The Gates of Hell

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“So that’s what envy looks like?”

Drake and his team entered the fourth chamber, taking all precautions. Even then, it took several moments to fully comprehend the scene that lay before them. Headless bodies lay all around. Blood had spattered across the floor and in some places still ran thickly. The heads themselves were scattered around the floor like some child’s cast-off toys.

Sprung traps stood on both sides of the narrow pathway. Drake took one look at the thin razor-like wire and guessed what had happened. Komodo whistled in disbelief.

“At some point these traps might reset,” Ben said. “We need to move.”

Karin made a noise of distaste.

“We should move quickly and stay dead center,” Drake said. “No, wait.”

Beyond the traps he now saw the wide basin full of water, swirling and churning. At the edges of the basin the water lapped and spilled over.

“That could be a problem. See the metal poles?”

“I bet the Blood King’s men used them as stepping stones,” Ben said, cryptically. “All we have to do is wait for the water to recede.”

“Why not just wade on through.” Even as Komodo said the words his face looked dubious.

“That basin could be fed by some kind of acidic lake or well,” Karin explained. “Gases can turn water to Sulfuric acid inside or near a volcano. Even a long-extinct one.”

“Wouldn’t acid rot the metal uprights?” Drake pointed out.

Ben nodded. “Definitely.”

They watched the swirling water for a few minutes. As they watched there was an ominous clicking sound. Drake brought his gun up fast. The six surviving Delta men copied him a fraction of a second later.

Nothing moved.

Then the sound came again. A heavy clicking. The sound of a garage door cable running through its metal guides. Only this wasn’t a garage door.

Slowly, as Drake watched, one of the traps began to grind its way back into the wall. A time delay? But such technology hadn’t been available to the ancient races. Or was that line of thinking akin to the folly a man shows by pronouncing that there is no other intelligent life in the universe?

Such arrogance.

Who knew what civilizations existed before records dated back? It wasn’t for Drake to deliberate now. It was time for action.

“The water’s receding,” he said. “Ben. Any surprises?”

Ben consulted his notes and Karin was hopefully running it through her memory. “Hawksworth doesn’t say much.” Ben rustled the papers. “Maybe the poor guy was in shock. Remember, back then, they couldn’t have expected anything like this.”

“The fifth level must be a real shitstorm then,” Komodo said gruffly. “Cos it’s after that when Cook turned back.”

Ben pursed his lips. “Hawksworth says it’s what Cook saw after the fifth level that made him turn back. Not the chamber itself.”

“Yeah, most likely levels six and seven,” one of the Delta soldiers said quietly.

“Don’t forget the mirrors.” Karin pointed them out. “They point forward, obviously toward the man in front. It’s most likely a warning.”

“Like keeping up with the Joneses.” Drake nodded. “Got it. So, in the spirit of Dinorock and in particular, David Coverdale, I’m gonna ask the opening line I always heard him say at every gig I ever went to. Are you ready?”

Drake led the way. The rest of the team fell in line the way they had become accustomed too. Taking the central line, Drake expected no difficulties with the traps and faced none, though he did step on several spent pressure points. By the time they approached the lip of the basin the water was draining away at a rapid pace.

“Poles look okay,” he said. “Stay alert. And don’t look down. There’s some nasty stuff floating in here.”

Drake went first, careful and precise. The entire team crossed easily within minutes and headed for the exit archway.

“Nice of the Blood King to trigger all the traps for us.” Ben scoffed a little.

“We can’t be far behind the bastard now.” Drake felt his hands clench into fists and his head start to pound at the prospect of coming face-to-face with the most feared underworld figure in recent history.

The next archway opened into a vast cavern. The immediate pathway led down an incline and then along a wide road below a high rock shelf.

But there was a major obstruction completely blocking their path.

Drake stared. “Bloody hell.”

He had never even dreamt of anything like it. The blockage was actually an immense figure carved out of the living rock. Lying in repose with its back against the left-hand wall, its huge belly protruded out across the pathway. Sculpted representations of food lay heaped upon its belly and also scattered across its legs and piled in the pathway.

An ominous shape lay near the feet of the sculpture. A dead human body. The torso appeared to be twisted as if in extreme agony.

“This is gluttony,” Ben said in awe. “The demon associated with gluttony is Beelzebub.”

Drake’s eye twitched. “You mean as in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’s’ Beelzebub?”

Ben sighed. “Not everything’s about rock and roll, Matt. I mean Beelzebeb the demon. Satan’s right hand.”

“I heard Satan’s right hand is overworked.” Drake stared at the enormous obstacle. “And whilst I respect your brain, Blakey, stop talking bollocks. Of course everything’s about rock and roll.”

