"You took my surrogate," Kline hissed. "You killed him and upset the balance. I should only slough my skin once a year, that's part of the deal, my price for immortality. Like a serpent, you see, Halloran. Bel-Marduk made me like a serpent."
He gasped, a pain reaching him somewhere inside. Blood squeezed from a crack in his disfigured face to mix with the oily gel.
"There's a way to stop this deterioration. You'll see, Halloran, you'll see. You'll be part of it."
He turned away and with Khayed's help hobbled through the puddles on the floor, passing by Palusinski and Cora, the Pole stepping back as if the shambling figure were a leper. The girl seemed mesmerized. Candlelight reflected from the glistening on Kline's head.
It took a long time for him to get to the slab of stone near the end of the room, and he reached out for it, staggering the last few feet despite Khayed's help. Kline eased himself around the stone so that he faced the others. An impatient hand beckoned them to him.
Palusinski led the girl, and it took only slight pressure from the wire to make Halloran follow. His eyes darted left and right as he and the Arab passed the archways, searching for possibilities, a weapon perhaps, should he manage to break free of the stranglehold. All he could make out in the shadows were stone tables, scored with symbols similar to those he had seen around the house itself.
Then he found himself looking down at the bloated body lying on the slab. And Monk's small, inset eyes stared back at him, his fat fingers twitching as if he were trying to move his body. Those eyes showed no pain, only hatred.
Halloran was surprised that the man was still conscious. He glanced over at Cora, who was frowning, at last some sensibility returning to her gaze.
"Do you see him, Monk?" Kline's voice was all the more insidious for its guttural roughness. "He did this to you, made you nothing. How you'd like to kill him. But no, my friend, that's impossible for you now. But I have a use for you."
Fear replaced the hate in the bodyguard's eyes as they darted toward Kline.
"Another injection, Asil," Kline told the Arab. "I don't want the pain to kill him. The cutting will do that."
The Arab ghosted away.
"The correct dosage is important," said Kline, touching his skinless hands to Monk's body. "Enough so that he doesn't feel the shock of the blade, but not enough to allow dreams to take him from us. Fortunately Asil has become something of a specialist over the years."
Anger surged in Halloran, but he held it in check, biding his time. "You turned Cora into an addict," he said.
"Oh no, not an addict, not in the true sense. Not yet. She'd be useless to me if she were. I told you, Asil is expert in such matters. Cora is dependent on me, not on any drug."
The Arab had returned to Kline's side, in his hand a syringe filled with liquid. He smoothed away hair on Monk's arm and pierced a vein with the needle. He emptied half of the liquid into the bodyguard.
Within moments, the bodyguard's eyes took on a dull glaze and the corners of his mouth flickered.
"What are you going to do with him?" Halloran asked sharply.
Kline drew in a long, gravelly breath and gripped the stone to support himself. Still he managed to grin at Halloran, his peeled lips blood red against the yellow decay of his teeth. "I'm going to feed off him," he replied simply.
In a night of gross horrors, when nightmares were living, Halloran was further repulsed.
Although delighted with the obvious discomfort his words had caused the operative, Kline shook his head. "Not his flesh, Palusinski can fill himself with that afterwards. I need something more, Halloran, something that has no substance, no materiality. The part of him that will be set free at his moment of death." A luminescence glittered in the darkness of Kline's eyes. "The ethereal energy that's the source of our existence. The psyche, Halloran, the soul. Can you understand that?"
Again Halloran felt a loosening of the pressure around his neck. Daoud's concentration was wavering. "If I understood, I'd be crazy like you," the operative replied.
Kline straightened, his look fixed on the operative. The bodyguard lying on the stone between them moaned either with pleasure or trepidation; the emotion was not clear.
"You're still a mystery to me," Kline said to the operative. "My psychic faculties are dimmed where you're concerned. Why is that, Halloran? What is it about you . . . ?"
