Hunt at World's End Read online

  Gabriel thought of Sargonia, a city of ash and cinders and glass after the Spearhead had been turned on it.

  Joyce went on, “If it comes down to it, if you have to choose between the Star or me…”

  “It won’t come to that,” he said.

  “Promise me if you have to make a choice you’ll take the Star and run. Leave me behind if you have to, just keep it out of his hands.”

  “It won’t come to that,” Gabriel repeated.

  “Goddamn it, promise me.”

  “Joyce—”

  She stared at him, her mouth a tight line. Rainwater dripped from her nose and chin.

  “Okay,” Gabriel said. “I promise.”

  “Because it’s only fair you know what I’ll do if I’m faced with the same decision,” she said. Her expression didn’t change. He had to admit, she was tougher than he’d given her credit for. Looking in her ice blue eyes, he had no doubt she’d leave him behind if it meant getting the Star away from Grissom.

  The jeeps turned off the road and barreled along a narrow stretch of dirt that cut through the foliage. Eventually the leaves and branches around them thinned and parted, revealing a campsite filled with wide canvas tents. More jeeps were parked around the camp, and men dressed in jungle camo busily passed in and out of the tents. Gabriel counted at least a dozen of them, with god knew how many more out of sight. Who knew how long Grissom had been on the trail of the Spearhead, but he’d amassed a small army along the way.

  The jeep stopped suddenly, and Gabriel lurched forward, banging his chest against the front seat. Grissom killed the engine and jumped out of the jeep. His men dragged Gabriel, Joyce and Noboru out of the vehicle and marched them into the nearest tent. Three chairs had been set up in the center and a folding table stood to one side, a small, rectangular wooden box atop it. They were forced to sit and the ropes around their wrists were replaced with new bindings that secured their arms to the chair backs. Gabriel was seated in the middle chair, with Joyce on his left and Noboru on his right.

  The tent flap opened, and Grissom entered. Rainwater dripped off the wide brim of his hat. He had a white towel draped over his shoulder. He nodded to his men. They exited the tent, except for one who stayed inside by the flap, one hand on the butt of his holstered gun.

  “Well,” Grissom said, “I must say, this is better than I could have hoped for.” He took off his hat and shook the water from it onto the ground. He pulled the towel off his shoulder and dried his face and hair.

  “Why are we here?” Gabriel demanded. “You’ve already got the Star of Arnuwanda.”

  “Indeed I do, but what I don’t have, Mr. Hunt, is an understanding of it. Not yet. We have a copy of Arnuwanda’s map, but without knowing how to use the Star to read it, it’s merely a curious historical document. Yet in your hands the map and the Star together somehow led you to the crypt in the jungle. What I want to know is how.” He placed the hat back on his head.

  Gabriel glared at him and kept his mouth shut. Grissom looked at Joyce and then Noboru. After a moment, he nodded solemnly. “You’re reluctant to tell me. That’s understandable. I haven’t been the most pleasant host.” He folded the towel carefully, and put it down on the table beside the wooden box. He opened the box, pulled out a long object wrapped in a thick purple cloth and began to unwrap it. “But let me assure you, I can be even less pleasant.”

  Grissom lifted a dagger out of the cloth. He held it up so that the light from the generator-fed lamp in the corner glinted off the edges of the long, sharp blade. The handle was made of ivory, a curling dragon carved along the hilt from the pommel to the crossguard. “Thousands of years ago, the Chinese of the Shang and Zhou dynasties sacrificed young men and women to the gods of their rivers. They did this to prevent flooding, and to ensure the supply of fish continued for another year. A government minister named Ximen Bao put an end to the practice a few centuries later, but not before that famous Chinese ingenuity took hold. They liked to put their sacrifices in the rivers bleeding copiously, you see, and they needed a device to speed the process of preparing them.” He touched a hidden button in the dragon’s eye, and two additional blades sprang out of the handle alongside the first. He crossed to Gabriel’s chair. “Of course, this isn’t an original. They only had bronze to work with back then. But I do so like the design, don’t you? It’s far more of a precision instrument than it appears.”

