by Simon Toyne
Chapter 142
Gabriel had just reached the top of the stone steps when the terrible shriek split the darkness. He was up and running as soon as he heard it, using the awful sound to cover his rapid movement. He ducked into the faintly illuminated tunnel it had come from, leading with his gun, scanning for movement, edging forward as fast as he dared. The pain in his arm was now almost unbearable and he was starting to feel sick with shock.
He reached the end of the tunnel just as the scream abruptly stopped. He pressed himself against the wall. Ducked his head round the edge. Saw the glowing furnace on the far side, the sharpening wheels in front of it and the large circular stone on the back wall with a Tau carved into it. A monk stood by, looking into the blackness beyond the partly opened door where Gabriel guessed the sound had come from. Liv was in there, and so was the Sacrament. He stepped into the room.
The monk turned, saw Gabriel, pulled his arm free from his cassock to raise his gun but never made it. Two bullets hit him in the chest, jerking him backwards against the large stone door. His finger tightened reflexively, loosing off a round that hit nothing but rock.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
* * *
The Abbot and Cornelius spun round at the sudden sound of the gunshot. It had been close. Right outside the door.
‘Go. See what it is,’ the Abbot said, then turned back to the figure of Eve, so pale now she almost glowed as her eternal life force deserted her. The weaker she got, the stronger he felt. The prophecy had been fulfilled after all. Now he would be immortal. By killing a god he had become one. But even as his soul swelled with the ecstasy of this thought he became aware of a prickling sensation on various parts of his body. He looked down at the deep ceremonial wound circling his left shoulder and watched the recently knitted scar tissue slowly start to open. He raised his hand and pressed it against the cut, feeling the sudden wet warmth of blood rising beneath it, forcing its way between his fingers. He glanced at his other scars, each one now opening up in the same way, and watched for a few moments like a detached observer witnessing something macabre that was happening to someone else. Then he felt weakness settling on to him, as if the energy and rapture of his recent triumph was draining steadily away with the blood that now dripped to the floor. He reached out to steady himself, his hand resting on the edge of the Tau, and for the first time in all his years of being in the presence of the Sacrament he felt fear.
Gabriel reached the entrance, blinking to restore the night vision the guard’s muzzle flash had stolen. He pressed his back against the round stone and slid along it until he reached the edge. Whoever was inside the chamber would have been alerted by the gunshot so he had to do this fast, and he had to do it right. He took a deep breath to steady himself and felt a strange itching sensation beneath the skin of his broken arm. He flexed his fingers tentatively, bracing himself for more blinding pain. Instead he felt an ache deep in his bones and his formerly useless fingers now closed neatly together. It still hurt and the grip was too weak to be useful, but incredibly it no longer felt broken. He was so distracted by this discovery that he didn’t see the blade flash through the darkness until it struck him high in the chest, scraping agonizingly along a rib. Instinctively he twisted away, paring skin from bone, and brought his left arm up to knock the blade aside, jarring fresh pain into the injured limb and a cry of pain from his throat. Then he saw his attacker, naked from the waist up and covered in blood. A waxy patch of skin on his face glowed in the firelight. Gabriel recognized the evil in front of him. He remembered the scream that had brought him here, and his grandfather’s shattered body on the warehouse floor. He caught a glint of realization in the demon’s eyes as he saw how Gabriel cradled his arm – the look of a predator assessing the weakness of its prey.
The knife flashed again as Cornelius pressed closer, aiming for Gabriel’s good arm. Gabriel stumbled backwards, raising his gun, but the nightmare vision pressed on, slashing again, this time catching more than just darkness. Gabriel felt the impact of the blade like a punch to his wrist but felt no pain. He levelled the gun at Cornelius. Saw the demon’s eyes over the sights of his gun and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. Then he noticed the blood dripping thickly from his wrist and in a slow-motion moment of battle clarity he realized exactly what had happened. He dropped down and twisted away as the demon flew towards him again. He hit the stone floor and rolled, cradling the gun against his body as it flopped uselessly in his limp hand. The blade must have cut through the flexor tendons in his hand. It was now as useless as his other. He was defenceless.