"I'm just a hired bodyguard, nothing more than that."
Kline's stare did not shift. "But you're a danger to me."
"No, I'm here to prevent any harm coming to you." Halloran tensed the muscles of his arms, preparing himself to strike, concentrating his strength. "Tell me, Kline, tell me what this is all about."
"I've already explained."
"I'd like to know more. How can you . . . ?" He couldn't find the words; it felt too ridiculous to try.
"Tap into someone's soul?" the psychic finished for him.
"Absorb its vitality?" He laughed, a choking in his throat. "The secret was left for me." His eyes closed, the lids hideously raw, but his smile was rapturous. "I learned from the ancient cuneiform writings of the Master himself. They were hidden away with his remains, spread around him to give sustenance during his long wait. He drew me to them, so many years ago, a time of ignorance for me, when I was a shell waiting to be filled. I found his works in a chamber, a sepulchre beneath the Royal Cemetery of Ur, and piece by piece I smuggled them out, and piece by piece I had them deciphered so that no one else would understand their full message. Only then did I assemble them once more, when I knew the power contained within their symbols. They told of how potent were the powers of the mind, how they could be developed, channeled . . . how they could create!"
He swayed, his eyes remaining closed. Khayed reached out as if to steady him, but seemed afraid to touch.
Kline's voice became deeper in tone. "They taught the delights of perversity, the superiority that comes from corruption. I learned, you see, learned well, became an avid student. They instructed me in the ways of terror, they showed me how to seek out the evil in others and use it for my own ends. They revealed how I could escape the degenerating process, the wearing away of flesh and muscle, the shriveling of body and mind, how the decay could be transposed to others. They spoke of the secret link between the mind and the earth's own energy, how they could be coupled, and used together. And I feasted upon the knowledge!"
Kline's eyes sprung open, and the blackness in them almost filled the sockets.
"The price of it all was easy to pay," he whispered. "Dissension, wherever it could be spread. Atrocity, wherever it could be encouraged. Malevolence, wherever it could be nurtured. I learned to disperse my disruption, took it to many countries and let it fester. Because that was his way, and I am his disciple!"
Kline's hands were raised to his chest, palms upward, fingers curled into claws. He shuddered, a movement that threatened his collapse. But he righted himself, his mouth open in an agitated grin.
"There was another part to this bargain." Now he was stooping, twisting into himself. "An alliance between us. I was to keep Bel-Marduk forever with me, to sustain his bodily self, to keep it living."
A shiver ran through Halloran. There was nothing here of the Kline that he knew. The thing before him was unrecognizable in voice and body. Halloran felt weakened.
"You'll see," said the form opposite. "You'll understand how we breathe together."
Kline moved away, tottering as if about to fall. Yet still the Arab by his side was reluctant to take hold of him. Kline walked awkwardly to an alcove behind the altar, and the others watched, all of them motionless.
He entered the shadows.
Halloran heard something being opened.
Shuffling footsteps.
Kline returning, carrying something clutched to his chest into the candlelight . . .
45
NETHERWORLD RISING
Away from the bubbling lake they ran, throats roughened by harsh breaths, disarray in their stride. Tw
o of their companions had been lost to the lightning-seared cauldron, and these remaining three had no intention of joining them; clumsy their flight may have been, pounding rain rendering earth and grass slippery beneath their feet, but their progress was determined, panic lending its own pace.
Despite himself, a terrible fascination tempted Danny Shay to look back over his shoulder, and he uttered a single alarmed cry at what he saw; he stumbled, went down, the man at his heels sprawling over him so that they both rolled in the soaked grass, kicking out at each other.
Shay sat up, rain streaming into his open mouth, while the other man, Flynn, beat at the earth in pain. McGuire realized he was alone and stopped, searching behind for the others.
"Glory God . . ." he moaned when he saw the lake.
Shay scrambled to his knees and Flynn reached out to grasp his shoulder. "I've done my ankle, Danny.'" he shouted over the downpour. "Give us a hand up!"
