Owen kept counting and pushing.
“Owen, he’s gone.”
“No,” he said. “It would take more than that to kill him.”
Grace looked up at Natalya, and she knelt down on his other side. They both put their arms around him, and gradually the compressions ceased, and he just leaned over Griffin with his hands pressing against the middle of the Assassin’s chest. They stayed that way for several moments, saying nothing as the water behind them warbled on, which seemed wrong, as if the stream should have stopped.
Grace couldn’t make sense of this.
It was a matter of minutes.
Only minutes.
Minutes ago, they were sitting on the hill, talking about Griffin as an Assassin baby. Now, minutes later, they were kneeling in a stream, with Griffin’s blood on their clothes, and he was dead. She couldn’t figure out how this had happened.
Owen sat up straighter, and Grace and Natalya lowered their arms from his back. Then he reached across Griffin to his right arm, and he pulled up his sleeve. There on his wrist was his hidden blade, this one ceramic. Owen undid the straps and slid it over Griffin’s hand. Then he placed it on his own wrist.
“Just until I can give it to Javier,” he said.
“His phone!” Natalya said, and she searched his pockets until she found it. But the stream had found it first, and the phone wouldn’t do them any good now.
Grace didn’t want to be the one to mention his wallet, but they were going to need money. They were stuck in a foreign country with fake passports, no cell phone, and a Piece of Eden. Without saying a word, she reached under him, found his back pocket, and then she pulled his wallet out. Owen and Natalya saw what she did, but they didn’t say anything, either, and the three of them sat in silence.
Silence.
Something was missing.
“Do you hear the helicopters?” Grace asked.
Owen craned his neck. “No.”
“I don’t, either,” Natalya said.
Grace didn’t believe Isaiah had called off the search. Not when he knew someone else had taken the final prong of the Trident. But the helicopters weren’t in the air anymore, and she couldn’t hear anything in the forest except for what was supposed to be there.
“I don’t want to leave him here,” Owen said, looking at Griffin’s body.
Grace didn’t like the idea, either. But they’d left the shovels behind during the chaos at the bottled water plant, so they had no way to dig him a grave. And they also had to keep moving. They had to find a way to get the prong away from here, and away from Isaiah.
“He wouldn’t want you to worry about him anymore,” Natalya said. “You know that. He’d want you to escape, and get the dagger away from Isaiah.”
Owen nodded, looking down at the hidden blade he now wore on his wrist. “Let’s get moving. It’s not going to get any easier by sitting here.”
Grace and Natalya looked at each other and gently nodded. Then the three of them got up, and Grace led them forward down the wash, and it was suddenly a harder journey. Physically harder, as if she felt the weight of Griffin’s lifeless body on her shoulders. But she persisted, refusing to look back, hoping that burden would lessen with distance.
It didn’t.
But eventually they reached that place in the wash where they would need to climb out of it and cross through a stretch of woods if they wanted to get to the SUV. Grace listened for the helicopters, and still heard nothing. She couldn’t hear any agents moving through the forest. But she didn’t trust that silence.
“I think we should wait here for a while,” she whispered.
“What for?” Natalya asked.
“Something doesn’t seem right,” she said.
“Something isn’t right.” Owen picked up a stick from the ground. “Griffin just died.”
“No,” Grace said. “Not that.”
“Then what is it?” Natalya asked.
“Where did Isaiah go?” She looked up into the trees. “I don’t like not knowing where he is, and I think we should wait here, just in case, until it gets dark. Then we go to the car.”
Owen shook his head and snapped the stick. “Fine,” he said.
Natalya just reached out and laid her hand on Grace’s arm.
So they stayed there in the wash, wet and shivering, listening for any sound that might indicate Isaiah’s return. After Grace had been sitting in the same position for a while, she moved her legs, and felt the dagger in her pocket, which she’d almost forgotten about. She pulled it out, wondering where Griffin had found the towel he’d wrapped around it, and as she unwrapped it, she noticed his blood on the fabric. The red-brown spot trapped her eyes and held them until she broke free of it and brought out the dagger.