He rolled again, keeping low and gaining distance, coming to rest just short of the furnace. He looked up and saw Cornelius, already standing above him. In his hand he held a thick metal pole, like a branding iron. He looked down at Gabriel and smiled as he saw the gun cradled now in his two useless hands. Then something distracted him, just for a moment, and he glanced down at his body as blood seemed to well up inside him and spill through the neat cuts in his flesh. Gabriel pushed away with his feet, sliding backwards across the gritty floor, gaining himself a precious few yards as he slipped the finger of his broken arm through the trigger guard.
Cornelius came to attention, alerted by the movement, and raised the bar high above his head, grinning maniacally as he stepped forward, towering above his defenceless victim. Gabriel clenched his hand into a tight grip around the gun, all the pain suddenly gone, all the strength returned. He angled it up at Cornelius and fired three quick shots.
Cornelius stood motionless for a shocked moment then looked down at the holes that appeared in his body. He watched the blood begin to ooze from them, joining the torrent of red already cascading down him. Then he looked up at Gabriel, took one step forward and fell dead to the floor.
Chapter 143
Liv felt like she was sinking deep into water that was warm and thick with memories that swam before her as she sank; images from her life, flashing and fading like glittering fish. The breeze she had felt rinsing through her was now a current, bringing whispers of forgotten voices and fragments of distant memories with its flow. She sank deeper and the images thinned out, drifting upwards and away as a much brighter light rose up beneath her.
This is death, she thought as she watched it rise from the darkness to meet her. The light overwhelmed her and new images crowded behind her eyelids.
There was a garden, green and lush, and a man walking through it, and the sun shining down, or something like the sun. Then the shadow of a tree rose up and cut out the light, and she was in a cave, surrounded by men with hate in their eyes.
Then there was pain.
An eternity of pain and darkness as her flesh was ripped, and cut with blades, and burned with fire and boiling oils.
And there was the smell of blood.
And an endless, desperate yearning for the sun, to feel it on her skin and walk soft across the cool earth.
And pain was everywhere, flashing out of the darkness, imprisoning and overpowering her, for ever and ever.
Then she saw a face, with eyes full of sorrow and compassion.
Samuel’s face.
She fixed on the image, not wanting it to flit past like the others, holding it with her eyes until more things appeared within it.
She saw his body, naked from the waist up, flowing with blood from cuts deep in the skin. Then a cave, crowded with other men who reached up as one to draw bloody lines round their left shoulders with sharpened blades. And she heard a sound. An echoing chant of low voices bleeding together in an ancient language she somehow understood.
‘The first,’ they said over and over. ‘The first. The first.’
And pain flashed out of the darkness and exploded in her left side along with the sound of shearing flesh. And a new voice rang out, full of anguish and pain.
‘Where is God in this?’ Samuel cried. ‘Where is God in this?’ Then the images fled. And for a moment all was silent, and all was
dark.
Then she felt herself starting to rise.
Chapter 144
Liv’s eyes fluttered open.
She was back in the chapel, lying on the spot where she had fallen. As she focused she saw Gabriel’s face filling her vision, smiling down at her like warm sunshine. She smiled back, thinking she was still in her dream, then he reached out, laid his palm on the side of her face, and she felt the warmth of him and realized he was really there.
She glanced across at the Tau. The blood miring the spiked interior was now the only sign that Eve had been there at all. Liv traced its flow, down to the floor and the wet channels where it mingled with hers. Then she saw the figure rise up from behind the iron cross, his body running with blood, making him look like a demon in the dim reflected light. He raised the burning flambeau he held in his hand, the flames throwing ghoulish light across his hate-filled face. Gabriel sensed movement and started to turn but the heavy torch was already swinging down, aimed at his head, the flames roaring as it fell. A thunderclap shook the room, knocking the demon away and back towards the altar.
