'We will speak on the road.'

Flavius Marcus didn't look at me as he spoke. The short, wiry ghost had his back turned as he put on his war gear, which he capped off by holding up a lantern that glowed bone-white.

Marc's eyes had stopped needing light long ago, but he still needed something he could follow when travelling. Ghosts, being completely unbound by physics, could move fast enough to reach any place in the universe instantly, or even travel backwards or forward through time, if they weren't careful. The lantern's spectral light would keep him focused.

The Crypt division's Romanian base was under Omu Peak, the hollow section still appearing completely solid from the outside.

I bit back a curse at his dismissal. 'How is that bastard still walking free, or even walking, for that matter? Why the fucking hell is he in ARC, rather than a name on our list of kills?'

'Those are the wrong questions, Silva.'

Breathe in, breathe out. Pretend you're human, David. Both will help you keep your patience. 'Why did nobody tell me about Szabo until I met him?'

'Ah,' The Roman glanced over his shoulder with a kind of bitter amusement-revealing an old in joke to a newcomer, except the joke had never been funny. 'Why do you assume you needed to know? Or, to sound less insulting...you've done good work, Silva. You could have certainly toured most of the archives several times by now-if you wanted to.'

I let out a sharp laugh. 'That's it? The monster in the closet was left as a surprise because I assumed we didn't have one?'

'You know what they say about assuming?' Marc was suddenly in front of me, a transparent hand on my shoulder. To me, ghosts were actually solid. Strigoi were closer to the spiritual world than to this one, after all. 'Why think ARC is all glory and honour? Because we defend the world? Sometimes, you need a monster, to do a monster's job. But don't underestimate Loric, Silva. He's smarter than he looks. If he just rampaged, we-or the Church in his country, or someone-would have killed him decades ago. But he's made himself useful, while still able to indulge himself,' the legionary, who had killed more people than I'd met in my life, sneered at the mention of said "indulgences". 'Has he told you that analogy with the mad dogs? He rambled like that when we met. If not...'

'Yes,' I said curtly. 'But, since I've apparently been asking the wrong questions until now, why did you say we'd speak on the road? Where are we going?'

The legionary held up his lantern with an excited grin, like a boy about to go on a road trip. 'You haven't since the Crypt's central headquarters, have you? Be bold, revenant! All roads lead to...Giza.' Marc blinked. 'That sounded much less wooden in my head. Oh, well...you had to meet the mistress, sooner or later.'

I didn't know why, at the time, but the way he said it sent a shiver down my spine.

***

Marc insisted we pour some wine before setting off, so that the libation would bring us fortune on our journey. As the most senior Romanian Crypt agent-well, he hadn't actually been born there, but he'd died there before being brought back by the Shattering-he normally didn't leave the country, as our colleagues grumbled while we passed by them through the halls. But a few quick mentions of "Giza", "the mistress", and "Szabo" brought nods and "ah"s, grins and grimaces, respectively.

I wasn't sure which I liked the least.

'How are your powers developing, Silva!?' the legionary hollered as we flew up to the opening at the top of the base. 'I could've just passed through the rock if I was alone, you know! Can you do that yet!?'

'I'm not sure I can do it at all!' I replied, having to scream to be heard over the rushing wind.

'Ha! Not with that attitude, friend!'

We were out and away in moments. At the time, my speeder/flying licence only allowed me to move at superhuman speeds and in Romanian airspace-I was still a junior agent-but Marcus' would cover for us both, while our ARC legitimations doubled as passports.

Szabo had covered for my flight to Siberia, before I got his call, but I wasn't about to thank him, given the freakshow he'd turned the mission into.

You had to be careful about such things. Take the time my friends tried to stop my withering, for example. If Mihai hadn't been licenced to practice magic "as long as no sapients were permanently harmed", that stunt with the moon would have caused us both a headache worse than the way my head had literally split. The mage had rewound time around the crater that night, but it still had caused a few very pointed questions, and a fine on his part.

I had been deemed insane at the time, thus unable to answer for my actions or those of others that I got bloodily involved in.

Maybe, one day, when I had time, I'd write down the little happenstances between world-shaking events.

'No passing through things! No making pests speak and spy for you! No raising and binding the dead by word and grave! Gods...are you at least able to tell the names of the dead just by looking at them?'

I frowned. Actually, I hadn't thought about that in years...nor had I been able to use that seemingly passive ability since learning of it. While meeting Marcus, coincidentally. 'Now that you mention it...was it a one time thing, perhaps?'

