Hunt at World's End (19 page)

Gabriel finished going through his pockets—no shells.

He chanced a look down at the ground. Grissom swung his shotgun up to fire at him, but as he pulled the trigger Joyce reached up with one arm and clocked
him on the side of the head. The gunshot went wide—and Grissom went down to his knees. Gabriel saw Joyce drop the stone she’d picked up from the ground and run over to the statue’s leg to begin climbing herself.

“No, Joyce—don’t come up here,” Gabriel called, but either she couldn’t hear or wasn’t listening, since she kept coming. And Gabriel had more immediate things to worry about, as DeVoe made the leap from the statue’s side to the thumb of its upturned hand. Gabriel bent to pry the mercenary’s fingers off the stone, but they were like steel. As he raised the stock of the shotgun to bring it down on DeVoe’s fingers, DeVoe swung his legs up, dealing Gabriel a savage kick in the temple. Gabriel fell sideways, almost toppling off the hand entirely. He felt a trickle of blood well up and touched the side of his face. His hand came away sticky. Steel-toed boots. An inch or two to the left and he’d have been wearing an eyepatch like DeVoe’s—assuming he’d survived at all.

DeVoe pulled himself up onto the palm. He drew Gabriel’s Colt from his belt, pointed it at him, and held out his free hand. Palm up, like Teshub’s. “Come on, Hunt. There’s nowhere for you to go. Just hand the jewels over.”

“You won’t shoot,” Gabriel said, panting. “You might damage the jewels. Maybe blow us all up.”

“You think I can’t put a bullet through your head without hitting that vest?” DeVoe said. “Does eight years as a sniper with the U.S. Army mean anything to you?”

“Bet you still had both your eyes back then,” Gabriel said. “And your depth perception.”

DeVoe cocked the gun and aimed it.

At that moment, the helicopter flew over them again. Another missile shot out of the open door in its side and landed in the middle of the battlefield. The explosion knocked both Gabriel and DeVoe off their feet. Gabriel managed to hold onto the statue’s stone fingers, but DeVoe teetered on the edge and went over, clawing at the air. Gabriel crawled to the edge. The mercenary was forty feet off the ground clinging to a fold of Teshub’s stone robe. Shaking his head to clear it, planting his feet solidly against the statue’s side, DeVoe started climbing again.

A glance in the other direction showed Gabriel that the battlefield had been thoroughly decimated. Bodies lay scattered across the sand. Few of the figures were moving on either side, and those that were were moving slowly—white robes crawling back toward the desert, bloodstained khaki fatigues toward the jeeps. The helicopter was flying off again, smoke trailing from bullet holes in its tail.

Who the hell is that?
Gabriel thought.
And whose side is he on—Grissom’s or the cult’s?

As Gabriel rose to his feet, he saw that, climbing swiftly, DeVoe had made it up to the statue’s shoulder. He watched as the mercenary climbed up to the crown of the statue’s head. Unfortunately, DeVoe had managed to hold onto the Colt, and now he had a perfect vantage point from which to use it.

“Gabriel!” Joyce shouted. He looked down. Joyce had reached the side of the statue directly across from the hand. Holding on with both knees and one hand, she flung something at him with the other—a handful of shotgun shells. One flew by well out of reach; he grabbed at the others. One landed squarely in his palm. Turning, he slammed the shell into the chamber and aimed at DeVoe, who was balanced atop the head
and turning the Colt toward Gabriel. They both grabbed for their triggers—but Gabriel got to his first, the blast hitting DeVoe in the chest. The force of the buckshot knocked him backward off the statue. He cried out as he fell, twisting in the air. The mercenary slammed into the ground seventy feet below, his cry suddenly silenced.

Gabriel helped Joyce up onto the statue’s hand. She threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on his mouth.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“For not being dead,” she said. “Yet. Do you have the Eyes?”

“All three of them,” Gabriel said. He patted the vest, where the Three Eyes of Teshub felt like they were throbbing. He noticed they’d grown progressively warmer with their proximity to the statue.

