Fiona. She’s safe and that is the most important thing. The next was figuring out how to get out of the happy trap. Frustration was good. Maybe anger will be better? He willed himself to be angry, but soon felt himself slipping into distraction and forgot what he was trying to do. He almost lost it altogether, when his thoughts again turned to those he loved and Fiona!
Why?
How?
In the air.
I’m breathing it. Can I hold my breath long enough for the effect to stop?
But then another idea occurred to King. He turned his head again back to the broken window at the end of the hallway. The gaping grin was still on his face but he made no move to change that. He would need all his willpower to accomplish what he had planned. First, he took a breath and held it. Not a deep gulp but a covert intake. The dire wolves that lined the hall still looked at him occasionally, sniffing the air. If this worked, he didn’t want to alert them that he was gaining control.
As he was about to initiate the second phase of his plan, an overwhelming urge to look at the portal swept through him like a tornado ripping up trailer homes in the Midwest. He squeezed his eyes shut, and still holding his breath, repeated his daughter’s name again and again. His head buzzed from the lack of oxygen and from the monotony of the mantra, but he felt the urge to look at the light slip away from him.
When the desire became manageable again, he forced that small but growing voice to let out a scream in his head.
Walk!
He took a step away from the portal, toward the opening, the daylight and the city street at the end of the corridor. He opened his eyes and the hallway looked to stretch into the horizon like a perspective drawing, dwindling down into a tiny dot.
He felt dizzy now from lack of air but refused to breathe again. He took a second step. The smile on his face wanted to diminish. The artificiality of it wanted to fade. Not completely, but from a shit-eating grin to a smirk. He refused to let it and kept the grimace of a smile in place. Another step and another, past a dire wolf on the left wall. It smelled him as he passed, but made no move toward him.
He took a chance and reached out his hand and stroked the creature’s neck, smiling still. The creature didn’t move. Its skin no longer felt like soft down. More like rubber. How much did this attack alter my perceptions? But that line of questioning cost him control, so he returned his thoughts to Fiona and walking. Forcing all his will onto those two thoughts. The edges of his vision began to blur a bit, but he could still see. His lungs struggled to get to fresh air, but he denied them. Another step and past another dire wolf. Two more between him and the window.
The effort was taking its toll and he could feel a trickle of sweat on his forehead, dripping toward his left eyebrow. He closed his eyes and focused on Fiona. The grin slipped. The sweat dripped off his eyebrow and down his eyelid. He opened his eye and the lid flicked the remaining liquid away. Two more steps. The smile was down to just a notion now, and he let it go. It wouldn’t matter soon. He passed another dire wolf, this one moving slowly along the ceiling toward the portal over his head. He ducked a little as it passed him, but he kept his speed the same-deliberately slow.
Then he felt it. The November Manhattan breeze on his face, gusting in from the shattered window forty stories above the asphalt. He pulled air in through his nostrils, slowly, testing it. The breath made him happier, but not loopy. Good. One mystery solved. It was the air. He took another step, past a dire wolf crouched on the floor. This one swiveled its head to follow his stroll. Does it know? Does it suspect?
Three more steps and he would be right next to the shattered window. He drew in another lungful of air and slowly exhaled. Crisp and cold, the always-static acrid tang of New York on his tongue. But happy? Not too much. He was nearly out of the zone of influence, which must have been the portal, because the dire wolf behind him was still within arm’s reach. If it was emitting the bliss, then King reasoned he would still be feeling the full effect at this end of the hall.
He took another step into the fresh air and heard movement behind him.
He turned to see that all five of the dire wolves in the corridor were now keenly staring at him, their ten bulbous eyes locked on target.
King stood stock still, and smiled wide. The biggest, goofiest court jester grin he could manage.
The dire wolves, three on the floor, one on the ceiling, and one on the wall all looked back at him. They each turned their heads in unison, facing their snouts at him. Their mouths opened wide. All King could see were teeth. Hundreds of pointy incisors, like sharpened crystals. The dire wolf farthest away roared. The others rushed along the walls, ceiling and floor.
He had just seconds to act or die.
FORTY
River Thames, London, England
Bishop held tightly to the metal bar, helpless to stop the fragmented Ferris wheel from plummeting into the Thames, and certain he was about to die.
The wheel warped down to the muddy river. Saving the girls in the steel-and-glass cage was no longer possible. He held on with all he had as the wheel tipped out over the river. Four-hundred feet down, but the ride took only a few seconds.
At the last moment before his capsule hit the murky brown of the Thames, he considered leaping off the structure, to improve his chances of surviving the fall. But a split second of indecision was one second too many. He was out of time.
The capsule he stood on was the last part of the large wheel to reach the river. As the base of the wheel struck and sunk, his descent slowed some, but Bishop didn’t notice as the water rushed up toward him. A wave roared up, striking the capsule and slamming Bishop down against its roof. He coughed as his ribs and lungs compressed from the impact. His head spun, but he remained conscious, protected by the armor, which was living up to its reputation. Thick, brown river water coated Bishop, stealing his vision.
He dropped again, as the wave receded, and the wheel began to sink.
He looked through the capsule window; his hands still clenched around the metal bar he had used as a handhold during the descent. His grip tightened in anger. The three teen girls were dead. Their bodies had slammed against the steel and glass in the plunge. Murky tan water filled the shattered capsule. He could see two bodies floating and the third girl’s fractured head looked like a split-open watermelon left to wilt in the sun.
The very top of the capsule was still above the water level, but the rest had submerged. He turned, looking behind him at the crunched and mangled frame of the London Eye, which now resembled a toy construction kit hastily shoved into a container with bits sticking up in all the wrong ways. Bishop turned his attention to the bridge, searching for Knight. But the Crescent had retreated further along the river. Where is he?
Then Bishop saw him through the murk coating his helmet’s visor. He quickly unfastened the catch buckle at the side of his throat and pulled the helmet off his recently shaved head. The cold of the air hit him and the rain spattered down on his face as he watched his friend being carried away by a dire wolf toward a portal.
He nearly dove into the river with the plan to swim to the Embankment, but he wouldn’t have time and his armor would drag him down into the depths of the river.
“Shit, shit, shit!” He reached to his earpiece to call the pilot back to him. But it was too late. Knight was stabbing the back of the white thing’s neck over and over, but then they were in the portal.