Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2)

by Robert Storey

  ‘She even doubts her own actions!’ Zinetti said, seeing her expression.

  ‘Sarah?’ Trish said, looking at her in despair.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked around, as the oozing fluid continued its unstoppable advance.

  ‘Sarah,’ Avery said, holding out his hand. ‘Drop the knife and give me the pendant. We can’t get out without it.’

  She looked down at the long blade in her hand. She didn’t even remember picking it up.

  ‘Morgan blamed Dowling,’ Zinetti said, ‘but it was her. She killed those people. And she tried to kill her friends. We can’t believe anything she says.’ He turned to Lanter. ‘Get the pendant!’

  The armoured major strode forward, but Sarah lunged at Avery, dragged him between them and held the knife to his throat.

  ‘See?’ Zinetti said. ‘It’s her, it’s always been her!’

  Sarah didn’t know what she was doing, but she felt a strong compulsion to end Avery’s life. She raised the knife to plunge it into his chest, but Ruben grasped her from behind, allowing Avery to scramble to safety.

  ‘Sarah, stop this!’ Trish said, trying to intervene, but Jason held her back.

  Sarah threw Ruben off and made to throw the pendant into the viscous ooze, but Lanter snatched it from her grasp.

  Other hands grasped her from either side and Sarah struggled against Lanter and two Swiss guards as they held her down.

  ‘Stop her!’ Zinetti said, as, with inhuman strength, Sarah slowly forced herself up.

  ‘Ruben,’ Avery said. ‘Remember what we discussed, the time has come. There’s no other way!’

  Ruben looked at Sarah in indecision; her body shook with exertion as she fought against three supposedly stronger men.

  Sarah felt her resistance failing and she managed to say through the rage, ‘Do it, I don’t want to live,’ – she stood up straighter, her sinews bulging – ‘like this.’

  ‘Sarah, no!’ Trish said. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying!’

  ‘Do it!’ Zinetti said. ‘She’s dying, anyway. The drugs are just extending the inevitable.’

  ‘Dying?’ Trish said, appalled.

  Ruben raised the sword aloft.

  ‘I’m sorry, my child.’ Avery gave Ruben the nod. ‘I did all I could for you; please, forgive me.’

  Ruben looked down into Sarah’s eyes, his expression distraught, and time slowed as Sarah looked to where Jason held Trish back, and then to the pentagram beneath her feet. She recalled her vision of Ruben standing over her with a blood-soaked sword and knew her time had come; she closed her eyes.

  ‘He’s right,’ she said, welcoming the release it would bring. ‘Do it.’ She forced herself to her full height. ‘DO IT!’

  Ruben hesitated.

  ‘She made you break your vows,’ Zinetti said. ‘She’s a murderer, a siren, and a sorcerer who summons demons!’

  ‘Ruben!’ Avery said in fear, as Sarah cast her captors aside and turned on him. ‘What are you waiting for?!’

  Sarah knocked the cardinal to the floor and grasped his throat.

  ‘KILL HER!’ Zinetti screamed. ‘NOW!!’

  Avery choked for air and Ruben leapt forward and, with a roar of fury, swung his sword.

  Chapter Two Hundred Sixty

  The flat of Ruben’s blade slammed against Sarah’s head, knocking her to the floor. She shook off the blow and looked up, as Ruben raised his sword again.

  ‘Please,’ Sarah said, trying to resist the urge to attack. ‘Just end it. I’m too dangerous.’

  ‘End it, Ruben.’ Avery rubbed at his bruised throat. ‘You must!’

  Ruben swung again, Sarah shut her eyes and the clang of metal on metal made her look up to see the sword resting on the pentagram beside her.

  ‘I cannot,’ he said, his chest heaving in exertion. ‘Forgive me.’

  Sarah let out a growl of frustration and launched herself at Avery, but Ruben caught her and dragged her back. The two former lovers fell to the floor in a tangle of legs and arms as each sought the upper hand. Ruben managed to fight Sarah off and waved for assistance, but Major Lanter held out his hand to stop his men from lending their aid.

  ‘It looks like your betrayal has cost you,’ Konstantin said, laughing from where he sat tied up next to his two remaining knights.

  Ruben scowled and backed away from Sarah. She felt the strength fading from her limbs, her sense of control returning. She slumped to the floor in defeat and when it became apparent nothing else was about to transpire, Zinetti gestured to Lanter. ‘Bring them!’

