Tomb of the Khan

  Natalya picked a chair opposite Isaiah, and Victoria took the one next to hers.

  “The Mongol Khans were often quite merciless.” Isaiah sat back down. “Especially during their invasion of southern China.”

  Natalya didn’t really like to dwell on it, but the Mongols followed a pattern of psychological warfare and terror. First, they would offer to spare the city if its rulers would submit to the supreme sovereignty of the Great Khan and pay him tribute. If the rulers agreed, having heard rumors of Mongol invincibility, the city was usually spared any bloodshed. If the rulers of the city refused, however, the slaughter and destruction that would inevitably follow turned Natalya’s stomach.

  “I understand why that would be so distressing for you,” Isaiah said.

  “We all do,” Victoria added.

  Isaiah folded his hands on the table, his fingers long and narrow. “I wish there were some other way to learn what we need to learn.”

  So did Natalya.

  “Would you like to call your parents?” Isaiah asked.

  Natalya thought about doing that all the time, but she usually only allowed herself to call them every two or three days. And they visited most weekends. But she never told them about this kind of thing. She didn’t want to worry them or stress them out.

  “I think I’m okay.”

  Victoria laid a hand on Natalya’s forearm. “Then can we ask you a few questions about the simulation?”

  “Sure.” Better to get it over with.

  “How is the Parietal Suppression going?” Isaiah asked. “Dr. Bibeau tells me you’re still having painful side effects.”

  Natalya nodded.

  “That is to be expected,” Isaiah said. “The electromagnetic waves temporarily silence your parietal lobes, the part of your brain that orients your perception of time and space. This allows for a deeper and more rapid acceptance of the simulation, but it can be quite disorienting for you.”

  He offered this same explanation every time, almost word-for-word, as if they hadn’t had this conversation before. “The headaches aren’t quite as bad,” Natalya said, hoping to move on.

  “That’s good to hear.” Isaiah tilted his head a fraction of an inch to the left. “Have you seen any sign of it?”

  “No.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Natalya didn’t like the way he always second-guessed her. “I think I would recognize a dagger with the power to destroy the world.”

  “Perhaps you would,” Isaiah said. “Perhaps you wouldn’t.”

  She knew he was impatient, and truthfully, she felt impatient, too. The Piece of Eden was the entire reason she was here. It was the reason all of them were here at the Aerie, and Owen and Javier were wherever they were. The relic had to be found. But Natalya still wasn’t sure who she wanted to find it first.

  “We know Bayan came into contact with it at some point in his life,” Victoria said. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “What if he came into contact with it as an old man?” Natalya asked. “I still might have a long way to go.”

  “If we had Monroe’s Animus core, with all his research, we could be more targeted in our approach.” Isaiah’s eyes seemed to flash, and his jaw muscles tightened. “But unfortunately, we still don’t know where he is, so for now, you will have to take Bayan’s life one day at a time.”

  “One battle at a time,” Natalya said. Isaiah and Victoria hadn’t mentioned the Ascendance Event recently. They knew Monroe had found something unique in all their DNA. They just didn’t know exactly what it was.

  “What is the current situation in the simulation?” Isaiah asked.

  Natalya filled him in on the mountain assault, and the Mongol Horde’s very rare defeat. “Everyone’s sick,” she said. “Cholera or malaria or something.”

  Victoria swiped and tapped her tablet screen. “Some sources claim Möngke Khan died of an infectious disease during the siege.”

  “He hasn’t yet,” Natalya said.

  Isaiah had started drumming his fingers on the obsidian table, his nails clicking. “Can you go back in tonight?”

  Natalya paused a moment before responding, rubbing her temples. “No. I’m done for the day.”

  Isaiah looked at Victoria, sharply, and Victoria looked back at him for a moment before shaking her head, as if Natalya wasn’t there to see any of it. But it didn’t matter. They couldn’t force her, and there was no way she was going back in right away.

