The cabin in which Camp Whiskey’s leaders conducted business was twice the size of the next largest cabin. Chad had jokingly referred to the large main room as an echo chamber. But now it felt too small, the air stale and the walls too close. The problem was all the extra people in the room-three Order of the Dragon representatives and several rifle-toting Camp Whiskey guards. The Order people sat at one end of the long wooden table that occupied the room’s center. Jim sat alone at the opposite end of the table, his arms crossed over the front of a thick wool sweater. He and the old man who was the obvious leader of the Order delegation glared at each other across the length of the table. The tension between them made Chad jittery.

So he abandoned his front-row seat at the staredown of the ages, rising from the table to wander over to the fireplace at the rear of the cabin. A fire crackled in the stone recess, a small pile of logs shifting as the flickering orange flames consumed them. Logs Chad might well have cut himself. He examined his palms as he held his hands out to receive the fire’s warmth. Calluses formed over the course of two and a half months of hard physical labor made them look like a stranger’s hands. How strange now to look at these work-roughened hands and feel so good about the deceptively simple things he’d accomplished in his time at Camp Whiskey. He’d built new cabins with the other men, becoming skilled in the basics of construction and rudimentary plumbing. At some point he’d begun to genuinely enjoy the hard physical work, taking more pride in the things he’d built with his hands than he ever had in his ability to skillfully push around numbers in a cushy white-collar environment.

Which partly explained why he felt an instinctive hatred and distrust of the Order people. What they were proposing would mean an end to the new lifestyle he’d come to love. It also reeked of a suicide mission, with the people of Camp Whiskey serving as a kind of cannon fodder. Chad wasn’t a coward. He had proven that during the House of Blood revolt. But the circumstances here were different. The people at Camp Whiskey didn’t live each day at the mercy of brutal overlords. No one’s life was being sacrificed in the name of obscure ancient deities. But now these mysterious emissaries from some arcane organization were working to convince them to give up the safety and comfort of the camp in favor of a headlong march into a lion’s den. Essentially asking them to give up their lives to help avenge the death of a woman they had all despised.

The fire crackled and the silence lengthened. Chad picked up the fire poker and prodded the dwindling logs. The flames grew higher as he imagined sinking the hooked end of the poker through one of the Order leader’s eyes.

The back of his neck tingled in a weird way and he turned away from the fire. The female Order representative was eyeing him closely. She was seated to the old man’s left. Her eyes narrowed, projecting an intensity that made Chad gulp. She had very fine Asian features, with high cheekbones and a small, sensual mouth. Her hair was thick and dark, glossy like that of a model in a perfume ad. Unable to bear the withering stare a moment longer, Chad forced his eyes in another direction. He had the disturbing sense that she could see his thoughts and it made him want to bolt from the cabin.

Jack Paradise stalked the room like a caged beast. The big ex-marine’s jaw was a tight line of tension. He circled the table with his hands clasped behind his back, as if he didn’t trust what he might do with them if he didn’t keep them there. Halfway through yet another circuit around the table, he came to an abrupt stop and his hands came away from the small of his back. He leveled an index finger at the old man.

“Fuck this and fuck the lot of you. Your bullshit plan is a nonstarter on every level.” He pounded a fist into an open palm. The palm an obvious substitute for the old man’s face. “Basically we’re the Northern Alliance and you’re the U.S. Army. But this ain’t Afghanistan, mother-fucker. It ain’t our grudge and it’s not gonna be our fucking war. No way I’m getting ninety-plus percent of my people killed so you fuckers can prance in afterwards and take this bitch out.”

Jack’s jawline quivered. The big man was fighting to maintain any semblance of control. Chad had never seen the man in the grip of such fury. Jack Paradise had always seemed the embodiment of a Marine Corps lifer-a resolute and extremely self-disciplined hard-case, a man who wouldn’t rattle easily, if ever. But he was rattled now and it was clear the Order people appreciated the full range of possibilities this implied. The woman pushed her chair backward several inches and placed a small hand on the hilt of her sword. The young man seated across from her did the same. The swords were in black scabbards, but Chad had a feeling they could be drawn and put to lethal use in the blink of an eye. The Camp Whiskey guards shifted their feet and repositioned their weapons, pointing in the general direction of the Order representatives.

Chad’s heart felt ready to leap into his throat. Blood was in the air. But his people were the ones with the guns. Firepower trumped old-fashioned steel. Or did it? The Order people were an unusual lot. An understatement. They seemed from another world altogether, some place wholly alien, and whatever purpose or cause they served was as inscrutable as the face of God. They were dangerous and not to be underestimated.

Chad took a deliberate step backward. He wanted to feel the fireplace poker’s solid heft in his hands again. It would be no match against Order steel, but it was better than nothing. The woman looked at him again and did something that made his balls shrivel. She smiled. Her eyes remained cold, but the smile seemed to promise she would be coming for him if the tension in the room did escalate to actual conflict.

Jim’s audible sigh defused some of the tension. He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the edge of the table. “There’s no need for this. Jack, have your men leave the room.”

Jack wheeled on him. “What? Have you gone insane? We can’t trust these people. No. My men are staying put.”

Jim stared into the old Asian man’s eyes for another moment. Then he smiled and rose from his seat. “Pardon me. I’ll be just a moment.” He moved away from the table and headed for the front door, throwing a glance in Jack’s direction on the way. “A word, please. Outside.”

Jack glared at Jim’s retreating back a moment longer.

Then he sighed and spoke to a black man positioned next to the door. “Keep things under control, goddammit. Anything hinky happens…you know what to do.”

The guard nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Then Jack was gone. The door flapped shut and Chad was alone with the guards and the Order people. He felt abandoned. The strange people in black sat silent and unmoving. To Chad they looked like incredibly precise and lifelike sculptures of human beings. The unsettling impression lasted until the woman again sensed his scrutiny and turned her head to observe him.

And she smiled in that utterly humorless way again. “You must convince your superiors of the wisdom of our plan.”

Chad blinked in surprise. It was the first time any of them had spoken to him. “Um…ok ay, one, they’re not my superiors. Two, I’m not personally convinced of the wisdom of your plan. In fact, I think it’s pretty half-assed and want nothing to do with it.”

The woman shrugged. “Your comments are fueled by emotion and not informed by rational thought. Our proposal is your only true path to salvation. In the end, you will set emotion aside and do as we say.”

Chad sneered. The woman’s smug words rankled. “In the end, we’ll do whatever the hell we want, and if that turns out to be a choice you deem ‘irrational,’ well whoopty-fucking-do, too bad.”