Using the distraction, King took aim to fire at Cainan, but a sudden pressure flexed his ribs where Fiona had stabbed him. The golem holding him tightened its grip. He shouted in pain, fighting against blacking out.

Alexander was being treated similarly, but as he fought the golem’s grasp with his formidable physical strength and invulnerability, he looked more angry than in pain.

A blur of movement shot between the two men and entered the center stage.

Queen.

She ran straight past Fiona and launched herself into the air, diving over Ridley. King wondered why she would do that and got his answer a second later as three giant cats pounced into the room and dove on the nearest moving objects—two at golems and one at Ridley himself.

*   *   *

AFTER SHOUTING THE strange sentence Fiona had scrawled on her cell wall, reading the words from the small display screen on his camera, Bishop waited until he saw Fiona freed from control. Then he turned and ran back to the cell. Knight struggled to his feet. The impact had pounded his body, but unlike Bishop, he needed time to recover.

Despite the pain, Knight’s mind was still on task. “Did it work?” he asked.

Bishop steadied Knight. “Whatever was done to her has been undone.”

“Good,” Knight said, standing on his own and lifting his weapon. “Let’s get into this fight.”

With his XM25 at the ready, Bishop moved toward the large chamber, now shaking with the sounds of battle, both human and feline. As he stepped into the space, followed by Knight, he was greeted by a giant stone golem with a lion’s face.

Knight turned to backtrack, but a second golem with the face of a jackal, hunched in the hallway, pounded toward them.

“Back in the cell!” Bishop shouted.

Knight saw Bishop drop a live grenade at the lion-headed golem’s feet and dove for the cell.

*   *   *

AS DARKNESS BEGAN to consume his vision King watched one of the big cats tackle a golem to the floor. A second cat was batted to the side, sliding across the floor and stopping at the far wall where it lay motionless. The third cat’s leap through the air caught Ridley’s attention. He looked up in horror.

But the cat never made it.

King fell to the floor, the pressure on his chest gone. He sucked in a deep breath and watched as the golem that had dropped him snagged the cat in midflight. The cat flailed and scratched with its large claws. Chunks of marble flew from the golem’s body, but it did little good.

As the golem with the cat turned away from Ridley, King had to duck beneath its flailing hind legs. The cat fought for freedom. The sudden motion filled his oxygen-deprived vision with spots, forcing him to catch his breath.

Ridley was on the floor, just twenty feet away. Fiona lay between them.