Stones: Experiment (Stones #3) (15 page)

Matt reaches out to it. As soon as he touches it, the top opens. His hand goes inside and searches. A smile spreads across his face when his fingers find what they are looking for. He turns to Jessica and silently moves his lips.

Plan C.

His hand comes out with Yarah’s little monkey statue and raises it up for everyone in the room to see.

Eva stumbles backwards and falls to her knees, her eyes dropping to the floor. The men with crossbows lower them to the ground and join her in a kneeling position. In a matter of seconds, everyone else in the room is off their chairs, heads bowed.

“Please forgive us.” Eva slowly looks up, tear lines streaming from the corners of both eyes. “We thought you were from MX Global. We didn’t know you were
him
.”

“D
o you really have a fairy godmother?”

“You’ll see,” Yarah says.

Leo stands next to Yarah. The warm grass is soft between his toes. Stars blaze overhead. A cool breeze blows up from the river, bringing with it the smell of moss and cattails. Frogs and cicadas sing together in a gentle chorus that rises and falls in waves.

“Ready?” Yarah looks up. Her finger points at a bright star. “That’s where she lives. She told me.”

Looking at Yarah, Leo smiles to himself. Yarah has a great imagination. He’s seen her spend hours running through the castle talking to herself, at home in the world of her mind. It would make sense that Yarah’s fairy godmother is only in her head.

Or something that Yarah herself created, like the dragon.

“All right.” Leo tries to put enthusiasm in his voice. “Let’s do it. I can’t wait to see her.”

Yarah jumps on her toes. “Me too.” She sits on the grass, pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. “I’m going to call her now.” Her eyes close, long lashes curling out, face turning up to the sky with a look of fierce concentration.

Leo sits next to Yarah and starts counting in his head to pass the time. After getting to thirty, he lies on the grass, hands behind his head, and stares up at the bright points piercing the blackness above. Listening to the sound of frogs and insects, Leo’s eyes are heavy and begin to drop.

“Yarah.”

Leo’s eyes shoot open at the sound of the voice. He hears it again, behind him.

“I’m here, Yarah.”

Leo jumps to his feet and turns.

A woman stands above them on the hill, a kind expression on her face. She wears a long yellow dress festooned with sparkling rubies and sapphires. A string of enormous diamonds held together by two thin rings of gold adorns her head. A red jewel encased in silver hangs on her forehead.

But what really catches Leo’s eye is the string of Stones hanging from an elegant gold chain on the woman’s waist.

Yarah was right. A real fairy godmother, just like in the story books.

“You brought someone with you tonight.” The fairy godmother walks down the hill to Leo. “And who is this nice young man?”

Yarah runs to the woman. “This is my friend, Leo. I’ve told you about him before. He’s good at using his Stone to heal people.” She looks up and throws her arms around the woman’s waist. “He wants to be able to create a world like me. Can you help him?” Yarah turns and walks to Leo’s side.

“I see. He has a Stone and wants to have his own world.” The woman moves closer to Leo and lets her head drop, acknowledging him. “Is that right?”

His mouth still open, Leo stares at her. “Are you real?” He stutters. “I mean, did Yarah create you out of her imagination, or are you a real person?”

“If Yarah
had
created me, I would still be real.” The woman laughs, showing off perfect white teeth. “But no, I am
not
one of her creations. I was here long before either of you.”

“So many Stones.” Leo’s eyes drop to the loose belt on her waist. “Where did you get them all?”

“The same way you got yours.” She moves forward and extends her hand. “They just came to me.”

Leo’s hand automatically goes out and touches hers. It’s warm and soft.

“Good to meet you,” she says. “My name is Jhata.”

“H
ow did it go?” Jerek walks into Ryzaard’s office.

“Nearly flawless.” Ryzaard turns away from the window and smiles, opening his tweed jacket and showing off
four
Stones. “You’re a genius.” He motions for Jerek to sit on the red couch as he walks to the window to stare out at the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jerek holds a clear blue slate in his hand. “Any suggestions for improving it? I’m already working on a miniature version.”

“Good.” Ryzaard picks up the small statue of Zeus on his desk and slowly strolls back and forth in front of the window as he admires its ancient features. “Sergi was easy to kill, almost
too
easy. But he was also the laziest one of the bunch, too lazy to have mastered the higher powers of his Stone. The others won’t be like him. We need to make the device more agile.”

Jerek nods. “Right. So you can use it in a fight. A real weapon.” His eyes dart back and forth in the air above his head as they always do when he is in deep-thinking mode.

“Yes, exactly. Perhaps we could tweak the shape so it’s—”

“Round?”

“You read my mind,” Ryzaard says. “So it can be rolled on the ground.”

Jerek’s fingers fly over the slate as he creates a new design on the spot. “Or thrown. And it should be able to stick to any surface.”

Ryzaard’s head bobs up and down with satisfaction as he walks in front of the window, tossing the Zeus statue between his hands.

“I think I’ve got it.” Jerek stands up from the couch and moves past Ryzaard’s desk to the door. “I’ll have a prototype for you in a few days.”

“I need it in a few hours. By tonight.”

Jerek pauses at the door and looks back. “Tonight?”

“9:00 PM, to be exact.” Ryzaard stops. “Can you do it?”

