Author’s Note:

  This episode is published here up to the 75% mark.

  The remaining chapters—including the climax and aftermath—are available in the complete episode on Amazon.

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0GC93WNR5

  Thank you for reading and supporting the series.

  ###

  The night sky over Central America churned with dark rolling clouds the color of bruised skin. The Blackhawk rattled from the turbulence, its bones shaking from the creeping cold that iced the edges of the cabin windows.

  It was fifty-two degrees in the belly of the bird and made the hairs on Sawyer’s arms stand up. The wind clawed through the gaps in the cabin like the hands of a freezing specter. The sleeves of his combat shirt were damp. Cold sweat clung to his chest hairs under his fleece liner and plate carrier. Even with his gloves and his boots laced high over wool socks, the cold bled in through the floor and up his spine. He sat there, across from his brother Cormac, whose breath fogged in front of him.

  Sawyer hadn't slept since Wednesday. He hadn’t eaten since Friday, not since Ashley stopped responding to his texts. She just went silent. So he tracked her, and had a ping on her cellphone. He didn’t trust her, and thank God his paranoia paid off because he located her phone moving deep south. Every day, her cellphone moved deeper into Mexico; when it passed into Guatemala, and she still hadn’t called him back, he made the decision to use the assets available to him.

  He had a single favor and it paid out. He sat aboard the Blackhawk, wrapped in sweat-drenched gear. His eyes burned. His breath misted in front of him. Now he was flying toward Panama with a rifle across his lap. He hoped she wasn’t tangled up with the cartels, and this was some giant misunderstanding, but he was ready for anything. Was his past finally catching up to him? If he didn’t find her then he’d never forgive himself.

  Every few seconds a whining creak or a hollow clunk echoed through the cabin’s frame. External fuel tanks hung on both sides for extended range. If the cartel chased them, they wouldn’t be able to evade one of the cartel’s Bell 206 JetRangers. However, because of their increased fuel capacity they could remain inconspicuous and in the air for longer which gave them an edge.

  Their pilot, Duncan, muttered about how they were flying a big fat drunk with a backpack full of bricks. He initially recommended halo jumping from an AC-130, but Sawyer didn’t have the pull for that kind of operation.

  Sawyer braced a gloved hand on the ceiling strut. He spread his legs wide for balance, boots braced on the ground, as the aircraft dipped into a patch of jittery air that rattled the cabin.

  He turned to look at his younger brother, Cormac, who sat across from him. “You look like three fifths of tequila and a rough morning. Are you sure you’re squared for this op?”

  Cormac glanced up from checking the chamber of his M4, eyes dark rimmed with exhaustion. A battered headset sat atop his shaggy brown hair. A burn scar poked out from his collar like a coiled fuse. “You’re asking if I’m okay? You look like you’re on day 207 in Kabul. You smell like it, too.” He glanced down at Cormac’s sleeve. “Is that blood?”

  Sawyer sniffed his sleeve. “No. Barbeque sauce.”

  The cabin stank of machine oil. Cold air hissed through the imperfect seals in the cabin doors. The darkness outside was vast and stretched over jungle ridges and sunken valleys. In some places, they flew over stretches of canopies where no towns existed for a hundred miles. They flew as a ghost under the radar, with no official manifest and no flag, with only the approval of Colonel Bradford.

  Sawyer pulled out his phone.

  The screen glowed softly as he opened the tracking app. A single blinking dot pulsed on the coast of Panama. It was nestled in a tangled mess of digital lines labeled Colón. He stared at it for a moment longer than necessary.

  “She’s still there,” he said quietly.

  Cormac didn’t look up. “I’ve been thinking. What if she sold her phone to some Colombian and then disappeared on a girl’s trip? We could be following some kid named Estaban on a smuggling run through the jungle.”

  Sawyer’s jaw twitched. “Ashley didn’t ghost me. Not like this. Not after the things she told me. No. She was borderline obsessed with me. And now…she’s just gone?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Cormac leaned back. His boots braced against the opposite bench. “Sometimes, Sawyer…women just leave. They leave Delta Force guys for Army Rangers. They leave Seals for Raiders. They leave Green Berets for…I don’t know…CIA? These girls you date are kind of like taxis and onto the next ride.”

  “No,” Sawyer said, sharply. “You weren’t there. On the last night we spoke, she was trying to pull me along to her sister’s wedding. I ducked her question three times, but on the last time, she pulled me into bed. She made me promise I’d go.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I would go.”

  “You’ve never been to a wedding in your life.”

  “I was going to lie and make something up at the last minute. Still, at the time, she believed I was going, so why would she just leave?”

