The Jewels of Cyttorak (14 page)

If she took the alliance with Toole, there would be no doubt that the Thieves Guild would be in danger. The entire balance of power in New Orleans would vanish like steam above the Bananas Foster served in the Three Sisters Restaurant on Bourbon.

He listened as Toole laughed softly to himself. Clearly the man didn’t need a lecture on the old ways of New Orleans. He knew them and was playing them against each other.

So what was Remy going to do now? His idea of dropping in on Toole for a lesson seemed pointless at the moment. He could drop down, take the guy out, and make his escape. But Toole was right. Someone else would quickly take Toole’s place.

Toole stopped laughing to himself and stood. Remy moved slightly so that he could see down through a small crack down into the office.

Toole moved out from behind his desk, locked the door with a dead bolt, then went to the ornate bar. Quickly he picked up and set down six different bottles in succession.

There was a small click.

Right below Remy a panel opened on the front of Toole’s desk.

Toole picked up and sat down three more bottles, then moved over to the open panel and knelt.

Remy could see Toole twisting what must have been the tumbler of a safe, then pulled it open. Toole reached into the open safe and pulled out a pouch of some sort, tied with a drawstring.

Toole opened the pouch and slid a large emerald out onto his palm.

Remy could hear Toole’s sigh all the way through the ceiling.

“Okay,” Toole said, his voice solid and fairly loud. “Come and try to take this now.”

Toole held the emerald out in front of him for a moment, then slipped it back in the bag, put the bag back in the safe, and closed the panel door.

Remy just shook his head as Toole went back to the bar and reversed his combination of bottles, then headed for the door to his office. A moment later he disappeared from Remy’s view out the door.

What in the world was that about?
Remy thought as he slowly sat up in the crawlspace.

For the entire flight west Cain had sat silently, hunched over, staring out the front window of the X-Men’s plane. He hated these wimpy, do-gooders run by his stepbrother. He was so used to fighting with them, that he almost considered lashing out at them right now.

But he didn’t. Once before, they needed his help against Magneto, and he gave it because Cain didn’t want to live in a world run by the so-called master of magnetism. This time, much as Cain hated to admit it, he needed their help.

From what he could tell by the pain in his chest, they had been right about where he had been heading. As the night wore on, it became very clear to him that he was still going in the right direction.

If it really was this Robert Service person who was causing his pain, he felt almost sorry for the guy. He was going to be nothing more than a smear on the sidewalk by the time Cain got through with him. And if there was another stone from the temple, Cain was going to own it, just so no one else would ever cause him this kind of pain again.

“Boise, Idaho,” Summers said, pointing down at the city below and to the left of the plane. “Where Service spent the last part of the night.”

Cain said nothing. He’d been thankful that Summers and his good-looking wife hadn’t talked all night long. With the pain in his chest making him feel trapped, the

addition of stupid small-talk from the couple would have made it impossible to keep from tearing their plane apart in midair. Then he would have been back to walking. Not that he minded walking, but this way there was a chance he’d get this pain in his chest stopped sooner, rather than later.

It just galled him that it was his stepbrother’s little people that gave him the help. That he
needed
their help.

Suddenly the pain in his chest shifted. One moment it had been steady, then suddenly it was like someone was slicing a knife through his nerves.

He leaned slightly forward and stared out the window. Boise was behind them now. The source of his pain wasn’t on the plane to Portland, that much was suddenly clear.

“Turn right,” he said.

Summers glanced back at Cain, his visor giving the effect of being looked at with just one big eye. “What—?”

“
Right
,” Cain said again, his voice a low growl.

Summers shrugged. A moment later the plane banked slowly right toward the south.

Now the pain got even worse.

“Other direction,” Cain said.

Summers banked the jet back to the left, eventually heading north toward the mountains.

The pain eased back to where it had been all night.

Cain said nothing as both Summers and Grey glanced back at him.

After a moment Summers shrugged again and looked at Grey. “Guess we’re headed north for a while.”

“Guess so,” she said.

Cain said nothing. There was nothing he needed to say to the idiots. As soon as he found what was causing his pain, he wouldn’t need them anymore. And that wouldn’t be a moment too soon, as far as he was concerned.

Finding the right valley in all the hundred of valleys had been surprisingly easy in a helicopter. Robert had kept the emerald tightly gripped in his hand and the moment the helicopter got slightly off course, he turned it back in the right direction. Craig, the pilot, had asked no questions as to how Robert knew when to turn, and in which direction. One of the advantages of overpaying for a service was that it always guaranteed a great deal of cooperation and very few questions.

And Craig was just about willing to do anything.

The helicopter flew over a low saddle and dropped down into the tree-filled valley below, skimming a few hundred feet over the pines as he went down. Above them the rocky tops of the mountains towered, littered with drifts of white snow even though it was the middle of the summer.

During the first ten minutes in the mountains, Craig’s proximity to the trees had worried Robert, but then he’d settled into the movement of it and now understood it. There was no point in going any higher.

Robert pointed to the left over Craig’s shoulder and Craig swung the helicopter in that direction, heading down the river that wound its way through the bottom of this narrow valley. Inside his head, Robert felt the feeling

of correctness. This direction was right on the money.

And he was close.

Below them a clearing and a log cabin suddenly appeared, then disappeared behind them as Craig banked the helicopter to the left slightly to follow the river.

Instantly, the feeling inside Robert’s head switched from right to completely wrong.

