“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you, Doctor?” she asked sarcastically.

“Yes.”

Vague, frightening thoughts had started to crowd at the back of Josh’s head. Images of a snake-headed monster wearing a skirt of writhing serpents, leading a monstrous army across the muddy battlefield.

And facing her: the figure of a hooded man who had a hook in place of his left hand, and alongside him, a red-haired pale-skinned female warrior.

“Coat-” he began, but his voice faltered.

Dee stepped forward out of the shadows. “Josh, is everything all right?”

“I’m… I’m not sure,” he said, pressing his hand to his forehead. “I suddenly have a splitting headache. This Coatlicue…” He licked his lips. “What is she like?”

“When she was an Archon, she was considered extraordinarily beautiful,” Dee said carefully. “Why do you ask?”

“I keep thinking about snakes, and I hate snakes, I really do.” Josh pressed both hands to his throbbing head and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d never experienced agony like it before. It felt as if his head were about to explode. Was this a migraine? Even doing something as simple as moving his eyes sent daggers of pain into his skull.

“How bad is the headache?” Dee asked, glancing at Virginia. “Have you any painkillers?”

“I am an Awakened immortal, don’t be ridiculous,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I’ll wager that headache is not natural.”

“Migraine,” Josh whispered. “I’ll have to stop. Can you take over?” he gasped.

“Coatlicue will only deal with whoever calls her,” Dee muttered. He put his hand under Josh’s chin and tilted it up so that he could look into the boy’s eyes. “You can trust me. I am a doctor.” The boy’s eye color had started to change, the red beginning to fade, traces of white and the original blue returning. “Do you suffer from migraines normally?”

“No. Never had one before in my life. Aunt Agnes gets them all the time. But these aren’t normal times, are they?” Josh said through gritted teeth. His stomach had started to turn and he thought he might throw up.

“No, they’re certainly not,” Dee said very softly, looking deep into Josh’s eyes…

Seventy miles away, in Point Reyes, Nicholas and Perenelle reared back as Dee looked directly at them.

Prometheus had pressed both hands onto the crystal skull, which was now pulsing like a giant beating heart. The Elder’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut; his lips moved, and they heard him whisper in a dozen languages, “I can see wonders… and horrors… wonders and horrors.”

Nicholas and Perenelle looked at Dee and watched his lips move. Half a second later, they heard him speak as if he were standing in the same room.

“Josh,” Dee said. “I think I have a cure for your headache. Say goodbye, Nicholas; goodbye, Perenelle,” he directed.