Liv looked across at the entrance, to where the sound had come from. A slightly built monk stood in the doorway. He had a gun in his hand and from where she lay his smooth scalp seemed to shine like a halo in the candlelight.
* * *
Athanasius looked upon the slaughterhouse scene he had discovered. The gunshot had thrown the Abbot away from him towards the vile needles inside the empty sarcophagus that dominated the far end of the room. He took a step into the room, the gun still trained on the bloodied figure of his former master. The Abbot wasn’t moving.
He looked at the other two figures, a man and a woman. They were both looking at him warily. He lowered the gun and moved towards them. The man wore a cassock but Athanasius didn’t recognize him. He had a cut in his side and another on his arm, judging by the blood that stained the sliced material.
The girl was much worse. She had a deep slash across her neck from which blood still flowed on to the ground and into the channels carved in the floor. He bent down to look closer. Then froze as the flesh around the wound started closing up, watching in silence as the miracle unfolded before him. Within moments the blood that had flowed so freely became a trickle then stopped altogether. He looked up into the girl’s face, saw something timeless in her eyes and remembered the words he had read in the Heretic Bible.
The light of God, sealed up in darkness.
He reached out a hand to touch her face, then a noise by the altar made them all spin round.
The Abbot had shifted position. They each watched as his head lolled heavily on his shoulders, turning towards them until his eyes stared straight at Athanasius. The flambeau lay where he had dropped it, smouldering against his cassock and shrouding him with smoke. ‘Why?’ he asked, a look of confusion and disappointment on his face. ‘Why have you betrayed me? Why have you betrayed your God?’
Athanasius looked up at the savage opening of the Tau and the wrist manacles dangling at the end of the crosspieces.
Not a mountain sanctified, but a prison cursed.
He looked back at the girl, her slender neck now completely healed, her endless green eyes burning with life.
‘I have not betrayed my God,’ he said, smiling down at the miraculous woman. ‘I have saved Her.’
Chapter 145
Distant sounds began to penetrate the woolly numbness of Arkadian’s head: muffled shouts from urgent voices; the squeak of rubber soles on hard floors. He tried and failed to open his eyes, the lids too heavy to shift, so he lay there and listened, letting his senses warm up while the dull ache in his chest and shoulder blossomed into pain.
He took a deep breath and concentrated all his energy on opening his eyes. His lids parted for a split second, then he screwed them back shut.
It was bright: painfully bright. A negative image of what he had seen was now seared on his retina: a chequerboard outline of a suspended ceiling; a rail over to one side with a curtain hanging from it. He realized he was in a hospital.
Then he remembered why.
He lurched forward, trying to sit up, but a firm hand held him down. ‘Whoa there . . .’ a male voice said. ‘You’re OK; I’m just checking your wound. What happened to you?’
Arkadian struggled to remember. Rolled a dry tongue round his mouth. ‘Shot,’ he said eventually.
‘That’s for sure.’
‘No.’ Arkadian shook his head and instantly regretted it. Took more breaths until the bed stopped lurching beneath him. ‘Was given a shot of . . . something . . . Don’t know what . . .’
‘OK. We’ll run some bloods; we might have to sedate you again before fixing you up.’
‘No!’ Arkadian shook his head again, the spinning less severe this time. ‘Need to call in.’ He forced his eyes back open, squinting against the glare of the emergency room. ‘Need to warn them.’
The curtain swished open and a short, compact woman in a white coat marched in and grabbed a clipboard from the end of the trolley. ‘Sleeping beauty awakes,’ she said, the fringe of her ash blonde hair falling round her face as she read the paramedic’s notes. A badge pinned to her pocket identified her as Dr Kulin. She looked up at the wound. ‘How is it?’
‘Clean,’ the nurse said. ‘Still wet, but nothing major was hit. Bullet passed right through.’
‘Good.’ She dropped the notes back into their holder. ‘Pressure dress it and move him out. We’re going to need this space any second.’
‘Why?’ Arkadian asked.
