Jacob, perhaps only four, lingering by the bedside of a patient, a woman strapped to a table in a familiar room. He looks back at a departing figure on a skateboard and when he’s sure he’s alone, he reaches out. And takes the patient’s hand in his.
The boys let go simultaneously, in their enthusiasm for seeing the door at last. The door under the Sphinx, the one that only they could open. If, Nina thought, staggering a little after the release, they could duplicate what Alexander had been able to do.
She was dizzy, lightheaded. Her arms felt like jelly rolls.
“And how are the little rugrats?” came the voice at her back. She turned slowly to see Montross standing on the last step. His hair was a crimson mess, tangles and strands across his face. His shirt covered with sandstone dust, sweat and dirt, yet he looked radiant. A beaming smile, twinkle in his eye as if despite everything, despite being bound and in the enemy’s camp, he was right where he wanted to be.
I wouldn’t doubt it, she thought. Nor would she let her guard down. She had new allegiances now, and owed this man nothing more. In fact…
“You knew,” she hissed. “You must have.”
Montross let his smile falter. “I didn’t. I never asked those kinds of questions, and didn’t know I needed you until several years after they had taken your boys. I was too busy hiding from Waxman. Hiding, exploring… Researching all this. The Tablet, what it can do.” He cocked his head, looked around her to where Calderon had the boys probing the wall. Isaac seemed morbidly distracted by the blood smears on the floor. The remains of Robert Gregory and Marcos.
“I don’t know if I believe you,” Nina said, keeping her eyes on Montross. She thought about the long journey they both shared. The plans devised late into the evenings. The shared visions, often in bed together, where she returned his thrusts by penetrating his mind, reveling in his visions—those that she could access. She had found it surprisingly difficult to get past some of his defenses, to see the things that truly drove him. Hints of attachment beyond what he had felt for his mother and his foster father, who were taken from him at such a young age. Nina knew there was another woman, someone he was protecting. Someone he might even…love? And that knowledge had both intrigued and infuriated her. That she couldn’t see who it was. That he still had his secrets.
Montross shrugged. “It doesn’t matter at this point. I only hope they know what they’re doing.”
“And do you?”
“Me?” He glanced down at himself. “What am I doing? Nothing, I’m just a captive, my fate at the whim of your new master.” He blinked and glanced over at Calderon. “He is your master now, isn’t he?”
She fumed. He knew that would get to her, still knew how to push her buttons. “I have no master. I choose the best team for my talents.”
“Not always successful at that, right? Could’ve done better than Waxman.”
“Or you?”
“I thought we made a pretty decent team.”
Nina smirked. “Just be quiet and let my boys work.”
“Got it!” Calderon whooped a second before the grinding sound thundered inside the chamber. The wall was rising.
Jacob tottered, appearing dizzy. But Isaac ducked and rolled under the door, taking advantage of his brother’s condition to get inside first. Nina headed toward Jacob, going to check on him. She reached out, but Calderon grabbed her wrist forcefully and brought her with him into the room, illuminated by the bright spotlights set up down here from when Robert Gregory made his attempt at access.
Nina looked back. Jacob was still doubled over from the effort, and Nina realized he was the one that had solved the puzzle and opened the door. And Isaac had just taken the credit. He felt her attention, glanced up and met her eyes and for a moment there was a hint of need. But then he blinked away all the emotion and the coldness set back in as he stood up. He squared his shoulders and quickly moved inside.
“The keys?” Calderon asked hopefully.
Isaac was checking the box, looking at it from all sides. Poking the center piece that held the three triangular slots. He shook his head. “Our dear brother has taken them.”
“Thought as much,” Calderon said. He let go of Nina’s wrist, but gave her a slight push toward Montross. “Xavier, my friend. It’s time to be useful. I’d ask you to willingly tell us what you know, but I’d never trust you.”
Montross clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, then laughed. “Are you saying we just can’t be friends?”
“Not today. Nina?” Calderon pointed with his cane, giving her a target. “Do your thing. Find out what Montross knows about the keys, and where the boy is hiding. We’re going in after them, and I don’t want any surprises.”
Her head down, Nina approached, refusing to make eye contact. When she finally did, reaching for Xavier’s face, planning to start with a gentle caress that would shuffle his memories and visions, causing what she needed to drop into her thoughts, he said in a low voice:
“Your master bids, and you obey…”
Her intensity shocked even herself. Maybe it was knowing that she had spectators and she didn’t want to disappoint, didn’t want to show weakness, especially in front of her boys. Or maybe Montross had just gotten under her skin, and she was striking back tenfold.
Either way, she went at his mind, hard. Dug in deep, forcing herself upon his psyche, taking every inch he reluctantly surrendered, every fleeting glimpse he failed to protect, snatching at the images like a multi-armed Hindu goddess. A hundred eyes, all peering into separate nooks, places Xavier could never blockade, not all at once under such an onslaught.
She saw things, so many, all at once. Too much to process now. She saw a woman on the edge of some monument in the Grand Canyon, with Xavier holding her hand as they watched the sunset paint glorious hues upon the striated cliffs. She saw a warehouse full of shelves a hundred feet high, with locked compartments guarding things of such antiquity… and Montross sneaking out, darting from the shadows with something spherical and shiny in his grasp, a thief in the dark.
And then she saw them: Caleb and Alexander, rushing through a shadowy maze of passageways. Hurrying, following someone in a gray cloak. Her vision fast-forwarded, piggy-backing onto Xavier’s spark of prescience.
And now they’re outside, climbing out of a well onto the desert sands. In the distance, a motorboat revving up. Dark figures on board, holding guns and watching the skies, looking southeast, toward the distant peaks of the three pyramids. Fast forward again:
A giant half-dome of glass, sparkling in the sun, surrounded by high-rises and minarets.
Nina let go, backed away, gasping for breath. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she turned away from Montross, who wouldn’t look at her. “Senator,” she whispered. “They’re not down there anymore.”
“Where-?”
She blinked, standing up straight and focusing on Montross. He shook his head, but she continued anyway.
“They’re heading to Alexandria. To the library.”
Calderon nodded. “Ah, our friends the Keepers.” He started twirling his cane in his fingers, slowly, focusing on the dragon.
“Stepfather?” Isaac asked quietly. “Are we going there?”
“Oh we are, my boy.” And he smiled broadly. “I’m through playing cat and mouse with them. There’s no longer any point to the chase. Not when we have a way to end this once and for all.”
Isaac was rubbing his hands together, and even Jacob seemed excited.