“Don’t worry. We’ll do everything we can to protect your brother. Thank you, Michael. You did the right thing.”
General Nash turned and hurried through the shadows to the exit. The heels of his dress shoes made a sharp noise on the polished concrete floor. Click-click. Click-click. The sound echoed off the walls of the Tomb.
Michael picked up the gold sword and held the scabbard tightly.
52
It was close to five o’clock in the afternoon, but Hollis and Maya still hadn’t returned. Vicki felt like a Harlequin, protecting the Traveler who lay on the cot in front of her. Every few minutes, she touched Gabriel’s neck with her fingers. His skin was warm, but there was no sign of a pulse.
Vicki sat a few feet away from him and read some fashion magazines she found in the closet. The magazines were about clothes and makeup and finding men and losing men and being knowledgeable about sex. It embarrassed Vicki to read some of the articles, so she skimmed through them quickly. She wondered if she would feel uncomfortable wearing tight clothes that displayed her body. Hollis would find her more attractive, but then she might become one of the girls who received a duplicate toothbrush and a ride home the next morning. Reverend Morganfield was always talking about shameless modern women and the harlot by the side of the road. “Shameless,” she whispered. “Shameless.” The word could sound like a feather or a slithery snake.
Vicki tossed the magazines into a trash can, went outside, and looked down the hill. When she returned to the dormitory, Gabriel’s skin was pale and felt cold. Perhaps the Traveler had entered a dangerous realm. He could have been killed by demons or the hungry ghosts. Fear came to her like a soft voice growing louder and more powerful. Gabriel was losing strength. Dying. And she couldn’t save him.
She unbuttoned Gabriel’s shirt, leaned over his body, and pressed her ear against his chest. Vicki listened for a heartbeat. Suddenly, there was a thumping noise, but Vicki realized it came from outside the building.
Abandoning the body, she ran out the door and saw a helicopter descend to the flat area of land beside the empty swimming pool. Men jumped out wearing helmets with bulletproof face shields and body armor that made them look like robots.
Vicki ran back into the dormitory. She put her arms around Gabriel’s chest and pulled him, but he was too heavy for her to carry. The cot fell on its side and she had to lower the body onto the floor. She was still holding the Traveler when a tall man wearing body armor ran into the room.
“Let go of him!” he shouted and pointed his assault rifle.
Vicki didn’t move.
“Step back and put your hands on your head!”
The man’s finger began to squeeze the trigger and Vicki waited for the bullet. She would die beside the Traveler, just like the Lion of the Temple had died for Isaac Jones. After all these years, debt paid.
A moment later, Shepherd strolled into the room. He looked as stylish as ever, with his spiky blond hair and tailored suit. “That’s enough,” he said. “No need for that.”
The tall man lowered the rifle. Shepherd nodded his approval, and then approached Vicki as if he was late for a party. “Hello, Vicki. We’ve been looking for you.” He leaned over the Traveler’s body, took the sword away, and pressed his fingers against Gabriel’s carotid artery. “Looks like Mr. Corrigan has gone off to another realm. That’s all right. Sooner or later, he has to come home.”
“You used to be a Harlequin,” Vicki said. “It’s a sin to work for the Tabula.”
“Sin is such an old-fashioned word. Of course, you Jonesie girls have always been old-fashioned.”
“You’re scum,” Vicki said. “Do you understand that word?”
Shepherd gave her a benevolent smile. “Think of all this as a particularly complex game. I’ve picked the winning side.”
53
Maya and Hollis were about four miles from the entrance to Arcadia when they saw the Tabula helicopter. It rose into the sky and circled over the church camp like a raptor looking for prey.
Hollis turned his pickup truck off the road and parked in the Jimsonweeds growing near a retaining wall. They peered through the branches of an oak tree and watched the helicopter head over the ridge.
“So what do we do now?” Hollis asked.
Maya wanted to punch the window, kick, and shout: anything to release her anger. But she forced her emotions into a little room inside her brain, and then locked the door. When she was a child, Thorn would make her stand in the corner, then pretend to attack her with a sword, knife, or fist. If she flinched or panicked, her father was disappointed. If she stayed calm, he praised his daughter’s strength.
“The Tabula won’t kill Gabriel right away. They’ll interrogate him first and find out what he knows. While that’s going on they’ll leave a team at the church camp to ambush whoever returns.”
Hollis peered out the window. “You mean somebody’s waiting there to kill us?”
“That’s right.” Maya slipped on her sunglasses so Hollis couldn’t see her eyes. “But that’s not going to happen…”
THE SUN WENT down around six o’clock, and Maya began to climb the hill to Arcadia. The chaparral was a tangled mess of dry vegetation; it had the sweet, sharp odor of wild anise. The Harlequin found it difficult to move in a straight line. It felt as if the branches and vines were grabbing at her legs and trying to pull the sword case from her shoulder. Halfway up the hill, she was blocked by a thicket of manzanita and scrub oak that forced her to search for an easier path.
Finally she reached the chain-link fence that surrounded the church camp. She grabbed the top bar and pulled herself over. The two dormitories, the swimming pool area, the water tank, and the community center could be seen clearly in the moonlight. The Tabula mercs had to be there, hiding in the shadows. They probably assumed that the only entry point was the driveway that led up the hill. A conventional leader would position his men in a triangle around the parking lot.
She drew her sword and remembered the lesson on soft walking she had learned from her father. You moved as if you were crossing a lake covered with thin ice: extend your foot, judge the ground, and finally step forward with your weight.
Maya reached an area of darkness near the water tank and saw someone crouched beside the pool house. He was a short, broad-shouldered man holding an assault rifle. As she approached him from behind, she heard him whispering into the microphone of a radio headset.
“You got any more water? I’m out.” He paused for a few seconds, then sounded annoyed. “I understand that, Frankie. But I didn’t bring two bottles like you did.”
She took a step to the left, ran forward, and swung the sword at the back of his neck. The man fell forward like a slaughtered steer. The only sound was the clatter of his weapon falling onto the concrete. Maya leaned over the body and pulled the radio headset off the dead man’s ears. She heard other voices whispering to each other.
“Here they are,” said a voice with a South African accent. “See the headlights? They’re coming up the hill…”
Hollis drove his truck up the driveway, stopped in the parking lot, and switched off the engine. There was just enough moonlight to see his silhouette inside the truck cab.
“Now what?” an American voice asked.
“Do you see a woman?”
“No.”
“Kill the man if he gets out of the truck. If he stays there, wait for the Harlequin. Boone told me to shoot the woman on sight.”
“I only see the man,” the American said. “How about you, Richard?”
The dead man wasn’t answering questions. Maya left his weapon on the ground and hurried toward the community center.