The Final Cut by Catherine Coulter
They began to walk to the fence.
Nicholas said, “One last thing. If the prophecy is true, the stones can’t merge without a woman’s blood. He’s going to try and kill you, Kitsune, to make it happen.”
Kitsune was quiet for a moment. “Let him try.”
96
Gagny Neuf-trois, Paris
Lanighan’s warehouse
Saturday, midnight
Saleem Lanighan paced the second-floor office, full of anticipation and excitement for what was to come. She should be here soon. Fifteen more minutes, and he would unite the stones and be cured of the leukemia. Cured of every illness forever.
He was nervous, too, since he had no idea what to expect. His life’s work, the work of every male in his family for generations, was culminating right now. Since no one had gone before, he was breaking new ground.
But he knew exactly what he’d do tomorrow.
Healed, he would set out to find the perfect woman to sire his child.
One of his guards came to his side. “Sir. She’s here.”
Mulvaney turned from the window. “She’s walking up to the gate. She’s carrying a small backpack.”
“Good. Have the men bring her in.”
Lanighan realized his hands were shaking and he wanted a drink, several. Would it hurt—uniting the three stones? Would the cancer be killed immediately? A flash of his grandfather’s face, pink and smooth, unlined as he held the stone, came to him, and he decided no, it wouldn’t hurt. It would be wonderful.
Mulvaney said, “Steady, man. Steady.”
Lanighan opened eyes he didn’t realize were closed and smiled. “I am ready.” He turned to the guard. “Bring her to me.”
He looked to Mulvaney. “Are you going to let her think she’s rescuing you?”
Mulvaney said, “Of course. And then I’m going to give you her blood to do your magic.”
“And then you’ll kill her?”
“Once we have the blood, we won’t need her anymore.”
The door opened, and the guard brought Kitsune in. She looked scared. Good, Lanighan thought. She should be scared.
The guard said, “She was carrying these.”
He laid out a semiautomatic pistol, two knives, and two tear-gas canisters.
When Lanighan was sure the guard was out of earshot, he rounded on Kitsune.
“Where is the Koh-i-Noor?”
“Where is Mulvaney?”
“Don’t you want your money first?”
“I want to see Mulvaney.”
Mulvaney stepped from behind the door, and Kitsune’s face went blank with shock.
“Your loyalty becomes you, my dear.”
She looked from him to Lanighan, swallowed, and said, “William? I don’t understand. What is this? I believed you were his prisoner.”
He picked up her knives. “Oh, no. Come here to me, little fox.”
She took a few hesitant steps. Lanighan grabbed her arm and yelled, “No. First the Koh-i-Noor.”
Mulvaney smiled at her, a bitter smile, one filled with shadows and hate. “Yes, where is the diamond?”
All pretense gone, Kitsune’s eyes turned hot and dark, and despite himself, Mulvaney took a step back. “You betrayed me! You’re working with him. Why, William? What could I have possibly done to make you hate me so much?”
It was as if the dam had burst. Mulvaney yelled at her, “I gave you everything, you faithless bitch! I saved you from the gutter, trained you, taught you endlessly. Damn you, I loved you! I made you the center of my life. We were together. We were meant to be together always.
“And how did you repay me? I’ve seen your computer history, Kitsune. I know you’ve been checking up on that man Thornton. Hoping against hope once you showed up with fifty million dollars he’d take you back. You were going to leave me for another man, walk away from your life, our life. I spent years making things perfect for you, making you perfect for me. We were supposed to be together. You are the one who betrayed me!”
Somewhere deep she’d known but simply hadn’t wanted to face it, to accept that such a thing could be possible. She said calmly, “I never betrayed you, William. You were like a father to me, and I loved you like a father. I gave you everything I could give you.”
“No, you did not give me what I deserved, what I wanted. You gave what should have been mine to Thornton—he was nothing more than a tool, someone to throw away when you had no more use for him. What did he do for you besides screw you? Damn you, Kitsune, he was nothing, and yet you chose him over me.”
