At the Outpost of Fate

CHAPTER 11 — "I ALONE SURVIVED TO TELL THEE"

Hurley reacted instinctively, sweeping his pistols around to draw a bead on the shifting mass of metal. Hobbs moved just as quickly, raising both hands in a silent admonition to his friend that urged both caution and restraint. It was a form of communication in which both men were well-versed and Hurricane immediately tilted the barrels of his automatics up to indicate that he understood the message, if not perhaps the reason for it. One of Christy's diggers however, failed to grasp the significance of the gesture and reflexively snapped off several rounds from his own pistol.

Molly saw faint ripples, like those from a pebble cast into still waters, as the bullets struck their target. In that same instant, she became aware of the fact that the snake was now much bigger, swelling before her eyes as the metal from the pillar flowed smoothly, like mercury, into the body of the serpent shape. All of that happened in the blink of an eye or rather between the first and second shots from the workman's pistol. By the time a third shot splashed into the liquefied surface, there was no longer anything resembling a pillar of metal, but only an enormous, shimmering serpent. She caught a glimpse of the skull, still limned in blue fire and caught in the snake’s jaws, as it turned its monochrome gaze toward the man with the gun. A fourth bullet splashed into it — four shots all in the space of half as many seconds — and then the snake struck.

It did not undulate like the reptilian beast it approximated, but rather drove bullet straight and nearly as quick, at the unfortunate workman. Yet, he was neither impaled, nor blasted out of the way. Instead, the silvery metal flowed over him like water, completely enveloping him so that for an instant, he resembled a piece of statuary rendered in chrome and brought to life, thrashing and clawing in vain to pierce the mirrored lacquer. Like a small animal in the gullet of a viper, he had been swallowed alive.

And then, in a moment of time that would relive itself in Molly's nightmares until the end of her life, the metallic man-shape began to shrink. The metal covering constricted in upon its victim and though the sound of gunfire continued to reverberate in the hewed cavern, Molly was sure that she could hear the sound of bones being crushed to dust.

The man's comrades were likewise awestruck by the manner of his demise, but the urgency of their own plight snapped them back to reality almost as quickly as the serpent returned to its previous shape. One of them started to aim his pistol at the metallic mass, but a strident hiss from Hobbs stayed his hand. The snake head swiveled around, searching for its next target, but everyone still alive in the pit had deduced the meaning of the Padre's unspoken admonitions. For a moment stretched to an agonizing eternity, no one moved.

Bullets continued to zip through the air overhead and the cries of the wounded or dying drifted down in between the harsh staccato report of gunfire. These noises soon commanded the attention of the massive serpent and it smoothly flowed straight up, like a fakir's rope in a carnival trick, until it was peering over the rim of the excavation. It remained vertical for only a moment and then having evidently spied a new target, vanished.

For several seconds, the imperative to remain stock still stayed in effect, with all eyes fixed on Hobbs as though he were the referee in some children’s game and only he could give the command that would release them from their frozen state. The ascetic priest was likewise motionless, with only his eyes moving to match each imploring gaze. As his stare shifted away from hers, Molly realized that silence now reigned beyond the limits of the dig site; the thunderous exchange had abruptly ceased. Hobbs glanced at Christy and with a terse nod, moved to the ladder and cautiously ascended.

"It's gone," he murmured and then with more urgency, added, "Moll, get up here. There are wounded."

His plea snapped her back from the paralyzing fear and terror and worst of all, the sense of uselessness that had plagued her ever since…Ever since I joined my father's friends; Dodge Dalton and his band of merry men, she thought morosely as she hastened up the ladder. Guns, zombies and now some kind of unstoppable supernatural…thing.

That was her father's world, not hers.

At least treating injuries is something I know how to do.

As she topped the ladder she saw Hobbs bending over one of three fallen figures that lay scattered across the open space between the edge of the excavation and the mouth of the tunnel. There was no sign of the metal serpent, the original group of attackers or any of Christie's other workers. The man with her father was Trent Baylor. He was alive, but every breath was an agony. Molly immediately saw the cause of his distress; a bullet had pierced his chest cavity.

She tore open his shirt, exposing a tiny hole surrounded by a bloody froth of bubbles. "It's a sucking chest wound."

Hobbs abruptly dug into a pocket and withdrew a length of neatly folded violet fabric which Molly recognized instantly: the priestly stole, worn when administering the last rites.

"No! We can save him. We just have to make an airtight seal so he can breathe again."

"Moll, it's silk. It should do the job."

