Herculean

43

“Are you sure this is the place?” Pierce asked.

“Pretty sure,” was the reply, Dourado’s voice in his Bluetooth earpiece. She, along with Gallo, Carter and Kenner, who was zip-tied to his seat, were sitting in a rented van a block away. If Pierce and Lazarus did not make it out, they would call in the Carabinieri.

Dourado didn’t elaborate on the reasons for her certainty, and she didn’t have to. She’d already shown him the financial records tracing the flow of money from a number of Cerberus shell organizations to the Fondazione Dioscuri, a nebulous historical preservation society based in Rome. Construction records from the late 1980s confirmed major renovations to the famed Castel Sant’Angelo, underwritten by the same group. And blueprints revealed the extensive work done to parts of the building that were not on the tour route.

Even without the exhaustive compilation, Pierce would have believed her. Dioscuri was the Latin name for Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins, also known as the Tyndarids — sons of Tyndareus. Their enemy seemed to have a fondness for that particular theme.

Pierce crossed the footbridge over the Fiume Tevere, moving against the current of visitors departing the imposing circular edifice. The structure had served as a mausoleum to Roman emperors, a military fortress, a prison where enemies of the Vatican were held and executed and presently as a national museum. Everything felt so normal that Pierce wondered if they had gotten something wrong.

“It just seems awfully public for the headquarters of a criminal empire.” It was an understatement. Situated less than a quarter of a mile from Vatican City, the Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo was in all the guidebooks, and it was one of the most frequently visited landmarks west of the Tiber.

“Camouflage,” Lazarus said, walking beside him. “They’re hiding in plain sight.”

Pierce didn’t know if that was a good thing. He had expected Cerberus Headquarters to be a walled compound, ringed with razor wire, patrolled by uniformed guards with machine guns and dogs. If it had been, he would have brought a squad of Aegis operators, armed to the teeth with all the latest military specs. But for sneaking into a secret basement in a 1,900 year-old castle-turned-museum, less was better, or so Lazarus had assured him.

“Just the two of us,” the big man had said. “Stealth will serve us better than overwhelming force.”

If Kenner was to be believed, most of the Cerberus staff had perished in the sinkhole. Only a token force had remained behind with the head of Cerberus, a man that Kenner had identified as Pollux Tyndareus.

Kenner had not been able to tell them much about Tyndareus, aside from the fact that he was extremely old and very interested in exploiting exotic scientific discoveries for profit. The name was almost certainly an alias, but Dourado had been unable to learn anything about the man, or who he might really be.

As Pierce approached the entrance to the Castel, a museum attendant rushed to intercept him. “The museum is closing, signore. No more tickets today.”

“I’m here to see the director,” Pierce replied, his Italian perfect, his manner imperious. “I have an appointment.”

The attendant stared at Lazarus with undisguised skepticism. Both he and Pierce wore loose fitting jackets, which concealed both body armor and weapons, but Lazarus had added a baseball cap, with the bill pulled down low to conceal the scars on his face. The wounds had healed with astonishing rapidity, but even with the tiger-stripe pattern of new pink skin hidden from view, his size alone made him stand out in a crowd. “Both of you?”

“Say that he’s your consigliere,” Dourado suggested in Pierce’s ear. “Like Sil in The Sopranos.”

Pierce ignored her. “Yes. Both of us.”

The attendant shrugged and waved them through.

They passed through the gateway and entered the open walkway that separated the outer walls from the main fortress. Dourado had loaded the blueprints into their phones, along with turn-by-turn instructions to get them to the locked door that would access the secret basement levels under the building, but Pierce did not need to consult them. He knew the place like the back of his hand, and not just because he had studied the maps during the final leg of their flight. Pierce had been here before.

It had been years since his last visit, but one thing about a city like Rome, where you couldn’t throw a Frisbee without hitting a historically significant landmark, was that nothing really ever changed. But as he was fond of telling his students, even in an old place, you can still find something new.

They passed through a long corridor with walls of travertine blocks, through the atrium, where a statue of the famed Roman emperor Hadrian had once stood, and descended the ramp that led to his tomb. Their destination lay along that route, beneath a sign that read: ascensore.

Elevator.

The lift was a relatively new addition to the Castel. It was only three hundred years old, installed by Pope Clement XII in 1734. In addition to being the Vatican’s Death Row for several centuries, Castel Sant’Angelo was also a secondary papal residence, connected to Vatican City by a half-mile long aboveground tunnel called the Passetto di Borgo. Clement XII, one of the oldest men ever to be elected as pontiff, had been a forward thinker with respect to accessibility.

The elevator had been upgraded since its installation. Now it looked like a relic from the early 1900s. Pierce and Lazarus waited until the corridor was empty before opening the door and moving into the waiting cage-style car. Pierce slotted a skeleton key into the control panel, and then turned the manual control wheel to the left. Beyond this point, they would have no communication with Dourado. No way to call for help.

As the car descended, Lazarus opened his jacket and readied his MP5K. “Remember why we’re here,” he told Pierce. “Everyone that isn’t Fiona is hostile.”

“Thanks for the ‘stay frosty’ speech, but I’ve done this before. With Jack.” Pierce said.

Lazarus smiled. “Heard you punched a woman.”

Pierce shrugged. “She had it coming.”

It wasn’t true. The woman had been another trespasser at the Roman Forum he had mistaken for a guard, but his nonchalance pulled a chuckle from Lazarus. He’d heard about this routine. Soldiers joking before battle. Reaffirming a bond, like friendship, but deeper. He’d experienced it with Jack, but never with the big man who so rarely said anything.

Lazarus added, “I’ll take point. You watch my six.”

The elevator descended through alternating layers of masonry and bedrock until arriving at the basement. Officially, the subterranean levels of the fortress remained unexcavated, but clearly that was not the whole story. A simple passage led away from the elevator. A metal door awaited them at the far end. Although newer than the elevator, it was shrouded in cobwebs and spotted with corrosion.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s used this door in ages,” Pierce remarked. “They must have another way in. Something that doesn’t show on the blueprints.”

“That may work in our favor,” Lazarus said.

Pierce approached the door and swept it with his black box. The readings showed no electrical fields indicating an alarm system, so he tried the door. “Locked.”

“I’ll knock.” Lazarus stepped forward and placed a length of what looked like foam insulation over the latch plate, fixing it in place with tape. He motioned for Pierce to back up a few steps, and then he hit the detonator switch. There was a loud bang, like a car backfiring, and the door flew open. Lazarus immediately charged through, his MP5K at the ready. Pierce moved in behind him, searching for a target in the smoky room.

Pierce recognized the corridor from both the blueprints and firsthand accounts from Gallo and Kenner. There were doors to either side, and at the far end, a modern elevator, but little else of note.

“It’s clear,” Lazarus said. “But stay sharp. We don’t know what’s behind these doors.”

Pierce maintained a watch on the corridor while Lazarus methodically searched each room. They found personal quarters, classrooms and storage closets, but no Cerberus personnel and no Fiona. As they neared the end, Pierce finally voiced the thought that had been nagging at him for several minutes.

“Where is everyone?”

“We knew there would be minimal personnel,” Lazarus said. From his tone, Pierce guessed that the big man was as anxious about the situation as he. He stared at the sliding metal doors to the elevator for several seconds, then walked toward it.

The doors slid open revealing an empty car. Lazarus stepped inside, but as Pierce moved to join him, he raised a hand. “Better wait here.”

“If they’re waiting for you,” Pierce said, “you’re going to need me.”

“If they’re waiting, they’ll kill us both.”

Before Pierce could protest, the doors closed and he was left alone.

44

The doors opened and Lazarus shot out of the elevator like a burst from a machine gun. If there was an ambush waiting, he would have only a millisecond to acquire a target and fire before the bullets began tearing into him. His Kevlar vest would stop some of the rounds, especially if the Cerberus men were armed with pistols and shooting nine-mil, but some of their shots would undoubtedly find unprotected areas of his body — arms, legs, head — and he would go down.

He would die, but that would only be a temporary problem. What mattered was that he would be rendered combat ineffective.

To give Pierce a fighting chance at rescuing Fiona, he had to kill as many hostiles as he could, as quickly as he could, and to do that, he would have to be more than just Lazarus, the man who came back. He would need to be the man he had left behind on the bottom of Lake Kivu. He would need the rage again.

All his life, it had been with him…in him. He had never understood why. The traumas of his early childhood played a role, but they did not explain the intensity of his primal anger. Being a soldier had given him a way to channel the emotional firestorm that always burned within him, but that was not a solution. Rather, it just added fuel to the fire.

The regenerative serum had changed all that, forced him to control that which had always controlled him, because if his focus slipped, he would become nothing but rage. Yet, control was not the same as peace. The fire never went out. Not until Felice.

She had shown him that rage was not, as he often believed, his oldest and only true friend. It was a drug, and he was an addict. She had shown him how to kick the habit.

Like any addiction, the urges never completely went away, but every day that passed, every quiet moment spent meditating, every second in Felice’s arms, made it easier. Made him believe in a life without rage.

He knew how to tap into it, to make it work for him. He had done it in Liberia to survive the carnivorous plants and rescue Felice and the others. He had used it to withstand the assault of the Stymphalian birds, to help her and Pierce reach safety. Now, he needed to unleash it to save Fiona.

And to kill the bastards that took her.

It wasn’t enough. Indignation wasn’t enough. He couldn’t just throw a switch and decide to be mad. He needed more. He needed pain.

He needed to remember what that felt like. The birds tearing into his flesh. The vines, burning his skin like acid. The lake…

The lake filling his lungs and extinguishing his life again and again and again…

A red mist filled his eyes as he surged out of the elevator car.

Kill the bastards!

Except there was nobody to kill. This hallway was as empty as the first. Without waiting for Pierce to catch up, he began clearing rooms, kicking in doors one after another, his frustration mounting with each discovery of absolutely nothing. With each empty room, the anger built within him like the pressure in a volcano, demanding release.

“Erik!”

He wheeled toward the sound of the voice, his finger finding the trigger, squeezing…

He barely managed to jerk the muzzle up before the bullets started flying. The ceiling erupted in a shower of broken plaster, which rained down on the man standing at the other end of the hallway. George Pierce stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief.

Anger continued to boil within him, but now it was self-directed. He had given in to the urge, taken the fix, convinced himself it was the only way to win, and it had almost cost Pierce his life. He closed his eyes and tried to quiet his rapid breathing.

He could almost hear Felice’s voice in his head. You are, without a doubt, the strongest, toughest, most badass person I’ve ever met. But there’s something inside you…eating at you.

I can help.

I want to.

He needed her now. Needed her to talk him down.

Maybe I’m not as strong as you thought, Felice.

He opened his eyes and looked at Pierce again. “No one here,” he said. “The place is completely deserted. We missed them.”

Pierce blinked, the shock of almost getting killed starting to fade. Then his eyes went wide and he brought his gun up. The motion was so abrupt that Lazarus did not have time to react before Pierce pulled the trigger. He saw the puffs of smoke leaving the end of the suppressor, and felt waves of pressure buffeting him as bullets creased the air to either side of him, but none of the rounds struck him.

There was a cry of pain from behind Lazarus, followed by the thump of a body hitting the ground. Then another.

Pierce lowered his gun.

Lazarus turned and was surprised to discover a pair of bodies — men, wearing charcoal gray combat fatigues — sprawled out behind him. He had no idea where the duo had been lurking. All he knew for sure was that Pierce had just saved his life.

One of the guards was definitely dead, a hole drilled neatly between his eyes. The other was still alive and reaching for the pistol that had fallen from his grasp when Pierce’s bullet had punched into his chest. Lazarus strode over and kicked the gun out of the man’s reach.

Pierce knelt beside the stricken man. “Where is everyone?” he demanded. “Where’s Fiona?”

The man stared up at him, face twisted in pain, but eyes defiant. Lazarus doubted the man was capable of answering the question, but Pierce was not going to let him slip quietly into the hereafter. He punched the man’s oozing chest wound. “Where is the girl? Is she here?”

The man shuddered and let out a gasp, and then his eyes rolled back in his head, his body deflating. Pierce, however, did not relent. He kept shouting the question until Lazarus reached out and put a hand on Pierce’s shoulder. “George. He’s gone.”

Pierce sagged back. “Damn it.”

“We’ll find her.”

Pierce climbed to his feet and raised his pistol to a ready firing stance. “I appreciate what you were trying to do back there, but we’re supposed to be doing this together, okay? No more rogue ops.”

Lazarus nodded. “Roger that.” He stood up and gestured to the bodies. “Good work. I think you’ve officially graduated to badass.”

Pierce managed a wan smile.

“Did you see where they came from?” Lazarus continued. “I thought I checked all the rooms.”

Pierce pointed down the hall. “That way. Maybe there’s a secret door. Something that isn’t included in the blueprint.”

Lazarus stared down at the dead gunmen again, this time taking note of the ID badges clipped to their belts. He plucked one up. “I think you’re right. This is a proximity key card. Let’s go see what it opens.”

Pierce took the second key card. “Sounds like a plan.”

As they approached the end of the hall, a section of wall slid aside. Lazarus and Pierce went through the opening with their guns at the ready, but there was no one to shoot at. The room beyond the secret door was as deserted as the rest of the compound.