  Isaiah rapped the table with his knuckles, once. “Fine.” He rose to his full height. “I trust you’ll get a good night’s rest. And tomorrow—”

  “Tomorrow I go to war,” Natalya said.

  Owen wasn’t afraid. But he wondered if he should be.

  He sat on the cot next to Javier, their backs against the bare, chalky Sheetrock wall of the storage unit that Griffin used as a lair. The Assassin had his back to them, facing the computer monitor as he communicated with his superior.

  “You’re sure this location is compromised?” Griffin asked, his voice the low rumble of a diesel engine, the dark skin of his shaved head reflecting the light of the single bulb hanging in the center of the room. “I’ve taken precautions.”

  “Quite sure,” the man in the computer screen said. Owen had seen his face once before; haggard, with thick graying hair and a beard. Gavin Banks, a leader in the Assassin Brotherhood. “Rothenberg says a Templar strike team could be on its way there right now.”

  Javier glanced at Owen, his eyes narrow, his neck muscles tense. He seemed more worried than Owen did.

  “And you trust this informant?” Griffin asked.

  “I do,” Gavin said. “You need to burn everything and clear out immediately.”

  Griffin nodded. “I’ve already scouted a new location—”

  “No,” Gavin said. “Proceed to rendezvous alpha twelve. Rebecca Crane will meet you there with further instructions.”

  “Rebecca?” Griffin paused. “All right, then.”

  “Good luck. Gavin out.” The screen cut to black.

  Owen took one breath, and then Griffin stood. “Each of you suit up and load what you can in a backpack. Hurry.”

  Owen and Javier glanced at each other, and then they both bounced off the cot, rushing to the crates and cases stacked on the storage unit’s metal shelves. They’d done this once before, when Griffin had led them to Mount McGregor in search of the first Piece of Eden. They pulled on their leather jackets and hoods, and then they snatched up a variety of weapons: throwing knives, darts, and small grenades that delivered everything from poisonous gas to electromagnetic pulses that could drop a helicopter from the sky.

  Owen watched Griffin packing up his own gear, including the Assassin’s gauntlet he’d never even let Owen touch. When they’d finished with their packs, Griffin walked to the computer and pulled up a command prompt.

  “Be ready, and remember your training,” he said.

  Owen didn’t think he would ever forget the grueling exercises Griffin had put them through over the past few weeks, training them in basic combat and free-running.

  The Assassin shook his head at the screen. “We’ll have three minutes.”

  “Until what?” Javier asked.

  Griffin didn’t answer. He typed a command, hit enter, and then marched to the storage unit’s roller door. The metal rattled and clanged as he heaved it upward by the handle.

  The sun had set outside, but it wasn’t fully dark yet, the time of day when everything became its own gray shadow, but you could still just make out the faint details. Griffin led them toward the storage unit next door where he kept his car, but before he could open the padlock, distant headlights rounded the corner at the far end of the row, moving fast.

  “Is that—?” Owen asked.

  “We leave the car,” Griffin said, and he ran in the opposite direction. “Move!”

  Owen bolted after him, with Javier at his side, and they raced a few hundred yards. Then Griffin launched himself
upward and climbed onto the storage units’ roof. Owen did the same, still a bit surprised at the natural abilities he’d gained from the time he’d spent in his Assassin ancestor’s memories. He heard Javier come up behind him, and the three of them raced along the roof without making a sound.

  “What happens in three minutes?” Javier asked.

  “Twenty-three seconds,” Griffin said.

  Owen looked back over his shoulder. He could see the lights from the vehicle approaching their storage unit. Then he noticed there were other lights, all converging on that location from different directions, including lights in the sky.

  “There’s a helicopter coming,” he said.

  “I hear it,” Griffin said. “Keep low—”

  A thunderous explosion behind them sent a wave of heat against the back of Owen’s neck and pressed against his ears. The sudden burst of light illuminated the rooftop they ran across, as well as the rooftops of the neighboring rows, where Owen spotted a dozen scattered figures crouching and moving slowly toward them. They wore black fatigues, and helmets that gave them the ability to find and track difficult targets.

