"Four arms—the Kicker Man."

    "Yes. But their extra limbs were boneless, tentacular, which made them all the more terrifying. What you call the Kicker Man was their symbol. They would draw it in blood wherever they had slaughtered humans—an almost continuous occurrence. They lived to kill and breed, and were prolific at both."

    "How'd you stop them?"

    "As I said, First Age weaponry was primitive, but our life sciences were advanced. The adepts began searching for an infection that would kill q'qr and spare humans. They were half successful: They created an agent that turned out to be deadly only to q'qr females."

    Jack winced at what he saw coming. "With no females around, the q'qr males must have gone after human women."

    "An unforeseen consequence. The males would tear through villages and towns, killing all the men and children and raping the women, hoping for at least some half-breeds to add to their ranks. But only a q'qr female could give birth to q'qr children. The raped women gave birth to human children—at least they looked human. Their mothers' DNA had commingled with the remnants of human DNA in the q'qr, but had quarantined the Otherness-created genes. The children seemed fully human but they carried what came to be known as the Taint. After the q'qr were defeated, the Taints were segregated—given their own land apart from the untainted population."

    "But if they were segregated, how did the Taint spread?"

    "The cataclysm. When its q'qr strategy failed, the Otherness lashed out at humanity, causing global geological and climatological upheavals that wiped out First Age civilization and most of humanity along with it. The surviving humans—pure-blood and Taint alike—huddled together and interbred, and spread out from there."

    Jack shook his head. "This sounds like Velikovsky stuff. I mean, I used to be into anthropology and this goes against all the accepted theories."

    Veilleur seemed unperturbed. "I imagine it does. But that's why it's called the Secret History of the World."

    "Come on. There's gotta be some trace of the First Age somewhere."

    Jack remembered a strange object he'd found in the Pine Barrens as a kid, possibly a leftover from that time. But it had disappeared.

    "I'm sure there is, but not much. The upheavals were colossal and extensive. The Adversary and I barely escaped with our lives—all my fellow paladins perished. So whatever little is left is buried deep." He paused. "And yet… not so deep. Every human religion from the Sumerians to the Babylonians to the Jews has a cleansing cataclysm in its mythology—usually a flood. And even the q'qr live on in a way. Look at Hinduism—arguably the oldest established religion. Its pantheon includes gods like Shiva the Destroyer, Indra the god of lightning, Yama the god of the dead, and the most fearsome of all, Kali the blood queen. And what do they have in common?"

    Jack didn't know Indra and Yama, but had seen pictures of Shiva, and knew Kali all too well. The answer gave him a chill.

    "Four arms."

    "Exactly."

    They sat in silence for a while. Jack didn't know what Veilleur was thinking, but his own thoughts were awhirl. Finally…

    "So we all carry this Taint."

    Veilleur shrugged. "I suppose the laws of probability dictate that some people must be Taint free, but you can't tell by looking at them."

    "Can you think of any purpose for a super-tainted baby?"

    He shook his head. "Not one."

    "Then why did Jonah Stevens—" Jack suddenly remembered something. "Wait… the other night… you seemed to recognize his name."

    "I do. He was the Preparer of the Way for the Adversary's rebirth. And after he was born, Jonah protected him while his mother raised him."

    Jack slapped the table. "Then Ras—I mean the Adversary must be behind the baby."

    Another head shake. "I don't think so. I believe the Adversary murdered Jonah not too long after he'd set his plan in motion."

    "Murdered? I heard it was an accident."

    "Accidents can be arranged. I believe Jonah Stevens had it in his head that his super-tainted offspring could take the Adversary's place. The Adversary found out and eliminated him."

    "Then I guess that now that the baby is on its way, he'll want to eliminate it as well."

    That meant even more competition in the hunt for Dawn Pickering and her unborn child. First Hank and his crew, and now maybe Rasalom as well.

    A teenage girl with no idea what she's carrying, clueless as to all the wheels she's set in motion.

    Dawn—Dawn—Dawn… Where the hell are you?

    "A woman!" cried the Seer. "A woman with child!"

    Toru Akechi chewed his upper lip in worry as he watched the legless, half-naked Seer writhing on the futon. His anxiety stemmed from his elimination of Tadasu yesterday. As one of the Order's sensei, he had great latitude with his charges, but that stopped well short of pronouncing a death sentence. He had done what he had done for the good of the Order, but he had not had the approval of the Elders. No member of the Order could be eliminated without that.

    He worried that the Seer might learn of it and tell the Elders assembled here. As far as Toru knew, the Sighting potion allowed only visions of the future, but still…

    The Seer sat up, swiveling his eyeless face back and forth.

    "A woman with child!" he cried again. "I see her face everywhere, staring back at me. She is important only for the child she carries. Her child, her child, her child… it will change the world. Who controls the child controls the future. The Order must control the child. It must!"

    He loosed a guttural sound as he went through another bout of writhing and thrashing. And then he stopped, looking once again at nothing.

    "The blade! The blade is with the woman! No! It is with her child! I see the child wielding the blade. The blade and child are together now and will be so again in the future. Her child and the katana are linked to the destiny of the world!"

    And then he fainted, falling backward. His head hit the floor with a meaty thunk.

    A pregnant woman whose face was everywhere. Everywhere… a film star? A cover model?

    He and the Elders would divine its meaning and hunt down this woman with child and bring her under the Order's wing.

    Who controls the child controls the future.

    Toru wanted that child for the Order.

    But then the second half of the Seeing: The blade and child are together now and will be so again in the future.

    What else could that mean but that the katana was with the pregnant woman? Find one and they would find the other.

    Her child and the katana are linked to the destiny of the world.

    The future of the Kakureta Kao was linked to the destiny of the world as well.

    He would start the hunt immediately.

    "Takita-san!"

    Hideo looked up and saw Kenji rushing into the room, waving a pink sheet of paper.

    "Look at this!"

    Hideo took the sheet and froze as he recognized the katana in the photo. And then he was out of his seat and in Kenji's face.

    "Where did you get this?"

    "Taped to the front door. They're all over."

    Hideo stared at the sheet. What did it mean?

    Acting on his theory that the owner from Hawaii had hired the ronin to find the katana, Hideo had spent all yesterday searching for an urban mercenary. He'd found mercenaries—plenty of them. They advertised in magazines like Soldier of Fortune and on various Web sites, but none of them fit the profile of the man he was looking for.