“No, I did throw him away because I had to, because of the job. And you’ve been spying on me this whole time? You’re pathetic! A pathetic old man.”
There was nothing more to say. Kitsune reached into her shirt and withdrew a blue velvet bag, tossed it to Lanighan.
“Here’s your bloody stone. I’m leaving.”
Lanighan looked from Mulvaney to Kitsune. “Is your drama played out? Good. Now, Kitsune, you and I are not done. You will give me something else, something I must have. It will be your final gift. Hurry, Mulvaney, do it now!”
Mulvaney lunged at her, grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her back, and began pummeling her kidneys with hard punches. He outweighed her by a good forty pounds, and he knew all her moves. He’d taught them to her, after all. But she was much younger and very fast and strong, and she fought him with everything in her, twisting and punching and kicking.
Lanighan ignored the battle and opened the bag, dumped the Koh-i-Noor into his palm. It was luminescent, sparkling, lit from within, recognizing its true master. The great stone was his at last.
He went to the small table in the corner, where he’d set his grandfather’s ancient rosewood box.
Using the bone-handled knife he’d brought from his family’s estate, he cut his finger, laid the wound against the golden lock. The hasps began to turn with a creaking noise he remembered as if it were yesterday, and the lock sprang free.
He opened the box and looked down at his grandfather’s huge stone, and the smaller one retrieved from Anatoly’s safe. Both were dull in comparison to the Koh-i-Noor, their internal fire hidden. He pulled them from the box and laid them next to one another. He heard a noise begin. It was as if they were greeting one another, a small hum growing louder and more insistent. He pushed them closer together and the hum became screams. He put a finger on each of the stones, caressing them, giving them thanks.
The screams built, louder and louder still, beating at his mind, but he didn’t look away from the incredible stones before him. They were so beautiful, yes, and now they were pulling together, as if drawn by an unseen force, though the lines between them were still clear. Not fully united, not fully one again. Not yet.
He stared into the heart of chaos, became one with it, then he rose above it, looked down, and marveled. He picked up the stones, cupped them tenderly in his hands. Their heart was calling to him, and he knew it was time. When he spoke, his voice was stronger and louder than the screaming. It was the voice of a god.
“Bring me the woman’s blood.”
Mulvaney was tiring, but he didn’t slow. His knife slashed a path in front of him, sending Kitsune back, closer and closer to Lanighan. Kitsune was focused on him, her own knives jabbing, tearing, and she rent the sleeve of one arm. She saw blood well up, but it didn’t slow him. He continued advancing; forcing her back, ever back, toward Lanighan.
Lanighan screamed, “Now!”
Mulvaney grabbed her hand, jerked her arm straight out, and sliced her from wrist to elbow. She screamed in pain and the shock of the wound, numbly watched the blood pour from her arm.
Lanighan held the stones beneath the flowing blood. When they were red with her blood, he threw back his head and yelled to the heavens, “It is done!”
The screaming stopp
Lanighan looked at the stones in his bloody hands and saw a light—blue, transparent, blinding in intensity, and it seemed to outline the edge of each stone. It whirled around the stones, merging them, and soon the edges were no longer to be seen. As the stones became one, they vibrated in his hands, and a whine began, growing louder and higher, like an electrical wire pulled taut and plucked. The light grew brighter and brighter, spearing out, encompassing the stone, his hands, the room.
He felt the light move into him, felt the small poisonous cells in his body pop as they were destroyed. He was on fire, and he hurt, hurt so badly, pain rising from every part of him. The stone—it was killing the cancer, and it was killing him. His heart pounded hard and fast, and his breath grew short. He tried to let the stone drop, but he couldn’t. The light moved through him and around him, and suddenly it coalesced into one narrow beam and split through the top of the warehouse, arcing up into the night sky, piercing the heavens.
