One of the captives, in a state of hysteria, made a run for it, but she was grabbed and hauled before the captain.
He shook his finger at her and then backhanded her to the floor. He grabbed her by the hair, ripped off her shabby clothes and unzipped his trousers, before a loud clang made everyone look toward the empty cell.
The captain dropped the woman, who scrambled back to cower beside her peers. The noise came again and he motioned to one of his men to investigate.
The slave trader shone his flashlight into the darkness, cocked his rifle and moved inside.
A moment later his light went out.
‘Fernando?’ one of the men said. They looked at their captain in confusion.
‘Vamos,’ the captain said, and gestured to two more of his men to go inside.
With their guns raised, they entered the large, pitch-black cell, full of the stench of human excrement and urine that had collected during the voyage north.
One of the men coughed as the acrid smell hit the back of his throat.
Nothing stirred within and they shone their flashlights around and moved further inside, until they found a hidden compartment usually reserved for drugs. The door was ajar and the body of a man lay on the floor nearby.
‘Fernando?’ one of the men said again, and reached out a hand.
♦
The captain waited impatiently and eyed the young, naked woman he’d previously been about to abuse. He felt his lust stirring before gunfire cracked out. Shouts of alarm came from inside the cell, followed by his men’s screams. More of the captain’s men rushed into the cell with guns blazing.
The captain grabbed a pistol from his bodyguard and aimed it at the door. Bullets ricocheted through the opening, women screamed, the lights smashed and darkness fell.
More gunfire echoed through the ship and the captain fired into the cell, emptied a clip and then replaced it with another. Something slammed into him, knocking him from his feet. The sound of his bodyguard struggling nearby ceased with a loud crack of bone followed by the noise of a body hitting the floor.
Silence returned and the captain felt around in the dark for his gun.
A flame appeared before his eyes. One of the captives had found his lighter and stared into his eyes in terror.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and reached out to her, but something grasped his leg and he was dragged screaming into the dark.
♦
The flame died and the woman with the lighter flicked the flint to bring back the glow of light. It was pitch-black in the hold and only the occasional sob from the other women could be heard in the quiet.
The sound of footsteps approached, metal-clad boots clanking across the floor of the hold.
The flame flicked into life and the woman held the light higher, her hands trembling in fear.
A demonic pair of glowing eyes looked down at her through the dark and a rifle clattered to the floor at her feet.
‘You have the power now,’ said an unholy voice.
The ghostly figure disappeared into the ether, its heavy footfalls fading into nothing.
The woman waited for the fearsome creature to return, or for one of her captors to reappear, but when neither materialised she reached out and picked up the rifle. It was time to make a stand.
♦
The armoured man emerged from below decks on the cargo ship and into the light.
A foghorn sounded nearby as a cruise liner left port. The loud noise reverberated through the docked freighter, causing an albatross that had been roosting atop the superstructure high above to take flight.
The man’s eyes followed the giant bird’s flight for a moment, until he looked down and depressed a button on his armour. His Terra Force suit’s panelling shimmered into transparency, hiding him from view, and he looked around the harbour, before the voice inside his head spoke to him again.
He shook his head. ‘Why am I here?’
‘You know why,’ said the voice.
‘Where am I going?’
‘You know where.’
The man gazed into the distance as he considered his next move.
‘You’re running out of time,’ said the voice. ‘She needs you.’
‘How do I know you’re telling me the truth?’
‘I got you this far, didn’t I?’
The man thought for a moment. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend.’
‘I don’t have any friends.’
‘A messenger, then.’
The man thought about the answer and then said, ‘From God?’
‘Perhaps,’ said the voice.
The man considered his options. There was only one. Forward, forward into the unknown. He was here for her. He had no choice.
He looked up at the sky.
It was as the voice had told him; he was running out of time.
Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Two
Mongolian plateau, Central Asia.
The English archaeologist, Sarah Morgan, struggled weakly in her sleep, the hot air of her breath expelling into the icy night. Visions of people running, screaming, through tunnels attacked her senses. Something was chasing them, something was coming. Sarah saw herself striding down a tunnel, her eyes glowing with an eerie light. Dead bodies lay everywhere and blood dripped from her hands. Another scream seared through her head and she was outside, looking up into a night sky where a shining white light shone in the heavens. A comet cut through the distant firmament, so pretty, so bright, so ... PAIN coursed through her body and a hand closed over her mouth. Her eyes flared open. A ghoulish face stared back at her, its bloodshot eyes like her own. No ...
... they were her own!
She screamed a muffled scream. The being moved closer and claw-like fingers grasped her cheeks. Pale lips curled back over white teeth and a mouth opened wide. Sarah stared into the abyss of death and screamed again. Black viscous liquid poured out over her face, filling her mouth and choking her lungs. The light died. Darkness descended and Sarah struggled no more.
♦
Terror-stricken, Sarah awoke with a start and opened her eyes. Heart racing, she choked and gasped for air. Sucking in a lung full, she searched for signs of a threat that wasn’t there. ‘It was just a dream,’ she whispered to herself, relaxing, ‘just a dream.’ She looked down to see no signs of black fluid, but despite her own reassuring words she could still see those horrific eyes and feel the hand on her face.
