He held her gaze for a beat before he said, “Father Cabrera will know what to do.”
“He won’t. It’s too late. These demons…they’re inside me now. I can feel them.”
There was a grim conviction in Nicole’s voice as she continued. “There’s only one way now. You can push me out of this moving car…or put a bullet in my head.”
Talon’s face tightened as he roughly grabbed her shoulder, repelled by her suggestion. “Don’t even say it.”
“It’s the only way. I’d do it myself, but they won’t let me. Their power over me is already growing. I can feel it.”
“We’ll find another way,” Talon said tightly, shaken by the idea of another innocent being forced to pay the ultimate price to appease the forces of darkness.
Almost as if Nicole could read his thoughts, she said, “There are far worse things than dying. Believe me. Do it now while there’s still time.”
Disturbed by Nicole’s fatalistic words, Talon turned his focus from the road to the rear-view mirror. The cultists were gaining fast.
“You’re a killer,” Nicole said. “I saw what you did back at the farm.”
“Now you listen. Between Cabrera and my partner, we’re going to beat this thing.”
She shook her head, and a lock of hair fell across her face. “Cabrera was up against one entity and it nearly killed us both.”
She grimaced, seeming to wage a silent war with herself. “You failed to save your woman. Don’t let history repeat itself.”
Talon recoiled from the words. Long seconds elapsed before he broke the silence between them. “How did…?’
“I know nothing. I know everything. I know there’s only way to stop this at this point. Please.”
Talon clutched the wheel tighter, disturbed by what Nicole was demanding from him. The road unfurled before him at nearly a hundred miles per hour. The pursuit vehicles had grown larger behind them. Amon and his army were closing the gap even though he was driving as a fast as he could. He almost wished these murderers would catch up with the jeep. He’d rather confront these cultists in a gunfight than contemplate Nicole’s chilling request for a second longer. Talon had spilled much blood over the years—but never from an innocent victim.
“The evil inside me,” she said, “I’ve only caught a glimpse of it but I know this much: it plans on destroying this world. You must send it back to where it came from. Before it’s too late.”
“We’ll find another way. You can’t give up hope…”
Without warning, Nicole’s hand shot out and grabbed the Glock. She held the pistol at her own head for a terrifying beat before putting it back. She slumped forward, shaking.
Talon took the gun from her limp hand, cursing himself for leaving it within reach.
“They won’t let me do it. I belong to them.” She lowered her head in defeat and added in a voice that wasn’t completely her own.
“We have returned sevenfold.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PEERING OUT HER window, Nicole saw the sun rising, haze already eating up the mountains to the east. Like the arrival of the new day, the change was speeding up with each passing second.
Her thoughts and emotions were being analyzed and dissected by the seven entities that had infested her soul. They were tearing her apart from the inside. Invisible, clammy fingers probed her memories and dreams, testing her limits, her strengths. She’d worked hard to make herself stronger in case she should ever face the demonic entity again. But all her preparations were geared toward the spiritual assault by one demon.
We have returned sevenfold, the voices kept whispering. Voices practiced at deception were now speaking the truth.
How could she fight seven of these creatures?
She belonged to them now, a plaything they could do with as they pleased.
Struggling to remain in control, she regarded her savior more closely. He projected both sinewy, physical power and a practical intelligence, a capacity for violence tempered with a hint of sadness.
He’s been touched by the darkness, the voices had whispered. Touched in what way? Was he like her? A victim of a demonic possession? Is that how he knew Cabrera? The possibility of meeting someone who’d gone through the same horrific ordeal held a strange appeal.
Who was this man?
As soon as she asked the question, a name popped into her head, the seething forces inside of her plucking the information right out of the man’s thoughts.
Mark Talon.
The hard features couldn’t completely hide the empathy simmering in his gaze. The way he looked at her, they way his fingers had closed around hers as he dragged her out of the stables. This was a battle-scarred warrior with a heart, capable of taking life but never drawing pleasure from the darker aspects of his work. He wouldn’t kill her as long as he believed he could still save her.
