The passion that he and Reaves had shared, that had consumed their lives for the last twelve years…this was where it had led them. To the wreckage of a ship preparing to sink into oblivion, on an island where nearly a hundred good men and women had lost their lives to the focus of their every waking thought, and for what? They had done exactly what they set out to do so long ago, yet they had nothing to show for it. There was no way they could explore the potential of the monster they had created. The world was simply not ready for that knowledge.
Reaves groaned and tried to say something, but the words came out a garble.
“Try not to exert yourself, old friend.” He wiped the beaded sweat from Reaves’s pallid face. His eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Bradley. “That was a very brave thing you did. He would have killed us all.”
Reaves’s face tightened with pain. He tugged meekly at Bradley’s hand and swallowed hard. He tried to speak again. Bradley had to lean closer to hear him.
“…can’t let anyone…find it,” Reaves whispered.
“I know.” Bradley looked Reaves in the eyes and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “We’re not ready.”
“Promise?”
Reaves pleaded with his eyes.
“You have my word, Brendan.”
The ghost of a smile crossed Reaves’s lips and his eyes gently closed. His grip on Bradley’s hand relaxed.
Bradley raised his stare and looked to the west, where Bishop knelt on the back of the Trident like a native fisherman in a shallow dugout, silhouetted against the brutal waves. There was a loud hiss of air and the smoke above the submersible swirled upward on the sudden gust. Bishop stood upright as the Trident took on ballast and sank beneath him. A moment later, he was treading water where the vessel had once been.
Courtney stood knee-deep in the ocean on the stern. The waves now lapped into the mouth of the hanger. She simply stared out to sea at where the submersible had once been, her arms wrapped around her chest. He couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling. He couldn’t blame her for hating him. Whether intentionally or not, he had robbed her of one of the most important people in her life and then had her locked up in one of the cabins now on the ocean floor while he tried to determine how best to keep her silent. Would he have had her killed to keep their secret? He was glad he’d never been forced to actually make that decision. He wasn’t certain he would have made the right choice. What happened to her brother hadn’t been directly his fault, but it had been his responsibility. And while he couldn’t bring Tyler back, he could at least make sure that his life, that his sacrifice, hadn’t been in vain.
When the time arrived, he would fall on his sword and do what needed to be done.
He would do the noble thing.
The right thing.
He would lie through his teeth.
Eighty-Nine
Courtney swam ever downward toward the bottom of Tutum Bay. She had equipped herself in scuba gear from the divers locker room. The water was bitter cold, even through the wetsuit, but she couldn’t feel it. She was physically and emotionally numb. Her arms paddled and her legs kicked of their own accord. Were it not for the weight belt, she probably wouldn’t have the strength to reach her destination, but she needed to know. She couldn’t leave this island without learning the truth. It would haunt her for the rest of her life if she did.
Bishop had offered to join her, if only for moral support. While she appreciated the gesture, this was something she had to do by herself. Although she did hope to see a lot more of him once their normal lives resumed.
She clicked on her headlamp and swam through the haze of silt, navigating the maze of coral formations that once would have held her enrapt for days on end. Maybe some other time, she thought, knowing that day would never come. She passed fish hiding in darkened enclaves under piles of metallic debris, past corpses nearly hidden in the reef, and through rising curtains of hydrogen sulfide and arsenic bubbles until she finally saw the Trident. It had sunken into the sediment to the point that the windows were mere feet above the ocean floor. It already looked as though it had been down here for years.
Courtney glided up to the port-side window, where her brother had been stationed on the Corellian, and knelt before it. She wiped away the accumulation of grime and brought her face close to the glass to shine her beam inside. A streak of dried blood bisected it at an angle from the other side. She could see the racks of equipment on the opposite wall, plastic faces broken, wires exposed. Monitors were cracked and shattered. Her breath caught in her chest. There was no one in there. It had somehow managed to escape. At this very second, it could be attacking the others on the ship.
And then she saw it, a hunched shape slouched down in the cushioned pit.
She placed her hand against the fiberglass hull, just to feel the vibrations, to know that oxygen was still being pumped into the sphere.
It didn’t move at first. It merely stared back at her through eyes that reflected her beam as twin golden disks. The light shone dully on scaled skin that had taken on a sickly gray cast. She watched it even as it watched her. Its gills flared dramatically, exposing folds of pale tissue that no longer retracted like they should. Its mouth was closed, or as much as it could be with all of those teeth. Those that pierced its lips threw shadows across its chin and cheeks. Its respirations were agonal, gasping, reminding her of the goldfish she and her brother had shared as children. It had jumped out of its bowl and they had found it on the carpet, sucking desperately for even its dying breaths. She remembered the way Ty had cupped it carefully in both of his tiny hands and eased it gently back into the water. It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes for it to die.
