Chapter One

Grant

I plunge my cutlass into the chest of the Echo creature, punching the sword’s blade straight into the beast’s torso and out through its back, skewering the monster’s heart. The creature gurgles. Its jaw slackens, and blood dribbles out of its gaping mouth. When I pull the sword free, the beast crumples to the ground.

Maybe I should feel a flush of triumph, but I don’t. Killing is never a good thing, even when the monster before me had tried to assault a child. I’m glad the creature is dead and no longer a threat to anyone. That doesn’t mean I enjoy meting out lethal punishment.

I glance around the alley, searching for my partners.

Bobby had gotten cornered by an Echo creature at the entrance, but I don’t see him now. Erin did what she always does—run off on her own and get into trouble. I can’t see her either, so I have no proof she’s gotten herself in trouble again, but it’s a safe bet she did. That woman must have a suicidal streak.

A triumphant cry of “hooh-yeah!” echoes down the alley.

That would be Bobby. Christ, I’m working with immature daredevils. I sprint out of the alley, then pause to survey the area. Yeah, there’s Bobby. He stands over a creature that lies prone on the ground. I rush to him and peer down at the beast. Blood streams out of a wound in the center of the creature’s forehead.

“Nice shot,” I say. “But we can’t be sure it’s dead. The only surefire way to take out an Echo creature is to pierce the center of its heart.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bobby says. “But a shot to the head will at least slow him down for a good long while.”

I grasp the straps of my backpack and wiggle them to get the weight more evenly distributed. The medical supplies in my pack could save lives, but it’s damn hard to fight these monsters while saddled with a full load. I glance at Bobby. “Have you seen Erin?”

“Yeah. She went down that street over there.” He points toward the next intersection, about a hundred yards away. “Told her not to go because you’d be mad. But you know how Erin is.”

Oh, yeah. I know.

“Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s catch up to her.”

And then I’ll strangle the woman. She is single-handedly eroding my belief that I don’t want to kill anybody without serious provocation.

We jog down the street until we reach the intersection, then I stop us both so we can scan the crossroad.

That’s when I see her. Three creatures have surrounded Erin, circling her while they taunt her with verbal jabs I can’t quite hear and fake-out lunges that keep her on her toes.

Bobby and I raise our weapons—my cutlass and his .9mm handgun—as we pelt down the road toward Erin. The creatures hear us coming. All eyes, including Erin’s, rotate toward us. Two creatures break away from their buddy to sprint in this direction, clearly aiming to murder me and Bobby. He fires three shots, two of which hit one creature. Neither shot results in a kill, but the beast hits the pavement facedown.

I try to skewer the other creature, but it dodges my strike and hunches to ram its head into my stomach. The force of the blow sends me reeling backward while I gasp for breath. The creature straightens and pulls out a wickedly serrated blade half the length of my sword but just as deadly, if not more so.

The monster roars and rushes at me.

With one swift movement, I pierce its heart.

And the beast collapses.

Erin lets out a primal shout.

I leap over the dead creature and run toward her. But I know that wasn’t a scream of fear. She often hollers that way right before she delivers a serious blow to an Echo creature. I see Erin and the last creature dancing around each other. She hollers again and thrusts her cutlass, but the beast kicks her in the gut. Erin drops, clearly stunned by the blow.

The creature raises its knife and plunges it toward Erin’s chest.

Grasping the cutlass in both hands, I ram it straight through the creature’s back and out through its chest. I wrestle the blade free while Erin lies there on the ground, her eyes wide, breathing hard as her gaze locks on to me.

“How do you do that?” she asks. “Hitting the exact center of the heart is tough enough, but doing that from behind… Nobody else can manage it.”

“Glad you’re impressed. Maybe you’ll start listening to me now.”

She pushes up into a sitting position and puckers her lips. “Never said I was impressed.”

I lean over her and offer my hands. “Come on, we need to get moving.”

Erin narrows her gaze, flattening her lips, but she accepts my help in getting up. “You must have Echo power in you. No way in hell anybody could punch straight through the center of a creature’s heart that way every time without magic involved.”

“Shut up and get moving.”

I spin around and stomp down the street toward Bobby.

Erin huffs but hurries after me, falling into step beside me. “Everybody says you’re such a nice guy. Did you bribe them to spread that propaganda? You’re a dick.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Can’t understand why Willow thinks you’re amazing. Must be a teenage crush caused by hormone overload.”

“For once, could you please shut up?” I squeeze the words out between my gritted teeth. “We need to get back to Sanctuary before any more creatures come out of the woodwork.”

