TWENTY-SIX

 

Mount Sinai, Egypt

 

Pierce looked away from the fissure, the light burning inside too bright. Green globs floated across his vision, but through them, he could see the mountain slope rising before him, lit up bright as day. It was not from any source of heavenly or artificial illumination, but from below, from the light radiating out from fissures all across the slope.

The rocky ground nearby erupted in a puff of dust, and a fraction of a second later, the report of a rifle reached Pierce’s ears. He ducked, but he knew that staying put was no longer an option. The gunmen—at least ten of them, maybe more—were ascending the mountain, rushing toward them.

“Run!” he shouted.

The unexpected light rising up from the maze of fissures had taken away the cover of darkness, but it also illuminated a path to the top. More shots were fired, the bullets striking all around, some uncomfortably close. But after just a moment or two, the light began to dim, the darkness returning with a vengeance.

“What now?” Gallo whispered.

A few more shots echoed across the slope, then those stopped as well. Flashlight beams lanced through the night, playing up the mountainside, searching for them. The gunmen had spread out and were ascending in a picket line, at least to the extent the broken terrain would allow.

“Back to crawling, I guess.” Pierce wished he had a better suggestion, but until inspiration dawned, keep moving was the best he had.

“No,” Fiona whispered. “Don’t move.”

Pierce stopped. “What did you see?”

“Those things…”

“What things?” Gallo asked.

“Didn’t you see them?”

“I saw,” Pierce whispered back. “I think. I don’t know what I saw… It looked like… I don’t know… Like it was made of pure light.”

“They’re here. All around us. Do not touch them.”

Pierce recognized the certainty in her tone. He had heard it before, earlier that day in the passages beneath Arkaim.

“What are they, Fiona?” Gallo pressed.

“The sacred cattle of Helios.” Her voice sounded detached. “Not actual cows, but some kind of creatures made of pure energy. I think the Originators made them to store the power they harvested from the sun. Sort of like Energizer golems. Living energy inside a shell made of melted rock. Remember that story Father Justin told us about how the golden calf came out of the fire? I think this is the same thing. They’ve been here this whole time. Sleeping.”

“What woke them up? The earthquake?”

“The earthquake or the Black Knight. Maybe I did it, by bringing the sphere here. Or all those things together. We need to stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”

Pierce recalled the jolt he had felt when Fiona touched the small tree inside the monastery—the actual Burning Bush of biblical fame, if the monk was to be believed. Had Fiona’s touch restored a spark of supernatural life to it, as well?

He glanced back down the hill and saw that the picket line was less than fifty yards away. “Like we needed one more thing to worry about,” he muttered.

“If they’re similar to golems,” Gallo said, “Maybe you can control them?”

There was a brief pause, and when Fiona spoke again, her tone of flat certainty was gone. “I didn’t make them, but…I can try.”

She lapsed into silence, and Pierce knew better than to disrupt her focus. The line of flashlights continued moving toward them, slowed somewhat by the terrain, but still advancing.

A shout went up, and then one of the men opened fire.

Pierce ducked his head, covering it with one arm in a futile attempt to protect himself, but the shooter wasn’t aiming at him.

Suddenly, the world was filled with light.