  He touched the tips of the blades to Gabriel’s face. Gabriel fought the urge to flinch as they neared his eye. The sharp metal slid along his skin, finally stopping when Grissom reached the stitches on his cheek. “I see my son was quite vehement in retrieving the Death’s Head Key from you, Mr. Hunt. He’s a good boy, but he doesn’t always know when to stop. Doesn’t know how much is too much. Perhaps he gets that from me.” Grissom flicked his wrist suddenly, and the tip of the central blade cut through a stitch. Gabriel clenched his jaw as a drop of blood rolled down his cheek. “We can both be quite persistent. Neither of us lets people stand in the way of our goals. Like father, like son. It’s best when things match, don’t you think? The important things, anyway.” He moved the knife to Gabriel’s other cheek and flicked it again, opening a second wound to mirror the first. “Tell me how the Star is used.”

  Gabriel didn’t answer. Blood trickled down both cheeks. He grit his teeth against the pain radiating from the incisions.

  For a moment the tent was silent except for the drumming of the rain on the canvas roof. Then Grissom said, “Very well.” He grabbed Gabriel’s collar in his fist and tore his shirt down the front. “I don’t know how well you know knives, Mr. Hunt, but I had this one made from the best high-carbon steel there is. It never dulls, no matter how much flesh it slices.” His hand shot forward suddenly, and the tips of all three blades stopped less than an inch from Gabriel’s chest. “Or so I’m told. Shall we put it to the test?”

  With another flick of his wrist, Grissom slashed a new wound into Gabriel’s skin. Blood welled up in the three parallel cuts the dagger left in his chest, then spilled out, painting three red lines down to his ribs. Behind his back, Gabriel’s hands clenched into fists. The ropes chewed into his wrists.

  “I see you’re a stubborn man,” Grissom went on. “I understand this. I am one myself. When I want something, I’ll do what ever it takes to make it mine. I’ve never cared for the word no. I care even less for those who say it to me.” He swung his arm in a quick arc, drawing three more lines of blood across Gabriel’s chest, like a claw mark. Gabriel gritted his teeth and shut his eyes against the sharp pain until it dulled. When he opened his eyes again, Grissom smiled. “Still with us, Mr. Hunt? Good. I’d be sorely disappointed if you didn’t make it past the opening act.”

  Grissom coughed suddenly, his whole body shaking with the effort. Another cough followed, and another, wracking his frame so strongly he doubled over. He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it. A few seconds later, the coughing fit stopped and Grissom put the handkerchief back in his pocket. Gabriel caught a flash of red in its folds. Blood?

  “Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to be weak, Mr. Hunt. To be a ticking clock, counting down to your own death as your body eats itself alive. To have nothing to look forward to but a few remaining years of misery, immobility and pain. To have more than enough money for anything you want, and yet still not enough to extend your life. Time is a thief, Mr. Hunt. It steals everything from you, little by little. I watched Julian’s mother waste away on her deathbed. I saw the pity in everyone’s eyes, heard it in the pitch of their voices. I won’t allow that to happen to me. Pity is what you get when people don’t fear you. Other people’s pity only makes you weaker. But fear…” He swung the dagger once more, slicing three fresh cuts across Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel grunted in pain from between his clenched teeth. “Fear makes you much, much stronger. Now, tell me how to use the Star.”

  Streams of sweat rolled off Gabriel’s forehead. Each new cut felt like a fire burning j
ust under his skin. But as long as he could keep Grissom talking, keep the madman thinking he was the one with the answers and not Joyce, he would take it for as long as he had to. There was no other choice.

  Grissom slashed his abdomen. This time Gabriel cried out. Judging from the smile on the old man’s face, it seemed to make Grissom happy.

  “Can you imagine,” Grissom continued, “how intrigued I was when I heard the legend of the Spearhead? What I could do with such a thing. The fire at world’s end. Why should it just be my end that approaches? Why not the whole world’s, just like the legend says, only with my hand setting the blaze? When my wife died, the world didn’t care. It carried on as if nothing had happened. The next morning was like all the ones before it: birds sang, breezes blew, politicians lied, all of it. There will be no ordinary next morning when I die, Mr. Hunt. For me, the world will sit up and take notice. There will be no forgetting the name Edgar Grissom.”

  “You’re…” Gabriel began, and then shook his head. The words were so inadequate. But he said them anyway. “You’re crazy.”

  Grissom smiled. “And now we finally hear from Gabriel Hunt! Has your tongue been loosened at last? Tell me what I need to know and the pain stops.”

