“You’ll never make it,” Soloman whispered, concentrated. Not even Cain was that fast, and the giant seemed to realize it. If Cain moved at all – if he even flinched – Soloman could make the shot.
Frustration blazed on Cain’s vicious countenance as Marcelle gained solid footing at last. And the priest still held the crucifix in his hand, as if he could never release it. Nor did he appear shocked at the savage encounter. In seconds he once more held his grim countenance, casting a grateful nod to Soloman.
Smoke and spiraling flames rose along the museum walls to cast the cavernous chamber in an infernal light, a gathering roar.
Cain shook his head, smoldering. The hair along his head rose like the mane of an enraged lion, and his entire essence seemed electrified. Then, slowly, a shadow of defeat fell across the dark countenance. His growl thundered beneath the room, despising all strength but his own.
“Fools!” he snarled, glaring wrathfully at Soloman. “You dare to challenge me?” He frowned with contempt. “You are nothing! Flesh and blood and bone! Don’t you know me yet, Soloman? Don’t you know who you’ve challenged? I ruled this world millions of years before you were ever born!”
He shook his head. “It was mine! All mine! And taken from me only because I dared to raise my throne against the Most High! You think you can defeat one who warred with God? You think you can defeat one who struck down great Michael to the Earth? Do you!”
His eyes blazed. “You with your meaningless weapons! Can you name the nations I’ve destroyed? No! You know nothing! And that is your doom! You challenge one who made the continents tremble! One who reduced the proudest empires of this world to ruin! You think you have won, but you have won nothing! I shall take my revenge on you and it shall be sweet! You think to defend the girl? Bah! She is already mine! I will take her and all you love, and before you die you, yourself, will belong to me!” He cast a glance at the manuscript, raised an embered glare. “You will know death a thousand times, Soloman. You and all you love. For there is nothing that can defeat me! You wish to know me? Then know this! I am the beast that feasts on your children in the night! Yes! Your children! Know all you have ever loved and lost, and you will know me! Then know your own death! For it is all mine!”
Cain took a stride.
Soloman’s voice trembled, and he centered the shotgun, speaking low, “Take one more step, Cain, and I’ll blast that manuscript into dust. This is the last time I’ll warn you.”
“Destroy it!” Fangs grated as the monstrous form continued to advance. “Play your meaningless role in this act! For in time I will remember all it contains because I am its author! Then it will mean nothing! Yes! Its author! I am the one who opened the gateway! The one who crossed that hateful void to conquer this world!”
Soloman tried to steel his nerves again, but he was shaken to his bones by the otherworldly rage and tone. Then Marcelle stepped forward to cut the cross, shouting, “Dicas mihi nomen tuum—”
Cain whirled.
“I will tell you nothing, priest!” he bellowed. “Not in this lifeless flesh!” He pointed at Soloman. “They have done this, priest! Not me! They resurrected this flesh to live in death as Aaron’s staff! It was man who violated nature! Yes! Man! Not me! So there is no soul within this body to save!” He started toward the priest. “This flesh is rightfully mine! All mine! And your rituals can go with you to the grave!”
Marcelle thundered with biblical wrath, “You cannot prevail! Is this the one who made the nations tremble? Tell me! Oh, how fallen! How changed! How horrible that such glory is brought to such ruin!”
At the defiant challenge Cain’s fangs extended sharply, eyes burning in narrow embers. Then, the jaws unhinged even further, and he took a maddened step, moving toward the priest. His snarl was inhabited storm.
“You will be defeated!” Marcelle shouted, his face white with the stress of the conflict. He pointed violently with the crucifix. “Man may have opened this gateway, but God shall close it!”
Cain roared like a lion as he leaped, and Soloman spun to fire from the hip, the slug hitting dead-center, hurling the goliath back wildly. The impact was powerful and ravaging enough to slam Cain against a marble column, but he came off it like a hound of hell, lifting razored talons, and Soloman realized it wasn’t enough, that nothing would be enough!
