Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,101

mountain each and every day. This is the home of gods long forgotten, watered down, and driven nearly to extinction.”

“Gods can be driven to extinction?” Sara said, surprised by the sarcasm in her voice. The last thing she wanted to do was antagonize Weston.

But he seemed unfazed. He merely grinned. Perhaps being separated from humanity for so long made him forget what certain tones of voice meant.

“All gods have low points,” Weston said. “The Titans were defeated by Zeus. Set trapped Osiris in a coffin and sent him adrift in the sea. Jesus found himself nailed to a cross. There is, of course, one staggering difference between them and the gods residing here.” He looked at Sara with excited eyes. “These are real. And I am their father.”

“But no one lives here,” Sara said, ignoring a fresh wave of nausea.

“Soon enough,” Weston said. “I have forbidden the children to live here until the city is fully restored. With only a few remaining roofs to be replaced, it will not be long before this chamber echoes with the sounds of Nguoi Rung song again.”

Sara pictured Lucy singing opera and nearly laughed. It was an absurd image. Even with her half-human parentage she seemed so brutal and savage that Sara doubted any of them could carry a tune. But they wouldn’t be singing operas, they’d be cheering their new-found dominance over the planet. “How can you believe Neanderthals have more right to exist on Earth? You’re human, too.”

Weston grew angry. “Neanderthals and humans have equal rights to live. By setting you free I might save the human race, but I would damn theirs!”

“By choosing not to let us leave you might be damning the human race. More than six billion people.” Sara sighed. She could see that Weston would never trust her to leave with the cure. The man was a stubborn fool too in love with his bastard children to care about anyone else. “You’ll never be one of them.”

Weston calmed, and for a moment, looked sad. “True. I have become as close as I can to being one of them. I have embraced their ways. I have learned to read and write their language. I have unlocked their buried history and mapped their world. In a way, I am more like the Neanderthals who built this place than the mothers of my children. What’s important is that my children accept me . . . just as they will come to accept you.” He motioned with the gun to the side of the cliff. “Move.”

Sara nervously approached the edge. His last statement implied that he planned on keeping her alive and captive indefinitely, yet Weston’s sanity had left him long ago, and he now had her walking toward a several-hundred-foot drop. Sara let out a small sigh of relief as she neared the edge. Descending along the wall of the massive cavern was a stone staircase cut into the interior mountain wall. All but invisible from the side, it came clearly into view from above. But if he wasn’t going to kill her, what did he intend?

“What do you want with me?” she asked, starting down the staircase.

“I want to restore the Neanderthals to their former glory. They were an amazing people. A civilized people, far beyond the warring Homo sapiens of their time. But to do that, they need to learn.”

Sara paused and looked back. “You want me to teach them?”

“Who better?”

“Umm, anyone.”

“There is no one else here.”

“King is—”

“—a killer,” Weston said. “And I fear he will not give up the fight until he is killed.”

Sara continued down the staircase without another word. Weston was right. She could do little to fight Weston, let alone his super-strong and superfast children. Escape, for her, was impossible.

Or was it? She hadn’t seen any Nguoi Rung since being led into the cave system. And the city was abandoned. Alone with Weston, this might be her only real chance of escape.

But she needed to find out what his cure for Brugada was. She wouldn’t leave without it.

She glanced back at Weston.

Given his size, strength, and no doubt, ferocity, coupled with the fact that he carried a knife and a gun, Sara’s life was in Weston’s hands, for now. She wondered if she’d see the outside world again. She longed for it now. She wanted her screwed-up senses back. She wanted to return to the noise and chaos of the city. And she wanted to see King again. Her thoughts lingered on King. Not on