The Thirteenth Skull by Rick Yancey Read Free Book Online Page B

Arthur and his knights and the Sword of Righteousness. Arthur was killed by his own nephew or son (in some stories, Bennacio told me, Mordred was both his nephew and son) and that led to the Sword being passed down until it ended up beneath my father’s desk, where I found it.
    Meredith Black was right about one thing, I thought. They weren’t going to stop. I’d gone toe-to-toe with these guys, and Bennacio had warned me how soulless and mean they were. They weren’t going to stop until I was dead, and it didn’t matter how long I holed up in a hospital. Sooner or later, I was dead.
    And maybe that’s where it would stop, I thought. Maybe that’s where it should . You would think Michael taking the Sword back to heaven would put an end to it, but maybe it wasn’t about the Sword but about the people whose lives it touched. And since the Sword was gone finally and couldn’t touch any more lives, maybe mine was the last.
    It seemed the longer I hung around, the more people died—those cops were just the latest victims in my wake. As long as Alfred Kropp walked the earth, people were going to find themselves six feet under it.
    Maybe that’s it, I thought. Not prison or the asylum—maybe the third way was what Mike Arnold called an “extreme extraction.”
    The problem was I didn’t want to die. You don’t normally consider something like that a problem—Delivery Dude sure didn’t consider it one—but my choices had gotten very narrow very quickly and none of them were very pleasant. In fact, they were unacceptable. So that meant there had to be a fourth way and, if there wasn’t a fourth way, I’d have to make one up.
    So I did. It took a while, but I did.

08:16:26:46
    The sixth floor of St. Mary’s Hospital had a common room where the nonviolent patients could gather for a game of checkers or cards, with donated furniture and dusty potted plants in the corners, overstuffed sofas and lounge chairs and rockers. The windows faced north, offering a dramatic view of Sharp’s Ridge about ten miles away.
    Nueve was waiting for me by the windows, sitting in one of the rockers that had been painted the classic orange of the University of Tennessee. The color contrasted nicely with his dark suit. I pulled a rocking chair close to his and sat down.
    â€œSenor Kropp,” he murmured. “You look much better than the last time I saw you.”
    Like most winter days in East Tennessee, the light was weak and watery, eking through the dense cloud cover that got trapped between the Cumberland Plateau and the Smokey Mountains, but Nueve was wearing dark glasses. He might as well have worn a sign around his neck that said SECRET AGENT.
    â€œThe Seal,” I said, getting right to business. “I have it. You want it.”
    â€œAh. And your price?”
    I took a deep breath. “Twenty-five million dollars.”
    He didn’t say anything at first, but I could almost feel those dark eyes of his, staring at me behind the dark glasses.
    â€œI must say, that is unexpected.”
    â€œIt’s not for me. It’s for Samuel. I want him taken care of.”
    â€œI see. Well, twenty-five million would do that—and quite nicely!”
    â€œSee, here’s the thing, Nueve. There’s no other way out of this mess. It’s me they want. Take me out of the equation and everything’s equal again.”
    â€œEqual?”
    â€œBack to normal. Back the way it was. So the first thing to take care of is Samuel. He left the Company for me and I don’t think you’d consider hiring him back, so I want to make sure he’s taken care of, plus a little extra for his trouble.”
    â€œIt’s a generous severance, Alfred. But I cannot see how that balances this particular scale.”
    â€œThat’s the second part,” I said.
    â€œI thought there might be one.”
    â€œI want you to extract