“Stop, Peter!” calls Batuo, standing on a field of mud that is now baking under the sun. His robes are stained with reddish smears and his fancy sandals are rimed in muck. Batuo’s long spear cants out of the ground beside him, the shaft buried, red tassels streaming from the neck of the blade.
But an irresistible urge has flared in my breast, a bone-shaking need to protect that which I hold most dear. Elena is in England and she is alone; and until this moment I have been blinded by this mad quest for purpose. I thought she would be safe, but the encounter with Leizu was no coincidence. I was a fool. Now, my selfish warring may have cost me everything.
A dark fear is settling over me, a bleak certainty that I have lost her.
“Where are you going?” calls Batuo and I ignore him.
Panic pinches at my calves, urging me to break into a run.
The battlefield is strewn with fallen men under a brooding heat. Back at the grove where our forces are concentrated, I hear the chalky bark of revived cannons spewing death into the remaining enemy. Our men covered up the powder stores before the rain could drown them. Now, only one army has weapons, and so yet another slaughter unfolds.
I am being pulled away, to the east.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Batuo asks, shadowing me. He tugs on my elbow and I shake it off. “You have a great enemy. Leizu is hunting you. She has been for a long time.”
“I have met this enemy before,” I say. “In London, where I must return.”
“No! Stay here with me, Peter. At the front, in these exotic lands, death and mayhem can shroud our existence. Listen to me, I have survived a very long time.”
I stop, spinning to face Batuo.
“You tell me of a life I don’t remember. Well, there is a life I do remember. And the only thing that matters in it is my sister, in London.”
Batuo locks his hands on my shoulders.
“Then stop and listen to words that could save her life.”
I force myself to wait, legs buzzing with panic.
“There is a war between ancients and we are caught in the middle of it. Leizu, mother of silkworms, is of the progenitor race—known to the First Men—from a time before history. She has passed through all the ages of man, extending her life span by preying on other avtomat. Leizu wears the anima of the vanquished. If she finds you, she will consume your soul.”
A vision washes over my mind. Elena’s innocent face, inches away from mine, her arms tight around my neck. Somewhere, a dragon is roaring, flecks of hot spittle twirling past in yellow clouds. The silhouette of a woman wavers in the haze—death incarnate.
Batuo lets go of my shoulders and steps back, enveloped in earthy smelling clouds of steam rising off hardening mud.
“In London you will be vulnerable to her. It could take her decades, but she will find you. The two of you have…unsettled business.”
“My allegiance is to my sister,” I say, “not to any war.”
I set my eyes on the muddy horizon and walk.
“Peter, the war you speak of—” Batuo calls. “It is a war you started?!”
As Batuo’s final words wash over me, I break into a run.
33
SEATTLE, PRESENT
Talus is a hellish sight in the dim candlelight of the buried cathedral—a pale, beautiful man with a disfigured face, wearing black motorcycle armor and standing in a field of disembodied limbs that squirm and clutch their plastic fingers. At his feet, Batuo’s body lies in pieces, silent, eyes still open.
Lifting the bone saw, I jam my thumb into the trigger button.
I don’t even see Talus move, just feel a stab of pain as my wrists are pinned together in one of his hands, the bones grinding. The saw tumbles out of my grip and sprays sparks against the floor, spinning away like a pinwheel firework.
Talus pulls me close to him, turning my body as if we were dancing, staring into my face as I struggle, curious and arrogant. The flat plane of his naked cheekbone nearly brushes mine. He cocks his head, not even bothering to pretend to breathe. Past me, he spots the relic where I left it curled in Peter’s lifeless fingers. He looks disappointed.
“Peter made a poor decision, trusting you,” he says, letting go.
As I take a breath to respond, he plants a gloved fist in my stomach. I fall, flailing backward. My vision erupts with leaf-veined patterns of cathedral ceiling and a streaking star field of candle flame. I land hard on my side, forehead smacking the floor, one arm crumpled under me like a broken wing.
The world flashes, overexposed.
I’m blinking fiercely, trying to clear my eyes, my breathing shallow. The punch was like being hit by a car, impersonal, mechanical. Legs shaking, I drag myself blindly onto all fours, one rib stabbing with pain, my forehead wet and warm.
Through the ringing in my ears, I can hear Talus.
“Are you happy now?” he asks, speaking to Peter’s helpless body. Talus limps around the glimmering rings of the operating table, angrily flexing his fingers in shredded black gloves. On my knees and elbows, I crawl after him.
“Huangdi’s anima was never yours to protect,” Talus says to Peter’s body. “Not in all the centuries you wasted. He always belonged to her.”
Talus leans over Peter, his sharp features bathed in ethereal blue light from the machine. With both hands, he peels the relic out of Peter’s slack hand. When he speaks again, a wrenching sadness pulls at the curve of his blue-tinged lips.
“We sacrificed so much to your stubborn loyalty, Peter. Why couldn’t you see the Yellow God for what he was? Why couldn’t you adapt?”
As I near, Talus’s eyes flick over to me. Expressionless, he watches me crawl to the surgery table. His long blond hair is rippling in its electrical field. The relic seems to smolder in his fingers. Groaning, I hug the base of the control panel pedestal, hauling myself up to my knees, smearing half-dried blood over the hospital-white contours of the machine.
“You are a worm to us—do you know that?” he says from across Peter’s body. “A worm…interfering in a battle between gods.”
I don’t have the breath to speak.
Planting one foot, I push up, fat droplets of blood trickling down my chin. Leaning against the pedestal, I take a deep breath and wince at the pain from my rib. I lean my elbows on the panel, hunching my body over it.
In my peripheral vision, Talus is a thin blue shadow. All I see now—all I can let myself see—are the two brass knuckle–like devices sitting on top of the panel. Talus is reaching for me. Before I can react, he catches a handful of my hair in his fist. Pulling my face up, he looks into my eyes, enjoying my reaction.
“Time for you to go,” he says.
“Not yet,” I say, pulling away.
I’m already raising my hands, stumbling backward, my knuckles ridged with the brass knuckle devices. A gurgling torrent of liquid metal surges into the trough. Shining tendrils are already trickling up.
Our eyes catch. Too late, Talus understands.
“No—” he tries to shout.