Threshold

by Jeremy Robinson

  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.

  Vilad forsh.

  “What do you make of this?” Knight asked.

  “It must be some portion of the ancient language,” Bishop replied. “Something she thought could help.”

  “Something that could return her to herself.”

  Bishop tilted his head in agreement. The girl had certainly not been herself. “We need to get out of here.”

  Knight opened his hand revealing the transmitter. “The charges are probably embedded in the wall, but they should still work.”

  Bishop took out a small camera with a digital display and snapped a photo of the text. “Do it,” he said, taking a step back. But something made him pause. Something about the writing on the wall.

  Knight stood waiting against the back wall. “What’s wrong?”

  “Arzu Turan,” he said. “It’s a name. Turkish. Probably common for women in this area.” He looked at Knight. “I don’t think its part of the mother tongue.”

  “So we leave it out?”

  “Replace it,” Bishop said. “With Fiona Lane.”

  Knight understood what Bishop was getting at. If Fiona had overheard the phrase directed at someone else, she might not have recognized the first part as a name. And if it was a name, Arzu Turan may have been the poor soul on the receiving end of whatever these words did. It seemed Fiona had been, too, or at least she believed she would be when she scratched the words into the wall.

  Bishop took a step back. “Okay, now blow it.”

  * * *

  AS QUEEN RAN down the hallway, past the ancient armory, she glanced over her shoulder. The first of the big cats bounded into the hall behind her. The other two were close behind. Their muscles flexed with each leap forward. Their eyes focused on her, locked on target.

  My God, they’re fast, Queen thought. Too damn fast!

  As she rounded the first of two corners that would take her back to the hallway where they’d left King and Alexander the cats had cut the distance between them in half. Queen knew she could shoot and kill all three animals if she had to, but to achieve maximum chaos, she needed them alive. So instead of shooting the beasts, she willed her limbs to move faster and prayed for a miracle.

  She rounded the final corner, running as fast as she could. She could hear the giant lynx behind her, the soft pads of their feet thumping against the hard stone floor. With a final burst of speed, she lunged through the door and into the open chamber beyond.

  * * *

  FIONA HAD AIMED for his heart, but King had shifted his body to the side. The knife had come to rest between two ribs to the right of his heart and lungs. It hurt like a bastard, but had missed anything vital.

  “You son of a bitch!” King shouted.

  Ridley began to reply, but his voice was cut short by an explosion behind him. A cloud of dust and stone burst from a hallway at the side of the chamber.

  Disoriented by the explosion, but not down, Mahaleel and Cainan began speaking the mother tongue, their words barely audible to King across the room, but the effect of their words became quickly apparent as the remaining eight statues began moving.

  But then a new voice filled the room, loud and booming. It was Bishop, and like Mahaleel and Cainan, he was speaking the ancient language as well. “Fiona Lane. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”

  Ridley shook his head, recovering from the explosion. “Kill him!” he shouted at Fiona.

  But the girl didn’t move. King looked down at her and noticed a change in her eyes. She was looking up at him, first at the knife buried in his chest, which she still gripped with one hand, and then to King’s eyes. Her lips quivered. She had returned. But with the return came a weakening. He saw her pale. Dark rings formed around her eyes.

  “Kill him, now!”

  Fiona looked back at the knife and whispered, “Sorry.”

  He was about to tell her it was okay, it wasn’t her fault. But then he saw her hand grip the knife. She wasn’t apologizing for what she’d done. She was apologizing for what she was about to do. And King knew exactly what that would be. While they hadn’t let her fire a weapon at the range, they had shown her how to throw a knife. And she was good.

  With the last of her energy, Fiona yanked the blade from King’s chest, whirled around and sent it flying.

  The blade buried itself into Ridley’s thigh, sending him to the floor.

  Fiona fell as well, her body curling up into a fetal position.

  Using the distraction, King took aim to fire at Cainan, but a sudden pressure flexed his ribs where Fiona had stabbed him. The golem holding him tightened its grip. He shouted in pain, fighting against blacking out.

  Alexander was being treated similarly, but as he fought the golem’s grasp with his formidable physical strength and invulnerability, he looked more angry than in pain.

  A blur of movement shot between the two men and entered the center stage.

  Queen.

  She ran straight past Fiona and launched herself into the air, diving over Ridley. King wondered why she would do that and got his answer a second later as three giant cats pounced into the room and dove on the nearest moving objects—two at golems and one at Ridley himself.

