Unfortunately, the Master had that wild look in her eye. The one that religious zealots got just before they did something really crazy.
"God shall guide me," the woman said, rushing toward the gap, easily clearing it.
Perfect time for him to take sides, Rebecca thought.
The woman slashed with a knife, narrowly missing her arm. Rebecca pushed Vakasa out of the way. The Master cut upward. Rebecca barely danced out of the way in time. She'd gotten lucky.
But how many more of those could she evade?
Brandt finally took down the guy he'd winged, but the priest was in the wind. Or more accurately, in the smoke. A scream rang through the chamber. Turning, Brandt was too worried about Rebecca and ran smack into the rod that the priest wielded. Reeling backward, blood coursing down his forehead, Brandt brought up his gun.
Again, that damned black robe and white collar made him hesitate just a split second too long as the staff arced up again, coming down on Brandt's shoulder. That was completely unnecessary.
Brandt brought his gun around to bear, but the damned priest used the butt of the stick to hammer his obliques.
As he doubled over, the priest smiled. "I didn't think that wound had completely healed."
Oh, game on.
Brandt didn't bother rising from his position, he just ran at the guy like a linebacker. The priest apparently didn't play many sports in seminary school. He tried to dart to the left, but Brandt was all over that. Tackling the priest around the waist, Brandt slammed the man into a statue of Moloch.
He might not be able to shoot a man of the cloth. But knock the wind out of him? That Brandt could do.
Rebecca dodged to the side. God love Brandt. He'd tried to teach her hand-to-hand combat. Every time they practiced, though, they usually ended up in bed. It was not a very productive teaching environment. As the knife swept sideways, nearly slicing her open, Rebecca really, really, really wished she'd paid more attention.
Watch the attacker's shoulder, she could hear Brandt demand.
It was a little hard when that shoulder moved all over the place, smoke blocked her vision, and steam from the earth's interior made it hard to breathe. There it was, though. Before the woman even made the swipe, Rebecca jumped to the side, avoiding the sharp end of the blade. She was sure Brandt could have maneuvered a way to disarm the Master, but hey, Rebecca would take not being gutted as a win.
Distract your opponent, her memory of Brandt reminded her.
She had never quite gotten that one down. How could you distract your opponent without distracting yourself. But she had to try, as another blow had nearly landed.
"Is this what your God wants?" Rebecca asked.
"My God has wiped out many nations. Devastating their fortress walls and towers."
"Zephaniah Three:Six," Rebecca said, identifying the passage.
A flicker passed over the Master's face. Surprise? Doubt that another could know the Bible as well as she? Whatever it was, it transformed into anger pretty damned quickly.
The woman charged, a war cry on her lips. But it was a ruse. Her shoulder wasn't committed. Rebecca held her ground, ready to leap in the opposite direction once that shoulder told her which way to go.
Rebecca should have gotten away cleanly, except for the condensation on the floor. Her foot gave out, and she fell into the attack. The stabbing didn't hurt as much as Rebecca would have imagined.
Still, she couldn't help but scream.
A pained cry filled the air. Brandt pushed the priest back, but the guy just would not give up. And Brandt really needed him to get over it. Rebecca needed him.
"You will have to kill me." The priest sneered.
Could he? Could he kill a priest, even if he was one evil son of a bitch? Brandt raised his gun, a prayer on his lips, when a plume of lava jetted through one of the fissures on the floor, dousing the priest in molten flame.
The man flailed, spraying himself further with liquid heat.
Brandt backed away as the priest lunged for him. Blinded, the father must not have seen the growing gap. He fell headfirst into the churning orange lava, boiling the priest as he hit the surface.
Crossing himself, Brandt backed away as the floor split in two.
Throwing caution to the wind-since how much had it really helped him in the past?-he charged forward, to find Rebecca crumpled beneath the Black Madonna. Even injured, she tried to keep Monnie away from Vakasa. The little girl tried to cling to Rebecca but Monnie, jerked her to her feet, put a knife to the child's neck.
"Drop the weapon," she demanded.
"You won't kill her..." Brandt said, advancing slowly, trying to find a window.
Monnie's eyebrow went up. "Clearly, you don't know exactly how nice it is to be the Master." The woman brought the knife even closer to Vakasa's jugular. "It would have been far better to bring her to the sanctuary to prove my devotion than have the girl die a tragic accident, but I am sure I can wing something."
Brandt wanted to believe Monnie was bluffing, but the cold look in her eyes didn't melt as the room steamed up. He was going to have to take a shot, any shot. Then the entire chamber shook, cracking like it was a snow globe. Only, it wasn't snow that welled up from the floor, but lava.
Monnie lost her balance, Vakasa rushed away from the woman. Unbalanced, as the marble underfoot had tilted forty-five degrees, Brandt tried to shoot, but Monnie launched at him. His shot would have tagged her if the slab hadn't shifted another twenty degrees. Now he couldn't worry about firing, Brandt had to worry about not falling in the bubbling, gurgling lava.
Everything the liquid magma touched. And given that everything in the shrine was gilded, the gold melted off, dripping into the lava, giving it a golden sheen.
The chick threw a kick, knocking Brandt's gun from his hands. It slid into the maw, sinking beneath the molten surface.
"Will you fight a woman?"
"I just killed a priest, bitch."
She spun, bringing the knife around. Brandt blocked it with his left hand as his right hand jabbed her in the solar plexus. He had to give the chick credit. She didn't double over or even stop. The only concession to the injury was her arm tucked against her side. She kicked again. Brandt blocked again.
The blade sliced through the air. Too bad Monnie had a tell as obvious as Rebecca's. Brandt caught her wrist, bending it backward. She tried a knee to the groin. Monnie found out that was what knees were for. To block a move like that.
