Labyrinth (33 page)

Kessel waited.

“Throw the scalpel away.”

Kessel eyed the surgical tool and then tossed it across the room. “There.”

Fairclough smiled. “See? That wasn’t so difficult. There’s no reason we can’t all get along with one another.”

Kessel shook his head. “I’m going to kill you. Right after I finish dealing with Dr. Jekyll here.”

Fairclough frowned. “You’ll do no such thing. If you even move, I’ll kill the woman.”

“Do it,” Annja said, speaking for the first time. “You’re better off just killing me now and getting it over with.”

Fairclough looked at her for a moment. “You know what? I think you just might be right, Annja.”

Then he leaned back, raised the sword even higher and brought it screaming down at Annja’s head.

Chapter 39

For a moment, the sword seemed suspended in space. Kessel watched in horror as it then shot down faster than he’d ever seen anything move. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

One final image burned itself into his memory as he watched. It was the image of Annja, looking…serene.

And then all hell broke loose.

The sword exploded in light and then vanished, leaving Annja completely unharmed.

Fairclough’s reaction was immediate. He started screaming and howling. His sword was gone.

Kessel almost missed the act of Jonas grabbing another scalpel and driving it toward his head. But his instincts saved him and, as the scalpel came up, Kessel twisted, evading the strike.

He leaned down and drove an elbow into Jonas’s sternum, down and into his heart. Kessel heard the pop as the xyphoid process bone shattered and then punctured the wall of the heart.

Jonas jerked once and a small bubble of blood popped out of his mouth and dribbled down the side of his face. Kessel leaned back and then grabbed Jonas’s head and jerked it to the side. The neck vertebrae shattered.

“Just to be sure,” he said quietly.

He climbed off Jonas and looked at Annja, who was still sitting very calmly in the chair. “Took you long enough to get here,” she said.

Kessel almost did a double take. “You knew I was alive?”

Annja raised her hands to draw his attention to her predicament. “I could tell you were still breathing. But it was shallow. I have to admit I was concerned that maybe I’d made a mistake.”

Kessel looked around.

“Fairclough’s gone. I think he’s probably going to be running for some time to come.” She looked down at the cuffs holding her to the chair. “You mind getting me out of here?”

Kessel fidgeted with the cuffs until they came loose. Annja stepped out of the chair and hugged him close. “Thank you. For coming for me.”

Kessel looked at her. “As if you wouldn’t have done the same thing for me. Hell, you
did
do the same thing for me. You saved my life.”

“I might have killed you.”

Kessel nodded. “But you didn’t. You had faith. You tried to make sure I still had a shot at living. And you gave me that second chance I needed.”

Annja smiled. “So, we’re even now? No debts? No bizarre obligations that I’ll have to collect on or give up?”

Kessel nodded. “We’re cool.”

Annja looked over his shoulder at Jonas’s corpse lying on the ground. “Imagine if he’d used his skill for good.”

Kessel shook his head. “Guys like that can’t even fathom being good. That’s why I might have gone a little overboard with him.”

“I don’t think anyone would call it unjustified given what you went through.”

Kessel took a deep breath. “Yeah, well, I just wanted to make sure there was no way he could rise from the dead, you know?”

“Unlike you.”

“Resurrection’s a bitch. What can I say?”

Annja turned and walked across the room. “We should leave. I don’t think we can do anymore down here, and frankly, I’d like to see the sun.”

Kessel held up a hand. “Hang on a second.”

Annja stopped. “What is it?”

“How come you gave him the sword? I mean, earlier you tried to give it to me and it didn’t work. So how come you gave it to him freely like that? You looked shattered. I really thought you were gone.”

“The fact that I couldn’t give you the sword earlier in the maze was actually what helped me defeat Fairclough. I had to do something so completely unexpected in order to have any hope of getting out of this place.”

“Sorry,” Kessel said, “might be the knock on my head or that I’m more tired than I’ve been in a very long time. But I don’t follow your line of reasoning.”

Annja leaned against the counter. “This maze, every aspect of it, was set up—designed—to take advantage of our actions and our human nature. Fairclough knew that if we were faced with certain obstacles and challenges, we’d respond predictably. He was able to dictate every step we took. And as our frustration mounted, we would be depressed, tired and on the verge of giving up.”

“Yeah, I was pretty devastated.”

“Exactly,” Annja said. “And that’s what he wanted. Not so much you, but he wanted to break me. Only then would he be able to get what he really wanted.”

“You.”

Annja rolled her right shoulder to loosen it. “I was prize B. What Fairclough really wanted was the sword.”

