Threshold

EIGHTY-ONE

MOVING AT FIFTEEN hundred feet per second, the single round fired by King covered the distance between the handgun and Adam before the weapon’s report registered in anyone’s ears. The bullet whizzed beneath Ridley’s chin, grazing his flesh and opening a wound, before piercing Adam’s forehead and punching out the back of his skull. The sound of the single shot reached the group just as Adam’s brain exploded in a cloud of blood and flesh. Ridley spun with the impact, seeing the brain matter splatter on the floor at his feet.

Adam’s grip on Ridley’s chest loosened, and then let go. The one-armed, quarter of a body slid back and dangled limply from Ridley’s back.

“Adam!” Ridley shouted in shock. “Adam! No!”

Mahaleel and Cainan rushed forward to help. Mahaleel held Adam’s limp weight. Cainan helped Ridley lean back against the table.

“He’s not healing,” Mahaleel said. “He’s dead.”

What happened next was completely unexpected and derailed every plan King had come up with. Fiona walked into the room, hands behind her back. She looked healthy, strong, and totally unafraid.

Ridley turned toward her.

“Fiona, run!” King shouted.

But she didn’t. She walked halfway between King and Ridley and stopped.

“What are you doing?” King asked.

Fiona looked over her shoulder toward Ridley.

King’s stomach twisted. Something was very wrong.

Ridley’s smile looked like a wolf bearing its teeth. “You may have killed Adam, but I’ve still got my Eve. The first of her kind.”

“What are you—”

“Kill him, Eve.”

Fiona stepped toward King. She wore a slight smile. “Yes, Father,” she said and then pulled the seven-inch blade out from behind her back. Her little bare feet padded against the hard floor. Her black pajamas were dirty and full of holes. Her straight black hair hung loose around her shoulders. But her eyes were wrong. They were devoid of emotion and still, as though in shock.

He looked at the gun in his hand. He could shoot her and save himself, but it would destroy him. He’d rather die than kill her.

“Fiona, stop!” was all King could shout before she plunged the knife into his chest.

*   *   *

KNIGHT CRACKED A glow stick. It lit the small space in bright green light. They quickly scanned the space. To the right of the outside wall Knight saw some letters scratched into the stone. Had they not been near the back of the room, they would have missed it. He knelt down and held the light up to the wall and read the text.

SAVE ME

Arzu Turan. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash.

Vilad forsh.

“What do you make of this?” Knight asked.

“It must be some portion of the ancient language,” Bishop replied. “Something she thought could help.”

“Something that could return her to herself.”

Bishop tilted his head in agreement. The girl had certainly not been herself. “We need to get out of here.”

Knight opened his hand revealing the transmitter. “The charges are probably embedded in the wall, but they should still work.”

Bishop took out a small camera with a digital display and snapped a photo of the text. “Do it,” he said, taking a step back. But something made him pause. Something about the writing on the wall.

Knight stood waiting against the back wall. “What’s wrong?”

“Arzu Turan,” he said. “It’s a name. Turkish. Probably common for women in this area.” He looked at Knight. “I don’t think its part of the mother tongue.”

“So we leave it out?”

“Replace it,” Bishop said. “With Fiona Lane.”

Knight understood what Bishop was getting at. If Fiona had overheard the phrase directed at someone else, she might not have recognized the first part as a name. And if it was a name, Arzu Turan may have been the poor soul on the receiving end of whatever these words did. It seemed Fiona had been, too, or at least she believed she would be when she scratched the words into the wall.

Bishop took a step back. “Okay, now blow it.”

*   *   *

AS QUEEN RAN down the hallway, past the ancient armory, she glanced over her shoulder. The first of the big cats bounded into the hall behind her. The other two were close behind. Their muscles flexed with each leap forward. Their eyes focused on her, locked on target.

My God, they’re fast, Queen thought. Too damn fast!

As she rounded the first of two corners that would take her back to the hallway where they’d left King and Alexander the cats had cut the distance between them in half. Queen knew she could shoot and kill all three animals if she had to, but to achieve maximum chaos, she needed them alive. So instead of shooting the beasts, she willed her limbs to move faster and prayed for a miracle.

She rounded the final corner, running as fast as she could. She could hear the giant lynx behind her, the soft pads of their feet thumping against the hard stone floor. With a final burst of speed, she lunged through the door and into the open chamber beyond.

*   *   *

FIONA HAD AIMED for his heart, but King had shifted his body to the side. The knife had come to rest between two ribs to the right of his heart and lungs. It hurt like a bastard, but had missed anything vital.

“You son of a bitch!” King shouted.

Ridley began to reply, but his voice was cut short by an explosion behind him. A cloud of dust and stone burst from a hallway at the side of the chamber.

Disoriented by the explosion, but not down, Mahaleel and Cainan began speaking the mother tongue, their words barely audible to King across the room, but the effect of their words became quickly apparent as the remaining eight statues began moving.

But then a new voice filled the room, loud and booming. It was Bishop, and like Mahaleel and Cainan, he was speaking the ancient language as well. “Fiona Lane. Vish tracidor vim calee. Filash vor der wash. Vilad forsh.”

Ridley shook his head, recovering from the explosion. “Kill him!” he shouted at Fiona.

But the girl didn’t move. King looked down at her and noticed a change in her eyes. She was looking up at him, first at the knife buried in his chest, which she still gripped with one hand, and then to King’s eyes. Her lips quivered. She had returned. But with the return came a weakening. He saw her pale. Dark rings formed around her eyes.

“Kill him, now!”

Fiona looked back at the knife and whispered, “Sorry.”

He was about to tell her it was okay, it wasn’t her fault. But then he saw her hand grip the knife. She wasn’t apologizing for what she’d done. She was apologizing for what she was about to do. And King knew exactly what that would be. While they hadn’t let her fire a weapon at the range, they had shown her how to throw a knife. And she was good.

With the last of her energy, Fiona yanked the blade from King’s chest, whirled around and sent it flying.