When Gods Walked the Earth

Of Gods and Men #2

by Matthew Peters

The Chief of Staff to the President of the United States dies sprawled across the Great Seal in the Oval Office, his body arranged like a warning. Senator Madge Roberts is the one who finds him. Within minutes, she’s treated as suspect, witness, and potential pawn in a game no one will explain. And the cameras meant to prove her innocence have mysteriously gone dark.

Hundreds of miles away in the Blue Ridge foothills, Zady Jones is trying—and failing—to build a quiet life. Her uncle has been murdered, her sister is fighting her way back from unspeakable trauma, and Scott Larson, the ex-Jesuit whose testimony shook the world’s religions, is still a walking target. When their fortified farmhouse goes into lockdown, Zady begins to suspect the trouble isn’t local. It’s coordinated.

Then Madge presents Zady and Larson with something they can’t ignore: a letter found on the dead chief of staff. A message addressed to “Galahad.” A reference to a mysterious casket, seven stars, and a time “when gods walked the earth.”

As political violence surges and Vatican insiders whisper about prophecies, apostasy, and the year of three popes, Zady and Larson are pulled back into a hidden world of ancient power and modern ambition. The lies they uncovered in The Ignoble Lie were only the beginning. Someone is reviving an old order. Someone with reach. Someone with a plan.

And this time, the truth isn’t just dangerous.

It might be divine...and deadly.

Excerpt

Chapter One

THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO

The first major contraction hit just past midnight, right after she’d finally drifted off. She slammed awake, her body seized by pain. Half-sitting against the tufted headboard, she groped for the phone on the nightstand but came up empty. The summer air pressing through the window was hot and thick. Rain drummed on the roof, filling the bedroom with the scent of wet screen.

She’d always known this time would come. She’d told herself she was ready. That purpose made pain bearable. But now she wasn’t so sure. She hadn’t expected it to come so soon. Or to hurt like this. Even after the last time, even after they took him, this was different. Worse. This one brought something else with him.

She gritted her teeth as the next contraction hit, hard and mean. Lifting her nightgown, she pressed both hands against her belly and cried out. Helpless. Laid bare. She wanted someone to hear her. To help her. But no one would. Not in this city. Not in this place. London felt impossibly far away. She’d only crossed the ocean a week ago, though it already felt like another life.

And then, in the dim doorway, a shape appeared. Huge. Still. Watching.

Her heart skipped. Someone was here. Maybe to help. Maybe not. But how had they—?

Before the thought finished forming, another wave of pain crashed through her. And the world fractured.

She blacked out.

* * *

She came to in the back of a van that stank of sweat and rubber. Her mind was slow, dulled by shock and heat and motion. She couldn’t see out the blackened windows. No one spoke. The driver was the towering figure she’d seen in the doorway. Another man sat beside him, arms crossed.

“He’s coming,” she gasped as another contraction twisted through her.

Both men grunted in unison. That was all.

Despite who she was—despite who they’d always said she was—she felt incidental. Like a means to an end. A body to be used. A vessel. She didn’t want to think about what would happen to her afterward. But part of her already knew this would be the last time she let them decide what came next.

Eventually, the van stopped. Doors opened. The men hauled her out, her body writhing with the force of another contraction. She caught flashes of a nearly empty parking deck. The reek of petrol. Blue elevator doors. They shoved her inside. The big one produced a hypodermic from nowhere and pricked her spine. Relief came fast. Then blackness.

* * *

The room was silent. It had no windows, clocks, or mercy. Only a delivery table at its center and a shallow gold washtub in the far corner, gleaming like it had held blood before. The light overhead was surgical but strange, recessed in concentric rings like a compass rose, or a diagram of the heavens. Something about it felt deliberate. Chosen. The air was heavy with antiseptic and something else. Myrrh? No. Older. Bronze and dust and scorched stone.

She was spread wide, her body laid bare to seven masked men who didn’t speak. She searched for a woman. Anyone who might meet her eyes, steady her, see her as human. But there was no one. Only their detached curiosity. It made her feel like an insect under glass. Rare, maybe. But still a specimen. They wanted her silent. Obedient. But that wasn’t who she’d been before. And it wouldn’t be who she was after.

She turned her head and saw that the table wasn’t stainless steel. It was gold. Even the washtub gleamed. Her voice caught in her throat. She wanted to ask where she was, why they’d drugged her, how long she’d been unconscious, but the pain seized her before she could speak. What came out instead was something primal.

“Don’t push,” said the man sitting on the stool between her legs, as casually as if he were asking for tea.

She gripped the table’s edges until her fists ached. The two men nearest her didn’t flinch. They didn’t look away. They simply watched. She’d prepared herself for hours of labor. But something in her gut said it wouldn’t take that long.

He was coming now.

The doctor rose from the stool, gestured to the others. She didn’t need his cue to push. She already knew, as clear as Orion, that the time had come. He wasn’t asking to be born. He was commanding it.

The pain narrowed her world to a single point. The contractions rolled through her in waves. And there was something about the pain that felt almost intentional. As if the baby delighted in causing her as much suffering as possible.

No, she scolded herself. What a terrible thought. How could something so noble, so regal, so divine be capable of such malice?

The air shimmered around her. Every breath pulsed with pressure, in sync with her labor pains. And the pressure, a tremendous force. The entire world moved through her and descended. And then he was there.

She wasn’t sure if the doctor had cut the cord. She wasn’t even sure there had been one. They didn’t speak. Didn’t swaddle him. Just held him up, like an offering. One that was silent and terrifying because there was no crying. Did that mean he was—?

Then she saw their faces. The awe. The stillness. One of them knelt. But she couldn’t meet the baby’s eyes. Not yet. His face was too bright. Like something she wasn’t meant to see. Looking into his eyes would be like staring at the sun.

Still, she took a deep breath and forced herself to look. His eyes were...green? And not green like grass or sea glass. Green like emerald fire. What she saw there was something powerful. Ancient. Not quite human. Something above human. There was awe in his gaze. But no mercy.

She wanted to hold him. Just once. But they didn’t offer. And she didn’t ask. Then they took him. They didn’t say a word. They didn’t need to. This wasn’t the first time they’d taken a child from her. But it would be the last.

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