It was not however, empty.

45

Gallo had no memory of the tunnel or the small parking garage just off the Via Cossa where it began — or ended, depending on which direction you were going — but things began looking familiar once she reached the other side.

Coming back was a bittersweet experience. She had left as Kenner’s hostage, cooperating with him only to ensure Fiona’s safety. Now, her former prison was under Herculean Society control and Kenner was the captive.

But Fiona was missing, and all the battles they had won meant nothing.

As Pierce walked them through the facility, Gallo realized that she had seen only a small fraction of the place. Aside from an entire floor of guest quarters, several of which were much more accommodating than the room where she had been kept, there were libraries and laboratories, conference rooms, even a movie theater.

There was an entire lab devoted to genetics research, which prompted Carter to ask Pierce if he had kept the receipt for the SMRT sequencer he’d bought for her. “Because there’s no way I’m going back to that cave.”

Lazarus flashed a smile at the comment, but said nothing. He was a strange man, and although she had known him for only about a day, Gallo sensed that even Pierce, whose history with the man went back several years, had barely scratched the surface.

They moved on to a computer server room with hardware that almost brought Dourado to tears. “Can you hack your way into this?” Pierce asked her. “And figure out where they went? Where Fiona is?”

“I am looking forward to trying,” she replied with an eagerness bordering on hunger.

Pierce let her skip the rest of the tour.

After they passed through a gallery filled with priceless art and artifacts ranging from Neolithic to neo-classical, Pierce held them back for a moment. “The next room isn’t going to be easy,” he said. “But I think it will explain a lot about who we’re dealing with.”

With that ominous warning, he led them into a room that was filled with the stuff of nightmares. Gallo immediately realized that she was looking at images from the Holocaust, but it took a little longer to grasp the ghastly intent behind the collection. After that, she stopped looking until Pierce brought them to a trophy case filled with Nazi memorabilia.

Kenner, who had been unusually quiet up to that point, let out a gasp. He nodded at the photographs in the case. “Oh, God. It’s him. That’s Tyndareus.”

The outburst prompted Gallo to take a closer look at the pictures and documents in the display. One name stood out. “That’s not possible. He’s dead.”

“Are you certain?” Pierce locked eyes with Kenner, but Gallo got the sense that he was not at all surprised by the news. “Augustina’s right. Josef Mengele died over thirty years ago. His remains are locked in a safe in Brazil. The DNA was checked against known relatives.”

Kenner shook his head. “No. That’s Tyndareus. He’s older now, of course, but I’d recognize that…” He looked as if he was about to throw up. “That smile. My God. What have I done? I was helping that monster.”

“So kidnapping and attempted murder were okay when you weren’t working for a Nazi?” Pierce asked. Kenner feigned disgust for a moment, but Pierce cut him off with a raised hand. “Liam, I just want to know one thing. Where is he now?”

Kenner shook his head. “I promised him the source. The Well of Monsters. I thought I would find the location in the Amazon city, but there was nothing there.”

“In the myths, the monsters came from the Underworld,” Gallo said. “That’s where their mother Echidna lived. If there is some kind of…something…that can create monsters, that’s where we’ll find it.”

Pierce considered this, then lowered his voice as if sharing a secret. “Hercules — the real Hercules — did visit the Underworld. I don’t mean Hell. A real place. We have records of a massive underground network — we’re talking global in scope — that almost certainly corresponds to the Underworld of Greek mythology. There are dozens of entrances though, and probably thousands of miles of connecting passages. It would be virtually impossible to simply stumble onto a specific location.”

He paused, looked at Kenner again and then at Gallo. “He learned the location of the entrance from the Amazons, right? So the answer has to be on the map.”

Gallo shot an accusing glance at Kenner, but she knew she shared some of the blame. “Tyndareus must have forced Fiona to translate it for him.”

“We need to figure out how to read it, too,” Pierce said. “Were there any clues in the Heracleia that might narrow it down?”

“If it’s still here, I’ll go through it again.”

“I might be able to help,” Carter said, raising a tentative hand. “Remember how I told you that the DNA of the hybrids might help us narrow down the geographical location of the parent animals? Well, I haven’t had a chance to sequence that bird I brought back yet, but I can tell you that it looks like a cross between a great egret and a porcupine. Probably a lot of other contributors as well, but those two species account for most of the dominant traits. Now, egrets don’t help us since they’re found on every continent, but the quills are similar to those found on the body of the North American porcupine.”

“North American?” Pierce said. “Just like the Lion?

Carter nodded. “I can use the equipment here to verify it, but I’d say the odds are good that these hybrids originated in North America.”

“That doesn’t exactly narrow it down,” Pierce said.

Gallo felt as if scales had fallen from her eyes. “I know where it is. In the Heracleia, it says that Herakles found the Underworld ‘in a burning land, with poisonous air, at the center of a lake of fire.’”

“That’s pretty typical imagery for the Land of the Dead,” Pierce countered.

Gallo shook her head. “That was where he found the entrance. Before he went into the Underworld. Ancient historians tried to pinpoint its location from the stories. The Greeks believed it was in a cave at Cape Matapan, but that doesn’t fit the physical description. A much better candidate is Mount Chimaera in Lycia — modern-day Turkey — because it’s a very geologically active location with burning methane pockets that erupt from the ground. But those were just educated guesses based on their limited knowledge of the world. They didn’t know the Americas even existed.

“There’s a place in North America that matches that description. It’s one of the most geologically active places in the world. The Yellowstone caldera.”

“Yellowstone,” Pierce echoed. His tone was more thoughtful than disbelieving.

“Of course,” Kenner exclaimed. “It’s a perfect fit.”

Gallo shot him a withering look. “No one asked you.

Kenner ignored her. “But that’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

Pierce looked up. “No, it isn’t.” He turned to Gallo, a hungry gleam in his eyes. “We’re not looking for the entrance to the Underworld. Tyndareus is, and he’s the one who’s got his work cut out for him. We’re looking for Fiona, and now we know where she is, assuming that she reached the same conclusion you did.

“He’s got her. We’re going to get her back.” He looked around the gathering, as if daring anyone to question his decision. No one did. His gaze settled on the SS uniform in the display. “We’re done here.”

46

For as long as she could remember, Yellowstone National Park had been one of those places that Fiona knew she would have to visit someday. If she had been a little older, she might have called it a ‘bucket list’ item.

Guess I’ll get to cross it off before I die, she thought.

Her knowledge of the park was piecemeal. She knew about the grizzly bears that roamed the forest, and knew that you weren’t supposed to feed them. She knew about the geysers, especially Old Faithful, which spewed superheated steam on a schedule you could set your watch by, though she also recalled hearing that it wasn’t as ‘faithful’ as it once had been. She knew that scientists were worried about a super-volcano underneath the park, a gigantic underground bubble of magma, which in addition to boiling the water for the geysers, was also going to erupt any day and bury half the United States in ash — or maybe it wouldn’t happen for a hundred thousand years. All of these things were interesting to her, but there were a lot of places in the world that she wanted to visit, and she knew she would get there eventually. Yellowstone was practically in her back yard, after all.

But this was not how she wanted to see it.

When she had identified a particular set of Phaistos symbols on the map’s border, which combined to form the phrase ‘the land of the god ruling the dead,’ and crossed at a point near the center of the ancient depiction of North America, she did not immediately grasp that the spot fell within the boundaries of the world’s first national park. Midwestern geography had never been her strong suit.

But Tyndareus had known exactly where it was without needing to consult a more current map. “Yes. That is the place. We shall leave immediately.”

Within the hour, the old man, along with his entire staff, including Nurse Wretched, had loaded up and headed out. Fiona had been blindfolded for the drive, so she had no idea where they had left from. When the blindfold was removed, she found herself in the passenger cabin of a medium-sized jet. It was larger than the Herculean Society’s Gulfstream, with rows of seats like a regular commercial airliner, but she and the Cerberus team were the only passengers. Tyndareus had evidently chartered a plane to take them to their destination, which explained how they had been able to avoid airport security and nagging questions about the identity of a blindfolded hostage.

The flight was long, but the food was significantly better than the fare she had been fed so far, and the regularity with which it was served helped her mark the passage of time. Shortly after the fifth meal — somewhere between ten and fifteen hours after leaving the Cerberus facility, if her estimation was correct — she was brought to Tyndareus.

“We will be landing in a few hours,” he said, his manner as offhand as his age and its associated afflictions would allow. “Then we will drive to the coordinates you supplied. Unfortunately, the map is of such a scale that the target area is more than a hundred square miles. Hardly an ideal situation, wouldn’t you agree?”

Fiona shrugged. “It’s the best I could do with what you gave me.”

“Mmmm. Yes.” He tented his fingers in front of his face. “I’ve just heard from Mr. Rohn. As you predicted, the Amazon yielded nothing of substance, though we did find evidence to support both your interpretation of the map and Dr. Kenner’s underlying premise.” He paused a beat, then added, “He also reported to me that Dr. Gallo made an ill-advised attempt to escape.”

The news caught Fiona off-guard. She almost said, ‘Good for her,’ but Tyndareus had also used the word attempt. “Is she okay?”

A faint smile curled the old man’s lips. “She took a foolish risk with your life, child. I was quite clear about the consequences of such an action. Now, she’s put me in a rather awkward position. You have become far more valuable to me as a resource than as a hostage, yet I cannot let this rebellion go unpunished. I am a man of my word.”

“Bullshit!”

Tyndareus flinched under the verbal assault. Out of the corner of her eye, Fiona saw the goons moving to defend their boss, but she was done playing nice. “Aunt Gus only cooperated with you because you threatened to hurt me, and then as soon as she was gone, you used me as a lab rat. You planned to kill us both right from the start, so don’t even talk to me about keeping your word.”

Tyndareus’s weird blue eyes flashed dangerously. “You will not pay the price for her mistakes, child, but be assured, she will most certainly pay for yours, so choose your words with greater care.”

The threat stopped Fiona’s rising ire cold. She bit back another retort. “Fine. I’m sorry.”

“Do you need a demonstration? Shall I have Mr. Rohn bring us one of her hands? I will let you choose which. Left or right?”

“I said, I’m sorry,” Fiona replied through clenched teeth. She was pretty sure that the old man was just trying to make a point, but what if he was serious? “I’ll help you.”

The silence that followed quickly grew uncomfortable, prompting Fiona to raise her eyes to him once more.

“I trust you understand how vital it is that you cooperate with me,” he said. “For your own safety and Dr. Gallo’s.” He watched her for a moment, a lopsided smile making a brief appearance. “The map coordinates you gave us are not precise enough. I need to know if there is any other information on the map that can narrow our search parameters. Perhaps something that you have been intentionally withholding from me.”

Fiona felt a chill shoot through her veins. He knows about the Mother Tongue. But how? Did Aunt Gus let something slip? Did that animal Rohn torture her? Or is Tyndareus bluffing again?

Two can play that game.

“The writing on that map is a form of Linear A, the language of the Minoan culture, which lived almost four thousand years ago.” Her voice was terse, as if weary of explaining herself. “If you think I’m holding back, go hire somebody else to read it. Oh, that’s right. Nobody knows how to read it. Half of what I did was guesswork. The other half was luck.”

She took a breath, held it a moment then went on in a more conciliatory tone. “I do know this. The ancient Minoans used language as a way of protecting their secrets from the unworthy. They left signs in the Labyrinth as a test. If you could read the signs, you could find your way out. If not, you’d wander around forever. They probably left similar signs pointing the way to the Underworld.”

“You think we’ll find these signs once we get there?”

She nodded. “Actual, literal road markers that only someone who reads Linear A would recognize.”

This seemed to satisfy Tyndareus. He made a shooing motion, signaling that the audience was at an end.

That had been eight hours ago. Their flight had arrived in Montana in the middle of the night. She identified the state by the license plates on the convoy of vehicles waiting for them on the tarmac. She was ushered into one, along with two of the Cerberus goons. She didn’t recognize the driver, a big guy with a shaved head and what she assumed were prison tattoos on his neck. He looked like a biker or a recruit from the local Aryan Nations chapter. There were two vans and a larger Ryder truck, each with a pair of White Power dudes, which brought the total size of the Cerberus contingent to fourteen, not counting Tyndareus and Nurse Wretched. The latter pair rode in a different vehicle.

It was only when she saw road signs with the mileage to the park that Fiona finally realized where they were going.

The passing scenery reminded Fiona of the Mt. Hood National Forest, near where she had grown up. It was not just the natural landscape, but also the towns, which had a sort of faux rustic charm. Window dressing for the tourists.

They passed beneath the stone arch at the North Entrance as dawn was lightening the sky, and continued into the park on the Grand Loop Road. Not long thereafter, Fiona noticed a change in the scenery. She did not need a map to see that they were entering geyser country.

Vents of steam erupting from the earth. Pools of boiling acidic water. Bubbling cauldrons of mud. Exactly the sort of place to find a doorway into Hell, she thought.

About half an hour later, the convoy pulled to the side of the road. “What’s going on?” Fiona asked. She did not get a direct answer. Instead, the goons got out and told her to follow.

When the door opened, she got a whiff of sulfur that made her eyes water. The next thing she noticed was the heat. The thin, high-altitude air felt cool when she breathed in, yet the pavement underfoot radiated heat like a parking lot in the dead of summer, so much so that she dared not stand still for too long.

