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  Gains had been tight-lipped. He’d told her that Monique had seen him dead. But how long after his death had she seen him? Yes, the lake’s power was gone over there. Yes, he’d been persuaded that this time his death would be final. Yes, it had been two days and not a word from him. Yes, yes, yes!

  But this was her only brother here. She wasn’t going to let him be dead, not yet.

  She’d left Mother this morning, tracked down Monique through one of the deputy secretary’s aides, received permission to visit her, and flown straight to Baltimore.

  Kara pushed through the door. A haggard receptionist lifted her head. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, my name is Kara Hunter. Monique de Raison is expecting me.”

  “Yes, Ms. Hunter. This way, please.”

  The woman led her down a long hall and into a large laboratory. At least twenty work stations were each manned by technicians. To Kara’s left, a long glass wall looked into a clean room where blue-capped, white-jacketed, masked technicians worked. Voices buzzed quietly. Intently. These were the people bent on cracking a code that couldn’t be cracked in the time given. These were America’s heroes, she thought. They paid her no mind as she walked through the lab into another hall and then entered a large office where Monique bent over a thick ream of photos with a scientist who vaguely resembled Einstein, bushy hair, spectacles, and all.

  Monique looked up.

  “Kara.” Her face seemed to sag and her eyes were red. She looked at her comrade. “Excusez-moi un moment, Charles.”

  The man nodded and left.

  Monique stepped to Kara and pulled her into a fierce hug. “I’m so sorry, Kara.” She sniffed. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Kara hadn’t expected such a touching reception. What had happened between Monique and Thomas? She swallowed a lump rising in her throat. “Are you okay?”

  Monique pulled back and turned her face. “Not really, no. I’m not sure that I can deliver.”

  “They say that your encoding survived the mutation.”

  “It’s not that simple. But yes, the genes I had isolated for modification with the introduction of my own virus did survive. We will know in a couple hours what that means.”

  “You don’t sound hopeful.”

  “I don’t know how to sound.” She looked at Kara with sad eyes.

  “I came because I’m having difficulty accepting his death,” she said.

  Monique’s eyes watered. She bit her lower lip and eased into her chair behind the desk.

  “What happened out there, Monique?”

  “I dreamed,” she said.

  She’d dreamed. This was supposed to mean something? And then it suddenly did.

  “You . . . like Thomas, you mean? You dreamed of the forest?”

  “Yes. Only not as myself, but as his wife, Rachelle. And honestly, it felt to me like that was the real world and this one was only the dream.”

  Kara couldn’t contain her surprise. “You went there? You saw him there? How?”

  “We were sleeping, and I think it might have been something to do with the fact that we were in contact. Our wrists had been injured, both of ours. Maybe our blood . . . I don’t know. But I do know that I shared Rachelle’s life. I shared all her memories, her experiences.”

  “You have no doubt about this?” Kara asked, gaping.

  “None. And we were both afraid that if he was killed in either reality, he would also die in the other. And also that even if he was by some miracle cured in that reality, he might not be cured in this reality.”

  “I won’t accept that!” Kara said. Even though the same thoughts had occurred to her, she had been hoping Monique would contradict her ideas.

  Monique blinked at her outburst.

  “Sorry. But if you’d been through what I’ve been through these past weeks . . .” Kara dropped into a facing chair. “But then you have, haven’t you? Then let me be straight with you. I’m not willing to accept this nonsense that he’s dead.”

  “I saw him!”

  “You saw him? Did you feel his pulse?”

  “I watched Carlos feel his pulse. He was dead.” Her voice was strained.

  Kara considered something Thomas had told her before leaving on his rescue. He’d concluded that he was the only gateway between the two realities. If he was dead . . .

  “You do realize that if your antivirus fails, then the only hope this world has is Thomas.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if he’s dead, we may be in a world of hurt.”

  “He got me out; I have the antivirus.”

