The Devil’s Peak II, page 19
Drake threw his head back and gasped. And then coughed up the water-laden air from his last big deep breath. He grinned, and then laughed out loud – nothing had ever smelled so sweet. And that glimmer he had seen? It was a half-moon, silver, and shining like the most beautiful gemstone he had beheld in his life.
Beside him, Isabella came to the surface. “Yes!” she yelled.
Not far away, they saw Leonidas stroking toward a boat, and a man onboard had a flashlight shining at them.
“Ahoy,” he yelled.
Isabella swam to Drake and put a hand on his shoulder. “We made it.” She wiped the hair from his face.
“How long? How long was I down there?” he asked. “It seems like I was trapped there for years.”
“Time means nothing down in the land of dark eternity,” she replied. “But you were only gone two weeks.” She tugged him towards the boat and started to swim backwards, keeping her eyes on him. “Come on, much has changed. And there is much you need to catch up on.”
“I’d follow you anywhere,” he said and swam after her.
CHAPTER 27
Italy, Rome, Vatican City, Vatican Library – the scroll room
The discovered scroll was tugged out a fingernail’s width more, sprayed with a fine mist of a hydrating and softening solution, then paused, waiting for a full minute to let it soak in and then dry.
The newly released scroll section was then passed under a special blue light that brought out the dyes and inks, and though it could never bring them back to their full radiance, it made them readable. And then the process was repeated for another minuscule tug.
Father Francesco Magnoli was one of the dedicated archivists whose role was to oversee the care and security of the fragment. Stationed with him was a Templar Knight. After the intrusion of a few months back no more chances were to be taken. There was too much at stake now.
Fixed above the treatment cabinet was a camera recording everything. But Magnoli was impatient to read every scrap that was newly revealed. And when he read, his eyes went wide.
He rushed to the camera and printed off the last few images.
“You have something?” the Knight asked.
“I think so. Something fantastic,” Magnoli said. “I must tell the Holy Father. Wait here.”
He rushed from the basement archive room and headed for the ancient stone steps, running up them until he came to the huge and ornate ground floor. From there he headed to a special elevator, entered his passcode, and the door slid open. It would take him directly to the Holy Father’s residence.
Magnoli inhaled; inside it smelled of expensive incenses and fine silks, and he drew it in deeply, believing it might be the essence of the Pope.
Once the elevator opened he rushed to the double oak doors, and the Knights barred his way.
“I have urgent news for his eminence,” he begged.
A green light went on beside them on the wall, as the security camera had granted him access.
Magnoli rushed in where several cardinals were flanking the Pope. He went down on his knees.
“You have found something?” The Pope leaned forward. “A cure to this hellish plague?”
Magnoli shook his head. “The cure is not yet revealed,” he said. “But where it can be found is revealed.”
The Pope closed his eyes and nodded. “By the grace of God.” He opened weary, red-rimmed eyes and leaned forward. “And, where is it?”
Magnoli lifted his eyes. “The Garden of Eden.”
CHAPTER 28
China, Changsha, Hunan Province
The cattle farm was large for China with over ten thousand head of free grazing Huaxi cattle. The weather was benign, the grass thick, and they spent their days eating and snoozing.
When the sun went down many just formed into groups and knelt or folded themselves to the ground, close enough to enjoy the herd’s communal warmth, but far enough apart to not be stifled by the methane gas belching stomachs.
When it became full dark, the massive fly landed amongst them. In the moonless darkness it moved silently from animal to animal biting each, and inoculating them with a tiny bit of its saliva. Its touch was light and before dawn it was gone.
***
Hung Sen, owner and head chef of the massive West Lake Restaurant always chose the cattle from the herd personally. He liked a good muscle tone, youth, and a hint of fat around the middle.
The West Lake Restaurant was the largest upmarket restaurant in China, and indeed the world, as it boasted a seating capacity of five thousand guests in two large communal dining areas, and with over one hundred private rooms.
Hung Sen had been overseeing the multiple kitchens at the West Lake Restaurant for five years. He had been greeted personally by the premier, and he was known for providing the best of everything. In return, it was making him a very wealthy and respected man.
The cattle were loaded and his instructions given. The several thousand pounds of meat would go to his restaurant’s personal abattoir, and be stripped down and carved into dozens of different cuts of meat. It would then be delivered to the kitchen’s loading area by 2pm that very day.
Hung Sen jumped into his Mercedes S65 AMG that was the size of a small liner, and turned on the air-conditioning – he changed the vents to internal. Frankly he couldn’t stand the smell of farm livestock. Give him an already skinned carcass any day over a smelly, hairy animal with all that shit between its cloven toes.
***
The sun began to set, and the restaurant managers knew the first of the guests would arrive soon – usually the families with children were first in to enjoy a meal, and then be gone before the small one’s youthful patience ran out.
That night was a special night for the West Lake Restaurant as they had one of the largest private rooms booked out by the premier and his most trusted officials. Plus all their families. There would be one hundred and twenty people, all expecting a memorable banquet. And Hung Sen wanted to deliver.
