Free God War by James Axler

Ullikummis,” Balam said, studying one of the broken fragments of the rock shell. “This pod is too small for an adult form. It was used on a child.”
    Kane fixed Balam with his stare. “I think we both know what that means, right?”
    Balam nodded. “Quav.”

Chapter 4
    “There’s got to be a thousand of them,” Grant muttered as he watched the massing army step from the crazed pattern of colors and light that swam in the air over the banks of the Euphrates.
    “More than that, Magistrate,” Rosalia corrected, indicating the center of the rift.
    Grant turned to where the dark-haired woman had indicated and saw the rift in space growing larger, its hourglass shape swelling in the center to disgorge more people with increased vigor. The rift crackled with lightning against a deep nothingness, swirling colors spinning and fraying in its depths, splitting apart to form even more colors as Grant watched. He estimated that the rift was a quarter mile across now, and as it increased in size it became harder to look it, burning against the rods and cones of his retina like some grisly optical illusion. It was an interphase window, Grant knew, but one so large as to reach a scale he had never seen before. The interphaser was designed for personal transport, carrying just a few people and limited matériel at a time. This, however, was on a scale he had never imagined, like some great monument tunneling through the very air over the sun-dappled surface of the Euphrates. Grant had never seen anything like it.
    “Where the fuck are they all coming from?” he muttered, shaking his head.
    “I attended a few of the rallies for Ullikummis,” Rosalia spoke, her voice low. “Held in the old bombed-out sports stadiums and parking lots, they would regularly attract a thousand, fifteen hundred people at a time. It was quite something seeing that many people chanting in unison.”
    Grant turned to look at Rosalia, his brow furrowed, as the army massed behind him. “‘Quite something,’” he repeated. “Huh.”
    “What?” Rosalia asked, challenge in her voice.
    “It’s never ‘scary’ with you, is it?” Grant observed. “Always just something that happened.”
    “The world’s as scary as we choose for it to be, Grant,” Rosalia told him cryptically. “You look at things the way you choose to. No one else makes you frightened but you yourself.”
    The rift continued to expel more and more people of all ages and body types. Many of them wore the familiar robes of Ullikummis’s enforcers, some with the red badge shining over their left breast like those of the old Magistrates. There were dogs there, too, Grant saw—strange dogs with long bodies and heavy, loping movements, their shapes carved from living stone.
    Ullikummis himself waited at the head of the army, backing slowly away from the rift to allow his followers space to spread out, Brigid and the little girl at his side.
    “We’re going to need to get closer,” Grant decided. He was still hefting Domi’s unconscious form in his arms, and despite the burden he showed no signs of tiredness.
    Rosalia indicated the albino woman. “Planning on taking her?”
    “No,” Grant replied. Then he turned to Kudo, the man who’d lost half his face to the acid spillage inside the bowels of Tiamat. “Kudo, you good to get home if I leave you in charge of Domi?”
    Kudo nodded, bringing forth a portable communications device from its secure place in a belt pouch. “I can tap Cerberus comms and ask them to guide me,” he said without arguing. Like all Tigers of Heaven, Kudo was a fearless warrior who would never shy away from a fight. However, he also recognized the need for authority, and bowed to Grant’s decisions as squad leader.
    “Great,” Grant said as he passed his pale burden to Kudo. The modern-day samurai took the petite woman, hefting her over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry. “Tell Donald to trace Domi’s transponder. He can use that to guide you