THE DEVIL COLONY

Chapter 41

June 1, 6:02 A.M.

Yellowstone National Park

Two minutes...

Kai raced with the others through the massive temple. Jordan stuck to her side, which helped keep her on her feet. A part of her simply wanted to crash to her knees and give up. But Jordan would glance her way, silently urging her to stay with him-and she did.

Plus she had another massive incentive.

Ashanda was running alongside her like a juggernaut. If Kai fell, she was sure the woman wouldn't even slow; she'd simply drag her along. Past Ashanda's shoulder, Rafael was being carried between his two soldiers, hanging from their shoulders.

The group reached the exit to the temple.

Kai's uncle and the team geologist led the way, bounding down steps two at a time. Despite their speed, they were deep into a discussion. The geologist pointed to the boiling fountain. Uncle Crowe shook his head.

Behind them all came Kowalski. His large form was not meant for sprinting. He wheezed in the hot air, his face glowing and running with sweat.

"We'll never make it to the surface," Kai mumbled as she and Ashanda hurried down the steps.

Jordan refused to give in to despair. "The mouth of the tunnel is pinched. If we get past that squeeze point, we should be okay."

Kai didn't know if such an assessment was based on anything more than hope, but she took it to heart. Just get to the tunnel.

With a goal set, she felt better, ran faster.

A cry sounded behind her. Ashanda skidded to a stop. Kai wasn't as fast and got pulled off her feet by the handcuffs linking them together. Jordan braked and came back to them.

Behind them, Rafael and his two guards tumbled down the stone steps, landing in a tangled heap.

Ashanda headed back to them. Kai had no choice but to follow.

The soldiers disentangled themselves. One limped away a couple of steps, wincing on a twisted ankle. The other simply bounded to his feet, looked around in wild-eyed panic, and fled toward the distant tunnel.

The other guard watched him, seemed to reconsider his own options, and with a hopping, painful bounce to his step, chased after his comrade.

Jordan called to them: "What're you doing? Help us!"

Uncle Crowe and the geologist stopped as the guards ran past.

Kowalski waved Painter and Chin on. "Go! I got this guy!"

He bent to pick Rafael off the ground. The Frenchman screamed as Kowalski lifted him. Both of the man's legs were canting at odd angles. Broken. Startled, Kowalski almost dropped him again, not expecting such injuries from a simple tumble.

But Rafael hung on with one arm. "Merci," he said, his brow pebbling with pained sweat. One hand palmed his ribs on that side, probably broken, too. He pointed his other arm, his eyes catching apologetically on Ashanda. Like Kai, he knew she wouldn't leave him.

"Go," he said, both to Kowalski and Ashanda.

They set off again.

Uncle Crowe and the geologist slowed enough not to leave the others totally behind. Kai's group gave chase, but that small delay may have doomed them all.

Less than a minute left.

"Run ahead!" Kai urged Jordan.

"No, I'll stay with you."

She feared for him. "Go, or we'll all get bottlenecked at that squeeze. Get there and get through. I'll be there. I promise."

Jordan wanted to stay, but he read the determination in Kai's eyes. "You'd better be!" he called back as he took off.

Kai looked over her shoulder. Kowalski was falling farther and farther behind, burdened by Rafael-who gasped and cried out every few steps, though he was clearly biting his tongue to keep from doing so.

Ashanda noted this, too.

The big woman finally fell back, taking Kai with her.

Oh no.

Ashanda scooped Rafael away from Kowalski and nodded to him to go.

He hesitated, but Kai waved him away with her free arm. They continued, moving faster. Kowalski led now, but Ashanda kept pace with him, even while carrying Rafael.

Uncle Crowe was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel. He wheeled his arm for them to hurry. "Twelve seconds!"

Kowalski eked out a bit more speed from his heavy legs and reached the tunnel.

"Get inside! Go as far down the tunnel as possible!"

Uncle Crowe rushed forward to Kai and the others. Trying to get them moving faster, he took Rafael and swung him bodily around like a rag doll. A bone snapped with an audible crack . A small cry escaped from the man, but nothing more.

"Seven seconds!"

Uncle Crowe pushed Rafael through the crack as if he were stuffing garbage down a chute. He then turned to Kai.

"Go!" she screamed, and rattled her cuff. "You're in the way! We have to go through together!"

He understood and flew into the tunnel. She doubted he even touched the walls.

"Five!" he called back.

