God War by James Axler Read Free Book Online Page B

from the corridor outside.
    “It’s Kane,” Bry explained.
    “Put him on speaker,” Lakesh instructed. Though he seemed outwardly calm, a range of conflicting emotions vied for attention in Lakesh’s mind. Kane was a long-trusted member of the Cerberus team, one of the most gifted field operatives Lakesh had ever known. However, he was suffering some kind of infection that created a paralysis of his face and was affecting his vision, causing him agonizing moments of blindness. Right now Kane should be restricted to bed rest, but with personnel so thinly spread the brave ex-Magistrate had volunteered to check out an alert beacon detected coming from their old headquarters roughly six hours earlier. It was there that Kane had found their old ally Balam, with whom he now traveled.
    “Kane?” Lakesh said, clipping a portable microphone pickup over one ear. The pickup angled before his mouth like a hard plastic straw, capturing his every utterance and relaying it to Kane. “This is Lakesh. Donald is just bringing me up to speed now.”
    Hidden speakers on Donald Bry’s computer terminal resounded with Kane’s calm voice as the field agent replied, “Just tell me when you can see it,” he said.
    There was a momentary discussion while Donald Bry explained to his mentor what was going on, and then the satellite feed on Brewster’s terminal screen centered on an overhead view of a vast island of slate-gray rock. The island was like an insect dropped into the ocean, hard, jutting planes reaching out at nightmarish angles, hooks and narrow channels dotting its brutal lines. Lakesh guessed that those channels would be almost impossible to navigate by boat.
    “What is it?” Lakesh breathed, his words just about audible. “What have they found?”
    “Do you see it?” Kane asked over the speakers, ignoring or not hearing Lakesh’s query.
    “Yes,” Lakesh replied instantly, “but what is it?”
    “Ullikummis’s home,” Kane stated matter-of-factly, his words somehow lacking the impossible gravity with which Lakesh expected they would be expressed.
    Lakesh stared at the image from the satellite feed for a long moment, unaware that he was holding his breath. “Are you there now?” he asked finally.
    * * *
    S EVERAL HUNDRED MILES away, just off the coast of what had once been New England, two figures skulked through the throne room of Ullikummis. Crouching together in the shadows of the stone castle, the two figures could not have been more different.
    The first was Kane, a powerfully built man in his early thirties, battle hardened with a tension in his body that came from years of combat readiness. A dark beard shaded his chin and jowls, while his dark hair had grown long, reaching past his collar in trailing curlicues like snakes’ tails. Kane was an ex-Magistrate turned warrior for the rebellious operation known as Cerberus. His clothes looked worn and dirty, and his denim jacket was frayed at the edges where the cuffs and hem had begun to unravel. There was something else about him, too, a bony protrusion that stabbed out from his left eye like a half-buried seashell on the beach, arcing down his cheek and marring his otherwise handsome features.
    “Yeah, we’re here,” Kane said quietly, his voice picked up by the hidden Commtact implant he wore. He checked the open window as he spoke, peering out into the dark, uninviting waves that crashed through the narrow channels that cut their labyrinthine way through the island from the sea. Those would be hell to navigate, he realized.
    Crouching beside Kane was the shorter figure of Balam, humanoid but not human, with a bulbous head and black eyes like limpid pools of water. Hairless, Balam’s skin was a pallid gray-white, the color a human might associate with seasickness. In contrast to Kane’s tattered combat clothes, Balam wore a long, shapeless robe that reached almost to his ankles. The robe was woven of a soft material and dyed the indigo color of a summer