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The Rangers’ gas masks made them all look the same, made them look like the identical insects that they were.

Past the perimeter rose the seventy-story Park Tower Hotel, a pale tan spire reaching up to the black sky. Ramierez led her to the front of the building. She saw an arced gla.s.s awning that had once sheltered guests from the rain as they entered and exited. It wasn’t sheltering anyone anymore — the only gla.s.s that remained stuck out in jagged shards. The body of a man dangled from a support beam. Icicles of blood pointed down from the ends of his fingers like stubby red claws.

Once upon a time, a rotating gla.s.s door had kept out the Chicago winds. That, too, was nothing but shattered gla.s.s and twisted metal.

Clarence approached and stood next to her. The mask hid most of his face, but not his eyes. He looked at her with a pathetic expression of hurt and confusion.

It would be nice if she could kill Ramierez. But to murder Clarence? That wasn’t just a luxury — more and more, Margaret needed that as much as she needed to breathe.

Maybe her kind would descend upon this hotel and slaughter these soldiers. She would have them string Clarence up by his feet, cut him apart a piece at a time. She’d slice off his eyelids so he wouldn’t be able to look away as people smiled at him and ate those pieces.

She stared back at him, not wanting to give him any satisfaction at all, not wanting him to think that things were okay between them. Until she had a chance to kill him, she wanted him to hurt.

He turned away, walked into the hotel. Margaret smiled a little, then forced that down. She was still surrounded by the enemy. She had to be careful.

She heard gunshots from inside the hotel. She heard men yelling but couldn’t make out the words. Those sounds were lost as one of the helicopters roared overhead.

A bullet plinked into a car to her right. Then something hit her, knocked her face-first to the gla.s.s-strewn entryway, pinned her there — the soldiers realized she wasn’t one of them anymore, they were going to kill her, slide a knife into her back, they—

“Sniper,” Ramierez said. “Stay down, Doc.”

From high above, the helicopter let out a new noise, a short-but-intense demon’s roar. The faraway sound of tinkling gla.s.s smas.h.i.+ng against concrete joined the cacophony.

Ramierez rolled off her, lifted her to her feet. He looked her up and down. “You okay, Doc?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

Broken gla.s.s, I was rolling on broken gla.s.s …

“Ramierez, do you see any cuts in my suit?”

He gave her a cursory glance. “The suits are thicker than that, Doc, you—”