Douglas Preston - Brimstone

It was the work of ninety seconds to complete the incantation

At first, nothing happened. He strained, listening, but there was not a sound, not a sigh; nothing. Had he said it incorrectly? With the help gone, the place was as quiet as the tomb.

His eye drifted back to the manuscript page. Should he recite it again? But no-the ceremony had to be performed precisely, without deviation Repetition could have disastrous, unimaginable consequences

As he waited, there in the faint light, he wondered if perhaps it wasn't true, after all: that it was all hollow superstition. But at this thought, such a desperate mixture of hope and uncertainty rose within him that he forced himself to push it aside. He was not wrong. There could be no other answer .

Then he felt, or thought he felt, a strange shifting of the air. A faint smell came to him, drifting across the alone . It was the acrid odor of sulfur

A breeze shifted the curtains of the window. The room seemed to grow dimmer, as if a great darkness was encroaching from all directions. He felt himself go rigid with fear and anticipation It was happening. The incantation was working, just as promised.

He waited, almost afraid to breathe. The smell got stronger, and now it almost seemed as if tendrils of smoke were drifting in the lazy air of the room, tendrils that licked about the windows and curled in the corners. He felt a strange sense of apprehension, of physical dread. Yes, it was a physical sensation, a harbinger of what was to come, and the air seemed to congeal with a rising warmth.

Bullard stood within the greater circle, his heart pounding, his eyes straining to see beyond the darkened doorway. A vague outline . a lumbering, slow-moving shape .

He'd done it! He'd succeeded! He was coming! He was really coming . !

{ 57 }

D'Agosta felt numb. The shot, the silence, and the final splash-this was really it.

"Come on," his minder said, giving him a push.

D'Agosta couldn't move; he couldn't believe what was happening.

"Move!" The man jabbed D'Agosta in the back of the head with his gun barrel.

He stumbled forward, mechanically trying to keep his footing among discarded pieces of stone. The moldy breath of the open shaft washed over him. Six steps, eight, a dozen.

"Stop."

Now he could feel the foul air tickling his nose, stirring his hair. Everything seemed abnormally clear, and time had slowed to a crawl. Jesus, what a way to go out.

The gun barrel pressed hard against his skull. D'Agosta squeezed his eyes tightly closed behind the blindfold, prayed for a quick end.

He took a shallow breath, another. Then came a deafening gunshot. He fell forward into space .

. Vaguely, as if at a great distance, he sensed a steel arm shooting out from behind and hauling him back from the utter brink. The hand let go, and D'Agosta collapsed immediately onto the rock-strewn grass. A moment later he heard a body-not his-hitting the water far below.

"Vincent?"

It was Pendergast.

A snick and his blindfold was removed; another snick and Pendergast had cut off his gag. D'Agosta lay where he had fallen, stunned.

"Wake up, Vincent."

Slowly, D'Agosta came back. Pendergast was standing to one side, gun trained on his own minder, binding him to a tree. D'Agosta's man was nowhere to be seen.

D'Agosta stumbled woodenly to his feet. He felt a strange wetness on his face. Tears? Dew from the grass? It seemed a miracle. He swallowed, managed to croak, "How . ?"

But Pendergast simply shook his head and glanced into the yawning mouth of the shaft. "I think his shoe troubles are over." Then he glanced at the remaining guard and flashed him a brief, chilling smile.

The man paled and mumbled something through his gag.

Pendergast turned to D'Agosta. "Show me your finger."

D'Agosta had forgotten all about it. Pendergast took his hand, examined it. "Done with a sharp knife. You're lucky: neither the bone nor the root of the nail was affected." He tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his black shirt and bandaged it. "It might be wise to get you to a hospital."

"The hell with that. We're going after Bullard."

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. "I'm delighted to hear that we are of the same opinion. Yes, now is a good opportunity. As for your finger-"

"Forget the finger."

"As you wish. Here's your service piece."

Pendergast handed him the Glock 9mm, then turned to his minder and aimed his own Les Baer at the man's temple. "You have one chance-only one-to tell us the best route out. I already know a great deal about the layout of this place, so any attempt to deceive will be detected and instantly answered with a bullet to the parietal lobe. Understand?"

The man couldn't talk fast enough.

An hour later, Pendergast and D'Agosta were driving south of Florence on the Via Volterrana, a dark, stone-walled road that curved along the hilltops south of the city. A faint scattering of lights winked from the surrounding hills.

"How did you do it?" D'Agosta asked. He could still hardly believe it. "I thought we were about to buy the farm."

They were still in their black stealth outfits, and only Pendergast's hands and face could be seen. In the dim light of the dashboard, his expression was hard and flat. "I have to admit a moment of discomfort back there myself. We were lucky they decided to separate, to kill us one at a time. That was their first mistake. The second was overconfidence and inattention. The third was my man keeping his gun pressed into me-which, of course, revealed exactly where the weapon was at all times. I always carry a few small tools in my shirt cuff, the hem of my trousers, other places. It's an old magicians' trick. I used these to pick the lock of my cuffs. Luckily, the Italian locks were rather crude. When we halted at the pit, I disarmed my opponent with a blow to the solar plexus, removed my blindfold and gag. I then shot the gun into the air while pushing a heavy rock into the quarry with my foot. Next I instructed my guard to order you brought forward-which he did as soon as he recovered his wind. I regret shooting your guard, but there would have been no way to manage both of them . I do not care for killing people in cold blood, but there was no help for it."

He fell silent.

D'Agosta felt his own anger grow. He had no sense of regret. His finger was throbbing painfully again, in time to the beat of his heart. Bullard. Pendergast had been correct: the man would pay dearly.

The car swung around a curve, and there, a half mile ahead, D'Agosta could see the outline of a villa silhouetted against the faint glow of the night sky, a crenellated tower on one end framed by cypress trees.

"Machiavelli's place of exile," murmured Pendergast.

The car dipped into a valley, cruising along an ancient wall. Pendergast slowed as they approached an iron gate, then turned off the road. They hid the car in an olive grove and approached the gate.

"I was expecting heavy security," Pendergast said after quickly examining the lock. "Instead, this gate's open." He peered through. "And the guardhouse appears to be unoccupied."

"Are you sure we're at the right villa?"

"Yes." He slowly eased the gate open, and they stepped into the darkness of the villa's great park. Two rows of cypresses lined a drive that led up a hill covered with more olive groves. Pendergast paused, dropping to his hands and knees to examine faint tread marks in the gravel of the drive. Then he stood, looked around, and nodded toward a dense forest of umbrella pines that lay to one side. "That way."

They moved through the pines, Pendergast stopping every now and then, apparently looking for guards or other signs of security. "Odd," he murmured to himself. "Very odd."

Soon they reached a thick hedge of laurel, immaculately clipped and impenetrable. They walked along the hedge to a locked gate, which Pendergast deftly picked. Beyond lay a formal Italian garden, low boxwood hedges laid in rectangular shapes, bordered by beds of lavender and marigolds. In the center stood a marble statue of a faun playing panpipes, water pouring from the pipes and splashing into a mossy pool below. Beyond rose the dark facade of the villa.