“If you didn’t give me a reason to doubt you then there wouldn’t be any reason not to trust you.”
She gasped. “So you don’t trust me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“And what about you,” Lea said, lowering her voice and trying to mimic Hawke back on the Aurora in Italy. “I thought you were reminiscing about our little romance in Zambia…for fuck’s sake!”
“Eh? That was just me and Lex pissing about.”
“But you still don’t trust me,” she said sadly.
“I…”
“In that case, maybe we should just go on a break!” Lea cried out, loud enough for all to hear.
“Maybe we should!” Hawke knew he couldn’t back down now, but he also knew Lea well enough to know she wouldn’t either. It turned out they were the immovable object and the irresistable force of relationships.
“If that’s what you want, ya stupid eejit!”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Come on, Danny,” Lea said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Hawke watched Lea and Danny walk across the square and after a few seconds they were gone, melted into the bustling London crowd. He carried on staring long after they had slipped out of sight, almost unable to believe what had just happened: he had lost not only the Tinia idol to the Oracle, but now Kruger would hand him the Sword of Fire too and he would use them in his quest for the mysterious king’s tomb.
And now he had lost Lea Donovan, the person he cared about more than anyone else on the world. The woman he loved and wanted to marry.
He saw a group of tourists watching him now, and some even had their phones out to film him, but he turned his back on them all. He saw the rest of the ECHO team across the other side of the square watching him, but he turned his back on them too. His heart was racing and he was consumed with anger and confusion as his mind processed what to do next. All he knew was that he needed to be alone.
He turned on on his heel and started to walk in the opposite direction Lea had taken with Danny. Ahead of him was his hometown, but he was just a stranger here now.
“What’s happening, Joe?”
It was Scarlet’s voice in his earpiece.
“Joe, are you there?”
He knew the rest of the ECHO team wanted to know what had happened, but he couldn’t face them — not after this. His mind was in turmoil as he tried to get a grip on what had just happened. He tore out the earpiece, tossed it on the filthy ground and walked away until he was lost in the crowd.
Lexi Zhang took the elevator to her parents’ apartment. So this was it. Maybe her father would pull through, but that wasn’t what it had sounded like when she spoke with her mother. This was probably the last time she would ever see her father alive, and she felt shame wash over her when she thought about all the times she had decided to call him, and then lowered the phone down. Life had a way of punishing things like that, and she knew this was punishment time.
The elevator hit the tenth floor and she heard the same, sad metallic ping that had marked so much of her childhood. The door slid open and she saw the dimly lit hall where she had played as a child, lonely and full of dreams.
Mr Liu was playing his music too loud in No. 3 again. Some things never got old. Maybe later she would go around and tell him his fortune, but now it was time to see her father. She hoped her mother was holding things together, at least. She was a very capable and strong woman and right now they needed each other more than ever.
She fumbled through her bag for the key and then slid it into the lock.
Nothing happened.
She tried it again and realized something was jamming it, so she rang the intercom and called out to her mother.
“Mama?”
No response.
“It’s Xiaoli.”
She heard her mother fumbling with the lock. She imagined her frail hands struggling with the thing, her mind distracted by her dying husband. A wave of sadness came over her. She was not expecting it to feel like this and worked hard to control herself.
The door clicked open an inch, but stayed ajar.
“Mama?” Lexi pushed the door open halfway and peered down into the unlit hall. This was strange. Her mother always kept the hall light on at this time of night. Then again, these were very different times, she considered with a sad shrug.
“Mama?”
She stepped inside, and she saw it a second too late to react.
The man was somehow above the door, holding himself in place with the sheer power of his arm and leg muscles.
He powered an aggressive leopard punch into her throat and then a split second later he delivered a savage thunderclap strike to her right hear. The first blow nearly crushed her windpipe and the second one knocked her off her feet and ruptured the tympanic membrane in her ear. She was confused, disoriented and now struggling to breathe and unable to main her balance.
Lexi Zhang collapsed to the floor in her parent’s hall and looked up just in time to see Monkey leap down from the position he had wedged himself in above the door. He landed beside her with the agility and terrifying power of a panther, and then cocked his head as he leaned in to deliver a Shaolin horn punch that slammed her into a cold, silent darkness.
EPILOGUE
Dirk Kruger couldn’t help noticing how the bravado he had felt back in Horak’s mansion when he’d lectured Hawke about the Oracle seemed much harder to muster when standing right in front of the man himself. Now, in the study of one of Wolff’s opulent residences his main impulse was to crawl away into a hole and never share his company again.
“You got the sword, Dirk. Very good.”
Kruger started to relax as he watched Wolff caressing the long, ancient blade; his face now reflecting the deep, blue glow that emanated from its hardened steel. “Yes, sir. It was a piece of cake.”
The Oracle had a file marked KRUGER on his desk. He thumbed through some of the pages, but the effort was perfunctory; only a fool would presume he hadn’t already studied the man standing opposite him. “I was impressed with you when you found the Lost City, and you have certainly shown me that you are able to deal with the ECHO team as well. This plus your successful retrieval of the Tinia idol has pleased me greatly. I have decided to keep you alive.”
Kruger swallowed hard and took a step away from the desk. He hadn’t realized the price of failure on this mission would have been his life, and now he hardly knew what to say, except: “Thank you, sir.”
Wolff nodded casually, but he had returned his obsessive gaze back to the sword. “You know what this sword means to me?”
“You said it would open a gateway?” Something about the way Wolff was staring at the blade had upset Kruger. He was an arms dealer — a thug at heart — and now his insatiable greed had led him into the service of this depraved monster. He thought of Faust with a shudder and started to wonder what he had done.
“You pay attention to my words. Also very good.”
A long silence followed, and Kruger worked hard to stay calm and keep his breathing soft and level.
“The Sword of Fire… Dyrnwyn, Excalibur — they’re all the same thing. This blade in my hands did not come from the western lands where you found it. Originally it came from the east. Did you know that?”
“No I did not, Mr Wolff.”
“You address me as Oracle, or sir.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“That is, if you want to be part of all this.”
“Of course, Oracle.”
“This blade in my hands, arms dealer,” he said these last two words with contempt, “has the power I need to locate and open the gateway to the king’s tomb. Inside that tomb is something very critical to me and my mission… this pilgrimage I am on.”