* * *
DAVIDSON STUMBLED AS he ran—if you could call it running. His legs felt useless, as though in a dream. His hand landed on a stack of metal beams, but the weakness in his legs had moved to his arms and he fell forward, striking his head. Still on his feet, but dazed, he struggled forward. His vision narrowed. His head spun from a mixture of pain and fear.
Then a voice cut through his body’s fear-induced stupor. “Davidson, it got by me!”
Though he’d only just met the man, he recognized the voice as belonging to the inhumanly strong Alexander.
He felt a thump inside his chest. Then another.
His vision suddenly returned. His head cleared. And his muscles not only lost their gelatinous weakness, but they itched with energy. The knowledge that the creature was almost upon him had triggered an adrenaline rush. But it was too little, too late.
The lizard had found him.
It rounded the corner at top speed, its short legs flinging out in wide circles as it ran.
Two things saved Davidson’s life. First, he ran. Second, the creature’s missing tail removed its ability to stabilize its body. A combination of speed and not enough room to make a wide turn sent the lizard rolling into a large pile of sand. A layer of sand sheared away with the creature’s impact, creating an avalanche that quickly buried the upended beast.
Davidson saw this and paused, a smile creeping onto his face.
The smile disappeared when the large sandfish launched from the sand pile, once again moving at top speed. Realizing he wouldn’t escape this attack, Davidson let out a scream of horror.
Then he was struck hard.
Davidson fell to the ground. Alive. He looked up and saw King standing in his place as the lizard lunged.
The monster struck King in a blur and both fell, landing on Davidson’s feet. Pinned beneath the weight of King and the lizard, he shouted and clawed at the ground, pulling himself out from the tangle of bodies. Once free, he quickly stood.
Expecting to see the lizard tearing King apart, he glanced back as he began to run again. But the creature lay motionless. Davidson stopped. A long metal pole entered the lizard’s mouth and exited out its sheared-off tail. A giant lizard shish kabob!
A grunt emerged from beneath it. King was alive. “Think you could get this thing off of me?”
Davidson took hold of the pole protruding from the creature’s mouth and lifted. But he only managed to wiggle the heavy reptile.
Alexander arrived a moment later, quickly understood what had happened, and lifted the lizard away with little effort. Davidson just stared at him in awe. He felt like he’d met David and Goliath, but they were on the same team.
Alexander helped King to his feet. “I’m impressed,” he said with a smile.
King grunted. Unlike Alexander, his body couldn’t heal quickly, and he knew the pain he felt now would only intensify over the next few days. He looked at Davidson. “Unless you know a fancy physics trick for becoming invisible, we’re going to have to take care of you the old-fashioned way.”
FORTY-THREE
Again, 20,000 feet
AFTER GIVING DAVIDSON a wad of cash, putting him up in a random hotel under a false name, and telling him to stay put until told otherwise, King and Alexander had returned to the airport and took off for England.
King hung up his cell phone and paced in the small open space at the front of Alexander’s Gulfstream jet. He was trying to wrap his mind around the idea that Ridley was in two places at once, which meant that one of them was an impersonator. Either that or they were—he hated thinking it—clones. That there could be more than one Ridley was bad on its own. But it also meant they had no idea where Fiona had gone. If there were two Ridleys, there could be three. There could be fifty.
And Fiona could still be in Rome. The entire trip to England could be a massive waste of time. But it was all they had. And even though this Ridley might not have Fiona, he might know where she was being held.
But what was the point? Try as he might, King couldn’t pin down Ridley’s endgame. He decided to review what he knew. Ridley was creating and using golems to do his dirty work, yet they were tools, not the goal. But they hint at the goal, he thought. The sandfish was nothing new. Ridley had created genetic monsters before. But had the sandfish been created in a lab or manipulated by the strange protolanguage? These were all symptoms of something larger, but he couldn’t think of what that might be.
He focused his attention on what he knew about Ridley. He was a genius, ruthless beyond comparison, and considered no person his equal. The man had a god-complex to the point of successfully achieving immortality through science. Likewise he had now learned to grant life, at least temporarily, to inanimate objects. While Davidson had given them some insight into the science that gave the ancient language world-altering capabilities, he had yet to—
King’s thoughts froze on the words “world altering.” In a sense, that’s what Ridley was doing. Living statues, giant lizards, copies of himself. He was manipulating reality. But how far could it go? How much could he manipulate and to what extent? Could he become a god? As soon as the question formed in King’s mind he knew the answer.
Yes.
Ridley would be immortal and hold the keys to life, death, and to some extent, creation. He would be a god and much of the world would bow down and worship him. But that couldn’t be the end. Not for a man like Ridley. He was interested in power. In domination. But he was just one man. It might take him centuries to build a large following and he wasn’t a patient man. There had to be something else.
With his mind spinning with theories, King headed back to his seat. His body ached and he needed to rest. Alexander sat at the rear of the plane, his seat tilted back, and his eyes closed. King marveled how the man was able to fall asleep so quickly when there was so much to think about.
