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  “Oh, you’re in here, but lumped in with the ‘not following FBI procedures’ part.”

  Temple shook head and took a sip of her beer.

  “All right, so enough about me,” Jasper said. “What brings you two out here? Following up on the event?”

  “We were pretty much told by your Special Agent in Charge to get out of Indiana.” Temple shrugged. “But I wanted to come here personally to discuss an important matter with you.”

  “Here?” Jasper spread his arms. “And with this sort of company?” His spread arms allowed him to pat both Pete and Ed on their backs.

  “This’ll work. I have a proposition for you—”

  “No more Nephilim or brane worlds or whatever the hell we dealt with.” Jasper took a sip of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “No way.”

  “What a shame,” Temple said. “Because I have orders here, if you choose to accept them—”

  “How Mission Impossible of you—”

  “Oh, shut up with the pop culture quotes for once and listen!” Temple smiled. “There is a spot for you with the Scientific Anomalies Group, if you like. I’ve talked my boss into funding another slot based on the anomalies we discovered in this area.”

  Jasper stared at her. “Wow. Okay, I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “The job’s a fourteen slot,” Temple added.

  “What’s a fourteen slot?” Ed asked.

  “Supervisory Special Agent slot, but this is the best kind—he gets supervisor pay without having to supervise. It’s an FBI headquarters–funded slot but one which allows him the freedom of continuing in an investigative capacity—but no more straight-up gang, drugs, or violent crime work.”

  “You need to take this job offer,” Pete said forcefully. “You can’t do what I did for twenty more years—it’ll make you a zombie.”

  “Anyway, what about my management here in Indiana?” Jasper asked.

  “My boss spoke with Masters and Johnson,” Temple said, grinning, “and I know this will be hard to believe, but they’re happy.” She pursed her lips. “No, I take that back, they’re ecstatic to be getting rid of you.”

  “They already know and they think they’re getting rid of me? What made you so sure I would accept?” Jasper sat back in his chair.

  Temple cocked her head.

  “Fine. Looks like I’m gonna be part of the Scientific Anomalies Group. I assume we’ll be based in DC, so when do I need to move?”

  Temple shook her head. “No, we’re all moving out here. Well, me and Vance, anyway. Speaking of whom, he’s decided to step out of agent work due in part to his injuries.”

  Vance raised his beer bottle by way of acknowledgment. “But I’ll be on the books as an Intelligence Analyst—more of a scientist, really, but we couldn’t finagle that sort of slot for the group.”

  His change of status meant a slight cut in pay, but Jasper figured the man would probably be happier in his new job, given his interests and temperament.

  “I’ve got a couple of other agents in SAG who’ll stay behind in Washington,” Temple continued. “They can shuffle around the paperwork well enough.”

  “You don’t want them out here? Not even one of them?”

  Temple got a slightly sour look on her face. “The reason the two of them got assigned to me is because both of them retired on the job quite a while ago. They aren’t much good for anything besides pencil-pushing.”

  Jasper nodded. He knew the type. “Out of curiosity, why base ourselves in Chicago?”

  “Chicago area, I should have said,” Temple replied. “We’ll have to figure out where the best place would be to set ourselves. It might well be here in northwest Indiana. That’ll be your first assignment, in fact—find us a good HQ. As for the rest of your question, which I won’t come right out and label as ‘silly’ although…”

  Jasper grinned. “Yeah, I got it. This is the one place in the country where we know there are no-fooling scientific anomalies which could pose a threat to national security. Plus, we now have a pretty solid liaison with a civilian outfit that knows a lot about the danger, the Völundr’s Hammer people.”

  “How solid it is, really?” Temple asked.

  “Pretty damn solid, I think. I’ve spent a fair amount of time over there, getting to know them better. And, of course, it helps a lot that we have the bond of having fought the Nephilim and the Câ Tsang together.”

