Threshold (53 page)

Queen motioned for Knight and Bishop to remain behind and crept up to the tunnel exit. She peered into the chamber beyond and saw five people. Two men who appeared to be Richard Ridley, or golem duplicates, and a cloaked man stood with their backs to her. King and Alexander were on the far side of the space, held several feet off the floor, clutched in the arms of two giant living statues. She quickly noted eight more statues around the chamber and slid back into the hallway.

Walking silently, she passed by a dark slit in the wall. Something about it made her pause. She leaned in close, trying to see through the darkness. Two hands shot out at her, reaching for her face. She jumped back and aimed her weapon.

But the hands meant no harm. They were outstretched. Desperate. And they belonged to a thirteen-year-old girl. Fiona!

Queen rushed up to the wall and took hold of her hands. She gave them a squeeze of reassurance. Neither spoke, knowing it might draw attention. After a moment, Queen stepped back. She took out a water bottle and insulin shot, handing them both to Fiona through the crack. She didn’t need to tell her what they were for. She would know. Queen held up an index finger and mouthed the words “Be right back.”

Fiona turned one of her thumbs up and pulled her hands, along with the water and shot, back inside the cell.

Queen returned to Bishop and Knight, who had seen what happened, but stayed by their post. “We need to get in there now.”

“How do we do that without attracting attention?” Knight asked.

“We give them something else to worry about,” Queen said, and then headed back toward the menagerie. “Just get through that wall and take her topside.”

“When should we blow it?” Knight asked.

Queen looked back over her shoulder. “When the screaming starts.”

EIGHTY

KING WAS SPEECHLESS
. He felt a combination of revulsion and pity: revulsion at what Ridley had become—he was more devil than god—and pity for the sickly looking version of him clinging to him like a child refusing to wean from its mother.

“How did you escape Stonehenge?” one of the two golem Ridleys asked.

That one’s Mahaleel,
King thought, but didn’t say a word. His eyes were still focused on Adam’s, like a predatory bird.

A hint of fear filled Adam’s eyes. The real Richard Ridley had faced King before and did so again now as fearless as any immortal being should be. But Adam … he was something different.

“You have defiled the past,” Alexander said.

King wasn’t sure if Alexander really wanted to make a point or if he had seen the subtle motion of King’s right arm. Either way, King was thankful for the distraction.

Ridley and Adam guffawed in unison. The conjoined duo walked toward him, leaving Cainan and Mahaleel behind. They stopped short and squinted at Alexander. “Shall we compare who has defiled what? Hmm? I’m sure King would love to hear. I know more about you than you think, Hercules.”

“You know nothing,” Alexander said. “I will be your undoing.”

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Alexander flexed against the stone arms that held him tight. And though he was not able to break free, he did succeed in pushing the golem’s arms away from him. The Herculean feat of strength was enough to fully captivate the attention of all four Ridleys and gave King the opportunity to strike.

As King unclipped the Sig Sauer handgun strapped to his thigh he considered his four targets. The two clay golems in the form of Ridley may fall to a bullet, but he wasn’t positive they could be killed. The original Ridley had as little to fear from firearms as Alexander or Bishop. Shooting him would just be a waste of time.

But Adam. The fear in his eyes had planted a seed in King’s mind. As it grew, he remembered the Hydra. Only its central head was truly immortal. Its body could be cleaved away and would die. As could its other heads. Could Adam be killed? With only two of Hydra’s genes in Ridley’s body, would his regenerative abilities extend to Adam?

There was only one way to find out.

As King pulled the weapon from its holster, Adam glanced in his direction. He immediately saw the handgun rising in his direction. His eyes spread wide. His mouth twisted in fear, revealing bent teeth. The abject terror expressed in Adam’s face answered all of King’s questions a second before he found his aim.

Then he pulled the trigger.

*   *   *

QUEEN ENTERED THE
menagerie with her arm over her nose and her weapon lowered. She walked through, taking stock of the giant cats, whose heads followed her path through the room, rotating mechanically. She stopped at the center of the room, looking back and forth at the cats. Not one of them moved.

She turned to one of the lower cages that held a motionless, ghastly body. She took out her KA-BAR knife and stabbed it into the flesh. The body convulsed, but stopped moving again after she withdrew the blade. A fresh gush of blood followed the knife out of the body.

Three of the cats immediately stood and began pacing in their large cages.

Those are the ones,
Queen thought, and then moved to the closest cage. The cage doors were held shut by simple sliding pin locks. She pulled the first pin, but didn’t open the door. Instead she moved to the next two cages and pulled their locking pins as well. Then she moved to the exit leading away from Bishop and Knight, back the way they’d come.

“Here kitty, kitty,” she said when none of them moved for the doors.

The largest of the three reached out and swatted at the door. It flinched back when it swung wide open. But it quickly recovered and slowly approached the open door. The other cats saw what happened and nudged their unlocked cage doors as well.

Queen said, “Come on kitty, don’t be a pussy.”

