A sudden pain at his crown almost doubled him over. It took every ounce of effort to keep it to nothing more than an odd-looking twitch. The goddess was impatient. Tamas turned to Captain Nex, who stood waiting a few paces away.
‘We are ready, Messenger.’ His white eyes fixed on Tamas’s face. Not a hint of trepidation. No doubt. Tamas envied the surly captain for the first time. ‘Shall I give the order?’
He nodded, the air evaporating from his lungs. ‘Yes,’ he said. Whispered.
Seder, Bel, Gren, and Parator moved in that silky way they had, one in behind each of the cranes. One to each of the Four. Ready to Bind. Connect the mea stones they bore in their arms with the sister stones worked into the carapaces. The aliens used the mea stones like extrasensory lassoes, not only to connect them to the gallu but also to control them. Keep each of the Four set on one task: find the demigod. They would search amongst hundreds of thousands of humans and find the single body that contained the eternal soul of Dumuzi. Ereshkigal’s gallu were the only beings capable of doing so, they were the ones who had bound him to human flesh to begin with. But they were wild animals and would fight their restraints every step of the way.
A drop of sweat ran down the side of his face. The Syranians all appeared utterly calm, portraying the perfect soldierly resolve. Not a bead of sweat or quickened breath.
Nothing like him.
‘Cym and the Technician are ready to commence?’ Tamas avoided the captain’s intense gaze. As with all the Syranians, he held an imposing height and was lean and tightly wound. Tamas always felt the captain could swipe off your head before you realised he’d lifted a hand. The alien was yet another intimidating presence around him. Tamas seemed to draw such people to him. As though they fed on his vulnerability. Even his mother had enjoyed lording over him. She had been a Messenger of the goddess before all else, reminding him of that fact on every occasion possible. There was no room for crayon drawings on fridges in his childhood.
‘I believe so, Mr Cressly.’ Always a hint of condescension when the captain spoke his name. If Nex were a gambler, he would have put down a hefty sum against Tamas surviving this far. ‘Though I’ve made clear my opposition to including Blake in the Meld.’
‘You have indeed.’ He hid his shaking hands, bunching them up under his armpits. An unobtrusive move considering the chill of the chamber. He sought out Blake, willing her to look up from the tablet she cradled. Her eyes stayed steadfastly down. ‘And I’ve made clear the fact that her expertise is required. Cym agrees. He will be in the control room and needs someone out in the chamber. Believe me, Captain, Blake understands the consequences of any lack of cooperation. The Taser restraints I’ve had put on her bodyguard should go some way to clearing up any misunderstandings, should her memory fail her.’
Reuben’s idea. So that not only did Kira’s well-being rely on Blake cooperating, but Rossiter’s did too. Considering they were clearly the only two people in the world Blake gave a damn about, bases were covered. A knife pierced through his cerebellum, the clawing grip of the goddess. Tamas flinched, gasping with the shock of the pain.
‘We must start,’ he said – or, chances were, his eyes would start to bleed. ‘I will give the Technician the go-ahead.’
There was absolutely no reason to walk the twenty paces it would take to reach Blake’s side. Raise one finger and he had people at his beck and call who would tell her to prepare. Besides, not a single soul in the chamber was unaware the Meld was about to commence. He saw the darted glances, the tension in the expressions around him. But Blake would not look up. And he needed her to look up. Look at him. See him. Before he disappeared.
Someone she’d given a shit about once. Someone who regretted tearing open her soul. And who despised himself for being grateful it had not been him.
‘We are ready to commence.’
Blake’s head jerked up, and he knew it had been a mistake to come this close. ‘I know.’
As if he were a steaming pile of shit.
‘All right, then.’ Tamas fought the urge to cradle his head in his hands, try to ease the headache pressing the backs of his eyes. Blake pulled the wires free of the monitoring unit, bundling them around the tablet, and raised her gaze to meet him. The delicate skin beneath her eyes was bruised and sunken. A vein bulged at her temple, easily visible through her pale skin.
His throat tightened.
She did not see a friend. Did not even see someone she could stand to be around. Though the chamber itself was noisy with the hum of voices and whir of machinery, a bubble of silence sat around them. As though they stood behind heavy curtains, blocked off from everyone else. And in the silence, Tamas waited. Blake’s hands shook. Just as his did.
‘Have you found them?’ Blake said. ‘Is Kira all right?’
Fuck. Fuck. Tamas gritted his teeth. Fury pressed down on his ribs, making it hard to breathe. Is that stupid bitch all right? Of all the questions. Inside, down in a space he couldn’t pinpoint, something broke. Tamas reached for Blake, grasping her blouse and jerking her forward. She cried out, the tablet slipping from her grasp and clattering to the floor.
‘I found them.’ The words hissed from him. ‘And if you put one finger out of line, I will tear her apart. I’d like to see her full of the serum. Killing your own father has got to pack one hell of a punch, right? I’ll fill her so full of her truth, she’ll die screaming.’ He pushed her away. The full force of his anger propelled her backwards, landing her flat
