“You see, I can always tell when someone’s lying,” Calico said. “And James, he wasn’t lying. Somehow, a child figured out something which I could not.” His eyes narrowed. “Did he tell you? Do you know where the stone is, Ms. McLaine?”
Her lip quivered slightly despite her best efforts. She set her jaw and said, “No.”
Calico smiled wide, his teeth flashing in the darkness. “I just told you, I always know when someone’s lying. Do not lie to me. Where is the stone?”
“I don’t know.”
His smile widened, past the point of normalcy, turning his face grotesque, ghoulish. At that moment, there was a sound from the other room, where the Supers were imprisoned, and Calico’s eyes finally flashed away from hers.
“I’ll get the answer out of you yet, and it will not be pleasant. But first, an experiment.” As he said that, a man she didn’t recognize strode into the room. He was thin, with slicked-back gray hair and large, round glasses. In his hands was a vial of dark liquid and a long, thin tube.
Katie stiffened, but the man ignored her and went to where Rocky lay. He set something down on the cot next to him. Then he grabbed Rocky’s arm and stuck the tube into it. Katie grimaced, realizing it was some sort of IV connected to whatever was in the vial.
Calico saw Katie’s expression and smiled. “Do not worry. It’s not poison. Or maybe it is.” He shrugged, as if he didn’t care either way. The man held up the vial so the liquid inside began to make its way down the tube, and Calico said, “The blood of a Super. My brother’s blood, to be exact.”
Katie watched in horror, unable to move, as the blood reached the IV and entered Rocky’s arm.
There was an immediate reaction. Rocky’s body arched as if electrocuted, every muscle straining against his skin, the bindings barely holding him down. His eyes remained shut, but his teeth clenched and his mouth formed into a snarl. This went on for some time, and Katie hoped for his sake he could not feel pain in his state of unconsciousness. His body shook, a vein popping along his forehead, sweat glistening on his bare chest.
Finally, his body settled back down onto the table, his stomach heaving as though he had just finished a hard run. And still, his eyes remained closed.
“He’s still breathing,” Calico said, almost sounding amazed.
The man looked up at Calico, his eyes magnified behind his glasses. He spoke in a German accent. “Then it is true. The strongest can survive.”
“Then the strongest we’ll need,” Calico said. The man nodded and strode from the room, up the stairs. Katie prayed Calico would follow, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned back to her. “Now then, where is the stone?”
Katie set her chin and met his eyes. “I don’t know.”
He smiled a wicked smile, shadows dancing across his face. He raised a hand, a single finger pointed at her. “We’ll see.”
And all she knew was pain.
Chapter 33
In the early hours of the morning, with the sky pink and yellow above them, they landed in Lumbini.
James was worried about landing, but apparently Tom had contacts in Lumbini that allowed him to land at a private airport. Once they landed, James had to admit he didn’t know where to go. Lumbini was a small municipality, a pilgrimage site, and James had no idea where to start. But Tom proved himself useful once again. Somehow, the odd man knew all about Lumbini.
“Well, go to the Shanti Stupa, of course! It was built right after World War Two, honors the Buddha’s life, has all sorts of relics. If your little stone is anywhere, it’ll be there.”
With that, they hailed a rickshaw and bid goodbye to Tom after he declared, “I must recover from my injuries. You lads go on without me!”
Now they bounced toward their destination. Learning where to go had been relatively simple, which worried James. Nothing, so far, had been simple.
The rickshaw rose and fell on the bumpy road, forcing James to hold onto the pole in front of him to stop himself from sliding out of the open side.
It was a beautiful day, the sun shining through a clear sky as it ascended. The land was flat here, with few trees. It felt like a completely different world than the highlands of the Himalayas. But James knew from their flight that mountains still surrounded them, perhaps out of sight for now, but ever-present.
The rickshaw turned off the dirt road and onto a smooth brick path. They passed a man-made island of flat grass surrounded by a ring of water, its surface completely smooth, like a mirror. It reflected a small temple and a few sparse trees. It was quiet here, peaceful. In the distance, James could see the golden tip of their destination rising above the buildings that surrounded it. The Shanti Stupa.
The rickshaw moved agonizingly slow around the bend of the water ring, toward the monument. But James was okay with the slowness. His stomach wriggled. This was it. After everything, the puzzle-solving, the many near-escapes, this was it. The beginning of the end. If he was wrong, if the stone wasn’t here, then they were lost.
Finally, they made it.
A long, narrow white path, flanked by trees, led toward the Shanti Stupa, inviting them forward. Banks and James walked side by side down the path until it widened into a plaza at the base of the monument. Only a few people milled about here, taking pictures and selfies so they could prove to their friends they had visited it.
The Shanti Stupa was a large pagoda, completely white. An extremely wide set of stairs, flanked by two statues of the fish-like creatures called Makaras, led up to a large, circular base.
