A door was open at the end of the corridor, rain pouring in. What was this? The house couldn't be that narrow. He hurried to the doorway and looked outside, suddenly understanding the layout. A courtyard, filling up with rain by the looks of it. And what was that?
Light from another doorway opposite. Somebody there, like him, peering out.
Shay did not hesitate: he was through the door like a shot, racing across the courtyard towards the other man. Something was bubbling to his right, but he paid it no mind, realising it was a fountain, the storm causing its basin to overflow.
He kept running and the other person had spotted him, was backing away. The fool's attention must have been on the fountain before, not on the shadow bearing down on him through the storm. It had been Shay's luck that lightning had not struck during those few seconds.
He burst into the hallway and was able to reach out for the man who, too late, had attempted to flee. He pulled him round, clamping a hand over the man's mouth, then ramming the barrel of the gun beneath his captive's wire-rimmed spectacles so that they rose off his nose, the weapon hard against his closed eyelid.
48 BLOOD RITES
The Arab was murmuring an intonation that was breathless, his excitement conveyed through the wire which vibrated against Halloran's throat. Daoud watched the figures at the altar, fretful that he was unable to join them, but chanting the incantations learned from the cuneiform writings, so that he was at least part of the ceremony.
A breeze swept down from the corridor above, bending the candle flames as it swirled around the underground chamber, ruffling the light so that shadows danced and weaved as though they also belonged to the rite.
At the stone slab that served as an altar, Felix Kline, aware that his strength was fading, his will weakening with it, urged Khayed to hurry. Tissue was breaking from him, falling onto the robe he wore, onto the open body lying below on the stone. He could feel fresh lesions forming, the flesh ulcerating and rupturing beneath his clothing, skin weeping pus, dribbling wetness. The pain was intense, as though every joint in his body was on fire, and his scalp was tightening around the skull, splitting apart as it shrank. This agony was like never before, and it was the significance of that which frightened Kline more than anything else. The torments of his sleep, the panic that had lingered afterwards, the sense of deep foreboding—these were feelings he had not experienced since discovering the hidden tomb so many years before. Why now, O Lord? Have I failed you in some way? Acre you failing me, Bel-Marduk?
The questions were silent, his spoken invocations uninterrupted, for those ancient words were important to the ritual, their tonal values an inducing cadence for affinity between the psyche and the spiritual realms.
Khayed's hands were bloodied beyond the wrists as he pulled at the sliced sides of the body to expose Monk's innards. The bodyguard's eyelids fluttered as life dwindled, receding within him so that it could expand outwards through another dimension. The Arab tugged at Monk's exposed sternum, bending the ribs upwards, then pushed sweating organs down towards the gut, reaching for the heart and dragging it clear, stretching arteries and breaking veins until the feebly pulsing organ was revealed. All a familiar and well-practised ritual.
Kline took the other heart, the old shrivelled husk that represented—that was—the existence of his deity. With one hand he lifted this shell, while with the other he reached for Cora's wrist. She was too numbed to resist, incomprehension still misted in her eyes.
But when Kline plunged both their hands into the gaping wound, the dried, withered thing held between them, she whimpered. When he settled the remnant organ against the fresh, bleeding one, using their hands as a vice, she screamed.
Cora felt her whole self being drawn down into the huge open wound, blood spurting along her arm, her hand disappeared into the quagmire. And it was the ancient petrified heart that sucked her in.
Kline was lost in a delirium of sensations, a euphoric rebirth without trauma, a vigour beginning to pulsate through him. All this ceased for him when the girl pulled her hand free, bringing with it the parasite heart.
Cora held the relic in her bloody grasp and stared loathingly at it for but a moment. Turning away, she cast it from her, a violent and sudden movement that neither Kline nor Khayed could prevent.
The brittle shell scudded across the stone floor and came to rest in a puddle of blackened water.
Now it was Kline who screamed, a piercing cry that echoed around the walls of the chamber.
And it was Halloran who took his chance.
Daoud's attention was on the dark, blood-soaked mound lying in the water only a few yards away, his grip loosened on the wooden handles of the garotte. Halloran, half-kneeling below the Arab, swiftly brought the point of his elbow up into the other man's groin. Daoud hissed, releasing one of the handles to clutch at himself, the wire cutting across Halloran's throat. The operative grabbed the Arab's ankle and pulled, sending his opponent crashing onto his back.
Despite the pain, Daoud kicked out at Halloran, toppling him as he tried to rise.
They came up together, but tears blurred the Arab's vision. Halloran's stiffened fingers jabbed at the front of Daoud's neck, striking for the thyroid cartilage. If his balance had allowed a greater force to the blow, the Arab would have been killed instantly; as it was, Daoud crouched over his knees, choking and gasping. Halloran half-rose, turning as he did so, ready to launch himself at the Arab's companions.
Cora had sunk down against the altar, blood from the open body above spilling over the edge to stain the shoulders of her white robe. Kline was stumbling around the stone slab, one hand against it for support, the other stretched out, fingers spread, as though reaching for the relic lying in the wetness of the floor some distance away. Khayed's gaze was fixed on his choking lover. Rage burned when it shifted to Halloran. Khayed lifted the long and broad chopping knife.
But others had entered the chamber.
Janusz Palusinski, whom Kline had ordered to investigate the earlier sound of gunfire, had returned. A man in a rain-drenched anorak gripped the Pole's collar from behind; in his free hand was a revolver pointing at Palusinski's head.
Danny Shay was dismayed by what confronted him in the gloomy, candle-lit room. Dismayed, then fiercely angry. There were robed figures below him, one wielding a long, bloodstained knife, another in black wearing a hideous mask of some kind. There was a girl resting against a stone slab, her legs exposed, blood soaking her clothing. And the stone resembled an altar, and on that altar—oh dear God in Heaven !—there was a mutilated body, blood pumping from it like red springwater. There were moving shadows, dark alcoves that might have hidden others involved in this atrocity. Shay thumbed back the hammer of the .38.
And then his eyes came to rest on the man he had been seeking.
'Halloran!' he yelled.
The operative looked up towards the top of the stairway, as did the others in the chamber. Khayed became still, while Kline leaned heavily against the stone, a wildness in his eyes. Cora barely reacted, for the moment too disorientated to care.
The man with the gun shoved Palusinski away from him, and the Pole staggered down a few steps before cowering against the wall, folding himself up so that he was small, a poor attempt to make himself invisible. The weapon came around to point at Halloran.
'You've given the Organisation a lot of grief, man,' Shay said.
Halloran straightened slightly, his body remaining tensed. The man above him had spoken with a thick, southern-Irish accent and a hint of the truth began to dawn in Halloran's mind.
'You killed three good men, Halloran. Valuable men to the Cause, they were. Shot 'em before they had a chance. You should have known we'd find you, you must have realised the IRA would never stand for that!' Halloran was stunned. So it was he who had been the target all along. This bastard had tortured Dieter Stuhr to find him...