‘Get him locked up,’ she says. ‘DCI Tompkins can deal with him.’
171
The crazy son of a bitch is at it again. Phoenix has his shirt off and his hands up the back of the sacrifice’s robe. The bastard is feeling her behind. Volans presses his face to the bars of the cell, he can’t believe what he is seeing.
‘Hey!’ He rattles the cell door. ‘Leave her alone, you dog. I told you once.’
The two of them are in the corner trying to hide but he can still see them. Musca appears in the passageway. ‘What’s going on?’
‘That idiot is trying it on with the girl.’
‘What? Stop them. Open the damned door.’
Volans fumbles with the keys. Musca catches a glimpse of them kissing. ‘Quickly. Come on.’
The two Followers stride into the cell and catch Gideon and Caitlyn locked in a passionate embrace, oblivious to the noise around them.
‘Stupid fool!’ Musca grabs him by the hair, pulls him away from her.
Caitlyn steps back. Face full of desperation.
Musca spins Gideon around and crashes a fist into his face. But he doesn’t go down, he bear hugs him and holds on for dear life. Caitlyn lunges forward. A jagged shard of broken pot plunges into the side of Musca’s neck. She feels the warm spurt of blood on her face and knows she’s hit a main vein.
Musca shudders. Gideon lets him slip to the cold floor, then pulls a gun from his waistband. Volans is frozen. Stuck between helping his dying brother or securing the sacrifice.
‘Get the fuck away from her,’ Gideon says. ‘I won’t hesitate to kill you.’
172
‘Caitlyn, take his gun.’
Shaking with adrenalin, she draws the weapon from Volans’ waistband and pulls the bunch of keys from his hand.
‘Kneel down. Face the wall!’
As Volans moves, Gideon glances at the gun in his hand. He’s never held a firearm before, has no idea how to use it. No clue where the safety guard is or whether it’s even loaded.
‘Let’s go!’ He pushes Caitlyn out of the cell and closes the iron door behind him. He grabs her by the sleeve and they sprint down the passageway. Behind them come Volans’ cries for help.
In Gideon’s mind is a mental map. One he knows is incomplete. But it’s all they’ve got. He figures the most direct escape to be past the Great Room, on to the curving passageway of the the Outer Circle, then past the Master’s chamber. It would lead them to the stone staircase and the warehouse exit.
But that’s not where he’s heading. He’s following a hunch. One that will get them free. Or get them killed.
173
The Master steps hesitantly from the Great Room and looks around. The sacrifice should be here by now.
He hears noises spilling down the corridor, turns and walks back towards the cell. Four Bearers are running towards him. Without the litter.
‘She’s gone,’ shouts one. ‘The girl is out of her cell.’
‘My son, where is he?’
‘Also gone.’ The voice is that of Draco, hurrying up to the Master, blood on his hands. ‘They’ve killed Musca and taken Volans’ gun.’
‘Block the main exit,’ says the Master. ‘They will head for the stone steps into the anteroom.’ He feels ashamed that he trusted his child, personally guided him around the Sanctuary.
Draco despatches the Bearers. ‘And the avenue, what about the passageway from your chamber?’
The Master shakes his head. ‘He doesn’t know of it, but secure it anyway.’
‘I’ll go myself.’ Draco takes two men, instructs the rest to search the Sanctuary.
The Master looks into the emptiness of the Great Room. He can sense the displeasure of the Sacreds. But he is calm. The place is a fortress. There is plenty of time to recapture the girl and to complete the ceremony before first light.
He walks towards the Great Room, then thinks better of it.
He smiles and shouts for Draco. ‘Let the men go. Come with me. I know where they are.’
174
The wall torches are few and far between, the maze of passageways cold and heavy with the smell of damp and death.
Caitlyn clings to Gideon as they run. She prays that he knows what he’s doing. Fresh in her mind is her own futile escape attempt.
Something seems wrong to her. They’re heading downward. Running deeper into this horrible place rather than up and out into the safety of the outside world. ‘We’re going the wrong way!’
‘Trust me,’ shouts Gideon, short of breath.
Caitlyn knows she doesn’t have a choice.
As they run down the darkened corridors, he frantically tries to picture the twists and turns of the Sanctuary. In his mind it is like a buried pyramid, only dome-shaped. He sees the upper levels, the modern operational area. The carefully constructed weight-relieving chambers and corridors. Under them the Master’s chamber and the Great Room. He sees the Ascending and Descending Passageways east and west of these. Pictures them all built around the central star shaft. The corresponding points of the compass and constellations.
Now he envisages the eastern passageway. The access to the lowest level. The Crypt of the Ancients. The place they are heading towards.
The twisting and tilting corridors remind him again of Egyptian tombs. The kind of places that hold architectural secrets. He sees Khufu’s Great Pyramid and remembers its hidden chambers and passages.
He prays the Sanctuary has its own secrets. The star shafts, the varying heights in the corridors, the Ascending and Descending Passageways, and the geographic alignments. They are all clues that he’s right.
They slide to a halt in front of a locked oak door.
‘Quickly,’ he says, pulling a breathless Caitlyn tight to the wall. ‘Sit down. Sit here and stay here.’
He backs off several metres, turns to look at her. ‘Further forward. Come towards me half a metre.’
She slides along the ground, pulls her shaking knees up to her chest, rearranges the loose sacrificial gown.
‘Okay. Stop.’ He backs off further, rounds the corner of the passageway behind them, then reappears, looking hard at her.
‘Stay here. Don’t move. Whatever happens, even if you see them coming for you, don’t move.’
175
Caitlyn sits shaking on the cold floor, caught half in the light of a flickering wall torch, half in the long shadows of the high passageway leading to the Crypt of the Ancients.
Gideon has vanished. She is alone. Her mind drifts. Back to when she was a child, playing hide and seek with her parents. Only she hides so well neither of them can find her. She waits and waits and waits. Fears they’ll never come.
Is he gone for good? Has he left her as a decoy?
There’s a noise. Footsteps. Someone is approaching. The waiting is over. Muffled voices. They are coming for her. She remembers what he said: don’t move … whatever happens … don’t move.
Caitlyn holds her nerve. They’re close now. Very close. Footsteps so loud that she knows she is only seconds away from discovery.
She sees them. Two men. One old. One younger. Caitlyn screams. One of them moves to grab her.
The corridor fills with a ball of noise. A sound so loud she flinches in shock. Painful ringing erupts in her ears. The man in front of her clutches his chest. His eyes are wide, his mouth open. He lurches to the side, falls to his knees.