First birth? The voice of God? Ali couldn't fathom his tales, and suddenly she didn't want to. She wanted to go home, to leave this awful place. She wanted Ike. But fate had sewn her into the planet's belly. A lifetime of prayers, and here she was, surrounded by monsters.
'Father Thomas,' she said, less afraid than unable to use his other name. 'Since we first met, I've been faithful to your desires. I left behind my own past and traveled here to restore your past. And I'll stay here, just as we discussed. I'll help master your dead language. That won't change.'
'I knew I could count on you.' But her devotion was simply one more of his possessions, she saw that now.
Ali folded her hands obediently, trying not to see Ike's blood staining his beard. 'You can depend on me until the end of my life. But in return, you must not harm this man.'
'Is that a demand?'
'He has his uses, too. Ike can clarify my maps. Fill in my blanks. He can guide you wherever you want me to take you.'
Ike's head lifted slightly.
'No,' Thomas said, 'you don't understand. Ike doesn't know who he is anymore. Do you realize how dangerous that is? He's become an animal for others to use. The armies use him to kill us. The corporations use him to lay bare our territory and to guide murderers who plant it with disease. With plague. And he hides from his own evil by leaping back and forth from one race to the other.'
Beside him, the monster Isaac smiled.
'Plague?' said Ali, in part to digress from Thomas's finality. But also because he kept mentioning it, and she had no idea what he meant.
'You've brought desolation onto my people. It follows you.'
'What plague?'
Thomas's eyes flashed at her. 'No more deceptions,' he thundered. Ali shrank from him.
'My sentiments exactly,' a reedy voice piped out from the laptop computer.
Thomas turned his head as if hearing a fly buzzing. He scowled at the computer.
'What's this?' he hissed.
'A man called Shoat,' Ike said. 'He wants to talk with you.'
'Montgomery Shoat?' Thomas spoke the name as if expelling a fetid stench. 'I know you.'
'I don't know how,' Shoat said. 'But we do have mutual concerns.'
Thomas grabbed Ike's arm and spun him face-out to the distant cliffs. 'Where is this man? Is he near? Is he watching us?'
'Ah-ah, careful, Ike. Not a word more,' Shoat warned. His finger wagged at them from the screen.
Thomas stood rooted behind Ike, motionless except for his head switching from side to side, piercing the twilight. 'Join us, please, Mr Shoat,' he said.
'Thanks anyhow,' Shoat's image said on the screen. 'This is close enough for me.'
The surreality was breathtaking, a computer screen in this underworld. The ancient speaking to the modern. Then Ali noticed Ike's eyes darting about. He was gathering in the broken chamber, estimating it.
'You'll be down soon enough, Mr Shoat,' Thomas said to the computer. 'Until then, there's something you wanted to talk about?'
'A piece of Helios property has fallen into your hands.'
'What does this fool want?' Thomas asked Ike.
'It's a locator. A homing device,' Ike said. 'He claims it was taken from him.'
'I'm lost without it,' Shoat said. 'Return it to me and I'll be out of your hair.'
'That's all you want?' asked Thomas. Shoat considered. 'A head start?'
Thomas's face filled with rage, but he regulated his voice. 'I know what you've done, Shoat. I know what Prion-9 is. You're going to show me where you've placed it. Every single location.'
Ali glanced at Ike, and he looked equally puzzled.
'Common ground,' Shoat enthused, 'the basis for every negotiation. I've got information you want, and you've got a guarantee of my safe passage. Quid pro quo.'
'You mustn't fear for your life, Mr Shoat,' Thomas stated. 'You're going to live a very long time in our company. Longer than you ever dreamed possible.'
It was plain to Ali that he was stalling, searching. Beside him, Isaac, too, was scanning the gloom for any evidence of the hidden man. The girl stood at one shoulder, whispering, guiding his examination.
'My homing device,' Shoat said.
'I visited your mother recently,' Thomas said, as if just remembering a courtesy. Murmuring to the side, Isaac had begun dispatching hadal warriors. Their fluid shapes were indiscernible from the shadows. They streamed down from the ruins.
'My mother?' Shoat was disconcerted.
'Eva. Three months ago. An elegant hostess. It was at her estate in the Hamptons. We had a long chat about you, Montgomery. She was dismayed to hear about what you've been up to.'
'That's not possible.'
'Come down, Monty. We have things to talk about.'
'What have you done to my mother?'
'Why make this difficult? We're going to find you. In an hour or a week, it doesn't matter. You're not leaving, though.'
'I asked you about my mother.'
Ike's eyes quit roaming. Ali saw them fix on hers, intent, waiting. She took a breath and tried to still her confusion and fear. She anchored herself to his eyes.
'Quid pro quo?' said Thomas.
'What have you done to her?'
'Where to begin,' Thomas said lightly. 'In the beginning? Your beginning? You were born by C- section...'
'My mother would never share such a –' Thomas's voice grew hard. 'She didn't, Monty.'
'Then how...' Shoat's voice faded.
'I found the scar myself,' Thomas said. 'And then I opened it. That wound through which you crept into the world.'
Shoat had fallen silent.
'Come down,' Thomas repeated. 'I'll tell you which landfill I left her in.' Shoat's eyes filled the screen, then backed away. The screen went blank. What now? wondered Ali.
'He's started to run,' Thomas said to Isaac. 'Bring him to me. Alive.'
A look of peace flickered across Ike's face. With Thomas lurking over one shoulder, he raised his eyes to the faraway cliffs. Ali had no idea what he was searching for. She looked around at the dark cliffs, and there it was, a twinkle of light. A momentary north star.
Ike dove.
In the same instant, Thomas ignited.
The hadal armor and Crusader's chain mail and the shirt of gold did nothing to shield him. Normally the round would have punched through his back and then quickened into a fireball and phosphorous shrapnel. But in Thomas, clad in back as well as in front, it found no exit. The heat and flechettes went wild inside him. His flesh burst into flame. His spine snapped. And yet his fall seemed infinite.
Ali was mesmerized. Flames leaped up from the neck of Thomas's armor, and he
drew in a great gasp. The fire poured down his throat. He exhaled, and the flames shot from his mouth. His vocal cords seared, Thomas was silent. There was a soft clatter of jade scales falling to earth as the gold sutures holding them together melted. The warlord towered above her. It seemed he had to topple. But his will was strong. His eyes fixed on the heights as if to fly. At last his knees sagged. Ali felt herself plucked from the ground.
