The Tomb Of Hercules

21 Algeria

The three helicopters thundered over the Sahara, nothing in sight below but mile after mile of gnarled, shimmering sand dunes. In the shade, the temperature would have been around eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit…but there was no shade, the merciless glare of the sun baking everything with an extra twenty degrees of sickening heat.

The cabin of the lead helicopter, a large Sikorsky S-92 transporter, was air-conditioned, but neither Nina nor Chase took any comfort from the fact. It had been two days since they were reunited, but in that time Nina had come no nearer to uncovering the final secrets hidden within the Hermocrates text.

And her time was rapidly running out.

“Ten minutes,” announced Sophia. She and Komosa were in the rear section of the cabin with Chase and Nina, Corvus riding in the copilot’s seat up front. “I hope you have a brainstorm soon, Nina.”

“These aren’t exactly ideal conditions,” Nina complained. Her hands were cuffed in front of her so she could still work with the parchments. Chase’s hands were locked behind his back. The wound to his shoulder had been treated and bandaged, but he was still in considerable pain. For no apparent reason other than her own sadistic amusement, Sophia had given him back his leather jacket-which because of the handcuffs he could now not take off, sweating even under the cooling breeze from the air conditioner.

The same breeze ruffled the pages Nina was holding, to her irritation. But the distraction was a minor one, her mind focused as fully as it could be on her task.

She was more convinced than ever that there was a clue within Plato’s words, a cryptic linguistic key that would unlock the puzzle. With each new reading of the ancient Greek text, that key seemed to come a tantalizing step closer.

But not close enough for her to turn it. She frowned.

“No joy?” asked Chase. Compared to his usual self, he had been distinctly muted since his injury.

She shook her head. “All I can think of is that there’s some kind of cipher code which is used to find the relevant words describing how to get into the Tomb-like if word three, line six, page one is ‘turn,’ word seven of line twelve is ‘key,’ and so on. I mean, it flat-out says that there are words hidden among other words! But I can’t find anything that could be the cipher itself. There needs to be a starting point, a way to know where to begin and how to proceed, otherwise it would be impossible even for the intended recipient to work it out. Only… there isn’t one.”

“There’s nothing else on the paper?” Chase asked. “Hidden messages or anything?”

“What you see is what you get,” said Sophia. “Something as simple as invisible ink was the equivalent of quantum encryption in Plato’s time, so there’s nothing else to uncover. The clues must be in the words themselves.” She checked her watch. “Which you now have six minutes to find.”

Nina turned her attention back to the parchments, scanning through the text as quickly as she could. Words hidden within words… but which words? She read faster, the ancient, mottled ink almost becoming a blur as her eyes sped over each page.

But she knew she would find nothing that she hadn’t already discovered. If there was a cipher, its key was not contained within the text of Hermocrates. Either it was to be found in some other source not in her possession, in which case she had absolutely no chance of working it out…or there was no cipher.

“I know that face,” said Chase, for the first time in a while sounding hopeful.

Nina looked up at him. “Hmm?”

“That’s your crossword face, when you’ve just cracked a clue. What’ve you found?”

“Yes, what have you found?” said Sophia, taking a new interest. Corvus turned in his seat, watching Nina closely.

“I…I’m not sure yet. But I think I’ve been looking at the problem from the wrong angle. The reference to words being hidden within other words, I just assumed it was a cipher-specific individual words from the text combining to form a message.” She shuffled through the parchments to the first page. “But what if it’s not? The clue to finding the map on the back was quite literal-so maybe this is too. ‘The words of our friend Hermocrates reveal still other words within’…And ‘erubescent glass’…erubescent, red glass, colored glass…”

She looked up at the cabin roof. Above the front seats were windows in the ceiling, there to give the pilot a clear view of the rotor blades. They were tinted green to act as a sunscreen. Nina leaned forward and held out the page so the light of the sun overhead fell upon it. The entire page changed color to a garish emerald shade, the muddy tones of the ink becoming a darker brown.

Nina practically jumped from her seat. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!”

“Got what?” Chase asked, confused.

“I need something red, red plastic or glass.” Nina looked around the cabin. “Come on, come on!” she snapped at Sophia. “Make yourself useful, find something!”

Sophia frowned, but did as she was asked. “Joe, hand me my bag. The blue one.” Komosa reached behind her seat, lifted out a traveling case and passed it to her. She searched through the contents. “Here,” she said, handing Nina a binder. “Will this do?”

