The God Machine (53 page)

Somewhere, the horns sounded again.

Sajan was kneeling by Robinson. He was unconscious but the bleeding was easing. She was lashing his arm with his belt. Koster watched helplessly as Rose disappeared up the ambulatory. “They're getting away.”

“He'll live,” said Sajan. “But Macalister's dead.” Then she leapt to her feet and ran after the nun. Koster tried following her but she held out a hand. “No. You go after Rose,” she instructed. “He's got the last fragment. I can handle the nun.”

Without waiting for a response, Sajan charged down
the ambulatory after Sister Maria. Koster turned and ran after Rose.

Sajan rounded the ambulatory. The nun had practically caught up with the priest when he cut right, through an opening in the wall, and headed up a short flight of steps toward the choir. Sajan shouted a warning as Sister Maria lifted her pistol, took aim and shot.

The bullet hit the priest in the shoulder. He stumbled but kept mounting the steps. The nun fired again, but this shot went wide. It struck the wall inches from his head, shearing off fragments of stone. The priest kept ascending the steps. He had almost made it to the last step when she fired a third time. This time, the bullet struck him dead in the back. He flung up his arms as he entered the choir.

Blood gushed from his chest. Someone screamed, then somebody else. It was picked up and carried from one set of lips to the next, a sound so pregnant with horror and fear that it seemed to crush all the air from the church.

Sajan tore up the ambulatory. She struck the nun on the back, brought her hand round and twisted the gun from her grasp. Sister Maria went flying. So did the gun. The nun hit the wall with a terrible
thud
, but as Sajan swept in to strike her again, she was gone. She had rolled to the floor and was scrambling up the steps to the choir.

A great noise swelled the air, the mad shuffling of feet, the sharp panicked wailing of hundreds of people as they rushed from their seats toward the exits.

As Sajan followed the nun up the steps toward the choir, Koster was rounding the ambulatory. He saw Michael Rose just ahead. Rose seemed winded or tired,
for he suddenly staggered, then slowed. It was only then, as the transept came into view, that Koster realized the reason. The passage was crowded with people. They were running and pushing. They were screaming in terror, like beasts in a slaughterhouse.

Michael Rose hesitated. He stopped, looked about. But when he saw Koster behind him, he lunged toward the crowd. They churned in a maelstrom of elbows and knees. Rose was pushed to the side. Then he fell, knocked to the ground by a kid with a backpack. The same kid, Koster realized, he had seen at the entrance. Rose struggled to get back to his feet, but the terrified throng was relentless. For a moment, the pastor disappeared in a flurry of legs. He reemerged from the crowd seconds later. Blood spattered his face. He crawled toward the safety of a wall, away from the crush of the screaming parishioners.

There was nowhere to go now but back up the ambulatory. Rose struggled upright, heading toward Koster. Closer and closer Rose came until, without warning, he leapt to the side, into another cut in the wall toward the choir. Koster chased after him.

As Rose climbed the last step to the choir, he paused for a moment. He looked dazed and uncertain. His brush with the crowd must have taken its toll, Koster thought. Koster dashed up the steps in his wake. He was almost upon Rose when Rose wheeled about and suddenly kicked him. Koster parried the blow with his arm. Then he lunged at the pastor, driving Rose to the floor.

Most of the stalls were deserted now. Only a few choristers lingered within, dumbstruck or whimpering. The two Buddhist monks were huddled around the body of the fallen priest near the altar.

On one side of the choir, Sajan and Sister Maria were locked in a terrible struggle. On the other, Koster lunged after Rose.

He leapt on the pastor. They rolled over and over, flailing, trying to punch at each other. Although Michael Rose was far larger and heavier, Koster managed to pin him. He punched at his face, the soft pasty white features, the blue eyes and red lips, smeared crimson with blood.

Rose screamed. He looked past Koster at the arches above him. “Shoot! Shoot him now!”

Koster punched Rose again and stole a glance at the ceiling. There. Leaning over the parapet, on the northern triforium—a figure. He was wearing a ski mask, and some sort of uniform. And he was aiming a gun at the men grappling below.

Time seemed to stand still. Koster waited, his eyes closed, but the shot never came.

“Shoot,” Michael screeched. “Shoot. Fucking shoot!”

