Chapter 37 - The Glass Sanctuary Shatters
"We have to move," I said, grabbing Nicholas by the arm and hauling him toward the staircase. "There were four of them. One went down the mountain in the SUV. The other one is still on the grounds."
Nicholas didn't pull away. He looked down at the dead priest near the server, his jaw tightening, then reached down and pulled a keycard on a lanyard from the fallen man’s pocket.
"The chapel road is blocked," Nicholas said, his voice surprisingly deep for a child his age, steady and devoid of tears. "They cut the power to the main funicular. But Father Thomas had the keys to the maintenance catacombs that lead down to the railway tunnel."
"Mommy," Maisie whispered, her fingers locking into mine. "The machine made a sound. It felt... weird in my head. Like a tuning fork."
"I know, baby. We’re leaving."
We climbed out of the crypt into the freezing nave. The alarms had stopped—the institute's auxiliary power had failed, plunging the vast hall into deep shadows cut only by the pale snowlight through the clerestory windows.
We had barely taken ten steps down the center aisle when the stained glass window above the west entrance exploded inward in a shower of lead framing and colored crystal.
A concussion grenade detonated ten feet above our heads.
The blast wave threw me to the flagstones, ringing filling my ears with a high, deafening whine that obliterated all balance. My vision swam with double images: snow swirling through the shattered rose window, smoke coiling along the vaulted ceiling, and a third operative dropping from the choir loft on a tactical descender line.
He hit the floor with a heavy thud, his carbine coming up immediately.
I scrambled on the stone floor, my fingers slipping on the loose glass, reaching for my weapon which had skidded four feet out of reach.
Nicholas moved first.
He didn't run toward the exits. He grabbed an iron sanctuary lamp from its stand—a heavy, three-foot rod topped with an oil reservoir—and hurled it with all his strength across the floor toward the falling operative.
The lamp didn't hit the man, but the reservoir shattered at his feet, spreading a slick of consecrated lamp oil across the smooth marble. As the operative stepped forward to raise his rifle, his combat boots hit the oil; he slipped, his first burst of automatic fire chewing harmlessly into the ceiling plaster, sending showers of white dust raining down upon the pews.
I closed my hand over the grip of my pistol.
Rolling onto my back, I fired three rounds upward through the smoke. The operative collapsed into the pews, overturning the heavy oak benches as his weight pulled him down into the wreckage.
"Run!" I coughed, my throat burning with smoke and pulverized stone.
I grabbed Maisie with one arm and shoved Nicholas ahead of me through a side door marked *Privat*.
We tore through a narrow stone corridor that sloped sharply downward, away from the chapel, descending deep into the bedrock of the mountain. Nicholas led without hesitation, his small fingers swiping Father Thomas’s keycard across a heavy steel blast door embedded in the rough granite.
The door clicked and groaned, swinging inward to reveal a damp, subterranean tunnel that smelled of ozone, mineral water, and distant locomotive grease.
Behind us, from the chapel above, came the distinct sound of more vehicle engines roaring into the courtyard—reinforcements had arrived.
I slammed the heavy steel door shut, threw the manual deadbolts into place, and snapped off the emergency lever, sealing us inside the mountain.
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We were in the dark.
***