“Perfect,” said Nina, snatching it from her. The binder contained pages bearing translations of Hermocrates from Greek to English, but she discarded them. The binder itself, with a cover of transparent red plastic, was what she wanted.

She placed the first sheet of parchment inside the binder, then held it by one of the windows, trying to get as much direct light onto it as possible. Beneath the plastic, the reddish-brown text almost vanished, its color absorbed by the red filter to leave nothing but a faint shadow.

But something else suddenly leaped from the page in perfect clarity.

Within the ghost words of the original text, individual letters stood out, what had previously seemed like discolored ink turning almost black…

“That’s what the line about seeing the world through erubescent glass meant,” Nina said, awed. “I thought the darker spots were just impurities in the ink-but they must have been added after the main text was written. Red glass was incredibly rare and valuable in Plato’s time, so very few people would have been able to find the hidden text. Somebody traced over the letters with a watered-down blue ink to hide a message, words within words. It could have been octopus ink, I suppose, or maybe-”

“They could have done it in ballpoint for all I care,” said Sophia impatiently. “What does it say?”

“Notebook, notebook.” Nina snapped her fingers. Chase couldn’t help but smile slightly at Sophia’s aggrieved expression as she passed Nina a notebook and pen. “Okay, let’s see…”

Somewhat awkwardly thanks to the handcuffs, she wrote down each highlighted letter in turn, a sentence in ancient Greek characters gradually taking form. “Well, that’s a promising start,” she said, translating it in her head. “It says the entrance faces the dawn.”

“Land by the eastern face of the mountain,” Corvus told the pilot. “What else?”

“I don’t know, that’s all I’ve got so far,” Nina told him testily. “I’ll need to keep working on it.”

“You’ll have to do it on the move,” Sophia said. “We’re here.”

Everyone looked ahead. Before them was a small rocky hill, a darker mound against the unending pale grays and browns of the dunes.

“That’s not exactly a mountain,” observed Chase, sounding let down. “It’s more like a zit. I thought Hercules would have something a bit more impressive.”

“Unlike some men, I doubt Hercules would feel any need to overcompensate,” said Sophia dryly. “Besides, I’m sure that the contents of the Tomb itself will be rather more impressive.”

The helicopter moved into a hover at the bottom of the hill’s eastern face, landing in a vortex of dust and grit. The other choppers followed it down.

“Spread out,” Corvus ordered over the radio. “There is an entrance somewhere-find it.” Armed men in desert camouflage jumped from the helicopters to begin the hunt. He turned back to Nina. “Dr. Wilde, keep working. I want as much information as possible about the interior of the Tomb by the time the entrance is located. Once it is found, I’m afraid you will have to work on the move.”

“Why the rush?” Chase asked. “It’s not like this is a race-nobody else even knows where the thing is.”

“I doubt that you would understand, Chase,” said Corvus, voice full of scorn. “You are a small man, with small and insignificant dreams. But when you have a dream like mine, and stand on the verge of seeing it become a reality… you too would not want to wait.”

“Hey, I have dreams that I want to see come true an’ all,” Chase told him. “Had one last night, in fact. You were in it. And so were you,” he added, nodding to Sophia, “and Joe Ring-Tits there.” He smiled coldly. “And I had a baseball bat. With nails in it.”

“Oh, do be quiet, Eddie,” Sophia huffed. She turned to Nina. “This is one of the reasons why I left him. He would never shut up. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“If everyone would shut up, I might be able to concentrate,” said Nina, annoyed.

With the power off, the temperature in the cabin rose quickly. Nina was the only one who didn’t notice, focused entirely on picking out the letters hidden among the text. She was on the ninth page of parchment when a call came in from one of Corvus’s men over the cabin speaker.

“Sir, this is Bertillon,” he said excitedly. “We found it, about two hundred yards to the north behind the tall rock.” Everyone looked to see a weather-worn stone pillar protruding from the hillside.

“Excellent,” said Corvus, stepping out of the cabin and donning a wide-brimmed sun hat. Komosa climbed through the rear door and held it open for Sophia, then dragged Chase from his seat and threw him onto the hot sand. Nina reluctantly followed, clutching the Hermocrates manuscript.

She squinted at the surrounding landscape, the glare of the sun against the ground dazzling her. Stinging sweat beaded around her eyes. Apart from the rolling dunes, which stretched to the horizon in every direction, the low hill was the only landmark to be seen.

