as though her skin had melted and fused every feature on her face together from the heat. Her skeletal, raw hands trembled in agony as bloody hunks of flesh just hung like cooked meat from her bones and her hair had fallen away in red-ember, glowing cinders. But with her mouth sealed in raw, bubbling burns, she could only whimper and mumble as her heels dug into the rocky ground in writhing pain.
"Oh, dear God," Damali said, dropping to her knees. "The Caduceus rod--Cain, bring it to me, we're both Neterus, we can do this! Hurry, before she dies."
It materialized in his hand. "Open up her throat at the trachea. She cannot breathe, Damali. She will suffocate before we can heal her."
Damali gripped her Isis blade and rested the tip against the unrecognizable woman's throat, and then her blade fell away. Damali's rippling scream made Cain work with his hands, and he slit the woman's throat to open a hole and blew air into it, and then repeatedly pressed down on the woman's chest keeping a steady, life-sustaining rhythm.
"Do it now," he said 'between pants. "Hold the rod to her heart chakra. Join me." He glanced at Damali, growing impatient. "Neteru, on your mark! Begin--"
"That's my mother-seer," she whispered.
Cain glanced down, nodded to the seraphim hybrids. "Balm this Neteru while I work. She's going into shock. Guard her third eye."
"Doctor, this one has been gone for ten minutes. This is the longest we've been able to sustain the disappearance without the body bouncing back into the lab as ash. I think we should try to reverse polarity now, before we lose it entirely."
The lead scientist looked at the others in the room. "Do it."
Cain could feel his body heating, lifting, something strange and artificial pulling at his limbs, raising the rope of locks from his back as his hands grabbed the dying woman's shoulders. At one moment he was making his breaths one with hers, offering her his life force as a bridge, like his heartbeat, joining his energy with the healing power within the rod, using the conductive energy of the sacred metals, and then the next thing he knew, he was with the victim's smoldering body on a cold floor in a white and metal room with bright lights.
Masked men surrounded him, a projectile came his way, and he deflected it with a snarl and stood.
"Keep recording!" the lead scientist shouted. "One actually came through with the body and was feeding from its throat!"
"Contain it!" another voice said, making Cain spin and turn in a confused pivot.
One of the men in white slammed a panel. Cain stared down as the floor quickly separated, putting a ring around him and the injured woman, as well as the men now holding Old World crossbows made of gleaming steel. Holy water instantly flooded into the small gulley that had opened in a circle around him on the strange floor. Within the bizarre concoction he also smelled pungent garlic and wolfsbane as a steel net dropped from the ceiling with bags of the demon-barrier substances laced through it.
"Are you humans mad?" Cain swept up the injured woman and glanced at the stricken faces around the room that he vaguely remembered. "The mother-seer is dying!" He almost wept at their stupidity. Her fragile body was convulsing and her flesh was coming off in his hands.
Suddenly he realized that there were two sets of humans. This was not a cohesive group of Damali's team. Blood was in the air with her team's signature in it. Cain hesitated, not sure, his blade leveled as it materialized in his grip. They had not performed the experiment to go in search of a missing Damali. Something stuck him in the leg, the back, the chest, his neck. Tiny bee stings from high-powered implements. His vision blurred, he could sense a vampire... two... just beyond the walls but held back by sacred objects. Bright, artificial light, and somehow he was on his knees. Men were still stinging him with the poison darts, saying to put the big bastard down hard, but not to kill him... who did they speak of that was a threat? Him. Absolute chaos reigned. Men in white coats screamed about another one.... Another what?
He could sense silver, a Neteru brother. All faces were blurry, just a tattoo let him know one of his own had entered the battle. He would not drop his blade. He would not leave the dying human female as he