Copperwaite, too, suddenly made out the sounds of people ahead. Next they saw light, faint at first but growing as they inched forward. They doused their own lights.
Sharpe's ears detected clear, animate sounds and words now, voices chanting Mihi beata mater over and over, welling up like the sound of uneasy ghosts. Placing a forefinger to his lips, Sharpe called for silence and caution. “Careful. They're just ahead. We've hit some sort of pay dirt,” Richard assured Copperwaite. “Go find the others. Bring reinforcements.”
Copperwaite spoke under his breath, trying to keep their presence a secret, saying, “But Richard, I-”
“Do it! Do it, now,” whispered Sharpe. Stuart Copperwaite sighed and nodded before racing off after the other men. Sharpe condnued, guided by the sound of the voices. Soon, he located a stone stairwell that must be the way taken by the Crucifier and any victims he or they might have forced down into these awful catacombs-like the bowels of an ancient Stonehenge, an underground cathedral.
Sharpe thought of Jessica at the lab, about the CID building, at St. Albans, at her hotel, at his apartment, and his anxiety rose like a knife in his throat. He sensed Jessica near; sensed her, this very moment, in grave danger.
Now, Sharpe heard Jessica's voice, shouting and in pain, saying something about rituals. Now he knew most certainly that Jessica stood in harm's way, and he knew she was just beyond the next catacomb, just beyond the light, filtering from ahead, beyond his sight and reach, but the tunnel split again, two separate directions here, and he could not be sure which led to Jessica.
Richard heard raised voices now, angry voices. They chanted, “Brand her, brand her, brand her. Mihi beata mater. Mihi beata mater. Mihi beata mater.”
“Hold her wrists! Hold her dght! Control her!”
“Hold her hand still, so that I can stake it!” shouted another frustrated voice, one with a distinctly familiar ring, not Luc Sante's.
Frustrated and angry at the turn of events, Richard Sharpe again raced ahead of the others, taking the left tunnel in a headlong effort to save Jessica. He feared her in pain, a pain that might turn to a death at any time. He felt an intense hatred now for Luc Sante, wishing to mete out some pain to the Jesuit madman of twisted holiness. Obviously, Luc Sante had an agenda only Father Luc Sante fully comprehended.
Sharpe raced until he came to the end of a tunnel closed off by a grate, and staring through the grate, he could see the ritual in progress before his eyes. He saw Luc Sante conducting, and he saw Jessica with her hands staked, her feet tied, and that she hung naked from a cross. His heart filled with the horror before his eyes.
The men nearest Jessica had dropped their cowls, and Sharpe recognized Tatham of the RIBA, a Dr. Kahili, Burtie Burton's shrink whom Sharpe had spoken to, and beside Kahili stood Dr. Karl Schuller. Sharpe could hardly believe what his eyes imparted. His mind worked to make sense of it all.
Those nearest Jessica prepared now to bathe her in an oil and blood mixture, the blood taken from a cut made in her right side. Others near her prepared to brand her tongue with a hot poker.
Sharpe screamed and kicked out at the grate separating him from these demons, the clattering noise riveting everyone's attention from Jessica to the intruder.
Luc Sante, using Jessica's Browning, fired and struck Richard a grazing blow to the temple just as Sharpe leaped down from the overhead tunnel. The gunshot knocked Sharpe back, while Luc Sante, over the noise, cursed, “The sancdty of our home is invaded, defiled!”
Sharpe fired back with little aiming. His army training as a sharpshooter took over. His single bullet created a neat, round hole in the old man's chest. Father Luc Sante sank to his knees, dying and pleading rhetorically, “Who will save… Savior know to… if I am not… here? Where will… I am, be? You fools… have destroyed any chance of… Second Coming.”
Luc Sante's body went into spasms, his chest constricting, his throat filling with blood that he now gurgled and choked on. He amounted to a lump of robes now on the coal-smeared, ancient floor.
“He's… Father's dead!” moaned one of the Houghton sisters who'd raced to the old man to tend his wound.
The others followed suit, falling to their knees over their leader. Schuller, finding the gun there, lifted it and found himself staring at the bore hole to Sharpe's weapon. Sharpe stood in the flickering light like some mad devil, bleeding profusely from his temple where Luc Sante's bullet had ripped a course through his skin and hair.
Other police and inspectors, along with Copperwaite, now rushed in to see Dr. Karl Schuller drop the gun, drop to his knees, and crumble under the weight of having lost all hope for the chance to be one of the Chosen to cross over. In the end even Jessica, sdll in her drugged condidon, saw the pitiful rabble of religious zealots for what they were. How all had been willing to step forward for the opportunity to create a moment in which the transmigration of their souls might link with that of Jesus Christ. All this bloodshed in order to bring Him back as promised in their Bibles and their addled, world-weary brains.
“Cuff them!” commanded Copperwaite. “One and all, and take them out of here.”
Sharpe, his forehead and the left side of his face covered in crimson blood, stumbled to his feet, trying to get to Jessica. “Get her down at once! At once, do you hear? Take all due care with her!”
The men of the Yard did as Sharpe ordered, easing Jessica's weight immediately. Her stakes and leather bonds were next pulled from her, making her gulp with a last dose of pain. Richard tore off his coat and covered Jessica with it the moment she left the towering, intimidating old cross.
“Need to staunch the blood flow,” Copperwaite shouted.
Sharpe took her in his arms, stroking her auburn hair, reassuring her as he wrapped each hand in handkerchiefs offered up by his men, while Copperwaite did the same for her feet. Sharpe imagined the scene as it must look to the others, as if it were a painting of the resurrection. Sharpe spoke reassuringly into Jessica's ear. “I've got you now, Jessica. No one can hurt you now. You're all right now, we've found you.”
She cringed and cowered like a child in his arms, giving into her fear and loathing altogether now, sobbing uncontrollably. Out of the comer of her eye, she saw Luc Sante's lifeless body, and in the flickering light she thought he winked, and for the first time she fully appreciated her hatred for the old minister of twisted faith.
“Is he… Is he dead, truly?” she asked Sharpe.
“Utterly gone.”
“We'll soon have these others talking,” Copperwaite interjected. “Imagine it. Schuller among this collection of lost wretches.”
Sharpe added, nodding, “I'm sure he's just like all the others. Did it all in the name of their Lord and Master and no more, so they hear no brunt of responsibility in the deaths of their kith and kin.”
One of the uniformed policemen who'd entered behind Copperwaite shouted, “Over here! This one's alive!” He pointed to Father Martin Strand whose form stirred and partially rose, Copperwaite throwing his coat over the naked man's form, saying, “Hold on, man! Medics! Get medics down here!”
Luc Sante's followers, Schuller and Tatham the loudest, went into a paroxysm of religious frenzy on seeing the resurrected Martin Strand, calling out his name now as Christ! Chanting “Strand is Lord, Strand is Christ, Strand is the Holy One!”
Strand smiled a weak, broken, curled smile in response, but he could hardly move otherwise, his entire body going rigid as he went into cardiac arrest.
“He needs medics!” shouted Copperwaite. “Get some medics in here.”
“Radios won't work down here, this far in!” came the response. Strand died a second time, this time in an uncontrollable seizure as Schuller and the others crowded Copperwaite out, ignoring the orders and guns trained on them. Strand died in Karl Schuller's arms.