LITMIR.BIZ

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the walking dead, but here, in Africa, was where she “lived.” When Kane came to Africa, summoned by an artifact that had been ancient in the time of Atlantis and was attributed to King Solomon of the Bible, Neekra sought him out and psychically attacked him and the one Kane learned later was her ally.

      Neekra’s psychic imprisonment of Kane was a testing of the waters. Kane shuddered at the thought that instead of the warlord Gamal, it could have been him, his physique telekinetically sculpted, organs reattributed and external appearance mutilated until he became the same rust-red feminine goddess who sought domination of the necropolis.

      Neekra’s host was nearly invulnerable, ignoring grenade blasts and bursts of full-automatic gunfire directly into her face. Yet she wanted Kane and others to hunt for her prison, the place where she’d been interred for dozens of centuries, mind and flesh amputated from each other.

      Gamal’s body had only been destroyed by the combination of the venom that was innate to a race of pan-terrestrial humanoids called the Nagah and the burning energies within the staff once wielded by Solomon and Moses. Neekra’s host was reduced to ash, tar-like blood turning the collapsed mound into what Kane’s dear friend Grant called “a greasy smear.”

      Kane poked and prodded at that smear. Although no sign of animation was left within the ugly concoction, Kane felt no relief. He had encountered another goddess who had survived the destruction of her body, taking root to reincarnate in the bodies of three young women. Neekra’s thousands of years of existence had influenced stories of night terror around the globe, so the death of one body wouldn’t stop her. They’d put her down, but still someone else was looking for that body, that tomb she sought.

      That someone else, the same man who wanted out of the alliance, was Prince Durga, exiled regent of the underground Nagah city-state of Garuda in India. Durga, like all Nagah, was a humanoid, an upgrade of humanity created by an ancient alien entity named Enki, a member of a race called the Annunaki, who had been involved with another superhuman species, the Tu’atha de Danaan, in manipulating humanity and its rise to power on Earth. The Nagah had been human, with additions of cobra DNA, skillfully crafted by the benevolent Annunaki, to create a benign, hidden race.

      The Nagah survived skydark in their underground city of Garuda, but not without some losses. The small nation-state finally, after centuries, made its presence known to Kane and the other explorers of Cerberus. What could have become a wonderful alliance turned to tragic ashes as Durga chose that moment to make his bid for sole leadership of the pan-terrestrial society. Allying with gods and men, Durga launched a civil war, and had not Durga greedily varied from his plan and sought out superhuman power for its own sake, he might have succeeded. As it was, Kane and his allies ended that war, but not without loss of innocent life in addition to the destruction of human and Nagah co-conspirators.

      Kane had thought that Durga was dead, killed in a fuel-air explosion, but the same technology that made the prince into a living force of nature spared him, just barely. As he plotted revenge against his former bride, now the matron queen of the Nagah, he traveled across the Indian Ocean to Africa, seeking a cure for his crippled condition, as well as means to renewed power. Part of that power was discovered in an army of cloned beasts, with physical might to rival a bull-gorilla, bat-like wings and a taste for human flesh. Those hybrid mutants were known as the Kongamato, but Durga’s control of the animals was usurped by a warlord of the dreaded Panthers of Mashona, an outlaw militia who ruled the lands to the west of Harare and Zambia, the same Gamal who “donated” his body to the she-devil Neekra.

      Durga hadn’t only relied upon the Kongamato, apparently. When Kane assailed the necropolis, he encountered a cadre of cloned Nagah, their physiques further upgraded with Igigi/Nephilim DNA to turn them into his shock troopers. Durga possessed a dozen of those clones, at least when he was alongside Neekra.

      A lone figure stepped onto the dirt next to Kane.

      “Grant said it was time to go. The place is wired and ready to blow,” the young man said.

      The six-foot, perfectly muscled Nagah clones that Durga utilized weren’t the only creations the prince made. Physically, the young man, Thurpa, looked to be eighteen or nineteen, at least as far as Kane could see through his cobra-like features. Chronologically, though, Thurpa must have been less than a year old.

      The Cerberus adventurers and their companions had discovered Thurpa’s clone nature. He looked absolutely normal, but during Durga’s struggle against Neekra, Thurpa suffered the same pain from physical injuries and psychic trauma. When the young man gripped Nehushtan, the ancient walking staff of kings and prophets, its healing power transmitted through him to Durga.

      Even now, Kane could see the numb shock on the young man’s features, realizing that any memories since before the day he met Kane and the others had been a lie, a fabrication implanted by a renegade prince whose rampage slew even his mother, the old matron of Garuda. Thurpa had thought that he could return home, but he’d never set his own eyes upon it. Rather, they had been echoes of another’s mind; most likely, it was Durga’s.

      “How are you feeling?” Kane asked him.

      “Like I should stay down here when you press the detonator,” Thurpa replied.

      Kane shook his head. “No. We won’t do that.”

      “I’d been worried that I was maybe hypnotized or brainwashed,” Thurpa said. “Now, I find that I’m his clone. Worse, I’m the son he always wanted.”

      “We don’t judge our friends on the sins of their fathers,” Kane told him. He rested his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You’ve done so much good alongside us.”

      Thurpa’s amber eyes glistened in the backwash of light from his torch. The boy was in tears. “I’ve killed pretty well.”

      “Killed to protect, killed to liberate,” Kane corrected. “And you risked yourself jumping on the back of a superhumanly strong creature to stop her.”

      Thurpa frowned. “I attacked her because I realized, I’m not real. I’d be no...”

      Kane gave him a light tap on the shoulder. “You feel real enough to me. And you would be a loss. Nathan would feel alone, and Lyta looks interested in you.”

      “A freak in a land he was not born to,” Thurpa replied.

      “Her first look at her rescuers,” Kane said. “If anything can make you feel good and real...”

      Thurpa shook himself free from Kane’s comforting grip.

      “And spread his seed?” Thurpa asked, glaring at Kane in disbelief.

      “It’s not genetic structure that makes you good or bad,” Kane returned.

      Thurpa’s glare dimmed in fire, his anger draining. Kane had seen emotional defeat on faces before. This was a crushing blow to him, and such despondence could easily lead the young man to reckless risks or an act of desperation, if not direct suicide.

      Thurpa had easily earned Kane’s respect for courage and tenacity. He’d also shown himself in other ways. As a Magistrate, Kane had developed a quick sense not only for danger, but also for the content of a person’s character. All this time he’d spent with the young Nagah had informed him that this cobra-hooded stranger was someone he could trust, someone with compassion, despite the origin of his chromosomes.

      “Come on, there’s nothing down here except for corpses,” Kane told him. “We’ll go some place you’ll feel better.”

      “I thought we had been chasing my father and Neekra to her tomb,” Thurpa asked.

      “It’s got to be better than this. And spending time in the sun and the air will do wonders for your spirit,” Kane told him.

      Thurpa nodded.

      The two men walked up the corkscrew ramp, returning to the surface, where the others waited.

      * * *

      THE FIRST SIGN that their detonation worked was a slight rumble that actually tickled

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