Where indeed.
Goodwin looked around the crater. He must have found them here, surely? There’s no other explanation. Leaving the others to gawp at the spectacle, Goodwin roamed the basin in search of more blue stones.
When he didn’t find any he grew frustrated and was just about to give up when he passed by the pool of water that cascaded into the narrow fissure. Beneath its surface he glimpsed the shimmer of blue amongst a sea of brown. He bent down and scooped out a handful of mud and separated out a shining blue stone from the sediment. Excited, he washed off the remaining dirt to reveal a handful of Joseph’s stones. But how did they get there? His eyes moved up to the glowing crystals above. Of course! He mentally slapped his forehead. Water erosion, the stones weren’t stones at all, but the crystals that surrounded them now, the same crystals he’d seen in the lake after he survived his ordeal with the black ooze.
He looked around at the glowing arena and a disturbing thought wormed its way into his mind. If the stones attracted the creature, as Commander Hilt had theorised, then they were standing in the beast’s all you could eat buffet. Suppressing the urge to run, Goodwin made his way back to the megalith’s circular indent, where the others remained arguing over God knows what. Goodwin, however, only had eyes for the job in hand. He reached out and pressed his palm flat to the surface. The stones grew hot in his other hand and electricity converged on his touch, plunging the rest of the megalith into darkness. Everyone turned towards him just as an almighty groan set the ground shaking. Stumbling sideways, Goodwin found his hand held fast to the stone and his arm wrenched round in pain as he tried to keep his feet.
The monolith shuddered and lurched to the right, dragging Goodwin along with it. The ground cracked and split, like a frozen sea buckling under the prow of an icebreaker, as the massive slab ploughed up soil before it to form a growing mound of earth.
‘Sir!’ Lieutenant Manaus rushed to pull him free.
‘Let go, Richard!’ Rebecca said.
‘I can’t!’ He tried to open his other hand, which held the stones, but his fingers wouldn’t move. The muscles in his arm went into spasm.
The lieutenant heaved on his hand, but it held fast.
Goodwin glanced behind to see the massive stone tracked a path around the rim of the basin with the top of the giant globe at its heart.
Manaus and Rebecca continued in their efforts to free him.
‘It’s no use,’ Goodwin said over the noise, ‘let it take its course!’
The megalith kept up its advance for another thirty feet before it slowed and then jarred to a halt.
A rush of energy swept up Goodwin’s arm and he fell to his knees and grasped his head in agony. A flash of light sent him slumping to the ground and Rebecca rushed to his side, but Goodwin’s eyes had already rolled up into his head, his body caught in a violent fit.
♦
‘Help him!’ Rebecca screamed.
Manaus grabbed Goodwin’s arm and a blast of electricity blew her from her feet. The Darklight officer slid to a halt ten yards away, unmoving, her armour smoking from the discharge of energy.
Horrified and helpless, Rebecca stared into Goodwin’s contorted features while Priest and his crew looked on with dispassionate eyes.
‘Fight, Richard!’ Rebecca hovered beside his writhing form. ‘Fight it!’
‘So long, Director,’ Walker said. ‘I’ll see you in the land of the Gods.’
Chapter Seventy Nine
‘How many?’
‘Nineteen, all armed. Some of them have Darklight kit.’
‘Did they see you?’
The woman shook her head.
‘The director?’
‘No sign of him, the two civilians or the lieutenant.’
‘Corporal Walker?’
‘No, sir.’
Captain Winter frowned. ‘Nineteen; there should be twenty-eight, where are the other nine?’
‘I overheard them talking, sounds like one of them died somehow, which leaves eight other tangos unaccounted for.’
‘With the director, no doubt.’ Winter pondered their options. ‘What’s their formation?’
‘Twenty yard spread, alert, but undisciplined.’
‘Thoughts?’
‘We could take most of them alive with minimal casualties.’
‘Negative; they could warn Walker, which might jeopardise Goodwin.’ Winter made a decision and signalled for his unit to gather round.
