Chapter 5
The Hunters Arrive
The Vahn-Gahl dispatch a hunting unit through a temporary rift in an abandoned Chicago industrial district. The operative, Seris Vahn-Morr, and a bio-mechanical drone trace the Key's residual signal to Lyle & Associates, killing the night guard. Starla and Leo, meeting the electronics expert, narrowly avoid detection.
The air in the South Side industrial corridor had not moved in decades. Rusted silos leaned against one another like tired sentinels, and the broken windows of abandoned factories stared blankly at the cracked asphalt below. It was a dead zone, a place where even the city's stray dogs rarely ventured. The people of Chicago had long since forgotten this pocket of urban decay, which made it the perfect entry point for something that was not of their world.
At 2:14 AM, the air above the loading dock of the old Merrick Steel plant began to warp. It shimmered like heat rising off summer pavement, except the temperature was barely above freezing. The shimmer deepened, and a sound like tearing metal filled the night. A crack appeared in the fabric of reality, a jagged vertical line of violet light that grew wider and wider until it was the shape of a door.
From that door stepped Seris Hari-Mor. She was tall, with the lean, wiry build of a predator. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes were the color of mercury, reflecting the world around her without emotion. She wore a fitted suit of black polymer mesh that absorbed the dim light, and at her hip rested a compact energy weapon. Her hair was cropped short, white as bone, and her face carried the cold detachment of someone who had performed this mission a thousand times before.
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