Brandt was two moves away from not only disarming her but subduing her.
Too bad the floor lurched up three feet.
"That was not me!" Levont yelled.
Davidson believed him, but then what was that...?
Wait. It wasn't over. The ground beneath their feet split, sending chunks of hillside tumbling down the ravine. They all scrambled to get to higher ground as the outline of the temple broke through the surface. Hold on.
"What the-" Lopez said, focusing his camera on the next hill over. It was getting lower. Or were they getting higher?
Lava burst through the dirt, flowing in a swift river. Yet still they climbed.
"Is this...?" Levont didn't seem able to finish the sentence.
"The birth of a volcano?" Davidson obliged. "Yes."
"With us on top of it?" Lopez added.
"And them inside of it," Davidson concluded.
Rebecca clutched her belly. Blood still oozed through her fingers, but adrenaline must have kicked in, as she rose to her elbow, trying to find Brandt amongst the chaos. Huge slabs of wall and roof fell all around, smashing through the floor, bringing more lava to the surface.
The heat was unbearable. It was like standing in the Sahara in the noonday sun. Her face felt baked through and through. How did Brandt feel standing out on a precipice only inches from falling into the abyss?
Monnie parried and stabbed, knowing that he had no way to maneuver. Brandt was so skilled, but none of that mattered when you couldn't back up a step.
Another violent jerk of the ground and the onyx statue cracked at its base as the ceiling shattered. Debris reigned down, making Brandt's position even more dangerous.
"Help me," Rebecca urged Vakasa as she dragged herself over to the Black Madonna. "Push, baby, push," she urged.
The statue teetered on its broken legs. Rebecca forced herself to her feet, putting all of her weight into the onyx. For once, being a size eight was actually beneficial. The Black Madonna leaned, then fell to the side.
"Left!" Rebecca screamed.
Brandt didn't have time to have his brain register, process, and decide what the hell Rebecca meant. Instead, he just flung himself to the left. Monnie backed away from the precipice.
"You can't run forever."
No. No, he certainly couldn't. Luckily, he didn't need forever, as the huge black statue fell. At the last moment, Monnie must have sensed the rush of air above her. She turned, but too late.
The statue creamed her. Smashing her body against the marble. Her knife falling useless beside her.
He did not have time to gloat, however, as the entire section of floor quavered, then broke, chunk by chunk, into the lava. Just like he used to play "hot lava" when he was a kid, jumping from chair to couch to chair again pretending the floor was on fire until his mother scolded him, Brandt leapt from foothold to foothold-only, in this scenario, it really was lava.
Landing on the only stable piece of floor, Brandt rushed over to Rebecca. Her midriff was a bloody mess. She tried to smile but only managed to grimace. Vakasa smoothed Rebecca's forehead as Brandt pulled up her shirt.
"Let's see how bad it is."
"Pretty bad," Rebecca groaned.
But what he found was a minor gash. Sure, it was bleeding, but it was a gash, after all. "You're good. Let's get you up."
"No," Rebecca said, looking down, fingering the wound. "That went in my abdomen." Brandt helped her up. "I felt the knife bounce off my spine, Brandt."
He draped her arm over his shoulder. "You know that little fat pooch on your belly you hate so much?" Off her nod, he continued. "It saved your life, so can we take this as a win and get the fuck out of here?"
Feeling stronger, Rebecca was more than happy to, only how? And where? They were standing in the middle of a boiling cauldron of lava.
Bunny gripped Prenner's sleeve. She didn't know why she did, but she had to have something to hold on to as the hill shattered. Davidson and the other men desperately sought stable ground, only there wasn't any.
From five different satellites, they watched the dome of the hillside bulge. Then, from deep belowground, lava burst forth, pushing up with it an island of marble. Standing atop of it where Rebecca, Brandt, and Vakasa! Her joy was short-lived, as the lava churned and overturned their stone raft. The three seemed prepared for that, though, as they jumped in unison-onto a huge onyx slab.
No, not a slab, a statue turned on its side. A statue of the Black Madonna.
As the volcano erupted around them, they rode the statue down the lava flow.
What about Davidson and the others?
Rebecca clung to a fold in the statue's dress, practically covering little Vakasa with her body. Brandt's arm was over both of them, trying to keep them on their extremely slick raft.
Then, from above, a slab of marble angled toward them, carrying Davidson. He tossed a rope to Brandt. "It should stabilize us!"
She wasn't so sure about that but was so glad to see the sniper. Before she could ask about the others, another slab jettisoned from above them. Lopez rode the marble like a board.
"Lava surfing!" he cried out as he worked that molten wave.
A last slab tried to make it past the crest, but just couldn't. It carried Levont. As the stone raft angled back, their point man waved.
"Tell my parents. Off. The-"
Then he was gone.
"Levont!"
But no one answered as they coursed down the magma. Rebecca could feel the stone's heat beneath her feet. Would they make it to the bottom before their own raft burned them alive?
Then their speed slowed. They were reaching the bottom of the hill, where the ground sloped more gently. Brandt got them to their knees.
"As soon as we get close enough to some real ground, we've got to jump."
Rebecca nodded, more than happy to oblige. She gripped Vakasa's hand, making sure the girl understood the plan. "We're going home," she reassured her.
Vakasa smiled that bright smile of hers, leaning her head into Rebecca's shoulder.
Then a shot split the night. Vakasa jumped up, leaning in front of Rebecca. She felt the bullet's impact through the little girl's palm. Hot blood splattered on Rebecca as Vakasa fell into her, blood coursing down her dress.
The little girl patted Rebecca's cheek. "Momma," then her hand fell away.