A shotgun blast rang out, and a chunk at the end of the statue’s middle finger broke off. Gabriel peered down. Below, Grissom was aiming up at them. Gabriel ducked back as Grissom fired again, the buckshot peppering the edge where he’d been kneeling. He took one of the gemstones from the vest—the ruby—and handed it to Joyce. “We’ve got to split up,” he said. “Keep them away from Grissom.”

“We’re pretty far from Grissom up here,” Joyce said.

“Not for long,” Gabriel said, and pointed. Sure enough, Grissom had begun making the climb. Daniel tried to grab hold of his leg, but Grissom kicked him away, sending him sprawling.

Gabriel groped for another of the shotgun shells Joyce had thrown earlier; several lay scattered around the palm. He reloaded the gun, then took the vest and climbed with it precariously up Teshub’s bent arm and across to the statue’s massive head, balancing
with both arms out like a high-wire walker. He stopped beside one of the figure’s ears. Looking back, he saw that Joyce was still standing on the upturned palm—and Grissom was coming closer by the second.

“Joyce, get away!” he shouted.

She stuffed the ruby under her belt, but didn’t move off the hand. Grissom was started to make his move across, his shotgun strapped across his back.

“Joyce!” Gabriel cried again.

“I can take care of this bastard,” she said. Standing over Grissom, she pulled back one leg to kick out at his head—but he snaked an arm around her other ankle and yanked, bringing her crashing down.

Grissom pulled himself the rest of the way onto Teshub’s palm and swung the shotgun off his back. He leveled it at Joyce. “Get up,” he said. “Slowly.” Grissom kept the gun on her as she did. The ruby glinted at her waist.

Sighting down the barrel of his shotgun from his perch by the statue’s ear, Gabriel cursed under his breath. There was no way he could pull the trigger without spraying them both with buckshot. He thought of what Joyce said back in Borneo, that if he had to make a choice between saving her and stopping Grissom, he should forget about her and do what needed to be done. She’d meant it, and he’d promised that he would. The trigger felt cold against his fingertip. His heart hammered his ribs. Sweat trickled from his forehead.

The question was whether he could do it.

He looked down into Joyce’s eyes and lowered the shotgun.

Grissom came around behind her, using her as a shield, the shotgun pointed up at her head. It was an awkward angle, but by bending over slightly he man
aged to keep his finger on the trigger. “If you don’t want to see your lovely friend’s brains spread across the desert, throw down the gun and come back here
now.
This is it, Hunt—the end of the line.” He smiled, but there was nothing of pleasure in it. “World’s End,” he said.

Gabriel aimed the shotgun again, but all he could see was half of Grissom’s head behind Joyce’s grimacing face. “I’m in no mood to repeat myself,” Grissom called. He grabbed Joyce’s hair, pulling her head back, and with his other hand jammed the shotgun muzzle under her jaw.

Gabriel lowered the shotgun and let it drop from his hands. It sailed down from where he stood until it was lost in darkness. They heard it land on the sand below.

“Very good,” Grissom said. “Now come back here.”

Gabriel walked along the statue’s outstretched arm back to the hand.

Grissom’s eyes narrowed as he watched Gabriel approach. “No surprises, Hunt.” He pushed the muzzle harder against Joyce’s jaw.

“Don’t do it, Gabriel,” Joyce managed to say through clenched teeth.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Gabriel said.

“You’ve got to—” she began, but Grissom silenced her with another jab of the gun.

“Now,” Grissom said. “Please take the ruby.”

“
Take
it?”

“Yes,” Grissom said. “Thousands of years ago, the Hittite Empire hid the Three Eyes of Teshub around the world. Now, I am going to let you have the honor of being the man who gives them back.”

Gabriel lifted the ruby out from under Joyce’s belt. He could see how rapidly she was breathing. She was frightened—but of what? That Grissom would pull the trigger? Or that he wouldn’t, because Gabriel would do what he wanted?