The legionary waved me off as we flew over Egypt, the light changing from the difference between time zones. 'It comes and goes, then. You're still developing.'

A bearded, grinning face flashed into my mind, and I gnashed my fangs. Develop...how long had he been a strigoi, I wondered?

As we touched down in front of headquarters, nestled beneath the sand halfway between the Great Pyramid and Giza, I focused my dead eyes on the city. No fires...no intentionally-started ones, at least. The Shattering had brought Egypt's old gods back into the world, and tensions between their worshippers and the Muslim population sometimes escalated quite a bit beyond spirited debates.

No, I did not worship them. I did not pray to them. I wasn't sure what to call them, but "gods", was shorter than "theomorphic entities", and I'd do penance if a grammar Nazi priest disagreed.

My strigoi side felt kind of disappointed at the fact there were no fights between shabti and djinn ripping up city blocks, though. Even I had to admit those had been kind of cool.

At the entrance we had chosen, Marc stopped to mutter a quiet oath, and press two denarii to his eyes. There was no Charon to take him across the Styx, but the rite had to be observed.

My admittance was infinitely less dignified.

So, one of the ways to hold off strigoi, evil spirits and so on is to scatter piles of small things before us. Dust and sand works sometimes, but rice is the most commonly used. I was used to the white grains by now, having to go through this whenever I returned to the Omu base, to prove I was still thinking straight, rather than ranting and raving after getting my blood up in the field.

The rice shot from a small hatch in the bank vault-like door and into the air, then scattered, mixing with the sand-and why not? Silva could have it easy otherwise, God forbid that-and I crouched down to count the grains. Oh, I knew how many there were from glance(three thousand, two hundred forty seven) but my nature compelled me to scrabble through the sand for each, the pile them up in a neat little mound, being careful not to damage any. My strigoi side wouldn't have been able to stand it.

'You're doing Ceres' work, Silva. We'll make a farmer out of you ye-'

That was when Marc learned that, while God had asked men not to kill, He hadn't said anything about kneecaps.

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Rubbing his knee with an annoyed grin, the legionary nodded, then gestured for me to enter first. 'Good to see you're keeping that temper leashed...'

Headquarters' halls twisted and turned as we walked, and that wasn't a figure on speech. The hieroglyphs carved into the white marble signified confusion and hesitance, change and inconstancy. Far closer to Isfet than Ma'at, which our, and I quote, mistress was the champion of.

But, while ARC was many things, afraid of using its enemies weapons wasn't one of them.

After what might have been a second or a weak, we arrived at a set of marble doors, with the hieroglyphs for 'closed' blazing over them. The guard shabti, falcon-headed, khopesh-wielding men on sphinxes glanced at us for a moment with unblinking, blind eyes that saw more than any human's. I could see the webs of power weaving in and out of them, and the symbols for clarity carved around their eyes.

Then, they nodded stiffly, stone grinding on stone, and stepped to the side. The hieroglyphs over the doors changed to 'open', then 'enter'.

Install a bell? Why, do you think we hated being dramatic?

The office of the Crypt division's Head was just as strangely-angled as the base's corridors. My eyes crossed trying to make sense of where everything was (the hieroglyphs blazing with the power of every god from Ra to Thoth to Bes' nephew's cousin twice removed), but I finally saw something that looked sane and stable.

I was beginning to think whether every damn piece of furniture in the Crypt's headquarters was marble when I caught sight of the desk's owner and her fiendishly deadly guests. Somehow, the desk was shaped so I could see all three's faces at the same time, despite the fact two of them had their backs to me.

Szabo was slouching, the amused, close-mouthed grin on his face wholly at odds with the warning glare in his eyes. The strigoi looked like he'd been enjoying a joke which was now getting taken too far.

The Crypt's Head wore a black sleeveless jacket, the Crypt shield above a headstone enter appearing in white several times, over her bandaged form, slim arms closed. Her headdress swayed slightly as she nodded and me and smiled slightly at Marc, who nodded back rapidly.

I was surprised at the exuberance...then saw-really saw-her face.

Some people just naturally projected authority. Others were so beautiful, or charismatic, you just wanted to listen to them.

The mummy's dark features may have been full once, but the years and return from the grave had weathered them. Her lips were scarred, her eyes surrounded by bags I would later learn had nothing to do with physical exhaustion. She was still beautiful, but like a statue that had been left in the rain too long.

