“What’s the matter, Simon?” Wesker sneered. “Don’t care much for small spaces?”

“Leave the kid alone, Thaddeus,” Connor said. “I bet you wet yourself when they put you through this.”

“Listen, you ungrateful toad . . .”

“Hey,” I shouted, “can I have a little quiet? Trying not to die down here!”

“Let the boy concentrate,” Inspectre Quimbley said, the ends of his mustache dropping down into the shaft like hairy little stalactites.

“Go get ’em, kid,” Connor shouted. “You’ll do fine. Besides, I don’t want to have to break in a new partner.”

“We do have safety measures in place, you know,” the Inspectre said, more to Connor than me. He sounded offended.

While the three of them continued watching and talking amongst themselves, I attempted to shut them out. I had to keep my mind focused on the test.

The chattering overhead stopped and I looked up. The Inspectre gave me a hearty thumbs-up.

“Alrighty,” he said. “We’re spinning the Wheels now.”

From the top of the shaft a click-clack-clicking began, and I could actually feel energy in the air as the magic started locking in around me. I waited with dread for whatever both Wheels stopped on. I knew I could do this. I had to do this, and I would. I was up for any of the challenges presented to me, but what I really dreaded hearing was . . .

“Ravenous Rats,” Wesker said, rolling the R’s and savoring every evil-sounding syllable of it. It was hard to believe he was one of the good guys sometimes.

“Are you kidding me?” I shouted up. “Are you fu—?”

Before I could finish my expletive, the twin blades of one of the other challenges on that Wheel—the Grievous Guillotine—shot out of the wall above me, cutting the rope and dropping me like a sack of seriously screwed Simons. As I fell, I clawed at the sides of the pit, barely slowing the last twenty feet of the fall. I hit the ground hard, but thankfully the leather of my coat cushioned a great deal of the blow. With the wind knocked out of me, lying there and not moving would have been nice. Not that I had that kind of time—the rats would be coming soon.