by J. R. Rain
I charged headfirst into the third soldier, drawing the iron rod from my belt loop. We slammed together hard against the stone wall, and, from the sound of it, knocking his breath out of him, too. I drove the shaft into his throat, hard enough to puncture through it. Gore and blood splashed over me. As he dropped, gagging and jerking, I pulled free the shaft and ripped the automatic Mauser from his dying hands.
Now, with the sounds of boots drumming toward me, I was off and running, picking one of the five archways and getting the hell out of Dodge, as they say in America.
***
The fact that I was still running and hadn’t been mowed down by a machine gun from behind me was just dumb luck.
I must have, miracle of miracles, slipped through the doorway before the Nazi bastards could arrive. If they were smart, they would split into five groups. Of course, that all depended on badly they wanted me dead. After all, he had what he wanted—the spear. What was I to him? An English agent in a foreign land, with access to little or no help. Certainly not a threat to Hitler himself.
Hitler!
Alive.
I shook my head as I followed the narrow corridor. I had long since snapped on my light after running full-on into a stone wall. I needed light to get out of here. I also needed my wits.
When it seemed obvious that I was no longer being pursued, I moved cautiously through another hexagonal room and up a stone stairway. This time, I ascended toward the tomb above, hearing nothing but utter silence all around me. I like silence. Much better than barking Germans. Amazingly, I reached the stone wall with the narrow opening that we’d used to enter the catacombs and found that it had been forced wide open and left that way.
Had Hitler left some soldiers hanging around in the tomb? I didn’t know, so I listened for any sound of breathing or stirring. I waited for a very long moment, knowing that if someone was holding their breath, they would exhale heavily any second now. Any second now, c’mon. But there was no exhale, no stirring and no sound. I clicked on the flashlight, expecting a surprise to leap out at me. There was no surprise, only the empty anteroom to the tomb. The burial chamber was beyond, and it was presently hidden behind a formidable wall, a wall that was likely impossible to open from the inside. I focused the beam of my light on the heavy door and moved toward it. I found it, just as I knew I would: locked and immovable from the inside.
I sighed and fought back some panic. Sure, there might be other exits out of this godforsaken place, and I knew I would keep searching until my last breath. But I also knew that, just beyond this wall, there was freedom. The question was: how to find it before the Germans returned. And surely, they would return, and I was trapped here. Why they hadn’t secured the outside entrance, I didn’t know. Unless they knew of another entrance. Either way, I was trapped and there was a damn good chance I was going to hear the march of boots soon. And then, I would find out firsthand what a bullet through a skull felt like. Probably not very good.
Anyway, the silence of the tomb was no match for the noise inside my head as my mind scrambled for a way to get out of “the maze of death” in which I was trapped. I didn’t like being trapped. It made my mind feel a little... unhinged. It made me, quite frankly, a little crazy.
My back slid down the stone wall next to the door frame, which led to my freedom, and I tried to block out the maniacal laughter that continued to echo through my head. As my behind contacted the floor, the jarring made me wince. It was a reminder of the wounds I’d sustained in the fight on the train: an event that seemed to have taken place months rather than days before. I sighed.
“Gotta think of a way out, Allan,” I whispered to myself. “Nothing is impossible.”
With that little bit of self-encouragement, I forced myself to my feet. Succeed or fail, I had to try, I wasn’t one to give up and abandon all hope. There was always an answer and always a way out. I just had to search for it. After all, hadn’t my much more famous forefather done the very same? Always finding a way out of scrap after scrap? He had, and now, I just needed to channel some of that grit and luck through me.
“Hello, in there.”
The voices in my head were increasing and, quite frankly, sounding oddly American. I rubbed my face and shook my head and had just decided to make another run for it, searching for another way out, all while avoiding the swarming Nazis, when the voice in my head spoke up again.
“Major Quatermain, are you in here?”
“Yes, I’m in there,” I said to myself. “And so are you. All of you.”
“All of who?”
