Mouse had paused the recording and the cultists looked at him expectantly.
"What did it say?" Ice demanded.
How could Parity already have been infected? Realization dawned on Ukiah. "Did Parity handle my son at any point?"
"The nephilim?" Ice looked surprised at the question. "Yeah. It bit him in the leg; he needed stitches. Why?"
"They're planning to possess Parity; he's probably one of them now. Anything he knew, they now know."
Which included everything about him and Kittanning.
"Shit," Link hissed. "At least he was just an initiate."
Ice looked troubled but signaled Mouse to continue the recording.
"Contain breeder," Boston said.
"Current whereabouts of breeder unknown," Buffalo reported. "Aware hosts more dangerous than previously thought."
"They must not be allowed to interfere with the priority project," Boston and Buffalo stated together.
"Returning to confer," Buffalo said, and hung up.
"This was Saturday morning. There haven't been any more phone calls."
"Does Parity know about this place? Sanctuary?"
The cultists looked at each other.
Mouse shook his head. "No. Until the demons hit Pittsburgh, Sanctuary was restricted to inner circle only."
"Ping knows where it is," Ether pointed out.
"She wouldn't talk," Link said.
"She's alone with the demons," Ether said. "She has to be scared shitless. Who knows how long she can hold out?"
"Go check on the fortifications," Ice said wearily. "All of you."
"All?" Mouse squeaked like his namesake.
"Yes, go on," Ice said.
Cultists scurried off to obey him, leaving Ukiah alone with Ice.
Ice sighed. "We got back to Butler to find Eden on fire. I parked across the street and walked through the gardens. Crowds of people had gathered; the entire neighborhood had come to watch the great house burn. I saw themstanding in the crowd, like ravens among mourning doves, only no one seemed to notice them. Like they were blind to the evil beside them. There were bodies sprawled on the grass, covered with white sheets, stained with bright red flowers of blood. I couldn't tell who it was—Core, Ping, Io—but there was nothing I could do but turn and walk away."
Ice fixed his cold stare on Ukiah. "Where were you while it burned?"
"I was flying to Pittsburgh." Ukiah had managed to escape to the nearby Butler Memorial Hospital. The fireball from Eden going up had convinced the staff to fly Ukiah via the Lifeflight helicopter to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. All things considered, it had been a fortunate decision.
Ice's eyes widened slightly at the news. "Oh, demons can't fly—but I guess that's part of being an angel."
Ukiah swallowed down an automatic "I meant by helicopter." It would be best not to shake the cult leader's belief.
Luckily, Ice was cuing up another recorded telephone conversation. "We'll step you backward from Saturday. We want to know what this priority project they're working on is."
"Tell me first, where are the founts?"
Ice stopped what he was doing to give Ukiah another cold look. "Why?"
"The demons created the founts for the sole purpose of wiping out humans." If the Ontongard found the highest order of native life on a planet too difficult to take over, they used the Ae to design a species-specific disease and wiped them out—settling for a less advanced species as a host. Since their own intelligence depended on their host, the Ontongard were reluctant to take such a drastic step. "They were holding them in reserve because they thought their invasion at Buffalo would work. They had been planning for centuries for that day, and until June they thought they would win."
"So why did they wait until September to check on them?"
Why indeed? With the FBI and the cult being new pressures on the Ontongard, why hadn't they acted?
"I don't know," Ukiah admitted. "But the founts are deadly. You can't use them. Don't even try."
"We've identified over a thousand demons, and managed only to kill less than a hundred. They have superhuman strength and speed, and now we learn they have telepathy. They can take massive damage and regenerate. Last Thursday we were fifty people; now we're down to twenty, and we're being hunted by demons that know all our secrets. We need to strike first, and strike hard, or we're not going to survive."
"The founts are too dangerous. You could accidentally kill everything on the planet."
"Core had a saying that truly applies: Would God give us the gift if he didn't mean for us to use it?"
Ukiah stared at him, horrified. "You can't be serious."
"God put Core at the car accident where he learned about the demons. He connected Zip with Core to give us access to the founts. A thousand little connections had to line up just perfect for us to find the founts and learn how to make them work. The chances were billions to one, and yet, we have the founts. Isn't that a miracle enough?"
What was the nature of miracles? Did the happenings have to be impossibilities, or merely extremely unlikely? Certainly it was stunning what the cult had accomplished, from decoding the Ontongard language to making advanced technology work without instructions. Ukiah could not believe, though, that God wanted the destruction of humanity.
"It's too dangerous," Ukiah said again. "You have no idea what you're doing. You're just guessing at this."
"Then help us. Surely God put you into our power so that we can use you."
He opened his mouth to say no, but then remembered that Atticus would play along, gathering information. He considered the computers around him, filled with the cult's databases. The cult didn't seem to realize that the Ontongard had genetic memory with perfect recall. While he had talked with Ice, he also overheard a conversation in the kitchen, and shouted instructions from the cultists outside.
And if he couldn't find the key to stopping the Ae, maybe he could keep the cult from misusing them.
"I am helping you," he said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Temple of New Reason Commune, Sanctuary Island,
Atlantic Ocean
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Ukiah worked through the night, translating and learning about the Ontongard and the cult. The island acted as the cult's ultimate data haven, with high-speed satellite Internet service and IP telephony. The last was a frustrating temptation. The phone sat on the desk beside the monitor he used, but since he didn't know where the island lay, he wasn't sure if calling out would have any point. GPS in regards to phone service was on the crumbling edge of his knowledge of technology. Part of his ignorance came from the fact that he was still fairly new to civilization. The rest was due to his lack of interest, until three months ago when he had received Rennie's memories, in learning all of the bells and whistles life had to offer. He knew land-based phones and cell phones could be traced, but IP telephony? He didn't know. He ached to find out, but the cult never left him alone.
He was dealing with the same type of problem with the translations. While in Oregon, he had noticed that his Pack memories were disintegrating, his "borrowed" memories being crowded out as he grew toward being a full adult. The Ontongard had been guiding technology development in dozens of small high-tech firms across the country, each one building tiny parts to be shipped to Boston to be assembled into something much larger. After the pieces had shipped, the Ontongard were dismantling the companies to keep their secret. But he was at a loss as to what they were building. Either he had never had the knowledge, or it had worn away over the months of hard living and dying.