by Peter Ackers
89
Jacky hung by his hands from the lip of the hole and let go, dropping some three metres onto the arched ceiling.
He was in a short, wide corridor, about six metres long, with a large set of double doors at both ends. One set was cut into the stone wall, designed to swing outwards on large metal hinges. These didn’t interest Jacky: it was the other pair, the metal pair studded with jewels and guarded by what looked like the petrified bodies of a pair of wasted men, frozen in tired stances, their bodies thin as if from malnutrition, their clothing torn and worn with age.
Jacky approached the doors, wondering if these men out in this cold stone corridor were meant to be the missing two of the Seven Evil Gods. They certainly didn’t look like Gods. But then Jacky remembered something he’d read. The goddess Lilitu, a succubus who preyed on men. From sexual unions with these men, she gave birth to foul monsters like the alu and gallu, which liked to maim and kill. Sometimes, though, these beastly children died, and when that happened the dead fathers were brought back to life to bring death in their place.
Could these be the long-dead but well-preserved bodies of two such fathers?
Jacky stood before the doors, suddenly feeling apprehensive. But not because there might be danger beyond this barrier. No, it was the opposite, the feeling that this adventure might have reached its conclusion; that he would open these doors and find, inside, the bones of a long-dead Babylonian king, and that would be it. No more traps, no more foes. No more revelations. He would take the bones and whatever other valuables he could find, and in a couple of days he’d read about himself in the papers, and be given a letter of thanks from whatever museum he handed it all over to. And then it would be back to the history books and the long wait for the phone to ring.
He almost felt sad.
Something - or someone - started banging on the bejewelled doors.
From the inside.
Jacky stepped back, shocked. He didn’t dare imagine what it might be. Or who. King Mudammiq? A three-thousand year-old king trying to beat open the doors of his cell?
Behind Jacky, the stone double-doors opened. He didn’t even notice. The banging increased in intensity, as if whatever was inside had sensed his presence and knew help had arrived. But whatever was making such a racket, it certainly had power. Enough to convince Jacky that he damn-well didn’t want to open those doors.
“Shouldn’t we let him out?”
Jacky spun at the voice. Of all the surprises, all the bizarre revelations that could have transpired, the very last he would have guessed was the very one that had occurred.
Theodore Marcellus was stood in the doorway, smiling. Beside him, Jameson, who had a gun trained on Leo.
90
Marcellus was like a child on Christmas morning as he approached the bejewelled doors: face shining, eyes sparkling. This was what he’d sought for so many years; a moment he’d waited the greater part of his life for.
The seam between the doors was coated with a sparkling substance, like dried glitter glue. Marcellus ran his finger along this seam, but didn’t quite touch it. He seemed oblivious to, or at least not to care about, what was banging on the other side.
“This is the stuff of magic, Jacky,” he said.
“I don’t think you should touch that door,” Jacky replied.
Marcellus just laughed, but didn’t look round at him. “I know more about the Babylonians, their history, people and magic, than you can ever learn.”
“Oh, I know. I’m very aware that you know exactly what lies behind that door.”
Marcellus turned now. He stared at Jacky for a time, then grinned. “You worked it out. Well done.”
A frown entered Leo’s face. “What are we talking about, people?”
Jameson put a foot against Leo’s back and pushed. Leo stumbled and fell to her knees. “You should be quiet, traitor.”
“I was fat at school,” Leo snarled at him. “I remember all the jokes, alphabetically. Don’t start me off.”
Jameson laughed. He waggled his gun as if to remind Leo that he had it. “You wouldn’t get too far, Judas.”
During this exchange, Jacky and Marcellus had just glared at each other. Now Marcellus spoke:
“I think he wants out, Jacky. Shall we let him?” He jerked a head at the door, indicating that he meant its occupant. Silly, Jacky thought, because it was obvious who the man meant.
“Think of the years he's been alone, Marcellus. Use your head. Think of the consequences of using that magic on a living body.”
