Deep beneath Carpuchin Church Tok could barely hold his gun any longer, let alone bear the recoil after he fired. The monks must have sensed his handicap as they encroached closer. He had little time left to make peace with his God.
In some ways, he was elated. He had found Judas. He had touched the man who had given his life for all mankind. He should have been able to die happily, ready to meet his end, but he had failed to keep Judas safe. For that Tok would be condemned.
Turning his attention outward, he realized the monks moved more boldly, three moving as a wall toward him. Even if Tok could brace himself for the pain and fire once more, it would be useless, as the other two would surely strike before he could change clips.
Besides, the monks' fury was well justified. Perhaps a death by the blade might mitigate his sins.
Closing his eyes, Tok lowered his weapon, letting it drop from his grasp. He needed it no longer. Feeling the rush of air as the monks charged, Tok prayed for forgiveness, but the killing blow never came.
Instead three shots in rapid succession rang out. As if they were but golems and the magic drained from their bodies, the monks crumpled to the ground, lifeless.
Looking up, Tok could see his brother's form deep in the shadows of the stairwell. Making the sign of the cross, Samuel melted into the darkness.
It seemed God was not ready to receive Tok into his embrace quite yet. Heartened by this thought, he fired once to keep the others at bay, then gritting his teeth, changed out the clip, but found he was down to his last twenty bullets. Now that Tok was ready to live, he no longer had the tools to keep himself alive.
Then as if God directed him, Petir darted across the cavern floor. Firing to protect his mentor, Tok found the pain dulled by faith. They would overcome. They would clear these maddened brothers, kill the trespassers, and take Judas to a place where he would never be violated again.
Petir was nearly at his cave's entrance when he stumbled. His mentor cried out and took another faltering step toward Tok. Another cry and he pitched forward, revealing three arrows in his back.
Infuriated, Tok fired into the distance, using the entire clip in retaliation. It gave him no satisfaction to hear the death scream of the archer. The damage had already been done.
He expected to find his mentor dead, but the old man grasped his hand tightly. Tok tried to pull Petir into the safety of the cave, but his mangled limbs betrayed him. His will might be strong, but his body was broken.
"You must..." Petir whispered, but then coughed blood.
"Quiet," Tok insisted as he searched the staircase for Samuel. Together they could save their mentor.
But the old man's grip was firm as he pulled Tok down to him. "Listen. You must detonate the explosives."
Tok pulled back in horror. They had set C-4 around the tomb, but only to be used after they had evacuated the bones. Only after Judas was well safe from here.
"Never."
Petir was undeterred. "Look around you, Tok. Look at the death. The pain caused in his name. Our beloved savior would not want such horror. He died to save us. He would not wish his bones to cause strife."
Shaking his head, Tok desperately looked for Samuel. "You said yourself, we just need to find a more secure tomb. He will-"
"Listen!" The outburst cost the old man dearly, but he seemed unapologetic for it. "This was my design from the start. Even before I tempted you out with my Bible. There is nowhere safe for him. His remains must become rubble and ash so that his spirit might remain pure."
Tok refused to accept the words. Petir was feverish. His mind warped with pain. Yet there was something in the old man's tone that kept Tok from dismissing his mentor completely.
"I cannot, Petir. I cannot."
"You must."
Realizing there was a way to honor his dying wish without having to fulfill it himself, Tok searched again for his brother. "Samuel will do it."
"No," Petir said much more weakly. "He is hale in body but weaker in constitution. You witnessed his waver. He has not seen all that we have. Pride will lead him to try and keep the bones. It must be you."
The older man's breath was ragged, and his face was nothing more a pattern of wrinkles deepened by agony, but still Tok wavered.
Petir brought his student's hand to his lips. "Ask only one question of yourself, Tok..." He wheezed, then gathered his breath.
"What would Judas do?"
With that, Petir's face went slack, and blood poured from the old man's mouth. Dead. Moisture blurred his vision, startling Tok. He did not know what was wrong with his eyes until he realized they were tears. As they dripped down upon the man who was more father than mentor, Tok knew the answer, even though it would spell his doom. Just as Judas had sacrificed to protect those he loved, so must he surrender to his fate.
What would Judas do?
He would wish this ended, without delay.
