‘Yes, I know.’ Rothley’s voice was lucid and distinct.
The policewoman snapped out, ‘The girl, Rothley. Give us the girl. Zara Parkinson. Give her to us!’
Rothley seemed to shrug. ‘I need her.’
‘Rothley!’
But Rothley ignored the questions, turning to his hostage. ‘OK, Sam. Lift your arm a little more.’
Ryan gazed, and squinted. The few degrees of vision he had left were quite enough.
Rothley was now sawing at Herzog’s wrist. The job was laborious: the blood came in dribbles at first, but then it spat like stormwater from a gutter. The wrist bones split, and the severed hand fell to the floor. Rothley set the knife on a table. Herzog stared curiously at the stump of his own arm, squirting blood. The girl also stared at the stump. Frowning.
Meanwhile, Rothley gazed at the camera with confident languor. ‘OK. Having semi-paralysed the cockroach, the wasp completes the reproductive cycle. As the wasp is too small to carry the roach, it leads the cockroach victim to the wasp’s burrow, by pulling at the severed stumps of the roach’s antennae. Once they reach the burrow, the wasp lays a little white egg on top of the roach’s abdomen. The emerald jewel wasp then, finally, exits.’
Now Rothley seemed to be looking in a bag. He spoke as he rummaged. ‘With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach will simply rest in the burrow, even as the wasp egg hatches on its abdomen. The new-born wasp-larva then grows by chewing and feeding, for maybe five days, on the exposed flesh of the living roach. After that it chews its way right into the roach’s abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasite.’ Still he rummaged, and talked. ‘Over a further period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach’s internal organs in an order which maximizes the likelihood that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage. Now it forms a cocoon inside the roach’s body. Only at this juncture does the roach finally die. All that is left is for the fully-grown wasp to chew its way free from the cockroach’s hollowed corpse, so as to begin its adult life.’ He turned, and smiled faintly. ‘Development is faster in the warm season.’
A lab technician slammed the button. ‘Luke, stop it, stop it, you’re not an executioner! Let the girl go. Let them all go. Sam doesn’t deserve to die like this! You’re infected: you think you’re Crowley, a magician, but it’s delusional, the Bastet Parasite—’
The policewoman was also shouting. ‘The girl! Just give us the girl — you don’t need her any more — you’ve got what you want!’
From the safe room Rothley’s voice was calm and distinct: ‘Come here, Samuel.’
Ryan could see that Rothley was holding something — some kind of glass vial, or large test tube.
Rothley spoke again. ‘Of course, I haven’t got any wasp larvae. But I do have a scientific correlative: one of your own offspring, Samuel. The saliva of the parasitic blowfly maggot, Calliphoria vomitoria — remember we developed a weaponized version of this saliva as a flesh-eater in our early days in Israel? Samuel?’
Herzog said nothing. He was still staring at the blood that dripped from his severed wrist. The girl stood behind them, a hovering shade in seraphic white.
Rothley nodded. ‘In sufficient quantities a synthetic version of Calliphoria saliva is equivalent to a Bronsted superacid. Dangerously strong, and formidably corrosive of mammalian flesh.’
He put on thick black rubber gloves. Flexing his fingers, he unstoppered the glass tube, paused and looked at Sam Herzog. ‘It will burn out your throat as it goes down, and then it will dissolve your insides. You will, essentially, melt.’ He lifted the unstoppered vial over Herzog’s head.
Herzog obediently nodded. He leaned back, and tipped his head up. Rothley poured the pale liquid down his victim’s mouth.
The reaction was immediate.
Initially, Herzog’s lips burned, then his entire mouth appeared to smoke, as the liquid scorched into his tongue and his cheeks. Seconds later, the fluid reached his throat. Livid scarlet holes appeared in his neck, bleeding sockets of flesh. And now the jawbone collapsed and just fell away. Blood was dripping creamily down his chest even as fumes rose from the remaining half of his face. Herzog was disintegrating.
Rothley stood back to watch his victim’s legs twitch and spasm as he lay, collapsed, on the floor. Half corroded. And surely dead.
His back to the camera, Rothley extracted another item from his rucksack, then he turned and held it up, so that everyone could see.
But Ryan couldn’t see, the last degrees of sight had very nearly gone. The blackness was triumphing. He whispered, to Helen, ‘What is it? What’s he holding?’
‘I don’t know …’
A loud ticking emanated. ‘The ticking is theatrical, the bomb is real.’ Rothley told them all. ‘The laboratory must also be destroyed. In toto. The girl’s immolation is the final act. What is a man, that he should presume to kill God? This bomb is therefore big enough to level the entire building. But you have four minutes to evacuate.’
The policewoman, Trevithick, slammed the button. ‘Stop it: stop the bomb. You’re going to die first. This is suicide! Why not give us the girl?’
‘Meginah, Elinala, Gelagon.’
Rothley intoned the strange words, slowly and deliberately.
‘Stop the bomb.’
‘Magid, Akori, Happir, Haluteb.’
‘Rothley!’
‘Sagal, Apara.’
It snapped into place. In his blindness, Ryan recognized the words. It was the Abra-Melin death ritual, the same ritual inscribed on the second Sokar papyrus. Ryan knew this spell, he knew it by heart. How many times had he read it these last weeks, trying to decipher the Sokar Hoard?
And the death ritual had a counter-spell. That was also on the Sokar papyrus.
If Rothley believed he was doing magic, he would necessarily believe in counter-magic.
Ryan shouted across the lab, ‘Sizigos, Iporusu, Maregan.’
The effect was instant.
With the last of his eyesight Ryan could see Rothley’s face, puzzled, frowning, staring intently at the camera. Angry.
Ryan continued: ‘Dodim. Abala. Darac.’
Rothley shouted back, but he was stammering now. ‘Sicafel, Sic — Sic — Iperige — Maregan—’
‘Zara, run — please run!’
‘Sizigos, KAILAH—’
‘Run, Zara, get out!’
The policewoman was yelling. Ryan squinted. The girl appeared to be stirring, her bewitchment weakening. Maybe she could sense Rothley’s faltering hold.
‘Zara! GET OUT!’
Zara was running for the door of the safe room. Yet Rothley didn’t even notice. He was staring straight ahead at the camera, his eyes wild and blazing.
‘Situk, Irape, Situk, Irape!’
Almost the last thing Ryan saw was the blonde hair of the girl, outside the safe room, as she ran to save her own life, ran into the arms of the policewoman — and then everyone was running. Ryan could hear urgent footsteps all around. The entire place was evacuating, the bomb was still ticking. But Ryan was stuck on the stretcher. For the last time, he tried to move: but he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t see. And it didn’t matter. He had saved the girl. He could die. Here. Listening to Rothley’s manic chanting.
Ryan lay back, but then he felt arms and hands — Helen, lifting him up, assisted by someone else, hauling him off the stretcher, hoisting him over their shoulders.
How much time was left? Maybe sixty seconds.