King's Crusade (Seventeen)

by Starrling, AD

  The monk looked up at her with a frail smile. Sweat beaded his pale brow. ‘Time to die,’ he gasped softly.

  Alexa clenched her jaw and gazed into his limpid eyes, her fingers shaking tremulously around his.

  Jackson stared at Yonten. ‘Why did you—’ he whispered, anguish flaring across his battered, ashen face.

  The monk turned his head slightly. ‘You still have a purpose to fulfill.’ He raised bloodstained fingers and touched Jackson’s face gently.

  A figure landed beside them and dropped to its knees. It was one of the other monks. The jō staff in the young man’s hands clattered to the stone floor. ‘Yonten,’ he said brokenly, dark eyes gleaming wetly.

  Yonten’s gaze shifted. ‘Brother,’ he acknowledged in a weakening voice. ‘Now is not the time for tears.’ His breathing grew ragged. ‘I have...a request.’

  ‘Anything,’ said the other monk hoarsely.

  ‘You must tell the Abbot that Guru Rinpoche was right.’ Another gasp shuddered past Yonten’s lips as he turned to Alexa. ‘The immortal warrior truly lives on.’ His eyelids fluttered closed and his hand went limp in her grasp.

  Alexa’s knuckles whitened as she squeezed his fingers.

  A heartbeat later, Yonten opened his eyes one last time and stared at her. ‘Death is but a door,’ he murmured with a bright smile. ‘See you in the next life, warrior.’

  Alexa could dimly make out the sounds of the nearby battle as she watched the light fade in the monk’s black pupils. She crouched motionless for long seconds before folding his fingers over the bloodied trishula mark on his palm and placing his hand gently on his chest. She closed his eyes with a steady hand and brought her lips to his forehead.

  ‘I will avenge you,’ she breathed in a hardening voice. The birthmark on her neck flamed at her words.

  She rose to her feet and pulled Jackson up from the floor. He looked at her with a grim expression, his cobalt eyes blazing. ‘Let’s finish this,’ he said coldly. She picked a gun from the floor, handed it to him, and reloaded her Sigs.

  Schmidt joined them as they headed into the tunnel on the other side of the chamber. Moments later, the muted roar of a second battle rose ahead of them. They reached the top of a flight of crescent-shaped steps and looked down upon a scene of chaos.

  Flame torches dotted an enormous cave before them, the yellow glow barely penetrating its dark fringes and inky ceiling. Alcoves and doorways punctuated distant walls. At the back of the cavern, a fast flowing, underground river poured through a deep channel, its roar echoing against the rock face; the stolen tombs stood on a stone jetty next to a barge moored in the rushing waters.

  Backed by a battalion of Hunters and Freemasons, Reznak and Carrington clashed brutally with Kronos on the floor below. Gunfire and cries shattered the air. More Hunters and saffron-robed monks poured through a narrow opening in the wall to the right.

  Alexa’s gaze sought and found Dragov. The giant was storming across the floor of the cave toward Cavaleti, one large hand lazily swatting the men in his path as if they were flies, while the other clasped the wooden box holding the stolen artifacts.

  The leader of Kronos stood next to the tombs and sneered at the battleground from behind a circle of armed guards. A group of men were tying iron chains around the sarcophagi and linking them to a mechanical hoist.

  Her eyes shifted to the immortal on Dragov’s heels. Alexa started down the stairs and reached the bottom in the blink of an eye.

  Bodies fell in a wave around her as she entered the legion of fighting men. The Sigs roared in her hands, her aim steady and unerring. She bolted over the fallen and the wounded, her pace never slowing in her single-minded determination to reach her target. When the bullets ran dry, she holstered the guns, unsheathed her blades, and maintained her deadly charge. Crimson smears stained her hands and the metal of the sais as her blows broke skin and bone.

  A brutal grimace distorted her lips when she finally spotted Yonten’s killer. She covered the distance that separated them in a flash.

  The immortal turned at the sound of her footsteps. Shock flared in the pale blue eyes as her foot arced toward his face and smashed into his jaw in a powerful, crescent kick. His head snapped back. Alexa grabbed his shoulders, raised her leg in a straight knee strike to his chest as she yanked him down, slammed the edges of her palms against his ears, and hammer-fisted him in the face.

