"Put your foot on the ground, Alfred," she said.

"Ouch!"

About a hundred feet away the agents were busy with the crates-or what was left of them. They had broken apart on impact; slats lay scattered in every direction.

Op Nine came up, frowning.

"Kropp is hurt?" he asked.

"Not badly," Ashley said. "A sprain, I think."

Op Nine said to Ashley, "Kropp rides with you."

He trudged toward the other agents gathered around the remnants of the crates. We trailed behind, my arm draped over Ashley's neck, my foot dragging in the sand. In every direction dunes marched like oceanic waves, disappearing into the horizon. I had thought the stars very bright on the shores of the Red Sea, but here in the desert they seared the blackness around them.

"Where exactly are we, anyway?" I asked Ashley.

"The Sahara."

The agents had pulled twelve snowmobiles from the shattered crates and were going down some kind of checklist, getting them ready, I guess, only there wasn't much chance of a snowstorm in the desert. One agent was handing out the CW3XDs and clip belts that they threw over their shoulders, reminding me of Mexican bandits. Abby Smith stood by herself a few feet away, holding some electronic gadget with a bluish LCD glimmering on her frowning face.

"What's the deal with the snowmobiles?" I asked.

"They aren't snowmobiles," Ashley replied. "Well, they used to be. They've been modified. We call them sand-foils."

Instead of the ski pads, these had thin metal blades, the sharp edge facing down. Someone handed Ashley a helmet and she passed it to me.

"Put this on, Alfred. A sand-foil's top speed is a hundred and fifty miles per hour. Do you know what a single grain of sand can do if it hits you at that speed?"

"No, but I got hit with a baseball once that must have been going forty miles per hour; it hurt like heck."

I shoved the helmet down over my head. I could have guessed it would be too small, and it was. One of my ears was folded down.

Abby snapped her device closed and trudged over to us.

"We're approximately a hundred clicks due east of the target," she said crisply. Her voice sounded very far away inside my helmet. "Remember, no wake-riding and no unauthorized firing of the 3XDs. Op Nine and I are on the point. Any questions?"

Nobody had any questions or, if they did, they weren't going to waste time asking them. All the agents except Ashley flipped the big CW3XDs onto their backs. Ashley had to ride with hers awkwardly resting across her chest, since she had my big self awkwardly clinging to her back. Static popped in my ear and suddenly her purry voice seemed to enter my head and lodge in the middle of my brain. The helmets were outfitted with a wireless setup.

"You okay?"

"I guess."

She pressed a button on the console in front of her and indicator lights blinked on. I didn't hear the engine roar to life like I expected; the thing simply started to vibrate beneath me.

"Hang on!" she said. I wrapped my arms around her waist as the sand-foil leaped forward and accelerated, the blades rising out of the sand as it gained speed. These sand-foils were clearly not made for two riders. My butt hung about halfway off the back of the leather seat and I worried about a stray grain of sand embedding itself into the softest part of my body.

Looking over her shoulder, I could see the speedometer. The needle hovered just below the one hundred mark.

Abigail Smith had said we were due east of the target, which meant we must have been heading west, but the dunes ran roughly north-south, so our race across the Sahara was run half of the time in the air, as we crested one wave, became airborne, and then smacked back down in a trough before starting up the next dune.

The ride across the desert was like being on a roller coaster. Those rides always seemed to last longer than they really were. I raised my head and looked over Ashley's shoulder.

The other agents had already stopped. Straight ahead the horizon glowed a brilliant amber with little sparks flying around in the orange like sunlight reflecting off the tips of waves.

We slowed to a stop and I slipped off, fumbling with the chin straps of my helmet. I yanked it off, wincing as it scraped over my ears. I could see Op Nine standing a few yards in front of the rest of the group, studying the glowing horizon like he'd never seen a sunrise before.

"What's up?" I asked Ashley, but she just shook her head. I trudged through the sand toward Op Nine, dragging my bum foot. The glow on the horizon had deepened to an orangish red. But something about this desert sunrise wasn't right, and it took me the rest of the hike to figure it out: we were facing west, not east.

This was no sunrise.

Abby Smith was a few steps ahead of me and Op Nine must have heard her coming up, because she was still behind him when he turned his head and spoke.

And now the glow on the horizon looked like a wall of fire coming toward us.

"We are too late."

18.

"How many?" Abby asked Op Nine.

"It's difficult . . ." He shaded his eyes with one huge hand and squinted toward the sparkling light. "Thirty, perhaps forty legions."

"Legions?" I asked. "What's a legion?"

Abby said to him, "Not all, then."

He shook his head. "A search party."

"A search party of what?" I asked.

"Can we outrun them?" she asked.

He said quietly, " 'Their horses are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.' "

"I'll take that as a no," she said. "Then we engage." She started to turn away. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"No!" he said in a fierce whisper. "Our mission is to acquire the target. There is still time."

"Time for what?" I asked, but I really didn't expect an answer by this point.

Now the orange on the horizon had deepened to a fiery red mixed with bright white sparks. The stars winked out as the burning light advanced, filling the night sky, and a breeze noticeably warmer than the cool desert air began to blow across our faces.

"We must take cover," Op Nine said. "Immediately."

Abby turned and started toward the others, making some kind of complicated hand signal as she went, and right away they opened the storage compartments on the foils and began pulling out what looked like brown tarps.

Op Nine had said we needed to take cover immediately, but he didn't move a muscle. He stood stock-still and stared at the flickering lights of white and gold. The breeze had turned into a full-fledged wind that grew hotter with each passing second. The ground started to tremble.

"Uh, Op Nine, didn't you say we had to take cover?"