When the largest of the three looked at her, she ran, not waiting to see if the cats would take the bait. With the scent of blood in the air and a fast-moving prey running away, she knew their feline instincts would take over.

*   *   *

USING HIS SLENDER
arm, Knight reached through the thin slot in the wall of Fiona’s cell and placed several small directional charges. The charges packed a punch despite their size, but would direct most of their energy into the hallway, rather than into the cell. Still, he did not envy Fiona’s proximity to the explosion. Her ears would most likely be injured and it was possible she might catch some shrapnel, too. But he could think of no other way to quickly open the wall.

He looked at Bishop, who was crouched by the tunnel exit, watching King and Alexander speak to Ridley. He had no idea what Bishop was seeing, but the man looked disturbed.

Knight finished squishing the last bit of C4 into a crag in the wall. He quickly placed four remote-triggered blasting caps into the claylike explosives and switched on the receivers. With the C4 now “hot,” a simple push of a button would blow the wall and give them access to Fiona.

Knight crawled to Bishop and tapped his foot.

Bishop looked back. Knight gave a thumbs-up and motioned back down the hall with his head. They met in front of Fiona’s cell. Her dirty face looked back at them through the space in the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Go curl up in the back corner,” Knight said. “Close your eyes, cover your ears, and open your mouth. It will help.”

“Is this going to hurt?”

Knight hated saying it, but he wouldn’t lie to the girl. “A bit.”

“Then wait,” she whispered. “Let me try something first.”

“Fiona, there isn’t ti—”

But she had stepped back into the darkness. He could hear her soft voice saying something, but didn’t understand the words.
Fiona’s using the mother tongue!
Knight thought, wondering how it was possible.

The walls slowly parted, forming a door.

Both men wasted no time entering. Fiona fell back against the back wall looking weak. They rushed to her, bracing her with their hands.

“That was something else, kid,” Knight said.

“How did you learn the language?” Bishop asked.

“I’m a good spy,” she said, smiling wide.

Knight noticed how healthy Fiona looked. Other than being dirty, she looked as fit as she had at Bragg. Did Ridley take care of her? If so, what was the point? He looked around the cell, searching for evidence that Fiona had been well cared for—water bottles, food remnants, anything. But the only thing he saw was the water bottle and insulin shot Queen had given her. The water was gone, but the shot had not been used.

What the …
Knight picked up the syringe and held it up for Bishop to see. Bishop turned to where Fiona had been standing. “Fiona, why didn’t you—”

But Fiona was gone.

Both men turned toward the exit and found the walls closing in. Fiona stood on the other side, smiling at them, holding Bishop’s KA-BAR knife. They dashed for the exit, but it was too late. They were sealed inside. Even the long slit that had been there closed over with six inches of solid stone.

A moment later, they heard a muffled gunshot.

EIGHTY-ONE

MOVING AT FIFTEEN
hundred feet per second, the single round fired by King covered the distance between the handgun and Adam before the weapon’s report registered in anyone’s ears. The bullet whizzed beneath Ridley’s chin, grazing his flesh and opening a wound, before piercing Adam’s forehead and punching out the back of his skull. The sound of the single shot reached the group just as Adam’s brain exploded in a cloud of blood and flesh. Ridley spun with the impact, seeing the brain matter splatter on the floor at his feet.

Adam’s grip on Ridley’s chest loosened, and then let go. The one-armed, quarter of a body slid back and dangled limply from Ridley’s back.

“Adam!” Ridley shouted in shock. “Adam! No!”

Mahaleel and Cainan rushed forward to help. Mahaleel held Adam’s limp weight. Cainan helped Ridley lean back against the table.

“He’s not healing,” Mahaleel said. “He’s dead.”

What happened next was completely unexpected and derailed every plan King had come up with. Fiona walked into the room, hands behind her back. She looked healthy, strong, and totally unafraid.

Ridley turned toward her.

“Fiona, run!” King shouted.

But she didn’t. She walked halfway between King and Ridley and stopped.

“What are you doing?” King asked.

Fiona looked over her shoulder toward Ridley.

King’s stomach twisted. Something was very wrong.

Ridley’s smile looked like a wolf bearing its teeth. “You may have killed Adam, but I’ve still got my Eve. The first of her kind.”

“What are you—”

“Kill him, Eve.”

Fiona stepped toward King. She wore a slight smile. “Yes, Father,” she said and then pulled the seven-inch blade out from behind her back. Her little bare feet padded against the hard floor. Her black pajamas were dirty and full of holes. Her straight black hair hung loose around her shoulders. But her eyes were wrong. They were devoid of emotion and still, as though in shock.

He looked at the gun in his hand. He could shoot her and save himself, but it would destroy him. He’d rather die than kill her.

“Fiona, stop!” was all King could shout before she plunged the knife into his chest.

*   *   *

KNIGHT CRACKED A
glow stick. It lit the small space in bright green light. They quickly scanned the space. To the right of the outside wall Knight saw some letters scratched into the stone. Had they not been near the back of the room, they would have missed it. He knelt down and held the light up to the wall and read the text.

SAVE ME

Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash.