“What’s his name? Spork?”
— Thomson
Step 4 – Apocalypse
The woman’s name is Maxx, Ashley realises. They hurry after her as she strides swiftly into the depths of the cave, apparently unaffected by either the blue light, the sparkles, or the wisps darting around her.
They have almost caught up when Maxx enters a vast cavern. The floor of the cave is covered in rows of white-garbed cultists. They are chanting wordlessly, a great sighing sound that ebbs and flows as the tide. They sway in time with the chant, making the floor of the cave seem to surge and retreat.
Ashley stops, overwhelmed by the urge to join them. Beyond the carpet of seated people is a natural rock pedestal, and on that is a triple-legged stand, the legs curved like crescent moons. Nestled in the top of this is a bowl, and in the bowl is a fiery blue orb that gyrates and dances even though it seems to be still. Next to this, Blavatsky stands with her head thrown back in ecstasy, her arms raised to the heavens beyond the roof of the cave. Slightly behind and to her right stands Strunk, observing intently.
Thomson suppresses Ashley’s urges, but has a battle on their hands. They fight their own inclinations, and the internal conflict leaves them clumsy and struggling to think clearly. Strunk watches with interest as Thomson totters across the floor of the cave and stumbles close enough to speak.
“What… What’s happening?”
“This is the Interface,” he says, his tone suggesting that it happens every Saturday night and the whole world knows about it. “Interesting that you haven’t joined them. I can tell you want to.”
“Yes, yes I do, but I need to know more. What’s the Interface?”
“That is when we join together to create one will, one power, one focus.”
“What for?”
“Because we are more powerful together than we are apart.” He says this as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Thomson has disappointed him by needing to ask the question. They have the strongest feeling that he is aware that Thomson is not who they claim to be.
“Then why haven’t you joined them?”
“Oh, I would fry your tiny little fuses. I am too strong.”
“But if you’re so powerful, why do you need all of us?”
He sighs, as if bored. “Some things are better when the power comes from elsewhere. If you had a boat with an outboard motor, you wouldn’t hang on to the back and kick.”
Thomson is utterly confused. “But you that’s because an outboard motor is more powerful. You can’t swim faster than an outboard.”
“Not for steering, it’s not. A motorboat left to its own devices will go round and round in circles.”
Thomson feels like they are missing some aspect of this argument that would reveal some weakness, but is having a hard time thinking clearly enough to work out what it is. They approach Blavatsky. No joy there. Marina is entirely subsumed in whatever is going on.
“Why don’t you join in?” Strunk suggests, and his tone is oily now, sleek and mellifluous.
“My mind is my own,” Thomson says.
“Of course it is,” he purrs. “Everyone’s mind is their own. They have found a common purpose, that’s all. And once practise is over, they will go back to being their ordinary individual selves.”
With that, all of Thomson’s resolve crumbles in the face of Ashley’s excited enthusiasm, and they find a spot amongst the tightly-pressed, swaying cultists. Immediately, they are drowned in an ecstatic sense of oneness with the universe. Nothing seems important except love and compassion. Anything capable of harbouring hate and enmity seems small and insignificant compared with the great, universal consciousness that experiences and offers nothing but love. Time disappears, becomes meaningless against the great infinite Now. All is One and One is All and All is Love and Love is One.
The blue light in the cave immediately becomes brighter still, as if someone dialled a dimmer switch all the way up.
Uncounted hours later, Thomson finds themselves fading out of the collective ecstasy. All around them, cultists are murmuring quiet, joyous congratulations and expressions of mutual joy at this experience. Thomson threads their way through the milling crowd to find Blavatsky. Strunk is till there, and now he looks at them with an intense, predatory, hungry stare.
“Ashley!” Blavatsky exclaims. ” I was not expecting to see you here. You have only just joined us.”
“I know,” Thomson says. “I’m really sorry, but I felt somehow drawn to be here.”
“Please don’t apologise. With your sensitivity, it is hardly surprising that you should find your way here.”
“What was that?”
“The Interface. We join together as one.”
“What for?”
“To summon the Great Eel, of course,” she replies with a light, bubbly laugh. “She will arise and spread Her loving oneness to everyone in the world.”
“Oh? Oh! I see! I thought we were just becoming our best selves.”
“But we are, my dear.” Her eyes are bright, shining, ecstatic. “The Great Eel brings us to our best selves. Not just us, but everyone in the whole world!”
“Oh! Right, of course. When is that happening?”
“Tonight.”
