Hurricane Hurley hung back as the rest of the group pushed forward. Although his manner was outwardly casual, his nerves had not been this on fire since the Great War. Some of his anxiety stemmed from the Padre's bizarre revelation. He had known the man for close to twenty-five years and while he had always found the priest to be something of an enigma, he would never have imagined anything as crazy as what Hobbs had just suggested. But that was only part of it and insofar as there wasn't a thing he could do about it, a relatively small part at that.
No, what really had his sixth sense buzzing was the more familiar threat of enemy action. Just as during the war, the longer it stayed quiet, the greater the certainty of an attack. It wasn't just paranoia. If Dodge had found them so easily, despite their best efforts to conceal their approach, then their foes could surely do so as well. The fact that there had been no overt attack did not mean that they weren't being watched. In fact, Hurricane was quite certain that they were being watched and he intended to do something about it.
Despite his massive size, he was very adept at melting into the scenery. He paused to study various pieces of statuary, scanning left and right with his peripheral vision, while his eyes stared straight ahead. He stopped to tie his boot laces, studying the reflection in the crystal of his wristwatch to see if they were being followed. When the rest of the group rushed after the Padre into the cleft, he too dashed around the corner, then spun on his heel and waited to see if the three figures, bundled up just a little too much considering the tropical weather, would hasten after them.
They did. And he was ready.
As he stepped back around the corner, the first of the robed pursuers crashed headlong into his chest and rebounded backward, sprawling onto the well-worn path. The other two stopped dead in their tracks, as if uncertain what to do, but Hurricane did not hesitate. In a single fluid motion, he swept them up together in the crook of his right arm, crushing them against his solid chest. At the same time, he planted his left foot squarely on the forearm of the fallen figure, pinning his right arm to the ground.
A muffled curse issued from behind the swath of fabric obscuring the man's face, but Hurricane ignored the outburst and instead used his free hand to strip away the disguises of the other two. The turbans fell away and Hurley's eyes grew wide with surprise and dismay. "But if… oh, no!"
Hobbs felt a tingling sensation in his extremities, like a static charge building up to deliver a stunning electric shock. He had felt this before. He felt it whenever he touched the Staff and he had felt it in London just before the metal column came to life and started killing. It was the feeling of power; a power that responded uniquely to him. It was, he now understood, his birthright.
He faced the blank wall of rock before him, studying it as he might once have studied a stained glass window in a cathedral. But never again, he thought. The doors of the house of God are no longer open to me. But this door…
Even as he formed the thought, he became aware of a T-shaped doorway, just like those in the other caves, set in the rock face.
"That wasn't there before," Molly gasped behind him.
"No," Dalton said. "But now it is. Open sesame." And then without another word or a look back, he entered the cave.
Hobbs' hand strayed to this throat, touched the clerical collar. Though it had been a part of him for longer than he could remember, it now felt foreign; like it might constrict at any moment and choke the life out of him. His fingers tightened on it and he felt an almost overwhelming urge to rip it loose.
But he did not.
If this is to be my destiny, he thought, then I will meet it as I have met every day; as a man of God.
He forced his fingers to relax and then reached out instead to take Molly's hand. He even managed a wan smile. "Let's go see what's in there, Molly girl."
The doorway may have been the work of human artisans, but the passage beyond appeared to be a continuation of the cleft in the hillside. The meandering path leading deeper underground had evidently been cut by the elements. The stone floor and walls were damp and speckled with a growth that, Molly soon realized, was providing a dim orange glow. Luminescent lichen, she thought and hoped that was all it was.
The rapid beat of footsteps echoing through the passage suggested that Dalton was running. Molly couldn't imagine why; she was dreading what they would discover and she could feel the same dread radiating from her father.
Father. He was her father. He was a good man. Therefore, he could not be the Child of Skulls and nothing they might discover would change that. So, she thought, no reason not to hurry.
The path sloped away steeply for about a hundred yards, then leveled out as another T-shaped doorway appeared. As they passed through it, Molly realized they were no longer in a cramped natural tunnel, but rather standing on a narrow walkway or possibly a bridge, that traversed a vast open chamber. The phosphorescent lichen continued to light the footpath, but the dimensions of the cavern were shrouded in complete darkness. Even the far end of the crossing remained hidden in shadow until she and her father crossed half the span. Only then did she see a sheer wall of rock, extending away into darkness in every direction, with a single doorway — a rough-hewn arch rather than a T — directly ahead. It took her a moment to realize that the light was streaming from the opening and she quickened her pace.
The first thing she saw beyond the arch was Dalton, standing motionless near the center of a domed chamber, like some kind of underground basilica, about fifty yards across. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several more arched passages, at least a dozen, leading out of the round cavern, but these barely made an impression on her consciousness. Instead, her gaze gradually moved past Dalton to the object at the exact center of the room, a tall pillar of silvery metal, capped with the image of a coiled snake with a skull in its jaws.
"Don't touch it!" she cried.
He paid no heed, but instead reached out with his right hand….
Suddenly, Hobbs was beside him. The priest had moved in the blink of an eye, dashing around her to prevent Dalton from making contact with the pillar. He seized the young man's outstretched hand and thrust it aside.
The priest's usually taciturn manner evaporated in a blaze of passion. "Dodge, whether you believe what I said or not, this pillar is dangerous. You don't know what you're dealing with here."
"You old fool," Dalton rasped. He tore his hand free of the Padre's grip, then in the same move tried to backhand him. Hobbs was taken completely by surprise. The blow, which he could have deflected almost without thinking, struck his jaw and sent him reeling a few steps back. He recovered quickly, instinctively striking a te stance, even though his face betrayed his confusion.
Molly too could not believe what had happened. She rushed in from the opposite side and attempted to interpose herself between Dalton and the column. He immediately gripped her shoulders, squeezing hard enough to make her wince and tried to thrust her aside, but she got hold of his shirtfront and when he sent her stumbling, she pulled him along. As they crashed to the floor together, for just a fleeting instant, she wondered if the pillar had somehow affected his mind or if perhaps he had become like the people from Flight 19. But then he smashed his fist into her solar plexus and drove that thought, along with every other, right out of her head. She doubled over in pain, unable to breathe for several seconds.