“How do you know?”

“I wasn’t sure until I offered it to him. Or rather, I let him lead the conversation where the offer could come up.”

“You manipulated him, in other words.”

“It was the only way I could turn the tables on him. Starting back in the maze, I had to do something that went against everything Fairclough had set up. I had to do something that none of his research could have predicted. So I climbed the slide, that impossible Teflon-coated slide that was like defying gravity. Fairclough never expected that—he never thought someone would even attempt it, so that was his weak point.”

“And you exploited that.”

“Yes.”

“But then—”

“When I had to fight you, I could see that you’d been altered. I didn’t know how, just that you weren’t under your own control. A red light kept blinking at the base of your skull, so I knew there had to be something to that.”

“Big risk,” he pointed out.

“Huge,” Annja agreed. “But it was the only thing I had to go on. And like you said, I needed a lot of faith.”

“Okay, so you took me down and severed the connection. Weren’t you scared you’d hurt me?”

“Terrified. But as soon as I could feel you breathing, I knew you were still alive, albeit unconscious. In that moment, I had another opportunity to turn things on Fairclough.”

“So you pretended to give up.”

“Yes.”

“And then when things really fell apart, you offered the sword to Fairclough.”

Annja smiled. “Of course, he told me some sob story about me killing his brother, but I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. What I think is that Fairclough heard about me and started tracking me down. The rumor that some mystical sword existed is enough that people would want to get their hands on it any way they could.”

Kessel gestured around them. “But to go to these lengths? You really think this was for the sword?”

“Honestly, I want to say yes,” Annja said. “But who can really tell?”

“Fairclough could.”

Annja smiled. “I don’t think he’ll stop running for a while,” she repeated. “Especially now that he doesn’t have the sword anymore.”

“Speaking of which,” Kessel said, “I’d love to know how you pulled that one off. That was some trick if ever I saw one.”

Annja shook her head. “It wasn’t a trick. Fairclough really did have the sword in his possession.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” Annja sighed. “When I was unable to give it to you earlier on, I had to wonder why I hadn’t been successful. I couldn’t really figure it out, but then Fairclough of all people clarified things for me.”

“He did?”

“Believe it or not,” Annja said. “He told me that the reason I hadn’t been successful in giving it to you was because deep down I still knew I needed it. There was still evil to battle here in the maze. And I couldn’t do it without the sword.”

“But you still had to battle Fairclough,” Kessel said. “So how could you give it up right then and there?”

“Because,” Annja said patiently. “I knew at that point that I had something even more powerful than the sword to defeat Fairclough.”

“And what was that?”

“Faith.”

“Faith.” Kessel shook his head. “That’s going pretty damned far on such a little thing.”

“Is it?” Annja stretched her hands overhead, enjoying the pull on her muscles. “I think you’re right. Faith is such a little thing that most people take it for granted in their daily lives. They get to it when they get to it. Marginalized.”

Kessel eyed her. “You turning religious on me now, Annja?”

“My point is this. Since most people marginalize their faith—in God, the universe, Mother Nature—they are never really prepared to have it tested. And when those tests come, most people fail them.”

“You’ve never had a crisis of faith, then? I find that hard to believe,” he said.

Annja laughed. “My entire life has been a crisis of faith. From the time I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to know what the deal was with all the bullshit in my life. Why me? What did I do to warrant all this? Was I an evil person in a former life and this is my punishment? What?”

“So what did you do?”

She shrugged. “I never stopped believing in the power of good.”

“That’s it?”

“There you go again. Don’t minimize it. Because if anything, it’s bigger than everything we know.”

“It certainly was this time.”

“Every time,” Annja said. “No matter how down we might get, no matter how depressed or overwhelmed we feel, if we simply accept that the universe is a balance, then we know that it will correct itself. And if we can help it correct itself, then we owe it to the universe to do just that.”

“You’re an amazing woman,” Kessel said.

“No, I’m really not. I’m just trying to figure out life. Sometimes I feel like I might have an idea what it’s all about, but then something else happens and it ruins all my theories.”

“Then why bother trying to understand it?”

“Because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. That’s what my purpose in this life is.”

“Not to battle evil? I think some might disagree with you on that one.”

“Battling evil comes with the territory. You can’t quest for the purpose of life without encountering evil attempting to manipulate things to its own end. Anyone questing for answers will always run into evil. It’s unavoidable.”

“Which explains why so few people ever do search for the truth.”

“Exactly. I’ve just been lucky enough to find some answers along the way.”