“May I join you?”
“Of course! You would be most welcome.”
With that, she turns back to her conversation with Strunk.
Thomson does not wish to try persuading Blavatsky that Strunk is evil with Strunk and his bodyguard standing right there, so follows the rest of the cult members filing slowly out of the cave. When they reach the outside, they are startled to discover the sun has risen. Birdsong fills the air, along with the rustling of the leaves. The air is fresh, the soft breeze a delight after the thick, intense atmosphere of the cave. All around them, the cult members who made up the Interface are acknowledging their own and each other’s experience with soft exclamations of “Wow!” and “That was amazing!” while not polluting the experience by attempting to discuss it further.
Thomson moves a little to one side and speaks for the benefit of whomever may be listening on the airwaves. “Guys? Are you there? Can anyone hear me?”
Up in the cliff face, some 100m or so above and somewhat to the west, John is reading a file that was emailed to him by Darling only a few moments ago. It details what the Covenant knows about Strunk, which isn’t much, and includes such illuminating comments as:
His movements are difficult to trace. We know he spent time in the Urals in his twenties, having become interested in the Dyatlov Pass incident. He is known to have visited Nepal for an extended period, and to have attached himself to the family of a highly-regarded American diplomat for a time, in a relationship that one Hunter[1] described as:
“Fifty percent Rasputin, fifty percent Damien from that movie the Omen, one hundred per cent rotten as the inside of Satan’s ass after a dose of my Aunt Beryl’s hot chile tacos.”
[1] Jensen Colorado, Unit 34 (retired).
He was supposed to be in Covenant custody on a Russian island, and somehow nobody knew that he’d escaped. The Covenant had dispatched a team already, it says.
Bea and Maya are talking about how they could possibly retrieve John’s baseball bat from the car, so they can use its magnetic properties against the Orb.
“Have you got car keys?” Bea asks Maya.
“Of course I’ve got car keys. I wasn’t going to just leave them in the boat in the cave we might never go to again.”
“So, if we can get the keys to Thomson, they could go and get the bat for us.”
“How?”
“They can hot wire a car, I bet. Drive over, get the bat.”
“Or maybe,” John says wryly, looking up from his reading, “Maya could fly back to the car with the keys that she already has.”
“But how would she carry the bat back? It’s way heavier than the maximum carrying weight of a shapeshifter herring gull.”
“But then she’d be In. The. Car. She could drive back.”
“And then would have to get into the compound somehow. It’s way too risky.”
“And Thomson hot-wiring a car and stealing it, then bringing back a baseball bat isn’t?”
“What’s that noise?” Maya interrupts. “Can you guys hear something?” She looks around, checks for pockets on the wetsuit, then realises the sound emanates from the mask in her hand. The other two have lost or abandoned theirs. “It’s Thomson!” She holds the mask up to her face while John scans the horizon for flying sharks. Or sharknadoes. “Hey Thomson!”
“Oh thank God. Where are you?”
“We’re in a cave not far from you, on the estate. I can see your tree from here.”
“You’re here?”
“Yeah. We came in through the cave system. Underwater.”
“There were sharks,” John grumbles loudly.
“Sharks?!” Thomson’s voice sounds oddly metallic through the mask’s speakers.
“We’ll tell you about it later. What are you doing? What happened after you picked me up and moved me out of your way?”
“Yeah, look, I’m really sorry about that. I don’t really remember doing it.”
“I was not impressed, Thomson. We’ve got to talk about personal space.”
“Yeah, I’m really, really sorry. I wasn’t myself.”
“I see. Well, we’ll talk about it later. What happened after that?”
Thomson hurriedly describes what happened in the cave, watching for any sign that anyone is paying attention to them, while Bea fires questions like bullets. “Was Gawain there? Were you affected by the sparkles? Were you being mind controlled?” They see the Landrover that brought Maxx to the cave drive past, Maxx driving with Blavastky, Obsidian and Strunk as passengers. They are heading for the main house. “I don’t know what to do, guys,” they say. “Should I come and find you? Can I get to you?”
“We’re about 100m up,” Maya says. “We could lower you a rope, though. Or you could try getting through the cave.”
John leans out as far as he can without being obvious. He sees a stream of white-robed cultists winding towards the farm buildings from somewhere to the left.
“They can’t be too far away,” he says.
“I don’t think we should leave Thomson out there by themselves,” Bea says. “I don’t like the sound of any of that. They are too vulnerable to Blavatsky’s mind control tricks.”
