Hub's expression twisted in a rictus of horror and fury. "Go into the dome, sec man, and you'll find out for yourself."

"I'm not a-" Kane caught himself and cut off his automatic denial. He saw no reason to continue hammering home the point he wasn't a Magistrate. Hub's mind, what there was of it, had already been made.

Keeping the bore of the Sin Eater trained on the man's broad forehead, he retreated a few paces and picked up the shadowsuit and mask. He circled around Hub, getting behind him.

"All right," he announced. "You and I are done. Take your woman's body and get out of here. If you come after me, I'll make sure you join her. Understand?"

Hub didn't expend any effort in turning his head toward him. He only husked out, "Yeah. f.u.c.k off, maggot."

Kane felt a hot flush of anger, and he briefly considered tr.i.m.m.i.n.g one of the man's earlobes with a well-placed bullet. It would be an adequate penalty for his impudence. Of course, if he'd still been a Magistrate, he would have planted the bullet in the back of Hub's head.

He decided Grant would misunderstand the meaning of the shot, and there had been enough communication problems already today. Kane turned and set off quickly in the direction of the dome.

BRIGID HESITATED at the mouth of the stairwell. The notion of rushing headlong into impenetrable darkness pimpled her flesh with an almost superst.i.tious chill. She knew she couldn't hope to fight off the Furies, as lanky as they were. They possessed muscles with the tensile strength of steel.

She looked down the corridor and saw a shadow-shape approaching her at an almost casual gait, as if he had decided to let her wear herself out in flight before he recaptured her. Clenching her teeth and fists in frustrated fury, Brigid plunged down the stairwell, holding on to the banister with one hand and taking two steps at a time.

The flight of stairs ended after only a dozen or so feet, but when she sprinted down the pa.s.sageway what little light peeped from above was completely swallowed by the darkness.

She retained a vivid recollection of the fear that had nearly consumed her when she and Kane groped blindly through the lightless caverns of Agartha, and she wasn't too eager to repeat the experience. Fright increased with every step Brigid took into the chute of darkness. She became aware less by sight and hearing than a shuddery sensation of the Fury descending the stairwell behind her.Brigid cast a quick glance over her shoulder, and was startled to see an oval shimmering a pale amber against the deep dark. She was reminded of a cy-clopean eye, and for an instant doubts rose in her mind as to the relative humanity of the Furies. She told herself the masks were probably a night-vision system of some sort. The possibility she could be tracked by her body-heat signature didn't make her feel any better, but at least she contended with technology, not magic.

With her right hand on the wall, she trotted down the corridor. It made several turnings until she felt she was lost in a maze of black pa.s.sages. Even the sense of direction in which she took so much pride was confused. Mentally, she swore at herself for allowing herself to be run like a deer into a labyrinth, but it was too late to turn back now.

Brigid's hand suddenly slipped from the wall, encountering nothing but slightly stale air. Coming to an unsteady halt, she stretched out both arms and stood baffled for a long moment. She had reached a T junction where the corridor split in three branches. She recalled reading how when rats were tested by being run through a maze, they habitually chose a right-hand path.

On a sudden venture, she chose the left-hand corridor. The smooth floor slanted slightly downward, like a ramp, and she touched the cold metal tubing of a handrail. The floor continued to decline steadily. She fancied she could feel the pressure of tons of bedrock over her head. She knew that the Totality Concept projects were usually hidden in subterranean annexes. All of the redoubts she had visited always seemed haunted by the ghosts of a hopeless, despairing past age. The walls seemed to exude the terror, the utter despondency of souls trapped here when the first mushroom cloud erupted from Washington on that chill January noon.

Suddenly, her ears caught a faint clicking and she grabbed the rail to pull herself to a stop. She listened intently as the clicking was repeated, but more distant now. The sound was definitely mechanical in nature, like switches being thrown.

