Paul Christopher - The Lucifer Gospel

“I can’t read it,” Hilts said.

Finn uncapped her canteen, poured water into her palm and swept her hand around the inscription with a quick wiping motion. The letters darkened, instantly readable.

“Neat,” said Hilts, admiringly. He read the words aloud: “Hic Latito Lux Excito-Vox Luciferus.” He shook his head. “Too bad I never took Latin in school.”

“I did,” said Finn. “My parents insisted. According to them nothing beat a classical education. Good for reading the inscriptions on important old buildings.”

“So what does it say?”

“Here Lies Hidden the Bringer of Light: The Words of Lucifer.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Hilts.

“Non ioco est,” she answered. “No joke.”

“Lucifer, as in the Lucifer?”

“Lucifer was a fairly common name in ancient Rome. It didn’t have the same negative connotation a few thousand years ago.”

“So some Roman named Lucifer is buried inside this thing?”

“His words, anyway.”

“Let’s see.”

Hilts used both hands to scoop the fall of sand away from the top of the box.

“We’re going to open it?”

“It looks to me like a lot of people went to a lot of trouble to find this thing, whatever it is. The least we can do is have a look.”

“What about Adamson and his pals?” Finn asked, frowning.

Hilts checked his watch.

“At least another half hour. We can be out of here long before that.”

It took another five minutes to clear all the sand away from the top of the stone box. When that was done Hilts took a ten-inch “pig sticker” spike bayonet from one of the abandoned Enfield rifles and hammered it with the palm of his hand into the faint crack between the box and its heavy top. He twisted slowly and the top slid fractionally to one side, releasing a puff of stale, dusty air. Together Hilts and Finn manhandled the top of the ossuary to one side and then let it slide down to the floor of the cave, leaning against the side of the stone box. Both of them peered inside.

Stuffed into the heavy stone coffin was the bent figure of a man. He was wearing pale green trousers, a long buttoned jacket the same color, and heavy boots. The face was a leathery brown, but except for a missing ear the general structure of the face was relatively intact. Perched askew on the hawklike nose was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The ear was missing because there was a ragged hole in the right temple big enough to put a fist inside. Part of the jaw was missing as well, showing off a mouthful of yellow teeth. The tongue had shrunken to a black lump. Lying between the legs of the naturally mummified corpse was a copper urn like the one being gripped by the dead man near the cave entrance. Finn reached into the box and took out the small vase. Like the one in the dead archaeologist’s hands, this one was empty. Hilts began going through the pockets of the brass-buttoned fatigue jacket the corpse was wearing.

“Looks like a uniform,” said Finn.

“It is,” Hilts answered. “Italian Desert Forces. No insignia or anything. No rank.”

“There’s a ring,” said Finn. Gingerly she lifted the right hand. A gold band still shone on the leathery hook of the index finger. It fell off into her palm. “There’s a crest engraved into it.”

“Five will get you ten it’s Pedrazzi. Hold on.”

“Find something?”

“He was a smoker.” Hilts grunted. “Lung cancer would have gotten him if somebody hadn’t blown his head off.” He tossed her a small faded cigarette tin. She could still see the enameled illustration of a reclining woman and the name Fatima.

Faintly, more a sense of vibration than a sound, Finn heard something in the distance, rising over the moaning of the wind.

“What’s that?” she asked nervously.

Hilts paused in his examination and listened, frowning in concentration.

“Shit!” It was the first time Finn had heard him swear.

“What?”

“Chopper.”

“Adamson?”

“It’s some kind of gunship.” He ran to the cave entrance and peered out. Finn joined him. She couldn’t see anything except the blowing sand and the old vehicles on the floor of the valley. The sound was getting louder, a deep throbbing tone now. Hilts nodded grimly. “Russian. A Mil-24. It’s the creep in the beret.”

“Colonel Nasif.”

“Must be.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I doubt if we’re going to be given the opportunity to ask.”

“What do we do?”

“Run.”

They made it to the ruined Italian Sahariane before the insect-like Russian-built helicopter gunship appeared. The Mil-24 slipped suddenly over the canyon wall like some mechanical horror from a science-fiction film, a hovering steel mantis, twisting beneath its main rotor, searching for its prey, bland in its pale camouflage. It moved into the valley with agonizing slowness, tilted slightly, nose down, swinging left to right.

“They haven’t seen us,” said Hilts.

“They must know we’re here; they would have seen the plane,” said Finn. They were crouched together behind the huge fender of the old truck.

“They know we’re in the valley, but that’s all,” the pilot said, shouting into her ear over the thundering roar of the Mil’s jet engine. “We’ve still got a chance.”

As the helicopter cruised slowly along above the valley, they moved behind the Sahariane, keeping the bulk of the vehicle between them as a shield. Reaching the rear of the blasted desert vehicle, Finn looked over her shoulder. The entrance to the canyon was at least a hundred feet away; too much exposure.

“We need a distraction,” she shouted.

Hilts nodded. He reached into the deep pocket of his fatigue jacket and pulled out one of the old Mills grenades from the cave.

“Think it’ll work?!”

“Only one way to find out!” He pulled the pin and waited, keeping the spring lever tightly enclosed in his fist. He waited until the Mil had settled onto the ground, facing away from them, then hurled the baseball-sized grenade. The scored steel fragmentation bomb sailed up and out, the lever spinning away, glinting in the sun as it popped off the side of the grenade.

“Count to four, then head for the canyon,” Hilts instructed. “I’ll be right behind you!” He pulled a second grenade from his pocket and threw that one as well, aiming for the other side of the valley.

Finn, crouching, did a quick four count then leapt up and ran, keeping her eyes on the dark shadow that marked the canyon entrance. She reached the canyon just as the first grenade exploded. She tried to look back over her shoulder but felt Hilts’s palm in her back, pushing her forward into the entrance. She stumbled and his hand was on her arm, pulling her up. The second grenade went off with a sharp bang and then she was in darkness.

“Go! Go! Go!” Hilts yelled, and she went. Behind her there was a harsh coughing sound as the engine of the Mil hesitated, then caught, then hesitated again. “I think I hit the rotor!” said Hilts.

Finn nodded blindly and kept on running, finally coming out of the narrow canyon entranceway and into the open desert. The little airplane stood waiting a few hundred feet away. There was no sign of the helicopter.

She stopped, horrified, staring to the left, into the desert. Rising like a brutal wave was a dark curtain a thousand feet high, blotting out the sun.

“Look!”

“Sandstorm!” Hilts yelled. “Get to the plane!”

Finn ran harder, lungs bursting, heart hammering in her chest. Her breath came in harsh, hot gasps. She reached the shadow of the wing, ducked under it and wrenched open the door of the little airplane. The wind blowing against her back was fiercely hot and filled with grains of sand that burned, stinging into her exposed skin, even tearing at her hands. The sound of it against the wings and fuselage was like the frantic tapping of a million bony fingers foretelling her choking, blast-furnace end in the immense dark thing that loomed behind her like a gargantuan, living creature, the desert’s own spawn or demon.