Bishop nodded. “His granddaughter nearly took my head clean off. Wasn’t quite clean enough, I guess. But she’s not human. She’s—”
“Neanderthal.” Knight pointed out the notebook on the floor. “His journal. He wrote about the old mothers, his children, these crystals.”
Bishop eyed the large chunk of partial quartz.
“The Neanderthals believed the crystals could heal the mind.”
Bishop drew his knife and looked at Knight, who now looked a little concerned. Bishop smiled. “It’s for the rock.” He stabbed the knife hard into the crystal. It dented, but nothing more. He swung again, aiming for a crack. A chunk the size of his thumb fell to the stone floor. He reached down and picked it up. “Just stay there.”
With the crystal clenched in his hand, Bishop walked backward, away from the crystal. He walked past the rat remains, where he’d first felt the crystal’s effect. Seeing the rat again, Bishop wiped his hand across his mouth. It came away with goopy clumps of congealing blood. He scowled, then disappeared into the maze. Knight waited for the giant man to come barreling out, savage and hungry, but when he reappeared, he wore a broad smile, the kind of smile only those who had once been captive can wear.
He was free.
Bishop chuckled for a moment, rested his hands against the massive crystal, and shook his head.
His elation was contagious. Knight grinned, happy to see his friend not just alive, but well. He doubted any other member of the team would have had the inner strength to fight not only Bishop’s deep-rooted personal demons, but the genetically altered ones as well.
Knight’s smile vanished as he saw the orange glow on Bishop’s outbreak meter jump to a dark pink and continue on to a deep red.
Bishop looked at the device and frowned, the joy he felt replaced by dread. “We need to find the others.”
“Do you know where Rook is?” Knight asked.
Bishop shook his head slowly. “He saw what they did to me. I don’t know if he’d go off mission to get Weston, but he’s not going to try real hard to avoid him.”
“Then we’ll do the same.”
“Know where he is?”
Knight held up Weston’s map. “I have an idea.”
FIFTY-ONE
“THEN WHY ARE you still wearing your wedding ring?” Sara asked, trying to ignore the cold gun barrel pressed against the underside of her chin. Weston had it pushed so hard against the soft space between her jawbones that she could feel her rapid pulse pushing against the metal. For a moment she thought he would pull the trigger, but he eased up. His eyes were wet.
Wet eyes mean blurry vision, Sara thought. “You must still love her.”
“For a time, yes. Her reaction was understandable.” Weston wiped his arm against his nose, sniffled, and looked at his ring finger. The gold band glittered in the room’s shimmering aqua light. “But now . . .” He laughed, a little too maniacally for Sara’s peace of mind. “But now I just can’t get the damn thing off.”
The gun lowered some.
“You know, I wish she could see all this. What I’ve become. That my profession is valid. That I am a good father.”
Water clung to his lower eyelids, ready to spill over.
“I know it wouldn’t change anything . . .”
Weston’s arms went slack for a moment. The gun pointed to the floor.
“It wouldn’t bring him back.”
Weston blinked. Tears fell. Eyes blurred.
Sara struck.
She stepped forward and kicked up like her father had taught her to in his ten years as her soccer coach. Kick with the laces! She did. And the connection with the small bit of fabric covering Weston’s business was solid.
Weston cried out and fell to his knees. In his rage he reached out and pulled the trigger, but the pain rolling up through his gut and the wetness in his eyes threw off his aim. He didn’t get a chance to fire again. Sara’s second kick struck his wrist and sent the gun skidding across the room, sliding behind a stack of firewood.
Weston grunted and swung out wildly. His backhand caught her mouth and her bottom lip split. But she used the pain, along with knowledge of what she was doing to fuel the fire spurring her toward savage action. She needed the split lip and allowed Weston to strike her.
