Temple of the Gods

finally she was within reach of Larry’s outstretched arm. He grabbed her hand and helped her up the final few feet.

Eddie reached the summit of the slope and started to climb after her. Nina reached down, giving him a look of encouragement — which turned to horror. ‘Eddie, look out!’ Something stabbed agonisingly into his thigh.

The pain made him lose his footing. He dropped back down to the tier — driving the spikes deeper into his flesh.

It was the head of the trident, hurled by Stikes — who had scrambled up the slope after him, swinging the broken shaft like a club to deliver a savage blow. Eddie cried out, trying to dodge as Stikes struck again, but the pain of his impalement was so intense that he couldn’t move his leg.

Nina watched helplessly. Short of throwing herself off the pillar at Stikes, there was nothing she could do to intervene.

Except—

A broken piece of purple stone the size of a fist lay on the floor. She grabbed it; it glowed.

Stikes raised the bronze shaft high above his head, about to plunge its jagged point down into Eddie’s chest —

Nina hurled the stone.

She could have sworn that it veered slightly, as if guided to its target by her sheer willpower. Whether it did, or if she was just imagining it, the result was the same. The lump of rock cracked viciously against Stikes’s nose, blood spurting from both nostrils. He staggered, the spear still held high…

Eddie wrenched the trident’s head out of his leg, fury overpowering the pain, and stabbed it deep into the other man’s stomach.

Stikes let out a gurgling scream. He dropped the shaft, clutching both hands to the bronze fork buried in his gut and staring at Eddie in utter disbelief. ‘You can’t…’ he gasped. ‘You can’t have!’

‘Yeah, I can,’ Eddie rasped, struggling upright. ‘For old times’ sake!’

He drove his boot into Stikes’s groin with the force of a train. Convulsing in agony, the ex-officer reeled… and fell from the tier to the ledge below, slamming down on his back.

With a crack that shook the chamber, the entire outcrop sheared away from the wall of rock.

The huge wedge of stone plunged down the volcanic shaft, the hellfire glow up its sheer sides growing brighter with each moment. Paralysed with agony, Stikes couldn’t even scream—

The severed ledge hit the churning lava lake, the viscid magma absorbing some of the impact that would otherwise have instantly killed its unwilling passenger. Even so, the shock of landing felt to Stikes as if someone had dropped a car on him, ribs cracking and organs rupturing. Spitting blood, he lay sprawled and broken as the rock beneath him slowly sank into the molten sea.

The heat set his clothes alight as a glowing orange wave rose over the fractured edges of the stone raft. It surrounded him, closing in like jackals around dying prey. The pain became unimaginable as his blond hair seared and caught fire, a burning halo blistering his skull. Now he managed to scream as the molten circle shrank around him, consuming his feet, then his hands, incinerating his entire body inch by inch…

High above, Eddie watched with savage satisfaction as the fallen ledge was finally swallowed up by liquid fire. ‘Got you,’ he growled.

‘Eddie!’ He looked up to see Nina on the tier above. ‘Are you okay?’

One hand pressed hard against the stab wounds in his leg, he limped to the pillar. ‘I’ll live.’

‘What happened to Stikes?’

‘He’s a lava, not a fighter.’

Nina withheld comment, clambering back down to assist him. Larry looked over the edge, relief filling his face. ‘Oh, thank God! I thought — I thought he was going to kill you.’

‘He bloody nearly did,’ Eddie admitted. He saw the wound on his father’s head. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Got hit by a rock, but never mind me. Come on.’ He lay down on his front, both hands reaching for Eddie as Nina supported him from below. The constant rumbling grew stronger. ‘We need to get out of here PDQ.’

‘Where’s Sophia?’

‘She went up the tunnel,’ said Nina as Larry hauled Eddie up. She climbed after him. ‘Part of the floor collapsed — we’ll have to go across the level above and jump down.’ Rising steam and fumes continued to be drawn into the lava tube. It was still clear, then — but with the quakes growing stronger all the time, it might not remain so for long. ‘And Eddie… she’s got a piece of the meteorite.’

