The Vault of Hercules

Chapter 33

Nina watched from a distance through bloodshot eyes as she wept for Purdue. Sam looked absolutely feral, with his long black hair falling over his face and neck while the hair on his arms bristled like a wolf's. The glint of the short silver blade blinded her momentarily as Valdi propelled forward to seize Sam.

Movement grabbed her attention near the Vault. John's giant frame rose from the water in the Vault like a vengeful Titan. Nina looked at the discarded camera she’d thrown at Sam, lying on the floor of the tunnel with the light still flashing, but she could not fetch it now. With one effortless move he slapped Guido upside the head, his strength so impressive that the Sicilian caved instantly from the blow. Then she saw John proceeding to gather up the children, Amber Smith included, and returning them to the safety of the original tunnel mouth.

In the background Sam was in the fight of his life. His face was battered under the heavy fists of the cannibal, but he kept swinging. A fissure from Valdi's lower abdomen to his upper chest opened raw and deep as Sam's blade slashed through his skin. Before giving the monster a moment to recover Sam stabbed him in the eye, then sank the silver fang deep into his groin. Nina hated Sam for gunning down Purdue and betraying him with the tracking device, but she couldn’t help but root for him as Valdi fell to his knees.

Sam's face was void of anything remotely humane as he hailed down his fists on Valdi's temples and nose. A deep growl roared from the journalist as he clenched his teeth in rage. Because of Valdi abducting Paddy's daughter, Sam had lost his friend. Because of Valdi, Igor Heller had managed to avenge his arrest on Sam's best friend. Because of Valdi, the Cosa Nostra was effectively robbing parents of their children and getting away with it. Now Nina hated him too? These were the thoughts that fueled Sam's murderous rage.

“Sam! You can’t kill him! You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison!” Nina shouted.

“Fuck it!” Sam snorted through blood and saliva. “The camera is not rolling anymore. They'd have to prove it!”

Valdi looked at Nina with a glare she could not stomach, and then he smiled. Sam had knocked out his teeth and his split lip stretched in a bloody mess when he grinned at her, a most revolting vision she would not soon forget. “You are mine, pretty.”

“Fuck you, Shrek!” Nina barked. “Sam, kill him.”

The Vault of Hercules was rapidly being engulfed by the lake, and soon the Ambrosia would be gone. The substance had no notable origin, but John knew full well that it was a miracle compensated for by a malediction. Whatever it contained did turn children into demigods of immense strength, but it would also drive them mad and turn them into homicidal individuals with no off switch. John took a moment to smile at Nina.

“Thank you for bringing me to my destiny, Dr. Gould,” he said. “Back to my childhood, where I first encountered this evil liquid and paid for it ever since. Because of you, I can now put all this to an end.”

“Without you we would all be dead by now, dear Mr. Armstrong,” Nina comforted him with a smile.

John Arthur Armstrong stepped into the Vault of Hercules, just as Sam dealt Valdi his deathblow with a rock to the forehead. Purdue's body was gone, and so was Rita's, but Nina had the young girls to worry about now. She swam towards the tunnel, rousing the girls from their induced stupor. She looked back to the Vault where Guido had woken.

“Hello Johnny boy,” Guido tried to appease the man he betrayed so long ago. “Long time, hey?”

“Are you seriously attempting to make conversation?” John asked, his raspy radio voice sounding like a brooding volcano. “Holy Mother of God, Bruno, I thought you’d have some bloody dignity and take your death a bit more honorably. Then again…” he cocked his head at the ridiculous expectation he’d had for a coward like Guido Bruno.

“If you kill me, you’ll only get wasted outside,” Guido snapped like a schoolyard bully. “My boys are outside, you fucking dunce! My generals, my soldiers, all waiting for my signal to cap anyone who strolls out of here.”

John rolled his eyes. “It’s almost a pity to waste my time dying to rid the earth of a prick like you, you know that?”

“You don't want to do this, pal,” Guido warned, but his voice quivered as he retreated.

“Ran out of little girls to hide behind, you pussy?” John asked as he thundered toward the coward.

Nina and Sam had gathered all the girls and managed to revive most of them. The youngest, a seven-year-old, could not wake. Sam swooped her up in his arms. Nina grabbed Sam's camera and her own gear, looking back once more to pay her respects to Purdue, lamenting the fact that his body would forever lie under the magnificent mountains of Greece. “Come, we have to go,” Sam said.