The nearest town, Nina knew from the satellite images used at Corvus’s château to pinpoint the location of the Tomb, was almost a hundred miles away. Nobody came out here without a very good reason. While it was not the hottest desert on earth, the Grand Erg was still desolate and unforgiving.

A good place to hide a great treasure…

Corvus’s men returned to the helicopters to collect more equipment as their leader headed for the distinctive rock, the others following. Nina found herself drenched in sweat in barely a minute. She asked Sophia to let the sweltering Chase take off his jacket, but as she’d expected, the request was rejected-with a degree of pleasure.

They reached the rock and found a smaller boulder lying half buried next to it. The gap between them formed a passage some four feet wide, which led deeper into the hillside. Corvus’s man, Bertillon, peered out of the shadows within as the group arrived. “It goes back quite a way, sir. And there’s something you should see. We’re not the first people to come here.”

Using flashlights, they entered the tunnel mouth. “Not very impressive,” sniffed Sophia as she shone her light around the chamber inside.

“There’s more back here, ma’am,” said Bertillon, moving deeper. An archway marked the entrance to a second chamber, the air cool and still. Nina immediately identified the architecture as ancient Athenian in design, still elegant despite the wear of millennia. They were almost certainly in the right place, then, but what else would they find?

“Oh wow,” she gasped as she saw the awesome sight for herself.

Sophia stopped next to her, playing her flashlight beam over the huge object. “All right, I admit-that’s impressive.”

It was a statue, a stylized representation of a lion close to twelve feet high and almost as wide, blocking the end of the chamber. Its mouth was open in a silent roar, one clawed paw raised as if to strike, the other flat on the stone floor.

Beneath that paw was a body.

“Dead a long time,” Nina said, kneeling for a better look. The crushed corpse was little more than a dusty skeleton, desiccated scraps of skin clinging to it. “A thousand years, at least. Maybe even longer.”

“What happened to him?” asked Corvus, shining his light at the lion’s mouth, which was almost eight feet off the ground. While the statue itself was stone, its teeth were tarnished bronze… with faint stains of blood still visible on them, more having gushed down the lion’s jaw as if it had bitten somebody’s arm off.

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Chase, nodding at the heavy stone paw that had flattened the luckless explorer. “Clarence here squashed him. The thing’s a booby trap.”

Everyone quickly stepped back to a respectful distance from the statue, and all eyes turned to Nina. “I think it’s time you told us what else you’ve found in your translations,” Sophia said, resting a hand on her holstered gun.

Nina flicked back through her notebook. “I guess this is the Nemean lion-the first of the ten trials of Hercules.”

“Ten?” Sophia raised a dubious eyebrow. “I thought there were twelve.”

“It depends which version of the legend you read. In the earliest tellings from ancient Greece, Hercules only had ten trials, and the order in which they took place varied according to who was telling the story. The only constants were that the first task was always slaying the Nemean lion, the hide of which Hercules used to make his impenetrable cloak, and the second was killing the Lernaean hydra, where he obtained the poison for his arrows. The final task was always the same as well-defeating Cerberus, the guardian of the Underworld.”

“So to get into Herc’s tomb, you’ve got to reenact his challenges?” asked Chase. Everyone looked at him. “What? I’m right, aren’t I, Nina?”

“He is,” Nina confirmed, nodding. “That’s what was hidden in the text of Hermocrates-it tells you what the challenges are, and also which direction to go through the labyrinth, which is supposed to represent the Underworld, to reach them.”

Sophia regarded her with suspicion. “But not how to beat them?”

“It wouldn’t need to. The trials of Hercules were as familiar to every ancient Greek as the stories of Cinderella or Robin Hood or…or Star Wars are to us. Any self-respecting Athenian would already know how to beat them.” Nina indicated the lion’s mouth. “Hercules defeated the Nemean lion by reaching into its mouth and pulling out its insides. My guess would be that there’s some kind of trigger in there that you have to release to open the way into the next chamber.”

Komosa tentatively clambered up on one of the lion’s paws and shone a light into its mouth. Close up, it was clear that the lower jaw was separate from the main body of the statue itself, able to hinge open and shut. “She’s right,” he said after a moment. “There’s a lever in here, looks like bronze.” He leaned back, directing the light into the gap between the two paws. “And there’s another passage down here.”

