Saint (37 page)

“Clear,” they answered in unison.

“Francis, where’s your body suit?” Seth
asked when the preacher made no move to don his protective gear.

“I won’t be needing it this trip.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Don’t much care if I make it out or not. I’d
rather die on the battlefield than in some flea-infested VA hospital. Got a
blood clot in my leg. Doctors want to operate, but you know how that goes. I
could be walking down the street and throw one to the brain.”

“Christ, Francis! When you lay it on, you
really lay it on thick,” Gabe spat. “The doctor who treated that bullet wound
was one of the best.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t, Gabe. It’s not
her fault. Just one of those things.”

“You die on your own time,” Seth growled. “Not
Maria’s. That’s an order, Francis,” he added when the preacher looked about to
protest.

* * * * *

Francis took his place on the east side of
the compound outside the wall after taking out the guard posted there. Then he
removed his protective gear.

The colonel would be pissed, but what the
hell? It was his life. And he wasn’t going to spend what was left of it hooked
up to a machine while his brain turned to mush. The pain in his leg was
constant now, enough so that he sought relief in any form it took.

He might go to hell for all he’d done in
his lifetime. But one thing was certain, he was taking his share of sinners
with him when he went.

* * * * *

Gabriel set up the rocket-propelled
grenade, checked his load and waited for the signal.

Francis had predicted correctly. His wife
was his salvation. The thought of molesting his own daughter, even making love
to his wife posing as his daughter had been all it took for him to face the
fear. To let it go.

After all these years, he could finally
forgive himself.

* * * * *

Joan readied for battle, his M-60 locked
and loaded. There was no reckoning how many guards patrolled both the inside
and outside grounds, but he figured any sane person would have ducked out long
ago.

Sane or not, the Godless bastards were
about to come down with a severe case of lead poisoning. Orders were orders.
And if there was one thing he did well, it was follow orders.

Bring my mommy back.

For the first time in years he smiled.

He really didn’t like kids.

Chapter Sixteen

“Did you think to use such a crude weapon
to brazen your way out,
chica
?”

Maria jerked to consciousness at the sound
of Nina’s mocking voice. Instinctively her grip on the fragmented bone-knife
tightened.

“Perhaps I’ll let you keep it,” Nina
crooned, squatting down in front of her. “At least you have backbone. That’s
more than can be said for the last
gringa puta
.”

“At least I can hold on to my man without
having to kill every woman who comes near him.”

Her retort caught Nina off guard. Maria
used those precious seconds to lunge at her tormentor, hoping to strike flesh.
But the attempt was pitiful at best, cut short by the slicing pain across the
back in her thigh.

Nina deflected the attack easily, sending
the makeshift knife tumbling to the floor. “You have a lover,
chica
? Tell me his name and I will
mail you to him when I am finished.”

Maria knew there was no one to come to her
aid. No one would save her. Her only hope lay in enraging Nina to the point of
losing control so that death might be mercifully swift. “Benito.”

“Liar!” Nina hissed, reaching for the
bone-knife. Snarling, she plunged the jagged edge into Maria’s left thigh.

Maria screamed as the splintered tip
imbedded itself into the muscle.

Nina rose to her feet, laughing eerily. “You
thought I would fall for such a cheap
gringa
trick? You know nothing of the painful pleasures of the flesh. Had
you lain with Benito, you would not be so squeamish.”

Jesus,
Benito
Juarez was a monster! Not only had he taken Nina to his bed then compounded the
incestuous sin by marrying her, he’d abused her further. But the demented Nina
hadn’t perceived it as such—to her it was an expression of love.

Using her arms, she dragged herself a scant
few inches from Nina’s feet. “He wanted no scars to mar my beauty,” she replied
through gritted teeth. “I was special to him.”

“Bitch!” Nina kicked her viciously, the
blow landing against her hip. “This is not Benito’s doing, but your own.”

“Benito’s gone, Nina. And do you know who
he’s with now, in the hereafter? Carolyn. And after you kill me, I’ll be with
him too. For all eternity. You’ll never have him for yourself. Not even in
death.”

* * * * *

“I’m in the lower corridor,” Seth spoke low
into his headset. “Gabe, you ready?”

“In the saddle, waiting for the gates to
open.”

“Joan?”

“Coming through.”

“Francis?”

“I’m piggybacking Joan. You hear that,
Joan? Don’t fuck up and shoot me instead, you dumb bastard.”

A blood-curdling, inhuman scream reached
Seth’s ears, echoing eerily off the corridor walls. His stomach clenched
painfully but he forced himself to move slow and steady. “Blow it.”

* * * * *

The ground around her seemed to tremble and
for a moment Maria thought it was an earthquake. Was she hallucinating? She
tried to pinpoint the cause of the shuddering but couldn’t. A haze of pain had
sunk its cruel talons into her body. Sadly enough, that meant she was still
alive.

She waited expectantly for the next
agonizing blow to fall but none came. No wailing snarl, no hissing serpent to
torment her. The chamber was still dimly lit by the lamp Nina had brought
earlier. Where was Nina? Maria tried to lift her head but all she could manage
to do was turn it sideways. Shadows filled the concrete reinforced area. She
almost wished there was no light to see by. What she saw sickened her.

Skeletons. Some hanging from the wall,
others in various unnatural positions. All with their mouths gaping open,
insects and maggots filling the facial sockets. But no Nina.

Then all hell broke loose. Everything
seemed to happen at once. The door burst open. The trembling increased. She
heard booming sounds above her, like bombs being dropped. Chunks of cement and
dirt broke free from the ceiling and fell around her.

“Maria!”

That was the moment she knew. Through the
dust and shadows she watched the terrifying visage advance into the chamber of
death
.

