The SS dagger swept down, to pinion his other hand, which held his staff.
Hood twisted as the knife struck, feeling a sharp pain in his ring finger and meanwhile losing hold of his gun. Then Raeder’s boot slipped off his wrist and stamped on the staff.
There was a bang, like a short circuit. Some mysterious but stupendous energy kicked the German backward and he fell and skidded, with a grunt.
The American picked up the strange weapon in a bloody grip, wincing, and swept it toward the Nazis, not knowing what to expect.
Something bright, hot, and terrifying stabbed out. It also stabbed in, to Hood’s injured hand, and he shouted.
There was a boom like thunder and lightning that was blinding. The Germans shrieked, hands to their eyes and ears, frozen in the flash. It was like looking into the sun. Then there was a crack on the ceiling and stone rained down, slamming against the floor and bouncing. The staff and Hood went skidding away across the floor, shot like a puck, his teeth clenched in agony. Finally it was dark again, except his eyes were filled with sparks from the dazzle. He could dimly hear the Germans shouting, and he wondered if any had been hit by the debris. What had happened? It was as if the staff had a life of its own, or as if his thoughts had merged with its properties to eject some kind of thunderbolt. If this is what Shambhala held, he wanted no part of it.
Yet he didn’t let go. As his night vision returned, he realized the thunder stick still glowed dimly.
Light footsteps, and someone seized his arm. “Hurry!” It was a hiss. Keyuri. “I have your pistol.”
“Then shoot them.”
“I tried. It’s jammed.”
Hood staggered up. The third finger on his left hand was hanging by a tendon, blood gushing. The hand, seemingly electrocuted as well as sliced, felt on fire. Meanwhile his gun hand had been stomped on. The room echoed with German curses. Keyuri clutched his arm and forced the tip of the staff to the ground to mute its illumination, like an aisle light in a dim theater. Numbly, he followed her pull. He thought at first that she’d lead him past the bones and onto the main causeway they’d descended. But the Germans were between them and the door. Instead she was pulling him toward one of the tunnels that led away from the side of the machine.
There was the crack of a revolver and a bullet whined off machinery. They ducked around a massive metal arm, making themselves invisible, just as the submachine gun went off with a stutter. More bullets pinged and buzzed.
“Stop! They’re ricocheting toward us!”
“But they’re getting away!” The Germans began arguing some more.
“Where are we going?” Hood whispered to Keyuri.
“Where we close one door and open another, if you can use that magic staff again.” They entered the tunnel, a stumbling trot taking them along horizontal pipes. He looked back. There was a faint whitish glow; the German light sticks must have reignited. Hood’s body ached, and he mentally cursed Raeder. That madman made a mess of everything.
“They’ve gone the wrong way!” he heard the German cry. “We’ve got them trapped.”
“Leave them,” another said. “Muller was right. This place is evil.”
“No, I want her and I want the staff. She knows more than she’s telling!”
Keyuri caught Hood’s arm and they stopped a moment, looking back. “Seal us in.”
He looked at her questioningly.
“There’s supposed to be a second door, a back door, somewhere deep inside this underground city. Use the staff, seal us in, and we’ll look for it.”
“This is legend?”
“This is our only chance.”
He lifted the staff again, feeling energy surge through it and him, his arm shaking. It glowed bright, and he heard the Germans shout and begin to run toward them. Blood dripped from his grip to the floor. Gritting his teeth, he aimed toward the ceiling of the tunnel entrance. Another crack and boom, the recoil excruciating, but then with a rumble a section of rock roof gave way and crashed onto the pipes at the tunnel mouth, a cave-in that blocked that entrance. Dust blew back at them, grit swirling.
Hood’s head ached and his ears rang. They were in a tunnel about ten feet high that stretched as far as he could see, large pipes running through it at breast height.
“Bravo,” he said. “Sealed us in. Trapped like moths in a jar.”
“And them out, for a while.”
The staff’s illumination was dimmer than before. Was it weakened like a battery? Keyuri pulled at him again and they went on, deeper into Shambhala.
“Where’s this second door?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I think this fire stick is losing its power. Will its light go out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should we run?”
Now she pulled to stop him. “No.” She wiped her mouth free of a smear of blood. “He hit me,” she said when his look was questioning. “What happened to your hand?”
He clenched his half-severed finger. “Raeder cut me. And the recoil from this devil weapon didn’t help, either. Hurts like hell.” He felt dizzy from the craziness of the last hour. “How did the Shambhalans use these things?”
“Open your hand.”
Wincing, he did so. She placed it on one of the huge pipes so the damage to his digit was more apparent. It was throbbing and covered with blood.
“Now, kiss me.”
“What?” She was looking at him with her great dark eyes, her features fine as polished porphyry, her lips insistent, her hair still short but growing out since leaving Lhasa. She seized his head with one hand, bent him to her, and kissed him fiercely, not like a nun but a lover.
Then the pain from his hand seemed to explode, and he roared. She’d chopped with another knife and completely severed his finger!
“God Almighty! What did you do, Keyuri?”
“I’m sorry, but we’ve got to bind it. Give me your scarf.”
She took the white silk Reting had given him in Lhasa and ripped off a portion, using it to wrap and gap where his finger had been and cinching down on the dressing.
“Couldn’t you warn me?” His eyes were watering, it hurt so bad.
“That would have made it worse.” She inspected her dressing. “We’ve got to get the bleeding to stop or you might faint.”
He sat down hard against the pipes. “That might happen anyway. I’ve had quite a day.” He couldn’t quite believe where he was. Probably the greatest discovery in his museum’s history, and he’d just deliberately caused a cave-in. Roy Chapman Andrews would have shot his way out by now.
She knelt beside him. “Me, too.” She picked up the severed finger. “I may use this for a blood lock.”
“A what?”
“The locks of this place, like to the door of that main tunnel, can be opened only by the right person’s blood. Raeder said he had the necessary blood from a long-dead German hero.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He thinks the Germans and Shambhalans are cousins. Aryans.”
Hood laid his head back. “And to think he and I were partners, once. Scientific colleagues. I sure know how to pick ’em.”
“He’s still embarrassed you fired him. Ashamed of what he is, but unable to change.” Keyuri looked at him, her own cheeks wet now with tears. “I’m sorry I had to do that to your hand. I’m sorry destiny made you come back here.” She leaned and kissed him again. “I’m sorry you picked me, not just Kurt. But we were meant to be together again, Benjamin.”
Despite the pain he kissed back, the communion an instinctual antidote to everything that was going on. Her lips were full, ripe, soft, everything that was opposite the machine nightmare that was Shambhala. Pressing against her seemed to lessen the pain, and then she was pressing against him, and he groaned with sudden lust and