“He can be helped. Anyway, I don’t have to explain anything to you.” Marcellus turned back to the doors, reached out for the twin door handles. His fingers stopped just short. He froze. The banging had stopped, but now a strange screeching was emanating from beyond the doors, a pitiful moan of pain and self-sorrow. It made the hairs stand up on the back of everyone’s neck. Marcellus backed off.
“What’s that noise? Why is he making that sound?”
Jacky pulled Marcellus by the arm, yanked him away from the door.
“This place should be dead. He should be dead. This is not happening, Marcellus. Let’s leave now and seal this place forever.”
“That - that noise -“
“That’s millions of years of evolution squeezed into a couple of centuries. Millions of years of clawing and biting and jumping at that door, Marcellus. Picture it, for Christ’s sake! Imagine what the hell is in there!”
A tear appeared in Marcellus’ eye. “I’ve waited -“
“Then you shouldn’t have!” Jacky snapped. “Coming here was a mistake, that’s all. You didn’t sign a contract, you don’t have to go through with it. We leave now, and at worst you suffer bad dreams.”
“My son,” Marcellus croaked. He dropped to his knees, all hope suddenly gone, like air from a popped balloon. Jameson couldn’t believe what he was seeing; Leo just stared at the doors, trying not to imagine who was making that terrible cry, trying not to imagine what it must be like to spend three thousand years trapped in a tomb, and knowing that she’d be wailing and begging just the same if she thought help had finally arrived.
“Well at least this way he gets to see his father again," Jacky said. "Alive and well. So forget all this immortality crap. It’s a glazed over myth that reads better on paper than it sounds in real life.” To emphasise his point, Jacky swept out a hand, indicating the doors and the noise coming from behind them.
Marcellus threw his arms around Jacky’s knees and hugged them, hard. Jacky pitied him, but he also felt embarrassed by this whole situation. Especially by having his enemy crying into his legs.
He pulled him to his feet. Realising that things had changed, Leo also got up, and slapped aside Jameson’s gun. The fat man just gawped, unsure what to do.
“Are we clearing this joint?” Leo asked. “I’ve had enough of this country and its serious lack of pubs. Back home, first round’s on me.”
Jacky led Marcellus towards the stone doors, following Leo. Jameson didn’t know what was going on, but he was a loyal servant and he fell in behind his boss without question.
The stone doors gave onto a balcony without a railing. Jacky noticed that they were around the back of the temple, which was why he hadn’t been able to see the balcony or the doors from way back up at the cave entrance. And why they hadn’t been able to see the contraption that was suspended before them.
It hung from a mechanism on the cave roof: a thin helix staircase without a newel post, just a well. It hung as so by means of worn ropes connecting each set of string-boards to the set that curled above so it swung lazily in the slight breeze that found its way into the cave. The winders had no risers and there was no banister, just the ropes to hang onto for support, and the string boards were not boards at all, just thicker ropes that spiralled up and tied around grooves cut into the steps. The whole thing was just a lot of rope and some wooden steps and Jacky didn’t trust it.
"You obviously used this to get here,” he said.
Leo put out her bottom lip like a sorry child. “The lever. Sorry.”
"Told you. Stairs. Told you."
They all stepped onto the staircase. Jameson came last; he jumped aboard after tugging on a small lever, similar to the other one, on the wall of the temple. It took great effort to pull it, to twist it once round like a clock hand.
The mechanism on the roof whirred, the winding mechanism alive. The staircase jerked and was on the move. It swung slowly out into the centre of the cave and towards the wall at the top of which was the entrance. When the mechanism had run out of power, its springs relaxed, the top of the staircase was within easy reach of the cave entrance.
Of course, Jacky thought. There was bound to be an easier way of getting to the high temple: visiting Babylonians wouldn’t have made it as hard for themselves as it had been for Jacky.
They climbed the rickety staircase, holding onto the vertical ropes for support, trying to ignore how it swung to and fro. At the top, Jacky looked at the mechanism. It was just a box - probably metal - coated in the same resin as the rest of the cave so it would blend in.
