The Cross of Sins (28 page)

At the end of it, Luca held on as tight as he could, himself hanging over the edge.

But the tiny silver necklace was slipping in his grip.

Eric Landon burst through the door, his expression an exhausted mix of anger, determination and pleasure. As he glared at Shane, there was no doubt he was going to enjoy this. He had two guns now, one in each hand, and he raised them both.

Shane looked around desperately. There were no portholes in the room, no weapons to grab, no escape except the door with Eric standing in the way, no furniture to use as cover except the table behind him, made of wood so thin a bullet would pass straight through it.

"There's nowhere left to run," Eric grinned. "No more narrow escapes, cowboy. Time for God to pass His judgment."

Eric aimed both guns straight at Shane's chest.

In the same second, Shane spun and with his bound hands he grabbed the first thing he could reach on the table.

He turned back, one of the stones of Zefferino in his hands, and raised the tablet in front of his chest like a shield, just as Eric pulled the trigger on both guns.

There were two ear-piercing cracks!

The stone tablet broke in two in Shane's hands, and then fell into the water.

He looked down quickly at his own bare chest.

Nothing. Not a scratch.

Then, he looked up at Eric, whose stunned and confused eyes slowly looked down at his robe. He dropped both guns, and with his hands, he tore his robe open from the hood down, revealing his chest.

Blood began to pour from not one, but two small holes, one in each side of his chest. The bullets had ricocheted straight off Zefferino's stone, bouncing back into the man who had fired them.

Eric gasped and dropped to his knees, landing in water up to his waist.

Shane dropped down next to him, and with his hands still tied together he pressed his palms against the wounds in Eric's chest.

"You'll be okay. We'll get you to a hospital. You'll be fine."

But he couldn't stop the blood from pouring between his fingers.

Eric's bewildered face turned to Shane. "He made me—imperfect," Eric breathed, his voice suddenly straining. "I didn't want to believe it."

"He made us all imperfect," Shane whispered. "But He still loves us."

Eric smiled at that thought. Shane could actually see hope in his eyes. "Do you think so?"

Shane nodded. "Yeah. I do."

With that, Eric Landon's eyelids fluttered, and his head rolled back on his neck. His body shuddered ever so slightly, and then fell limp into Shane's embrace.

At the same time, the ship groaned, and suddenly, the wood paneling along one wall began to buckle and snap.

Slowly, Shane lowered Eric's body down into the water. He knew there was nothing he could do for him now. But if he didn't get himself off the ship in the next minute or so,
Salvation
would become his final resting place as well.

Shane raced from the suite, through the door and back down the lower deck's corridor. The water was well above his waist now, and the weight of the speedboat, still blocking the passageway, was putting pressure on both walls, pushing them inward.
Salvation
rocked, and Shane felt it drop another few feet into the sea. Water gushed in with even greater force and rose quickly to his chest. All through the ship, he could hear steel bending, wood cracking and glass splintering under the crushing weight of the water.

There was no going over the speedboat in front of him. The only way through the passage was to go under it like before.

Shane took a deep breath and dived under the water.

He grabbed the hull of the Sea Ray and with his hands tied together pulled himself downward. He squeezed through the gap between the bottom of the speedboat's hull and the floor of the passageway and pulled himself through to the other side, but before he was completely clear,
Salvation
gave a massive shudder, as if in its final death throes, which caused the Sea Ray to groan and shift, dropping onto Shane's right foot before he could pull himself out of harm's way.

Still underwater, Shane grunted and precious air escaped his lungs as the speedboat crushed his foot. Trapping him.

He tried to pull himself free, tried to push the hull of the speedboat off his crushed ankle, but it was too heavy.

Air burst from his lungs.

Beneath the water, Will's hand reached up and wrapped itself around the Professor's ankle, pulling him down and away from the flailing robed man.

Mustering all the strength he had, Will swam with both the Professor and Elsa toward the sinking ship and the three of them broke the surface at last.

