Nightbringer (9 page)

She let those words settle and glanced at Rachel to make sure the older girl was adapting well enough to the stress. Then she focused again on Josh. "You hear me, baby? I'm never leaving you."

Josh nodded slightly. With a grimace Gina turned and walked toward the group of men.

Melanchthon was arguing forcefully with Father Stephen and then the monsignor joined. Miguel stood nearby the three of them,
and then brushed past her, obviously frustrated. "Not that it matters with all this snow, Gina," Miguel said, "but something has destroyed the engine of our bus."

Gina studied him. Miguel shrugged then jerked his head toward Melanchthon, Father Stephen, and the monsignor who were now shouting at each other. Gina nodded at Miguel and he walked away.
Then she turned to face the three men whose voices grew still louder.

Gina didn't know who was arguing what and didn't care. "Hey!" she shouted. "Did any of you call for help?"

With near-frantic emotion Father Stephen said, "The phone lines must be down because of the storm!" But he did not seem convinced of that, and he certainly wasn't very convincing.

"Fine," Gina muttered. "I'll use your radio. We're flying out of here—all of us!"

None of them moved or spoke, but Gina knew.

"What happened to the radio?"
she asked.

Stephen seemed to gather himself. "It's broken. We don't know who did it.
We don’t know when it was done. But it is inoperative."

"It is
demolished
" Melanchthon clarified. "It cannot be fixed." He gazed at Gina. "We are alone."

But Gina had to be sure
; it was a hard and fast rule. When your life is on the line, never trust that any gun is loaded or unloaded, never trust that you have the proper equipment, never trust that something works or doesn't. Check it yourself and then check it again.

She cocked her head toward the distant office.

"Let's take a look."

Father Stephen glanced toward his office and hesitated.

Gina leaned toward him.

"
Now
."

Rebecca and the children, seated on the huge stone dais that supported the two gigantic pillars of the temple, were still visible when Gina reached the office and glanced back. She didn't have to enter the room to evaluate the condition of the radio.

The cover was still attached to wiring that descended almost to the floor. She saw broken fuses and torn circuit boards. Even the dials were crushed, as though they'd been hit with a hammer. Whoever had done this had obviously meant to make it permanent. She didn't doubt that it was unfixable— not with the equipment she saw.

"Do you have another one?" she asked Stephen.

"No."

Gina grimaced. "Don't you have spare parts? Surely you have spare parts. You said you guys were self-sufficient."

The priest moved across the corridor and opened the door to what Gina knew was a storage room. It was filled mostly with books and writing materials, catalogues, treatises, and church-related material. But one shelf contained a box—a very old box. And when Stephen brought it down from the shelf Gina saw instantly that it contained a host of spare radio parts.

She shifted them around, though she knew nothing about radios. She was aware of the monsignor as he stepped forward. "Here," he said quietly. "I know something of this."

He, too, moved the parts, but with a definite aura of purpose. He nodded once, twice. "Yes," he said. "I believe I can build something that will work well enough."

"Do you know the emergency frequencies?" Gina asked.

"I know all of them quite well, yes. And if the other radio can be made to function at all, I am confident that I can—at the very least—transmit a message to Lausanne." He lifted the box and spoke tersely to the abbot. "Collect everything in the office that is even remotely related to the radio—torn wiring, broken fuses, anything. We will assemble a device in the Hall."

Gina reentered the Great Hall with more hope than she expected as she took the hands of Josh and Rachel, again thanking
Rebecca with a nod. But Gina had a haunting sensation that this was far from over. Despite a single bright moment, there was too much happening—too many unknowns—dangerous and unpredictable.

If even one of them influenced the situation, all chance of survival could be erased in a single moment. And she sensed something else. She sensed that, win or lose, this would
permanently take something out of her. It had already taken something out of her—her very grasp on reality. And when the rest of this left, it would leave with her guts in its teeth.

She collapsed on a cushioned scarlet divan and her kids plopped down next to her. She rubbed her head and tried to deny what her intuition told her but it would not be silenced and
her fatigue flared into anger. She glanced at those nearby, saw Rebecca with Professor Haider on the tan sofa. Mr. Trevanian stood at the nearest entryway talking to Miguel.

Gina closed her eyes and hung her head.

Then, a sharp ring – steel striking steel.

Gina opened her eyes but didn't lift her head.

Furniture moving
.

Gina blinked—there were no screams, no sound of combat. They were safe for now. She intended to spend enough time in her own mind to find an emotional plain—a flat space where she could stand and deal rationally with the situation once more. But finally she couldn't resist raising her gaze toward the movements and saw that almost everyone in the room was gazing as well.

At the other end of the Great Hall, Michael stood before a long table, Barnabas moving silently at his side. Upon the table was an open aluminum case. Barnabas must have retrieved it from Michael's room.

Calm and steady, Michael lifted a Colt .45. He slid a clip into the grip, racked the slide, flicked on the safety and shoved the weapon into a harness already bearing what Gina recognized were additional clips, antipersonnel grenades, flares, and another Colt.

She rose and saw Rebecca already moving toward the divan to calm Josh and Rachel.

With a slight bow Barnabas handed Michael an MP-5—a fully automatic short rifle.

Gina knew the weapon—she'd trained with it. Just as she knew it was only used by the elite strike teams. And the way Michael worked the weapons—his hands moving easily, reflexively, like someone turning the pages of a book—confirmed that his training definitely elite.