He’s a fool! one of the voices hissed. Unwilling to embrace his potential.
In her mind, she saw the face of a woman, beautiful, full of life. Then Nicole saw her blood-soaked body covered by too many stab wounds to count…
Michelle.
The demons’ preternatural powers of perception, their ability to sense weakness and pain, was growing within her, paving a way for the entities to seize full control over her. This man had lost someone who he loved dearly. Her murder was a terrible weight that threatened to crush him. But it also fueled everything he did. The demons wanted her to use the loss against him, to twist him to their dark purpose.
Goddamn it, get out of my head! Leave me alone!
She experienced a near physical sensation of the voices backing away from her own thoughts.
They’d return all too soon, louder and more insistent than ever. The process of possession was advancing with the speed of an aggressive cancer, metastasizing.
And there was absolutely nothing she could do.
Grabbing her rescuer’s gun had quickly turned into a lesson of who was in charge here. No matter how hard she tried, she was incapable of pointing the pistol at herself and pulling the trigger.
Nicole balled her hands into fists and pressed her lips into a tight line. She did her best to focus on outside stimuli, anything to escape from the wild thoughts and images surging through her head. Concentrate on the soothing warmth of the sun against your skin, the endless stretch of road, the majestic mountains shimmering in the heat.
The convoy of vehicles was closing in on them at breakneck speed.
Any second now, a masked figure would pop out of the incoming pick-up truck’s tinted widow and spray the road with hot lead. Almost as if Talon could read her fatalistic thoughts, he punched the gas, the jeep’s engine screaming as the speedometer shot past 100 miles per hour.
Up ahead, across an expanse of desert, a cluster of lights marked the location of the airfield. It promised a chance of escape.
“Listen carefully,” Talon said. “We’re going to pull up as close as possible to my friend’s plane, get out, and make a run for it. Odds are good our new friends will start opening fire. We’re not going to look back and we’re not going to stop running. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
There was a growing suspicion in Talon’s eyes and she didn’t blame him. Smart soldier. He’d be keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn’t turn on him.
The jeep pulled off the freeway and blasted down a dirt road, the vehicle’s powerful tires raising up clouds of dust as it zipped through the entrance of the airport. They shot past parked aircraft and dilapidated hangars baking in the desert temperatures. At this time of day, the airfield was deserted except for the sleek Learjet taxiing down the runway toward them, the early morning sun gleaming off its brilliantly white surface.
For a second, hope spike inside of her again. If they made it on the plane and managed to successfully take off, maybe they would reach Talon’s friend in time. But who was this mysterious friend? Judging from the twenty-one million dollar aircraft, he definitely wasn’t
a priest or an exorcist. She looked up at Talon again, but this time the demons didn’t provide any more information. All she saw was a man steering a jeep with expert skill, seemingly hellbent on breaking the sound barrier. The visions had died down—for now—and she welcomed the brief interlude of normalcy. She knew it wouldn’t last.
Behind them, their pursuers exploded through the flimsy fence that surrounded the small airport. Through the swirling sand, she spotted one of the soldiers poking up from a roof hatch. A rocket launcher rested on the masked man’s shoulder, but he wasn’t aiming at them. With horror Nicole realized the warhead was pointed at the incoming jet. Talon spotted the rocket launcher at the same moment as she did, the grim expression on his face mirroring her own.
The RPG lit up and a streak of hot flame blasted toward the Learjet.
In her mind’s eye, Nicole pictured the pilot’s reaction of terror in the face of onrushing death. An instant later, the world began to burn, and her slim hope of rescue would burn with it.
***
Talon saw the blast in his mind’s eye seconds before reality caught up with his imagination. He had witnessed a fair share of explosions during his ten years as a professional soldier, but fire and shrapnel never lost the power to strike fear in the hearts of men. As the warhead zipped by overhead, his training kicked in. He swung the wheel around hard and hit the accelerator, the vehicle’s body shaking as the tires seized the runway and carved black treads.