Peripherally, I see her flash me a scowl.

We stop when we reach Bobby. “Okay, kid, do your thing.”

He shuts his eyes and fists his hands as if that helps him focus his Echo power. But I’ve spent enough time with him to realize it’s a crutch, not a necessity. The apocalypse that transformed the world gave certain people a special kind of magic that lets them teleport themselves and others to anywhere they want to go. I don’t have that power, so I need someone like Bobby with me on every supply run.

Energy tingles over my skin, and the ruins of Phoenix, Arizona, vanish. Sunshine and greenery take its place. The scent of meat cooking on a barbecue grill wafts toward us, and birds chirp in the trees. We’ve come home to Sanctuary. We don’t call it that just because it’s a relatively safe place. This has become our home, and all these people are our family.

A teenage girl rushes up to me and throws her arms around my neck, standing on her tiptoes. “Sooo glad you’re home.”

I stroke Willow’s hair. “Hey, kiddo. Yeah, we’re glad to be home too.”

Willow lets go of me and hugs Bobby, then tries to fling her arms around Erin. But she scuffles backward to avoid the girl’s attempt.

Unfazed, Willow shrugs and returns to me, grasping my hand. We walk into the main area of the camp, which lies in the center of a large clearing. Forest surrounds us, and I’ve always thought that might be why Echo creatures rarely make it into our Sanctuary. Anybody could get lost in these woods.

Bobby jogs over to his buddies, the youngest adult members of our ragtag family.

Erin flashes me a scowl, then hustles into her tent.

Willow and I approach the group that’s gathered around the barbecue grill. We had scored a huge grill a couple of months ago in Des Moines, Iowa, of all places. Now we can cook our meals without needing to gather wood. Because yeah, we find lots of bags of charcoal on our trips into the wider world.

Dax and Allison, the leaders of our community, stand at the grill. Dax flips a hamburger and slips an arm around his wife’s waist. Allison smiles up at him. Nobody voted on who would lead our group. Didn’t need to vote. Dax and Allison earned the right to be head honchos because they stopped the alchemy of worlds, the magically powered reaction that started the apocalypse. They know more about the apocalypse than anyone else.

The savory scent of hamburgers makes my stomach growl. Finding meat has gotten harder, since nobody has electricity anymore. As much as I don’t like to kill anything, even I realize we need meat to survive, especially with a pregnant woman in our ranks. Allison needs protein, iron, and all that good stuff. I’d prefer to eat only things that were never breathing, but fighting Echo creatures and hunting for a way to reverse or at least end the apocalypse requires tons of energy.

“Grant is back,” Willow announces as we reach Dax and Allison. “Isn’t it awesome?”

“Yes, it is awesome,” Dax says, though he still sounds uncomfortable every time he uses Willow’s teen-speak. It took him a while to adopt her slang, and being British probably didn’t make the transition any easier for him.

I still can’t get over the fact that Dax, a man with Echo blood in him and giant muscles to boot, cooks burgers and plays go fish with Willow.

“Welcome home, Grant,” Allison says. “How did your trip go? Looks like you found a lot of supplies for our little pharmacy.”

“Yeah, we did. And I got you something.” I shrug out of my backpack and dig inside it until I find Allison’s gift. Dropping the backpack on the ground, I hand the plastic bottle to her. “It’s not an exciting or fun present, but I figured you could use these.”

She takes the bottle and reads its label. Then she grins and kisses my cheek. “Thank you, Grant. Look, Dax, he got me prenatal vitamins.”

Dax nods at me. “That was very thoughtful. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Care for a venison burger?”

“Nah. I’m not hungry. The three of us ate back in Phoenix. We scored some MREs at an army surplus store, so we had a nice warm meal and even dessert.” Prepackaged meals never used to appeal to me, though I ate MREs in the army. Can’t be finicky these days.

“Did you bring home any of those desserts?” Allison asks. “I’d love something sweet.”

“Our mandate was to grab as many medical supplies as possible. But somebody could go back and grab the MREs, either us or another team.”

Dax gets a thoughtful look while he studies the flames inside the grill. “Perhaps we should send two teams.”

“Good idea.” I pick up my backpack, hooking one strap over my shoulder. “I’ll drop these supplies off at the med tent, then head back to my place to do some more studying.”

“Can I help?” Willow asks. “I got straight A’s back when there was, like, actual school.”

“That reminds me,” Allison says. “It’s time for your math lessons. Eat your lunch, then go find Sister Muriel.”