She shuddered and looked around the tent for signs of an intruder, but instead of a terrifying creature, only the dull glow of a small lamp filled her vision. She frowned as her head cleared. She tried to recall how she’d come to be in the unfamiliar tent illuminated by the lamp’s feeble light, but nothing came to mind. It was dark outside and the sides of the freezing tent rippled and flapped in the wind. And that’s when she remembered her escape from the GMRC train, the ensuing Vatican expedition and the revelation she might have murdered a man. Reality came crushing back down like the weight of the world. No friends. No sanity. No health. No life ...
Sarah sighed and closed her eyes.
No hope.
Lying in the foetal position, she rolled onto her back, the stony ground digging into her flesh. Her limbs trembled and ached to the bone, and images of a mutilated body filled her mind. Her gut twisted and bile filled the back of her throat. She swallowed and grimaced at the taste. Thoughts whirled around her head, and she couldn’t help but wonder why, no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did in life, things seemed to get worse and worse. She’d been hoping her seizures would have improved by now, but since she’d learned she’d suffered brain damage at the hands of the GMRC’s R&D Director, Dagmar Sorensen – or perhaps due to the Anakim technology she’d used back in Sanctuary – she knew that hope would never be fulfilled.
She shivered in the cold, shifted onto her side, then pushed herself up on shaky arms. She saw her boots were covered with specks of dried blood, and rubbed at the offendi
ng stains with the sleeve of her jacket. Her hands shook and that’s when she realised she needed another infusion of drugs.
She withdrew the pouch and held up a blue vial before her eye, and then selected another vial for good measure. Just a little something extra, she thought, looking forward to the pleasurable energy it would bring. But what if these drugs are making me do the things they say? she asked herself. What if they caused me to forget what I’ve done, what I’m doing? She pushed the thought of blood, possession and murder from her mind and clenched her hand into a fist, but just as she was about to inject the dose the tent flap opened and light streamed inside.
Four explorers entered, and a cold wind buffeted the fabric walls before the flap closed behind them.
Sarah shoved her drugs pouch into her jacket pocket, grasped the back of a chair and hauled herself to her feet.
‘What do you want?’ she said, wondering where Avery Cantrell, the ageing Catholic cardinal who was in charge of the Vatican’s secret expedition, could be. He’d told her they wanted to show her what they’d found, but it seemed she’d fallen into a deep sleep and they’d failed to wake her.
A Malaysian man knocked the chair aside and grasped her round the throat, his eyes full of fury. ‘Di manakah mereka anda jalang gila?!’ he said in Malay. ‘Beritahu saya, atau saya akan memotong anda!’ He withdrew a long thin knife and pressed the point into her cheek. ‘Sekeping oleh sekeping!’
Sarah grasped his wrist and raised her other hand to strike, but another man grabbed it and pushed it up behind her back until she cried out in pain.
‘What do you want?!’ she said, terrified as she stared into the man’s hate-filled eyes. She struggled for breath. ‘I don’t understand!’
‘Farish says he’s going to cut you,’ said the man who now held her from behind. ‘Into pieces.’
The pressure of the knife increased and a spot of blood appeared on her cheek.
‘He wants to know what you’ve done with them,’ the man continued, his accent Australian, like that of his absent leader, Mia Chen-Takei, or Chen as she liked to be known.
‘Tell us,’ – the Malaysian grasped her chin and put the knife to her throat – ‘what you know.’
Sarah swallowed as the other two men in the tent moved to stand watch by the entrance.
‘Done with who?’ Sarah said, her head shaking, as her tremors grew worse.
The Malaysian withdrew the knife and turned away.
Sarah thought he was going to leave, but he swung back round and punched her in the gut.
Sarah doubled over and collapsed to the floor, gasping for air, before being hauled back to her feet.
‘Where,’ – the Malaysian explorer put the knife back to her throat – ‘are they?’
‘I swear, I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
‘WRONG ANSWER!’ He backhanded her to the floor.
Sarah gazed up at her attacker. A trickle of blood ran down from her eye, and as she stared into the man’s hate-filled eyes, that’s when she realised he wanted to kill her.
‘BERHENTI!’ a woman shouted.
The men took a step back as their leader, Chen, entered the tent. ‘Farish, what are you doing?! I said I’d deal with it!’
‘You took too long,’ said the Malaysian.
Chen pushed Farish aside. She crouched down next to Sarah and held up a drawing to her. ‘Do you know what this is?’
Sarah tried to focus on it. ‘Drawings.’
‘Your drawings,’ Chen said. ‘They brought us here. Why? What is this place?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
Chen’s eyes narrowed and she stood up. ‘Bring her.’
Sarah was hauled to her feet once more, and then led from the tent and out into the night.
Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Three
Mia Chen-Takei, the Australian-Japanese explorer hired by the Vatican for their archaeological expedition, led Sarah through the snow-laden dig site towards a cluster of floodlights that lit up the freezing darkness of the elevated plateau.
