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  “I guess,” Brigid agreed reluctantly. She hated it when Kane out-thought her.

  Domi looked up from where she sat cross-legged, sharpening her knife, a broad smile appearing on her face. “Brigid, I think Kane just out-logicked you,” she said.

  “Maybe,” Brigid said with a tight smile. “Hypnotic suggestion, if that’s what it was, can also affect different people in different ways. Early reports from the mop-up crew suggest that not everyone in Zaragoza was affected.”

  “This went deeper, though,” Grant said. “From what I saw, the bodies of those affected were just kind of turning on them. Some of them, anyhow.”

  “Maybe we’ll never know,” Shizuka admitted.

  “One thing we do know,” Kane reminded everyone, “is that the Annunaki were dead. Let’s not forget that. So where did Ereshkigal come from?”

  “I guess Hell’s maw opened wide and eschewed her,” Brigid proposed, “but maybe it didn’t do so by itself.”

  The allies were solemn then as they considered Brigid’s words. For a moment the atmosphere seemed very, very grim.

  Shizuka stood after a moment, turning to face Grant. “You promised me dancing on our vacation, Grant-san,” Shizuka reminded him.

  “Yeah,” Grant agreed. “I guess I did at that.”

  Shizuka stood with hands on hips, challenging him. “Well?”

  From across the plateau, Domi clapped her hands and shouted encouragement, “Dance!”

  Kane and Brigid took up the rhythm, clapping in time with Domi in a kind of fast polka.

  “None of you are going to sing, right?” Grant checked. Then, reluctantly, he stood before Shizuka and executed a low, formal bow, taking her hand. Then, while Domi, Kane and Brigid clapped out a rhythm, he and Shizuka danced on the plateau outside the redoubt, beneath the rising sun of the new day. Whatever was out there could wait, at least until the dance was over.

  Epilogue

  Somewhere in the overgrown wilderness of Louisiana, in the djévo located underground within an abandoned military redoubt, Papa Hurbon was reading through the Zaragoza report. He read it twice before looking up at his comely companion. It had not been satisfactory. Over a thousand had died, yes, but the dragon’s tooth seed had failed to take root, or to branch.

  Hurbon frowned regretfully as he handed the report back to Nathalie so that she could file it for him. She had created the report from ground observation, two days after the occurrence itself.

  “Much to consider here, Nathalie,” Papa Hurbon said as he handed the report over.

  “It did not go as planned, my beacon, my guide,” Nathalie lamented.

  “No,” Hurbon agreed. “But these are early days, the first salvos of an advance. Considered purely as a proof-of-concept test, this worked admirably.”

  Nathalie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Ereshkigal died before she could complete her plan,” she said.

  “The seed planted, new life emerged,” Hurbon corrected her.

  Nathalie looked uncertainly at Papa Hurbon where he sat amid his totems in the imperfectly mirrored room beneath the earth. Hurbon glanced up, saw her expression and smiled his broad, toothy smile, reminded of an ancient refrain.

  “A man who slits throats has time on his hands,” Hurbon assured her.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN-13: 9781460381250

  Hell’s Maw

  Copyright © 2015 by Worldwide Library

  Special thanks to Rik Hoskin for his contribution to this work.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  First edition May 2015

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