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“From what Adam said, he wants to harness the power it holds and, from there, like every villain with grand ideas, wants to become Earth’s Overlord.”

Laughter bubbled from her, and she didn’t bother stemming it. “That is probably the craziest thing you’ve said thus far.”

“It’s the truth,” his serious reply. “You’ve gotten embroiled in something very complicated and dangerous.”

“No shit.”

“The relic they have you studying is special.”

“Again, no shit. I’m thinking it’s alien in origin because it certainly doesn’t behave like any Earth metals.”

“Not so much alien as astral. There were three originally, but two appear to have, for lack of a better word, transformed.”

“Into what? Are they eggs of some kind?” she asked, remembering the comment in one forum about it being dragon ova.

“I’m not quite sure what they are, or what they’re capable of. I only know that it’s dangerous in the wrong hands. Hence, why I’m here. My mission is to extract the artifact.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble for a ball of metal. You want it, Crius is obsessed with it. He told me I’m stuck here until I figure out how to crack it.”

“I doubt that’s possible. The previous two required starbeaming to unlock them.”

“Star what?” She didn’t recognize the word but chalked it up to more of his crazy talk.

“You really know nothing about what’s going on, do you?”

“I don’t, and it’s really fucking annoying,” she grumbled.

“Ever heard the term Zodiac Warrior?”

“Isn’t that a video game?”

He chuckled. “Nope.”

“Funny you mention the word Zodiac because the guy who used to own the sphere was a huge collector of all things Zodiac. He had all kinds of books on the subject, a telescope, all kinds of star shit. Even some painting of a guy with a tattoo of the libra scales on his back.”

“Did it look something like this?” Capricorn turned around and lifted his scrub top to show a muscled back covered in a massive tattoo, only instead of scales he bore a goat across the entire expanse of flesh.

She whistled. “Damn, that must have hurt.”

“Didn’t feel a thing.”

“Is the giant Zodiac tattoo some kind of cult thing?”

“You might say that. What else did you see at this garage sale?”

“Just a lot of junk, unless you’re into that shit. The fellow was obviously obsessed. The orb was pretty much the only thing for sale that didn’t have a Zodiac symbol carved onto it.”

“I wonder where and how he found it,” Capricorn murmured.

“I am not seeing or understanding why it’s so important. I mean I bought it for a buck.”

“Because the person selling it didn’t understand its value.”

“But you and Crius obviously do, since you both want it.”

“I want it so I can protect the world, but Adam’s plans are more sinister.”

“I fail to see how a metal ball can be dangerous unless it’s some kind of bomb or contains a virus.” She sure hoped not the latter since she’d been handling it with her bare hands.