James Rollins - Map of Bones

No…

He didn’t want to see this. But he could not turn away. Time stretched toward the infinite. He was trapped, aflame in a cleansing light, far more painful than any Hell.

He faced himself, his life, his possibility, his ruin, his salvation…

He saw the truth — and it burned.

No more…

But the worst was still to come.

SEICHAN CLUTCHED the old man to her chest. Both kept their heads bowed from the blinding eruption of light, but Seichan caught glimpses from the corner of her eyes.

The fiery star blasted skyward on a fountain of light, rising from the center of the labyrinth and spinning upward into the dark cathedral above. Other glass mirrors, embedded in the vast library, caught the starshine and reflected it back a hundredfold, feeding the rising maelstrom. A cascade reaction spread through the entire complex. In a heartbeat, the two-dimensional star unfolded into a giant three-dimensional sphere of laser light, spinning within and around the subterranean cathedral.

Energy scintillated and crackled out from it, sweeping the tiers.

Screams bellowed and rang.

Over her head, one soldier leapt from the tier above, trying to get to the floor below. But there was no sanctuary for him. Bolts struck him before he ever hit the ground, burning him to bone by the time he crashed to the labyrinth floor.

But most disturbing of all, something had happened to the arched cathedral itself. The view seemed to flatten, losing all sense of depth. And even this image shimmered, as if what hung above her was merely a reflection in water, not real, a mirage.

Seichan closed her eyes, afraid to watch, terrified to the core.

GRAY HELD Rachel. The world was pure light. He sensed the chaos beyond, but here it was just the two of them. The droning hum again rose around them, coming from within the light, a threshold he could not cross or comprehend.

He remembered Vigor’s words.

Primordial light .

Rachel lifted her face. Her eyes were so bright in the reflected light that he could almost sense her thoughts. She seemed to read him, too.

Something in the character of the light, a permanence that could not be denied, an agelessness that made everything small.

Except for one thing.

Gray leaned down, lips brushing hers, breaths shared.

It wasn’t love. Not yet. Just a promise.

The light flared brighter as Gray deepened his kiss, tasting her. What once droned, now sang. His eyes closed, but he still saw her. Her smile, her flash of eye, the angle of her neck, the curve of her breast. He felt that permanence again, that ageless presence.

Was it the light? Was it the two of them?

Only time would tell.

GENERAL RENDE fled with the first screams. He didn’t need to investigate further. As he clambered out of the stairwell into the kitchen, he had seen the sheen of energies reflected up from below.

He had not gotten this far in the Court from being foolhardy.

That he left to lieutenants like Raoul.

Flanked by two soldiers, he retreated out of the palace, winding toward the main courtyard. He would commandeer the truck, return to the warehouse, regroup there, and strategize a new plan.

He needed to be back in Rome before noon.

As he exited the door, he noted that the exterior guard, still in police uniforms, maintained the gate. He also noted the rain had slowed to a drizzling mist.

Good.

It would hasten his retreat.

Near the truck, the driver and another four uniformed guards noticed his approach and came forward to meet him.

“We must leave immediately,” Rende ordered in Italian.

“Somehow I don’t see that happening,” the driver said in English, pulling back his cap.

The four uniformed guards raised weapons at his group.

General Rende took a step back.

These were real French police…except for the driver. From his accent, he was obviously an American.

Rende glanced back to the gateway. More French policemen stood guard. He’d been betrayed by his own ruse.

“If you’re looking for your men,” the American said, “they’re already secured in the back of the truck.”

General Rende stared at the driver. Black hair, blue eyes. He didn’t recognize him, but he knew the voice from conversations over the phone.

“Painter Crowe,” he said.

PAINTER SPOTTED a flash of muzzle fire. From the second-story window of the palace. A lone sniper. Someone they had missed.

“Back!” he yelled to the patrol around him.

Bullets chewed across the wet pavement, strafing between Painter and the general. The police scattered to the side.

Rende fled back, yanking out his pistol.

Ignoring the automatic fire, Painter dropped to one knee, lifting two weapons, one in each fist. Aiming instinctively, Painter pointed one pistol toward the upper window.

Pop, pop, pop…

The general dropped to the ground.

A cry sounded from the second story. A body tumbled out.

But Painter noted it only from the corner of his eye. His full focus was on General Rende. They both pointed guns at the other, both kneeling, weapons almost touching.

“Back away from the truck!” Rende said. “All of you!”

Painter stared hard at the man, judging him. He read the raw fury in the other’s eyes, everything falling apart around him. Rende would shoot, even if it meant forfeiting his life.

The man offered him no choice.

Painter dropped his first pistol, then lowered the second gun away from Rende’s face, pointing it at the ground.

The general grinned triumphantly.

Painter squeezed the trigger. An arc of brilliance shot out from the tip of the second pistol. The taser barbs struck the puddle at the general’s knee. The jolt of electricity blew Rende off his legs, slamming him onto his back, gun flying.

He screamed.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Painter said, snatching up his regular pistol and covering the general.

The police swarmed around the fallen man.

“Are you all right?” one of the patrolman asked Painter.

“Fine.” He stood. “But damn…I really miss fieldwork.”

DOWN IN the cavern, the fireworks had only lasted a little over a minute.

Vigor lay on his back, staring up. The screaming had stopped. He had opened his eyes, sensing at the primitive level of his brain that it was over. He caught the last spin of the sphere of coherent light, then watched it collapse inward on itself like a dying sun.

Above stretched empty space.

The entire cathedral had flickered and vanished with the star.

Seichan stirred from where she had sheltered beside him. Her eyes were also fixed above. “It’s all gone.”

“If it was ever there,” Vigor said, weak from blood loss.

GRAY BROKE the embrace with Rachel, the acuity of his senses fading with the light. But he still tasted her on his lips. That was enough.

For now.

Some of the shine remained in her eyes as she searched around. The others were stirring from where they had flattened themselves against the ground. Rachel spotted Vigor, struggling to sit up.

“Oh God…” she said.

She slipped out of Gray’s arm to check on her uncle. Monk headed in the same direction, ready to employ his medical training.

Gray kept guard, staring at the heights around him.

No shots rang out. The soldiers were gone…along with the library. It was as if something had cored out the center, leaving only the amphitheater-like rings of ascending tiers.

Where had it all gone?

A moan drew his attention to the floor.

Raoul lay crumpled nearby, curled around his trapped arm, crushed under the fallen pillar. Gray stepped over and kicked his pistol aside. It skittered across the glass floor, now a cracked and scattered jigsaw.