The Pandora Conspiracy

Book 19: Wilde/Chase

by Andy McDermott

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

A THRILLING NEW WILDE & CHASE ADVENTURE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Pandora's Box has long been thought a myth.
But when archaeologist Nina Wilde and her husband, former SAS soldier Eddie Chase, are summoned to the White House for a secret meeting, it appears the legendary artefact is real, with the potential to bring great benefits to humanity - or unimaginable harm.

Mistrustful of the motives of those who want to find it, Nina sets out with Eddie on a mission that is the opposite of her usual goal: to ensure the ancient treasure remains undiscovered for ever.

But as more groups join the hunt - including one led by her own daughter Macy - Nina finds herself trapped in an ever more deadly race which, if she loses, could destroy the world as we know it - and if she wins will tear her family apart...

Praise for Andy McDermott:

'Action, adventure and mayhem aplenty' SCOTT MARIANI
'A writer of almost cinematic talent' DAILY EXPRESS
'Adventure stories don't get much more epic than this' DAILY MIRROR

Release date: July 30, 2026

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 416

Sample

Present Day

Nina Wilde sighed as she taped the cardboard box closed. One more down, an infinity still to go.

It was the first time she’d moved apartments in over eighteen years. Her daughter, Macy, had lived her entire childhood here. Coming home as a newborn, taking her first steps, saying her first words, going to school . . . all the milestones of growing up.

And now she had grown up.

Macy herself had moved out herself several months earlier. It had not been the plan; she’d been accepted into Harvard, and her mother had expected her to return home between semesters. But expectations had been overridden by events, and now her daughter was living in Europe. Nina didn’t even know exactly where. The life Macy had chosen was that of a keeper of secrets, taking charge of the shadowy organisation called the Knights of Atlantis to ensure the ancient artefacts it protected did not fall into the wrong hands.

That was Macy’s take, anyway. Nina held another view. Yes, said artefacts should be kept safe; that much they agreed on, at least. But the Knights had already been compromised once, with fatal consequences for many of its members, and both Nina and Macy had almost been killed themselves. If it had happened once, it could again. A safer solution was needed.

Convincing Macy of that was like arguing with a brick wall, however. Nina made a small sound of frustration. How could someone so intelligent not see the obvious?

‘You all right, love?’

Nina turned to see that her husband, Eddie Chase, had entered the lounge, carrying a box of his own. ‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Just thinking about Macy.’

‘Me too,’ said the Yorkshireman, though his tone was decidedly more wistful. ‘Loads of the stuff I’ve been packing reminds me of her. Found a frisbee we used to take to Central Park together. Ended up in the lake at one point, and I had to wade in to get it back.’ A smile crossed his face at the memory.

‘You know, we don’t have to take absolutely everything with us,’ the redhead pointed out. ‘You were in the army; you know the benefits of travelling light.’

‘This is different, though.’ He put down the box with a small stack of others near the apartment’s door. ‘This is our life – Macy’s, too. It’s like home archaeology. I keep discovering bits of our past we’d forgotten about. Like, remember when we still lived in the East Village and we used to eat at that South American place?’

Nina tried to recall. ‘It was Surinamese, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s the one. They had those funky drink stirrers with the different birds on top, and I found a bunch of them in a box.’

‘I don’t think you were supposed to take those, Eddie. It’s probably why they went bust. Besides, do we really need to keep them? If they were in a box, when was the last time you saw them? Twenty years ago?’

‘Well, they’re in another box now,’ he said, slightly defensively. ‘I’m not going to open it up again.’

‘Okay, okay.’ She put up her hands. ‘I’m just saying.’

‘Yeah, all right. I’m still pissed off that we need to move at all.’

‘Having your home invaded by someone who tries to kill you does kind of take the shine off of it.’ Nina glanced at the floor near Eddie. The lounge carpet was new, its predecessor ruined by bloodstains from their attacker’s corpse. ‘And ever since I got doxed by Rafael Loost, I keep getting threats from his followers. I don’t feel secure here any more, Eddie. And I know – it sucks. We raised Macy here. But ultimately, it’s just an apartment, a place. There are others.’

‘Still fucks me off, though. I suppose the new flat is nice enough. But this is our home. It’s the longest I’ve ever stayed in one place. Like you say, we raised Macy here. And I know it’s probably just empty nest syndrome, but now that she’s gone, and we’re going too, it really feels like the end of the most important part of my life.’

