Warren Murphy: Wolf's Bane

"The final days are coming!" he proclaimed, his bull voice amplified by the acoustics and sound system of the auditorium. Without missing a beat, he shifted to scripture, leaving the faithful to decide which words were his and which were God's.

"'Before the throne,'" cried Reverend Rockwell, "'there was a sea of glass like unto crystal, and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.'"

There was a stirring in the audience, a couple of the women gasping, while a tall man pointed toward the stage. Rockwell wasn't used to that particular reaction, but he made the most of it, leaning forward with his full weight on the podium, shouting directly at those brothers and sisters in the front row.

"'And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf,'" he bellowed, "'and and the third beast had a face like a man, and-'"

Christ, the whole front row was screaming now, some of them bolting from their seats and making for the nearest aisle. Distracted, Reverend Rockwell wheeled to his left, faced toward the wings and saw a most ungodly apparition rushing toward him, long legs eating up the stage.

He wouldn't have described the face as like a man's exactly, even though the thing was wearing overalls and boots. It struck him more as something from a nightmare, spawned by too much pepperoni on his late-night pizza, but Rockwell knew that he wasn't hallucinating. Not if everybody in the audience could see it, too.

Without a weapon close at hand, nowhere to run, Rockwell did the only thing that he could think of, lifting up his Bible in both hands and holding it in front of him to ward off the monster. No one was more surprised than Reverend Rockwell when one long, shaggy arm reached out and swept the book aside, immediately followed by a shoulder slamming square into his chest.

The words that poured from Reverend Rockwell's lips as he began to plummet off the stage and down into the pit bore no resemblance to a prayer.

Chapter 18

Chiun was slightly amused. He was mostly annoyed. These were the worst kind of spectacles, greed cloaked as religion. For some reason, the followers of the carpenter from Galilee had an abundance of gaudy exhibitions such as this. What was most miraculous was that the worshipers came to them and enthusiastically permitted their pockets to be emptied.

But this was as good a place to meet the enemy as any other. Chiun would simply use the crowd to personal advantage when his foes arrived. Remo would probably find himself twiddling his thumbs in the restaurant and fighting the temptation to order some sort of fried cattle entree.

The entertainers on the stage went through their paces. They were all familiar to Chiun from his channel surfing. He wondered if these actors thought there was some sort of supposed secret hypnotic quality that came from referring to the carpenter as "Jay-sus-uh. "

The greed-preachers were experts when it came to flogging simpleminded viewers into a state that was equal parts ecstasy and pain. When they attained that level, crimson-faced and weeping, brandishing their pudgy hands aloft like baseball fans rehearsing a coordinated wave, the salesman at the podium had little difficulty separating them from any cash they carried. Some of them collapsed, while others hopped about and babbled gibberish, like caricatures of small children pretending to speak a foreign language.

Chiun, despite the entertainment, was instantly aware of the first two Cajun gunmen slipping into the auditorium. He left his charges with strict orders to remain exactly where they were, awaiting his return.

Three more assassins were inside the auditorium as Chiun approached the first he had seen. They kept their weapons out of sight, but it was obvious that they were armed, with awkward bulges visible beneath the jackets they would not have worn this night if they had nothing to conceal.

Chiun had no idea if they had been forewarned to watch for a Korean, but he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that nothing in their wasted lifetimes had prepared them to confront a Master of Sinanju. He was standing at the first one's elbow by the time his adversary knew that he was being hunted in the crowd. Too late, the big man with the rubber skull mask tried to draw his weapon, dead before he reached it from a strike no human eye could follow. It was child's play for Chiun to hold him upright, although the dead man's head wobbled as they moved together through the press of worshipers who were compelled to stand against the back wall of the auditorium for lack of seats. Ahead of him, a second gunman-this one with the plastic face and dangling hair of Fabio-glanced over, saw his comrade coming, and began to drift toward him, clearly having failed to spot his targets in the crowd.

When the second gunman came within arm's reach, Chiun reached around the corpse and delivered another lightning strike. Half of Fabio's unyielding countenance imploded. Chiun was now bracing two dead men and looking for a place where he could prop them up together without setting off a stampede and a chorus of screaming.

Then he saw movement on stage, far below. The hulking, hairy man-thing he had last seen at Desire House was charging at the startled minister. As Chiun dropped his pair of corpses, the manlike demon swept away the preacher. One of the wolf-dogs ran on stage with the creature.

The audience erupted into screaming chaos as Chiun homed in on his nearest living enemy with greater speed.

LEON HAD KNOWN they would be entering a crowded room, but the marquee for Mission Mardi Gras meant nothing to him, and he had expected something in the nature of a barn dance, people milling everywhere, instead of wedged in seats and watching while a fat man paced around the stage, a microphone in one hand, black book in the other. Leon didn't know what the occasion was, nor did he give a muskrat's ass. The moment that he cleared the wings and heard the screaming start, he knew exactly what he had to do.

The fat man was first, turning to face Leon with his face contorted, shock and fear most evident among the jumbled senses flickering behind his eyes. Leon went for him in a rush, ignored the flare of pain from recent wounds as they collided, snarling triumph as the fat man tumbled backward, off the stage, to the unyielding concrete floor below.

Leon couldn't begin to guess how many people there were in the auditorium-it had to be hundreds, possibly a thousand-but he knew that every one of them was staring at him now, some of them pointing, screaming, many scrambling from their seats and making for the nearest exit in a rush. He needed time to find the three he had come looking for, but there would be no time, he realized, as panic seized the audience at large and individuals began to scramble over one another, elbowing their fellows to the side and trampling those who fell.

The bitch streaked past him, bounding off the stage without a moment's hesitation. Leon didn't know where she was going, whether she had spotted their intended quarry. By the time he spun in that direction, tracking her, she had already disappeared into the crowd.

Goddamn it!

Someone came at Leon from the wings directly opposite, another fat man, this one with a badge pinned to his sweaty shirt. Some kind of rent-a-cop retained for the occasion, and he didn't even have a gun. The club he brandished overhead might have intimidated a normal, but Leon didn't give the stick a second thought.

He met the man halfway, his good arm reaching out, lips curled back in a snarl. The fat man blanched and tried to change his mind, but it was too late now. Before he could retreat, Leon had grabbed a handful of his shirt and jerked him forward, lunging at his triple chins with sharp, discolored teeth. The fat man's scream was drowned in gurgling crimson, and his night stick clattered on the stage, rolled toward the footlights, useless and forgotten.