The giant hit the floor in a red blaze, and Soloman fired as fast as he could pull the trigger until Cain twisted behind another column, evading the horrific onslaught. Then from somewhere behind him Soloman heard a heated command and whirled to see Malo and the Delta commandos running forward.
And Cain charged.
Closing with the sinuous speed of a panther, he was among them, whirling and striking as Soloman twisted down and away with a fist thundering over his head. It was a frantic fight with bullets hitting commando and foe, and Cain howled with pain as he laid hands on a rifle, instantly turning to fire. Soloman leaped forward as he killed the first man.
“Cain!” he bellowed, leaping.
Ablaze with fury Cain whirled into the challenge as Soloman fired dead-on, the explosive slugs impacting into the massive chest. A violent eruption of red lava showered all of them at the blast, and as Soloman hit the ground he screamed, firing again and again and again to finally send Cain to the ground.
As the giant crashed thunderously to his back, Soloman dove cleanly over him to hit the marble floor hard, rolling to his feet with the shotgun high, jacking a round.
“Kill him!” he roared.
All of them opened up, and the museum thundered in automatic rifle fire. But as Soloman managed an emergency reload, he saw Cain erupt once more to his feet, taking the horrendous damage only to tear out a throat, a heart, and then shatter a neck like a rotten branch before charging full-force, taking a soldier down in a tumbling heap.
Hurling the unconscious commando over a shoulder like a child, he bellowed a curse and surged toward a plate-glass window. Only at the last second did he lash out to snatch The Grimorium Verum from the table as Malo frantically raised a fist. “Cease fire! Cease fire!” he screamed over the deafening din of battle and flame. “Cease fire or we’ll hit our own man!”
With the force of a freight train Cain smashed through the window, landing far on the sidewalk to stagger into the street where he turned, the soldier held effortlessly. Pausing in darkness and blood he glared with hellish wrath at Soloman.
“In time, Soloman!” he raged.
Soloman charged. “Let’s do it now, Cain!”
With a curse, Cain ran.
Was lost.
***
“Three by three!” Malo shouted, hurling the MP5 aside to haul his shotgun from his back. “Bravo! Charlie! Delta! Echo! Go with Green Light! Initiate! Initiate! Initiate!”
Everyone leaped together to disintegrate what remained of the glass in a shower of shards, fearlessly pursuing Cain into the night as Malo bellowed over and over: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
Soloman hit the street in a rush, mind moving like lightning. Even as he landed, he slammed more rounds into the SPAS and visualized an overview of the surrounding alleys and roads, trying to anticipate where Cain would go. Decision made instantly, he whirled at Malo.
“There’s no way out of here on foot!” he shouted. “Cain’s got to steal something!”
Malo lifted the radio, and Soloman heard the sounds of police and military choppers closing on the building. “Cain’s last known direction of travel was northeast!” the lieutenant shouted. “I repeat! Cain’s last direction of travel was northeast! Triangulate on him! Triangulate! If he doesn’t have our man with him I’m authorizing cannons! I repeat! I’m authorizing cannons!”
Soloman was already running, passing several Delta commandos as he heard the chopper pilot on the radio. “I’ve got visual acquisition of the target! He’s moving north! He’s going for Drake and Cl
overdale!”
Soloman cursed.
No way to make it!
He knew it in a heartbeat.
Because in the last few seconds Cain had covered almost a quarter mile, and Soloman couldn’t match the giant’s speed. But he also knew that Cain was badly wounded and had to be tiring fast, so he would have to find a vehicle. It was his only chance for escape.
Soloman remembered that Drake and Cloverdale was an overpass, and he slammed another round hard into the SPAS, running instantly toward the tunnel that connected the streets to the interstate. It was a battle decision, and it could have been dead-wrong, but Soloman knew from experience that that was all there was in true war, instant decisions that won the battle or lost it.
He ran in an all-out sprint and then heard the chopper pilot on the radio: “Cain has stolen a dark blue four-door at Drake and Cloverdale! He’s dropped the prisoner, and he’s moving for the tunnel! I repeat! Cain dropped our man! He’s moving for the tunnel!”
