“This Cardinal – excuse me – the Cardinal of New York City apparently made a few phone calls.” Ben lowered his voice. “I think Marcelle’s got some real serious pull, buddy. Where it counts.”
“I figure.” Soloman smiled. “Let’s get on with it.”
They moved quickly past a glossy display of European medieval armor and weapons and in minutes entered the ancient-literature section of the museum, a chamber dominated by a huge glass display case, which was empty.
A large note lay where The Grimorium Verum had been: This ancient book of black magic, known for two thousand years as The Grimorium Verum, is not currently on display. It is being packaged for shipment to authorities.
The note was dated today, obvious and glaring.
“Good enough,” Soloman said, and they moved together through a nearby door marked “Shipping Department.” Upon entering, Soloman saw that a single large table in the center had been totally cleared, leaving the book neatly enclosed in an airtight container sitting in the middle of the table as if the job could not be completed by day’s end.
Beside the container were two notes. One specified that the book should be sent to Father Jacob Marcelle at the Basilica of St. Angela in Warwick, New York. The second letter came from Soloman, via the Pentagon. It explained how to ship the book and the purpose of acquisition. Nothing too obvious, but it would be enough to indicate that both Soloman and Marcelle were involved.
Deep down, Soloman still didn’t like it. But it had been the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment. He shook his head, whispering, “This is a wild plan, Ben.”
“You’re telling me?” the general answered. “We don’t even know if Cain’s gonna come for this thing! He could be in China by now!”
Soloman stood a moment. “No,” he said quietly. “He’ll come. I can feel it.” A pause. “And if he finds this, he’ll come for Amy. Or me. He has to have his vengeance.”
Despite his misgivings, Soloman knew it was worth the risk. But the bottom line was the cold, hard truth that they had no choice. If they didn’t kill Cain now, then Cain was only days away from killing the world. And even if Maggie’s calculations were wrong and the virus didn’t mutate, then Cain would methodically hunt Amy until he found her. Then he would take her blood to make himself virtually without limitation, a physical god.
“Is that good enough, Sol?”
“It’s all we can do.” Soloman checked his watch. “Ten minutes until closing. Go ahead, Ben. Usher everybody out without causing any commotion. Make sure there’s no one in the museum when the doors shut. Then hole up across the street with the FBI guys”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna wait for Cain.” Soloman’s eyes narrowed as he searched the surrounding floor. “I’m gonna hide somewhere inside this place and make sure he takes the bait.”
Nervously Ben licked his lips. “Look, Sol, I don’t mean to tell you your business because generals are mostly just politicians, but if that monster senses that you’re close to him, you’re as good as dead. These FBI guys can’t back you up if it hits the fan and goes tactical. Even the Delta guys got wiped out.”
Ignoring him, Soloman concentrated on the room. And finally Ben added, “All right, Sol. Do what you have to do. But listen, buddy, be very, very careful. This guy is Death Walking.”
Soloman clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Ben. Cain’s too smart not to find this.”
“And you’re sure he’ll come for the kid?”
“Yeah.” Soloman frowned. “But what he’s gonna find is me.”
***
Midnight.
Soloman had taken so many amphetamines to stay awake that he had trouble drawing breath. His heart seemed strained, and his lungs ached with a strange painfulness that he couldn’t correct no matter how delicately he inhaled.
He was pushing the edge, he knew. This kind of overdose to stay awake could kill. And although he’d done this in the past, he no longer had the advantage of youth and sensed that he’d used up that part of himself that had kept him above this line in the old days.
He had taken so many pills—three times more than usual—because he couldn’t risk missing Cain’s silent approach. He realized that the giant, as massive as he was, could also move like a shadow and hear the slightest sound. So Soloman had to remain vividly alert despite the dangers of the drugs.
He released half a breath.
He was so tired with a bone-deep fatigue that went beyond the physical. And as he leaned his head back against the wall of the closet he felt a wild panic about whether Cain would sense his presence beyond the small metal grate. But it was a risk he had to take; he was only grateful that he had brought the stimulants to keep himself on his feet.
Yeah, something to keep an old man awake ...
Time passed slowly on the artificial adrenaline rush and Soloman wondered how life had brought him to this strange and bizarre place. Distantly, knowing he’d taken too much and endured too much, he saw Lisa so cold, so horribly dead in his arms even as he remembered her love and laughter, her moods and her smiles.
He bowed his head, closing his eyes.
“My only child ...”
With a grim frown he resisted the pain that devoured his soul.
“Love of my life ...”
Then he remembered the job, the long hours away from home hunting rogue agents, dissecting intelligence reports to find the truth in a world of lies. It was a job he’d chosen because it had been his greatest skill, the one thing he could do better than anyone else. But it hadn’t been worth the price he’d paid. No, nothing was worth that.
Nothing was worth life itself.
Then it came. The rush.
He was instantly alert, unmoving, unbreathing, watching and waiting and desperately calculating the distance of a sound he wasn’t sure he had even heard. The amphetamine shakes vanished, vanquished by a control he didn’t understand, hands suddenly and utterly still and slick with sweat.