  Major Lanter strode forward with his four guards, disarmed the unresisting Ruben, and hauled both he and Sarah in front of the Italian cardinal.

  ‘You disobeyed a direct order,’ Zinetti said to the warrior monk. ‘How do you plead?’

  Ruben cast his eyes down and said nothing as Lanter forced him to his knees beside Sarah.

  The Swiss guards secured ropes around Sarah’s wrists and ankles, and stood watch behind her, a sword resting against her neck. This time they were taking no chances.

  Silence fell in the pyramid’s dark interior, the only noise that made by the gushing black liquid as it continued to pour out from the mouths of the three stone sphinxes. The oozing mass now surrounded the Anakim eye and crept inwards in an ever-decreasing circle.

  Zinetti tore his gaze from the encroaching tide and turned it onto his prisoners, while nearby, Avery recovered from his brush with death.

  The Italian glanced at Trish and Jason, who edged closer to Sarah, while the three Knights of the Apocalypse remained sitting down, bound together by their own rope.

  ‘I knew you couldn’t be trusted,’ Zinetti said to Ruben, as a soldier tied the monk’s wrists together. ‘As soon as I saw you, I knew. Your Catholic faith is as weak as your mind. You endanger the lives of those you swore to protect and challenge us at every turn. Broken vows, disobeyed orders, and a fascination with the Redeemer that borders on heresy.’

  ‘I preach the teachings of Christ and the Word of God,’ Ruben said. ‘Not the dogma of man.’

  ‘Do you know what this man is?’ Zinetti said, looking down at Sarah. ‘He has a famous name. Don’t you, Ruben de Molay? Or should it be Prince de Molay, or perhaps, Your Highness?’

  Sarah looked at Ruben in shock.

  ‘And that’s not his only secret, is it, Ruben? There are more, aren’t there? So many more.’

  Furious, Ruben tried to stand, but Major Lanter held his razor-sharp sword to the monk’s neck. ‘Move again,’ Lanter said, ‘and it’ll be the last thing you do.’

  Zinetti held up the Anakim pendant to inspect. ‘Major,’ he said, looking to the officer. ‘It’s time.’

  Lanter nodded and motioned to one of his men, who drew his sword with a steely hiss and then decapitated the Swiss guard standing beside him. The man fell to the ground in a spray of blood.

  The Swiss guard next to him staggered back in dumbstruck horror.

  ‘Fight back, you idiot!’ Ruben said, but it was too late, as Major Lanter rammed his sword through the soldier’s visor, withdrew it and then watched the Swiss guard topple to the ground beside his dead friend.

  Sarah stared in disbelief at the two dead soldiers, as Ruben struggled to free himself.

  Only Lanter and two Swiss guards remained, and they quickly moved to Konstantin’s men, who screamed as they were run through with ruthless efficiency. Only Konstantin was left alive, for what purpose Sarah didn’t know, but it seemed Zinetti had finally revealed his true colours.

  One of the Swiss guards went to stand behind Avery; the Irish cardinal’s expression was grim as he glanced back at the soldier’s bloodied sword.

  Zinetti considered Trish and Jason, and Sarah held her breath in case he decided to end their lives, too, but the Italian turned his attention back to Ruben, who glared up at him and said, ‘Avery was right about you all along.’

  Zinetti smiled. ‘It has been my privilege to disrupt the Church’s plans ever
since I joined their ranks. You see, Ruben, your Russian friend was right all along.’ He looked to Konstantin, whose eyes seethed with hate. ‘The Church has been infiltrated for hundreds of years, as we try to lead astray the weak and wage war in the name of God, when it was He whose commandment was “Thou shalt not murder”.

  ‘It’s perfect, don’t you think?’ Zinetti continued. ‘Encouraging Catholics to murder for God? Only the strong keep their faith, despite our efforts to destroy their beloved Church from the inside out. But slowly, over the next few hundred years, we will corrupt God’s word bit by bit, inch by inch, word by word, and lead them further away from Christ and towards the fallen one.’

  ‘Ruben,’ Sarah said, still dazed from her possession, ‘I don’t understand. What’s he saying?’

  Ruben clenched his fists in rage. ‘He’s saying he’s the very thing I’ve been fighting against my whole life.’ He stared up at the man before him with hatred. ‘A Satanist.’