  “Good. I think we’re going to find that liaison quite valuable.” Temple nodded at Ed, sitting next to her. “The other big advantage of being situated here in Chicago is that we’ve already begun assembling a top-flight group of expert consultants.”

  Ed grinned. “Top-flight. I like that.”

  Temple brought her attention back to Jasper. “Can you report in a month?”

  “Month? How about two weeks, the beginning of the next pay period?”

  “Good. Accepting these orders officially makes you my—”

  “Your what?” Jasper tried suppressing a smile, with only minimal success.

  “Bitch,” Ed White said, “of course.”

  “Ed.” Temple waggled her finger at him. “Makes Jasper my responsibility.” She snorted; another thing Jasper had never witnessed her do. “Oh who am I kidding? I’m sorry, Lord,” she glanced at the ceiling, and back at Jasper—“yeah, Wilde, you’re my bitch now.”

  Epilogue

  At first, Lali couldn’t see anything—or rather, she couldn’t interpret what she was seeing. The new universe she’d entered was just too different from her own.

  Her first clear sensation was that she was floating in…something. There was no ground beneath her feet. In fact, looking down, she saw—or could not interpret what she saw—the same…whatever it was. A void, except it was filled with swelling and swirling currents.

  Currents, though, which seemed to have no effect on her. And what was she floating in? It was neither water nor air.

  For a few seconds, a terror of suffocating seized her. She wasn’t breathing! But then she realized that didn’t seemed to be bothering her.

  How long had she been here? She had a sense that quite a bit of time had gone by compared to its passage in the universe she’d come from. She had no idea why she thought that, but she did.

  So what—?

  A mighty surge suddenly flung her forward. A moment later, she emerged from the formless existence into clarity.

  And immediately wished she hadn’t. Right in front of her—how far away? she had no idea how to gauge distance but she knew it was close—two hideous things were locked in a struggle. It took her a while to recognize them as the same nâgas who’d been fighting in the petrochemical plant.

  They looked completely different. These were not dragons; their appearance was not even close to that of dragons. Instead, they looked like horrible gigantic insects with far too many limbs. Squat centipedes with huge mandibles.

  Then, to the side, she spotted Rao. The cult leader seemed completely oblivious to the struggle of the nâgas taking place…very near to him, so far as Lali could gauge distance. Instead, he was gazing with ecstasy and wonder at a sight much farther away, his arms and legs spread wide as if he wanted to embrace the vision.

  Which was…

  More hideous, even, than the nâgas. Far in the distance—Lali had no idea how far but she sensed that the thing was at the limit of perception—there heaved and roiled a creature that was vast and mighty beyond her comprehension—and filled with rage. As if a multicolored amoeba the size of a star was both intelligent and furious.

  Furious at what or whom? She had no idea—and didn’t want to find out. She just wanted to flee the thing.

  Suddenly, the battle between the two nâgas—she knew their names, somehow—called Samyaza and Armaros came to an end in a ghastly manner. The larger monster did something with the many legs it had buried in Armaros that caused the smaller one to burst into several pieces. But the effort caused Samyaza’s own body to collapse inward,
as if it were a deflated balloon.

  Both Nephilim shrieked. In its agony, Samyaza lashed out with its hind limbs, which seemed to be relatively intact. Three of them struck Rao, ripping his own body into shreds. He had no time to scream. One moment he existed; the next, he did not.

  Lali felt no grief or sorrow for his passing. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have had time to think about it, because a piece of Armaros was coming right at her—the piece which had the mandibles and what she thought might be eyes.

  Frantically, she tried to evade the horror, but she had no sense of how to move in this universe she was in, so she just floundered and thrashed about.

  The Armaros piece swept by her. One of the mandibles pierced her in the torso, just below her ribcage.

  Deeply, deeply. The agony was indescribable. Yet, bizarrely, knowledge surged into her as well. By the time Armaros passed away, the mandible withdrawing from her body, she knew many things she had not known. She understood almost none of it, though. It was not the sort of organized and coherent knowledge passed along by a teacher; it was more as if someone had just filled her with disorganized and incoherent data.

