Rhun led them to a door. He creaked it open, revealing a long corridor. He ushered them across the threshold, shutting the door behind them, but he held them at the entrance.
He lifted up a hand and shared a significant glance with Bernard. Erin guessed that they must have heard something, possibly a heartbeat or some sign of a life. With a nod from Bernard, Rhun rushed forward like a hound loosed upon a fox. He vanished into the shadows. Distantly a door slammed, accompanied by a crash of what sounded like pots and pans.
Rhun returned a moment later, slipping out of the darkness and waving them onward.
Jordan glanced hard at Rhun.
“A galley cook.” Rhun lifted his arm, revealing a green bottle of wine. “And I found this.”
Bernard quickly took it.
Erin knew the wine could be consecrated and used to help Christian heal. She hoped that it would be enough.
“I hear no one else,” Rhun said. “Not a scuff, breath, or heartbeat.”
Bernard concurred. “I believe we are alone here.”
“Let’s be careful anyway, just in case,” Jordan warned.
As they headed down the corridor, Erin realized the significance of the lack of any living presence. “Does that mean that Tommy isn’t here?”
Or Iscariot or Elizabeth.
She pictured the helicopter that had attacked them.
Had the others been aboard it? If so, where had they been headed?
“We must search thoroughly to make certain,” Rhun said. “And if they are not, we must try to find where they’ve gone.”
“And why Judas absconded with the First Angel to begin with,” Bernard added, shifting Christian’s weight on his shoulder. “How is the boy a part of his plan?”
His plan for Armageddon, Erin reminded herself.
The passageway ended at a large salon, lined by bookcases on both sides with arched windows overlooking the sea below. A large ship’s wheel stood before the windows. From the display cases holding nautical bric-a-brac, it looked like a museum.
Rhun crossed to a large hearth set amid the shelves and held out his hand. “Still warm.”
“The boss clearly left in a hurry,” Jordan said. “He must’ve been on that other chopper.”
But why?
“I will tend to Christian here,” Bernard said, carrying his body to the fireplace and lowering him to a couch. “Go learn what you can.”
Erin was already moving, spotting a set of elevator doors to the right, framed in a frilly grille of brass. Other doors stood closed along the walls, likely leading to a maze of rooms and corridors. Ignoring them, she crossed instead to the ship’s wheel. It marked the symbolic post of the captain of this steel-locked ship. The towering windows offered a commanding view of the sea, looking east toward the distant coast, where the stars had begun to fade with the approach of the new day.
Sensing time was running out, she glanced to the right, to the nearest door. Perhaps the captain kept his most precious spaces close to his command post.
She headed to that door and found it locked.
Jordan noted her frustration as she tugged on it.
“Allow me,” Jordan said. “I have a key.”
She turned to him. How—?
He lowered his rifle, aimed at the lock, and fired.
The blast made her jump, but the result made her smile. The handle was blown off, leaving a hole through the door.
She easily pushed it open, revealing a private study lined by walnut wainscoting in a high Victorian style, with a botanical mural intricately painted on the wall, depicting lifelike flowers, leaves, and twining vines, mixed with butterflies and bees. It looked less decorative than instructional, like something one would find in a Renaissance text on botany.
Erin made straight for the massive writing desk, a solid affair with well-turned legs and a leather top covered with papers.
Jordan followed her inside.
Rhun stepped to the doorway, drawn by the commotion.
“Be careful,” he warned. “We don’t know—”
Suddenly the delicate paintings along the wall burst to life. Leaves fluttered from branches, flowers spun delicately from stems, a scatter of butterflies and bees wafted off the wall.
The entire motif was a deadly collage.
It filled the air in a dazzling kaleidoscope of movement and color.
And swooped toward Rhun.
41
December 20, 6:38 A.M. CET
Mediterranean Sea
Jordan charged the few steps to Rhun and shoved him out the door, punching one palm to his chest. Caught by surprise, the priest tripped backward and landed flat on his ass in the next room.
Jordan slammed the door shut in his face with a certain amount of satisfaction.
“Stay out there!” he yelled through the door. He grabbed an umbrella from a neighboring stand and jammed its tip through the hole he had blasted through the door, plugging the stinging cloud in with him and Erin. “I’ll see about ridding the room of these buggers! Until then, stay out, Padre!”