The four of them jumped the three feet gap between the top of the staircase and the curled lip of the entry path. Marcellus and Jameson walked off ahead. Jacky and Leo remained. Jacky turned the lever. Then he watched as the mechanism moved away along grooves in the roof. The staircase curled around the back of the high temple and was once again lost from sight. Leo put her arm around Jacky’s waist, knowing it must be hard for him to give up on an adventure when so close to its climax.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She looked at him and laughed. “It’s hardly a child I’m saying goodbye to. I’m not getting sentimental. Come on, let’s go. You owe me a pint.”
"Don't forget the crisps."
They laughed, and walked up the path and out into the bright sunshine and the hard rain. The sunshine was a relief
“Are you a pint person?” Leo asked. “You strike me as a sweet boy, when not shooting people, of course. Babycham, perhaps.”
“I have more surprises for you. But those are for after we get home.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” said a new voice. Leo and Jacky looked up.
They had company: five men clad in black were holding machine guns on Lawrence and Jameson. Two others, James Boyle and Jameson, stood nearby. An eighth newcomer, the owner of the voice, stepped out of the cabin of a chopper parked on the stone platform, which Jacky and Leo had failed to notice because it was behind them.
“Except right back inside that tomb,” Gabrielle added.
91
“Strange, isn’t it, that the Babylonians would use magic to keep this island populated with trees, without realising that future humans would start killing all the rainforests off. This island was burned two-hundred-and-fifty years ago by my forefather, just as it was today. It re-grew as normal, just as it will when we’ve all left. Until the next time some tomb explorers come along.”
Gabrielle stood before them all and read their expressions as they knelt on the stone. Leona looked distraught, Jacky was angry. Her own people looked smug. Except James Boyle. There was something about his stony look that she couldn't read.
Then she looked at Marcellus, who looked away. She stepped closer, and he looked at her again. Her arch-enemy, right before her, and his expression was...leashed, she realised just in time.
“You!” he screamed, jumping to his feet, lashing out with a kick. His face was a mask of utter hatred. Gabrielle staggered back, away from the kick, but there was no need to worry, because Marcellus dropped with a grunt as the echo of a gunshot receded away across the island. Marcellus lay on the wet stone platform, his chest oozing blood.
Gabrielle stormed over to the man with the smoking gun and slapped him hard in the head. “I had other plans, you idiot!” she snapped. She was about to slap him again when a shot from someone else rang out.
This time Jameson fell. He’d jumped up and ran at Gabrielle; now quite dead, his body hit the deck by her feet.
She shook her head. “If it wasn’t so sad, such loyalty would be honourable. Shame.”
“Shame that you can’t live out your sick plans for him?” Jacky said. Leo nudged him as if to say, Be quiet!
Gabrielle approached him. “Care to try the same macho event, Jackson?”
“No, I think I’ll wait to see your expression when all this goes pear-shaped and you die horribly.” Jacky got to his feet. A gun was thrust near his face, a warning shouted, but Jacky blew a raspberry and began to walk down the ramp, stopping halfway to turn and look back. “Well, come on, this is what you came for. Why waste time?” Another step, then he stopped and again turned. “Marcellus was after something other than immortality. That too, of course. What’s your major gain here?”
A few minutes later, the group of men and women were aboard the staircase, which was slowly moving towards the high temple once more.
Leo was uncomfortable under the glare of the men with guns. They pointed and whispered to each other about her, and looked at her legs. A lot.
James Boyle had been uncharacteristically quite around Jacky recently, but now he moved closer to his old adventuring buddy and nudged his arm. Jacky looked at him.
Gabrielle was higher than everybody else so she could look down at them. She watched the interaction between Jackson and his old friend. They smirked at each other a lot, but although she couldn't hear their whispers, she could tell that their words to each other were sharp, barbed, derogatory. They were enemies and they claimed to hate each other, but Gabrielle didn't buy it.
When the conversation was over, she waited for Jacky to catch her eyes. “Something other than immortality?” she said, recalling Jacky’s earlier statement. “Do not jest: the Marcellus family is one I know better than you ever can. Every generation since Lawrence Marcellus has sought this lost tomb for the same reason.”
