God War (26 page)

Feeling as much as seeing, Rosalia positioned herself beneath the Cerberus warrior and lifted, bringing her back to the surface. Brigid’s eyes were closed, her body still.

“Don’t pull this shit now,” Rosalia grunted as she hurried through the pool to its edge, the chrysalis forgotten for the moment.

Then Rosalia was at the poolside, hefting Brigid’s floppy-limbed form over the edge before dragging herself out. Behind her, the stone egg had resealed, any evidence that it had opened entirely removed.

“Come on, you stupid woman,” Rosalia cursed as she pressed on Brigid’s chest. “Breathe.”

For a moment, Brigid just lay still, not reacting at all. Then there was a sound from her throat and a rush of fluid spurted from her mouth, washing over the already soaked clothing she wore.

“That’s it,” Rosalia said. “Get it all out.”

Brigid’s eyelids flickered open, and she stared at Rosalia with bright, intelligent eyes. “What happened?”

“I think you reversed time or something,” Rosalia told her. “You were the one doing it. I was just along for the ride, so don’t you ask me to explain anything.”

Brigid eyed her for a long moment, her breath coming in heaving gasps. “Oh, I had Annunaki thoughts inside me, didn’t I?” she groaned.

Rosalia nodded. “They there still? I can shoot you if they are. In the head.”

Brigid smiled. “No. I’m me. Or as me as I ever was.”

Behind the two women, the strange stone chrysalis began to part once again, a jagged crack running up its Y-axis all over again. Brigid and Rosalia watched as Little Quav emerged, a girl once more. Her dress was gone but otherwise she seemed intact.

Rosalia turned to Brigid, a frown on her face. “Is she going to remember...?”

“Nothing,” Brigid said with certainty. “Time can’t be turned back but evolution—at least, Annunaki evolution—can.”

“Good,” Rosalia said with a firm nod, “because I hate killing children.”

Brigid draped the fur cloak over Quav’s shoulders and the three of them hurried from the ante-nursery, not bothering to look back.

* * *

N
INETY
-
THREE
MILLION
miles away, a quantum window opened just beyond the corona of the sun like a beautiful lotus blossom, its petals unfurling in the darkness. A single figure emerged from that quantum window, hurtling from it as if thrown with incredible force. It was Ullikummis, his scream lost to the silent vacuum of space.

Languidly, as if he had all the time in the universe, Ullikummis’s stone body plummeted toward the sun, its stone surface burning up in a spark of such unremarkable brilliance that no one but the keenest observer would have noticed.

The sun was humankind’s first god, a golden ball in the sky, and it cared little for these insignificant life-forms called Annunaki.

Chapter 21

What happened after that was chaos. The energies that had blasted from Ullikummis had wounded
Tiamat
’s living engines, and it wasn’t long before the whole ship began to overheat.

Grant made his way to the exit, keeping in contact with Rosalia as he did so. When he reached the outside, the war was over, all the jury-rigged Annunaki dead, their shoddy bodies corrupted from within. The humans who had waged war for Ullikummis seemed mystified, especially the firewalkers who’d had the obedience stone implanted within them. It seemed that without Ullikummis the stones lost their power. Finally the section of Earth’s population who had placed their faith in Ullikummis was free. Strangely, it was Sela Sinclair, one of the missing agents of Cerberus, who led the confused humans from the disintegrating body of
Tiamat,
whose skeletal wings sunk lower into the ground having never had the chance to fly.

Rosalia found Grant on one of the bone streets, triangulating each other via their linked Commtacts, and accompanied by Brigid who was walking slower to allow Little Quav to keep up.

“What?” Rosalia taunted. “You decide just to sit out the final act?”

“I was busy,” Grant told her as he limped along amid the mass exodus. “Busy like you wouldn’t believe.”

Rosalia didn’t press the issue. She could see how weary the ex-Mag was. Besides, Grant was more interested in renewing his acquaintance with Brigid Baptiste. Grant slowed, waiting for Brigid and Quav to catch up. They seemed to be in one piece and back to normal, and that was honestly all that Grant could process just now.

* * *

H
ALFWAY
AROUND
the world, Kane was waking up—for want of a better term—in the Agartha storeroom. Balam watched him with interest, plucking away the strange living growths that the chair had used to interact with its occupant.

“How do you feel, friend Kane?” Balam asked gently.

Kane looked at him, studying the pasty features of this humanoid who had helped guide him amid the cosmic whirl. “I’m alive,” Kane concluded after some moments’ thought. “Are we saying that for everyone else, Balam?”

“I couldn’t really tell you,” Balam admitted, shaking his head sorrowfully.

Still seated, Kane brushed his hand against his face as he engaged his Commtact. “Lakesh? Grant? You out there?”

Something flaked away from Kane’s cheek like a dried-up scab, and he watched as it flittered down to his chest before brushing it away. It was a part of the stone splinter that had been embedded in him, dried up now with Ullikummis’s departure turning to so much dust. And his vision seemed back to normal. Whatever Balam had been doing was finished, no longer necessary.

“Kane?” Grant replied after a pause. “You okay?”

