‘You can’t get away,’ she said, trying to keep all attention on her. She held Macy close so she wouldn’t see her father and give away his presence. ‘Holly, come towards me, slowly. Keep your eyes on me. Everything’s going to be okay.’ Outside, Eddie carefully sidestepped along the wooden boards, heading for the pane behind the Mikkelssons. He still had his crutch, but now held it under one arm like a lance, ready to use as a weapon.
Nina glanced down. Most of the floor was in shadow, a higher building across the street blocking the sun, but Eddie would have to pass through a line of light angling diagonally across it. ‘The cops will be here any second,’ she said.
‘They will not arrive quickly enough to save you,’ Mikkelsson replied. He flicked his gun towards Holly, who stiffened in fear. ‘Stop there. I have no quarrel with you.’
‘Please don’t hurt anyone,’ the young woman sobbed, looking around. Nina stopped breathing. If her niece saw Eddie, her surprise would give his presence away—
‘Holly, look at me!’ she commanded. ‘Do what he says, stay still.’ To her relief, Holly faced her again. ‘Sarah, thank you for giving Macy back to me. Thank you so much. Please, convince him not to do something that’ll haunt her for the rest of her life.’
‘She’s right,’ Sarah said to Mikkelsson. ‘Fenrir, let’s go. Please?’ She reached out and placed a hand on top of the gun, gently pushing it downwards. ‘If you love me, if you loved Ana like you say you did, you won’t do this.’
The Icelander’s expression remained unreadable, his unnerving gaze still fixed upon Nina. Then…
‘No,’ he said sharply.
He shoved Sarah away, sending her staggering as he snapped the gun back up — only to glance down at the floor as a shadow flitted across it—
The window behind him exploded.
Eddie swung the crutch like an axe, smashing the glass and hurling himself through the opening. He landed on the crate, rolling off it to tackle the big man and slam him to the floor.
Mikkelsson reflexively fired the gun as he fell. Sarah screamed as the bullet hit her leg. She collapsed. ‘Holly, take Macy!’ Nina yelled as her niece stared in petrified shock. ‘ Run! ’ Holly snapped into motion and grabbed the little girl, running with her through the door as Nina rushed to help her husband.
Eddie grappled with Mikkelsson. The crutch skittered away from them. The Yorkshireman managed to hook an arm around his opponent’s neck and squeezed hard, trying to choke him. Mikkelsson drove an elbow into his side, then twisted to point the gun over his shoulder at Eddie’s face. Eddie gripped his wrist and pushed it away as he fired.
The gunshot deafened him, all sounds replaced by a shrill, dizzying ring. Mikkelsson was little better off, but still delivered another blow to the other man’s injured ribs. Eddie convulsed in pain. Mikkelsson strained and his raw strength overcame his adversary’s grip. He pulled free—
Nina swung the crutch like a baseball bat. Its padded end smacked the gun from his hand. It spun away and hit the broken window’s frame, landing on the edge of the boards outside. The siren’s howl cut off below as an NYPD patrol car skidded to a stop outside the building.
She tried to send a second strike at Mikkelsson’s head, but he kicked her legs out from under her. She fell, her head cracking painfully against the floor. The holdall swam across her blurry vision.
Behind it, Mikkelsson pulled himself up on the crate.
Eddie tried to drag him back down, but the other man lashed out, hitting his bullet wound. The Englishman screamed. Mikkelsson scrambled to the broken window, about to climb through and use the scaffolding to escape—
He saw the gun.
Kicking out the remaining shards of glass, the Icelander ducked on to the scaffold and bent to snatch up the weapon. He turned to kill the couple—
Nina grabbed the holdall containing the Crucible — and threw it at him. ‘Don’t leave this behind!’
It hit him in the stomach. He stumbled backwards… and slipped over the edge.
Mikkelsson snatched at a scaffolding pole as he toppled, but missed. He plunged shrieking towards the ground, the Crucible falling with him—
He landed on the police car. Its roof imploded beneath him, the windows bursting apart and showering the street with glass. People on the sidewalk yelled and ran from the glittering hailstorm.
The holdall hit the kerb beside the car with a bang, the crystalline sphere inside it shattering into thousands of glassy fragments.
The Crucible — the Atlantean artefact that had forged the lost civilisation’s supplies of gold, that had driven Talonor’s journeys across the world to find another natural nuclear reactor, that had caused an untold number of deaths as men and women were overcome by greed for what it could produce — had been destroyed.
Seven floors above, Nina stared at the empty space beyond the window, then went to assist her husband. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you.’
He put a hand to one ear. ‘What?’ he replied loudly.
‘I said I’ve got you!’
‘All right, no need to shout! Jesus, my ears hurt. What happened, where’s—’ He regarded the window, then looked back at Nina. ‘You got him?’
‘Unless he sprouted wings on the way down, yeah.’ She helped him up, and they both peered at the street below. ‘Oh my God, he’s still alive!’ A weakly moving figure was splayed across the crushed roof of the police car, embedded in the metal.
‘Don’t think he’ll be making a run for it,’ Eddie rumbled. One of the Icelander’s legs had acquired an extra joint halfway down the shin. ‘What about Macy — where’s Macy?’ he barked in sudden alarm.
‘With Holly.’ Nina retrieved his crutch, sparing a moment to glance at Sarah, who was moaning as she clutched her leg. The bullet wound was bloody, but not actually gushing; no major arteries had been torn. ‘Keep your hand pressed on it; there’ll be an ambulance here soon,’ she told her.
Eddie’s accumulated injuries barely slowed him as he hobbled determinedly from the room. ‘Macy!’ he called. ‘Holly, where are you? Macy!’
‘We’re down here!’ came a frantic voice from the stairwell. The couple hurriedly descended, finding Holly with their daughter halfway down. Both were crying.
‘We’re okay, we’re okay,’ Nina assured them. She took Macy and held her tightly. ‘We’re here now, we’re both here.’
‘Mommy!’ cried Macy, wrapping her arms around her mother.
‘What’s Daddy, chopped liver?’ said Eddie, managing a pained smile. He joined the huddle, embracing them both. ‘Jesus Christ, love, I’m so happy to see you.’
Macy let out a little gasp. ‘Daddy! You swore!’
‘Get used to it, kid. I’m back.’ He gave Nina a look to let her know he was joking, then turned at the sound of someone running up the stairs.
A pair of uniformed NYPD officers arrived. ‘You the guy who called Detective Martin?’ one asked Eddie.
‘Yeah,’ replied Eddie, adding to Nina at the mention of his friend on the force: ‘Thought it’d be quicker to tell Amy I needed help than go through 911 and have to explain everything.’ He looked back at the cops. ‘Our little girl’s fine, and we’re all okay. There’s a woman with a gunshot wound on the seventh floor; she’s one of the bad guys.’
‘There’s another bad guy?’ the second cop said.
‘You might want to go check on your car,’ Nina told them. ‘And I mean literally on your car. He went out the window. He’s still alive, though — and currently top of the international most-wanted list, so that should get you some brownie points for catching him.’
The officers exchanged surprised glances, then one took out his radio and reported in as he continued upstairs at a run, the other clattering back down to ground level. Eddie let go of his wife and daughter to hold Holly. ‘You all right?’
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