Cain (29 page)

"No!" Amy shook her head. "I need to see it again
!"

Mary Francis smiled as she stretched out the string, almost two feet of it tied in a circle, and began to cross her fingers again. Then in a few moments she'd wielded it, explaining it step by step. When she finished she held Jacob's Ladder and
Soloman stared with fascination at what, indeed, resembled a long ladder.

She handed the string to Amy. "Now you do it. I want you to show me."

"But I don't think I can do it."

"None of us know what we can do until we try,
” the old nun responded with a shade of severity. "Remember what you've learned, and go by it. Don't be afraid of failing."

Soloman
stared with a strange nervousness as Amy studied the string. Then she reached out and grasped it, folding fingers carefully through the loop, beginning. He saw Amy glance at Mary Francis again and again, her blue eyes searching, and he began to worry.

Amy worked at it longer and longer, twisting the string only to fail.
But she began again at the Mother Superior's patient instruction. And finally she pulled her hands sharply apart and it was there, a twisting maze of a ladder. With a soft laugh Soloman stood away from the wall, toward the Loach.

He didn't turn his head, but he felt Amy's smile.

***

Ten hours later the Lear landed at Fort Bragg and
Soloman was first off the jet, instructing Ben to obtain some decent food, if possible, for Amy and Maggie and Mary Francis. Then he was in a Humvee that delivered him to the Armory. He went hard through the door to see Chatwell waiting.

"You got it, Sergeant?"

"Yes sir!" Chatwell responded. "Got everything you asked for!"

Instan
tly Soloman lifted a cut-down M-79. The weapon, normally used as a grenade launcher, had been sawed off to sport a seven-inch barrel and pistol-grip to be, altogether, no more than 18-inches long. A makeshift holster fashioned out of a canteen holder with the bottom cut out was beside it. Soloman saw a row of forty-millimeter buckshot rounds, twenty of them, already inserted in a bandolier.

The buckshot rounds, fired from the cut-down weapon, had been one of the least-known and most lethal weapons ever utilized in the Vietnam conflict. It had been developed by Special Forces long-range reconnaissance teams that needed a weapon which could provide an instan
tly devastating response to ambush in thick foliage.

Discharged at an unseen enemy in a point-blank firefight, the
eight-inch barrel spread the buckshot round into a twenty-foot pattern within a distance of fifteen yards hurling two hundred .00 rounds downrange at once. It could vaporize undergrowth, simultaneously kill a dozen men in close formation and be reloaded as quickly as a sawed-off shotgun. The only drawback was that it could fire only one round before reloading. But with that kind of impact, one round was usually enough.

Soloman
smiled. "Just like old times."

"And I got that other thing you asked for, sir." Chatwell lowered his voice conspiratorially as he reached into a bag and removed a large handgun.
Soloman took it and broke it open. It was a Desert Eagle fifty-caliber automatic with a six-inch barrel and an overall length of ten inches. Ten fully loaded clips were beside it, each shell over an inch long.

"I hand-loaded the brass with Winchester 296 grain bullets and fast-burning Hodgdon 1110." Chatwell was openly pleased with his work. "Since that beast is gas-operated you need fast-burning powder or it won't chamber. It'll stovepipe on you. But with that Hodgdon you've got velocity of two thousand feet a second leaving the barrel and an impact of eighteen hundred pounds per square inch at twenty-five yards. I shot five hundred rounds through it yesterday and it chambered
like a champ, so it's broke in real good."

"You did good, Sergeant."
Soloman clapped him on the shoulder. "You got the Loach rigged?"

"Yes sir. You've got an M-134 mini
-gun on the port side and I've set the electric drive at four thousand rounds a minute just like you said. It's got one of the new T-67 engines and an external fuel rack. Top speed is two-forty, range is two thousand nonstop. She's already fueled and on the deck."

Soloman
glanced up from reassembling the Desert Eagle and smiled. "Chatwell, if I had a hundred men like you we might have made the military worth something."

"Somebody should have, sir."

"Are the Apaches on standby?"

"Yes, sir. Malo has got them at a covert site somewhere up north. He didn't say where they were going."

"Okay." Soloman loaded everything in a small duffle. "We're airborne in an hour. Tell 'em to heat up the Loach in forty minutes. Is there anything Malo told you to relay?"

"No, sir." Chatwe
ll's eyes gleamed. "He seemed in a hurry to get out there with that load of C-4. Said he had a hard tour before night. They was loaded down, sir. And I wish I coulda gone with 'em." He paused. "Colonel, you think that maybe I could—"

"No, Sergeant."
Soloman looked up. "You've done your job and then some. And that leg of yours won't hold up in the field. I'm sorry. You're a good man and there's nobody I'd rather have beside me, but you're not in shape for this tour."

Chatwell's fists clenched.

"Tell you what." Soloman lifted his chin. "Howsabout I bring you one of Cain's ears – a souvenir?"

Chatwell's grizzled face beamed.

"That'd do just fine, sir."

***

Agitation, or vivid fear, was etched on the face of the attendant as she opened the rear door of the cockpit. She stood in silence a moment, staring, until the captain, an older man with trimly cut white hair and a handsomely tanned face, turned.

The expansive display of instruments on the panel of the 757 glowed
impressively in an array of yellow and green, every needle steady as they cruised from Los Angeles to New York.

"Yes, Vicki?" he asked.

"There's a ..." she began.

Fell silent.

The captain's eyes narrowed. "Yes? Is there a problem, Vicki? Are you all right?"

