Joanna stepped out into the aisle, the veils of rain falling from the shattered window behind her and glittering in the candlelight like a silent diamond waterfall. As Ethan watched, and Joanna took a step away from Tom’s body, so the falling rain suddenly rippled as though a wind had gusted through it.
Ethan felt his throat constrict as the falling rain suddenly folded in upon itself and began rising up instead of falling down.
57
Ethan took an involuntary step back as Karina Thorne jumped to her feet like a startled cat and retreated from Tom Ross’s body. The falling rain swirled and folded upon itself as though rising on invisible thermals, spiraling and coiling like flocks of tiny glistening birds wheeling in tight formation.
‘I thought you said the power was off!’ Lopez yelled at the monsignor.
‘It is!’ he shouted back in horror, his eyes transfixed by the swirling apparition before them.
Ethan saw Wilson aim his pistol at the writhing mass of water vapor as it swelled above them. From the roiling core spread what looked like two vast wings, as though the wraith were some kind of avenging angel. The millions of droplets of water sparkled in the candlelight above them like a veil of diamonds caught in a sunbeam as Ethan felt the air turn bitterly cold, the spiraling raindrops turning to frosty crystals, until the wraith’s hellish form was, for a few moments, visible as it loomed over them all.
With a dawning realization, he looked at Tom Ross’s body and saw the blood staining his shirt. He had been hit low in the belly, a certainly fatal wound without treatment. But in the candlelight, Ethan saw the glistening fluid gently changing shape, the reflections of the light subtly altering in a slow rhythm as Tom breathed.
A rippling shower of tiny blue sparks of light leaped to and fro across his body, as though he were enveloped by a static charge. Karina Thorne was staring not at the wraith rising up from his body but at the bizarre sparks.
‘Get away from him, Karina!’ Lopez warned her.
Wilson’s aim dropped as he saw the sparks leaping across Tom’s body, and Ethan hurled himself at the agent before he could fire. Ethan crashed into him and they collided against the rock-hard pews, the pistol trapped between them.
Lopez leaped over Tom Ross’s body and swung a hard right into Donovan’s jaw, which sent him reeling backwards down the aisle. The officer tripped over Ethan’s boots and sprawled onto the flags as Ethan struggled to disarm Wilson.
The agent’s near-suicidal determination was no longer enough to sustain his ageing muscles and blood loss from his wound, and Ethan’s relative youth began to turn the tide in his favour. Wilson’s wrists gave in before his spirit did, and Ethan twisted the pistol from his grasp just in time for Donovan’s fist to crack across his temple.
Ethan spun away, his vision starring violently as he crashed down onto the flags. He blinked as his vision returned and saw Donovan aiming the pistol over his head at Tom Ross. Karina tried to throw herself in front of Tom, but Ethan could already see that she wouldn’t make it.
Donovan looked up at the swirling mass of writhing rain hovering over Tom’s body. It remained in place and did not move, as though watching the officer. Donovan sneered at it.
‘Night-night!’ he snapped, and squeezed the trigger.
Ethan flicked his boot up and connected with the pistol just as the shot rang out across the cathedral. The weapon jerked upwards, the shot flying high, and in an instant the seething mass of energy raced toward Ethan and Donovan.
Donovan fired at the wraith in desperation just as it plowed into him and sent him spinning through the air to crash into the pews nearby. Ethan rolled away and saw Donovan’s pistol clatter onto the flags. He leaped up and dashed toward the weapon, as Wilson aimed at Joanna.
Joanna dove behind the pews as Wilson fired three shots that clattered off the altar’s ornate marble surface, spraying chips and clouds of marble dust into the air.
Ethan grabbed Donovan’s pistol and aimed at Wilson, who dashed across the cathedral and ducked behind one of the huge fluted columns. Ethan aimed at the spot where he had vanished, but turned as a shriek of agony echoed out across the cathedral.
Ethan turned to see Donovan’s body being dragged across the stone flags at high speed, his face contorted in pain. His body hit the altar hard and was flipped up on end before he crashed down onto his back, his limbs hanging loose over the edges.
‘Help me!’
Ethan scrambled to his feet, staying low enough behind the pews to avoid being shot by Wilson, and ran toward Tom’s body. He was halfway there when he heard a loud cracking sound.
He looked up, and saw the huge golden crucifix suspended above the altar shudder as its guide-lines were snapped. The immense object plummeted downward, and Ethan heard a fearsome scream just before the object plunged down through Donovan’s chest and embedded itself into the marble altar with a deafening crash.
The sound echoed across the cathedral like a clap of thunder, rolling away into the distance as Ethan stared at the gruesome corpse now lying on the altar, Donovan’s face staring lifelessly at them, his tongue hanging limp from his slack jaw.
The veils of frost and rain swirled upward again, and, as Ethan watched, so he saw the terrible shape converge in the center once more above Tom Ross’s body. It surged upward, and then raced down toward Doug Jarvis.
Ethan dashed the last few paces across to Tom’s body and dropped down as he punched the comatose officer in his wound.
The thump cracked across the cathedral and Tom Ross jerked awake and sucked in a huge lungful of air as pain convulsed across his body. Ethan saw the writhing cloud of rain dissipate and fall gently down around where Jarvis crouched with his hands over his head. Ethan reached down and pushed against Tom’s wound, stemming the blood spilling onto the stone flags.
Karina Thorne dropped onto her knees alongside Tom and grabbed his hand, already slick with blood from his wound.
‘It’s okay, Tom, stay with me, you’re going to be fine.’
Lopez and Joanna hurried to Ethan’s side.
‘Wilson’s disappeared,’ Lopez said, gesturing over her shoulder. ‘I guess he got spooked.’
Ethan nodded and looked down at Tom Ross.
His skin was even paler now, his eyes sunken into their orbits and his breathing irregular. A thin sheen of sickly sweat glistened on his forehead.
‘Ten minutes and he’ll go into toxic shock,’ Ethan guessed. ‘The bullets perforated his stomach and the contents are leaking into his bloodstream.’
Karina looked up at Monsignor Thomas, who was cowering behind the knave. ‘Call 911, right now!’
The monsignor nodded and dashed away. Karina looked back down at Tom. ‘Stay with me, Tom, you’re going to be fine, okay? Just hang on.’
Tom looked up at her, and then his head turned to see Donovan’s lifeless corpse dangling from the altar. He swallowed thickly and then looked back at Karina. Slowly, he reached down with his free hand and began pushing Ethan’s hand away from the wound.
Ethan looked into his eyes. He saw no evidence of delirium. Despite the terrible fatigue clouding Tom’s expression, he saw somewhere deep inside a resolution he had seen before only rarely, on the battlefield when the injured knew that they were lost.
‘No,’ Karina whispered, clutching Tom’s hand tighter. ‘Just hang on a little longer.’
Tom looked at her and breathed a reply that sounded as though he bore the weight of the world upon his shoulders. ‘I don’t want to.’
Tom pushed Ethan’s hand away again, and, this time, Ethan released the wound. Fresh blood spilled onto the flags and he heard Tom’s breathing begin to falter.