Sara lunged, grabbed Weston’s scraggly beard with her left hand, pulling his head to the side. With her right hand, she grabbed hold of his left arm. And then, like a feral beast, she shot forward and buried her teeth into the meat of his shoulder. Though he howled and reeled, she held on like a vampire desperate for sustenance, letting the blood coursing from his body enter and mingle with the blood of her open lip. He would give her the cure whether he wanted to or not.
“Stop!” he shouted, his voice cracking and panicked. “Get off! Please!”
Sara let go and stood. Weston was on the floor, his torso a bloody mess, his face wet with tears. But it was his shoulder that held her attention. Old scars lay beneath the fresh wound she had delivered. Scars from his ordeal with the old mothers. For a moment she pitied the man. He had endured so many awful things, so much pain. It’s no wonder his psychology is skewed, she thought.
But she wouldn’t risk pitying him for long. She headed for the door, hopping as she slipped off her boots.
“You can’t leave!” he shouted, spit flying from his mouth, collecting on his beard.
She focused her attention on escape and didn’t bother responding. The cold stone of the temple was a shock to her feet, but she moved in total silence. She thought about looking for the gun, but he might be up and fighting before she found it. Instead, she took his belt and knife from the bed and discarded her boots as she ran out the door.
Weston’s voice chased her. “You can’t escape Mount Meru, Pawn! Whether it is from old age or violence, you will die here!”
For a moment she thought about rushing back and plunging the knife into his gut. It would solve a lot of problems. But she wasn’t a killer and couldn’t risk losing what she had taken from him.
She had the cure.
She was the cure.
She descended the steep staircase two steps at a time. All of the carefulness she’d put into climbing the stairs disappeared as she bounded down, free. She had to escape. She had to survive.
Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, she tripped, rolled on the hard stone floor of the temple, then sprang back to her feet. But she didn’t make it any farther. A moving wall blocked her path and sent her sprawling to the floor. Sara looked up into the face of the last . . . person she wanted to see.
Lucy.
FIFTY-TWO
ROOK’S LEG SHOOK, causing leaves to rustle and branches to sway.
“What are you doing?” Queen asked, her voice quiet but tinged with annoyance.
“Muscles in my leg are twitching,” Rook replied. “I’m not built to spend an entire day clinging to tree branches like a frickin’ monkey.”
The day had worn on slowly. Conversation had been sparse because being discovered by the nation of monsters below, each strong enough to tear them to pieces—even the little ones—would be a very bad thing. As the sun moved through the sky, shifting its light behind the clouds that had continued to thicken with water, they had watched as the Neanderthals below went about their business as though nothing were out of the ordinary.
Wooden planks continued to be made. Pots cooked various stews. Animal limbs and torsos roasted over open fires. The hybrids picked at the food as they worked, never stopping for a full-fledged meal. They were industrious and dedicated workers producing stone carvings, ladders, tools, clay pots, and ropes. Not one of them sat idly by. Everyone worked. As each item the hybrids created was finished it was quickly hauled into the cave, and then work would begin anew. Something big was going on in that cave. Rook felt sure of it, and with every passing hour, the sheer amount of materials transported into the cave confirmed his suspicions.
Rook scratched at his arm where his mud covering h
ad dried up and peeled back. A puff of dust fell from his body and mingled with the large leaves around him that shielded him from hybrid view. “I swear, the sun better go down soon; this crap is getting itchy.”
Queen nodded. She wasn’t one to complain, but she had itches to scratch all over her body and it took a phenomenal amount of willpower to keep from scraping off her dry earth camouflage. Worst of all was her forehead. When she’d first applied the mud to her forehead the cool dirt had eased the pain of the scorching VPLA brand. But now, with the water sapped and the dry earth constricting and scraping her skin, it burned with fresh pain. She scrunched her forehead in frustration. The resulting flash of pain from her mutilated skin squishing together in folds distracted her from the chafing skin all over her body, but it also loosened a dry sheet of mud so that it fell off in one large clump.