Nina went to him and took his hand in reassurance. ‘It’s not, Eddie. Just because things are changing doesn’t mean anything’s ending. Macy’s moved out, sure, but we’re still together. That’s not going to change.’

He smiled. ‘You’re right. You and me’ll be doing stuff together for a while yet.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Unfortunately, for the moment a lot of that stuff is going to be putting things in boxes.’

‘Fun, fun, fun!’

‘You’re the one who was too cheap to pay for professional movers. I think your exact words were, “’Ow much? We c’n do tha’ oursens!”’

Eddie chuckled. ‘Was that meant to be a Yorkshire accent? Come on, love, we’ve been together over twenty-five years and that’s the best you can manage?’

‘I’m an archaeologist, not an impressionist.’

‘Fair point. Oh well, better get on with it. First, though . . .’ He turned back to the boxes and tore open the one he had just brought.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking your advice. We don’t need to keep everything.’ He rummaged in the box, taking out a handful of plastic drink stirrers topped with various tropical birds.

‘Oh, I remember them now!’ exclaimed Nina. ‘They’re actually quite cute.’

‘Don’t tell me you want to keep ’em now?’

‘No, no. I’ve seen them; that’s enough.’

‘Okay. Where’s your rubbish bag?’

She indicated a black plastic garbage sack at the edge of the kitchen area. ‘There.’

He dropped the stirrers inside, hesitated – then retrieved one. ‘I’ll keep the toucan.’

Nina laughed. ‘You can never quite let go, can you?’

Eddie nudged the bag, which was almost full. ‘Unlike you. You’re being pretty ruthless.’

‘No, just practical. Just because I discover history doesn’t mean I want to carry it around with me for ever.’

A wry smile. ‘You’re probably right. Come on, toucan. You can stay with me.’ He returned the stirrer to its original box with a birdlike squawk, then headed out of the room.

‘Don’t forget to tape that back up,’ Nina called after him, amused, before resuming her own task. She folded another sheet of flattened cardboard into a box, then taped the bottom closed and began to load it. The contents of a bookshelf soon filled it, with plenty more to go. ‘Huh, maybe I should switch to e-books,’ she said, recalling a conversation with Eddie a few months earlier. Those books still on the shelf were too large to fit into the remaining space, so she looked for something that might.

One of her awards, perhaps? They were on a shelf near the door. They would have been better placed in her study, but their being one of the first things visitors saw was a minor ego-boost. She went to check them. One was too tall, another would need to be protected in bubble-wrap, a third—

She stopped before touching it. The third award was not what it seemed. It had originally been glass, smashed in the fight with the home invader. Only its base had survived – yet here it was, apparently whole. The bowl that stood on the base was now metal, not glass, with an unusual fine texture, almost like scales.

Just as Macy and the Knights of Atlantis were protecting ancient secrets, so was she. It was the Shroud of Hades, recovered from the hidden tomb of the Olympian god – who, she had discovered, was no deity at all but merely a man, his actions exaggerated by time and telling.

He had possessed powers, though, or rather an artefact that granted them. The Shroud could change shape and activate at its wearer’s mental command, bending and warping light to render them partially invisible. That was, if the wearer had a certain genetic factor that allowed them to channel the still-mysterious force known as earth energy.

Hades had that factor. And so did she.

The Shroud had saved her life. Rather than surrender it to the so-called ‘proper authority’ of the International Heritage Agency, the United Nations-backed organisation she had once run, she had instead chosen to guard it herself. Its ability to be reshaped by her will provided the perfect disguise. It had replaced the broken part of her award, and nobody had noticed – not even Eddie.

It would fit in the box. She picked it up – then again hesitated, before replacing it on the shelf. She wasn’t sure why. Worry, perhaps – her insecurity since the violation of her home urging her to keep it to hand? Or . . . something else? Did she just not want to let it out of her sight?

Another moment of uncertainty, then Nina stepped back. It would be packed up soon, no matter what. She was about to go back to the open box when the intercom bleated. She pushed the button. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, it’s Holly.’ Holly Bennett, Eddie’s niece.

‘Come on up.’ She buzzed her in. ‘Eddie? Holly’s here.’

Her husband returned with another box for the pile. ‘Thought she was seeing Lizzie in England.’

‘She must have just gotten back.’

A knock on the door soon came. Eddie opened it, beaming. ‘Hi, Holly! Come on in.’

‘Hi, Eddie,’ Holly replied, hugging him. ‘Nina, hi. Are you both okay?’