And the killing pain left him and poured itself into the light, becoming one with it. He couldn’t look away, it was pure and powerful, and it was born of him. Night became day, and he stared into the face of his own sun, followed its pulsing rays upward through the night sky and beyond, to the soul of the universe. Now he understood the very nature of its being, of man’s being. He was its king, its master.
He was perfection.
He was a god.
The ground began to move under his feet.
97
Voices, loud, angry voices, then there was nothing, no sound at all. It had been only moments, but it seemed much longer since he didn’t know what was happening. Then Nicholas heard Kitsune screaming. He tapped the comms unit in his ear. “Mike! Now!”
He heard her yell to Menard’s men, “Go, go, go!”
Nicholas had wanted to stay close to Kitsune, but six guards had followed her up to the big office on the second floor and he’d been forced to hide in the shadows. When the guards heard Kitsune scream, they didn’t rush into the office. Obviously they’d been ordered not to come in, and they wanted to do something, but there was no one to tell them what to do.
When the building began to shake, the decision was made for them. All but one of the guards took off down the stairs to get out of the warehouse, and Nicholas heard the staccato gunfire from Menard’s men taking them out. The last guard started for the doorway, weapon up. Nicholas came up behind him, hooked his arm around his throat, and twisted, then threw him to the floor.
Nicholas ran into the room. He saw Mulvaney throw Kitsune against a wall. Mulvaney turned and saw him, and incredibly, he smiled, the same smile he’d given Nicholas as he’d escaped over the wire fence in the alley behind Mike’s garage. “I wished I’d killed you. But now’s a good time, isn’t it? You’ve made your last mistake, boyo.”
Nicholas saw the detonator in Mulvaney’s hand. He fired, shattered his hand, but the bullet was too late. Mulvaney had already pushed the button and the floor was buckling under their feet.
The noise of metal wrenching apart was brutal, and then came the wall of flames behind him. No escape back through the door. He saw Mulvaney fall to the floor, heard him cursing, cradling his wrist.
He saw Lanighan standing in the corner, his eyes—exalted, that was it, his head thrown back to the heavens. A long, thin scream tore from his throat. Nicholas saw he had something in his hands. It was the three stones, but now they looked like one, and they were covered with blood, Kitsune’s blood.
Nicholas shouted, “Mike, Lanighan, stop him!”
She jumped in the window and crossed to Lanighan in three strides, turned him around, then put her fist to the soft spot under his jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went down.
Mulvaney was on one knee but coming back up when Kitsune appeared from behind him and kicked him, hard, in the back. He sprawled onto the floor face-first, and she darted over to Lanighan.
The fire was whipping madly toward them, the walls starting to go up in flames around them.
Mike was pulling at his arm. “Nick, we’ve got to get out. Come on. Come on!”
He saw Kitsune through a thickening veil of smoke on her knees by Lanighan, the blood from her arm streaming over his face. She was hurt badly; he needed to help her. He took a step toward her, but she rose and rushed to him, pressed something hard into his hand.
He looked down and saw it wasn’t the three stones united, it was simply the Koh-i-Noor, and it was covered with blood, her blood. What had happened to the other two stones?
Kitsune’s face was highlighted by the inferno behind her. He saw her mouth move: “Go.”
He made a grab for her, but she raced back toward Mulvaney.
Mike screamed, “Nicholas, come on, come on! I’ll get Lanighan.” She pulled him up and threw him over her shoulder and carried him to the fire escape. Nicholas climbed out the window, and she shoved Lanighan at him.
Together, they got Lanighan down the rickety metal stairs as Menard’s men came running. Nicholas literally threw Lanighan at them. He saw the building was a raging inferno, pulsing with the heat of the flames. He started back to the fire escape.
Mike grabbed his arm. “No, Nicholas, it’s too late!”
He turned briefly to look at her and said only, “I have to go back for her,” and she watched helplessly as he began to climb the ladder rungs.
The metal was hot under his hands, and the higher he climbed, the hotter it became. He reached the window but could see only billowing endless flames, the black smoke threading in and out in a mad dance. He yelled her name again and again.