  * * *

  AFTER SHOUTING THE strange sentence Fiona had scrawled on her cell wall, reading the word
s from the small display screen on his camera, Bishop waited until he saw Fiona freed from control. Then he turned and ran back to the cell. Knight struggled to his feet. The impact had pounded his body, but unlike Bishop, he needed time to recover.

  Despite the pain, Knight’s mind was still on task. “Did it work?” he asked.

  Bishop steadied Knight. “Whatever was done to her has been undone.”

  “Good,” Knight said, standing on his own and lifting his weapon. “Let’s get into this fight.”

  With his XM25 at the ready, Bishop moved toward the large chamber, now shaking with the sounds of battle, both human and feline. As he stepped into the space, followed by Knight, he was greeted by a giant stone golem with a lion’s face.

  Knight turned to backtrack, but a second golem with the face of a jackal, hunched in the hallway, pounded toward them.

  “Back in the cell!” Bishop shouted.

  Knight saw Bishop drop a live grenade at the lion-headed golem’s feet and dove for the cell.

  * * *

  AS DARKNESS BEGAN to consume his vision King watched one of the big cats tackle a golem to the floor. A second cat was batted to the side, sliding across the floor and stopping at the far wall where it lay motionless. The third cat’s leap through the air caught Ridley’s attention. He looked up in horror.

  But the cat never made it.

  King fell to the floor, the pressure on his chest gone. He sucked in a deep breath and watched as the golem that had dropped him snagged the cat in midflight. The cat flailed and scratched with its large claws. Chunks of marble flew from the golem’s body, but it did little good.

  As the golem with the cat turned away from Ridley, King had to duck beneath its flailing hind legs. The cat fought for freedom. The sudden motion filled his oxygen-deprived vision with spots, forcing him to catch his breath.

  Ridley was on the floor, just twenty feet away. Fiona lay between them.

  With his face twisted with anguish and rage, Ridley quickly pulled the knife from his leg and rattled off a string of foreign words.

  As his vision and head cleared, King watched Adam’s body slide away and separate from Ridley’s. The body was half a man, his small chest full of disfigured ribs, his torso tapering off to a twist of flesh like a tied-off balloon. King doubted the half-formed Ridley duplicate could have survived the separation even without the bullet hole in his skull.

  But Ridley didn’t see it that way.

  “King!” Ridley’s voice was a bestial roar.

  The two men locked eyes.

  “Kill him!” Ridley shouted, now staring beyond King.

  The impact came quick, knocking King across the room. Only the padding provided by the giant cat’s thick fur and his instinct to roll as he landed saved his life. He got back to his feet and immediately dove back down as the now-dead cat turned club sailed over him.

  * * *

  QUEEN ROLLED UPON landing and quickly gained her feet. The lab table next to her exploded into the air, smashed by a hawk-headed golem. As lab equipment rained down around her and the golem raised an arm to strike her, she took aim with the XM25, let the laser sight determine her target’s distance, and pulled the trigger. Explosive rounds burst from the weapon, striking and exploding against the golem’s marble head. Its blue eyes shattered. Its face disintegrated.

  But still, it came for her, finishing the swing it began.

  Queen ducked the arm that would have removed her head, but lost her weapon as it was struck and destroyed.

  With a quick glance, she looked to the hallway where she hoped to see Bishop and Knight, but saw only another golem. Then the ground at its feet exploded, blowing off its leg and sending a cloud of shrapnel in her direction.

  * * *

  KNIGHT SHOOK HIS head, fighting against the ringing in his ears, and stood up. Dust fell from his head. He waved it away, coughing and turned to Bishop. “Good-bye perfect hearing, hello tinnitus.”

  The hallway swirled with dust, reducing visibility to only a few feet. There was no way to know what was out there, but they had no choice. They entered the hall, which was now full of dust. The golem blocking their exit lay in pieces, motionless. The second golem, however, emerged from the dust like a specter, still seeking them out.

  The pair ran for the large chamber, having no idea what to expect. What they found was their worst-case scenario made real.

  King was pinned against the back wall of the room, a golem charging toward him using one of the large cats as a club. Two more cats lay dead on the floor. Alexander was still clutched tight in the arms of a golem, whose continually crushing arms were now wearing down the ancient man. Queen lay on the floor, not far away, blood covering her face where a large stone fragment tossed by Bishop’s grenade had struck her. She was down, but still conscious.

  And the Ridleys, all three of them, stood at the center of the room, speaking the ancient language like conductors, orchestrating the actions of the nine remaining golems.

  A new golem, whose face looked more like a demon than any living thing, turned toward Bishop.