  “Templars,” Owen whispered, and all three of them dropped to their chests.

  “Seems Rothenberg was right,” Griffin said. “And they came prepared.”

  “You blew up your own hideout?” Javier asked, a thick column of smoke rising up into the sky. Owen could smell burning plastic.

  “Standard procedure,” Griffin said. “There won’t be anything left for them to trace the Brotherhood.”

  “They’ll just trace us,” Owen said.

  “No, they won’t. Follow my lead.” Griffin slipped away, up and over the roof’s peak.

  Owen and Javier did the same, and when the three of them reached the far edge of the roof, they dropped to the pavement, into the opposite alley from which they’d ascended. The darkened aisle appeared empty.

  Griffin pushed up his sleeve and made some adjustments to his gauntlet. “Arm yourselves.”

  Owen steadied his breathing as he tugged his pack around and pulled out a few throwing knives and grenades. Javier withdrew his crossbow pistol. The Assassin turned his wrist upward, and with a simple flick, a hidden electrical blade erupted from the gauntlet, six or seven crackling inches in length. In the next moment, Griffin retracted it, but Owen could still smell the coppery ozone it left behind.

  “We need to make sure we’re not being followed, then head to the rendezvous.” Griffin looked to his right and left. “Stay sharp. This is not a training exercise.”

  He led them at a trot away from the site of the explosion. Owen honed his focus the way he’d learned to do, the way his ancestor had done, extending his senses into the ground beneath his feet and the air flowing around him, listening to the echoes off the walls to either side. They kept to the edges of the alley, passing storage unit after storage unit. Before long, they came to the end of the row, a chain-link fence just a dozen feet beyond it.

  But before that, Owen sensed something.

  He focused the whole of his perception ahead of them, listening, smelling, feeling, sensing the presence of agents just around the corners to either side of the alley, waiting like the teeth of a bear trap. Griffin and Javier didn’t have the same level of ability Owen possessed, but even they seemed to be aware of the agents. The three of them slowed to a silent halt. Owen readied a couple of EMP grenades, and Javier loaded his pistol crossbow with bolts. Griffin crouched into a fighting position, and then gave a nod.

  Owen leapt ahead and threw the EMP grenades to either side before ducking into a roll, and even though the explosions were silent, the effect was not. The Templar agents bellowed and scrambled to pull their helmets off, their weapons on the ground, all their electronics fried.

  There were eight of them, four on each side. Javier came around the corner firing darts laden with neurotoxin, and one of his targets collapsed. Griffin launched at the nearest agent, electrical hidden blade humming, and took him out with a jolt stronger than any Taser, then fought his way through two more.

  Seconds in, and half the Templars were down, leaving four still on their feet. Owen pulled out a smoke grenade, preparing to give Javier and Griffin some cover, but he stalled in arming it. His hand was shaking, and he stared at his quivering fingers, unable to work the trigger, with the distant realization that he was afraid, only his body had known it when his mind didn’t.

  “Owen!” Javier shouted.

  Owen turned as a heavy blow caught him from behind, driving the air out of him, and he stumbled forward a few steps before he could spin to face his attacker. The woman had her helmet off, and she held a length of rebar like a baseball bat.

  This is not a training exercise.

  Owen spread his stance as she charged, and managed to duck the first swing, landing a blow in her side with his fist, but the agent was faster and better. Her sharp elbow caught Owen in the face, blinding him with stars. He expected the rebar to follow, but then Griffin was there, and the woman went down with a smoldering burn where the Assassin’s blade had caught her in the neck.

  Something thudded behind Owen, and he turned to see that Javier had just stunned another agent with a shot from his crossbow. Owen finally got his hands to work the smoke grenade, and in the cloud that exploded from it, Griffin took down the last two Templars. “Hurry,” he said, coughing a bit. “By now the others will have noticed that these agents have gone silent.”

