Bob’s fingers brushed the cool earth, the scent of damp moss and broken pine rising around him. Petunia's ears went rigid first — a sharp forward tilt, then the low, breathy whine that meant she had caught something he couldn't. He followed her gaze to the fallen log, half-sunken into the soil, its bark gray with age. 'What is it, girl?' he whispered. She nudged his hand toward the base where the log met the ground, and when he swept the leaf litter aside, the air changed. A faint pulse of blue light bled up through the dirt, slow and rhythmic, like a heartbeat seen through skin. He dug with his fingers, the soil warm against his knuckles. The device was small — no bigger than his palm — smooth as river stone, with a symbol etched into its surface that seemed to shift when he looked at it directly. A coil of glyphs, elegant and alien, wrapped around a central node that throbbed with light. 'Don't touch it.' Johnny's voice came from behind, low and tight. Bob looked up. The rock star stood ten feet back on the trail, his aviators pushed into his hair, his face stripped of its usual swagger. He was pale. 'I've seen that before,' Johnny said. He took a step closer, then stopped, as if the device had a radius he didn't want to cross. 'Where?' 'In the desert. Years ago.' Johnny's jaw worked. 'It was in a crate Lou wouldn't let me open. He said it wasn't time.' Petunia growled — not at Bob, not at Johnny, but at the log. At what was underneath. Bob's hand hovered over the device, the pulse quickening under his palm. 'Then when is it time?' he asked. Johnny didn't answer. The light swelled once, twice — and then cut out. The forest went dark. And from the brush ahead, something heavy and deliberate began to move.