  Blood spurted from his fractured nose and burst eardrums.

  She drove her shoulder into his abdomen, grabbed his legs behind his knees, and flipped him onto his back.

  ‘Alexa!’ shouted Jackson.

  She turned. The Harvard professor pitched his gun at her. Her fingers opened on her left sai and closed around the weapon while the dagger fell toward the floor. She swung her arm down and shot the stunned immortal between the eyes before the sai hit the ground. The man blinked once and went still.

  A harsh grunt suddenly sounded on her left. Alexa looked around.

  Terror froze her limbs to the ground. Her mind went blank.

  She tasted fear for the first time in her immortal life.

  Ten feet from her, dark pupils dilated in a sea of ice blue. Jackson’s shocked stare dropped from her face to the tip of the blade that had impaled his back and penetrated through his abdomen. A red blotch appeared around the metal and spread scarlet trails down his skin.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Cold triumph gleamed in the slate gray eyes behind Jackson. Cavaleti slowly withdrew the broadsword from the Harvard professor’s back and watched him fall to his knees. An insane smile spread across the older man’s face. He looked directly at Alexa, raised the blade, and dropped it toward Jackson’s neck.

  The hunter inside her took over. Her movements dream-like, Alexa moved and blocked the sword with her sai inches before it kissed the fallen man’s skin. Cavaleti grunted and flicked his wrist. The blade sparked against the dagger. He grunted, stepped back, and lifted his sword once more.

  Alexa felt herself slip out of the way of the blade. The broadsword whispered close to her skin once. It streaked past a second time, then a third.

  As Cavaleti swung the sword down for the fourth time, she slid past his guard and brought the right sai up, a guttural snarl finally leaving her lips. The tip of the dagger arced through the air and punctured the floor of the sect leader’s mouth. The momentum of her strike carried the sai through the base of his skull and into his brain.

  A gurgle left Cavaleti’s throat. Crimson drops sprayed past his thin lips and onto his beard. He stared at her in disbelief as he choked on his own blood. The crazed fury in the gray eyes dimmed and his features went slack. He sagged against her.

  An animal bellow erupted from across the floor.

  Dragov swept Schmidt aside with a powerful back-slap and barreled toward her, his face contorted in a mask of rage.

  Alexa released her grip on the sai, stepped back toward the stone jetty, and ducked beneath Dragov’s fists. The giant swung his arms around like a demon, his hands dropping toward her with furious speed. She moved out of his way and countered with a flurry of strikes, the skin over her knuckles splitting under the force of the impact as her punches landed with deadly accuracy.

  The veins on Dragov’s forehead bulged. Bloodstained spittle dribbled past his torn lips and onto his chin. He roared once more.

  Alexa had just drawn her arm back to block his fist when a bullet slammed into the side of her right knee. Her leg buckled beneath her.

  Dragov’s first blow landed on her cheek with the force of a hammer. Her head snapped back and black spots danced across her vision.

  His second blow slammed into her solar plexus. She doubled over and felt something tear inside her body. As the third blow curved through the air toward her, she became dimly aware of voices screaming her na
me in the distance.

  Dragov’s fist smashed into her sternum. Bones cracked inside her chest. The force of the impact lifted her off her feet. As she soared backward, Alexa caught a glimpse of her godfather’s horrified face. Half a second later, she struck the closest tomb.

  Pain knifed through her, searing and ice cold. Numbness bloomed in a wave from the middle of her back to the tips of her toes. She slumped against the sarcophagus and slid to the ground.

  Someone dropped to the floor at her side. Alexa looked up weakly as Reznak lifted her in his arms and shouted her name. His voice came from far away, his words overlaid by the faint buzzing in her ears. Her head lolled forward and her hair fell across her eyes. Indistinct figures appeared beyond her godfather’s shoulder. She blinked and vaguely recognized Carrington and Schmidt as they engaged Dragov.

