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Woref 's terror began to fade. The bat hadn't attacked him. Hadn't bitten him. Hadn't harmed him in any way.

“Do you know what love is, Woref?”

He hardly heard the question.

“You're real,” Woref said.

“Love.” The bat took another bite. This time he lifted his snout, opened his mouth wide, let the fruit drop into his throat, and swallowed it with a pool of fluid. When his head lowered, his eyes were closed. They opened slowly. “Will you have some?”

Woref didn't respond.

“You don't mind me saying that you humans make me sick, do you? Even you, the one I've chosen.”

The leaves in the trees behind Teeleh rustled, and Woref lifted his face to a sea of red eyes glowing in the darkness. The rustling spread to his left, his right, and behind and seemed to swallow him.

A bat the size of a dog dropped to the ground behind Teeleh. Eyes gleaming, furry skin quivering. Then another, beside him. And another. They fell like rotten fruit.

“My servants,” Teeleh said. “It's been awhile since I've allowed them to show themselves. They're quite excited. Ignore them.”

The bats kept their distance but stared at him, unblinking.

“Do you love her?” Teeleh asked.

“Chelise?”

“He speaks. Yes, the daughter of Qurong, firstborn among the humans who drank my water. Do you love her?”

“She will be my wife.” Woref 's throat felt parched, his tongue dry like morst in his mouth.

“That's the idea, I know. But do you love her? Not like I love her—I don't expect you to love her so exquisitely—but as the love of a man goes. Do you feel overpowering emotion for her?”

“Yes.” The Shataiki were here to bless his union? That might be a good sign.

“And this love you think you have for her, how can you be sure she will return it?”

“She will. Why wouldn't she?”

“Because she's human. Humans make their own choices about their loyalties. That's what makes them who they are.”

“She will love me,” Woref said confidently.

“Or?”

He hadn't really considered the matter. “I am a powerful man who will one day rule the Horde. It's a woman's place to serve men like me. I'm not sure you understand who you're talking to.”

“I am talking to the man who owes me his life.”

Teeleh tossed what was left of his fruit to the ground and wrapped his wide, paperthin wings around his torso. The Shataiki was taking credit for Woref 's rise to power?

“Yes, she will be lured by your power and your strength, but don't assume that she will give you her love. She's deceived like the rest of you, but she seems to be more stubborn than most.”

They still hadn't made any move against him. Clearly, the Shataiki, regardless of their fierce reputation, meant him no harm. Teeleh seemed more concerned with his marriage to Chelise than with destroying him.

“I'm not sure what this had to do with you,” he said, gaining more confidence.

“It has to do with me because I love her far more than you could ever imagine. I broke Tanis's mind, and now I will have his daughter's heart.”

Fear smothered Woref again.

“Do you hear what I'm saying? I will possess her. I will crush her and then I will consume her, and she will be
mine.”

“I . . . How—”

“Through you.”

“You're asking me to kill her? Never! I have waited years to make her mine.”

The night grew perfectly quiet. For a long time the bat's red eyes drilled Woref. The Shataiki were growing restless, hopping from branch to branch, hissing and snickering.

“Clearly, you don't understand what love is. I want her heart, not her life. If I wanted to kill her, I would use her father.” Teeleh rolled his head and momentarily closed his eyes. “You're as wretched as she is. You're all as blind as bats.” He unfolded his wings and stepped forward. “But you will win her love. I don't care if you have to beat it out of her.”

Teeleh approached slowly, dragging his wings through dead leaves. Woref 's limbs began to tremble. He couldn't move.

“I don't care if you have to club it out of her; you will earn her loyalty and her love. I will not lose her to the albinos. And then you will give her to me.”

Where he found the sudden strength to resist, Woref wasn't sure, but a blind rage swept over him. “I could never give her to you. She would never love you!”

“When she loves you, she will love me,” Teeleh said. Louder now. “He will try to win her love, but she will come to me. Me!”

And then Teeleh leaned forward so that his snout was only inches from Woref 's face. The bat's jaw spread wide so that the only thing Woref could see was a long pink tongue snaking back into the black hole that was the bat's throat. A hot, foul stench smothered him.

Teeleh withdrew, snapped his jaw closed with a loud snap.

“I have shown you my power; now I will show you my heart,” he said. “I will show you my love.”

Teeleh swept his wing around himself and grinned wickedly. With a parting razor-sharp glare, he leaped into the air, flew into the trees, and was gone. The branches shook as his minions scattered into darkness.

Woref felt hot tears running down his cheeks. He still couldn't move, much less understand.

I will show you my heart. My love.

Then Woref was throwing up.

9

F
ollow me,” Merton Gains said.

Monique followed him through a short hall to a conference room off the West Wing.

“Kara's in with him. The president's got his hands full with the crisis in the Middle East, and he's got a room full of advisors, but he insisted you come in after hearing Kara. Just tread lightly. They're pretty high-strung in there.”

The conference room that Monique walked into was large enough to seat at least twenty people around an oval table. A dozen advisors and military types were seated or standing. A few talked in hushed tones at one side. The rest were staring at three large screens, which tracked the unfolding situation in the Middle East and France.