  “I thought you weren’t so sure.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “And I’m working on Thomas.”

  “They’ve already dropped a team into the region where I was held,” Monique said. She sounded as if she might snap.

  “Okay, fine. Let’s think this through. We both know that Carlos isn’t sloppy enough to let them find him. This isn’t about the tactics of special forces. This is about the mind and the heart, and I think you and I might be the ones to find Thomas’s mind and heart. If he’s alive.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  “As I said, I’m not willing to accept that.”

  Monique stared at Kara. A glimmer of hope lit her eyes. “Do you realize that if Rachelle is killed, I may die?” she asked.

  “Tell me everything that happened,” Kara said. “Everything.”

  30

  THE HORDE guarded the lake that night. The custom of the Desert Dwellers required that the executed remain a night in the water to complete his humiliation. No one was aloud to enter or bathe until the body was removed.

  Ciphus objected but finally capitulated, as much to control the lingering of those loyal to Justin as to yield to the Horde’s demands. The beach was cleared, and those who celebrated Justin’s death did so in the streets rather than by the lake. Those few who could not wait until morning to bathe did so with the small reserves held in some of the houses.

  Thomas found Rachelle in their home, lying on the floor, exhausted and unmoving. Neither had slept for nearly two days. He made her wash and then did so himself. They fell into bed without talking about the execution and fell into a dead sleep.

  Oddly, Thomas did not dream of the Raison Strain that night. He hadn’t eaten the rhambutan fruit, so he did dream, just not of the virus and France. He should have, though. Unless, of course, he wasn’t alive in the other reality any longer, in which case there would be nothing for him to dream about.

  But that would mean he was powerless to stop the Raison Strain. Hopefully Monique could stop it. If not, she would die along with the rest of the world in about ten days or so. And Rachelle might very well die with her.

  These were the dreamy thoughts running through Thomas’s mind when he heard the screams that pulled him from deep sleep early the next morning.

  He jerked upright and immediately gasped at a sharp pain that shot through his skin. A quick glance confirmed the worst. The disease was upon him. Not just a light graying, but a nearly fully advanced condition!

  He bent his arm, but the pain stopped him. The gray flaking on the epidermis didn’t begin to characterize the horrible agony. How had this happened? He had to get to the lake!

  Again he bent his arm, this time ignoring the pain, as he knew the Desert Dwellers did. It felt as though the layer of skin just under the epidermis had turned brittle and was cracking when he moved.

  Rachelle sat up. “What’s that?”

  The screams were coming from the west. The lake.

  “What . . .” Rachelle cried out with pain and stared at her skin. “Didn’t we bathe last night?”

  Thomas peeled off his covers and forced himself to stand through the pain. His mind swam with confusion. Maybe they’d accidentally used rainwater instead of water from the lake. It had happened before.

  Rachelle had risen and rushed to the window, wincing with each step. “It’s the lake. Something’s wrong with
the lake!”

  “Papa!” Marie ran into the room. She too! The disease covered her skin like white ash.

  “Get your brother! Hurry!”

  “It hurts—”

  “Hurry!”

  They didn’t bother with slippers or boots, only tunics. Thomas and Rachelle led their two children from the house, urging them to move as quickly as possible, which resulted in tears and a pace barely faster than a walk. The screaming had spread; hundreds, thousands of villagers had awakened to the same condition. The disease had swept in over night and infected them all, Thomas thought. They streamed down the main street, desperate for the lake.

  Thomas grabbed Samuel’s hand and pulled him along. “Ignore it. The faster you get to the water, the sooner the pain will be gone.”

  “Why is this happening?” Rachelle panted.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s everyone! Maybe it’s punishment for the death of Justin.”

  “I hope only that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, Rachelle!” he snapped.

  She hurried beside him in silence. Marie and Samuel were both crying through their pain, but they too knew enough to push ahead. Elyon’s lake was their salvation; they knew that like they knew they needed air to breathe. Every cell in their bodies screamed for the relief that the lake alone could give them.

