He was still annoyed by that. He decided he’d waited long enough.
With one leap, he was out into empty air. He fell the length of three football fields and landed on his feet without a sound, directly in front of the man in the lead.
The man’s reaction time was admirable. He was one of the elite of al-Qaeda’s fighters assigned as Bin Laden’s personal bodyguards. He had been hardened by years of combat, first against the Soviets, then against other warring tribes. Now he had taken the most punishing bombardment the greatest military in the world could dish out—and lived.
Still, he barely touched his rifle before Cade pulled out his larynx.
The second man didn’t waste time trying to unsling his rifle. He had a knife in his hand before his comrade fell, and he stabbed Cade in the side. It was a perfect strike—it should have driven up, between the ribs and into Cade’s heart, ending him.
That is, if the knife’s point had not skidded off Cade’s skin, which was tougher than Kevlar weave.
Cade twisted the second man’s head completely around. His body fell nerveless to the trail.
Now he faced Bin Laden himself, and his supporter. He shoved them to the ground, not wanting the man dead.
Not yet.
The fifth Arab used the clear shot at Cade to unload half a clip from his AK-47. Several of the rounds tore through Cade’s wrapping, opening the wound again. He nearly doubled over from the pain.
But he didn’t drop. The fifth Arab’s eyes went wide as Cade took the rifle from him. He whispered the start of a prayer and choked on his own blood as Cade drove the rifle through his chest.
The man supporting Bin Laden was the youngest of the group—a boy, really, perhaps seventeen at the most. Despite what had happened to the combat veterans on each side of him, he did not hesitate to protect his leader. He reached for the grenades strung on the belt around his chest.
Cade snatched the belt away and tossed it to the ground before the boy could blink. Then Cade flung him into the abyss over the side of the trail. For a second, his arms scrabbled at the empty air as he began to drop. It would take a long time for him to hit the bottom.
Less than two minutes after it started, the fight was over.
Cade turned to Bin Laden.
The most feared and hated man alive did not look particularly scary, especially when compared to Cade. He had been injured in the bombing, it was obvious—one side of his robes had fresh patches of red blood, and he panted heavily, struggling for breath. Cade could smell disease in him as well. This weak, sickly creature had brought the whole world to a halt, if only for a little while.
Bin Laden seemed to know he was no match for Cade. He remained on his knees, glaring. Cade wasn’t about to kill him. He had questions.
Due to a number of chemical and psychological causes, Cade’s memory, like every member of his kind, was perfect. He did not forget. Time did not dim his recall of anything. He could play it back with perfect clarity, even reliving scents and feelings.
Touching the wound in his abdomen, he was there again.
LATE AT NIGHT on September 10, he followed a target into a parking garage. He’d been tracking the man for weeks—it should not have been so difficult, and that should have tipped him off. He was searching the lower levels of the underground garage. He saw nothing. Then the man appeared as if from nowhere, moving faster than even Cade could see, and impaled him with a sword, driving it into a concrete pillar.
It shouldn’t have been possible. No one was supposed to be that fast, or that strong. No one human, at any rate. But Cade didn’t waste shock on that. He was more concerned with the weapon that pinned him, like a moth to cardboard.
The sword was on fire.
Nobody believed him on this—not even Griff. But his memory was perfect.
The sword burned with a blue-white flame until he finally managed to pull it free from the pillar, and from himself. It had looked ordinary then, a piece of forged steel, but he knew: the blade was on fire when it stabbed him.
It turned out he’d deliberately been kept out of the action. Someone had wanted him out of the way so the hijackings could succeed and the planes could hit their targets.
Whoever had enough resources to know about Cade’s existence—and then take him out of the game—was more dangerous than a hundred al-Qaeda fanatics with a backpack nuke each.
That meant Bin Laden had a great deal to answer for.
BIN LADEN STARED AT HIM, on his knees but his face still a mask of contempt.
“Who is the man with the sword?” Cade asked, voice perfectly level.
Bin Laden spat on the ground, replying to Cade’s English with Arabic: “I will not foul my tongue with the language of the Great Satan. I am at peace with God. Do your worst. Know this, though: you are sending me to Paradise. I welcome death with open arms, for I am—”
Cade grabbed his face and squeezed. Bin Laden’s voice died to a strangled little yelp.
“I do not believe you,” Cade answered, in perfect Arabic this time. “I believe you know where you are going. And it is not to Paradise. I want answers. Who is the man with the sword?”
He released Bin Laden so the man could reply. “The sword is the sword of righteousness,” he spat. “God’s will is the fire in which it is forged, and your disgusting perverted nation will be split open . . .”
More gibberish. It appeared Bin Laden did not know any more than his own part in the operation. He thought himself to be the center.
Then Cade realized: Bin Laden had stopped talking. He looked at Cade, his eyes dancing with a hidden joke.
“I know what you are,” he said. “I did not believe they would send you. But they did.”
Cade grabbed him again, pulling him close. “Who told you this? How do you know me?”
“You are not the worst thing this world has to offer,” he said, grinning. “I know the truth. The sheep cannot hear it, but I have known for years. There is no God. Mohammed was not His prophet. My master will show you. This world belongs to him.”
Cade usually showed no emotion. He usually didn’t feel any. His face was almost always an impassive mask, as still as the body in a funeral-home viewing.
But now his mouth narrowed to a thin line as he scowled.
“Belongs to who?” he demanded.
Bin Laden’s grin only grew wider. Cade was ready to do whatever it took to get answers. But Bin Laden did know who—and what—Cade was.