Focusing on the radio traffic Soloman heard Malo shouting, “Take the shot! Take the shot! Take the shot!”
“Negative, sir!” the pilot screamed back. “I’ll hit civilian vehicles!”
Using a field and then a dry drainage ditch to cover the distance with surprising speed, Soloman reached the overpass as the chopper came up the roadway in a white haze, the spotlight highlighting a dark blue four-door that weaved frantically in and out of traffic. Threading a reckless path, the vehicle closed on the tunnel, and Soloman knew there was no way to fire without hitting surrounding cars.
He quickly unslung the shotgun and whirled, focusing for a wild split-second on a bus slowed by traffic. There was an instant spent on careful aim and he shot out tires on the left side, the exploding shells demolishing rim and rubber together as the bus driver desperately tried to pull away.
It stalled in the intersection, back-piling traffic.
Timing it as he ran forward, Soloman knew that Cain would already be halfway through the tunnel. He dove far from the concrete walkway with the shotgun slung across his back and hit the ground rolling, coming instantly to his feet from the terrific momentum, running. And as he reached the exit of the tunnel in a sprint, he saw Cain smashing his way through the deadlock, forcing a path to freedom.
Caught in a breathless commitment to carry this fight to the death, Soloman hurled the shotgun aside and shouted as he snatched the tanto from his waist, diving forward to land on the trunk of the car, all fear forgotten in the fatal decision.
As he crashed against the vehicle he stabbed downward, ferociously impaling the blade in the thick steel of the truck. Then Cain found a path and surged forward, blasting a smaller car from his escape route.
Soloman rose to a knee and lashed out to shatter the rear window. He didn’t even feel the pain though he knew he was injured. He barely held balance as Cain hotly accelerated, the spotlight of the chopper glaring, blinding all of them.
Soloman snatched a grenade from his waist as Cain accelerated even more, approaching a bridge over a river and raising an MP5, firing back blindly over his shoulder.
Seeing the weapon raised, Soloman rolled away as the blast tore a jagged steel path across the trunk and with the slow-motion acuity that comes only in combat knew everything in a vivid second, desperately pulling the grenade pin with his teeth as the car hit the bridge at a hundred miles an hour.
White water flashed past in freezing wind as Soloman cast a wild glance toward the guardrail and moved on it, twisting back to smash the grenade through the window. Then in the next second, he slammed his foot violently on the edge of the trunk, hurling himself into the night.
Soloman sailed over the side, narrowly missing a girder to be engulfed by cold. Then he was falling through endless dark as the night behind him exploded in a roaring white light, and he spun to see a fantastic circle of fire pinwheeling down the bridge.
With a vengeful scream, he hurled up a fist.
Struck the water hard.
CHAPTER 12
Blood seeped slowly through gauze binding the wound in Soloman’s forearm. He didn’t remember being hit by a round as Cain fired the MP5 through the window, but a single bullet had indeed caught him, cutting a narrow hole through muscle and skin.
But the bleeding had almost already stopped, and no bones were broken, no nerves cut. And he felt the quickly administered morphine injection freeing his mind from the pain as he analyzed the situation.
Cain’s car had been demolished by the grenade, cartwheeling down the bridge before spectacularly striking the guardrail and going over the edge in a mushrooming firestorm. It descended over one hundred and fifty feet to collide like a meteor with the river where it slowly vanished in hissing steam and flame leaving a superheated fog on the waves.
It was the last thing Soloman saw before being savagely pulled down by the undercurrent, a drowning deliverance that tumbled him over and over through deep moving water until he frantically tore off the heavy vest and equipment belt and fought clear of the suction. Without hesitation he threw over two thousand dollars’ worth of equipment into the brink, but that was the price of war. Equipment was expendable; men who could effectively use the equipment weren’t. It was a fundamental part of elite commando training to sacrifice money and equipment for lives.