  Cormac blew out a breath. “Okay. That’s weird. But flying a Blackhawk over Central America for a girl who might just need therapy and a margarita seems a little excessive…”

  “She’s not the margarita type,” Sawyer muttered.

  “Do you love this girl? Or is this about regret?”

  Sawyer didn’t answer. He didn’t love her. But he had shared something with Ashley. She whispered things into his ear. It was the way she kissed him goodbye, the way she swayed her hips when she walked, and how she never asked stupid questions. Now that he was reflecting on it, she was almost too perfect. That, in itself, was strange. And what about her apartment, when he found the blood splatter? She had clearly got into a scuffle before leaving the country. That information, in addition to everything else, made the whole operation necessary.

  He turned the phone around and showed Cormac. “Her signal’s been bouncing around Panama for two days. No calls. No messages. And what about the drawing on her mirror?”

  “Yeah. The mirror.”

  Sawyer nodded. “Ace of spades. Drawn in blood. What do you think it means?”

  Cormac leaned forward and frowned. “I don’t know. It’s spooky.”

  “I don’t think she left that symbol. There’s something else going on.”

  “We don’t know if anyone took her. That blood could have been a prank or something stupid.” Cormac rubbed his eyes with a thumb and finger. “Still, I’ll admit, it doesn’t add up.”

  Sawyer’s voice dropped an octave. “We both know what that symbol means. The ace of spades was Dad’s call card from Somalia.”

  Cormac shifted. “Except he’s been dead for two years. One of the monsters finally caught up to him. He was a secretive guy, sure, but it doesn’t explain how Ashley got ahold of his call card. It has to mean something else. It’s coincidental.”

  They sat in silence for a moment and let the hum of the rotors fill in the blanks in their conversation.

  Sawyer tapped his foot. “And what about the burned circle etched into the floorboards? That’s demonic iconography.”

  Cormac shook his head. “I don’t know what that was. Maybe she’s a witch?”

  “No…couldn’t be.”

  The pilot’s voice cracked over the intercom. “ETA to Soto Cano Air Base, five minutes out. Grab your gear. We’ll fuel up, take a piss break, then burn for another five hours to Colón. Do you want to go to Panama City directly or infill along the coast?”

  Sawyer looked down at the phone again. The dot hadn’t moved. “Colón. Straight in.”

  “You got it,” Duncan replied. “Strap in. The weather's getting nasty.”

  Cormac whistled. “So the plan is to land in a city filled with cartel, narco fronts, Chinese gangs, Russian mercenaries, batches of CIA boys, and just ask around for your ex-girlfriend? That’s not suspicious at all.”

  Sawyer ignored him and pulled a map from his vest pouch. He unfolded it slowly. His fingers brushed the ink. “It’s the monsters hidden in the shadows that I’m worried about. If there is something supernatural going on, Dad always said cemeteries are where to look first. If something’s feeding on fear then we’ll know by the amount of activity there.”

  “Lovely.”

  “We land outside Colón, near the French cemetery, do recon, sweep the area, and look for signs. If we can rule out the supernatural, that will make this trip much easier.”

  “What kind of signs are we looking for?”

  “Burned offerings. Desecration. Demonic sigils. I don’t know, it could be anything. It will give us a foundation so we know how to operate.”

  “And if we find her?”

  “We exfil back to the states. One way or another.”

  Cormac stared at him then jabbed a boot at his brother’s leg. “You always go full goblin mode on these things. I swear, you see one ace of spades drawn in blood on a mirror and you’re ready to go to war over this girl. We’re not doing dad’s work. We’re not hunting monsters.”

  “He taught us to be prepared for anything.”

  “This whole thing is already exhausting.”

  “You’re still here, though.”

  Cormac kicked his brother’s boot and flashed him a smile. “Maybe I just like shooting the bad guys. It’s my kind of thrill.”

  The helicopter dipped again. The jungle below grew darker, stitched with rivers. Flashes of lightning illuminated the canopies. Sawyer could feel the shift in the weight as Duncan slowed for descent.

  His voice came again through half a yawn. “Soto Cano is dead ahead. Radar’s clean. I radioed ahead. Fuel team’s on standby.”

  Sawyer stood, ducking slightly to avoid a low brace beam. He stared at the map again. His finger tapped the marked cemetery just outside the industrial sprawl of Colón. “No matter how weird this gets,” he said, “we get in and we get out.”

  “Yeah,” Cormac said. “I’m sure this will be easy.”

  Sawyer didn’t believe that.

  Cormac smirked and looked out the cabin window. He didn’t believe that either.