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"I stand before you today on the eve of a new era-"

"Murderer!"

A buzz of voices shivered through the crowd The shout had come from behind him, somewhere in the upper decks Guilder spun around, blindly searching the sea of faces

"Killer!"

The voice was a wo She waved a fist madly in the air

"You butcher!"

"Somebody arrest that woeneral catcalling erupted Objects went sailing through the air, lobbing onto the field The croas throwing the only thing it had The croas throwing its shoes

"Monster! Assassin! Torturer!"

Guilder was frozen None of this hat he’d expected at all

"Demon! Tyrant! Swine!"

"Devil! Satan! Fiend!"

If he didn’t do soave Suresh the signal; the switch was thrown To an orchestrated explosion of colored light and s the wo behind it Sies of the field, igniting barrels of ethanol-soaked wood,perimeter of flame As the pickup halted at the platforan to back up The guards dropped the gate of the pickup, yanked the woround at the base of the platfor, hurling shoes like et up"

Guilder kicked her hard, in the ribs When she ain, then hauled her to her feet and shoved his face so close to hers that the tips of their noses practically touched

"You have no idea what you’re about to face"

"Actually, I do You could say we’re of a very long acquaintance"

He didn’t knohat to naled to the guards to take her away The woed her to the base of the armature and pressed her to her knees There were streaks oflights she seeer, almost doll-like, and yet Guilder could still discern the defiance in her eyes, an absolute refusal to be cowed He hoped the virals would take their tiuards unlocked her shackles, then reattached her wrists to the chains that hung froan to winch her up

With every foot of her ascent, the roars of the crowd intensified In protest? Anticipation? The pure e a person ripped apart? They hated hi now; their dark energy had joined to the night’s transforh in the air, her ar

"Last words?"

She thought a hed "That’s the spirit"

"I h He turned toward the rear of the semi Two cols in heavy pads were posted by the doors Suresh atching hiht his eye and nodded

Hey, Lila, he thought, you delusional has-been, get a load of this

And suddenly there was silence A great freezing of all movement as the stadium was dipped in darkness

A burst of blue

The ti place and charged up the stairs A single col was standing guard at the door to the control roouard noticed the knives "Whoa," he said

Greer gripped hi from the sides of his head like a pair of handles-and rammed his own forehead into the man’s skull Down he went, felled like a tree

They flew through the door Again, just onechunky earphones with a hts and switches A wall of s looked down on the field, bathed in blue The earphones were a plus; their entry had gone unnoticed The tacit understanding between Greer and Lore said that it was now her turn

The redeye lifted his face "Hey, you’re not supposed to be here"

"True," said Lore, who slipped behind him, placed her left hand on his forehead, and drew her knife across his throat, cutting it like paper

The doors of the ses Their movements were stately, deliberate; they showed no haste, only the pure self-possession of their kind No one could mistake what they were They towered They occupied space with a glorious ienerations, inflating their persons to colossi Even Carter, with his modest dimensions, seenificence At the wondrous sight of them, the crowd made a collective inhalation of breath Screams would follow, of this fact Guilder had no doubt, but in the ence, a deep, anticipatory quiet reigned The s stepped forward in rich display Their backs were erect, their powerful claws articulating like iiants They were legend uards raced for the sidelines, to live another day, though Guilder paid this no notice His ht, I offer you this token, this foretaste This tender ether ill rule the Earth

Nina’s team of assassins tore up the stairs They surfaced at field level in a dugout situated just below the bleachers where the senior staff an his run they would spring onto the field, turn to face their enemies, and unleash the contents of their short-barreled automatics

But now, crouched in the final moments of their concealment, they, like everyone in the crowd, experienced an emotion that was one part terror, one part wonder, one part so else that lacked any point of reference in their lives Peter was si visual facts The last of the Twelve were before him, mere yards away; Amy, suspended in chains, was the bait that had drawn therooman Greer and Alicia had tried to prepare him, but no words could have readied him for this reality

Where was Eustace?

Then Peter saw hi at the rail in the end zone-just another flatlander, dragooned into the role of witness The eleven virals stood before Guilder like a platoon of soldiers awaiting orders Goddaht, you’re too far apart Get closer to each other, you bastards

Guilder raised his arreat aniht This tabernacle of pain How could such a place be allowed to exist on the earth?