Jacky shrugged like he didn't give a shit “You’ll see.”
“Ah, intrigue. Try this: you are going to die this afternoon, Jacky Jackson.”
Jacky just smiled. “Two days ago you told me I had an hour to live. Given my reckless nature, death's probably long past due. But you'll be wrong again. What were your plans for Marcellus?”
“Did you see the hate on his face? Oh, that was so entertaining. Plan? Simple. This has been the longest race in history, I think. Between two families, it has been run for two-hundred-and-fifty years and -“
Jacky yawned and turned away. Gabrielle stopped talking. She thought for a second, then:
“Kill her.”
Two men in black grabbed Leo, and one put a pistol under Leo’s chin.
Jacky held up a hand, but there was no distress when he said, "Okay, okay.” He said it in the way a parent might concede to a stubborn child who wants to play a certain game.
Gabrielle read his apparent lack of fear as an act, which told her there was real fear there, kept hidden. He was trying to give her reactions she might not expect from a man in such a dire predicament. Trying to throw her off. This realisation pleased her. She waved at the man with the pistol and he put it away. “For betraying my ancestor, Lawrence Marcellus was -“
“I don’t think you quite understand what’s going on here,” Jacky cut in. “You think Lawrence Marcellus tried to betray Henry Wren. I think you’ll find it was quite different.”
The staircase reached the end of its journey, and the people piled off and through the open stone doors. The mercenaries kept their guns trained on their two prisoners, while Gabrielle approached the bejewelled doors with no less fascination than Marcellus had an hour before her.
“My god,” she wheezed. “Is this really it? It’s beautiful!”
“Did you just come for the door?” Jacky said. Stepping closer, barging roughly past James in the process. “I can get you a screwdriver if you like?”
Gabrielle didn’t even hear the joke. She approached the door and reached for the handles.
Once more the wailing came from within. It made everyone look. Jacky looked at Leo, flicking his eyes towards the stone doors. Slowly he stepped back. Leo, realising, did the same. The five mercenaries were stunned by the sounds coming from beyond the jewel-encrusted doors and didn’t even notice their prisoners retreating.
“Don’t worry, my king,” Gabrielle said.
“The king’s just bones,” Jacky said. “No joking now. Last chance. Let’s just get the hell -“
Jacky’s voice died as Gabrielle put both hands on the door handles. In that instant, every sparkling jewel in the doors lost its glow, and the corridor was filled with noises. Animal screams and roars, and human moaning.
“Go, Leo!” Jacky shouted, moving back quickly, pushing Leo ahead of him. One of the mercs whirled, raised his gun ready to fire. Jacky tensed. James stepped forward and brought up his foot in a heavy kick at the merc’s arm, forcing it and his gun upwards. The round that should have taken apart Jacky’s head instead blew a hole in the stone ceiling - or floor.
The two upside-down guardians of the door suddenly came to life, their faces carrying a haunted, frightened look. Despite what seemed like fear in their faces, the two skinny men’s eyes displayed rage and hate. Their fingers curled into claws that reached for the people below them.
Now the mercenaries backed off too, crouching, aiming their guns up at the advancing guardians. The one who’d tried to kill Jacky copied. Gabrielle curled into a ball by the doors, arms over her head, staring up at these two men who had been kept alive by magic, immortal, brainwashed, she knew, into the sole duty of protecting this tomb.
Leo and Jacky ran out onto the balcony. Leo tripped and Jacky grabbed her arm, saving her from a short but ultimately lethal fall into the water below. A shape thundered past him. Jacky turned to face the shape. James, already on the staircase. He clutched the ropes like a man aboard a storm-faring boat, his eyes wide and terrified.
Back in the corridor, one of the mercenaries who was directly below the aperture in the ceiling - technically the floor - stared up and through it in disbelief. He did not crouch. He did not notice the moaning guardian until it had grabbed his head with both hands and hauled him off the floor.