He shook his head as if rousing himself from a dream.

"Yes. Come, Kropp."

He threw my arm over his shoulder and helped me back to the foils. The agents had spread the brown tarps over the vehicles and now were crawling underneath them. Ashley crouched beside one, motioning to us.

"Alfred," Op Nine said. "This is very important: do not look into their eyes. They will know what you fear."

He lowered me to the ground and I started to crawl under the tarp. He grabbed my arm and pulled my face close to his.

"And what you love."

He had to shout over the wind, which was howling by this point, spraying us with stinging grains of sand. He let the tarp fall and I felt someone's hand on my wrist, pulling me away from the edge.

"Don't move," Ashley whispered. "Don't talk."

The darkness under the tarp faded, or maybe I was getting used to it, because after a minute I could see her bright blue eyes darting back and forth. Ashley's hand was white-knuckled on the CW3XD that lay across her lap, her index finger caressing the trigger. Ashley was afraid.

The tarp rippled and snapped around us as the gale worsened and sand popped against the material, making this strange hissing sound like gas escaping from a bottle. I could hear something else too, as if the wind was a curtain rippling as this sound passed behind it. Voices, or maybe not voices but somehow the echo of voices, and I started to shake as the tarp around us began to glow red.

It was very close now, whatever it was, and the closer it got, the more I shook. It was hot and stuffy under the covering and I was sweating, but I shivered like I had a fever. Op Nine's warning echoed over and over in my head: Don't look into their eyes! Don't look into their eyes! My mind became like a slice of Swiss cheese, stretched thin, full of holes filled with darkness, and that darkness was full of horror.

Dimly, under the howling wind, I could hear someone screaming. She needs to be quiet, I thought. Ashley, be quiet! But it wasn't Ashley screaming, of course; it was me.

Then, as if it shot through one of those holes in my mind, a hand reached for me in the darkness, soft and warm, and without thinking I pulled her into my arms.

19.

"Alfred, it's over."

She pushed on my chest and I unfolded my arms. Every inch of me ached. In the half-light beneath the tarp, I saw her brush back a strand of hair from her forehead.

"What was that?" I whispered hoarsely. My throat ached from the screaming. "What the heck was that?"

I flipped back the edge of the tarp without asking for permission. Enough of this, I thought. I was testy now. I wanted some answers. Everybody seemed to know what we were getting into except one key person.

Sand fell into a heap where I lifted the tarp. The winds had piled the sand all around us, like a snowdrift. I stood up and my knees popped. Twelve mounds of desert sand now stood where the foils used to be. And these twelve mounds were the only feature left in the Sahara. The desert was as flat and featureless as an enormous tabletop; the rolling dunes were completely gone.

But the night had returned and, with it, the brilliant stars and the cool air.

The others had already emerged from their hiding places and gathered in a circle around Op Nine. He saw me crawl out and waved me over. I waited for Ashley. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes red.

I grabbed her hand. She pulled it away.

"I'm okay," she said.

"I'm not," I said, and I grabbed her hand again and this time she didn't pull away.

We joined the other agents, who for some reason were kneeling in this circle, even Abby. Their eyes were downcast and their expressions somber, and I wondered why we were having a prayer meeting. Op Nine was the only one upright, standing in the center of the circle, arms folded over his chest, looking very grim. Even the big agent with the cocky, let's-mow-'em-down attitude looked like somebody had gut-punched him.

They adjusted themselves to make room for Ashley and me. Op Nine motioned for us to kneel. I don't know why, but I went down to my knees at once and so did Ashley. She pulled her hand free and this time I didn't take it back.

Op Nine said, "The worst has come to pass: the Hyena has unlocked the Seal. Yet Fortune smiles upon us, for we have escaped his minions' notice. We may assume he has divided his legions to search for us, thus exposing his position. A frontal assault will be the last thing he expects." He took a deep breath. "So that is precisely what we shall give him."

He reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out a small metal flask. He walked up to Abigail and stopped. He opened the flask, tipped the opening against the pad of his thumb, and then traced the sign of the cross on her forehead, muttering something I couldn't hear. He worked his way around the circle, wetting his thumb, muttering, making the sign.

Finally he came to me. He paused, staring down at me, and his dark eyes seemed even darker in the starlight.

"What?" I whispered.

"Domine, exaudi orationem meam," Op Nine murmured, upending the flask. "Et clamor meus ad te veniat." He pressed his thumb against my forehead and I felt the wetness there as he traced the cross. "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

He stepped over to Ashley and I watched him bless her too, as a single drop of holy water (I guessed it was holy water-what else could it be?) trickled down my nose.

He capped off the flask and slipped it into his pocket. Nobody said anything as we pulled the tarps off the foils and folded them up. Ashley would pause every now and then to pull back the strand of blond hair that had fallen from her bun. Her fingers were shaking. I helped her fold the tarp.

"Okay," I said. "So what was that about?"

She shook her head, almost impatiently, like my question bordered on the cheeky.

"We're too late," she said. "Mike's unlocked the Lesser Seal. They're free."

"Who's free? What did Solomon keep in the Lesser Seal, Ashley? Why did Op Nine just bless us? Is he a priest or something?" I blurted out, though it was hard for me to imagine, a priest being an OIPEP agent. "What's his deal anyway?"

She grabbed the bundle and stuffed it back into its compartment on the sand-foil. She looked angry and frightened at the same time.

"Okay, I'll tell you. They brought you here, so you have a right to know. Let them fire me for it; I don't care . . . Op Nine's 'deal' is demons, Alfred."

"Demons?"

"He's a demonologist."