They All Fall Down (32 page)

It slides right open and I’m back in the museum meeting room. I think. It’s dark now, pitch black and airless. I stay perfectly still and listen for any sounds. Even … breathing.

It’s as quiet as a tomb.

I work my way along the side of the room, my arm brushing a tapestry as I move very, very slowly to not give myself away. My sneakers are silent, and I’m barely breathing, bracing for an attack at any moment.

Is there another way out of this room? Another secret door?

Gingerly, I reach over to the wall and touch a glass box, then the stone wall again. I move ahead another few feet and touch something cold and sharp. A sword. For a moment, my fingers linger on the weapon.

I close my hand over the hilt and try to lift, but it barely moves. I’m no gladiator. I can’t lift—

Gladiator!
This is where that four-pronged knee-buckling
thing was. The quadrant, right on this wall. I flatten my hand and inch to the right, remembering exactly where I saw the ancient weapon, my fingers touching the rough-hewn metal almost immediately.

It lifts off the hook, no more than a few pounds, and it fits fairly neatly in my hand. It’s warm and … deadly. Actually, it doesn’t necessarily kill, if I recall what I saw in the video in my Latin class. But the quadrant can bring a man to his knees, and since it’s the only weapon on this wall I can handle, that’ll have to be enough.

Tucking the quadrant into my jacket pocket, I take a few more steps, carefully navigating around a large clay vase, then—

“Hello, Mackenzie.”

The room is suddenly bathed in light and I whip around with a gasp to meet the steel-blue gaze of Rex Collier.

“We’ve never had a woman in here, let alone an expert in the classics. What do you think?”

I can barely blink or breathe, let alone think. He looms over me, taller than I remember, more regal, far more threatening.

“Jarvis said you’d be a handful when we put your name on the list.” He barely smiles. “He was right.”

My head is humming, questions buzzing and colliding with exclamations of fury and the need to hurt him and get out of here. But I don’t move. Does he know where Molly is? Did he take her?

“What do you think?” He gestures toward the tapestries. “They’re all real,” he says. “All in my family for centuries. Payment for the job.”

“The job?” I practically spit the words, angry at myself for
even asking questions when all that matters is getting out of here alive with Molly.

“It’s dirty work, but someone—someone quite talented—can do it. This way, Kenzie.” He indicates a space in the wall between a carved bust and a glass box with a leather-bound book inside. Pausing, he points to the box, but my mind is whirring. I have to get out of here. I have to do something drastic.

“That’s the Persius Cipher.”

Can I lift a chair and hit him over the head? Hoist one of those clay vases and knock him out? I have to think, buy time, and be clever.

“The Persius Cipher?” I ask.

He gives me a smile. “You’ve heard of it, of course.”

Never in my life
. “Of course. Can I see it?” Maybe if he opens the glass, I can break it and slice him.

He gives me a wary look, as if he can read my mind.

“I’ve never touched a manuscript like that before.” I try to sound convincing. Will it work on him? “Could you take it out of that box and let me examine it?”

He steps aside and opens his hands, giving me permission to go to the manuscript. I put my hands on the clear glass, saying a silent prayer of gratitude that it really is glass, not plastic. I squeeze, lift, and in one lightning-fast move, crash it against the pedestal, holding on to one long shard as I pivot, ready to dive at him.

And I come face to face with the barrel of a pistol.

Rex Collier just smiles. “Nice try, but you really need to work on your timing.” With his free hand, he touches the wall and it slides open, revealing another corridor.

So much for thinking on my feet.

He takes the shard of glass and gets next to me, the gun in my back. “Still, you get points for creativity, which we value above all else.”

I close my eyes, biting back a retort that could get me shot. Except his words are settling into my brain. “They” value creativity; “their” killings are clean. So, maybe he won’t shoot me.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Toward the house, but you can’t go to the party tonight, I’m afraid. Even though your friends are there.”

I stop short. “Molly?”

“And your boyfriend.” He sighs heavily. “I hate when we find one with such potential who can’t pass the simplest, earliest tests.” He takes a few more steps. “Then there are those who can pass every test but just can’t be lured with the astronomical amounts of money we make.” He gives me a look rich with meaning, but I’m not able to decipher what that meaning is.

