by Jon Steele
“Where is the way out?” Harper said.
Astruc pointed to a low archway. “There.”
Harper ran over and looked in. Small set of wooden stairs going up. Under the stairs was a low steel door built into the wall. Weirdly enough it was one of those things no one would notice if they were not looking for it; there wasn’t even a lock on it, just a cross brace.
“Through the door?” Harper said.
“Yes, the sealed-up wall is only a hundred feet in.”
“How the hell did you know about it?”
“I spent two years here doing archaeological research while I was in seminary.”
“Lucky for us.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it. It was always part of the plan.”
‘Whose plan?” Harper said.
The priest smiled as if he knew but wasn’t telling. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not. How long till you’re ready to blow the wall, Krinkle?”
“Couple minutes more.”
Harper pulled a candle from his pocket, lit it from the lantern, and stood it on the floor stones. He pulled his second SIG from his belt.
“Right, get to it and take the lad’s lantern. I’ll hold off the goons.”
Krinkle and Astruc headed for the way out. The roadie stopped.
“Oh, did I mention when you set off the charges to close your eyes really tight? And don’t stand in the open or anywhere within the target zone?”
“No worries,” Harper said.
He headed back up the small steps. He heard boots on the ground. He eased around the wall, scanned the cavern of the Chapel of Saint Helen. The platoon was marching down from the ambulatory now and coming into the cavern. They had abandoned their shields and were holding short swords now. They were ready for close-quarters fighting. Harper crouched down, flipped the switch on the detonator, and set it on the floor stones. He stood and gently rested the sole of his left shoe atop the magic button. He loaded a round into the firing chamber: kaclack. The metallic sound caught the attention of the goons, and when they turned to it, they saw Harper standing in the open with the death end of his gun pointed their way.
“Come to say a few rosaries, boys?”
Harper emptied his magazine. Two goons dropped, the rest charged. Harper stepped back behind the wall, closed his eyes, flipped the switch. There was a muffled crump and a wave of sizzling heat. Even with his eyes shut tight he saw a red glow against the backs of his eyelids. Then quiet. Harper leaned back out around the wall. Nothing, not even piles of ash.
“Blimey.”
He headed back to the Chapel of the True Cross. He picked up the candle from the floor and rushed to the now open steel door. He holstered his SIG and held the candle through the opening. It was a half-walking, half-crawling job through a black hole.
“Bugger.”
He ducked in and scurried like a rat on the run. He went left and right before reaching Krinkle and Astruc at a small bricked-up alcove in the wall. Krinkle was finishing with setting charges, and Astruc was holding the lantern.
“Everything good back there, brother?”
“Yeah. What the hell was that stuff?”
“No idea, it’s a prototype. You see the light blast, you’re vaporized. That’s all Inspector Gobet told me. Other than he wanted a full report telling him if it works or not.”
“It works. You have more of it?”
“Enough for one more blast. We’re good to go here. Where is the closest cover?”
“There’s a quarry fifty yards ahead,” Astruc said.
Krinkle handed him an electric wire and a detonator. “Take these. I’ll be there in ninety seconds with the lantern. Can you haul the bag, brother?”
“Sure,” Harper said.
Harper led the way with his candle, dragging the duffel bag behind him. Astruc followed, laying out a line of wire along the ground. A small arch opened to a lightless quarry. They scooted in and put their backs to the wall. Their breathing echoed off black stone. It felt like one of those moments of silence that demand to be filled by voices. The dead soldier in Harper’s head chimed in: That’s the way it is in a foxhole when you’re staring death in the face.
Harper rubbed the back of his neck. “No shit,” he muttered.
“Did you say something?”
Harper looked at Astruc. “What?”
“Did you say something?”
“No, not really. I was just thinking.”
“Yes, it is curious what one thinks about at times like these.”
“That trick with the laying on of hands, making me see him again, how did you do it?”
“It’s just what I do, what I have always done.”
“Right.”
Silence.
“Goose . . .”
“My son.”
“Is he going to make it?”
“Yes, by the grace of a miraculous intervention.”
“What sort of miraculous intervention was it?”
“Madame Taylor.”
“What?”
“She held his hand, pronounced her name to him, and he was awakened. He immediately filled us in on everything that needed to be done with the triangulations tonight—as if while at edge of death, his subconscious never ceased to function.”
“Impressive.”
“Very much so.”
Harper thought about it. “Bloody hell. Madame Taylor has come a long way from LP’s Bar.”
“And she has a very long way to go. It’s good Madame Taylor and Goose have become close. They will need each other, I think.”
Pain stabbed Harper’s side and pressed his arms to his side. “Mind if I ask a question, Padre?”
“Such as?”
“What’s it like? Having a child, I mean.”
Harper heard the priest breathing in the dark, thinking about it maybe.
“I saw him before leaving for Jerusalem. He had come out of his coma and was sleeping comfortably. I was full with shame for what I had done to him, burdening him with my guilt. I sat near him and I wept. He heard me. I felt his hand on my shoulder and looked up to him. He signed, ‘I love you, father.’ In two and a half million years, that moment is the one genuine confirmation of my existence. It changed everything.”
