01 Babylon Rising (22 page)

“Gee, I think I left it at home.” Chuck was really enjoying this. “What a shame. Guess it’s up to you to wake Sleeping Beauty here. Better hurry. I think she’s fading fast.”

Paul leaped to his feet and grabbed Chuck by the front of his tracksuit. “Look, this isn’t a game. This girl is seriously hurt. Go get help while I try to get her breathing.”

Chuck shrugged him off. “She’s had all the help she’s going to get.” He took a step forward, letting something dark slide out of his sleeve and into his palm. “And I’m getting a little tired of your whining.”

Paul took a step back, a hand raised defensively in front of him. At least his brain seemed to be working again. If he could distract Chuck for a second or two, maybe he could make it to the stairs. He half turned, looking for something he could throw in Chuck’s face—then there was a flash of movement as something very hard punched him off his feet and his head slammed into the floor.

Then his world went black.

THE PARKING LOT
in front of the church was filling up as Murphy pulled his beat-up Dodge into a spot. He went around to the passenger side to help Laura out, but she waved him away. “Save it, Murph. You don’t want to set a bad example for the community.”

Standing by the door of the church with a welcoming smile, Reverend Wagoner held his arms out. “Laura, Michael. Good to see you both.”

Murphy looked around the almost-full lot. “Likewise, Pastor Bob. Looks like a full house tonight. The free hot dogs seem to be working.”

Wagoner laughed. He was dressed in comfortable slacks and a sport jacket over a green polo shirt that showed a hint of a paunch. With his tanned features and thinning white hair, he looked as if he’d just come off the golf course. Which he probably
had. “I need something to give me an edge. Actually, I think you two are responsible for the big turnout. Folks are pretty excited about your discovery of this Serpent piece, Murphy.”

“As long as you don’t want me up at the pulpit, talking about it in front of everybody, Bob. You know I come here for a break from all that. But don’t you put me to sleep, okay?”

Laura nudged him in the ribs. “Don’t listen to him, Bob. He’s just jealous. He knows a really inspirational speaker when he hears one.”

“Well, thank you, my dear. Now you’re making me nervous.”

“Come on, Laura, let’s see if we can get a front row seat. What do the kids call it—the mosh pit?”

Inside, an expectant buzz was already building amid the simple wooden pews. They spotted sitting near the front, looking for someone, and made their way over.

Laura gave her a hug, then noticed her worried look. “What’s up?”

“It’s Paul. I challenged him to come tonight and said he should come early and help with the sorting for the clothing drive downstairs, but then I got stuck in the library and came right here. His cell phone doesn’t seem to be working.”

“It looks like we’re starting. Let’s save a seat for him. If he’s like Murphy, he’ll probably make a dramatic late entrance, especially if there was work to be done earlier. I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.”

Shari smiled, but there was still worry in her eyes. “I’ll sit with you, but I hope I didn’t scare Paul off.”

Talon’s natural instinct was to slam Chuck’s body against the wall to focus his thick-skulled brain on the task at hand. But he had a use for Chuck tonight and not a lot of time. He could not afford to have this slug of a human being curl up and sulk. So he tried a more moderate action. He slapped Chuck’s face hard, twice in succession.

“Hey! Ow, what—!”

“Shut up and pay attention. We’ve dumped your sister’s boyfriend here in the church basement, we’ve spread out all the pamphlets I brought, what’s left to do?”

Chuck was breathing hard and rubbing his cheek, paying no attention. Just aching from that head slam, Talon thought. “The backpack, remember? Take it off so I can load it up.”

“Okay, okay. It’s a little tight over my jacket.” Chuck struggled to get the straps of the backpack off but could not get them over his Preston High jacket.

“Then unzip your jacket.” Talon rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“I can’t. It’s stuck. The zipper gets caught a lot.”

“How did you ever get out of kindergarten?” Talon grabbed the jacket in both hands and pulled with no success at the zipper. He tried to tear the zipper from its setting. In total exasperation, Talon’s right arm flashed up and across the front of Chuck’s jacket, cutting it neatly in two halves. He pulled the backpack from Chuck’s shoulders.

“Hey, that was the only jacket I have. It’s cold tonight.”

Talon slashed his sharpened index finger once more, this time across Chuck’s throat, nimbly stepping aside to allow the heavy body to fall to the basement floor.

“Not to worry, Chucky It’s warm where you’re going.”

THIS WAS
A good night for the Preston Community Church, Reverend Wagoner thought as he stood surveying the faces in the pews. The crowd could be described as hushed and expectant, but what made this such a gratifying event was that almost all of these people could be called a community. He grasped the pulpit firmly and cleared his throat.

“Welcome, friends. It’s truly wonderful to see so many of you here this evening. I’d like to give thanks to God for bringing us all together on a day that isn’t Sunday. Many of you will have heard about the amazing archaeological find our dear friends Michael and Laura Murphy have brought back from the Holy Land.

“And if you haven’t, let me tell you the good news. They’ve found a piece of Moses’ Brazen Serpent. The one King
Hezekiah destroyed in Second Kings, Chapter Eighteen, Verse Twenty-three.” There were a few gasps. Clearly some people hadn’t heard the news. “Now, I’m not going to talk about the archaeological significance of this discovery. I’ll leave that to the professionals.

“However, this week, when so much puzzling and disturbing news has been reported at the United Nations and so many shameful things are being said in the media about Christianity, it does make me want to talk a little tonight about some of the significance I think we can still draw from what the Bible tells us about the Brazen Serpent.”

Reverend Wagoner paused, and his gaze seemed to fall on each person sitting in the hall.

