He grunted and dropped down to the bottom of the shaft. He pried open the dormant elevator door and entered a dark, damp hallway formed in concrete, empty except for a single doorway on the left. Like a root cellar, although in the jungle there was no need for a root cellar.

A faint cry echoed above him, far away. An alarm! His heart bolted and he leapt into the hallway.

A picture of Sherry filled his mind—her gentle features, her bright eyes, her curved lips. She was the antithesis of everything he had lived for. He was driven by death, she by . . . what? Love?

The door was concrete and he found it bolted. But no lock. He jerked the bolt out and shoved the slab. It grated open to a pitch-black room.

His breathing echoed back at him from the emptiness.

“Sherry?”

Nothing.

Casius spun around. He had to get out before the place swarmed with Abdullah’s men. He’d taken a step back toward the elevator shaft when he heard a groan behind him.

“Hel . . . hello?”

Casius whirled around. A strange rush surged through his veins.

“Sherry?” His heart was hammering and it wasn’t from fear.

“Casius?”

SHERRY SAW the silhouette standing in the open doorway like a gunslinger and she wondered what Shannon was doing in her dream. Shannon was dead, of course. Or maybe it was her captor, the terrorist with the bomb, if the vision of the mushroom was right. Abdullah. He’d visited her a few hours ago—now he’d come back.

She felt sluggish and she knew that she was waking. The figure turned to leave and it struck her that maybe this was someone real.

“Hello?”

The figure spun. Was it Casius? Had Casius come to save her? She climbed out of her dead sleep.

“Sherry?”

It was Casius!

“Casius?”

She pushed herself up and Casius swept in. He dropped to one knee and placed an arm under her back. He lifted her up like a rag doll and ducked out of the cell.

He smelled like sweat, which was no surprise—he was wet with it. His face was still green from the paint.

“Where’s the priest?” he asked quietly.

He was still holding her. “I don’t know. What happened?”

It must have occurred to him that he was holding her because he dropped his left arm and let her stand on her own.

“Come on. We don’t have much time.”

Casius ran for a set of steel doors at the end of the hall and pressed his ear against them. It was an elevator, resting closed.

He stepped back and lifted the machete. “It’s clear. Stand back,” he said in a hushed voice.