Frowning, the Nalori discarded his yosablade. “There,” he said as his last weapon tumbled away into the darkness. “Now what?”

Quinn hurled his disruptor off the roof, then drew his own knife and cast it away into the night. “A fair fight.”

Another violent quake rocked the temple, and part of an outer wall collapsed with a roar. From far below, inside the temple, came a nightmarish groaning, as if from Hell itself.

“This is hardly an ideal setting for a duel,” Zett said.

Quinn shrugged off his backpack. “Looks okay to me.”

He prowled toward Zett, who eased into a fighting stance. The two combatants circled each other.

Zett flashed a predatory grin. “You’re going to regret this, Quinn. You forget, I’ve seen you fight.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve seen me get my ass kicked when I was drunk. You’ve seen your goons beat me up while holding me at gunpoint.” Quinn smirked. “You’ve neverseen me fight.”

They stopped moving. Locked eyes.

Zett charged and launched himself at Quinn. He landed a flying kick to Quinn’s chest.

Quinn stumbled backward then steadied himself as Zett charged again, leading this time with his fists.

There was no time to think, only time to react in a brutal dance of motion and collision. Ducks and blocks, strikes and counter-strikes. Hands and feet, knees and elbows.

Crushing blows left Quinn’s head swimming with dull echoes of impact. He tasted blood from his own split lips as he felt Zett’s nose crack under his fist.

Zett came at Quinn in a frenzy and landed a flurry of hits. Quinn snared the man’s arm and twisted it until the wrist broke and the shoulder dislocated.

With his free hand, Zett punched Quinn in the throat. Quinn let go of Zett. They staggered apart, both stunned and bleeding.

“I’ll give you credit,” Zett said as he steadied himself. “You’re better than I thought. But you’re still going to lose.”

“We’ll just see abou—”

Quinn barely saw the spinning kick that nearly knocked off his jaw. A falling sensation preceded a rolling blur of motion. He felt his body strike the roof, kicks and punches slamming against his torso, three of his teeth splintering as they were liberated from his gums. Everything he saw looked purple.

Fighting for balance and solid footing, he eked out one last moment of clear perception—then saw Zett’s side kick hit him in the chest. The blow knocked Quinn off his feet. He flew backward and flailed desperately as he rolled over the edge. His hands shot out, looking for purchase.

Just before gravity could lay final claim to Quinn, his left hand seized a small lip in the roof’s edge. Despite a lifetime of people telling him never to look down, he did anyway. Far below lay an unwelcoming patch of rocky ground.

Half alive and dangling by his fingertips, he watched Zett step to the roof’s edge and loom above him.

“Told you so,” Zett gloated.

“Yeah, yeah,” Quinn said, his throat tight from the full-body strain of hanging on by one hand. “I know. Fighting was never my strong suit.”

The assassin smirked and lifted his foot to stomp on Quinn’s fingers. “You havea strong suit?”

Zett froze as he saw the detonator in Quinn’s right hand. “Yeah,” Quinn said. “Demolitions.”

He pressed the trigger.

The charges in Quinn’s backpack exploded, engulfing the terrace above him in white-hot fire and high-velocity shrapnel. Searing flames vaporized Zett’s suit as bits of metal and stone raked his flesh. The blast wave lifted the assassin into the air and hurled him over its edge.

Fire stung Quinn’s fingers as he fought to hang on a few seconds longer, howling in pain the entire time. Turning his face away from the light and heat, he watched Zett’s scorched body fall to the ground. The moment of impact was not pretty, but Quinn found it very satisfying.

Above Quinn the blaze abated. He dropped the detonator and reached up to grip the edge with both hands. That was as far as he could get. He was out of strength and too badly hurt to pull his own dead weight back over the edge. Great plan,he chided himself. I get to celebrate for all of ten seconds before I wind up as the stain next to Zett.

The rock under his hands began to crumble. He half expected to see his life flash before his eyes, but all he could think about was that moment—the grit between his fingers, the pull of gravity, the pain in his head, the lead in his limbs …

Two hands locked shut around his wrists.

Bridy Mac was pulling him up to safety.

Her face was red and scrunched with effort as she power-lifted him, starting from a deep squat so she could use her legs and back muscles. As soon as she had his waist above the roof’s edge, she let herself fall backward so gravity could work for her instead of against her.

They collapsed together on the blast-scarred terrace. “Thanks,” Quinn said. “ De nada.”

A major quake rocked the temple’s ruins, and another large section of the ancient structure fell away and sank earthward in a cloud of dust.

“Time to go,” Bridy Mac said, climbing off Quinn and pulling him back to his feet. She led the way back to the spiral staircase, and they hurtled down it three steps at a time, bouncing wildly off the walls as they ran.

Several landings short of the bottom, the staircase began to implode. Quinn pulled Bridy back from a collapsing step and out of the staircase onto a landing that wasn’t in much better shape.

“That way!” Quinn shouted, pointing down a corridor whose stone floors already were heaving and buckling. He sprinted ahead, leading the way, leaping from one unstable section of disintegrating floor to another.

He was about to make another jump as Bridy grabbed his shirt collar, yanked him backward, and pulled him with her into another spiral staircase that looked as if it was still intact.

Several seconds later they were back at ground level and making a frantic run for the nearest exit.

Then a terrifying voice boomed behind them, its majestic tenor at once monstrous and feminine, its affect as sharp as thunder and as deep as the sea. Worst of all, Quinn heard it in his mind as much as in his ears.

“I know you,”it declared, freezing both Quinn and Bridy in mid-stride. “Both of you.”

They turned and gazed upon the demonic presence towering above them. Violet motes of energy swam in the dark titan’s hypnotically shifting form of liquid and shadows. It wore a gruesome horned visage, and murderous hatred burned in its eyes. Trapped inside its form was the crystal artifact.

Quinn had seen this kind of being before. On Jinoteur.

“You were on the First World. You defiled it with your mere presence. For that alone you both deserve to die.”

Mustering a weak smile, Quinn said to the creature. “Um, yeah. Well … nice catching up with you.” Then to Bridy Mac he added in a sharp whisper, “Run!”

They sprinted toward open ground.

A tentacle of shimmering black fluid shot past them. It smashed through stone walls and branched into a web of tendrils, blocking their exit.

Dodging and weaving, Quinn and Bridy scrambled toward another exit. More tentacles stabbed at them, transmuting into gleaming blades of obsidian just before the moment of attack. Each black blade sheared with ease through blocks of sandstone.

Quinn dived and rolled clear of two more thrusts while Bridy somersaulted over a near miss.

Then a flurry of disruptor shots peppered the creature. Turning to look for the source of the covering fire, Quinn saw a squad of desert nomads wielding captured Klingon weapons.

Oh, jeez,he thought. They don’t know what they’re getting into. He ran toward them, waving his arms. “Stop!” he shouted. “Run! Fall back!” Bridy was right behind him—and the Shedai was right behind her. All at once the nomads seemed to understand what was happening, and then they were running, too.