The Belial Stone (The Belial Series) (30 page)

CHAPTER 83

L
aney and Tom moved through the enclosure, evacuating the men who’d been pinned down in the trenches when the attack began. 

Carefully, she approached another trench, Tom beside her.  Her nerves were taut, her finger on the trigger of the Beretta she'd confiscated off a guard. 

A guard sprinted up the ramp with a yell.

She opened fire, catching him at the waist.  He screamed and toppled off the ramp, landing back in the trench below. 

She peered over the edge.  His neck sat at an unnatural angle, his eyes stared up, seeing nothing.  Her pulse spiked and she fought the urge to be sick.  How many had she killed now?

Tom stepped next to her, his hand briefly resting on her shoulder.  “It’s okay.  It had to be done.”

She looked over at him and nodded.  He was right.  She might not want to do this, but it was necessary.  Her eyes searched the trench, falling on the five men hunched against the far wall.  Two of them didn't look like they could walk under their own power. 

She glanced back at the guard sprawled unmoving below her.  He was part of this.  He wasn’t the one who deserved her sympathy.

Tom gestured towards the men.  “I’ll go."

She nodded, taking point at the top of the ramp, as Tom headed down it.  A movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention.  She trained her gun to her right. 

A noise directly behind her caused her to whirl around.  A guard was charging, his gun aimed straight at her.  She raised her weapon, but knew she would be too late.

Two bursts of automatic fire barked and the guard’s chest bloomed red.  He crashed to the ground, a look of surprise frozen on his face. 

Jake and Yoni appeared thirty feet behind him, scanning the area as they moved.  They moved quickly, but she could tell they were missing nothing, moving in tandem.

She drank in the sight of Jake.  He had some scrapes on his arms and neck, but otherwise he looked fine.  Hell, he looked gorgeous and dangerous.  Relief and need coursed through her.  She felt an almost overwhelming urge pulling her towards him.  She forced herself to look away from him and her eyes lit on Yoni.  She smiled.  They were both okay. 

She dropped her gun to her side as they approached, barely registering the men who were scurrying out of the trench behind her.  Jake stopped when he was a foot away and looked her into her eyes. 

“You okay?” he asked gruffly.
 

She nodded, taking a step towards him. 

Yoni grabbed her in a crushing bear hug.  “I knew you’d be okay!”

Laney couldn’t stop laughing, while she struggled to breathe.  “It’s good to see you, too, Yoni.”

“Jake?” 

Jake turned.  Tom stepped off the ramp.  Laney could tell Jake was jolted by Tom’s ragged and bruised appearance.  But then Tom gave a tentative smile and even Laney could see the little boy who had been Jake’s brother and friend. 

“Tom.”  Terror, relief, and love were wrapped in that single word.  Jake reached over and pulled Tom to him.  Tom hugged him back, his shoulders shaking. 

Laney turned away, tears stinging her eyes.  Wiping them away, she saw movement over by the beat-up trailer. She squinted and saw the Senator appear, followe
d by Priddle, and then Gideon.

Gideon ushered the Senator and Priddle out into an open space beyond the trailer.  He held an object about the size of a softball in one hand and a gun in the other. 

Her chest felt tight.  “Guys?  I think we have a problem.”

Jake turned at her words. 

She gestured towards the trailer.  “It’s Gideon.  I think he has the Belial Stone.”

Two hundred yards away, the three men had stopped.  Gideon gestured with the gun for Kensington and the professor to move back.  The two men looked terrified as they backed up against the wall of the enclosure.  Gideon tucked the gun into his belt and raised the Belial Stone to the sky.

“What on earth is he doing?” Yoni asked.

CHAPTER 84

P
atrick ran towards entrance of the enclosure.  He’d left Seeley with one of Henry’s men.  He had been torn, wanting to stay and help the poor man, but his heart wouldn’t let him.  He needed to get back and make sure Laney was all right. 

He sprinted past a truck.  A group of men ran straight towards him.  A guard stepped out of the shadows at the wall and took aim.

“Down!” Patrick yelled.

Three of the men dove for the ground, but two of them were too terrified.  They kept running straight at him.  A bullet careened through one of the men’s shoulders. 

Patrick dropped to a knee and pulled the trigger.  The guard collapsed to the ground. 

Patrick ran for the fallen man.  He was still conscious, but in pain.  Two of the men stopped with him. 

