Somehow Luke managed to reach out and catch himself against the wall before he toppled to the floor.

Olivia gasped and jumped forward. He knew her hand was on his arm, but he could barely feel it.

Or barely hear her voice as she asked anxiously, “Luke? Luke, what happened?”

He wasn’t able to answer her. He was too busy fighting the dizzy feeling, the pain and the knowledge that it was all coming from within himself.

Stop! he screamed as iron bands circled his body, like a boa constrictor cutting off his air.

He would have asked if the Big Z was planning to kill himself. But he was beyond questions.

Finally, when he was going down for the count, the pressure eased, and he took a cautious breath. It hurt, but not so much. Exerting the barest pressure, he let the air trickle out of his lungs.

“Luke? I’m going to call 911 if you can’t answer me.”

“Don’t,” he gasped out, then closed his eyes, praying for strength.

She knelt beside him. “What happened to you?”

He summoned enough breath to say, “Zabastian’s angry with me.”

She swore as she stared at him.

“Zabastian? I . . . I don’t understand.”

“He’s angry . . . because I wasn’t . . . going straight to the computer.”

Her eyes narrowed as she kept her gaze on his face. And when she spoke, it was a warning to the warrior. “Zabastian, don’t you ever do that to Luke again. He was trying to talk to me. You can’t just control the two of us.”

He heard his own voice grow more firm as Zabastian answered Olivia. “Getting the box back to its rightful owners is more important than your relationship.”

“To you.”

“To the world,” the warrior bit out.

She scowled at him.

“I must do this job or die trying. Step out of my way.”

“If you die, you won’t be able to do it!” she shouted.

Luke felt Zabastian absorb that assessment. Maybe it would give the warrior a better grasp on reality.

Olivia kept her eyes on him as she stepped aside so that he could continue toward the home office.

He walked slowly, carefully, like he was suddenly a hundred years old.

What the hell did you do to me?

I squeezed your lungs.

And it doesn’t hurt you?

Of course it does. But I have the discipline to withstand it, the warrior’s voice rang haughtily inside Luke’s head. And I applied only enough pressure to cause pain—not permanent damage.

Thanks a bunch.

Luke wished he could sock the smug bastard in the jaw. Only he’d be socking himself.

Instead he had to settle for words.

Nice. So this is how you make sure the man you possess does your bidding? Punishment if he doesn’t follow your orders?

I was hoping you would see the wisdom of the primary mission.

Luke made a rough sound. The primary mission. You’re the one who took the time to make love with Olivia.

To control her.

Monkey balls! You wanted her as much as I did. And you didn’t have to spend any extra time lying in that cave with her curled up in your arms.

Zabastian cursed. The words were not in English, but Luke understood them as well as his native language.

That’s very creative. Can you really do that with a temple rat?

Get to the computer.

Luke pressed his shoulder against the wall, his breath still shallow as he walked down the hall. He was aware that Olivia was right behind him, but he didn’t spare the breath to speak to her. Zabastian had hurt him. Would he hurt her too if she tried to interfere?

I would not hurt her, the warrior answered inside his head.

And I’m supposed to trust you?

I do not lie.

Luke firmed his lips. There was no use arguing with the big Z. He’d help the bastard find the Moon Priests, and that would be the end of it.

The end of it?

A little seed of doubt flickered inside his head. He’d thought he caught something way below the surface of the warrior’s thoughts.

But it evaporated as they kept walking to the end of the hall where Ginny and Tom’s home office was located.

Sitting down, he booted the machine, then waited while it went through its start-up routine.

It takes a long time.

Yeah.

They are rich. They should have a faster machine.

Shut up. You don’t know a damn thing about it. The more features it has, the more stuff it has to check before it’s ready to go.

Finally, the picture of a glorious sunrise came up, and Luke used one of the desktop icons to get into the Internet.

Now what?

I must open my mind to the machine.

Luke snorted.

“What?” Olivia asked.

“He’s going to use his mind to commune with the machine.”

He could hear Olivia make some kind of comment, something that was better not to examine too closely.

The warrior ignored her. Luke could feel the man’s concentration focusing as he stroked his fingers lightly over the keyboard, and Luke felt him connecting with the computer in a way that should have been impossible. It was like he was sending his mind into the chips that ran the processor—and from there into the World Wide Web, the vast network of electronic information accessible from computers around the world.