The figure straightened. He hoisted his high-powered rifle. Then he turned and slipped away through the shadows.

Koster rolled to his feet. Rose scrabbled at his ankles, desperate to pull him down to the flagstones again, but Koster kicked him with all of his might in the face.

Michael flew backwards. Blood cartwheeled as he tumbled and rolled toward the choir stalls.

Without even waiting to see the result, Koster ran to the far side of the choir.

Sajan and the nun were locked in a fearsome embrace. Sister Maria had pinned Sajan to the choir stalls. The nun's hands were wrapped round Sajan's neck.

Koster wrenched the two women apart. He grabbed Sajan's hand and they dashed toward the cut in the wall. They jumped down the steps. Koster glanced toward the transept, but the exits were choked with the fleeing parishioners.

There was nowhere to run, Koster realized. They were trapped in the ambulatory! Then he spotted a
door, set in the wall, just a few feet away. “This way,” he cried.

They ran, hand in hand, down the ambulatory. He flung the door open. But instead of leading to an exit, as Koster had hoped, it opened onto a narrow stone stairwell, deep in shadows.

Koster groped for a light switch but there was none. It was pitch black in the stairwell. The steps corkscrewed down out of sight. To the basement, no doubt. He looked up. The stairs seemed to climb toward the distant triforium and the clerestory above. “Come on,” Koster urged her.

“I can't see a thing,” Sajan said.

“Then neither can she.”

They made their way forward. Koster stumbled almost immediately. The stairs were quite steep, constructed of some slippery stone. And he couldn't see anything. They had to feel their way forward, one step at a time. The staircase seemed to wind on forever, corkscrewing up through the tower.

“Where are you going?” a voice said behind them. It was Sister Maria. “You have nowhere to hide.”

They quickened their pace up the staircase. They scrambled still higher.

“Koster la lleva,”
the nun called below. “I'm weary of this game. There's nowhere to go. Stand and face me.”

Koster leapt up the stairway, two steps at a time. Sajan followed behind. Suddenly, a light appeared in the stairwell. There was an opening up ahead! Some kind of door. They climbed and they climbed till Koster realized they were nearing the gallery. They had reached the triforium. Koster ran up the steps. They were almost upon it when he heard Sajan scream.

Koster peered down the stairwell. Sister Maria's face swam up through the darkness. Her smile. And her
hand, with that little steel blade. It was pinned to Sajan's heel.

“Help me,” Sajan cried as she attempted to wrench her leg free.

Koster tugged at Sajan. He dragged her up the last few steps of the stairwell, through the door until they flopped to the floor of the gallery.

Relentless, the nun scrambled like a crab in pursuit. She still carried that knife in her hand, attached to the rosary round her neck. Sajan tried to scurry away on all fours. Koster reached out to protect her when Sister Maria suddenly heaved herself up through the doorway. The nun leapt through the air, the blade slashed and Koster felt it impale his right hand. He screamed. He pulled back but the knife wouldn't give. He was pinned to the planks of the floor.

Sister Maria crawled forward. She smiled as she twisted the tendons and cartilage in his hand like spaghetti. Koster screamed. Then she wrenched the blade free. As Koster flailed to escape, he heard the insectlike sound of the rosary as it whipped round his neck. He felt the beads tighten, felt the cord pinch his skin. He tried to scream but the sound was choked off in his throat.

“Keep your fucking hands off my man,” said Sajan. There was a terrible thud. Then another.

Koster fell forward. The pressure on his neck was suddenly gone. He struggled upright.

Sajan was standing by Sister Maria, holding her head, pounding it against the side of the doorway. Then, without warning, Sajan fell to the floor.

Sister Maria had managed to grab one of her ankles.

Sajan screamed. She tried pulling away. Then she screamed once again and Koster knew why. The nun had jammed the tip of her thumb into the cut she had made in Sajan's heel. She plucked at the tendon like the string of a bass.

Koster leapt to his feet. He stepped forward and kicked Sister Maria, and she tumbled back through the doorway. She slid down the stairs out of sight.