‘Yeah, we’re good, thanks,’ said Nina. Holly had a small suitcase with her. ‘Did you just come from the airport?’

Holly nodded. ‘Yes. I, ah . . . I wanted to talk to you straight away, in person.’

Eddie’s smile faded. ‘That sounds serious.’

‘It is.’

He sat beside his niece on the sofa as Nina took an armchair facing them. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

Holly drew a long, slow breath. ‘It’s . . . it’s Mum.’ She had lived in New York for eleven years and adopted a transatlantic accent, which drifted between ‘mum’ and ‘mom’, but Nina immediately noticed she had reverted to a fully British pronunciation. ‘She’s not well.’

Eddie stiffened in concern. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘She hadn’t been feeling right for a while, so she went in for tests a bit ago. Turns out . . .’ Another breath, this shaky. ‘She’s got cancer.’

The Yorkshireman needed a moment to absorb her words. ‘Shit,’ he finally whispered. ‘How bad?’

‘They think stage three. Bowel cancer. She’s been having chemo, but apparently it’s fifty–fifty, at best.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Nina, horrified. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Wait – she’s been having chemo?’ asked Eddie. ‘How long has she known about it?’

‘A few months. And before you go off at me for not telling you, she didn’t tell me either until I was over there. She—’ Holly choked up, trying to keep her composure. ‘She said she didn’t want to worry anyone until she knew the full situation.’

‘That’s so bloody . . . British,’ Eddie growled. ‘So what’s happening now?’

‘I don’t know. We just have to wait for more tests and see – and hope –the treatment works.’ Holly’s eyes began to tear, and she wiped them. ‘God, she looked so . . . weak. Like she’d shrunk. It’s bloody awful.’

Eddie’s own emotions were more restrained, but still clear. ‘I know, love. I know.’ He put an arm around his niece and held her close.

‘You should go to England,’ Nina suggested after Holly had left. ‘Fly over and see your sister.’ The while you still can was not said, but hung implicitly in the air.

‘I can’t now,’ replied Eddie. He gestured at the boxes. ‘Not in the middle of all this. We’re moving in less than three weeks, and we’ve still got a shitload to do.’

‘We could just pay professional movers to do it.’

‘I said, I don’t want to.’ Anger crept into his voice, but Nina knew it was not directed at her. ‘Fuck’s sake! How could Lizzie not tell anyone? Me, I can understand, because we’ve never been super-close, but her own daughter? Christ, you wouldn’t keep anything like that from Macy.’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Nina agreed – though the Shroud of Hades was in her line of sight as she spoke, giving her a pang of hypocrisy.

He shook his head. ‘But at least if they’re treating her they must think there’s a chance of getting it. I’ll phone her and see what she says. Give her an earful for hiding it from me, an’ all.’

‘I doubt that’s what Elizabeth wants right now,’ was the quiet rejoinder.

‘Yeah, I know. I’m still pissed off, though. God!’ He started to pace, crossing the room towards the windows – then abruptly changing direction and hurrying into the kitchen area. ‘Wait, wait, hold on!’ He crouched and opened cupboards, hurriedly rummaging through their contents. ‘Where is it?’

Nina joined him. ‘Where’s what?’

‘That vase – the one with the water from the Fountain of Youth!’ The once-thought-mythical water source’s true name was actually the Spring of Immortality, but Nina didn’t correct him. ‘We used it to cure Natalia of the same disease you had. There was some left; I can give it to Lizzie!’ His search became more frantic. ‘It was here somewhere – where is it?’

‘Ah . . .’ The hesitancy in Nina’s voice made Eddie stop at once and look around at her. ‘It’s . . . gone.’

‘Gone? What do you mean, it’s gone?’

She became apologetic. ‘Macy found it, when she was six or seven. Before I came in and saw she had it, she’d already opened it and tipped out the little bit of water that was still inside. There was no point keeping it after that, so I donated the vase to the Smithsonian. I didn’t tell them exactly where it came from, of course.’

Eddie stood, his disappointment turning to something darker. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You weren’t here. I think you were away doing a consultancy job for Charlie Brooks.’

‘You could have told me when I came home.’

‘It – didn’t seem important by then,’ she said.

He frowned. ‘Or because it was an archaeological thing, you didn’t think I was worth the bother of telling?’

‘It was nothing like that at all!’ she protested. ‘I’d already told Macy off for playing with things that weren’t hers, so telling you wouldn’t have made any—’

Nina was interrupted by her phone. She raised her eyebrows when she saw the caller’s area code. ‘Huh. Someone in Washington.’

