Douglas Preston - The Obsidian Chamber

Swinging out with her arm, Constance knocked the gun aside just as the shot came, the round hitting the ground next to her with a thud and kicking up a gout of sand. Constance’s head was turned, but the attacker got a faceful. The woman fell back, shaking her head to try to clear the sand from her eyes, firing wildly, again and again and again, the shots going wide as Constance, gasping for breath, jumped on her once more and — with the strength of a rising madness — grabbed the gun and tore it away, jammed it into the woman’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

The clip was finally empty. In that moment the girl — with remarkable presence of mind — took full advantage of her momentary astonishment, striking Constance across the face with a karate chop and then rolling out from under her, reversing their positions. Now she was on top, and had recovered her knife from the sand; she lunged downward, but Constance rolled and the thrust went through the heavy material of her dress into the sand. With a determined silence the girl slashed and tore with the knife, back and forth, but it had snagged in the fabric. As her adversary worked to free her knife, Constance managed to draw her own stiletto out of her bodice and instantly thrust it upward.

The woman jumped back, landing nimbly but giving Constance time to get to her own feet. They circled each other like scorpions, knives drawn.

“Who are you?” Constance asked. The young woman looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place her.

“Your worst nightmare,” came the reply.

She thrust; Constance danced to one side.

That was when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Diogenes. He had appeared at the edge of the beach and was watching them. His arms were folded, just like a spectator’s.

But Constance had to maintain focus — and with a cool opponent like this she could not afford to give in to homicidal anger. The two circled tensely. She could see from the way the girl held her knife, and her light and quick movements, that she was far more experienced with a blade and that Constance would lose any extended contest.

The woman lunged; Constance dodged, but just barely, the swipe tearing the fabric of her sleeve and nicking flesh.

“A hit, a very palpable hit,” said Diogenes.

She jabbed at the woman and found only air, the woman leaping to one side with a spinning martial arts movement, capitalizing on Constance’s miss by offering her own lightning cut, this one nicking Constance’s wrist even as she pivoted to avoid it.

One of those jabs was going to find its way home, Constance realized, and soon. Her heavy dress, weighted down with her blood, was slowing her. Would Diogenes intervene? But no: another glance revealed him standing in place, a look of interest, even amusement, on his face. Of course this would be just the kind of spectacle he’d enjoy: two women fighting to the death over him.

The heavy dress … The masses of fabric could be to her advantage. But she had to move fast; any moment, the attacker would connect with a thrust.

Constance made her move: taking a running leap at the woman, she swung her legs up in a swirl of fabric, enveloping her opponent in the dress; the girl, taken completely by surprise, issued a muffled cry and slashed with the knife, but it rent only cloth as they both fell to the sand, Constance scissoring the woman tightly between her knees. The woman thrashed and struggled, keening with fury, but she couldn’t get her knife arm out of the tangle of material.

Crushing the girl between her legs, Constance twisted around, picked up the gun, and slammed the woman in the side of her head with it, and then again, until the screaming turned into a gurgle and she felt the woman’s body go limp. Now she pinned the stuporous girl’s knife arm, wrenching the wrist around and forcing the blade from it. Snatching up the knife, she scrambled backward, then rose unsteadily, knives in both hands.

Her attacker lay on the sand, unable to rise, moaning and semiconscious.

Constance turned to Diogenes. He was flushed, breathing fast, a look of almost sexual excitement in his eyes. This was the old Diogenes; the one she remembered so well. He made no move to help her and said nothing; he was spellbound by what he had just witnessed.

She felt abruptly dizzy. She placed her hands on her knees and lowered her head to try to clear it, taking deep breaths.

After a moment she heard Diogenes speak: she looked up, but he was not talking to her. The look of libidinous gratification on his face had changed to one of utter amazement and consternation, as he stared at a dark figure emerging from the buttonwood. The figure stepped forward into the last glimmer of twilight, dressed in a sleek black wet suit.

“ Ave, frater ,” came Diogenes’s rasping salutation.

Constance stood on the sand, the semiconscious girl moaning at her feet, and stared in utter disbelief. Pendergast— is it really him ? — was approaching, gun in hand. He was like a vision; she could hardly comprehend what she was seeing.

“Aloysius,” she breathed. “My God. You’re alive! ”

She started to rush toward him, but something in his expression stopped her dead in her tracks.

“ Ave, frater ,” Diogenes said again. He was weaving in place slightly, almost as if he were drunk.

Pendergast raised the gun. At first, he aimed it somewhere between Constance and Diogenes. Then, after a moment, he trained it squarely on his brother. His eyes, however, were on Constance.

“Before I kill him,” he said, “I need to know: do you love him?”

Constance looked at him in shock and disbelief. “ What? ”

“The question is clear. Do you love him?”

She felt movement at her feet. The girl, having regained her senses, had taken advantage of the standoff and made a shambolic run for a nearby cluster of mangroves. Pendergast paid no attention to her.

Now Constance was beginning to recover from the shock of seeing Pendergast standing, alive, before her. A hundred questions rose in her mind: What happened? Where have you been? Why didn’t you reach out to me? But the look on Pendergast’s face made it clear this was no time for questions.

“I detest him,” she said. “I always have — and always will.”

“ Love lives on hope ,” Diogenes said in a singsong voice. “ And dies when hope is dead. ”

Pendergast ignored this, his gaze fixed on Constance. “Then perhaps you could explain why you left our Riverside Drive residence with him of your own free will — injuring Lieutenant D’Agosta in the process.”

Constance took a deep breath. Her head was clearing from the fight, and she felt that amazing strength returning. In a calm, steady voice, she told him how she’d believed him to be dead; how she’d been wooed by Diogenes with confessions of love and the revelation that Leng’s synthesized arcanum had begun to backfire — and of her own secret plan: how she hated Diogenes and realized his reappearance was her opportunity to wreak a vengeance on him more terrible than death. “You must trust me, Aloysius,” she concluded. “I will explain it all, in full — in due time.” She gestured at Diogenes, standing there, listening. “But meanwhile, you can see the result for yourself. Look at him: a broken man.”

Pendergast listened to the entire recitation in silence, gun lowered. “So you were lying to him? From the very beginning?”

“Yes.”

“And you do not love him,” Pendergast repeated, as if unable to quite comprehend.

“No. No! ”

“I’m so glad.” And he repointed the gun at Diogenes’s head.