It is an avenue of the undead, a procession of grunting, moaning, mutilated transhumans, all victims of amputation. Some of the beings lack legs, others arms. A phagelike bacteria festers their skin, slowly, agonizingly eating away at their flesh and bone.

The Nephilim …

As if their existence is not torturous enough, each transhuman has been fitted with a prosthetic orb that radiates in a variety of spectral hues. Reds and yellows, greens, blues, and violets. If there is a code behind the specific colors, Dominique cannot discern it.

Maneuvering around these pitiful beings, she makes her way to the front of the rank, the sounds of the gong growing louder.

The avenue opens to a congested gathering place along the lake’s shoreline. Thousands of taller, more gangly bipeds push forward to join the mob. They are dressed in heavy soot-covered robes, their elongated skulls tucked inside hoods. Exposed flesh has long disappeared beneath adhering layers of mouse gray silicon, giving their faces a heavily pruned appearance. Neanderthal-like brows protect dark, deeply set eyes. Noses and surrounding cartilage are missing, leaving behind only open nasal passages. Lipless mouths remain slack-jawed, exposing teeth caked with atmospheric dust and film.

Like cattle, the Nephilim push and prod each other, inching their way closer to the lake, following its shoreline to some unknown destination.

Avoiding the throng, Dominique hides behind the collapsed remains of a rectangular dwelling. She looks around nervously, taking in her surroundings, while the baritone gong continues to toll its bone-throbbing call.

The lake’s silvery surface sparkles crimson, reflecting the emberlike ceiling overhead. But it is the towering object situated across the lake that now occupies Dominique’s attention.

It is a statue … a statue of a monstrous humanoid. The face is demonic and frightening, highlighted by a wide, fanged mouth and aquiline nose. Huge goat horns, polished and ebony, are perched atop the being’s elongated, pointed skull. Batlike wings, enormous and clawed at the tips, fold in behind the naked upper torso like a shawl. The icon’s lower body is shaped like a goat’s hindquarters, the long tail ending in a spike.

Dominique stares at the statue, transfixed. It’s Lucifer. They’re worshiping the Devil.

The statue casts an ominous shadow across the lake, its satanic gaze reflecting scarlet flames from the Underworld ceiling, the glowing embers twisting the mouth into an evil grin.

The bells stop tolling.

Dominique hurries to another dwelling, seeking a better view.

And now she sees where the Nephilim procession has assembled.

Along the far shoreline is an immense calabash tree, as old as time, as large as an African baobab. Its knotted, twisted trunk and bare branches are alabaster white, its spongy bark secretes a saplike ivory mucus.

At the base of the redwood-sized trunk stands a figure.

Lilith.

The Hunahpu queen is wearing a vermilion monk’s robe, her hairless elongated skull and its bizarre jaguar tattoo concealed beneath the heavy hood.