Page 99 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
There in the middle of the floor, awash in his own blood, sat Caesar.
Staring at him.
Frowning.
He put his hand to the back of his neck, feeling around while Silas gaped at him in stunned incomprehension. He shook his head as if to clear it, spat to clear the blood from his mouth, and then, unbelievably—impossibly—climbed to his feet.
The clamor of shouting and booted feet stomping down the corridor in a rush distracted Caesar, who turned his head toward the noise, but not Silas, who was unable to move a muscle to save his life. A million different explanations flashed through his mind at the speed of light, a million different questions, and always the answer flashing back huge and electric like a Las Vegas neon sign:
No. No. No.
A cadre of armed Swiss Guards burst through the antechamber door. Caesar was the first one they saw, standing in a pool of blood in the center of the room, the bodies of the dead priests at his feet, eyes and slit throats gaping. Silas was still by the balcony window, partially out of their line of vision, but Caesar might as well have had a bull’s-eye on his bloody shirt, the way the guards reacted.
They lit into him with a unified roar.
Showered in a hail of bullets, Caesar twitched and staggered back as the flying shards of metal bit into his flesh, ripped open his shirt, tore through his body. Blood sprayed from a hundred ragged wounds, and almost in slow motion he fell, arms flailing, a cry of anguish on his lips. He
crumpled to the floor and lay unmoving.
In the aftermath: Hush. A lone ambulance siren, far out. The sting and gray haze of gunpowder in the air.
Then the unbelievable and the impossible took on the distinct taint of the insane when Caesar’s eyes, once again, blinked open.
He sat up abruptly, tore open his bloodied, ruined shirt, and watched in fascination—along with everyone else in the room—as dozens upon dozens of bullets appeared on the surface of his chest and abdomen, squeezed out of the wounds in his skin like seeds from the pulp of a lemon. One by one, they dropped to the floor with little plunks like the sound of pennies tossed into a wishing well, where they rolled, compacted and bloody, in little wobbly circles until falling still.
Caesar looked back up at the guards, several of whom had dropped their weapons and were crossing themselves in horror. He smiled. He said, “Oops. Bet you weren’t expecting that.”
Then Silas sank to his knees on the hard wooden floor of the pope’s private study, and, for the first time in his entire life, he wept.
Demetrius knew even before the phone rang that something terrible had happened.
He just didn’t know how bad it would turn out to be.
As he stared down at the ringing cell phone in his palm, a premonition of disaster turned his blood cold. It was Celian calling, he knew from the number, and something made him hesitate before he put it to his ear and said tersely, “What’s happened?”
A moment of silence. Then, “You haven’t been near a television.”
The premonition turned into a cold and vile surety that felt like a hungry reptile slithering around in the pit of his stomach. “No.”
Celian said, “There’s been an attack. On the pope, and the people in St. Peter’s Square, during his Christmas morning—”
“An attack? What does that have to do with us?”
“It was by us.”
Demetrius stood there by the windows where Eliana had left him not fifteen minutes prior, stunned into momentary silence. “Us?”
“Ikati.” Celian’s voice grew hard. “Caesar.”
With the phone still pressed to his ear, Demetrius ran down the hallway from the dining room at Alexi’s house, bolted into a bedroom, and slammed his hand against the power button of the television mounted above a dresser. The screen flickered to life, and it was on every channel, the gory details on instant replay, expert discussions and hysterical eyewitness testimony and outraged religious leaders and politicians screaming for someone’s head.
And Caesar, smiling and laying out his plan for world domination.
He’d always known Caesar was craven, but to see it made so clear was another thing. He made a wordless noise of horror that encapsulated both his disgust and his perfect understanding of what this would mean for all of them.
“That’s not the worst of it, brother.”
Every cell in D’s body froze, and he knew, he knew, even before Celian said it. He whispered, “Eliana.”
