I gasped and coughed, clawing at my throat, desperate for oxygen. But with my first full breath came fire, coursing through my veins like molten lead. I rolled to one side, willing the flames to die down. Instead, they blazed through me, cauterizing rips and tears and scrapes as they went.

All that hollering and screaming I hadn’t done when the grenade went off came rushing out of me now. I cursed the war, the desert, the back alleys, the bomb that took Cal, and the snipers who picked off Sanchez and McInnes. Then I yelled at my company first sergeant, the battalion CO, Drill Instructor Screw Y’all, and every other lousy son of a bitch I could think of. I’d done what everyone had asked, and it still hadn’t been enough. The fire ate away at my insides until there was nothing left to consume.

Then, as fast as the pain had come, the raging wildfire guttered and died, leaving me in blessed peace.

I heard the gentle burble of water nearby. My tongue felt like it was made of low-grade sandpaper, and my throat was an inverted cactus. I’d need to drink, but first I needed to get my bearings.

The questions piled up on top of one another.

Where am I?

How did I get here?

How long have I been out?

Why does my mouth taste like cat ass?

Water dripped down onto my face from overhead in a steady plink that reminded me of the sound a grenade pin made when it was pulled.

Begrudgingly, I blinked my eyes open. My vision adjusted slowly to the gloom all around me. I was in a cave lit by the smallest pinprick of light in the distance.

Beneath my hands was a mossy carpet interspersed with smooth round stones. I slid my palms toward the wall. Damp, wet, chilly, still running with water. I licked my hand. Calcium deposits. I looked up. The ceiling was strung with stalactites, dripping right onto me. Seriously, what the hell was going on around here? A cold chill raced across my body, and goosebumps sprinted along my arms and legs. I groaned and sat up, which was a damned good sign. That meant my guts were inside where they belonged.

I ran a hand over my belly and felt unbroken skin beneath my palm.

Fuck me. Someone had pulled me out of that hellhole, patched me up, and managed to stitch me back together.

I paused, uncertainty burbling up inside my chest.

But if that was the case, how in the hell had I ended up in a damp hole in the ground?

An even better question: why was I butt-ass naked?

I was underground, practically licking water off the walls, just as bright and shiny and bare-assed as the day I was born. That didn’t seem right. My head felt fuzzy, but I vaguely recalled floating through the cosmos and talking to God. Except God was a cryptic asshole with five faces and a personality disorder. After that, I remembered plummeting to the earth like a friggin’ meteor. The details were blurry, like a bad dream half remembered on waking.

I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. Now I was talking crazier than Cal. I’d probably hallucinated all that universe bullshit when they’d given me whatever they’d given me before surgery. Morphine is a helluva drug.

Yeah. That made total sense. I was naked because I’d had surgery.

I was in a cave because my brain was as crispy fried as KFC chicken and still processing the shock and trauma of nearly dying.

Soon there’d be a nurse—curves in all the right places, a smile just for me—with a hot meal and a cool explanation. There was going to be a reason for all this, there had to be.

The warm and fuzzies in my chest lasted all of three seconds.

Then I realized I was armed, and warning bells clanged inside my head.

Why did I have a Colt 1911 in one hand and a K-Bar in the other?

Those? Yeah, those were not standard issue in hospital settings.

I clambered to my feet and did a quick rundown of my body. Head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Check, check, check, and check. Everything seemed to be more or less where it was supposed to be, which was good news, though I’d added a metric shit ton of new scars. Pockmarks covered my thighs, there was a violent slash mark across my abdomen, and an enormous glossy scar damn near as big as my fist adorned one hip. That had to be from the frag grenade.

But how had my wounds healed so fast?

My mind was galloping backwards and forwards, trying to piece together what had happened and in which order, but I kept bumping into one big, looming question. How was I alive at all?

I mean, I was fairly certain I was alive. My weapons were reassuringly solid and heavy in my hands.

I checked out my Colt and squinted in bewilderment. Huh, now that’s different, I thought. Instead of its usual plain, matte black finish, it was now cool blue steel with strange jagged lines etched into the metal. As I stared, the lines took on meaning, glowing and pulsing. Golden light coalesced in front of my eyes, forming what looked for all the world like a video game text box:

>>

Peacemaker

Type: Planar Colt 1911; Soul Bound

Class: Fatemarked

Ability: Soul Summon

Primary Effects:

Upgradeable; See Soul Vault Arcana Foci: This item acts as a metaphysical focal point allowing you to channel raw Arcana into deadly force projectiles. Affinity Consumption: Consume Affinity Scales and channel their primary affinity into force projectiles of the same type.