  ‘Modern Satanists get a bad rap,’ Zinetti said, ‘but their refusal to embrace the occult is their defining weakness. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Your Highness, but I belong to a far older order, one that predates all others, and it is far – far – more powerful than you could ever imagine.’

  Zinetti watched as the dark mass of fluid breached the edge of the Anakim eye. ‘Dowling did tell us something else about the pyramid,’ he said to Sarah, his tone conversational. ‘Something which you, yourself, confirmed seeing in your recent vision. You see, the gate, which we now know is also our way out, can only be fully opened with a blood sacrifice.’

  ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s God’s word. Only in God’s word can Heaven’s Gate be opened.’

  ‘What makes you think I’d ever want to open Heaven’s Gate?’

  ‘But you said ...’

  ‘He thinks this is Hell’s Gate,’ Ruben said, his expression as grim as Avery’s. ‘The pentagram, the pyramid, he believes this is some kind of temple to Satan.’

  ‘Like all things, if there is one, there must be the other. As it is written.’ Zinetti turned to Lanter, who searched Konstantin’s robes. ‘Does he have it?’

  The leader of the Swiss Guard nodded and held up a scroll, as Konstantin thrashed against his restraints and gnashed his teeth in fury.

  Zinetti snatched it from Lanter’s hands, unfurled it and looked at Ruben. ‘It seems all the trouble you took to keep the Prophecy from us has fallen short.’

  ‘Prophecy?’ Sarah said, looking at Ruben.

  Zinetti laughed. ‘You don’t know? Ah, Morgan, you dumb bitch.’ His expression darkened as his false mask lifted. ‘You’re the one who made it.’

  Sarah looked at Ruben in utter confusion, her withdrawal and weakness making the world spin around her. ‘I made it?’

  ‘You experienced a delirium after your train rescue, and again in the Vatican itself,’ Zinetti said. ‘According to Ruben, it was quite specific, yet he was only willing to disclose to Cantrell part of what it said. He has quite the problem with authority. Isn’t that so, Your Highness?’

  Ruben remained silent and the Italian looked back at Sarah as he savoured the moment.

  ‘Don’t you remember what you overheard me saying to Major Lanter?’ Zinetti said, sneering at her blank expression. ‘Just before Konstantin abducted you.’

  Sarah tried to recall what he meant. ‘The blood of the sacrificed will open the gates,’ she said, remembering. ‘You said Ruben didn’t know the purpose of the blood he gave you and that he was too blind to its purpose and by the time he found out it would be too late.’ A memory of Ruben extracting an ampoule of blood from the giant on the train appeared before her mind’s eye. ‘You think the giant’s blood is key, that’s why you had him bring it to you.’

  ‘The blood of the sacrificed will open the gates of heaven or hell,’ Zinetti said, reading a section of the scroll. ‘And, lo, the chosen will bear the marks of Christ.’ He looked down at the two dead Swiss guards and the large golden crosses on the breastplates of their armour. The blood from their bodies pooled into the centre of the Anakim eye, and the sunken altar within, and Zinetti said, ‘It seems their blood is not enough to open it.’ He smiled and accepted Ruben’s sword, given him by Lanter. The Vatican cardinal ran his fingers down the blade and then rested the point against Ruben’s chest. ‘And, lo, the chosen will bear the marks of Christ.’

  Sarah looked at the red cross on Ruben’s white tunic then looked up at him in fear.

  Zinetti saw her expression and his smile broadened. ‘I’m afraid our beloved monk has to die to enable my escape. Does it make you sad, Morgan?’ he said, turning down his bottom lip. ‘Sad that your words have condemned not just your lover to death,’ – he waved his hand, and Jason and Trish were dragged forward by the other Swiss guard – ‘but your dearest friends, as well?’

  Sarah looked at Trish and Jason in dismay, as they were forced to their knees beside her.

  ‘Yes,’ Zinetti said, ‘I can see your terror; it’s a beautiful thing.’ He held out his hand and Lanter gave him a pistol. ‘Four whole bullets,’ Zinetti said, holding up the weapon. ‘Excellent. It’s time,’ – he swung round and pointed it at Avery – ‘for a change of leadership!’

  The Irish cardinal looked at Zinetti with contempt.

  ‘I told you, I’d take your place,’ Zinetti said. ‘Did you think the time would never come?’

  Avery remained silent and Zinetti held out the handgun, and said, ‘Take it.’