He pressed a com button on his helmet. ‘Use the mist and standing stones as cover; silencers and camouflage active. Full auto after primary contact on my signal. We are a go for engagement, I say again, we are a go.’
Winter activated his armour and moved into the dark. His team followed, their forms shimmering out of existence as they slipped into the mists of night.
♦
‘If they’re not back in ten minutes I say we take our chances with Offiah.’
Another soldier snorted up some phlegm and swallowed it down. ‘Make it five; this place gives me the creeps.’
‘Priest told us to wait here,’ said another.
‘Priest can go fuck himself. He had plenty of opportunity to give us Goodwin’s bit on the side and he kept her for himself.’
‘There’s always that Darklight whore, Manaus.’
The first soldier who’d spoken grinned. ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s under that armour. Although I think she’s too good for you; you can have that disabled woman, what’s her name? The one that bastard Hilt went to find.’
The man made a face. ‘Simple Susan?’
The soldier laughed. ‘Yeah, that’s the one, although I think you’d do well to get her. Perhaps Walker’s more your type? Or Priest?’ He reached out a hand and stroked the man’s neck. ‘What do you say, pretty boy?’
The other men laughed as the man tried to push him away.
‘In fact,’ the soldier said, ‘we could pass you round instead; what do you say?’
His friend glared at him and the soldier laughed at his discomfort before something whizzed past his head, splashing liquid into his eyes.
Blinking it away, he wiped the back of his hand across his face and looked at it under torchlight. It was covered in blood. The man before him toppled to the ground and then everything turned to chaos.
♦
Captain Winter joined his team at the scene of carnage. ‘Report.’
‘Zero Darklight casualties. All targets nullified.’
A groan nearby made Winter turn in its direction. Walking over, he nudged the body of a man with his foot.
The soldier opened his eyes. ‘Please, I need help.’ He coughed and a trickle of blood ran down his chin.
‘Where’s Director Goodwin?’
The man gave a small shake of his head. ‘I don’t know, gone. Please … help me.’
‘I recognise you,’ Winter said, crouching down by his side.
‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ The man grabbed Winter’s leg and tried to smile.
Winter looked at his wounds. ‘I think you need a medic.’
‘Yes,’ the man said in relief, ‘yes, thank you.’
‘You’re the joker, the funny man, aren’t you?’
The man nodded, unable to speak as he struggled to breathe.
‘And from what I hear you also enjoy sexual assault.’ Winter stood up and his expression darkened. ‘Any last words?’
Fear crept into the man’s dying eyes and Winter pulled out his pistol to wait for an answer that never came. The man had already gone.
Winter stared down at the dead man, his emotions mixed. One less fucker in the world, he thought, fifty million to go.
‘Sir.’
He looked up.
‘We’ve found tracks leading off into the mist. The terrain looks tricky. Some kind of tar pits.’
‘Single file,’ Winter said, ‘stay alert, they could be close.’
The woman saluted and moved away.
Captain Wint
er raised his visor with the touch of a button and stared out into the gloom. ‘Where are you, Director?’
Chapter Eighty
Richard Goodwin gasped for air. His eyes flared open and he heard Rebecca call his name before he was sucked back into nowhere. His thoughts wandered and images flashed in front of his mind’s eye like a strobe. Faster and faster the abstractions came, bombarding him, mind, body and soul. Screaming without a voice, Goodwin fled from the onslaught, his spirit lost to insanity’s insidious caress.
A figure appeared through the fog of despair – a white light in a dark abyss. The women held out a hand and the black fled from her presence like insects before a storm. Goodwin remained cowering until her warmth had driven the ice from his heart. He reached out and felt strength flow through his being, filling it with the essence of life. She whispered to him to follow, telling him there was nothing to fear, not here. Knowing she told the truth he let her lead him into safety and … LIGHT.
