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  No one, including Logan, said the contrary.

  “Plus,” she said, continuing, “the lack of wildlife in the area has me troubled. At the very least we should have seen a variety of birds and few species of primates—something. There’s literally nothing alive here other than whatever bug that’s been biting at your ass since we got here.”

  “Didn’t even hear them either,” Kiani added, staring blankly into the cave entrance. “The rainforests are normally alive with activity. It was like everything living here knows to stay away, fearing the wrath of the Ru’kan.”

  “Speaking of which…” Zeus said. “How the hell did that guy just flip the switch like that? The Nach couldn’t do that, right?”

  “No, mate,” Fitz replied, “they couldn’t. They were stuck in zombie-mode forever.”

  “I’m not sure how he did it,” Logan said, “but there’s obviously more to the pureblooded carriers than we can possibly understand—at least right now. Not until tests are done and what have you.”

  “So,” Fitz said, motioning to the cave, “in it is?”

  After a moment, Logan nodded. Fitz stepped in but stopped.

  “What is it?” Logan asked, rifle up.

  “I’m gonna kill my green for a sec,” Fitz said, switching off his night vision device. “Let me try something.” He then lifted them off his eyes and looked in.

  “What is it?” CJ asked. She did as he did and tilted up her goggles, rubbing her eyes hard. After blinking heavily a few times, she also peered in and saw that there was an ambient glow coming from deeper within the cave.

  “How?” she asked, getting everyone else to do the same.

  “Not sure,” Fitz replied, smiling. “Maybe we’re about to stroll into Sasquatch’s living room or something—catch him watching Three’s Company.” He faced CJ. “Maybe he digs Suzanne Somers?”

  She rolled her eyes and turned away.

  Logan just shook his head and stepped in, leading his team deeper into the Congo. Would the Ru’kan eventually follow and corner them? He didn’t know, but with their luck, it could be something equally bad—maybe even worse.

  * * *

  Last to enter, he turned and gave the surrounding jungle another once-over. If it wasn’t full of man-eating cannibals, it may have been beautiful. He’d pulled an audible and delayed activating his tracking device after seeing that they touched down just outside their destination instead of on top of it. If he triggered it then, he’d throw off the incoming force, and with what he’d seen so far, he didn’t want to have to make the trek back to the original LZ.

  We’ve been fortunate so far, he thought, knowing a case of luck when he saw one. He’d been in plenty of firefights in the past, most while serving within the US military while also covertly serving his employers, feeding them classified intel whenever possible.

  He grinned. The vetting process was a joke. If they’d dug a little deeper they would’ve easily seen his family’s history and its relationship with those of the past in Germany.

  Turning, he nonchalantly reached down to his right forearm and squeezed. There would be no confirmation—no evidence at all that the signal was received or even if it activated. He’d have to trust in the process and in the impressive technological advancements his organization had come up with in the last seventy-plus years.

  9

  As they moved deeper into the cave, two things started to happen. First, the tunnel slowly opened up, making the walk less claustrophobic. Second, the ambient lighting increased, growing to that of a dusky sunset. It was just enough to see by without the aid of night vision.

  That was the biggest problem for Logan, though. If they got into a scrape, they’d have to rely on their own eyes to see the enemy instead of their more capable, artificial ones. The dim lighting of the cave made their situation that much more difficult. It was too dark to properly fight but too bright to use the night vision equipment.

  “Going at it the old fashioned way, huh?” Fitz said, patting Logan on the shoulder. He, like Logan, was uncomfortable in the low light, but both men trusted their instincts enough to backseat the feeling and push on.

  So did the others.

  CJ trusted her brother and Fitz explicitly and she’d begun to do the same with Zeus and Ares. The other two Delta men, Brett “Apollo” Nickson and Chad “Poseidon” Grimes, were highly recommended and hand selected by Zeus for the trip. If she trusted Zeus, then she needed to trust them too.

