Then a resounding crash threw her forward.
She hit the ramp hard and tumbled end over end. Once stopped at the bottom, she turned to see the terrace break off the wall and shatter at the foot of the bronze giant. It had smashed away the balcony and now jammed its massive boulder into the tunnel. It proceeded to hammer it even deeper, closing off the only exit.
Once finished—with its purpose completed—it sank to its knees and leaned its bronze forehead against the wall and went quiet.
Nehir gathered her team.
Five were missing or dead.
She stared across the cave, her fury building to a white fire.
I will make them suffer.
41
June 26, 7:06 P.M. WEST
High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Following the blast of the RPG, Gray gathered everyone at the top of the gold stairs. He watched the encroaching fiery bronze army turn away from their position at the palace gates, drawn by the rocket’s explosion, by the churning smoke. Even now, a tower toppled and crashed over there with a resounding clang of metal on metal.
A moment ago, the two massive hounds on the gold steps had leaped in that same direction, going after noisier prey. But Gray knew this reprieve would not last long.
He glanced around the breadth of the city. In the center, the dark lake was nearly full, reflecting the flames. Its surface slowly churned in a circle as more water flooded down the five promenades. Above it, the six-headed beast stirred, waking more slowly than the smaller creations. Its long necks had begun to snake back and forth; its diamond eyes glowed ruddily, flames lapping from its shark-toothed crocodilian jaws.
From this height, Gray suddenly knew what he was seeing, what was represented here. Charybdis and Scylla. The monsters from Homer’s Odyssey. The former was a monstrous maelstrom, a ship-destroying whirlpool. The latter was a giant amphibious sea creature that had killed several of Odysseus’s men.
But those beasts weren’t the immediate danger.
“Over there,” Mac warned in a whisper and pointed to their right.
On that side, a good number of the beasts steadily approached. Gray’s team was pinned down, in the direct path of that fiery horde as it headed toward the blast site.
We’ll be overrun at any moment.
Knowing this, knowing they had no other choice, he grabbed Kowalski by the shoulder and pointed to the golden gates. “We need to get through there. You have another drum magazine, right?”
His teammate nodded. “There’s one more in the duffel.”
“Then no half measures this time.” It felt like letting a rabid dog off a leash, but it was now or never. “Get us in there.”
Kowalski’s face split with a savage grin. “Everyone down,” he warned. “Time for my fireworks show.”
Gray dropped flat on the stairs, waving the others with him.
Only Seichan remained crouched on her feet. She had their ammunition duffel open and withdrew the team’s last two pistols, along with a roll of black duct tape.
He frowned. “What are you—?”
“Buying us a little breathing room.” She dashed to the right, toward where the RPG had been fired at a them.
“Wait.”
“Get that door open,” she called back to him. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she vanished into the thick shadows.
Kowalski noted the exchange, casting Gray a questioning look.
He nodded to the door. “You heard her. Get that open.”
Kowalski shrugged and faced the door. He braced his weapon against his. “Here goes nothing.”
The explosive barrage pounded Gray’s ears, his head, his chest. On full auto mode, Kowalski’s combat shotgun could unload three hundred rounds per minute. Kowalski did not hold back and blasted the last twenty shells of his weapon’s magazine into one of the palace doors. Each FRAG-12 round was packed with 3.4 grams of highly explosive composition A5, capable of piercing armored vehicles, bunker doors.
And hopefully these gates.
Kowalski’s salvo only lasted a few seconds, as each shell blasted one after the other into the door. When it finally ended, Gray’s head rang. He could hear nothing but a dull roaring in his ears.
As the smoke cleared, the result revealed itself. One of the palace gates hung askew from some complicated gearwork that served as its hinges. The twenty explosive shells had knocked the door back, tearing it partially away. But it still stubbornly held, while offering a low, narrow gap under one tilted edge.
Good enough.
