The Final Cut

Mulvaney turned from the window. “She’s walking up to the gate. She’s carrying a small backpack.”

“Good. Have the men bring her in.”

Lanighan realized his hands were shaking and he wanted a drink, several. Would it hurt—uniting the three stones? Would the cancer be killed immediately? A flash of his grandfather’s face, pink and smooth, unlined as he held the stone, came to him, and he decided no, it wouldn’t hurt. It would be wonderful.

Mulvaney said, “Steady, man. Steady.”

Lanighan opened eyes he didn’t realize were closed and smiled. “I am ready.” He turned to the guard. “Bring her to me.”

He looked to Mulvaney. “Are you going to let her think she’s rescuing you?”

Mulvaney said, “Of course. And then I’m going to give you her blood to do your magic.”

“And then you’ll kill her?”

“Once we have the blood, we won’t need her anymore.”

The door opened, and the guard brought Kitsune in. She looked scared. Good, Lanighan thought. She should be scared.

The guard said, “She was carrying these.”

He laid out a semiautomatic pistol, two knives, and two tear-gas canisters.

When Lanighan was sure the guard was out of earshot, he rounded on Kitsune.

“Where is the Koh-i-Noor?”

“Where is Mulvaney?”

“Don’t you want your money first?”

“I want to see Mulvaney.”

Mulvaney stepped from behind the door, and Kitsune’s face went blank with shock.

“Your loyalty becomes you, my dear.”

She looked from him to Lanighan, swallowed, and said, “William? I don’t understand. What is this? I believed you were his prisoner.”

He picked up her knives. “Oh, no. Come here to me, little fox.”

She took a few hesitant steps. Lanighan grabbed her arm and yelled, “No. First the Koh-i-Noor.”

Mulvaney smiled at her, a bitter smile, one filled with shadows and hate. “Yes, where is the diamond?”

All pretense gone, Kitsune’s eyes turned hot and dark, and despite himself, Mulvaney took a step back. “You betrayed me! You’re working with him. Why, William? What could I have possibly done to make you hate me so much?”

It was as if the dam had burst. Mulvaney yelled at her, “I gave you everything, you faithless bitch! I saved you from the gutter, trained you, taught you endlessly. Damn you, I loved you! I made you the center of my life. We were together. We were meant to be together always.

“And how did you repay me? I’ve seen your computer history, Kitsune. I know you’ve been checking up on that man Thornton. Hoping against hope once you showed up with fifty million dollars he’d take you back. You were going to leave me for another man, walk away from your life, our life. I spent years making things perfect for you, making you perfect for me. We were supposed to be together. You are the one who betrayed me!”

Somewhere deep she’d known but simply hadn’t wanted to face it, to accept that such a thing could be possible. She said calmly, “I never betrayed you, William. You were like a father to me, and I loved you like a father. I gave you everything I could give you.”

“No, you did not give me what I deserved, what I wanted. You gave what should have been mine to Thornton—he was nothing more than a tool, someone to throw away when you had no more use for him. What did he do for you besides screw you? Damn you, Kitsune, he was nothing, and yet you chose him over me.”

“No, I did throw him away because I had to, because of the job. And you’ve been spying on me this whole time? You’re pathetic! A pathetic old man.”

There was nothing more to say. Kitsune reached into her shirt and withdrew a blue velvet bag, tossed it to Lanighan.

“Here’s your bloody stone. I’m leaving.”

Lanighan looked from Mulvaney to Kitsune. “Is your drama played out? Good. Now, Kitsune, you and I are not done. You will give me something else, something I must have. It will be your final gift. Hurry, Mulvaney, do it now!”

Mulvaney lunged at her, grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her back, and began pummeling her kidneys with hard punches. He outweighed her by a good forty pounds, and he knew all her moves. He’d taught them to her, after all. But she was much younger and very fast and strong, and she fought him with everything in her, twisting and punching and kicking.

Lanighan ignored the battle and opened the bag, dumped the Koh-i-Noor into his palm. It was luminescent, sparkling, lit from within, recognizing its true master. The great stone was his at last.

He went to the small table in the corner, where he’d set his grandfather’s ancient rosewood box.

Using the bone-handled knife he’d brought from his family’s estate, he cut his finger, laid the wound against the golden lock. The hasps began to turn with a creaking noise he remembered as if it were yesterday, and the lock sprang free.

He opened the box and looked down at his grandfather’s huge stone, and the smaller one retrieved from Anatoly’s safe. Both were dull in comparison to the Koh-i-Noor, their internal fire hidden. He pulled them from the box and laid them next to one another. He heard a noise begin. It was as if they were greeting one another, a small hum growing louder and more insistent. He pushed them closer together and the hum became screams. He put a finger on each of the stones, caressing them, giving them thanks.

The screams built, louder and louder still, beating at his mind, but he didn’t look away from the incredible stones before him. They were so beautiful, yes, and now they were pulling together, as if drawn by an unseen force, though the lines between them were still clear. Not fully united, not fully one again. Not yet.

He stared into the heart of chaos, became one with it, then he rose above it, looked down, and marveled. He picked up the stones, cupped them tenderly in his hands. Their heart was calling to him, and he knew it was time. When he spoke, his voice was stronger and louder than the screaming. It was the voice of a god.

“Bring me the woman’s blood.”

Mulvaney was tiring, but he didn’t slow. His knife slashed a path in front of him, sending Kitsune back, closer and closer to Lanighan. Kitsune was focused on him, her own knives jabbing, tearing, and she rent the sleeve of one arm. She saw blood well up, but it didn’t slow him. He continued advancing; forcing her back, ever back, toward Lanighan.

Lanighan screamed, “Now!”

Mulvaney grabbed her hand, jerked her arm straight out, and sliced her from wrist to elbow. She screamed in pain and the shock of the wound, numbly watched the blood pour from her arm.

Lanighan held the stones beneath the flowing blood. When they were red with her blood, he threw back his head and yelled to the heavens, “It is done!”

The screaming stopped.

Lanighan looked at the stones in his bloody hands and saw a light—blue, transparent, blinding in intensity, and it seemed to outline the edge of each stone. It whirled around the stones, merging them, and soon the edges were no longer to be seen. As the stones became one, they vibrated in his hands, and a whine began, growing louder and higher, like an electrical wire pulled taut and plucked. The light grew brighter and brighter, spearing out, encompassing the stone, his hands, the room.

He felt the light move into him, felt the small poisonous cells in his body pop as they were destroyed. He was on fire, and he hurt, hurt so badly, pain rising from every part of him. The stone—it was killing the cancer, and it was killing him. His heart pounded hard and fast, and his breath grew short. He tried to let the stone drop, but he couldn’t. The light moved through him and around him, and suddenly it coalesced into one narrow beam and split through the top of the warehouse, arcing up into the night sky, piercing the heavens.

And the killing pain left him and poured itself into the light, becoming one with it. He couldn’t look away, it was pure and powerful, and it was born of him. Night became day, and he stared into the face of his own sun, followed its pulsing rays upward through the night sky and beyond, to the soul of the universe. Now he understood the very nature of its being, of man’s being. He was its king, its master.