The Cerberus men walked her to the van in the lead, where Tyndareus was riding. The front row of passenger seats had been removed to accommodate his wheelchair, which was anchored to the floor with nylon tie-downs.

“This is as close to our destination as the road will take us,” he told her. “My men will move out on foot, looking for the signs that you promised we would find.”

“I don’t know if I would use the word promised.”

“What should they be looking for?” Tyndareus asked, ignoring the comment.

“Phaistos symbols, like on the map.”

“Where?”

She shrugged. “Carved on rocks. Like petroglyphs.”

Tyndareus turned to his nearest associate. “You heard her. Begin the search. Instruct the men to send photographs of anything they discover.”

“Am I going to have to go out there?” Fiona asked.

“I would prefer you remain here with me,” Tyndareus replied. “That way, you can verify anything my men discover.”

“Whatever.” Though she was somewhat relieved by the fact that she would not have to venture out into the alien landscape, hanging out with Tyndareus was not much better. But as she watched the Cerberus men — all but the two who had been assigned to watch over her — move out across the blasted terrain, she realized that she might never get a better chance to escape. All she would have to do was ditch Nurse Wretched and the two goons, and flag down a passing car. It would be that easy.

Except she knew that it wouldn’t. And there were other considerations as well. Tyndareus had made it clear that Gallo would pay dearly for any display of resistance.

He’s going to kill us both, she thought. Even if he gets what he wants.

She knew it was true, just as she knew that Gallo would never want her to cooperate with Tyndareus just to buy her a brief reprieve. Being part of the Herculean Society meant being willing to sacrifice everything to preserve those ancient secrets, to keep them out of the wrong hands. Fiona had already given Tyndareus too much, brought him too close. She couldn’t wait any longer.

One by one, the searchers disappeared into the roiling convection waves or dropped behind terrain features that eclipsed them from her view. She settled back into her chair, biding her time, counting the cars that passed by. Traffic was light, but she suspected that it would increase as the day progressed. Tyndareus might be willing to kill a lone Good Samaritan stopping to help a running girl, but she doubted he would do so in front of dozens of witnesses. He had not evaded capture for more than seventy years by being reckless.

A silver sedan passed the parked vehicles a few minutes later, slowing as if the driver was curious.

Too soon, she thought. But she could not afford to pass up an opportunity.

Without moving, she calculated the distance to the door, rehearsing the sequence of moves that would be required to unlock it, open it and hit the ground running. The guards would make a grab for her. She would have to be ready for that. Fiona shifted in her chair, stretching casually, as she readied herself.

On your mark…

The sedan stopped and pulled off the road, right in front of them.

Get set…

The door opened and the driver got out. It was Rohn.

As the big man strode along the roadside to the van, Fiona slumped back, her enthusiasm extinguished. She had come within a heartbeat of making a fatal mistake, one that would not only get her killed, but also…

She sat up again. “Where’s Aunt Gus?”

“In a secure place,” Tyndareus said, without looking at her. “Safe, as long as you continue to behave.”

The door opened and Rohn climbed in, taking a seat alongside Fiona. She shied away, as if his mere proximity was revolting to her, but he remained indifferent to her. Tyndareus did not overtly acknowledge Rohn’s presence, nor did Rohn seem to expect any greeting.

Only now did Fiona see the cuts on his face and hands, swollen flesh, exposed sutures stained with antiseptic, crusted with dried blood and oozing fluid. He looked like he’d gone toe-to-toe with a weed whacker and lost.

Did Aunt Gus do that? If so, good for her. No wonder Tyndareus is pissed.

As the initial shock of Rohn’s arrival wore off, she resumed plotting her escape. It would be harder with the big man right beside her, but she would have to find a way. If she did not make her move soon…

The electronic trilling of a cell phone broke her train of thought.

“Ah, good,” Tyndareus said. “We’ve found something.”

Damn.

The old man stared at the phone for several seconds, his eyes widening with undisguised excitement as he studied the image. “It would seem that we have found one of your road signs. I don’t believe it will need any translation however.”

He turned the phone, showing her the displayed image, a lump of sandstone jutting above the flat brown earth with a single glyph etched into its surface. Though the passage of time and centuries of wind and rain had worn away at it, the sign remained legible.

A circle crossed by two vertical lines. The sign of the Herculean Society.

She tore her gaze away from the image. “You know what that means, don’t you? The Society was already here. You won’t find anything.”

“Is that what it means? I think it is meant as a warning. ‘Keep out. No Trespassing.’” Tyndareus chuckled. “It is a warning I have no intention of heeding. I think we should see for ourselves what the Herculean Society has been protecting. Vigor, keep an eye on the child. Do not underestimate her. She is quite remarkable.”

Rohn grunted in assent, and then he took her wrist in his hand. She tried to pull free, but his grip was as unyielding as an iron manacle. He got out, dragging her with him, but was careful to keep her behind the van, shielded from the view of any passing cars. The other Cerberus men got out as well, and then proceeded to lift Tyndareus, wheelchair and all, out of the van.

“You’re going, too?” she said, making no real effort to hide her contempt. “I don’t think the trails around here are ADA approved. Or are you going to be carried the whole way like Yoda?”

Tyndareus returned a cryptic smile, then he tapped the joystick control and began rolling along the gravel shoulder until he reached the truck’s rear end. Rohn followed, pulling Fiona along. The other men had already rushed ahead to deploy the hydraulic liftgate and open the rollup door. Fiona did a double-take when she saw what was inside.

A familiar gray figure — man-shaped, but not a man — stood in the center of the cargo bay like a guardian statue.

It was the exosuit.

Tyndareus chuckled again. “It won’t be a problem.”

47

The men moved across the landscape like pawns on a chessboard, guided by an invisible hand. That’s probably exactly how Tyndareus sees them, Pierce thought. Disposable soldiers, sacrificed without a second thought. Why would anyone want to work for a guy like that?

“Cintia, can you get a head count? How many are we dealing with?”

“Eighteen,” Lazarus said. “One of them might be Fiona.”

“Yes, eighteen,” Dourado said, her tone faintly irritated. “Fortunately, I can do a lot better than just counting.”

A moment later, Pierce saw what she meant. The image displayed on the LCD computer screen zoomed in on one of them, close enough for Pierce to distinguish the gun — Lazarus identified it as an AR15—slung across the man’s back. A yellow rectangle appeared, superimposed on the man, and then the perspective pulled back momentarily to acquire another target in the same fashion.

“Keep going,” Pierce said. “Tag them all.”

He looked away from the screen and let his eyes drift across the strange landscape of the Norris Basin geothermal area of Yellowstone National Park. The terrain was an assault on the senses. Thin, high-altitude mountain air that could make people feel giddy. The sky was wide and open, no shelter from the sun. Then there was the pervasive stench of sulfur. The worst part was the intense heat rising up from the ground, which could burn right through the shoe soles if someone stood in one place too long. Norris Basin was one of the hottest spots in the park, the temperature often high enough to liquefy the asphalt on the roads.

As disconcerting as the environment was, it was the enormity of the task set before him that was truly staggering. He wondered if Alexander had felt this way before setting out on his Labors.

Pierce, Gallo, Lazarus and Carter — Kenner, too, though as far as Pierce was concerned, he didn’t count — had left Rome shortly after determining Tyndareus’s likely destination. Dourado remained behind in Rome, ensconced in the computer room of the Cerberus Headquarters beneath Castel Sant’Angelo, under the protection of Aegis operatives brought in by Pierce. When Pierce had asked her if she was ready to go back into the field, the resulting look of horror had prompted him to laugh it off. “Just kidding. I’ll let you get back to your new toys.”

It had taken her about an hour to crack the security on the mainframe, at which point she had informed Pierce that they ‘powned Cerberus.’ Maybe Dourado’s grasp of English was not quite as firm as she believed, but her statement was more than just trash talk. The secret base and everything in it, as well as the not inconsiderable assets stashed in tax shelters and banks around the world, were spoils of war, transferred to the Society with a keystroke. Just as ancient Herakles had subdued but not killed the three-headed hellhound guarding the gates of the Underworld, the Herculean Society had captured the modern Cerberus largely intact. The entity was theirs now, to do with as they pleased.

But it was a hollow victory. Fiona was still a captive and Tyndareus was closing in on his goal — Echinda, the Well of Monsters.

Even before she succeeded in taking over the Cerberus computer, Dourado was able to confirm their deductions about Yellowstone by tracing the movements of the Cerberus Learjet. It had departed from Belem shortly before their own rescue helicopter had arrived, presumably carrying Rohn and anyone else from his team that might have survived the expedition to the Amazon city. The jet had not returned to Rome as expected, but rather had made a short hop to São Paulo for a layover, before heading north again, hopscotching across two continents but headed for Billings, Montana, the closest major airport to Yellowstone.

Dourado then identified a chartered flight from Rome to the same airport, and several vehicle rentals, all of which traced to Cerberus fronts. All of the vehicles were equipped with GPS locators, which she promptly hacked and tracked to a spot in the park at the edge of the Norris Basin geothermal area, just a few miles north of Old Faithful, where they had been sitting idle ever since. Unfortunately, the data could not reveal anything about the passengers, particularly whether Fiona was with them.

Upon their arrival, Dourado had guided Pierce and the others right to the vehicles, but just like Cerberus Headquarters, the vans appeared to have been abandoned. Tyndareus and his men had set out on foot to explore the alien-looking landscape. But Dourado had anticipated that possibility.

There had been a package waiting for them when they arrived in Billings. In addition to the computer and Bluetooth-enabled smartphones, all of which were networked through an accompanying high-speed satellite data modem, Dourado had supplied them with a DJI Phantom 3 quad-copter camera drone. With a line-of-sight range of just over a mile and a 1080p digital video camera, the little remote aircraft gave them a bird’s eye view that extended several miles in all directions. Dourado talked Pierce through the process of slaving the drone controller to the computer, and then took over, flying the Phantom from the other side of the world. It took only a few minutes for her to spot the large group of hikers, about two miles southwest of the parked cars. They were moving slowly as they blazed a trail through a part of Yellowstone that was not only off-limits but generally hostile to living creatures.

“Stop!” Pierce said as something on the screen caught his eye. “Cintia, go back. Rewind a couple of frames, or whatever it is you do.”

“What did you see?” Gallo asked, looking over his shoulder.

The perspective zoomed out to a wide-angle shot, and Pierce now saw a little yellow box displayed above each vaguely human figure. Forget chess, Pierce decided. This is more like watching Monday Night Football. “Number eleven,” he said. “What is that?”

“I set this up to be completely interactive,” Dourado said. “The computer has a touch screen. You can just tap on whatever—”

“Cintia, please. Just do it.”

There was an irritated “humph” from the speaker, then the shot zoomed in on Pierce’s selection. At a casual glance, it looked like a man, but a closer look revealed something else.

“What the hell is that?”

“It looks like RoboCop,” Dourado said, with just a trace of awe.

Pierce turned to Kenner. “Liam, do you know what that is?”

Kenner shook his head, but Dourado jumped in with the answer. “It’s Talos.”

Pierce wondered if he had heard her correctly. In Greek mythology, Talos was a giant living statue, made of bronze and powered by ichor, the magical blood of the gods. He had seen too much to dismiss the possibility that the myth might have some foundation in reality. Had Tyndareus located an ancient automaton — perhaps one of Alexander’s early experimental creations — and restored it to working order?

“The name is an acronym for Tactical Light Operator Suit,” Lazarus said. “It’s an armored, powered exoskeleton designed for use by the U.S. military. I thought they were still on the drawing board.”

“It is like Iron Man’s armor,” Dourado added. “There’s a whole section of the Cerberus mainframe dedicated to it. They stole the specs from Lockheed Martin. It uses a FORTIS load-bearing wearable exoskeleton, but the exterior shell is made of hollow titanium panels, filled with Kevlar fibers suspended in a non-Newtonian shearing fluid.”

Pierce understood about half of what she said. “Fine. They’ve got a TALOS suit. Good to know. Any sign of Fiona?”

The camera view pulled back, and Dourado resumed the process of scanning and tagging each member of Tyndareus’s group. The display tightened on a pair of walking figures that appeared to be holding hands, and Pierce felt his heart skip a beat as he recognized not only Fiona’s dark hair and slim build, but also the man who held onto her wrist.

“Rohn.” He spat the name out like a mouthful of bile.

“And the man in the suit must be Tyndareus,” Kenner said in a flat voice. Pierce regarded their prisoner for a moment, then turned to Lazarus who was staring at the computer screen, which had reverted back to a wide-angle view. “Any tactical suggestions?”

There was a long delay before the answer. “We have to get her away from the main group.” Another pause. “We’ll need a diversion, something to divide their forces. I’ll take care of that. A hit and run attack on their rear should draw some of them off. The rest of you can then move in and get Fiona out.”

“We would also be dividing our forces,” Pierce said. “You’re the only one with any hostage rescue experience. I’ll provide the diversion. You lead the rescue.” As much as Pierce wanted to lead the charge, real leadership came from identifying your team’s various skill sets and using them for the best possible outcome. Personal feelings just got in the way. He’d learned that from Fiona’s father, though he doubted the man thought Pierce would ever have to put the lesson to use to save his daughter.