  Kiani was another thing altogether. Logan was head over heels for the woman, that was for sure. She internally laughed it off and sighed. Of course, he finally falls for someone while we’re ‘here!’ But, life is life and if it was ever going to happen for the man, CJ couldn’t think of anyone better than the beautifully dangerous Congolese guide.

  “You guys hear that?” Fitz asked.

  Everyone stopped and listened, hearing nothing.

  “Um, no,” Ares replied, raising a questioning eyebrow. “You hearing things, Fitzy?” He raised his rifle a little. “Should we be worried?”

  Fitz just flipped him off. He wasn’t used to being on the other end of the snarky remarks and liked Ares a lot just for that. “Get stuffed, fuckstick... Hold your breath and listen.”

  Ares shrugged and mouthed, “fuckstick?” to Zeus, who likewise shrugged. Neither men were fluent in the Fitzian tongue.

  Everyone did as Fitz instructed and stayed quiet. CJ even closed her eyes in order to further her concentration. What she heard was familiar, but seemed very odd considering where they were.

  “It sounds like dead air—static,” she said. Her eyes widened, looking at Fitz. “I swear to you Gray, if you were right and Squatch left the TV on or something, I’m—”

  “It’s water,” Kiani said, likewise opening her eyes. “There’s an underground water source up ahead. It could lead to a way out—to another part of the jungle maybe.”

  “And away from the Ru’kan hunters hopefully,” CJ added.

  “About that,” Ares said, looking back, “Shouldn’t we just call in Night-1 and get the hell out of here and come back with more men? Men like Hermes and Hades usually don’t die so easily. We’re severely outmatched right now.”

  “What good will that do us?” Fitz replied. “We still don’t know anything about them. We need to find their village or wherever it is they live. We need an exact set of coordinates so we can carpet bomb the shit out of ‘em.”

  “He’s right,” Logan said, “we need to keep moving. Once we find this river or whatever it is, we’ll stop for the night and lay out the next phase of our plan.”

  Ares just shrugged. “No problem over here, just putting it out there.” He then turned and moved on, as did everyone else.

  The cave led straight and true for another half mile before the passage opened up again. Once it did, four of them could walk side-by-side comfortably. The lighting even increased again, melting away the last of Logan and Fitz’s anxiety. Now, they’d be able to see the enemy coming with no issues.

  The tunnel itself was something to behold on its own. Every surface was smooth and worn. Logan figured it must have been filled with water at some point. Only water could erode rock like this—especially in such a place like they were in now. He and Fitz led, with the ladies on either side of them.

  “What do you think is down here?” Logan asked Kiani.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, but Logan could see the wheels turning in her head.

  “Talk it out,” he said, trying to usher more out of her.

  He really did want to know her opinion, but something in him just wanted to talk to her. He was so lost with her that it started to annoy him. He reckoned that knowing more about Kiani now, would help him focus less on her and more on the mission.

  “Okay,” she said, biting her lip, “but what I think may not sit well with you.”

  “Hit me,” Logan said, “you’d be surprised what I’ve seen in my life.”

  “I think the Nsanga are real and have an underground system of caves in which they hide.”

  Logan stopped dead. So did everyone else.

  “Excuse me?” Fitz said. “Did you say that you think the jungle-dinos are real?”

  She nodded. “My numbers tell me that the Ru’kan and Nsanga are seen the most in this region. Up until now, the Ru’kan were pure myth.”

  Fitz snorted out a laugh. “Pretty damn real to me…”

  She agreed. “Yes, they are. But what’s to say the Nsanga aren’t?”

  The group was silent.

  Kiani continued. “I have actually encountered more reports on the Nsanga than the Ru’kan. More people believe to have seen them than the tribe.”

  Now, instead of laughing, Fitz just audibly groaned.

  “Great,” he said. “So now we have Nessie’s cousins to deal with too.”

  “And,” CJ added, “we may be marching right into their living room.”