Without pausing, Koster seized Sajan's hand and they scrambled away. The arcaded gallery of the triforium ran the full length of the nave, east to west. They passed through a doorway that led to a dark, narrow corridor flanked on one side by carved wooden paneling and on the other by great blocks of stone. They could see the choir and nave far below through the latticework. They ran through the pale dappled light, and they had almost reached the end of the corridor when they realized that the passage was blocked by a jumble of lumber ahead. Once again, they were trapped. There was no where to run.

They turned to go back, but as they did so, the nun reappeared at the head of the corridor. She charged. Savita was standing in front of Koster and he watched helplessly as the two women came together. The corridor was too narrow, too cramped for him to reach round to strike at the nun.

Sajan was using her elbows. She kept swinging them up and then sideways, catching the nun on the tip of the jaw. Sister Maria flew back to the paneling. But she was relentless. She kept punching. One blow caught Sajan on the side of the face and she almost fell through the paneling. They jabbed and they scratched at each other, but confined as they were in the narrow triforium, it was impossible to get much momentum.

Koster finally saw his chance. As Sajan stepped to the side, he reached out and struck at the nun. But as he punched, he exposed his left flank, and she kicked him—right in the balls.

Koster buckled. As he fell to his knees, his head struck the paneling. Koster groaned. He climbed to his feet. He took a step closer to Sister Maria, when she kicked him
again. But this time Koster was ready. He blocked it, only to feel her right fist smash his face. He tumbled backwards.

In that moment, Sajan managed to slip in behind Sister Maria. She grabbed her blue veil. She yanked the other woman's head back, exposing her throat, and snatched at the rosary beads round her neck. Sajan tightened her grip. “And this is for cutting my face,” Sajan said as she hurled the nun forward.

Sister Maria's head crashed through the dark wooden paneling, splintering the intricate latticework. Koster leapt over the nun. He seized Sajan's hand—and they heard the sound of the panel tear loose. They turned just in time to see it collapse, to rip away from the gallery and sail through the air, striking the floor of the nave with a terrible
crash
. Light streamed through the gallery.

But the nun had not fallen. Somehow, she had managed to pull herself back from the edge. She faced them.

A great bloody gash ran from the top of Sister Maria's right eye to the tip of her jaw. Her veil had come off, and she stood there bareheaded. But instead of the luxurious brown hair Koster had expected to see, the nun was practically bald. Only a few clumpy gray strands trickled down to her shoulders.

Koster turned with a groan, pushing Sajan before him. They hobbled along the passageway. They had almost reached the doorway leading back to the stairwell when Koster felt something slice into his back. He stumbled and rolled, one hand pressed to the paneling, frantically trying not to fall. As he swung around to face the nun, the blade pierced his skin once again with such ease and dexterity—just under his ribs, in that fleshy part—that he didn't at first know what it was. The pain was unbearable.

“Wait here,” the nun said softly. He could smell her
sweet breath on his face. “I'll come back for you later.” Then, astonishingly, she released him.

Koster collapsed.

Sajan stood facing the nun. Her eyes widened as she noticed the bloodied blade in Sister Maria's right hand.

“There were leaves on the road,” the nun said, “but it wasn't that slippery. That wasn't the cause of the accident.”

The color drained from Sajan's face. There was no paneling near the door to the stairwell, and the solid stone balustrade had been replaced by an old metal rail. “What did you say?” Sajan glanced at the doorway. For a moment, Koster thought she might turn and make a run for the stairwell. In truth, he prayed that she would. But she didn't. She stood there, frozen, facing Sister Maria.

“I remember the little boy in the window,” the nun said. “What was his name? Marc, or Maurice. Yes, Maurice. Such a strong name for someone who just came apart in that way, when the car hit that ditch. He died instantly.”

“Maurice,” said Sajan. She took another step back toward the railing.

“But the man,” the nun said. “Your husband, Jean-Claude. It took him a long time to die. Several minutes. He suffered.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“I watched him. Those that seem the most innocent are, in fact, the most elegant killings.”

“You're lying.”

“Am I? Archbishop Lacey longed to silence the countess. The old woman's incessant attempts to publish the Gospel of Thomas, to spread Gnostic lies, were becoming a nuisance. But he didn't wish to make her a martyr. So I suggested the perfect solution. I told him he could get at the countess another way. Through her son. Your husband. Maurice was an unexpected turn of events. A bonus, if you will.”