CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jericho raced down the length of the first car and through the second car. Wind whistling around him, he stood on the rear platform and peered along the tracks.

They were empty.

Christine came up behind him. Jericho shrugged helplessly.

“He’s gone.”

They looked at each other, knowing the truth, but unwilling to admit it.

The floor burst open and an arm crashed through, clawing at Christine’s ankle. Jericho’s MP–5 shattered Christine’s scream as his bullets chewed the floor.

The arm retreated. A moment later it was back, smashing down through the roof and snatching at Christine’s hair.

Jericho and Christine began firing at the roof as they backed into the lead car. They hurried up front to the motorman.

“We have to disconnect the car!” Jericho declared breathlessly.

The motorman blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Jericho waved his gun toward the rear car. “He’s back there!”

“Who?” the motorman quavered, totally unstrung.

Before Jericho could answer, the motorman arched sharply, like a bow being bent. Glass and metal splintered as a fist speared the front of the train, impaling the motorman’s heart. A fountain of blood spattered the control panel.

The motorman screeched in agony as the fist yanked him through the broken window. Unable to save him, Jericho and Christine fired madly, adrenaline pumping with terror.

Jericho pushed Christine back as the train continued to hurtle through the darkness. As they passed between cars, Jericho glanced down and saw the coupling mechanism that hitched them together.

Shoving Christine through the door, Jericho balanced between the rocking subways cars, and spotted a lever near the coupling hitch. Jericho reached down and pulled the lever with both arms, biceps straining against the rigid steel.

Jericho heaved and the lever gave. An abrupt shower of sparks lit up the darkness as metal ground on metal and the cars separated.

Suddenly Jericho realized he was on the wrong car.

Christine’s car slowed and his own car surged ahead. In less than a second the gap yawned from two to six feet.

Without thinking, Jericho tried a running jump across the widening gap. The rear car slowed and Jericho didn’t quite make it.

His hands clutched the side rails, and his feet kicked vainly in midair. Christine swooped down and grabbed his shirt. With her help, he pulled himself onto the rear car and looked back.

The lead car was rapidly moving further away, as their car drifted to a stop. But they could see the man, his long black coattails trailing in the wind as he trotted to the rear of his car, his glaring green eyes fixed on Jericho.

“Jericho!” he called, voice booming. “I shall cast you into hell like my father did to me at the dawn of time.”

“Times change!” Jericho yelled defiantly, locking a red warhead in his launcher. “Welcome to the twenty-first century!”

Enraged the man broke into a run. When his foot hit the rear platform, he leaped, hands clawing the roaring air.

In that instant Jericho fired, blasting the man back into his subway car, a hot grenade buried in his belly. Then it exploded.

Flaring like a fiery balloon, the subway car blew to smithereens. Jericho pulled Christine to the floor, covering her against the rolling fireball that rushed over them like hell’s hot breath.

Long moments later they drifted to a stop. Jericho pushed himself up and peered down the track. Fifty yards ahead yellow flames consumed the wrecked car like a funeral pyre.

Blood surging through his body, Jericho pumped another grenade into the flaming wreckage, and another—bright white thunderbolts pounding the tunnel walls.

Then it was quiet except for the faint sizzle of twisted rubble burning in the darkness ahead. Christine slowly got to her feet, face glowing with relief.

Jericho helped her off the car and they hurried back along the tracks. But as they fled, a familiar voice bellowed after them.

“For thirty thousand years I’ve walked through the hearts and minds of men,” the voice blared, echoing from every wall and crevice around them. “I have built the gas ovens at Auschwitz, I have haunted the killing fields of Cambodia, and I’ve spurred good Christians in Serbia to rape and loot in the name of their Lord.”

The man’s arrogant laughter mocked Jericho’s frantic scrambling to find a way out. “I lit the fire that made Troy burn,” he boasted. “I stood by and watched mankind nail the son of God to a wooden cross, and I was there in the beginning … on the Tree of Life. So how can you expect to defeat me when I am forever—and you are just a man?”

The question rattled through Jericho’s exhausted awareness as he glimpsed the faint red lights of an emergency exit. Dragging Christine along, he crossed the tracks and pushed through the metal door.

*   *   *

Cool fresh air washed over them as they emerged from the subway access onto the street. A few blocks away they could see the police lights and barricades of the New Year celebration.

But as Jericho and Christine headed for the lights, menacing figures clad in long black coats came out of darkened storefronts. Jericho started across the street, then saw a manhole cover lifting. With mounting alarm Jericho watched more of the shadowy figures spill onto the street from manholes, sewer gratings, doorways—until all escape routes were cut off.

As the black-clad followers closed in, Jericho frantically looked for sanctuary. He saw a church nearby and bolted for it, pulling Christine with him. They raced up the stone stairs and went inside, slamming the doors behind them.