  “So much for Bigfoot,” Ares added, sighing.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Logan said. “Whatever is down here is most likely keeping the Ru’kan from following us. That’s a win in my book for the moment.”

  “For the moment,” CJ said, leaning up against the wall.

  “We don’t really have a choice,” he said, shrugging. “We either go back outside and get butchered or—”

  “Get butchered by something down here,” CJ said, interrupting him.

  “If,” Logan said, turning to her, “they actually exist. We still don’t know that.”

  “You’re the animal expert Cass,” Fitz said, “you tell us what you think.”

  She breathed in hard and collected her thoughts. She wasn’t exactly in ‘Zoologist mode’ right now. “Kiani,” she said, getting the guide’s attention, “tell me again what the reports say—what they look like.”

  Kiani nodded. “The first account said they had large three-toed, clawed feet.” She could see CJ’s mind kicking into gear. “The second report—the hunter, Hagenbeck—said it was half-elephant and half-dragon.”

  “Keep going,” CJ said, rubbing her hands together.

  “In 1913, a man named Ludwig von Stein attested that the creature had smooth skin like a hippopotamus and a long flexible neck. He also stated that it sported a long muscular tail too.”

  “Type of croc, maybe?” Fitz asked.

  “Could be,” CJ said, “but I don’t think so. At least, not one that’s been recorded yet.”

  “Smooth skin doesn’t say crocodile,” Zeus said.

  “No,” CJ agreed, “it doesn’t, but it could be as simple as an evolutionary change. Maybe it’s been beneath the ground for so long that it lost the reason to have the tough hide crocs and gators are known for.”

  “And T-Rex had feathers,” Ares said, shaking his head.

  “Some think Rex did have them,” CJ said, “but I’m not a paleontologist.”

  “Anything else, Kiani?” CJ asked. “Maybe something that hasn’t made it onto Wikipedia yet?”

  Kiani’s jaw clenched.

  “What?” Logan asked. He stepped closer like he wanted to comfort her—put his arm around her shoulders.

  “I saw something with my own eyes once.”

  CJ stepped away from the wall and locked eyes with Kiani. “What was it?”

  “I was on the banks of Lake Bangweulu some years back and saw a croc go under. I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary at the time, but it never came back up.”

  “Um,” Fitz said, “couldn’t it have just swum out into deeper water?”

  “That’s what I thought at the time, but one of the locals that was with me said he’d never seen that particular crocodile do such a thing. He said it had a nest nearby and was very territorial right then. It supposedly never left the banks.”

  “What does this have to do with our current situation?” Ares asked, looking fidgety.

  “The man, Mikka… He said it was the dragon that probably got the croc.”

  “Wasn’t there a bloke who said he’d heard tales of the Nsanga near that exact lake?” Fitz asked.

  Kiani nodded. “Hagenbeck, yes. He’d heard numerous accounts of something large in the waters. The same locals said there was a massive underground cave system with rivers that the creature moved through, connecting most of the rainforests together.”

  “Well, shit,” Ares said, stepping away.

  Fitz walked to the front of the group. “As much as I’d like to leave—agreeing with Ares’ assessment of the shitty situation, I think we need to keep moving either way.”

  “Agreed,” Logan said, “I’d rather take my chances with something that might not exist than with something that most definitely does.”

  And with that, Logan led their descent, directing them into an unknown, yet, intriguing underworld. He’d never verbally admit it, but he was actually enjoying his time away from his duties as lead game warden. Enjoy… No, enjoy wasn’t the right word. Two of his men were dead. He never enjoyed death. While in his younger years, he was in the business of taking lives. But now, he was literally in the business of saving them.

  And this is no different.

  “Logan?”

  He flinched, not hearing anyone come up beside him.

  “W-what?” he asked stammering at Kiani’s sudden presence.