“The Cosa Nostra is outside, Sam. I don’t think he was bluffing,” she urged.

Before they could discuss the matter they heard Guido let out an unearthly scream. On turning, Sam and Nina saw that John Armstrong had lifted one of the sacrificial slabs and dropped it on Guido's legs to nail him down. The water was rising rapidly, and the duct with Ambrosia had been immersed in the lake. The glory of the relic was finally impotent and worthless. Nina sobbed for the fate of her acquaintance as she watched John Arthur Armstrong stake his place by the pillars, like a Biblical Samson. He looked up at her and winked, “Give my best to the lads at Masterton's, alright?”

“I shall,” she choked.

With that, John started pushing at the ancient columns that held up the Vault of Hercules. Guido went mad with terror as the roof began to crack and stalactites plunged into the water as they broke off from above. Guido Bruno tried to reason for his life, but he was imploring deaf ears and a solid will. As he screamed the ascending tide marred his pleas, until he had exhausted his lungs, unable to fend off the hungry waters. He watched his former henchman lean into the pillars with red-faced effort, his lean muscles shivering at the exertion as one of the supportive columns exploded into flying shards of rock, marble, and calcite.

“We have to go, Nina!” Sam shouted while he shoved the children gently in the opposite direction.

The cavern started to crack in a din of ungodly thunder so loud it would have been the pride of Zeus himself. When the second pillar snapped in half, the roof of the cave collapsed, bringing the entire layer of rock above it down on Guido's dire screams. Strong as the demigod Hercules himself, the venerable John Arthur Armstrong could not withstand the weight of a thousand boulders, and with eyes closed and a smile on his face he received his redemption. His labors were concluded as the mountain crushed his body in the divine chamber of a god.

As the entire cave system collapsed under the unnamed mountain, Nina and Sam were trying to console the terrified children they were trying to evacuate from the crumbling tunnel. It was pitch dark. They’d lost their flashlights inside the cavern when the roof caved.

“Sam! Look!” Nina exclaimed.

Ahead of them the faint flashing of multi-colored lights danced in the darkness, marking their way to salvation. Roaring all around them, the tremors of the geographical collapse deafened them, but the lights soon led them to the entrance of the natural structure that resembled the Temple of Hercules.

“Sam, the mob is going to drop us like flies,” Nina warned as she clutched two little ones under her left arm, holding Amber Smith's hand to her right. Sam seemed very sure of himself as he stopped to let all the girls pass him. When Nina got to him, just short of the entrance, he kissed her quickly and peered into her eyes with his own. “Remember, Purdue is dead. Left at the bottom of the lake. Right?”

“Aye,” she frowned, “and you put him there…”

“Nina,” he insisted. “Just… just go with it.”

The tunnel crumbled behind them and the journalist and the historian lunged forward to avert being crushed by the rocks. Outside, Nina's sensitive eyes could barely distinguish the figures all about them, but soon she heard Patrick Smith's voice, crying his daughter's name as they were reunited. Holding her hand over her narrowed eyes, she asked Paddy, “Is everyone alright?”

“Aye, Nina,” Paddy said. “Well done. I owe you a great debt of gratitude; you and Sam.”

“The true hero is buried in that mountain,” Nina said. “Hercules put to flesh, he was.”

“We just apprehended thirteen Mafia members in wait out here, so there’s a bonus. All these bastards who’ve been trafficking people are going to rot in the cages they belong in,” Paddy reported. “Oh, Sam, where is Dave Purdue? That was part of our deal.”

Sam looked at Nina. Her eyes were still red mourning Purdue and the way she looked at him was one of disappointment and scorn. “I shot him. He is dead. You will see that on the footage. Cleaned the slate.”

“You killed him?” Paddy asked. “Christ, Sam. You could have just delivered him to us.”

“I know. But things got heated in there and… things happened. I will be available for questioning, if you want to arrest me for his murder,” Sam offered.

Nina could not believe it. “You really are Prometheus. Giving up your freedom to atone.”

“It’s a pity you decided to go that far, Sam,” Paddy said, shaking his head. “But the live stream’s been sent to my office and recorded on our servers. I’ll make sure that justice is done. Go get some rest.”