"What was that?!" yelled Hamza. "There's not another Tremor due today!"

I ran to the window and my stomach dropped. "That wasn't an earthquake. Something's blown up!"

Sure enough, there was the oh-so-familiar jet-black smoke rising from the mountain. I could still see the dust cloud pouring down the slopes. It looked like a god dammed volcano! I mean I know Vesuvius is due for an eruption, but you don't have to do everything first Needle!

Sheira hurried over and gasped. She then grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me down by the collar to her eye level. "What did you dream about!" she demanded.

I explained very quickly. It took me a minute at most but in that time, Sheira had run through all the emotions of shock, horror, anger, and total, complete fear. It was quite an impressive feat actually.

"So that settles it then. The Needle is another rift. A closed-up one but still a rift."

"And they want to open it..." She swallowed hard. "If they've sent a battalion then we need to go. And as much as I want to carve out that spineless traitor's eye with a plastic spoon, we don't stand a chance against Leo, never mind fifty of them."

BANG! Another explosion this time closer. Too close for my liking. I caught the fireball in the corner of my eye. It was just at the edge of the village.

"Sheira they're coming!"

"Alright," she turned to our new friends. "The Army is coming, and we need to hide. Is there anywhere safe that you can go?"

Shannon was clearly panicking but was somehow managing to hold it together. Sheira and I had dealt with this before (more times than I'd like to admit) but she was a civilian. I admired her for that.

She thought about it hard. "There's an old mineshaft nearby. No one knows it exists except for the locals. We can easily defend it too."

"Good, take yourselves there immediately and get people out of town if you can." Dr Bates looked like she was about to protest but Sheira cut her off. "Look I know it's hard to believe but we know what they want. Your mountain is sat on top of a rift to one of the elemental planes. If they find a way to break the seal, then we're all dead. You just need to go."

"But what about you two?" said Hamza.

"We're on a bit of a time limit," I tapped my gloved arm. The Doctors eyes narrowed. "We'll just make a run for it. Trust me, we've fought these guys before, we can handle it."

I was never very good at lying.

Shannon stood. "I'll come with you."

"Oh no you won't," I said

"I have a duty to get my town to safety," she argued. "There are children living here. Elderly people. If we are under attack and we leave them we're condemning them to death. I can guide you as far as the fields and then you'll be on your own. Hamza you know the way to the mines, don't you?"

"Y- yeah."

"Good. Gather anyone you find, block off the entrance and don't make a sound until I get there. I'll tunnel in through the tin veins. Understand?"

"Loud and clear."

"Good now get moving. I'll see you down there."

With another quick goodbye Hamza, Dr Bates and their Beasts threw open the door and ran. I poked my head out after them, watching until they rounded a corner out of sight. They weren't the only ones running. Families, kids, old people...all terrified and running for their lives. I heard Hamza shout something and people started following.

I looked to my right. The stable we'd been sleeping in was on fire. Part of me hoped that farmer had been getting something big and heavy that would keep him away from home. My brain told me not to look at any bodies.

Shannon took a deep breath. There were tears forming in the corner of her eye, but I didn't mention it. That wouldn't help anyone.

"What can you two do?" she asked.

"Fire."

"Ice."

"Have you killed before?"

"More than I want to admit," I said honestly.

Sheira nodded in agreement.

"Fair enough. I can hide us but not much else. If we get spotted it'll be up to you."

"We understand."

"Good."

We stepped out of the broken GPs as the thick scent of smoke filled my nostrils. Despite my rejuvenating sigil treatment I still felt like crap. The ache in my muscles had returned and where had once been pins and needles were now totally numb. But if we stayed we died so there was nothing else for it.

So I gritted my teeth and ran.