“Let her go,” Gabriel said. “I’ll do it—but let her climb down. Her uncle can get her to safety.”

“Not just yet,” Grissom said. “Miss Wingard is my insurance policy…aren’t you, my dear?” He stroked her cheek with the gun barrel, then turned back to Gabriel. “You’ll do exactly as I say, or she dies. If you run, she dies. If you drop the gemstones, she dies. If you try anything at all, she dies. Am I being clear enough?”

“Perfectly,” Gabriel said. He looked at Joyce. Her eyes pleaded with him not to do it. He looked back at Grissom. “What do you want me to do?”

“You can start by returning to the top of the head,” Grissom said. “Go slowly, so I can see what you’re up to at all times. I’ll tell you what to do next once you’re there.”

Gabriel put the ruby back in the vest’s largest pocket and walked carefully along the statue’s arm. He climbed up onto the shoulder and from there up the slope toward the head. Halfway up, his foot slipped on some loose sand still covering the stone. He groped with his fingers for a handhold and found a seam between stones just deep enough to hold onto. His heart pounding, he looked down at the ground seventy feet below. He’d almost gone the way DeVoe had. He took a second to make sure of his footing, then pulled himself upright and moved slowly until he was standing between the shoulder and neck again.

Up close, he could see that Teshub’s face had been carved from two blocks of stone. A long, narrow seam ran from the bridge of the nose down to the tip of the
beard, though, oddly, he saw no mortar in the seam, nothing visibly holding the two pieces together. Using the statue’s ear as a ladder, he climbed up the side of the head.

“Good,” Grissom called when Gabriel reached the top. “Now, give Teshub back his eyes. Slowly! Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Gabriel lay on his stomach and let his head hang down so he could inspect the statue’s eyes. The two sockets looked identical, and measuring them against his hand, he saw they’d fit the emeralds—not the ruby. Gabriel pulled one of the emeralds from the vest. It seemed to hum louder as he brought it near the right eye. As he slid the gemstone into place, he felt it lock in. The glow emanating from the center of the emerald grew stronger until it became a bright green light, shining out across the desert like a lighthouse beam.

He looked over at Joyce and Grissom on the statue’s palm. They were both staring at the beam, awed. Grissom collected himself enough to say, “Now do the other one.”

Gabriel pulled the second emerald from the vest pocket and put it in the socket in the left eye. Another shaft of bright green light shot out from the statue’s head, joining the first. A deep, throbbing rumble sounded from within the statue. It pulsed over and over, almost like a heartbeat.

“Now the last one,” Grissom said.

Gabriel pulled out the ruby. He looked down at Teshub’s huge face but didn’t see anyplace he could put it. The openings in both eyes were filled. The mouth was closed, with no open space between the lips where the ruby could fit. There were no holes for the third gemstone at all.

“Where does it go?” Gabriel called down.

“I don’t know,” Grissom called back. “But you’d better figure it out quickly.” He jabbed Joyce again with the gun. “Any ideas, Miss Wingard?”

“Drop dead,” Joyce said.

“That’s an idea, all right,” Grissom said, “but I don’t know that you really should be suggesting it to a man who’s got a gun on you. Hunt,” he called, “you’ve got till a count of three, then your friend here goes over the side.”

The deep, pulsing rumble continued echoing across the desert. Gabriel looked down at the face again, the twin jade beams shooting out of its eyes. Teshub only had two eyes, as Daniel had pointed out. So where the hell did the third jewel go?

“One!” Grissom shouted.

A final riddle. Gabriel felt certain the answer was right in front of him. It had to have something to do with the legend. He thought back, racing through everything he’d learned: the Spearhead, a powerful device supposedly given to the Hittites by the storm god that could be used for good or evil, and then taken away because Teshub didn’t trust them to make the right choice; the Three Eyes, supercharged gemstones that activated the Spearhead, scattered across the world to keep them from being found, to keep the Spearhead out of mankind’s hands until…

Until what?

“Two!” Grissom shouted.

