Chapter 2

      For Grant, Edwards’s condition was something personal. He made his way through the Cerberus operations center, a temporary arrangement consisting of four laptop computers attached to a powerful server hub that hummed in one corner of the room. The room itself was originally a simple communal area, a sparsely decorated living room with several low tables and a wide mat covering the floor. The mat had been rolled back to allow for the wiring to trail across the room. Donald Bry, the ginger-haired assistant to Lakesh, was busily linking two of the laptop units together. He lay on his back with a screwdriver in one hand and a pen between his teeth, his mop of copper-colored curls in its usual disarray.

       Beside him, Brewster Philboyd, another of the trusted Cerberus team, was running a diagnostics check on the expanding computer system. A tall man with a high forehead, dark hair and black-framed spectacles perched on his nose, Brewster was a trained astrophysicist who could generally turn his hand to most technical problems.

       “How’s it going?” Grant asked as Philboyd caught his eye.

       Philboyd held up his hands in mock despair. “It’s getting there,” he said begrudgingly. “Satellite feeds are scanning properly, but we’re still amassing the data.”

       For years now Cerberus had relied on the data from two satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the equator, the Vela-class reconnaissance satellite and the Keyhole Comsat. The feeds from the two satellites provided empirical data from across the globe and also allowed for real-time communication via the Commtact units that many of the field operatives had had embedded beneath their skin. The task of monitoring these satellite feeds had been interrupted with the recent attack on Cerberus, and it was only now that Lakesh had begun to reassemble his team and initiate the arduous task of checking the information that had been stored in their absence.

       Grant continued across the room, walking through the open doorway at its far end and making his way along a wooden-walled corridor that led the way through the building. He passed several doors, each one leading to private bed quarters that had been procured by Cerberus personnel for the duration of their tenancy. Grant arrowed toward one of these, pushing it gently open with a soft touch despite his imposing size.

       Within, the drapes of the bedroom were closed, creating a cozy, dark atmosphere. A beautiful dark-haired woman sat in a chair beside the lone bed, her head lolling backward, a mangy-looking dog lying at her feet. As Grant walked in, the dog raised its head, ears pinned back to its head, and let loose a wary growl.

       “It’s okay, boy,” Grant said, leaning down for a moment and offering the dog his empty hand to sniff. “Just me.”

       The dog was some kind of mongrel, a scraggly-looking beast with more than a hint of coyote. It had the palest eyes that Grant had ever seen in a dog, orbs a white so pure they seemed faintly blue.

       The woman in the chair had awoken, too, and she watched Grant through narrowed eyes. Her name was Rosalia, a stunningly attractive woman in her mid-twenties, with long dark hair that fell halfway down her back, olive skin and long, supple limbs. Rosalia wore a long skirt that trailed to her ankles, its flowering pattern scuffed with dirt, her dark top askew on her shoulders where she had slept in the chair. Working both sides of the law, Rosalia had recently found herself siding with the Cerberus team as they escaped the imprisonment of Life Camp Zero.

       Grant took no notice of her. His dark eyes were fixed on the still figure lying alone in the bed. Kane had come to be Grant’s brother-in-arms over the years. An ex-Magistrate like Grant, Kane was a few years younger than the other man, and he looked terrible. His dark hair was ruffled, sticking to his forehead in sweaty clumps, and he had the dark shadow of a beard around his jaw now. And there was something else, too—a spiny protrusion growing on his face, circling and encrusting his left eye like bone before arcing over the cheek and pulling the corner of his mouth up into a sneer. Grant looked at Kane as he slept, eyes running across that hideous protrusion and feeling the frustration rising in his gut. Whatever it was, the growth had affected Kane’s vision, not simply blinding him but inexplicably triggering some kind of hallucinatory episodes. As such, it had left Kane grounded while Dr. Kazuko and the other medical staff investigated the nature of the intrusion to his flesh.

       When he looked down, Grant saw that he had clenched his own hands into fists. He eased his hands open again, willing the tension from his body. “How is he?” he asked, not bothering to look at the woman he was addressing.

       “He’s been asleep mostly,” Rosalia said, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb the room’s sleeping occupant. “Probably a relief.”

       “I guess,” Grant agreed.

       “What about you?” Rosalia asked softly, standing and edging toward Grant. “Any word on Edwards?”

       “They’re still trying to figure out what the condition is,” Grant told her, “but they figure it’s stone inside his head. So it’s a safe bet they’re related. Which means the cure to one might just hold the cure to the other.”

       Rosalia’s lips pulled back from clenched teeth. “Damn this Ullikummis,” she cursed. “What did Kane ever do to—?”

       “Got in his way,” Grant interrupted. “We all did. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve been doing for a half-dozen years. Had to take a casualty sometime.”

       Grant didn’t tell her the other thing he was thinking. The third member of their cozy partnership—a trained archivist called Brigid Baptiste—had disappeared without trace, only to reappear in time to shoot Kane in the chest as he lay already wounded. That had occurred out in a cavern near the newly rebuilt settlement of Snakefishville, a cavern Kane, Grant and Rosalia had investigated as it housed an Annunaki artifact called the Chalice of Rebirth. While Brigid meant little to a newcomer like Rosalia, the woman had been a crucial member of the Cerberus team since its inception, and she shared a special bond with Kane himself—the two were anam-charas, so-called soul friends linked through eternity.

       Rosalia made her way toward the door, encouraging her pale-eyed companion along beside her. “The dog needs some exercise,” she