But then something unexpected happened.
Batty heard a sound, a soft
Then she turned, and he could plainly see the hole in the back of her head, a small trickle of blood seeping from it, turning her copper-colored hair a darker shade of red. He hadn’t seen an exit wound, so he could only assume the bullet was lodged in her brain-or what was left it. The impact had surely mushroomed through her skull, destroying everything in its path.
Then another shot rang out, hitting her in the cheek, spinning her around, the side of her face turning into raw, bloody hamburger. A third shot quickly followed, putting a hole through the back of her neck, and she dropped to her knees, her eyes now filled with shock and rage and dismay.
It took Batty a moment to figure out where the gunfire was coming from. Swiveling his head, he looked toward the helicopter.
Across the yard, McNab lay on his belly, a sniper rifle in hand. He smiled, as if satisfied by a job well done, but Belial suddenly screeched and swept an arm through the air.
A chunk of the temple broke free, rocketed across the yard like a small comet and slammed into the helicopter’s gas tank.
As McNab jumped to his feet, the chopper exploded in a ball of fire behind him. He screamed as the flames enveloped him, instantly turning him into a roasted human marshmallow. Then he slammed to the ground and stopped moving.
The concussion lifted the helicopter several feet into the air, then it dropped back down, landing on its side, its rotors snapping as the flames quickly gutted it.
And as they burned away, Belial teetered a moment, turning to Batty, her eyes now full of sadness, a fountain of blood pouring from the hole in her neck and down the side of her face. Then she toppled onto her back, the blood spreading on the ground beneath her.
As he slowly regained his senses, Batty staggered to his feet, shell-shocked, not quite believing what he’d just witnessed. He stumbled to the bottom of the steps and stood over a broken Belial, once again wondering how he could ever have taken her into his bed.
After a moment, Callahan got up and stood next to him, her fists involuntarily clinched, as if she were waiting for the bitch to make another move.
Then Belial’s mouth opened and blood bubbled up on her lips as she tried and failed to speak.
But Batty heard her voice inside his head.
Then air escaped from between her lips as the life went out of her eyes and her body abruptly went still, abandoned by its occupant. It was, after all was said and done, just a human vessel, a skin, a means to an end that meant nothing more to her than a wrecked car or a torn dress. She had no use for it now and she was gone.
A moment later, the rumbling stopped.
The sky was clear.
The earth still.
Even if Batty’s heartbeat wasn’t.
37
That old woman with the really long neck is staring at me,” Callahan said.
They had been hiking for what seemed like hours, following the winding trail down the mountain past the rice fields and the tribal villages, both of them on edge, but exhausted after the debacle at the temple.
And that’s exactly what it had been. A debacle.
What else could you call it?
Two good men were dead, the temple in ruins, a helicopter destroyed, and Batty and Callahan were lucky to have gotten out of there with their souls still intact.
One of the only blessings to come of it, Batty thought, was the dispatching of Belial-at least in her current human form. But he knew they hadn’t seen the last of her.
Belial might not return in the form of knock-’em-dead redhead, but she’d be back, stronger than ever. You could count on it. It would take a lot more than a couple of clueless mortals to destroy her, and all he could think to do was to keep moving forward in hopes they’d get lucky again the next time.
At least they’d come away from the debacle with a bit of knowledge. Thanks to Brother Philip, they now knew this went well beyond a few calculated attacks against the guardians. There was a plan in motion and it was an ugly one. A plan that would reach its conclusion during the coming eclipse.
The fourth moon.
Batty knew about lunar tetrads, knew they were rare, but he’d never considered that there was a power in them that would help Belial and her friends open the gates of hell. And he knew in his gut that this was exactly what they were planning. After years of trying, they had finally harnessed enough corrupted souls to overwhelm all the good in the world and deliver to them the paradise they sought.
The paradise they had lost.
But based on what Brother Philip had said, he could only conclude that Saint Michael had a plan of his own. A plan that involved the sacred traveler, whoever that might be.
A wandering soul. The Telum.
The word itself was Latin for
And what about the key the guardians were protecting? Was its secret somehow hidden in this manuscript he had tucked under his arm?
Was that why Gabriela and Ozan had worked so hard to decipher it?
Why Belial had wanted it?
“She’s really giving me the evil eye,” Callahan said. “Should I be worried?”
Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Batty looked off to their left where an old tribal woman with gold neck rings was watching them work their way down the trail.
“I doubt Belial would be able to find a new skin quite that fast. Besides, she’d do a lot more than stare.”
“You can understand why I’m a little jumpy,” Callahan said. “And I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.”
“Relax. She’s a Kayan villager. She doesn’t mean you any harm. In fact, if you asked, she’d probably take you into her home and feed you.”
“Just as long as she doesn’t try feed
Batty threw her a glance, surprised that in all of her travels, Callahan hadn’t encountered such a sight before.
“The Kayan consider an elongated neck a sign of beauty,” he told her. “The rings force the collarbone and ribs to compress and make the neck look longer than it really is.”
“You truly are a font of information, aren’t you? My own personal Internet.” She looked at the Kayan woman again. “How can they do that to themselves?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you wearing five-inch heels when we went to that auction?”
Callahan conceded the point with a shrug. “Speaking of which, my feet are killing me. Along with every other part of my body. Let me check to see if I’ve got a signal now. Maybe we can get somebody to pick us up.”
She stopped and pulled her cell phone out of a pocket, checking the screen and not happy with what she saw.
“Shit. You’d think if the missionaries can build a temple up here, someone could erect a cell tower.”
Batty shook his head. “I sometimes wonder how the world survived before those things were invented.”
