Book excerpt: Continuing the journey to close the Portal opened by the evil Witch Cadence Shadowsoul. A clean start: fresh faces, new teams - new challenges, but the "smoldering embers of evil" remain. The Roman Soldier, Petronius Arbiter said it best in AD 65: "We trained very hard - but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization..." Except for the lasting influence of the portal - once closed, never closed. "...Evil doesn't die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we've been touched by it once, it doesn't mean we're immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice..." Tess Gerritsen