‘Ignore it,’ was Eddie’s advice. ‘Probably another creepy Loost fan.’

‘I changed my phone number, remember? And people calling with a death threat usually hide theirs.’ She answered the phone but kept her thumb over the disconnect button, ready to end the call at the first hint of a deranged rant.

Instead, she heard a professional-sounding woman’s voice. ‘Professor Wilde?’

‘Yes?’ Nina said cautiously.

‘This is the White House. Please hold for the Director of National Intelligence.’

Eddie saw her surprise and mouthed What is it? She muffled the phone with her hand. ‘I think someone’s about to throw a wrench in our plans.’

In her eighteen years, Macy Wilde Chase mused, she’d had guns aimed at her more times than most people in a lifetime. Sometimes, they had even been fired.

For now, the motley collection of ageing Kalashnikovs and pistols held by the men accompanying her were not directly threatening, though some were pointed in her general direction. A few of the insurgents rested their forefingers on the triggers. Fucking amateurs, she imagined her father saying in his Yorkshire accent. The truck they were travelling in was jolting along an unpaved road, so an unexpected pothole could lead to unfortunate consequences.

‘Excuse me,’ she said in fluent, polite French, ‘would you mind using trigger discipline so we don’t have any accidents? We are Jacob Fatrice’s guests, after all. I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to shoot us before we meet him.’

The men’s responses were predictable. Surprise, then indignation at being spoken to like that by a foreigner, a girl. Even though the truck’s rear was dark, the canvas flaps at the back closed so that she couldn’t see the route they were taking, there was enough light to see anger flare in their eyes.

But they quickly controlled it. The two young women had indeed been invited by their leader. Fingers moved from triggers, however slightly.

‘Thank you,’ Macy said with a smile.

‘I’m so glad you did that,’ whispered her companion, Rain Belcourt, in English. The French-Vietnamese woman was Macy’s best friend – and another member of the Knights of Atlantis. ‘I wanted to say the same thing, but I was scared to ask them.’

‘Thank me once we’re safely out of here,’ Macy replied, just as quietly. ‘They still might put them back.’

The truck rattled on for some time, the road worsening. Eventually it made a turn, continuing for a few more minutes before halting. Sharp voices outside exchanged words with the driver; they had reached a checkpoint. Macy screwed up her eyes as the flaps were pulled back and dusty daylight stabbed in. An armed man in camouflage fatigues peered inside. One of her escorts said something to him in an unfamiliar tongue; Côte d’Ivoire’s official language was French, but over sixty others were in common use amongst the country’s numerous ethnic groups. The new arrival responded in kind, chuckling as he gave the two young women a lecherous look, then retreated and let the flaps fall shut. The truck set off again.

The next leg of the journey turned out to be the final one, a drive along a bumpy, stony track. ‘We’re here,’ said one of the men when they stopped. ‘Get out.’

‘Thank you,’ said Macy, trying not to sound too sarcastic. She and Rain clambered out, the men following. Other paramilitaries awaited, regarding them with suspicion. Macy took in their surroundings. An isolated farmstead: a large but run-down wooden house with a corrugated metal roof near a big barn in an even worse state of repair, and a few scattered outbuildings. It was no longer a going concern, the nearby fields overgrown with weeds sprouting from the red-brown dirt. Scrubby trees provided small patches of relief from the overbearing sun.

It all appeared innocuous enough. But Macy knew it was the base for the terrorist group called the Soldiers of God.

Part of her mind warned, not for the first time, that she was insane for coming here. But she had a job to do, a mission in her role as leader of the Knights of Atlantis. Evidence collated from diverse sources suggested that the leader of the group possessed an ancient artefact with powers that should absolutely not be in his hands. She and Rain had two tasks. Firstly: find out if said artefact really was what they suspected. Secondly: if it was, take it from him and return it to the Knights.

The latter objective, she was sure, would be a lot harder than the former.

One man from the truck spoke to an older soldier, seemingly a superior. Unfriendly glances were shot in her direction. She looked away, seeing people milling near the barn’s entrance. They were civilians, all men, all young. She could guess why they were here. Jacob Fatrice, leader of the Soldiers of God, used a blend of firebrand preaching and raging bigotry to recruit new followers, turning the grievances of impoverished and disaffected youths into anger and hatred. His chosen targets were Muslims, supposedly the ‘invaders’ coming into the country from Mali and Burkina Faso to the north, but in practice any his disciples happened to find. Hundreds of men, women and children had already been murdered on Fatrice’s orders, and his openly stated goal was to purge the entire country of Islamic influence. He was an extremely dangerous and ruthless man.