  As soon as the mandible tip left her body, the torment ceased. Looking down, terrified at what she would see, but the wound was already closing up. She felt a vast sigh of relief.

  A very short one. Three more nâgas were coming toward her—racing toward her. These were much, much smaller than either Samyaza or Armaros, however. And they seemed in some indefinable way to be…undefined themselves.

  A sliver of the new knowledge took form and substance; became clear.

  These were passagers. Akin to children in that they were newly come into existence, small, and still taking shape. They were spewed into existence by the gigantic, roiling monster at the horizon. One or another grown Nephilim would take charge of some of them, not to nurture them in any way, but in the hopes they might shape them in a manner that would prove useful.

  These three had been among Armaros’ crèche. Loosed, now, both from Armaros’ rule as well as Armaros’ knowledge. They were half-mindless; filled with appetites and desires but knowing little or nothing of the attendant dangers.

  Two of them began fighting with each other. They were trying to place themselves…

  They wanted her, she suddenly realized. For what purpose? She had no idea—and didn’t want to find out.

  The third and smallest of the passagers passed by its two companions—no, not that, for these creatures had no companions; they spent their entire existence in spiritual solitude—and came swarming down upon her, its multiple limbs spread wide to grasp her.

  Grasp her it did; she had no way to move, no way to save herself.

  TAKE ME TO THE HELL WORLD! The creature’s thought passed into Lali’s brain in a manner she didn’t understand, but the meaning was clear enough.

  TAKE ME! TAKE ME NOW!

  She realized that the monster hadn’t simply seized her, but was now plunging at what seemed an incredible speed toward a brilliantly colored fissure below them. At least, she thought it was below them.

  Looking behind, she saw that the two larger passagers had broken off their struggle and were now racing after Lali and her captor.

  They would not arrive in time. An instant late, Lali was deep into the fissure.

  All she could see clearly was color—in this case, a violent crimson.

  GIVE ME A NAME, LORRAINE! shrieked the passager. GIVE ME A GENDER! I WOULD BE MIGHTY, MIGHTY!

  She had no idea what it was talking about. What was a “Lorraine”? And how could it—much less she herself—give such a creature a gender as well as a name?

  Her ignorance seemed to penetrate the passager like a spear.

  NO, NO! it shrieked.

  An instant later, the thing started coming apart. Its mandibles flew off; its limbs flew off; what might have been its eyes collapsed; not long afterward, its whole body started disintegrating.

  But Lali was paying no attention to that. She knew she was plunging down into…something. But what was it? And was it dangerous?

  A terrible impact answered that question. She lost all sense and consciousness.

  * * *

  A jagged line, like a lightning bolt, remained etched in Lali’s mind. No. More like a permanent shadow across her vision. A scar. Her side ached, as did her entire body for that matter. She smacked her lips and licked them. The odor emanating from her mouth almost overwhelmed her, as if she’d eaten rotten meat with a lingering metallic aftertaste, not quite blood, though—

  Her eyes opened. She hadn’t even realized they were closed. The scar across her vision remained. She still couldn’t see anything.

  Hot. So very hot. She sucked in a deep breath.

  “Hey.”

  She snapped her attention to the sound of the voice. Not Rao’s. No. He’d been torn apart right in front of her. She shivered despite the heat emanating off her. She hugged herself, and discovered bare skin.

  “Hey, what you doin’ here?” a young man’s voice asked. Not anyone she knew.

  Lali stood and glanced around, blinking rapidly and taking in the environment. A haze surrounded her, but that was likely her vision attempting to adapt back to her own universe, and not that crazy place she’d been swept into with Rao, the hell universe; the nâga universe.

  The haze cleared rapidly. Her back was near to a wall covered in peeling wallpaper that had once been white with tiny green designs, flowers perhaps, but the white had long turned yellow and brown. Her bare feet pressed against threadbare carpet, gray, or perhaps simply dirt and ash coated, gritty against her skin.

