The ego breakdown Chaban was seeking—he would have to start over from square one. She had gained the upper hand, a minor victory that was growing with each moment of rage he expressed.

  But more than that, she had gained the one thing the process was designed to eliminate.

  Agency.

  She realized Chaban was going to get his wish. He was going to try his process on an entirely new creature—one that the process might just fail to convert.

  Despite zero evidence of hope, she was still fighting. Not only that—the crazy bitch was winning.

  Chaban hauled off and punched her again, willing her to drop the smile. This punch hit her right in her broken nose. She screamed out. But while it was a scream of pain, Jane could tell it was also a scream of triumph.

  She was egging him on, willing him to continue. Because for every moment he continued, the process—the true danger—was kept at bay.

  More than that, it was being reversed in real time.

  Finally, Jane felt she had to do something. “Chaban!”

  Chaban held his bloodied fist over his head, coiled and prepared to strike again. He glared back at Jane, incensed that she would break protocol, not even thinking about how badly his actions were doing the same.

  Jane looked at him with imploring eyes and said just two words, “She’s winning.”

  Chaban’s fist fell.

  His rage fell with it, replaced by a sense of dread and awe he had long since forgotten. Dread that Jane was one hundred percent right.

  Jane was right. Tempest was winning.

  Chaban held out his hand, the bloody stump of his finger dripping. Jane rushed in and redressed the wound.

  Chaban looked at Tempest, amazement in his eyes. He slowed his breathing and brought himself back to a state where he could do the work that was required.

  “Well played, Tempest MacLaren. Well played. Let’s—let’s begin again.”

  CHAPTER 67

  Chaucer put a blanket over Ahmad as he closed the trunk over him. The man had third-degree burns on his back. Small strips where the skin would require grafting. Chaucer realized this was the worst physical condition he had left one of his subjects in, possibly ever. But he had the answer to all his questions.

  Chaucer got back into the police car. He pulled out from the shed, up the sand-covered access road, and out to the two-lane highway. It was only five miles back to Pumping Station 313.

  He knew the sign would be deceptive. Pumping Station 313 was not a single building, but rather a complex of low-lying outbuildings, perhaps ten in all. The only one of interest to him was the one with the white roof.

  He sped up further down the access road, checking Ahmad’s pistol, strapping himself in, and preparing for battle. He rounded a hill and saw the complex of buildings. Eight in all. But nothing with a white roof.

  Had he been lied to?

  A moment later, he finished taking the curve and saw the ninth building. The one with the white roof. Standing between him and it were two more Kuwaiti police officers. He knew them to be like the man in his trunk—zombies, fanatically loyal to Chaban.

  Chaucer lowered his head to the level of the steering wheel. He didn’t accelerate. He did nothing to draw more attention than was necessary. The officers in front bit. After all, they were expecting this car. They were expecting Ahmad, bringing the prize home to Chaban.

  When the car was fifty yards away, one officer got that questioning look on his face—the look that said something is not quite right here. At twenty yards, he alerted his buddy.

  Chaucer mashed on the gas as the two men went for their pistols and separated. Chaucer flicked the wheel to the right, slamming on the brakes, and the car fishtailed wildly on the sandy ground. It spun completely sideways, with the front end slamming into one of the officers, and the rear fishtailing out and crushing the other.

  Chaucer heard nothing from them after that.

  Chaucer glanced around quickly in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree arc. He saw no other sentries. Nobody else between him and the building with the white roof.

  Frankly, he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  He left the car where it was and proceeded the rest of the way on foot. He collected the pistol from one of the downed officers. This one was just plain dead.

  Chaucer put the pistol in his front waistband. Then he picked up the case containing the Red Serpent, and set off for the building with the white roof.

  CHAPTER 68

  Tempest screamed in total agony as Chaban mashed the return key on his computer. Electrodes up and down Tempest’s back sparked ever so slightly as they delivered maximum voltage to her most vulnerable nerves.

  She danced for him.

  It was a jerky movement, like a marionette in the hands of a toddler. Her restraints nearly broke her wrists as her arms tried to force themselves up and into motion. Her legs threw her body to the edge of its own restraints.

  Chaban released the key, and the voltage ceased.

  Tempest had no grin anymore. No look of derision. No sign of any fight whatsoever.

  In fact, she moaned.

  The moan was not a good sign for Chaban. It confirmed his worst fears. She was nowhere near capitulation. She was still experiencing pain, still processing it. She should have been well past that point by now. She should have been deep in the well of capitulation and ego destruction.

  The worst part was, he knew it was his own damn fault.

  He glanced at the timer on the computer, then looked back at Martell. “Where is our man from the airport? Go check. He should be here now.”

  Martell nodded and left the room.

  Chaban turned his attention back to Tempest, lowering his head so he could look into her eyes.

  “I want to thank you. I fear sometimes that I’m becoming like Po. Dispassionate. Clinical. But not here. Not with you. You’re helping me find my anchor again.”

  A part of him wished Tempest would retort, if only so he could keep on feeling this way. But the last round of shocks had numbed her response.

  Another ten minutes, and he would push her over a cliff from which she would never recover.