Rebecca was still shaken. She didn't even realize her hand covered her mouth until she found it there. Her body and mind refused to believe what was so clear.
They had been blinded, she and Lochum. So certain that it was Jesus they sought, they interpreted every scripture, every clue with Christ as the center, when in fact it had been Judas.
Now it made sense why Tok and Petir always referred to the bones as their savior's. Searching her memory, she realized they had never once uttered the word Christ. Even the passage on this bone.
"A Son of God." Not the Son of God. Plus the omission of the crucifixion story on all the other bones. Of course they wouldn't detail that afternoon on Golgotha. How could they without tipping their hand? No, until you found Judas himself, his identity was well hidden.
Shaking her head, Rebecca disagreed with herself. It couldn't be Judas. Could it? Perhaps it was a hoax or a bait and switch. What if they had simply staged Judas' body to seem like he died on the cross?
Turning back to the bones, she meant to refute all that she was beginning to believe, but all that she found reinforced that he initial deduction was correct. By the staining of the bone she confirmed that this body had been alive when crucified. The blood had seeped into the bones.
Judas had been crucified, and every line etched into his bones was only more and more confirmation that Judas was the man who had suffered upon the cross that day on Golgotha. There was no doubt. It was fact.
"Get ready to haul ass!" Brandt shouted from the front of the cave, yet Rebecca didn't move.
A part of her refused to believe, but a quiet voice in the back of her mind told her to embrace the truth. Was the sacrifice any less because Judas lay here instead of Jesus? For Christianity to be born someone had to sacrifice themselves onto that cross. Instead of feeling betrayed or cheated, Rebecca realized it felt almost more noble for Judas to have given of himself. Jesus had been born and raised to such a task, but Judas was just a man who came to faith.
Rebecca found tears springing to her eyes. At first she had been physically repulsed by the remains, but now she found herself drawn to them. She touched Judas' toes, feeling reverence for all his travels.
Her eyes were drawn to the pained tibia to find a passage that was able to encompass all that she suddenly felt.
"'We blame not Jesus for balking, but praise Judas for not flinching.'"
But under it was the more urgent scrawling. Rebecca realized there were so many inscriptions because two separate people did the carving.
"'The Knot may praise but do not honor. In time they remembered not his pain and wished to bury my uncle as a pauper. They called me the man without contempt, but it was I, Ameil, who grew contemptuous of their false devotion and carried Judas in my arms, as so often he had done with me as a child.'"
So the young boy, Ameil, from the painting under the Vatican, had grown into a man who greatly honored his uncle.
For some reason, Rebecca's own faith in humanity brightened. If this man could rise to make such an enormous but silent sacrifice, couldn't they all? And a nephew's simple love for his uncle eclipsed anything the Knot had ever accomplished.
But even as her heart swelled with love for Judas and Ameil, she knew the world at large would not so quickly accept the truth of their lives. Perhaps the world never would. Just thinking of Brandt's face if she told him the truth made her frown. He would be crushed along with millions of other Christians.
Wasn't there enough religious strife in the world? Would she really want to usher in an entire new era of upheaval?
"Rebecca! Now!"
Picking up her pack, she felt devastated that Lochum had died, but in this moment, she was glad he wasn't here. The professor would wish to shout this news from the rafters while she knew what her decision had to be.
Judas' secret was safe with her.
She turned to join Brandt when a red light flashed on the back wall. Cautiously, Rebecca circled around the body to find a small LCD panel attached to the undersurface of the rock. It flashed a countdown.
Seven. Six. Five.
"Brandt, run!"
Oh, now that Rebecca was on the ball, the fucking archers turned their attention toward them. As two monks climbed over the rock from the other side, his head spun from blood loss.
"Get. Up. And. Run!"
"In a second. I've got to clear a path-"
But she grabbed him by the shoulder. Too weak to resist, Brandt was carried out of the cave as Rebecca yelled, "I said, run!"
Had she divined his plan? Or was she just crazed as they ran heedless of the arrows and bullets, all aimed toward them.
"Dive!"
Totally confused, Brandt tried to fire at the monks about to jump down on top of them when Rebecca jerked him off his feet, and they landed in a tangle beside the rock.
Sensing their advantage, the monks vaulted off the stone, but in midair, an explosion the size of God blew the attackers up and over them.
