In those foreign lands she’d faced certain death and survived. Here, she faced the possibility of shifting the tectonic plates of violence that had controlled the world ever since man realized he had a thirst for blood.

To get herself to understand them, she’d put herself in the mental state to join them. She needed to immerse herself in that danger, and knew she wouldn’t survive in their world without it. She knew this daring, this baring was the reason she’d been trusted, why people were willing to tell her their secrets. It was in her bones, this availability to live in darkness. She’d sustained living in darkness, and at the same time trusted she’d recover when it was time to leave. But she didn’t want to recover from this. They were at the center of a huge possibility.

In the beginning of her career she’d questioned the sanity of wanting to know evil, to be in it in order to know it. But every experience, every word she wrote, infused her with the insatiable need to know more.

She saw the three men looking at her.

“Can we do this?” she asked.

“There’s a secret network being formed throughout the Middle East that believes as we do here,” the imam answered.

He spoke of how Issa had once lived among the mujahideen. He’d believed what they’d believed. And he realized it was misguided. He was not the only one who saw this, and began to talk to those kindred spirits of another way.

“He had tapped into their souls,” the imam said. “But for some, that was too terrifying, and they wanted to destroy him. So, to keep him safe, I said he’d gone insane.”

“You’ve believed as your brother has for a long time?” Nazir asked.

“Yes. He opened me to many things. But I resisted. What happened to him wasn’t so different than what happened to you in the warehouse.”

“Religion is supposed to heal, instead it has made a world of enemies,” Hashim said.

Dominique laid a piece of cuneiform on the table.

The imam picked up the stone.

Dominique watched, as his eyes seemed to read the text carved into it. He seemed to understand the words.

“Is this from the tablet?” the imam asked.

“No. The tablet is in the catacombs under the warehouse. These stones are the path to it.”

“This one speaks of an elevation where souls will meet,” the imam said.

“And I believe many will be gathered to that elevation,” Hashim added. “But now, we must dig for the sorrow under the hate. Sorrow that has been masked by the tales of which we’ve been convinced—that power is all that matters. We’ve turned it into a virus, and haven’t been able to sustain anything but the violence. What we have cultivated is meant to spread spiritual dread.”