Elsa and Will gasped for air, but the Professor was unconscious.

"Professor! Professor can you hear me!" Will shouted.

As the three of them struggled on the surface, bobbing madly, it was Elsa who took the Professor's face in her hands and shook him hard. "Max!
Aufwachen
! I said, wake up!"

With one almighty slap across the face, the Professor's blind eyes burst open and his lungs sucked in all the air they could hold.

That's when two arms suddenly appeared behind him and latched onto his shoulders, dragging him under the water once more with a terrible gurgle.

It was the drowning disciple, his own face struggling to keep above the waves.

"Enough!" Will shouted.

As the Professor sank between him and the robed man, it gave Will a clear shot at him.

The young college student pulled back his fist and planted it squarely in the disciple's face. Once, twice, three times, shouting with each blow—

"Leave—"

"—the Professor—"

"—alone!"

On the third blow, the waves swallowed the Crimson Crown disciple, who drifted without a struggle into the black sea and was gone.

Will reached under the water, grabbed the Professor by the collar of his dressing gown and brought him back to the surface where he once again hauled in a lungful of air.

With an almighty groan behind them,
Salvation
dropped another few feet into the sea, jettisoning gusts of air from its compartments and cabins.

"I think Shane's still on board," Elsa gasped.

"I'll get him."

Will swam directly for the sinking vessel, clambered on board and threw Elsa and the Professor a life-ring with the name
Salvation
printed around its rim.

Then, he vanished from sight, racing down into the lower cabins.

Will charged down the steps to the lower deck and jumped into the water that lapped at his chest. He waded through it determinedly. "Shane! Shane!"

Up ahead was the hull of the Sea Ray, like a wall blocking the passageway. Water flooded in all around it. Will rushed up to the hull of the speedboat and tried to shout over the top of it, assuming Shane may have been trapped on the other side.

Suddenly, something grabbed his foot and pulled him beneath the surface.

Under the water, Will's eyes bulged as he saw Shane thrashing his ankle, struggling for air, trying to free his foot which was trapped under the hull of the speedboat.

Will quickly resurfaced, took a huge lungful of air, and then dived down to Shane, grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him hard, sealing their lips together. He breathed his air into Shane's lungs, and then let go of him and began pulling on Shane's leg and pushing at the hull of the speedboat as hard as he could.

Nothing was budging.

Frantic, Will surfaced again, looking around quickly for something he could use as leverage. There was nothing. He raced back down the passageway, up the steps. He found a wooden oar, but knew it would only snap under the weight of the speedboat if he tried to use it as a lever.

He found shackles and a chain, but they were no use to him.

He found a rope. No good.

Then, it occurred to him. "The engines," he said out loud.

Start the boat, gun the engines. The vibrations would destabilize everything on board the sinking ship, and with any luck, shift the Sea Ray. The idea would either work for him, or against him, but it was worth a try.

Will raced as fast as he could to the cockpit, glancing into the water to make sure Elsa and the Professor were well clear. He spotted them clinging to the life-ring some distance away and knew they were safe.

He reached the ship's controls and switched over the ignition. A warning alarm sounded. "I know," Will shouted at the controls, "we're sinking. Now shut up!" He flicked an override switch on the alarm and felt the rumble of the propeller blades send a tremor throughout the entire vessel. He grabbed the throttle lever and pushed it forward as far as it would go.

That's when all hell started to break loose—and
Salvation
began to break apart altogether.

The windows in the cockpit cracked and shattered, but Will was already gone.

He jumped down to the stern deck, just as the entire deck itself began to split in two. The ship lurched, the stern completely reared out of the water, and two madly spinning propeller blades emerged from the ocean like angry shrieking sea monsters.

The bow of the ship nose-dived into the water then.

Will dived down below deck and heard an almighty
KARACK
!

The speedboat was sliding free. In fact, everything was sliding free.

In a cacophony of thuds and snaps, every door broke off its hinges, every wall splintered apart, every inch of flooring fractured into a million pieces.