Yeah, a former nun has become our schoolteacher. Since Willow is the only kid among us, Muriel doesn’t have an arduous job. And she’s technically still a nun, though we all call her “former” because there’s no church here—or anywhere, as far as we’ve seen. I wonder if Sefton Stainthorpe planned it that way. The architect of the apocalypse was a total nutjob, after all.

I leave Willow with her adoptive parents, Allison and Dax, and head into my tent on the outskirts of Sanctuary. When I decided to make my little home in a secluded spot away from everyone else, nobody minded. Maybe I’m a bit of a loner, but I do try to matriculate with the group sometimes too.

My mission doesn’t leave much time for that.

Inside the tent, I pull out my trunk I’d insisted on dragging home a few weeks ago. I needed a safe place to store the precious antique documents I’d saved from the ruins of Fallenmouth, the English manor where Sefton and his twin brother Dax had grown up. I’d seen Fallenmouth not long after the alchemy of worlds destroyed it. The place looks like a haunted house now. Feels like it too.

Pulling the key out of my pocket, I unlock the trunk and flip the lid up. My notebook lies on top. I take that out and open it to the last page of my notes, then carefully bring out the book I’ve spent two weeks studying. Alchemy isn’t the easiest subject to master, but quantum physics is even harder. I need to understand both, though, and figure out how the magical and the scientific intersected to create the Echo.

I remember the day the world ended. Vividly.

The sky had split open, and monsters poured out of the hole to ravage our world and murder any humans they found. Fireballs and freakish lightning pounded the earth, punching holes straight through solid concrete buildings. But that wasn’t the worst part. No, I’d seen things I still can’t force myself to relive, not even in my own thoughts.

The flap on my tent is flung open, and Erin marches inside. “What’s your problem?”

“Excuse me?”

“I said what is your problem. Getting damn tired of you treating me like dirt.”

“No, I don’t treat you that way. I like dirt. It smells good after the rain.”

Her brows pull together, and her lips fall open.

Ignoring her, I carry the book to my desk—aka a folding table—and set the volume on the plastic surface along with my notebook.

“What have I ever done to you?” Erin asks. “You’ve hated me from day one.”

“I have work to do. Could you please leave?”

She huffs and stomps out of the tent.

Erin Harding might drive me batty, but she’s also beautiful and sexy, with long raven hair and emerald-green eyes. But I will never admit to anyone that I’m attracted to her. I can’t. It has nothing to do with her reckless behavior on our supply missions. No, my reasons are entirely personal and too painful to discuss with a woman I’ve known for a matter of weeks. Maybe I should do what most guys would and take my pleasure any way I can, but I’ve never been that kind of man. As much as I’d love to have sex with Erin, I will never do that.

What’s my problem? It’s simple.

My wife and son died at the hands of Echo creatures, and I cannot watch that happen to anyone I love ever again.

Chapter Two

Erin

Grant Larson is a jackass. I’ve known him for six weeks and three days, according to the calendar on my watch, but I still can’t get the man to have a normal conversation with me. It took fifteen days for him to look me in the eye, and even longer before he spoke to me. I shouldn’t keep track of the timing of my acquaintance with Grant, especially since my watch battery will die one day soon, but I’ve become slightly obsessed with him.

With his behavior. Not the man himself.

Sure, he has a hot body and a beautiful face, gorgeous blue eyes and wavy brown hair too, but his looks don’t make me like him any better. What did I ever do to him? Nothing. He hated me from the moment I walked into Sanctuary. Not long after I arrived here, I asked Allison about Grant’s attitude toward me. She said, “Cut him some slack. He’ll warm up to you eventually.”

Yeah, I’m still waiting for that warm-up.

I shouldn’t have waltzed into his tent to gripe at him. I know that. It was childish and stupid, but the man honestly drives me insane. I can fight almost as well as he can, and I’m ex-military like he is. We should get along fine. He’s nice to everyone else in Sanctuary, and they all love him.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. I need to stop thinking about the jerk.

Since I’m always kind of wired after a trip into the hell zones formerly known as cities, I decide to blow off steam by practicing my archery skills. We have firearms in the camp, but we reserve those for emergencies. Or for Bobby. He doesn’t like swords or knives, but he does well with a .9mm pistol.

I grab my bow and my quiver of arrows, then head for the outskirts of Sanctuary where we’ve set up a practice range with equipment we took from sporting goods stores. Nobody owned the stuff anymore. We found the owner and several employees dead and buried under a mountain of debris. Part of the roof had caved in, probably because a bolt of Echo lightning punched through it.

The world ended. What took its place… Well, the only person who wants to think about that is Grant Larson.