The prong of the Trident. The Piece of Eden.
“So that’s it,” Owen said. “That’s what this is all about.”
Her ancestor, Eliza, had carried one of the daggers from New York City to General Grant on the battlefield. But Grace had never held one before. Its edge was still sharp after thousands and thousands of years, and even without its power, it would be deadly. Isaiah had demonstrated that when he used one to kill Yanmei.
“Put it away,” Natalya said. “Please.”
Grace wrapped it back up in its towel and slipped it into her pocket. Not long after that, she noticed that the forest had grown darker, and the blue in the sky had deepened. Evening had come, and soon that turned into twilight without any sign of Isaiah. If they were going to try for the SUV, now would be the time.
“Let’s go,” she said.
They climbed up out of the wash, over the embankment, and darted into the trees. In the gloom, Grace found that Östen’s memories gave her an advantage. She knew this land, and that allowed her to run swiftly, which allowed Owen and Natalya to follow her.
They encountered no Abstergo agents as they made their way, and Grace heard no helicopters. The closer they got to the SUV, the more she thought she had been worried over nothing.
“I think I see it,” Owen said.
He was right. Up ahead lay the forest access road, and the SUV was still there, its windows black and empty. They had made it.
“I’ll drive,” Grace said as they rushed up to the car. She reached into her pocket, and then she stopped, and almost didn’t want to ask. “Who has the keys?”
Neither of them answered, and Grace felt her breath grow heavy in her lungs, pressing down. They had left the keys with Griffin’s body. She tried the driver’s side door, hoping that maybe it was unlocked, and that maybe Griffin had left the keys inside. But it wasn’t unlocked.
“We have to go back?” Owen asked.
It had been hard enough for him to leave the first time. Grace didn’t want him to relive it in the dark. “I’ll go,” she said. “I know my way. You guys stay here.”
“I don’t think we should separate,” Natalya said.
Grace didn’t like the idea, either, but if they all went, it would take more time than she felt they had. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just stay here and—”
A blinding beam of light smacked Grace in the face, and she held up a hand to shield her eyes. Then another light switched on, and another, and another, coming from all sides and closing in.
“I must say,” said a familiar voice, “you kept me waiting so long, I had begun to wonder if this was even your car.”
It was Isaiah.
Grace almost bolted, in panic and reflex. But her mind kept her feet in check, because she knew they were surrounded, and she wouldn’t get far. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had remembered the keys.
“Where is the Assassin?” Isaiah asked, a tall silhouette in the spotlights.
No one answered him.
“It was a fatal shot, then,” Isaiah said. “So which one of you has the dagger?”
Still no one answered him.
“Let’s dim those lights,” he said. “Perhaps that will help them see this situation more clearly.”
/> The spotlights swung their beams toward the ground, and Grace could now see the agents holding them, and between them, an even greater number of agents silently aiming their guns. Isaiah stepped closer, wearing Abstergo paramilitary gear, his green eyes somewhat paled by the artificial glare.
“You notice I don’t have the Trident with me,” Isaiah said. “You don’t have to die tonight. I certainly don’t wish it.”
“You want your own Ragnarök,” Owen said. “You want everyone to die.”
“No,” Isaiah said. “No, I don’t want that at all. But many people must die for the world to be reborn in a better form. Do you mourn for the dead flakes of skin shed by the snake? Do you grieve the loss of the caterpillar after it has become a butterfly?”
“I think my history teacher would call those false analogies,” Grace said. “The earth doesn’t shed, and humans aren’t its skin. And the caterpillar doesn’t die to become a butterfly.”
Isaiah nodded, almost approvingly. “I’m reminded of how exceptional you all are. More reason to spare you, because I don’t actually wish for specific people to die any more than an exterminator wishes death on specific ants.” He stared at Grace. “Does that analogy meet with your approval?”
“Where is Sean?” Natalya asked.
