bowl, a carved wooden stick, and five clay vials. He crouched down and began to pour liquids from the vials into the dish. As he did so he muttered under his breath. The mixture took on a sickly mustardy color and had the consistency of sludge.
His men positioned themselves on either side of me and began to steer me toward a heavy wooden chair. I decided to at least not make it too easy for them. I barged into one of them with my right shoulder, linebacker style, catching him off guard. My momentum carried us forward till I had him against the wall, and I kept pushing, forcing the air from his chest.
Then a searing pain erupted in my back, where the lower spine is right up against the tissue. I spun around to see that the other goon had hit me full force with a length of metal pipe. He swung the pipe back and hit the same spot again. I tried to turn all the way, to take the next blow to my front, but the guy I had pushed against the wall grabbed my arms and was holding me firm. The goon with the pipe swung it at me one more time for good measure, and I screamed out in pain before crumpling to the floor, groaning.
The goons lifted me up, one under each shoulder, and dragged me over to the chair, beside which Navarro was now standing. They strapped me into the chair. The fact that my now swelling back felt tender against the hardwood of the chair’s upright wasn’t helping.
One of the goons grabbed my chin with one hand and squeezed my nose shut with the other, forcing me to open my mouth. Navarro then expertly inserted the tube down my throat. I fought the urge to gag, but I couldn’t breathe. My throat tried unsuccessfully to eject the foreign body that was being forced into it, but to no avail. Navarro held the end of the tube in my throat till I had no other choice but to swallow. Then he continued to push the tube down into my stomach.
The goon let go of my nose and I took a few deep breaths. Both goons moved away from the chair and Navarro stepped around to face me.
“You’ve been a pain to me in this life, and the last thing I want is for your soul to cause me more trouble in the future. Because after you die, your soul will move from this body of yours to a new body. From one life to another. But the soul can also be annihilated completely, if it leaves the body and can’t find a path back. If it is in so much pain that its only option is to blink out, like someone has extinguished a flame.”
He held up the bowl.
“This will force your soul from your body. Then it will attack your soul with such brutal force that the only way to put a stop to the torment will be its own end. If your soul dies before your body, then the connection between the world of souls and the world of matter is broken forever. Your chain of birth and death will end with you. It will end now. Soon even the blackest darkness will be lost to you.”
He began to stir the mixture inside.
“I know you probably don’t believe a word of it. I have no way of knowing if it’s true or not myself, or if it’s just the naive belief of the shaman who taught it to me. But all that really matters is that, either way . . . you’ll be dead. And that’s good enough for me.”
66
I could feel the tube pressing against my esophagus. I desperately wanted to gag, but I tried to slow my breathing, to ignore what the back of my throat was shouting at me. Navarro finished stirring the mustard-colored mixture and nodded to himself, obviously satisfied that his creation was ready. Stephenson was watching him, too, his face white and glistening with fear.
In three words, we were screwed. There was no way out of this. Tess and Alex would die—and not quickly —and even then it probably wouldn’t be the end. The monster would probably go after Kim, too. What goes around really was coming around. With interest.
I closed my eyes briefly and, for some reason, I had this thought that I wanted a priest. It gave me a small measure of peace. Navarro must have seen my expression shift somehow, even though half of it was incapacitated by the tube. A quizzical expression animated his face. For a moment he must have wondered why I wasn’t pissing myself and begging for my life. He needn’t have worried; after seeing what he did to Wook and Torres, I was pretty sure I’d become a gibbering wreck given half the chance.
What hurt most was I couldn’t even say good-bye to Tess.
“Ready?” he asked, as if my saying no would change anything.
He raised the end of the tube and began to pour the gloopy liquid into the other end. I could see it dripping down the inside of the tube. It would be inside me in seconds and, I imagined, in my bloodstream in minutes. There was absolutely nothing I could do, no fanciful ninja move that would whip my arms free and slaughter my tormentors in seconds, so I fought with myself to accept that. An odd thought sailed into my mind. For the first time in my life, I wished I’d let my hair down a bit more in college. Maybe tried hallucinogens once, so I had some idea of what was about to happen. Would have maybe helped dampen the fear I was feeling right now. And, apparently, I wasn’t going to get a do-over either.
My eyes were locked on the sludge oozing its way down the tube when a deafening noise cracked the air, accompanied by a sodium-white flare.
The whole place shook.
Navarro dropped the bowl and spun his head away in total surprise—
Then another explosion, almost on top of the first. I summoned every iota of strength left in my bruised body and threw my entire weight to my left. The chair topped and flew, just as something flew into the room as another stun grenade filled it with blinding light.
The noise of the third flashbang was immediately replaced by the sound of machine gun fire from outside the building.
From my limited point of view on my side and pressed down against the floor, I spotted frantic movement around the room. Navarro may have been nuts, but he’d already well demonstrated that he was also a pragmatist when it came to self-preservation, and by the time the air cleared, he and his henchmen had already left the room through another door at its other end.
I craned my neck to try to get a better view, but I was facing the wall and couldn’t see anything. Then a familiar voice barked, “Get him up. The target’s heading back to the main house. Follow him.”
A couple of soldiers in full black Special Ops gear were all over me, and I felt the straps loosening and the tube being slowly pulled from my throat. I retched and threw up the bit of goop that had made it into me. My head was pounding. After giving me a couple of seconds, they dragged me to my feet, and I turned round to find myself facing Munro.
“You good to go?” he asked.
My head felt like it had been tossed through a giant pinball machine.
“How’d you find us?”
He dismissed it with a grimace. “Long story.”
“Alex, Tess—where are they?”
“In the main house.”
I snapped with surprise. “They’re not with you?”
“They’re in the main house,” he repeated, stern and a bit slower, like I was having trouble understanding the language.
I was furious. “Why didn’t you go for them first?”
“You were about to fucking die here,
I just glared at him in disbelief, then asked, “So where’s the damn house?”
“Follow me,” he said, pointing.
“I need a weapon.”
Munro swung his MP4 submachine gun off to one side, pulled his Glock from its holster, and handed it to me.
