feel it. My paranormal senses are not strong enough to release it. Let us hope that yours are because otherwise there is no reason to keep you alive.”
Victor scowled. “That’s enough, Clement. There is no reason to threaten Miss Lockwood.”
Beatrice moved closer to the statue. Warily she raised one arm and touched an obsidian eye with her fingertip. An icy shiver of energy whispered through her. She flinched and quickly took her finger away from the stone.
“This is not a good idea,” she said.
“Do it,” Clement ordered.
He was losing control again, she realized. Gingerly she put two fingertips on one of the jeweled eyes and heightened her talent. Energy stirred in the stone. Power rose in the atmosphere. Intuitively she tried to find a way to channel it. There was, she discovered, something oddly seductive about controlling the currents. She pushed her senses higher.
She was concentrating so intently on the statue that she did not realize anything was happening to the preservative formula until she heard Victor speak in a hushed voice.
“Look at the Water,” he said.
“It’s working,” Clement said. Fierce satisfaction reverberated in the words. “It’s working. It’s working.”
Keeping her fingertips on the eye, Beatrice turned her head to look at the sarcophagus. The fluid was turning an eerie shade of violet and starting to bubble. She could feel currents of paranormal energy coming from it now.
Clement gave her an impatient glance. “Touch the other eye, you slow-witted woman. Hurry. Emma’s finger twitched. She’s coming awake.”
“Emma,” Victor whispered. “Dear God, Emma. Wake up, my darling girl.”
Beatrice looked at the dead woman’s hand. The fingers were moving slightly but she knew it was not with the stirrings of a life force. The small motions were caused by the bubbling, frothing water. Clement and Victor were deluding themselves. But some sort of energy was building in the statue and she was quite certain it was dangerous. There was no knowing what would happen if she pushed it higher, but it might prove to be the distraction she needed to escape. She focused on the rising energy in the stones.
Clement gave a startled shout of pain.
Beatrice took her fingers off the statue and whirled around to see what had happened. Clement had dropped the wire into the Water and was peeling off the leather gloves.
Victor looked at him, irritated. “What happened?”
“So strong,” Clement muttered. He stared at his fingers. “Too strong. I dare not hold the wire. The gloves are not sufficient protection. I’ll leave the wire in the Water and stand aside while the energy is being generated.” He stood back. “Again, Miss Lockwood.”
This was not going to end well, she thought. But she had nothing to lose.
She put the full power of her talent into exciting the energy in the obsidian. The Egyptian Water churned and roiled and seethed. The body in the tank shuddered and twitched but Beatrice knew the movements did not indicate life. The corpse was being jostled about by the agitation of the fluid.
The energy in the statue was building swiftly now. She was not sure she was still in control.
The explosion did not come from the Anubis, as Beatrice had anticipated. It came from above. A large pane of glass in the dome ceiling shattered inward. Shards rained down.
For a few seconds Clement and Victor did not seem to comprehend what had happened. By the time they realized that the source of the broken glass was from the ceiling, it was too late.
An avenging angel clad in black and carrying a steel-and-ebony sword in the form of a cane was plummeting down into the small antechamber of hell.
Joshua.
Forty-Eight
He had assessed the situation before he made the descent into the chamber. Victor was the first and most immediate threat, Joshua concluded.
He landed hard near one of the workbenches, as planned. He took much of his weight on his good leg and grabbed the edge of the bench to support the rest.
He released the end of the rope ladder that Nelson was paying out from the roof. He had only a split second to catch his balance. In that instant he saw that Victor stood frozen in anguished disbelief. It was, Joshua knew, the only chance he would get.
Victor recovered in the next instant. He reached inside his coat.
Joshua braced himself against the edge of the workbench and swept the cane out in a slashing arc. The heavy length of steel and wood caught Victor on his forearm. Bone cracked. The gun he had just pulled out