Carelessly Remo tossed the bullet to the ground and forced himself up the remaining steps to the platform. The girl fired a fourth time. Grimly Remo sidestepped the bullet. Moving in, he knocked the gun from her outstretched hand.
"You didn't predict this!" Esther yelled at Kaspar as she retreated to the farthest edge of the platform.
"Quiet, woman," Kaspar barked. His reptilian eyes stared unblinking at the Sinanju Master.
Remo raised his hand to deal a death blow to the girl on the stool, but the girl stared blankly at the distant wall. She didn't seem aware he was standing before her.
Suddenly her hand lashed out, striking Remo in the chest. And while he was shocked that he hadn't read the blow coming, there was no force behind it. The girl had no special training. She was harmless.
Remo placed her hand gently back at her side and,
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lifting her by the shoulders, removed her from the small wooden seat.
"Don't go anywhere," he cautioned the others.
Remo steered the girl over to where he gently sat her down at the top of the rock staircase. He then turned his dark, menacing eyes on Esther and Kaspar.
Smith would be upset if Remo polished off Kaspar, too, but he couldn't leave now. Not a second time. He'd take care of both of them. Let Smith pick up the pieces later.
Esther looked down the sheer drop at the rear of the hillock. It was almost completely vertical for nearly two stories and ended in a final, drastic slope near the rear wall of the chamber. There was a strong chance she wouldn't survive a fall, but if this Remo came anywhere near her, she'd take the chance.
On the other hand, Kaspar seemed unfazed. He merely stared at the thick-wristed man, like a hungry cobra eyeing a rat.
Remo assumed that the yellow smoke was some kind of new drug that doped up whoever was sitting on the stool, making them susceptible to the commands of the Truth Church leaders. It was hardly effective, considering that the victim seemed unable to leave the smoky chamber, but they were probably trying to figure out a way to concentrate the potent yellow smoke.
As he passed the crevice, Remo noticed something that looked like an antique pottery crock sitting on an outcropping of rock.
He peered through the grate that sat above the fissure. It was definitely some kind of container. And
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through the haze of yellow smoke, Remo could see that the contents were glowing.
Without warning, a dense column of yellow smoke—as focused as the high-pressure spray from a fire hose—burst from out of the crevice and slammed Remo in the chest. He staggered, then went reeling.
Esther Clear-Seer's eyes grew wide with shock. "What the hell's going on?" she hissed to Kaspar. "I never saw that before."
Kaspar ignored her. He took a step toward Remo, his black eyes gleeful as he watched the younger man stagger back toward the edge of the hill.
Remo spun around drunkenly on the platform. The voice thundered loudly inside his head. It was the same voice that had come from the young girl, and yet it was different. It was louder now, more masculine. And somehow infinitely more frightening.
It sounded again.
East has met West. The prophecy is fulfilled.
A throbbing pain behind his temples grew intense as the voice spoke. Remo toppled backward, over the lip of the platform. He skidded on his back halfway down the rocky incline, the sharp rock surface tearing viciously at his T-shirt and gouging his flesh.
In spite of the pain, some lucid part of Remo's mind told him that he had inhaled something vile in the smoke.
That something was inside his mind. He felt like a drowning man, and when he looked up he saw the girl, sitting immobile where he had placed her. Her expression as she stared into space was dull and lifeless.
The drug. Whatever had affected the girl was now inside him. Remo charged his lungs with purifying air,
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trying to dispel the force that now raged in his mind, hoping to quell the voice within him.
Kaspar and Esther Clear-Seer now appeared at the top of the staircase behind the girl. Kaspar was grinning maliciously.
The girl sat before them, catatonic. They had made her like this. With his training, Remo knew that he should be able to fight off the effects, but she hadn't had a chance. And all at once something told him that this was the reason for the mysterious kidnappings in Thermopolis. He didn't know if it was the voice that told him or his own instincts; he simply knew it to be true with a perfect inner knowledge.
Remo gritted his teeth and resolved to make the pair of them pay dearly for each missing child.
Save all pity for yourself, Sinanju!
Remo covered his ears in pain. The smoke in the room seemed to be drawing down toward him, surrounding him in a thick yellow fog. He felt an odd tingling sensation in every nerve ending as the sulphur smoke weighed heavier around him.
"Consider yourself fortunate, Mr. Williams," Kaspar called down. "You were predestined to be the strongest of all the vessels of Apollo. Your body will serve as host to the second Delphi, the center of the world." Kaspar took a step down toward Remo. "Together we will change the course of history."
The rotten-egg smell intensified as the yellow smoke thickened around Remo. Something within him was fighting for possession of his body.
"The hell we will," Remo growled, and the voice that rattled up his smoke-filled throat was his own.
Kaspar started, shook his head with disbelief.
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You are mine! the voice inside Remo growled. You will learn to fear, Sinanju. For I will be your teacher!
Remo could feel the smoke that swirled around him begin to seep into his every pore. There was something else, something intangible at the fringes of his mind. It was as if a second consciousness had invaded his very soul. It was vague and indistinct. A phantom presence toying at the periphery of his thoughts.
He could not allow it. He could not let himself fail.
With an overwhelming effort, Remo pushed himself down the rest of the rocky incline. He tumbled to a stop at the base of the hill.
As he pushed himself to his feet, he was vaguely aware of Kaspar's face distorted in shock.
Like a toddler taking its first shaky steps, his legs still oozing blood from open wounds, Remo took a hesitant step forward. He would not let the force within take over his mind.
He staggered to the side door. With a slap the heavy slab of metal sprang open. Beyond, crickets chirped loudly at the midnight sky.
' 'Where are you going?'' Kaspar asked desperately.
Remo shot the small man a keep-away-from-me glance and stumbled drunkenly out into the black Wyoming night.