2041 Sanctuary (Genesis) (29 page)

Chapter Fifty One

Sarah ran through the sphinx’s endless halls and glanced back to see the Pharos chasing her down. She veered left and then right, but a bellow of fury told her the beast was closing fast. Her manic flight thrust her headlong into thickening mist and a column loomed before her; she dodged left and stumbled, but kept up her speed, driven on by terror.

Careering past statues and tombs, she glanced back again. The light from the Pharos had gone and when it failed to re-materialise on a second inspection, she slowed as silent darkness surrounded her.

No sound from the creature reached her ears and she wondered if it approached unseen. She strained her ears, listening, but all she could hear was her own breathing, which sounded muffled by the thick vapour.

An icy chill permeated her bones and Sarah pressed a button on her helmet. ‘Trish,’ she whispered, ‘I’m okay, can you hear me … Jason?’

A crackle of static washed through her helmet’s speakers before a faint voice replied.

‘Sarah,’ Trish said, her voice sounding distorted, ‘where are you?’

She was about to reply before a rough hand clamped over her mouth and she was dragged back into the dark.

She tried to speak, but whoever held her tightened their grip.

‘Shhh,’ a voice whispered in her ear, ‘they’re close.’

Sarah recognised who it was and she turned her head to see Richard Goodwin staring over her shoulder into the darkness. She followed his gaze and her visor adjusted to show a massive plaza shrouded in thinning wisps of mist. At its furthest edge, Susan moved in a shuffling walk towards a steep slope.

Goodwin let go of Sarah’s mouth and pointed to the right, where the shimmering form of a Pharos glided across the ground. Every so often the two unlikely companions stopped and moved closer together, before carrying on their slow procession.

‘Locke called it a Pharos,’ Sarah said, keeping her voice hushed.

Goodwin gave a nod.

She frowned. ‘What are they doing?’

‘I don’t know, but I know where they’re going.’ Goodwin moved back behind the column and Sarah followed.

‘I need to find my friends,’ she said.

He gestured behind her. ‘I think they’ve found you.’

She turned to see Trish and Jason approach out of the mist.

Sarah moved towards them and put a finger to her lips to signal for quiet.

‘We thought we’d lost you,’ Trish said while Goodwin returned to his vantage point to spy on the Pharos.

Jason held up the orb-turned-disc and passed it to her. ‘So much for the light not wanting to hurt us.’

‘We’re still alive, aren’t we?’ she said, tucking the artefact into her coveralls.

‘For now.’ Trish reached out and touched a jagged gash on Sarah’s chest. ‘But we have to get out of here, our luck’s running out.’

Sarah looked down at the bleeding wound. The Pharos had got closer than she’d thought. She felt her neck and face where a host of other lacerations had resulted from her close shave with the creature. She hadn’t felt any of them; not even the deep cut on her palm dealt by Locke’s knife back outside the sphinx. ‘Susan’s close,’ she said, ignoring the pain that belatedly kicked in.

Jason pointed behind her. ‘Where’s he going?’

Sarah turned to see Goodwin disappear into the mist. She swore and waved them on. ‘Let’s go, we can’t afford to lose him again.’

The three friends pursued Goodwin across the plaza, Sarah leading, Trish following and Jason bringing up the rear.

Further ahead, the shimmering light of the Pharos disappeared from view and they slowed their approach.

Goodwin, oblivious to their presence, reached the slope, crept up it and vanished into a dense bank of fog.

Sarah grasped Trish’s hand, who repeated the process with Jason and, linked together, the three friends inched forward, fearing what was ahead as much as what lay behind.

Sarah’s visor fuzzed as she entered the freezing cloud. The vapour clung to her like an apparition and blocked out all vision. If she’d put a hand in front of her face she wouldn’t have been able to see it. She felt Trish tighten her grip.

Seconds later the way ahead cleared a little and Sarah saw Goodwin crouched down in a shallow trough next to a towering wall encrusted with ice. A hundred feet away the light from the Pharos shone through slow, swirling mists. If it had spotted them it didn’t show it, and Susan was nowhere to be seen.

