"Hush child," he whispered. "It’s over. I’m setting you free."
But his words did not comfort her and as he drew closer, her fear seemed to multiply exponentially. She shrank back against the stake, pulling at the iron shackles around her wrist until blood began to stream down her arms. Ignoring the outcry, Hobbs focused on his stated purpose. With a swipe of his hand, he broke the chains, releasing her from the bonds imposed by her skull-faced captor.
Jocasta fell back onto the ashes, but hastily scrambled to her feet and fled before him. There was no gratitude for the gift of her freedom, no understanding of his benevolence, only abject horror, but now at least Hobbs understood why. He stared in disbelief at the hand he had used to break the chains — not a thing of flesh, but a misshapen claw of bone that gleamed a deathly orange beneath the bloody sun….
Hobbs fell back in his chair as if struck by a physical blow. His eyes stung from the rivulets of sweat that had dripped down from his forehead. A few inches away, Jocasta Palmer, likewise soaked in perspiration, sagged exhausted against the ropes that held her. After a moment, she raised her head. "Father Hobbs, fancy meeting you here."
He looked up, his earlier sympathy gone. "Miss Palmer."
She regarded him with practiced coolness. "Care to explain why you have me tied up here? And for that matter where ‘here’ is?"
"Don’t you remember?"
"Remember?" The sapphire eyes narrowed as she searched her mind and her unruffled expression cracked a bit. "I don’t…we were flying from Bermuda; that’s the last thing I remember."
Hobbs sighed. "I see. So you’ve no memory of what happened after that? Of the skull men from the submarine?"
"Skull men." It wasn’t a question. "They drugged me."
"I think they did a lot more to you than that. You and everyone on that flight."
A weary look replaced her confident calm. "Dare I ask how you came to be mixed up in this? Are you and Zane still fighting the good fight?"
Hobbs winced. He had almost forgotten the brief romance between Jocasta and his superior officer, Captain Zane Falcon prior to the caviar incident and wasn’t sure which stung more: the fact that Falcon had been sleeping with the enemy, so to speak or the tragic fate that had subsequently befallen the man he had so come to admire.
"After a fashion," he answered. "But right now, I’m more interested in what you’ve been up to."
"My dear Father Hobbs, a lady never tells."
"You can tell me anything; I’m a priest." He offered a patronizing smile. "Why were you on that flight, Jocasta? The villain behind all this made sure you would be there because he wanted your unique skills to steal something very important. The job that you were coming here to do was a setup. Who were you working for?"
"I don’t work for anyone," she answered haughtily, but her defiance was half-hearted. "However, I was approached by a man and offered a particularly large finder’s fee for recovering some family heirlooms that had been brought to America by mistake."
"What was his name?"
"He was a kraut fellow, about your age. Schadel was the name."
"Schadel? Are you certain?"
"Quite. Easy to remember because he seemed such a shady character. Of course, it was probably an alias. No one uses their Christian name in this business."
"I don’t wonder." Hobbs leaned back in his chair, pondering the villain’s chosen nom de guerre, but a knock at the door interrupted his musings. He opened it to find Hurley and Molly waiting eagerly on the threshold.
"Everything all right in there, Padre? We were a little worried when things got quiet."
Before Hobbs could answer, a lilting voice called from inside the room. "Brian, is that you, love?"
Hurley’s face twisted with rage, but Hobbs hastily pushed him back into the hallway and closed the door behind him. "Same old Jocasta," he explained. "Which is actually a good thing, believe it or not. This is much worse than we could have believed, Hurricane."
"That’s hard to imagine. What could be worse than what we just went through?"
"The end of the world."
Hurley blanched. "Oh, yes. Well, I can see where that would…"
"Every religion — every culture that has ever existed on this planet — has a prophecy regarding the end. For some, it’s the herald of a golden age, but for most…" He shook his head. "In the book of Revelation, it was foretold that Death would ride like a horseman, killing a fourth of the Earth with war and plague."
"Ancient superstitions," scoffed Hurley unconvincingly. "How many times have people predicted the end of the world, but it’s still here."
Hobbs drew in a sharp breath. "There was another prophecy, one not quite so ancient. Not quite fifty years ago, a psychic medium in London had a vision of the birth of the figure many believe will bring about the end of the world — a boy called the Child of Skulls. The vision was so terrifying that it killed her."
Hurley’s remained doubtful, but the priest pressed on. "That child would be a man now, in his forties. I only bring this up because of what Jocasta just told me. She and all the other zombies — if that’s what you want to call them — were on a flight from Bermuda that was intercepted by a German U-boat. The hijackers wore skull masks to hide their identities. They took control of an entire plane full of people in less than a day; that's something beyond drugs, beyond hypnosis. Moreover, the man that originally hired her gave the name Schadel, which is German for ‘skull.’"
"I don’t know, Padre. It’s a stretch."
"Is it? You know as well as I what Hitler wants. World domination. What would happen if he got his hands on the Staff and the technology at the Outpost?"
"The end of the world," breathed Molly.
"That's what's at stake."
"I'm not saying I believe any of this," Hurley intoned. "But there's no arguing that we're up against someone big and bad and that just gets my fur up. Who is this Skull guy, anyway?"
"I'm hoping Jocasta can help us figure that out."
The big man scowled. "That's not in her nature."
"Perhaps not. But if she refuses to actively help us, we can always explore other ways to get the information we need."
Molly recoiled at the thought, but said nothing. She knew too well that sometimes, desperate measures were required to solve desperate problems.
"Well, then let's give her a chance." Hurricane thrust open the door to the cell and marched inside. He stopped so abruptly that Hobbs crashed into his broad back.
"Hellfire! She's gone."
Hobbs pushed past, his heart in his throat, but no amount of wishing could alter the simple truth of Hurley's outburst. Where Jocasta Palmer had sat a few minutes earlier, there was only an empty chair and loops of rope coiled like vipers on the floor. One of the narrow windows had been forced open, allowing wind and drizzle to permeate the musty room; a small portal through which to escape, but not too small for the lithe cat burglar.
"God damn her!" Hobbs raged.
Molly was doubly stunned. Losing their captive was bad enough, but she had never seen her adopted father lose his temper like this. The priest flew into a rage to rival Hurricane's most frightening outburst, prompting the big man to ultimately grip Hobbs' shoulders. "Padre, get control of yourself."
Hobbs, beet-red with uncontrolled wrath, shook in his friend's grasp, a man possessed. "You don't understand Brian," he rasped, barely able to get the words out. "She has the Staff!”
CHAPTER 6 — THE FALLEN ANGEL
There was a single golden instant where he might have been able to break through their ranks. The athlete in him assessed the advancing line of dull-eyed but quick footed attackers and instantly spied the weak spot; it might hurt, but with sufficient resolve and momentum, he would have made it through. But Fuller’s indecisiveness was contagious and in the brief moment it would have taken him to explain, the opportunity was lost.