On the ceiling, crescent-shaped light fixtures wavered, then shed a watery illumination. Brigid blinked up at them as, in a staggered sequence, lights flashed on along the length of the corridor's ceiling. The dim, suffuse illumination produced by the crescents wasn't bright enough to dazzle her, but she could at least see what lay ahead of her and to either side. The view was unimpressive and certainly unsurprising-a long expanse of featureless corridor made of smooth concrete blocks. Since the layout of so many redoubts was standardized, she experienced a brief sensation of deja vu.

A large illuminated map was set at the center of an intersection. Three other pa.s.sages, slightly narrower, forked off in different directions, dark directions. She stepped up to the map, but when she heard a stealthy footfall behind her, she broke into a sprint, wondering if she had inadvertently tripped a photoelectric beam that activated the lighting system. As she ran, she pa.s.sed several sealed doors on both sides of the corridor, but each one bore a keypad instead of a k.n.o.b or handle. She reached another stairwell and ran down it, barely touching the risers, bounding from one landing to the other.

The corridor doglegged to the left. Painted on the right wall in huge smeared letters were the words GOODI WINDI CITI. She didn't comprehend the reference at first, then recalled in predark days, Chicago had been nicknamed the Windy City. A few more yards down the pa.s.sage, she pa.s.sed another legend painted on the wall: SO LONG CHI-TOWN.

A wide arched doorway led into an adjoining an-techamber. Artifacts of glistening metal and crystal were arrayed on shelves. As much as she wanted to, Brigid didn't pause to examine them. Chamber followed chamber in a straight line.

At the terminus, she entered a large vault-walled room. She saw a single, simplified master-control console running the length of one wall, and recognized a few of the basic command panels from the Cerberus installation. In one corner she saw a functioning vid sec cam. A red indicator light shone like a pinp.r.i.c.k of blood on the casing.

The far wall consisted only of a thick metal door upon which was imprinted a warning-Entry To Chron-Temp Section Strictly Forbidden To All Personnel Below B-12 Clearance. Emblazoned below was a symbol she had seen once before, that of a stylized hourgla.s.s, the top half of it colored black, the bottom red.

She saw no keypad, k.n.o.b or lever. Throat muscles constricting, Brigid ran her hands over the door and its rivet-studded frame, fingers seeking a hidden latch. When she found nothing, she turned her attention to the console and the built-in CPUs. She stroked a few keys, thumbed a couple of b.u.t.tons, but the two monitor screens remained dark. With a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, she realized that even if she could get a comp on-line, she could spend the next week searching for the right commands to raise the door. She doubted she had a full minute.

When Brigid heard a footfall, she amended her time limit to a few seconds or less. Whirling, she saw the black-clad Fury approaching her with a measured tread. She pressed her back against the door, and her eyes darted wildly around the chamber, searching for anything that either resembled a weapon or a loose object that could be used as one.

The Fury halted ten feet away from her and raised his...o...b..los rod, pointing it at her upper body. "That won't do you any good," she said, startled by the hollow, echoing quality of her voice in the room. She patted a pants pocket. "I have the controls for your little spiders."

It was impossible to tell if her declaration registered at all with the Fury. He didn't react in any way, as if he hadn't heard her or considered her statement so irrelevant it wasn't worth a response. She made a sliding sideways motion. The rod followed her, silver winking dully from the tip. The man spoke from beneath the mask, but not in the heavily accented English Megaera employed. The tone of his voice was almost wheedling.

Brigid listened to him closely, the realization slowly dawning on her that although it sounded like gibberish, it was due to the fact the language he spoke was mainly monosyllabic. The vowels were not clearly articulated, and the enunciation of the consonants was slurred. Still, Brigid heard one word repeated several times. It sounded like "Di-ku."

When the man in black paused, Brigid interjected, "If you're trying to convince me to give up and stop making your job difficult, you can forget it."

Loudly, the Fury exclaimed, "Di-ku!"

"Di-ku you, too," Brigid retorted.

The Fury took a slow, ominous step toward her. Brigid set herself to spring to one side."Touch her and you die."

The voice bursting from a speaker on the console held a hard note of utter conviction. Brigid jumped, heart pounding. The Fury's featureless head swiv-eled to and fro on his neck as he cast about for the source of the voice.

"Don't bother looking for me. I can see you- you can't see me. That's usually the way of G.o.ds, isn't it?"