Before Lazarus could reply, Kenner spoke up. “There’s a better way.”

Pierce regarded him with open suspicion. Although the man had been nothing but cooperative since his capture, even more so since learning Tyndareus’s true identity, Pierce was a long way from trusting Kenner. He had considered leaving the paleopharmacologist in Rome, but he didn’t want to make him Dourado’s responsibility. “Let’s hear it.”

Kenner looked at Gallo for a moment, as if hoping to elicit her support, then turned to Pierce. “Let me go to them. I can tell Tyndareus that I escaped from you in Brazil. Or better yet, I’ll say you’re dead. Then, as soon as I get the chance, I’ll tell the girl…” He winced and glanced nervously at Lazarus. “Ah, Fiona. I’ll tell Fiona to run.”

Pierce did not know how to react. It was a good plan, maybe better than Lazarus’s desperate diversion, but it would require trusting Kenner, and that was something Pierce was not ready to do. Before he could articulate a response, Gallo spoke up. “It won’t work. Fiona would never trust you.”

Thank you, Augustina.

Then she added. “I’ll go with you.”

“What?”

Gallo pushed ahead, ignoring Pierce’s outburst. “We’ll pretend that you captured me before escaping from the sinkhole. You can say that we figured out the Yellowstone connection together. We might even be able to convince him that you turned me.”

Pierce managed a tight smile. “Augustina, may I speak with you privately?”

Gallo acceded without protest, allowing Pierce to guide her a few steps away from the others. If her determined bearing was any indication, she was not about to back down, but Pierce felt he had to try.

“This is a very bad idea.”

“Actually, it’s a very good idea,” she countered, speaking in an urgent whisper. “You’re right not to trust Liam. If we let him go alone, he’ll sell us out in a heartbeat. But he won’t put me at risk. He still has feelings for me, George.”

The rationale surprised Pierce. “If he realizes you’re playing him, he’ll turn on you.”

“I won’t be playing him. I will simply provide an implicit reminder for him to do the right thing.” She placed a hand on his forearm. “You and the others can follow at a discreet distance. Cintia can watch us from the drone. If I get in trouble, I’ll give the signal, and then you can go to Plan B.”

“Gus…”

“You risked your life to come get me. And I know you would do anything to get Fiona back. Let me take some of the risk for a change. I owe it to you, and I owe it to her. If I had done a better job of watching over her, none of this would have happened.”

Pierce started to protest but she silenced him with a quick kiss on the lips.

“So it’s settled,” she said, as she pulled back. “Liam, let’s get moving.”

48

In the course of her language studies, Fiona had become intimately familiar with the Land of the Dead, as imagined by countless Greek and Roman poets, and later figures such as Dante and Milton. There was a fantastical quality to each and every depiction. The poets were not trying to describe something real, but rather the stuff of nightmares. She never would have believed that a place like what was described in those works could actually exist on the surface of the Earth.

And this was only the doorstep of Hell.

Ignoring the warning signs — some of which were printed with the explicit message ‘Danger. Thermal Area. Boiling Water. Unstable Ground. Do Not Enter’ and others that simply depicted cartoon hikers being scalded alive in a steam eruption — Tyndareus, completely encased in his exosuit, led the small group out across the desolate hard pan. The servo motors in the exosuit made faint whirring noises as he moved, but the sound was mostly drowned out by the loud crunch of metal shod feet on the gritty earth. Each step stirred up a cloud of what looked like powdery snow but was actually sulfur dust.

After breaking through a thin crust of ground and sinking knee-deep into the boiling liquid concealed beneath, Tyndareus was a little more tentative about the path he chose, but at no time did he appear daunted by the hostile environment. Safe within the closed environment of the suit, breathing a self-contained air supply, there was not much for him to worry about. With Rohn dragging her along, Fiona had little choice about where to tread, but whenever possible, she tried to follow in Tyndareus’s actual footsteps. If the ground could support the weight of the exosuit, then it could hold her up.

The danger of the ground giving way, however, was only one example of the weird unearthliness of the place. Steam rose from holes and cracks in the ground, then settled to form an eerie fog. There were small pools of water — some clear and dangerously inviting, other exhibiting jeweled hues of red, blue, green and yellow — and lakes of bubbling mud.

The foul air and pervasive heat sapped her energy. Five minutes into the trek, she was ready for a break, but the only thing worse than walking through the hellscape was standing still in it. She looked over her shoulder and located Nurse Wretched. The sneering woman looked even less happy about the situation than Fiona felt, which actually made Fiona feel a little better.

“Hey,” she called out. “Got any water?”

The woman made a face that was even uglier than usual, and gestured to a nearby pool. “Drink up!”

Fiona was about to respond in kind when Rohn jerked her attention forward again. He held out a bottle of water and a Nature Valley granola bar. She muttered her thanks and stuffed the latter item into a back pocket. Then, with some difficulty, since Rohn had not released her left wrist, she got the bottle open and took a lukewarm sip.

Better, but not much.

They arrived at the rock with the Herculean symbol a few minutes later. At Tyndareus’s behest, Fiona examined the inscription, but there was not much to say about it. She stared up at the reflective visor of the exosuit and shrugged. “I told you what it means,” she said. “You won’t find anything.”

The mirrored visage stared back at her. “Your attempts to deceive me are ill-advised, child.”

“I’m not trying to deceive you,” she said, making no effort to hold back her growing frustration. “I just want to get out of here. I’m hot and thirsty, and I have to pee. This is a waste of time.”

Tyndareus continued to regard her for a few more seconds then turned away. “Keep looking. There will be more markers like this.”

He was not wrong. Two more stones with the Herculean mark were discovered, spaced out about half a mile apart in different directions. “I believe I understand the significance of the markers,” Tyndareus announced after surveying the third. “We have found three, each approximately corresponding to a cardinal direction. I believe there is a fourth to be found as well, but we do not need it now. Our destination lies where the lines connecting north and south, and east and west, converge.”

Fiona barely heard him. She was beyond thirst now. The constant heat was not only draining the moisture from her body but breaking down the insulin in her pump. She recognized the early symptoms of dehydration associated with diabetic ketoacidosis. The reek of sulfur had left her nose-blind, but her breath probably reeked of acetone. She needed to get somewhere cool, drink a couple of gallons of water, and change out the insulin in the reservoir, but that was not going to happen unless Tyndareus either found what he was looking for or admitted defeat, and since both seemed pretty unlikely, Fiona resigned herself to the alternative. She would eventually collapse. She might even die.

If that happened…when that happened…the secret would be safe forever. Tyndareus would never be able to open the gates of the Underworld.

The thought brought her a little comfort, until Tyndareus led them down into a dry ravine, which butted up against a rough extrusion of igneous rock. Faintly visible on its weathered surface was another Herculean sigil. Beside the symbol, a large section of the rock face was rougher in texture than the rest. It matched the color of the stone where Alexander’s chisel had left its mark. As she stared at it, Fiona began to see shadowy lines in the stone, like an echo of what had once been written there.

An inscription written in the Mother Tongue.

The letters became more visible, as if her awareness of them was coaxing the ancient writing out of hiding.

“It was here,” Tyndareus said, his voice a mixture of triumph and anger. He whirled around and bent toward Fiona until his visor was almost touching her face. “There was something written here. The Herculean Society removed it. What did it say?”

The letters vanished as though she had imagined them, but her memory of them was perfect. She had seen the same message before, on the walls of the Labyrinth and on the map that had belonged to Queen Hippolyte.

She felt a flicker of defiance as she stared, not at the face of the monstrous Tyndareus but at her own frail and beaten reflection. It’s almost over now.

A line from an old Star Trek movie popped into her. The usually cool, reserved Captain Picard, in a rare display of anger, defiant in the face of a Borg invasion. It was probably a quote from Shakespeare or Moby Dick, or maybe the Bible. Uncle George would know.

She straightened. “You’re right. It said, ‘This far. No further.’”

A strange noise issued from the helmeted head, then repeated with greater frequency, until Fiona recognized it as laughter. Tyndareus pulled back, rising to his full height. He began slamming his armored fist into the Herculean symbol. The pistonlike assault pulverized the distinctive sigil, but the rock itself was unyielding.

This far. No further.

That should have been the end of it, but Tyndareus abruptly broke off his temper tantrum and whirled toward the open end of the ravine, where a group of his men were advancing, escorting someone. Two someones: Gallo and Kenner.

Fiona began crying, but whether they were tears of joy or despair, she did not know.

49

Kenner was unusually quiet as they trekked across the basin. Gallo was grateful for the silence at first, but after a while it began to unnerve her. She had expected him to continue professing his sincerity, offering flimsy rationalizations for his earlier misdeeds, but he hardly spoke at all.

George was right. I shouldn’t have trusted him. She glanced over her shoulder at the harsh landscape through which they had been walking. Pierce and the others were back there somewhere, following, but there was no sign of them.

I should turn back. Right now. This was a bad idea.

Perhaps sensing her anxiety, Kenner chose that moment to break his silence. “It’s going to be all right, Augustina. We’ll get Fiona away from him.”

She scrutinized his optimistic smile. “How did you get mixed up with him in the first place, Liam?”

Kenner ducked his head in embarrassment. “What answer won’t make me sound like a complete arse? I did it for the money? Fame? The chance to discover something amazing? A little bit of all of those, I suppose.

“It didn’t seem like I was doing anything wrong at first. Just passing along information about new discoveries. And of course, keeping tabs on George. Mr. Tyndareus was always very interested in him and the Herculean Society. I never thought I would be asked to put other people in danger.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “People I care about.”

He went on before she could respond. “Now, I just want to make things right. You understand, don’t you?”

“Honestly, it won’t be easy. Not after everything you’ve done.”

“I know,” he said, and lapsed back into silence.

Nothing more was said between them, until a few minutes later, Gallo spotted the rear guard of Tyndareus’s group, about a hundred yards away. They were stationed at the edge of a slope, which descended into a ravine. She pulled Kenner behind a clump of vegetation. “Showtime,” she said. “How should we play this?”

“That depends on you, I suppose. Would you rather be my partner or my hostage?”

The question, or perhaps the way Kenner asked it, made Gallo feel uncomfortable, but it was too late to back out now.

Oblivious to her reaction, he plowed ahead. “Since your friends wouldn’t let me have a gun, it might be difficult to convince Tyndareus that you are my prisoner. However, I think it might be even harder to convince him that I won you over. Shall we say that I made threats against Fiona to ensure your compliance?”

“That sounds plausible enough,” Gallo said. “Remember, we just need to get close enough to tell Fiona what’s going on. At the first opportunity, we make a break for it.”

“Of course.” He stood up, putting himself in full view of Tyndareus’s men. He reached out and took hold of her upper arm, dragging her erect. She started to protest the unexpectedly rough treatment, but he cut her off. “Just act your part, Augustina. We have to be convincing, you know.” He raised his free hand and began waving. “Hello! Over here!”

The men in the distance immediately took note and began advancing, their guns at the ready.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask,” Kenner said, without looking at her. “Be honest. Did I ever really have a chance with you?”

Her discomfort intensified into something approaching real distress. “Liam, this is hardly the time.”

He uttered a short, humorless laugh. “I suspected as much.” His grip on her arm became painfully tight, and then without any warning, he started forward, almost yanking her off her feet.

“Liam!” She tried to pull free but his hold was ferocious in its strength. She had to jog just to avoid being dragged. The warning alarms were ringing loudly in her head, but the opportunity to turn and run had already slipped away.

“Stop, Liam. Think about what you’re doing. He’s a monster. You said so yourself.”

Kenner made no reply. The two gunmen broke into a run, reaching them a few seconds later, brandishing their guns and ordering both of them to freeze and raise their hands. Kenner did so, without releasing his hold on Gallo.

“Well done, gents. Now, take me to Mr. Tyndareus. Immediately. This can’t wait.”

The two men regarded him with open suspicion, as did Gallo, but they quickly reached a mutual silent agreement, and circled around behind Kenner and Gallo, motioning for them to move.

Gallo at last managed to pull free of Kenner’s grip. She rubbed her bruised arm, refusing to look at him, though a part of her could not help but wonder if this was all part of the act. If so, Kenner deserved an Academy Award.

And if not?

Before leaving, she had promised to send a signal at the first sign of trouble. Dourado was still watching the feed from the drone, so all Gallo would have to do is start frantically waving her arms, and then Pierce and Lazarus would sweep in, guns blazing, to rescue her.

Kenner knew of that arrangement. If he was truly betraying her now, then he would have taken steps to prevent her from communicating with the others. Perhaps the fact that he had not done so was proof that the abrupt change in his demeanor was just a part of the act.

Even if it was not, she dared not run yet, not until she could tell Fiona what was happening.

The men ushered them down into the ravine, where the rest of the group was waiting. The video feed of the TALOS suit had not truly conveyed how imposing it was. It towered above everyone else, yet moved with a natural smoothness that belied its mechanical nature. She looked past the armored suit and spotted Fiona, leaning against a rock wall behind the group, weeping openly.

Gallo burst forward, disregarding any perceived or actual threat from her captors, and ran to Fiona. It had been days since she’d last seen the young woman. The physical ordeal of captivity had taken its toll, but she rallied and threw her arms around Gallo. “Aunt Gus. I’m so glad to see you.”