Temporary Effects:

None

>>

Screw me sideways. Seeing magical game pop-ups was a bad, bad sign. I was either high as a goddamned kite or losing my mind—neither option was reassuring. I blinked and willed the screen away, then stole a look at my K-Bar. The blade was covered in glimmering golden sigils just like my pistol.

>>

Bloodguard

Type: Planar Dirk; Soul Bound

Class: Fatemarked

Ability: Soul Summon

Primary Effects:

Upgradeable; See Soul Vault Affinity Consumption: Consume Affinity Scales and channel their primary affinity into the Planar Dirk, granting the weapon additional damage of the same type.

Temporary Effects:

None

>>

“Dude, that is so badass,” Cal said beside me.

I jumped at the sound. His voice seemed to bleed from the air all around me.

“This is just like that RPG Deadwatch Crusade,” he said. “You have video game powers and shit. Man, I would’ve given my left arm for video game powers.”

“Not badass,” I whispered under my breath as I dismissed the magical text written on the air. “I mean, I guess it’s badass if it’s real, but there’s a ninety-nine percent chance it’s not real and that I’m actually running around Balboa Park naked, talking to myself like one of those weird hobos that live under a bridge. You know my number one goal after getting out of the Marine Corps was to not be a hobo under a bridge, Cal. That’s my biggest fear!”

“I thought your biggest fear was your own crippling sense of self-doubt, brought on by the fact that your father abandoned you as a child? That or spiders.”

“Not helping. At all,” I mumbled. “The fact that I’m chatting with a dead man also isn’t helping and strongly points to the insane hobo angle.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit, the evidence isn’t looking so good, bud,” Cal replied. “I’m pretty sure I’m real, but I guess that’s what a figment of your imagination would say. Chances are you’re naked in a park, turning tricks for beer money—”

“Wait, what? I never said anything about turning tricks for beer money,” I shot back.

“Hey man, I just calls ’em like I sees ’em. But—and just bear with me for a second—what if it’s not the hobo, beery money thing? What if this is real?”

“How can it be real?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” he answered. “You can always figure out the logistics later. But assuming there’s even a remote possibility that this is real, and you screw around, then you’re gonna end up a dead man for the second time today. It’s like Drill Instructor Screw Y’all used to scream at us, ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst.’ We should treat this like it’s real until we’re one hundred percent certain it isn’t.”

I had to admit, ghost Cal made a pretty compelling case. I pulled back the slide and checked the chamber on my 1911. The gun looked different. Strange. But by god almighty, there was a round in the chamber, even if those were a little funky, too. The rounds didn’t look like they had shell casings at all; instead, they appeared to be crafted from golden light like the runes covering my weapons. I had no idea how a bullet would fire without gunpowder or a primer, but at this point I didn’t give a shit. They could be sacred bullets gifted to me from hippy tree Druids so long as they slayed some bodies.

And it looked like I was gonna need to slay some bodies.

My eyes had finally adjusted to my surroundings. My new home away from home wasn’t so dim after all. A gloomy cave, instead of a black pit. And what I saw wasn’t exactly welcoming. There was a crude campsite ten feet to my left. It was composed of a banked fire ringed in stones. Outside the stones were hide mats—deer maybe, or cow—that covered the floor like ye olde carpet.

The wall behind me was slick with moisture, but the stalactites overhead weren’t calcium deposits. At least, not in the traditional sense. They were calcium of another kind. Bones. The cave was littered with bones. They were absolutely everywhere. The walls, the arched ceiling, the crude chandelier that hung over the firepit. All bones. Femurs, fibulas, carpals, metacarpals. It was an emo kid’s wet dream. The worst of it was the array of skulls studded around the doorway that led to the only light source in the place.

In the gloomy half-light I picked out the rotting remains of a deer carcass, strung up near the rear of the cavern. Beside it was what might’ve been a birdcage, several rabbits, and a brace of pheasant. Well, almost pheasant. Pheasant-like, but with longer necks, sharper beaks, and talons that could rip the head off a weasel. They were big ol’ sons of bitches.

I tore my gaze away the food supply and tried to add up what I’d observed so far.