“He reaches through the veil of death and snatches its victims
back into the light.” Saint.

Her heart jumped into her throat, making
the strangled sound she uttered barely audible. But he heard it. In two strides
he was there, squatting beside, his face smeared black with grease, ice-blue
eyes glittering dangerously.

“You came,” she croaked, tears blurring her
vision.

“Yeah,” he replied in a strained voice,
running his hands over her arms and legs for injuries. “Can you move?”

She cried out as his hand passed over the
back of her right thigh. “I don’t think I can walk,” she whispered raggedly. “Seth—”

“Shut up, Ria,” he growled. “It’s all I can
do right now to keep from losing it. Don’t buckle on me.”

“Nina…”

As if just speaking the name brought evil
to life, the distorted face of her captor appeared from the shadows, looming
just behind Seth’s hunched shoulders, knife poised to strike.

Speechless, Maria watched in horrifying
slow motion as the blade arced downward, shallow light from the lantern
glinting for the merest of seconds off the tempered steel.

At the last second Seth twisted, grunting
as the deadly point missed his jugular by inches and buried itself in his
shoulder. He went into a rage, slamming his left elbow backward into Nina’s
stomach. She fell to floor with a groan, struggling to regain her footing.

The rest was a blur of psychedelic images
and sounds as the two opponents moved from shadow to light, light to shadow.
Nina, smacking against the steel wall, blood dripping from the corner of her
mouth. Seth, reaching behind to rip the knife from his shoulder. The knife
bouncing sharply off the steel door to land with a thud on the dirt floor.
Bones rattling in protest as shuffled feet disturbed their resting places.

The sound of vertebrae cracking. Nina
Juarez hitting the floor, neck broken, her unseeing eyes staring vacantly in
Maria’s direction.

“Say hello to Benito and Manuel for me,” he
paused to say to the dead Nina before returning to her.

“Listen,” Maria said, trying to discern the
whistling sound overhead. “What is that?”

“Gabe going overboard. C’mon, we have to
get the hell out of here before the whole place comes down on us.” He lay down
on the floor next to her. “Put your arms around my neck.”

She did as he instructed, clamping her
teeth and growling against the pain as he rolled to his feet, hooking his arms
beneath her knees. “Grace is late,” she grunted.

“Grace can be a bitch sometimes. Hold on.”

“Nina killed Carolyn,” she blurted out as
they left the cell.

“Thanks, but I figured that out already.”

She could tell by his tone he was furious
with her, himself, the situation. But she didn’t care. He had moved heaven and
earth to find her. “How did you know I was here?”

“Lolita came back to find you gone and lit
a fire under Gabe’s ass.” He moved as fast as he could down the narrow corridor
leading to a set of steps. Near the entrance to the underground tunnel now, she
could hear the sporadic
rat-a-tat
of gunfire.

“I’m going to kiss that woman full on the
lips.” She breathed in the smoky air and broke into a fit of coughing as he
made his way across the compound. Bodies littered the ground, small fires
burned along the shrubbery surrounding the sculptured gardens and the surface of
the pool was aflame. Behind them, the Spanish-style house was an inferno.

After what seemed an agonizing eternity
Seth lowered her to the ground and pulled a headset from his pocket. “I’m out.
Head count. Joan…Gabe…Francis…Francis? Shit!”

Maria buried her face against his shoulder.
Francis!
Oh God, I’ve killed him.

* * * * *

“Hold on, Francis, you’re gonna make it.”

“That’s what they say to all the dumb sons of
bitches who don’t have the sense to know they’re dying. Give it up, Gabe.”

“You ignorant whoreson!” Gabriel cursed the
broken, bleeding preacher. “Why did you take your fucking gear off?”

“This is the way a soldier oughtta go.
Angelface?”

“I’m here, Francis,” Maria answered softly,
having insisted—to the point of hysterics—that Seth set the wounded Frances
down beside her. “Please don’t die. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Well, honey, a man’s gotta die sometime.
Sing that Spanish song, will ya?”

She got no further than the first verse
before her voice broke. “Francis, please try to hold on,” she begged him.

Francis’ voice was no more than a whisper
now. “Permission to die, sir?”

Seth placed a reassuring hand on the
preacher’s arm, his voice tight and hoarse. “Permission granted.”

“I’ll be…seein’ you boys…”

“Semper Fi, man.”

“Fly high, Francis.”

* * * * *

Seth couldn’t bring himself to ask Maria
about the baby. She needed surgery, rest and someone to hold her on the trip
home. Once they landed, Gabe arranged for the finest physicians in Dallas to
treat her.

He paced the hallway outside her hospital
room, waiting for the doctor to come out.

“Mr. Harris? I’m Doctor Travis.”

He swallowed hard, tamping down the sudden
urge to charge into Maria’s room and shake her into confessing. “Is she going
to be all right?”

“Yes.” The young surgeon nodded. “Tough
lady. The tendon was only partially sliced. We repaired it but it will be a
while before she can walk on it. The left thigh won’t take as long to heal.
Lucky there, that wound could have turned nasty if left untreated for too long.
The rest of her injuries are less serious, a slight concussion, a few bruises
and some cuts.”

“What about the baby?”

“Baby?” Travis echoed, shocked. “I gave her
a thorough going-over, Mr. Harris. She never mentioned that she might be
pregnant. Normally, that’s a question asked in pre-op, but there was no time
and she wasn’t quite lucid. I take it from the expression on your face it’s a
possibility.”

“You take it correctly.”

“We can do a blood test. I don’t want to
chance moving her to do a pelvic. How far along would she be?”

“I’m not sure. No more than three months.
What are the chances the baby would have survived the trauma?”