Suddenly Kai was lifted off her feet, picked up by the shoulders, as Ashanda charged the choke point.

"Four!"

Kai twisted sideways as the woman shoved her through the crack. Rock scraped her back, her cheek.

"Three!"

She fell to her knees in the tunnel, wrenching her shoulder.

Rafael lay crumpled next to her. He held his arm out to her.

"Two!"

Ashanda pushed her large form into the crack-and stopped.

Rafael stared up at her, some understanding filling his eyes. "Don't, mon chaton noir ."

Kai didn't understand.

"One!"

Ashanda smiled softly as the world exploded behind her.

6:04 A.M.

Painter dove forward and shielded Kai with his body. The blast sounded like the end of the world, accompanied by the burst of a supernova from within the far cavern. Brightness blazed into the tunnel, piercing through the small gaps like a flurry of sodium lasers around the form of the woman who was jammed into the crack.

He pictured the volume of nanotech erupting, tearing a hole in the universe and collapsing the tunnel. But he also remembered the first explosion in the Utah mountains, how the concussive force of the blast was minor, killing only the anthropologist and none of the nearby witnesses.

That wasn't the true danger.

He rolled off Kai as the detonation echoed away and the blazing light dimmed back to darkness, leaving only traces burned into his retina. He blinked away the glare.

Kai sat up from where she'd been pinned down. "Ashanda..."

The woman hung limply in the crack, but she still breathed.

"Help her, please..." Rafael begged.

Painter stepped past Kai, who still remained tethered to the woman. Reaching up, careful of where he touched, he drew her out of the crack and let her weight pull her to the floor. He leaned her against the wall next to Rafael.

Moving back, he stared past the crack into the far chamber. Chin had returned and pointed his flashlight. It was unable to penetrate that darkness. A black fog seemed to fill the space: rock dust, smoke, and something Painter feared should never be in this world. The nano-nest. As some of it settled, he noted a deeper shadow back there, the mass of the ancient temple. But rather than growing clearer as the fog continued to dissipate, the dark shadow faded, dissolving away, as if it were an illusion.

A groan drew him back to the tunnel.

Ashanda's eyes fluttered open, her head lolled back, as she struggled to regain consciousness.

"She was trying to protect us," Kai said.

Painter suspected that her altruism was meant more for Rafael than for anyone else-but maybe not. Either way, they'd all benefited.

"She did protect us," he agreed.

Even now, he watched the woman's clothing on the side closest to the blast begin to lose color and drift down in flakes of fine ash. The dark skin beneath grew speckled as if it had been sprinkled with fine chalk-then those dots grew bigger, spreading, beginning to weep blood.

She was contaminated, whether by Chin's nanobots or some other corrosive process. Using her own body like a shield, she had blocked the rain of particulate corruption from reaching them.

But the tunnel would not be safe for long.

The choke point at the end had begun to crumble, the rock turning to sand and sifting away.

"It's happening much faster than in Utah," Chin said. "A nano-nest of this size will likely grow exponentially from here."

Painter pointed up the tunnel. "Grab Kowalski. You know what you have to do."

"Yes, sir." Still, Chin's eyes looked longingly at the sight of the process as it began to spread, eating its way through all matter, his expression at once fascinated and horrified. Then he shoved around and headed up, collecting the others and herding them ahead of him.

Only Jordan refused to comply. He slipped under the geologist's arm and came back down. "Are you okay?" he asked Kai.

She lifted her tethered arm.

Painter returned his attention to Rafael. "Give us the code for the handcuffs."

But the Frenchman's gaze remained fixed on his woman. She had regained a dazed, weak consciousness, her head leaning crookedly against the wall, staring back at him. Her breathing was shallow and rapid from pain. Blood flowed down her contaminated side, which was missing skin now, showing muscle.

"What have you done, Ashanda?" he murmured.

"Rafael, we need the code for the handcuffs."

The bastard seemed deaf to Painter's pleas, but Ashanda lifted her good arm a trembling fraction of an inch and let it drop, her desire clear.

Painter remained silent, knowing he could offer no better argument.

So he waited, watching the world slowly dissolve around him.

6:07 A.M.

Shattered on the stone floor, Rafael gazed into Ashanda's eyes. She had sacrificed all for him. All of his life, he'd fought to prove himself, to others, to his family, even to himself-to rise above a shame that was no fault of his own. But in those dark eyes, such effort was never necessary. She saw him, watching in her silences, always there, always so strong.