Looking at his jax, Jerek shakes his head. “Six and a half hours? I don’t see how—”

“You
can
do it.” Ryzaard turns his back to the door, picks up his jax and calls Alexa.

Jerek sprints through the hallway to his lab.

Five minutes later, Alexa is standing in Ryzaard’s office, lifting a champagne glass to her lips. “Why Egypt?” She sips from her glass and rests her head on the back of the couch.

“Because my instincts tell me that Dr. Hasina Kamel is the most powerful and experienced of the Holders.” Ryzaard sits in his high-back chair with his feet up on the desk.

“But she’s also the bait that may bring Matt out of hiding. The one most likely to be sympathetic to him. And to oppose you.” Alexa drains the fluted glass. “If you’re trying to catch him, shouldn’t we just keep an eye on her until he shows up?”

Ryzaard strokes his mustache. “That is not a bad plan, but I’ve changed my mind. Each Stone makes me stronger, that much closer to the final goal. The location algorithm will tell us when and where he shows up. With our killing machine, we can dispatch him and the other Holders with ease.” Ryzaard stands up and clasps his hands behind his back. “We don’t need bait.”

“When do you plan to leave?”

“Tonight.” Ryzaard pulls a pack of black Djarums out of the inside pocket of his tweed jacket. “I’ll get there in the early morning, local time. Just before dawn. Tell me about Dr. Kamel.”

With the jax in her left palm, Alexa’s fingers play along its cylindrical glass and metal surface. A blue dot jumps up in front of her eyes and expands into a holo screen two feet long and a foot high. She stares at an image of a gray-haired woman with a headscarf in a white lab coat.

The pack of Djarums goes up to Ryzaard’s mouth where his lips pull one out. He raises a silver lighter to the tip of the cigarette and takes in a deep inhale. Light blue smoke curls out of both nostrils as he stares out the window.

“Dr. Kamel is a typical saint.” Alexa’s eyes move back and forth as she scans the text below the photo. “Trained as a pediatrician in England, she now runs a large hospital that serves poor children from all over Egypt.”

Smoke shoots up out of Ryzaard’s mouth to the ceiling. “Yes, I know the type. A do-gooder that rewards people in poverty, thus perpetuating its existence all over the world. What else can you tell me?”

“She was born into a wealthy family.” Alexa’s fingers dance across the surface of the jax as she studies the holo screen. Text and photos scroll up the page and stop. “Here it is. They’re Coptic Christians, rumored to trace their bloodline all the way back to the pharaohs.”

Ryzaard drops into his chair. “That explains how the Stone fell into her hands.” He opens a drawer in his desk and takes out the little leather book, fanning its pages until he comes to a bookmark. His head nods. “Naganuma’s book confirms that. It’s rare to keep a Stone in one family for so long. Unusually rare. Greed usually takes over and leads to strife within the family. It’s a miracle they’ve managed to avoid that for so long.” He throws the book back in the drawer and props a leg up on the desk.

“Dr. Kamel has never married. Her life is totally devoted to charitable causes.”

“Any interesting habits?”

“Not much,” Alexa says. “We saw her drinking tea through a sugar cube in her teeth.”

Ryzaard shakes his head. “All Egyptians do that. What else can you tell me?”

“Dr. Kamel lives in a poor neighborhood, but our research shows that the crime rate is unusually low. Close to zero, in fact.”

Ryzaard’s foot comes off the desk. He sits up. “And?”

“We did some investigating.” A half smile plays across Alexa’s face. “Our mild-mannered Dr. Kamel is a bit of a vigilante.”

“Let me guess.” Ryzaard stands up and laughs. “She goes out at night patrolling the streets, zapping murderers with the Stone.”

“Bingo,” Alexa says. “Only it doesn’t happen much outside.”

“What do you mean?”

Alexa sits up, and the holo screen rises with her. “She knows when and where the murders are going to happen,
in advance
. Our location algorithm has traced her popping in and out of apartment buildings at night all over Alexandria, with predictable results.”

“Go on,” Ryzaard says.

“Witnesses mostly tell the same story.” Alexa walks to the window, the holo screen floating with her. “In the moments before a victim is about to be murdered, there’s a flash of light and a thin bolt of lightning shoots out, dropping the criminal to the floor. They die of cardiac arrest. It started happening on a regular basis a few years ago. The locals even have a name for it.”

“Don’t tell me.” Ryzaard walks closer to Alexa. “The
Destroying Angel
.”

“How did you know?” Alexa stares at the tip of Ryzaard’s cigarette.

“Isn’t it rather obvious? And it confirms my fears.” Ryzaard taps on his cigarette, dropping a pile of gray ash onto the carpet and stamping it with his shoe. “She’s adept at using the Stone, both to see the future and as a weapon. That’s exactly the kind of person that we can’t allow to join up with Matt.”

Alexa brushes the side of the jax and the holo screen collapses into a dot and vanishes. “So, you’re really going after her?”

“Tonight.”

“Dr. Ryzaard?” It’s Deigo Lopez’s voice, with a palpable tone of urgency.

Ryzaard picks the jax off his desk. “Yes, Diego. What is it?”

“The location algorithm just picked up another Stone.”

“Where?”

“A freedom camp in Stanley Park. Just outside of Vancouver.”