  Her gaze shifted to Reznak’s face once more as her vision started to dim. A veil of darkness fell across the world and eclipsed his tortured features. The abyss beckoned, cold, infinite, and murky.

  Someone whispered, ‘Alexandria’ from the shadows.

  Alexa closed her eyes and fell into the void.

  The trishula scorched the skin on her neck.

  Time passed. How much she did not know. It did not really matter in this place of twilight. Nothing mattered there.

  Sound finally rose on the limitless horizon. It raced toward her for what seemed like an eternity before slamming into her ethereal form in thunderous waves of cacophony. Distorted images flashed across the inky landscape. A legion of flickering memories, thoughts, and feelings overwhelmed her senses.

  A voice rose from the clamor, a faint susurration that spoke of a long-forgotten promise. At once strange yet achingly familiar, the words resonated with the core of her being and the essence of who she truly was.

  In that timeless and enduring moment of remembrance, Alexa heard. She saw. She understood.

  Her eyes snapped open, the roar of an ancient, hundred-day war still ringing in her ears. Her gaze zeroed in on the giant man fifteen feet away. She saw him strike Reznak. A saffron-robed monk stepped in front of her godfather as he fell and attacked Dragov with a staff weapon, the wooden stick blurring with the speed of his blocks and strikes. The giant knocked him away with the back of one hand.

  Alexa’s gaze sought and found the man who lay still on the ground to her left. She saw Jackson’s back rise and fall with shallow breaths. Blood pooled beneath his body in a crimson puddle. His eyes were closed and his face deathly pale.

  She rose to her feet, stepped down from the jetty, and started to run.

  Schmidt and Carrington turned at the sound of her footsteps. Their eyes widened in dull incomprehension.

  Heat erupted from her birthmark and flowed through her veins as she raced for the giant man. Alexa heard the whisper of the ancient immortal warrior in her ears and felt the incredible power flood her limbs.

  She jumped, stepped off Dragov’s back, somersaulted over his head, and landed thigh-down on his shoulders. Her palms slammed onto the sides of his jaws as he staggered backward.

  Dragov raised his arms and gripped her thighs in an iron vise. He grunted as he tried to throw her off.

  A pair of ghostly hands closed over Alexa’s fingers. She threw her head back and opened her lips. A faint echo underscored the primitive cry that left her throat as she twisted the giant’s head sharply.

  Dragov’s neck broke with an audible snap.

  Alexa leapt off the falling man and landed lightly on her feet, her gaze unblinking. Dragov hit the ground with a dull thud.

  A wave of shocked silence spread out across the cave. The remaining members of Kronos stared wide-eyed at their fallen leaders. Although they resumed the fight in the next breath, it was evident that the spirit of the battle had drained out of them.

  ‘Dimitri!’ someone shouted.

  Alexa turned and watched a lean man with silver-speckled hair and a trim beard storm down the steps of the cave, a Beretta semiautomatic in one hand and a sword in the other. Scores of dark figures followed at his back and joined in the action.

  Reznak’s stunned gaze shifted from her to the man striding toward them. ‘Victor,’ he breathed. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  The leader of the Bastians looked at her briefly with intelligent, dark eyes. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get here faster,’ said Victor Dvorsky, his tone contrite as he studied Reznak’s bloodied face and the bodies around them. ‘The storm delayed us.’

  ‘I’m just glad you’re here, old friend,’ said Reznak with a weak smile.

  Schmidt looked uneasily at the crowd of Bastian Hunters helping the Crovirs and Freemasons subdue the remaining members of Kronos. His wary stare moved to Alexa. Before he could say a word, she walked past him to the man lying unconscious several feet away.

  Alexa dropped to one knee by Jackson’s side and gently rolled him onto his back. The flow of blood from the stab wound had slowed to an ooze. She placed her hands over it and stared at his ashen features, an icy chill settling over her heart.

  ‘No one has ever returned from a death that fast before,’ she heard Schmidt murmur to Reznak. ‘Especially not their first one.’

  Alexa felt her godfather’s eyes on the back of her head.