“That’s true,” Maya says.
“On the other hand, maybe they could find us a magnet, seeing as how John left his baseball bat back at the car.” She stares pointedly at John.
“All right,” he protests. “How was I supposed to know that Merlin’s heap of junk would turn out to be useful after all? I swear I am going to hurt that man. Freakin sharks.”
“Bea’s suggesting you find us a magnet,” Maya says, explaining that the Orb casing is potentially vulnerable that way.
“Well, don’t most cults have like PA systems?” Thomson muses. “I haven’t seen one, but I haven’t been looking. All I’d need to do is pull a big speaker apart to find a magnet. Also, I think that amulet is important, as well, and he can’t wear it all the time. Surely he takes if off in the shower? Maybe I should sneak in to his room and look for it.”
“Into Strunk’s room?” Bea asks. “That sounds dangerous.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Thomson says. “What about you. What are you going to do?”
“We’re not far from the main entrance,” Maya says. “I think it’s important that we stop this ritual before it starts. If we get in there, we can maybe see a way to sabotage it. Maybe break the Orb or steal it or something. Is the cave where we were last night?”
“Yes. Just keep going.”
“There’s the plan, then. We’ll go and try to sabotage the Orb. You go and try to steal the amulet.”
“And find a magnet,” John says.
Thomson signs off and heads back across the estate to the big house. They approach from the rear, entering via a back door that leads through a boot room into a utility room. A door on the right hand side opens to reveal steps going down into cool darkness. Probably a wine cellar. They decide not to explore to find out.
Through a big farmhouse kitchen, where it looks like the cook has set up prep for breakfast before stepping out — Ashley provides a vision of a young man from the local village having gone off for a smoke behind the disused coal store — and then through a corridor into the front of the house, Thomson can hear Luna muttering under her breath at the front desk. Ashley senses Luna’s annoyance and upset at not having been invited to participate in the Interface.
They need to get past the desk — the stairs to the next floor, where Strunk’s room is, are past reception, on the other side of the small seating area.
Ashley takes a deep breath, then walks up to the desk. “Luna! Hi! I didn’t see you last night. I was so surprised!”
Luna frowns, creases furrowing her perfectly smooth brow. “You were invited? But you only just got here!”
“Well, I wasn’t invited so much as just turned up, but I was so surprised that you weren’t there. I was expecting to see both you and Topaz, you are such great people, but no. But I tell you who was there. That guy. What’s his name? Spork? I think he poisoned Marina against you. I think he’s evil, and I want to prove it. I need to get to his room. Could you maybe let me past and not tell anyone?”
“You know, I have always thought there was something off about that man,” Luna says, putting her hands on her hips. “Do you think he’s to blame for me not being invited?”
“I’m almost one hundred per cent sure of it,” Ashley says. “He said something not very nice about you to me, which I won’t repeat, so don’t ask me to.”
“Well!” Luna’s universal love and compassion apparently has its limits. “You go right ahead. His room is on the next floor, right at the end of the corridor. I won’t say anything. Unless he directly asks me. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself if he asked directly. He’s very powerful, you know.”
“I wouldn’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way. Just, maybe don’t volunteer that I was here?”
“I can do that,” Luna says, “if there’s a chance it will reveal the truth about him to Madame.”
“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any big speakers, would you? Like for a PA or a sound system?”
“I mean, there’s this thing,” Luna indicates the portable CD player on the shelf behind her. “But big speakers? I guess there’s the old ballroom. They have musicians there sometimes for live events, and they have speakers and amps and things for that.”
“Great. Thanks!”
Thomson hurries up the stairs. When they reach the top, they hear voices coming from Blavatsky’s closed study. One of them is male and using words longer than grunts, so there’s a good bet that’s Strunk.
They pad quickly but quietly along to the room at the end. It’s locked, but Thomson is a dab hand with lockpicks and has the door open in a jiffy. The room is large, sumptuous, with antique furniture including a mahogany desk, bedside cabinets, and an en suite with a luxurious bath.
Wasting no time, Thomson flings open cupboards, rips the covers from the bed and upheaves the mattress. Then almost unbelievably, they yank open a drawer and feel a sharp, white-hot stabbing pain in their palm followed by the wet warmth of blood flowing over their skin. They look down, and the amulet is embedded in their hand. The blood flowing from the wound flows back towards the amulet, in defiance of gravity, and disappears into it.