And Macy was here to meet him.

The thought was chilling. She had encountered similar people before, and barely escaped with her life. Only this time, she was here voluntarily.

Insane, indeed.

Rain was having similar thoughts. ‘I think we’ve made a big mistake, Macy,’ she whispered. ‘Everybody here is either a killer or wants to be one. We should leave while we can.’

‘You mean, just transform into our armour right in front of everyone? That’s not exactly keeping a low profile,’ Macy hissed back. ‘Besides, they’ve believed our cover story so far.’

Rain nudged the black satchel hanging from her shoulder. ‘Carrying a camera doesn’t make me a photojournalist!’

‘We’ll be fine, we just have to stick to—’

She broke off as the older man strode towards them. He looked them over with a wary, disdainful eye, then spoke in French. ‘You are the students who want to interview Jacob, yes?’

Macy nodded. ‘That’s right. I’m Macy, and this is Rain.’

‘Hmm.’ Whether he was being suspicious or dismissive Macy couldn’t tell; quite possibly both. He regarded them silently, then clicked his fingers. ‘Search them,’ he called.

‘Uh, the guys who brought us here already searched us,’ Macy said nervously as several large men closed in around them.

‘My name is Nolo. I am in charge of Jacob’s personal security. I take his protection very seriously. Besides’ – a cold smile – ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, yes?’

Macy knew several counters to the logical fallacy, but doubted he would appreciate hearing them. All she could do was try not to show her fear as the soldiers checked the two women.

Rain’s camera bag was opened and its contents removed – a digital SLR body, a selection of lenses, a folded tripod and other minutiae of professional photography. Meanwhile, something that drew more attention was quickly discovered on her friend. The older man’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are these?’ he demanded as the paramilitaries pulled back Macy’s loose sleeves to expose her wrists and tugged at her collar to reveal her neck – or rather, what was around them.

‘It’s just jewellery,’ was Macy’s practised, hopefully casual reply. She wore a chunky metal bangle on each wrist and a matching necklace. Had the soldiers done a pat-down of her legs they would have found anklets of the same style. By now, Rain’s identical set had been revealed.

‘It looks like gold.’ That last word carried much further than Macy would have expected, ears pricking at a surprising distance.

‘It’s just an alloy – it’s not real gold.’ That was true, though not in the way she was suggesting. The finely textured pieces held an ancient secret – one that gave the Knights of Atlantis their power.

Nolo did not seem convinced. ‘Why do you both wear the same jewellery?’

‘To show that . . . we’re besties,’ Macy said, her brain just barely catching up with her voice in time to provide a semi-plausible answer. The Ivorian looked back blankly at her use of the French slang term potes, so she hastily added the more traditional meilleures amies: ‘Best friends.’

He frowned, looking between the two young women and their golden accoutrements, before clicking his fingers again. ‘Take them off. Let me see them.’ The hint of greed entering his expression suggested he had no intention of returning them.

Rain gave Macy a worried glance, but put one hand on a bangle as if about to remove it. ‘Why do you need to do that?’ Macy objected. Rain paused. ‘Look, Mr Fatrice invited us to see him. We’ve come a long way, and I’m sure you don’t want to keep him waiting, right?’

Her argument clearly didn’t sway Nolo. But before anyone could say more, excited chatter from his companions made him look towards the house. A tall man wearing fatigues, mirrored sunglasses and a blood-red beret emerged, a small retinue of paramilitaries surrounding him. One carried a long but thin wooden box. The group headed for the barn. The tall man – Macy recognised him as Jacob Fatrice – looked in their direction, then signalled to Nolo.

The Ivorian waved back. ‘He is about to deliver his sermon,’ he told the two women. ‘You will want to see it – it is why you are here, yes?’

‘Definitely, absolutely,’ Macy agreed.

‘Come on, then.’ Disappointed that he hadn’t relieved the visitors of their valuables, he led them after Fatrice.

Jesus would not have approved of Fatrice’s sermon, Macy decided. It was barely a sermon at all, more a call to arms. A recruiting drive. From the audience’s reaction, he would soon have more men joining his bloody cause.