“How so?”
“You and I and that renegade back there fixing the explosives, we are without free will. We are only extensions of the will of another. All we fight for, all we do, we do not do it in the name of humanity or paradise. We do it because we have no choice. How empty we are, how without purpose and meaning. But not this time. This time I do it for my son.”
Harper listened to the sound of the Astruc’s voice.
“I’m sure he’d be proud of you, Padre.”
“In fact, those were the last words he signed to me when I said good-bye to him.”
“Good-bye?”
Harper heard the priest laugh softly to himself.
“Surely, you must have figured out that there are two possibilities tonight. We fail and fall into forever death ourselves, or we win and this war is over. Either way our time in paradise is at an end.”
It was Harper’s turn to laugh.
“You know, Padre, I never gave it a bloody thought.”
“Of course not. That is why we are here. We do the thinking for you.”
“Cheers.”
The quarry filled with brilliant light as Krinkle ducked inside with the lantern.
“Hey, brothers, went back and did a quick recon. The goons are filling up the Chapel of Saint Helen and coming our way. I think they’re a little confused as to what happened to the forward platoon. Give me the detonator,” he said.
Astruc handed it over. Krinkle connected the wires to the contacts, primed the detonator. Now the roadie burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Harper said.
“Dude, it’s only been, like, a hundred and forty friggin’ hours since I was giving you shit for shooting your way into Lausan
ne Cathedral so we could get Brother Astruc to the altar square. Look at us now. We’re like the friggin’ Three Musketeers from Outer Space, blasting our way out of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so we can circle around and come at the backs of all the king’s men. That’s our plan, right?”
“That’s our plan.”
“Cool. Cover your ears.”
ii
Katherine felt the rotunda shake.
She dropped her weapon, got to her feet, put up her hands.
“I surrender!”
The goons who had hunkered down behind shields quickly snapped to attention. They saw Katherine was unarmed and withdrew their spears. They watched her with dead black eyes as she stepped through the firewall. She stopped three steps from the goons.
“Which one of you is in charge?”
The goon in the center of the line stepped forward.
“Hello, handsome. Take me to your leader.”
Except for the one standing still in front of her, the goons moved in a blur and reformed as parallel lines running by the shrine and out of the rotunda. Katherine followed the lead goon through the lines. She counted sixty-four of them.
“Good luck, boys,” she mumbled to herself.
Approaching the entrance hall, she heard faraway gunshots and furious explosions. The war outside had spread beyond the walls of the Old City and it was intensifying. Closer to the hall, the double-tap cracks of a sniper’s rifle said anyone in the Old City’s streets gets shot on sight. And while she was thinking all that, she was staring at the sword at the goon’s side.
The goon stopped Katherine before crossing into the entrance hall. She leaned around the thing and saw lots more goons with spears and shields on either side of the space. She shook her head; the space appeared ten times as big now, almost as big as the nave of Lausanne Cathedral. The goons stretched from the Anointing Stone to the doors, two rows deep, fifty goons to a row. Between the rows, two hundred men in silver robes formed a semicircle facing the Anointing Stone. Another inch to the side and Katherine saw what the men were looking at: an oblong-shaped silver container lying on the floor stones outside the firewall and perpendicular to the Anointing Stone. Two massive goons stood guard on either side of the container. Katherine stared at it. Like a fucking casket . . . then she was overcome with a terrible imagination.
“Max!”
She lunged forward, but the goon guarding her knocked her to her knees. She reached out.
“Max! Jesus, Max!”
The goon’s fist hit the back of her neck and she went down hard. She rolled on her back, reached for the goon’s sword, and got her hand around the grip. The goon spun around in a blur, kicked her back to the floor stones. By the time she blinked, the goon had the tip of the sword at her throat.
“Noli spirare,” the goon said.
Katherine did not breathe; she did not move. Keep it together.
A voice echoed through the hall.
“Now comes the One True God!”
The two lines of goons marched past Katherine into the entrance hall. They formed a V-shaped honor guard on either side of the Anointing Stone. The goon with the sword at Katherine’s throat moved behind her, touched the point of the sword to the back of her neck. She watched the two hundred men in silver robes fall to their knees and prayed as one:
“For thou art worthy, our Lord and God,
Of all glory and honor; For by Your will
Is the world made ours, now and ever after.”
In the outer courtyard the darkest of shadows appeared. They formed into a procession and moved toward the doors. First came a scar-faced goon with a sword at his side and an ancient piece of wood in his hands. It was a plaque, and Katherine saw the script written on it.
IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM
The twelve men in silver robes lifted their eyes to see the plaque. They raised their hands in supplication and prayed again.
“Now, Lord, return to this place of glorious death
Where we may witness this new sacrifice of blood
And thereby proclaim Your kingdom to the world.”
