Threshold (29 page)

On his back, staring up at the glistening structure, Davidson recognized what it was. “It’s the obelisk.”

Alexander reached a hand beneath Davidson’s desk. “Take my hand.”

Davidson reached out and was snagged by Alexander, who easily pulled the physicist out of harm’s way and into the hallway. King crawled out behind him and stood in what little remained of the office. He instinctually reached for his weapon before remembering he was unarmed.

Shuffling forward through the sea of glass, he chanced a peek out of the window. While twenty feet of the obelisk had impaled the building, its remaining sixty-two feet were jutting out the side, like a giant spear. A large chunk of concrete clung to the end, where it had been ripped out of the ground. Gravity began to work on the protruding end, pulling it down. The force both bent the obelisk and caused the tip to tear into the ceiling. Flakes of plaster crumbled down on King’s head.

“I don’t understand,” Davidson said with a shaky voice. “Why would someone want to destroy the obelisk?”

“They weren’t trying to destroy the tower,” Alexander said.

Davidson fell silent, wondering what he meant.

“I didn’t see anything outside,” King said.

Alexander twisted his lips. “They’ve most likely assumed he’s dead.”

King agreed, but he knew they were far from safe. “They’ll check to be sure.”

“What are you talking about?” Davidson shouted. “Who are ‘they’ and who will they assume is dead?”

King reached down and pulled Davidson to his feet. “I was trying to tell you before, Professor. You’re a target now.”

The man’s eyes went wide behind his thick glasses, but not from King’s statement. He was looking beyond King, down the hallway. King spun and saw what appeared to be a large reptile. Something about it seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it. The creature was built similarly to a komodo dragon, but its back was tan with brown stripes and its underbelly was white. Aside from its eight-foot length, sharp teeth, and clawed toes, what bothered King the most was the look of menace mixed with intelligence in its eyes.

A long forked tongue flicked out of its mouth—tasting them from a distance. Knowing it was here for Davidson, King looked for an escape route. The only door between them and the lizard was another office. The hallway behind them was blocked by the obelisk.

As a breeze tickled King’s cheek he turned toward the broken window. The ribbed obelisk continued its slow bend toward the ground five stories below. It was the only way out.

He turned to Alexander. “Take him through the window.”

“I’ll fight the beast,” Alexander replied, rolling up his sleeves.

“Sorry, Herc,” King replied. “I’m not strong enough to carry him.”

Davidson blanched. “Carry me?”

Alexander grunted in defeat, then took Davidson and slung him over his shoulder. “See you in Elysian Fields, King.” Then he was moving. He ran through the destroyed office and leaped out of the window. Davidson screamed the entire way until Alexander took hold of one of the stainless-steel ribs and swung them atop the structure.

King turned back to the lizard and shouted. It had already charged, moving silently over the linoleum floor. As it reared up to strike, King saw its claws, retracted for silent movement, reemerge and swipe toward his neck.

King ducked the blow and sidestepped, allowing the creature’s momentum to carry it past him and into the obelisk. It struck with a force that reverberated through the entire structure.

Alexander stumbled, still holding Davidson over his shoulder. He managed to remain upright and continued moving toward the slowly lowering base.

Unsure of how to fight the giant reptile, King struck out with a hard kick to its back, hoping to break its spine. But the string of vertebrae simply flexed with the impact and then pushed back. King fell to the hallway floor. As he righted himself, the lizard hissed at him and then bolted into the office. Despite King’s attack, the lizard only had eyes for its target.

Davidson.

King scrambled to his feet and gave chase. As the creature climbed onto the obelisk, King dove out, snagging its tail. The lizard lurched back, unable to pull King along with it. With one arm wrapped around the thick, but stubby tail, King reached out with his free hand and picked up a shard of glass. He swung it high and stabbed it into the beast’s lower back, slicing open his hand in the process.

The creature wailed and violently shook its back end. King thought the lizard was trying to shake him free, but as he fell to the floor, still holding the tail, he realized it had shed its tail. The open wound where the creature’s tail used to be oozed a few drops of blood and then dried. Like many lizards in the world, this one could shed its tail to distract predators while it escaped. But King wanted nothing to do with the still wriggling tail in his hands.

As the lizard ran out the window, he climbed on to the obelisk and gave chase.

Davidson let out a shout when the monster appeared behind them, its legs flailing out to each side as it charged down the obelisk. His shout was cut off as Alexander’s shoulder rammed his gut. Had there been any air left in him, he would have screamed again as he and Alexander went airborne.

Alexander leaped into the air, landing on the concrete base of the obelisk, sixty-two feet from the physics building. The sudden weight sped the obelisk’s descent. But not fast enough. The lizard was nearly upon them.

King shouted at the beast as he pursued from behind, but his hurled words did little to slow it down. He wouldn’t reach them in time. Alexander was on his own.

Turning to face the creature, Alexander showed no fear for his life, but without knowing the creature’s capabilities he wasn’t sure if he could protect Davidson. But he didn’t have to. Gravity provided a temporary solution as, fifteen feet from the ground, the obelisk finally gave way and bent quickly. Just before the base struck the cobbled walkway that stretched up the center of the Technion campus, Alexander jumped away with Davidson. The pair fell five feet and rolled away from the concrete base as it crashed into the hard ground.