Goodwin felt his disconnected form drop into the whirlpool of a black hole, sucked down into a scene from a forgotten past. An Anakim warrior walked straight through Goodwin’s translucent, shimmering aura and knelt before the great throne of gold and its titanic, silver God. Two crystalline statues crouched on either side of the golden seat, their sphinx-like shapes shimmering in the shadows. The giant man bowed to the god and placed a silver sword on the floor before retreating. The vision swirled into a chaos of colour and Goodwin found himself before the massive frieze where the same Anakim man lay on the pentagonal altar, his eyes glowing blue in the gloom. He could feel the man’s fear and taste his terror – he wanted to run, to flee, but something controlled him, trapping him on the metal plinth, his massive limbs bound by invisible bonds. A procession of robed figures approached, the tallest of which held the same shining weapon the man had just offered up to his God. The blade rose, its tip sparkling like a star. From its zenith the sword fell and blood flowed. The Anakim’s life force gushed from his veins, pumped out by his dying heart. The flow of dark red ran around the altar’s outer channel and down onto the floor. Fire blazed and Goodwin was transported again, this time to a frozen lake – no – it was the frosted crystal sea behind the great throne. Nothing stirred and Goodwin could feel the cold spreading up his legs and back into his heart. He walked forward, approaching the sunken alcoves in the icy wall. Wisps of super cool air hung in the blue glow that permeated every atom and every direction. Compulsion drove him to wipe away the frost that covered the back of the tomb-like aperture. Cold gripped his fingers as he slid them across the frosted surface to reveal the clear crystal beneath. His eyes drew him inside the hidden chamber beyond. He could feel … something … something inside, something that became aware of his intrusion into its domain. Eyes opened and Goodwin screamed.
Horror returned, shimmering and spinning, weaving its web of pain. A black mist seeped into his mind, stalking Goodwin’s prone form. It was his body that lay on the altar now, held fast by an unseen force. The shadowy figure approached and Goodwin was unable to move. Gripped by terror, eyes swivelling, he fought back with pure fury. Suddenly the chains released and Goodwin leapt at the shape, wrestling it into the black in a fit of ferocious fear. Straining every sinew, every muscle, he fought the dark being that sought his soul. Driving it back he fled for the distant light, the dark mist clinging to his spirit with talons of ice.
‘Richard!’
Goodwin’s eyes flew open and he scrabbled to his feet. Adrenaline and terror coursed through his system like an out of control freight train. He sucked in great gulps of air and stumbled back to the ground, exhausted.
Rebecca grasped his face. ‘Speak to me!’
‘I’m … okay,’ he said, wheezing. ‘I’m okay.’
‘That’s the second time you’ve scared me half to death.’
Goodwin looked up into her anxious eyes.
‘You’ve got nine lives, Director,’ Walker said, standing close by.
With some semblance of sanity returning, Goodwin struggled to his feet and looked round to see the still form of Lieutenant Manaus on the ground a few yards away. Her helmet had been removed and her eyes were closed as if in prayer.
A look of shock crossed Goodwin’s face when he realised she must be dead. ‘What happened?’
‘She got a shock trying to free you from the stone. I think her heart gave out.’ Rebecca wiped a tear from her eye.
Goodwin glanced at the dormant megalith that had trapped him in its electrical grasp. How he’d survived he didn’t know, but one thing was for sure, he’d been lucky, very lucky.
A sense of guilt and sadness swept over him as he gazed down at the peaceful features of the Darklight officer. Another person dead because of me; how many more will it take before the end comes?
A wave of nausea made him stumble and he grabbed on to Rebecca for support.
‘This place is a death trap,’ Walker said, ‘and unless anyone wants to risk touching that thing again we’re no closer to finding a way to the surface than we were before.’
‘Someone will try it again,’ Priest said, hefting his rifle, ‘and soon, I guarantee it.’
Goodwin blocked out their chatter as something tried to push its way to the forefront of his mind, a sensation of remembrance he knew was important – he just couldn’t recall it.
