Dennis Wheatley - Unholy Crusade

Panting from their exertions, the priests got him down. One of them tore off his gold breastplate, another ripped away his shirt; the two others were using their full weight to pin down his arms. As his vision cleared, he saw Alberuque standing over him. The High Priest's painted face was demoniac. Grasped firmly in his hand he held the obsidian sacrificial knife. He raised it to strike.

Adam knew then that his hour had come. As the government forces had arrived before the completion of the ceremony, the codeword that was to rouse the mobs all over the country would not yet have been sent out from the museum telephone exchange. He had saved Mexico from a terrible Civil War. But he must pay for it with his life. Fate had decreed that Itzechuatl should, after all, wreak his hate and vengeance on the victim who had escaped him a thousand years before.

At that very moment there came a piercing yell. A second later, two shots rang out. With a wail of agony, Alberuque dropped the knife and clutched his side. For a moment he swayed, then heeled over and fell. Another shot followed. The priest who had torn off Adam's breastplate gave a sudden grunt and went over backwards. The other three hastily let go off Adam and took cover as well as they could behind the Chac Mool.

Gasping for breath, Adam heaved himself to his feet and looked

towards the place where Chela had been standing. The spotlight is still on. In its glare he saw that the priest who had held her was dabbing at his face, from which blood was dripping. She now lay sprawled at his feet.

Instantly Adam grasped what must have happened. She had somehow managed to get her head round and fix her teeth in the man's chin. Then, as he released her, she had drawn the little automatic she often carried strapped to her thigh and shot Alberuque. The infuriated priest who had been holding her must then have knocked her down.

Adam took a stride in her direction. Having no longer any thing to fear from Chela, the priests behind him sprang to their feet and carne at him again. The man with the bitten chin ran to their assistance. Once more Adam found himself fighting for his live against four of them.

Like a pack of wolves attacking a big reindeer, they fastened to his limbs and strove to pull him down. Staggering from side to side, the group reached the very edge of the terrace. One more step in that direction and all five of them, with arms and legs whirling, would have pitched down the steep steps.

Adam was facing that way. Over the heads of his shorter assailants he had a swift view of what was taking place below. The road to the pyramid was made as bright as day by the glare of the headlights on a long line of vehicles. The leading ones had already drawn up and police or troops were tumbling out of them. The mob had dispersed and was running in all directions. But there were scores of people still on the pyramid terraces, and some of those on the nearest were making for the top. Again he was near despair. Even if he could succeed in fighting off the priests who clung to him, help would soon reach them. Assailed by greater numbers, he must succumb. He was fearful, too, that now they would all go over the edge. Splaying his feet, he made a violent effort to heave himself backward. It took the others by surprise. All but one of them lost their hold on him. Jerking up his elbow, he struck the man under the chin with it. His teeth snapped together, his head fell back and he dropped to the ground.

Chela had been left unguarded. For a few moments she had been knocked out. Now she had come round and again came into action. Raising her pistol, she shot in the back the priest whose chin she had bitten. With a hideous scream, he sank to the ground. There remained two unwounded priests, and the one Adam had hit on the head, who had now staggered to his feet. All three of them had to be dealt with if he was to stand any chance at all of escaping with Chela down the rear side of the pyramid before the mass of shouting Indians coming up its front was upon them.

The nearest priest was the one who had piloted the helicopter. Rushing at him, Adam seized him round the body. The other two ran at him. With sudden dismay he saw that they had drawn their knives. It was clear that, realising they could no longer hope to overcome him and get him down on the Chac Mool, they meant, if they could, to kill him where he stood.

Desperately he looked round for a weapon. His glance fell on the long staff of authority. It would not be as effective as a spear, but the jeweled serpent head at the top could inflict an ugly wound on a man's face. Snatching it up, he fended off the attack. Backing away, he jabbed with it first at one priest then at the other, while hoping that Chela would use the rest of the bullets in her pistol to shoot them before one of them could stab him. Ten seconds later he realised that hope to be vain. To escape their first rush he had leapt aside and turned; so now he had his back to her. She would not dare shoot at them for fear of hitting him.

The two priests had their backs to the edge of the terrace. Adam was sparring with them at a distance of only four feet, so he could see beyond them down the steep slope. Howling like dervishes, the thirty or forty Indians and Mestizos who were pounding up the steps from the lower terrace were now within twenty feet. A few flourished knives and sabres, but most of them were armed with pistols.

He dared not turn his head and so take his eyes off his two assailants, but with all the strength left in his lungs he shouted to Chela, 'Run! Run for your life

As he urged her to flee, he knew that within the next two minutes he must be overwhelmed and hacked to pieces by the ferocious mob that was surging up towards him.

CHAPTER 19

A Truly Bitter Pill

TIME is entirely relative to circumstances. At school, the last lesson of an afternoon can seem endless and the hands of the clock barely crawl. Yet a long evening spent together by two lovers seems to be over when it has only just begun.

To Adam, fighting for his life, the next minute seemed an eternity. Automatically he parried the knife thrusts of the two priests and struck out at their faces with his staff. But through his find flashed a multitude of jumbled thoughts. Hope that Chela could get away; grim satisfaction that, at last, Alberuque had paid for his evil intentions with his life; a sudden speculation about what Aunt Flora would do with all the money he had left her as his only relative; a gripping fear of the pain he must suffer from knife thrusts in his flesh and bones smashed by bullets before he finally expired; a longing to be through with this terrible end decreed to his life as Adam Gordon, and again free of his mortal body. Suddenly, above the din that was coming up from below, there came from close at hand the staccato rattle of a Sten gun. Fearing that he was about to be shot down from behind, Adam gave a swift glance over his shoulder. To his amazement, he saw Jeremy Hunterscombe standing only a dozen yards away from him on the edge of the terrace.

It then flashed upon him that Jeremy, having alerted the police, had driven out to Teotihuacan in his racing car and must have come up the rear side of the pyramid.

Hunterscombe had his weapon pointed slightly downward and was swiveling it from side to side. Screams and curses made the night hideous as the bullets ripped into the mob that was streaming up from the nearest terrace.

Although it seemed to Adam that he had been fighting for his life for half an hour, actually less than six minutes had elapsed since Alberuque had pronounced his death sentence. Now, the sight of Hunterscombe gave him, for the first time, real hope that he would survive. But that one glance over his shoulder nearly proved his undoing.

Both his attackers rushed in. He jabbed wildly at the face of one of them. The jeweled serpent caught the man in the left eye.