  “How you get in here, anyway?” the same voice asked.

  She focused in the direction of the voice and saw a young black man wearing a wifebeater and displaying muscular arms. He wasn’t more than average in size, but toned and sinewy. He was leering at her, as if he hadn’t noticed she wore no clothing until that moment.

  She glanced beyond him and saw that the only apparent exit was a door against the far wall that had several locks and bolts on it. Clearly, the young fellow wanted no chance of being surprised by anyone breaking in quickly.

  The table he’d been sitting at was littered with paper, plastic bags, a scale, and two stacks of money. The stacks weren’t all that thick, but if those bills were any sort of larger denominations—even just twenties—they represented quite a bit of money.

  Maybe this was a drug house. Hopefully not a meth lab, though. She’d been in one of those once and had only wanted to get out of there before the entire place went up in a fiery ball of death.

  She laughed. Why? She had no idea. Nothing around her seemed the least amusing.

  “What’s so funny, bitch?” the man asked.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” She coughed, and the man took a quick step back as if she might have the plague.

  Maybe she did. For all she knew she had caught something while in the nightmare world.

  “I can’t explain. You wouldn’t understand,” she repeated. More coughs came, and a metallic taste flooded her mouth.

  She laughed again, this time a deep and throaty laugh. She swallowed the metallic substances coating her tongue and the entire inside of her mouth.

  “Here, let me help you,” he said. But it was obvious from his expression what sort of help he had in mind.

  “No, thanks,” Lali said. “If you would kindly allow me to leave, you’ll never see me again.”

  “Oh, hell no. I’ve seen enough of you to put me in the mood for getting to know you a whole lot better.”

  The young man—he was barely more than a boy—took confident, aggressive strides toward her. As he closed the distance, Lali covered herself as best as she could with her arms, conscious of her naked body and the leering look. She glanced about for a weapon, but where she stood now there was nothing for her. No window to break, no lamp, nothing to grab. Not even an ashtray or glass or bottle.

  “Please, let me go. I’ve been
through a lot and I’m not in the mood.”

  “Oh, you will be,” the man said. “I’ll see to that.”

  He clasped his fingers around one of her arms, a solid grip like a vise clamping down on her. He pulled her close to him, but Lali’s strength returned and she pushed the man’s chest with her free hand. He frowned and his eyes squinted, pulling his cheeks up as his forehead wrinkled—pain. She wasn’t sure if she’d hurt the man, but she’d certainly surprised him.

  “You’re a tough little bitch, aren’t you?” He yanked her into him and embraced her. Her breasts pressed into the man’s chest and his hands lowered to her bare bottom, squeezing. “You’re on fire,” the man said.

  She squirmed and wriggled. Heat flowed through her and the metallic taste returned, resting on her tongue. The scar across her vision returned as well, blinding her. But she and her would-be assailant were pressed so closely together that she really didn’t need to see. The man had left her arms free during the embrace. Lali reached behind her back, grabbed the man’s wrists and pulled the man’s hands away.

  It wasn’t any harder than removing a child’s grip. Pushing him away from her completely was also no harder than pushing away a child. The man stumbled back, ran into one of the chairs at the table, and fell back into it.

  “What the hell—” The man’s voice was shaky. “You some kind of weirdo female body builder?”

  “Something like that,” she said, wondering at the answer herself. “Now just open that door and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Fuck that,” he said. “I want pussy and I’m gonna get it.”

  He snatched something from the cluttered table that she hadn’t noticed before. Now he had a gun in his hand; some kind of pistol.

  “I’m done playin’ wit’ you.” He rose from the chair and pointed the pistol at her. “Just do like I tell you.”

  The metallic taste flooded her mouth again and heat washed over her entire body. She’d had enough of this insignificant beast. She’d just break the damn door down. She was quite sure she had the strength to do it.

  She headed for the door. “Stop, bitch!” he shouted.