The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9) by Sam Sisavath Page A

are you doing?”
    He had some kind of submachine gun pointed at her face. She wished she could have said his hand and the weapon in it were shaking, but they were as calm as could be. With his other hand, he shoved her Glock into his front waistband before taking a step back and then, and only then, letting his weapon lower—slightly.
    “Sit down, Lara,” he said.
    “Phil—”
    “Sit down,” he said through clenched teeth.
    She walked over and sat down on the side of her bed and watched Phil walk to the door and lean against the wall next to it. Now that her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, she could just make out the MP5K with the pistol grip hanging almost nonchalantly at his side. Besides her Glock stuffed into his front waistband, he had only come here with just the submachine gun as far as she could tell.
    “Just the submachine gun?” That’s more than enough.
    “What’s this about?” she asked.
    He didn’t answer her, and instead unclipped a radio from his hip and held it in his left hand, while the right continued to clutch his weapon. A sudden spurt of footsteps from the hallway made him turn his head, but he quickly relaxed and resumed his stance when the noise faded.
    “Phil,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
    He didn’t respond or even look back at her. Had he even heard her?
    “Phil,” she said again, louder this time.
    “What?” he said, sounding agitated.
    You’re the one with a gun hiding in my room, asshole , she wanted to snap back, but said instead, “What are you doing?”
    He finally trained his eyes on her, and even without any real light in the room, she could make out the penetrating stare he had pointed back at her. “You know why.”
    “I don’t.”
    “The creature. The ghoul .”
    Oh, goddammit. He knows. He knows.
    “I don’t understand,” she said anyway. “What ghoul?”
    He smirked. “You can stop pretending. We know all about it. The creature you have locked away in a chest down in the engine room.” He sneaked a peek at the glowing neon hands of his wristwatch. “But don’t worry, Lara, we’re going to take care of it for you.”
    “What do you mean, ‘take care of it?’”
    He didn’t say anything.
    “Phil…”
    “You shouldn’t have brought it onboard,” he said. “You should have known better. Riley might have made that mistake, but not you. You should have known better.”
    I didn’t bring him onboard. Danny did. He didn’t tell me what was in the chest until after it was already in Gage’s old room.
    Of course, she didn’t tell Phil any of that. She didn’t think it was going to matter anyway. The man with the gun glaring at her from across the darkened room right now didn’t care about the truth. He had come here to do a job, and he was doing it.
    But if Phil’s job was in here with her, then what was happening outside? Because she didn’t believe for a second this was a one-man job. And she had absolutely heard him say, “But don’t worry, Lara, we’re going to take care of it for you.”
    “We.” He said “we.”
    “Was this Riley’s plan all along?” she asked. “Trick me into bringing you onboard with some sob story about wanting to leave Mercer’s war, then take over the boat when we let our guards down?”
    Phil might have chuckled. If he did, it was very quiet and short. “Riley has nothing to do with it. He’s a good man, but he was never really meant for leadership. I could think of twenty people off the top of my head who are more qualified. Still, he got us out of Mercer’s insanity, so we owe him that much.”
    Your mutineers are mutinying again, Riley. Why am I not surprised?
    “What are you going to do, Phil?” she asked.
    He might have answered her, but before he could the radio in his left hand squawked and a voice she didn’t recognize said, “We’ve secured the infirmary.”
    Phil lifted the two-way to his lips and keyed it. “Any trouble?”
    “Nothing we couldn’t handle,”