125893.fb2 Prophet Of Doom - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 65

Prophet Of Doom - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 65

"You know, the one where he played the over-the-hill Secret Service agent?" he reminded. "I figured you must have seen it a hundred times."

The staffer had been stung by the way the senator had warmed up to Smith. He knew that in some circles it would be considered a pretty trivial thing to be worked up over, but in Washington entire careers had been built on things far less petty.

The staffer bobbed along annoyingly beside him as Smith attempted to survey the crowd. As far as the CURE director could tell, about twenty thousand people jammed Arapahoe Street, and so far he had only seen two uniformed police officers.

If an attack came, he would be alone defending Senator Cole.

The senator appeared to be unfazed by the crush of people. He worked the crowd like a consummate professional, calling many people by name.

319

Smith didn't know what he was looking for, but his old instincts were alert. He sensed there was some kind of danger lurking just out of sight in the crowd.

As Senator Cole grabbed a few outstretched hands, his entourage moved deeper into the packed corridor of humanity that lined the street.

Smith's eyes scanned the crowd on either side as they went, carefully keeping things in view.

If he had looked more carefully behind, he would have noticed several Mark Kaspar campaign posters had drifted up, and were now following a safe distance in their wake.

Remo didn't bother with the bunker tunnels. He had gone straight to the old airplane hangar on the adjacent lot.

The goat pen he had seen on his first visit to the ranch was less full this day. The animals bleated in fear at his approach. ,

Remo rounded the back of the building from the direction opposite the one in which he had escaped—with Buffy Brand's help—earlier in the week. It was because he had not left by this route that he had not seen the pile of rotting carcasses.

Remo almost fell into it.

A shallow pit had been dug, but was nearly obscured by the mountain of dead goats piled on this side of the hangar. The ground around the pit was damp with oozing fluids.

The remains of Kaspar's sacrificial animals.

Pounds of powdered limestone had been shoveled onto the pitiful bodies. But no amount of lime would have masked the horrid stench. The stink of rotten

320

flesh attracted all manner of scavenger insects. The air teemed with thick black swarms of flies. They bred in the naked eye sockets of the small corpses, and the oldest of the bodies were covered in part by wriggling white maggots.

Carrion flies buzzed and swirled around his head as Remo moved toward the hangar's side door. He steadied himself as he took hold of the handle.

The separate consciousness within his mind seemed poised to attack. He didn't know if opening the door to the Pythia chamber would unleash the floodgates once again. It had taken nearly every bit of strength he had to overthrow the presence of the Pythia back in the zoo.

And what of Apollo?

Remo didn't know if he was up to another conflict with the lesser entity of Apollo's emissary. The power of the sun god would surely be too great to withstand.

His only chance—a hunch really—would be to bound up to the top of the platform and to attempt to expel the spirit residing within him into the steam emanating from the fissure before Apollo could take full control of his mind. For Remo knew if that happened, the battle would be lost.

Nerves tight, Remo flung open the door and leaped into the Pythia chamber.

The noxious yellow smoke overtook him immediately.

A fresh cloud of the sickly sulphur fog belched up from the crevice like ash from a jaundiced volcano. It flowed around the room, slipping into every corner, enveloping Remo like an enticing shroud.

He grabbed the door frame for support.

321

A voice cried out.

"Remo!"

His head swam. His vision blurred. He was seeing everything around him in a whirling kaleidoscope of overlapping images. Remo looked up, eyes seeking the point where he thought the voice had come from.

Buffy Brand was manacled at the top of the rocky hill. Her ankles and wrists were snapped securely in twin sets of iron shackles. The leg irons were fastened to the stone platform by a heavy length of chain.

Remo felt the spirit of the Pythia washing over the dams he had built up in his mind. It was like a violently roiling flood, sweeping away a helplessly inadequate levee made of twigs and sand.

He focused on the bottom step.

Must get to the top.

Remo took a few clumsy steps into the chamber.

"Get out of here, Remo!" Buffy yelled.

He didn't know where the voice came from this time. It was Buffy once again, but the disorienting effect of the swelling tide in his brain was worsening with every step. He couldn't tell if she was before him or behind.

His foot touched the first step.

The footfall was somehow soft and echoey. And far away.

Another step.

The black battlefield returned in Remo's mind. This time the bleak sky of the vision, which had been black, as well, was painted in sickly smears of bloody red.

The third step.

The combatants appeared. One vicious, the other docile.

322

Over the horizon a black shape grew like time-lapse photos of the birth of a mountain.

Remo forced himself up. Must make it to the top.

He took the next half-dozen steps in jerky, uncertain strides, twice almost tumbling backward. Charged by some unseen electrical force, the yellow smoke crackled in minilightning bursts all around him. Remo bulled through it all.

Somehow, some way he reached the top.