Mongolian mists swirled in the beams of their flashlights, and the crunch of their feet sounded loud in the quiet; their hot breath lingered in the air around them like ghostly shades.
Around them strode the four men who called Chen their leader, the ‘motley crew’ a part of her larger team of explorers, made up of tomb raiders and other reprobates who sold their services to the highest bidder, no questions asked.
Sarah glanced behind and Farish the Malaysian glowered at her as she caught his eye. His hand strayed to a sidearm attached to his belt, but she couldn’t help notice further back in the darkness the glowing eyes of two Swiss guards, their shiny red armour rippling like black water as they shadowed the movements of the small party just ahead of them. However, it wasn’t these demonic forms that filled Sarah with dread, but the idea that something else followed in her wake, something unseen and beyond the ken of man. Am I really possessed? she thought. Am I as dangerous as everyone thinks? She stumbled and looked forward again to find she was walking down an incline and into the dig site’s main tent.
The interior of the enclosure was warmer than it was outside. The lights were turned down low and cast deep shadows across the desks and chairs within. The soldiers remained outside, but Sarah knew they were there, lurking, as the Malaysian closed the door to the tent behind him.
Chen walked to the back of the tent, where two men lay on the floor, in sleeping bags.
Sarah followed and stopped by Chen’s side to gaze down into the closed eyes of a man Sarah recognised as another of Chen’s team.
The second man’s breath wheezed in and out as his chest rose and fell. He sounded on the verge of death and he didn’t look much better.
Someone grasped Sarah’s wrist, making her start, and she turned back to stare into the eyes of the first man, who now sat bolt upright.
‘It’s okay,’ Chen said, her tone soothing. ‘It’s only me.’
The man’s bloodshot eyes relaxed and he released Sarah’s arm and lay back down.
‘Can you hear him?’ Chen said, glancing at Sarah.
Sarah realised the man’s lips were moving and she knelt down on a shaky knee to listen. ‘It’s gibberish.’
Chen shook her head. ‘No, it’s got structure, but it’s no language I’ve ever heard. At first I thought it might be Hebrew.’
Sarah frowned in concentration. ‘Like that Nicola Dowling, the previous expedition leader, mentioned?’
Sarah thought about the woman who’d disappeared prior to their arrival at the remote dig site. Nicola Dowling’s expedition, also commissioned by the Vatican, had been there for a year before they’d gone missing some weeks earlier. And since Sarah, Chen’s explorers and the Vatican contingent itself – which included a unit of heavily armed Swiss guards, two cardinals and a Catholic monk – had been there, no trace of Dowling’s team had been found. And neither had any trace been found of Sarah’s truest friends, Trish and Jason, who’d also vanished from existence after they’d supposedly arrived twenty-four hours before Sarah and the others.
Chen nodded in answer to Sarah’s question and said, ‘Dowling said her people spoke in a language they couldn’t have known, but this is something else again.’
The man continued to whisper under his breath, sometimes louder, sometimes quieter, but without pause – inhalation and exhalation enmeshed within his semi-conscious soliloquy.
‘I ran it through a translation programme,’ Chen said, wiping his sweaty brow with a cloth, ‘and it came up blank. It’s not a language living or dead, at least—’
‘Not a human one,’ Sarah said.
‘You think it’s Anakim?’ said the Australian man who’d previously helped Farish in Sarah’s assault.
Sarah didn’t reply because she didn’t care. Her head throbbed and stomach ached from the attack, and she wasn’t about to help those who’d instigated it.
‘It might help you find your friends,’
Chen said.
Sarah sighed. She’s right, she thought. It might. Even if it was a long shot, she had to try, as she knew the longer Trish and Jason were missing the less likely she was to find them alive. At least, that’s what happened in abductions, although she doubted in those cases the one who sought the missing might also be the abductor, or worse, the murderer.
Sarah sat down cross-legged next to the murmuring explorer. He was younger than she’d first thought, a growth of stubble masking his youthful features.
‘What did they touch?’ Sarah said. ‘What artefacts?’
Chen grunted. ‘That’s the thing, there are no artefacts. Whatever the previous expedition found, they crated it up and shipped it back to the Vatican long before we arrived.’
‘There must be something.’
‘We’ve scoured the whole site,’ Chen said. ‘There’s nothing else except stone foundations and a section of frieze matching the one they already found.’
Sarah glanced at the Australian. ‘They found another section?’
‘We found it,’ Farish said from nearby.
‘While you were gone,’ Chen said.
‘While she was killing Saul.’ Farish drew his sidearm and pointed it at Sarah’s head. ‘I say we kill her now.’
‘Before she comes for us in our sleep,’ said another man.
Still crouched down, Chen stared at Sarah, her dark sultry eyes a mask for the thoughts within.
Perhaps she’s weighing up the advantages, Sarah thought, feeling strangely detached from the threat of impending death. If I have killed Trish and Jason, perhaps it’s best for everyone if they do shoot me.
Chen stood up, placing herself between the weapon and its intended target. ‘No one’s killing anyone until we find the others.’ She looked back at Sarah. ‘And who took them.’
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 94