My dumb brain didn't give a damn about that, though, because I felt a sudden urge to stand at attention and ask for orders. The power of Ma'at clad in dead, embalmed flesh. My strigoi side balked at the thought of being placed within a hierarchy, and the holy power backing the impulse to obey wasn't helping its mood.

The room's third occupant worried me the most, and the fact they weren't from ARC was only one of the reasons.

Atlantis may or may have not existed and sunk, millennia ago. Maybe the Shattering created it from whole cloth, or rewrote the past, but we were still finding new ruins every day, and the Watcher Over Horror stood guard over each.

At the same time.

We didn't know what had happened to Atlantis, but the aura of dread surrounding the ruins was enough to send most supernaturals running, whether they had been spawned in the depths or on the surface. The Watcher certainly did their part in keeping people away, though.

Over thrice my height, the Watcher was humanoid in body, their-what little I could see of it- figure androgynous, and clad in silver, lobstered armour covered in fishlike scales. Subtle, I know. The last Atlantean-one of the few claims, or statements, period, it had made- wielded a shield that changed shape every moment, from buckler to kite to tower, every moment, and a shapeshifting weapon in the other. The harpoon-like spear became a trident as its featureless helmet turned fractionally in our direction.

'Agent Silva,' the boss started in a warm, smoky voice, still smiling, and I tried to catch my jaw. Alright, the desire to obey was something, but what... 'Agent Szabo was just being reprimanded for overzealousness in pursuit of duty when you and agent Marcus entered. "Dogfood", indeed." She held up a wrinkled report, which she'd clearly been perusing, and not gently, for some time. 'You do not lie in official documents, Loric.'

'No lie!' The strigoi held up both hands, smiling innocently. It was then that I noticed the hieroglyph for "truth" that had been burned into his tongue. 'Ma'am.'

'For the third time, you cannot expect me to believe that girl was possessed by a sudden desire to eat her pet.'

'She was hungry,' The hieroglyph didn't burn. Did that mean Szabo believed it was true? Was the magic objective, or subjective? 'But insane! As I wrote-'

'Yes, you claimed she was insane, Loric. And then told me you fed it to her, by hand. I received several statements that corroborated that, along with complaints, from the Strangeguard.'

'I helped her eat, yes, but who told the girl to swallow? Honestly...' Szabo chuckled. 'What kind of heartless, unhinged child would eat a dog? I am grateful that my actions helped set little Sofia back on track-'

'To an asylum.'

'-and will assure that Russia's therapists have an understanding, pliable subject. No need to thank me.'

'...No, you are right. No need.'

New hieroglyphs burned into the strigoi's flesh, and he pulverised his marble chair as he fell to the floor, thrashing and writhing. The mummy looked straight ahead as she spoke, ignoring him. 'You are removed from field duty, for the time being. Director Kovacs will email you your patrol routes through Hungary. Be sure to give her my regards.'

A gaping, glowing pit appeared in the floor under him next, and Szabo managed a hateful parting glare before he fell.

Sighing, shoulders falling, the boss nodded apologetically to the Watcher, who tilted their head to the side. She then turned back to Marcus and I, smiling again.

Bet she had all the boys calling her "mummy".

'Agent Silva...I have called you here because your training has become a significant interest to me, several of my colleagues, and some of my subordinates. I think we have kept you on the reserve bench long enough, yes? The pantheons are making waves-'

'Atrocious,' the Watcher said, running an armoured finger along the edge of a serrated blade. 'You do not have to deal with every sea god, nymph and spirit who thinks the ocean is a bathtub. Distractions, all of them.'

'That was not meant to be a pun,' the mummy said smoothly. 'But I apologise, nonetheless. I know how demanding your duty is. On behalf of ARC, and the world, you have our thanks for keeping the old madness buried.'

'...Hmph.'

'The gods are becoming bolder,' she continued, golden eyes boring into mine. I'd say I didn't gawk back like an idiot, but I try not to lie. 'Mine are urging me to take a side. Odin's handling of his own possessions is a sign of laxity, disinterest, weakness. He has let things wander off the path of fate. Nidhogg should not have died. Mimir's head should be theirs. They will guard the knowledge, make good use of it.' Another sigh. 'And so on. Agent Silva, Agent Marcus, we have several predictions for when, where, how and why this godly staring contest will become a skirmish, then a war. You must make sure these possibilities do not become reality. Your next assignments are...'