In this moment he finally truly saw her.

The knowledge shattered him worse than any fall could have done.

"What have I done to you?" he whispered to her in French.

He reached to her cheek.

"Be careful," Painter said, sounding far away.

Rafael was beyond such concerns. He knew his injuries were severe, that he was growing cold and slipping into shock. He tasted blood on his tongue with each breath, coming from a ripped lung and fractured ribs. Both legs had multiple breaks, likely his hip, too.

He was done for, but he would last long enough.

For her.

He brushed his knuckles along her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw, touching the hollow of her throat.

Her eyes closed ever so slightly.

Her lips shifted into a ghost of a smile.

Oh, my love...

He pulled her gently into his arms, felt the hot blood along her back, the tremble of agony. She tried to push him away, ever protecting him.

No, let me be the stronger one... just this one time.

Whether hearing his plea or simply too weak, Ashanda collapsed with a sigh against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes looking up at him with a joy he'd never seen before. He cursed himself for denying such simple happiness to her-and to himself.

A voice nagged in his ear.

To be done with it, he spoke five numbers, the code to the handcuffs.

A shuffling followed. He heard two young voices, hopeful and intense and full of such raw affection. Then they took that brightness and fled away.

Once alone, he leaned down and gently kissed those lips. He felt them quiver under his. He held her this way for an eternity, feeling each breath against his cheeks... growing slower, slower... then at last nothing.

He felt the same corruption now eating into him, through the palm that held her, the shoulder that supported her, even the lips that kissed her. But it was a wonderful pain. It came from her, and he would have it no other way.

So he held her to him.

A voice intruded. He turned to find Painter still there at his side. He thought the man had left. What had seemed an eternity must have been only minutes.

"What do you want, Monsieur Crowe?" he whispered coarsely, feeling parts of himself drifting away.

"Who are you?" Painter asked, crouched a few feet away like some vulture.

Rafael leaned his head back and closed his eyes, knowing what the man truly wanted. Though his body was spent, his mind remained sharp.

"I know who you seek, but they are not me. Nor my family." He opened his eyes to stare at Painter. It hurt to talk, but he knew he must. "What you seek has no name. Not formally."

"Then what do you know about them?"

"I know your oldest families here in America have roots that trace back to the Mayflower . That is nothing, mere hiccups in the march of history. Off in Europe, families have unbroken roots that go back two, three, four times as far. But there is a handful-a chosen few-whose heritage goes back much further. Some claim to be able to trace their lineage to the time before Christ, but who knows? I do know that they've been gathering wealth, power, knowledge, while manipulating history, hiding behind shifting faces, always changing. They are the secret within all secret societies."

This seemed to raise an amused croak inside him-painful as it was to emit.

"Others have named these bloodlines les familles de l' toile, the star families. I hear they once numbered more, but now there is but one , the True Bloodline. To stay strong, they seek to rebuild from younger families, like my own, families of the upper echelon."

"Echelon?"

"A ranking system among the younger families who seek to join the Bloodline. First tier is designated by a single mark: the star and moon of the oldest myst re . The second adds the Freemasons' square and compass. Another nigmatique order, non ? And for our service in America, the Saint Germaine clan was granted entry to the third level. We were chosen- I was chosen -because of our knowledge of nanotechnology. An honor." He coughed thickly, tasting blood. "Come see."

Rafael turned his head and weakly lifted his hand to part the fall of hair that hid his mark. The third symbol had been added just days ago, inked in crimson around the older two, to mark his new elevation.

He heard Painter gasp, knowing what the man saw. In the center of the tattoo, the star and moon... encircling it, the square and compass... and around them both...

"The shield of the Knights Templar," Painter whispered. "Another secret order."

"And there are more, or so I've heard." Rafael let his arm drop heavily. "As I said, we are the secret within all secret societies. This third mark brings my family one step closer to joining the True Bloodline on that highest pedestal. Or at least it would have." Again a painful chuckle croaked forth. "Failure is severely punished."

Painter remained quiet for a long breath, then spoke. "But to what end? What is the goal of all of this?"

"Ah, even I do not know everything. Some things you'll need to discover on your own. I'll tell you no more because I know no more."

He closed his eyes and turned his face away.

After a time, Painter rose and headed back up the tunnel.

Once alone, Rafael Saint Germaine leaned down and gave one last kiss to his love, holding it until he felt those lips dissolve away-taking him with them.