But Shay stayed motionless, staring into the rain. Flynn followed his gaze and collapsed back into the grass.
A shining came from beneath the boiling surface of the water, a milky greenness that spread to the shoreline. A curling mist rose from it, turning in on itself like vapor reaching cooler air. Geysers popped and spouted, foamy liquid showering down to create ripples, more turmoil. But something else was disturbing the center of the broad lake. A great mass, hindered by its own weight, was slowly emerging like some huge sunken wreck pushed to the surface by an eruption on the seabed.
This was nothing man-made, though. It might have been regurgitation of a long-lost island, the waters finally relinquishing their claim. Except it was a living, pulsating thing. A mass that swelled and writhed, a gathering in oozing mud of all those nebulous creatures the men had glimpsed earlier beneath the unsettled ceiling of the lake, the forms clinging together as if congealed. Pieces—living things—dropped away as this ill-shaped mountain grew; lake water drained off to fall with the rain. Monsters of immense size were among that curling, viscous mass, while leaner shapes wriggled and clung like parasites, the ascending heap never still, constantly bulging and quivering as it rose.
As the three frightened men watched, a bolt of lightning struck the top, sizzling and charring its uppermost layer as if it were flesh. Steam rose as the whole mass shrunk in spasm. It stretched once more, continuing to ascend. They thought they could hear a shrill wailing beneath the roar of thunder.
"What is it!" Flynn shrieked close to Shay's ear, the grip on his leader's shoulder tight.
Shay could only shake his head in a stupefied gesture.
"Let's leave this heathen place, Danny! There's no good for us here!"
The leader climbed to his feet, bringing Flynn up with him, his eyes never leaving the monstrosity growing from the lake, this seen through a screen of driving rain. McGuire joined them, afraid to be left standing alone. He clutched at Shay's other arm.
"There's no turning back!" the leader yelled. "Whatever devil's work this is, it doesn't matter! It'll not stop us doing our job!"
"No, it's a bad business, Danny!" McGuire protested.
Shay hit him with a back swipe of his hand. "You'll do as you're told! The house is close, an' he's in there! We'll not leave until it's settled!"
He shoved both men from him, forcing them to turn their backs on the lake with its phenomenon that could only be some kind of illusion—there couldn't be any reality to such a vision. Although . . . although didn't he see for himself two of his own men dragged down into its terrible depths?
Shay began running, cutting out further thought, intent on one purpose alone, urging McGuire and Flynn to follow. They did for, scared though they were, disobedience was unthinkable.
They did their best to ignore the squishy gurgling of the sinuous island as it heaved itself from the water, resisting the temptation (it was as though there were whispered entreaties in their minds to do so) to turn around and watch. They kept their eyes on the manor house that was now but a short distance away.
Most of the lights were on, a welcoming relief despite the duty they were bound to perform, a glorious beacon in the darkness they had traveled through.
They found themselves on firmer ground, gravel crunching under their feet as they dashed forward, no caution in their untidy gait. There was a porch at the front, an entrance like a darkened cave. Flynn strove to keep up with the others, the pain in his ankle a handicap, his hand tucked into his parka pocket, touching the revolver there for comfort. He suddenly slid to a halt.
There were headlights coming toward them!
A car on the road, moving fast, freezing them in its searching beams. It skidded to a stop twenty yards away. Doors were opening. Someone was shouting.
46
TOWARD DESTRUCTION
Candle flames flickered and dimmed momentarily, smoke curling from them, as Kline came closer, his hands livid against the blackness of the robe he wore. In them he held a black chalice, a cloth draped over the top.
All eyes were on the shuffling figure emerging from the alcove, and instinct told Halloran that this was the time to make his move. Yet he could not. Like the others, he was mesmerized.
Kline faltered, as though the weight of his burden was too much. But after drawing in a deep, grating breath, he continued to approach.