  Martell stepped out of the room and into a narrow, dark hallway. At the end of the hall was an outline of blinding white light at the edges of a door to the outside.

  Martell thought what a relief it was to leave that room. He had been with the Venture for years, and with Chaban for the last three. He had seen this many times. And yet it remained a raw nerve for him, an experience deeply unsettling.

  Martell was not a man who liked to think of his own fragility or his own mortality. And whether you were sitting in the chair or standing in the corner, those were the realities that room stripped humans down to.

  Martell squinted, preparing for the onslaught of bright white desert light as he pushed the door open.

  As he did, he was surprised to see that it wasn’t quite as bright as he had thought.

  A shadow fell over him.

  As his eyes adjusted, he saw Chaucer’s face.

  He reached for his weapon, but he was too late. Chaucer smashed his pistol into the bridge of the man’s nose, and Martell went down.

  CHAPTER 69

  Jane heard a clatter outside. Chaban was in the zone, entirely focused on Tempest. He noticed nothing, but Jane’s instincts fired off.

  She left her corner of the room and headed for the hallway door. Something told her not to walk into the hallway, so she pushed the door open, staying to one side.

  Three shots rang out, piercing the door.

  Jane held her weapon ready.

  Chaban was shocked by the gunshots and took his attention away from Tempest. A faint smile appeared on Tempest’s face. “He’s coming, Chaban,” she whispered.

  Chaban asked, “How many?”

  Jane shrugged. No idea. She simply felt that something wasn’t right. It could be Chaucer out there. It could be a dozen Praxis agents. No way to tell.

  Tempest spoke louder, “He’s coming for you, Chaban. You spent a year in the cave. He lived there for eight years. You have no idea how much stronger he is.”

  Chaban grew unnerved. He changed the program on his computer to maximum intensity. The intention and effect were simple. It would kill her. Thirty seconds of the most intense pain any human being had ever experienced, which would shut down her nervous system and stop her heart.

  Jane got low, popped her head into the hallway, and opened fire with a narrow volley of three rounds. As she pulled her head back, three return shots erupted, one of which grazed her scalp.

  She looked back at Chaban and raised a single finger. One shooter.

  Chaban relaxed. Two on one. He liked those odds.

  Jane went back around the corner again to focus fire on Chaucer’s location, only to feel the muzzle of a gun against her head.

  Chaucer was there, six inches from her face.

  Bang went his gun.

  Jane’s head exploded back as she fell backwards into the room.

  Chaban felt the shock. He stared at the door, the sliver of dark hallway beyond it. He couldn’t see Chaucer, but he knew he was there.

  Chaban looked for his own weapon, but it wasn’t anywhere near him. Instead, he held his trembling finger over the return key. “Chaucer! Listen to me! I press this one key: she dies. In utter, heart-stopping agony!”

  Chaucer stood up against the wall in the hallway. Chaban wanted a response—any response—from him.

  Chaucer wasn’t about to give him what he wanted. He remained silent, waiting for Chaban to further unravel.

  “The funny thing is, I want to press the button. Then there will be three people who know what it’s like. They’ll know what it’s like to be ripped from the inside out. To be destroyed. To be shown what we really are. No God. No miracles. Just fragile little animals that somehow convinced themselves they were something more.”

  Silence filled the room. Chaban’s sweat dropped onto the keyboard.

  Chaban yelled, “Are you coming into the room now, or do I press the button?!”

  A moment later, Chaucer stepped into the room, gun aimed at Chaban’s head.

  “You know how this has to go. Gun on the ground. Then kick it over to me.”

  Chaucer barely regarded Chaban. His eyes went over Tempest with an interrogator’s eye for detail. Chaucer knew she was in a bad way, but far, far better than he had been imagining.

  Chaucer said, “If I give you the gun, you’ll kill us both.”

  Chaban took a deep breath. “No. No. I told you, if you brought me the Red Serpent, she would live.”

  “And me?”

  “I never wanted to kill you, Chaucer. We are the only two people who understand⁠—”

  Chaucer stared dead in his eyes. “We’re nothing alike. I’ve got more in common with Betsy Clark that I have with you.”

  Chaban’s lip curled into a snarl. “That’s a lie. You really are out of practice, Chaucer. Your lies are child’s play to spot. The gun. Now!”

  Chaucer exhaled, long and slow. He dropped the gun and kicked it over to Chaban.

  Chaban picked it up, checking that the safety was indeed off. He moved his left hand away from the keyboard. “Admit it. We’re like brothers.”

  Chaucer let out a bitter laugh. “You’re broken. You’re a sadist who’s too deluded to see how broken you truly are. If you think we’re anything alike, it just shows how divorced from reality you’ve become.”

  Chaban felt the words hit him. He couldn’t believe it. Their power. It was almost as though Chaucer shot him for real. Chaban felt the rage build.

  “Alone it is, then.”

  Chaban aimed the pistol at Chaucer’s head and pulled the trigger.

  A small explosion sent shards of the gunmetal ripping through the air. Chaban’s hand was vaporized, and the hammer shot backwards, punching a neat hole through Chaban’s skull.