  They climbed the fence and raced across a vacant lot littered with empty cans and weeds, dodging the roving spotlight from the helicopter overhead, until they reached a busy street. There, they all stashed their weapons back in their packs and tried to disappear into the crowd. Owen adopted the hunched posture of someone on his way home from a long day at work, eyes slightly downcast. Griffin had once mentioned the Assassin ability to hide in the open, but neither Owen nor Javier understood exactly what that meant. They weren’t even really Assassins, in spite of what they’d just done. Owen was only staying with Griffin to help his friends and find out what really happened to his dad.

  Griffin looked back over his shoulder. “Let’s take a cab.”

  “A cab?” Javier said. “Assassins take cabs?”

  “Exactly,” Griffin said. “Hide in plain sight.”

  He whistled between his thumb and finger, and a white sedan with a checkered stripe down the side pulled over to the curb. The three of them piled into the back seat, and Griffin gave the driver some directions. As they pulled into traffic, Owen craned his head and looked out the back window, toward the vacant lot and the storage facility beyond it.

  His hands were still shaking, and he balled them into tight fists.

  What had happened to him back there? He’d simply frozen up, and if that agent had come at him with a gun or a knife instead of that rebar, she might have killed him. Instead of getting easier with Griffin’s training, this whole situation actually seemed to be getting harder.

  For the first few days and weeks after the Draft Riots simulation, Owen had felt confident in his abilities. Powerful, even. But now he wondered if that self-assurance had been false. Just the echoes of his ancestor in his mind. Varius had been a skilled Assassin, and after living in those memories, Owen had felt capable, too. But now that the weight of Varius’s mind had mostly lifted from his, Owen realized that maybe he wasn’t all that powerful on his own. He was still just a teenager, and those Templar agents had been sent to either capture him or kill him.

  They stayed quiet for most of the drive. Eventually, Griffin had the cabbie drop them at a corner, where they waited a moment before climbing into a different cab and heading toward the suburbs. Owen figured it was all to make sure they weren’t being followed, and it seemed to work. The lights of the Templar helicopter faded from view, and eventually vanished behind the city skyline behind them.

  Griffin had the cab drop them at a nondescript house on a quiet street, as if that were their destination, and after the vehicle had pul
led away they set off on foot, following behind Griffin.

  Javier turned to Owen. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Owen said.

  “That was wild,” Javier said.

  “You did good,” Owen said, feeling a bit envious of the composure and skill Javier had demonstrated.

  “You both did,” Griffin said. “But those agents were playing with kid gloves. We’ll debrief when we reach the rendezvous.”

  A mile or so later, they reached the outskirts of the development, where the road turned to dirt and gravel, and the land turned to open farms. A few miles on, through empty fields and pastures fenced with old wood, rolling hills to either side, they rounded a bend, and a large house came into view among the trees.

  “Whoa,” Javier said.

  The place appeared to have been abandoned a hundred years ago. It rose two, maybe three stories, clad partly in wooden siding, and armored in other places by rounded wooden shingles like scales, all of it gray, split, and weathered. A front porch sagged along the house’s face, and at one corner an angular tower climbed up above the roofline, a round, blackened window at the top like a cyclops’ eye, a sharp, wrought iron crown upon its peak. Boards stretched across most of the other windows and the front door.

  “This is it,” Griffin said.

  Owen looked at the house again. “This is it?”

  “Kinda got an Addams Family vibe to it, doesn’t it?” Javier said.

  Owen agreed, but Griffin ignored him. “Come on.”

  They marched directly toward the front door along a flagstone walkway, the weeds and grass to either side knee-high. This place set Owen’s skin crawling. He saw no lights inside, and no sign of any Rebecca Crane.

  “This is the rendezvous?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Griffin said.

  They reached the front porch, and the wooden steps groaned beneath their feet, all cracks and loose, rusted nails.

  Owen shuddered. “But where—”

  Then the front door opened.

  Javier yelped, and Owen jumped backward and almost tripped down the stairs.

  “Griffin.” A woman stood in the dark entryway. “I’ve been waiting for you.”