“Umm, that’s what they told me.” She sounded more confused than afraid. In fact, there wasn’t a trace of fear in her voice. She’s still at school, he realized.
“I just…wanted to see how you were doing,” he said. He knew how she was doing. She had armed guards keeping tabs on her, guards who reported in every night, even if she didn’t.
She laughed, and the sound of it made him miss her more than usual. “I’m fine. A little bored, but I think that’s normal for someone who’s done the things we do.”
The things we do.
King smiled, nearly forgetting about Alexander. Fiona had survived Richard Ridley’s attack on the Siletz reservation that killed her family — her people. She’d been taken by Alexander and subsequently kidnapped and held hostage by Richard Ridley. She’d used the mother tongue to defeat a towering stone golem, saved the entire team and finally, had nearly been sucked inside a black hole, once again proving instrumental in saving his life…and the world. She would one day make a fine addition to the team. She might even be the best of them. But right now…right now she was still a kid.
His kid.
Then he remembered. “Actually, I have some news, but I want to tell you in person.”
“So you just called to torture me then?” she said. “Tell me, now. Or I’ll flunk out on purpose.”
King turned away from Alexander. This was a private moment. He squinted against the glow of the activated machine. I’ll deal with you in a moment, he thought, and then said. “How would you feel about having a mom?”
“Oh my God…” Fiona was quiet for a moment. “Oh my God! You asked her!”
“I did.”
“She said yes?”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“Well, you know. All the bullets and explosions and monsters and—”
“We talked about that.”
“So, who’s retiring?”
“What?” King felt rattled. Even his teenage daughter could see that marriage for him would be tricky. Perhaps trickier than having a daughter.
“We’ll talk when I get home, okay?”
“And that will be?”
That was always the question. When. He’d been on the road so much, searching for his parents, that he’d seen Fiona far less than he should. She was at a boarding school, sure, but she was just twenty minutes from the base. He should see her more often. He considered telling her that he’d found his parents, but that would bring up a lot of questions he didn’t have answers for yet. And he needed to get them. Now. “I’ll see you in a few days. I promise.”
“You better, ’cause, you know, Knight taught me how to track. I could hunt you down.”
King smiled. “I’ll be there.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too.”
King hung up the phone. His smile faded. Turned into a frown. He turned slowly toward Alexander. “Why?”
“Because I’m merciful,” Alexander said. “It was a gift.”
“A gift?”
“The chance to say goodbye.”
King glanced at the field of energy just a foot away from him. “I’m not going anywhere.” He turned back to look at Alexander. The big man was rushing him.. There was no time to get the pistol up. No time to react.
Asya opened the door to the cavernous lab just in time to see Alexander tackle King, and just in time to hear King shout out “No!”
Both men were instantly locked in a grappling embrace as their bodies slammed into a circular wall of crackling blue energy. When they hit the blue light, the wall pulsed outward into a broad sphere of power, stuttering streaming bolts of lightning shooting out across the room in all directions.
Then the machine, and the blue ball of light that had engulfed the men shrank down to two thirds its normal size, before exploding outward in a tremendous blast that sent Asya flying back through the doorway and across the lounge. Her body crashed into one of the small sofas with such force that she toppled the piece of furniture, her body rolling to the far side of it and coming to rest against a coffee table. The impact of her body on the table was enough to overturn a cup of tea that had gone cold. The liquid spread off the end of the table and poured onto her head.
Peter and Lynn stood from their seats and rushed to their injured daughter as smoke and flame billowed out of the doorway to the cavern. A huge cloud slid across the ceiling of the lounge.
“What happened?” Peter asked Asya, cradling her bleeding head.
“I…” Asya started. She sat up and her mother helped her. Asya looked back at the dark gray smoke coming out of the doorway.
She started to stand up, and Peter stopped her. “Are you okay?”
“I am fine,” she said and struggled to her feet, with her parents helping her on both sides. She had knocked her head slightly, but otherwise she was alright.
“It was Alexander,” she told them. “He and King…they fought again. They crashed into the machine.”
“Jack’s in there?” Peter was about to turn and run into the cavern. Asya grabbed him by his sleeve.
“You don’t understand. The machine exploded…with them inside.” Asya turned to look at her mother’s already tearing eyes. Then she turned back to her father. His face was suddenly drawn, and long. His eyes filled with shock and understanding.
“Jack is dead.”
INFINITE
TWENTY-THREE
The thing before them could barely be called human.
Richard Ridley’s cell was a 20x20 room, and humidity was almost completely absent from the space. It was baking hot, as if they had all crawled inside an oven set to 400 degrees. In the center of the room, two cages were suspended by chains. The top cage was a rusted metal box formed from crisscrossing bars, like some kind of oversized death metal Christmas ornament. Attached to the outside of the cage was a device that looked like a gerbil’s water dispenser, but larger and connected to a hose that ran into the ceiling. Hung a few inches under the top cage was a larger rectangular cage suspended vertically, and made from the same rusted iron bars as the first.
Inside the top cage was Richard Ridley’s head.
Inside the bottom cage was the man’s limbless torso.
But it was what was in the four-inch space between the two suspended cages that had prompted Queen’s disgust and Rook’s admiration.
Ridley’s skin was cracked and gray, all over what remained of his body. The places where his limbs should have been were darkened stumps. But the places at the bottom of his head, and the top of his torso, where his neck should have been, were alive with pink flesh. Tendrils of nerves and blood vessels dangled down from the severed head or stretched up from the headless torso. The tendrils wavered slightly in the air, each struggling and reaching to meet their counterparts on the opposite side of the deadly gap. Only three tendrils had been successful so far, but Queen could see that they were struggling to maintain contact with each other. The spinal cord was a grayish orange stump.
The man was in a constant state of failed regeneration.
As Queen stepped closer, she could see that the eyes were gray and lifeless, sunken back into the sockets, like ill-fitting rubber balls that had been placed into their holders, like toys on a shelf. The mouth hung open, and the tongue was shriveled and black.
“It is worse than I had feared,” Seth spoke from behind the group.
“Ridley or not, this is inhuman. Get him down.” Queen ordered.
Rook and Bishop moved to the cages and began opening them. They were not locked. There was no need. Knight stepped into the room with the three duplicates, keeping an eye on them, his submachine gun raised.