“Whoever tried to enter the Tomb obviously got past the first challenge, then,” said Nina. “But not all of them survived.” She glanced at the crushed skeleton. “This guy got stomped, and judging from those stains somebody else lost an arm trying to reach into the lion’s mouth.”

Corvus gave her an incredulous look. “Are you saying that the statue moved?”

“Yeah. You set off a trap somewhere, and the lion rolls up the passage, the mouth bites, and the paws go up and down to try to gore or crush you. In fact…” She backed up, running a toe over the floor of the chamber until she found a section that was slightly lower than those around it. It shifted under her touch. “Here. See? This is loose-it’s probably what sprung the trap. Step on this, and you get shut in, with the only way out being…”

“… to beat the challenge in the same way that Hercules did,” said Sophia thoughtfully. “Assuming they haven’t all been beaten, could any of the traps still be functioning?”

“I don’t know. I would have said no, until Eddie told me about the one in Tibet, which would have been much older than these. If the mechanisms were made of stone and metal rather than wood and rope, then maybe…”

Sophia shone her light into Nina’s face. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re here to guide us through them. How far have you gotten?”

“I’ve reached the sixth trial, and gotten the directions through the labyrinth up to that point as well,” Nina said, blinking in irritation. “I’d be able to work faster if, y’know, you took these damn things off of me.” She held up both hands, tugging the chain of the handcuffs taut between them.

Sophia considered for a moment. “Release her,” she ordered at last.

“Are you sure?” asked Corvus.

Sophia smiled and walked over to Chase, running a hand along the shoulders of his leather jacket. “She won’t do anything stupid as long as we have him.”

Corvus nodded. “Very well.” One of his men unlocked Nina’s cuffs. She rubbed her wrists where the metal had dug grooves into her flesh. “Now, let us proceed.”

One by one, the expedition members slipped through the narrow gap between the lion’s paws.

The passages beyond were indeed a labyrinth, a tight, dusty maze. Nina had already written down the directions, however, and progression was a simple matter of following the correct choice of left or right at each junction.

The question had occurred to her of what would happen if the wrong path were taken, but she decided not to bring it up in case Sophia or Corvus decided to make Chase be the one to investigate.

They encountered other tasks along the way, more stylized statues frozen midattack when the release switch was found by past tomb raiders, or jammed against the end of each chamber having killed those who had tried-and failed-to pass them. With nobody to reset the traps, they were rendered harmless once triggered… but that didn’t stop the party from negotiating each challenge with the utmost caution. Just in case.

The Lernaean hydra: seven snakelike heads that had once shot poisoned darts taking the lives of three intruders, their skeletons twisted on the ground in the agonized contortions of death. The stone heads now lay broken on the floor, the statue decapitated. Not a literal interpretation of the myth, Nina knew, but she doubted that the Tomb’s builders could make metal and stone spontaneously regenerate.

The Ceryneian hind: one robber had been impaled on its imposing spiked iron antlers, but his companions had remembered how Hercules had hobbled the animal by shooting it in the leg. One of the statue’s legs was indeed hinged to act as the escape trigger-though the robbers’ tactic of pelting it with rocks until one scored a hit was not quite as impressive as the single arrow of legend.

The Augean stables: according to myth, Hercules had diverted a river to clean out the stables, and the ancient map on the backs of the parchments had shown a small river running by the hill. This trial was one of intelligence rather than of physical prowess, requiring floodgates to be opened in a certain order to direct water down particular channels. Make a mistake, and those opening the gates would be swept away by the deluge-a pair of broken bodies crushed against a grill at the end of one channel showed the penalty for failure. But with the river long dried up, the expedition was able to traverse the room with no difficulty.

The Stymphalian birds: a narrow passage sloped steeply upwards, tracks in the ceiling sending brass statues of giant hawks hurtling down to the bottom, talons and sharp beaks extended to gore anyone in their path. Two birds had reached the foot of the slope, hitting with such force that their beaks were embedded in the wall-one having first punched straight through the chest of an unlucky robber. Another hawk lay a third of the way up the corridor, its supporting hook shot out by an arrow. Even Komosa was impressed by the marksmanship.

The Cretan bull: a giant with the crudest method of attack so far, having simply advanced down a tight passage to crush anyone in its path. It had been defeated by lassoing its horns and pulling down its head, a few bone-dry strands of rope still hanging from them.

