Fallon still looked confused and helpless. “But…why?”
“Why else? He wants to destroy the world.”
TWENTY-SIX
Pierce looked away from the fissure, the light burning inside too bright. Green globs floated across his vision, but through them, he could see the mountain slope rising before him, lit up bright as day. It was not from any source of heavenly or artificial illumination, but from below, from the light radiating out from fissures all across the slope.
The rocky ground nearby erupted in a puff of dust, and a fraction of a second later, the report of a rifle reached Pierce’s ears. He ducked, but he knew that staying put was no longer an option. The gunmen — at least ten of them, maybe more — were ascending the mountain, rushing toward them.
“Run!” he shouted.
The unexpected light rising up from the maze of fissures had taken away the cover of darkness, but it also illuminated a path to the top. More shots were fired, the bullets striking all around, some uncomfortably close. But after just a moment or two, the light began to dim, the darkness returning with a vengeance.
“What now?” Gallo whispered.
A few more shots echoed across the slope, then those stopped as well. Flashlight beams lanced through the night, playing up the mountainside, searching for them. The gunmen had spread out and were ascending in a picket line, at least to the extent the broken terrain would allow.
“Back to crawling, I guess.” Pierce wished he had a better suggestion, but until inspiration dawned, keep moving was the best he had.
“No,” Fiona whispered. “Don’t move.”
Pierce stopped. “What did you see?”
“Those things…”
“What things?” Gallo asked.
“Didn’t you see them?”
“I saw,” Pierce whispered back. “I think. I don’t know what I saw… It looked like… I don’t know… Like it was made of pure light.”
“They’re here. All around us. Do not touch them.”
Pierce recognized the certainty in her tone. He had heard it before, earlier that day in the passages beneath Arkaim.
“What are they, Fiona?” Gallo pressed.
“The sacred cattle of Helios.” Her voice sounded detached. “Not actual cows, but some kind of creatures made of pure energy. I think the Originators made them to store the power they harvested from the sun. Sort of like Energizer golems. Living energy inside a shell made of melted rock. Remember that story Father Justin told us about how the golden calf came out of the fire? I think this is the same thing. They’ve been here this whole time. Sleeping.”
“What woke them up? The earthquake?”
“The earthquake or the Black Knight. Maybe I did it, by bringing the sphere here. Or all those things together. We need to stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”
Pierce recalled the jolt he had felt when Fiona touched the small tree inside the monastery — the actual Burning Bush of biblical fame, if the monk was to be believed. Had Fiona’s touch restored a spark of supernatural life to it, as well?
He glanced back down the hill and saw that the picket line was less than fifty yards away. “Like we needed one more thing to worry about,” he muttered.
“If they’re similar to golems,” Gallo said, “Maybe you can control them?”
There was a brief pause, and when Fiona spoke again, her tone of flat certainty was gone. “I didn’t make them, but…I can try.”
She lapsed into silence, and Pierce knew better than to disrupt her focus. The line of flashlights continued moving toward them, slowed somewhat by the terrain, but still advancing.
A shout went up, and then one of the men opened fire.
Pierce ducked his head, covering it with one arm in a futile attempt to protect himself, but the shooter wasn’t aiming at him.
Suddenly, the world was filled with light.
TWENTY-SEVEN
It was like staring into the face of the sun. Light filled every pore of Abdul-Ahad’s body. Heat like a cleansing fire, burned through him. The holy mountain had opened up, and an army of strange creatures had come forth, summoned by the evildoers after their escape from the monastery.
In that instant, he understood why Israfil had sent them here.
“They are jinn,” he shouted, letting the others know. If they were still alive. He could not see any of them. He could not see anything at all.
“Jinn?” The shout had come from somewhere off to his left, closer to the source of the brilliant eruption. “How do you know?”
God is merciful, he thought to himself. I am not alone.
“Can you see?” he shouted.
“Not well,” came the reply. “But yes. I was looking away from the flash.”
“The creatures? Can you see them?”
“I can see shapes moving on the mountain,” the other man said. “Are you certain that they are jinn?
Although he did not possess even a fraction of Israfil’s wisdom, Abdul-Ahad had spent many years immersing himself in the writings of the Prophet — peace be upon him — and the greater abundance of unwritten traditions. He knew the creatures had to be jinn, beings of smokeless fire, rather than malak—angels, beings of pure light — because malak, unlike both humans and jinn, did not have free will. Jinn could choose between good or evil. They could also be enslaved, bound in earthen vessels, just as Solomon had once done, binding the creatures in oil lamps, compelling them to guard his Temple. That was what the three enemies were attempting to do — binding the jinn in earthly shells, to send them forth to destroy the faithful.
He didn’t know how to explain all of this to his brothers, but he did know what had to be done. “Shoot the creatures,” he shouted. “Unleash the jinn. Let holy fire consume the enemies of God!”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Despite the fact that he was face down and covered up, Pierce was compelled to squeeze his eyes shut against the painful brilliance. The light was like a physical force, buffeting his entire body with incandescent radiant energy. It was, he imagined, like the flash of an atomic bomb. He could feel the exposed skin of his hands grow hot, and then cold. He heard Gallo cry out — in pain or alarm — but her wail was nothing compared to the screams from the gunmen.
The screams faded after a moment, as did the light. Pierce raised his head, but all he could see was a green haze. The still-cool night air was crisp with the smell of ozone. “Gus? Fi?”
“I’m okay,” Gallo said. “Can’t see a blessed thing, but I think it will pass.”
“I’m all right,” Fiona said. She paused a beat, then added. “They shot one. That was a bad idea.”
“I guess so,” Pierce said, blinking and willing his sight to return. There was no pain, and that seemed like a good thing. He had never experienced flash-blindness before, but he had heard stories of the intense, lingering pain of exposure to intense light. Even so, navigating the mountain at night without a flashlight had just gone from being difficult to impossible. It would be at least an hour or more before his eyes readjusted to the darkness. Still, if the light had been bright enough to do that to him, and he had been looking in the opposite direction, the gunmen were surely blinded.
He flipped on his head lamp. The green fog was still there, slowly receding from the periphery of his vision, but through it he could make out Gallo and Fiona, lying flat, shading their eyes. Beyond them, the torn landscape, and at the edge of his headlamp’s light, he saw something else.