Luke was an expert at searching the Web. But that was when he knew what he was looking for. In this case, he was sure that putting “Moon Priests” into a search engine wouldn’t get him very far.

Olivia stood behind Luke, silently watching.

With no other option, he surrendered to the warrior, letting him use Luke’s skill in ways he hadn’t known existed, sorting through information with superhuman speed, probing and rejecting. As he worked, he felt the warrior’s awe at the new technology as well as his skill.

This is amazing. This connection to the world. It is hard to hide anything.

Luke laughed inwardly. Yeah. It’s an advantage, but it can also be a curse. Newscasters across the country may take their focus off a war and zero in on a local murder.

But from this machine, you can find out anything. You just have to choose. The warrior spoke inside Luke’s head, even as he kept searching.

Almost anything. Where did you learn to work with it?

From you, the warrior answered.

You’re doing things I can’t.

Zabastian gave an inward shrug. You could, if you had learned the mental discipline I studied. It doesn’t matter how I do it. The important thing is the doing.

Luke felt like he was in the backseat of a speeding truck, with no control over where they were going. And knowing they might crash at any minute. He was pretty sure that too much of this high speed searching might give him a stroke. But he prayed it would be over soon and hung on as best he could.

The warrior paused at a Web site on “Crystal Children.”

What’s that? Luke asked as he scanned a few paragraphs.

The site seemed to be describing special children born in the past few generations. Children who could change the world because their abilities were beyond those of ordinary men and women.

It is very interesting. Perhaps you are one of them.

Me? How?

We do not have time for it now, the warrior said, and they sped on again.

Finally another Web address leaped into Luke’s consciousness, and he typed it into the browser.

The screen blacked out as though the address were going to turn off the computer or try to send a virus.

He started to curse. Then the screen brightened again as a message came up.

“This site is password protected. Entrance is only for subscribers.”

Now what? Luke asked.

oOo

A van pulled up in front of Olivia’s apartment. The name on the side advertised a local cleaning service. A man in gray coveralls got out, carrying some cases with equipment. He checked the address, then walked around the side of the building.

But he stopped short when he saw the broken sliding glass door. Most of the small safety glass pellets had already dropped to the ground. But a few more tinkled to the cement patio as he spoke into an almost invisible microphone clipped to the lapel of his coveralls.

“There’s been a break-in here,” Brand Marshall said to Frank Decorah, who was waiting in the van.

Since talking to Beth, he and Frank had accessed the tapes of the shoot-out in the garage.

The action had been riveting. And it was clear that only Luke’s quick thinking and Olivia’s bravery had gotten them out alive. Frank had assumed that Luke wouldn’t have allowed Olivia to go home after the attack. But he’d wanted to check out her apartment for clues.

“It’s likely the same guys,” Brand said. “Do I go in?”

“With caution.”

Brand opened his toolkit and gloved up. Before stepping through the door, he pulled out the sidearm stashed in one of the deep pockets of his coveralls and held the weapon in a two-handed grip.

The place was a mess. Somebody had pulled out drawers, turned over furniture and yanked books from the shelves and left them in a pile on the floor. The refrigerator and freezer stood open. And a bottle of catsup lay in a pool of red goo in the middle of the floor.

Brand made a rough sound and reported to Frank through the mike he was wearing. “Someone wanted to trash this place. After making a royal mess with her belongings, they poured catsup all over the floor.”

“I’m betting they didn’t find the box,” Frank answered. “I think they spilled the catsup out of frustration. And they’re long gone.”

Brand proceeded through the apartment, finding every room had been savaged.

In the bedroom, clothes from the closet littered the floor. And shoes were scattered on top of them.

Brand was in the bathroom, looking at the medications dumped into the tub, when Frank’s voice came over the earpiece he was wearing.

“Somebody must have called the cops. They just pulled up in front of the building. Get the hell out of there. I’ll meet you on the other side of the woods.”

Brand was one of Decorah’s werewolf agents. Instinctively, he tore off his overalls, dropped his weapon, and said the ancient chant that changed him from man to wolf. Then he picked up the gun in his mouth. As a cop came around the side of the building, a gray wolf charged out of the apartment and headed for the trees.

He was too late to make a clean getaway.

He heard a strangled exclamation behind him before a bullet whizzed past his head. He dashed into the shadows, dodging between trees, leaving the cop behind him.

oOo

Behind Luke, Olivia made a small sound. “We can’t get in.”