“All the voices—”
Except this voice sounded exactly like Joshua Hassan’s voice, one of Isaac Goldstein compatriots from New York. And it was coming not from inside my head, but from the other side of this damn wall.
I was saved.
Chapter Sixteen
It might not have been one of my smarter ideas, but after being set free by Joshua, whom Isaac had assigned to keep an eye on me, I’d rushed off in pursuit of Hitler and his captives, commandeering another motorcycle to get me there.
I hadn’t hung around long enough to get much of an explanation out of Joshua, but from what little I’d gathered, he’d followed the professor, Hannah and me, watching us open and enter the tomb. He’d considered going in, but had decided it was better to watch the opening to see who showed up. When he’d seen the Germans coming, he’d run back to inform Isaac of what was going on. The three of them had returned to the mosque and were just in time to see the lot of them leading their captives out of the tomb. So, the Germans hadn’t been behind me. They had long since abandoned me within the catacombs. Just how long had I been wandering alone down there?
Didn’t matter. When they’d noticed that I hadn’t been led out with the others, Isaac and Michael had stuck to the retreating Germans, and Joshua had been sent to look for me. And that was that. Except I only caught snatches of Joshua’s rather long-winded retelling. After all, I had Hannah and her father to find, and Hitler to stop. I was afraid to admit that I left Joshua in the dust. I’m a man of action, after all.
Anyway, my unusual turn of luck had seemingly come to an end. I was still several miles away from the ridge over which I needed to cross when the motorcycle coughed, sputtered and then died while I was speeding up the valley. Evidently, its owner hadn’t had the courtesy to fill up the tank before I put it into use. Now forced to proceed on foot, I soon came upon a goat herder’s shack and helped myself to the horse from the small corral out back. The Enfield had helped convince him that the motorcycle with the empty gas tank down the road was a good trade for the horse. I mounted and continued on my way, never mind that I had just traded a stolen motorcycle with for a perfectly serviceable horse. I told myself I would make things right after I saved Hannah and her father, and stopped Hitler, and, well, saved the world, too.
Shortly, I climbed over the ridge and settled into the same vantage point where Hannah and I had been a couple of days earlier. Though dawn had not yet broken, seeing what was taking place in the bright circle of light between the campsite and the excavation below wasn’t a problem. The Germans had the place lit up enough to see from space.
Had they not done such a great job of providing stage lighting, then what I saw through my field glasses would have only been periodically lit by the fierce electrical storm that was beginning to roll in. Dreading the downpour that was surely coming, I finally located my two targets: they were secured together, back to back, and tied to a heavy post at the edge of the circle of light. The difficult part would be in figuring out how to creep in under the watchful eyes of about thirty guards who were all armed with automatic rifles. Ever the optimist, I was developing a plan when I saw the former Führer—a man long thought dead—and a trailing entourage move into the circle of light.
Even from here, I could see Hitler bearing the Holy Lance with a new shaft attached. Even from here, Hitler looked batshit crazy.
Looking on, I noted that Adolph had
wasted little time in setting about a ritual which he, no doubt, expected to produce the invincible army of legend. With the spear in hand and his usual, sharp German rhetoric, he recited some rite that I could only make out parts of, due to the gusts of wind that were sweeping up the valley from the gathering storm.
With the rite recited, the insane dictator—and one-time bully from my youth—drove the point of the spear deep into the hard-packed earth. He could have been a whaler on a ship harpooning an innocent giant from over the railing. In reality, he just looked like a nutcase stabbing the earth. Admittedly, I wondered what the devil was going on. What, exactly, had the professor told him he must do? And why had the professor admitted to anything? No doubt, under a threat to Hannah, the old man had spilled his guts.
Of course, we were dealing with just an ancient spear, nothing more. The likelihood of it being the same spear that had been driven into Christ’s side was slim, at best. That the spear possessed supernatural power was, well, just foolish. Yet, there was the personification of evil himself—Adolf Hitler—and his ragtag crew of leftover soldiers from a war that had long-since been won, determined to use the staff to... what? I didn’t know. Bring about a shift in power, no doubt. But how he expected that shift to come about, I hadn’t a clue.
