The ocean, huge and churning, the color of a bruise, battered an isolated coastal village. It swamped boats, swept away bridges, leaving devastation in its wake.

“Nothing stands against the power of water…”

A vast wall of water rolled down a modern city street, flooding homes, washing away cars.

Suddenly, Josh was soaring upward, the earth falling away beneath him, and the king’s voice faded to a whisper, like the hiss of surf on sand.

“It was water which brought life to the earth. Water which very nearly destroyed it.”

Josh looked down at the blue planet. This was the world he recognized. He saw the shapes of continents and countries, the sweep of North and South America, the curl of Africa. But then he suddenly realized that there was something wrong with the outlines of the land. They weren’t the way he remembered them from his geography class. They seemed larger, less clearly defined. The Gulf of Mexico looked smaller, the Gulf of California was missing entirely and the Caribbean was definitely smaller. He couldn’t see the distinctive shape of Italy in the Mediterranean, and the islands of Ireland and Britain were one misshapen lump.

And as he watched, the blue of the sea began to seep over the land, drowning it, flooding it…

He fell toward the water, into the blue.

And Gilgamesh blinked and looked away.

And then both twins woke.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Francis, the Comte de Saint-Germain, turned in the driver’s seat to look over his shoulder at Scathach. “And you cannot see it?”

Scathach leaned forward between Saint-Germain and Joan, who was sitting in the passenger seat, and stared through the windshield. Directly in front of her was the ruined facade of the great cathedral of Notre Dame. The world-famous gargoyles and grotesques that had decorated the front of the ancient building now lay in heaped rubble on the parvis. Groups of academics from across France, surrounded by volunteers and students, milled around in front of the cathedral, attempting to put the shattered pieces of stone back together again. All of the larger lumps of stone had little numbered stickers on them.

“What am I looking for?” she asked.

Saint-Germain rested both hands on the steering wheel of the black Renault and raised his sharp chin, pointing it toward the center of the rock-strewn square. “Can you not see a faint golden pillar of light?”

Scathach squinted her grass green eyes, turned her head from side to side, searching, then finally said, “No.”

The count looked at his wife.

“No,” Joan of Arc said.

“It’s there,” Saint-Germain insisted.

“I’ve no doubts about that,” Scathach said quickly. “I just cannot see it.”

“But I can,” Saint-Germain mused aloud. “Now, that’s a mystery,” he said delightedly. “I just assumed everyone could see it.”