said, her eyes alight with greed and zealotry.
“It’s a calculated risk,” Perkins admitted. “We consider it an investment.”
Massarsky shifted uncomfortably. When Drake glanced at him, the huge ex-soldier shrugged.
“Sorry, man.”
“Yeah.” Drake laughed drily. “No hard feelings.”
“Enough,” Olivia said, tilting her head toward Jada. “Get the girl’s pack.”
When Corelli came forward, keeping his weapon trained on Drake, Jada started to shuffle away from him, dangerously close to the edge of the ravine.
“Give it to him,” Drake said. “She wants your father’s journal and the maps. They’re useless to us down here. Luka never made it this far. If he guessed the fourth labyrinth was in China, he didn’t write it down. There’s nothing in there that can help us.”
Olivia laughed. “Nothing can help you.”
“God, when did you become so cold-blooded?” Henriksen asked.
“Says the man who’d stab his own brother in the back to get what he wants,” Olivia said.
“Never literally,” Henriksen said. “I’ve never killed anyone.”
“Too bad you missed your chance,” Olivia said.
Perkins cleared his throat. “Can we just get on with this? It’s a long climb down and up again, and we’ve gotta do it again coming back.”
Olivia shot him an irritated look, then gestured to Corelli.
Corelli lifted his gun and pressed the barrel against Drake’s temple. “Drop the gun, dumbass. You’re slightly outnumbered.”
He snickered. That, more than anything, was what flipped the switch inside Drake.
“Dropping it,” he said. “Just don’t talk anymore. Your breath is terrible.”
Corelli shoved the gun against his temple. Drake held his gun away from him and bent down slowly, lowering it to the ground.
“This guy,” Corelli said, glancing over at Olivia. “Can I kill him now or what?”
The second his gaze shifted away, Drake knocked his arm back, throwing off his aim, and kicked him in the chest. Corelli staggered backward, arms pinwheeling, right over the edge of the ravine. He screamed on the way down and pulled the trigger twice, but the bullets vanished in the darkness above them.
“Son of a bitch!” Olivia shrieked, striding toward him, leaving Garza and another mercenary to cover Henriksen.
Perkins and Massarsky were on Drake instantly, guns pointed at his head, but Drake wasn’t stupid. He didn’t try picking up his weapon, just laced his fingers at the back of his neck.
“Come on, guys,” he said. “Tell me you weren’t tempted to do that yourself. I mean, I know you’re going to shoot us, but that clown had to go first.”
“Nate?” Jada said quietly.
His bravado failed when he heard the crack in her voice. But he didn’t regret what he’d done. Corelli had been about to kill him, which meant he’d bought them a couple of extra minutes of life. And now Olivia had no sidekick, no one to share her plan, no one else who knew where to find what they were looking for. Perkins had just become her best friend, but he cared only about the gold. Olivia was alone, and she deserved that.
“What are you waiting for?” Olivia snapped, glancing at Perkins even as she kept her weapon aimed at Henriksen.
“What’s wrong, Olivia?” Henriksen said. “Afraid to get blood on your own hands?”
Drake had been fighting his instinct to like the guy. But since they were both about to be shot, he figured that put them on the same side, and he couldn’t help but admire the big Norwegian’s fearlessness.
“Just waiting for your order,” Perkins said.
Fourteen mercenaries and one coldhearted witch, all with guns aimed at them. Drake felt a terrible sadness grip his heart as he thought about Sully and realized that whenever they caught up with him, they were going to kill him, too.
He stood, ignoring the mercenaries who shouted at him not to move, and reached out to take Jada’s hand. Hell, they were family. She squeezed, and he glanced at her.
“Now I know how Butch and Sundance felt,” she whispered, but her smile was strained and her eyes were damp with unshed tears.
“Do it,” Olivia said. “Kill-”
Massarsky shouted and backed away from the ravine, swinging his assault rifle around to aim at the edge.
“What the hell?” Garza yelled, and pulled the trigger.
All eyes turned toward the ravine as hooded men clutching metal claws dragged themselves onto the ledge, moving inhumanly fast. Garza’s bullets punched through one of them, sending blood spraying out into the gap, the body tumbling down onto the rocks below. Gunfire echoed off the walls of the ravine, mercenaries shouted, but the Protectors of the Hidden Word were silent as they attacked, killing and dying in equal measure.
One of them lunged at Drake, his blade whistling through the shadows in a wide arc, aimed for his throat.
22
The gunshot made Drake flinch even as he tried to dodge the killer’s knife. But the hooded man fell short, his lunge losing momentum, and he crashed to the rocky ledge at Drake’s feet and twitched once, then went still.
Jada stood behind him, gun in hand, looking like she might throw up. Her weapon was still holstered; she had managed to pick up his Glock. Amid the chaos of gunfire and voices, bloodshed and brutality, he darted forward and snatched the gun away from her. A hooded woman-one of the first females he’d seen among them-raced up, metal climbing claws like brass knuckles on her hands, ready to slash him to ribbons. Drake held his breath when he took aim and shot her in the chest.
They had no time for hesitation, but it would haunt him. Even in self-defense, killing haunted him. Almost always, he thought. Corelli might have been an exception.
With a glance around, he spotted Olivia up against the wall of the ravine, gun held out in front of her, firing at the hooded killers still swarming up from over the ledge. But Perkins and Garza were nearby, and they had firepower to spare. The semiautomatic weapons’ fire ripped at the air, the echoes punishingly loud.
Drake grabbed Jada’s hand and dragged her back into the tunnel that led back up to the torture chamber. For a moment, they were out of sight of both sets of killers. Drake turned to her, put a hand under her chin, and forced her to look up at him. Her gaze was far away, and he worried that she was in shock.
“Jada, listen to me.”
“I shot that man.”
“If you hadn’t, he’d have gutted me,” Drake said. “You saved my life. But we’re both on borrowed time here. Whoever wins out there, they’re going to kill us, so we’ve gotta run for it.”
She blinked as if coming awake. “If we try to go back, they’ll catch us. We’ll never make it to the surface.”
Drake shook his head. “No, no. I don’t want to go back.”
Jada glanced at the end of the tunnel and saw one of the hooded men straddling a mercenary on the ledge, slashing at the ex-soldier’s throat with a curved blade. Arterial blood sprayed in an arc.
“We can’t walk down the cliff paths. We’ll never get past them, and even if we did-”
“There isn’t time,” Drake said, his heart like a tiger trying to smash free of its cage. He thought his chest might burst, it was hammering so hard. “There’s only one way we’re surviving the next hundred seconds or so.”
One of the hooded men slipped into the tunnel, spotted them, and cocked back a hand in which he clutched a throwing knife. Drake shot him twice. Twelve shots left in the Glock’s magazine before he’d have to reload. The killer and his blade hit the rock floor at the same time. The man dragged himself to his knees, blood raining from his
