The Skeleton Key: A Short Story Exclusive Read Online Free PDF Page A

across the room. The flock scattered to all sides, like a flushed covey of quail. The remaining guard fired at her, strafing wildly, but she used her new “lover” as a body shield, bulldozing forward. Rounds pelted into the man’s Kevlar armor, but one bullet struck the back of his head. His struggling weight went suddenly limp.
    She carried the deadweight another two steps, enough to get a good angle around the pillar. She fired at the exposed man, squeezing the trigger twice. She clipped the guard’s ear, knocking his head back. The second shot ripped through his exposed throat, severing his spine. He crashed to floor.
    Seichan dropped the guard in her arms and took up a shooter’s stance, aiming toward the altar. Vennard had retreated behind it. Gabriel, still dazed and slow to react from the drugs he’d ingested, looked confused. He still held the sword at the throat of the bound woman. A trickle of blood flowed from where the blade’s razored edge had already sliced that tender skin.
    The other sacrifice, unguarded now, leaped to her feet and fled away. Seichan waved the blond woman toward the exit as she came running at her—only too late did Seichan notice the dagger clutched in the woman’s hand.
    With a scream of rage, she lunged at Seichan.
    Unable to get clear in time, Seichan twisted to the side, ready to take the knife strike to the shoulder, rather than somewhere more vital.
    It proved unnecessary.
    Before the dagger could hit, something flew past Seichan’s shoulder and cracked the woman square in the face. A white human skull bounced to the stone floor and rolled away. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Renny running over, clutching another skull in his fist. He’d clearly grabbed the only weapons at hand from one of the niches.
    His attack caused the woman to stumble, long enough for Seichan to get her pistol around and fire point-blank into the woman’s chest. The impact knocked her assailant off her feet. She slid across the floor, a bloom of blood brightening the front of her white shift.
    Renny came rushing up. He tossed aside the skull and snatched one of the guard’s assault rifles from the floor, but from the way he bungled with it, it looked like he’d been better off with the skull. Renny stared down at the dead woman, his face a mask of confusion. The reason for his bewilderment became clear a second later.
    From the altar, Gabriel cried out, pain cutting through his drugged haze. “Liesl!”
    Seichan recognized that name. It was the German girl Renny had mentioned during his recounting of Jolienne’s disappearance. The two girls had come down here, exploring together, when Jolienne disappeared. It now seemed that the circumstances surrounding that disappearance weren’t as much a matter of accident as it appeared. Renny’s girlfriend hadn’t stumbled upon the cult’s location here—she’d been lured, led by Liesl like a cow to the slaughter, to be the final sacrifice.
    “Non!” Gabriel wailed, heartbroken. With his eyes fixed on the bloody body, he fell to his knees, the sword clattering to the altar.
    Others of the flock began to flee out the tunnel, abandoning their leader. But Vennard was not giving up so easily.
    From a pocket of his robe, he pulled out what looked like a transmitter. A green light glowed at the top. He had a finger pressed to a button.
    “If I let go of this switch, we all die,” he said calmly, his voice resonating with that hypnotic quality that had so easily swayed the gullible. He stepped around the altar. “Let me go. Even follow me out, if you’d like. And we can all still live.”
    Seichan backed away and waved Renny aside. Despite Vennard’s grandiose vision, he was not suicidal. She took him at his word. He would refrain from blowing up the catacombs, at least until he himself got clear.
    Vennard studied her, attempting to read her. A good cult leader needed a keen eye to judge people, to predict their actions. He slowly moved