Two more had fallen victim to this last trap, having slipped and fallen under the huge rollers acting as the bull’s “feet” as they tried to pull down the head. Nina paused to examine them more closely. “These are more recent,” she realized. “The clothing, what’s left of it, I’d say was fifteenth- or sixteenth-century European. Even a failed attempt to get through the traps clears the way for the next set of robbers.”

“So the next task should have been triggered as well?” Corvus asked as he clambered onto the bull to reach the exit passage behind its head.

“Not necessarily,” Sophia said as she followed him. “We know the way through the maze. They didn’t. Even if they got past each challenge, there might still have been other traps that killed them.” As she emerged on the other side of the statue, she looked calculatingly at Chase. “Maybe we should find out.”

“There isn’t time,” said Corvus, brushing dust from his clothes. Sophia seemed disappointed, but still gave Chase a look that suggested her idea wasn’t going to go away. “What is the next trial?” he asked Nina as she caught up.

She checked her notes. “The mares of Diomedes.”

“Horses, eh?” said Chase. “I bet in the legend they weren’t exactly My Little Ponies.”

“Not really. There are different versions of the story, but in all of them the horses are man-eaters.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Chase muttered, glaring at Sophia.

“We should stop here for a while,” Nina told Corvus. “I need to keep working on the translation-I haven’t got very far past the next challenge.”

“No,” he replied. “Work on the move. We are so close now, I will not wait. Concentrate on guiding us through the maze-even if any of the trials are still working, my men have weapons and explosives. We can take care of them.”

Nina made a disbelieving face, then shrugged. “Whatever,” she said, concealing her concern-and also her hope. If any of the remaining trials actually were still functional, they could pose a genuine threat to Corvus’s men-and give herself and Chase chance to escape.

Once the entire party had gathered, they set off again, Nina directing them through the darkened twists of the labyrinth. Before long they reached the entrance to another chamber.

Bertillon, leading the way, shone his light inside. “I see no bodies,” he reported. “I don’t think this one has been sprung.” He switched the flashlight to his other hand as he unshouldered his gun, a sleek and futuristic Fabrique Nationale F2000 assault rifle with a 40mm grenade launcher fitted beneath the barrel. Two of his companions did the same.

Komosa joined them, flashlight glinting from his piercings as he looked into the long chamber. Nina peered past him to see what lay inside. At the far end were four oversized statues of horses, even more forcefully stylized than the previous creatures they had encountered. Their long, sharp teeth were bared, legs raised as if frozen midgallop… and ready to resume at any moment. The hooves were elongated, narrowed, more like blades than feet-making Nina think uncomfortably of some kind of agricultural threshing machine. The animals’ legs ran the full width of the passage.

“Christ,” said Chase, standing beside her to see for himself. “Teeth on those things look like the bloody Alien Queen.”

“We must go through,” said Corvus. He turned to Nina. “How did Hercules defeat them?”

Nina paused, thinking-and gave Chase the briefest of knowing glances. “His task was to steal the horses from Diomedes, who kept them chained to a bronze manger,” she recounted after a moment. Corvus looked at the statues, which had bronze chains hanging from their necks, and nodded. “Once he freed them, he drove them onto a peninsula and dug a trench to make it into an island so they couldn’t escape.”

Bertillon aimed his light at the floor of the chamber. “Perhaps we are supposed to dig up the floor so the horses cannot get across, hey?” He switched off the flashlight and pocketed it, then raised his gun and activated its spotlight before loading the grenade launcher. “I know a quick way to do that.”

Another man, an American, examined the chamber’s entrance. “There’s a slot in the top of the arch here,” he announced. “I guess a gate drops down when the trap goes off so you can’t get out. We’ve got some titanium jacks-we can wedge them in so that it can’t fall.”

“Do it,” ordered Corvus.

The jacks were quickly set in place, an inverted V blocking the slot above the entrance while still allowing room to pass underneath. Bertillon, Komosa and the two other men who had unshouldered their F2000s entered the chamber and cautiously advanced on the statues. The others watched from the entrance, Corvus using a radio so the team could communicate via headsets without shouting.

“Is there any sign of a spot where you might be supposed to dig up the floor?” he asked.

“Nothing so far,” Bertillon replied, carefully stepping forward. “Perhaps we should use grenades to destroy the statues before they-”

Crunch.

A dull grind of shifting stone came from beneath his foot, clearly audible even to those waiting outside the entrance.