“Sir, I have Benjamin on the line.”

“Put him through,” the president said.

The receiver buzzed and he picked it up.

“Hello, Mr. Prime Minister. I hope you have good news for me.”

Monique scanned the room for Kara. Their eyes met, and Thomas's sister walked toward her.

“I agree, Isaac, and I don't necessarily blame you for pushing this,” the president was saying. “But even in the remotest mountain range, you're bound to have casualties. We don't see how any further escalation will benefit you.”

Another pause.

“Naturally. I understand principle.” The president sighed. “It's an impossible situation, I agree. But we still have time. Let's not wipe out our cities before we have to.”

Kara stopped three feet from Monique, eyes wide. “You disappeared,” she said quietly.

“My car ran off the road.”

“You were hurt?”

“No. I just blacked out.”

“You did?”

Why was this so striking to Kara?

The president had finished his call.

“You were dead,” Kara said.

“You mean figuratively. My car slammed into a tree and knocked me out.”

“You remember that? Or did you just pass out before the car rolled off the road?”

Kara was right. Monique had no memory of actually flying over the edge. “I passed out first.”

“I was there, Monique. With Mikil. I dreamed as Mikil. Rachelle was killed by the Horde thirteen months ago. Because of your unique connection to her, I think you died when she died. You believed that you were Rachelle, right?”

“Rachelle's
dead
?”

“Thirteen months ago.”

“But I'm alive. I'm not sure I follow.”

“I'll explain later, but I'm pretty sure you were dead.”

“And Thomas?”

“Thomas is alive. At least, in the desert he's alive. Rachelle found him dead in the Horde camp and healed him with Justin's power. You know about Justin's power, don't you?”

“Yes. And is Thomas alive here?”

Kara looked deep into her eyes. “You're alive, aren't you?”

“Excuse me,” the president said. “You're saying that Monique
died
last night?”

“Sir?”

He held up his hand to silence his chief of staff.

“Monique?”

“Yes, I think she's right. I know it sounds crazy, but if Rachelle was killed in the other reality, I would have died here. We were . . . connected.”

“Connected how?”

“Belief. Knowledge.” Monique looked at Kara. A small part of her still remembered Thomas's first lieutenant, Mikil, from the short time she'd lived as Rachelle.

“Sir, I think you should take this call,” Ron Kreet pressed.

“Who is it?” the president demanded without removing his eyes from Monique.

“He says he's Thomas Hunter.”

The president turned around. “Thomas Hunter?”

“I knew it!” Kara whispered. “The Horde didn't kill him!”

“He says he has information critical to the standoff with Israel.”

“Put him on speaker.”

The chief of staff punched a button and set the receiver in its cradle. “Mr. Hunter, I have the president on the line. You're on a speakerphone. Your sister and Monique de Raison are here as well.”

The line remained silent.

“Thomas?” the president said.

“Hello, Mr. President. Monique is alive, then?”

“She's standing right here with Kara.”

“The Book works.”

“What book?” the president asked.

“I'm sorry, Mr. President. Kara can explain later. Did the others escape?”

“They're safe,” Kara said.

“What's this about?” President Blair asked.

“I'm sorry, sir,” Thomas said. “I know it isn't making a lot of sense, but you have to listen carefully. The French intend to offer the antivirus to Israel in an open-sea exchange five days from now. The offer is genuine. If Israel calls their bluff and launches another strike, Fortier will retaliate by taking out Tel Aviv.”

The president slowly sat. “You're sure about this?”

“Yes sir, I am. I can also tell you that they won't tolerate the existence of a United States postvirus. Can you get me out of here?”

Blair glanced up at a general, who nodded.

“I'll let General Peters give you some coordinates. Are you sure you can make it?”

“No.”

Blair paused, then said, “I'm giving the phone to Peters. Godspeed, Thomas. Get back to us.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The general picked up the phone and talked quickly, feeding Thomas with basic instructions and coordinates for a pickup point fifty miles south of Paris.

“Get the Israeli prime minister on the phone now,” the president instructed Kreet. Then to Monique and Kara: “I think I deserve an explanation.”

Kara was staring at the floor. She lifted a hand and pulled absently at her hair. “I have to get back and tell Mikil that he's with the Horde.”

“You know how to get back?” Monique asked.

“Yes.”

R Thomas hung up the phone and took two steps toward the stairs before stopping short. Voices drifted up from the basement.

They were on the stairs!

They would find the guard. Then they would check his cell and find him missing.

He sprinted for the back of the house, through an old kitchen, over a couch in the living room, up to a large window. No guard on the back lawn that he could see. He flipped the latch open.

The window slid up freely. He tumbled to the ground and had the window halfway down when the first alarm came. A loud klaxon that made him jerk.

“Man down!”

Thomas ran for the forest.

Carlos heard the alarm and froze on the bottom step. An intruder? Impossible. They'd evacuated the house only yesterday when the Americans had inserted their special forces in an attempt to locate Thomas. They'd learned of the mission in advance, naturally, and they'd stayed clear long enough for the team to satisfy itself that Monique de Raison's information was simply wrong.