Ready.
In his right hand he held the cut-down M79, a forty-millimeter buckshot round chambered. The Desert Eagle was in a low-ride holster attached to his thigh, four extra clips on his waist. And in his left hand he held a portable A-unit to communicate with Ben and the FBI team who were concealed in a building across the street.
Soloman knew that if it came down to a man-to-man fight, Cain would win because conventional weaponry, as Maggie had predicted, had little effect. Only a concentrated holocaust could take Cain down, and only then when it contained the brute force necessary to separate him limb from limb before that spectacular healing factor could repair the damage.
Shadow . . .
Silence?
Shadow. . .
MOVEMENT!
Soloman tilted his head aside from the grate, knowing Cain’s heat-sensing abilities could easily detect his presence behind the steel mesh. He waited long and longer, maddeningly endless seconds before easing an eye back to the mesh to see a gigantic, black-cloaked shape standing silently before the empty display case.
Cain!
Silent as night, he’d come.
Watching the giant s back, Soloman saw that he appeared slightly ravaged from the earlier confrontation. Although he had obviously regained titanic proportions, evident through the long cloak descending from his mammoth shoulders, he also seemed somehow less formidable as if the price paid for the fight at the museum had diminished an irreplaceable measure of strength.
Soloman couldn’t catch his breath as the giant lifted his fist to the side, clenching with unreal strength, trembling in rage. Then he saw Cain mechanically turn his head, searching until he saw the door marked “Shipping Department.” Without pause Cain approached the door and shredded the lock without effort, opening the steel panel.
Soloman waited a long time, s
weating profusely, overcome with heat. Carefully he blew drops of perspiration from his lips and nose, knowing that if Cain somehow sensed his presence in the closet, the giant would simply open the door and kill him wholesale, weapons or not.
Then he heard the shipping door open again and glimpsed a shadow. His finger tightened on the trigger as he leaned back, preparing. It was only a fragment he saw as Cain passed the steel mesh, smiling faintly, and Soloman knew he had completed the deception. The fiend had found The Grimorium Verum and the letter and would be coming for Amy. Soloman lightly released a withheld breath and then Cain’s shadow ceased moving.
Mistake!
Leaning back, Soloman was instantly drenched with sweat.
That’s impossible!
He’s more than forty feet away!
Cain’s imperial head bent, and even though the mammoth back was to him, Soloman could sense the hostile countenance scowling in concentration. Then Cain angled his head slightly, half the face suddenly visible, a gleam of a smile that somehow indicated Cain had been acutely searching for a hidden presence. But still he didn’t look directly at the closet, as if debating the exact location of the whispered sound.
Soloman silently blinked sweat from his eyes. Clearly, Cain was becoming more certain and Soloman could see a malignant eye narrowing, triumph evident in the devilish glare.
He was out of time.
Soloman quick-clicked the hammers of both weapons, backing against the wall. He knew that he had to do something fast or die, and so he shoved the sem-iauto in his belt, instantly withdrawing the A-unit.
He silenced the volume of the radio as Cain slowly advanced upon the door, and keyed the mike three times, and three more times. Then, sliding aside, he slipped behind a large stone statue of Buddha, crouching with the M79 held close. He withdrew the Desert Eagle, holding both weapons close to his chest, ready to open fire.
He knew Ben and the rest of the FBI team were out front waiting for a message and when they received it, they would be calling back fast and frantic. But if he didn’t reply they would make an explosive entry, expecting him to be under attack.
Light vanished before the steel mesh.
Cain stood five feet away.
Darkness congealed as a living thing.
Only hard-gained combat skill gave Soloman enough control to withhold firing directly through the door. And he trembled as he held back, ready to spin and shoot straight into Cain’s face as the panel opened. It would be his last move, he knew, because he didn’t have enough ordnance to put Cain down for good. Still, Soloman planned to do some very serious damage before he died, just for spite.
The doorknob twisted, the lock shredded before absolutely irresistible strength. Then a blinding white edge of light lit the wall opposite Soloman as the portal slowly opened.
Soloman’s fingers took all slack from the triggers. Sweat dripped from his face, and he melted to the wall as the door opened wider, revealing an image that would have horrified Hell itself.
As darkness incarnate, the shadow burned into the wall, and Cain’s cloak lifted as if caressing, or commanding, the night. The beast took a single cautious stride, standing motionless in the opening, bending his head, searching. In surreal silence he moved slowly toward the Buddha.
“Don’t try to escape!”
Cain spun, a curse erupting at the rush of men.
Instantly he was running for the door and Soloman rose quickly to see him flash across the museum, caught the sounds of the FBI Special Response team taking frantic positions.
Soloman slammed the door back, pursuing hard as Cain approached a high night-light framed by the moon in a sloping roof. And then as Cain reached it he roared, leaping incredibly high and hard, hurling himself through the barrier and into the sky beyond.