  Gabriel looked away. The patter of the rain on the canvas roof slowed to a stop, amplifying the silence that filled the tent.

  “A pity,” Grissom said. “I was hoping you’d be more cooperative.” He looked down at the three blood-tipped blades of his dagger. “You see, until I have what I want, I need you alive. Your friends, however, are of no such importance to me.” Grissom turned to Joyce. She kept her head down, her eyes to the ground. “There’s something wonderful about women, don’t you think?” He reached out with the knife until the blades’ tips just brushed the skin of her clavicle. “The way the fear stays in their eyes even after they die.”

  He moved the dagger to the base of her neck, then up to her throat. Joyce tilted her head away from the sharp blades and glared up at Grissom, her lips pulled back from her teeth.

  “Tell me how to use the Star, Mr. Hunt,” Grissom insisted, “or I will open her lovely neck.”

  Gabriel sat silently, his skin singing with pain, blood rolling down his ribs and abdomen. Beside him, Noboru tugged against the ropes that bound him to his chair. Gabriel met Joyce’s eyes, and she shot him a look of steely resolve that erased any doubt whether she meant what she’d said. She was willing to die to keep the Spearhead out of Grissom’s hands.

  But what if the legend was wrong? They’d found one gemstone, but what if there weren’t any others? Or what if the Spearhead didn’t exist anymore, or if it never had? He couldn’t let her die for something no one even knew for sure was real. He met her eyes again, then looked over at Grissom, and saw an equal determination in each pair of eyes. Rock, meet hard place. Gabriel struggled against his bindings, trying to slip a hand free, but the knot was too tight.

  Grissom frowned. “I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Hunt. You’ve backed me into a corner. I dislike hurting women, but I’m afraid I have no choice now. When you look back at this moment in the future—should I allow you a future—I want you to remember whose fault this really was.” He grabbed Joyce’s hair in one hand and pulled her head back. She gritted her teeth and clamped her eyes shut. Grissom swung the dagger back, preparing to slash it across her throat.

  “It’s a code!” Noboru shouted suddenly. “It’s a code.”

  Grissom stayed his hand. Joyce opened her eyes. Gabriel turned to Noboru and saw the pained, desperate look on the older man’s face.

  “Of course it’s a code,” Grissom said. “But how does it work? What is the key?”

  “The elements,” Noboru said. “Earth, water. The symbols for the elements.”

  “Don’t!” Joyce yelled at him.

  Grissom let go of her hair and walked over to stand in front of Noboru. “The elements, you say. You mean the three elements from the Teshub legend, of course.”

  “Noboru,” Joyce pleaded.

  He looked at her and shook his head. “I couldn’t let him do it.”

  “Go on,” Grissom said, raising his voice impatiently.

  “The first gemstone, the one you have…it’s the one for earth,” Noboru said. “The second is water.”

  “Noboru, don’t,” Joyce warned again.

  Grissom shot a silencing a glance her way.

  “Yes, but the third one, that’s the mystery,” Grissom said. “Any fool with half a brain knows the original translation is wrong. ‘Loose soil’ makes no sense. But you’ve figured out what it means, haven’t you? Tell me.”

  Noboru swallowed hard and looked away from Grissom’s eyes. “No. We haven’t. None of us has.”

  Grissom grabbed a fistful of Noboru’s hair and held the three-bladed dagger to his throat. “I don’t have time for games. What is the third element?”

  “We don’t know,” Noboru insisted. “I swear.”

  “You’re trying my patience,” Grissom hissed. “Hunt, speak to me or he dies.” He pulled back the dagger, ready to strike.

  “Sorry, Joyce,” Gabriel said. “You and I are one thing, but Noboru didn’t make you any promises. I’ll tell you what you want to know, Grissom. Just let them—”

  A shout of alarm came from outside the tent. The report of a gunshot rang out. Grissom straightened, letting go of Noboru’s hair. Another shot exploded, followed by more shouting, a confused clamor, the sound of boots running through mud. Grissom touched the eye of the dragon on the dagger’s hilt again and the two outer blades slid back into the handle. He tossed the dagger back in the wooden box. “Watch them,” he barked at the guard stationed at the tent flap. Then he exited.

