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Not gonna work, Unc. Even I know that.
But he knelt beside the creature. He looked down at it with disgust, and
plunged the knife to the hilt in the creature's breast, half expecting it to
come to life and scream.
There was a scream, in a short, breathy burst.
It was followed by an awful gurgle. But it didn't come from the golem, which
crumbled
into dust under his blade. It came from across the room.
Gabriel felt his stomach drop out from beneath him. He looked toward the table
and saw Wolf-
gang sprawled across the lid. And knew.
"No!" he screamed. He hurled the knife away and ran over to the body of his
great-uncle.
But it was too late. Wolfgang had sunk his own knife deep into his breast and
had died within seconds, his heart's blood spilling out into the center hole
and coursing down the lines of the trough.
"NO!" Gabriel screamed to his great-uncle, enraged and horrified, as if there
were still time to stop Wolfgang, to tell him what a stupid, pointless idea it
was, to make him understand it wasn't worth it, that it would royally screw up
all those afternoons Gabriel had pictured them sharing in the library.
Beneath the limp body, the lid shifted as the lock mechanism, oiled by the
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arterial blood of an old man, let go. Gabriel cradled the body of the last
Schattenjager, took it off the hideous table, and lowered it to the floor.
Gabriel laid Wolfgang down, tears streaming down his face unnoticed, and pried
Wolfgang's hand free of the knife, then the knife free of the frail rib cage.
He laid both of
Wolfgang's hands across his chest. Then Gabriel stood, grasped the bars with
both now-bloody hands, and heaved, letting loose a howl of grief and rage, and
pushing against the lid with all his might.
The stone top slid to one side.
Gabriel plunged his arm down into the table's narrow opening, like a doctor
reaching in to turn a breech. When he pulled it out again he brought with it a
handful of human bones, scraps of cloth, and a gold chain. The talisman swung
free and shot out rays of light in the glow of the torches.
Gabriel raised the mass to the sky and addressed the air.
"Tetelo! I know you feel me now! Feel me grinding your bonesl So hear me:
You're gonna pay for this. Do you hear? You're gonna pay for this
you BITCH!"
Chapter 10
Deep in the earth I faced a fight that I could never win.
The blameless and the base destroyed, and all that might have been.
Gabriel Knight
Behanzie was awake when Gabriel staggered from
the mound, carrying the body of his great-uncle in his arms. The cabbie helped
Gabriel load the body into the back seat of the Buick without saying a word.
He only looked at Gabriel the way he had looked at the mound, and didn't say
much of any-
thing at all, all the way to Natitingou.
Gabriel arranged to have Wolfgang shipped back to Schloss Ritter. He called
Gerde and told her the news. She did not protest or weep. She only thanked him
in a quiet voice that was worse than all the recriminations in the world. When
he boarded the plane for New York, he was carrying the talisman and an anger
that burnt like an ulcer in his gut.
He slept through much of the flight. And dreamt fitfully of death and bones
and blood.
Later, crossing the southern United States, he tried to come up with a plan
and found that he could not. He had the talisman. He had a score to settle.
More than that, he did not know. He had taken some power from Tetelo when he
took the talisman, presumably he had that power for his own use now. Trouble
was, he hadn't the slightest clue how to use it. The gold medallion with its
battling dragon and lion hung under his T-shirt. If felt heavy and warm on his
chest, like a living thing. It felt good, but frightening, too. The weight of
it wasn't something one could get used to, or forget.
He was looking out of the window when the plane descended for landing in New
Orleans. It passed over the Mississippi, climbing down from the air. It flew
over Jackson Square. Gabriel looked down at it, a smile touching his lips for
the first time in days.
The smile did not last. As the plane banked and the square became fully
visible, dead-on below, Gabriel truly saw it for the first time. The outline
of Jackson Square its wide, circular path around the rim and the smaller
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