A heartbeat later, the missile found its target. A loud boom overtook the scene as the plane and every living thing inside disintegrated in an immense fireball. Burning pieces whistled through the air with ferocious force and slammed into the hangars and parked planes, warping metal and spreading fiery devastation.
Man, Casca will be pissed, Talon thought.
The jeep skidded away, weaving around a mad obstacle course of sizzling wreckage. A glimpse into his rear-view mirror revealed a field of destruction, the airport resembling a scorched warzone. As the flames hungrily licked across the skeletal remains of the Learjet, Talon heard the roaring engines of the pursuing convoy.
The enemy was closing in.
Talon quickly checked on Nicole and a cold shiver of dread jolted up his spine. A smile played across those beautiful features, now bathed in the halo of the fires. She inhaled deeply, almost as if death and destruction were a sweet fragrance. She caught his expression of horror and said in a mocking tone, “So what’s your next move, Sergeant?”
The question hung there as flames roared outside and acrid smoke devoured the air. Nicole’s face suddenly fell as she regained control, her perverse delight giving way to disgust. “I saw the people inside the plane…could smell them burning… and I enjoyed it. Oh my God, please make it stop!”
It’s destroying her from the inside, he thought.
Talon stared at Nicole, in equal measure drawn and repelled by her. Her vulnerability touched him, but he couldn’t forget the mask of evil he’d glimpsed moments earlier. The darkness was inside of her, twisting her beautiful features into something grotesque.
Struck with a sudden idea, he touched the Sumerian amulet Casca had given him back in Silicon Valley. The pendant was capable of channeling the light in the same way evil occult relics could tap into the darkness. Perhaps its power would protect Nicole and maybe even slow down the influence of the terrible beings raging inside of her.
Talon slammed the brakes and stopped the jeep. For a moment his pursuers were forgotten; Nicole’s soul was more important than outrunning a few thugs. He couldn’t risk just handing the amulet to Nicole. In her current Jekyll and Hyde state, she might toss the pentacle out the window if the demons deemed it a threat.
He didn’t give her warning or a chance to protest. He removed the pentagram pendant from his neck, leaned forward, and draped it over her head.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I think it might help. The pentagram is an ancient protective symbol, and—”
A screaming Ducati pulled abreast of them, bringing an end to the exchange. Their pursuers had fought their way through the scorched tangle of smoldering debris and were moving in for the kill. The fiery inferno played across the visor of the soldier’s motorcycle helmet.
Talon spotted the gloved hand targeting him with a submachine gun and the world froze. He jerked out his Glock, and reality narrowed to the pistol in his hand and the killer in his sights. He opened fire while his opponent was still trying to get a lock on him. The bullet punched through the visor, and the helmet’s fiberglass shell and high-tech EPS foam did nothing to protect him. The impact hurled the rider off his moving bike. The now riderless motorcycle kept going for a second or two before crashing to the ground in a shower of sparks.
Another motorcycle roared toward them from the passenger side. Before the attacker could target the vehicle with his submachine pistol, Talon jockeyed ahead and hammered the jeep into the incoming biker. There was a thump and a scream, which was drowned out by the sound of grinding metal as the bike slammed into a section of the burning Learjet.
Talon had no time to enjoy the victory as a van burst from the black smoke, a cultist leaning out of the passenger window, AK-47 leveled.
Right hand on the wheel, left hand returning fire with his Glock, Talon roared through the debris field while unleashing his own version of hell on earth. Bullets sliced the air around him, the windows shattering and spider-webbing under the onslaught, while Talon’s shots turned the pick-up truck into Swiss cheese.