"There's
…" She faltered. "I think that there’s something on the plane, sir.”

"Something?" he repeated with a bark of laughter. "You mean we have a stowaway? Somebody doesn't have a boarding pass?"

Her mouth tightened.

Years of proficiency training had prepared the captain for almost any adverse dilemma and he had already unbuckled his seat, rising with a glance at the console, ensuring course and altitude and speed. He placed a finger on the autopilot to ensure that it was locked and glanced at the co-pilot, who was following the conversation with interest.

"Watch the console, Sam," he said as he moved to the attendant.

"Yes, sir."

The captain bent in front of the shorter flight attendant, speaking low. "What is it, Vicki?" His tone indicated there was no room on a flight for a panic attack of any kind.

Remain calm. Always remain calm and go by procedure.

"I sent Bennington below to see if he could find another meal for a first-class passenger," she said, trembling. "And he ... he went down there. But when he came up . . . well, there was something wrong with him, sir. We've had to lay him down."

The captain turned to the co-pilot: "I'm going below."

"Yes, sir."

He moved out the door and was in the attendant area within three minutes, where he saw Bennington, a male flight veteran of five years, lying on a makeshift cot. His eyes were wide and staring. Although attendants were speaking to him in soothing tones, he was uncommunicative.

"Here." The captain moved the rest aside to bend over him, shaking him lightly. "Bennington! What's wrong with you, son?"

No answer.

"Bennington! What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"

Vicki's voice trembled. "Captain, he said something about an ... an animal in the cargo hold. He used the word . . . 'monster.'"

The captain frowned. "I see," he said quietly. "Has anyone been below to investigate?"

"No, sir." The reply was quick. "We didn't know what it could have been because we weren't sure what was inventoried. But I think we have a lion down there that we're transporting for the Bronx Zoo. We thought that maybe
... maybe it could have escaped from the cage and maybe it's loose in the cargo hold."

The captain glanced at the elevator.

"Yes." He paused and concentrated. "Ensure that the elevator is locked. I'll check the manifest. And no one else goes below for the rest of the flight. We'll let security deal with it when we land at Kennedy. Keep Bennington warm." He moved to the cabin. "And make sure to advise me if there's any change in his status."

"Yes, sir."

***

Deep in darkness, submerged in cold, he stared at the door that had just opened, the door where the man had stood. He should have remained silently submerged in shadow, he knew, but he could not resist the glorious expression of galactic rage that thundered from within.

Now, though, he regretted the act because it might lead others here and then he would be forced to abort his plan of stealth. He would have to kill them all – so many of them – and he didn't have time for that.

Five days ...

Five days—it was all he could remember about the incantation—until he must sacrifice the girl, opening the door that would allow him to recreate the full scope of his true glory. But fortunately he also knew the place where it must be done; the Castle of Calistro. And he knew he must still obtain a
Grimorium Verum
for it would reveal the specific ritual, the ritual that could not be violated if he was to regain all that he had lost in this merging.

Yes, the cosmic ritual was complex, and could not be violated.

And he could remember only one member of this continent's High Council – Archette was his name – who must be found so that he might consummate his plan. But there were other High Councils, he sensed, unknown even to this one, and he had to find them, also.

Then there were principalities and powers that served him in
this world – empires already established that would eagerly deliver to him their wealth and influence as soon as they realized he had finally come. And he had to find their names, places.

So he must follow the ritual specified in the book. He must use the
spell contained in the
Grimorium Verum
to cross the void and regain what he had possessed before he assumed this base form of atoms. And for that, he knew, he needed the child. He could use no other flesh because she alone held the keys of this blood. Her blood was the life of his blood.

Although he was strong, he was only flesh and not the same as these ... these
sheep
. For they possessed what he could never possess – a soul, something that had never been created within him. Yet he could still claim what he would claim. He could still forge this world into his throne by the power that was his and his alone. It only required the knowledge that he had somehow lost in the chaotic merging.

Yes, only the child remained. Then he would once again be what he had been
– Lord of the Earth.

He did not want this virus to destroy this world for he did not want a ravaged, ruined planet as his footstool. He did not want to inhabit a world as dead as hated Gehenna, a graveyard of broken stone
s and bleached bones. No, he wanted the living to produce their living, for the more that were living, the more dead he could gather.

The loss of the child pained him, rising in volcanic frustration that flamed to another dimension poisonous with stars that burned as black as those endless clouds of color had once burned, clouds that ran with blood from his righteous rebellion ...

No, he snarled …

N
ever again
...

He stood, glaring down to examine the extent of his healing. Slowly, clenching his fists, he raised them before glowing red eyes,
teeth bared in a bestial exultation of strength.

Yes, he was perfect
– as perfect as he had ever been. And then behind him there was the growl, as had so often been there during the flight.

Without fear he turned, staring into the eyes of the lion.

Caged, it regarded him with distended fangs and a shuddering, guttural, instinctive hate. Muscles, thick and coiling, bunched within the great shoulders and rolled along the flanks. Its hind-legs tensed as if it would attack him through the bars, and he lowered taloned hands to his sides.

"You think to challenge me?" He smiled. "Yes
... Of course you do. Because you are a creature of this hardened world that cannot even remember the glory of what I ruled." The smile faded as he saw something. "You are nothing, beast. You are less than nothing. Not even your instincts can remember those that once trembled this world. You cannot remember the leviathans that rose above the crests of the cedars, or even your own ancestors ... who would have easily feasted on your bones." With the words, he felt a savage thirst. "Yes, who would have feasted ... as I will."