It would start with the traditional mix of meat dishes – beef, pork, chicken, and fish. Then once the guests’ bellies were starting to fill, he’d bring out the delicacies – the small dishes of panda meat, baby vaquita fillets – it was the world’s smallest dolphin and very rare. There would also be tiger meat for vitality. All this course’s dishes were of highly endangered species, highly priced, and therefore highly valued by the elite guests.
The annoying thing was he would be expected to gift the meal to the premier. It grated on him, as he was supplying millions of yuan of his best produce and meat. But he would be rewarded with the friendship of the premier, and for as long as the man was in power, Hung Sen would be untouchable. And that would be satisfactory compensation.
***
Hung Sen moved between kitchens, testing, tasting, and barking shrill orders. His teams worked like machines and now by 8pm, the dining rooms were at near capacity. He knew that guests came from hundreds of miles to sample the fare at the West Lake Restaurant.
He saw the dishes being prepared for the premier and approved. They would take them in soon, and his waiters were all dressed in red silk outfits, and he too wore a red silk jacket – the color of luck and power. He would be master of ceremonies, and he wanted them all to see who was in charge of their feast. He wanted them all to remember him, and remember this grand night.
The time came and the massive platters were lifted onto red silk shoulders and carried to the elevators. The waiters would all wait until the entire serving team army had arrived to enhance the spectacle, announced by the clap of a gong.
Hung Sen walked along the line of fifty servers. This was only going to be the first of many, many dishes and servings. Added to his team here, the wine and beer pourers would never stop refilling glasses.
Satisfied, he picked up the gong, and entered the stage area above the large private room. He smiled as he observed the loud, happy voices, laughter, fine clothing, and red faces from the champagne.
He drew in a deep breath and with a bang of the gong, the room silenced, and the guests turned.
He smiled down at the elite, the wealthy, the powerful, and the dangerous. Through the haze of cigarette smoke he saw all their round faces shined and flushed from the alcohol. The powdered faces of the wives and mistresses were like perfumed, porcelain dolls.
Hung Sen held his arms wide – they would all remember this night forever.
He bowed deeply, and when he rose, clapped his hands once. “Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, and great premier.” He held out an arm towards the large double doors. “I present, the banquet.”
It began.
***
With military precision, the food went out to tables. The army of attendants strived to get the first course dishes onto every table at the same time.
The first course began with bird’s nest soup, followed by Peking duck. Various seafood dishes came next, all with a variety of crispy fried or lightly sauteed lobster, king crab, shrimp, and a range of shellfish.
Then came the beef dishes. First up, he served Shui Zhu Niurou – it was a Sichuan specialty, and featured wafer thin sliced beef strips that were poached in an oyster and duck brain broth, often with a generous amount of chili oil.
Then came one of his personal favorites, the Black Pepper Beef, a Cantonese delicacy. The dish featured tender beef stir-fried with black pepper, onions, and bell peppers, creating a mouthwatering flavor with a little punch.
Hung Sen was delighted to see plates cleared, and laughter ringing out. The night was going extremely well, he thought.
He headed back to the kitchens, as they would be preparing for the dessert round soon. There would be many small, sweet and savory things to choose from, and they even had a dessert chef that had mastered French pastries.
But the crowning glory would be his famous, and exclusive, Shangri-La’s pudding – dusted with 24-karat gold and priced at around thirty-six hundred Yuan or five hundred US dollars per serving.
He went through the door from the stage and headed for the elevator. He nodded and smiled at some of the waiters still taking out food and returning laden with trays of empty plates.
He could afford to be good humored with them as they had done their jobs masterfully. Each would get a small bonus for their work tonight because he knew the sweetest melodies weren’t just because the orchestra had a great conductor, but because the musicians were on note as well.
Hung Sen sighed contentedly and lifted his arm to press the elevator’s call button, and heard the plates crash to the ground just behind him.
Hung Sen froze, his shoulders hiked – his teeth were gritted in trepidation as he turned and immediately started heading toward the sound. He prayed the plates had fallen in the corridors to or from the dining area. If they had fallen in amongst the guests, there would be embarrassment and his entire evening’s work could be ruined.
He had a knot forming in his stomach as he couldn’t get the image of the plates having fallen on a guest, an important one, and that is all that would be remembered from the evening.
Hung Sen reentered the stage area and looked out over the crowd – his brows snapped together – it was chaos and impossible for him to even try and understand what was happening.
People were grabbing at their necks, writhing on the floor, and screaming. But the more he looked the more he saw, and the worse it got.
There was blood, so much blood. One woman had climbed onto the lap of a large man, and was biting his face, ripping bits of flesh from him as he flayed uselessly, and she was swallowing the gobbets with relish.
Another man was pulling at his hair, then his cheeks, then ears, and then he reached into each side of his mouth and pulled, and pulled harder, stretching the flesh, and finally ripping it.
