heard converging on their location. Escape in the taxi, which was easy to spot with its shot-up back, would be impossible. As the rubber of the left rear tire sheared off and rolled away, Knight stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road and ran to the black sedan parked to the side.
He opened the driver’s side, sat down, and started the engine of the team’s car. He looked back as his teammates entered the vehicle. One man was bleeding from the shoulder. Nothing serious. But what he saw rounding the corner behind them was very serious. The SWAT team had run on foot, entering the street fifty feet back. Knight rolled down his window and tossed a small object into the ruined taxi.
He hit the gas, drawing the attention of the SWAT team, who had been focused on the taxi. They adjusted their aim, but before a round could be fired, the taxi exploded, sending metal fragments and a ball of fire into the air. The SWAT team ducked for cover and missed Knight’s quick left-hand turn.
Knight slowed his pace, took several turns, and merged with the busy city traffic. Of course, their car had been seen and would have to be abandoned shortly. But as police vehicles swarmed past them, headed toward the explosion, the team took comfort in the fact that their car’s tinted windows hid their identities. Driving toward the team’s rendezvous point at one of the city’s many ports, Knight activated his throat mic and contacted the other members of his team. “This is Knight. Abort mission. Meet at the port in thirty. We’re bugging out.”
“Copy that, Knight. We had no— oh shit!” Knight recognized the sound of bullets striking metal and glass. He could hear shouts. Angry at first. Then desperate. The return fire was loud in his ear. Then everything went quiet. And he knew what that meant.
The rest of his team was dead.
THIRTY-THREE
Rome, Italy
“I’M AFRAID THAT’S impossible,” Alexander said, leading King and Pierce into a nearby storage room. He sat on a tarp-covered crate while Pierce inspected the remnants of an old worn statue and King paced. The wraith had gone, but they knew it lurked nearby.
“Nothing’s impossible,” King replied.
Alexander laughed. “Now that you have encountered some of the strangeness our world has to offer, you fancy yourself an expert on what is, and what is not, impossible?”
“Just let me see her,” King said, his voice less demanding than the first time he’d asked to see Fiona. “She’s diabetic and needs insulin.”
“I noticed the insulin pump and have taken steps to see that she is provided with refills when required. If I allowed you to see her it would brew hope of rescue among the others. Hope would lead to discontentment, unruliness, and anger. Right now they are content prisoners. Right now, they are safe.” Alexander crossed his arms. “So it is as I said before, impossible.”
“The others?” Pierce asked, turning from the statue. “How many people have you kidnapped?”
“Fifty-seven. But kidnapping implies a negative intent,” Alexander said. “I am saving their lives.”
“By keeping them in a subterranean tomb?” King asked.
“You were charged with keeping just one of them safe,” Alexander said. “And we know how that turned out. Until the matter is cleared up, they must remain under my guard. They will be safe in the secret places that only my people and I know about.”
“The Herculean Society?” Pierce asked.
Alexander gave a nod and a grin. “Your old friends, yes.”
King hated to admit it, but he agreed with Alexander. His methods were shady, as they had been in the past, but what he was doing wasn’t any different from the mission the rest of the team had undertaken; to protect the last speakers of ancient languages, they had to be stealed away and hidden. The difference was that Alexander employed inhuman helpers and kept the prisoners in the dark, both figuratively and literally.
Alexander leaned back, his large elbows resting on another crate. “Of course, your presence here debunks my claims of safe refuge.” His eyes, brimming with a mixture of cockiness and annoyance, glared at King. “How did you find me?”
“You didn’t mean for us to find you?” King asked.
“Not at all.”
King explained how they pieced together Alexander’s two separate mentions of a promise to someone—a promise he was now breaking by getting involved with the problems of the world. He related the logical jump to Acca Larentia and the hints about her burial place not in what history said, but in what it was missing. When he was done, Alexander looked stunned.
King noticed the ancient man’s flabbergasted expression. “What?”
“I’m … impressed.” Alexander sat up straight. “I thought you were simply a man who knew how to kill people.”
“I’m that, too,” King said.
“Dare I ask if you could have been followed?”
King thought about his unease while in the ruins of the Roman Forum. He’d felt a presence watching them, but he was sure it was the guard’s they had encountered that his instincts had detected. “We weren’t followed.”
Alexander didn’t look convinced. “These are strange times. The rocks themselves can have eyes.”
“Only Lewis knew exactly where I was headed,” King said. “We
“Mmm,” Alexander said, still not entirely convinced, but moving on. “You say you entered through the Lacus Curtius?” Alexander asked.
Pierce nodded. “A ladder might be a good idea, though.”
Alexander smiled. “It’s a favored entrance of the Forgotten. They don’t need ladders.”
“The who?” Pierce asked.
“The cloaked men you have encountered. They are as ancient as I am, but lost their voices and souls long ago.”
“Who were they?”
“Test subjects,” Alexander said. When he saw the angry stares of both King and Pierce, he added, “Unending life has slowly peeled away my curtain of immorality. I do not see things the way I used to when I was young. When I was mortal. I wasn’t all that dissimilar from Richard Ridley.”
King pictured Ridely, the head of Manifold Genetics, who had tried to unlock the secrets of immortality. The man’s pursuit of godhood had been ruthless. Human experimentation left victims insane and nearly impervious to harm. Thousands more had come close to death when Ridley’s actions resulted in the mythical Hydra being reborn. No price was too steep, and in the end he achieved his goal of immortality, but lost his company, his men, and his fortune. But he was free, and had all the time in the world to make a comeback. He pictured Alexander in a similar role and the image frightened him.
Alexander continued. “The Forgotten are proof of this. I keep them to remind me of what I could be. What I have been. And what the cost of my failures can lead to.”
King waited for the account to continue, but Pierce had already put the pieces together. “They killed Acca. The Forgotten?”
A sudden sadness swept over Alexander. He stared at the floor. “Could you believe it still stings after all this time?” He looked up at them. “They are prone to madness on their own. Desperate with thirst. Hundreds died at their hands in the early years, before Acca was killed. Since then I have kept them sated with a supplement that replaces their craving for blood.”
“You’re not saying they’re vampires,” King said.
Alexander shook his head. “Not in the traditional sense, but it’s possible they’re responsible for the legend.”
“My God…” Pierce said.
“Their hands are covered in pores, each containing a small, strong, and hollow tendril. Thousands of them.