She stared back, unable to comprehend that the clerical vestment could be used for something so mundane. Hobbs seemed to realize this and instead of offering further explanation, he simply pressed the folded stole against the wound. The layers of tightly woven fiber were not perfectly impermeable, but the effect was dramatic nonetheless. Baylor's next breath filled his lungs and within seconds, his pallor changed from a dusky blue to a more natural, though still deathly pale, hue. After a few more breaths, his eyes fluttered open.

Hobbs leaned close to his ear. "The destroyer; did you see it?"

"It… killed them. It killed all of them." Baylor winced, from pain or from the horror of the memory, Molly could not say.

"Where did it go?"

"It just…" The injured man seemed unable to find words to describe what he had witnessed, but whatever it was had been just as strange as the manifestation itself.

"He needs a surgeon," Molly interjected. "Urgently."

"I'll hold the dressing. You check the others."

As she moved to check the other two prone and unmoving forms, Sir Reginald Christy, Hurricane and the rest of the workers emerged from the pit. Christy set about designating men to fashion a litter to carry out the wounded, while Hurley joined Molly alongside one of the fallen. The man lay in a spreading pool of blood and even from a distance, she could tell that it was too late. The third man was still alive, bleeding profusely from a leg wound, but awake and alert.

"It was terrible," he rasped. "A nightmare come to life. It… it devoured them."

"Hush," Molly chastised. "You need to lie back and elevate your legs. You're going into shock."

"It disappeared into the ground, like some kind of burrowing worm. It could be under our feet right now, waiting to devour us too!" The man continued to rave, but with some irresistible persuasion from Hurley, he lay back and let her work. She fashioned a tourniquet to stanch the flow of blood from the leg wound and by the time she had finished, the ambulance team was ready to haul the two men away.

Hurricane ventured ahead of them, leading with his twin hand cannons. Just inside the shadows of the tunnel mouth, he paused, holstered one of his pistols and knelt to retrieve something. It was a large silver crucifix that nevertheless appeared delicate in his grasp. With gentle pressure from his thumb, he pushed against the figure on the upright, revealing a hidden blade.

"The Fraternis Maltae!" exclaimed Christy.

"Like there was ever any doubt," Hurricane muttered, stuffing the cruciform dagger into his belt. "But this is all that's left of 'em."

"The same could be said for my men. Four of them are unaccounted for. Not just dead; it's like they've been completely erased from existence! How is that possible? What was that thing?"

Hobbs, still maintaining pressure on Baylor's wound dressing, regarded the other man with an unblinking stare. "This is not a coincidence, Sir Reginald. They couldn't possibly have followed us. That means they already knew about this place and what you discovered."

"How?"

"'How' doesn't matter. What matters is that the attack by the Fraternis Maltae, this…manifestation and the prophecy of the Child of Skulls…they're all related. I must speak with this man, Winterbourne."

The apprentice knelt in supplication, both hands pressing the dagger that was the badge of his rank, to his forehead, as prescribed in the rites of the Fraternis Maltae. He remained that way for several long minutes, until the uncomfortable silence prompted him to shift his gaze to the motionless form of his superior. "Chevalier?"

" 'I alone survived to tell thee.'"

The apprentice nodded and in a breach of decorum, lowered the dagger. "The Book of Job."

"I was thinking of Melville actually, but yes, I believe he was quoting from Job." Despite his shaved head, the Chevalier's pleasant face and round features gave him a placid, even jovial expression that was decidedly at odds with his profession. It was especially unusual given the nature of the news he had just received.

Indeed, he was anything but calm.

The story the apprentice had told him, a story that involved an attack by something otherworldly, something from Hell itself, was horrifying on its own merits, but it portended a disaster of epic proportions. The assault on the subterranean archaeological excavation was to have been the endgame — his final triumph. He had played masterfully, taking pieces off the board when it suited, sacrificing his own pawns when necessary, but the arrival of the Americans was the signal for him to finally checkmate the Trevayne Society. Those instructions had come from the Grandmaster himself and the Chevalier had not hesitated to commit his entire force of subordinates to the fight.

And now they were all gone, all but this one lone apprentice who had returned to their rented house — their temporary base of operations — in the Surrey countryside with a tale straight from a nightmare. Not that every aspect of the tale was completely unexpected. Their client had wired ahead, warning them that the arrival of the Americans might trigger some kind of response from the artifact the Trevayne Society had uncovered, but nothing in the Chevalier's experience could have prepared him for something like what the apprentice had described.

He was English by birth, born and raised less than a hundred miles from the very spot where he now stood. But for nearly two decades, he had been living abroad, ever since a fateful moment on a foreign battlefield where he had, in a moment of weakness, deserted his post. A man without a country, he had found new courage and an odd sort of redemption with the brotherhood of assassin monks known as the Fraternis Maltae.