Hung Sen’s teeth gritted in a rictus of fear as the man pulled the skin back from his own head, and the bloody skull emerged, not dead, but snapping at the air, with lidless, bulging eyes rolling madly. But if that wasn’t enough to tear at Hung Sen’s sanity, the man’s entire skeleton started to pull itself up and out of the torn and sagging bag of skin.
“Stop, please stop!” Hung Sen put his hands to his head and backed up.
No one would have heard him as the sounds coming from inside the private room was the chorus of Hell – the wails, screams, and unearthly grunts and growls of things not of this world.
On the ground just ahead of him, two men looked like they were melting together, and they writhed and wriggled for a moment as the flesh from one flowed over the other like melted candle wax. Their clothing simply melted into the flesh, and in the next moment, the combined thing rose up on all eight limbs, the two heads dangled underneath it on boneless necks, and from the large, joined chest, a mouth ripped open with a wet, sticky noise.
That was enough. Hung Sen turned and ran then, heading out of the room and directly to the elevator. His phone was continually ringing, and he snatched it out, answered it but before he could even speak, he heard people shouting about a madness coming over the other dining areas – it wasn’t just the VIP room, but the entire restaurant.
He disconnected the call and began to run. He didn’t want to wait and see the result of five thousand guests going mad or turning into some sort of horrors from a madman’s nightmare.
It was a disease. Had to be. He had read there was something affecting some of the European nations, and now it had found its way here.
He went straight to the car park, ran to his car, jumped in, and in seconds more he was speeding away into the night.
He began to weep. But then even through his tears he began to laugh, wildly. He had been right; this was going to be a night every one of them would remember.
Just not for the reasons he hoped.
EPISODE 10
To fight evil, first know the darkness.
CHAPTER 29
Florida, Citrus Park, Alvina Street
The Knights had rented a small house in a quiet suburb as yet untouched by the plague and only intended to be there a day or so, giving Drake a little time to recover.
Drake sat out on the back deck on a folding chair just in his shorts and let the glorious sunshine warm his face and body.
Inside the house Marco and Leonidas were already packing their bags and checking weapons. They always seemed to be preparing for their next mission.
Drake’s sixth sense told him he was being watched and he inhaled, smelling Isabella’s sporty deodorant. He bet she was standing at the sliding doors behind him. He knew she had already sent out for some replacement clothing as even his boxer shorts looked like they belonged to a hobo.
He half turned and smiled when he saw her.
“Did it really happen?” he asked.
She came and sat beside him in the next chair. “Unfortunately, yes,” she said.
In her hands she had a computer tablet, and held it out to him.
“It’s not over. And perhaps it has only just begun. The Hell plague is out now, the minions are preparing for the Great Beast’s return.” He took the tablet from her and she sighed. “But first they need to bring the human race low.”
Drake looked at the tablet screen where she had lined up some images and short movies of what was happening around the world – there were images he recognized from his time in Hell, but now they were occurring on the surface world – mutated abominations, monstrosities that stretched the mind into disbelief, and the ground and buildings covered in red veins as though they were sucking the blood from the very Earth and cities.
He frowned down at one image. It showed a giant, a hundred feet high. The massive, deformed thing swatted at planes, attacking like a distorted version of King Kong. But as the vision panned in on it he could see that the enormous being was actually made of hundreds or thousands of people all somehow glued together, and like bristling hairs the arms and legs, hands and feet, stuck out as well as faces pressed into the body, with eyes and tiny mouths open as though screaming in pain or terror.
Drake dropped the tablet into his lap and closed his eyes. “This is a nightmare,” he sighed. “What can we do?”
Isabella leaned back in the chair. She tilted her face and also closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her face. “We fight, of course.” She half smiled. “We fight, we push back, we slow it down.” She sat forward and reached out a hand to lay it on his huge bicep. “We’re in a race, Drake. The beast wants to rise, but the Earth isn’t quite ready yet. We have to make sure it’s never ready.”
Drake rubbed his face with both hands and also sat forward. “How do you convince people to fight against a being many don’t even believe exists?”
“Haven’t you heard?” She half smiled. “The Devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.” She exhaled. “But if they had seen what we’ve seen…”
Drake chuckled. “People think it’s some guy painted red with horns. But it’s not. It is the most monstrous thing you can ever imagine.” He pushed his dark hair back, and groaned. “It’s still in my head.”
She rubbed his arm. “You’re out now. You’re free.”
“Free.” He placed his hand over hers, and nodded. “I hope this is real, and not a trick. Because if I close my eyes and reopen them this time and find myself back there, I’ll go mad.”
“This is real.” Her fingers meshed with his. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, we leave.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “But tonight is ours. And tonight will be real.”
She stood, keeping hold of his hand. He rose with her, and she pulled him and he followed her to her room.
Inside he frowned. “I thought, ah, I thought, being with the Vatican, you were not allowed…?”
She smiled, her dark eyes smoldering up at him. “I am not a nun, Drake Stoker.” She put her hands on his bare chest, feeling the slabs of hard muscle.