She stopped four feet from the table.

Michael cast her a single glance.

"You'll stay here," he said.

He wasn't asking for her cooperation, wasn't asking for her opinion. Wasn't
asking
anything at all.

Gina studied the arsenal of what she knew were very expensive armaments. "Going after it alone?"

He nodded.

What was happening didn't fall within the strange and unusual. It was fully in the realm of the
fantastic and inconceivable. But concern for her children inspired Gina to maintain balance. "Let me get this straight," she began. "You're going after it alone while I'm supposed to stay here and hold the fort?"

"Got a better idea?"

"Yeah,” she answered. “The monsignor thinks he can fix the radio. With this much firepower why don't we just hang tight? This room is built like a bunker. Then if it comes in here, we'll both open up on it. I don't care what it is. It can't survive this much ordnance."

Michael briefly lifted his face to the windows. "Look out there, Gina. We're snowed in. We have no radio, no phone—no way to call for help. Maybe they can fix the radio, maybe they can't. But the longer this goes on, the bigger the chance we'll make a mistake. That thing can make mistakes all day. We can't make one."

"Who are you with?" Gina didn't blink at his gaze. "At least you can be courteous enough to tell me that much."

He shrugged. "I'm with the same people you are. At least the paychecks come from the same account."

"Then you're CIA because I know you're not FBI."

"Close enough," he said.

Gina could accept that. But if he was lying, there was no way to know. She wanted to ask him something that might trip him up but didn't know enough about covert operations. The only thing she could think of was, "Here for a reason?"

He laughed harshly. "What do you think?"

"I
think you're bad news, pal,” Gina retorted. “You’re someone who is not supposed to exist."

For a moment he frowned.

Gina shelved questions about his strength. There was no time. And if he was really CIA—the only logical assumption—he wouldn't explain it anyway. She'd heard enough rumors to believe anything was possible. And, actually, he was right. Someone had to go after that thing because there were too many variables to depend on a rescue.

He secured the vest, obviously bullet-resistant, though much thinner—hence, far more expensive—than the ones issued to special agents. Then he lifted a leg and began strapping a hideaway .45 to his ankle. He was seconds from departing.

"Since you seem to know so much, tell me what that thing is," Gina demanded.

"I have no idea." He shook his head. "It's something big and tough and it ain't friendly. But if it lives, it can die."

He lifted the MP-5 and slung it over a single shoulder.

"You're lying, Michael."

"About what?"

"You know exactly what it is."

Michael gazed—almost painfully—on her.

"What it is
, isn't important, Gina. What's important is that we kill it before it kills us." He nodded at the case. "Take anything you want. If I'm not back in six hours, and if they can't get the radio working, then ... I'd take my chances in the snow."

"It's six miles to the nearest village."

Her last comment didn't anger him, as she expected. So Gina felt confident that she could question his authority should the need arise. But at this moment she felt he was right.

"Taking a chance in the snow is better than staying here," he said.

Gina saw his gaze center on Josh and Rachel for a split second.

"
If you stay here,” he added, “chances are that you and your children are going to die."

"Then why don't you lead us out of here?"

"Because it'll chase if we run. Any animal will chase if you run. They smell blood. And I don't want that thing chasing us all night long through a blizzard unless there is absolutely no other option."

He settled, separating his words as if Gina were a child. "Listen, in the woods you can't pick a place to make a stand. You have to adapt—you have to be quick. And you absolutely have to know what you're doing. These people aren't trained. Making a run is a last-chance move. Besides that, they'll be half-dead from cold before the fight even begins and, believe me, cold will make a coward out of anyone. It will be impossible to control them and fight that thing at the same time."

He sighed deeply. "If I don't come back, then you'll know I'm dead, and you'll know it survived all this ordnance. If that's the case, then there's nothing else that will help you. You won't have any choice but to run."

"How do you know so much?" Gina whispered.

"I told you."

"You said you were a soldier—pretty vague."

Michael hesitated and, unexpectedly, seemed deathly weary. For a split second Gina was frightened. Then he straightened and briefly shook his head.

"A soldier's a soldier."

For a moment it seemed as though he would say something else. Then he simply lifted the MP-5 and walked across the Hall toward the very tunnel they had exited. But a group—the others had obviously heard every word—awaited him.

Gina saw Melanchthon bearing a lance. And there stood the ancient Barnabas, armed with a sword and dagger
beside Father Stephen, armed with a lance. Even Jaqual was there, bearing a lance almost as long as his gangly form. Other monks she had not met stood nearby, all armed with antiquated weaponry. Together they were resolute. They would not allow Michael to confront the beast alone.

Gina stepped forward, sensing something
... surreal.

The entire scene had an eerie, medieval feel to it—almost as if she were gazing upon this from the past. Yes, as if this very scene were being replayed from centuries and centuries ago and the same walls cast the same deathly pallor upon the same defiant priests armed with fire and sword
as they were following a great and mysterious warrior into battle against the beast.

Michael reached up to lift a torch from the wall. The others, wordless, duplicated the action.

And followed him into darkness.

***

It was almost evening and Gina had long passed dread and even panic so that she seemed to rest in a dead nothingness. And she knew too well that the first news she heard or saw of the group that followed Michael deep into the tunnels would determine whether she exploded with pent-up emotions, smashing everything she saw, or simply lean over and cry from relief.