Except, deep in my heart, I know.
Conner
.

“They’ll be gone soon,” he says, pulling me back to the moment. “Levi went back to the house with Josh, thinking that’s where you are. When he finds a drunken Molly, he’ll be taking her home in a car that is rigged to have an unexpected fire and explosion just ten minutes after he turns on the engine.” He pauses dramatically. “That leaves us with only you to deal with. One more
accident
.”

He pushes me toward an unexpected turn, a dark corner off the corridor.

“You’ll never get away with this. Eventually, you’ll be caught.” My voice is thick, trapped in my throat.

“We’ve gotten away with it for two thousand years.
Nihil
was formed in Rome, started by slaves who took money for killing noblemen as a favor to other noblemen. Nothing’s changed now. Only instead of a patrician who falls into a well, it might be a CEO in a freak biking accident, a hedge-fund trader whose private jet goes down. Assassinations are nothing new. Neither are assassins. We’re all over the world, working quietly, killing neatly, amassing fortunes for our work.”

I stare at him. “But why would you kill innocent girls?”

“Our members have to train on someone, Kenzie. That’s why we make a list of easily manipulated girls. And, of course, boys who help us manipulate them. Not all those boys know why, just that they’re getting much-needed cash. But the organization is undergoing some drastic changes and, well, Jarvis wanted to make a point. He’s my son and I brought him into the business. I have to support him.”

“Is Josh in on this?” A wave of disgust rolls over me. Did I kiss a killer? An accomplice? An assassin?

“Not fully, but
Nihil
is in his blood. Of course, he thinks he’s being groomed and tested for something a little less … deadly. Tonight’s one of his exams. He has to make Levi think he’s being a hero, stealing a car to drive a drunk girl home.”

Levi wouldn’t steal a car to drive a girl anywhere. Unless he thought he was saving her.

“Once that’s done, it will be time to tell Josh exactly who he is and what family he is part of. I have great hopes he’ll be overjoyed to learn his father is alive.”

Only his father. “But his mother was one of your victims, wasn’t she?”

“One of Jarvis’s victims,” Rex corrects. “In fact, getting rid
of his wife was his first official training assignment with
Nihil Relinquere et Nihil Vestigi
. They’re all much easier after you prove yourself. We ask all trainees to assassinate someone they care about. A sort of hazing, if you will, with the same benefits. It would have been interesting to see how Josh did with you. He
does
care about you, you know.”

I’m sick as I process this secret society of assassins, training on innocent people. “Is it only Josh?”

“This year, yes. We haven’t had a good recruit in years.” He makes a low grunt in his chest. “Came so close two years ago. So close.”

I know exactly who he means.

He inhales slowly, as if savoring the moment. “An extraordinary young man, Conner.”

Yes, he was. I fight the urge to lunge, but only because of the gun pointed at me.

“Training is important, of course, and all the assassins of
Nihil Relinquere
undergo rigorous training all over the world. But recruitment is so important, and it’s my forte. That’s why we run the scholarship program, which is really a way for me to spot talent. Of course, it is a legitimate scholarship. But sometimes … I recruit.”

“And Conner?”

“Such potential,” he says again, slowing his step to look at me. “But sadly, he had morals. That will never do in this job. So he had to die.”

I ball my fists and grit my teeth. “You killed him.”

Very slowly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out, lifting it close to my face so I can see what he’s holding.

“No, Mackenzie. You did. Remember?” The necklace dangles from his fingertips, and my eyes immediately find the gold M with fourteen diamond chips.

I can’t breathe. I can’t move. “How did you—”

“Oh, child, that was an easy accident to arrange. You merely helped us by setting up the situation. Jarvis would have gotten your brother in the basement of that pharmacy. He was right there the whole time, shopping and watching you.”

Hate and resentment and the unyielding need to destroy him bubble up in me and make me quiver. He laughs.

“Here, take it. You can wear it when you die.” He shakes the necklace and I reach for it, closing my fingers over what has been the symbol of my brother’s death for two years.

