David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

But the shots they heard didn't come from Hugh Kelly's weapon.

Instead the shots came from other automatic weapons, rattling, muffled, distant, behind the door that led into the chapel.

Beyond it, men screamed in agony.

Abruptly the door scraped open, guards surging through, firing behind them, leaning their combined weight against the door, shutting it, locking it.

'They didn't use flashlights!' a guard yelled.

Fulano rushed toward the rear entrance to the chapel. 'Then how could they have followed us here? How could they have seen the trail of bulbs in the dark?'

'They're wearing night-vision goggles! It didn't matter where we hid! They could see us, but we couldn't see them! '

'Take cover!' Fulano ordered.

The guards retreated, lunging toward the protection of torches and pillars. Some left a trail of blood. Tess heard their strident breathing.

Something banged on the opposite side of the metal door.

'They're trying to get through!' Gerrard said.

Something banged again. The lock held firm.

'They'll use explosives!' Fulano said. 'Get down!'

Hugh Kelly had turned to view the commotion.

Taking advantage, Craig surged from the pool of water behind the stalagmite. Kelly heard him and whirled but not in time. Craig reached him before he could raise his weapon and fire. Slamming Kelly, twisting him, Craig grabbed Kelly's chin from behind and jerked it upward. At the same time, Craig dropped to one knee, propped up the other knee, and banged Kelly's spine across it.

Sickened, Tess heard two brutal snaps – from Kelly's neck and spine. As Kelly's lifeless body sank to the cavern's floor, Craig grabbed the weapon and aimed toward Gerrard and Fulano.

Too late. The sound of the struggle having warned them, they ducked through the entrance into the chapel before Craig had a chance to fire.

He cursed and started after them. But instantly he stumbled back, the force of an explosion making him fall. The blast was deafening, the metal door flying off its hinges, banging onto the floor. More rocks dropped from the ceiling.

Tess's ears rang. Nonetheless she heard guards shoot toward the entrance to the tunnel. From the darkness beyond the entrance, from the chamber of the painted bulls, other weapons returned fire.

Tess heard another explosion. Then another . In the cold pool behind the stalagmite, she winced and pressed her hands against her ears. Grenades! The Inquisitors were throwing grenades! The chapel filled with smoke and flames. Although her hands were pressed against her ears, the screams of dying men assaulted her.

The gunshots persisted, gaining in volume. More explosions rocked the cavern, more rocks falling. Through the entrance to the chapel, Tess saw a torch break, toppling, spewing its fiery oil across the floor. Bullets chipped pillars, ricocheting, rockshards flying.

As the shooting intensified, dark-clothed figures charged from the cavern of the painted bulls. Through the smoke, Tess saw that the figures wore goggles and that their faces were smeared with black camouflage grease. They held automatic weapons and fired in every direction, pausing only long enough to throw more grenades. The explosions shattered pillars. Guards dropped, blood bursting from their heads and backs. Others were crushed by cascading rocks.

In a rush, the survivors – Gerrard and Fulano among them – scrambled into the cavern behind the chapel. A few returned fire, but most fled in panic.

Tess tripped a man as he raced past the stalagmite. His chin banged hard against the floor.

Too terrified to resist the impulse of adrenaline, she lunged from cover and grabbed his weapon. Her father had never taught her how to use this type of gun, but she remembered that Hugh Kelly had pulled back a bolt on the side of his before he prepared to snoot. Evidently the bolt was a cocking mechanism, and assuming that the guard had already cocked his weapon, she responded defensively, aimed at the guard when he stuggled to rise, and shot him, slamming him flat.

The spray of blood combined with the weapon's stuttering recoil unnerved her. The force of the volley yanked the barrel upward. She urgently told herself, Remember to hold it down, to keep it level.

Spinning, determined, she looked for other targets. Craig? Where was Craig ? In the chaos of the shots, the smoke, and the flames, she didn't dare pull the trigger for fear of hitting him. Then she saw him, flat on his stomach, shooting. Guards jolted backward, slamming into others, knocking them off balance, coating them with blood.

Tess fired above Craig, hitting other guards. Meanwhile, in the chapel, the smoke and flames grew stronger. The gunshots came closer. Craig and Tess kept firing.

To her right, Tess noticed sudden motion. There, Fulano rose from beside the pen in which he'd slaughtered the sacred bull.

He reached beneath his sport coat, pulled out a pistol, and aimed toward Craig.

Tess fired sooner, stitching Fulano's chest with bullets. The direct descendant of the leader of the heretics jerked repeatedly, staggered, and toppled over the side of the pen, lying on the corpse of the great white bull.

But again Tess hadn't been able to control her weapon's recoil. Its barrel heaved upward. Her finger – still on the trigger -reflexively kept squeezing. Propelled, she twisted, and suddenly Gerrard was in her line of fire.

The vice president wailed, holding up his arms as if to shield his chest, but the bullets struck higher, blasting holes across his handsome face, blowing apart his gray eyes. Viscous matter spurted. His head appeared to explode.

Then actual explosions threw Tess on the rocky floor, grenades detonating fiercely at the rear of the chapel. She fought to stand, knowing that there'd be more explosions, and that they wouldn't be in the chapel. They'd be closer. They'd - ! She saw a grenade arc through the entrance to the cavern.

Abruptly she felt the breath knocked out of her, a figure hurtling against her, Craig who tackled her and dropped with her, and the next thing, Tess struck the steps to the pit and tumbled down them, Craig twisting over her. She walloped her knees, her back, her skull, and hit the dark bottom, stunned, splashing into thick pungent blood that heaved and splattered over her.

Immediately, as she regained sufficient presence of mind to clamp her blood-smeared hands against her ears, feeling Craig raise his arms and do the same, the grenade erupted with a stunning roar, its shrapnel splintering off the cavern's walls, a few fragments striking the upper steps of the pit, the thunderous echo swelling against the walls of the cave, more rocks cascading.

Immersed in blood, Tess raised her dripping head and listened to the burp of automatic weapons strafe the cavern. Above, there was only darkness, the grenade's rush of air having extinguished the torches.

'I think we finished them,' a husky voice said.

'Make sure,' another voice said.

Tess recognized its deep-throated resonance.

Father Baldwin. We're safe! she thought. She raised her face higher, about to shout to him, when Craig clamped a hand across her mouth and pressed her head down. Her instincts made her want to scream. But her love for Craig made her comply. She understood. He was trying to tell her something.

More important, he was trying to protect her. She acquiesced, slackened her muscles, quit struggling, and nodded. For whatever reason, his motives – however puzzling – were in her best interests.

Heavy footsteps entered the cavern.

'No sign of survivors,' a taut voice said. 'Those that weren't shot or killed by grenades were crushed by rubble.'

'Keep checking!' Father Baldwin ordered.

The Inquisitor's voice was so muffled that Tess realized, her arms around Craig, that slabs of rock had fallen over the bull and Fulano's corpse and had fallen as well over the entrance to the steps that led to the pit.