Jacob and his mother step back as a third and final head pushes out from the mouth of the second, all three jaws locking in place.

Rotating inside the orifice is a cylinder of energy, a cosmic conduit of space-time, running from the serpent’s outstretched jaws and through its torso, down into the silvery waters of the artificial lagoon.

Hand in hand, Jacob and Dominique step over the bottom rows of teeth, entering the serpent’s mouth.

38

The creature’s jaws close behind them, the third head retracting into the mouth of the second, leaving them in absolute darkness.

And then a white fog appears and Jacob hears the unified thoughts of the Guardian collective.

JACOB, FULFILL YOUR DESTINY.

The fog seems to come alive, shimmering, as it draws in upon itself—

—materializing into a sword.

Jacob grasps the double-edged three-foot-long blade by its hilt. ‘Just like in my dreams.’

Dominique registers a nauseating sensation of something tugging at her internal organs, as if her intestines are being unraveled. She squeezes her eyes shut, as the funnel of energy seems to suddenly suck them forward, though they are not actually moving.

Sensing the light, she reopens her eyes.

The squeamish feeling is gone. They are no longer in the serpent’s mouth.

Jacob and Dominique find themselves standing in an arena, a replica of an ancient Mayan Ball Court. The I-shaped field is covered in a sandy lead gray silicon soil, the long, parallel east and western walls composed of metal plates, giving the complex a gloomy, futuristic industrial effect.

The alien sky is a molten vermilion, obscured by choking charcoal gray clouds, like smoke from a petroleum inferno. As their watering eyes adjust to the tremendous 120-degree Fahrenheit heat, they notice it is not a sky, but a simmering subterranean ceiling, located a good mile overhead.

To their right, situated atop the forty-foot-high eastern wall, twelve feet above the giant steel vertically oriented goal ring, is a small temple. Seated upon a throne that overlooks the playing field is a tall human with elongated head, the leader of Lilith’s band of sadistic killers.

The transhuman’s flesh is covered in gray silicon dust, his face concealed behind the mask of a gaping serpent’s head. A trail of green feathers runs down his broad bare back.

The leader begins chanting in an ancient tongue, his words echoing throughout the steel, silicon-dusty arena.

Jacob turns, detecting movement at the far end of the enclosed ball court. The second mouth of the serpent beckons at the base of the Mayan structure known as the Temple of the Bearded Man.

Moving out from the open mouth and into the arena—a tribe of gray-skinned transhuman warriors.

Unlike the holographic combatants, Jacob knows these beings are quite real, very unpredictable, and far more dangerous. They are tall, each over seven feet, with elongated skulls and well-muscled bodies that exceed 260 pounds.