Feeling the mud fall from her forehead, Queen reached out and caught it before it could drop through the branches and create a billowing cloud of dust that might tip the hybrids off to their location. She looked at Rook and sighed with relief, a smile coming to her face after thwarting the close call.
But Rook did not return the smile. Shock, fury, and pity flashed across his face in waves, like the shifting colors of a cyanea octopus. “Queen . . . what the hell?”
She’d forgotten he hadn’t seen it yet. “A gift from the VPLA.”
They stared into each other’s eyes for nearly a minute, neither changing expressions or shifting bodies. The communication bordered on spiritual, with both knowing and understanding what the other was thinking and feeling. Compassion. Anger. Sadness. Finally, Rook broke the silence. “Well, we’re all going to have them. So we match.”
Queen smiled. “You couldn’t stand the pain, little man.”
“Who did it?”
“Major General Trung.”
“He dead?”
“Not yet.”
“Will be?”
“Absolutely.”
Rook agreed with a tilt of his head.
They returned their attention to the hybrid settlement. Everything looked the same. Rook sighed. “Ten more minutes of this and I swear I’m going to—”
Something tickled Rook’s ear. He flicked at it and a drop of mud, wet and moist, struck a nearby branch. His eyes widened upon seeing it. They both looked up.
High above, the sky looked fuzzy, like TV static.
“What is that?” Rook asked. He’d never seen anything like it. The clouds had become speckled like a 1950s halftone comic book illustration. “That can’t be rain. You can’t see rain that high up . . .”
Then it hit. Raindrops the size of large grapes descended in an unceasing torrent. God had redirected Niagara Falls directly overhead. The hiss of the rain striking the jungle canopy was louder than a Super Bowl stadium filled to capacity. The feel of it, while refreshingly cool, was like being flicked from head to toe. And the mud covering that concealed their pale bodies melted away in seconds. Their gleaming white skin became a beacon to anyone who thought to look up.
Through the wet din a cry rose up. While there was no language to it, the tone and volume denoted urgency and warning. Had they been discovered? They peeked out through the leaves, more wary now that their white faces and blond hair could be easily spotted against the dark green foliage. The cry came again, louder and closer. A mass of hybrids dropped what they were doing, some picking up spears, and rushed into the jungle. Another large group ran inside the mountain, disappearing into the darkness. The clearing was empty.
Moments later, gunfire and explosions ripped through the forest some distance away. Both knew this might be their only chance. They slid down through the branches quickly, leaped to the jungle floor, and ran out into the open, their only cover being the blanket of large, glistening raindrops that blended nicely with their fair skin.
As they passed through the huts, workstations, and fires, they abandoned their crude wooden spears and upgraded to stone-tipped spears that leaned against hut walls. Queen noticed a KA-BAR knife stabbed into a fireside log. She wrenched it free as she ran past, and inspected it.
King’s.
He had been here.
As they neared the large cave entrance, Queen saw a backlit monster of a hybrid approaching. The fight would be two on one, but Queen doubted they would stand a chance. Taking one out in a surprise attack was one thing. This was closer to jumping in front of a Mack truck. But they couldn’t back down. Then she saw the string of cages containing pacing tigers and bears. Queen paused before the cages and, using King’s knife, hacked away the handmade ropes that held the doors shut. The bears watched curiously. The tigers reacted instantaneously, throwing themselves at the gate.
Queen bolted and caught up with Rook, who had not stopped. In fact, he had sped up, ready to fight. Before she could shout a warning about the tigers approaching from behind, the large male hybrid stepped out in front of them. He had no weapon, but his six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered build, thick fingernails, and inch-long canines were all he needed on most days . . . except for today.
Rather than face the tigers or their new adversary, Queen dove and tackled Rook. They fell to the mud just as the two tigers launched into the air.
The three massive predators met with a flurry of crushing jaws and swiping claws. Blood flew. Savage voices roared. One of the tigers exploded from the fray, tossed through the air by the hybrid. But it twisted, landed on its feet, and attacked anew.
