James Axler - Shadow Born

“We know. You related the tale, just as if you were there in person,” Brigid replied.

“Oh,” Kane said, frowning. He looked down at the ground, trying to get a better mental image of the horrific beast that had stood before him. It was indeed similar to the avatar that Neekra had molded Gamal into, but it was larger. The Annunaki scales were thicker, rougher, cruder, scales that Kane hadn’t seen on the goddess’s first simulacrum. The glare of anger and hatred in her eyes was soul chilling, something he never wanted to see again.

Grant managed a chuckle, the sound breaking him from whatever lost trance Kane was falling into. “It sounded like you were having a wonderful time.”

Kane acknowledged his partner. He noticed that he had Nehushtan in his other hand. “Did it give us anything on the location of that tomb?”

Brigid had out a notebook in which she scribbled furiously. “I had a difficult time since your ancestor’s experience was on a cloudy, starless night.

“How long was I under?” Kane asked.

“How long did it feel like?” Grant countered.

“A full evening. After the caravan stopped its march, I was allowed to kneel next to the caravan’s leader,” Kane answered. “He viewed Solomon as a great prize as well as a potential slave for sale. He took my...his sword.”

“She was asking you...him...questions for the past hour and a half,” Grant returned. “He was reluctant to give exact locations, and he said that it was no place for a woman.”

Kane chuckled. “How did she take that?”

“My opinion of his chauvinism was noted and debated for a few seconds, and his chauvinism toward me was defrayed,” Brigid stated, continuing to run figures in her mind. “He found me far more formidable than others he had encountered in his era.”

Kane glanced toward Grant.

“I recorded it,” Grant answered. “It was fun. Especially your British accent.”

Kane grimaced. “British accent? And it’s already recorded?”

Grant nodded. “Back at Cerberus.”

Kane shook his head. “I think I’ll be staying with Sky Dog and the Lakota for a few weeks after we get back home.”

“You could always be eaten by Neekra,” Grant offered.

“Promises, promises,” Kane grumbled. He turned back to Brigid. “So, if the stars were behind clouds that night, how will you know where I went, Baptiste?”

“Solomon was a meticulous navigator. He was fairly good at estimating the distances he covered in a day, and he did have a track that he followed,” Brigid stated. “The only problem is that he came from coastal Africa, to the northeast, whereas we’re coming up from the south. Also, he was utilizing sixteenth-century maps, which were not analogous to current satellite tracking technology.”

“In other words, you’ve got a good start, but you’re going to be working courses for a while,” Kane returned.

Brigid glanced up from her calculations. “That was implied.”

“She’s figuring it out,” Kane surmised. “Otherwise, she’d devote brainpower to a smart-ass remark.”

Brigid waved the two men off, and Grant helped Kane to his feet.

“What’s our plan until she comes through with where we need to go?” Grant asked.

Kane shrugged. “Maybe we could hypnotize Thurpa?”

“Brigid’s busy on that front,” Grant returned. “I mean, I could try, but I don’t think I can put him into a trance.”

Kane looked down at the staff in his hands. “Maybe the stick could do something.”

“Or maybe we could ask Brigid to take a break and do her memory trick on Thurpa?” Grant asked. “Is it like she’ll lose her place?”

Kane rolled his eyes, then raised his voice. “Brigid? Can we interrupt you for a moment?”

Brigid looked up from her notes. “Interview Thurpa or, rather, Durga?”

“If the man’s inside that head,” Grant said, “we’ll find out just how much.”

“There’s one small stumbling block in that,” Brigid said. “Durga utilized Thurpa’s mind as a means of sharing the psychic load of Neekra’s assault on him. What is to prevent Durga from blocking my attempts at hypnosis? Indeed, what if Thurpa were already set up with a preprogrammed response to hypnotic interference?”

“Preprogrammed response,” Grant repeated. He looked to Kane. “That sounds like ‘go psycho and kill people,’ doesn’t it?”

“Even unarmed, he has his fangs and his venom,” Kane agreed. “Tying him up wouldn’t do much because he can spit his venom, as well.”

“We do have environmental faceplates, which we’ve been utilizing for their optic properties,” Brigid said. “But we’re not certain he’d cause harm to himself, or actually become a time bomb, with a delayed violence response.”

“Delayed violence response,” Kane echoed. “I’m surprised we’re not dead just for talking to the poor guy.”

“As am I,” Brigid returned. “I’m uncertain of the extent of Durga’s mental control over Thurpa, but if we try to find Durga through him, the very least of our problems would be alerting him that we know of their psychic relationship.”

Kane’s lip curled in disgust.

“I thought about hypnotizing Thurpa and unfortunately came to this conclusion before you did,” Brigid explained. “Even so, that was the two of you being proactive and insightful.”

“Thanks,” Kane said. “Not that it makes anything easier.”

Brigid shook her head. “But we’re thinking. And when the three of us put our minds to something, we’re generally successful.”

Kane nodded. “The key word is ‘generally.’ We can make all the plans we want, but life is what happens when plans go to shit.”

Grant clapped Kane on the shoulder in support. “Don’t worry. We’re good at surviving when things go to shit, too.”

Chapter 4

It didn’t take Brigid much longer into the night to determine the location of the tomb—the city known as Negari for the entity imprisoned within. She was asleep after noting its whereabouts on her map and managed to get several hours of good rest until sunrise. Kane and Grant traded watch shifts and were surprised to see Brigid poring over her figures after first light.

“Not sure?” Kane asked.

Brigid looked up from her map work. “I don’t want to have us looking and running around in circles while Durga and Neekra get there ahead of us.”

“Neekra’s still a threat,” Kane said. “We destroyed a body she took over, but she’s still a free-roaming psychic entity.”

Kane lowered his eyes to the ground. She’d spent most of a day inside of his skull, and due to her command over his perceptions, the witch goddess made him feel as if he were wandering the multiverse for months, making his concern over the friends he was separated from even deeper. His struggle to return to his body was made even more desperate by the danger of Grant and Brigid in front of both Gamal’s militia and a horde of winged monstrosities without him. That urgency overwhelmed him, and all he could imagine was the horrible tortures and destruction they faced without him to assist them. Being separated from them also meant that he was alone, without someone to act as a beacon to return him to his body.

That anxiety ate at him, concern grown out of love and friendship that was deep and enduring, that had lasted across other universes, across several incarnations throughout the history of humanity. That loyalty had brought earlier incarnations of himself to death for the defense of those others.

It was an emotional layer of scar tissue that Neekra had exacerbated when she had the necropolis “erupt,” separating him once more from Brigid and Grant and leaving them at the mercy of the dark goddess and her corpse-stealing, bloblike spawn. Kane’s nerves were scraped raw, tender to the slightest thought of either of them in peril.