Frank tried to preempt criticism with a jolly “Good morning, Briet!”
“Spare me the bullshit, Frank.” She lifted her chin to gesture toward the four strangers at his back. “Who the fuck are they?”
“Your new tanists.” He pivoted and tried to segue into introductions. “This is—”
“No,” Briet interrupted. “I’m not doing this again.”
His smile evaporated, leaving his jowls slack in defeat. “I have my orders.”
“I don’t care. This is the third time in nine years! Every time I whip a team of adepts into shape, they get transferred and some bureaucrat sends me four novices. I’m sick of it, Frank.”
“You know the drill, Bree. It’s all about creating redundancies in our defense plan. If Washington ever gets hit by a Russian nuke, we’ll need magickal defense teams in safe locations, ready to carry on after we’re gone.”
She stepped around Frank to assess the latest batch of dilettantes. One of the men looked Chinese; the other was pale and blond. Both were lean and sinewy with features chiseled by deprivation. Briet singled out the quasi-albino. “You. What demon was bound by Solomon’s forty-third seal?”
He looked like a rabbit about to become roadkill. “Um.…”
“Shut up.” Briet pointed at the Chinese man. “You?”
“SARGATANAS?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
He steeled his nerve. “Telling you. It’s SARGATANAS.”
“Wrong. It’s SABNOCK. Don’t speak again unless I give you permission.”
Briet turned toward the two female aspirants. The taller of the pair was dark-skinned and wore her hair in a dramatic afro. “I like your hair. So will demons. Wear that to an experiment and I guarantee you some spirit will rip it out of your scalp. Cut that off, today.”
As the chastised woman shrank, Briet faced the last new adept. The second woman was short, muscled, and wore her hair in a tight bun. Her fingers were callused, and her eyes were keen. She seemed to burn with the promise of competence. But Briet had to be sure.
“To speak through the flames of PARAGO, what must one sacrifice?”
“An offering of rock salt and Mercurial incense of powdered black dianthus.”
It was the correct answer, provided without hesitation or equivocation. It was already clear to Briet which of her four new adepts would quickly rise to fill the group’s senior role.
Still, she took Frank aside. “I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I. But it’s not like the government gives us a choice.”
“At least tell me where the latest group was sent.”
Frank shook his head. “You know I can’t. Even if they told me, which they don’t, it’d be top-secret.” He lowered his voice and put on an apologetic air. “Do us both a favor: don’t rock the boat. Every time this happens, you pitch a fit. That makes the brass nervous. And trust me—you don’t want that. Something scares the brass, their first instinct is always the same: kill it.” He glanced at the new adepts. “Just do what they pay you for.”
He patted her shoulder, as if they were conspirators who had come to an arrangement, when the reality was that Briet felt ready to erupt in violence. But she knew there was a legion of soldiers, civilians, scientists, and specialists observing her every action. If she rebelled, or cast herself in the role of a dissident here in the Silo, the Marines between her and the exit would make certain she never left the Pentagon alive.
She turned to face her adepts. Behind them, Frank waddled across the steel grate bridge, headed back into the walls of the Silo.
How long will it take me to train these bumblers? And once I do, how long until they vanish through the same revolving door that robbed me of my last twelve adepts?
Taking care not to let her face betray her anger or her mounting suspicion, she looked up at the myriad windows and cameras.
Redundancies, my ass. What are these people not telling me?
It was a question that no one in the Silo would answer, but Briet was tired of waiting for them to read her into their schemes. One way or another she was going to get the truth—whether her masters liked it or not.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Mack is the New York Times bestselling author of over thirty novels, more than a dozen pieces of published short fiction, and two produced episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Follow him on Twitter @DavidAlanMack and on www.facebook.com/TheDavidMack, and learn more at his official website, davidmack.pro, or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
1939
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
1940
Chapter 4
1941
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
1942
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
1943
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
1944
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
June 6, 1944: D-Day
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
1945
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 60
Terminat Hora Diem, Terminat Author Opus
Glossary
The Infernal Descending Hierarchy
Acknowledgments
Excerpt: The Iron Codex
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE MIDNIGHT FRONT
Copyright © 2018 by David Mack
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Larry Rostant
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Mack, David, 1969– author.
Title: The Midnight Front / David Mack.
Description: First edition.|New York: TOR, a Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2018.
&nbs
p; Identifiers: LCCN 2017039667 (print)|LCCN 2017044578 (ebook)|ISBN 9781466890848 (ebook)|ISBN 9780765383204 (hardcover: acid-free paper)|ISBN 9780765383198 (softcover: acid-free paper)|ISBN 9781466890848 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Fiction.|Wizards—Fiction.|Magic—Fiction.|Paranormal fiction.|GSAFD: Alternative histories (Fiction)|Fantasy fiction.|Occult fiction.|War stories.
Classification: LCC PS3613.A272545 (ebook)|LCC PS3613.A272545 M53 2018 (print)|DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039667
eISBN 9781466890848
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First Edition: January 2018