She looked puzzled. ‘Why do we need to pressure dress it? Because you’ve been shot and you’re still bleeding.’
‘No, why do you need the space?’
Dr Kulin glanced down at the badge tucked into Arkadian’s belt by the paramedics. It was standard procedure. That way, when casualties from both sides of any violent encounter ended up in the same hospital, the good guys got seen to first.
‘There’s been an explosion. We’ve got numerous incoming. And from what I’ve heard of their injuries, Inspector, they’ll all outrank your gunshot wound.’
‘Where?’ Arkadian already knew the answer.
A commotion outside snatched the doctor’s attention. ‘By the old town wall,’ she said, jerking back the curtain. ‘Close to the Citadel.’
Arkadian caught a glimpse of a trolley rolling quickly past. On it was a man, drenched in blood, dressed exactly like the one he’d examined in the morgue two days previously.
Arkadian closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of blood and disinfectant. He suddenly felt more tired than he had ever done. Whatever he’d hoped to prevent had already happened. He wished to God he could speak to his wife and listen to her soft voice rather than the chaos unfolding around him. He wanted to tell her he loved her, and hear her say the same. He wanted to tell her that he was OK, that she shouldn’t worry and that he’d be coming home soon. Then he thought of Liv Adamsen, and Gabriel, and the woman in the warehouse – and wondered if any of them were still alive.
Chapter 146
Dr Kulin followed the first trolley into an examination space and stopped short. She had covered the emergency room for upwards of ten years, but never seen anything like this. The man’s torso was covered in cuts, straight and deliberate, steadily leaking blood on to the bunched green material of the cassock that had been hastily cut away. There was so much blood he looked as though he’d been dipped in it.
She turned to the paramedic who’d wheeled him in. ‘I thought it was an explosion?’
‘It was. Knocked a hole through the base of the mountain. This guy came from inside the Citadel.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Dragged him out myself.’
She reached down tentatively and shone a pen-light into the monk’s eye. ‘Hello. Can you hear me?’ His head lolled from side to side, making the deep cut around his neck open and close obscenely, as if it was breathing. ‘Can you tell me your name?’
He whispered something but she didn’t catch it. She leaned closer, felt his breath on her ear as he whispered again, something that sounded like Ego Sanctus . . . The poor man was clearly delirious.
‘Did you do anything to stop the bleeding?’ she said, straightening up.
‘Pressure packs and a plasma drip to keep him hydrated. He just won’t stop.’
‘BP?’
‘Sixty-two over forty, and falling.’
Not dangerously low, but near enough.
The heart monitor beeped as a nurse stuck electrodes to his chest. It also sounded way too slow. Dr Kulin looked at the wounds again. There was no sign of clotting. Maybe he was a haemophiliac. The clamour of fresh arrivals forced a decision. ‘Five hundred IU of prothrombin and twenty mills of Vitamin K. And type him fast so we can transfuse. He’s going to bleed out if we don’t hurry.’
She headed back through the curtain and out into the main corridor. Three more monks rolled past at speed, heading to the far end of the ward, each losing astonishing amounts of blood from wounds identical to the ones she’d just seen.
‘Where do you want this one?’ The paramedic’s voice snapped her back to attention. She looked down and was relieved to see it did not contain a monk. ‘Right here,’ she said, pointing to one side of the corridor; the examination booths were filling up fast and this one didn’t appear to be haemorrhaging. The paramedic steered the trolley to one side and stamped on the wheel brake.
‘What’s the story here?’ Dr Kulin asked, easing open the cracked, blackened visor of the motorcycle helmet and shining a light into the woman’s right eye.
‘Found her in the tunnel,’ the paramedic said. ‘Vitals are strong but she was unconscious when we found her and stayed that way on the ride over.’
Dr Kulin switched her penlight to the left eye. It dilated slightly less than the right. She turned to a nurse. ‘Straight to X-ray,’ she said. ‘Possible skull fracture. Don’t remove the helmet until we know what we’re dealing with.’