  The monk who had been with Yonten at his death appeared on the other side of Jackson. He took the bleeding man’s hand in one of his own and looked at her steadily. Their gaze shifted to the tombs on the stone jetty.

  ‘The crows never came for them,’ said Alexa in a low voice. The heat from her birthmark had started to fade. The whisper of a sigh reached her on the edge of hearing.

  The monk’s expression remained solemn.

  Kronos was soon overpowered. Of the thirty Freemasons who had volunteered for the mission, sixteen had perished during the battle. Eight of the Crovir Hunters had suffered their final deaths. Yonten was the only monk who lost his life.

  An hour after the battle ended, Alexa and a small group of men arrived at the mouth of the valley. Between them they carried the unconscious body of the Harvard professor. An Ansat air ambulance stood waiting on a flat outcrop of rock near the base of the mountain. The paramedic crew rushed out of the helicopter and swiftly transferred Jackson to a stretcher.

  Reznak and Carrington climbed inside the aircraft after her and took the seat opposite to where she sat. Alexa’s eyes never left the unconscious man’s face while the crew worked desperately on his broken body.

  Jackson’s heart stopped beating moments before they landed in the grounds of the regional hospital in Perm. The paramedics got him back after eight minutes of resuscitation. He arrested again when they wheeled him into theatre thirty minutes later, and once more during the emergency surgery that followed.

  Alexa stood in the waiting room outside the theatre wing, her nails digging into her palms while she stared silently at the steady snowfall outside the window. She had dismissed all attempts by the hospital staff to treat her injuries. The wounds had almost healed.

  After repeatedly failing to engage her in conversation, Reznak and Carrington lingered silently by her side. Although she sensed her godfather’s distress, Alexa could not bring herself to open her mouth for fear of the scream that might escape her lips.

  She looked around once when the surgeon walked out to inform them that Jackson had survived the operation and was being transferred to the ICU. The silver-haired doctor rubbed the back of his neck tiredly and spoke in a guarded tone. He told them to prepare for the worst.

  As evening fell, another blizzard swept across the city. Its ferocity matched the storm of emotions that raged endlessly through Alexa’s heart into the darkest hours of the night. When dawn finally broke hours later, Jackson was still alive.

  By the time night fell once more, he was deemed stable enough to be transferred.


  Twenty-four hours after he was stabbed by Alberto Cavaleti, Jackson landed in Boston in a private medical plane leased by Reznak. He arrived at the Massachusetts General Hospital at ten in the evening, sedated and still ventilated. He was back in theatre at midnight.

  Alexa remained at the hospital the entire time. She did not speak a single word to another soul. A day later, the Harvard professor had still not regained consciousness. It was another twenty-four hours before the doctors came to speak to her and Reznak.

  Alexa listened numbly, her gaze frozen on the face of the unmoving figure attached to the life support machines.

  CT imaging of Jackson’s head had revealed brain damage from his repeated cardiac arrests. Though he would likely breathe if they took him off the ventilator, his chances of recovery were slim. They asked whether he had any next of kin.

  Reznak looked at her at this point. Alexa gazed back at him dully, the first eye contact she had made with another being in three days. He reached for his cell phone and made a call.

  Banks phoned him back ten minutes later. Apart from a distant cousin in Montana who was too ill to travel, Jackson had no other family.

  An end-of-life care specialist came to speak to them in the hours that followed the grim news. Minutes into her introduction, the woman mumbled an apology and retreated from the room under Alexa’s leaden stare.

  Marie arrived with Fawkes on the fourth day. The older woman finally managed to force some food down Alexa’s throat. She ate the meal at Jackson’s bedside. It tasted like ash in her mouth.

  In an attempt to distract her, Reznak started to relate the findings of the research team he had dispatched to the Ural Mountains in the days following Kronos’s defeat. After recovering the tombs and the other precious artifacts stolen by the sect, the Crovir scientists had unearthed ancient Sumerian scriptures carved in the walls of the giant complex of caves beneath the mountain. The underground river where Cavaleti had attempted to escape with the tombs had led to a large subterranean lake and a second underground city further in the Urals. The scientists had also discovered dozens of relics that testified to the origins and history of the people who once lived there.