Shadow Born. James Axler

      

      DOMINION PLAGUE

      Earth remains the tortured battleground of near-immortal aliens. But these god kings never anticipated unified resistance from a group of humans possessing the tenacity and spirit to reclaim their planet. In the ongoing war for independence, the Cerberus fighters forge an epic showdown, as evil shape-shifts and unfurls its grand design….

      UNSTOPPABLE JUGGERNAUT

      The madness surrounding entombed secrets of an ancient race puts Kane and his allies on a death chase across the African subcontinent. Facing relentless attack from winged hell beasts and marauding militia, the rebels are forced into an unholy alliance with a deadly foe. Only the dark goddess spawned of humanity’s most brutal overlord can challenge a superhuman interloper and navigate an ancient ziggurat that guards a nightmare. The price for miscalculation will be paid in blood—with the eternal damnation of the human race.

      “Get out of my head!” Kane growled

      He wrestled against the forces assailing him. The other entity—a shadowy form zooming between Kane’s view of the world and his embattled mind—looked over its shoulder at the ongoing struggle.

      Kane heard a voice no human on Earth ever had. It was deep, rumbling, pervasive. It might have been male, but there was an odd quality to it that seemed almost sexless. “Your friends are going to die.” The vibrations of those words burrowed deep into him—like termites chewing through the heart of a tree.

      Kane writhed in the smothering grasp of his opponent.

      “You’re going to shoot them,” the shadow taunted. Kane’s right arm tore free from the engulfing mass of darkness, and he reached out, fingertips brushing the icy flesh.

      “I’ll rip you out of my skull first!” Kane bellowed. “I’ll shred you into ribbons!”

      Shadow Born

      James Axler

      Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force, one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

      —Leon Trotsky,

      1879–1940

      The Road to Outlands— From Secret Government Files to the Future

      Almost two hundred years after the global holocaust, Kane, a former Magistrate of Cobaltville, often thought the world had been lucky to survive at all after a nuclear device detonated in the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. The aftermath—forever known as skydark—reshaped continents and turned civilization into ashes.

      Nearly depopulated, America became the Deathlands—poisoned by radiation, home to chaos and mutated life forms. Feudal rule reappeared in the form of baronies, while remote outposts clung to a brutish existence.

      What eventually helped shape this wasteland were the redoubts, the secret preholocaust military installations with stores of weapons, and the home of gateways, the locational matter-transfer facilities. Some of the redoubts hid clues that had once fed wild theories of government cover-ups and alien visitations.

      Rearmed from redoubt stockpiles, the barons consolidated their power and reclaimed technology for the villes. Their power, supported by some invisible authority, extended beyond their fortified walls to what was now called the Outlands. It was here that the rootstock of humanity survived, living with hellzones and chemical storms, hounded by Magistrates.

      In the villes, rigid laws were enforced—to atone for the sins of the past and prepare the way for a better future. That was the barons’ public credo and their right-to-rule.

      Kane, along with friend and fellow Magistrate Grant, had upheld that claim until a fateful Outlands expedition. A displaced piece of technology…a question to a keeper of the archives…a vague clue about alien masters—and their world shifted radically. Suddenly, Brigid Baptiste, the archivist, faced summary execution, and Grant a quick termination. For Kane there was forgiveness if he pledged his unquestioning allegiance to Baron Cobalt and his unknown masters and abandoned his friends.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       Introduction

       Title Page

       Quote

      The Road to Outlands

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Epilogue

       Copyright

       Prologue

      Neekra dreamed of ages past, her memories stretching far back through the delirium and pain of the orichalcum scepter jammed through her avatar’s torso. She sought escape from the incalculable energies held within the unstable alloy scorching through her hijacked cellular structure. The superstring biological computers that she’d molded into her core, powerful transmitters that allowed her incredible telepathic ability and the power to sculpt human bodies as if made from clay, misfired and shuddered...

      But she fought for her consciousness. She still could find a back door, a way to escape the dissolution of the lost fragment that had managed to escape from where the rest of her body was imprisoned.

      “It’s the only way we will ever be free,” a voice whispered in her ear.

      She felt the strength of a lover’s hands running down the length of her body, warm whispers brushing her earlobes. Was this a dream, a fevered remnant of a time when she was merely