The shooter in the truck took a slug to the mouth and he disappeared in the vehicle, frothing red. A heartbeat later, the truck was right in front of them. Talon braked hard and twisted the wheel, going into a power-slide. With a sickening crunch, he rammed the front of the jeep into the incoming pick-up truck and sent it careening in the other direction. The truck barreled into the row of parked airplanes, clipping wings and spraying metal. He flashed a wolf grin at Nicole.
They’d been lucky so far, but there was still the Hummer, the van, and one more pick-up truck to contend with, plus a few stray cultists on motorcycles.
Talon didn’t like their odds. They had to get out of the airport and back to the freeway.
Tires squealed as Talon guided the jeep off the runway and onto the sandy desert floor, leaving a billowing cloud of dust in its wake. Next up, the airport’s fence jumped into view with alarming speed. Talon never took his foot off the gas and braced himself for the impact, shouting for Nicole to hang on as the jeep tore through the fence and powered over more sand. Rocks slammed against the undercarriage like rifle shots. Talon and Nicole bounced in their seats, their bodies rocking, until the jeep hit a road leading away from the airfield and the ride grew smoother. Two minutes later, they were back on the freeway and shooting through the scorched desert landscape.
Tires devoured the two-lane strip of asphalt, the sunrise in the east a riot of pinks and purple lighting up cirrus clouds on the horizon. He risked a glance behind them. The convoy had lost a few vehicles but they wouldn’t abandon the chase. Talon wasn’t a fool and didn’t believe for a moment the apocalypse soldier was backing off. These fanatics wouldn’t give up that easily. He’d have to contact Casca and see what the next move should be.
He turned toward Nicole. The pendant still dangled from her neck, and she still seemed in charge of her faculties.
“Is it doing anything?”
She looked down at the metal disc inscribed with arcane symbols. “Whatever is inside me doesn’t like it too much.”
“Good. I guess that means it’s working.”
Nicole managed a fatalistic smile. “The amulet is slowing down the infection…but only by a little. These demons are patient, and they keep getting stronger.”
Talon nodded grimly. He hadn’t expected the Sumerian pendant to be a long-term solution, but at least it was buying them some time.
“Thanks for trying,” Nicole added. There were tears in her eyes.
Seeing N
icole like this, so fragile and yet still fighting with all her strength, reminded him of the woman he lost in San Francisco. Michelle too had been a fighter with a big heart. Nicole was an innocent victim, and he couldn’t lose sight of this vital distinction. The darkness inside of her was the true enemy here, not the beautiful girl in the passenger seat.
She looked up at him with shadowed eyes. “What are we going to do?”
Good question. They were back to square one. The hunters were still gaining behind them as they shot down the lone stretch of desert freeway. They could keep on driving until their pursuers finally caught up with them or until they ran out of gas, whichever of the two happened first.
As he considered his options, he recalled something Cabrera had shared with him back at the hospital. Several miles southeast, right at the US-Mexico border, was a monastery that could offer sanctuary. The exorcist had urged him to seek help from the brotherhood of monks who ran the place. At the time, Casca’s plan had sounded a lot better than seeking safe harbor in some supposedly holy place in the middle of nowhere. Cabrera had felt certain that the monks at the monastery could protect Nicole, but Talon remained unconvinced. The men pursuing had proven that they showed little respect for either God or country. Isolated from civilization as the order was, the desert monastery could easily turn into a death trap if the cult caught up with them there.
Nevertheless, what other options did they have? Maybe within the walls of the sanctuary, Talon could somehow hold off the enemy until Casca sent reinforcements. It was a plan. Not the best plan in the world, but the best he could come up with a bunch of cultists breathing down his neck.
He had to let Casca know about his next move. Eyes never losing sight of his pursuers in the rear-view mirror, he dialed the billionaire’s number. Casca picked up on the first ring. He’d clearly been waiting for an update.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Let’s just say you might need to start shopping for a new Learjet.” There was a moment of silence on the other end, and Talon added, “I’m sorry.”
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