Thomson swallows hard. This was unexpected. They hurry out into the corridor and find a fire escape opposite. The door opens with a shove of one shoulder, and they take the stairs as fast as they dare before running out of the house.
“Guys!” they yell, panting, breathless. “I’ve got the amulet! It’s stuck into my hand!”
From the house comes an enraged roar. A great wave of pain and anger and furious loss surges into Thomson’s back like a tidal bore made of raw emotion, nearly knocking them over.
They run.
The rest of the team uses the rope to get down and pick their way across another field of scattered boulders before climbing up the far side. The sparkles are growing in intensity again, as irritating and distracting as midges. They squeeze into a narrow, tall crack, which leaves them just enough room to sidle through crabwise.
Eventually, after what feels like hours of scrambling and spelunking, they emerge tired and bruised into the back of a large cave. Ahead of them, the cave system disappears into darkness, but here there is a high roof and daylight coming from an opening way off to their right, hidden by a curve in the rock.
“Hey, I know this place, ” Maya says. “This looks like where I was when I left Thomson.”
“Looks like there’s a way out over there. Might be able to get some reception. Guess we’d better try checking in to see if Igraine managed to get anything useful out of Merlin,” John says.
The team moves to the front of the cave, where the sunlight enters. John creeps far enough round the corner to get a couple of bars on his phone and fires off a quick text.
Igraine responds almost immediately. No, Merlin does not know how to stop brain-eating magical mosquitoes.
“Well that’s just great,” Bea says, irritated. “What use is he?”
They head back into the cave. There are plenty of footprints to follow, and it’s not long before they find the cave where the ritual must have taken place. There is a brazier in which the embers are still glowing, and a strange pedestal raised up on a natural rock dais.
But no Orb.
“Dammit,” Bea says. “Where is it?”
“Maybe they don’t keep it here,” John says. “Too easy to get to.”
“Or someone else has taken it already?” Maya says hopefully. “Maybe Gawain?”
“He’s addled,” Bea says dismissively. “I don’t trust him.” She examines the pedestal and finds a gap in which they could hide a magnet. If they had a magnet. “Do you think Thomson has managed to find a PA system?”
“I don’t know. And our comms gear won’t work down here,” Maya says. “I guess we’re going to have to hide out here and try to disrupt the ritual before it starts.”
Suddenly, Thomson’s voice sounds in their heads.
Guys! Hey! Can you hear me?
Maya holds her diving mask to her ear. It’s not coming from there. It’s inside her head.
“Did you hear that? Sounded like Thomson.”
John shakes his head and thumps himself above the ear with the heel of his hand, as if trying to dislodge water. “Not just me then. That was freaky.”
Can you hear me?
“Yes?” Maya says hesitantly. “Can you hear us?”
Yes! Thank God. I’ve got the amulet. And… Oh no. He’s coming. He’s coming after me.
“Run, Thomson. We’re in the cave where you left me. We’ll come to meet you. Run!”
Thomson runs as fast as they can. Their senses have expanded, their sense of personal space now covering acres. As the amulet throbs in their hand, they can pinpoint every single other living soul on the estate. Including Maxx and Strunk in the Land Rover behind, coming up fast. He is a red-black mass of seething fury, but she has the ice-cold, diamond hard emotional blankness of someone who cares nothing for any life other than her own and her master’s.
Their team is not far, now. They can see John coming towards them, at the mouth of the cave. They will him not to come any farther. Their only hope now is to find the orb and destroy it.
John stops, and Thomson sprints towards him. The Land Rover is mere metres away, churning up the grass as Maxx thrashes the gears and drives far too fast over the lumps and bumps under the trees.
Go!
As Thomson catches up, they both run into the cave, Thomson’s breath coming in hard, painful gasps. The whole team moves further underground, away from the squeal of a Land Rover coming to an abrupt stop. Away from Strunk.
Thomson senses him coming into the cave, senses Maxx pushing ahead of him. Perhaps something in their newfound telepathy offers a warning, perhaps it is merely a lifetime of training and finely honed instincts, but when Maxx arrows one of her throwing knives at Maya, it merely clips her arm.
Maxx lets out a strangled scream of frustration.
Bea unloads both shotgun barrels. The sound, trapped inside the cave with them, is physical, like being inside an explosion. Maxx staggers, falling to the floor.
Strunk races towards them across the cave floor. Sensing the power gathering around him, Thomson turns and combines the lessons they learned from Topaz and the power of the amulet. There is an almost silent whump, the sound made by the largest, fluffiest pillow landing on the softest duvet, and the air in the cave seems to crystallise for a moment. Strunk flies backwards into the cave wall as if yanked on a wire and crumples.