Now, the madman raised his arms wide above his head and looked heavenward. He stayed in the position long enough for me to wonder if he’d had a stroke. The soldiers around him shifted on their booted feet. Hannah and her father strained their necks to see what the hell was going on. I strained, too, wondering again how I’d ended up in this godforsaken place, and certain I was dreaming it all. I mean, Adolf Hitler? The Spear of Destiny? A man in love? Yes, I’d said it, dammit. There was something about that Hannah Byrd woman. Something that got me firing on all cylinders. Something that made me dream of a home and kids and lots of time spent in the bedroom.
Adolf still hadn’t moved, although his crew was getting restless. The horse next to me was getting restless, too. The horse undoubtedly sensed the coming storm. “Easy, girl,” I whispered. The horse whinnied. “Or boy. Whichever you are.” I glanced back. Definitely a boy.
I suspected that the World’s Biggest Creep was waiting on something big to happen. The heavens to split open. Perhaps the Archangel Michael would appear on a silver steed. Perhaps Christ himself to ride down upon a fluffy cloud. Instead, only more lightning flashes and thunder seemed to rumble along the valley itself, funneled for full effect.
I smiled at the anticlimactic turn of events. The bastard was wrong. Hell, the world was wrong. The Spear of Destiny, a cursed or blessed relic that supposedly gave unlimited power to its owner, was nothing more than a legend. And perhaps, a ridiculous one at that. No, there was no need to save the world tonight. I needed only to save my friends. And report Adolf’s position to my friends, the Nazi hunters. I was sure they would come in with backups. Perhaps a full army. Either way, I doubted Adolf would be leaving the valley alive tonight.
With a plan forming, I had just decided to fetch the nearby horse—which suddenly seemed oddly skittish, when the sound of automatic weapons nearly turned my bowels to water. The weaponry was followed by a sharp command in German: “Nicht bewegen.”
***
As I started down the ravine, encouraged by a half-dozen Mauser machine guns, the dark clouds opened up and a torrent of rain began to accompany the electrical storm that had rolled up the valley and hovered over the dig site.
Hitler was waiting for me. “You are here to save the day, I presume, Major?”
“And doing a bang-up job of it.”
Although the dictator chuckled, his narrow, black eyes didn’t seem so amused. Okay, that was weird.
One of the soldiers stepped before their leader and presented the iron rod to him. “We found him with this.”
“A simple iron bar? Why would the brave Quatermain be hanging on to such an unusual relic?” He turned the shaft in his hands, angling it toward the light. “It has writing on it. Roman numerals. Tell me, Quatermain, what is the significance of this shaft?”
I shrugged. “It’s nothing more than an ancient tire iron, if you ask me. Maybe to change chariot wheels?”
Hitler was about to chuckle, but then, he stopped short. He turned to one of his men and snapped an order: “Attach this ancient tire iron to a wooden shaft and bring it back to me.” He faced me again. “We’ll soon find out its significance soon enough. And then, of course, you will die.”
“Of course,” I said.
Chapter Seventeen
Although there didn’t seem to be a limited supply of heavy posts, I was tied to one that faced Hannah and her father. No doubt, that was another one of Hitler’s psychotic games. He would get some sort of special thrill out of killing one of us and making the other watch. Luckily, he seemed more intent on his new toy: the stupid iron bar I’d been carting around for the past few days.
Could it actually be the spear? I knew the Romans fancied a number of spears. Most of which had spearheads and most of which were, well, sharp. The iron rod I’d been carting around was just that. A rod. No spear point. Just some strange writing and a broken end.
I swallowed, and thought about that again. Then swallowed, again and again.
Had the spear point broken off?