Gray didn’t bother shouting, knowing all were as deaf as him. He got up and ran low, drawing everyone with him. He reached the broken door and motioned the team through. Maria dove past him. Mac and Bailey hurried through, both men’s eyes huge with panic.
Kowalski stripped out the emptied drum magazine and winged it into the fiery city. Gray joined him. They both stared off into the darkness.
Where is Seichan?
7:10 P.M.
With Aggie clinging and shivering on her shoulder, Seichan knelt in the darkness. One of the fiery lampposts at the end of the wide avenue offered enough illumination for her to work.
She quickly duct-taped one of the SIG Sauer pistols to the bronze wall of a two-story home. She positioned the weapon two feet off the ground. She had already strung a twisted length of the same tape across the thoroughfare, gluing the far end to a post on the other side. She then used one of her daggers to trim the rope of tape and pass it around the pistol’s trigger.
Satisfied, she stood up. She held two prayers close to her heart: that this makeshift tripwire set across this street would not be spotted in the shadows, and that the enemy who had fired upon them would attempt to use this path to reach the palace. This street—and the other avenue she had already booby-trapped in the same manner—seemed to be the most direct routes from A to B.
At least, I hope so.
With her work done here, she set off back toward the palace, trying her best to stick to the darkest shadows, moving at a fast jog.
Suddenly Aggie’s arms tightened around her neck, his little nails digging deep.
Then she heard it, too.
Behind her.
The pounding of bronze on stone.
She glanced back and saw a huge fiery shape round a corner and come barreling toward her, trailing smoke from its massive bulk.
She ran faster, but the clash of metal on rock grew louder, closing down on her. She no longer had the leeway to seek the darkest path to the palace. Instead she sped headlong through the fire and smoke, sprinting straight for her goal. The glow of the palace seemed an impossible distance ahead.
Still, she pictured Jack gurgling and smiling.
She felt Aggie shaking with fear.
She dug in her toes—and ran for all their lives.
7:13 P.M.
Gray stood with Kowalski at the broken gate into the palace. Gray clutched his pistol. Kowalski’s earlier barrage had not gone unnoticed. From all directions, fiery shapes closed toward their position.
“Runnin’ out of time here,” Kowalski warned.
Gray held his breath—then heard a thunderous pounding to the right. He twisted in that direction.
Around the curve of the palace wall, Seichan ran into view, her eyes wild, her breath heaving. “Go!” she screamed at them.
Before either of them could move, a huge bronze horse thundered into view behind her. As big as a Clydesdale, it stampeded after her, its metal hooves sparking off the stone. It came at them with its head low, its mane a line of flames shooting high, trailing a cloak of smoke behind it.
Gray was momentarily struck by its deadly beauty.
Less impressed, Kowalski waved to Seichan. “Through here!”
As she reached them, she grabbed Aggie from her shoulder and dove under the gap in the crooked door. Kowalski followed behind her.
Gray fired at the steed, trying to buy the others a few extra seconds, but his rounds only p
inged off the bronze shields of its charging body, mere horseflies nipping at the beast.
The stallion lowered its head further and thundered straight at him.
Gray’s ankles were suddenly grabbed in an iron grip. His legs were yanked, and he fell flat and slid backward under the door. Above, the horse rammed its head into the gold door, hard enough to knock it open another few inches. With the resounding impact, fire exploded around Gray, burning his cheek as he was hauled into the palace.
Outside, the steed rose and hammered its hooves against the door, but the gate held for now. Gray understood why the beast failed to get in. As he was dragged into the palace, he saw its doors were a foot thick, likely solid gold.
Gray gained his feet, joining the others gathered in the entry hall.
Kowalski was down on one knee, his ammunition duffel open on the floor, already fumbling another drum magazine into his fearsome weapon.
As the steed outside continued its pounding, Bailey crouched and stared out. “Hippoi Kabeirikoi,” he mumbled.
Kowalski scowled at the priest.
Bailey nodded to the gate. “One of the four bronze horses that Hephaestus crafted to pull the chariot of his twin sons.”
