had been transplanted into the suburbs. Startled birds took flight from a twisting cypress as he hurried past, squawking in ugly caws, their feathers orange and an almost luminescent green.
In a secret location hundreds of miles away, Farrell knew that Donald Bry was even now using his subdermal transponder to track his position, applying it to a map of the local territory and assessing the best escape route.
“Farrell, I have a mat-trans located in a military redoubt about three miles west of your present position,” Bry announced over the Commtact. “Do you think you can make that, or do you want me to scramble a team to come to your aid?”
Farrell glanced self-consciously behind him, searching the wreckage of the nearby houses and the towering ferns for signs of movement. The leaves shimmied in the breeze, making whispering sounds as they swayed. But there was no one around—maybe, just maybe, he had lost them?
“I should be able to make it to the redoubt,” Farrell told Bry reluctantly. He knew how tight the personnel situation was just now, knew that Cerberus could ill afford to scramble a CAT team to protect one lowly tech. “If I go careful, I think I can avoid any more trouble. I’ll let you know when I’m within sight.”
“Excellent,” Bry acknowledged over the Commtact. “We should be able to remote program a jump for you from here. We’ll get you to safety.”
Pipe in hand, Farrell hurried on down the overgrown streets of Bradley, far away from the safehouse he had shared with the traitorous Sela Sinclair.
* * *
BACK IN THE OVERGROWN remains of the service road, Tanya and Jackson Stone and Sinclair stood with Brigid Haight as the trim figure of Farrell disappeared from sight.
“Let him go,” Brigid instructed, watching the retreating figure as he hurried toward the break between the houses where a wall cut across the roadway’s path. “He doesn’t matter.”
“But we’ll lose him,” Tanya insisted, clenching and unclenching her fists where she held the leather band of the slingshot.
“The world belongs to Ullikummis now, and all who share in his love,” Brigid intoned. “Where is there left for him to run?”
Chapter 6
The wind whipped past the retrofitted cargo as it cut through the skies over Syria toward Iraq. Grant sat on one of two long benches that lined the cargo area, head down, his hands held close together so that their steepled fingers formed a rough triangular shape of empty space. Beside him, Domi watched, a confused crease appearing between her white eyebrows.
“What you doing?” Domi asked.
“Concentrating,” Grant replied, his eyes still fixed on the empty space between his touching fingertips.
Domi nodded as if she understood, but she was just as baffled as she had been before. Despite being one of the longest-serving members of the Cerberus organization, Domi was still a child of the Outlands at heart, savage and simpleminded in her comprehension of things. She wasn’t unintelligent; she just had a more direct approach to things than those who had been educated in the nine towering baronies that dotted the landscape of North America. A little over five feet in height, Domi was a svelte, pixielike figure who had wrapped her chalk-white skin beneath a series of light layers for the duration of this field mission. Her hair, a creamy white, like milk, was cut short around her head, framing her sharp-planed face in a ruffled pixie cut. While albinism had left Domi almost entirely white, her eyes were a fearsome red, like bloody wounds in her face, and they had a disarming effect when she fixed her gaze on an opponent. Despite her youth, Domi had formed a close relationship with Lakesh, the two of them becoming lovers over the past couple of years. If Lakesh had ever seemed worried about sending his personnel into the danger zone, that worry had quadrupled with Domi once the two of them had fallen in love. But the worry was reciprocated; Domi could be like a terrier when it came to Lakesh’s safety.
Across the aisle from Domi, sitting between two Tigers of Heaven warriors dressed in armorlike stealth suits, Rosalia smiled contemptuously. “Leave the Magistrate alone,” she said. “He’s focusing his mojo.”
As she spoke, the nameless dog that sat at her feet whined, its expressive, pale eyes wide with worry. The dog disliked the sound of the heavy rotors, and its ears kept twitching so that Rosalia had to keep one hand in the scuff of its neck to keep it settled, rubbing it there now and again. The dog had come with Rosalia here, as it seemed to follow her everywhere. While it might seem a burden at times, the mutt was a fierce fighter when the time came. In fact, there seemed to be something uncanny in its fighting technique, as if more than one creature somehow existed in the same place. Watching it fight was like hallucinating at times, a double or triple image taking up its position.
Rosalia had changed her clothes before leaving the temporary headquarters in the winter palace. Now she wore a dark one-piece outfit that hugged her curvaceous body, her long shapely legs covered by pant legs that tucked into supple leather boots that reached halfway up her calves. Rosalia had tied her hair back in a simple ponytail, which she tucked beneath the black hood of her top to prevent it from flying in her face.
Domi didn’t trust Rosalia. There was something about the mercenary woman and her superior attitude that rubbed Domi the wrong way. Compounding that distrust was the memory that on their first meeting Rosalia had been part of a two-person team that had knocked Domi unconscious from behind. Domi had never forgiven the woman for that, even if Rosalia herself had not struck the actual blow.
“He’s called Grant,” the albino girl said irritably, her red devil’s eyes boring into Rosalia’s.
“Like Seth,” Rosalia said obtusely before turning back to her whining hound to calm it. Despite her brusqueness, it was evident that the mysterious Rosalia was well educated. Her well of knowledge seemed bottomless, yet she frequently saw no reason to explain her comments to those she considered beneath her. Domi very definitely fell into that category.
Grant ignored the two antagonistic females, relaxing his eyes as he meditated on the nonspace created between his touching fingers. It had been fifteen hours since the incident with Edwards, and he had hoped that he might remain while the operation was performed on the man’s brain so that he could witness with the rest of them just what it was that was growing there. However, with the satellite feeds back online, something urgent had come up. Via its network of contacts, Cerberus had amassed several reports of people going missing out near the banks of the river known as the Euphrates. Not just one or two people, but dozens, perhaps more than one hundred. Lakesh had replayed Grant the surveillance footage taken from Iraq, close to the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The overhead footage showed a city structure expanding on the banks of the Euphrates. The settlement that had not been there six months before. Constructed of an off-white stone of unknown origin, the ville was expanding at a rapid rate. That wasn’t unusual in this age of displaced persons and in itself it shouldn’t be cause for alarm. What was alarming was the shape of the burgeoning ville—it quite clearly took the form of a winged creature, drawn across the fertile soil of the riverbank.
“A dragon,” Grant had said as he had stared at the incredible surveillance photos.
“Or perhaps a dragon ship,” Lakesh had said, emphasizing the word ship. His implication was clear. The Cerberus team had become aware of the Annunaki starship Tiamat as it lurked high above the atmosphere, and Grant had been a part of the team on board when the ship had begun its self-destruct sequence, watched from space as its exploding form had filled the heavens with light. To have another of the starships appear like this—on