Gallo returned the embrace. Her first impulse was simply to offer comfort, but empty words were the last thing Fiona needed right now. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “There’s no time to explain, but when I tell you run, you run. Got it?”

“I don’t think I can.”

At that moment, Tyndareus’s amplified voice issued from speakers on the suit. The microphone also picked up the sound of his ventilator-assisted breathing, which made him sound like a geriatric Darth Vader. “Dr. Kenner. You’ve returned.” There was a note of undisguised suspicion in the voice.

Kenner assumed a contemptuous air. “No thanks to your man there.” He jerked his head in Rohn’s direction and scowled. “He ran like a coward, and left me to die in the jungle.”

“Yet, here you are. And with Dr. Gallo. Very resourceful of you.”

“Not really. If you want the truth of it, I’ve spent the last few days as a guest of Dr. Pierce and the Herculean Society.”

The unexpected admission stunned Gallo. If Kenner was still playing a part, he was way off script. She hugged Fiona again, but before she could repeat her warning, Kenner continued.

“They know everything. That’s how I was able to find you. They’re out there right now, preparing to attack.”

Gallo gasped. “Liam, you son of a bitch!”

Rohn started barking orders to the other men, but Tyndareus raised one armored hand. “And I am to believe they just allowed you to wander out here, with Dr. Gallo as a hostage?”

“Of course not. I convinced them that I was on their side. Not hard to do given who you really are, Herr Doktor Mengele.”

“You know this, and yet here you are?”

Kenner shrugged. “What you did in the past does not concern me. What you may accomplish in the future is a different matter entirely.” He stabbed a finger at the rock slab behind Fiona and Gallo. “Beyond that wall lies the greatest discovery in the history of mankind. A mutagen that will allow us to take absolute control of evolution, to rewrite the source code of life. Pierce and his merry little band believe it’s their mission to keep it secret. To hide it from the rest of us. That kind of paternalism disgusts me.” His eyes drifted to Gallo, and he locked stares with her. “Even if I had no other reason to hate him, that would be enough.”

He tore his gaze away and looked at Tyndareus again. “He’ll be here any moment. You really ought to be getting ready for that.”

Electronically enhanced laughter burbled from the TALOS suit. “You’ve made a believer out of me, Dr. Kenner. Vigor, take care of it.”

As Rohn began marshalling his forces to prepare for the imminent attack, Tyndareus spoke again. “Your return is more fortuitous than you may realize, Dr. Kenner. If this is indeed the gate to the Underworld, then it is closed to us. I trust you possess the knowledge to unlock it.”

Kenner stared at the wall for a moment. “No. I’m rather afraid I don’t. But she does.” He pointed at Fiona.

“That’s absurd,” Gallo said. “Leave her out of this, Liam.”

“She’s a genius with ancient languages,” Kenner continued. “She’s the one who figured out how to use the Phaistos Disc to navigate the Labyrinth in Crete. She figured out how to read Queen Hippolyte’s map in less than five minutes.”

He narrowed his gaze on Fiona as if peering into her soul. “There was something else on that map. An inscription in a language I’ve never seen before. Augustina avoided mentioning it, but I think the girl knows how to read it. And I think it contains instructions on how to find a way in.”

Tyndareus turned his bulk around and marched toward Fiona. Although she felt foolish doing so, Gallo stepped in front of the man in the mechanical suit. “Leave her alone.”

“Is he correct?” The sound of Tyndareus’s wheezy voice issuing from the speakers of the metallic behemoth was almost absurdly comical. “Is there an inscription on the map? Something that points to the door to the Underworld?”

“Of course not,” Gallo answered, but then she heard a small voice from behind her.

“Yes.”

Gallo’s heart broke. “Oh, Fi….”

“Yes, there is,” Fiona said, a little louder. “And I know what it says. I might be the only person alive who knows what it says.”

Tyndareus leaned closer, the suit poised like a lion getting ready to pounce. “You can read it? What does it say? Is there a secret door? Can you open it?”

Gallo turned her head, lowering her voice to an urgent whisper. “Fi, don’t help him.”

“Is Uncle George really here?” Fiona asked.

“With friends.”

“Good.” As exhausted and broken as she appeared, there was something indomitable in her smile. “You need to trust me, Aunt Gus. Everything is going to be okay.” She stepped out from behind Gallo. “Yes. I can. But first, you have to let my aunt go.”

Almost before she finished the sentence, one of Tyndareus’s metal gauntlets shot out and wrapped around Gallo’s throat. Both her hands shot up, but the mechanically assisted grip was unbreakable. She felt the pressure increase and heard her vertebrae popping as he lifted her off the ground. She managed to wrap both hands around his wrist so that her neck was not bearing the entire weight of her body, but she knew it was a losing battle. In a moment, she would pass out, and then her neck would snap.

“If you do not open it,” Tyndareus countered, “she will die.”

There was a rushing sound in Gallo’s head, and bright spots began to swim in front of her eyes. But through the haze, she heard Fiona’s response, loud and clear. “Screw you. Let her go, or you’ll never get in there.”

The pressure at Gallo’s throat disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. She coughed and gasped, but any sense of relief she might have felt was dampened by the knowledge that Fiona had just made a deal with the devil to save her life.

“Open it!” Tyndareus roared.

“Don’t do it, Fi,” Gallo croaked.

“Get out of here, Aunt Gus. You don’t want to be anywhere near here when this opens.”

Still struggling to draw breath, Gallo pushed herself up on all fours. “I appreciate the offer,” she coughed, “but I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Fiona gave her a sad but strangely satisfied nod. Then she turned to the wall and began to speak.

50

“Something’s wrong.”

Lazarus shot out a hand to restrain Pierce. “Wait.”

On the playing-card-sized screen of Pierce’s phone, which was displaying the video feed from the drone camera hovering overhead, Tyndareus, in his TALOS suit, lifted Gallo off the ground by the neck.

Pierce felt his reaction to that was appropriate. “He’s killing her. We have to do something.”

Lazarus just repeated the single word. “Wait.”

A moment later, Tyndareus released Gallo. She was still alive and conscious, but it was impossible to tell how badly she had been injured.

“I’ll kill him,” Pierce growled.

“Yes. But wait.”

They were less than a hundred yards from the edge of the ravine, and maybe another fifty to the far end, where the drama was unfolding. Pierce knew he could cover that distance in thirty seconds. And then what? Kill more than a dozen armed men, including one who’s a walking tank, all without hitting Gallo or Fiona? Lazarus was right.

On the screen, Gallo sat up and began crawling closer to Fiona. “That bastard, Kenner. I knew we couldn’t trust him.”

“How do we know he’s not just playing?” Carter asked. Her dubious tone suggested she was only bringing up the possibility just to cover their bases.

“It doesn’t matter,” Pierce said. “Plan B is a go.” He turned to Lazarus. “Ready?”

Lazarus nodded and turned to Carter. “You?”

She nodded.

He continued to stare at her. “Felice, you know what might—”

“I know,” she said. “I can handle it.”

Pierce focused his attention on the video feed. Fiona had turned her back to the rest of the group and had her hands placed against the wall as if she was trying to push the slab or rock away, or perhaps…

“Shit,” Pierce said. “She’s trying to open it.”

Lazarus and Carter looked over Pierce’s shoulder at the screen.

“Open?” Carter asked. “How?”

“She’s using the Mother Tongue. I thought there would be a cave entrance or something like that. This explains that inscription on the map. It’s the same as the one we found in the Labyrinth.” In response to Carter’s blank look, he added, “It’s like ‘Open Sesame.’ Makes it possible to walk through walls. The rest is a long story.” He jerked a thumb at Lazarus. “He can tell you all about it.”

“What happens when she succeeds?”

“It’s a doorway to Hell. Short answer, nothing good.” Pierce shoved the phone in his pocket and gripped his MP5K with both hands. “We’ve got to do this. Now.”

“Can she do it?” Lazarus asked. “It’s been years since she learned, and forgot, those few phrases of the Mother Tongue.”

“She’s a fast learner,” Pierce said, followed by, “Cintia, start the countdown. Let’s move.”

Pierce heard Dourado’s voice in his Bluetooth earpiece. “Countdown started. You’ve got thirty seconds.”

Lazarus led the way, staying low but running at a near-sprint. The ravine hid them from Tyndareus’s men, but if any scouts ventured out of the depression, they would be exposed and the element of surprise lost. But with the clock ticking, the most important thing was to be in position when the fireworks started. Pierce tried to count down the passing seconds, but when Dourado spoke again, informing them that they had twenty seconds, he realized he was counting too fast.

Of course, none of that would matter if Fiona succeeded in opening the door before they got there.

They ran parallel to the ravine, following a circuitous route toward Fiona and Gallo. That meant cutting across the blighted landscape and dodging fumaroles. With each step, the ground might give way beneath their feet, dropping them into hidden, superheated pools of water to be boiled like Maine lobsters. It also meant that, if they survived the approach, they would have to fight their way past all of Tyndareus’s men before escaping the ravine.

One thing at a time.

“Ten seconds,” Dourado said. “Hard left, now!”

Lazarus adjusted course, pouring on the speed. Their objective, the far end of the ravine, lay straight ahead, hidden by the terrain. If all went according to plan, they would arrive directly above where Fiona now stood, attempting to unlock a portal to the Underworld.

“Five…four…three…two…one…”

There was a flash on the western horizon. A pillar of dust and smoke arose to mark the spot, and an instant later, Pierce both heard and felt the shock wave of the improvised explosive device Lazarus had placed two hundred yards away from the entrance to the ravine.

“That got their attention,” Dourado said.

Lazarus stopped short and motioned for Pierce and Carter to get down, then began belly-crawling across the hot ground toward the edge of the drop. Pierce hit the dirt, getting a face-full of sulfur dust in the process. Blinking the stinging substance away, he crawled alongside Lazarus and got his first look at the mayhem unfolding fifty feet below.

Some of Tyndareus’s men had taken the bait, though not enough for Pierce’s liking. Eight of them were moving away, toward the site of the explosion, their assault rifles shouldered. The others had pulled back to form a defensive perimeter around Tyndareus. Pierce picked out Rohn in the latter group, shouting orders and waving to his men. Tyndareus, safely inside his armored suit, paid little heed to the disturbance, keeping his attention fixed on Fiona.

“Cintia,” Lazarus said, his voice taut but strangely calm given the circumstances. “Now.”

“They aren’t in range—”

“Do it.”

There was another flash, closer this time. The noise of the explosion was incredibly loud as it was funneled down the ravine. Lazarus had placed the second IED as close to the mouth of the depression as he dared get. The advancing front of Tyndareus’s men fell down like bowling pins, but none were within the explosion’s kill radius.

Then something extraordinary happened. The ground all around the explosion split apart like thin ice on a lake. Jagged cracks, spewing steam, radiated out from beneath the debris cloud. Three of the stunned gunmen vanished, as the earth upon which they lay collapsed and transformed into liquid. The others scrambled to their feet, retreating from the roiling wave of steam and destruction. Not all of them made it.

Although he had been primed to charge into battle only a moment before, Pierce was frozen in place by the spectacle. “Did you know that would happen?”

“No,” Lazarus admitted, sounding a little awed. “Sometimes, you just get lucky. Let’s go.”

The big man sprang to his feet and hurtled over the edge, bounding down the side of the ravine toward Tyndareus and the remainder of his forces. Pierce followed with Carter.

Instead of trying to run down the steep incline, he fell against the slope and slid on his backside, dragging his feet in front of him to slow his descent, even as he tried to acquire a target in the mayhem below. He managed to squeeze off a few shots, though it was impossible to tell whether he was hitting anything. He was still sliding when the earth beside him erupted from the impact of high-velocity rounds, and he heard the harsh reports from enemy rifles.

Shit!

Remembering Lazarus’s common sense advice—‘don’t make it easy for them to shoot you’—Pierce rolled to the right, heaving himself out of the path of another fusillade, then launched himself the rest of the way down the slope.

In the instant before he landed, he saw Gallo, huddled into a protective ball less than thirty feet away. Just past her, Fiona stood, her back turned to the chaos, her hands still pressed against the wall.

“Fiona! Don’t—”

She recoiled as if from an electric shock, and for a fleeting instant, Pierce dared to believe that his shout had reached her through the din. Then he saw the look of elation on her face, and he knew that his warning had come too late.

The door was already open.

Something was coming through.

51

The explosions were the signal to run. Pierce and Lazarus had told her to be ready, warned her that their diversion would be unmistakable. But when the moment came, when the first explosion drew half of Tyndareus’s men away, and then a second, much closer blast, triggered a localized geothermal event, Gallo did not flee. She was not going to leave without Fiona.

Even as she heard the young woman speaking the strange words, chanting a language that sounded like it might be a Native American dialect, she knew that she should grab Fiona by the arm and drag her away, but she did not.

Part of it was curiosity. Even though she had been an unwilling participant in Kenner’s quest, she had traveled so far, followed the clues, done so much… She just had to know. Even though she knew there was a very good reason for it, she hated the fact that the Herculean Society demanded such discoveries be kept secret from everyone.

But that was not why she remained where she was. She was not curious about whether Fiona could master the Mother Tongue and transform the rock slab in front of them into some kind of magical portal to the Underworld. In truth, she did not doubt it for a second.