The hybrid fought amazingly in the face of a danger that would have most human beings weeping in a pile of their own feces, but the two giant cats proved too much. As one swiped at him wildly with extended claws, the other landed a killer bite on his thick throat. As the life was squeezed out of the hybrid, he pounded on the tiger, but it responded by increasing the pressure and holding on tight.
Before the tigers turned their attention away from their still-dying prey, Rook and Queen ran for the cave, entering without further incident and disappearing into the darkness.
FIFTY-THREE
“LUCY, STOP!” KING shouted as Lucy raised a fist and prepared to shove it straight through Sara’s skull. He put his hand on Lucy’s arm, not trying to hold her back—he knew he couldn’t—but hoping his touch would distract her.
It did.
Her arm yanked away and then swung out, catching King across the chest. He careened back, slamming into a wall. The back of his head grew wet with blood. Stumbling forward, he felt the gash with his fingers, the salty sweat on them stinging the small wound. He would live.
At least for a few more seconds.
Lucy pounded toward him and slammed him back against the wall. “You may marry me, but you will never be above me.”
King looked into Lucy’s pretty brown eyes, so full of hate, and for the first time realized she stood at least a few inches taller than him. She’d inherited Weston’s height. She was right. He never would be above her. He couldn’t help but smile.
She pushed against him harder. “Why do you smile?”
Sara pushed herself to her feet, holding Weston’s belt against her waist. The hard shape of the sheathed knife pushed against her belly. She reached for it. If Lucy intended on killing King, she might have to use it. But King defused the situation with the last grouping of words Sara would have ever expected him to say.
“Because you’re right. And I’m happy to have found someone like you. Someone strong. Someone to protect me.”
Lucy giggled, transforming from enraged killer to tweenage girl. Sara’s eyes widened. He had her wrapped around his finger . . . already!
A pain-filled scream of anger sounded from the temple’s top room. Weston. Still trying to stand up after the pounding Sara had delivered to his body and pride. He vented his anger and pain with a wild vocalization that barely sounded human.
Lucy let go of King. “Father?”
Sara saw an opportunity. Lucy, it seemed, was easily fooled. “He’s hurt. Maybe even dying. I was going to get help.”
“Father!” Panic filled Lucy’s hairy face as she launched toward the steep stairs and took them in sets of four.
Sara ran to King. “C’mon!” she said, taking his wrist and pulling him through the hallway that ran through the cruciform fishpond rooms.
Still stunned by the blow to the back of his head, King staggered behind her. As they reached the last of the fishpond chambers, Sara abruptly stopped and turned to King. The loud clomping of his booted feet had caught her attention.
“What?” King said, his faculties starting to return.
“Lose the boots. They’ll hear us.”
King did as he was told without pause. He either realized she told the truth or trusted her enough to act on her word. The boots slid off quickly. Sara took them and tossed them into a fishpond. Large wet mouths opened and attacked the boots as they sank beneath the surface.
Side by side, they ran silently out of the hall and stopped. Standing high up on the cliff entrance was a group of hybrids, hooting and agitated. The humans hadn’t been spotted yet, but would be when Lucy or Weston sounded the alarm.
King grabbed hold of Sara’s arm and yanked her into the tunnel. He glanced back the way they’d come and saw Lucy’s and Weston’s feet appear at the top of the doorway, descending the steps slowly.
A call rang out from the hybrids above. The noise sounded like a horn of some kind as it echoed throughout the city chamber. For a moment, King thought they’d been spotted, but heard Weston ask, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
Just before Lucy and Weston had a clear view down the tunnel, King grabbed hold of Sara and shoved her into one of the adjacent rooms. They were wide, empty alcoves, featuring nothing but three descending stairs that entered the fish pools. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go . . . but in.
“Get in the water,” King whispered.
Sara looked down and saw the gleaming skin of several large fish reflecting the crystal light from above. “Are you crazy?”
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