The lining of the serpent’s throat radiates an emerald green hue as it slowly morphs into a rotating funnel of energy.

Father and son link minds, summoning Lilith, whose hideous presence reappears along the periphery of the mist.

I love you, Father.

I love you too, son. Now go.

Jacob’s mind slips out of the nexus.

Michael Gabriel turns to face his eternal enemy. It’s you and me now, cousin. My son has given me his strength … and I promise you that none of those who were born in the light, begotten in the light, will ever be yours!

Jacob opens his eyes.

He is lying on his back, the binding roots of the calabash tree having loosened around his neck and limbs. He pulls himself out from under the thick bonds and sits up, transfixed by the unearthly emerald light pouring out of the fifth-dimensional pit.

The porous ground oozes as Devlin’s followers dance and jump along the shoreline.

Rising out of the orifice, dripping globs of silvery ooze, is Devlin’s demonic biped, the one he has fought countless times in the holograph suite, the one who has tortured him in his childhood dreams. Powerful limbs, heavily segmented and smooth, propel its angular, heavily muscled body across the lake’s receding waters.

Devlin greets the sentry his own subconscious mind has created, directing it to the calabash tree. ‘Slay them. Slay them all!’

The silicon demon trudges up onshore, its powerful segmented arms lashing out, its scalpel-like fingers slicing limbs and torsos of the scattering Nephilim.

The ash-coated beings cry out, blue-tinted plasma gushing from their wounds. Panicking, the throng pushes one another aside, desperate to move out of harm’s way.

‘Jake!’ Dominique rushes over, handing him the sword. ‘Are you all right? Where’s Mick?’

‘Guarding the nexus.’ For the first time in fourteen years, he embraces her tightly. ‘I love you, Mom. I’m so sorry. All these years … I never showed you the love you gave me.’

‘Shh … I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’ Tears stream from his eyes. ‘Stay back … stay close to the tree.’

‘Jake, what are you going to do?’

‘Fulfill my destiny.’

Dominique starts to say something, then gags, the noxious fumes of Devlin’s sentry causing her mucous membranes to sizzle. She cowers behind the alabaster tree, pressing the seal of her nostril hoses tighter.

The demon faces Jacob, its two pupilless eyes blazing burned yellow, staring right through him. The cruel slit seems to smile as if in triumph, allowing a black goo to dribble from its anthropomorphic mouth.

The being’s poison-tipped sickle-shaped claws slice the air, warning Jacob away from the calabash tree. Jacob tightens his grip on the sword.

Suddenly a gray blur—moving at him with unfathomable quickness—as the creature launches its attack.