Taking the ax with him, he climbed out and joined the others at the rear of the truck. He looked at them as closely as he could in the starlight. Everyone seemed to be all right.
'This is as close as you get,' he told them. 'Rich, the wheel is yours. Everybody else, stay ready for trouble.'
'Matt, I don't like the sound of this,' Ronnie said. 'What are you going to do?'
He smiled and touched his shirt where the cylinder of explosive rested. 'I've got a stick of Hammond's dynamite here. I'm going to use it to blow up the altar and see if that will put an end to this.'
'You mean you're going to throw away your own life?'
'Not if I can help it,' Matt lied. 'I'll set the fuse and get the hell away from it before it blows.'
What he said wasn't a complete lie. There was no fuse, but he didn't consider giving up his life for this cause to be throwing it away.
'Andrew will try to stop you,' Ronnie argued. 'We need to go along to give you a chance to set off the explosion.'
Matt shook his head. 'You can't do that. If you get any closer to the altar, you'll be changed, too.'
'And you won't?'
'I was there when the damned thing was uncovered, remember?' he said. 'For some reason, it doesn't affect me. This is the way it has to be, and we can't afford to waste any more time. I'm going. Take care of yourselves.'
He turned to walk toward the lights.
Ronnie caught up with him, took hold of his sleeve to stop him. As Matt turned toward her, she leaned in and kissed him, the sort of urgent, passionate kiss that would have shaken him all the way down to his toes under other circumstances.
He was a little too scared for that right now . . . but the kiss helped. No doubt about that.
'I'll say a prayer for you,' she whispered.
'Can't hurt,' he said.
Then he strode forward again, the ax clutched in his right hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The generator coughed and chattered as Matt approached, providing the power for the lights that threw their stark, brilliant glare down into the pit. He dropped to a knee before he reached that glowing circle and wished he could see what was going on down there without having to crawl right up to the edge.
That was the only way, though. He started forward on hands and knees. The rocky ground was hard on his palms, although his jeans protected his knees to a certain extent.
So far he hadn't been able to hear anything over the racket of the generator, but he began picking up voices now. Were they chanting something?
Matt edged closer, so he could see over the rim of the pit. He knew that what he saw shouldn't have shocked him—he should have been prepared for almost anything—but even so his guts clenched.
Jerry Schultz's body lay on the black altar. A crimson flower of blood stained the front of his shirt. Scott hadn't been killed when the pickup flipped, because he was back in the pit now, standing at Jerry's right while April was on the left. Andrew Hammond was at the foot of the altar, where the face of Mr. Dark was carved. He was facing away from Matt and had taken off his shirt, exposing his pale and somewhat chunky torso.
Hammond's hands were in the air above his head. He was chanting something that was gibberish as far as Matt was concerned, although he supposed it was probably the ancient Anasazi language. Scott and April looked like they were about to have orgasms from listening to Hammond. He held out a knife. 'Spread his steaming guts around him and let the blood flow freely,' he intoned in English this time.
Scott started to reach for the knife, but April leaned forward and snatched it from Hammond's hand.
'Let me,' she said with a huge smile on her face that chilled Matt almost as much as those tons of snow and ice had. The New Mexico heat seemed far away now.
April tore Jerry's shirt open, baring his chest and belly. Matt stared down into the pit, his eyes narrowing suddenly as he saw a tiny red sore on Jerry's cheek. A few more were scattered here and there on the young man's face.
Of course Jerry was still alive, Matt realized, no matter how dead he looked. If you were going to have a sacrifice, you had to have a living victim.
Matt had planned to wait until the three of them were busy with their grisly work, then leap into the pit and flail around with the ax until he had cut them down. But if Jerry was still alive, he couldn't wait. Maybe, just maybe, he could get Jerry away from here, away from the effect of the altar, before he blew it up.
But as he tensed his muscles, ready to spring into action, Hammond called, 'Now, Stephanie!'
Matt rolled to the side just as the pick wielded by Stephanie dug into the ground where he had been lying a shaved heartbeat of time earlier. He kicked up, burying his boot heel in her belly. With a heave of his leg he sent her flying over his head, into the excavation.
As Matt rolled over and scrambled to his feet, he saw Stephanie land on the edge of the altar at the far end. Her back hit its sharp edge first, and even over the generator he heard the crack of bone as her spine snapped. She fell to the ground beside the altar, her upper half writhing frenziedly while her lower half lay limp.
Before Matt could move, Scott came up the ladder with superhuman speed and tackled him. They rolled across the ground and slid over the edge into the pit. The sudden drop took Matt's breath away. He crashed down with Scott on top of him. The ax flew out of his hand. Scott's fist slammed into his jaw, stunning him.
Matt fully expected Scott to beat him to death, but Hammond's voice rang out, ordering, 'Don't kill him yet! We'll sacrifice him, too.'
Scott dragged Matt to his feet and held him from behind with one arm looped around Matt's throat. At the far end of the altar, Stephanie had stopped twisting around and lay there with her breath rasping in her throat. April still had the knife, and at Hammond's gestured command, she raised it again over Jerry's stomach.
With a weak flutter of the lids, Jerry's eyes opened.
'A . . . April . . . what are you . . . April, I . . . I loved you—'
'And I loved you, Jerry, or at least I tried to,' April said as she smiled down at him. Then her lips drew back from her teeth in a hideous grimace. 'You were just too fucking weak!'
She plunged the knife into Jerry's belly.
He screamed. April yanked down on the knife, slicing him open. The knife clattered on the black stone of the altar as she pulled it out of his body and dropped it. Her hands plunged into the gaping wound she had created in his midsection and brought out shiny, blood-smeared coils of intestines. Jerry kept screaming.
Matt's mind was racing. Jerry still had the tiny sores on his face, but for some reason the power of the altar wasn't affecting him as strongly as it had the others. Since Jerry still clung to a shred of his humanity, maybe he could put that to use.
'Fight back, Jerry!' Matt yelled. 'Fight!'
He thought Jerry might be too close to death to muster any strength, but somehow Jerry's arms lifted and his hands shot out, taking April by surprise. He grabbed her wrists and threw her toward Hammond.
At the same time, Matt leaned back against Scott, lifted his feet, and planted both of them on the side of the altar. He could feel its heat even through the soles of his boots. Straightening his legs and kicking as hard as he could, he propelled Scott back against the wall of the excavation.
That impact was enough to jar Scott's grip loose. Matt twisted free, scooped up the ax he had dropped a few minutes earlier, and swung. The blade caught Scott in the forehead and split his skull, cleaving bone and brain almost all the way to his shoulders.
Matt pulled the ax loose as April, screaming obscenities, came at him. He poked the ax in her stomach and caused her to double over. Turning the blade, he came up with it and caught her under the chin.
There was enough force behind the blow that it sliced her whole face off.
April collapsed, probably trying to scream through a mouth she didn't have anymore. Matt turned toward
