Sawyer sat beside Ashley on a rotting bench off the rainforest path behind the Gamboa Luxury Rainforest Reserve. A single trail light flickered overhead. Thick mist curled in from the jungle. Monkeys stirred in the canopy. The croak of frogs echoed between the trees. It was the quiet part of the compound, away from the suits and the crocodile pit. In those shadows it was just Sawyer, Ashley, and the thick press of humidity in the dark.

  He still clutched the flask in his right hand, empty of blood. He hadn’t spoken about it since he drank it dry.

  Ashley leaned against the railing, arms folded, her black clothes damp with sweat and dew. She didn’t push him, just waited.

  He hated who he became.

  “Am I a vampire?” he finally asked.

  Ashley exhaled. “Yeah…”

  “How could this have happened? In Panama? God…”

  “It’s not like the movies, but some things line up. Sunlight is…very bad. Unless you want to get burned alive, don’t step into it. Garlic? Harmless. Silver? Not harmless. Oh, and try not to get shot in the head or decapitated.”

  He looked at her. “Silver?”

  She nodded. “If you’re sliced with steel, you’ll heal quickly. But silver—silver burns and if you’re stabbed with it you can die quickly.”

  “Of course…” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m in the rainforest and I’m drinking blood. I’ve got fangs and I can hear a monkey from a mile away. I have dietary restrictions and I’m allergic to silver. This trip is turning out wonderfully.”

  “You’ll get used to it. You have to.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it. I want to wake up and forget I ever came out here to find you. I want to go to Florida and sip on a tall glass.” He grabbed her wrist. “Forget Panama. Now that I’ve found you, come back with me.”

  “We can’t,” she said, and pulled her hand away. “That world is gone. I’m involved with something here.”

  Sawyer stood up and paced. “Why did you bring me into this?”

  “You brought yourself.”

  “I thought somebody kidnapped you.”

  Ashley stepped forward. “I didn’t ask you to chase me. I didn’t think you would fly a Blackhawk across a warzone to find me.”

  He stared at her, jaw clenched.

  Then he exhaled and sat. “What’s with the symbol you left in your apartment? You draw the ace of spades in blood on your mirror. Did you know Finnegan?”

  “I knew your father.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Finnegan Kestrel. I didn’t know him very well, but I knew he was a hunter. I knew he was your father.”

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  “What else did you know?”

  “He was a hunter. That’s why I left the symbol, to see if you were following in his footsteps and wanted to help me. Finnegan Kestrel was a specialist. He only went after a certain kind of monster, those who worked in international corporations. Globalists. He mostly hunted BlackDiamond executives, seeing as they are the largest organization in the world and the most evil. He hunts monsters who don’t exist on any public record, but they’re embedded deeply in the BlackDiamond corporation. When we were dating, I snooped around your belongings but I couldn’t find it.”

  “Find what?”

  “It’s the reason I started dating you. I’m trying to pick up where your father left off. He was known to have a list of names, targets, BlackDiamond executives. He kept those names in a little book called the Black Ledger.”

  “Are you serious? Did you ever like me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course. But I’m not the kind of girl for a long term relationship. It doesn’t jive with my career. It would never work out between us in the long run. You were good to me, Sawyer, but the life we had is over.”

  Sawyer’s eyes narrowed. “You only dated me to find the book?”

  “At first. I really need the Black Ledger. I think you know where it’s at.”

  He looked away. “Come on, that’s not real. And no, I don’t know where it’s at.”

  “I know it’s real,” she said. “It was passed down to you. I know your father died before he could kill all the names on his list. If you give me the Black Ledger, we can expose BlackDiamond and hunt them together. BlackDiamond is going to corrupt the entire world if we don’t stop them, and the key to stopping them are the names inside Finnegan’s book.”

  Sawyer ran a hand over his jaw. “Did my father get you involved in this?”

  “I got myself into this.”

  “BlackDiamond is infested with demons? It sounds ridiculous.”

  “Most globalist corporations are infested, actually. BlackDiamond just happens to be the largest. They’re building networks, right here in Panama. They run satanic operations in South America, Africa, Japan, and the United States, among others. They’re worldwide. This is how they operate. They’re globalists, not aligned to anyone but Lucifer. Your father sought to destroy them. He hunted some of them using the Black Ledger. The book is still out there. Where’s the book, Sawyer?”

  He turned away. “I told you already, I don’t have it.” He paused and scratched his head. “Colonel Bradford might know. He was close with my father.”

  “That’s a good start. Can you call him?”

  Sawyer laughed bitterly. “He might send someone to kill me just for speaking about this.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot he doesn’t tell me, but this feels like stepping into a bear’s den. If these globalists operate like you say, this is an entire can of worms.”

  “If we don’t find the Black Ledger…many more people are going to die.”

  “I’ve still got fang marks on my neck, Ash. I want out of this. I want out of Panama. Let’s forget about this and drink in the Keys. Let this be somebody else’s problem.”

  She closed her eyes. “That can’t happen. This is our problem. Nobody else will go near this kind of operation.”

  He flinched.

  “This is my assignment. I have to see it through.”

  “Just like that? You’re dead set on this, aren’t you?”

  “Afraid so. Once I’ve set my sight on something so evil, I can’t just let it go.”

  “You really should’ve told me all this before I flew a helicopter across cartel airspace.”

  She looked like she wanted to apologize, but she didn’t. Instead she turned back to the jungle path because she heard something. He heard it, too. It sounded like crunching twigs. Then, he spotted the lit cherries from their cigarettes. One of them smoked on a big fat cigar. It was the man in the magenta vest and about six Panamaian militia trailing behind him.

  Ashley stood. Her hand trembled.

  “Problem?” Sawyer said.

  “Yep,” Ashley said. “Big problem.”