She whirled back as she cleared the yard to see the giant following, always following, down the steps. Then deafening gunfire erupted in the night as the FBI also saw him and began firing.
It was a war face-to-face and Amy staggered, seeing the thing fall backward at the assault before he rose with a vicious roar. He leaped over the hood of a car to hit a man hard in the chest and then the rest of them were on top of him, firing, firing, always firing.
It wasn’t enough.
The monster went through them, bloodied and ugly and horrible, and as the red eyes saw her again he howled in laughter, leaping forward only to be engaged by other FBI men who never stopped firing, and then they were all fighting together in a haze of blinding noise.
So loud, before silence.
Amy was deep inside the tree-line as a horrible roar followed her into the darkness.
“Aaaaaaamy!”
***
Like gleaming black dragonflies the Hueys swept in over Amy’s house, turbos straining. But they saw nothing except ambulances and police cars and innumerable infrared signatures. Soloman ordered a tight circular pattern at two hundred feet. “Infrared is useless, Colonel!”
Soloman cursed, expecting it. He’d hoped that the infrared signature of Cain would be colder or somehow different than the rest, but it was obviously the same, if it was there at all. He searched for another tactic, thinking furiously.
“What do you want to do, Colonel?” the pilot shouted.
“Use air to ground lighting!” Soloman yelled. “Put those quasars at ten million candlepower and light this place up!” He turned to the six Delta commandos. “Visual search! Find the girl or find Cain! One or the other I don’t give a damn!”
Dividing three by three—each man already belted to his seat—the teams instantly leaned out the open hatches. They pointed weapons downward ready to open fire on sight as the massive searchlight beam descended from the belly of the Huey.
“Colonel!” the pilot shouted.
“What!”
“They’ve got a report from a wounded FBI agent that the girl was running in a northeast direction with Cain in foot pursuit! They say she ran into an eighty-acre section of woods!”
A Delta commando pointed sharply. “There it is, Colonel! Right behind the house! It leads to that water treatment plant at two o’clock!”
“Set this bird down on the north side of the treatment plant!” Soloman shouted. “Relay the command and tell the other slick to land south! Advise Malo to initiate a three-by-three pattern on infrared for a blood trail! Then I want both of these birds lighting up the forest in a holding pattern until we locate Cain or the girl!”
“Aye, sir,” the pilot said as Soloman hefted the SPAS-12. The murderously heavy shotgun was already chambered because, by training and experience, he never went into battle with an unchambered weapon. The .45 on his hip was also cocked and locked, ready to fire the instant he flicked off the safety.
As they hit the ground they were on night vision and Soloman divided Squad Two into three-man teams, one moving east, one west. Then with Chatwell behind him he stood in the middle of the field, studying the situation, the lay of the land. He knew the girl would be frightened and tired, moving as quickly as she could because she would want to put distance on Cain, to outrun him even though there would be no chance of outrunning him.
Then the chopper was airborne again, carefully trying to keep the harsh spotlight off them and on the woods. And Soloman vaguely admired the pilot for his presence of mind, because he hadn’t reminded him to do it. Obviously, the kid was a smart flyer, someone he would have taken on any high-risk mission.
Angry, drenched in sweat, Soloman stared fiercely over the terrain, trying to slow his thoughts to cold logic and reason. He held the shotgun hard and close and crouched dead-silent and dangerous in the middle of the field, desperately trying to find the mind of a child.
The field was ringed with illuminated trees that seemed suddenly safe in the lamps of the Hueys but Soloman knew the forest had been black as pitch when Amy had fled through here. And, like any other child, she would be instinctively scared of the dark. She would have stayed as close to the light as possible, falsely comforted by the sense of safety.
Soloman began to sense her probable direction, but it was a desperate idea, and he didn’t have time to waste, not if Squad Two had found any track at all. He touched his neck microphone. “Apache One to Malo.”
A pause.
“Malo,” was the whispered reply. “Anything?”
“Negative. We’re moving three by three in a pathfinder spread. We haven’t found anything.”
“Copy. Out.”
Twisting his head, Soloman gazed up. A full moon was visible in the night sky, and he knew that the blaze would have made this long oval field seem like broad daylight only a few minutes ago. It would have looked like a heaven of light through a blackened forest.
Intuition; the path a child would take ...
Soloman grimaced.
Intuition! The path a child would take!
It was all he had.
Come on! Move!
Without hesitation he low-ran the center of the waist-high delta, moving in a serpentine pattern. He switched the goggles to dual infrared-starlight imaging and tried not to break a leg with the sudden lack of depth perception. Increasingly desperate with each second, he fiercely hunted the blood trail in the dark but continued to see nothing and began wondering if Cain had been hit at all by the FBI agents.
Moving, moving, legs strong in a crouch.
Moments passed and Soloman savagely fought the panic.
No, no, she had to come this— As he saw it.
He’d almost crossed over again before he realized what it was; a faint red glow on the side of a small shrub, something picked out by the thermal enhancement of the goggles. Not much, but enough. And with the sign Soloman spun to Chatwell, raising a fist.