“That log cabin was it,” he shouted to Craig. “Put the chopper down there.” He pointed to a clearing a half mile down the canyon from the cabin. He’d go back to the cabin alone from there. No doubt the person who owned part of the emerald knew he was coming. And was going to protect the gem if he could.

Robert wasn’t worried. Not in the slightest. It had taken him less than thirty minutes to find the gem in nine hundred square miles of wilderness. It was going to take even less time to secure it from whoever owned it.

Craig set the chopper down in the clearing with a slight bump, kicking up dust and pine needles with the wind from the blades.

“Keep it running,” Robert shouted over the noise of the engine to Craig. “This won’t take very long at all.”

Craig nodded, then shouted, “Duck when you get out.”

Robert only nodded and stepped out of the helicopter, keeping low until he was well away from the blades.

Then he stood up straight and at a quick run headed back up a dirt trail along the river toward the cabin. In his left hand, the emerald was grasped tightly. In his right, tucked into his jacket pocket, was his pistol.

As he went around the slight bend in the valley and started up the trail toward the cabin, he slipped the emerald into his shirt pocket and buttoned it. He’d cut a small hole on the inside of the pocket so the surface of the emerald could be against the skin of his chest. It gave him power, and just in case he needed it, the emerald was there.

Then he slowed to a fast walk and put both hands open and above his head in the traditional sign of surrender. Ahead of him, he could see the old log cabin tucked against the edge of the steep canyon wall. In front of it was an open meadow leading down to the river.

Robert had no doubt he was now being watched, most likely through a scope. But he figured this person, whoever he was, would at least want to talk for a moment before he shot. And it was on that piece of human nature that Robert was counting.

Robert was within thirty steps of the small front porch of the log cabin when the door opened and a man with a long white beard stepped out. He looked to be in his late fifties and had dark, angry eyes. He held a rifle cradled across his arms, and as he stepped to the front of the porch he said, “You can stop right there.”

Robert took two steps and halted, not more than six paces in front of the man.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve come to ask for your help,” Robert said, keeping his hands in the air.

The guy’s eyes looked at Robert. “You’re a big fella. What do you need my help for?’ ’

“I think you know,” Robert said.

The old man stared at Robert, then looked away into the open meadow. “Yeah, I know.”

Robert only nodded. ‘ ‘I could sense that you did. Do you know that something else is coming?”

The old man nodded. And for an instant there was a look of fear in the mountain man’s eyes.

“That’s what I need your help with,” Robert said. “If we combine our gems, both touch both stones, then we might be able to stop this red
thing
that’s coming. At least we’d have a fighting chance.”

“And you expect me to just drag out my stone and give it to you?”

“No,” Robert said. “I’ll give you mine, first.” Robert indicated his jacket pocket. “Can I bring it out?”

The old man nodded. “Real slow like.”

Robert slowly moved his right hand down into his jacket pocket, then quickly yanked the pistol out.

The old man didn’t have a chance. He didn’t even get his rifle out of the crook of his arm before Robert caught him with two shots.

The gunfire echoed down through the valley, swallowed by the faint rumble of the idling helicopter.

The old man’s rifle went clattering across the porch and down into the dirt as the he spun around and slammed into the logs of his home. Then slowly, a look of surprise on his face, he slouched to the wood of the porch.

“Sorry,” Robert said, tucking the pistol back into his pocket. “Just didn’t have any more time to talk.”

With a slow turn he located the direction the stone was in, then started off toward the side of the mountain behind the cabin. Within a few seconds, he had narrowed the location down to an old stump.

Two seconds later, he pulled the second part of the emerald out of the small knot in the bark and into the air. It was a third of the size of the one in his pocket, but still beautiful in the morning sun.

He held it up with his bare hands as its energy flowed over and through him, making him feel stronger, bigger than before.

Suddenly his clothes felt tight as his strength grew.

And inside his head he could feel two presences. One weak and very far away, in the southern part of the country. The other huge and red and very close.

And the red one was very angry.

Robert slipped the second emerald into his shirt pocket and at a full run headed back down the trail toward the waiting helicopter.

As he climbed in Craig looked startled. ‘‘What happened to your clothes?” he shouted over the roar of the engine.

“I’m still a growing boy,” Robert shouted back, then laughed.

Craig laughed with him as Robert pointed to the north down the valley away from the approaching red thing from the south.

‘ ‘Keep it low to the river for a ways,” Robert shouted to Craig, “then head straight for the McCall airport as fast as this bird will fly.”

“Ain’t got much choice,” Craig said. “Dunno what you just did friend, but you weigh a helluva lot more. ’Copter can barely make it.”

Robert just smiled.

Trying to track someone over the Idaho mountains with a small jet while being directed by the Juggernaut was not easy. And it was not something Scott had ever imagined he would ever be attempting.

From the moment they had crossed over the first range of mountains, Cain hadn’t said a word. He’d simply sat hunched over in the back of the
Blackbird
, pointing.

First right.

Then left.

Then back right.

Scott had brought the jet right down as close as he could to the tops of the mountains, but even at that he had to keep them a good thousand feet up, which meant they were three or four thousand feet above some of the valley floors. Even another plane down there would be nothing more than a speck against the rocks and trees, impossible to see.

Twice the banking turns of the jet had overshot where Cain wanted them to go. The entire process was frustrating beyond belief. But Scott had no better idea on how to track Service, especially now that it seemed he had left his own jet.