A shower of shattered glass was blasted white against moonlight, spreading like ice, and then Cain’s monstrous image descended, the black cloak lifting to ride the wind before he was gone.
Escaping into darkness.
“Damn,” Soloman whispered, leaning against a wall, drenched in sweat. “That was too close ...”
Staggering from nervous fatigue, he fell to his knees, breathing heavily. Then with a tired sigh he lowered his weapons and from within some dark center of himself, beyond anything he had ever truly understood, he wondered if he could ever kill this thing.
CHAPTER 17
Archette’s heart raced.
“He has come to me!” he said.
Erupting at the words, Lazarus visibly shuddered with excitement before the saturnine face solidified in unbelievable control that locked down all emotion. Still, though, his fists clenched in the effort, pressing into the oak table as he bowed his shaved head.
“At last,” he whispered. “At last ...”
“What do I do?” Archette asked, swaying.
“Do whatever it is that he requires,” Lazarus answered coldly. “We will not contest his designs.” A pause. “Yes, give him anything – everything! And did he – by chance – mention me?”
Archette paused, opening his mouth. “He ... he said that he needed Kano, Lazarus. I believe that he was too preoccupied with efforts to give such deserved, glorious credit to those who—”
“Hold!” Lazarus said in a suddenly frightening tone. “You have not ascended enough to presume!” There was silence. “Go! Take care of his needs! Does Kano know that He approaches?”
“I haven’t been able to contact him,” Archette responded finally. “I have been ensuring the failure of Soloman and his team! I have a meeting within the hour with the Trinity Council! My leaks about the massacre at the sanatorium and the experiment have destroyed Bull’s authority, and I am now in charge. But I know that is not important. I will find him! I will find him tonight!”
“Then go!” Lazarus did not sit. “For He is among us, and we shall not disappoint! I myself will organize The Circle to protect him should it please his designs!”
Archette stood, open-mouthed.
“Go!” Lazarus’s eyes blazed.
“The Lord has come!”
***
Malo was the image of death as he leaned against a rampart, staring into the swamp. He held a bolt-action .300-caliber H and H magnum, the stock set on his hip. A large caliber semiauto was holstered against his thigh beneath a large bowie knife, and his face was painted black over the bushy black beard. His eyes were cold. He appeared patient and focused.
Soloman came up slowly. All of them were quiet together in the fear of something no one would admit. He spoke in a whisper though there was no reason to whisper: “Anything?”
“No,” the big lieutenant responded without expression, not taking his eyes from the land before him. He frowned as he shook his head. “But he’s out there. I can smell him.”
Raising naval binoculars, Soloman studied the swamp. He swept the glass slowly, searching for shadow or movement, but found nothing in the overgrown mossy silence. Finally he set the binoculars on the rampart and leaned forward, frustrated. “He’s got to be out there,” he said quietly. “Something’s not right with this.”
Malo grunted, “Like?”
“Like the fact that he’s running out of time.” Soloman continued to search the swamp. “He’s only got four more days until Samhain, so he should have made a move by now.” He paused. “This isn’t right.”
It had been seventeen hours since Cain had taken the copy of The Grimorium Verum from the museum, vanishing into the night. And no genuine search had been initiated because Soloman didn’t want another confrontation in the city, realizing it would only end in a bloodbath although, for purposes of deception, Soloman had allowed the FBI a brief stampede, knowing Cain would be suspicious if no one came after him. But Soloman only played the game long enough to make Cain believe they were chasing him.
Now the real game had begun.
“As good as it can be covered,” the big lieutenant responded, chomping down suddenly on the nub of a cigar. “He’s gonna have to work hard to get through that perimeter. And, really, I don’t think he can. We’ve been reading heat signals all day from mice to beavers, and we’ve followed all of ‘em with checks to make sure it wasn’t him. So we’re tight.” He stared, disturbed despite his words. “We should be covered like a blanket, but I don’t feel like it.”
Soloman frowned at the moor. There was something there, he knew – something he’d missed. He didn’t know what it was and the more he searched for it the more frustrated he became. He shook his head and turned away, speaking as he walked.
“If you see him, kill him.”
Malo tightened on the rifle.
“Count on it.”
***
A subterranean silence hung heavy inside the basilica, everyone seated and somber as Soloman came past the cryptic stone carvings and into the cathedral itself, struck by the surreal atmosphere. It was as if everyone were waiting to die, frightfully counting seconds.
Attempting to break the unnerving mood he lifted a cold sandwich from a plate, took a bite. Then in a masquerade of bravado he laid his rifle against the banister, taking a cup of coffee. He knew that everyone was watching him with the keenest interest.
With peripheral vision he saw Amy sitting far from the rest, her forearms wrapped around her shins. There was something infinitely sad in her composure, as if she had something she longed to give but no one could take. Mother Superior Mary Francis noticed his gaze as she settled another pot of coffee on an altar table.
“Her feelings run deep,” she said to Soloman. “But she will not speak of them.”
Soloman studied the small, solitary figure, so sad and alone.
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