Fire shot up in front of them and they pulled back, quickly changing direction.
But then something moved from inside the fissure.
“Look out!” Batty shouted.
And out of the fire and smoke came a platoon of creatures, the likes of which Batty had never before seen, their skin charred, their teeth barred as their feral eyes took the three guardians in with a hunger that sent chills up his spine.
One of them dove for Callahan, but she ducked away as Michael jerked his knife from his waistband and cut the thing in two. It howled and burst into flames, tumbling to the ground, as three of its friends advanced on Callahan.
She brought her shotgun up, shot one in the chest, then kicked, whirled, and kicked again, knocking the other two aside as Michael quickly finished them off with a couple bullets of his own.
But still more came at them, and Batty brought his own gun up, blasting them back into the hole.
Then it was over. For now, at least.
But as they gathered themselves and continued on, Batty knew there would be more to come.
It was time for the ceremony, and it looked as if Belial had the girl primed and ready. She came over to Beelzebub now.
“She’s all yours,” Belial said. “When she sees that dagger, she’ll think it’s candy.”
Beelzebub smiled and kissed her full on the lips. And they were very nice lips indeed. “I really do like this new skin.”
“The girlfriend of the local drug lord. He used to own this place.”
“Used to?”
She smiled. “He’s one of ours now. Are we ready to begin?”
Beelzebub checked the moon. “Just waiting on Moloch and Mammon. Where are those fools?”
A voice behind him said, “I’d watch that tongue, if I were you.”
They turned to find Moloch and Mammon walking toward them across the rooftop.
“I have to congratulate you two,” Mammon said. “You were right after all.” There was a sneer in his voice that led Beelzebub to question his sincerity. “But before we begin, we have a little surprise.”
“Surprise?”
Now Moloch stepped forward and pointed toward the far horizon. “Watch,” he said.
Within milliseconds of speaking the word, a mushroom cloud rose in the distance, followed by a thunderous boom.
The shockwave rolled out across the landscape, toppling everything in its path.
Down!” LaLaurie shouted, “Get down!”
Callahan dove to the ground, feeling the earth rumble beneath her as the shockwave leveled the buildings behind them, stopping just short of the favela.
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus,” she moaned, buffeted by a hot, harsh wind.
She kept her face buried in her arms, not wanting to see the destruction behind her, not wanting to move.
But when she finally forced herself to look up, she found nothing but a fine dust swirling around her, and she was unable to see more than three feet in front of her. Then the dust began to clear, blowing back the way it came, to reveal that half of Sao Paulo had been reduced to nothing but ash.
“Oh my God,” Callahan moaned, tears filling her eyes.
This couldn’t be happening.
It just couldn’t be.
But just as she thought she’d seen the worst of it, the ground began to shudder again, and a fiery chasm splintered and forked, two enormous cracks cutting to the left and right, spewing flames. And from within those flames came the bodies of the dead, crawling over the cracks like ants from a mound, silhouetted by the massive bloodred ring of the eclipsing moon, only a sliver of which still shone in its glory. The animated bodies of the dead seemed to take their power from it, spreading out toward Callahan and the others, their eyes filled with malice.
“Oh my God,” she said again, and scrambled to her feet.
This wasn’t going to end well.
52
The dark angels and their drudges cheered and applauded. They had never before seen anything so glorious.
As the dust cleared, Beelzebub looked up and saw that the eclipse was nearly full. The moon glowed a brilliant bloodred in the sky.
“Let us begin,” he said, and those in robes formed a circle around the girl as he approached and stood over her. “Are you ready to give your soul to Lucifer?”
The girl looked up at him, her eyes glazed.
“Lucifer …,” she muttered.
Beelzebub smiled, slipping the dagger from his pocket as he turned to the others and spoke the sacred incantation. “Quod apertum est, id aperiri non potest.”
What is opened, cannot be closed.
“Quod apertum est, id aperiri non potest,” the others repeated in unison, then began walking in a circle around the girl and Beelzebub, chanting the words over and over.
Beelzebub knelt down. “It’s all right, my angel. Nothing to be afraid of. Soon all your pain will be gone. You want that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“You want me to take away your pain?”
“Yes . . .”
He held out the dagger. “All you have to do is give yourself to Lucifer. Are you ready to do that?”
“Yes,” she said a third time, then took the dagger into her hand.
Batty watched in astonishment as the cracks in the ground started to multiply, chunks of the earth breaking away, tumbling into the ever-widening pit, a wall of molten lava shooting up from within.
The dead things were still crawling toward them and Michael fired his Glock with one hand and arced his knife with the other, severing arms and torsos and heads.
Batty and Callahan opened fire alongside him, putting bullets between their eyes, knocking them back into the abyss.
Batty felt a prickling on the back of his neck and turned to where one of the shacks had collapsed behind him. A short distance away, he saw a cement bunker on the side of the hill, and there, standing on its rooftop were a dozen or more people in brown robes, moving in a tight circle.
He was instantly reminded of the drawing on the seventh page.
Firing off one last shot and nailing another dead thing in the chest, he shouted to the others and took off toward the bunker.
Quod apertum est, id aperiri non potest,” the crowd chanted as the girl knelt there, staring at the dagger in her hand. “Quod apertum est, id aperiri non potest.”
“It’s all right,” Beelzebub said. “It’ll only hurt for a moment. One small prick of the flesh and all is yours.”
The girl swayed slightly, still staring at the dagger. Then she raised it into the air and Beelzebub smiled.
“Yes, yes . . . Give yourself to Lucifer.”
He could see that she was his. That she was about to do it.
“Quod apertum est, id aperiri non potest.”
He glanced at Belial, who had broken from the circle and was watching with quiet rapture in her eyes.
The moon was in full eclipse now, everything aligned and perfect, and he knew that all he had worked for, century after century, would finally be his. His beloved brother would soon be free and the world would be theirs to rule together.
The girl raised the dagger higher, then higher, aiming it toward her throat.
Batty was only feet from the bunker when he saw the girl raising the dagger.
No, he thought, no . . .
He had to stop her.
Shoving his gun into his waistband, he dropped the broadsword and picked up speed. Hurdling over a low cement barrier, he jumped onto a platform, then leapt toward the bunker, grabbing on to the lip of the rooftop.
His legs swung free and he struggled to pull himself up and over the ledge, but he couldn’t get enough momentum and the strength in his fingers was waning fast.