Straining to the last moment to hold exploding lungs, Soloman inhaled violently as he reached the surface, finding himself a hundred yards downriver, and amphibious assault training took over once more. Fighting the current, he made it to the shore.
The surviving Delta soldiers quickly lifted him from the water, and as Soloman saw their shocked expressions, he knew they held him in new respect, as always happened when soldiers witnessed another soldier do something so daring in the field.
They weren’t men who impressed easily, he knew, but they regarded him with something like holiness as he sat silent and bleeding, having paid the price for his true authority. And he knew that it would last; they had seen him in the field now, knew he was for real.
All of the commandos were Navy trained as corpsmen, and a few minutes after they’d lifted him from the water his wounds had been completely tended, his hand being the most seriously injured with glass embedded in the skin. Even the bullet wound wasn’t as serious because a through-and-through hit to an extremity almost always caused less damage than people anticipated and rarely prevented a soldier from fighting. But if a man’s hands were injured, then his ability to return force was instantly and severely limited, which could lead to far more serious complications—like death.
Questions began immediately by confused police, and the Los Angeles Watch Commander dealt with Ben personally, backing down because he’d been briefed by higher-ups—men of cautious political instincts who knew this involved national security. No one with rank objected to surrendering authority of the situation to the major general. But angry street officers, reflexively antagonistic to federal agents of any kind, were openly resentful that they had to clean up a situation they hadn’t created.
Ben came up to Soloman as a commando finished bandaging his hand, and Soloman gazed up like a man too exhausted to be angry. He was trembling violently from adrenaline and cold, and a wool blanket had been draped over his shoulders. Abruptly he noticed that he was holding a hot tin of coffee; he had no idea who’d given it to him.
“Well,” the general began, morose, “we lost six men. They’re dead. And Chatwell’s leg is broken, but he’ll live. He wanted to stay, but he’s aliability now, so after they fix him up I’m sending him back to Bragg. And I’ve called for the county rescue boys to start dragging.” He stared, licked his lips nervously. “Sol, do you think ...”
Knowing what it was as the question faded, Soloman shook his head. “There’s no way to know whether I finished him or not.” He took a deep breath. “He was hit hard, but he’s been hit hard before. I’m not going to believe he’
s dead until I see it.”
Rising slowly, Soloman began a weary path up the rocks. “Let’s get back to the safe house,” he added. “And have somebody get back to the museum to pick up the priest. I need to talk to him.”
“What?” Ben’s eyes hardened. “You’re not going to bring a priest to the safe house, are you?” He stared. “C’mon, Sol, you can’t do that. If the JCS finds out, they’ll have both our heads on a stick.”
“Just trust me on this,” Soloman said as they reached the chopper. “He’s got information that we need. I’ll take a stint at Leavenworth if it burns down.”
“That happens,” Ben muttered, “we’ll be sharing a cell.”
***
Enraged, Malo stalked the floor.
“As God is my witness, I’m gonna kill that thing,” he growled over and over. His swarthy beard virtually stood on end, and his fists clenched and unclenched as he added, “He killed six of my men and nobody kills my men and lives. Nobody.”
It had only been an hour, but members of the Los Angeles County Rescue Team were already searching the river. Yet Soloman, shocked by Cain’s display of superhuman strength, feared they would find nothing but the scorched vehicle itself.
He had simply witnessed too much. Had seen Cain survive almost measureless damage only to counterattack like a Force of Nature, killing and killing and killing, then escaping again. He was beginning to fear that nothing could destroy whatever it was that Cain had become – and was becoming.
It was rare that Delta commandos showed emotion in combat; they were trained to subdue it. But the superhuman strength and sheer animal brutality that Cain had displayed had shaken all of them, even the normally implacable Malo. And now, because blood had been shed, the game had forever changed, and Soloman wasn’t sure how solidly he could control either Malo or the rest of the Delta unit.
Soloman knew it was almost impossible to keep a hard hand on soldiers who were taking and returning fire – men more concerned about staying alive than following a bellowed command. And, as it was in this situation, a chaotic battle with high casualties left the survivors superheated for vengeance.
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