Will swam beneath the water and found Shane, now unconscious and floating free amidst the chaos. The young college student seized Shane with one hand, and with the other, he managed to grab the bow of the speedboat as it slipped backward out through the massive hole it had made in the side of the sinking ship.

Will and Shane were swept out with Sea Ray, clear of
Salvation
, slipping into the depths of the black churning currents.

The speedboat was sinking, too, but not as fast as the ship as every last pocket of air gushed from its broken body, its propellers still spinning madly, sending it on a speedy descent to the bottom of the ocean.

There was a flash of lightning above, and Will caught one last glimpse of the silver letters SALVATION on the stern of the ship before the vessel disappeared forever.

At that moment, Will let go of the speedboat and watched the Sea Ray drift to the seabed as well, and then, with Shane in his grasp, he swam to back to the surface.

"Shane?" Elsa cried as Will towed him to the life-ring.

"Is he alive?" the Professor asked desperately.

As if to answer the question himself, Shane suddenly spluttered up water, took a lungful of air and opened his eyes.

"We're in the wrong place," he coughed. "I know where
The Cross
is."

The tiny silver cross glinted in the reflection of the gargantuan red river burning and bubbling below it. Luca felt the thin silver chain begin to slip through his sweaty grip. On the other end of it, Marco stared up, eyes horrified and pleading.

"Don't let go," Marco whispered.

But Luca was staring not at Marco, but the chain. "You have to let it go," Luca pleaded back.

That's when Marco noticed what he had snatched. Luca's precious silver crucifix—the only key to his past—hung precariously midway down the chain, between Marco and Luca's slippery grips, out of reach of both of them.

Marco laughed, his voice nervous and broken. "How ironic. There's nothing between us now but your own secret cross."

The chain slipped out of Luca's desperate hands by another few tiny links, and Luca pushed himself further down to try to tighten his grip, his entire waist now hanging on the edge.

"Let go of it," he said.

But Marco shook his head. "Pull me up. You can do it. Save me, and I'll tell you the secret behind your precious crucifix."

Luca's legs had nothing to cling to. He could feel them sliding closer and closer to the edge. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you before. I know everything. Do you remember a clown—named Valentino?"

At that moment, another tremor rocked the cavern.

Luca's entire weight went over the edge.

Marco's eyes widened in horror.

Luca gasped, helpless to save himself.

Then suddenly, something—someone—grabbed his ankle.

"Hold on there, big fella," Jake grunted, snatching Luca's ankle in a one-handed grip as Jake himself was dragged toward the edge.

The tremor stopped abruptly, and with his free hand, Jake managed to grab a rock and cling to it. But if another tremor came, there would be no telling if that rock would hold.

Jake held onto Luca's ankle.

Luca held onto one end of the chain.

Marco held onto the other.

Through clenched teeth, Jake muttered, "Luca, let it go. I can't hold you both."

Luca shook his hand. "I can't. I let go of this chain, and I'll never know who I am."

Another tremor, the biggest of all, rocked the cavern without warning. Jake clung to the rock as hard as he could, but he could feel it dislodging.

"You already know who you are," Jake said, not having to yell over the roar of the quake. He knew Luca could hear him. Hear him loud and clear. "You're one of us."

Luca looked up, doubtful he had any idea.

Then, he saw Jake's eyes.

This stranger.

This newcomer.

A new light that had arrived on Professor Fathom's doorstep.

Jake smiled.

"It's okay. Let it go, Luca."

At that moment, Luca knew Jake was right.

He glanced back at Marco on the end of the slipping chain, and at the same time his fingers released the silver chain, Marco breathed:

"
I know your real name
."

Luca let out a short, sharp, shocked breath.

But the chain was gone.

And Marco was gone.

And with a scorching splash and an eruption of fire, both Marco and the silver cross were lost forever in the river of lava.

Luca stared at the fiery crimson stain Marco's body had left on the surface of the oozing blazing river, and suddenly, he felt terrifyingly alone.