What kept her from fleeing, from physically pulling the young woman along with her, was Fiona’s confident smile.

You need to trust me, she had said. Everything is going to be okay.

Though she did not know why, Gallo believed her.

But the second explosion was so close that she almost panicked. The ground heaved beneath her, not just the shock wave but the beginning of an earth tremor. A blast of heat rushed down the length of the ravine, followed by a vapor cloud that smelled like rotten eggs, which stung her eyes. Then the shooting started.

She caught a glimpse of Lazarus bounding down the hill, a colossal figure, like Hercules reborn. After him came the considerably less imposing forms of Carter and Pierce, sliding down the slope, charging into the fray.

Still, she did not run.

Fiona stopped chanting and leaped back from the slab. She shouted something, a taunt probably meant for Kenner’s ears, or possibly for Tyndareus, though it was unlikely that either man could have heard her amidst the unfolding fury of battle. Gallo heard the words, but did not grasp their significance until she heard another noise, a rhythmic thumping that reminded her inexplicably of hoofbeats.

Even stranger than the sound was the fact that it was emanating from inside the rock slab. And it was getting louder.

Something was coming through.

Now Gallo understood why Fiona was smiling and why she had shouted the words: “It says, ‘Beware of dog!’”

In their eagerness to unlock the gates of the Underworld, and to find the Well of Monsters, Kenner and Tyndareus had forgotten a critical element of the myth.

Hell had a watchdog.

“Cerberus.”

Gallo’s mind raced. It couldn’t be Cerberus. Hercules had captured the hellhound. Gallo knew this to be true. Pierce had once told her the truth behind the legend, how Alexander had jokingly referred to the beast as ‘puppy,’ downplaying the facts behind the legend. And that had all happened three thousand years in the past.

Three thousand years was a long time for a portal to the Underworld to go unguarded. Something had taken the hellhound’s place.

What emerged from the wall, which was still visible, but somehow immaterial, was not Cerberus, not a gigantic dog with three heads, but it was no less monstrous. Gallo’s first impression was of a bear, but one that was easily three times the size of the biggest Kodiak grizzly she had ever heard of. The creature’s head was broad and bear-like but wrapped around it like a crown of thorns was a rack of sharp-tipped antlers, as thick as tree limbs.

The beast lumbered into view, passing through the wall as if the stone were no more substantial than mist. Gallo scrambled back, so close that she could feel the creature’s hot breath on her face and see the primal fury in its dark eyes. One heavy paw, tipped with curving claws each as long as Gallo’s leg, slammed down on the place where she had been standing a moment before, eclipsing her view of Fiona. The beast however, barely seemed to notice her. Its eyes were on the pandemonium unfolding further up the ravine.

With a roar that shook Gallo’s bones, it reared up on its hind legs and threw its forepaws wide, as if to gather all of Tyndareus’s men in a crushing embrace. The crest of its horned head rose as high as the top of the ravine, its reach almost spanning from one side to the other.

It was a bear, but like the other chthonic monsters, it had incorporated characteristics of other animals. Its limbs were longer, the musculature rippling beneath a pelt of fine reddish-brown hair that reminded Gallo of deerskin.

Despite the fact that they were still repelling Pierce’s assault, Tyndareus’s men seemed to grasp that this new arrival was a much greater threat. They brought their rifles around and began firing into the beast’s exposed underbelly.

Fat drops of blood began raining down on Gallo as the bullets found their mark. The creature snorted and began pawing at its torso, as if trying to swat away a swarm of bees. But it appeared otherwise untroubled by the attack. The noise of the shooting seemed to irritate it even more than the sting of the bullets, and after another thunderous bellow, it dropped back onto all fours and started forward.

Gallo craned her head around to watch. Behind her and just a few feet away from a stunned Kenner, a stern-looking woman — the only female she had seen in Tyndareus’s employ — drew a pistol and started firing, shouting curses in a language that Gallo did not recognize. The shooting and the swearing were silenced by the swipe of a paw. Gallo saw a puff of red, as pieces of the woman flew in different directions. Kenner dove aside at the last instant, narrowly avoiding the same fate.

As the creature thundered past, smashing gunmen aside with its paws and spearing them on its antlers, Kenner raised his head and looked back at Gallo.

No, not at me, she realized. Behind me. What he wants is on the other side of that wall.

He stooped, picked something from the ground — a gun? — and then he was running toward her. She started to backpedal out of his way, but then realized, almost too late, that she had misread his intention. There was something else behind her…someone else.

“Fi! Get away!” She tried to put herself between Kenner and Fiona, but he anticipated the move, stiff-arming her out of the way. She stumbled back, flailing in vain for something to arrest her fall, and she landed painfully on her backside.

Kenner seized Fiona by the wrist and dragged her toward the wall.

Into the wall.

They vanished without even a ripple.

Gallo leapt to her feet, and without a moment’s hesitation, she followed.

52

As the monstrous bear-elk hybrid bulldozed a swath of devastation through the midst of Tyndareus’s forces, Lazarus pulled Pierce and Carter out of the way.

At first, it appeared the creature was going to win the battle for them. Its thick hide might not have been bulletproof, but the rounds failed to penetrate deep enough to do any real damage. It was like trying to bring down an elephant with a BB gun. And while the animal might not have understood the connection between the projectiles impacting against its body and the loud flashing things in the hands of the men scattered across the ravine, the noise was driving it into a frenzy.

The battle was so one-sided that Pierce found himself hoping that one of the gunmen might get off a lucky shot and strike some vital organ or at the very least, wound a leg to slow it down. He didn’t feel any sympathy for the men, but he knew that to reach Gallo and Fiona, they would have to get past the battle’s victor.

Rohn was trying to organize the men, directing their fire and orchestrating their inevitable retreat, but the creature pushed them toward the bubbling cauldron that Lazarus’s explosives had opened. There was no escape for the men, and no way to stand against the guardian of the Underworld’s gates. One by one, the men threw down their rifles and tried to scramble up the ravine’s steep sides, but the creature’s rage was fixed on them now. There was no escaping it.

Then, a lone figure, taller than any of the men, but still dwarfed by the creature, advanced and took up a position directly in front of it. Tyndareus in his TALOS suit appeared to be challenging the bear-elk to one-on-one combat.

Powered armor or not, Pierce expected the outcome to be the same. The creature would swat the old man aside like the insect he was. The suit might survive, but Tyndareus would be pulverized inside it like an egg in a tumble dryer.

But Tyndareus had a trick up his sleeve, or rather, on it. The right arm of the TALOS suit came up and pointed at the beast. Pierce glimpsed something mounted to the forearm plates, like an extra piece of armor.

There was a loud, hollow sound, deeper but not quite as loud as the report of a rifle, and then Pierce was face down on the scorched ground next to Carter, with Lazarus covering both of them.

Another explosion blasted through the ravine, but the shock wave that socked Pierce in the gut felt more like the Primacord detonations that had felled the trees in the Amazon — firecrackers instead of dynamite.

Even before the last echoes of the blast died away, a new sound filled the air: a tortured, braying howl. The smell of burnt hair and cooking meat briefly overpowered the stink of sulfur. Pierce raised his head and saw the massive shape of the bear-elk writhing on the floor of the ravine. Pierce could not tell how serious the injury was. The creature might have been in its death throes, or it might merely have gotten a nasty shock.

“Forty mike-mike grenade launcher,” Lazarus muttered. “HE rounds. I wonder why the old man was holding back?”

Tyndareus stood his ground, hand still extended, ready to fire again, but the creature abruptly righted itself, and with astonishing swiftness for something so enormous, it bolted for the stone wall and the safety of the Underworld. It ran at the seemingly solid obstacle, as if aware that there would be no resistance, and disappeared into the stone. If not for the carnage littering the ravine floor, the whole episode would have seemed like a bizarre night terror.

The calm following the creature’s defeat did not last long. Tyndareus swung around, his arm still extended, the barrel of his grenade launcher now aimed at the three figures huddled near the ravine wall.

Although he had not seen the 40mm high-explosive round hit the bear-elk, Pierce had felt its destructive power, and he knew that there would be no surviving the explosion. There wasn’t even time to flee, but that didn’t stop Lazarus from springing into motion. But he wasn’t running away from the impending grenade blast. Instead, he ran toward its source.

The unexpected charge surprised Tyndareus. He took a step back, recoiling in the face of aggression, despite the fact of being impervious to almost any attack that Lazarus might hope to bring against him. Lazarus surely knew it as well, but the knowledge did not slow him down.

Just as he was about to pass within Tyndareus’s reach, Lazarus veered to his left and launched himself up at the outstretched arm. The TALOS suit weighed as much as a small car, but the weight was distributed very differently. When Lazarus hit Tyndareus’s arm at a full charge, it was enough to spin the armored figure around. Tyndareus flailed, and in so doing, flung Lazarus twenty feet away. But he could not prevent gravity from taking him down. He crashed to the ground, releasing another grenade as he fell. The explosive round arced high and then came back down a hundred and fifty feet away, exploding with a harmless flash and bang.

Pierce saw Lazarus scrambling up and charging Tyndareus again, and then something like a wall blocked his view of the combatants.

Rohn.

Pierce was just starting to focus on the figure standing in front of him when something metallic flashed in front of him, tugging at his chest, spinning him halfway around. Starbursts bloomed in his vision as a heavy fist crashed into the back of his head and sent him stumbling away to sprawl face down on the searing hot ground.

He rolled over, not as gracefully as Lazarus, but with the same urgency, groping for his machine pistol. That was when he noticed the dark sticky substance smeared all over his hands and down the front of his combat vest.

Blood. His own blood.

Rohn had slashed him with a knife, a very sharp knife, judging by the fact that he was only now beginning to feel the faintest tingle of pain across his chest, where the blade had struck.

Screw it. I’m still alive.

He brought the gun up, but Rohn was now advancing on Carter. Pierce tried to settle the red dot sight on Rohn’s moving form, but his grip was sloppy, his hands slick. In the corner of his eye, he saw three more gunmen, the last remnants of Tyndareus’s small army, moving toward him.

Rohn’s back erupted in a spray of blood as Carter triggered a round, point blank into his body, and then fired again and again. The big man lurched with each impact, but kept advancing. Carter stumbled back and fell, the gun slipping from her hands, a look of terror on her face. Rohn’s hand came up, the blade poised to end Felice Carter’s life.

53

Gallo expected some kind of sensory feedback as she passed through the rock wall. Would it feel like walking through a dust cloud? Would it be like swimming through something denser than air but not quite liquid? The only noticeable difference was the absolute darkness. She couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open or shut. She held her breath, afraid to inhale the…whatever it was. That meant she had about forty seconds to cross the threshold of the Underworld, but how would she know when she reached it?

The answer to her question appeared suddenly before her, a faint glow directly ahead. It had to be Kenner, heading into the depths with Fiona. She looked back and could just make out a rough stone wall right behind her, looking as solid and impenetrable as it had on the outside. She reached out, probing it with her fingertips. There was no resistance at all. The rock might have been a hologram, a magician’s projection of smoke and mirrors. It occurred to her that she should mark her path or risk spending the last hours of her life wandering around in the dark looking for the exit, but she had nothing at all with which to do so.

I should have thought this through a little first, she mused. But how do you prepare yourself for walking through solid objects? It’s not like there’s a YouTube video that tells you what to expect.

The glow was receding, growing dimmer as the source of the light moved further along the passage. Gallo put aside her hesitancy and hastened forward. The passage, formed from an old lava tube, was wide with smooth walls, sloping downward. With each step closer to the light source, her ability to see increased, allowing her to move even faster. She picked up speed, running toward the light.

The slope bottomed out and opened into a vast chamber, at least as large as Gorham’s Cave. It was hard to be sure in the dim light, yet Gallo realized that there was more illumination in the cavern than could be explained by Kenner’s single flashlight. The chamber walls glowed red-orange, like coals in a barbecue.

The air was blast-furnace hot, sucking both moisture and energy from her body. Gallo wondered how long she could survive here. How long before organ and brain damage occurred? Probably less than an hour. Maybe a lot less. And Fiona had already been showing signs of serious dehydration related to her diabetes.

Gallo forced herself to move even faster. She had to reach Kenner, had to get Fiona away from him before the damage was irreversible.

“Liam! Stop!” She tried to shout, but the sound that came out seemed to evaporate into nothingness along with everything else.

Kenner couldn’t have heard her, yet after just a few more steps, he stopped. The beam of his light hung in the air, sweeping back and forth, but moving no further into the cavern. Gallo could just distinguish the pair — Kenner and Fiona — silhouetted against a flame-red glow. With each step forward, more detail was revealed, as was the real reason Kenner had stopped. When she was still twenty feet away from them, Gallo saw a precipice. Kenner and Fiona stood at the edge of a wide fissure that bisected the entire chamber.

“End of the road,” she called out.

Kenner whirled around, surprise on his face. “Augustina?” His voice was strained with the fatigue of enduring the oppressive heat, but the conditions had done nothing to dampen his enthusiasm. “I didn’t think anyone would come after us.”

Beside him, Fiona barely moved at all. Gallo wasn’t sure how she was still standing, but doubted that she would be able to walk out under her own power. “I’m not leaving without Fiona, Liam. If you want to stay, fine, but let her go.”