And then the entrance slammed shut, a metal portcullis dropping down-not from the slot that had been blocked by the jacks, but beyond it, on the far side of the arch. The slot was just a decoy, the real trap suspended a foot away.

With a screech of metal and rasp of stone the statues burst into life, moving for the first time in thousands of years. Their jaws snapped and their legs churned up and down, sharp hooves slicing the air and clanging cacophonously against the stone floor as they advanced.

Corvus’s men outside the chamber ran to the gate and tried to lift it, but it refused to move, locked down.

Nina cringed and put her hands over her ears as Bertillon fired his grenade launcher. The echoing shotgun-like thud was nothing compared to the explosive crack that shook the chamber a moment later as the grenade hit one of the statues. Lumps of stone showered the room as a chunk was blown from the horse’s chest, but the relentless advance continued.

Another man fired. The grenade shot between the stamping legs of the horses and into the exit tunnel behind them, detonating with a bang followed by the crunch of falling rocks.

“Stop!” Corvus shouted. “You’ll block the tunnel!” Bertillon and Komosa looked back at him in disbelief. “Use bullets, not grenades! Destroy the legs!”

The three men with rifles exchanged glances, then did as they were ordered and switched their attack. Bullets blazed from the weapons, chipping and cratering the statues and spraying debris in all directions. The sharp metal hoof was blown from one of the pounding legs, but the jagged spear of stone that remained appeared just as lethal.

Komosa took out a large pistol as the others backed towards the entrance. “What are their weak spots?” he demanded over the radio. “How do we stop them?”

Sophia drew her own gun and pressed it against Nina’s head. “Well? Answer him! How did Hercules kill them?”

“He didn’t kill them-” Nina began, before being interrupted by a scream from the chamber.

A bullet had ricocheted off the statues and hit Bertillon in his right thigh, dropping him bloodily to the floor. One of the other men went to drag him away, but jumped back as shrapnel from the third man’s shots scythed past his face. By the time he recovered, the horses had reached the fallen man-

Bertillon screamed again, his agonized howl cut off within moments as the stamping feet trampled over him and tore him to pieces, the statues turning red with splattered blood. Nina looked away in horror, and even Chase was repulsed. Lumps of shredded flesh were flung into the air to slap down before the remaining three men.

Sophia aimed her gun at Chase. “How did he stop them?” she yelled at Nina. “In the other version of the legend? Tell me or Eddie dies!”

Nina gave Chase a despairing look, then acquiesced. “He killed Diomedes and fed him to his own horses. Once they’d been fed, they calmed down and Hercules was able to take them!”

Sophia turned to the entrance, where Komosa and the two other men had their backs to the portcullis-the horses were only fifteen feet away and still coming. “Joe! It’s the mouths-you have to feed them with something!”

“Like what?” Komosa demanded.

“There’s plenty of meat in there!”

Komosa was puzzled, then realized what she meant. With a disgusted look, he picked up Bertillon’s left forearm, the hand flopping as he lifted it.

The mouths of the horses kept chomping, sharp teeth glistening in the light. Every time they opened, they revealed a hole beyond, a channel curving down inside each statue.

Komosa pulled back his arm to make a throw, hesitating to get the timing right-then flung the severed limb into the mouth of the nearest horse.

It caught on the teeth, hanging for a moment as the mouth snapped shut-then dropped out of sight into the hole as the jaw opened again. Komosa and the others backed against the wall. The horses kept advancing… then slowed, the thundering gallop of their legs falling to a canter before stopping, barely four feet from the portcullis. Something rattled overhead. One of Corvus’s men tried to lift the gate, and this time found that it moved.

Sophia whirled on Nina and punched her hard in the face, knocking her to the floor. Enraged, Chase stepped forward, but found guns thrust against his chest. “If you hold anything back again,” Sophia snarled down at Nina, “I won’t just kill Eddie. I’ll cut him apart, piece by piece, and make you watch every second of it. Am I clear?”

Nina spat out blood. “Crystal,” she groaned.

“Good. Now get up. There are three more trials.” Sophia paused thoughtfully, then looked across at Chase. A malevolent smile grew on her face. “Uncuff him,” she ordered one of the men.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” asked Corvus.

Sophia’s smile widened. “He’s going to need his hands free.”

Nina stood, a hand pressed against her cut lip. “What are you doing?”

“I’m giving you an incentive to work as quickly and accurately as possible,” Sophia told her. “Because Eddie’s going to be leading the way. If you make a mistake… he dies.”