The Goliath Chamber - Vatican Knights 24 (2021) by Rick Jones (good novels to read .TXT) 📗

“We would have been dead either way,” Kimball said. “And trust me, if anything—and I do mean anything—happens to her, I will hunt down every last one of your kind until there’s no one left standing.”

“That would be a tall order, priest, since we are everywhere.”

“Not an order too much to overcome when you have nothing left to lose, I assure you.” Kimball then pressed the point of the blade at the underside of McKinley’s chin and prepared for an upward thrust into the skull. “Where is she?” he asked the Ranger firmly. “I won’t ask you again.”

McKinley had practiced this scenario countless times before as a man who appeared to be submissive with a weapon to his person, whether it be a gun or a knife. With a sweeping left hand, the former Ranger came across to knock the point of the knife off target, then he pulled the Vatican Knight close enough to administer a right elbow strike to Kimball’s jaw.

The Vatican Knight saw a starburst of lights within his mind’s eye, like fireworks, the embers a myriad of colors and hues before they started to fall and fade away. By this time, McKinley was throwing a cluster of accurate punches from his position on the ground while trying to shift his weight to unseat Kimball, who was a heavy man.

Kimball started to tilt, and then fall, with his uneven weight distribution allowing McKinley to free himself and regain his footing. Though he had lost his firearm, which was hidden beneath the leaves, the ex-Ranger reached for his knife and brandished it.

The Vatican Knight got to his feet with venom very much alive in his eyes. Like McKinley, his gun had been knocked aside during the flurry of received punches. But the knife, which had always been his weapon of choice, was gripped firmly within his hand.

In the darkness, McKinley could only wonder how the Vatican Knight could see without NVG capabilities. Without his mask, McKinley knew he wouldn’t be able to see much of anything. Yet the Vatican Knight appeared to be following his every move within the shadows. Was the sight granted to him by Satan? he wondered. Was this man truly the demon in priest’s clothing?

The two circled each other with both being masters of double-edged weaponry. McKinley had the sight of his mask; Kimball had the sight of the Dark Maker.

The two analyzed the position of the other, and then they converged with knife against knife, blade against blade, all pounding and slashing and clanging with near inhuman speed. Sparks erupted upon impact with embers dancing in space before dying, only for new sparks to take their places.

The two combated one another with Kimball moving on instinct rather than granted sight, the man assessing his opponent’s moves and countering. McKinley, however, depended upon his technology, which Kimball comprehended and, while driving his knife across in a sweeping arc that caused McKinley to deflect the move, Kimball, with his opposite hand and in coordination with the other, reached out and knocked the mask off McKinley’s head, rendering him blind.

McKinley backpedaled while swiping his knife errantly through the air while hoping to gash his mark. But to Kimball, the ex-Ranger suddenly appeared as someone who was unpracticed in the skill, sloppy and chaotic, the knife now moving in diagonal sweeps through the air to make perfect Xs, the ex-Ranger slashing at nothing.

Kimball closed the gap knowing that there were few soft spots to hit since McKinley was wearing a dragon-skin vest and composite shield guards. Then, after he disabled the man from his knife with a few uncontested blows, he once again sent McKinley to the ground.

But the ex-Army Ranger would not concede the battle and give up the secrets of the Nocturnal Saints, no matter how much Kimball pressed for answers. He would go to his grave knowing that he did so under the banner of God, and as a soldier who was destined to right the wrongs of changing social conventions.

With Kimball once more pinning him to the earth and holding the knife to McKinley’s throat, he asked, “Cohen, where is she? How many more do I have to go through in order to get to her?”

But the Nocturnal Saint was a realist who knew that he’d been bested by the devil’s minion. Two men had entered the ring, and the Vatican Knight would be the one who would exit. Reaching to close the hand of his ringed finger over Kimball’s, which was on the knife’s hilt, McKinley forced Kimball’s hand to drive the blade across the most delicate flesh of the ex-Ranger’s throat. The gash was deep, and the skin pared back to reveal a horrible second mouth. And then blood began to spill from the edges which, in the dark, glistened like black tar.

Kimball got to his feet and looked down at McKinley, who was dying by the inches, until he finally expended his final breath. Kimball’s rage and frustration became as entangled as a Gordian knot with McKinley’s death leaving him to slog through the mire in order to get to Shari. There was no doubt that she was inside the bunker. But the bunker was a huge labyrinth to canvas on limited time. And it wouldn’t take much for the Nocturnal Saints to figure out that he was the tip of the spear that was driving through their lines of defenses.

Continuing to look over McKinley, Kimball noted a star-spangled glitter in the silver ray of the moon’s shine. Then he hunkered over the body and reached for the man’s hand. A moment later as he walked into an open field that was close to the bunker, Kimball stared at the ring that he had appropriated from McKinley’s finger. Though it was blood coated, Kimball could still see the emblem of the Nocturnal Saints: the letters NS under an inverted V.

After tucking it within the pocket of his clerical shirt, Kimball noted that the door to the