“Erin! Wait up!”

I spin around and see Willow sprinting toward me. She’s carrying her bow and a quiver of arrows.

When she reaches me, she’s breathing hard. But she still manages to grin. “Can I practice with you?”

“Sure. Come on, sweetie, let’s see who can hit the first bull’s eye.”

“Only you do that. The rest of us are still trying to get inside the circles on the target.”

“You do a lot better than that.” I start walking, with Willow keeping step. “You’re even better than Allison and Dax.”

“Thanks, Erin. You’re awesome. Did you really fight in combat?”

“Uh-huh. I was a Marine.”

“Wow, that is so amazingly awesome.”

Everyone around here knows Willow’s favorite word is “awesome.” She also likes to tell Dax, the huge and shockingly muscular man with Echo blood, that he looks like he’s about to “hurl.” It’s an inside joke between the two of them, and Dax always fake growls at her when she teases him that way.

Willow and I reach the practice range, which already has two targets set up. They’re pinned to stacked straw bales, providing a safe backdrop. I give Willow a few pointers, but honestly, she knows the rules and doesn’t need my help. I hit one bull’s eye, and Willow shrieks while jumping up and down to celebrate my victory. Her shots all fall within the circles on the target, and several get close to the center. She doesn’t hit a bull’s eye, but that doesn’t matter. We had fun and got in some necessary practice.

Life isn’t all warfare and devastation these days. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and birdsong fills the air. At times like this, I can almost forget that the world was destroyed. If birds can survive, maybe there is a chance that one day we will figure out how to repair the damage.

The ground shudders.

I stumble sideways and bump into Willow.

“What was that?” she asks.

“No idea.”

I stand still and tilt my head to the side to listen and watch. The air feels different somehow, and the sky turns a darker shade of blue while silence descends on the world as if someone has flicked a switch. The air feels different, smells different, though I can’t explain how or why. A shiver tingles down my spine, and every hair on my body stiffens.

A ratcheting noise originates from somewhere overhead, growling louder every second.

I seize Willow’s arm. “Run! Go!”

We bolt toward the main camp area.

Screams erupt as the sky above us roils and darkens. People scurry around like mice trying to find a hole to hide in while they crash into each other because they aren’t watching where they’re going. The barbecue grill has fallen over, spilling hot coals onto the grass and spewing sparks.

I slam into a big body and yelp.

The man whirls toward me and Willow. Grant’s eyes widen for a heartbeat, then he grabs us both by the arm and drags us toward the center of the camp. He flips over a crate full of melons and stands on it.

“Everyone, calm down,” he hollers, and somehow, he manages to sound calm. “I know this is scary, but someone might get injured if we panic. Come on over here, please.”

Willow wraps her arms around my waist. I hold her to me, though I don’t normally like to hug or be hugged. Yeah, I’m not ashamed to admit I’m terrified right now. As the others gather around us, we all bend our heads back to stare at heavens. A circular section of the sky has begun to rotate, the maelstrom shifting to a darker shade of blue.

A deafening crack of thunder explodes. The maelstrom snaps shut.

Within seconds, the hole in the sky starts to enlarge and spin again.

The entire camp has fallen silent. No one even yelped when that unearthly thunder shattered the air. We’ve all seen something like this before, though the entrance to the Echo looks nothing like this maelstrom in the sky.

Dax and Allison push through the crowd to reach Grant, who still perches on the wooden crate. He stares up at the sky just like Willow and I do. Dax and Allison stare at the maelstrom too. So does everyone.

I hug Willow tighter. My pulse pounds so hard and fast that I feel a little weak and nauseous. No, we can’t lose our camp. Sanctuary means more than a place to sleep and eat. It’s our home, our family, our everything. Is it all about to be devoured by the Echo?

Another explosion of thunder shakes us and the ground too. I instinctively shield Willow with my body, as if that will help.

The maelstrom telescopes shut and vanishes. Utter silence blankets the world.

A breeze kicks up, then the birds resume their chirping. I loosen my death grip on Willow, but she still clings to me. The sky looks normal now, and the air feels like air with no supernatural weirdness.

I look at Grant. “What was that?”

“Not sure.” He hops off the crate. “But I’m going to find out.”

He pushes past Allison and Dax, whispering something to them, and they follow him toward his tent.

I release Willow. “Go hang out with Sister Muriel for a while. I need to do something.”

“But—”

“Please, Willow. Go with Muriel.”

She twists her mouth into an expression of teenage annoyance, then stomps off toward the nun.

I march into Grant’s tent.

He, Dax, and Allison all swerve their attention to me.