Fire meant these people had a basic grasp of utility. Whoever lived here knew how to hunt, prepare meals, and stay warm. As for the bones, they were either a show of strength or a warning. That or whoever lived here had some wonky ideas about interior decorating.

“It’s the interior decorating thing,” Cal said, seemingly able to read my thoughts. “I mean, this place is a little over the top, but like, I get it. Remember when we went to Portugal? Same energy.”

I did remember. We’d visited a place in Evora just like this, called the Capela dos Ossos. The Chapel of Bones. It had been created by monks when they ran out of consecrated ground to bury the local dead. Rather than doing what anyone sane would do, those monks decided to dig up the corpses and turn all those old bones into a living testament to death. It was an invitation to contemplate your mortality. How short is life, they chanted. How close death. There was an old Latin saying I’d heard once, Memento mori. Remember you too must die.

The cave around me had an inscription of its own, carved over the door in some language I’d never seen before. I shouldn’t have been able to read those words, but I did without missing a beat. “We bones are here, waiting for yours.”

Okay, so one, the bones and skulls were definitely a threat, and two, whoever lived here didn’t believe in subtlety. But subtle or not, the message came across loud and clear: Fuck around and find out. Whatever lived here was human, not animal—the mats and camp gear told me as much—but based on their living conditions, they were completely, utterly, totally batshit crazy. Suffice it to say, I did not want to meet them. I wasn’t prepared to die in a cave in my birthday suit with nothing but my Colt and K-Bar for company.

The runes on my Colt flared fast and bright, shimmering golds laced through with electric blue. I heard movement up ahead. It was soft, the clinks of rocks and the silky whisper of bare feet over stone. I’d been living on edge for months, and I knew the sound of feet when I heard it. I dropped into a crouch, my nakedness temporarily forgotten.

I couldn’t square how the mujahideen could be in this cave, or how they’d kept me alive for so long without me being conscious of time, but there was no other explanation. I’d been kidnapped by the enemy, stripped down, and fed hallucinogens as preparation for a full-on interrogation.

Three shapes resolved out of the murky darkness ahead. They paused, still hidden in a pool of inky shadow. Golden words flashed across my vision.

>>

Bounty

Dark Lair: A pack of vile Crave Ghouls have nested in this location. Kill them, harvest their Essence, and avenge those who have been slain by these monstrous beasts.

Reward: +150 Essence; 5 Ward Points

>>

I skimmed the prompt then waved it away with a flick of my hand. I had more important things to focus on right now. Like the insurgents up ahead. And not dying.

I raised my weapons and squinted, studying the three men. As I did, I realized that I’d made a vital error because these creatures were most definitely not human. Humanoid, sure, but not human. They were squat things with bulbous bellies, gangly arms and legs, and sunburnt red skin. They had misshapen heads with beady, bloodshot eyes, overlarge ears that reminded me of bats, and wide mouths filled with jagged black teeth. Leather wrappings covered their shins, and crude loincloths thankfully covered their junk.

They padded toward me, slowly and deliberately, toes feeling their way through the scattered bones and piles of cast-off debris. The closer they got, the worse I ranked my odds. They weren’t just clawed and fanged and muscled, they were in tactical formation. They might be monsters, but they were monsters on a mission. The trick was to keep ’em in front of me. If they split up and circled behind me, I’d need to have Bruce Lee’s speed and skill paired with Chuck Norris’ brawn, grit, and expert choreography to make it out of this alive.

Things were not looking good.

The stench of flesh marinated in sulfur wafted over me.

Maybe I hadn’t survived the grenade attack after all. Maybe I’d landed in an outer ring of hell and had only one choice. I had to hack my way through these freaks to freedom. Even if the pinprick of light at the far end of the cave was a raging pit filled with brimstone and demons, it had to be more welcoming than these chuckleheads.

The three of them paused again, hunched and huddled, claws tapping frantically, then huffed and wheezed and blew their fetid breath in my direction. If a smell could kill, this one was a truck-mounted .50 cal. My eyes watered and my nose ran, so deep and penetrating was the odor. I cleared my throat and spat to one side, but the taste didn’t budge. Seriously, these guys were worse than the inside of a Porta-John baking in the Iraqi sun. That only fortified my will to fight. Anything to get away from the godforsaken stink.

“I made it through boot camp with a hundred reeking teenagers, you no-good, fat-bellied, lizard-eyed skidmark. No way a bad case of BO is gonna put me down.”

