slowly exhaled. Crisp and cold, the always-static acrid tang of New York on his tongue. But happy? Not too much. He was nearly out of the zone of influence, which must have been the portal, because the dire wolf behind him was still within arm’s reach. If it was emitting the bliss, then King reasoned he would still be feeling the full effect at this end of the hall.
He took another step into the fresh air and heard movement behind him.
He turned to see that all five of the dire wolves in the corridor were now keenly staring at him, their ten bulbous eyes locked on target.
King stood stock still, and smiled wide. The biggest, goofiest court jester grin he could manage.
The dire wolves, three on the floor, one on the ceiling, and one on the wall all looked back at him. They each turned their heads in unison, facing their snouts at him. Their mouths opened wide. All King could see were teeth. Hundreds of pointy incisors, like sharpened crystals. The dire wolf farthest away roared. The others rushed along the walls, ceiling and floor.
He had just seconds to act or die.
FORTY
River Thames, London, England
Bishop held tightly to the metal bar, helpless to stop the fragmented Ferris wheel from plummeting into the Thames, and certain he was about to die.
The wheel warped down to the muddy river. Saving the girls in the steel-and-glass cage was no longer possible. He held on with all he had as the wheel tipped out over the river. Four-hundred feet down, but the ride took only a few seconds.
At the last moment before his capsule hit the murky brown of the Thames, he considered leaping off the structure, to improve his chances of surviving the fall. But a split second of indecision was one second too many. He was out of time.
The capsule he stood on was the last part of the large wheel to reach the river. As the base of the wheel struck and sunk, his descent slowed some, but Bishop didn’t notice as the water rushed up toward him. A wave roared up, striking the capsule and slamming Bishop down against its roof. He coughed as his ribs and lungs compressed from the impact. His head spun, but he remained conscious, protected by the armor, which was living up to its reputation. Thick, brown river water coated Bishop, stealing his vision.
He dropped again, as the wave receded, and the wheel began to sink.
He looked through the capsule window; his hands still clenched around the metal bar he had used as a handhold during the descent. His grip tightened in anger. The three teen girls were dead. Their bodies had slammed against the steel and glass in the plunge. Murky tan water filled the shattered capsule. He could see two bodies floating and the third girl’s fractured head looked like a split-open watermelon left to wilt in the sun.
The very top of the capsule was still above the water level, but the rest had submerged. He turned, looking behind him at the crunched and mangled frame of the London Eye, which now resembled a toy construction kit hastily shoved into a container with bits sticking up in all the wrong ways. Bishop turned his attention to the bridge, searching for Knight. But the Crescent had retreated further along the river. Where is he?
Then Bishop saw him through the murk coating his helmet’s visor. He quickly unfastened the catch buckle at the side of his throat and pulled the helmet off his recently shaved head. The cold of the air hit him and the rain spattered down on his face as he watched his friend being carried away by a dire wolf toward a portal.
He nearly dove into the river with the plan to swim to the Embankment, but he wouldn’t have time and his armor would drag him down into the depths of the river.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He reached to his earpiece to call the pilot back to him. But it was too late. Knight was stabbing the back of the white thing’s neck over and over, but then they were in the portal.
And suddenly it, too, was gone, leaving a tremendous hole in the side of Portcullis Building’s lower corner. Missing the struc-tural support the corner of the building provided, the rest crumbled in a heap of stone, sending a plume of dust up into the rain. The billowing cloud looked like a miniature nuclear detonation.
“Black One, this is Bishop. I’m in the river, north of the bridge. Come get me before I drown.” Bishop spat into the water. The remains of the Ferris wheel were still sinking slightly as water filled the capsule with the dead girls. Bishop smashed the helmet onto the glass of the capsule, his normal calm demeanor gone, along with his friend and half of London. The impact lined the glass, but the helmet bounced away into the brown swirling water and sank.
“On my way. The door or the rope?” The hovering ship banked sharply and raced back over the bridge and above Bishop’s head before slowly beginning to lower.
“Rope will do.” Bishop said.
The black nylon rope dangling from the still open door of the craft came within his reach. Bishop didn’t bother with the belay device-he just wrapped the rope around his arm a few times and shouted, “Go!”
“Where to Bishop?” Came the reply from the co-pilot, Black Two.
“To the next nearest portal. I’m going after him.” Bishop grunted as the Crescent’s engines blasted, increasing altitude until he was nearly as high as he had been on top of the Eye. The plane accelerated, swinging him on the rope, banking away from the river and over the top of Big Ben.
“But the device the MOD is bringing…” Black Two’s voice was hesitant, but he was right. The mission was to get the nuke inside the portal.
“If those lame dicks ever get here, tell them to throw the thing in after me.”
Bishop could see the next portal on the edge of the duck pond in St. James’s Park up ahead, filling the green clearing set aside in the middle of the gray city. He took a deep breath of the rainy air and made up his mind.
“Lower. Then do a flyover.”
“Roger,” came Black One’s reply.
The Crescent dipped a bit and the rope swung Bishop directly at the globe of crackling and spitting yellow fire. As the rain pelted it, the portal spit miniature lightning bolts, making this one look like it had electric hair. Bishop could smell the singed air as he got close. The rope swung right through the curvature of the wall of bright light, taking Bishop’s body with it.
A second later, as the Crescent sped past the globe, the rope swung out the other side of the sphere of light.
Bishop wasn’t on it.
FORTY-ONE
Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway
Queen tensed in the dark. As the door rattled from the other side, she prepared to lunge.
The door swung open easily and a woman in a lab coat with short spiky blonde hair stepped into the room, without any hint of caution. The woman simply stood in the darkened room as if she couldn’t remember why she had come in. Light streamed in from the outside with a pulsing electrical quality that made Queen certain that it came from something large, like a spotlight.
She had been in the room for what felt like hours. She was wedged between two walls of the room, in the corner up by the ceiling. Her feet were braced in the open air vent and her hands rested on the frame over the door. Between her hands, like a garrote, she clutched the wire from the lightbulb she had pulled down. The cord’s coarse black insulating rubber dug into her fingers. She was ready to kill, but she stayed her attack, even in the awkward position. The woman hadn’t noticed her, and she didn’t display any alarm at finding the light out or at finding the room empty.
She just stood there, looking into the empty space.
Then the woman casually turned and walked out of the doorway. The door began to swing shut after her, but Queen quickly allowed one end of her weapon to unravel from the hand that had been braced on the doorframe,