She couldn’t deny that Fatrice had charisma. He was a natural orator, powerful and magnetic – but he delivered no messages of hope. Instead, he was whipping the crowd into a hate-fuelled frenzy, playing off their resentments and animosities to blame all their problems on a convenient Other. It was a technique as old as time, but still effective.

If that were Fatrice’s only tool, though, she and Rain wouldn’t be here. He had something else, which elevated him from a leader to a potential messiah. Macy suspected it was in the wooden box held by one of his men. If Fatrice really had the Sword of Goliath . . .

She would soon find out. Fatrice’s tone changed, from incendiary to conspiratorial, sharing a secret. ‘You have no doubt heard, my friends, that I do not just have God on my side, but that I hold one of His weapons. That may even be why you are here, to witness it for yourselves.’ He gestured to the man with the box, who moved closer. ‘Well, my friends . . . now you will see the power of God is with me.’

‘This is it,’ Macy whispered to Rain. The barn had been turned into a makeshift church – or theatre – with a raised stage at one end from which Fatrice was delivering his message. They stood at the side of the front row to give them a clear view, and to allow Rain to play her role as photographer. ‘Get as many pictures as you can.’

‘Okay,’ Rain replied. She zoomed in on the box as its bearer opened it.

Reverence entered Fatrice’s sonorous voice. ‘This weapon was once used by one of God’s enemies. God’s champion slew him and took it, to be kept in the holy tabernacle. Many years later, that same champion was given the weapon by God to fight again in His name. That champion, my friends, was King David. The enemy he slew was a man whose name you all know – the mighty giant Goliath. And his sword, and his power . . . now belong to me!’

The Sword of Goliath lived up to its name, an imposing slab of razor-edged metal over four feet long from pommel to tip. Fatrice drew it out of its box – and its blade glowed with an eerie, shimmering light.

The audience reacted in shock and awe. He raised it higher. ‘You see!’ he boomed. ‘I hold the Sword of Goliath! Only a man whom God has deemed worthy can use its power – and I am that man!’ The onlookers burst into spontaneous cheers and cries of astonishment.

Macy’s own excitement was more contained. It was what she and Rain had come to find. They had seen the same glow from other ancient artefacts, not least their own. It was reacting to a flow of earth energy channelled through its holder’s body – which meant that, whether he knew it or not, Fatrice was descended from the Atlanteans. His genes held a secret carried down for thousands of years.

But while he had the power, it was not especially strong. The light from the sword was soft, unsteady. Genetics again. For whatever reason, women could channel the energy far better than men. Fatrice’s ability had been diluted by both time and chromosomes.

That didn’t matter, though. They had confirmation: the Sword of Goliath was real.

Now, somehow, they had to take it.

Rain’s camera clicked repeatedly as she took pictures of Fatrice and his weapon. The insurgent leader glanced towards her. Even in the barn’s stifling air, Macy felt a chill. There was no emotion in the man’s gaze, just cold calculation, as if examining specimens under a microscope. Had they done something to give themselves away? She couldn’t imagine what. She and Rain were posing as students, not professional journalists; any mistakes could be explained away as inexperience. But she still felt relief when he turned his eyes back to the crowd.

Macy barely listened to the rest of Fatrice’s rant about his murderous ‘holy mission’, mind humming as she tried to devise a plan of action. Had she known where they were, she and Rain could have returned at night, using their Atlantean armour and weapons to take the Sword – by stealth preferably, force if necessary. But with the Ivorian government actively hunting for the Soldiers of God, the location was a secret. Knowing that phones could be tracked, they had been forbidden to bring any. Whatever they did would have to be done before they were taken away again.

What would her father do? Blow the whole place up, her mind joked – except there was more than a little truth to it. Eddie Chase was not known for subtlety. He wouldn’t have reached close to sixty years of age without knowing what he was doing, though. Hopefully some of that ability had rubbed off on his daughter.

She ran through possibilities. Should she and Rain just transform on the spot, grab the sword while everyone was shocked, then escape? It was one option, but the barn’s doors were closed, paramilitaries standing guard. The armour might give her certain powers, but super-strength was not one of them, and she doubted she and her friend could get the door open before being swarmed. Without their weapons, which were too obviously such to pass off as innocuous, they didn’t dare get into a fight. Grab the box on the way to the house, transform, then fly away before anyone could react? That might work . . .

There was no time for more thought on the matter. Fatrice had reached the end of his performance, lifting the sword high over his head. ‘Are you with me, my brothers? Will you join my mission from the Lord to kill