He proved it by removing a small cross from inside his robes and jamming it against Cade’s face. It felt like a railroad spike between his eyes.
Cade’s lips peeled back as he screamed, and his fangs jutted out from his mouth. His human veneer dropped away. Cade already wore one cross around his neck as a ward against the thirst that constantly haunted him. The pain of another on his skin was almost unbearable.
“Vampire,” Bin Laden laughed at him, shoving the cross forward again.
Cade recoiled involuntarily, giving another few feet of distance and another few seconds of time.
That was all Bin Laden needed.
The Saudi curled in on himself. Cade hesitated, not sure what was wrong with him. He wondered if Bin Laden’s illness was about to claim him.
In a split second, Cade realized his mistake.
Bin Laden wasn’t sick. He was
changing
.
His head and jaw jutted forward as black bile dribbled from his mouth. His skin shredded as muscle and bone moved beneath it like snakes under a tarp.
He locked eyes with Cade, and Cade saw his pupils had become diamond-slitted. His mouth gaped like a fish, revealing dozens of cruel, piranha-like teeth. The new flesh under his torn skin was dark green, almost black, and covered in scales.
Bin Laden’s hands whipped out from under his robes, grabbing at Cade. But they weren’t hands any longer.
Now they were long, yellow claws.
Cade barely had time to scramble away.
A harsh, snakelike hiss escaped Bin Laden’s throat. To Cade it sounded like laughter.
Cade lost his footing as he nearly tumbled over the edge of the path. Bin Laden pressed his advantage and slashed again with his claws. He caught Cade’s wound, tearing it open further. Cade began to lose blood.
Cade flung one leg out in a desperate kick, but Bin Laden had been walking these mountain trails for years. He was even nimbler now, scrambling around on reptilian feet. He dashed up the side of the cliff and came down behind Cade, claws darting, tagging Cade on the side, costing him more blood.
Cade spun, threw a punch, and missed. His momentum nearly took him over the edge again. He managed to avoid the fall, but only by landing in a belly flop on the path.
Bin Laden didn’t let up. He leaped on Cade’s back and began shredding him. Cade rolled over and tried to get his hands around the al-Qaeda leader’s throat.
Bin Laden locked his claws around Cade’s throat at the same time. His snakelike head darted forward, jaws snapping inches away from Cade’s face. His neck seemed to extend like a spring. It took all Cade’s strength just to hold him back.
The bleeding got worse. Cade could feel the power draining out of him. He didn’t have much time.
He made a decision. He released Bin Laden with his left hand while still fending off the jaws and teeth with his right. He began scrabbling in the dirt with his free hand.
Bin Laden never looked away. He was enjoying Cade’s humiliation. He let loose with the same hissing laughter as before.
Cade’s fingers found what he’d been looking for—right where he’d dropped it on the trail.
The belt of grenades he’d taken from the boy.
He managed to pull one into his fingers.
His arm trembled. Bin Laden redoubled his efforts. He was nearly at Cade’s throat now. His teeth clicked only a few millimeters away.
Bin Laden saw the desperation in Cade’s eyes. The al-Qaeda leader spoke.
“This world is his. But you will never see it, vampire.”
Cade’s arm bent, just a little more.
Bin Laden lunged, jaws wide, ready to latch down on Cade’s neck.
And before Bin Laden could stop himself, Cade’s left hand brought up the grenade and stuffed it in his mouth.
In the same moment, he kicked with both feet and sent Bin Laden flying.
The pin to the grenade stayed where it was, hooked around Cade’s finger.
Bin Laden’s body spun out into the empty air over the chasm. Then he exploded.
Green-black blood painted Cade and the rocks all around him. Bits of scales and skin fell in wet chunks to the ground.
Cade stood and tried not to think of the wasted opportunity. He’d had questions, and they would never be answered now. It was his own fault. His wound had slowed him down. And he’d underestimated his opponent. He’d failed.
Still, there was one small victory. He would be able to tell the president Bin Laden’s death was, in fact, very messy.
ONE
Every culture in the world has a history of serpent people—reptilian or lizardlike humanoid creatures—in its folklore. The Yaqui of Mexico have their Snake Men. The Hopi have the Lizard People. The Chinese had the Dragon Kings. The Greeks had Glycon, a snake god with the head of a man, while the ancient Egyptians had Set, the serpent god. Early Judaism and Christianity put the serpent in the garden on his own two feet, and the Hindus had the Naga, a reptilian race that lived underground and warred with humanity. The Zulu in Africa have legends of a race of lizard people called Chitahuri or Chitauri who secretly rule the world. Nobody knows why this idea is universal across human history, or why snakes are so universally reviled as the source of all evil because of it.
—Cole Daniels,
Monsterpaedia,
entry “Lizard Men”
I
n a better world, Joseph Kitambala would have been asleep in a warm bed with loving parents in the next room.
In this world, he was on his thirtieth hour awake, his eyes nearly closing despite all the brown-brown. He didn’t think he could inhale any more of the noxious mixture of amphetamine and gunpowder without getting sick, but he knew better than to protest when it was offered to him. No one said no to the men of God’s Army.
Joseph’s brother, Daniel, had tried when they came to the village two months before. He stood his ground, chin up, defiant and proud, when they told him to get in line with the others.
A second later, Joseph saw his brother’s head split open as the bullet tore through it.
The soldiers in God’s Army beat him until he stopped screaming. They would not allow him to wipe Daniel’s blood from his face or clothes. The dark brown stains still obscured the Nike swoosh on his T-shirt, a gift from a well-meaning church group overseas.