“Oh, I can’t very well do that. She is, quite literally, the key to getting out of here.”

“She’s dying. You can see that. And if she dies, then we’ll be trapped in here.” Gallo pressed the point home. “We can all leave together. There’s nothing here.”

Any progress she might have been making vanished at that moment.

“Nothing?” Kenner sounded offended. He pointed to whatever it was that lay beyond the edge of the precipice. “You call that nothing?”

Despite herself, Gallo took a step closer and looked for herself. What she saw defied belief, but one thing was certain.

Kenner was right.

It was far more than ‘nothing.’

54

The knife came down, but not with the expected fury of a deathblow. Instead, Rohn’s entire body seemed to deflate, as if the impact of his mortal wounds had finally hit home. He did not collapse but tottered unsteadily for a moment, and then he turned slowly around.

Pierce could see that something had changed in him. Although he was still standing, still very much alive, his eyes were dead, without any trace of emotion. On the ground behind him, Carter appeared to be in the grip of a seizure. Though there was no outward sign of injury, her muscles were rigid, her body shaking violently.

The trio of gunmen fanned out, their weapons ready to finish what Rohn had started, but they were clearly confounded by the man’s strange behavior.

Rohn lurched into motion, walking toward them with the shuffling steps of an unhinged derelict. The nearest man called out to him, but Rohn seemed not to hear. He just continued stalking forward on a collision course with the man who had spoken. The man stepped to the side to get out of Rohn’s way, but Rohn adjusted course. Then, as soon as he was within reach, he slashed his blade across the man’s throat.

The other two gaped in disbelief as the stricken man went down, blood spraying from the wound, but as Rohn turned toward them, his face ashen from blood loss yet otherwise utterly blank, they turned their guns on him.

Rohn’s chest exploded as twin bursts of rifle fire ripped into him, staggering him back. But he kept coming, walking headlong into the barrage.

Pierce wrestled his own gun around and without bothering to aim, emptied the magazine into the men. Both went down.

Rohn stopped in his tracks. He stood there, an automaton waiting for a command that never came, as the last of his life leaked away. Then he simply crumpled to the ground, dead.

Fifty feet away, Lazarus and Tyndareus were locked in a struggle that was not as one-sided as it should have been, but Pierce barely took note. The mystery of what had just happened to Rohn was screaming for his attention. The change had come over the man as suddenly as if someone had thrown a switch and turned his brain off.

No, not someone. Carter had done it, or some part of her unconscious mind. The latent ability that slumbered within her, the ghost of a prehistoric human ancestor, linking her to every living human on the planet. It was a link that, if threatened, could transform a human into a mindless drone, and if severed, might do to the entire population of humanity what it had done to Rohn.

“Felice?” He let the spent machine pistol fall. Carter’s convulsions had abated, and from the rise and fall of her chest, he could see that she was still very much alive. But was she still Felice Carter? And if he went to her, tried to help her, would the same thing happen to him?

He was not about to risk it. There was nothing he could do for her. If anyone could reach her…

Lazarus was still fighting, anticipating and dodging most of Tyndareus’s lightning fast attacks. Most, but not all. As Pierce watched, the fist of the TALOS suit struck Lazarus in the shoulder. It was a glancing blow, but it spun him around and sent him cartwheeling away. He landed on his feet, catlike, but his right arm hung from his shoulder at an impossible angle. Lazarus gripped the injured limb with his good hand and twisted his body until the dislocated joint slid back into place. Then he dove out of the way an instant before Tyndareus slammed the same fist down on the place where he had been standing. Sulfurous vapor erupted as the ground split apart under the impact.

Lazarus hurled himself at Tyndareus, wrapping both arms around the suit’s helmet. Tyndareus reached up and peeled his attacker away, as effortlessly as if brushing off an insect, and Lazarus went flying again.

Pierce felt helpless. It was nothing short of amazing that Lazarus was still in the fight, but he couldn’t hope to win. Safe inside the armored TALOS suit, Tyndareus had beaten back the monstrous bear-elk. How could an ordinary human, or even an extraordinary one like Lazarus, hope to defeat technology like that?

“Talos,” he muttered the name, thinking of a similarly mismatched showdown recorded in the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, and the answer came to him. He raised a bloody hand to the side of his head. His Bluetooth earpiece was still there. “Cintia? Are you still with me?”

Dourado’s frantic voice sounded in his head. “Dr. Pierce! What’s happening there? What happened to Dr. Carter?”

“No time to explain. I need you to do something.”

“Of course.”

Fifty feet away, Lazarus charged again, ducking under Tyndareus’s reaching arms and throwing himself at the armored legs. He attempted to sweep the armored legs out from under Tyndareus, but he might as well have been trying to roll a locomotive onto its side. Tyndareus kicked at him, but Lazarus managed to wrap his arms around the extended leg. He planted his feet on the ground and then heaved upward with such ferocity that the ground beneath him crumbled, dropping him into a knee-deep pit of boiling acid, but his attempt to throw Tyndareus succeeded. The man in the TALOS suit landed flat on his back.

Lazarus howled in agony as he clawed his way out of the steaming hole. His legs were wreathed in smoke as his boots and trousers disintegrated, revealing skin that was bright red and beginning to blister, but as soon as his feet were on relatively solid ground he started toward his foe again. Tyndareus was already back on his feet, swinging his arms back and forth to meet the attack.

Pierce charged, too, leaping over the steaming cracks in the Earth, acutely aware of what the consequences would be if the ground beneath him gave way. Tyndareus’s head swiveled in Pierce’s direction, but then looked away just as quickly. Lazarus may have posed a bit of a challenge, but Pierce was hardly worth the bother.

Big mistake, Pierce thought. Brains beat brawn.

He circled behind Tyndareus, searching for and finding the chink in the smooth metal armor. He peeked around Tyndareus, trying to telegraph to Lazarus what he was doing.

Keep him busy, he wanted to shout. I just need a couple seconds.

Lazarus must have understood, because Pierce got all the time he needed. He darted in close, much too close for comfort, and fought with the clamps that held a square metal plate in place. When he failed to move the clamps with his hands, he pried at them with a knife, using leverage to move what his fingers couldn’t. He put all his strength into the effort, until the tight clamps snapped free. The plate fell away to reveal a metal box from which sprouted three thick cables. Pierce plunged a hand in, gripped one of the cables, and just as Dourado had instructed him, gave it a hard twist.

The cable popped loose, and the TALOS suit froze in place.

In Greek mythology, Talos, a gigantic living bronze statue, was defeated by the guile of the sorceress Medea, who had discovered his fatal weakness. Talos’s lifeblood — a molten metallic liquid called ichor—had been poured into his body through an opening in his ankle, the hole stoppered by a single bronze nail. The TALOS suit was powered by electricity, not ichor, but it had the same exploitable weakness. To shut it down, Pierce merely had to pull the plug.

Pierce backed away, half-expecting the suit to begin moving again, reactivated by an auxiliary power source or some other measure designed to prevent an enemy from doing what he had just done, but the armored figure remained statue-still, a seven-foot tall gray mannequin.

Lazarus arrived a moment later, his face contorted with pain. “Are you all right?”

“I should be asking you.”

“I’ll live,” Lazarus said, making it sound almost like a regret. “But you’re wounded.”

As if in response to the question, Pierce felt an ache across his chest. He looked down and saw the damage that Rohn’s blade had caused. His body armor had taken the brunt of the attack and no doubt saved his life, but the skin underneath was a bloody perforated line. It could wait.

“I’m going after Augustina and Fiona. Take care of her.” He nodded his head in Carter’s direction.

Lazarus stared at the woman for several seconds then he shook his head. “You need me.”

“She needs you more.”

A different kind of pain twisted Lazarus’s features, one that had nothing to do with his injuries. “I don’t know what to do for her.”

Pierce extended a hand and gripped Lazarus’s shoulder. He sensed that this admission of helplessness was a harder thing than any battle the man had ever fought. “You’ll figure it out.”

“What about you? You can’t do this alone.”

Pierce reached out with his other hand and patted the stationary TALOS suit. “Actually, I think I can.”

55

The worst part was the smell. After breathing sulfuric acid fumes for more than an hour, Pierce thought the suit’s oxygen supply would be a welcome relief, but as soon as the seals were clamped down and the O2 began to flow, he realized that there were worse smells in the world. It was the TALOS suit itself he realized, or more likely, its former occupant. A foul odor, like antiseptic ointment and cleaning fluid mixed with the smell of illness and decay, clung to the interior surfaces like a fungus growing on the inside of the helmet.

Probably just my imagination, he told himself.

The controls were surprisingly intuitive. Once he was strapped in, he needed only to move his arms and legs as he normally would, and the suit responded. The first few steps reminded him of walking in ski boots. After that, he could almost forget that he was encased in titanium armor.

A heads-up display projected on the inside of the visor showed battery charge, oxygen pressure and a few other status indicators that were probably important to know, but there had not been time for Dourado to go over the operator’s manual with him. The meters were all in the yellow. “You have half an hour of battery life remaining,” Dourado told him.

“Augustina and Fiona probably don’t have that long,” he replied. “It’s more than enough.”

A fingertip sensor in the suit’s gauntlets allowed him to toggle on the weapons systems. The grenade launcher on the right arm, and a plasma torch on the left. Pierce doubted he would need them. The suit itself was his best weapon.

He approached the wall cautiously, unsure what he would encounter when he touched its surface, but there was no resistance, no sense of making contact.

He turned and glanced back at Lazarus. The big man was cautiously approaching the still motionless form of Carter. Pierce regretted that there was nothing he could do to help either of them, but time was running out.

He also spotted Tyndareus. The old man hadn’t gone far from the spot where Pierce had dropped him after manually disengaging the clamps that held the TALOS suit together. With his gnarled limbs and liver-spotted bald head, he looked like Gollum from The Hobbit. Gollum in a business suit, crawling across the scorching hot earth.

It was a better fate than Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death’ deserved.

“Cintia, I’ll probably lose radio contact in a second or two. If you don’t hear from me in half an hour…” He realized he didn’t have a contingency.

“You’ll make it, Dr. Pierce.”

“Thanks. And from now on, you can just call me George.”

“I’ll start doing that when you get back. Good luck.”

He took a step forward and was plunged into darkness. The high-intensity spotlights mounted to either side of the visor might as well have been covered with mud for all the good they did. The intangible wall through which he was passing was not like fog or dust. It didn’t reflect light. Instead it seemed to absorb it. He took another step and another, and then he could see again. He found himself in a wide passage, like an immense wormhole bored in the blazing hot rock, sloping away into the depths of the Earth.

The light revealed other details. A litter of what looked like bone fragments, globs of matted hair or fur and black nodules the size of softballs were scattered everywhere.

Droppings, Pierce realized. Bear-elk scat.

That stopped him. The creature was here, somewhere. It had retreated to its lair, maybe to lick its wounds, maybe to die in the darkness, but it was between Pierce and the people he loved. Maybe he would need the weapons after all.

He tried to creep down the passage, but stealth was not one of the suit’s selling points. No matter how carefully he lowered his feet, his steps sounded like an anvil dropping on concrete.

Abandoning the sneaky approach, he set out at a jog, pounding down the passage, each footfall ringing through the suit like a pile-driver impact. He kicked through more litter, pulverizing fragments of bone and discarded antlers.

The part of him that was both a scientist and a scholar of mythology, regretted that there was not time to make a more thorough examination. Hercules had walked here once, fought another guardian of the Underworld gates. Not a mythological monster with supernatural abilities living in some kind of netherworld, where the laws of physics did not apply, but a hybrid animal living in a strange closed ecosystem. The bear-elk was evidently the latest creature to occupy that niche, but how did it survive? What did it eat? Were there others like it down here?

He would probably never get the answer to those questions. The job of the Herculean Society was to make sure that such mysteries remained unsolved. When he got Gallo and Fiona to safety, he would have to take steps to ensure that no one ever returned.

The passage opened into a vast cavern with walls that burned like magma. As Pierce swept the chamber with his headlamp, he spotted movement off to the left and froze when the reflected light showed a pair of glowing green eyes.

The bear-elk.

The creature remained perfectly still, a deer in the headlights. A deer with the temper of a territorial grizzly bear. It could, if it chose to, stomp him into oblivion…or peel open the suit like a sardine can. Yet, it did not move. Perhaps it remembered its previous encounter with TALOS. The animal was curled up, protecting its wounds. Pierce did not doubt that the grenade had done some serious damage — burns, broken bones, perhaps internal injuries as well.

“You made it.”

The voice — Kenner’s voice — almost made Pierce jump, which might have proved either comical or disastrous given the circumstances. Pierce turned slowly and searched for the source. He found Kenner a moment later, near the center of the cavern, with one hand holding a flashlight aimed back in Pierce’s direction. The other hand was gripping Fiona’s arm.

She stared dully into the darkness, conscious but limp in his grasp, her legs folded up beneath her, unable to support her own weight any longer. Pierce recognized the signs of severe dehydration and diabetic ketoacidosis, no doubt exacerbated by the extreme heat. Gallo stood nearby, looking defeated.

“As promised, Herr Doktor,” Kenner went on. “The Well of Monsters.”

He thinks I’m Tyndareus.