He screamed as he was thrown through the aperture. If the guardian had intended his body to plummet to the top of the pillar below the aperture, then it hadn’t taken into account exactly why he had been standing on what, to it, was the ceiling. Instead of plummeting, the mercenary fell onto the stone floor on the other side and lay there, staring up at the things that had originally caught his attention: four ugly statues moving with false life. They reached for him and he tried to press himself even flatter against the stone, screaming, unable to fathom why they weren’t falling on top of him.
When the one with the massive ears touched his foot with its tongue, he regained a little composure and raised his machine gun, letting off with a short bust that shredded the one he didn’t know was called Lamashtu. Pieces of the statue bounced off the pillar. He watched, shocked, as they fell further away from him, to land on the high ceiling/floor.
The statue of Quui wrapped its long tongue around the man’s leg and pulled. He dropped his weapon as his body was hauled off the floor and into the waiting triad of demons.
Below, in the ante-corridor, the remaining mercenaries had opened fire on the two human guardians attacking them. Leo had jumped on the staircase and, after working the lever, Jacky joined her. The staircase began to jerk away from the high temple, swaying with the movement. One of the mercenaries came rushing out of the high temple. He attempted to jump onto the staircase, but the distance was too great and he plunged into the cold pool below. Jacky and Leo just watched, saying nothing. In its brevity, the event was almost funny.
Gabrielle composed herself enough to stand and once again try the doors, yelping as a bullet shattered one of the jewels in the door, right by her head. She yanked on the doors.
As the doors came apart, the sparkling “glue” in the seam shattered like glass. In that moment, all the magic in the cave, the ziggurat, the tomb, died.
In the lowest tier, the remains of the thing that attacked Jacky fell off the floor and rained onto the ceiling of the upside-down room.
In the second tier, the three demons trying to tear apart the mercenary fell away from the pillar, to slam hard and lifeless against the ceiling by the aperture. The mercenary was crushed and killed by the heavy, lifeless statue of the muscled demon, Manag.
Throughout the ziggurat and the high temple, the light dimmed. The mercenaries found themselves fighting in the dark against two uncannily irresistible foes. These were men made immortal by magic but no longer controlled by it, controlled instead by the power of life, which was why they lived still.
In the tomb proper, Gabrielle couldn’t see a thing, it was pitch black, but she could hear low moaning. The occupant had backed away, obviously scared.
Her fingers brushed over furnishings that were soft and pleasant to the touch, luxurious even after all these years. There was a sweet, pleasant smell in the room. This was the final resting place of a king, no doubt.“Don’t be afraid, your highness. I am here to help you. I am a follower. Please, come to me.”
She got close, could hear heavy breathing now. Her fingers reached out in the blackness and closed on a head. A head whose shape puzzled her.
The occupant did indeed come to her.
Out in the cave, Jacky, James and Leo clutched tightly against the ropes supporting the helix staircase and shivered at the screams that emanated from the high temple. The glow from the cave’s walls had just dimmed, leaving them in a dark cavern lit only by the natural light coming in through the cave’s high entrance.
“What the hell is happening in there?” Leo moaned. Jacky had never before seen her this scared, and it bothered him.
“Revenge. The Marcellus clan getting revenge. Henry Wren never did just cut Lawrence Marcellus out of the deal. They had to make sure that he never came back. But Wren was no killer. And there was only one way to get rid of him without killing him.”
Something flew out from between the stone doors, but it did not plummet. In the dim light Jacky could only see that it was some kind of spindly creature, quite tall, with claws that were really just elongated toes and fingers and nails. It was carried by wings like those of a bat, nothing but bone supports and a thin membrane of flesh, torn in places like an old kite. Its flesh somehow contradicted itself for it was both heavily muscled but thin enough to expose the shape of bone beneath, as if it had been highly toned but at the same time had wasted away. The neck was very thin, the head quite large in comparison, with an almost-bald, shapeless skull, wide black eyes and large nostrils. The mouth, full of short but jagged teeth, was set in an eternal grimace because the lips were almost nonexistent.
It carried something. The bloodied body of Gabrielle, whose legs were kicking despite the fact that one of the flying creature’s arms had been thrust right through her stomach. Blood coated the beast’s entire lower half and dripped into the water below.