“You guys know something,” I say. “Don’t you?”

Dax glowers at me. “This is a private conversation.”

“Unless you’re talking about how to manage childbirth in a tent, it’s not private. You’re discussing the maelstrom in the sky, right?”

“Yes,” Allison admits. “We don’t want to scare the others. That’s why we came in here to talk.”

“I get that. But I’ve been fighting alongside you guys for long enough that you should know I can handle whatever’s going on. I was a Marine—in combat situations. Only one other person in this camp has military training and battle experience.”

We all know the other person is Grant.

Dax and Grant exchange looks that I can’t decipher. Then Dax and Allison exchange a similar look.

Finally, Dax nods at me. “All right. You can stay.”

I wonder briefly if the three of them share a psychic bond or something, but I dismiss the idea. They’ve been through actual hell together, so I imagine that forged a deep connection.

“What just happened out there?” I ask.

The trio trade more meaningful looks that I can’t puzzle out.

“We should tell her,” Allison says. “Bringing another person into the loop could be helpful, and she can handle knowing the truth.”

Dax rubs his jaw. “Perhaps you’re right.”

Grant shrugs when his friends look at him. “Whatever you think is best. She might be reckless, but she knows how to fight and getting into a fracas with Echo creatures doesn’t faze her.”

“I’m standing right here,” I say, not even trying to squelch the annoyance in my voice. “You could speak to me instead of talking about me.”

“Sorry,” Allison says. “We’ve gotten used to keeping this stuff between the three of us. But it’s time to initiate you.”

“You guys have a cult?”

Allison smiles, though only a little. “No. But we’ve kept secrets for a damn good reason.”

They exchange yet another group look.

“We’re not sure what just happened,” Grant tells me. “But it seemed like the Echo was trying to restart the alchemy of worlds.”

“The what? I know I’m relatively new here, but I haven’t heard anyone else talk about the alchemy of worlds. I’m assuming that’s one of the secrets you three keep.”

“Yeah.” Grant shoves his hands into his pants pockets. “Everyone knows that Sefton Stainthorpe created the Echo and the apocalypse, and that he and Dax were brothers. They know Dax killed Sefton to save Allison, but that’s all anyone outside the three of us knew—until right now.”

“Okay. I’m ready to listen.”

“Let’s all sit down.” Grant waves toward two folding canvas chairs that are set up in the corner of the tent. “You and Allison take the chairs. Dax and I will sit on the ground.”

Whatever they plan to tell me, it must be awful if we need to sit down before I hear about it. I do what Grant said, though. Allison and I settle onto the chairs while the men take the dirt floor.

“Have you heard of alchemy?” Grant asks me.

“Yes. Don’t know anything about it except that it’s supposed to be a way to make gold out of other metals.”

“Alchemy is way more than that.” He has his knees bent in front of him, but now he rests his arms on them as he gazes at me. “Alchemy is the transmutation of one thing into something else. It’s a medieval science that has mystical aspects too. With the Echo, it became more than that. Sefton Stainthorpe combined quantum physics with alchemy to create another world and then use that world to trigger the apocalypse.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, it’s complicated.” He stares down at the ground for a moment as if he’s considering how to explain. Then he meets my gaze again. “Think of it this way. Quantum physics provides the scientific framework, but alchemy fills that in with magic. You see, quantum entanglement was a key part of the apocalypse. Entanglement used to be theoretical, until Sefton used it to bind Dax and Allison to him. The science of it says that two particles can be linked across vast distances via entanglement, and whatever happens to one particle also happens to the other.”

“What does that have to do with Dax and Allison?” I ask. “They’re not particles.”

“No. That’s why Sefton added magic to the mix. He used alchemical principles to cast a spell that bound him to Dax and Allison through quantum entanglement. Sefton called it the alchemy of worlds.”

Okay, I think I understand what he’s saying—sort of. But it brings up a question. “Do you think what happened in the sky a few minutes ago means the alchemy of worlds is starting up again?”

Grant’s eyes widen for a heartbeat, then he blinks rapidly, as if I’ve surprised him. “You’re smarter than you seem.”

Should I thank him for the compliment? No. I’m not sure it was a compliment.

“Yes,” Grant says. “I’m concerned the alchemical reaction has either restarted or never completely stopped in the first place.”

“What can we do about that?” I ask.

“Someone needs to visit Fallenmouth.”

It’s my turn to blink rapidly and stare at Grant. “Fallen-what?”

Dax clears his throat. “Fallenmouth was my ancestral home. And it’s where Sefton plotted his apocalypse.”