Could it be? Could that be the Holy Lance? No, surely not. It had been outside the king’s chamber. It had been resting upon another tomb completely. Just lying there. Who on God’s green earth would just leave such a powerful weapon sitting atop a tomb? Someone who didn’t know what it was, that’s who. Someone who had, undoubtedly found it earlier... and used it for the same purpose we had—chipping through the ancient walls.
That is, of course, if it was what we thought it was.
I prayed that it wasn’t.
Then again, weirdly, I kind of hoped it was, too. What in God’s name would happen once the power of the damn thing was unleashed, I hadn’t a clue, but a part of me—a big part—wanted to find out.
Except that I had, unfortunately, hand-delivered the Holy Lance—if that’s what it was—to the one goddamn person on earth who I didn’t want to have it. The Führer himself.
“Great,” I whispered.
“What was that, Allan?” asked Hannah, her words nearly lost in the howling wind.
“Remember that old curtain rod I’ve been toting around?” I asked.
“Yes. What about—oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
“That old thing? You can’t mean—”
“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
Meanwhile, the professor was turning his head this way and that, trying to have a look at us but mostly failing, due to the ropes and all. “Are you telling me, young man, that we had the spear with us all along?”
“Um, maybe.”
“Unbelievable,” he said, and uttered a few choice words that were, thankfully, mostly snatched away by the hot wind.
“We’ll get out of this mess,” I said to Hannah, although my voice might have lost some of its unfettered confidence. Still, I knew that Michael and Isaac were somewhere near. Maybe they’d even called in the other Nazi hunters from Eli and David’s group. If there were hundreds of them as David had claimed, then they would severely outnumber the contingent of Nazis who were with Hitler. One could only hope.
With the storm picking up in intensity, the “curtain rod” attached to a staff was brought out to Hitler and handed to him. As the crazy asshole held it up and examined it, I was forced to admit that the addition of the wooden shaft had dramatically altered what it had first appeared to be. Hannah must have drawn the same conclusion because, as if on cue, she let out a gasp. When I turned to look at her, I could see that her features had become pallid. Her father’s probably were, too, except that I couldn’t see him. I was pretty sure the color had drained from my own mostly rosy cheeks.
Hitler made his way over to us, a look of triumph in his beady eyes. His hair danced upon
his skull like a witch around a fire.
“It’s magnificent, don’t you think, Major?” Hitler said to me when he was close enough, although his voice was nearly drowned out by the howling wind. “Just imagine... if this is what I think it is, this very point had once been inside the Christ.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I liked where he was going with this, especially considering the way he was looking at Hannah. The spark of victory had been replaced with a gleam of evil. Evil intent.
“Don’t touch her!” I shouted.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve allowed you enough favors already.” The maniacal smirk on his face was more proof than I needed to know that he fully intended to play out his psychotic game.
“No!” I screamed at the top of my voice.
It made no difference. He selected a point on Hannah’s abdomen and drove the point of the spear into her. Deeply.
Her scream was something I would never, ever forget.
“Hannah!” I shouted, fighting hopelessly against my bonds. I screamed at him, “Goddamn, you are a bastard!”
“Now, now, Mr. Quatermain,” said Hitler, admiring the tip of the point that was now slick with Hannah’s blood. “That’s no way to speak to the Emperor of the Fourth Reich. Besides, the spear does need a trigger. As you might have guessed, blood is the trigger. Any blood. Hers will do fine.”
He moved away from us and went to the center of the circle of lights. The rain had become such a torrential mess that he was little more than an out-of-focus, shimmering psychotic outline. It was obvious that he was starting anew with the same ritual he’d attempted earlier. This time, possibly, with the correct spear.
The snapping and hissing of the sharp, ritualistic German words stirred up an evil aura all around us. At least, that’s how I felt. As he spoke, I urged Hannah to hang on, but I wasn’t sure he was listening. She was in terrible shape. Partly screaming in agony, and partly slumped over. Soon, she was entirely slumped. Had we lost her? Had that son of a bitch just stolen my true love?