As the stallion continued to batter at the door, other lumbering shapes could be heard approaching outside, their bronze legs ringing off the limestone, likely drawn by the commotion. Not knowing how long the massive gold gates would hold, Gray got them all moving.
“We need to find another way out,” he said. “Hunayn hinted at something behind this palace. That’s where we need to go.”
Gray led them past the gates, across a short entry hall of tarnished bronze, and into a vast hall. It rose three stories to a domed roof centered on a huge golden chandelier in the shape of a conch shell, its edges flickering with golden flames. More torches lit the walls.
Beyond them rose two tall gold thrones raised on a dais and carved with seafaring images of ships sailing the seas, of large fish with curled tails leaping high out of stylized waves. Behind them climbed a natural rock fireplace, sculpted out of the cavern wall. Its huge hearth danced with oil-fed flames.
Two arched passageways flanked the fireplace, leading deeper into the rock of the greater cavern.
Gray pointed to them. “We should check those out.”
“If you say split up . . .” Kowalski warned.
Gray ignored him. He motioned to Seichan, Kowalski, and Maria. “You three check the left. We’ll take the right. Stay in sight of one another. Don’t proceed into either tunnel. We’ll only explore farther”—he glanced at Kowalski—“together.”
“Damn straight,” the big man said.
Halfway across the hall, noises began to echo all around, rising from the bronze hallways and galleries to either side. A scraping of metal on metal, accompanied by a clinking and rattling.
“We’re not alone in here,” Mac moaned.
And not just in here.
Behind them, the distant blast of a pistol reached them—followed a moment later by more gunfire and the louder explosion of a grenade. The group cast concerned looks all around.
Gray glanced over to Seichan.
She merely smiled with satisfaction.
Apparently her mission a moment ago had not been in vain.
7:22 P.M.
Rifle at her shoulder, Nehir scrambled through the carnage of her team. All around, screams reverberated off tarnished walls. In this corner of Tartarus, the maze of homes and towers, shuttered and locked, offered no refuge. She flattened against the side of a building.
Ahead, blood shimmered in pools on the stone, reflecting the torchlight. Behind her, a Daughter crawled out of an alley—only to have her body jerked back with a loud crunch of bones. A Son ran wild-eyed past her position, panicked and weaponless. As he reached a side street, a bronze bull burst out from there, striking the fleeing man broadside, impaling him on its horns, then vanishing with a thunder of hooves, leaving only the man’s screams behind.
A fusillade of grenades erupted a row over.
Nehir stayed low, holding her position. By now she recognized it was noise that attracted the fiery guardians, motion that drew them to the kill.
A lesson learned too late.
From the broken terrace, she had led her group down to the middle tier of the city, losing two teammates as they forded one of the spillways, before ropes could be properly set. From there she had taken the most direct route across the tier, leading her team into a tight labyrinth of homes and towers.
Shortly after entering, one of her Sons had stumbled over a makeshift tripwire strung across their path. A pistol had blasted, shattering the man’s shin. He had fallen with a scream of both shock and pain. But the booby trap’s true threat was far more deadly. The gunshot and scream had drawn unwanted attention.
Before any of them could reach their fallen teammate, a winged figure of a harpy had leaped down from the top of a nearby building, like some dread gargoyle come to life. It tore into another of her men, ripping him apart with a fiery beak. The team had driven the beast back, brought it low with a barrage of rifle fire. But the blasts drew other dread shapes hidden in the shadows. More of her team died. Soon gunfire had echoed everywhere, punctuated by tortured screams. The narrow, winding streets and alleys became a hellish hunting ground.
The panicked team had scattered in all directions.
By now Nehir recognized what she needed to do.
Get off this level.
With her back to the wall, she slid down the street, holding her breath. She hugged the rifle to her chest, knowing she dared not use it but not letting it go. She reached the next crossroad and poked her head around. A grenade blasted behind her, startling her, making her tumble into the open. She dropped into a crouch, but there was nothing threatening in sight.