Isaiah smiled. “Your loyalty and devotion are admirable.”
“Where is he?” Natalya asked again, but it was clear to Grace that Isaiah wasn’t going to answer.
“What are you going to do with us?” Grace asked.
Isaiah snapped his fingers, and a group of the Abstergo agents closed in tighter, guns still raised.
“I had planned to simply leave you here,” Isaiah said. “After I recover the dagger, of course. But I believe I may take you with me. You might be useful, given your lineages. But if you fight back on either score, I will have you killed, and while I do not wish for your deaths, believe me when I say I will not regret them.”
Grace’s legs had begun to tremble, from the cold and from her fear, but she hoped Isaiah couldn’t see that. This was the closest she had ever come to death, and it was right here, just minutes or seconds away, like it had been with Griffin, and it was staring at her down the barrel of a dozen guns. The agents aiming their weapons looked at her as though she was nothing but a target. She might as well have been made of cardboard, and whatever shield Minerva had given her, it would be useless against bullets.
“You have the dagger, don’t you, Grace?” Isaiah said.
She couldn’t feel her body. She thought of David, and her parents.
“Cole, check her pockets.”
One of the agents approached Grace, and she recognized the woman by her codename, Rothenberg, a Templar mole who had helped her escape from the Aerie with Monroe. But when the woman looked at Grace now, she didn’t seem to care about any of that.
Javier was right. More zombie than slave.
“Don’t move,” Cole said, and even though Grace didn’t want to obey, the part of her mind most driven to survive held her still. Cole reached into Grace’s pocket and pulled out the dagger, which she handed immediately to Isaiah.
He shook the dagger from the towel, into his open hand, and closed his fist around the grip. “Were you as amused as I was by this prong’s location?” he asked.
They had lost.
They had lost everything.
Isaiah had all three pieces of the Trident now, the very thing Minerva had feared all those thousands of years ago.
“You’re forgetting about something,” Owen said.
“Highly unlikely,” Isaiah said. “But tell me.”
“The Ascendance Event.” Owen actually smirked, and made it convincing. “Monroe figured it out, and it can stop the Trident. Your superweapon is worthless.”
What was Owen doing? Trying to intimidate Isaiah? Bluff their way out of this somehow? Or just showing the only card they had?
“The Ascendance Event?” Isaiah cocked his head and bent down to look Owen in his eyes, their faces very close together. “You’re lying.”
“No,” Owen said, returning Isaiah’s stare, “I’m not.”
A few seconds passed, and then Isaiah leaned away. “So Monroe finally did it. After all these years.”
“Yes, he did,” Owen said. “So like I said, your Trident—”
“Not to worry,” Isaiah said. “I’ve taken care of that. Without Sean, you have no Ascendance Event.” Then he nodded to himself. “You’ve changed my mind, Owen. You’re not useful at all. In fact, I think you might be a danger to me.” He turned away from them. “Cole, line them up.”
“Yes, sir.”
The woman waved over a few more agents. Two of them took Grace by the arms, high up near her shoulders, and they half dragged, half lifted her along and placed her in the middle of the main road. They brought Natalya and Owen over the same way to stand next to her, and then Isaiah asked for a gun.
“You’re going to do it yourself?” Owen asked. “I’m surprised.”
“That’s because you still don’t understand what I am.” Isaiah strode toward them, now armed with a pistol. “I am the Fenris wolf. I have come to swallow the sun, and the moon, and I do not turn away from the task before me.”
“I think there’s probably a name for what’s wrong with you,” Owen said.
Grace wondered where he found the will to be defiant. She wondered where her will had gone as she felt the seconds ticking by, like her life was a thread, and she had come to its end.
You disappoint me, Sean,” Isaiah said.
“I’m sorry,” Sean said. “So sorry.” He wanted desperately to please Isaiah, and he had been trying, spending endless hours in the Animus, reliving the same memories again and again, searching for any detail, or hidden clue that might reveal what had happened to the dagger after Styrbjörn left it at the shrine.
