The Eiger did not welcome visitors. It was a monolith of limestone and ice, a vertical graveyard for those who dared to defy the gravity of the Swiss Alps. But deep within the "Ogre’s" frozen marrow, hidden behind a thousand feet of solid rock and a sophisticated holographic veil, lay the Crèche.
Lila shivered, but not from the biting Alpine wind that screamed through the gaps in her tactical parka. The cold she felt was internal a rhythmic, glacial pulse that seemed to beat in perfect counter-point to the thrumming in her womb.
"The atmospheric sensors are jammed," Ethan muttered, his voice crackling through her earpiece. He was fifty yards ahead, a dark silhouette against the blinding white of the glacier. He moved with a grim, human determination, his boots crunching into the crust o