The goons smacked the floor stones with the heels of their spears three times, like three mighty claps of thunder that rumbled through the cavernous church. Then there was silence as another shadow took form and crossed into the hall. Katherine saw a tall, elegant man dressed in black-on-black robes. He had long silver hair pulled tight to the back of his head with a silver clasp. He had a sculptured face and wore small, dark glasses over his eyes. She knew it wasn’t a ghost this time . . . it was Komarovsky. The two hundred men cried out.
“Lord, we salute the highest!”
Behind Komarovsky came six bodyguards and two more men in resplendent copper-colored robes. One of the men held a wooden scepter in his right hand; the other carried a golden dagger resting on a pillow of black silk. The silver-robed men parted for the procession to pass. The goon with the plaque stood at the foot of the silver container and turned to face the court. Komarovsky stopped in the center of the hall, his bodyguards forming a tight arc at his back. The two men in copper-colored robes came to Komarovsky’s side. They bowed to him, and the goons pounded the floor stones to summon the sound of thunder again. The two hundred men rose from the ground and bowed to their One True God.
There was silence except for the echoes of war in the real world beyond the church. Komarovsky turned his head a little, as if listening to the sound. The sound was pleasing to him. He looked through the haze of the firewall and lamps to see the giant mosaic of the dead Christ on the wall; then his gaze lowered to the arrangement of the Anointing Stone and the container. Perfect lines running east to west and north to south; at the foot of the container stood the goon bearing the plaque of crucifixion. The One True God was pleased, for here was the true cross of Golgotha, where the third precious savior of the creation would be slaughtered.
“I have promised you the riches of my kingdom and eternal pleasure and joy. Let it begin.”
The man with the golden dagger stepped toward the casket.
“Wait, High Priest.”
The man stopped and turned to Komarovsky and bowed. “Lord?”
“We have been visited by a goddess this night. We will welcome her back into our fold. Bring her to me,” Komarovsky said.
Two goons from the honor guard ran to Katherine and took positions at her sides. The goon behind her grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. Katherine felt the tip of its sword poking at her back. She walked forward, biting her lip to resist the urge to rush to the silver container near the Anointing Stone and rip it open. She heard the whispering voices of the Two Hundred . . . The mother of the child . . . How is she here . . . The Lord commands all things . . . How joyous . . . The goons led Katherine to Komarovsky and threw her to the ground before his feet. She looked up at him.
“Is that my son in there? Is he already dead?”
“The child lives, but tonight he will be sacrificed.”
The court murmured with anticipation.
Katherine’s heart pounded in her chest.
“Why, because of some silly prophecy? Surely the One True God isn’t bound by the myths and legends of men. Surely the One True God creates his own prophecies.”
A goon marched from the rotunda. He carried the broken staff of a spear and Harper’s sports coat. He offered them to Komarovsky.
“We have found angel’s blood, Lord.”
Komarovsky signaled the splendidly robed man. “Chief physician,” Komarovsky said.
The man called the chief physician approached the goon and held his scepter over the dark, wet stains. The scepter glowed with purple light. He walked to Katherine, passed his scepter over her coat, and it glowed purple again.
“It is the blood of the warrior angel, Lord. The potion has entered his form.”
Komarovsky looked at Katherine.
“Is he forever dead?”
“He was as good as dead the last I saw him. He was hi
t twice with spears, once out here, once in the rotunda. And I heard something about ‘snuff.’”
Whispers rose in the court . . . Did you hear . . . The warrior angel is wounded . . . Our Lord is great.
Komarovsky raised his hand for silence. “Where is he now?”
“The two with him said they needed to fall back to bandage him up. I don’t know where they went.”
Komarovsky regarded Katherine through his dark glasses. “And you chose not to go with him?” he said.
“I didn’t have a choice, I was cut off from them. Besides, I didn’t come here to die with them. I came here to get my son back, that’s all. I saw how it was playing out. Harper was dying, and you’re looking like a winner to me. So you give me what I want, I’ll give you what you want.”
Komarovsky smiled. “And tell me, my goddess, what is it I want?”
“Me. You know what I am. You said it yourself: I’m your goddess. That means I can read you like a book, even with your eyes hiding behind the dark glasses. You remember how good I was, and now, you’re imagining how good I’ll be. You know I can give you thrills and chills like nothing you’ve ever experienced. I’m telling you, you can have it, all of it. All I want is my son to live. We’ll be one happy family.”
“Do you give yourself to me of your own free will?”
“I do.”
“Then kneel before me, my beautiful goddess, and pledge your troth.”
Katherine pulled herself from the floor and stood. She walked close to Komarovsky and knelt again. She rested her hands on his thighs; his entire form stiffened. Slowly, she raised her eyes. She could see herself reflected in his dark glasses, giving him the blank, mesmerizing gaze she’d mastered long ago—a gaze that allowed men to worship themselves through a hooker’s eyes. It was the oldest trick in the book.
“You won’t be sorry, Monsieur Komarovsky. I swear it on my soul.”
He touched her cheek. “I accept the offer of your soul. Now receive your gift, lying whore.”
The chief physician moved in a blur, pulling an injector from his robes and slamming it against Katherine’s neck. Click. A needle shot into her; she felt a powerful rush in her blood.
“Jesus.”