An inferno raged all around as fire shot from the cave. They were only spared by the stone at their backs, but even it was heating with each passing moment. The air became like the breath from an open-blast furnace, searing his lungs. He tried to shield Rebecca, but blood was coursing down his side. The last bit of his strength flowed out onto the dirt floor.
"I'm okay," Rebecca murmured as she tried to get out from under Brandt's protective embrace, but he wasn't budging. The air had cooled, and the roar of flames had died down to a mere crackle, but the smell of burnt flesh still filled the cavern. A rumble shook the cavern, and the roof crumbled, dropping boulder-sized chunks. "Brandt?"
Was there some other threat she couldn't see? But then she realized her back was sticky. Blood.
"Brandt?"
Rebecca found the sergeant unconscious.
"No. No. No," she chanted as she checked his vitals. He was still breathing, far too fast and way too shallow. His pulse was weak and beating like a hummingbird's. He'd lost too much blood.
Rebecca checked his dog tags. "A" negative. She was "B" positive. A deadly combination. The reaction would be worse than the anemia. She looked around. Everyone else was dead, and Brandt was going to join them if she didn't find him some blood.
The rock shower continued as she noticed one of the bodies move. Rebecca couldn't believe the man could be alive, as his back was burnt to a cinder with three arrows sticking out, but she rushed over just to be sure.
Pulling the charred form over, Rebecca found another person hidden under the dead body. Scrambling back, she realized it was Tok.
A moist cough told her that the Knot's mastermind was still alive. Poking him like he might be a snake just waiting to strike, she found that his lower extremities were toasted, oozing serum from reddened and cracked skin. His mentor must have shielded him, but not enough.
She shook his frame. "What blood type are you?"
But the mute man shook his head, then mouthed, "Don't save me."
"I wasn't planning on it." Rebecca braced herself before she spoke the next words. "You're dying, but Brandt needs your blood. What type are you?"
Tok searched her face, but she didn't flinch. He was no longer the monster torturing her, but a feeble man, dying. His hand was weak as he raised it and signed a single letter, "O." The universal donor.
Fueled by panic, Rebecca dragged Tok over to the sergeant. With shaking hands, she pulled out the tubing from Davidson's med kit. Concentrating so hard on hitting Tok's vein amongst the myriad of burns, Rebecca didn't notice the ragged wound in his wrist. She glanced to the other wrist, another spike-sized wound and both ankles were splinted.
Rebecca was so used to inspecting age-old bones that it took a moment to realize what the wounds were on a living, breathing person.
The man had been crucified.
"Who are you people?" she asked.
We are a people who forgot whom we worshipped, Tok thought but had not the strength to sign. He was ashamed when the purifying explosion came, and he had faltered, scrambling under Petir. But the effort was for naught. His body was spent.
The doctor leaned over and prepared to place the needle into his arm, draining his last blood. He had not respected this woman's grit when he had her in his custody. She knew of sacrifice, but did she know enough?
"Secret," he mouthed. "Keep."
Monroe searched his face, a grim frown on her lips. "Not you. I won't promise you anything... But Judas. I swear to never betray him."
Relief came as a wave that sapped whatever tentative hold he had on life. "Hurry."
A cringe was Tok's only reaction as Rebecca put the needle into the vein. Bright red blood flowed from him into the sergeant's arm.
As Brandt's color became pinker, Tok's became paler. When the sergeant's respiratory rate slowed, the shorter man's increased. It was as if life itself was flowing between the two men.
A sound came from behind, tensing her every muscle. Obviously it was an enemy, but which one? Grabbing the only object close enough, Rebecca swung the medical kit as hard as she could behind her.
But Davidson caught it midair, jarring her arm as he shoved his rifle against her belly. Looking up, she found the private's face a molten ruin. He must have gotten caught in a blast of superheated air, because his skin wasn't burnt. It had just melted. His left eyelid drooped down so far that he couldn't see out of it, and his mouth looked like a candle's wax dripping.
The private must have seen the horror in her face, because he shoved her back several steps as the cavern rattled again, bringing down another shower of boulders.
"Get away from him," he sneered, any semblance of the rapport they once had only a memory. She had to face the fact that her guardian angel had come to kill her.
Davidson knelt next to his brother. "Tok, I'm getting you out of here."