“Wow,” Thomson says. “Okay. That happened.”
“What’s going on with you?” Maya asks, shocked.
“I don’t know. Something about this place. And the amulet. I think it’s giving me powers.”
“Well we should get the damn thing off and destroy it,” Bea says decisively, taking Thomson’s arm.
Thomson pulls their arm away. Inside their thoughts, the amulet whispers seductively about all the things they could do together. “No, I think I should keep it for the time being. We might need those powers.”
Bea frowns. “Wrong answer. We need to destroy that thing. Look at it!”
“No,” Thomson says. “I’m keeping it. Just for a little while. Just until this is over. Did you find the Orb?”
“We went to the cave where they had the ritual, but it wasn’t there,” Maya says. “We don’t know what’s happened to it.”
“It’s definitely down here somewhere,” Thomson replies. “I can feel it.”
Bea huffs, unwilling to admit there might be value in Thomson keeping the amulet. “Can you lead us to it?”
“Probably.”
“You go first, then,” John says.
“I’ll bring up the rear. With the shotgun,” Bea says.
They pass through the ritual cave. On the far side of the cave, they enter a passageway. As they press on into the dark, headlight beams illuminating the uneven rock in an ever-moving, shifting topology of brightness, the sparkles begin to grow dense again; but not only is Thomson immune, they seem to make the brain-eating speckles easier to tolerate for everyone else. Underneath the scrape and scuff of feet and clothes on the cave walls, behind the pants and grunts of effort, the cave system delivers the unmistakeable sound of someone else making their way through the cave, sometimes close, sometimes distant, sometimes both at the same time.
They have to hurry.
Further on, water emerges from the rock to their left, a narrow cleft of lambent turquoise.
“It must be down here,” Bea says. “I think the orb is making the water glow. It was so bright when we were in the lake because it was active. We must have been in that lake when Thomson was taking part in the ritual. When I saw the orb, it was over water like this.”
“I think it’s close,” Thomson agrees.
They emerge from an angled clench into an open area that Bea instantly recognises. This is the lowest part of the cave she managed to reach when they first encountered Bert. The water has re-emerged on their right, now, and shimmers with a pearlescent duck-egg blue that is so bright it fills the cave with something like daylight. Hovering over the water is the orb, back in its casing now, vibrating. In some ways it looks like a racehorse quivering in the starting gates, eager for the off.
Or a dog straining at its leash to get at a rabbit.
“I wish we had that damned baseball bat now,” Bea mutters. “I don’t suppose you got a magnet, did you Thomson?”
“No, I didn’t get a chance,” Thomson says, finding themselves drawn towards the orb. The amulet in their hand feels warm, almost alive, throbbing with a beat resembling a pulse. It whispers to them through their bones, urging them to pick up the orb, to touch it, to hold it. They reach across the water, take the orb in hand. It shudders against their skin, the casing moving, splitting…
“What the FUCK do you think you are DOING?” Suddenly Gawain is there, absolutely furious. He snatches the orb from Thomson. “Is that the damned amulet? Have you bonded to it? You IDIOT.”
“Which one are you?” Bea demands, shoving herself between Gawain and Thomson and releasing the safety catch on her shotgun.
“Which one do you bloody think?” Gawain responds with a snarl. “Do you want to know the colour of C’s underwear as proof or something? You need to get that damned amulet away from the orb.”
“Why?”
“Because the amulet will activate the casing,” he says with an exaggerated sigh, as if explaining something completely obvious to someone completely stupid. “The casing will activate the portal. If you want to summon a bunch of aliens masquerading as Elder Gods who will suck out your brains before going on to enjoy the delicious taste of the rest of humanity, then that’s the way to go about it. But I will kill you first if I have to.”
“Strunk’s behind us,” John says. “We need to destroy it.”
“Did you bring a magnet?”
“Did YOU?” Bea retorts.
Gawain looks sheepish for less time than it takes to blink, but Bea sees it.
“If we get out of here, then we can find one,” Maya says.
“Give me the amulet,” Gawain says.
“No!” Thomson cradles their hand protectively. “I won’t let you take it!”
“I can’t take it. But you can give it to me freely.”
“No. I’m keeping it.”
“We don’t have time to argue,” Maya says, exasperated. “You go ahead, show us the way.” She nods to Gawain. “I’ll take the Orb. Thomson, you stay at the back with Bea. Let’s keep these things apart.”