Kane could hear the weariness in his partner’s voice. “Better than you,” he teased.

Kane waited, but Grant didn’t say anything else. “Well...?” he prompted.

“Kane.” The one word was spoken by a familiar voice as it came over the Commtact.

Kane’s heart leaped, feeling an incredible sense of relief and joy. He steadied himself, taking a deep breath before finally replying. “Baptiste,” he said, “you have some explaining to do.”t

“Yes,” she replied, tiredness in her voice.

Kane waited. It sounded like she wanted to say more, but somehow the words didn’t come. “Hey,” he said, “it’s good to have you back on the team.”

“Thanks,” Brigid said.

And that was their communication over.

Grant came back online a few moments later, telling Kane about Rosalia and about Little Quav, confirming that both had survived intact. Kane related that to Balam, but there was little joy in his voice.

Afterward, Kane paced the cuboid room, shaking his head as he replayed the conversation with Brigid Baptiste over and over in his mind.

“Kane?” Balam asked, sensing the human’s distress. “Are you all right?”

Kane stared at him, his haunted blue-gray eyes meeting Balam’s. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

“We dispatched the Annunaki,” Balam reminded him. “You must be thankful for the victories we’ve achieved today. Remember—everyone survived, my friend.”

“Yeah, well,” Kane muttered as he left the gel-walled cube, “maybe the jury’s still out on that.”

But Balam was no longer within hearing range.

* * *

E
NLIL
LAY
AMID
the debris in
Tiamat
’s engine room, a bloody stump where his left leg had been. He had used part of his torn cloak to patch the leg, creating a tourniquet to slow the blood loss. He felt more than saw the destruction of his son, Ullikummis, although it was difficult to miss the fallout. The whole engine room was alive with flame and smoke where energy had raced out across the dimensions from Ullikummis’s wounded body.

Enlil lay there as the verminous engineer slaves hurried to tend to
Tiamat
’s final needs, and he closed his eyes and listened. The womb ship was ruined, dying; Enlil could feel it deep in his soul. He had vowed that the future would be his, back when he had planted the seed that grew to become this great spaceship, but he had not foreseen the interference of his son, returned from his punishment having learned only rebellion.

But what was truly insulting was that the apekin of Cerberus had come, and it was they who had finally killed his rebellious child.

“Cerberus will die by my hand,” Enlil gritted as a posse of the verminlike engineers came to spirit him away from the ruined starship. “The apekin had no right to interfere in matters of blood, of family. They will die by my hand, I swear this. It is a debt of honor now, a debt that such puny, jumped-up apes could never possibly comprehend.”

Overhead, another great chunk of
Tiamat
’s flesh ripped away from the inner hull, crashing down among the burning wreckage of the engine room. Enlil watched it drop, his bloodied face fixed in a mask of hate.

There was time. There was always time.

* * *

W
ITH
THE
DESTRUCTION
of Ullikummis and the subsequent atrophy of
Tiamat,
Lakesh felt safe in calling his disbanded team home. “Send out the order,” he told Donald Bry as the sun began to set outside the ruined French doors of their temporary headquarters. “Bring everyone back—we’re going home.”

Domi looked up from her perch at a low table, a tentative smile tugging her lips. “To Cerberus?”

“
We
are Cerberus,” Lakesh corrected her. “But, yes, we shall be remounting operations at the redoubt as soon as possible.”

Domi cheered, along with everyone else in the room: Brewster Philboyd, Reba DeFore, Donald Bry, Mariah Falk and Shizuka and her remaining Tigers of Heaven, too.

* * *

I
T
TOOK
SEVENTY
-
TWO
hours to bring everyone back together, and even then the redoubt base in the Bitterroot Mountains, Montana, seemed strangely underpopulated. Hollowed from the mountain, the whole of the base had been overtaken with living rock when Ullikummis had attacked, and now many of the old rooms and corridors were swamped with evidence of that occupation. While much of the redoubt remained under a blanket of rock, the mat-trans unit at least remained intact, and it worked overtime as it shuttled in the surviving members of the Cerberus squad. They numbered close to fifty in all, and a series of strange meetings took place as individuals who had found themselves on opposite sides of the Ullikummis War were reunited.

Lakesh watched it all from his old desk—currently hidden somewhere beneath a veneer of rock—and he smiled. Things would get back to normal in time. Cerberus would survive; it always did.

Ullikummis had left several nasty traps awaiting anyone who tried to take control of the redoubt, but all of them had expired with his death, living rock creatures turned to worthless stones, now nothing more than artifacts of a battle no one cared to dwell on. Already, the staff was working on that ultrasonic beam, seeing whether it might be employed to remove the rocky growths that had overtaken the redoubt like a fungus.

“You look pleased with yourself,” Donald Bry said to Lakesh as Farrell reappeared in the mat-trans chamber in the corner of the ops room to be greeted by a very apologetic Sela Sinclair.

“I have every right to be,” Lakesh said. “Look around you, Donald. We’re back, and our enemies are vanquished.”