Despite its electronic timbre, the voice was well modulated, with a sonorous tenor quality. It was also blood-chillingly familiar, and caused Brigid's belly to turn a cold flip-flop of nausea. She set her teeth on a groan of both anger and disbelief.

The Fury continued to stand motionless in the room, although the rod in his hand shook ever so slightly.

"Your G.o.d commands you to depart," the voice said imperiously. "This woman is not to be harmed. Her sins are too great to be dealt with by the likes of you."

A vibration shivered through the portal at Brigid's back. With a hum and a mechanical clanking, the slab of metal rose, slid between a pair of baffled slots and locked into place with two loud snaps. Looking over her shoulder, Brigid saw only a dark room. The Fury took a hesitant step back and then halted.

Despite his lack of features, he was obviously confused and not a little frightened.

"Go!' the voice roared. "Go now, or I shall consign your soul to the perdition where the disobedient are given eternal enemas of jalapeno juice and rock salt!"

The Fury's nerve broke. Heeling around, he sprinted out of the chamber. Watching him go, Brigid did not feel relief. Trying to minimize the tremor in her voice, she demanded, "You can see and hear me?"

"Very clearly. You apparently could do with a hot shower and dry clothes."

Brigid heaved a weary sigh and ran her hands through her still damp hair. "Are you making me an offer?"

"Not quite. At the moment, I don't feel any qualms about seeing you suffer a little bit." The voice acquired a cold, hard edge. "As I recall, the last time we saw each other, you left me to die. I'm still trying to make up my mind what to do about that. It's a problem that has vexed me for some time."

"Something will occur to you," she countered with icy irony. "I'm sure you've been scheming and brooding about it for the past six months. Whatever you come up with will be very clever, very diabolical and a colossal waste of your ingenuity. But diverting your resources so you can indulge an egotistical whim always takes precedence over any other consideration, doesn't it?"

"You think you know me so well." This time the voice was not filtered over a comm channel but emanated from the room behind her. She turned, doing her best to appear calm and composed.

The man who walked out was extraordinarily small, but his proportions were extraordinarily perfect.

There was much about him that was perfect. If he had been three feet taller, a hundred or more pounds heavier, he would have been one of the most beautiful men Brigid had ever seen.

His thick, dark blond hair was swept back from a high forehead, tied in a foxtail at his nape. Under level brows, big eyes of the clearest, cleanest blue, like the high sky on a cloudless summer's day, regarded her sympathetically. Beneath his finely chiseled nose, a wide, beautifully shaped mouth stretched in an engaging grin, displaying white, even teeth.He was attired in a duplicate of the skin-tight black bodysuits worn by the Furies, but without the cowl.

In his right hand, he carried a miniature black walking stick, with a hammered-silver k.n.o.b and ferrule. In the left he gripped a very utilitarian short-barreled revolver. He gestured with it negligently, and just as negligently, Brigid raised her hands.

"The small, smiling G.o.d I presume," she said flatly. "I should have guessed."

Upon seeing the grave expression on her face, the small G.o.d laughed with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. "I'm so glad you're here, Miss Brigid. It'll be the capstone of my life to prove all your preconceived notions about me wrong."

Chapter 10.

The tangles of th.o.r.n.y undergrowth snagged Grant's clothes and scratched DeFore's hands, but neither person uttered a complaint. Grant bulled through the dense thicket until they reached a deeply furrowed avenue. On the other side was a sprawling complex of buildings. The domed structure was overgrown with vines and creepers, masking the facade and almost blanketing the sign that identified the compound as the Lake District Central Filtration Plant.

Grant paused, studying the shadows beyond the double doors of the central building. He could see the lurid glow of firelight.

"What are we waiting for?" DeFore whispered anxiously. "If it was Brigid you saw before, more than likely she's in there."

Not answering, Grant undipped his trans-comm and keyed in Domi's channel. She responded after a moment, sounding slightly winded. "I'm here."

"Forget the church," Grant said in a low tone. "There's a park on the other side of the street from it. Go through there. You can probably find the path me and DeFore made."

