Apocalypse Unseen by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2015-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The effect was humbling.

Around the pyramid, voices were speaking hurriedly in bewilderment.

To the people outside the black pyramid, the sky was suddenly blue where it had been silver-gray before. The shadows were shadows still, but they were edged by things of color, browns and greens and sandy yellows. The black pyramid was not black at all, more a slate-gray with highlights and abrasions, patches where the light caught, adding depth to its surface.

But even as the Cerberus team watched, the figure of Nergal became complete once more as the man Kane had thrust into his throne pulled himself up. Hanging in the air above, Ninurta shimmered back, too, a final glitch running through his body, bottom to top.

Something else happened then, too. Kane’s eyesight, along with that of his teammates and Nergal’s faithful all around them, reverted back to that strangely dimmed view of the world, painting the pyramid, sky and ground in muted shades of gray and black.

“Sacrifice,” Nergal said in his eerily distant voice. “You are the chosen of Nergal.”

Kane didn’t like the sound of that, and he could sense the mood of the crowd as they fell back under the thrall of their sun-bright god.

“Run!” Kane shouted to his companions, shoving aside one of the warriors who stood in his path. Surprised, the man fell, tumbling down the black steps of the pyramid. Kane ran, clambering up the pyramid steps, arms pumping as he scrambled away from Nergal’s throne.

* * *

ON THE GROUND, Grant, Brigid and Mariah were still surrounded on three sides by the massing audience. Their mood had changed as if a switch had been turned back on—going from bewildered surprise at the strange way that their god had reacted, to anger at the dangerous interlopers in their midst.

“Get moving,” Grant instructed, sweeping his Sin Eater over the crowd’s heads with a burst of expelled bullets. “We’ll regroup on the far side, yeah?” He asked this last via Commtact as well, and heard Kane’s grunted acknowledgment over the sound of his firing Sin Eater.

Brigid swung the blade before her in a wide arc, forcing three approaching crowd members to step back or be cut. With her free hand she snagged Mariah by the wrist. “With me, on three,” she said.

Mariah’s mind was awhirl. After its momentary repair, her eyesight had reverted back to the foggy gloom she had suffered ever since seeing the brilliant visage of the Annunaki Nergal. She wasn’t like Brigid and the others; she had received only rudimentary training and she was uncomfortable around weapons. She gasped as something hot and liquid splashed against her face, realized it was a man’s blood as Brigid hacked the Sword of Heaven across his grasping hand. The man fell back with a howl of pain, and Brigid kicked him hard, driving him in an awkward stumble into his mate.

Then Brigid pulled at Mariah’s wrist. “Three already!” Brigid shouted. “Come on, Mariah!”

Mariah realized she had been so horrified by the chaos around her that she had not even heard Brigid do the count.

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