Danielson’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “How’d you know my name? You’re some kind of psi-mutie.”
“Yeah,” Javna agreed in a voice frosty with contempt. “Got to be, with them eyes.”
The god glanced briefly in the old man’s direction. “Your invitation to accompany me inside is rescinded, Mr. Javna.”
Javna spit out a derisive laugh and brought up his blaster, finger crooked tight around the trigger. “I’m invitin’ you to die, mutie whoreson.”
The god moved the metauh negligently, pointing the double prongs, positioned like an upside down V at the tip of the rod, toward the old man’s bio-negative weak points. Pale blue mena energy sprang up in a halo around Javna.
The dry, hot air seemed to shiver. Javna’s frail body swayed, and the sway became a tremble and the tremble turned into a convulsion. His eyes remained open, but they didn’t see. His toothless mouth gaped open, but no words came out. He croaked a sound of pain, terror and despair.
The old man’s back arched violently, as if he had received a heavy blow between the shoulders. There was a sharp crackling sound of cartilage and bone. Spittle strings drooled from discolored gums. From the corner of each bulging eye squeezed a droplet of blood, then those eyes burst in gelid, crimson-tinged sprays. For an instant, all saw the raw, dark pits of empty sockets.
Javna coughed out a moan of horror, and the cough was followed by a torrent of blood, fountaining up from hemorrhaging internal organs. He toppled sideways, falling to the sand, arms contorting and drawing up like the gnarled branches of a leafless tree. He seemed to shrivel and wither like a mummy even as he fell.
Harrier, after a moment of wide-eyed shock, swung her handblaster toward the god, finger tightening around the trigger.
“Stop.”
The word rolled through the air like a sudden clap of thunder. Harrier stopped, her finger frozen on the trigger. Danielson and Stockbridge stood immobile.
The god lowered the metauh and stepped toward Harrier. Her eyes stared into his defiantly, even though her limbs were paralyzed. The god looked deep, deep into her mind. What he found there pleased him. She stood there and allowed her memories, her dreams, her unrealized ambitions and most secret fantasies and passions to be riffled.
The god addressed her softly, his voice a seductive instrument stimulating her neuroenergy system. “Connaught Katherine Harrier. Connie. I need you. I intend to impose order on the remains of this world by building a dynasty that will rule for ten thousand years.”
Harrier didn’t respond for a long moment. “What do you need me for?”
“First, to take me to your settlement, where I will collect my followers. Then we will proceed to my royal city. It lies some distance away. And then you will bear me an heir.”
Harrier’s face twisted in impact to his words. “I’m sterile.”
“A congenital condition, which I can rectify.”
“What?” Harrier’s voice was ragged, incredulous, fearful.
“Drop your weapon, Connie. It’s useless against me, you know.”
The woman shuddered, able to move again, and she stared in mild surprise as her blaster dropped from her hand to the sand at her feet. The god mentally nudged her toward the vanadium-alloy door. He sensed the reactions of the three people. Their emotions were a riot of conflicting questions, terrors and fears.
Harrier stopped walking, and the god was impressed with the degree of concentration she employed to break free, momentarily, of his persuasion.
“What the fuck are you?” she demanded.
The god smiled gently. “I’ve had many names. ‘Alpha’ was the first. A woman I once…knew called me ‘Alfie’ as an endearment. ‘Hell Eyes’ was more of a title than a name, and I never cared for it. Since my resurrection, I have decided to be addressed as ‘Akhnaton,’ an old name with a fine tradition.”
Between clenched teeth, Harrier grated, “I don’t care about your name. What are you?”
With one hand, he softly caressed the smooth, rounded line of her cheek. “I am who you have been waiting for, Connie. I am your god.”
Chapter One
Sixteen Years Later
Ryan opened his eye, and Krysty was still there. The moon formed a halo around her full mane of scarlet hair, striking flame-colored highlights from the flowing tresses. Though his throat was raw from brine, he managed to ask, “How long, lover?”