  She smiled, catching his reaction for what it was. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Logan smiled. “It’s fine… You didn’t—I mean—you aren’t…”

  He wasn’t sure if the lighting was such that Kiani would be able to see his cheeks flush with embarrassment. He couldn’t think of what to say to her.

  “Well,” she said, “I’m sorry if I did.”

  Logan simply replied with a nod.

  “You’re really light on your feet, Ms. N’ta. It’s quite impressive. You’d have made an excellent soldier with that skill.”

  Her eyes hardened a little. “I am a soldier, Mr. Reed. Everyone who calls the Congo home is a fighter. We have no choice in the matter.”

  Now it was Logan’s turn to be apologetic. “I’m sorry... I didn’t mean…”

  It’s then he saw the corner of Kiani’s mouth raise ever so slightly. She had baited him perfectly.

  “Wow,” he said, “you’re good.”

  “No,” she said, “not good.”

  He looked back to her after glancing forward for a moment.

  She smiled. “I’m the best.”

  Then she strode forward and picked up her pace a little.

  Logan breathed in heavily. I bet.

  * * *

  She approached the mouth of the cave slowly, wary of everything. It was hard to tell if anything was left alive. The noxious smell of gunfire clouded any and all scent trails. So, she stayed low and crawled forward on all fours, keeping her nose to the ground instead. She searched for…

  “Blood.”

  It was the green blood of a Ru’kan hunter. That she knew for a fact. It smelled different than a human’s—more potent. A few feet away was the body, two large ragged holes in his chest.

  Impressive… No outsider had killed a hunter in some time.

  She continued past the prone body and found another splatter of blood—human blood. Then, she found a boot. Inside was a foot, but the body was missing. The hunters had slain one of theirs.

  The humans fought back, though.

  She expected there to be more bodies than just the one man, whose shredded and discarded body eventually appeared. The hunters hadn’t even eaten the soldier.

  They killed him for purpose, not for sustenance. Not good.

  Some of the youngsters were acting out again, showing the elder tribesmen their abilities. It would be those gifts that would eventually come out in something she dreaded.

  Revolution.

  “So you entered their domain?” she asked aloud.

  Regardless of the actual answer, she’d stay and wait for their return until sunrise. The hunters wouldn’t return, she knew that. They would continue to search out and terrorize anything that didn’t belong in their homeland.

  Let’s hope these outsiders are smarter than those that have proceeded them. Let’s hope they leave ‘them’ be and come back to the world above.

  The jungle was populated by a much less dangerous threat.

  She looked forward again. Even the Ru’kan didn’t venture into their realm.

  The trees above the entrance began to sway, sending her leaping into the trees. She latched onto the nearest one and climbed another twenty feet, putting the tree trunk between her and whatever was coming.

  Her shoulders sagged as it appeared and quickly went for the cave but stopped. It lifted its massive head and sniffed the air, instead moving out into the clearing in front of the cave mouth. In two quick strikes, it lashed out and engulfed both bodies—human and Ru’kan. As it swallowed it tipped its head up like a duck, turned and entered the cave, squeezing its girth into the opening.

  The hope she had for the humans was now stamped into nothingness. There was no way any of them would survive what was coming.

  It had returned home.

  10

  “Um, you guys are seeing this, right?” Fitz asked.

  “Yep,” CJ replied, finishing with her mouth hanging open in awe. She’d seen some pretty amazing stuff in her life, but nothing quite like this.

  The tunnel opened up into what had to have been one of the largest underground caverns on the continent. The ceiling was still the same “height,” but the ground opened up, eventually getting swallowed by a massive gorge. Surrounding the valley-like depression were two cliffs, one on each side of the divide, starting right where they stood now.

  She tried to peer into the low light and see the other side of the space but couldn’t. It wasn’t that it was too dark for her to do it... It was just too damn far away.

  “Uh,” she said, “Kiani?”

  Kiani turned to CJ. “Don’t look at me, I had no idea this was even here.”