Minotaur

26

The room beyond was dark, save for a strange green glow coming down from the ceiling. Chapel didn’t have time to wonder what that meant. He slipped inside and shut the door behind him. He considered locking it, but he knew that would only delay his pursuers a few seconds—the door was made of soft wood, and anyone could kick it down—while it would also mean trapping him inside a room with no other exits. That was always a bad idea.

“Favorov,” he called out. “Favorov, it’s over. You can’t get away now. You waited too long.”

There was no response. As Chapel’s eyes started to adjust to the strange glow in the room he started to make out details—a pair of single beds on the far side of the room, a dresser, a desk with two laptop computers sitting on top of it.

Toys.

The floor was strewn with toys—action figures, toy trucks, a couple of robots.

No. No, Chapel thought, oh no, I’ve picked the wrong room.

He looked up and saw that the ceiling was covered in stars. Decals of stars that glowed in the dark. That was the source of the dim lighting. This was the room where Favorov’s boys lived. He could even see one of them—Ryan, the younger of the two, he thought—huddled in his bed. He wasn’t asleep. One eye glinted with terror as it looked at Chapel over bunched-up blankets.

He put a finger to his lips and tried to think of something reassuring to say. He couldn’t think of anything. The best he could do for the kid would be to get out of the room immediately and lead the guards as far away from his part of the house as possible. The mansion’s walls were sturdy and thick, but there was no telling where stray bullets could end up. Chapel knew that if one of the kids was hurt in the firefight he would never forgive himself.

He turned to go, putting his free hand out to reach for the doorknob.

That was when the closet door flew open and banged against the wall, startling Chapel so much he barely noticed when something small and fast moving charged right at him and sank the inch-long blade of a pocketknife into his thigh.

“Jesus!” Chapel gasped, as the pain reached him.

He stared down at Daniel, who must have been hiding in the closet the whole time. Smart kid. He had what looked like a Cub Scout knife in his hand and he was bringing it back to strike at Chapel’s leg again.

“We never did anything to you!” the boy shouted. “Leave us alone!”

Chapel was so surprised he couldn’t stop the boy from stabbing him a second time. The wounds weren’t deep enough to seriously injure him but he could feel blood running down inside his dress pants.

“Kid, kid,” Chapel said, trying to grab at the knife without getting his hand slashed. “Kid, come on! Stop it!” He felt absurd—he’d just fought his way through a cadre of bodyguards, and here he couldn’t do more than ask a child politely to stop trying to kill him. But he couldn’t risk hurting the child, even in self-defense. His training had focused on debilitating and crippling attackers, not calming them down.

But then a female voice called out from another room, calling Daniel’s name. It was Fiona, the boy’s mother. “Daniel! Run away! Just run, baby!”

Chapel had no choice. He brought his left hand down just as the boy was going to stab him a third time. The knife blade sank deep into the silicone flesh of Chapel’s artificial hand. With a good hard yank Chapel pulled his hand back and the knife came with it.

“Daniel!” Fiona called again.

Chapel folded up the knife and put it in his pocket, just to keep it away from the child. Daniel’s eyes had gone very wide and he looked like he expected to be shot at any second. Silently Chapel cursed Favorov for putting his children at risk like this.

“Daniel! Run away!”

The boy turned and screamed and ran back into the closet. “You,” Chapel said to Ryan, who was still curled up in a ball on his bed. “Get in there with him. It’s the safest place.”

He expected the younger boy to scream, or throw a tantrum, or just freeze in place, paralyzed by fear. Instead he jumped up and ran for the closet, dragging a stuffed dog in after him.

Maybe Favorov had trained his sons at the same time he’d trained his bodyguards. Or maybe the kid was just smarter than he looked.

“Daniel! Ryan!” Fiona wailed. It sounded like she was just outside in the hall.