She let out a breath and hurried down the side street. A short distance along, she came upon a gored and trampled body. It was the Son who had been carried away by the rampaging bull. She warily sidled past, her gaze fixed ahead for any sign of the beast.
Then an arm grabbed her from behind, yanked her into a cramped alley she had failed to spot in the gloom. She twisted around and found Ahmad, her second-in-command, standing there with two other Sons. Ahmad held a finger to his lips, having clearly learned the same lesson.
He also waved back at the alley, then pointed down.
Like Nehir, he had also realized that their only hope was to get clear of the war zone, which meant sneaking down to the next tier. She nodded and let him lead the way. He took her by a circuitous route, squeezing sideways at some spots. But the tighter the better. Anything to keep the large hunters from reaching them.
At last they came to a ladderlike stair that stretched from this tier to the next. Ahmad waved her first. She didn’t argue and clambered quickly down into the quieter shadows of the lower level. Ahmad followed at her heels, leading the others. As she reached the bottom, she turned around and saw the last member of the group snatched from behind and lifted off his feet.
He kicked and screamed in the clutches of a tall bronze woman. Her beautiful sculpted visage reflected the firelight of the city. The woman turned the Son in her arms and leaned down, as if to kiss him, but not with her lips. From around the tarnish of her face, a dozen bronze vipers lashed out, spitting green oil and fire. They struck the man in the throat and face. Only then did the Medusa straighten and hold her captive aloft. From each snake-bit wound flames danced, darkening the flesh as the fiery poison spread.
Then the Son’s face exploded, ripping flesh from skull.
Ahmad grabbed Nehir’s shoulder and pulled her into the shadows. She hurried away. Behind her she heard the heavy thud of a body striking the stones as the bronze Medusa tossed aside its prey.
Nehir gratefully vanished into the deeper shadows, silently thanking Allah for sparing her. As she and the two men traced the darkest path across this level, they left the bloodshed and horrors behind them. Nehir stared upwa
rd, occasionally catching glimpses of the shining palace and its golden doors.
She now understood the enemy’s determined assault on those gates.
They’re searching for another way out.
That goal alone spurred her forward. She intended to live. Still, what sustained her the most, what held back the raving terror inside her, was a far stronger goal. She remembered the tripwire and knew who had set up that trap. More than surviving, she had another mission now.
Revenge.
7:24 P.M.
Hiding behind one of the gold thrones, Seichan tried her best to keep Aggie hushed. She let the macaque’s arms strangle her throat. Aggie chittered into her neck, while she kept her lips at his ears, shushing softly, soothing him with the warmth of her breath.
Kowalski was less cooperative than the monkey. “That’s so fucking wrong,” he whispered next to her, his gaze on the main hall.
Maria elbowed him quiet. Gray, along with Mac and Bailey, crouched a few yards away behind the second throne.
A few minutes ago, the group had split up and quickly examined the two stone passageways flanking the tall rock fireplace behind her. Seichan’s team had shone their flashlights into the tunnel to the left, discovering only a small shadowy private room off the throne hall. It had not looked promising.
Gray had better luck, waving them toward the other side to join him. But as Seichan’s group headed over, the throne hall received a new inflow of guests, forcing them all into hiding.
Out in the grand hall, a motley line of bronze figures continued to parade into the space from the surrounding hallways and galleries. She counted several dozen by now. Earlier their group had heard the figures milling and clanking about in the depths of the palace, slowly working their way to the throne room.
Unlike the bronze horrors outside, the gathering here was human-sized, men and women, the details of their faces long tarnished away. Still, they had been sculpted and plated with long tunics, belted at the waists. The women had braids and flowers entwined in their hair. Several of the men wore tall, crested helmets and carried shields strapped to their arms. This smaller-framed assembly had probably once served as personal staff to the royal family.
The Last Odyssey: A Thriller Page 34