Temple of the Gods - Andy McDermott [182]
‘Nina, don’t do it,’ Eddie warned. ‘If they get out of here with that DNA . . .’
He stopped as his wife’s eyes met his. Just a look – but he instantly knew she had something in mind other than mere surrender. He didn’t know what, but there was also an unspoken warning that he should be prepared for something major.
Nobody except Eddie picked up on it. ‘I . . . I don’t have a choice,’ she said, making a show of seeming conflicted. She took out the first statue.
It glowed in her hand, brighter than ever before. The volcano was evidently the site of an extremely powerful earth energy confluence point. The second statue joined the first, shoulder to shoulder. The eerie rippling blue light intensified, a brilliant line pointing directly at the remaining figurine.
Everyone watched the display intently as she cradled the two statuettes in one hand and reached with the other for the third. As in Takashi’s skyscraper and the Blauspeer hotel, she again experienced the electrical tingling coursing through her body.
‘Put them together,’ ordered Warden. ‘Do it!’
She gave Eddie a final glance . . . then completed the triptych.
The effect this time was more powerful, yet, because she was fully prepared for it, less overwhelming. She now knew that this was truly the source of life on earth, the feeling of having somehow come home undeniable. All life had started with the meteorite, and even after billions of years it was still linked, through the planet’s own mysterious energies. She could sense its myriad descendants even in the heart of the barren Ethiopian wilderness. There was not a corner of the planet that the offspring of the primordial DNA had not touched.
She kept her focus on the statues. If her desperate plan had any chance of working, she needed to learn how to control the power running through them.
And quickly. Through the maelstrom of unworldly sensation she heard Warden’s voice: ‘Take them to the meteorite. Now!’
Nina opened her eyes. The statues were not levitating; her hands were tightly clasped round their bases, holding them together, but she could feel the bizarre pressure as they tried to lift away from her. She moved towards the meteorite, everyone following with expressions of awe or expectation.
With two exceptions. Sophia took the opportunity to pick up Eddie’s gun . . . and Eddie himself kept a close watch on Nina, waiting for the cue to make his move.
Whatever that cue might be.
Nina reached the meteorite. The statues’ glow was now almost dazzling – and there was a strange charge in the air, as if the giant rock were humming in anticipation of the return of its long-separated splinters. She looked back. The faces of the surviving Group members were filled with rapacious greed.
‘Do it!’ Warden ordered again, but she didn’t need the prompt, already drawing a nervous breath . . . and touching the three statues to the sky stone.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the coating of sulphur and ash sizzled where the figurines met the meteorite as if dissolved by acid, centuries of grimy volcanic deposits flaking away. The purple rock beneath was revealed . . . and it too began to glow.
The entire ledge suddenly shook, everyone on it battling to remain standing. Nina shielded her eyes as a blizzard of dirty dust cascaded off the meteorite, repelled from its surface as the unearthly light grew brighter. The onlookers staggered back.
Slowly, impossibly, the stone began to rise.
It creaked and crackled as its weight shifted. Small pieces broke off, maintaining their glow for a few seconds before the earth energy they were charged with dissipated and they clattered to the stony floor.
Nina felt the power running through her body – and somehow knew, an instinctual certainty from deep within, that she could channel it, direct it. She willed the enormous rock to move . . . and it began to glide lazily away from the centre of the circle of statues. Another mental urging,