Malcolm Whitmore opened his eyes to a worried Operator 47.

  "What's the matter?" Malcolm said.

  "I've been watching you go in and out of consciousness since you entered the portal."

  "You mean I wasn't in there the whole time?"

  "You've been out of it for quite a while, actually. For a time, you weren't breathing. Did you make contact? with Aiko?"

  "I nearly had her, Roger; she was that close."

  Operator 47 moved restlessly in his seat at the sound of his given name.

  "What happened?"

  "I don't rightly know; she was drowning in her sorrows and was so weakened by her grief and guilt of her parent's death she nearly accepted the offering I provided, but something interfered."

  Operator 47 gave him a look like he just grew a second head.

  "I don't think we're ready to deploy this technology. Too many close calls nearly ended us."

  Roger shuddered at the memory of what he encountered on the other side. Beasts with several horns and gigantic heads, or was it just a dream? In any case, he wanted nothing to do with this damned portal tech again. It was good that Aiko and Dynamo stole his receiver.

  Malcolm studied Roger's trembling hands, noting the way his operative's fingers twitched involuntarily—a telltale sign of neural feedback from the portal interface. The technology was still crude, too dependent on the user's psychic resonance with the void. He'd lost three operatives to madness in the early trials, their minds shattered by glimpses of what lay beyond the veil.

  "The beasts you saw," Malcolm said carefully, "were they corporeal or abstract?"

  Roger's jaw clenched. "Does it matter? They were real enough to nearly tear my consciousness apart. I felt their hunger, Malcolm. They wanted to consume me."

  Malcolm rose from the medical chair, his muscles protesting after hours of stillness. The portal chamber hummed with residual energy, its crystalline core still pulsing with that sickly purple light. He'd been so close to breaking Aiko, to making her another vessel for the ancient hunger that drove him. But something had intervened—not the Lex Aeterna itself, but something working through it.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "The girl's resistance changes nothing. She's marked now, touched by both sides of the veil. That makes her more valuable, not less."

  "But if she's aligned with the Lex Aeterna—"

  "She's not aligned with anything," Malcolm interrupted his reflection in the window showing eyes that burned with an inhuman light. "She's become a conduit, a living bridge between worlds. Do you understand what that means?"

  Roger remained silent, but Malcolm could smell his fear—a bitter tang that reminded him of copper and old prayers.

  "It means," Malcolm continued, "that she can be turned. The Lex Aeterna showed her one path, but there are others. Darker roads that lead to the same destination." He turned back to Roger, noting how the man flinched at his gaze. "Prepare the secondary team. We're going to need more than conventional methods for this."

  "The restaurant strike failed. Sumoto and the girl—

  "—Yuxi—displayed abilities we didn't account for," Roger finished, his voice strained. "Half our men are in critical condition. The other half are missing."

  Malcolm's fingers drummed against the window, each tap sending hairline cracks through the reinforced glass. "Missing or consumed?"

  "We... we're not sure. The security footage shows our men disappearing into what looked like rips in reality. Small ones, nothing like the main portal, but—"

  "But enough to take them somewhere else." Malcolm's smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed too sharp in the fluorescent light. "The boundaries are weakening faster than I anticipated. Aiko's passage through the void has created fissures."

  Roger shifted uncomfortably. "Sir, with all due respect, maybe we should consider—"

  The lights in the chamber flickered and died. Cracks formed across the walls and floor, and purple light oozed out. Sinister shadows danced across the walls as a ripping sound echoed through the room. Roger's breaths were short and ragged. Malcolm thought the man was on the verge of some kind of breakdown.

  "Consider what, Roger?" Malcolm's voice had changed, layered now with harmonics that shouldn't exist in a human throat. "Retreat? Surrender? The girl has opened doors that cannot be closed."

  In the portal's light, Roger saw Malcolm's true face—not the cultured businessman's mask he wore, but the thing beneath. Ancient sigils crawled across his skin like living tattoos, and his eyes had become twin voids that reflected the screaming infinity beyond the veil.

  "You're one of them," Roger whispered, backing toward the door. "You're not hunting for them—you ARE them."

  Malcolm's laughter filled the chamber, a sound like breaking glass and distant thunder. "Such a limited perspective, Roger. I am what necessity made me. When the old gods sleep, someone must tend their dreams." He gestured to the portal, and its surface rippled in response. "Aiko thinks she's found strength in her suffering, but that’s another form of hunger. And hunger... can always be fed."

  The portal flared, and Roger glimpsed something moving in its depths—massive, serpentine, with too many eyes and a mouth that opened forever. He ran, slamming through the chamber door as Malcolm's voice followed him down the corridor.

  "Run, little Roger. Tell the others what you've seen. Let them know that Malcolm Whitmore was never the true threat. I am merely the herald, the one who prepares the feast."