He was not a religious man, but then despite their clerical trappings, the Fraternis Maltae was hardly a religious order. While their historic origin was loosely tied to the Church, the brothers served a different god. In scripture, its name was Mammon. Though they dressed and lived as monks, they were nothing more or less than mercenaries and fiercely proud of both their accomplishments and the wealth they had accrued.

There were many levels in the hierarchy of the organization and he, like all others who had labored to attain the rank of Chevalier had his eye on the still vacant position of Chevalier Premiere — First Knight — the penultimate station in the fraternity, second only to Grandmaster Yves St. Jean d'Arc. The former Chevalier Premiere, a man whose family had been the historic guardians of the brotherhood's vast treasury and who had been present when a sadistic Prussian commander had massacred his entire village in order to seize that wealth, had recently perished in an ill-conceived and uncharacteristically personal, mission to root out the Prussian, now living in America with a new identity, kill him and recover the treasure.

Only the Grandmaster could appoint a replacement Chevalier Premiere from among the uppermost tier of the brotherhood and given the old man's advanced years, whomever he selected would almost certainly in short order take up the mantle of Grandmaster. A victory against the Trevayne Society would have all but guaranteed that seat of power for the ambitious Chevalier. His absolute failure promised a much different "reward."

Was there a way to salvage this?

His fingers curled around the hilt of the ceremonial sword belted to his waist. His palm bit into the intricately detailed figure crucified there. The sword was of the same design as the daggers worn on a silver chain around the necks of the lower ranks, but unlike those stilettos, the swords given to the Chevaliers rarely drew blood. Those who had been knighted did not fight with physical weapons, but rather utilized their apprentices and acolytes to achieve victory.

Perhaps that was my mistake, he thought. Perhaps I should have led them into battle. The outcome might not have changed, but at least I would have died with honor instead of facing this humiliation.

Perhaps it's not too late for that.

He turned to the apprentice, drawing the sword in a single fluid motion. The kneeling man quailed, but did not move from his position of supplication as the blade sliced the air above his head and then arced toward his unprotected neck. Instead, he simply closed his eyes.

"How did you survive?" he asked, the edge of his blade hovering inches above the other man's shoulder.

"I fled. When I saw what was happening to the others, I ran. I… I am a coward. I deserve to die."

"And yet you returned here, to report the outcome and face the consequences of your failure." The Chevalier offered a smile, which in any other face would have seemed more a pained grimace. "I think you are braver than you realize.

"But it is not the place of an apprentice to divine the intention behind his orders. You were sent to kill the Trevaynes and take their treasure. Your mission is unfinished, which means that my mission is unfinished. It seems I still have need of you."

The anxious crease in the apprentice's forehead relaxed and his eyes fluttered open. "I exist to serve, Chevalier."

"I have no need of an apprentice." He lowered the blade and touched it to the young man's shoulder. "By the authority granted me, I raise you to the station of acolyte in the Fraternis Maltae.

"Don't be too pleased with yourself. It is possible for a king and a pawn to checkmate an enemy, but the odds are not in our favor. However, I suspect the Trevaynes know even less about what it is they have discovered than we do." The Chevalier caught the inquiring look in the young man's eye. "Oh, yes. We know what it is they have found. Our client told us to expect some kind of reaction when its power was awakened. More importantly, he told us what they would do next. When they make their move, we — you and I — will be ready for them."

He tapped the newly anointed acolyte on the opposite shoulder, then sheathed the blade. "This is rebirth for you brother and a rebirth calls for a new name. I think I know exactly what I shall call you."

For a little while, as she darted back and forth between the two wounded men borne on makeshift litters through the tunnels of the London Underground, monitoring their condition and keeping them alive with little more than her own indomitable will, Molly felt in control. More than that, she was, in a way that she couldn't really explain, happy.

Helping the sick and injured had always brought her a sense of satisfaction, of being in charge of her own destiny, in a place where she was in charge of almost nothing. It hadn't really dawned on her that the work she did, healing the wounds of the rubber plantation laborers along the Congo River, had been its own reward. She would never have associated the inhumanity she had witnessed there with any kind of positive emotion. It was only now, several months and thousands of miles removed from that life, that she realized just how important that work had been to her. Her studies in New York occasionally brought her a measure of what she felt she had been missing, but somehow it wasn't quite the same. In the Congo, there had been only her standing there in defiance of the Grim Reaper himself. At the hospital in New York, she was one of dozens of interns and, given both her gender and her social pedigree, most of the patients she was assigned were chronic hypochondriacs looking for some attention.