He set his jaw against the pain as they hurried past toppled statues towards the stairs. ‘Can she get the DNA from it?’

‘I don’t know, but we can’t take the chance. We have to catch her.’

‘There’s always fucking something, isn’t there?’

The temple shuddered as they made their way up to the higher tier and crossed it. Nina glanced down, and regretted it; the lava was rising after them, no longer a lake but a maelstrom boiling over the top of the magma chamber. ‘I think Stikes gave it indigestion! We didn’t bring the world’s largest bottle of Pepto-Bismol, did we?’

‘How the hell do you manage to make jokes at a time like this?’ Larry asked in disbelief.

‘A habit I picked up from your son. It’s either that or scream and panic!’ They passed over the entrance to the second lava tube. ‘Okay, I think we can get down here. I’ll go first. Larry, you help lower Eddie so I can support him.’

‘Might be safer if you both lowered me,’ Eddie suggested.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Larry. ‘I won’t drop you.’

‘That’s what you said when I was six, and I’ve still got the dent in my head!’

‘God, you have one butterfingers moment, and nobody ever lets you forget it…’

Nina had already settled the issue by dropping to the tier below. No sign of Sophia beyond the dark opening in the wall, not that she had expected her to hang around. ‘It’s clear. Come on.’

She reached up to hold Eddie’s legs as his father eased him down as far as he could. ‘You got him?’ Larry called.

‘Yeah. Ready?’ she asked Eddie. He nodded. ‘Okay, let him go!’

Larry released his hold. Even with Nina’s support, it was still a heavy landing. Eddie gasped in pain as his wounded leg hit the ground. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry!’ she cried.

‘Not — your fault,’ Eddie said, grimacing. ‘Fucking Stikes! If I had an asbestos fishing rod I’d haul him back up just so I could kick him off again.’

‘You might not need the rod to reach him in a few minutes,’ Nina warned him as she took another look over the temple’s side. Though it was still hundreds of feet below, the lava was visibly rising. ‘Larry, come on!’

The elder Chase dropped down with a grunt as Nina and Eddie entered the lava tube. It was smaller and steeper than the one through which they had entered, the air within as choking as a poisonous sauna. But it was their only hope of survival. Eddie recovered his torch from a pocket and shone it ahead. The tunnel wormed away into darkness. ‘Can’t tell how long it is,’ he said.

‘It goes up, that’s the main thing,’ Nina replied. ‘How fast can you move?’

‘Faster than that fucking lava, I hope.’ He set off in a limping half-walk, half-run, Nina supporting him by his uninjured arm. Larry caught up and they hurried along the passage, which shuddered around them. Ominous crunching sounds came from the walls and ceiling, dust and grit dropping from newly formed cracks.

‘This whole place is going to come down!’ said Larry between coughs. ‘We’ll never make it.’

‘Oi!’ snapped Eddie. ‘Less of that — we will bloody make it. Know why? ’Cause I’m not having my niece go to three funerals on the same day!’

Abashed, Larry picked up the pace. Nina looked ahead. ‘I can see daylight!’

‘And I can see stuff falling in front of it,’ said Eddie in alarm. Larger pieces of rubble were dropping from the ceiling. ‘Both of you, run! Go on, get out!’

‘We’re not leaving you,’ said Nina — at the same moment as Larry. They exchanged looks, then carried Eddie between them towards the oval of light ahead.

A loud boom echoed up the tunnel as part of the ceiling caved in. There was a sharp crackling noise like the opening of a gigantic zipper — and suddenly they were inundated by dust as a gash split open along the length of the roof. ‘Oh, fuck!’ yelled Eddie, the pain in his leg forgotten as he broke into a panicked run. ‘Go, go, go!’