“There must be something you are missing,” Isaiah said. “We have searched every inch of ground within three hundred meters of that rock, and the dagger isn’t there.”
“It must be,” Sean said. “That’s the only place it could be.”
“Obviously not,” Isaiah said. He turned to the technicians. “Prepare the simulation. We’ll run it again—”
“No,” Sean said. “Please. Let me out.”
“I believe I have shown you what happens when you tell me no,” Isaiah said.
“I know, I know, but please. I can’t.”
The inside of his skull felt scraped and raw. He’d been hanging in the Animus for what seemed like days, but he couldn’t be sure because so much of that time had been spent in the simulation, where time flowed differently. Even during those moments when Isaiah let him out of the simulation, Sean experienced uncontrollable Bleeding Effects that terrified him. Viking warriors appeared out of nowhere and charged at him with their axes and spears. Giants and gods strode over him, threatening to crush him under their feet. A giant wolf lunged at his throat with its mouth full of teeth. Crashing waves filled the room, and the water level rose by inches until it covered his mouth and touched his nose, soon to drown him. Each of these and many other visions felt utterly real, and Sean found it more and more difficult to maintain his grip on what was him and what was not. Clarity rolled in and out like fog.
“When you find the dagger, you will be free,” Isaiah said. “I want that for you. I do. But that is not mine to give. It is yours to earn.”
Sean raised his head, and Isaiah was smiling, revealing a huge, rotten tooth that worms had eaten through and blackened. Sean blinked, and Isaiah was Isaiah again.
“The simulation is ready,” one of the technicians said.
“Good.” Isaiah reached for the helmet. “Don’t fight this, Sean. You know it goes worse for you when you fight it.”
He couldn’t. Sean couldn’t do it again. His mind had been reduced to cobwebs, its structure long gone, barely recognizable for what it once was. He felt certain another round in the Animus would wipe him away completely like a broom. br />
“Please,” he said, whimpering.
“Try to relax,” Isaiah said, lowering the helmet. “You will—”
“Sir!” A shield-maiden burst into the room carrying a dead raven, which she threw at Sean, and he screamed as the dead bird clawed and pecked at his face.
“Is he okay?” the shield-maiden asked.
“Pay him no mind,” Isaiah said. “Where have you been, Cole?”
“I went to Västerås,” she said.
The bird suddenly flew out a window, and Sean recognized the shield-maiden now.
“Västerås?” Isaiah said. “Why?”
“I read an article in the newspaper about a new company selling bottled spring water. Apparently, when they dug up the area during construction for their plant, they uncovered a unique dagger. The article had a photo.”
“And?” Isaiah replaced the Animus helmet on its hook, which meant that he might not put Sean back in the simulation, after all, and for that, Sean sighed with relief.
“I wanted to be sure before I brought it to your attention,” she said. “So I went to the plant. Look at this.” She held up her phone for Isaiah to see. “They have it on display.”
“This is extraordinary. You’ve done well, Cole. Very well.”
“Thank you, sir. There’s something else. I’ve been using Abstergo’s network to monitor CCTV feeds. Mostly airports, for security. Earlier today I believe I saw Owen, Natalya, and Grace arrive in the country in the company of an Assassin.”
“Prepare two helicopters and a strike team. They might catch up with us at any moment, and I will take no chances. We leave as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Cole turned and left the room.
“She found the dagger?” Sean asked.
Isaiah was smiling to himself, and that lasted for a few moments. Then he looked over at Sean, a bit suddenly, as though he had just heard him. “Did you say something?”
“Cole found the dagger?” Sean asked again.
“Yes. She did.”
“So I don’t need to go into the simulation anymore?”
“No, Sean. You don’t.”
“Thank you,” Sean said, his whole body sagging with relief, and he waited for Isaiah to undo the clasps and straps that held him in the Animus armature. Since it wasn’t powered up yet, the framework couldn’t move, locking Sean in place. But Isaiah made no move to free him.