  Unless something drastic happened, there would be no escape for any of them. Knowing he couldn’t kill Ridley with the weapon in his hand, Bishop dropped it and ran into the chamber. With killing Ridley impossible he hoped to distract the man enough to dull his control on the golems, or at the very least, turn their attention to him alone, giving the others a chance to escape.

  As he leaped past Queen, she saw his hand reach into his shirt and pull out the crystal hidden beneath—the crystal that kept him from becoming an unstoppable killing machine. “Bishop, don’t!” she shouted.

  But it was too late. He’d already yanked the crystal loose and tossed it to her. A moment later, his raging wail turned all eyes on him.

  Ridley’s eyes widened as he instantly recognized the mania in Bishop’s face as the curse he had created. Bishop, now a regen, charged straight for his maker.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  CAINAN, SEEING BISHOP running toward Ridley, but not fully comprehending the rage in his eyes, moved to defend his creator. Being a golem, he felt no pain. Being modeled after Ridley, his size was formidable. But against a regen Bishop, he didn’t stand a chance.

  Bishop struck the clay-man like a vampire linebacker. His hands dug into Cainan’s shoulders while his jaws clamped down on the man’s throat, tearing out a chunk where the man’s jugular should have been. With a mouthful of flesh turning to clay in his mouth, Bishop reached down and swiped a hand across Cainan’s belly. It spilled open, dropping organs that turned to clay as they fell.

  As Cainan’s body began to lose its form, Bishop swiped into it again, tearing it in half. It fell to the floor as two large clumps of wet clay.

  Bishop’s eyes locked on the man’s duplicate, staring at him with wide eyes. He lunged.

  The man ran.

  Raking his hands down Mahaleel’s back, Bishop tore large chunks of flesh turned clay. The Ridley golem staggered forward and fell. Bishop took the man’s leg in his hands and bit into it. The flesh turned to clay in his mouth.

  Spitting the clay out, Bishop roared and turned on the third, and last Ridley. Fueled with bloodlust and anger toward the form of Ridley, he charged. Arms outstretched. Fingers bent like hooks. Drooling jaws open wide. He would tear Ridley apart, eating his flesh until his stomach burst. Then he would heal and continue his meal until Ridley’s body had been consumed. But Ridley’s flesh would regenerate as quickly as Bishop ate it and the two would continue in the vicious cycle indefinitely.

  Fear gripped Ridley as he realized this potential outcome, but it was replaced by confidence. He had the knowledge to stop it.

  As Bishop dove for his throat, Ridley shouted a string of words similar to those he had used to purge Adam from his body. It felt strange to be shouting words of healing at an attacking enemy, but it would stop the attack. Not only would Bishop’s mind and moral compass return, but he’d no longer have his regenerative abilities. The man wou
ld be killable.

  The effect was immediate.

  Bishop’s legs failed him and he fell to the floor before reaching Ridley. He shook his head and pushed himself up. He held his clay-covered hands up before his eyes. The taste of the stuff filled his mouth. Bishop looked at Ridley. “You … you cured me?”

  Ridley grinned. “Just in time, it would seem.”

  A brute force struck Bishop from the side and sent him sprawling to the floor.

  * * *

  WITH RIDLEY’S LIFE in jeopardy, all the golems in the room had turned their attention to him. The first thing King saw was Knight, sneaking out of the side tunnel. He made a dash to the center of the room, moving fast, staying low, and drawing as little attention to himself as possible. He scooped up Fiona, saw her condition, and quickly produced the insulin shot he carried. He stabbed the needle into her leg and depressed the plunger. But there was no time to see if it would return the girl to them.

  The two soldiers locked eyes.

  “Get her out of here,” King said.

  Knight gave a quick nod and ran back the way he’d come.

  Seeing Fiona’s limp body in Knight’s arms, filled him with an anger he’d never experienced before. It gripped his body and trained his mind on the man responsible for his girl’s condition.

  Ridley!

  King acted quickly. He’d seen the way Bishop’s grenade had worked on the golem and left one of his own behind as he made his escape.

  The booming explosion from his grenade threw him forward. He landed between Queen, who was just getting back to her feet, and Bishop’s weapon. He rolled to Bishop’s weapon, picked it up, and fired a barrage at the golem still holding Alexander. The golem stumbled back as several rounds struck its arms.

  Just as many rounds struck Alexander. He shouted in pain as his body was torn apart.

  “What are you doing?” Queen shouted.

  But King didn’t answer. As the golem regained its balance Alexander had already healed from the wounds and pushed against the weakened arms. They shattered and exploded out.