‘It’s not like that. I love her, which is why I have to break it off.’
‘Huh?’
‘She’s becoming a distraction.’
‘A distraction? From what?’
‘You still don’t get it, do you? You still refuse to acknowledge who we are, or what’s at stake.’
‘Oh, God, here we go again-’
‘Time’s running out, Manny, we only have six more years.’
Immanuel’s eyes widen. ‘What happens in six years?’
Jacob shakes his head. Turns for the door.
‘Hey, asshole, I said what happens in six years?’
‘Just train, Manny. Train like your life depended upon it.’
The azure-blue specks blaze at him from beyond the white mist of the nexus.
Jacob, I did it, I finally did it! Quenton tried to rape me, but this time, I slipped inside the nexus… I beat the crap out of him!
I’m glad.
You don’t sound it.
Sorry.
It felt so good to hit him, I felt so powerful. It was even better than when I hurt those boys.
What boys?
Never mind.
Lilith, what boys?
Just some assholes I met at a party. They won’t be bothering me anymore.
Lilith, you just can’t go around beating people up.
Excuse me, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to survive.
What’re you saying? This doesn’t sound at all like you.
It’s the new me. Uncle Don is teaching me how to use my powers.
Uncle Don?
A distant relative who’s come to visit.
Is he… Hunahpu?
Yes.
Jacob?
Lilith, I can’t talk to you now. I… I need to speak with my father.
And I need to feel your arms around me.
I told you before, I can’t see you now.
And I’m sick of these excuses. I need to nestle in your warmth. There’s no warmth in my life, Jacob, just like there’s no more warmth in your words. You’ve become cold and calculating, and I don’t like it.
Sorry, but things are happening. I didn’t ask for this life any more than you asked for yours.
Try taking your own advice and change things.
I’m going to. Starting now.
Meaning what?
Meaning I can’t see you. Not outside the nexus. Not within.
I thought you loved me?
I do… but I can’t communicate with you while you’re in contact with another Hunaphu.
He’s my uncle.
It doesn’t matter. My destiny… I can’t take a chance.
To hell with that stupid Mayan stuff, it’s our destiny to be together.
It’s not stupid. My father warned me To hell with your father, your father’s dead!
Don’t say that.
Think, Jacob. Necromancers like us can only speak with the dead.
You’re wrong.
Don’t leave me, Jacob! You’re all I have!
Look, I don’t wish to hurt you, but things are happening… there are more important things at stake.
What’s more important than love?
Lilith Answer me! What’s more important than love?
I’m sorry.
Jacob shudders as Lilith’s venomous energy lashes out at him.
You go to Hell, Jacob Gabriel! You go straight to Hell!
Lilith The sudden emptiness of the nexus closes in upon him.
Hell. Exactly where I’m headed.
Father, I need you!
I’m here, Jacob. Tell me what’s wrong?
I feel so lost. Manny’s still not Hunahpu, at least he’s not like me.
Give him time.
I don’t know. He wants a normal life.
In the end, Manny will fulfill his destiny.
He hates his calling, he just wants to live his life. He wants to be in love.
What did you tell him?
I told him love is a distraction, that it makes men weak. You don’t agree?
Jacob, love is the most powerful force in the universe. The love I feel for your mother has kept me from giving in. It was your love for me that reached out and saved me.
You’re far from saved. When Immanuel and I find you and rescue you, then you’ll be saved. Until then, I don’t have time for the nonsense of love. At least not now.
You found a girl, didn’t you? Someone special.
Yes.
And you love her?
Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about her.
I was the same way with your mother. At times, my love for her seemed to consume my every waking moment.
Exactly why I had to break it off. She was disfocusing me, interfering with my training.
Jacob Why prolong the hurt? In six years, I’m out of here, right? You of all people should understand why I did what I did. After all you’ve told me about the loop in space-time, about our failure during our first attempt Maybe I was wrong to allow this communication.
You’re preparing me for what lies ahead.
Or condemning you to it. If it was only my existence at stake, I would have given in long ago, I would never have allowed you to speak with me.
It’s okay.
It’s not okay! It infuriates me! Why must my family suffer so? Why must my sons and their mother have to go through this hell?
Dad, calm down… the Abomination might register your anger.
Let it, let God feel it, too! Do you hear me, God? I know you’re out there listening. What kind of God allows good people to suffer so? Why does evil often go unpunished? Where’s the justice in your universe?
Dad I hate you, God! Do you hear me? I hate you as much as I hate myself!
Jesus, Dad, you’re scaring me! Dad?
Dad?
I’m… I’m sorry, Jacob. I’m sorry for everything. If I had been stronger… if I’d been wiser, I would never have allowed the Guardian to manipulate and deceive me the way they did.
What? The Guardian deceived you? What did they do?! Father, tell me, I need to know.
I’m sorry… it’s so hard to focus through the rage. It blinds me… scatters my thoughts.
Then take it slow. Go back to your journey, to Bill Raby’s journey. That was his name, right? The space traveler who had escaped the coming holocaust.
Bill Raby… yes… yes, I had become Bill Raby.
And the transport. Tell me what happened after you crash-landed on Xibalba.
I remember now. I remember thinking I must’ve blacked out, because when I awoke, the cabin was pitch-dark and people were screaming.
Why were they screaming?
Our landing… the impact caused a flash fire. It must’ve been a bad one. A dozen colonists were dead, dozens more injured.
But you were okay?
No, I don’t think so. Something had happened, but not to Bill, to Michael Gabriel. All my thoughts, all of my memories as Michael were gone. From that point on, I was Bill Raby, marine geneticist, marooned on an alien world. It was as if Mick had never existed.
Okay, okay, so what happened then? Try to remember.
We were surrounded by darkness, still fumbling within the powerless cabin, when we heard scratching sounds outside the ship. Pressing my face to the viewport, I scanned the terrain, looking for the source.
The sun had set hours ago. Unable to see through the darkness, I located a pair of night-vision scanners and placed them over my eyes. The lenses cut through the night, turning everything olive green… revealing movement outside.
There were billions of them-huge beetles-a foot and a half in length, maybe twenty to forty pounds, God only knows what the gravity was like on this desolate world. They were scurrying up through the volcanic fissures by the hundreds of thousands, their grotesque black shell-encased bodies marked by occasional flashes of luminescence that set off the night like tiny strobe lights. My first thought after I swallowed back the bile of terror was communication… that the lights were a form of alien language, sort of like the fireflies back on Earth, only far more intelligent. But as they piled upon one another, rising up the viewport glass to test its thickness with their tripod-shaped horns and sickle claws, I knew these beings were more like the horrible hordes of army ants that devastate Africa, the ones that operate as a single collective, stripping away the flesh and bones and vegetation of everything that stands in their path.