He pointed back in the direction he’d come.  “Back there, four hundred yards.  There are three men.  They’ve set up a small triage.  You’ll be safe there.”             

He pulled a Beretta out of his waistband and handed it over to one of the men.  “Only shoot the guys in the grey uniforms, okay?”

The men grabbed the injured man and between the two of them, managed to run-walk with him.

Patrick caught sight of Henry over to his left.  He’d been grabbed by three of the ex-cons.

Patrick ran for him.  It looked like Henry needed some help now. 

Henry took a punch to the ribs.  He didn’t grimace.  In fact, he looked more annoyed than hurt.  “I don’t have time for this,” Henry growled.  “Let me go, now.”

The ringleader laughed, though it came out more nervous than authoritative. 

“I warned you,” Henry said.  He launched a front kick into the man’s face. 

The man’s nose shattered.  Henry extended his right arm behind him, capturing the man’s arms.  He aimed two jabs at the man’s face before kneeing him in the groin.  The man collapsed to the ground, shrieking. 

The third man let out a yell and charged at Henry.  Henry turned as the man leaped, and grabbing the front of the man’s shirt, threw him head-first into the wall. 

The ringleader tried to get up for another round.  Patrick placed a foot on the man’s chest, aiming his gun at the man’s head.  “You and your friends need to run now.”

The man grimaced as Patrick increased the pressure on his chest.  He tilted his head towards Henry.   “Start running.  “Or you get to face my friend again.”

The man looked from Patrick to Henry and nodded.  Patrick removed his foot and urged the man along with his gun.  The man stood, looked at his two cohorts who were still on the ground, and then sprinted across the field. 

Patrick kept an eye on the man until he dropped into the shadows, trying to compose his face before he turned to Henry.  Henry had just squashed these three men like they were nothing.  He would never have believed that last throw into the wall if he hadn’t seen it himself.  While Henry was the size of a giant, he also seemed to have the power of one as well.  Questions plagued him. 

And although now was not the time to ask them, but Patrick opened his mouth to ask anyway. when the ground began to shake violently.  A cracking sound slashed through the air.  

Henry caught Patrick’s eyes.  “It’s starting!” he yelled.  “We need to get to Gideon!”

Patrick nodded and hurried after Henry, noting that unlike him, Henry seemed to have no trouble moving on the trembling earth.

CHAPTER 85

L
aney watched as Gideon raised the stone above his head, chanting in a language she did not recognize.  He swayed as he focused all his energy on the stone, chanting the same undecipherable phrase over and over again. 

The crystal stone began to glow, first blue and then red, until it began to resemble a ball of fire.  Gideon released it, but kept his attention on it the entire time.  It slowly levitated higher and higher above his head, spinning increasingly faster as it rose. 

It stopped rising ten feet off the ground, but continued to spin at an incredibly fast rate.  Small sparks of electricity began to flash across the illuminated globe and it gave off a low hum. 

Pressure began to build in Laney’s ears and she swallowed to try and release it.  “I think it’s creating some form of acoustic resonance.”  

“How bad can that be?” Tom asked.

“Bad,” she replied.  “According to Biblical scholars, acoustic resonance is what was responsible for the walls of Jericho falling down.  Acoustic weapons are even used by the military and law enforcement.  They cause all sorts of lovely things, like blindness, severe nausea and even death.”

“So when you say bad, what you mean is really bad,” Yoni said.

A slight tremble rumbled underneath the enclosure.  A sharp crack of thunder rang out and a huge fissure in the ground twenty feet from the entrance appeared.

“Yeah, I think I have to agree with Yoni.  Really bad is a better description,” Jake said as he stared at the cracks beginning to appear in the ground across the enclosure. 

While the appearance of the cracks was horrifying enough, each one was accompanied by a nightmarish screech, as if the earth itself was coming apart.

“We need to get that stone away from him,” Jake yelled, starting towards Gideon. 

Laney tried to respond, but the ground had started to quake so violently that she was too busy trying to stay on her feet.  Yoni put his arm around her waist.  Together, the two stumbled forward. 

Jake was ahead of them, but struggling just the same.  Then the ground fractured directly under his feet.

Laney’s stomach plunged.  “Jake!”

He started to tumble into the yawning crevice.  Tom grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him back before he pitched over the edge. 

“Thanks,” Jake said.

