Shadow Born

What else could Durga call upon?

Thurpa looked worried, but his concern seemed to be much more than what they would run into; it was also what his role would be. The young man had learned that his presumptions of being a recent recruit had been simply an illusion, false memories entered into his mind. He had been able to transmit the healing energies of Nehushtan, Nathan Longa’s responsibility, to Durga. What other controls and connections did that fallen prince hold over Thurpa?

She reached out, resting her hand on his knee. It took a few moments before Thurpa’s vision focused, instead of gazing glassily at the recently swept bed of the pickup truck. He rewarded her with a slight smile, resting his hand atop hers.

“You have friends here,” Lyta said.

“I know that,” Thurpa replied. “Which makes me all the more worried of what I might do to you.”

“We’ll be expecting trouble,” Kane mentioned. “We don’t want to hurt you, and we know you don’t want to cause us any trouble. But we can protect Lyta and Nathan if necessary.”

Lyta glanced toward Kane. He was a large man, six feet in height, with powerful ropes of muscle in his upper body, akin to the musculature of a wolf. His eyes were a cool blue, and now, in the light of his words, those orbs seemed especially predatory. The warrior had done some amazing things, first rescuing her, then protecting her from the freakish amorphous blobs of Neekra, and then in subsequent battles.

She thought about how Thurpa measured up to him. The young man gave up four inches of height and thirty pounds to the explorer from America. While the Nagah had fangs and venom, and a layer of scales that might armor him somewhat, Lyta had little illusion that those would make up for Kane’s greater size, strength and experience.

The hardness in Kane’s gaze softened, and he added, “We won’t let you hurt them or yourself.”

“Thank you,” Thurpa said softly.

* * *

GRANT, BEHIND THE wheel of the pickup truck, kept his voice low, allowing the Commtact on his jaw to do most of the work of transmitting sound into Brigid’s and Kane’s Commtact receivers. Between the jostling of the truck on the roads and the relative solitude of the pickup’s cab, he knew that this conversation would be private.

“Thurpa turns out to be a creation of Durga. Maybe even a clone,” Grant said, putting their suspicions on the table. “What can we do about this? And will it have an effect on us?”

“Everything we’ve seen of Durga is part of a long-term plan,” Brigid offered. “He’s not one to go for a quick partial victory.”

“Except when he took a dip in the Cobra baths back in Garuda,” Kane subvocalized. Grant caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror. He was looking toward the forest to the right of the truck, so what noises he made would be lost in the wind and the other three wouldn’t see his throat and jaw move. “And he’s learned his lesson from that disaster.”

“Instant gratification and physical power weren’t enough to protect him, nor give him the victory he sought,” Brigid concurred.

“So, Thurpa, if he is a ticking time bomb, might not go off for years?” Grant asked.

“I don’t think that he’s a bomb,” Kane’s voice popped in, disembodied. “He’s too valuable to Durga.”

“Kane has a point,” Brigid returned. “From Thurpa’s account, we learned that when Neekra attacked Durga, sensory input seemed to be deferred between Durga’s body and Thurpa’s. When Thurpa sought the regenerative capabilities of Nehushtan, he could sense Durga also drawing strength and healing.”

“So, Thurpa is Durga’s means of immortality?” Grant mused. “Like an overflow valve. Things get too hot for Prince Asshole, it vents through our friend.”

“On a psychic scale, yes,” Brigid concurred. “The two of them have a psychic link through which they share the load.”

Grant frowned, his gunslinger’s mustache accentuating and exaggerating the downward bow of his lips. “So if we ever have to take down Durga, we could hurt Thurpa.”

“Why have a bomb when you have a perennial human shield?” Brigid inquired rhetorically.

Kane’s grumble, to Grant’s ears, was indicative of a stewing, deepening anger stemming from impotence. “Not that your riddle needs answering, but he gets psychic shielding from Neekra, and he gets something that will stop us from putting a bullet into his head.”

Brigid nodded. “Correct.”

Grant watched the mirror image of Kane glance toward Thurpa in the back of the truck. He saw profound pain in his friend’s features, that impotence toward helping the young Nagah, whose only sins had been those of his father.

“What’s to say that Hannah’s children aren’t going to end up the same way?” Kane asked finally, looking away from Thurpa. “Durga implanted his DNA into her, giving her twins, the first and last children she’ll ever have.”

“Durga’s a bastard, but those kids will be raised right,” Grant said. “Manticor will be a good father to them.”

“Will fatherhood be enough when they’re in psychic contact with a sociopath like Durga?” Kane asked. “They’ll grow up with what the rest of the world would think are schizophrenic delusions.”

“But we’ll get this information to Hannah,” Brigid said.

Kane’s grunt showed his frustration. “And what will that provide?”

“It will warn her of what’s coming,” Brigid told him.

Grant kept his eyes on the road. Even as he drove, he was trying to figure out what could mitigate any telepathic influence on Hannah’s twins or on Thurpa.

“What about the control interface that Gamal used?” Grant asked. “It was a thought transmitter.”

Brigid turned to him. “Use it as a signal blocker? But that was a lot of machinery. Unless it would be an area denial device. It sends out a scramble signal...but then, no one could use any natural psychic ability in Garuda.”

“It’d have to be a blanket, wouldn’t it?” Grant asked.

“We could try something akin to a torus defense, but...” Brigid mused. “Brain waves would have openings in areas away from the ring itself, either transmitting over the top or under the earth.”

“The only way we have to protect Hannah’s children is to end Durga,” Kane murmured. “And if we kill Durga, what kind of harm would we cause Thurpa?”

Brigid sighed. “He said he’d be willing to sacrifice himself.”

Grant’s mood darkened even further, but he refused to let go of any hope. “Let’s see that it doesn’t come to that.”

Frustrated and feeling helpless in the face of Thurpa’s personal danger, Grant’s stomach twisted. He needed to vent his impotence on something.

The hiss-boom of a darting rocket drew his attention from the side. Their pickup truck had passed into a sandy, barren clearing between trees, and a line of enemy trucks were parked up on a hill. It had to be the militia, the Panthers of Mashona—or what was left of them.

And there would be no mistaking Kane, a white man, or Thurpa, a human cobra, in the bed of their truck.

“Here comes shit!” Grant bellowed, tromping the gas to keep ahead of subsequent rounds of enemy fire.

Chapter 2 (#u85dc7373-1470-5f8e-a915-d3c86686c641)

As soon as the wobbly spear, riding its tail of smoke and fire, hissed past the bed of the pickup truck and smashed into the ground, Thurpa grabbed his folded rifle and looked along the cottony trail back to its point of origin. He grimaced at the sight of three trucks, similar to the one that Grant and the others had procured back at Victoria Falls, except these had been mounted with machine guns and were filled with gunmen.

What do you think you are, idiot? A swordsman? Thurpa winced at his own self-reproach and snapped the stock open on the rifle.

Kane clapped him on the shoulder, shook his head.

“We’re moving too fast. You’ll waste ammunition!” he shouted over the roar of engines and crunching dirt kicked up by the pickup’s tires.

Thurpa glanced back and heard the crackle of enemy weapons, but there was no sign of near impact. He was trained well enough to keep his finger far from the trigger, making certain he didn’t inadvertently send a bullet out of his rifle. Considering the amount of jostling and physics at work in the bed of the pickup, he realized the wisdom of Kane’s admonition. One bad bounce or rut in the ground, and a shot intended for one of the enemy militia could go into an ally.