Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [181]
A little mocking smile. ‘Because I didn’t think you’d appreciate the bullets going through you first, darling. Get up, Eddie.’ She gestured with the gun for him to stand, then looked back towards the entrance. The lava tube was now completely lost to sight, tons of stone blocking the exit. ‘You should have blown up the meteorite after all. We still have it, and we still have Nina and your father. And you, for that matter.’
‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, ‘but there’s not much you can do with it, is there? There’s no way out, and it doesn’t look like you brought a JCB with you to dig through the tunnel.’
‘There’s always a way out for the resourceful.’ She looked up at the circle of sky high above.
Warden staggered over to them. ‘What have you done?’ he yelled at Eddie. ‘You psycho! You’ve trapped us in here!’
‘Fuck me, so I have,’ Eddie replied sarcastically. ‘Hope you brought a packed lunch.’
Stikes stood, barking commands to his surviving men to secure Nina and Larry, then reclaimed his gun from Sophia. Seething, he regarded Eddie for a long moment as if considering pulling the trigger, then pointed at his other two prisoners. ‘Get over there.’
Meerkrieger and Brannigan, both visibly shaken, joined Warden. ‘What are we going to do now?’ asked the Australian. ‘Chase is right – we’ll never clear all that rubble.’
‘We might not have to,’ said Stikes, following Sophia’s gaze and staring up at the shaft above the temple. ‘It’ll be a tough climb, but I think it might be possible to reach the top of the volcano.’
Meerkrieger was far from pleased at the suggestion. ‘I’m eighty-one years old! How do you expect me to climb up there?’
‘I wouldn’t worry yourself about getting out of here,’ Stikes replied, his smug self-confidence returning. ‘There are ropes in the helicopter.’
‘And how are you going to get up to the helicopter in the first place?’ asked Nina. She indicated the temple. The collapsing tier had brought the first two flights of stairs down with it, making it impossible to ascend the structure. She turned to Warden. ‘Face it, you’ve lost. Most of the Group are dead, and while you might have got your precious sky stone, there’s nothing you can do with it.’
‘The Group will go on even without its individual members,’ Warden said angrily, then his expression suddenly became more calculating. He looked at the meteorite, then back at Nina. Chillingly, he was now smiling. ‘There may not be anything we can do with the meteorite – but there is something you can do with it.’
‘What do you mean?’ Brannigan demanded.
Warden hurried back to the rubble scattered around the entrance, searching the debris until he found the case he had dropped. He returned to the survivors and opened it, revealing the three small statues. ‘Put them together,’ he ordered Nina.
She shook her head. ‘Go to hell.’
‘Stikes?’
Stikes pushed his gun against Eddie’s head. ‘I think you know the drill by now, Nina.’
‘What exactly is this going to achieve?’ she said scathingly. ‘You don’t need the statues to tell you where the meteorite is any more. I mean, it’s right there.’
‘You’re forgetting the statues’ true purpose,’ Warden told her. ‘What did Nantalas call them? The keys of power? You can access that power – and move the meteorite over to the temple so we can climb up!’
Even with a gun pressed against his back, Larry couldn’t hold in an incredulous exclamation. ‘It’s the size of a bloody whale! How do you expect anyone to move that?’
‘Those little statues levitating is one thing,’ Eddie added, ‘but that? Come on, she’s not Yoda!’
Warden snorted in disdain. ‘You’ve just illustrated perfectly why the Group will ultimately win. If you decide something is impossible before even attempting it, then you’ve already failed.’
‘We see what’s possible,’ said Brannigan. ‘Then we make it happen.’
‘And in this case, we know what’s possible. The Atlantean texts describe Nantalas levitating the sky stone. If she can do it, so can you, Dr Wilde.’ He thrust the case at her. ‘Take the statues.’
‘And be careful with them,’ said Stikes, grinding the Jericho’s muzzle