For a little while, as she kept Baylor and the other man alive during their transport to the hospital, Molly was happy again. And when, in the hospital waiting room, her father turned to Sir Reginald and, in his quiet but irresistible manner, repeated his demand to meet with Winterbourne, she felt the loss of that happiness all the more acutely. She was back in their world again; her father's world of God and devils, Hurley's world of guns and brute strength, Dodge's world….

She missed Dodge and she was worried about him and she hoped nothing had happened to him… but this was his place; adventures and saving the world was his business. He was supposed to be here with Hurricane and the Padre, not her.

"We cannot simply drop in for tea," Christy protested. "If we are followed, we will put him in great danger."

Hobbs was unmoved. "And I tell you again sir, that the danger to him is nothing when held against what the world will face if this prophecy is not averted."

"The man is a recluse," Christy protested. "I doubt he'll even open the door for us."

"We can be very persuasive." Hurricane smiled, crossing his arms over his broad chest. Something about his tone and demeanor suggested that maybe he wasn't talking about persuading Winterbourne and Christy seemed to get the message. He sagged in resignation.

"Very well. I'll ring for a car."

It was the kind of night, Molly thought, where Jack the Ripper would feel right at home. Despite the fact that electric lamps and neon signs had replaced gaslight, the fog-shrouded alleys seemed to hold promise of unimaginable evil.

Their route appeared aimless, but Molly knew that their driver was simply being cautious, trying to determine if they were being followed by their enemies and if so, to shake off the pursuit. She soon gave up trying to follow the serpentine course they traveled; like everything else in her life, she was being swept along by forces beyond her control.

It was nearly midnight when the car finally pulled up in front of an apartment block and Christy announced that they had arrived. Molly followed behind her father, while Hurricane pulled up the rear, his guns concealed beneath his overcoat, but easily accessible as he scanned the shadows for any hint of danger.

Christy led them inside to a door on the first floor, where he rapped out an odd rhythm with his knuckles. "Let's see if he remembers the old signal."

Hobbs raised an eyebrow but said nothing. The sound of someone shuffling and grumbling emanated from inside and after a moment or two, a bar of light gleamed in the crack between the door and the threshold.

"Prepare yourself for a less than enthusiastic reception." The rasp of a bolt sliding in the latch punctuated Christy's remark.

The door opened with surprising abruptness and a painfully bright flash of illumination momentarily blinded Molly. She shaded her eyes, but the damage was done; a radiant blue circle dominated the center of her vision. At the edges, she could just make out the image of a figure holding some kind of lamp in one hand and a large revolver in the other.

"What part of 'to hell with you all' was unclear?" growled a voice from behind the light.

Christy retreated a step, as if the glare from the man's lamp was a physical assault, but Hobbs deftly stepped around him. "Please, sir. Our need is urgent."

"It always is with you lot. Now clear off before I have to 'defend myself' if you take my meaning."

"Oh for God's sake, would you just listen to what we have to say?" No one was more surprised than Molly at her outburst, but she also took a step forward, her hands defiantly on her hips.

The man in the doorway slowly lowered both his pistol and the lamp. "Well this is different. Trevayne's letting ladies in now?"

"We're not from the Trevayne Society," Hobbs offered. "Except for Sir Reginald and he brought us here under protest."

"Not from Trevayne? Well, why didn't you say so?" He took a step back and motioned for them to enter.

"And I'm no lady," Molly muttered under her breath, squinting to make out the man's face as she passed. The bright spot burned into her corneas was now a dark spot, shrinking with each passing second, but still enough to hide him in shadow.

As soon as they were all inside, the householder closed the door and motioned them into the adjacent sitting room. The sparsely decorated area appeared seldom used. A bookcase dominated one wall but only a few volumes occupied its shelves. There was a side table with an ashtray next to a threadbare overstuffed chair and a coffee table piled with a jumble of tabloid newspapers positioned in front of a davenport, which was itself shrouded in a white dust cover. A set of heavy drapes hung above what she assumed to be the front window, directly behind the couch. It was nothing at all like Molly expected. Where were the tribal masks and ancient artifacts? The tomes of forgotten lore?

Their host placed his lamp on the side table and his pistol in the spacious pocket of his silk smoking jacket and then settled into the chair. "So, what need have you of an old man, that's so urgent that it couldn't wait until morning?"

"It concerns the prophecy of the Child of Skulls."

"Oh." Winterbourne's face went dark and he was quiet for a long time. "Well. I suppose it's too late to shoot you now. Please, sit down and let's hear what you have to say."