Sanctus

Chapter 139

Liv woke thinking of thunder.

She opened her eyes.

Hundreds of pin-points of light quivered before her in the liquid darkness. She focused. Felt the cold hard ground tremble and settle beneath her. Saw candle flames reflected in lines of mirrored blades shivering to stillness against a dark, stone wall. Then she saw something else, lying on the floor. A body, naked from the waist up, familiar lines standing proud and grotesque on the surface of its faintly glowing skin.

She reached out for him, ignoring the pain in her head that came with the movement. Her outstretched hand touched a face as cold as the mountain and rolled it towards her. A low animal moan escaped from her throat. Despite the violence of his death, and the brutal medical enquiries that had followed, Samuel looked serene. She pulled herself across the floor towards him, hot tears scalding her eyes, and rose up to kiss his face. She pressed her lips against his cold skin and felt something shift inside her. Then everything lurched as she was grabbed from behind and pulled violently away from her brother.

Gabriel spotted the guard moments before the lights went out.

He dropped down in the sudden darkness, jarring his arm and sending pain screaming through his body. He choked it down and forced himself to move silently across the black corridor, towards the far wall, reaching out with his good hand but careful to shield the gun so it didn’t clatter against the stone when he found it. His left hand remained buried in his sleeve, throbbing with pain but still clutching the PDA. He had stolen a glance at it just before entering the corridor. The signal from the transponder was coming from somewhere beyond the door at the end of the corridor, the one the guard had been standing by.

The back of his hand touched the cold, stone wall and he dropped lower, levelling his gun at a spot ahead of him in the black where he had last seen the guard. Behind him a rising confusion of voices echoed up from the depths of the Citadel: some calling for lamps, some for help, others for hoses to feed water down to where the mountain was burning. He could feel the panic. Nothing unsettled people like the smell of smoke.

He kept the gun steady and with his free hand held the PDA out towards the centre of the corridor and slightly in front of him. His arm screamed as he willed his thumb to search for the button to turn on the display. He found it. Pressed it. And the cold glow of the screen lit up the corridor as the PDA tumbled from his hand to the floor. The guard was not by the door. He was crouched over to the left, his gun pointing down the corridor. He fired twice, aiming above the light source, probably going for a headshot, the sound deafening in the stone confines of the corridor.

Gabriel fired with his own silenced weapon, watched the guard twitch then slump back against the door, his gun clattering to the ground. He sprang forward using the glow from the PDA to light his way and kicked the gun away from the guard’s hand. He reached for his neck with his good hand, feeling for a pulse, but keeping a tight grip on his gun in case he found one. He found nothing. His hand skimmed across the rough surface of the cassock, skirting the warm wetness of the chest wound until he found what he was looking for.

He tracked back, picked up the PDA and wedged it in the claw of his left hand, directing the light towards the heavy studded door. The keyhole was in the centre. Gabriel slotted in the key he had taken from the guard, twisted it and leaned against the door, revealing a flight of steps behind it heading up into the dark of the mountain.