The Valhalla Prophecy (62 page)

Kagan glimpsed the flash of metal above. “No!” he cried, breaking off from his attack to stare in helpless horror at the canister as it fell past Nina toward the oily lake—

It clipped a small crystal jutting out from the wall, snapping it off at its base—but the impact was just enough to jolt it to a new trajectory. It hit a span and bounced down it before falling again. This time, it made a solid landing on another crystalline bridge in the chamber with a noise like the ringing of a dull bell.

Lock heard the sound and looked up to find its source. “Sons of bitches,” he muttered on seeing the container. “Slavin was right—they were working on a counter-agent.” He raised his voice. “Hoyt! Don’t let them get near that canister!”

“Only thing they’ll be getting near is the Pearly Gates,” Hoyt shouted back. He changed his hold on the SIG, bringing his hand to the attachment mounted beneath its barrel.

An M203 grenade launcher.

He lined it up on the bullet-scarred span above. “Fire in the hole!”

Eddie heard the warning shout. “Oh,
fuck
!” he gasped, scrambling forward as a flat shotgun-like blast echoed from below—

The 40mm grenade hit the crystal bridge—and detonated.

Maslov was almost directly above the point of impact. The blast disintegrated the slab beneath him, sending his shredded body cartwheeling across the bottom of the shaft to slam into a dagger-sharp crystal growing from the wall, the black point bursting out of his chest in a spray of blood. The man hung grotesquely for a moment, limbs swaying, before his weight tore the spike
loose. He fell into the cavern, landing with a crack of bones on a bed of shards.

Eddie was flung into the air as the broken bridge kicked upward beneath him. He made a hard landing on the stump of the destroyed crossing, his momentum sending him skidding over the edge.

He fell—

And landed on one of the inflatable light globes.

It ruptured with a flat bang, but still cushioned him just enough that he survived the drop without breaking any bones. The touchdown was far from painless, though, the battery pack and light clusters inside the globe leaving heavy bruises. The destroyed bridge plunged past him to crash down on top of the rubble piled up below.

Hoyt quickly reloaded the launcher. “Oh, I got you now …,” he said with a cruel grin, lining up his sights on the dazed Englishman—

“Don’t!” Lock shouted. Hoyt looked at him in surprise. “We still have to get out of here, you idiot! If you take out any more of the big crystals, we won’t be able to climb back up!”

Annoyed, the mercenary leader brought his hand back to the SIG’s trigger—only to see Eddie jump down and drop out of sight behind the debris. “Goddammit!” he snarled.

Kagan had flinched back from the explosion’s shrapnel. Now he recovered and brought his gun back toward the targets below—

Hoyt spotted the movement and fired, forcing the Russian to retreat as crystalline splinters stabbed at him.

“Orbach!” Lock shouted to the man at the lake’s edge. “Secure the sample! We’ve got to get it out of here.” The mercenary nodded, closing the lid over the black poison inside the steel jar and pushing a button. A latch snapped into place, and a red LED turned green to confirm that the container was sealed.

Nina looked fearfully down at the cavern below, then back up at Berkeley as he managed to brace his other foot against the rock. He strained to lift her, raising her by several inches, but still couldn’t maneuver her within reach of a firm handhold. “Nina, I—I can’t get you any higher!” Their eyes met. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, the apology completely genuine.

She saw helpless surrender in his gaze—but refused to accept it. “Swing me,” she gasped.

“What?”

“Swing me!” Instead of holding on to the broken nub, she pushed against it, rocking herself sideways. “I can reach that ledge!”

“You’ll never make it!” The crystal spar she had spotted was about ten feet below her—and almost as far off to the side.

“I will if you throw me hard enough.” She gave him a pained grin. “Come on, I’m sure you spent your time in jail thinking about tossing me off a high cliff.”

“Don’t remind me,” he replied, but with a very faint hint of amusement. His grip tightened as he prepared himself. “Okay, you ready?”

Nina took a breath. “Yeah.” She tensed her arm. “All right, and … 
swing
!”

She shoved against the rock as Berkeley hauled her sideways. Her legs swung across the gap. Not far enough; she pulled herself back, then pushed again. Another sweep of the human pendulum, wider this time—then again, going even farther. “One more!”

He complied, grunting with effort. Nina swept back, then pushed herself off the protruding rock for the last time.
“Let go!”

Berkeley released her—and she sailed across the gap, gravity reclaiming her at the top of her arc. The crystal rushed past—

She threw out both arms to catch it, hitting hard. The impact felt like a baseball bat across her chest, the pain so intense she couldn’t breathe. Her nails rasped at the
scabrous surface, but she couldn’t get a proper grip, her own weight dragging her inexorably over the edge …

A gasp of sheer terror—and she dug her clawed hands into a crack in the crystal. Fingernails snapped, but adrenaline blotted out the pain. Drawing on some deep reserve of strength, she dragged herself onto the span, exhausted.

Below, Lock looked around at Orbach as the masked mercenary, carrying the container of eitr, hurried up from the lake toward his employer. “Have you got it?” Lock demanded. The other man showed him the green light on the canister. “Okay, good. We need to get moving.” He raised his voice. “Cover us! We’re leaving!”

“I’m gonna take care of Chase,” Hoyt insisted, his tone making it clear that he would not accept any orders to the contrary. Lock frowned, but nodded. “Franks, with me—the rest of you give the boss cover!”

One of the mercenaries joined Hoyt, the pair hopping from spar to spar as they advanced on the Englishman. The other two resumed their assault on Kagan as Lock and Orbach ducked between the crystalline columns to reach an ascending span.

Kagan saw them go, but he was forced to pull back as more bullets smacked against his cover. “Chase!” he shouted in warning. “They’re coming for you!”

Behind the slabs of broken black crystal, Eddie had caught his breath, but he now faced other threats apart from the approaching gunmen. The heat at the bottom of the cavern was nauseating, and every inhalation stung as the rising fumes scoured at his nasal passages. He was only just above the surface of the eitr lake—and puddles of the deadly ooze swelled up through gaps in the raft of debris as his weight pressed down on them. He hurriedly sidestepped away from the nearest, horribly aware that a mere splash could kill him in minutes.

If he lasted that long. “Go ’round that end,” he heard Hoyt order. Footsteps crunched over broken shards on
the other side of his cover, the two mercenaries separating to circle him. He raised the Wildey, but knew he would only have time for one shot—he would never be able to turn and aim fast enough to take out the second man behind him.

Unless he drove one of them back, even for a couple of seconds …

A section of smashed stalactite about two feet long poked up nearby, one end submerged in the eitr. As far as he could tell in the unnatural light from the globes, its upper end was free of splattered black oil.

If he was wrong, he would die. But that was about to happen anyway—

Eddie grabbed the stalactite. Momentary relief that it was dry, then he tugged it. Eitr glooped up from below as it came free. He swung it around, using centrifugal force to keep the deadly substance dripping off the crystal away from him—then lobbed it at one end of the makeshift barricade.

“Fuck!”
Hoyt gasped. The American jumped back from the poisonous missile, arms swinging as he stumbled on the uneven surface.

Eddie took full advantage of his enemy’s moment of distraction, spinning as Franks rounded the opposite end of the broken bridge, SIG at the ready—

The Wildey boomed, the bullet blowing the man off his feet. He crashed down on his back—and part of the unstable floor shattered, the steaming ooze beneath welling up and swallowing him. Limbs flailing, the mercenary was sucked down into the lake.