Karin unfastened her long blond hair and then started to tie it back again, even tighter. Some of the Delta soldiers watched her, Komodo among them. She pointed out that Hawksworth related several interesting details about this particular cavern in his notes. As she spoke, Drake let his eyes wander the chamber.

Beyond the immense figure, he now noticed the lack of an exit archway. Instead, a wide ledge ran along the back wall, twisting its way toward the high ceiling until it gave out onto a high rock plateau. As Drake stared up at the plateau, he saw what looked like a balcony at its far end, almost like a viewing platform that gazed out across — the final two levels?

Drake’s thoughts were interrupted when a shot rang out. A bullet ricocheted above their heads. Drake fell to the floor, but then Komodo pointed soundlessly toward the same rock plateau he had just been evaluating and saw over a dozen figures running onto it from the twisting ledge.

Kovalenko’s men.

Which meant…

“Work out a way past that fucker,” Drake hissed at Ben, nodding toward the overweight sculpture that blocked their way forward and then focused his complete attention on the rocky shelf.

A heavily accented, arrogant and superior voice boomed out. “Matt Drake! My new nemesis! So you seek to stop me yet again, huh? Me! Don’t you people ever learn?”

“What is it you’re after, Kovalenko? What’s this all about?”

“What’s it all about? It’s about a lifelong quest. About me beating Cook. About how I learned and trained by killing a man every day for twenty years. I am not like other men. I stepped beyond that before I made my first billion.”

“You’ve already beaten Cook,” Drake pointed out evenly. “Why not come back down here? We’ll talk, you and I.”

“You want to kill me? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even my men want to kill me.”

“That’s probably because you’re a major bell-end.”

Kovalenko frowned, but was so far into his self-indulgent tirade now the insult didn’t even register properly. “I would kill thousands to achieve my goals. Maybe I already have. Who bothers keeping count? But mark this, Drake, and mark it well. You and your friends will be a part of that statistic. I will wipe your memories from the Earth.”

“Stop being so melodramatic,” Drake shouted back. “Get down here and prove you’ve got a set, old man.” He saw Karin and Ben consulting closely nearby, both starting to nod vigorously now as they figured something out.

“Do not think I will die so easily, even if we do happen to meet. I grew up on the hardest streets of the hardest city in Mother Russia. And I walked free on them. I owned them. The British and the Americans know nothing of real struggle.” The hard-looking man spat on the ground.

Drake’s eyes were deadly. “Oh, I sincerely hope you don’t die easily.”

“I will see you soon, British man. I will see you burn whilst I claim my treasure. I will see you scream whilst I take another of your women. I will see you rot whilst I become a god.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Komodo had had enough of listening to the tyrants bluster. He loosed a volley toward the stone ledge, sending the Blood King’s men into a panic. Even now, Drake saw, nine out of ten men still ran to assist him.

Immediately, shots were fired back. Bullets zinged off the nearby rock walls.

Ben shouted, “All we have to do is climb over the fat guy. Not too tough…”

Drake sensed a but coming. He raised an eyebrow as rock chips landed on his shoulder.

“But,” Karin chimed in, her similarities to Ben becoming more clear the longer Drake spent time with her. “The snag is the food. Some of it is hollow. And filled with a kind of gas.”

“I’m guessing it’s not laughing gas.” Drake eyed the misshapen corpse.

Komodo fired off a conservative volley to keep the Blood King’s men at bay. “If it is, then it’s really, really good stuff.”

“Prepared powders,” Karin said. “Released by pressure triggers. Possibly similar to the ones that killed most of the archaeologists who found Tutankhamen’s tomb. You know about the supposed curse, right? Well, most people believe certain potions or gases we’re left in the tomb by ancient Egyptian priests designed solely to kill grave robbers.”

“What’s the safe path?” Drake asked.

“We don’t know, but if we run quick, one at a time, if anyone does release some powder behind them, it should be a miniscule amount that will evaporate quickly. The trap is there primarily to stop anyone climbing the sculpture¸ not get across it.”

“According to Hawksworth,” Karin said with a tight smile.

Drake assessed the situation. To him, this looked to be the turning point. If there was an observation balcony up there then they had to be close to the end. He imagined it would be a straight run from there to the sixth and seventh chambers and then on to the fabled “treasure.” He took a moment to assess the team.

“This is where we go for it,” he said. “All or nothing. Up there”—he flicked an angry fist toward Kovalenko—“is a blind man shooting bullets at the world. And, Ben, for your information, that’s real Dinorock. But this is where we go for it. All or nothing. You up for it?”

He was met with a resounding roar.

Matt Drake took off at a sprint, leading his men into the lower levels of hell, on the last leg of his own quest to avenge the woman he loved and rid the world of the most evil man he had ever known.

Time to rock.