He sat down across from Alexander and sighed.
“Unforeseen complications?” Alexander asked.
King jumped at the man’s voice. It seemed he wasn’t sleeping at all. “You could say that.”
Alexander opened his eyes and sat up. After pushing a button on his armrest, a stewardess entered from the front of the plane. “Yes sir?”
He held up two fingers. She nodded and disappeared.
“In your … experiments with Hydra’s blood. When you created the Forgotten and made yourself immortal, did you ever…” King searched for the right words. They all sounded ridiculous. Then again, so did immortality. “Duplicate yourself?”
As usual, Alexander took the question earnestly, without laughing or even cracking a smile. For him, nothing was out of the realm of possibility. “No. Never. Removing the head, in Ridley’s case, and in mine, would simply render the body dead. Regeneration would begin at the neck. Splitting into two unique selves is not an attribute of Hydra’s genes.”
“So he couldn’t just hack off a body part and grow a new self?”
“He is limited by the DNA of Hydra, and if he did his job correctly, regeneration is the only gene he transplanted into himself.”
“So it’s not possible?”
“I didn’t say that. There are species that have the ability to split in two, creating two separate entities, which can later split again. Earthworms for instance. If he continued to modify his genetic code, well, anything is possible. What resources were available to him after the Hydra incident?”
“Manifold was shut down,” King said. “His funds were frozen. But he likely had secret accounts. Facilities no one knew about. It’s possible that Manifold Genetics is operating under the radar.”
King adjusted his body in the seat. Despite the plush cushion, he couldn’t find a pain-free position. “Like you said, anything is possible.”
The stewardess returned with a tray. Two glasses and a dark brown, one-ounce bottle, sat atop it. She placed the tray on the foldout tabletop in front of Alexander. “Anything else, sir?”
“No, thank you. How long unti
l we land?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
He tilted his head in thanks and she left without looking back. Once the cabin door was closed again, Alexander continued. “Where is the second Ridley?”
“Danta Pyramid in Guatemala.”
“Interesting,” Alexander said, rubbing his chin.
“You know the place?” King asked, and then thought, Of course he does.
“It’s a Mayan city stretching over ten square miles that was consumed by the jungle. I’ve been meaning to visit, but haven’t had the chance.”
King felt a mild surprise at the ancient man not having been everywhere in the world.
“What’s interesting is that like the ancient pyramids in Egypt and the Tower of Babel before it, the construction techniques that allowed the Mayans to build a pyramid of such magnitude remains a mystery. Of course, you and I know that golems were used as laborers in the old world. And that several other ancient architects used the same method for building wonders all around the world.”
King saw where he was going with this. There was a connection. “Including Stonehenge.”
Alexander opened the brown bottle and extracted a dropper. A tan liquid with tiny swirling flakes filled the glass vial. He dropped five drops into each glass. “It would appear he is visiting the ancient sites for some purpose, perhaps in search of information or relics that might add to his knowledge of the protolanguage.”
Both men sat in silence for a moment. Alexander focused on the steps they would take upon landing. King’s mind drifted back to Fiona. He looked at Alexander, the oldest man on the planet and asked, “Do you have any children?”
The question took Alexander by surprise. He turned to King, with a lopsided smirk. “Children?”
King waited for more.
“There was a time, before I was immortal, that I wanted children. Acca and I tried to conceive, but she was barren. I never did get an heir. As it turns out, I didn’t need one. But there hasn’t been anyone worthy of bearing my children since.”
“You … haven’t been celibate all this time?” King asked.
Alexander gave a gentle laugh, which escaped his nose as a sniff. “For fifteen hundred years, yes.”
King couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Alexander was wealthy beyond belief, handsome, could speak a number of languages, live anywhere and do anything. And he’d chosen to live underground and alone for fifteen hundred years? It didn’t add up. It didn’t seem … human.
Alexander could see what King was thinking and ended the line of question with a preemptive statement. “I have seen and done everything imaginable with the opposite sex. After nearly a millennium of indulging, some things lost their novelty, starting with the primal act of procreation.”
“You are an old man,” King said with a grin.
Alexander smiled. “Very old.” He looked out the window for a moment, and then turned back to King. “While I may not be able to answer the questions of a new father, I can tell you this with confidence: for men like us, nothing is impossible.”
King’s smile widened, but wasn’t fully genuine. Despite being flattered that the immortal Hercules was starting to think of King as an equal, he still felt unsure about being a father. The problem wasn’t whether or not he could be a father, but whether or not he should be a father.
Alexander picked up both glasses and swirled them around until the tan liquid dispersed in the water. He offered one to King.
“What’s this?” King asked.
“You look tired.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Alexander smiled. “You don’t trust me yet?”
“I don’t think I ever will,” King said, and he meant it. Alexander, unlike Ridley, was a patient man. He’d already lived more lifetimes than Ridley could imagine. And though he had no concrete evidence, he suspected Alexander’s involvement in tracking down Ridley was more than altruism or one immortal protecting the world from another. The man had an endgame, he was sure of it. But finding out what that was would have to wait. For now, Alexander was an essential asset in stopping Ridley. After all, Alexander had coexisted with mortals for thousands of years without enslaving the human race. But that could change, King knew, and for that reason, Alexander needed to be watched closely.