‘What’s wrong?’ Rebecca said. ‘Do you need to sit down?’
He waved the suggestion away. ‘I saw things, real things from their past.’
‘Whose past?’
‘The Anakims’, at least I think they were real. It felt like the truth, like it happened, or was happening. I don’t know, it seemed so—’
‘So what?’
‘So real?’ Walker said, his tone sceptical.
Rebecca shot Walker a withering look before turning back to Goodwin. ‘What did you see?’
‘The throne, a warrior and …’ his eyes grew wide.
‘What is it?’
An image of the Anakim warrior returned from memory and Goodwin could see his torment, but most of all he could see the blue glow that flickered over the iris of his eyes.
A sense of dread settled on his heart and Goodwin’s eyes darted over the crystalline crater and its soil laden basin. ‘Where’s Joseph?’
Rebecca spun round.
The lad was nowhere to be seen.
‘Joseph?!’ Rebecca said. ‘JOSEPH!!’
Chapter Eighty One
‘Get out of my way!’
‘No.’
Rebecca screamed and attempted to force her way past Priest and his men. A soldier pushed her back and Goodwin tried to help, but Priest slammed the butt of his gun into his head, sending him sprawling to the ground in pain.
Rebecca kept fighting until one of the soldiers backhanded her to the floor.
‘Please,’ Rebecca said, with tears in her eyes, ‘let me find him.’
‘The boy’s no use to us,’ Priest said. ‘We need to find a way out, and the clock’s ticking.’
Rebecca put her hand to her mouth and a sob escaped her lips. ‘Please …’
Priest remained stony-faced, the pleas falling on deaf ears.
Goodwin got back to his feet. ‘You must let us go; you don’t understand.’
‘Enlighten me,’ Priest said.
Goodwin wasn’t quite sure what he knew himself. ‘The boy,’ – he shook his head in an attempt to clear it – ‘Joseph, he’s not himself.’
‘If that’s your argument,’ Walker said, ‘it’s not very convincing.’
‘No, you’re not listening to me! It’s his eyes; he had the same blue light as the Anakim warrior.’ Goodwin’s frustration mounted as the answer he sought seemed to stay just out of his grasp. The men before him remained unimpressed and he looked at Rebecca. ‘Did you see that the statue had moved, or did Joseph?’
Rebecca stared at him, distraught.
‘Rebecca,’ – he gave her a shake – ‘this is important. Think; after I activated the thro
ne the first time, was it you or Joseph that noticed the statue had moved.’
‘I don’t know. I saw its head was in a different position.’
‘But did Joseph point to it first?’
‘No, but … he does this thing when he wants me to go somewhere, he leans into me to make me go in the direction he wants.’
‘So he pushed you towards the statue?’
‘Yes, I think so. Why – why does that even matter? He’s out there alone!’
Goodwin turned back to Priest. ‘Joseph also helped me uncover the frieze in the city. And he fired the gun that uncovered the globe.’ Something struck him as the puzzle came together. ‘How did he get out of the camp? The lieutenant said he must have followed her. How? He had no spectral enhancement to see in the dark. How did he evade the patrols? How did Manaus, a highly trained reconnaissance operative, not see him following her? A mentally disabled man wandering around in the dark, who just happens to end up with us, you don’t think that strange?’
Priest remained impassive.
‘For God’s sake, man!’ Goodwin gestured at the megalith. ‘The boy knew how to operate the stone. Can’t you see?!’ Goodwin felt groggy and he paused for breath.
‘So what are you saying?’ Walker said.
A recollection of Joseph playing with his transparent bottle of water in the Anakim city bubbled up from Goodwin’s past. The lad hadn’t been able to comprehend why the level inside stayed on a horizontal plane regardless of how he tilted it. And he’d demonstrated his discovery to Goodwin many times over. Did he help me get through the challenge in the lake, too? Goodwin wondered. Without that knowledge I wouldn’t have known which way was up inside the black oil and I would have drowned.
2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) Page 48