Then he saw her. He yelled her name again. She turned and smiled, gave him a small salute, and turned back into the fire. He saw her standing over the body of her mentor, and Nicholas would swear he heard the sound of a bullet over the crackling roar.
She was gone.
He climbed back down the fire escape, and saw Menard’s soldiers had gathered up the remainder of Lanighan’s guards. One of Menard’s men said, “We have four down out front. The firefighters are on their way.”
Mike stepped to his side, gripped his shoulder. Her face was black, covered in soot. He slowly reached up a hand and wiped her cheek.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and began running her hands over his chest, his arms. “Nicholas, listen to me. You’re bleeding, bad, but I can’t find the wound. Where are you hit?”
His ears hurt, his throat was raw with smoke. His hands were blistered from the heat of the metal. He looked down to see his shirtfront was covered in blood from where he’d wiped his hands. “I’m fine. It’s not my blood, it’s hers. Kitsune’s gone. I think she shot Mulvaney.”
It had all happened in a split second.
Mike hit him on the shoulder. “You scared me again. Stop doing that.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Koh-i-Noor, still smeared with Kitsune’s blood.
Mike stared at the bloody stone. “So she gave it to you after all.”
He saw Kitsune’s face again, saw her smile, saw her walk into the heart of the fire. He cleared his throat. “She’d never hidden the Koh-i-Noor in Lanighan’s briefcase. She had it all along; it was in the blue bag. I saw her pry it out of Lanighan’s hand, and she gave it to me.”
Mike didn’t say anything. She’d seen Kitsune lean over him, but she hadn’t seen anything else, at least not clearly.
They turned and watched the fire, listened to the smaller explosions rip through the warehouse as the charges that Mulvaney had laid ignited. Nicholas could swear the Koh-i-Noor was warm in his hand, but when he looked down at it, he saw that the skin of his palms was burned and beginning to blister.
Mike asked, “Nicholas, did you see the other diamonds?”
“No.” Had he? He simply didn’t know.
“All that precious art on the bottom floor, all of it destroyed.??
The roof started to collapse, the corrugated metal walls buckling with an unearthly groan. Nicholas put his arm around her shoulders and turned her away.
“Enough. Let’s go home.”
98
Ritz Paris
15 Place Vendôme
Sunday morning
Mike came out of her bedroom the next morning to find Nicholas already showered, dressed, and sitting at the table in their living room, eating a croissant that she wanted to rip out of his hand.
He looked up and smiled at her. “Good morning. Before you ask, yes, my stitches survived.” He saw her arm was back in a sling. No wonder, given the way she’d jerked Lanighan over her shoulder last night. “How about yours?”
She waved him off. “All good.”
She sat at the table and stared at the beautiful plate of food in front of her—café crème, yogurt, croissants with strawberry preserves, and a big fat brioche.
He said, “Best of all, here’s coffee. You’ll need your strength. Our debriefing is in half an hour.”
She asked, “How are your hands?”
“I’ll do.” They fell into comfortable silence as they ate their breakfast.
Mike wiped the crumbs off the front of her shirt, glanced at her watch. “Okay, it’s time to fill them in on our adventures last night.” She opened her laptop and tapped into the CIVITS secure videoconference feed. The twentieth-floor conference room appeared on the screen. Zachery, Ben, Gray, Savich, and Sherlock were sitting around the table.
She waved a croissant at them. “Bonjour.”
Light laughter, then Zachery said, “It’s already all over the news, all over the world, and viral on the Internet. The Koh-i-Noor saved, but no details. Probably one of Menard’s men saw you with it but didn’t know how you’d gotten it. After we get things clear, we’ll hold a press conference here.
“I’m very glad to see both of you alive. Is the warehouse fire out yet?”
Nicholas answered, “At last count, there were two hundred firefighters and forty-five engines on scene, and the thing’s still burning. Mulvaney knew his business. All the surrounding warehouses went up in flames, too. The fire spread nearly half a mile through the area. They had to evacuate all the home.”