Dalton was back on his feet immediately, squaring off against the Padre. And this time his hands weren't empty. He held a familiar metal object in both fists, like a baseball slugger awaiting a pitch. "You and your delusions," he hissed. "Like you could ever be the Child of Skulls."
"Drop it or I'll drop you!" Hurricane's roar thundered in the chamber.
Molly caught her breath in a gasp and looked up to see Hurley standing just inside the arch, with both pistols trained on Dalton…
Except Dodge was standing right next to him, along with three others: Winterbourne, who also had his revolver drawn; the scientist she had met once or twice, the one Hurricane called Newton; and the blond jewel thief that had escaped them in New York. But if Dodge was with Hurricane, then who…?
"I think you know," the man holding the Staff said, in a cold condescending voice that was nothing like the voice of the man whose face he wore, "that you haven't got a prayer of hitting me. If you thought otherwise, you'd have already pulled the trigger."
As if to underscore his point, a corona of violet energy erupted up and down the length of the Staff.
Hurricane did not waver, but nor did he pull the trigger. "Don't suppose anyone else has a better idea," he muttered under his breath.
"I do." Hobbs moved again, this time with his usual deft purposefulness. His attack was slow enough to slip right through the invisible force field. His left hand closed around the Staff, while his right formed into a claw that tore into his foe's false face. Theatrical putty fell away in ribbons to reveal a gleaming skull face beneath, but the damage Hobbs inflicted was literally only cosmetic.
Neither man would release their hold on the Staff. As they struggled for possession the blaze of electricity grew to blinding intensity. Hobbs, who had trained for many years in the art of unarmed combat, was clearly the better fighter, but his foe seemed to have tapped into a vein of primal resolve. He planted his feet, threw all of his weight sideways and both men careened into the column. The Staff struck the larger metal post a glancing blow, but it was enough. The enormous pillar rang like a bell, vibrating with such intensity that Molly had to clap her hands to her ears. Even then, she could feel the low hum resonating through her entire body.
At that instant of contact, the Staff seemed to explode out of the hands of the two men who fought for it. It hit the stone floor without bouncing and began rolling toward the quintet gathered at the entrance arch. Hurricane fluidly holstered his pistols and knelt to retrieve the relic, but before he could grasp it, he froze statue still. Molly saw the others react to something as well, but it was only when Hurricane straightened up that Molly saw a gleaming strip of metal pressed to his throat.
It was the blade of a sword.
The man Molly knew as Mr. Savile stepped around Hurricane, the sword in his right hand pressing hard enough that the tip had already opened a flow of blood. Molly saw a that a smaller blade was being held to Dodge's throat — the real Dodge — in the hands of the young man who had rescued them outside Winterbourne's London apartment. Though she could not see the decorative hilts of those weapons, she recognized them instantly. The Fraternis Maltae!
Savile swept up the Staff in his left hand and tipped it to his forehead in a mocking salute. "Thanks ever so much."
The sudden appearance of the assassin monks had caused a lull in the struggle between Hobbs and his skull-faced opponent. All traces of the disguise had fallen away, removing as well all traces of the man's humanity. There was only bleached scar tissue, indistinguishable from the white bone of his skull. His shrunken skin had drawn away from his teeth to give him a perpetual death's head grin. His lashless eyelids seemed barely able to contain the round orbs of hatred that bulged from his eye sockets. And when he saw Savile holding the Staff, he discovered some untapped reserve of rage. He hurled the priest away and wrapped both arms around the towering column.
"I am the Child that was prophesied!" he cried. "And I claim my kingdom. Armies of Hell, I summon you! Lay waste to this world!"
His shout echoed tinnily beneath the dome, sounding to Molly like the histrionic ravings of a madman shouted in a subway tunnel. But even before the last syllable was uttered, the air in the basilica began to hum once more. Orange light, the color of a funeral pyre, blazed to life in the vast space beyond the arched portals. A hot wind rushed in, laced with the stink of sulfur and in the distance, a sound like the coils of a serpent sliding over stone or the unfolding of enormous leathery wings, signaled that something had heard the Skull's call and was answering.
CHAPTER 19 — TO REIGN IN HELL
Although he could feel the keen knife edge pressing into the vulnerable skin of his throat, Dodge knew that every second counted and that getting cut or even killed would matter little against what was about to happen. He hoped his captor would be distracted enough by what was going on all around, to give him a slight advantage.
Now or never, he thought.
His left hand snaked up across his chest and wrapped around the dagger man's wrist. At exactly the same instant, his right fist went straight out in front of him then recoiled like a piston, driving his elbow into the man's ribs. He heard the stunned attacker's breath whoosh from his lungs, even as he pushed the blade away from his throat and twisted the arm holding it. The bones and tendons in the man's arm popped and the stiletto fell harmlessly to the ground, but Dodge wasn't finished. He threw his weight back, driving his elbow in once more, crushing his assailant into the wall of the chamber.
Hurricane moved just as quickly, jerking away from the deadly sword tip and drawing his enormous hand cannons in a single fluid motion. The twin barrels came together, tracking the swordsman even as the latter tried to dart away.
The man wielding the long blade knew the sword would be useless against Hurricane's guns and so decided instead to grab a shield. He twisted away from Hurley's sights and with the same hand that still held the Staff, snatched a handful of Jocasta's hair and hauled her in close. "Put your guns down or I'll cut her head off," he hissed, holding the naked blade to her throat and dragging her toward the arched exit.
Hurricane cocked his head sideways. "Mister, you couldn't have picked a worse hostage. I wouldn't give a plug nickel to save her pretty little head."
"Hurricane!" Dodge warned, stepping forward, while not quite putting himself in the line of fire. He faced Jocasta's captor. "I don't think you understand what's going on here, but trust me when I say, that the fate of the world is at stake. Just give me that Staff, let her go and you and your friend can walk out of here."
"Fate of the world?" The man laughed contemptuously. "Is that the best you've got?"
"Good God, Savile!" Winterbourne exclaimed. "Look around you. The gates of Hell have opened."
"Gates of Hell? And I suppose this is the key to shut them again? I'd say that only improves my bargaining position." He took another backward step, through the arch.
Dodge followed, keeping his hands held out to show that he posed no threat, but refused to let the man get more than a few steps away.
Only thirty-six hours earlier, in South Africa, he, Newcombe and Jocasta had been trying to figure out their next move. Ironically, the story that Schadel, disguised as Dalton, had told about using Jocasta's criminal contacts to follow the movements of Dodge's friends across Europe, was not that far from the truth. Dodge had sent out telegrams to every airport along their flight path, trying to figure out where the Catalina had set down to refuel. Their first positive response, from a seaplane port in France, had yielded up a second, very important piece of information, regarding a passenger that had been let off there, a man named Sir Reginald Christy.