"This," he gestured out at the inferno raging beyond the arches. "It's all wrong. It doesn't make any sense."
Molly could only shake her head, unable to comprehend how to even begin communicating with the strange man.
"This is like a hallucination," he continued. "A nightmare, probably taken from his mind."
"What's that?" Hobbs' stern voice broke through Molly's horror and she turned to find him gripping Newcombe's shoulder. "Say that again?"
The scientist pointed again at the hellscape. "This is something out of classic literature; Dante‘s Inferno. It's not what I saw when I touched the Source… the pillar at the Outpost."
"You've been to the Outpost."
"Yes." Newcombe seemed very excited at the fact that someone was at last asking the right questions. "With our skull-faced friend over there, though we didn't realize it at the time."
Hobbs pressed him. "You saw something when you touched the Pillar?"
"More accurately, I experienced the memories of the men who were stationed at the Outpost. It was a prison for one of their greatest minds…"
There was a scraping noise on the other side of the arch and in spite of her fear, Molly looked out again. She caught just a glimpse of roiling scaled limbs, tipped with claws like daggers, before Hobbs pulled her back. "Dr. Newton, our time is very limited. What did you mean when you said that this is wrong?"
Newcombe's face betrayed that he didn't appreciate being interrupted. "I'm getting to that. The Outpost was a prison and the prisoner in this case was the man who discovered how to tap into that other universe. He was imprisoned in a sort of constant dream state—"
"The Abyss," Hobbs whispered, his face alight with dawning comprehension. "A prison cell where you become trapped in your own mind. So you're saying that what's happening out there is all in our minds?"
"Or in his." Newcombe pointed to Schadel, still hugging the column.
A clawed talon appeared on the threshold of the opening and Molly jumped back, seeking shelter in her father's arms. "Can this hallucination hurt us?" she asked.
"I… I don't really know." Newcombe scratched his head.
"What else did you see? What's really going on here?"
Newcombe blinked, as if mentally translating the question into a more familiar language. "Those pillars! They have entities trapped within them."
"Demons?"
"That might be your word for them, but no. They are just… well, entities… from a universe that is completely removed from ours. The ancients trapped them, enslaved them really, but it didn't end well."
Hobbs pointed at the misshapen mass that was heaving itself through the arch. "Could that be one of the entities?"
"I don't know. They shouldn't be able to exist in our universe. Unless…"
"Unless what?"
"The metal pillars. The entities are trapped within them and scattered all around the globe, but it might be possible for them to manipulate the metal, to wear it like a… a deep-sea diving suit."
"Not just possible," Molly said. "We've seen it happen."
Hobbs glanced around, his gaze finally settling on the pillar in the center of the room. "Why isn't that one moving?"
Molly sensed that the question was rhetorical, but suddenly she realized what he was about to do. "Dad, no!"
But Hobbs had already pushed away from her and was moving toward the pillar.
There were more than a dozen of them, moving in what was almost a precise military rank, three abreast, down the length of the span. Their faces were vacant, as if all traces of personality had been wiped away, but when they moved it was with the cautious grace of stalking lions. When the vanguard of the approaching group caught sight of Dodge, Hurricane and Jocasta, they immediately broke into a run.
Dodge reacted just as quickly, brandishing the Staff and willing it to life, imagining a force field to rebuff the advance.
Nothing happened. The Staff did not so much as tingle against his palm. It was as cold and inert as Jocasta's telescoping burglar tool had been. Once more, the technology from the Outpost had failed him in his moment of need.
Hurricane reached out with one massive arm and swept Dodge and Jocasta behind him, back through the arch leading into the domed chamber and blockaded the entrance with his own body. It was a natural choke point. Hurley would be able to fight them off one at a time, but Dodge knew from bitter experience that Schadel's zombie slaves would fight to the death. He didn't doubt that Hurricane was capable of killing them all, but in the end they were victims of a greater evil and it wasn't right that their blood should be on the big man's conscience… or on his. There was however an alternative.
"Padre!" Dodge shouted over his shoulder. "We could use a little help."
The priest did not answer, but Dodge heard Molly cry out and turned to find Hobbs wrestling to pull Schadel away from the pillar. Then he saw the claws and tentacles and slavering jaws of the beasts struggling to push through the other arches and realized that beating off the Skull's hypnotized zombies was the least of their worries.
Schadel's grip on the column was beyond anything remotely human. Hobbs tugged at his fingers and when that didn't work, tried striking various pressure points and nerve bundles, but the skull-faced man was as impervious as a statue.
"Dodge, they're getting through!" Molly shouted.
He didn't know whether she was talking about Schadel's thralls or the demonic monstrosities, but since the result would be the same either way, he chose not to waste even a single second in looking to find out. Instead, he hefted the inert Staff and ran toward the column. It might have lost its capacity to summon phenomenal technology, but it still had a few uses.
With something like a war cry, he raised the Staff overhead and then brought it down in a hammer blow against Schadel's elbow. Although the ferocity never left the Skull's eyes, his left arm went limp and flopped impotently from his shoulder.
Hobbs instantly seized the advantage and peeled the villain away. "My turn," he said and then embraced the column.
A burst of light flooded the room and when Dodge's vision cleared, he saw that everything had changed.
They were still in the basilica or rather in a structure that was similar to the domed chamber, but the portals around the perimeter no longer looked out onto the Lake of Fire. Instead, the arches framed a sprawling city under a canopy of stars. The architecture looked ancient at first glance, with pillars and domes and for just a moment, Dodge wondered if they had somehow been transported through time and space to the imperial city of the Outpost's architects. But then he began to recognize specific structures in the landscape and realized where they were: Rome.
But this wasn't the Eternal City, any more than what had preceded it had been the inner circle of Hell. That had been a construct of Schadel's fevered delusions and this was a product of Hobbs imagination.
Dodge turned a slow circle and realized that Hurricane's struggle against the last survivors of Flight 19 had ended. Hurley still stood in front of the arch, but the passage leading back to the cave was gone, along with everyone that had been on the other side. In its place was another spectacular view of the city. The giant stood with his hands on his hips, staring in perplexity through the changed portal, then turned and walked over to join the others.
Schadel lay curled in a fetal ball, not moving and clearly no longer a threat. Molly and Winterbourne, like Dodge, were stunned by the sudden translocation, while Newcombe just shook his head dismissively. "It's just another hallucination."
Hurricane shrugged. "It may well be, Newton, but I'll take this one over the other any day."
Dodge was inclined to agree. He turned to Hobbs and found that while the priest was still standing in the center of the basilica, the lofty metal column had vanished. Then he saw that Hobbs was not alone. In fact, where the pillar had stood, there was a tall figure — taller even than Hurricane — wearing the robes and cassock of a Benedictine monk. And then Dodge realized that they were surrounded by several more similar figures. Each was at least nine feet tall, but their hoods hung low, completely concealing their faces… if they even had faces.