Kenner’s tone was triumphant but grudging. He hadn’t been prepared to share his discovery, but he knew better than to challenge his benefactor. Without replying, Pierce backed away from the bear-elk before turning to join the others. He was still twenty feet away when his headlamps revealed Echidna.

In Greek mythology, Echidna was described as both a serpentine creature and a beautiful woman. From what he knew of Kenner’s quest and his own experience with how the mythology of Hercules’s labors had been distorted over the millennia, Pierce had assumed that Echidna would be some kind of naturally occurring phenomenon: a pool of chemicals or a bubbling pot of primordial soup.

It was none of those things, and yet in a way, it was all of them.

The cavern was split by a wide fissure — thirty or forty feet across and at least a hundred feet long — filled to the brim with what looked like molten stone. In reality, it was a transparent liquid — probably a solution of water and dissolved minerals — reflecting the glowing red of the chamber’s walls. Dotting its surface but mostly concentrated at the edges, were clumps of what looked like vegetation. They resembled clusters of water lilies floating on the surface of a pond, except these were a coal black. They were plants of some kind, adapted to using thermal and chemical energy instead of sunlight. They probably formed the base of the underground food chain, but as strange as they were, the floating organisms were the least interesting thing in the pool.

Just below the surface, filling the bottom of the fissure, was Echidna.

It was alive, no question about that, but whether it was plant, animal or other, was a question that only Felice Carter might have been able to answer. It looked like an enormous flower, a many-petaled orchid, or perhaps a gigantic upside down jellyfish. Hundreds of snake-like tendrils reached up like fingers, not quite breaking the surface, while directly below, the main body was covered with oblong globules that resembled bunches of grapes. There was movement beneath the faintly translucent membranes covering the globes, the pulsing of something alive.

Eggs, Pierce thought. Like an octopus’s garden.

Scattered around the eggs, atop the amorphous creature’s body, were chunks of debris. Pierce sensed that he was close to grasping the secret of Echidna, but such knowledge would serve no purpose other than to satisfy his curiosity. He tore his gaze away from the strangely beautiful monster and returned his attention to the more immediate problem.

He considered sustaining the ruse that he was Tyndareus so he could get Kenner’s cooperation, but he would be found out as soon as he spoke. Better to stick with the truth, he decided.

“Liam, it’s me. George.”

At the sound of his voice, Gallo looked up, a flicker of hope in her eyes. Fiona perked up, too, but the reaction made her dire condition all the more apparent.

Kenner was taken aback, but only for a moment. “George? Well, I’ll be damned. You are a lot more resourceful than I ever gave you credit for. No wonder Augustina fancies you.”

Pierce ignored the comment. “Liam, I don’t have a clue where your loyalties lie, but we need to get out of here. All of us.”

“Leave? George, do you see this?” He waved at the creature in the pool.

“We can come back,” Pierce lied. “But it’s not safe to stay here. The heat is going to cook you alive.”

Kenner’s eyes darted back and forth as he considered this. “You’re right, of course.” Then his gaze settled on Pierce. “But not you. That suit you’re wearing. I’ll wager it protects you.”

“That doesn’t matter. There’s only one suit. And we’re not alone in here.”

“You mean the creature? Cerberus or whatever it is that’s taken its place. I thought I heard something crawling around back there. But it’s beaten. And even if it tried to attack, the suit has weapons, doesn’t it?”

“Liam, this is insane.”

Kenner shook his head. “I don’t think so. Give me the suit, George.” He jerked Fiona up and then thrust her toward the fissure.

“No!”

Pierce reacted instantly, taking a step forward, reaching out as if to snatch her back, but he wasn’t close enough. Gallo let out a shriek of surprise, but she was too far away. In the pool below, Echidna’s tendrils quivered, stretching upward, as if in anticipation of a meal. Kenner, however, did not let go of Fiona. He just held her there, poised above the water’s surface.

“Give me the suit,” he repeated. “Or she goes in.”

There was a rustling sound behind Pierce as the shouts roused the bear-elk.

“Hurry, George,” Kenner urged. His voice was frenetic, adrenaline superseding reason.

Pierce glanced back and saw the beast standing on all fours, blocking the passage back to the surface with its bulk. He tapped the sensor with a fingertip, and the weapons menu appeared on the HUD. “Get her away from there. I can deal with that thing, but you need to move away. Find some cover.”

“That’s not going to happen. Take the suit off, and I’ll let the three of you go. Do it now.”

The creature took a tentative step, shoulder muscles bunching, as if preparing to spring.

“Damn it, Liam. There’s no time for this.”

“I’ll drop her! I swear to God, I’ll do it.”

“No! Wait.” Pierce swung his attention back to Kenner. Fiona hung from his outstretched arm like the bait in a snare. She was trembling…no, she was saying something. Mumbling, too faintly for Pierce to hear. Praying? “I’m taking it off, Liam. Just pull her back.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but quickly switched to the main menu and brought up the controls to disengage the seals. There was a hiss as the internal pressure equalized, then the scorching air of the cavern rushed in. The chest plate swung up and Pierce squirmed to get his head and arms out of the exoskeleton.

Fiona’s eyes lit up when she saw him, but her lips kept moving.

“Pull her back,” Pierce repeated. His voice, no longer amplified by the suit, sounded small in the dead air.

“Faster, George,” Kenner said.

Pierce struggled out of the suit and toppled forward, landing hard on the cavern floor. The impact awakened the pain of his injuries, but he scrambled up, reaching out to Fiona.

Satisfied with this victory, Kenner pulled Fiona back and sent her stumbling toward Pierce, and in the same motion, he leaped for the TALOS suit.

The bear-elk charged.

Pierce caught Fiona, hugging her close, but it was too late to escape. He pulled her down, covering her with his body. Gallo was there, too, huddling with them.

They would face the end together.

Kenner made it to the suit, but before he could even begin to figure out how to climb inside, a swipe of the creature’s massive forepaw sent it and him flying across the cavern. Both splashed into the pool and were instantly erased from sight. The light from the suit’s headlamps continued to shine, illuminating the waters from below, but the rest of the chamber was plunged into a ruddy darkness.

The cavern floor vibrated with each heavy step that brought the bear-elk closer.

Then silence.

Pierce felt the creature’s hot breath against his back. It was right above them. He squeezed Fiona and Gallo tighter and waited for the end.

56

Fiona’s weak voice reached through the silence. She had been speaking all along, but only now could Pierce hear what she was saying, or rather, chanting.

He did not recognize the words, but he intuitively understood that she was speaking her native language. He had wondered if she might be praying; now he was sure of it.

The sound was oddly soothing, and it was only after listening for several seconds that Pierce began to wonder why they were still alive. He could still feel the creature’s breath, knew that it was very close, but it wasn’t attacking. He raised his head, and in the dim light, he saw the large snout just inches away. Its nostrils flared with each breath, but there was no menace in its eyes. Instead, it seemed curious.

Still chanting, Fiona shifted under him. One of her hands wriggled free and reached up as if to stroke the snout. The bristly folds of skin covering its teeth pulled back slowly as its mouth opened.

“Careful,” Pierce whispered, knowing it was already too late to make a difference. Fiona already had her hand in the creature’s maw.

As she reached in, Pierce saw that she held something. It looked like a strip of wood, about six inches in length, with a rough texture. She deposited it on the animal’s tongue and withdrew her hand. “It’s okay,” she murmured, somehow folding the words into her chant. “It’s just a granola bar.”

Although the morsel was the equivalent of a crumb for the enormous bear-elk, it worked its jaws several times, and then tilted its head forward, nuzzling the trio.

“Sorry, fella,” Fiona said. “That’s all there is.”

After a few more insistent nudges, the creature seemed to lose interest. It turned away and padded back to the corner of the cavern where it had been when Pierce arrived.

“What the hell just happened?”

“She can explain later,” Gallo whispered. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Pierce felt no inclination to argue. Moving slowly to avoid upsetting the delicate peace, he rose to his feet and then lifted Fiona in his arms and glanced into the fissure for one last look at Echidna.

A section of its tentacles had curled in, but through the snake-like tendrils, he could see Kenner’s motionless form, or rather what was left of it. His clothes were dissolving, his skin starting to slough off as the hot acidic water slowly digested him. The tentacles were not just holding his dead body under though, but shifting and rippling in peristaltic waves to draw him further down.

Pierce wondered if this was the beginning of the process that created the hybrids. There was an entire ecosystem underground, with microbes, fungi and lichen, and even plants and animals adapted to life underground, all of which could have served as prey for Echidna. Perhaps she also consumed the carcasses of unlucky animals that fell through cracks in the surface and were washed into the Underworld. Echidna did not merely devour these creatures, she assimilated their genetic material into her own reproductive system, creating weird, and random, new life forms.

Maybe in a few weeks or months, a new hybrid would form — part-Kenner and part-who-knew-what.

Was it everything you hoped it would be, Liam? Pierce shook his head and turned away.

“He’ll leave us alone,” Fiona mumbled into his shoulder. Her voice sounded distant, as if she was drifting off to sleep. “Bears and elk are important totems for my people. I told him we were friends.”

“Did you?”

“Uncle George, am I in trouble?”

“Trouble? What would make you think that?”

“We’re in Yellowstone. You’re not supposed to feed the bears.”

Pierce laughed, a little louder than was probably wise. “Just this once, I think we can make an exception.”

57

They stepped across the threshold a few minutes later, and Lazarus rushed to meet them. “You made it.”

“Told you I would,” Pierce replied.

“Anyone else in there we should be worried about? Or anything?”

Pierce shook his head. “Not today. But Fi needs medical attention, stat.”

Lazarus nodded and took her from Pierce’s arms. “I’ll start an IV.”

Although the big man was smiling, which was unusual to say the least, there was a haggard look about him. The ordeal he’d survived, and the pain he had suffered was hard to believe. But Pierce had seen it. Had seen the man survive the impossible. In a way, they all had. Pierce noticed Carter sitting on the ground behind Lazarus, evidently awake and alert, but the faraway look in her eyes made Pierce wonder if she was really there at all. Then she blinked, and turned her head toward them, once more looking like her old self.

Lazarus carried Fiona over to where Carter sat and gently set her down. Then, with a delicate precision that seem impossible for someone so large, he inserted an intravenous catheter into Fiona’s arm and started a saline drip. “This should tide her over,” he said.

“Bish?” Fiona’s eyes opened wide, looking up at him in awed disbelief. “Oh, God. I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“No,” Lazarus said with a grin. “You’re alive. And so am I. I’ll tell you all about it when we’re somewhere that isn’t here.”

Pierce gripped her shoulder. “Fi, I hate to do this to you, but the gate to the Underworld is still open. Can you close it?”

Her expression twisted in consternation. “I can try, but honestly I’m not sure how I got it open in the first place.”

“I can take care of that,” Lazarus said. “There are other ways to shut a door. Permanently.”

“Works for me,” Pierce said.

“I especially like the ‘permanently’ part,” Gallo added.

“I’ll plant the charges, but we should wait until we’re clear before detonating. Something tells me that one more explosion might crack open this whole valley.”

Pierce looked back at the steaming ground that had consumed their enemies. “As long as you don’t set off the super-volcano, it’s fine with me.”

As Lazarus stood to leave, a shout of protest echoed across the floor of the ravine. “No! You mustn’t do that!”

Pierce craned his head around and spotted Tyndareus, crawling toward them, dragging his wasted body along with one outstretched hand. The other was clutched against his chest, as if trying to protect an injury.

“You have to let me go in there.”

Pierce raised an eyebrow. “As tempting as that sounds, that would probably involve touching you again.”

Tyndareus’s strange blue eyes bulged, but then appeared to soften. He held out the hand he had been hugging to his chest, and Pierce saw that it contained a bunched up piece of velvet. “Please. It’s not for me.”

“What’s that? Lucky charm?”

“My brother. Castor. I must take him to the Source, so that he can be reborn.”

“Castor. So that would make you Pollux? Twins.” Pierce shook his head. “One of you is too many.”

Lazarus returned a moment later. “It’s done. Cintia can send the detonation command as soon as we’re clear.”

“Good. We’re out of here.”

“You really mean to do this?” Tyndareus said. “To destroy it forever?”

Pierce did not correct the slight misconception. “That’s what we do. Mostly so evil bastards like you won’t be able to screw up the world any worse than it already is.”

Lazarus lifted Fiona in his arms, while Pierce helped Gallo and Carter to their feet. As they started up the steep ravine wall, Tyndareus finally understood that they meant to leave him.

“Take me with you,” he pleaded. “I can pay you. As much as you want. Just name it.”

Pierce looked back. “I guess you haven’t heard. We raided your headquarters and seized all your assets. Everything. Cerberus belongs to the Herculean Society now. As a friend of mine said, we completely powned you.”

Fiona let out a snort. “Good one.”

“Thanks. Did I say it right?” He turned back to Tyndareus. “One of the first things I’m going to do is box up everything in your little shop of horrors and donate it to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. They may be able to find some use for it, but I hope they burn it all.”

Tyndareus didn’t reply to that, and Pierce was too focused on negotiating the loose earth to care. By the time he reached the top he had almost completely forgotten about the old man.

“You can’t just leave me here!” Tyndareus shrieked.

“Actually, I can,” Pierce shouted back. He turned to the others. “Anyone have a problem with that?”

No one did.