Gabriel looked at the ruby, trying to clear everything else out of his mind and focus on the legend. Teshub hid the Spearhead because mankind couldn’t be trusted with its power.

Because they didn’t have the judgment to keep it from being used for evil.

No, not the judgment. That wasn’t the word the
legend used. The legend said wisdom. The Spearhead would be hidden from mankind until they had the wisdom to use it for good.

And then he knew. Something he should have seen right away.
The third eye.
It appeared over and over again in the mythology of Eastern cultures, the eye of wisdom. How many times had he seen Buddhist sutras that illustrated the third eye, the eye that wasn’t an eye, drawn right in the middle of the forehead? Hell, he suddenly realized the Death’s Head Key had one on it, the diamond shape between the eyes of the skull…

“
Three!
”

“Hold on!” Gabriel shouted. “Wait! I’ve got it!”

Gabriel reached down and touched the smooth stone of the statue’s forehead, between the eyes. That was another clue, he realized now: the visible seam between the two blocks of stone began lower down, at the bridge of the nose; there had to be a reason it didn’t continue all the way up to the top of the head. Gabriel felt around for a hidden seam, one he couldn’t see. He felt it a moment later, a hairline groove delineating a rectangular area above the nose. Gently at first and then more firmly, he pressed against it. Under this pressure, one half of a small slab swung inward on a hidden axle, while the other half swung out. He turned the convex slab all the way around until it was concave, a depression in the center of the forehead. And at the center of this depression he saw a socket. He didn’t have to measure it to know it was the size and shape of the ruby.

He placed the last jewel into the socket and felt it lock in place. Like the emeralds, its internal glow intensified until a bright red beam shot out, riding atop the twin green ones. The pulsing thrum that emanated
from the statue grew louder and Gabriel heard a grinding deep inside, like the sound of ancient gears beginning to turn.

Gabriel scrambled off the statue’s head and hurried back along the shoulder and arm to the outstretched hand. Grissom still had the shotgun positioned under Joyce’s chin, but he was staring at the beams of light. Gabriel was, too. The three beams intensified to an almost blinding brightness. He shielded his eyes.

And then, suddenly, the Three Eyes of Teshub went dark. Snapped off like blown lightbulbs.

“What happened?” Grissom whispered.

The statue began to shake. Gabriel had trouble keeping his footing. Behind Joyce, Grissom slipped, falling to one knee. Joyce kicked backward, finally connecting with Grissom’s head. He landed on his back, the shotgun skittering out of his grip. He started to get back to his feet, groping for the weapon, but Joyce tackled him, driving one shoulder into his chest.

“No!” Gabriel shouted and grabbed for her—but in an instant they had gone over the side. Gabriel rushed to the edge and looked down. They hit the sand, Grissom on the bottom, beneath Joyce. They hit with the terrible crack of bones breaking. Turning, he leapt across the gap separating Teshub’s hand from his torso, grabbed onto the folds of the storm god’s robe as DeVoe had, and began letting himself down swiftly, hand over hand. When he reached the statue’s leg, he slid down it, letting himself drop the last fifteen feet. Even from that height, the impact wasn’t pleasant—he could imagine what it had been like from more than twice as high. All he could hope was that Grissom had absorbed the worst of it.

He ran over to where Joyce lay. Daniel was there
beside her, holding her hand. She’d rolled off Grissom but hadn’t moved any farther. “Can you stand?” Daniel was saying. “Can you sit up?”

Joyce nodded slowly. “I think so.” But she winced terribly when she tried it and didn’t make it all the way up.

Gabriel looked down at Grissom. He was moaning softly, between wracking coughs.

“My back…” he whispered. “My…”

Blood misted on his lips.

