I pulled out my cell phone and started hastily taking pictures, saving them to the hidden secure drive developed by Running Blade’s tech division. I started with the orb, then captured the area around the walls, zooming into the symbols and green lights.
As I was working my way around, frantically snapping with the camera, I noticed something that I’d missed before. At the back of the room was a recess in the wall, creating a shelf four feet long and a foot deep. On it lay a sword, double-edged and with an intricately carved blade. Rust caked the weapon’s metal surface, but patches had been cleaned with some kind of archeological tool. Symbols I didn’t recognize glistened on the clean parts of the blade, and they seemed to draw my attention like a hypnotist’s pocket watch.
“Come to me,” a voice whispered.
My heart seized in my chest, and I glanced around, searching for the voice. I half-thought I’d been caught, but the voice wasn’t threatening. The alluring invitation carried an almost sultry tone and bore a puzzling accent.
I looked around but couldn’t see anyone. To be on the safe side, I slid the phone into my pocket. I returned my attention to the sword for only a split-second before the voice whispered again.
“Come to me.”
It seemed to be coming from the sword.
“Swords don’t speak,” I reminded myself, searching around for another source of the voice.
“Come to me,” it said a third time.
It was my job to see through the lies and to challenge the truths I was presented with. But that didn’t mean that I had to disbelieve. Sometimes, the ability to believe the extraordinary was an agent’s greatest asset, when the real workings of the world were revealed. Normally, that meant plots and conspiracies. But in a room with an ancient, time-traveling orb, was it really so hard to believe in a talking sword?
I reached out and took the handle, then held the blade up in the green light. The engravings gleamed red, revealing the shape of a dragon.
“I am Nydarth,” The voice announced as it rang loudly in my head. “I am the dragon familiar of the Sundered Heart, your guide on the journey to become an Immortal.”
“My what?” I asked, incredulous.
“I have learned much from my stay in this world,” Nydarth said. “I can help you become more than you ever imagined. The journey will never be easy, for you are not the only Augmenter with a demon to guide them, but the rewards will be worth the struggle.”
“Augmenter? Demon? What the fuck was in that drink Chugayev gave me?”
As I stood staring at the sword, footsteps sounded from outside. I quickly returned the sword to its shelf and looked around for somewhere to hide. But there was no nook or cranny, no crevice or corner to squeeze myself into.
Chugayev appeared in the doorway. His jacket was gone, revealing a GSh-18 pistol in a holster under his left shoulder. And, oh yeah, he was holding an AK-12 assault rifle.
I swallowed and recalled the times I’d faced men with guns before. They’d been insurgents on the early missions for my Running Blade training. Earlier in my life, I’d chased drug dealers out of my mum’s neighborhood. But those times, I’d had backup. This time, I was all alone, cut off in a foreign country, surrounded by hostile forces. If the Russians had somehow found out who I really was, then it was death now, or death in a Siberian prison camp. Neither sounded like good options.
If Chugayev planned on killing me, then he was sure taking his time. His rifle wasn’t even pointed at me—did he intend to use it or not? If he was trying to intimidate me, then he was doing a terrible job.
“There’s been an attack.” Chugayev looked back the way he had come. “The whole place is teeming with… with…”
The director’s eyes were wide, his expression one of alarm. For a man who carried a gun beneath his suit, he looked surprisingly rattled.
I strode across the room and grabbed Chugayev by his shoulders. “Who is it?” I asked. “Gangsters? Locals? Chinese agents?”
“It might be the Japanese.” He made an audible gulp.
“Japanese? What would they want in the Himalayas?” I paused and recalled what I’d just seen. I knew exactly what they were searching for. A time-traveling device would prove as useful for the Japanese as it would for the Russians. They had just as much to gain by returning to the past—if not more. “You’re sure it’s the Japanese?” I pressed.
Chugayev craned his neck to look out across the courtyard. “I can’t be certain, but they definitely look Japanese. They… They’re ninjas.”
“Ninjas?” I asked.
I struggled to make sense of it all. A magical orb, a talking sword, and now this. It really wasn’t what I’d expected from my first solo mission. Still, I was unarmed and about to face a group of so-called ninjas. “Mind giving me a weapon?” I indicated the director’s sidearm.
Chugayev drew the pistol from his holster and held it out. “You know how to use one of these?”
“I’ve done a little shooting,” I said nonchalantly as I shrugged and accepted the weapon.
I released the magazine, checked that it carried a full load of 18 rounds, and slid it back into place. With a flick of my thumb, I released the safety catch, then chambered a round ready for action.
“Looks like you’ve done more than a little. Good thing, because they’re coming.” Chugayev backed away from the door toward the center of the chamber. I went with him, and we kept our guns raised, covering the room’s only entrance.
A shadow shifted in the yard outside, and suddenly, figures appeared in the doorway. They were clad from head to foot in loose black clothes, showing only a narrow band of skin around their eyes. Each one carried a single-edged sword in one hand and a matching knife in the other.
“How’s this for a first day?” Chugayev asked me before