The church was deserted. The only light came from a crystal chandelier high above the massive, ornately carved altar. A few tall candles flickered on either side of the altar. Jericho found a cast-iron candle holder and wedged it between the door latches. “The other doors,” he grunted. “Block them.”

Christine ran to the door on one side of the altar. She pulled a candle from its holder and jammed the metal rod in the latches. Jericho did the same on the other side. They reunited in front of the altar.

Dazed with fear and exhaustion, Christine shrank against Jericho’s heaving chest as the church doors began to crash and shudder. Shoulders jarred against the doors, fists banged; the clamor became louder, rising to a hammering cacophony that shattered Christine’s nerves.

Abruptly, thick silence blanketed the gloomy chapel. A sensual calm stole over Christine’s terror, oozing through her belly like warm honey.

“I can feel him…,” she whispered. “He’s coming.”

Jericho hefted his grenade launcher. “Hide.”

“But…”

“Hide!” Jericho snapped. He pushed Christine to the rear of the chapel. She hurried to find cover, crouching behind a silver crucifix on the high altar.

Jericho took a warhead from his ammo belt. Jaw clenched, he slid the grenade on the launcher. As he glanced around for cover he noticed a life-sized statue of Michael the Archangel nearby. Michael’s Sword of Faith thrust up to God, his foot planted victoriously on the slain Beast.

And this is my Sword of Faith, Jericho reflected grimly, locking the warhead.

But his fingers performed the practiced task slowly, almost … reluctantly. Jericho looked around the chapel, noticing for the first time its magnificent stained-glass windows. The windows seemed illuminated by some strange light, enhancing the brilliantly colored images of the holy saints. Their benign faces seemed alive, beaming down their blessings on Jericho on the cusp of his great battle.

Jericho’s eyes traveled down to the altar and the statue of the Madonna, her radiant smile beaming encouragement in his moment of truth.

And the truth is I’m totally alone, Jericho thought, finger scratching at the trigger. He looked up and saw the lone figure on the cross above the altar; crucified for the sins of man.

A distant rumble shook the marble floor. At that moment Jericho realized that all his weapons were useless against the approaching horror. Twice he had slammed a grenade directly into the man’s body. Twice the blast incinerated the man’s shredded flesh. And yet he was back.

It’ll take something much more powerful, Jericho reflected wearily. A strength I don’t have.

The rumbling grew louder.

He bowed his head and tossed his weapon aside. As the MP-5 clattered against the marble floor, he lifted his eyes to heaven.

“Please, dear God,” Jericho said softly. “Help me.”

A profound silence fell over the chapel like snow. Jericho teetered at the edge of his life and felt a gust of fresh wind blow across his fevered skin. He took a long, healing breath.

The floor suddenly jolted as if swatted by a giant fist. The rumbling intensified, shaking stones from buttresses overhead. The falling stones crashed against the heaving marble floor. Statues broke free of their masonry and fell around him like slain soldiers.

Without warning the stained-glass windows imploded.

The thundering blast showered the church with broken glass. Instinctively Jericho covered his head and ducked. As he turned, he saw the rear pews swell up and ripple towards him. Row after row of pews rose up, roaring closer like an invisible wave.

Jericho lowered his arms and stood where he was.

The floor buckled and cracked. Pew benches flew up one after another, rushing straight at Jericho.

Suddenly it went dark as the chandelier wrenched loose in a swirl of sparks and exploded against the ground. But the impact was swallowed by a sky-shattering boom when the evil presence emerged.

Jericho staggered back, belly frozen with awe as a noxious black ooze erupted from the floor like an oily cloud twisting into forms that dissolved into the darkness. The stench of rotted flesh fouled the chapel and Jericho saw an eye gleaming through the ooze.

The flat, venomous gaze of a reptile gleamed at him through the fetid blackness. The reptilian eye loomed over Jericho, weaving hypnotically as it grew larger, its slithering presence uncoiling. Like the shuddering hiss of a hurricane wind, its steamy breath flooded over him, warm and slimy.

Jericho’s awe melted to animal terror. He crouched back, hands reaching for his discarded weapon. Then he stopped and slowly stood up.

It wants me to be afraid, Jericho realized, fear draining away. It wants me to kill. It feeds on it, feeds on everyone’s fear. That’s its true power.

Jericho spread his arms wide in a welcoming embrace.

“You need a body,” Jericho said calmly. “Take mine.”

With stunning force it pounced. Jericho’s head snapped back as he was hurled against a pillar. Brutally it took possession of his flesh, scratching beneath his skin, burrowing into his veins, poisoning his bloodstream. Jericho’s eyes rolled up in convulsive agony as it squeezed into his skull, the pressure twisting every nerve in his brain until the pain tumbled into an endless void.

And he ceased to exist.