They grunted and clicked their tongues, heads swiveling on their stalk-like necks. The one in the rear chittered and cawed like a kookaburra who’d swallowed a bag of cicadas. He was smaller than the other two.

One of the larger creatures backhanded him, sending him sprawling across the cave floor. He cackled, rubbed his belly with his misshaped claw-hands, and sprang to his feet. It was one of those hyper-gymnast moves that only the very young, the very fit, and the utterly alien can pull off.

“Better if you turn around now and leave me alone before I carve a nice big smile across your throats.” I raised my K-Bar over my head and let the rune light glimmer like angry embers. I might’ve been naked, but I wanted them to know I was packing heat and ready to fight.

Only one of the creatures was armed. He had a pitted machete-like sword and held the thing like he knew how to use it. I opened my mouth for one more taunt, but they came fast and they came all at once, scratching and screeching and kicking up sand and dust as they ran.

I swiveled at the hips, planted my feet, and brought the pistol up. I settled the iron sights and gently squeezed the trigger three times, aiming at the most prominent threat—the freak with the machete. As I pulled the trigger, power surged out from my chest, leaving me feeling hollow and oddly numb.

A glowing blue bar appeared in the corner of my eye.

I was so surprised that my first shot went wide. The second shot drained more of the blue bar—and my energy—but my aim was true, and it caught the creature in the chest, punching a hole through his body. The third round grazed his neck, sending out an arc of blood as the creature spiraled down to the ground. Dead even if he didn’t know it yet.

One of his fellow monstrosities stopped and hovered over him, crooning and swaying, which gave me time to reposition myself. The baby of the pack—the one with the kookaburra laugh—narrowed his eyes and dragged his claws down the wall closest to him. He eyed me like he wanted to throw down, but then he glanced to the pistol in my hand, suddenly unsure. Apparently wherever the hell I was didn’t have a lot of firearms. These wrinkly red nutsacks were about to learn a lesson or two in modern warfare, assuming I could muster the strength to fire off another few rounds.

Under normal circumstances I would’ve emptied the mag into them without a second thought. After just three shots, though, my blue bar was empty and I was feeling winded and shaky, like I’d just sprinted three miles while wearing a combat pack. Since I wasn’t a moron, and could do basic math, it was safe to assume the Colt, the blue bar, and my sudden exhaustion were all somehow related. The weapon description had said the gun acted as a metaphysical focal point that allowed me to channel raw Arcana into deadly force projectiles.

I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what raw Arcana was. If Cal was right, however, and this was Deadwatch Crusade, then it was probably this world’s version of mana, and I would bet every dollar to my name that the blue bar was my mana gauge.

It was refilling, but at a sluggish pace. I needed to buy myself some time, so I waggled the gun and bluffed.

“Wanna see how it works again?” I taunted. “Take one step closer and I’ll be happy to demonstrate.”

The little one threw back his head and clacked his tongue, beating his chest in impotent rage. But he stayed put, waiting for his buddy, who was tending to the one I’d just shot. The beast on the ground coughed. Had they not been trying to kill me just seconds earlier, I might’ve sympathized more.

The creature let out a last final hitching breath, and golden light wafted up from its mouth, slipping across the ground and filling me in an instant. It felt like pure life flowing into my veins. A can of Red Bull, a gallon of coffee, and a snort of coke all rolled into one. The blue bar lurched back to full at the exact same moment that flowing golden sigils swam across my vision. Once again, the words were in a language I’d never seen before, but their meaning was crystal clear inside my head:

[You have killed a Crave Ghoul! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 293 Essence!]

His buddy, the one who’d been hovering over him while he died, reared back and howled, the sound part wolf, part monkey, all rage. He crouched on his haunches and leapt, so fast I could barely track his movements. The gangly creature slammed into me like a linebacker, and my pistol clattered across the rocky ground. Lanky arms wrapped around me, pinning my hands to my sides. The beast pressed himself against me, drilling me to the ground, assailing me with his putrid stench as much as with his body.

The Cackling Clicker—the one who’d tagged along for shits and giggles—waited, waving his preternaturally long arms in the air while he pounded the ground beneath his feet. He kept his distance, though. Whether because he was worried about me or because he was offering the kill to his grieving buddy, I wasn’t sure. Didn’t matter in the long run.

The beast who straddled my chest tightened his grip, and for the third time in hours uncountable and time unknown, I felt my life slipping through my fingers. What an utter bunch of bullshit.