He steps back as a noise on the floor pulls my attention. Very slowly, the stone beneath us begins to disappear, rolling away like some kind of conveyor belt, leaving a huge, gaping hole.

Deftly, Rex presses against the wall and I do the same next to him, gagging as a disgusting smell rises up.

“
Odor mortis
, as you linguists would say.”

The smell of death
.

He waves the gun toward the hole. “As I mentioned, sometimes we have to do things the old-fashioned way. So, down you’ll go, where some others have gone before you. I’d love to have you be Josh’s first true test, but we simply don’t have the time to arrange that. So … go.”

There’s nothing down there but blackness. Endless blackness.

“It’s a long drop with a lot of jutting stones,” he says as calmly as if he’s describing a walk on the beach. “Your bones
will be broken by the time you hit bottom. You’ll be dead before long, I assure you.”

All the air is whooshing from my lungs and my whole body starts to shake. I don’t want to die this way. I don’t want to die any way, but definitely not this horrible, horrible way.

“We got this from the ancient Romans, too. No one knew about this form of killing until archeologists found the broken bones and, trust me, no one will know about this under my house for two thousand years, either. Now it’s your turn, Kenzie.”

The ancient Romans
. For the first time, I remember the quadrant. I slip the necklace into my pocket and my knuckles brush the weapon.

“No!” I flatten against the wall. “I won’t.”

He lifts the gun. “You prefer to die first? I suppose I could grant you that, though I pride myself on never having to use a gun.”

My fingers squeeze the quadrant, meant to make a man’s knees buckle. If his knees buckled …

How can I do it? I have to get down, low enough to get to his knees … almost
in
that hole. I close my eyes, visualizing the video clip I’d seen of the gladiator using the quadrant and how it had to fit just under a victim’s knee.

“Don’t shoot me,” I say quietly. “I’ll just … go.”

He lifts a brow. “Think you can outsmart the system, Mackenzie? Drop down slowly, maybe not break a bone, escape somehow?”

The foul smell roils my stomach. “Yes,” I say.

“Fine.” He waves the gun. “Go.”

I consider jumping him, going for the gun, trying to push
him in, but he’s a trained assassin. I’m a sixteen-year-old Latin nerd. And only a Latin nerd would know how to use this quadrant.

Very slowly, I crouch down. There’s not quite a foot of space around the hole, and the smell makes me dizzy. He doesn’t seem to mind. Of course not: this killer loves
odor mortis
.

I get on my haunches.

“Down, Mackenzie.”

I bend over like I’m going to jump, inching a little closer to his legs. Then I turn so he can’t see my hand, very slowly inching out the metal quadrant.

“Jump!”

“I will.” My hands are shaking, the palms wet with sweat. I have to do this. I have to hit him directly below the kneecap, in the soft tissue. The right spot, and he collapses. The wrong spot, and I’m dead. After I lie with broken bones in an underground graveyard.

“Now.”

“Right …” I inch my hand back. “After …” I suck in a breath. “You!” I thrust the tool right at his knee, and the simultaneous sounds of his cry and the crack of his knee echo around me.

Directly in front of me, he buckles, losing his balance and tumbling toward the hole. Screaming an obscenity, he grabs for me, but I slip out of his grasp, using the quadrant to poke at his hands furiously, crunching his bones with each stab.

“Goddamn you, Goddamn—” And he disappears, a thudding sound like a person falling down steps, his voice nothing but a moan of agony and despair as he goes farther and farther into the pit.

“No, Rex. God damned you when you killed my brother.” Slowly, I stand up, worried that my shaking legs will betray me and I’ll be following him, but I manage to step away to solid ground.

I think about throwing the quadrant in after him, but then I realize I’m not done being a gladiator yet. I still have to find Molly and Levi, and if I have to kill to save them … Well, I guess I’ve proven I’m capable of that.

CHAPTER XXXIII

I
worm my way through more corridors, frantically slamming on the walls as I search for openings. I finally find a stairway that leads up, taking me into a cave, and when I get out, I step into a heavy rainfall.

Still, I’m able to see the lights of the Colliers’ house from where I’m standing.