  The sight that greeted them on the lakeshore stopped Thomas short. Five thousand, maybe ten thousand diseased men, women, and children stood back from the water’s edge, staring aghast or swaying back and forth, moaning.

  The water was red!

  Not just tinged with red, but red like blood.

  Hundreds of brave souls had stepped into the lake and were frantically splashing the red water on their legs and thighs, but most were too terrified to even walk up to the water.

  The screams weren’t from the pain that would normally be associated with cleansing in such a diseased state, Thomas realized. There was terror in their voices and there were many words, but the ones that seized his mind were those that rose above the others in this sea of chaos.

  “The power is gone!”

  A man Thomas barely recognized as William, his own lieutenant, staggered from the water. His skin was wet but the disease clung to him like cracked, mildewed leather.

  William gripped his head with both hands and looked around in desperation. He saw Thomas and lurched up the shore. “It doesn’t work!” He had the look of a crazed man. “The power is gone! The Horde is coming, Thomas!”

  Thomas glanced down the shore to his left. Martyn and Qurong stood with arms folded two hundred yards distant. Behind them, the thousand Scab warriors who’d accompanied them watched in silence.

  “You mean these?”

  William paced frantically, lost to Thomas’s question.

  “William! What do you mean they’re coming?”

  “The scouts have come in. Both armies are in the forest.”

  Both?

  “How many? How far?”

  “He was innocent! Now we will die for allowing it.”

  More people were running onto the shores. Even more were fleeing the lake in panic. William was hardly lucid. Thomas grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

  “Listen to me! How many did the scouts report?”

  “Too many, Thomas. It doesn’t matter. My men are all diseased!”

  Thomas could feel the onset of the same confusion he’d once felt when the disease had nearly taken him before in the desert. But he was still thinking clearly enough to realize what had happened.

  Rachelle said it for him. “Johan knew.” She gazed at the confusion before them. “He knew that Justin was pure, and he knew that innocent blood would poison the lake.” She looked at him with wide eyes. “We’re becoming like them. We’re becoming like the Horde!”

  It was true. This was Martyn’s true betrayal. This was how he was waging his battle. They would take the forests without swinging a single blade. The only difference between the Forest People and the Desert Dwellers now was a lake that no longer functioned. In a matter of hours, maybe less, the Forest Guard would look, act, and think like their own enemies.

  There wasn’t much time. “Give me your sword!”

  William stared dumbly.

  Thomas reached forward and yanked the blade from William’s scabbard. “Call the men! We fight now. To the death!”

  His wife was staring at the red lake, eyes wide, but not with horror now. There was another look in them—a dawning of realization.

  A shriek split the morning air behind them. Thomas spun and saw a woman pointing to the front gates. He twisted and looked down the main street. The front gates were five hundred yards away—he couldn’t make out any detail, but enough to see that an army had arrived.

  A Horde army.

  “The men, William! Follow me!”

  He gripped the sword in his fist and ran across the beach, toward Martyn, shoving from his mind the terrible pain he felt. Feet were padding the sand behind him, but he didn’t stop to see who it was.

  The plan that had emerged from the fog in his mind was a simple one, with only one end: Qurong’s death. In his current condition, he wouldn’t have the same advantage that he ordinarily would, but they wouldn’t take him down before he killed the Horde leader, the firstborn, Tanis.

  “Thomas!”

  He recognized the voice. Mikil was running up the bank in a blind panic. He ignored her and raced on. The distant sound of swords clashing carried over the village. Some of his Guard were putting up a defense. But the more ominous sound of boots and hoofs—thousands upon thousands marching in cadence up the main street—made the meager defense sound like a children’s sideshow.

  One of the Scabs had left Qurong’s army and was running to meet him. No, not a Scab warrior, but a Scab general, with a black sash.

  Martyn!