Meanwhile, the statue’s tremors were accelerating, the noise of internal gears growing louder. As Gabriel looked up at it, the statue split suddenly in half, right down the middle, and bright white light spilled out from the opening seam. Each leg split separately down its own seam, though no light came out of those. But the more the seam along the face and torso widened, the more light came pouring out, flooding the entire area. The statue started coming apart as it broke open, huge pieces of stone crashing to the sand below: a thumb, a boulder-sized chunk of Teshub’s robe, the top of his head containing the burned-out Eyes. Inside the collapsing outer shell another shape was being revealed: a monumental crystal obelisk on a forked stand, almost like a giant wishbone or divining rod, nearly as tall as the statue itself. Thick iron bands surrounded the crystal at intervals, connected to long metal posts on either side. The stone was pure white, like a piece of quartz. It emitted a deep, earthshaking hum and blazed from within.

The light at World’s End.

“The Spearhead,” Grissom whispered, and his eyes slid shut forever.

A column of light blasted up from the obelisk into the sky like a beacon. Dark, roiling storm clouds ap
peared above the Spearhead and circled the column. Lightning flashed inside the clouds.

Gabriel struggled to his feet.

“It’s magnificent,” Daniel said. “Still operational after all these thousands of years. It must be some kind of natural generator, but how can it contain so much power?”

Gabriel knelt beside Joyce and slipped one arm under her lower back, one under her knees. He lifted her off the ground. She bent her head toward him, gave his neck a small kiss. “My hero,” she said.

“Daniel,” Gabriel said. “We have to go.”

“We can’t just leave it…”

“Watch me,” Gabriel said, and turned to leave.

Only to find himself face-to-face with the high priest of the Cult of Ulikummis.

The man was leaning heavily on his staff. The front of his robe was soaked through with blood, and a trail of blood extended behind him. But he’d somehow made it this far, and wouldn’t be stopped now. He bent the staff forward and swung it in a tight arc that would have drawn blood if Gabriel hadn’t stepped back, Joyce still in his arms.

The high priest muttered something in Nesili.

“He says he has to receive Ulikummis,” Daniel said. “That he is Ulikummis’s vessel on earth.”

The high priest dragged himself another step forward. He was nearly standing between the forks of the apparatus on which the crystal stood.

Joyce spoke softly, her voice strained. “Put me down. You’ve got…got to stop him.”

But it was Daniel who stepped into the high priest’s path. He swung Gabriel’s Colt up before him, the gun held in both hands. “Not another step,” he said.

The priest sneered and started swinging his staff.

Daniel pulled the trigger. Twice.

The bullets slammed into the high priest’s chest and he jerked from each impact. He staggered—one step—two—and then collapsed on the ground directly beneath the crystal.

A thunderous explosion sounded overhead. Jagged bolts of lightning crackled in the air between the storm clouds and the Spearhead, each blasting the other with raw electrical energy. The light from the obelisk grew brighter, a hundred suns dawning in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. Gabriel used one hand to turn Joyce’s face into his neck and squeezed his own eyes shut. He began running away from the Spearhead, Daniel running beside him as fast as his limping gait could take him. Even through his closed eyelids, Gabriel saw the bright light that washed over them, past them, extending outward into the night. It was warm, but not as hot as he’d expected. He kept running, waiting for the burning blast that would finish them.

It never arrived. When the light had dimmed and the temperature cooled, he stopped running and opened his eyes. The storm clouds had vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. The Spearhead still glowed, but with waning intensity. In a wide circle around it, the sand had turned to glass, stopping less than a yard from where Gabriel, Joyce and Daniel now stood.

And below the Spearhead, where the high priest had lain, a figure was now standing—a figure blazing with a vibrant white light, similar to the crystal’s. Could this be the priest? That he was upright at all was extraordinary—he’d been stabbed and shot twice, he must have lost a gallon of blood. But the energy of the Spearhead seemed to have flowed into him and was animating him like some sort of puppet. He jerked from side to side. It was as if his body had somehow
absorbed the immense power of the Spearhead and was desperately trying to contain it. He bent double, gripping his head in his hands. They heard him begin keening in a voice suffused with pain. The light pouring off of him intensified to a blinding glare. A moment later the light dimmed, then vanished altogether.