“What the hell is that?” James screamed as the beast flew past them, catching the staircase with a wing and making it sway more violently. As it passed, it dropped the body of Gabrielle, which fell through the ropes and hit the lower stairs, just below Jacky and Leo. She tumbled down, blood spraying everywhere. Her legs sailed out into thin air, but somehow she found the strength to grab on with her hands. She hung there, clutching the third step from the bottom, dying, and looked up at Jacky.
“Help me!” she pleaded.
“Jesus Christ!” James yelled.
Jacky reached down, ready to help, but then he stopped, withdrew his hand. Gabrielle looked on with a shocked expression, as if she couldn’t think why someone wouldn’t want to offer assistance.
Jacky reached into a pocket, extracted a pair of sunglasses. "You're going to miss the sun going supernova, unfortunately," he said as he slid the glasses over his eyes.
>
They were mirrored.
The expression on Gabrielle’s face, reflected in those twin mirrors, was so alien and horrendous to her that she lost concentration. Just for a second. Just long enough for her hands to relax their grip on the step.
She fell, plummeting to land with a splash in the pool below. Her screams echoed long after her body had vanished from sight.
“That thing’s coming back!” Leo shouted
Jacky looked. Indeed, the winged beast had circled and was again coming at them, this time intent on doing some serious damage.
“’Thing’?” Jacky said as coolly as his racing heart would allow. “Is that any way to talk about Lawrence Marcellus?”
Before Leo had time to be puzzled by this response, the winged beast, with a piercing screech, crashed into and became entangled in the ropes, clawing and biting at the three of them as they tried to duck and move out of the way.
92
The creature fell through the rope and hit the steps. It might have been thin, but it was still heavy and its bones were hard because they had been broken and mended a thousand times, the result of Lawrence Marcellus’ constant attempts to batter his way from his prison over the centuries. That weight and those bones easily snapped three of the old wooden steps it landed on. Jacky lashed out with his feet, a guttural grunt expressing the power he used. A similar sound escaped the wasted lips of the creature as it was sent tumbling off the staircase, turning over and over as it fell. It didn’t orient itself in time and both Jacky and Leo watched with no mean joy as it splashed hard into the dark water below.
“Go, run!” Jacky shouted at Leo, pushing her, urging her to run. They needed to be at the top of the staircase. But Leo was so scared and confused that she could only stumble up each step, hands flapping about amongst the vertical ropes for support.
“What the hell is that thing?” she cried.
The creature burst from the pool below like a missile, aimed on a straight path. It struck the steps right below the two climbing people, rocking the staircase like never before, snapping the two boards right under Leo’s feet.
Jacky was right behind her and he tumbled back as Leo was shoved into the air. She scrambled for the ropes, luckily managing to cling on and avoid falling through the newly created hole.
Jacky almost fell through the ropes, but managed to wrap an arm and a leg around a couple. The creature had curled its hands around one of the steps, claws dug into the wood deep, and was forcing its head through the hole, attempting to snap its jaws around one of Leo’s kicking feet.
“Clear off you sod!” Leo managed to say. It almost sounded funny. She kicked at the bald head, and the creature screamed its distaste.
Now certain that he wasn’t going to tumble off the staircase, Jacky withdrew his pistol and took careful aim.
The bullet shattered the creature’s right hand, passed straight through and cut the step it clung to in half. The thing let out a pitiful scream of pain as it fell away from them once more.
This time it found its wings before it hit the water. The three of them hadn’t made it five steps before the thing was back.
But it didn’t attack. It had learned that these enemies weren’t as easy to defeat as the others and had decided on another tactic.
Jacky watched the creature fly high above them and latch onto the vertical ropes at the top of the staircase, the ones connecting it to the mechanism attached to the roof. It started to chew on the thick supports, snapping them easily.
One, two, three, four, five. The staircase lurched violently as almost a quarter of the ropes holding up the staircase fell away like dead snakes and its centre of gravity changed.