The obelisk’s impact shook the structure, bouncing the lizard into the air. It landed on its side, and then slid off the edge, falling ten feet to the ground.

When the obelisk dropped away beneath King, he fell forward. Pain pulsed through his body when he landed on his stomach. Now lying on the obelisk, his descent didn’t slow. The steep incline pulled him over the smooth metal ribs like it was a giant slide. Using his hands to keep himself centered, King left a smear of red behind him—blood from his wounded hand.

He saw Alexander take off running with Davidson still over his shoulder. He was headed to a nearby construction site where piles of sand and stacks of cement bags waited to form the foundation of a new building. A moment later, the giant lizard lunged after them. It moved swiftly, but seemed slightly off balance, perhaps from the fall or because of its missing tail.

King rolled onto the cobbled walkway and onto his feet, giving chase. He could see Alexander and Davidson in front of the lizard, and the construction site beyond. Seeing the sand triggered his memory. He’d seen something like this before, only small enough to hold in his hand. It was a sandfish, a species of skink native to Iraq. While on a stakeout in Iraq, before being assigned to the Chess Team, he had watched the small creatures and marveled at their abilities.

That’s why he knew, without a doubt, that sand was the wrong place to be with a killer sandfish.

*   *   *

THE CONSTRUCTION SITE
was a labyrinth of building materials and equipment. Alexander ran through the maze, not just searching for a way through, but also for the perfect place to stop. He found it between two stacks of cement bags. The bottleneck would allow him to confront the lizard head on, and hopefully give Davidson enough time to make his escape.

He skidded to a stop, his feet sliding through the deep sand covering the construction site. He put Davidson down. The man was panicked and clung to Alexander’s back like a child not wanting to be separated from its mother. He’d seen the beast behind them and feeling his legs go wobbly beneath him, knew he couldn’t outrun it.

“Why are you putting me down? Keep running!”

Alexander pushed him away. “You go. I’ll stop it.”

“But—”

“Go!”

The look in Alexander’s eyes and the boom of his voice triggered Davidson’s feet. He bolted deeper into the construction site. Though he quickly disappeared from view, his high-pitched squeaking breaths could be easily tracked, and Alexander had no doubt the creature would be able to follow his scent as well. The man was oozing fear pheromones.

Then the creature appeared. Thirty feet away. It paused on the sand, flicking out its tongue.

When it charged, the lizard didn’t focus on Alexander’s head, or torso, or any other vital location a predator might strike. Instead, it was looking down, at his feet.

Not at my feet,
Alexander thought.
In front of them.

Before he could figure out the meaning of the charging lizard’s strange attack, it leaped into the air. Alexander raised a fist to strike the beast’s head, but never got a chance to swing. The lizard arched its back and began a face-first descent toward the sandy ground. Its body began wriggling back and forth, slowly at first, then building in speed until almost a blur.

It struck the sand like an Olympic diver, and just as gracefully disappeared into the sand as though it were liquid. Alexander felt a slight undulation beneath his feet.

The lizard had passed beneath him!

He spun around and saw the creature emerge from the sand twenty feet away. Without pause, it continued in its relentless pursuit of Davidson. Alexander gave chase, fueled by his anger at being outsmarted by an oversized reptile.

*   *   *

DAVIDSON STUMBLED AS
he ran—if you could call it running. His legs felt useless, as though in a dream. His hand landed on a stack of metal beams, but the weakness in his legs had moved to his arms and he fell forward, striking his head. Still on his feet, but dazed, he struggled forward. His vision narrowed. His head spun from a mixture of pain and fear.

Then a voice cut through his body’s fear-induced stupor. “Davidson, it got by me!”

Though he’d only just met the man, he recognized the voice as belonging to the inhumanly strong Alexander.

He felt a thump inside his chest. Then another.

His vision suddenly returned. His head cleared. And his muscles not only lost their gelatinous weakness, but they itched with energy. The knowledge that the creature was almost upon him had triggered an adrenaline rush. But it was too little, too late.

The lizard had found him.

It rounded the corner at top speed, its short legs flinging out in wide circles as it ran.

Two things saved Davidson’s life. First, he ran. Second, the creature’s missing tail removed its ability to stabilize its body. A combination of speed and not enough room to make a wide turn sent the lizard rolling into a large pile of sand. A layer of sand sheared away with the creature’s impact, creating an avalanche that quickly buried the upended beast.

Davidson saw this and paused, a smile creeping onto his face.

The smile disappeared when the large sandfish launched from the sand pile, once again moving at top speed. Realizing he wouldn’t escape this attack, Davidson let out a scream of horror.

Then he was struck hard.

Davidson fell to the ground. Alive. He looked up and saw King standing in his place as the lizard lunged.

The monster struck King in a blur and both fell, landing on Davidson’s feet. Pinned beneath the weight of King and the lizard, he shouted and clawed at the ground, pulling himself out from the tangle of bodies. Once free, he quickly stood.

Expecting to see the lizard tearing King apart, he glanced back as he began to run again. But the creature lay motionless. Davidson stopped. A long metal pole entered the lizard’s mouth and exited out its sheared-off tail. A giant lizard shish kabob!

A grunt emerged from beneath it. King was alive. “Think you could get this thing off of me?”

Davidson took hold of the pole protruding from the creature’s mouth and lifted. But he only managed to wiggle the heavy reptile.