“It’s the least I owe you,” Tom replied.  Arms linked, the two scrabbled along the ground.  Laney and Yoni struggled to follow them.  It was like trying to walk on a trampoline when someone was jumping on it.  You'd go forward two feet and get thrown back five.

Little by little, they made their way closer to Gideon.   They were only forty feet from him when a huge fissure split the ground next to them.  Laney peered down.  It looked deep enough to reach the bowels of hell itself.  She shivered at the thought. 

Slowly, the group started to make their way around the yawning cavity.  But if possible, the tremors increased in frequency and the cacophony of cracking was now almost deafening. 

Laney and Yoni collapsed as the ground beneath them began to undulate like a wave.  She looked ahead of her and saw Tom and Jake holding onto their piece of ground for dear life.  Gideon stood in an undisturbed clearing not far away, his focus undiminished by the destruction around him.  She knew they would never be able to reach him in time.

He’s going to do it
, she thought in dismay. 
He’s actually going to destroy the world
.

CHAPTER 86

L
aney white-knuckled the ground below her to keep from being flung into one of the crevices that now dotted the landscape. 

Gideon stood only fifty feet away in a clearing with a flaming object above his head.  She could see his lips moving, but she couldn’t make out the words above the din. 

The ground was bucking like a bronco.  Her hands ached as she tried to hold on.  She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to. 

Yoni leaned into her, his weight helping keep her from being flung off, but she could see his grip weakening as well.  She didn't want to think about what would happen then.

Movement to her left drew her attention.  With disbelief, she watched Henry continue doggedly towards Gideon.  Somehow he managed to stay on his feet.  With all his attention focused on the stone above him, Gideon didn’t notice Henry leaping from shattered ground to shattered ground. 

With a final lunge, Henry made it to the clearing behind Gideon and, with a burst of speed, tackled Gideon to the ground.  As Gideon lost his hold on the stone, it flew forward, landing at the very edge of the precipice.  The ground mercifully quieted. 

Laney tried to scramble to her feet, but it took a minute.  Her ears rang and her limbs were still shaking.  Pulling herself to her knees, Yoni helped pull her fully upright.  “We got to go, Doc.”

She nodded, not able to speak quite yet.  She stumbled along the edge of the crevice, her balance still off, following behind Yoni.  Tom and Jake were getting to their feet behind her.   

Across the gaping hole, Henry wrapped his huge arms around Gideon’s legs, keeping him from rushing to the stone.  They struggled and Gideon was able to free one of his legs and kick Henry in the face.  Henry hung on.  Another kick to the face gave Gideon his opportunity, and he squirmed free.

Laney pulled out her Beretta, seeing Jake and Yoni do the same.  She dropped to a knee, trying to steady her arms.  She didn’t have a shot.  After hanging onto the ground, her arms couldn't seem to stay still.  Jake and Yoni didn't seem to be in any better a position.  

Gideon sprinted for the stone.  But, with her heart in her throat, Laney watched her uncle beat him to it.  She hadn’t noticed him run into the clearing.  Patrick picked up the stone and held it over the crevice.  

Oh God no
, Laney thought, jumping to her feet.  She sprinted along the edge of the crevice, pushing her still wobbly legs to move faster, her eyes never leaving her uncle.

Gideon stopped short.  “Do you realize what you hold in your hand, Priest?  It could answer all your questions.  It could justify all your sacrifices.  With it, you wouldn’t have to worship God, you could be one.”

Patrick looked at the stone.  Laney couldn’t read his face.  Fear stabbed through her.  She knew Gideon was right.  The power in the stone was the power of the gods.  The power of God.  Her uncle wouldn’t covet that, would he?

A smile was on the Fallen’s face, a smile of understanding.

Gideon’s smile wavered as Patrick looked back at him, shaking his head.  “You think all men are like you.  We’re not.  This power is not meant for us.  This was supposed to be a gift to mankind, but it’s been perverted.  And you’re the one who perverted it.  Mankind cannot handle this power, and you don’t get to wield it.”  Keeping eye contact with Gideon, he dropped the stone into the fissure.

“No,” Gideon screeched, lunging for the edge. 

Patrick backed away.  Even from her distance, the fury in Gideon was palpable.  She cried out as her uncle stumbled over an upturned piece of ground.  Righting himself, he turned to run. 

Gideon yanked him back, wrapping his fist tightly around the front of Patrick’s shirt.  “So self-righteous.  So moral.  Let’s see your morality save you now.”

Gideon pitched him over the edge.