“Move!” Jacky shouted, nudging Leo aside, barging past James. He tore up the steps as fast as he could, not caring about using his hands for support, gun aimed upwards. As he ran, he occasionally looked up and fired off shots, some of which smashed more steps, most of which hit nothing but the roof of the cave. He grinned as he saw and heard one take the creature in its calf, tearing up through flesh and exiting through the knee. The terrible moan of pain from the murderous monster was a beautiful melody to his ears.
The staircase lurched again, swinging like a pendulum, each snapping rope adding to its momentum. But Jacky did not slow. He got to the beast and fired off the last of his bullets point blank. Flesh blew apart, exposing black putty-like blood that had stopped pumping centuries ago. How the beast still retained any muscle control he didn’t know, didn’t care.
He dropped his empty gun; it clattered off the steps, fell through the darkness and was gone forever. He was full of rage now and there was no fear as he literally dove at the beast
He elbowed the creature’s head, knocking it back. Its mouth came away from the rope it was chewing. That rope was almost cut in half. Jacky grabbed it, yanked, and it snapped.
The creature squawked and tried to bite his face, but he ducked aside and it missed. He used the opportunity to wrap the rope end he held twice around its neck. It tried to pull away, but he threw his arm around its head, pulling tight, crushing its skull against his breast. This didn’t hurt the beast at all, but it did hold it tight for a second. Long enough for Jacky to feed the end of the rope between itself and the thing’s scrawny neck to create a thumb knot.
The creature yanked free of his grip, but this only tightened the knot. The creature tried to make a noise but couldn’t, its throat too constricted.
But Jacky knew he couldn’t suffocate a thing that didn’t breath.
The beast pushed away from the ropes, attempting to fly away to prepare for another attack. The rope straightened, became taut, and the monster was jerked to a halt. It pulled harder. Where the rope was wound around the step he was on, wood cracked. Unconnected at that side now, the step swung out from under Jacky’s feet, making him yelp with surprise. With the restraint suddenly gone, creature once more attempted to fly away.
It was jerked to a halt as the rope was pulled taut again. It was wrapped around a step some 20 feet below Jacky, right where James stood. It jerked and pulled at the rope, but this time the wooden board held. The thing made a guttural moaning sound and tried to loosen the knot around its neck with its one remaining hand. Big wings beat, keeping it aloft.
Failing, the creature tried to fly down, away, back to the high temple, Jacky guessed. But with the taut rope around its neck, it could go nowhere. It carved a quarter-circle through the air, curving into the staircase twenty feet below Leo, where its wings became entangled in the ropes. This increased the anger, the confusion in the creature’s insane brain. It went into a panic, a frenzy, flapping its wings and beating the air as if fighting invisible enemies. The staircase rocked even more, and already strained ropes began to snap.
Jacky looked round, glad to see that they were almost at the exit now. Ten seconds, and they'd be free. When he looked back, he saw something that made him call out.
“James, no!”
James had climbed through the ropes and was leaning out, reaching down for the end of the rope that secured the flying beast like some strange pet on a leash. Jacky thought he was going to try to untie it, but he wasn’t. He sure wasn’t.
James took hold of the rope with both hands and jumped off the step, like someone about to rappel down a building.
As he slid down the rope, fast, the creature looked up at him. Jacky seemed to see all of this in slow motion. He didn’t know what was about to happen, but he saw the beast’s eyes, and was sure that he saw within them realisation of exactly what was about to occur.
It was over so quickly it was almost funny. James slid down the rope like a fireman down a pole. His feet slammed into the beast’s shoulders. He stopped dead, and like a relay runner who’d just taken the baton, the creature continued in the direction James had been moving. It fell, twisting, convulsing, and splashed into the pool below.
Its head was still back by James’s feet, the ragged, torn neck still claimed by the thumb knot. The h
ead slipped away too, also to be lost in the murky water below.
James climbed back through the ropes, onto the steps. He lay there and made the sign of the cross, Leo was laughing wildly. Jacky closed his eyes. If he continued to look, he feared he might see Lawrence Marcellus’s head floating in the pool below, staring back up at him with pleading eyes that would never die.
The staircase ground to a halt at the end of its journey.
