Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

And then suddenly he realized he knew the answer.

“Your name is Fear,” Gabriel said.

The sphinx stepped back, silent.

“You’re their child,” Gabriel said. “The child of the Father of Fear. What else would have been sufficient to bring the men of Taprobane on a voyage halfway around the world? No ordinary treasure would, no mere prize, no artifact. But a sphinx cub, unlawfully bred, the unlawful child of an illicit union—that they could not let alone. They came for you, they found you, and they brought you back here. You were the treasure—your father’s divine treasure, your mother’s holy treasure. And then they…what? Punished them? By turning them to stone?”

“They gave her a choice.” The sphinx’s head was bowed, its eyes downcast. “I was tiny then, a newborn practically, no more than a century and a half; but I remember it as if it were this morning. She could die, or I could.

“They told her my father had already chosen, that they’d left his body deep within his temple, at eternal rest. That he’d gone with her name on his lips. And they showed her a coin, I remember, from his land…”

Gabriel reached into his pocket and drew out the pair of coins. He held them out on his palm. The female sphinx and the amphora on one, the male profile on the other, the two facing one another in his hand.

The sphinx’s cheeks trembled as it looked from one to the other. It threw back its head and howled, tears running down its face.

“And this place,” Gabriel said, “became your cradle, this dark and terrible mountain. Have you never left it? For two thousand years?”

“Longer,” the sphinx said. “Even longer.”

“But you must leave it sometimes,” Gabriel said, “if just to hunt for food—”

“I am old,” the sphinx whispered. “I hardly hunt anymore. I hardly eat anymore.”

There was a tone of despair in its voice, a sound of finality.

“We can get you food,” Gabriel said. “I can arrange for supplies to be flow in, I can—”

“And face men each day? No. No.” It stepped back, toward the shadow. “You have given me all I need. You have shown me my mother’s face again.”

“Please, let me do something to help—”

“Gabriel,” Sheba said.

He turned to her. “What?”

“Look,” she said, and pointed.

Turning back, he saw the gray of the sphinx’s fur deepening, darkening; then he saw the skin of its face turning stiff, blank, saw the liquid surface of its eyes harden. The change crept across its body gradually, but rapidly. In seconds it was over.

Gabriel stepped forward, touched its shoulder. The stone was still slightly warm. But as he felt it, it cooled beneath his hand.

He took the two coins, stacked them, and gently slid them into the statue’s open mouth, beneath its tongue.

Chapter 27

They found a stairway, carved into the rock, that led up to the top. The climb was torment—by the end, Gabriel’s legs were burning with pain and Sheba could barely walk.

They came out into a clear night sky. The storm had passed. The stone surface glistened wetly, but the air was warm and dry.

At the far end of the rock, near where DeGroet’s body lay, a familiar helicopter stood, its door open. The pilot was by the door, talking into a microphone, and when he spotted them walking toward him, he shouted.

“Hold on—yes, hold on! I found them!”

They staggered forward.

“How did you…?” Gabriel began, but for the moment he couldn’t get any more words out.

“Talk to your brother,” the pilot said, and handed over the microphone, then stepped around Gabriel to help Sheba up into the cabin.

“Gabriel? Are you okay?” It was Michael’s voice.

“I’ve been better,” Gabriel said.

“I want you back here now. ”

“Not half as much as I do,” Gabriel said. “How did you find me?”

“We tracked your signal,” Michael said.

“What…what signal? I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t have…”

“That guy, Cipher,” Michael said. “He sent me an e-mail saying he’d given you a device to track someone else, right? Well, he had the good sense to slip in a transmitter going the other way so we could track you, too. Clever, right? And we didn’t even ask him to do it, he just thought of it on his own.”

Gabriel found himself smiling. He saw his leather jacket lying ten feet away, a wet and crumpled heap on the stone. Somewhere in the heap was a pocket, and in the pocket Lucy’s box was silently sending out a signal. “Very clever.”

“I wish I could thank him properly,” Michael said. “But he refused to take any money. It’s strange, dealing with someone this way. I’ve never even met the man. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“Oh, he’s…uh…”

“What?” Michael said.

“Big,” Gabriel said, and wiped a tear out of his eye with the back of one thumb. “A big, big man. My size. Mean-looking.” He took a deep breath. “Lots of tattoos. Not your kind of guy, Michael. I think it’s better if you don’t meet him in person.”

“Well…maybe you’re right,” Michael said. “But I’m still grateful to him.”

“Me, too,” Gabriel said, climbing into the cabin. “Me, too.”

The End

From the Desk of Gabriel Hunt

When I was in Istanbul, I met a pair of writers doing research in the Yerebatan Sarayi, the Sunken Palace. One of them, I learned, was an author of adventure fiction, and when the time came for me to pen the book you’re holding, I tracked him down and asked if he might give me a hand. (I would have done it myself, gladly, but I was unfortunately tied up with some matters in Brazil at the time. And I do mean tied up.)

Happily, Charles agreed to help. And I asked him if, when the novel was finished, he might consider writing an extra adventure story of his own for the book, as a sort of bonus for the reader. Happily, he agreed to this as well.

So I’m delighted to present you with a surprise treat, a novelette that’s never appeared anywhere before: “Nor Idolatry Blind The Eye” by Charles Ardai.

—G.H.

I

The heel of the bottle cracked against the bar on the first swing and then shattered on the second. The few conversations in the room died. In the silence Malcolm could hear glass crunching under his feet. He felt his legs shake and put out his other hand to steady himself.

There were three of them, and a broken bottle wouldn’t hold them off long enough for him to get to the door. Assuming he could even make it to the door without falling on his face. There was a time when he could have made it in a dead sprint, turning over tables as he went to slow them down, but then there was a time when he wouldn’t have had to run from a fight in the first place, not if it were a whole regiment facing him. A time when he’d been able to hold his liquor, too. But that was all part of the past—the dead past, buried three winters ago in a cold Glasnevin grave.

He shook his head, but it didn’t get any clearer. He remembered coming to the pub, he remembered taking his first few drinks, and he remembered the three men taking up positions around him, reaching over his shoulder to collect their pints from the barman. Was that how the argument had started? Or had one of them said something? That he couldn’t remember. He supposed it didn’t matter.

The one in the middle was younger than the other two—just a kid, really. He was wearing a navy peajacket, probably his brother’s or father’s since he looked too young to have served himself. The others were dressed in denim windbreakers and dungarees, like they’d just stepped off a construction site. Which maybe they had—there was still plenty of rebuilding going on. The one on the left had the crumpled features of a boxer who’d taken too many trips to the mat. The one on the right looked almost delicate, his thin nose and long chin giving him the appearance of a society lad slumming in a tough neighborhood. Malcolm knew which one he’d prefer to face in a fight. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like he’d get to choose.