  “How could you?” Joyce said. “Both of you! If he finds the other gemstones and activates the Spearhead, he’ll use it to slaughter thousands—maybe millions.”

  “I’m sorry,” Noboru said. “But I couldn’t let him kill you.”

  More angry shouts erupted outside, more gunfire, and another sound, like the twanging of a guitar string.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Joyce asked.

  Gabriel shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  The guard stiffened suddenly and a strange gurgling came from his throat. He fell backward, clutching at his neck. The shaft of an arrow protruded from his Adam’s apple.

  The dying man’s fingers grabbed at the tent flap, pulling the canvas to one side.

  Just long enough for Gabriel to see someone run past holding a wooden longbow, a quiver of arrows strapped to the back of his white robe.

  A skull mask covered his face.

  Chapter 10

  The cult, here? Now? Gabriel had never thought he’d be grateful to see them. But it was only a temporary reprieve. Both groups wanted them dead and whichever came out on top would see to it that they wound up that way.

  “This can’t end well,” Gabriel said. “We have to get out of here.”

  Noboru pulled hard against the ropes tying him to his chair, to no avail. “Any suggestions?”

  Gabriel eyed the table with the box on it. “One. But it depends on my getting over there.” He began rocking back and forth in his chair, tipping it farther and farther until it finally fell forward. He shifted as he fell so that he landed on his side. The jolt of the impact made the fresh cuts on his torso flare with pain again.

  He wriggled on the ground, making slow progress toward the table, dragging the chair with him. The strain it put on his shoulders made it feel like they would snap out of their sockets at any moment. He backed up against the table and knocked the chair into it as hard as he could. The wooden box on top shifted but didn’t fall. He hit the table again, gritting his teeth against the pain. The box jolted, crept closer to the edge. Looking up, he saw that it was within centimeters. He struck the table one more time. The box jumped, teetered on the edge. Come on, damn it…It teetered on the table’s edge, then fell. He swung his head to the side and it smashed besid
e him, kicking off splinters. One nicked his ear as it shot past. Grissom’s ivory-handled dagger spilled out on the floor and rolled a yard or so. He rotated till it was in reach of one of his feet, then kicked it toward Noboru. The other man caught it between his boots.

  More shouting came from outside the tent. Gabriel could hear people running past, the crack of gunfire and the shuk of arrows landing in the mud. They had to hurry. All it would take was one cult member to stumble upon them, or one of Grissom’s men to catch them in the middle of an escape attempt, and they might as well have spent the time digging their own graves.

  “Turn it around,” he told Noboru. “The other way. Upright.” With the sides of his boot soles, Noboru turned the knife till it was pointing straight up. He steadied the pommel against the ground. Gabriel squirmed painfully back to him, angling himself so his back was to the blade. “Just hold it steady,” he said. “Despite the position we find ourselves in, I don’t really want to slit my wrists.” He started working the rope holding his arms together against the blade. The angle was difficult, and it hurt like hell to raise and lower his arms, but after half a minute he could feel the tension in the rope weakening.

  “Go faster,” Joyce called. “You’ve got to go faster.”

  Gabriel grimaced. It felt like his arms were about to break. He thrust the ropes against the blade savagely—again—once more—and suddenly his hands were free. He threw the rope off to either side and scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the knife and pressed the hidden button. The extra blades snapped into view. He used their razor edges to make short work of the ropes holding Noboru and Joyce to their chairs.

  “We’ve got to get the Star back,” she said, rubbing circulation back into her wrists.

  “The only problem,” Gabriel said, “is that there’s a battlefield between us and wherever Grissom’s got it. Assuming he’s not lying facedown in the mud.” We should be so lucky. Gabriel crossed to the tent flap, stepping over the dead guard, and pulled it back an inch to peer out. It was chaos outside, with Grissom’s men running back and forth, shouting and firing their weapons. Everywhere, the feathered ends of arrows stuck up out of the ground like tire spikes. One of Grissom’s men ran past, pistol in hand, shooting at a target Gabriel couldn’t see, and then an arrow hit him in the back. The man fell forward, his body skidding to a halt in the mud. The arrow had come from the direction of the jungle. Aside from the one cult member he’d seen running past the tent, it looked like the others were hanging back and trying to pick off Grissom’s men from the trees. There was no sign of Grissom himself, or of Julian.