Sarah dropped down onto one knee behind Goodwin. She glanced left to see a deep alcove sunk into the wall. The tall, coffin-like aperture looked like a gateway to another world as its deep interior was wreathed in an icy miasma. Two hundred feet on their right, and in mirror image to the one next to them, another frost-encrusted wall could just be glimpsed soaring into the dark. Between them and it, a massive silver statue towered over them. Half shrouded in cloud, the figure sat upon a golden throne and Sarah felt her gaze drawn upwards to its beautiful, feminine face. It reminded her of a larger version of the Ageless King she’d seen in Sanctuary’s military vaults. Either side of it, two massive sculptures of Anakim sphinxes lurked in the dark, their forms exact replicas of the monument in which they now found themselves trapped.

As she looked back down, something caught her eye. Two bodies had been laid out in offering before the god-like silver statue. Their static forms peeked out through the mist laden ground, and the sight of one of the two made her feel dizzy with grief. Riley lay in unmoving death beside his friend and teammate, the late Jefferson Church. Both men had been arranged in the shape of a star and Sarah felt all reason leave her. She stood up, meaning to go to him, but Trish grasped her arm and pulled her back down.

‘Sarah,’ Trish said, her expression full of sympathy, ‘you can’t help him now.’

Sarah stared at the lifeless form before Goodwin whispered something to her.

She looked back in a daze to see him pointing beyond to where the Pharos lurked. ‘Your way out of Sanctuary is through there,’ he said.

He crawled forward and Sarah, her mind in turmoil, glanced back at Riley before following.

‘What’s he doing?’ Jason said.

After ten more feet Goodwin stopped at a second alcove in the wall, and Trish lent past Sarah and touched his shoulder. ‘We need Susan, she has the pendant.’

He looked startled by the news, nodded, and then turned to face the wall. He ran his hand over the frost to uncover a transparent surface beneath. Where the first alcove had been deep, this one was shallow, as if it had been back-filled.

With care, Goodwin stood up and wiped away more of the icy coating. After the shock of seeing Riley, Sarah felt her attention returning and she kept her eye on the Pharos in case it decided to move. When it failed to do so, she looked up to see a figure inside the crystalline structure. It was a woman.
This must be Rebecca
, she thought,
the person Goodwin said he wanted to free
.

Goodwin placed a hand against the crystal and Sarah was shocked as the woman’s eyes moved inside her solid prison. At least she thought they’d moved. Goodwin meanwhile slid his hand over the surface as if looking for some way to release Rebecca from her bonds.

Sarah could see another person trapped inside the transparent wall behind the first. Much like the woman, the man looked to have been frozen mid-pose. On a hunch, Sarah pressed her ear to the cold surface. Concentrating, she could hear the steady rhythm of the woman’s heartbeat and as she listened a second beat could be heard, fainter and erratic, but it was there.

‘They’re alive,’ Sarah said.

Goodwin crouched back down beside her. ‘No – only Rebecca.’

Sarah shook her head. ‘I heard two heartbeats.’

Goodwin gave her a sharp look before pressing his ear to the wall. His eyes widened as he heard what she had.

‘It’s impossible,’ he whispered, ‘Joseph died.’ He looked up at the man and his expression turned to astonishment. ‘His wounds are healing.’

Sarah saw gunshot holes riddled the man’s clothing. Within these, the flesh was red and laced with blood vessels, but the wounds were shallow, not deep penetrations like a bullet would make.

Sarah gazed into the wall, counting the number of bullets that must have torn into the man’s chest. ‘You saw him shot?’ Sarah said.

Goodwin didn’t reply.

Sarah yanked him round. ‘Did you see him get shot?’ she said, her eyes intense.

He stared at her through his transparent helmet and gave a nod.

Sarah looked back into the wall before the ground trembled and a glow of light blossomed into being alongside the Pharos.

‘Susan,’ Goodwin said, turning.

The ground shook and the Pharos moved towards them.

Trish grasped Sarah’s arm. The creature let out a shriek and sped past them into swirling mists, and they breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Meanwhile the ethereal light shone brighter to reveal Susan’s shadowy outline next to an altar much like Sarah had seen in her vision.

Sarah turned her attention back to the wall which now glowed from within, and looked past Goodwin to see more alcoves lining its crystalline structure at regular intervals.

‘Can you get them out?’ she said.

Goodwin gave her a look of despair. ‘I don’t know, I think the altar controls it somehow.’

Sarah looked back towards the light. ‘And Susan controls the altar.’

She took one more look at the alcove and then ran towards Riley.