“Our enemies are never van—” Bry began, but he stopped himself, inevitably looking concerned as he saw Lakesh’s look. “I know what you’re going to tell me,” Bry said, raising his hands in surrender. “To enjoy the victory while we have it.”

Bry took a moment to gaze around the altered operations room. “Lakesh,” he said, “it’s good to be home.”

* * *

O
UTSIDE
THE
REDOUBT
, on the plateau that overlooked the mountain range, Kane joined a number of other personnel as they celebrated their victory, drinks and food somehow rustled up from the battle-damaged canteen.

When he saw Kane step through the open rollback doors, Grant came limping over to him with Shizuka in tow. Behind them, the warm rays of the afternoon sun painted the sandy plateau a rich gold.

“Grant,” Shizuka urged, “not so much weight on your leg. Remember what Dr. Kazuka told you.”

Grant ignored her, reaching his arms around Kane in a hug. “Good to see you again, my man,” he said.

“You, too, partner,” Kane agreed. “That was the weirdest game of rock-paper-scissors I ever played. Thanks for coming through for me.”

Grant backed away with a look of mock indignation. “Who, me? What did I do? I heard you were the theoretical physics superhero. Brainiacs here want to kiss your feet.”

“You made sure Ullikummis wasn’t grounded when we sideswiped him,” Kane said, adding before Grant could correct him, “whether you meant to or not.”

Grant smiled, looking Kane up and down. The ex-Mag had come straight from the city of Agartha, where he had spent more than two days asleep, simply trying to recover from the emotional and spiritual drain of using the astrogator’s chair in the way he had.

“You know something?” Grant asked. “That beard really does not suit you.”

Kane stroked his unruly whiskers, eyeing Grant’s carefully trimmed goatee. “And what about yours?”

Grant ran his index finger and thumb along both sides of his beard and smiled. “See, mine actually looks good.”

As if in agreement, Shizuka linked her arm through Grant’s and leaned against him, looking up into his eyes. “You want another drink, my brave hero?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll help you,” Grant said. “Hey, Kane, you—” He stopped. Kane was already walking away across the plateau, making his way to the dark-haired woman who stood at its edge sipping at a glass of water, quietly observing the reunion from a distance.

“You look like hell,” Rosalia said cheerily when she saw Kane approach. Around them, the spontaneous party continued apace, with many Cerberus personnel being reunited for the first time in two months.

“Good to see you, too,” Kane said.

Rosalia reached up, brushing gently at the place where the stone shard of Ullikummis had been embedded in Kane’s face. It had gone, withered and died during the conflict in string space, and all that remained was an ugly bruise that ringed Kane’s left eye.

Kane winced as Rosalia’s hand touched him. “Hey, careful.”

“You big girl,” Rosalia shot back. “You never like it when I play rough.”

Kane stared at her in surprise, but after a moment he saw her expression warm and she smiled, her even teeth bright in the midafternoon sunlight.

“You did good out there, from what I hear,” Rosalia told him.

“Yeah, from what I hear, too,” Kane admitted. “Damned if I actually understand half the shit I went through to get us here. Don’t tell anyone else I said that, though.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Rosalia said. “Big, strong Magistrate like you doesn’t need brains to understand things, does he?”

Kane laughed, shaking his head at the woman’s gentle mocking. But after a moment’s pause, his expression became somber. “Lakesh told me about your dog,” Kane said. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, what does it matter?” Rosalia said with resignation. The hound had died during the initial altercation with Enlil, sacrificing itself to end the battle.

“Mangy mutt saved my hide on a couple of occasions,” Kane reminded her. “Did the same for you, and it wouldn’t hurt to admit it, you know?”

“Never get close to things, Magistrate,” Rosalia told him, “’cause they’ll only let you down or get killed in the end.”

Kane reached for Rosalia, placing his hand gently on her arm and staring into her chocolate-colored eyes. “You didn’t let us down, Rosie. You came through, one hundred percent.”

Rosalia inclined her head coquettishly. “Yeah, well, guess what? I’m leaving.”

“Why?” Kane asked. “You can stay, you know. You’re one of us now. A fully paid-up, secret-decoder-ring-wearing Cerberus member.”

But Rosalia was shaking her head. “My place is elsewhere. You got Brigid back. Your trinity is restored. You don’t need me anymore, Kane.”

“You’re wrong. It’s not about numbers, Rosalia,” Kane told her, but already Rosalia was placing her finger to his lips.

“Never get close to things, Magistrate,” Rosalia said. “Then when they let you down or get killed, you don’t get soppy and sentimental.”

Kane nodded. Rosalia had her own path to travel. She didn’t need him or Cerberus. And she was right—they had recovered Brigid Baptiste, and with Grant convalescing after his own battles with the Annunaki god-prince, it seemed that they were finally getting back to normal. Which reminded him, where was Baptiste, anyway? Shouldn’t she be here?

* * *

O
UTSIDE
THE
REDOUBT
, Brigid’s colleagues were continuing their celebration. It was not just an expression of their joy, Brigid knew, but a way to reappropriate the base that had suffered so at Ullikummis’s hands. The next day, the rebuilding would begin in earnest.