“Not yet,” he answered. It wasn’t Luke speaking. The warrior replied with a kind of confidence that Luke wished he possessed.

Or maybe not. This guy’s tendency to rush off half-cocked had almost gotten them killed.

Quiet, the warrior’s voice spoke inside his head. I must concentrate.

Aye aye, sir. Luke stopped talking abruptly when he felt the warrior narrow his focus.

He picked up a crystal that lay on the desk beside the computer and turned it in his hand.

“What are you doing?” Olivia asked.

“Meditating,” he said in a slow, even voice that was barely a whisper. “Let me concentrate.”

Zabastian continued to play with the crystal as Luke closed his eyes, shutting out the world, cooperating as best he could with the man who was running the show.

At least at this moment, he couldn’t help admiring the warrior’s iron will and the depths of his concentration.

Luke had never been one for meditation. But he recognized what Zabastian was doing. He was going into a deep trance that would be impossible for most people.

He felt his consciousness alter, felt himself disappear into a land where few men could follow.

In his perception, he seemed to be walking in a beautiful garden, with flagstone paths wandering through beds of pastel flowers.

It was a peaceful and soul-satisfying scene. From the warrior’s imagination? Or was this a real place he had visited?

He let the man’s feet carry him along, into another area. Now they were in an herb garden, and he let his fingers brush against the leaves of the plants, the scents wafting up toward him. At the same time, he knew that in the real world, one of his hands gripped the crystal, and the fingers of the other hand brushed against the letters and numbers of the keyboard. That was part of the process, too.

The garden and the keyboard were one—in some mysterious part of the universe where humans could never travel, except with the power of their minds.

Luke was along for the walk. His lips curved into a smile as numbers and letters formed in his mind.

He touched each of them on the keyboard, committing them to memory in the right order. Decorah43.

His eyes blinked open, and he stared at the screen.

“Did you just type Decorah43?” Olivia whispered.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I told you I worked for Decorah Security.”

Luke didn’t know why that had turned into the password or how. But it had done the trick. Before they could discuss it further, a circle appeared in the center of the screen. The word above it said, “Enter.” Only it wasn’t in English—or any language he had ever seen. The letters weren’t Roman, or Greek or Cyrillic. They were something much older. A language that had originated on the Indian subcontinent thousands of years ago.

He moved the cursor to the button on the screen and clicked the mouse.

And suddenly he was past the first screen and into the Web site—not that it would have done Luke Garner any good.

The words that marched across the screen were written in the language that had appeared over the button.

“What’s that?” Olivia whispered.

“Let me read it.”

“You can read that?”

“Not on my own,” Luke answered. “But the big Z can.”

“That’s the language the . . . Moon Priests speak?”

“That’s their native language. Yes.”

oOo

Olivia watched as Luke read the words on the screen. They were overlaid on pictures--a mountain shrouded in mist. The moon shining through the clouds. A drop of rain glistening on a leaf.

She stared at the text, unable to make heads or tails of anything.

“What does it say?” she asked.

“It’s for Zabastian.”

“Specifically?”

“Yes.”

“How did they know you’d find the Web site?

“They couldn’t be sure. But they were hoping I would be able to do it.”

“And?”

“They want to know if the box is safe.”

“How do you tell them?”

He laughed. “Well, there’s a button for—‘get in touch with us.’” He pointed to one of the small rectangles on the left side of the screen.

“How could an ancient cult use the Web and e-mail?”

The man at the computer raised one shoulder. “They change with the times. You don’t expect them to be chipping stuff out of stone—do you?”

That was more like what she’d expected. But she had to assume Zabastian knew what he was doing—with some borrowed expertise from Luke.

When he moved the cursor to that location and clicked, a blank e-mail message appeared.

“Ah ha!”

He began to type rapidly. The words seemed to be in the same language that had appeared on the Web site. Somehow the keyboard was magically producing the strange symbols.

“What are you saying?”

He kept his focus on the screen and the keyboard. “That I have the box. And I will await instructions from the Master of the Moon.”

He pressed “Send,” and she waited to see what would happen. Only a few seconds later, a message came back.

Again, the words were unintelligible to Olivia.

But Luke translated. “We are grateful that you have recovered our property.”

He typed back a message, translating as his fingers flashed across the keyboard. “I am at your service.”

“Ask them how the box got to Peterbalm Associates,” Olivia said.