‘What are you doing?!’ Trish said, standing.

Sarah reached Riley’s body, grasped his climbing harness and dragged him towards the nearest alcove. ‘I can bring him back.’

‘What?’

‘I can bring him back!’

Jason tried to stop her, but she pushed him away, her look ferocious.

‘Help me!’ Sarah said to Trish.

Her friend looked at her, uncomprehending, and Sarah continued to drag Riley’s corpse across the ground.

Reaching the alcove, she heaved his body inside its icy mist and waited for something to happen.

‘Sarah, he’s gone,’ Trish said. ‘You have to let him go.’

‘NO! I can heal him.’ She crouched down and touched his face. ‘I can heal you.’

Chapter Fifty Two

Sarah kissed Riley’s cold lips and turned away from the alcove to look for Goodwin.

‘Sarah,’ Jason said, grasping her shoulders, ‘Riley’s dead, you can’t heal him.’ The distant roar of a Pharos echoed through the sphinx. ‘We need to get out of here.’

Sarah pushed Jason aside and joined Goodwin, who stood facing the strange glow that permeated the misty air a hundred feet away. She made to move towards it, but Goodwin grasped her arm.

‘Wait,’ he said, ‘something’s not right.’

A faint light spread through the mist-shrouded ground and a strange vibration rippled up through their feet. They retreated, but seconds later the sensation ceased and the illumination faded. The vapour that covered the ground cleared to reveal a massive, circular crater, two hundred feet across and twenty feet deep. Whether this feature was newly formed or had been concealed by the mist all along, Sarah didn’t know, but the concave depression bridged the gap between one iced wall and the other; both of which pulsed with the faintest light. Her visor fuzzed and adjusted to the changing range to reveal a massive, metallic pentagram resting at the bottom of the crater. In its centre, steps led up to a raised, circular dais on which stood the altar, and standing next to this was the small figure of Susan. The woman was looking straight at them with bloodshot eyes. It was as if she was waiting for them to approach. Sarah zoomed in her visor to see she held the pendant clutched in one hand.

Something moved in the dark and Sarah’s eyes grew wide as Dresden Locke appeared through the mist and grabbed Susan from behind. A second later he’d wrested the pendant from her and sent her tumbling down the steps.

‘You’re too late, Morgan,’ Locke said, holding up the pendant, ‘you’re never getting back to the surface!’

Rage swamped Sarah’s senses like nothing she’d ever felt before, and she went to jump down into the crater, but Jason hauled her back.

‘Get off me!’ she said, writhing in his grasp.

‘Sarah, no,’ Trish said, ‘look!’

A dark liquid gushed up from the bottom of the depression to cover the giant metal pentagram, which lurched into a clockwise rotation. Locke saw his escape route disappearing before his eyes, while Susan had already made it to the far side and scrambled up the slope to safety.

Locke jumped down onto the moving pentagram, intending to follow her, but seconds later he was wading waist deep in viscous oil. He looked around him as the level reached his chest, then cried out and clutched his head in pain. Unable to make it out, he staggered back to the steps and up towards the altar, his face contorted in agony. By then he was covered in black ooze and he fell to his knees to writhe in torment. With a sudden screech, he reared up and dug his fingers into his face, tearing into his flesh with his nails. He screamed and screamed again before gouging his knife into his cheek and down into his neck.

Trish gasped and averted her gaze as the blood flowed. The oil surged higher, and in a moment of lucidity Locke managed to drag his grappling gun clear and fire it towards them. The bolt whistled past their heads and punched into the glowing wall, but the discharge from the device ignited the oil. Flames licked up his arm and over his body. An instant later Locke had turned into a human torch as the fires raged and spread. With a final bloodcurdling shriek of terror, the SED facility commander plunged the blade into his own chest, once – twice – three times. The knife fell from his grasp and Dresden Locke slumped onto the steps and slid down into the black fluid to vanish beneath its burning surface.

Sarah stared in shock at the fiery lake that now encircled the central platform. Locke was gone, and with him her chance to save Riley.

‘My God,’ Jason said, ‘what is that stuff?’

‘It’s a neurotoxin,’ Goodwin said, ‘or a hallucinogen, or both. It’s everywhere down here. I had to swim through it to get here the first time. It nearly killed me. I think it’s used as some kind of test.’