  The man fell to the sandy ground, dead.

  Tempest turned her head sideways to see Chaucer. She was too weak to do anything else. “Sneaky bastard.”

  Chaucer smiled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  He stepped back into the hallway and retrieved the stainless steel case containing the Red Serpent. It was open, as was the vial of the substance.

  Tempest’s eyes went wide. “Chaucer, what have you done?!”

  “Gun oil is a petroleum product. I figured it was the only way.”

  Tempest smiled, “Atta boy.”

  CHAPTER 70

  The Kuwaiti army sealed off Pumping Station 313. Ten hours later, a World Health Organization rapid response team began construction of the world’s largest hyperbaric oxygen chamber, one that spanned the entire building with the white roof and the three closest adjoining buildings.

  All other buildings in the complex, and the pumping station itself, were analyzed for possible exposure. All came up clean.

  Every element used in the process was meticulously checked for any plastic/petroleum-based elements. In many cases, ancient equipment from the 1950s needed to be sourced.

  Normal hyperbaric chambers operate at two to three atmospheres of pressure. This one was pressurized to five atmospheres of pure oxygen.

  Chaucer and Tempest felt high as kites.

  They remained this way for four days, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that came through an airlock in brown paper bags.

  It was the best recovery-slash-therapy Tempest could have wished for.

  It was the best vacation the two of them had ever had together.

  On the morning of day five, the oxygen was filtered out and checked no fewer than eight times, looking for a single molecule of the Red Serpent. None remained.

  The vial, the case, their clothes, and every cinderblock of the white roofed building were incinerated in an industrial furnace.

  Only then did Henry Jefferson breathe easier.

  A week later, Jefferson paced back and forth. Chaucer sat in the same chair he had occupied a month ago in Jefferson’s floating black site. He wasn’t cuffed or restrained, but Chaucer knew he wasn’t exactly here of his own free will either.

  He said, “You caused a lot of collateral damage.”

  Chaucer turned his head, his steady gaze lifting to Jefferson. “I made no secret of my allegiances. I had to make a play for her.”

  “You had to make a play for her?” Jefferson snapped. “What the hell do you think this is? Not only did you get my people killed, but you got the two pilots killed too. They’re not mine. They’re Agency. They have video⁠—”

  Chaucer nodded. “You wouldn’t be who you are if you couldn’t make video go away.”

  “The Agency already knows. I can make the video go away for everybody in the world but them. But they want your head on a stick.”

  “Disavowal?”

  Jefferson shrugged slightly. “What does disavowal mean from an organization that doesn’t even exist?”

  Chaucer shifted in his seat. “I want you to know—I didn’t want any of them to die. I had no idea the police officer was one of Chaban’s zombies.”

  Jefferson stopped pacing. He sat down in front of Chaucer.

  “We work in a world of shadows. Those shadows have just gotten much darker. I wanted to bring you in. To make you a part of Praxis.”

  Chaucer nodded.

  “But,” Jefferson continued, “I also need Agency resources to go after the Venture. They are far more dangerous than we had conceived. And the Agency? They’ve made it clear—it’s you or them.”

  Chaucer shrugged. “Sounds like you’ve made your choice. How are you going to do this? Fifteen-minute head start?”

  Jefferson smirked. “Nothing so dramatic. I went to bat for you. Plus, you’re the damn Oracle. The CIA has put you on their shit list. Nothing more. But it does mean Praxis can’t take you on.”

  Chaucer nodded. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be a part of Praxis anyway, so this wasn’t the crushing blow Jefferson seemed to think he was delivering. “What about Tempest?”

  “She’s being treated. In our facility. That is one tough woman. They think she’ll make a full recovery in a couple of weeks.”

  Chaucer smiled softly. “Do yourselves a favor. Do not give her a psych test. She’ll haunt some poor psychologist’s dreams.”

  Jefferson sighed. “Sorry it has to be this way, Chaucer.”

  “I’m not. I’m sorry good people had to die. But if I wasn’t ready to live with my choices, I wouldn’t have made them.”

  Jefferson nodded. “Anywhere you’d like us to drop you?”

  Chaucer thought about that a moment. “You know, I barely got that beach vacation you promised me.”

  Malcolm Chaucer returns in the novella…

  YEAR OF THE SHEEP

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  ALSO BY T.D. DONNELLY

  Year of the Rabbit

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One of the wonderful things about being a novelist is discovering how many people want to help you. I’ve been overwhelmed by talented people helping to make this book what you now hold in your hands. Believe me when I say it would be quite a different novel without their assistance.

  I want to thank Nancy Finch for her detailed editing, Rebecca Millar for her wonderful formatting, and a special thank you to Kathleen Smith, Tom Gould, Bryan Baldridge, Michelle Slater and Nicole Sahar for their eagle-eyed proofreading. And, as always, my thanks to my beta readers and ARC team for helping this book become a reality.

  I would also love to thank the many readers who have seen fit to review these books on Amazon and Goodreads. As many of you know, this is crucial in the battle to get these stories in the hands of those who will likely love them. Thank you, thank you, thank you for reviewing!