"Then what?"

"Then you'll see a bunch of buildings, one with a dome. That's the filtration plant."

"Will you be waiting for me?" she asked.

"I don't know. That depends."

"On what?"

"I don't know," he repeated. "Grant out." He closed the cover of the comm unit and returned it to his belt.

Sounding more than a little peeved, DeFore demanded, "What's the plan? What are we going to do?"

By way of a response, Grant's body tensed and he bent his knees, dropping into a half crouch, his Sin Eater snapping up. Mystified, DeFore imitated him, following his intent gaze. Both people exhaled noisy sighs of relief when they saw Kane sidling around the dome-roofed building."We're going over there," Grant announced, stepping onto the avenue. "That's the plan."

Before they had crossed the street, Kane caught sight of them and waited for the two people to make their way up the cracked sidewalk to his position. DeFore noted that neither man seemed overly surprised to see the other. She figured their faith in each other's survival skills was so strong, they always proceeded from the a.s.sumption that even during long periods of separation, Kane knew Grant could more than fend for himself, and vice versa.

Speaking in terse sentences, they brought each other up to date. When Grant stated he believed he'd glimpsed Brigid, and she was inside the main building of the filtration plant, Kane's eyes narrowed momentarily, "I'm sure she's all right," DeFore said rea.s.suringly.

Kane acknowledged her comment with a short nod. "Let's hope she's not inside. According to a couple Farers I questioned, that's where the night-gaunts hang their laundry."

"The night-gaunts?" Grant echoed.

Turning, Kane reached into a clump of brush and brought out the shadowsuit. He rolled it with a snap of his wrist and repeated what Hub and Zit had told him.

"They apparently have something to do with those little metal bugs we found on the man's neck." Kane's tone was flat and neutral. "I'm not sure what."

Grant eyed the wide steps leading to the double doors of the dome-roofed building. "The only way to be sure is to go in there. That's our only option."

"Since when have we had more than one?" Kane snapped.

Both DeFore and Grant a.s.sumed his query was rhetorical, so they didn't answer. Glancing uneasily across the avenue, Grant murmured, "I'll feel a lot better about going in there with Domi to cover our backs. She should have been here by now."

He undipped his trans-comm from his belt and thumbed up the cover. Domi's slight figure appeared at the edge of the park, her white face and hair contrasting starkly with the greenery. Sighting the three people, she trotted across the thoroughfare. When she reached them, she asked, "Why are you hanging around out here?" She had unconsciously lowered her voice.

Grant and Kane took turns briefing her. Her lips pursed at the mention of the night-gaunts. "Chilled me a couple of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds about half an hour ago. They'd captured some outlanders."

"Farers," Kane corrected. He moved toward the foot of the steps. "The answer to where the night-gaunts came from and why they're here is in there. Let's go."

Taking the point, Kane went up the stairs at an oblique angle from the doors. Motioning the people behind him to stop, Kane went to one knee, taking a slow visual recce of the structure and the murky area beyond the doors. He considered circling the building, approaching it from the rear. However, he saw no signs of movement anywhere. Standing, he gestured for his companions to come forward."Standard deployment," he said to them quietly. "We're going in by the front door. Triple red."

The four people fanned out in a wedge as they moved toward the front of the building. Domi's crimson eyes blazed in antic.i.p.ation of combat. She held her Combat Master in a two-fisted grip, the barrel as steady as stone. Next to her, DeFore crouched to make herself a smaller target, the t.i.tan FIE braced at her hip, finger on the trigger. Grant, standing behind Kane, held his Sin Eater in both hands, barrel pointing up.

When he shouldered open the door, the sunlight peeping in from outside showed Kane that a foyer-like room and short corridor beyond were deserted. He moved in fast, shifting the barrel of his Sin Eater back and forth. The others came in behind him.

Stealthily, the four people crept into a vast circular chamber. It was windowless, but there was sufficient daylight shafting in through a crack hi the domed roof so they could see the second level. By the firelight flickering from a pair of braziers, it appeared at first glance the rotunda was full of people. But their lack of movement was so p.r.o.nounced, they knew it was unnatural. Hanging in the air was the nostril-abrading stench of hot sulfur mixed with ammonia. Kane had smelled the same odor when the calcified man turned into smoke.

