Clearing the distortion field, the Apostle came alongside Gabriel and he could see that her face was as blank as the mask she’d worn before.
“Stop looking at her, you idiot,” Allie growled in his ear. “I cannot see what I am doing!”
“Hurry up,” Gabriel said anxiously. “She could jump over here from there at any moment!”
“I am working as fast as I can,” Allie hissed. “You try inputting all of the math required to tear a hole in the universe by hand! We would be here for a thousand years waiting on you!”
“All right,” Gabriel mumbled as the Apostle passed out of the corner of his eye.
“Just try to hurry. I don’t like not being able to see her. Hopefully whatever wound Marius gave her will slow her down enough that she won’t instantly slaughter me like she almost did last time.”
The Apostle’s footfalls on the metal grating echoed throughout the cavern as she slowly moved toward the tangential catwalk Gabriel occupied. With every step she took he could feel her getting closer. He could feel her sword moving toward his heart with its every beat. He began to sweat profusely. The anticipation and the inability to look back to check her progress were killing him.
“I don’t know why,” the Apostle said in a flat tone as she reached Gabriel’s
catwalk and came to a stop, “but my master wishes you to die, and so I obey.”
With a shriek of rage, or pain, or maybe even outrage, the Apostle threw herself at him. Her feet pounded the catwalk behind him as she rushed forward with a speed he wouldn’t have thought her capable of considering the way she’d barely seemed able to walk before.
“Time’s up,” Gabriel cried.
“Wait,” Allie cried. “I am almost done! Just a few more—“
“We’ll be dead in a few more seconds!”
Snatching his pistol from the console, Gabriel could feel Allie trying to fight him for control of his hands, but he found that unless he allowed her to use them she really couldn’t exert enough force on him to do more than be mildly annoying. He grabbed the pistol that Marius had given him from the belt draped over the railing, trying to ignore the burning sensation of carpal tunnel that seemed to be eating away at the backs of his hands. He didn’t think he’d ever typed so much in the rest of his life combined.
Turning, Gabriel had just enough time to cross the barrels of his two pistols above his head, catching the gleaming, black blade of the Apostle’s sword as it fell at him. For someone who could not possibly weight over a hundred pounds she sure was strong. The force of the blow knocked Gabriel off his balance and he stumbled backward.
Spinning, the Apostle kicked Gabriel in the chest with enough force to lift him from the catwalk and send him sailing backward into the computer console. His healing rib screamed pain in protest of the blow even as another broke under it.
Picking himself up, ignoring the pain of at least one broken rib in his back,
Gabriel dove under a slash that would have taken his head off. Striking the underside of the console, the blade shrieked against the metal, throwing a shower of sparks as Gabriel rolled away.
As he came to his feet, he and the Apostle both rounded on each other. Though she snarled like a beast, showing teeth that never belonged in a human mouth, her eyes were still empty. No, they weren’t quite empty. There was something in them, something very well hidden, but still visible if you really looked for it. What was it?
Despair? It was gone in a second, but it had been there.
Eyeing the Sa’Dhi in his right hand as he raised both pistols to point at the
Apostle, Gabriel wondered how much longer he had before it quit on him. He’d lost track of time since he activated it during the gunfight over the hatch. Would it quit before the job was done like in the Haven? This time he had no second Sa’Dhi with recorded moves to rely on if it failed him.
Eyes flicking toward the silvery sphere of the black hole, the Apostle shuddered before throwing herself at him once more. This time Gabriel was ready for her. Taking aim with his borrowed pistol, he emptied it into her. Slamming into her breastplate, three bullets halted her advance. Another sparked off the railing beside her, as she actually seemed to dodge it. Cutting another from the air with her blade, she missed the last and it pinged off her forehead, knocking her head back as far as her neck would allow.
Gleaming metal shone through the blood that began oozing between her eyes and down her nose. The skin actually started to knit before his very eyes as she rushed him.
Tossing the pistol aside, Gabriel drew his knife just in time to turn the Apostle’s sword aside. Her momentum knocked him against the railing and their blades sliced right through it.
Though she pressed with considerable strength, she wouldn’t have weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. Still, the awkward angle she held him at offered little in the way of leverage. He couldn’t throw her off.
With the screech of straining metal, the severed section of railing slowly bent outward under their combined weight. Gabriel felt himself slipping closer and closer to the containment field. His hair began to stand on end as if charged with static electricity, as the Apostle grabbed his throat, forcing his head further backward.
Choking the life from him as she pressed him toward disintegration against the containment field, the Apostle remained devoid of emotion. Her mouth snarled, but her eyes were dead. Even murderers he’d represented in court had shown more emotion over what they’d done. That tiny flicker of despair came back for just a second and then it was gone.
Scrabbling at the Apostle’s grip, Gabriel tried to break free, but she was insanely strong. His vision began to narrow, and her pretty face seemed to look down on him through a long, dark tunnel.
With a final surge of desperation, Gabriel raised the pistol he’d forgotten he was holding, and pulled the trigger. It clicked, but the shell didn’t fire. Cursing inwardly, Gabriel realized that it must have gotten wet when he’d fallen into the water in the coolant duct.
Desperately, he pulled the trigger again, and the recoil caused the railing to buckle backward suddenly. The jerk of movement lessened the Apostle’s grip and he was able to throw her off with a foot to her belly, rolling away to safety. Choking for breath, Gabriel had one killer of a headache coming on from the lack of oxygen.
Feeling at her right wolf ear, the Apostle bared her teeth in what looked like a cross between an evil grin, and a sneer. Blood trickled down into her chestnut hair as she put her finger through the hole his bullet had made with childlike amusement.
“You put up a good fight.”
Backing away with a respectful bow of her head, the Apostle unexpectedly gave
Gabriel time to recover from the strangulation. Emotions began flowing across her face as though his bullet through her ear had opened a floodgate. Anger, hatred, frustration, despair, and even a small bit of admiration all jumbled across her features as she looked at him, fingering the bloody hole.
“You’re trying to destroy this facility, right,” Gabriel gasped, having to force the words through his throat with a wheeze that could not possibly mean anything good.
“Don’t you understand what that’ll do?”
“No,” the Apostle replied. “And I don’t care. All I know is that my master
commands it, and I am unable to disobey.”
“Let me spell it out for you in purple crayon. What do you think is going to
happen if you destroy this place before you had a chance to use it to travel back to destroy it?”