Chatwell full-stopped at the gesture, crouching and raising his weapon. But Soloman shook his head, pointed to the bush. Then he was moving forward fast as Chatwell raised the radio, speaking quickly, and Soloman knew that within minutes the commandos would be converging on this zone to pick up the sign. But he didn’t have time to wait for them.
He ran low and cautious, holding the heavy SPAS more easily than he’d ever held it before, and he knew the rush of adrenaline was giving his strength a quick edge. Slowing only slightly as the dense woods loomed before him, Soloman followed the trail into the maze.
Through the wall of trees, he could see nothing—the goggles couldn’t read heat through solid wood or metal—and he knew that if Cain were inside the wood-line he could walk straight into the giant’s arms: instant death. But Soloman didn’t think Amy had stopped running, just as he didn’t think Cain had stopped pursuing.
If Chatwell was close behind, Soloman couldn’t hear it because his hearing had instinctively modified itself to mid-tone ranges, his vision tunneling more and more as he got closer and closer to the conflict. And although he hadn’t felt the sensation in a long time, he found himself acclimating quickly, at home.
Placing his back against a tree, he took a moment, breathing deeply, trying to slow his thoughts and lock out narrow vision until the confrontation. But it was impossible to ignore the possibility that Cain could be upon him in seconds.
Then in that strange and uncanny moment that often comes over men in combat, his mind turned to something that has nothing at all to do with the battle itself. It was the kind of phenomenon that you couldn’t avoid and often got you killed. And, for the space of a breath, Soloman was shocked that he cared at all about dying.
No! No time for thought!
Find her! Find her! Find her!
Knowing that almost every untrained person moved angularly in the forest, disoriented by the lack of reference, Soloma
n selected the course Amy probably would have followed, taking it in a heartbeat. He moved quietly downhill where the brush was thinnest and in moments picked up Cain’s blood trail again.
Smiling savagely, Soloman moved over it, sweat burning his eyes that narrowed more and more in an unquenchable rage that reached back to a place he couldn’t even remember in the darkness that had become his life.
***
Amy ran to the large water tunnel that bordered the woods, looking up as she came to the entrance. She had played here so many times that she knew these tunnels by heart, but that had been in the day.
Now the tunnel was deep in blackness, and frightening. She felt her legs tremble, couldn’t catch her breath.
No, maybe ... another place.
She turned to see something terrible in the far darkness, and then she heard the horrible voice roaring.
“Come to me, child! Come to me!”
Crying out, she ran into the tunnel.
***
Soloman held the SPAS close, using its weight for balance the same as a tightrope walker uses a pole. Following Maggie’s advice, he’d set the massive shotgun on semiautomatic, so it would fire its full arsenal of twelve double-ought buck rounds as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Each round contained eight balls of lead, impacting into the target like eight nine-millimeter rounds fired at once. At close-range, he knew from experience, a single shot would vaporize a man’s torso. It was one of the most effective weapons ever made.
Soloman saw the tunnel looming up and glimpsed—or thought he glimpsed—the surreal image of Cain moving into the blackness, and he raised the SPAS for a shot. But the darkness caused him to shift the sights, searching, and then he knew Cain had entered the inky blackness of the huge drainage pipe.
Behind, Soloman heard steps and turned to see Chatwell coming through the woodline, staggering with fatigue. Soloman motioned silently for him to hurry and Chatwell was heaving like a racehorse as he reached the entrance, falling against the side with a Remington 870 shotgun held low in his hands. His face was weary, drenched in sweat from running through the humid woods. “Did you get a visual, Colonel?” he gasped.
“Yeah, I got one,” Soloman said steadily, enraged and livid with combat acuity. He had found his way back to this world without even trying; everything seemed twice as sharp; his mind already at computer speed. “Wait here for Delta and then follow the blood trail!”
He moved on it.
“Colonel!” Chatwell grabbed at him. “Wait for Delta!”
“No time!” Soloman tore his arm free and went quickly forward. He stalked into the gigantic tunnel as fast as caution allowed and glared down to see the mud marred by footprints. But the blood was a better trail, painting the circular floor in red heat.
Chatwell was far behind him giving frantic radio instructions to the Delta soldiers who were converging at the entrance.
As a little girl screamed.
CHAPTER 8
Soloman flicked off the safety and was charging before Chatwell could even yell for backup. Moving quickly, he sought face-to-face battle, all caution forgotten as the horrified cries of the child flooded over him.
Screaming, screaming that was hideous and haunting; a child’s scream. He smoothly leaped a small ravine and hit running, his mind at combat speed.
Faint mist raised from his heated breath fogged the goggles in the increasing humidity of the pipeline as he followed the glowing red blood. And very, very quickly he was both amazed and terrified at the thought of how Amy could have found her way through this frightening maze without any light at all. Then the goggles were lit with white, and he squinted up to see a surface grate.
He bent his head and realized that this was where the underground facility could be accessed from the ground. High above he heard the faint sound of a passing vehicle and realized he was beneath a road, past the interstate.
As the screaming stopped.