The figure rolled Pike’s body off of its lap and pushed itself up from the cushions. It brought what at first looked like a dead snake to its mouth and took a long, deep breath that deflated the tube. She realized what it was with a start and glanced down at the hollow abdomen of Pike’s corpse. When she looked back at the creature, it crawled forward until its face was only inches from the glass.
His hair was gone and his eyes were different, but the shape was the same. His mouth bulged and his nostrils appeared somehow too narrow, yet still she recognized him. She would have known her brother’s face anywhere.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into the mask.
As if he could hear her, Tyler nodded.
The scales on his face had peeled away in sections to expose the gray skin beneath. Lesions had opened along his cheek bones, brow, and chin. The pure oxygen had already started his deterioration, as Bradley had said it would. She looked deeply into his eyes in search of any of sign of the man he had once been, praying that she could stop this, but knowing in her heart that there was no way she could.
He inhaled again from Pike’s bowels and his eyes widened in panic. He tried again and again before hurling the sloppy ropes across the sphere. She read desperation and fear in his stare.
She reached out and pressed her palm against the window.
Her brother matched her gesture. She could see the webbing between his fingers as though it were her own.
Courtney held her hand like that for several minutes.
This was how she would say goodbye.
Tears rolled from her eyes and pooled against the seal of the mask.
When she finally removed her hand, her brother attempted a smile and pointed upward repeatedly with one clawed finger. He wanted her to open the hatch. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. Unless they brought the Trident back to the surface, it was sealed for good.
She shook her head.
The placid expression on his face metamorphosed into rage. He bared his teeth and struck at the window with his claws, over and over, until she had to turn away.
She sat down on the ground and leaned her back against the submersible, which rocked and shuddered as the creature continued to go berserk, hurling itself against the sides, rushing up and down the rungs to the hatch, throwing equipme
nt…more animal than man.
“Goodbye, Ty,” she whispered.
She would stay down here with him for as long as it took.
The frantic movement eventually stilled inside.
Courtney remembered sitting in the isolation chamber, waiting for her air to run out. The certainty of knowing that she was going to die was the worst part, but there came a point of acceptance. The rest…it was like just falling into a pleasant, dreamless sleep.
She would stay with her brother, right by his side.
There was no way she would leave him alone.
Not down here.
Not like this.
Not until he was finally asleep.
Ninety
Bishop found Courtney sitting on the starboard catwalk above the stern, her feet dangling in the ocean, staring off to the west, where the setting sun bled the cloud of smoke and ash crimson. He hadn’t seen her return. The torrent had waned to a drizzle. No longer did the lightning flare overhead, and the thunder was just a distant grumble from across the sea. Behind them, the formerly long-dormant volcano continued to rumble and billow ash into the heavens, although with nowhere near the same ferocity. Lava slithered down through the forest as it cooled; however, no more danced above the caldera or boiled over its rim. The fires still advanced ever downward toward the shore, losing speed as they went. The ocean remained angry, hurling massive waves at them one after another, but it seemed as though even Neptune had blown off most of his steam.
Bishop climbed up to the railing and sat down beside her. She didn’t appear to notice his arrival, so he just sat silently beside her. He hoped that maybe his presence alone would be enough.
“It didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” she said, still staring at the horizon. Despite her best efforts to hide it, her voice trembled. “I wonder if…in the end…a part of Tyler resurfaced.”
“He’s at peace now, Courtney.”
“I just pray he didn’t suffer.”
Bishop held out his hand. She tore her gaze from the setting sun, took it in hers, and rested them both on her lap. They sat quietly for several minutes before she asked the question they were all thinking.
“What happens now?”
“We go back to the real world, back to our lives.”
“How are we supposed to do that?”
“I suppose we take it one day at a time.”
“And what about…?” She held up their hands. “What about this?”
“I can’t wait to find out.”
He traced circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.
She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“What about everything that happened here? What are we supposed to do?”
“We can’t change any of it. The best we can hope to do is make sure something like this never happens again.”
“After everything we’ve been through, you’re willing to let Bradley off the hook? He has to pay for what he’s done.”
“I have no doubt he’ll pay, Courtney.” He rested his cheek against her hair. “I just think that you and I are done paying. And I think that your brother is, too. Better he rest in peace here than end up on a dissection table somewhere, or, God forbid, that his remains be used to create more like him. And you know that’s exactly what they’d do.”
A black dot appeared in the distance where the sun settled into the ocean. It grew larger as he watched until he could clearly discern the wide bridge of the pilothouse and the T-shape of the satellite array crowning it.
“Well, it’s about time,” he said.
