.

utilizing Annunaki technology,” Brigid said.

      “Nanites?” Fargo asked.

      “Molecule-scale machines capable of deconstructing and reorganizing matter,” Brigid explained.

      When the look on Fargo’s face betrayed his level of comprehension, Grant laughed. “Really tiny robots that can change an old man into a young guy, or a normal person into one of your cobra freaks.”

      “Thanks,” Fargo muttered.

      “I know how tough it is, listening to Brigid explain things for the first time,” Grant added.

      “Grant and I jockeyed to get first crack at science books when we arrived,” Kane said. “Understanding the basics really helps.”

      “Do you two mind?” Brigid asked. “Besides, I thought you didn’t trust him.”

      “We don’t,” Grant said. “We don’t like or trust the murderous little prick.”

      Kane nodded. “But, like you sympathized with Erica, we can sympathize with him.”

      Lakesh sighed loudly, wishing to return to Fargo’s story about his serpentine adversaries. “The snake men seem to correlate with mythologies that extend back at least three millennia. Though the name ‘Nagah’ is localized to the Indian subcontinent.”

      “If you read between the lines, however, there are beings like mer-people, Lamia, even gods such as the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Snakelike humans are not a unique mythology,” Brigid interjected. “As well, Lord Strongbow had modified his troops with reptilian aspects, obviously inspired by ancient creatures such as the Formorians.”

      “Durga mentioned Strongbow’s people,” Fargo said. “How they utilized an inefficient form of transformation.”

      Brigid tilted her head. “The Tuatha de Danaan and the Annunaki entered a truce and combined their technologies. However, one of the regions where they engaged in fiercest conflict was the British Isles. Perhaps the Formorians were these serpentine humans.”

      “I thought that was a leftover memory of when the snake faces and the Tuatha were at war,” Kane said.

      “Perhaps,” Brigid said. “There is also a disturbing similarity between the reptilians that Fargo describes and the Nephilim that the Quad V hybrids evolved into.”

      Domi raised her hand and both Brigid and Lakesh looked at her. “Brigid, you were helping me do some research on reptilian humanoids, after we’d encountered the Hydrae mutants in Greece. There was someone…Yuck…”

      “Icke. David Icke,” Brigid replied. “It popped into my mind, as well.”

      Lakesh rolled his eyes. “I was around when he posited some of his ideas.”

      Brigid nodded. “Icke’s theories were odd, but they may have had actual scientific basis. He theorized that there were shape-shifting but basically reptilian creatures who secretly ruled the world in the twentieth century. They were purported to have had limited shape-shifting abilities, but his position that many world leaders were actually nonhumans strained credulity. This, of course, diverges from the traditional mythological texts where these creatures were not shape changers. As well, the Nagah were not an antagonistic race. They lived in a subterannean realm beneath India. There were also hints that the Nagah originated on another continent.”

      “Like Lemuria or Atlantis,” Kane suggested.

      “You’ve been taking notes,” Brigid complimented him. “Which brings our friend’s comparison to Lord Strongbow’s troops full circle.”

      “So, the Nagah were not shape-shifters?” Fargo asked.

      “Unlikely,” Brigid answered. “Even Icke’s contemporary John Rhodes stated that such accusations of saurian humanoids were unfounded paranoia. The ‘reptoids’ of Rhodes’s description were, like the Indian Nagah, subterranean, but with origins in the era of the dinosaurs.”

      Fargo squeezed his brow. “That’s a lot to bite off in one session, and I saw the fucking things.”

      The archaeologist glanced at Kane. “So, are you going to go to India?”

      “Yes,” Lakesh spoke up. “I want to come, as well. I proved I can handle myself in the field, with our last journey to India, and the sortie into China.”

      “You’re not making me sit it out like you did in China,” Domi said curtly.

      “Darlingest one, it’s too dangerous,” Lakesh countered. The slap across his cheek wasn’t entirely unexpected. Lakesh, having seen Domi in conflict, knew that she pulled her punch, because his head wasn’t swimming and he was still on his feet. Her ruby-red eyes glowed angrily in the interrogation room.

      “I’m perfectly fine with danger. It’s my job. Besides, you’re too important to risk without having someone specifically looking out for you. Kane and the others will be too busy to babysit you, keep their eyes on Fargo and deal with high-tech snakes at the same time,” Domi told him.

      Lakesh nodded. “I forget. You’re not some fragile flower.”

      “And it’s not like I can tell you not to go, because you speak the language,” Domi added. “So, I’m coming along. No bullying this time.”

      “Fine,” Lakesh said.

      He turned to Sela. “You and the other away team members can handle things here?”

      “Absolutely, boss,” Sela replied. “Just don’t forget to bring me something back as a souvenir.”

      “What were you thinking about?” Fargo asked, slipping back into the role of seducer.

      “How about your balls if you betray my people?” Sela asked.

      Fargo glanced at Kane.

      “Sympathy or no, if the consortium shows up to this party, you’ll be the first one to catch a bullet,” Kane told him.

      Fargo didn’t doubt the Cerberus warrior.

      Chapter 5

      The crystal-clear water of the underground pool slid off the shimmering blue-green scales of the naked serpent woman as she walked up the slope of the beach. She climbed past the water’s edge on long, sinewy legs. The serpentess ran slender, deceptively delicate fingers down her body, wiping away droplets that clung to her curvaceous form. A sarong of flowered blue silk lay in a puddle on a flat rock that she used as a table, and she picked it up once she had assured herself that her scaled flesh had been brushed clean, no dewy droplets remaining to mar the simple wrap. The cloth snugged around her sleek, full hips, covering her from her vestigal navel down to just above her knees. With a deft fold, she looped a ribbon-like strap around her neck, covering her breasts, a throwback to her mammalian hybrid heritage. The wrap obscured her nearly invisible nipples in the center of each glimmering orb. The women of the Nagah, entitled Nagani, betrayed their half-human heritage, possessing the curves reminiscent of human female anatomy, and as such, had developed a need for concealing those differences from their male counterparts.

      “Hannah, my queen, my apologies,” the voice of her bodyguard echoed to her. The echo of his words bounced from the cavernous tunnel to the subterranean lagoon. “May this unworthy servant enter thy glorious presence?”

      Naji Hannah finished tucking her sarong down. “Come in, Manticor. There is nothing unworthy about you. And I am not queen yet.”

      The bodyguard strode into view. He was six and a half feet tall, lithe limbs resembling thick cords of steel cable, having a silvery burnish as they ran down from copper-brown shoulders. Manticor, like all Nagah men, was naked from the waist up, clad only in pants from his hips to his knees. The tough chest plates that rolled down his torso were the same hard, sandy shells that protected the soles of his feet, surer protection and traction than any hand-cobbled footwear. Like many of the Nagah, his toes had fused together, giving