Alexander gave a chuckle and made a face that said, “I’ll drink first.” He swigged the water down and grinned. He also looked much more rested and energetic.
“If you weren’t immortal,” King said, “that gesture might mean something. What’s in it?”
“It’s a homeopathic mix. My own. I cannot say what it contains. In the wrong hands it could be very dangerous.” Alexander looked out the large round window next to him. The rocky shore of England wasn’t far off. “When we land we will be moving fast. And since I have yet to see you sleep or rest that mind of yours, you will need some help to keep up.”
King wanted to argue, but couldn’t. As well trained and physically fit as he was, without rest his body would start to work against him. He already felt fatigued, and if things got rough in England, he might become a liability. He took the drink and swallowed it in two gulps. It tasted like mildly sweet water with a touch of—
A burst of energy hit him and brought an involuntary smile to his face. He felt rejuvenated and awake. And his mind was clear and focused. It wasn’t the adrenaline boost he’d seen Alexander give himself in Rome, but it was amazing. He could see how this tonic in the hands of the military could cause trouble. An army that didn’t require sleep to be at its peak would be a very dangerous thing.
“Feeling better?” Alexander asked.
“Much,” King answered.
“Good,” Alexander said, “because from now until we finish this fight, we won’t slow down.”
FORTY-FOUR
El Mirador, Guatemala
THE HELICOPTER LURCHED downward. Wind and rain beat against its black shell. Dark clouds blocked the rising sun while lightning coursed through the sky, illuminating the jungle beneath in a continuous strobe. A streak of lightning flashed past, striking a tree below with a burst of sparks. The immediate boom generated by the bolt as the super-heated air around it expanded into a shock wave pushed the chopper to the side.
Hell had temporarily taken up residence in the airspace above northern Guatemala.
The chopper’s three passengers weren’t fazed by the inclement weather, but the pilot, Luis Azurdia, was terrified. However, the bonus offered to him by his three wealthy clients was too generous to pass up. During the rainy season, travel to El Mirador was nearly impossible by land, and the site was mired with mud, flash floods, and few options for overnight stays. Tourists were few and far between as a result. The money Luis stood to make from this flight would cover the rest of the rainy season.
A second flash of lightning filled the cockpit with blinding light a fraction of a second before a resounding crash filled the air. Luis’s heart pounded. He’d never flown in a storm like this. Hell, if it was raining most tourists would cancel their trip.
He looked back at his passengers, hoping to see them fidgeting nervously, praying for fear in their eyes. If they called off the flight he might still be able to get that bonus. But the big Arabian man appeared to be meditating with his eyes closed. The skinny Asian man bobbed his head to music supplied by iPod earbuds. And the woman, her striking blond hair and forehead covered by a blue bandanna, simply looked out the window with a scowl. She, at least, looked like she wanted to be someplace else, but the storm was not on her mind.
Queen focused on the jungle below, watching an endless sea of trees. El Mirador was one of the most remote locations in Guatemala, which allowed the ancient Mayan city to remain fairly unexplored until 2003, when a team of archaeologists set up camp and began excavating the overgrown city. Despite the area’s natural beauty, the mysterious location they would soon explore, or the potential danger that awaited them there, her thoughts were half a world away.
In R
ussia.
With Rook.
News of his team’s extermination had been a blow to all of them. The men were comrades and friends. But Rook’s M.I.A. status was especially disturbing. He was more than a friend. She had worked hard denying her feelings, fighting against them as hard as any mythical creature they had faced, but with Rook missing, possibly dead, she couldn’t bury how she felt. And right now, she felt pissed.
She had petitioned to be freed from the mission in order to track down Rook, and if possible, rescue him. But she had been denied by Deep Blue himself. The mission came first. She knew Rook would agree, but it didn’t loosen the knot twisting in her stomach. To lose him now …
She shook her head, willing herself to not think it. She would find him when this was over.
What bothered her most was that despite being brave in almost any scenario, neither of them had the guts to talk about their feelings for each other. Ever since their kiss a year previous she had sensed his quiet discomfort around her. But they never spoke of it. Like the hardships of battle, they swallowed it. Buried it. Because they both knew that love on the battlefield could get people killed.
She realized now that soldiers died on the battlefield either way. And now Rook may have as well; a fact that would not have changed if their relationship had become romantic. At least then he would have died knowing, she thought, and then forced a new thought: I’ll tell him when I find him.
A flash of light made her squint and look away from the window. As thunder rolled over and through the helicopter she glanced toward the cockpit and made eye contact with Luis. He looked desperate and pale.
“I— Is the storm too much?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
She grinned. “Not at all.”
As a frown came to his face, Queen added, “We are more than halfway there, yes?”
“Sí,” he said with a nod. “We are almost there.”
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