Thunder grumbled in the distance and it seemed to come from below, from the earth itself rather than the atmosphere above.
At last Kline, or the disfigured thing that Kline now was, reached the stone slab. He attempted to grin, perhaps in triumph, but his lips merely wavered, his stained teeth bared only partially. His hands were trembling when he placed the chalice on the altar. He removed the cloth, allowed it to fall to the floor. Then Kline dipped both hands into the vessel, the object he removed still unseen by the others. He held out his prize across the furred belly of the paralyzed bodyguard.
A husky whisper: "His disciples, his loyal priests, preserved his poor mutilated body. They hid Bel-Marduk away, a deep place where no one could find him. Hidden in darkness, his secrets around him, waiting out the centuries for one such as I . . ."
He placed the object on the stone beside the bodyguard, and there it rested for the others to see.
A blackened, crisped shell. A thing almost rotted away, shriveled stumps that had once been tubes, but which now had no function, protruding.
And as they watched, the ancient withered heart pulsed.
Just once . . .
Mather had jammed on the handbrake and was opening the driver's door even before the car had rocked to a halt.
"Stop there!" he shouted, but the three figures either did not hear him over the storm or had no intention of heeding his command.
"Draw your weapon, Phil," he ordered. "Whoever they are, I don't want them to get inside the house."
Both men used the car doors as shields, the operative clenching a Browning with both hands, using the triangle between passenger door and frame as an armrest.
"Hold it!" he warned, but one of the figures, someone who appeared to be limping, whirled around, bringing something from the pocket of his parka as he did so. Flame spat out into the rainy night.
"Pacify him!" Mather yelled at his man as a bullet scythed sparks off the car roof. The operative would have preferred to have "retired" the gunman, a more permanent condition, but he knew better than to disobey an order. He took quick aim at the enemy's shoulder; unfortunately the target had changed position, had tried to follow his companions. The Shield operative knew by the way the man violently jerked, then dropped like a stone, that the bullet had taken him in the head or neck.
He muttered a curse but didn't take time to shrug an apology at Mather, for the other two intruders were disappearing into the porch.
He gave chase, skirting around the vehicles parked in front of the house, flattening himself against the outside wall of the porch, keeping out of sight until he could position himself. Realizing Mather had not followed, he looked back at their car. The Planner was fac
ing the opposite direction, toward the lake.
They had noticed a strange shining from that area when they had broken free of the woods moments earlier to descend into the valley, but the rain had been too heavy to see clearly. Even this close it was difficult, for there was a mist rising from the peculiar incandescence that was the lake itself, creating a swirling fog that the rainfall failed to disperse. Mather tore himself away and began limping toward his companion, body crouched, cane digging into the gravel.
"What is it out there?" the operative asked when the older man reached him.
"I've no idea," came the breathless reply. "Some kind of disturbance in the lake, that's all I can tell. Let's worry about our immediate problem."
"Here comes the other patrol." The operative nodded toward the beams of light descending the hill at a fast pace.
"We can't wait for them. Check inside."
The other man ducked low, quickly peering into the tunnel of the porch and drawing his head back almost immediately.
"Shit," he said. "The door's open. They're inside the house."
It was a dream. It could only be a bad dream.
Yet Cora knew it wasn't. The nightmare around her was real. She tried to focus her mind, desperate to understand what was happening, why Monk, that bloated, repellent creature, was lying naked on the stone, and . . . and . . . Shock broke through the haze.
The black-robed figure standing on the other side of the bodyguard was obscene in its deformity. Only the eyes allowed some recognition.
"Felix . . . ?" She imagined she had said the name aloud, but in fact it had been no more than a murmur.
She held up her hands to her face, not because of the unsightliness in front of her, but to clear her thoughts . . .
. . . While Halloran's mind was sharp by now, all grogginess gone. He stared disbelievingly at the blackened object lying on the stone altar.
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