  “Remember, Thomas, he’s my brother,” Rachelle said behind him. It was his wife, not William, behind him. And she wanted him to leave Johan unharmed?

  He glanced back. “He betrayed Elyon.” The Council members, led by Ciphus, had finally arrived at the lake and were testing its waters. The uproar had settled in the hopes that perhaps the elder could fix this terrible problem. No one seemed to worry about the army in the streets—they wanted to bathe. Only to bathe.

  Rachelle pulled up next to him. Johan was now only fifty yards from them.

  “Thomas, there is another way. Do you remember what Justin told me?”

  Thomas slowed and held out his sword with both hands. “The only way I know now is to take Qurong with me. If you want your brother to live, tell him to let me pass.”

  “You’re not listening!” she whispered harshly. “‘When the time comes,’ that’s what he said. Thomas, this is that time.”

  Martyn had withdrawn his sword and slowed to a walk. Thomas stopped and prepared to meet the general in whatever way he had in mind. His skin was crawling with fire, and his joints felt like they’d fractured, but he knew that the Horde fought through the pain all the time. He could do that and more, if not die trying.

  “He said he had a better way,” Rachelle said. “Justin told me to die with him.”

  “That’s what I’m preparing to do. And with me Qurong will die.”

  She grabbed his arm and spoke hurriedly. “Listen to me, Thomas! I think I understand what he meant. He said it would bring me life! He knew that we would need life. He knew that he would die. He knew that the lake would no longer give us life because it would be defiled by the shedding of innocent blood. His blood!”

  The lone figure walking toward them faded from his vision.

  Die with me.

  “We’ve died with him already,” he said. “Look at us!”

  “He said it would bring us life !”

  Martyn’s face was shrouded by his hood. He carried his sword loose, by his side—overconfident, taunting.

  Thomas looked at the lake, at
the sea of red that sent chills down his spine. Justin’s message suddenly seemed quite obvious to him. He couldn’t imagine actually doing it, but if Rachelle was right, Justin had asked them to die as he had died.

  He’d asked them to drown in this sea of red.

  Thomas had swam through a sea of red once, deep in the emerald lake that could be breathed.

  A fresh cry erupted from the shore. Evidently Ciphus had failed in his task to prove that all was still fine with his lake. But there was more. Ciphus was screaming above the chaos.

  “He’s gone!”

  Thomas cast a quick glance over his shoulder. The elder stood on the shore, dripping with water. He looked surprisingly like a Scab—with dreadlocks he would look like Qurong himself.

  “There is no body!” the elder cried. “They have taken him!”

  Thomas spun back to face Martyn. “He’s lying,” Martyn said. “The body could be anywhere under the water by now. He’s setting you up.”

  “Thomas, you have to listen to me!” Rachelle pleaded.

  The disease was making his head swim. He blinked and tried to think clearly. “You’re suggesting that we run into the lake and drown ourselves?”

  “You would rather live like this?”

  Martyn stopped ten feet from them, head low so that shadows hid his face.

  Thomas adjusted his grip on the sword. An image of Justin’s swollen face filled his mind.

  Follow me. Die with me.

  It was an incredible demand that Justin had suggested to whoever would listen.

  He spoke to Martyn. “What have you done to us?” His voice came out low and unearthly, bitter and full of pain at once.

  Martyn lifted his head and Thomas saw his face.

  It wasn’t the scowl he expected. Tears filled the general’s eyes. His face was drawn tight, stricken with fear. Fear!

  Martyn was suddenly walking again, closer, sword still by his side.

  “Stop there,” Thomas ordered.

  Martyn took two more steps and then stopped.

  This wasn’t what Thomas had expected. He could easily take two long steps and thrust his blade into the general’s unprotected chest. A part of him insisted that he should. He should kill Martyn and then run for Qurong.

  But he couldn’t. Not now. Not with Rachelle’s words ringing in his ears. Not seeing tears in Martyn’s eyes. Could this be more trickery?