The Shift in Vienna

HOLTFACTION SAGA: CHAPTER 7 — The Shift in Vienna In the summer of 2019, as the heat clung to the quiet streets of Vienna, Virginia like a thick wool blanket, Evan Love Riot and Veda Viral found themselves living in a nondescript townhouse off Nutley Street—what they later referred to only as The Rift House. Officially, they were there to work for a pair of Russian and Serbian-owned salons, part of their cover. But the salons were simply fronts—training grounds, perhaps, or holding cells—for something more ancient and more dangerous than any Cold War resurgence. By day they styled hair, by night they scoured the frequencies between dreams, drawing sigils beneath floorboards and burning oils that smelled of iron and jasmine. The dreams began in June. First Veda’s—dense, geometric mazes under blood-red moons, followed by the sound of thousands of voices chanting backward. Then Evan’s—empty cities, mirrors that melted, and the growing hum of an interstellar engine beneath their mattres...