Clenching his teeth Soloman turned into a tunnel where the screams still echoed, something rising inside him to overcome his fear with a purpose pure and vengeful, seeking deliverance.
***
Blinded by tears, Amy looked up.
Bloodied, the giant stood over her, staring down.
Cowering against the wall, able to see him only in the dim light of the grate above them, Amy hugged her shoulders and cried uncontrollably. She’d come to this place because it was so deep inside the tunnels, and she could easily climb the ladder to get back out, and she had never guessed that he could find her here because no one had ever found her here, not ever. But he had found her and now he stood over her like death, black and silent and infinitely frightening.
Even in her fear Amy knew the giant should be dead because the FBI men had shot him again and again. But he wasn’t dead; he was a monster, a monster, and he was alive, and he was with her in the dark, staring down, glowering, and she knew with all that a child could know that she was about to die.
Silence.
Then, suddenly, he staggered, lowering his head to lean against a wall. He grimaced in pain, shaking his face. Then his fangs—fangs incredibly long and sharp—gleamed frighteningly in the faint light as she heard his words.
“How horrible,” he rasped, “that this frail blood could be my life.” He swayed. “One who made the nations tremble has fallen ... to this inglorious state.”
He almost collapsed, and Amy thought she heard the cave growl of a beast as he bent his head even lower. And in that moment of skin-crawling threat she would have fled farther if it were possible, but they had reached a ledge where a raging river of water swept beneath.
In the light of the grate Amy could see the current carried into a nearby tunnel, dark and roaring. She crouched fearfully at the edge before the man suddenly turned his head. He stared long into the water as if listening ... or remembering.
Time passed.
“Yes,” he whispered finally, “of course that is why I seek it. The castle is the place of power ... That is why I sought it.” A pause. “Yes, now I remember The Grimorium Verum.”
His smile was metallic, and Amy saw more clearly the sharp fangs gleaming. And then she truly wanted to scream but couldn’t scream so that the silent cry erupted inside her, overflowing into horror.
“Underworld,” the man whispered, staring down with glowing red eyes. “Skyworld, earthworld, and ground that holds copper to strengthen the spell. And deep water that hides ... yes ... that hides the treasure that I need to destroy ... the millennium.”
Silence struck like thunder as he smiled slowly. The smile grew moment by moment until he threw back his head to laugh, a roar with tiger fangs flashing in the light. And the horrific black mirth continued long until the giant released a deep breath, exhaling slowly. His voice was distant and satisfied.
“No ... no force could equal my pride,” he said. “But I need neither pride nor force to kindle rebellion on this loathsome sphere ... this loathsome sphere that harbors that most cherished flesh of your flesh.”
He smiled hatefully.
“Hell hath not my equal, and you know,” he spoke. “Not Hell, or Earth, or even Heaven. Together, the dimensions behold my pride with amazement and horror. Not even baneful Moloch, warring with me eternally even as you, can match the height and depth and breadth of my spite. And my wrath is a curse to him as long as fear shall last. But hear me, Old One, hear the words sworn on the secret name you have taken from my mind lest I mock you, that all war before this was only a parade to the war now raised, for my banner is hate, and is uplifted. And you yourself shall curse the day you withheld your arm from my destruction.
“From the graveyard of your celestial might I will watch your wind scatter the flesh and bones of your beloved dead, and I will laugh. Because I am among the sheep you adore so foolishly, and they shall not last the conflict.” He snarled
. “And because you will not dishonor yourself by undoing the folly these fools have wrought, you will be destroyed with them! For not even you can violate your... your justice!” Silence and darkness descended, breathing.
Amy stared. “Wh-wh-who are you?” she whispered. “Why ... why do you want to hurt me?”
The man lifted his head, as if he’d forgotten her in remembering so much else. Then he smiled, standing away from the wall to step closer.
His voice rumbled passed the grating fangs.
“Don’t be afraid, child,” he said, and Amy saw the fangs slowly, silently sliding back into his jaws. “Now I remember ... and remember well.” He paused. “We must travel far from here. But when we reach the place of power you will see such a world that mortals dream of, yet never know. And when the moon is aligned with Saturn and Mars I will reclaim all that was mine. I will once again be what I was; Lord of the Earth.”
She couldn’t contain her tears.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Yours shall be the denouement, Amy,” he smiled. “You will give me eternal life, and the blood you shed will resurrect a kingdom lost so long that not even I remember the glory of it.”
Amy brought her knees higher, pleading. And, ignoring her cries, the giant raised his face to stare upward. White moonlight spilled through the metal cage that separated them from the world.
“Du rosa raziel nopa padous,” he murmured. “The second pentacle of Saturn and Mars against the water of the moon to give strength ... against the greatest of adversaries.” Frowning or smiling, he lowered his head, staring slowly over her. His eyes gleamed, malicious and evil.
He laughed as he bent to—
“Cain!”
Cain whirled as the man leaped into the tunnel and then the cavern exploded as Cain roared and staggered back. Instantly the intruder fired again and Amy was screaming and screaming, endlessly screaming as she raised hands over her head.
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