Gabriel Hunt - Hunt at World's End

“Where does it go?” Gabriel called down.

“I don’t know,” Grissom called back. “But you’d better figure it out quickly.” He jabbed Joyce again with the gun. “Any ideas, Miss Wingard?”

“Drop dead,” Joyce said.

“That’s an idea, all right,” Grissom said, “but I don’t know that you really should be suggesting it to a man who’s got a gun on you. Hunt,” he called, “you’ve got till a count of three, then your friend here goes over the side.”

The deep, pulsing rumble continued echoing across the desert. Gabriel looked down at the face again, the twin jade beams shooting out of its eyes. Teshub only had two eyes, as Daniel had pointed out. So where the hell did the third jewel go?

“One!” Grissom shouted.

A final riddle. Gabriel felt certain the answer was right in front of him. It had to have something to do with the legend. He thought back, racing through everything he’d learned: the Spearhead, a powerful device supposedly given to the Hittites by the storm god that could be used for good or evil, and then taken away because Teshub didn’t trust them to make the right choice; the Three Eyes, supercharged gemstones that activated the Spearhead, scattered across the world to keep them from being found, to keep the Spearhead out of mankind’s hands until…

Until what?

“Two!” Grissom shouted.

Gabriel looked at the ruby, trying to clear everything else out of his mind and focus on the legend. Teshub hid the Spearhead because mankind couldn’t be trusted with its power.

Because they didn’t have the judgment to keep it from being used for evil.

No, not the judgment. That wasn’t the word the legend used. The legend said wisdom. The Spearhead would be hidden from mankind until they had the wisdom to use it for good.

And then he knew. Something he should have seen right away. The third eye. It appeared over and over again in the mythology of Eastern cultures, the eye of wisdom. How many times had he seen Buddhist sutras that illustrated the third eye, the eye that wasn’t an eye, drawn right in the middle of the forehead? Hell, he suddenly realized the Death’s Head Key had one on it, the diamond shape between the eyes of the skull…

“ Three! ”

“Hold on!” Gabriel shouted. “Wait! I’ve got it!”

Gabriel reached down and touched the smooth stone of the statue’s forehead, between the eyes. That was another clue, he realized now: the visible seam between the two blocks of stone began lower down, at the bridge of the nose; there had to be a reason it didn’t continue all the way up to the top of the head. Gabriel felt around for a hidden seam, one he couldn’t see. He felt it a moment later, a hairline groove delineating a rectangular area above the nose. Gently at first and then more firmly, he pressed against it. Under this pressure, one half of a small slab swung inward on a hidden axle, while the other half swung out. He turned the convex slab all the way around until it was concave, a depression in the center of the forehead. And at the center of this depression he saw a socket. He didn’t have to measure it to know it was the size and shape of the ruby.

He placed the last jewel into the socket and felt it lock in place. Like the emeralds, its internal glow intensified until a bright red beam shot out, riding atop the twin green ones. The pulsing thrum that emanated from the statue grew louder and Gabriel heard a grinding deep inside, like the sound of ancient gears beginning to turn.

Gabriel scrambled off the statue’s head and hurried back along the shoulder and arm to the outstretched hand. Grissom still had the shotgun positioned under Joyce’s chin, but he was staring at the beams of light. Gabriel was, too. The three beams intensified to an almost blinding brightness. He shielded his eyes.

And then, suddenly, the Three Eyes of Teshub went dark. Snapped off like blown lightbulbs.

“What happened?” Grissom whispered.

The statue began to shake. Gabriel had trouble keeping his footing. Behind Joyce, Grissom slipped, falling to one knee. Joyce kicked backward, finally connecting with Grissom’s head. He landed on his back, the shotgun skittering out of his grip. He started to get back to his feet, groping for the weapon, but Joyce tackled him, driving one shoulder into his chest.

“No!” Gabriel shouted and grabbed for her—but in an instant they had gone over the side. Gabriel rushed to the edge and looked down. They hit the sand, Grissom on the bottom, beneath Joyce. They hit with the terrible crack of bones breaking. Turning, he leapt across the gap separating Teshub’s hand from his torso, grabbed onto the folds of the storm god’s robe as DeVoe had, and began letting himself down swiftly, hand over hand. When he reached the statue’s leg, he slid down it, letting himself drop the last fifteen feet. Even from that height, the impact wasn’t pleasant—he could imagine what it had been like from more than twice as high. All he could hope was that Grissom had absorbed the worst of it.

He ran over to where Joyce lay. Daniel was there beside her, holding her hand. She’d rolled off Grissom but hadn’t moved any farther. “Can you stand?” Daniel was saying. “Can you sit up?”

Joyce nodded slowly. “I think so.” But she winced terribly when she tried it and didn’t make it all the way up.

Gabriel looked down at Grissom. He was moaning softly, between wracking coughs.

“My back…” he whispered. “My…”

Blood misted on his lips.

Meanwhile, the statue’s tremors were accelerating, the noise of internal gears growing louder. As Gabriel looked up at it, the statue split suddenly in half, right down the middle, and bright white light spilled out from the opening seam. Each leg split separately down its own seam, though no light came out of those. But the more the seam along the face and torso widened, the more light came pouring out, flooding the entire area. The statue started coming apart as it broke open, huge pieces of stone crashing to the sand below: a thumb, a boulder-sized chunk of Teshub’s robe, the top of his head containing the burned-out Eyes. Inside the collapsing outer shell another shape was being revealed: a monumental crystal obelisk on a forked stand, almost like a giant wishbone or divining rod, nearly as tall as the statue itself. Thick iron bands surrounded the crystal at intervals, connected to long metal posts on either side. The stone was pure white, like a piece of quartz. It emitted a deep, earthshaking hum and blazed from within.

The light at World’s End.

“The Spearhead,” Grissom whispered, and his eyes slid shut forever.

A column of light blasted up from the obelisk into the sky like a beacon. Dark, roiling storm clouds appeared above the Spearhead and circled the column. Lightning flashed inside the clouds.

Gabriel struggled to his feet.

“It’s magnificent,” Daniel said. “Still operational after all these thousands of years. It must be some kind of natural generator, but how can it contain so much power?”

Gabriel knelt beside Joyce and slipped one arm under her lower back, one under her knees. He lifted her off the ground. She bent her head toward him, gave his neck a small kiss. “My hero,” she said.

“Daniel,” Gabriel said. “We have to go.”

“We can’t just leave it…”

“Watch me,” Gabriel said, and turned to leave.

Only to find himself face-to-face with the high priest of the Cult of Ulikummis.

The man was leaning heavily on his staff. The front of his robe was soaked through with blood, and a trail of blood extended behind him. But he’d somehow made it this far, and wouldn’t be stopped now. He bent the staff forward and swung it in a tight arc that would have drawn blood if Gabriel hadn’t stepped back, Joyce still in his arms.