“All right,” Gawain says, after a slight hesitation. He hands it over and Maya feels a sting in her palm, like salt on a graze. “If he’s behind you, we’d better hurry.”
They follow Gawain as he leads them up out of the cave system. “Hurry!” Bea yells, hearing distorted footsteps and panting breath echoing in the twists and turns of the rock behind them.
They emerge in the clearing with the picnic table. Standing there is Blavatsky and Obsidian.
“Oh, Ashley. How could you do this?” Blavatsky cries.
“I had to. I know you had the best intentions, but Strunk is evil. He was usurping everything you were trying to achieve!”
“Oh, I can’t believe that. Did you not experience the ecstasy of the Interface?”
“He was tricking you!” Thomson says. “He was going to use the power of the Interface to summon a demon! Look!” They hold up their hand and show the amulet, joined to their hand like a leech, feeding. “This is his! I got this from his room!”
Obsidian grunts. “I knew it,” he mutters.
Behind them the gate swings open with a clang. Strunk pushes his way through, Maxx right beside him. Strunk’s face is murderous, rage reddening his features.
Thomson backs away from the power they feel gathering, the amulet pulsing as it gathers its own power. Gawain pulls his gun and fires, clipping Strunk; Maxx flings a knife straight as an arrow, and it plunges into Gawain’s neck. He collapses.
Bea unloads her shotgun into Maxx. At point blank range, the double-barrelled blast catches the woman in her chest and she flies backwards, crunching into the side of the mountain. As Bea reloads, John hefts his cudgel and swings for Strunk, catching him round the side of the head. He staggers and falls, dazed.
Bea walks over, stands astride him, and aims her shotgun straight down.
“Not his head!” Maya cries as she hurries to give first aid to Gawain. “Aim for the centre of mass!”
Bea shifts her aim downwards a fraction, then unloads both barrels. Strunk’s chest explodes.
John eyes up Blavatsky and Obsidian, then vanishes down the path.
“You felt that, right?” Thomson says to Blavatsky, almost pleading. “You felt that power, that energy. That was wrong. It was bad. And what you were trying to do… You can’t make that decision for everyone in the world like that. It’s tyranny, no matter how good your intentions.”
“I…” Blavatsky appears heartbroken. “I suppose you are right.”
“I am right. That kind of thinking is what makes people like him.” They nudge Strunk with one toe.
John returns, sweat beading his brow. He’s tossing a metal disc the size of his palm in one hand.
“Let’s see that orb,” he says to Maya.
She holds out the encased orb, and he touches the metal disc to it. The casing cracks and falls apart, dropping to the ground. The orb inside floats free, hovering like ball lightning. Maya grabs it from the hair and tucks it into a pocket.
“Can you do that?” John asks.
“Do what?” Maya asks innocently. “Where did you get the magnet?”
“Let’s just say some naughty vandals might have found Blavatsky’s car parked up on the road and smashed up the sound system. Terrible thing.”
“How awful,” Maya says mildly. “Can you get a medevac for Gawain? I haven’t got any signal on my phone.”
“Already done,” he says. “Got a special button.” He shows Maya the emergency call button he pressed as soon as he saw Gawain go down. “You need to get a better phone, Maya.”
“And we have to get that amulet off Thomson.”
“Can I not keep it?” Thomson wheedles. “Just for a little while. We could… We could study it. Take it back to a lab. See what it can do, what it’s made of.”
“Listen, Strunk just walked out of a covert Russian prison that was on a damned island. Do you really think that the Covenant can keep something like that safe? Do you think anyone can keep something like that safe?” Behind his back, he adjust his grip on his cudgel.
“And looks what it’s doing to you,” Bea says. “You’re just as likely to end up locked in a lab somewhere yourself.”
That seems to change Thomson’s mind. Being locked in a Covenant lab and poked endlessly by Merlin’s crew is not an attractive prospect for anyone.
They grasp the amulet with their free hand and, wincing, pull it off.
“Put it down there,” John orders, indicating a rock.
Reluctantly, Thomson does as they are told. John takes the end of his cudgel and pounds the amulet into fragments and dust.
“Now what?” they say. “Where’s the car?”
“At the other end of the cave system,” Bea says. “Miles away.”
As the rapid thwuk-thwuk-thwuk-thwuk sound of a helicopter announces the imminent arrival of the Covenant’s medevac chopper, John saunters over to Blavatsky.
“Any chance of a lift?”