Courtney raised her head and looked to the west. Her grip tightened on his hand. She turned to face him with a mixture of conflicting emotions on her face.
“What are we going to tell them?”
“I guess we’d probably better figure that out before they get here.” He shrugged. “But first things first.”
He tipped up her chin, looked into her stunning shamrock eyes, and kissed her for everything he was worth.
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BURIAL GROUND
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Prologue
Andes Mountains
Northern Peru
October 11th
9:26 p.m. PET
The screams were more than he could bear, but they didn’t last long. Panicked cries cut short by wet, tearing sounds, and then finally silence, save the patter of raindrops on the muddy ground. From where he crouched in the dark recess of the stone fortification, hidden from the world by a screen of tangled lianas and the sheeting rain, he had listened to them die.
All of them.
The signs had been there, but he and his companions had misinterpreted them, and now it was too late. It was only a matter of time before they found him, and slaughtered him as well.
Hunter Gearhardt donned his rucksack backward, and wrapped his arms around its contents. He’d managed to grab a few items of importance once he’d recognized what was about to happen, and he needed to get them out of the jungle. More bloodshed would follow if he didn’t reach civilization. With their inability to access a signal on the satellite phone, there was no other way to deliver the warning. It was all up to him now, and his window of opportunity was closing fast.
His breathing was ragged, too loud in his own ears, his heartbeat a thudding counterpoint. He couldn’t hear them out there, but they had attacked so quietly in the first place that the silence was of little comfort. They were still out there, stalking him. There was no time to waste. He needed to put as much distance between himself and his pursuit as possible if he were to stay alive long enough to get down off the mountain. And even then, they knew this region of the cloud forest far better than he did.
He wished he’d had the opportunity to find his pistol, but it would have been useless against their superior numbers. His only hope was to run, to reach the river. From there he could only pray that he would be able to survive the rapids and that they wouldn’t be able to track him from the shore. It was a long shot. Unfortunately, it was also his only shot.
Tightening his grip on his backpack, his muscles tensed in anticipation.
Through the curtain of lianas, the rain continued to pour, creating puddles in every imperfection in the earth and eroding through the steep slope ahead, which plummeted nearly vertically into the valley below. If he fell, they would be upon him in a flash. And that was only if he didn’t slide over the lip of the limestone cliff and plunge hundreds of feet through the forest canopy to his death.
Hunter drew a deep breath and bolted out into the night. Narrowing his eyes against the sudden assault of raindrops, he focused on the rocky path that led down toward the river. The ancient fortress wall flew past to his left, a crumbling twenty-five foot structure composed of large bricks of chiseled obsidian nearly consumed by the overgrowth of vines, shrubbery, and bromeliads. Every footfall summoned a loud splash he could barely hear over his own frantic breathing. The mud sucked at his boots as though he were running through syrup. He barely managed to stay upright long enough to reach the path, little more than a thin trench between rugged stone faces. The ground in the channel was slick and nearly invisible under the muddy runoff. His feet slipped out from beneath him and he cracked his head on a rock. His momentum and the current carried him downward onto a flat plateau dominated by Brazil nut trees draped with vines and moss.
The roar of the river became audible over the tumult of rain. He was so close—
A crashing sound from the underbrush to his right.
He glanced over as he crawled to his feet and saw nothing but shadows lurking behind the shivering branches.
More crashing uphill to his left.
He wasn’t going to make it.
Willing his legs to move faster, he sprinted toward the edge of the forest and the cliff beyond. The waterfall that fired from the
mountain upstream was a riot of mist and spray that crashed down upon a series of jagged rocks. Hopefully, there was enough water racing through now thanks to the storm to have raised the level of the river above them. Either way, he’d rather take his chances with broken bones than the hunters that barreled through the jungle, leaving shaking trees in their wake.
They were all around him now and closing fast.
If he could just reach the rock ledge, he could leap down into the river and allow it to whisk him away.
Ten yards.
Through the trees, he could see only fog, but he’d been down here enough times to know that the foaming whitecaps flowed only fifteen feet below. He would then need to navigate a series of waterfalls, and keep from drowning long enough to reach the bottom of the valley and the start of the real trek.
Five yards. Another four strides through the snarl of brush and he could make his leap. Just three more strides and—
Searing pain erupted in his back as he was slammed from behind. Something sharp probed between his ribs to either side of his spine. The mist-shrouded cliff disappeared and he saw only mud rising toward his face. The backpack against his chest broke the brunt of his fall, but his forehead still hammered the ground. He saw only blackness and tasted blood. The weight pounded down on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Something clawed at his shoulders as he slid forward.
The pressure on top of him abated and whatever had stabbed him was yanked out as he rolled over the ledge and tumbled into the fog toward the frigid river, unable even to scream.
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