  The Swiss guard raised his sword to Avery, who looked at Sarah.

  ‘Don’t look at her,’ Zinetti said. He touched Ruben’s sword to Avery’s throat. ‘I said, take it.’

  Avery slowly reached out and grasped the weapon. ‘This is not what’s supposed to happen.’

  ‘And yet, it is.’ Zinetti moved aside to allow the Irish cardinal to approach the warrior monk.

  ‘“And to the angel of the church of Pergamos write”,’ Avery said, ‘“These things saith he that hath the sharp two-edged sword.”’ He looked at the longsword in Zinetti’s hand and then to the stone throne that had appeared between the Anakim sphinx’s forelegs. ‘“I know where thou dwellest, where the seat of Satan is.”’

  Zinetti placed Ruben’s sword at Avery’s back. ‘Do it.’

  ‘“And thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my faith.”’ Avery raised the gun with a shaky hand and pointed it at Ruben. ‘“Even in those days when Antipas was my faithful witness, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.”’

  Zinetti’s smile broadened. ‘Apocalypsis Ioannis, the Book of Revelation, chapter two, verses twelve through thirteen. As it was written.’

  ‘So shall it be,’ Avery said. ‘But I fear you’re mistaken, Zinetti, you’ve showed your hand too soon.’

  Major Lanter reached out with his armoured hand and grasped Zinetti’s sword.

  The Italian cardinal struggled to free it as Avery turned towards him with the gun pointed at his head.

  ‘Major?!’ Zinetti said, looking terrified. ‘What are you doing?!’

  ‘I’m afraid Major Lanter’s loyalties lie elsewhere,’ Avery said.

  Lanter wrestled the sword from Zinetti’s hands, reversed it, then plunged it through the Italian’s chest.

  Zinetti gaped in disbelief at the blade protruding from his body. The pendant slipped from his grasp and a trickle of blood ran down from his mouth. He gasped for air, spraying blood over Avery’s face.

  The Irishman watched his Italian counterpart drop to his knees, still clutching the sword in his chest. Avery then turned back to Ruben and Sarah, and said, ‘He never was very good at choosing.’

  Trish let out a sigh of relief and Sarah grasped her friend’s hand as she watched Zinetti struggling to breathe.

  ‘Zinetti was wrong about the prophecy, you see,’ Avery said. ‘He was wrong about a lot of things.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Zinetti should have seen it; I’m surprised you didn�
��t, either, Ruben, especially considering your illicit encounters with Sarah here, not to mention her manifestations.’

  ‘Manifestations?’ Trish said, looking as confused as Jason.

  ‘You’re a prophet, Sarah,’ Avery said. ‘A strange one, I admit, but history is littered with the low-born serving God.’ He laughed at her dubious expression. ‘You doubt my words? You’ve manifested all the gifts of speech, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues and prophetic visions. You’ve shown the gift of faith when facing the Pharos. You’ve displayed the gift of knowledge, as you know and believe in what you wield, and you possess the gift of wisdom to know when to utilise it. You distinguished the spirit of a demon and worked miracles by bringing us here, banishing the Pharos and operating ancient technology without the pendant. Only the gift of healing is yet to be revealed. That’s a manifestation of eight out of nine spiritual gifts; whether you accept it or not, the Holy Spirit works through you, as you yourself prophesied.’

  ‘Why should I have seen it?’ Ruben said.

  ‘My God, man, are you blind?’ Avery sighed and reached out to open Sarah’s trembling hands, revealing the circular welts created the year before by the Anakim device in Sanctuary. ‘And you have the same marks on your feet, do you not?’ Avery said.

  Amazed, Ruben looked at her anew and whispered, ‘Stigmata.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Avery said. ‘Even down to the wound on her chest, close to her heart, where the Roman soldier plunged his lance into Christ.’ He looked at Ruben. ‘Do you doubt it?’

  Ruben shook his head and whispered, ‘She’s a mystic.’

  ‘I apologise,’ Avery said to them both, ‘for not intervening sooner, but I had to wait for Zinetti to reveal his true intent.’ He glanced back at the Italian, who continued his fruitless struggle for life, and then bent down and picked up the pendant from the floor. ‘And I’m afraid, old friend, your days are numbered,’ – Avery looked back and raised the gun to Ruben’s head – ‘as we finally have what we want.’

  Major Lanter grasped Ruben’s neck and pressed the blade tight to his throat.