Gabriel Hunt - Hunt at World's End

“Because one of us was with him at all times,” Gabriel said.

“Maybe that’s why,” Joyce said, “but I think he wouldn’t have anyway.” Gabriel looked unconvinced. “Besides, we won’t be able to keep him locked up when we get to wherever we’re going. We’re going to have to take a chance on him again at some point. We may as well start now.”

Gabriel sighed. “If anything happens, if he tries to get away…”

“We’re on a boat. Where’s he going to go?” She climbed off the bed and started picking through the pile of clothing on the floor, no doubt looking for something appropriate to wear among all her field gear. Good luck finding a cocktail dress in there, Gabriel thought. But it was just as well, since he only had the one outfit himself—and, just to be safe, he’d be accessorizing it his usual way, with a leather jacket just long enough to conceal his hip holster.

Under cover of night, the thirty-foot ketch cut smoothly and quietly through the waters of the Indian Ocean. They’d taken down the sails so they wouldn’t be seen by the African Princess , instead propelling themselves forward with a small, muffled motor attached to the stern. At Vassily’s command, the engine was cut, and they floated up silently, small as an insect next to the hulking cruise ship. An emergency hatch in the African Princess ’s hull stood just above sea level. They tied mooring ropes to the thick bolt beside the hatch, securing the ketch in place in the shadow of the ship.

The brethren of the Cult of Ulikummis—more than a dozen men in all—stood at the ready, awaiting Vassily’s orders. Arkady stood with the others in their robes and skull masks, in some cases with bows slung over one shoulder, quivers over the other, in all cases with swords through their belts. Tonight Vassily would let them spill all the blood they wanted.

Arkady reached out and pressed a square of explosives firmly against the seam of the hatch, then inserted a fuse. It took three attempts in the damp night air to get a match lit, but once he had, it took no time at all to set the fuse burning. Hastily, all the men dropped to the bottom of the ketch. The explosion, when it came, was quiet, as explosions went. Looking up, they saw that the blast had knocked the hatch off its hinges and onto the floor inside. One by one they climbed in through the opening, Vassily going last.

They found themselves in a hot, dimly lit, graywalled hallway that ran past the engine room. A loud mechanical hum filled the corridor. At the far end, a staircase led up to the passenger decks. As they moved forward, the door of the engine room opened and two men rushed out, summoned by the noise of the explosion—it hadn’t been quiet enough for no one to notice—or else the hull breach had set off some automatic monitor. Upon seeing the heavily armed cult members, the men skidded to a halt, their eyes wide with surprise.

“What the hell—” the first one sputtered. Before he’d even finished his sentence, one of the cult members had pulled the sword from his belt and slashed it mercilessly across his throat.

Vassily spun his staff and thrust its bronze blade into the second man’s neck, pinning him to the wall. He made wet choking sounds as blood flowed down his shirt, and he clawed at his throat. When his grasping hands slackened and dropped to his sides, Vassily pulled the blade out. The second man’s corpse fell on top of the first.

They continued silently toward the stairs.

“I appreciate this, Gabriel,” Daniel Wingard said. The plate before him was empty except for a few decapitated asparagus stalks. “I hope this means we’ve come to some kind of détente.”

“That depends entirely on you,” Gabriel replied.

They were dining on the upper deck of the ship, the cloudless sky above them filled with bright stars and a waning gibbous moon. The open-air restaurant was called the Safari Club. It was separated from the rest of the deck by latticed wooden walls, each decorated with spears, leopard-skin shields and large mural paintings of the African savannah and its wildlife. The waiter cleared their dishes and disappeared inside the serving station housed in a small square “hut” with a straw-thatched roof. The cruise line had spared no expense on the décor, but Gabriel couldn’t help the disdain he felt for this sort of tourist’s-eye rendition of Africa. Whoever designed it had obviously never set foot in the real savannah, he’d just watched old Tarzan pictures or ridden the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland.

“That’s certainly fair,” Daniel said, sipping at his water. “So why don’t I do something to make myself useful? I’ve had a lot of time to think, cooped up in that cabin, and something dawned on me that I don’t recall any of us bringing up before.”

“What’s that?” Gabriel said.

“I’ve seen dozens of images of Teshub over the years, drawings and paintings and sculptures, I’ve probably read hundreds of descriptions, and every one of them is pretty much the same—oh, details vary from one to the next, but he’s always portrayed as looking like a man, with ordinary human features. Nowhere is there any suggestion that Teshub has three eyes, like Shiva or Mahadeva. Teshub is always shown as having the ordinary number of eyes.”

Daniel looked up from his plate and met Gabriel’s gaze across the table.

“You see what I’m getting at?” Daniel continued. “We’re looking for the three Eyes of Teshub. The number three keeps showing up in the legend—three elements, the three armies that will determine the Spearhead’s fate, even the three blades on the Death’s Head Key. But why three eyes when he’s always shown as only having two?”

“Could it be another mistranslation?” Gabriel asked. “Maybe the word that’s been translated as ‘eye’ also means something else…?”

Daniel shook his head. “Unlikely. The Nesili symbol for ‘eye’ isn’t one that has multiple meanings, and the one meaning it does have is amply documented.”

Gabriel took one last sip of wine, emptying his glass. More riddles. That was how Daniel chose to make himself useful? If he wanted to be useful, he’d supply some answers, not more questions.

He watched a waiter walk out of the restaurant and onto the deck with a tray of drinks, disappearing past the serving station. When he came back, maybe Gabriel would ask him for a refill…

The sudden noise of shattering glass made Gabriel spring to his feet.

He saw the crowd of white-robed cultists flooding onto the deck. “Get down!”

Joyce and Daniel threw themselves to the floor. Gabriel pulled his Colt from its holster. The other passengers in the restaurant screamed and backed away from their tables.

Three cult members nocked arrows into their bows on the run.

Gabriel kicked the table onto its side, sending their wineglasses, the empty bottle and the floral centerpiece smashing to the floor, then ducked behind it with Joyce and Daniel. The hiss of multiple arrows cut the air, and the table jolted and thumped as they struck it.

“I thought we’d seen the last of them,” Joyce said.

“They must have followed us from Borneo.”

“Is this the Cult of Ulikummis?” Daniel asked. His eyebrows lifted and he peeked around the side of the table. “Fascinating! Look at those masks! Twelfth century B.C. design, I’d say.”

“Very helpful, Professor,” Gabriel said, pulling him back behind the table. More arrows flew past, embedding in the polished wooden floor around them. “But you’re not watching a slide show in a lecture hall. Stay down.”

He didn’t take his own advice. He leapt up instead, firing the Colt. His first shot struck one of the archers and sent him spinning over the deck railing. His second and third, carefully placed, took down the other two. The remaining cult members rushed forward with their swords drawn.