Grant growled deep in his throat, sweeping the barrel of his pistol back and forth in short left-to-right arcs. Kane sensed the big man's angry tension. Target acquisition would be exceptionally difficult under the circ.u.mstances. Trying to differentiate a live, black-clad enemy hiding among the dead black statues strained even his point man's senses.

"What the h.e.l.l is this place?" DeFore asked, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Don't know if I want to know," Domi whispered.

Grit crunched beneath Kane's boots, and the sul-furous stench wafted up. He spared a quick downward glance at the thick layer of black ash on the floor. Fingering his nose, he said over his shoulder, "Watch your step."

A faint metallic click reached his ears, and he froze in place, wondering if he'd stepped on one of the silver bugs. He wasn't sure if the sound came from underfoot because of the acoustics in the cavernous chamber. At the periphery of his vision, silver flashed dully.

Heeling around, Kane's eyes registered only the most disjointed glimpse of a small round gleaming object lancing toward his head, following a steep downward trajectory. Almost as soon as his brain recognized the image fed to it by the optic nerves, the silver oval disintegrated hi midair. Shards of metal and circuitry flew in all directions. Kane felt the thundering shock wave and the bullet splash of hot air across his cheek.

Grant raised his aim a trifle and squeezed off another round. On the gallery, a black-garbed figure clutched at his belly, folded over the rail and pitched over it. His plummeting body disappeared into the gloom, but they all heard the thud of impact.

Grant grimaced, but didn't lower his pistol. "I meant to wing him so he could be questioned."During his many years as a Magistrate, Grant had often dumbfounded his colleagues with his snap shots, as accurate as they were uncannily swift. He had won a number of contests, competing with his fellow Mags and always outshooting any self-styled marksmen the academy produced.

Kane always placed his bets on him, and he always won. He had won this time, too. He threw Grant a fleeting, appreciative grin. "Too bad I didn't have any jack riding on you making that shot."

DeFore knelt and plucked a fragment of silver casing from the floor. Holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, she turned toward the light. "Some type of lightweight alloy, like aluminum. A little heavier, though."

A shadow shifted as a body moved between DeFore and the light. She reflexively dodged to one side, b.u.mping into Domi. In a shaved splinter of a second, all of the organization of the four people and the situation changed. All around them was a blur of bodies and mad movement.

A faceless night-gaunt pointed a short rod on a dkect line with Domi's head. Kane had no idea of the rod's purpose, but since he saw silver glinting at the tip, he a.s.sumed it fired the little metal bugs.

Kane clamped his left hand around the end of the wand and jerked backward, at the same time driving the barrel of his Sin Eater into the black-clad man's right kidney-or where a human male's kidney should be. A hoa.r.s.e, gargling cry burst from beneath the opaque material of the mask.

He staggered to one side, and as he sagged to the floor, Kane wrested the rod from his slack fingers. He had no time to examine it. A night-gaunt closed in on him. Dropping the rod and stepping away, Kane b.u.mped into a statue and it shattered. Thick, blinding smoke boiled up. The concentration of stenches was overpowering.

As Kane recoiled, tears streaming from his eyes, he heard a raucous female voice screeching incomprehensible words. He recognized the tone, however-she was exhorting the men in black to kill them.

Clearing his vision with the heel of one hand, he saw the night-gaunt materializing out of the vapor. He caught only a glimpse of the silver-k.n.o.bbed baton in the figure's hand before he depressed the Sin Eater's trigger stud. The weapon responded with a stutter, as six 9 mm rounds easily flipped the man backward. Hunched in a tight posture, Kane narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the stinking haze.

He had about half a second of warning before he felt an agonizing viselike grip close on his upper arms from behind. He felt his muscles grinding against bone as the night-gaunt yanked him up from the floor. The night-gaunt tossed him ten feet, and he slapped the concrete floor chest first. All the air went out of his lungs in an agonized bellow.