“You’ll recall that the Hebrews who fled out of Egypt in search of the Promised Land didn’t have an easy time of it. Sometimes when the going got tough, they began to question, began to doubt God’s plan for them. In short, they lost their faith—”

There was a flash, and Murphy had time to wonder why Reverend Wagoner was flying through the air toward them before the thunder of the explosion hit, and then Murphy himself was lifted out of his pew by the blast-wave, his arm instinctively reaching out for Laura as he was flung sideways into the aisle.

After that, everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

The stained-glass windows imploded in a shower of red and gold, and the floor seemed to heave upward, toppling pews and spilling their occupants into the rubble. The chandeliers began swinging violently, the lights flickered once and
went out, and then there was just smoke and darkness and the moans of the injured, a faint undertone behind the buzzing in his ears.

Murphy was on his feet and without thinking staggered toward the flames beginning to shoot up from the gaping hole behind the shattered pulpit. For a moment, he felt as if he were looking directly into the depths of hell itself. Then he stopped, and it seemed to take him forever to turn his head back toward the spot where he’d landed. Lungs seared by the acrid smoke pouring into the interior of the church, he felt his way through the debris until he found Laura. He grasped her arm, and he felt her fingers clinging to him and he knew she was alive.

Out. We have to get out
, he thought, slipping his arms around Laura and hauling her to her feet. Murphy wasn’t sure he had the strength to carry her in a fireman’s lift, but then he felt her take a step and together they staggered through the haze, over broken pews and huge chunks of plaster, toward the door.

Air
, he thought.
Air and light
. As they stepped through the doorway, the night air hit them in a wash of blessed relief and they both drew in huge lungfuls. Murphy placed Laura on the ground as gently as he could.

Murphy knelt beside her, blowing bits of wood from around her closed eyes and brushing blackened particles from her cheeks and hair. Laura coughed and opened her eyes, which showed fright and were rimmed by smoky tears.

“I’m okay, Murphy,” she said between gasps. “Was it an explosion?”

“It must have been, but I don’t think it was the boiler blowing up. Does anything feel broken?”

“My knees are grazed and my elbow hurts a little…. Are you okay?”

“I must look worse than I feel. If you promise to lie still here and get your breath, I can get back in there and see if I can help.”

“Murph, I’ll be fine here, but do you think you should? We don’t know what caused all this. It looks like there’s real damage to the church. You don’t know what could happen still. Please.”

“We don’t know what happened already, and if anybody’s hurt in there I’ve got to find a way in.” He turned back to the church. Black smoke was billowing out of the doors. A dozen other people had walked out unscathed and were sitting or lying on the grass. That left how many?

He watched as a petite figure covered in plaster dust walked unsteadily toward them. Shari.

Murphy went to her, ready to catch her if she fell, but she shook her head and pushed him away. “Paul,” she said in a croaky voice. “We have to find Paul.”

She’s in shock
, Murphy thought. “It’s okay, Shari. Paul isn’t here. He wasn’t in the church.”

She took his arm in a fierce grip. “His car. It’s in the lot. He must have gotten here early. He’s here.”

“But where? We would have seen him.”

Her eyes went wide. “The basement!”

Murphy gently took her hands and squeezed them between his. “Okay. Stay here with Laura. Don’t worry, I’ll find him.”

He pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his nose and mouth as he stepped back into the inferno. The smoke was
thinning now, and in the dim glow of the emergency lights he could see people stumbling toward the doors while others tended to the injured. Over the crackle of the flames and the sound of wooden beams splintering like rapid gunshots, he could hear someone moaning.

He saw Wagoner bent over a prostrate figure and clambered over an upturned pew to reach him.

“Bob. Thank God. Are you okay?”

“I think my arm’s broken, and my head feels like it’s been knocked around a little, but I’m in one piece. I’m not so sure about Jenny,” he said, looking down at a middle-aged woman in a tattered white dress streaked with black. Her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. Murphy put his ear to her mouth while he felt for a pulse.

“I think she’s dead.”

Wagoner closed his eyes. “Dear God.”

Murphy clutched his shoulder. “We need to get help here, Bob.”

“I called. They’re on their way.”

“Good. Can you make it to the door?”

“I’m not going anywhere. There may be other people—”

“The emergency guys will be here any minute. It’s not safe. The roof beams could start coming down.”

Wagoner got to his feet and started reluctantly for the front of the church. He turned. “What are you doing, Michael?”

Murphy was already heading toward the ruined pulpit. “I’ll be right there. Something I’ve got to do first.” And then Wagoner lost him in the smoke.

The explosion had ripped a huge hole in the floor behind the altar, and through the flames Murphy could see shreds of
clothing floating amid a jumble of twisted metal and broken timber. He had no idea how hot it was down there or whether there was any air to breathe, but he could see a spot on the concrete floor that seemed to be clear of debris, so he took a deep breath and jumped.

He landed in a crouch, his hands sinking into a pile of clothing that hadn’t yet caught fire, and then he was up, handkerchief to his face, shouting above the roar of collapsing timbers. “Paul! Can you hear me? Paul!”

He thought he heard a noise—something faint but human—coming from the back of the basement, the farthest point from the seat of the blast. Skirting piles of blackened paint tins and upturned filing cabinets, he made his way along the wall until he could see a hand sticking out from under a pile of boxes. He hefted them aside, and there was Paul, curled up with one hand under his chin as if he were asleep. There was no time to examine him properly, to see if any major bones were broken, and he just had to hope there was no damage to his neck or spine. He went down on one knee, got both arms under him, and staggered upright.
Through there
, he thought, turning toward the narrow archway.
Let’s just hope there’s a way out
.

There was a loud crash behind him, and he felt a rush of heat against the back of his neck. He lurched forward and his knee struck something hard. He almost went down, but he was in the main part of the basement now and he could see the concrete steps. Grimacing with the effort, he shifted his grip to get a better position under Paul’s shoulder and put one foot on the bottom step.