Angels Demons Chapter 93-97

93 Langdon had no clue about where he was going. Reflex was his lone compass, pushing him away from threat. His elbows and knees consumed as he climbed underneath the seats. Still he tore on. Some place a voice was advising him to move left. On the off chance that you can get to the fundamental walkway, you can run for the exit. He knew it was incomprehensible. There's a mass of flares hindering the fundamental passageway! His brain chasing for alternatives, Langdon mixed indiscriminately on. The strides shut quicker now on his right side. At the point when it occurred, Langdon was ill-equipped. He had speculated he had another ten feet of seats until he arrived at the front of the congregation. He had speculated wrong. All of a sudden, the spread above him ran out. He solidified for a moment, half uncovered at the front of the congregation. Ascending in the break to one side, enormous from this vantage point, was the very thing that had brought him here. He had altogether overlooked. Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa ascended like a type of obscene still life†¦ the holy person on her back, curved in joy, mouth open in a groan, and over her, a holy messenger pointing his lance of fire. A slug detonated in the seat over Langdon's head. He felt his body rise like a runner out of an entryway. Energized distinctly by adrenaline, and scarcely aware of his activities, he was out of nowhere running, slouched, head down, beating over the front of the congregation on his right side. As the shots ejected behind him, Langdon dove once more, sliding crazy over the marble floor before smashing in a stack against the railing of a specialty on the right-hand divider. It was then that he saw her. A folded stack close the rear of the congregation. Vittoria! Her uncovered legs were turned underneath her, yet Langdon detected in some way or another that she was relaxing. He had no an ideal opportunity to support her. Promptly, the executioner adjusted the seats on the most distant left of the congregation and bore determinedly down. Langdon knew instantly it was finished. The executioner raised the weapon, and Langdon did the main thing he could do. He turned his body over the balustrade into the specialty. As he hit the floor on the opposite side, the marble sections of the balustrade detonated in a tempest of projectiles. Langdon felt like a cornered creature as he mixed further into the crescent specialty. Ascending before him, the specialty's sole substance appeared to be amusingly opportune †a solitary stone coffin. Mine maybe, Langdon thought. Indeed, even the coffin itself appeared to be fitting. It was a sctola †a little, unadorned, marble box. Entombment on a tight spending plan. The coffin was raised off the floor on two marble squares, and Langdon looked at the opening underneath it, thinking about whether he could slide through. Strides reverberated behind him. With not a single other alternative to be found, Langdon squeezed himself to the floor and crawled toward the coffin. Snatching the two marble bolsters, one with each hand, he pulled like a breaststroker, hauling his middle into the opening underneath the burial place. The firearm went off. Going with the thunder of the firearm, Langdon felt a sensation he had never felt in his life†¦ a projectile cruising past his tissue. There was a murmur of wind, similar to the reaction of a whip, as the slug simply missed him and detonated in the marble with a puff of residue. Blood flooding, Langdon hurled his body the remainder of the path underneath the coffin. Scrambling over the marble floor, he hauled himself out from underneath the coffin and to the opposite side. Impasse. Langdon was presently up close and personal with the back mass of the specialty. He had almost certainly that this small space behind the burial place would turn into his grave. Also, soon, he understood, as he saw the barrel of the firearm show up in the opening underneath the stone casket. The Hassassin held the weapon corresponding with the floor, pointing straightforwardly at Langdon's waist. Difficult to miss. Langdon felt a hint of self-safeguarding hold his oblivious psyche. He bent his body onto his stomach, corresponding with the coffin. Facedown, he planted his hands level on the floor, the glass cut from the chronicles squeezing open with a cut. Overlooking the torment, he pushed. Driving his body upward in a clumsy push-up, Langdon angled his stomach off the floor similarly as the firearm went off. He could feel the stun wave of the slugs as they cruised underneath him and pummeled the permeable travertine behind. Shutting his eyes and stressing against weariness, Langdon appealed to God for the roar to stop. And afterward it did. The thunder of gunfire was supplanted with the virus snap of a vacant chamber. Langdon opened his eyes gradually, practically frightful his eyelids would make a sound. Battling the trembling torment, he held his position, angled like a feline. He didn't set out relax. His eardrums desensitized by gunfire, Langdon tuned in for any trace of the executioner's takeoff. Quietness. He thought of Vittoria and yearned to support her. The sound that followed was stunning. Scarcely human. A throaty roar of effort. The stone casket over Langdon's head out of nowhere appeared to ascend on its side. Langdon fallen on the floor as several pounds wavered toward him. Gravity defeated erosion, and the top was the first to go, sliding off the burial place and colliding with the floor adjacent to him. The coffin came straightaway, moving off its backings and toppling topsy turvy toward Langdon. As the case moved, Langdon realized he would either be buried in the empty underneath it or squashed by one of the edges. Testing in his sanity and head, Langdon compacted his body and yanked his arms to his sides. At that point he shut his eyes and anticipated the nauseating squash. At the point when it came, the whole floor shook underneath him. The upper edge landed just millimeters from the highest point of his head, shaking his teeth in their attachments. His correct arm, which Langdon had been sure would be squashed, supernaturally still felt flawless. He made him fully aware of see a pole of light. The correct edge of the coffin had not fallen right to the floor was still propped in part on its backings. Legitimately overhead, however, Langdon wound up gazing actually into the substance of death. The first inhabitant of the burial chamber was suspended above him, having followed, as rotting bodies regularly did, to the base of the coffin. The skeleton drifted a second, similar to a provisional sweetheart, and afterward with a clingy snapping, it capitulated to gravity and stripped away. The body surged down to grasp him, pouring rotten bones and residue at Langdon and mouth. Before Langdon could respond, a visually impaired arm was crawling through the opening underneath the coffin, filtering through the body like a ravenous python. It grabbed until it discovered Langdon's neck and clasped down. Langdon attempted to retaliate against the iron clench hand presently pulverizing his larynx, yet he discovered his left sleeve squeezed underneath the edge of the final resting place. He had just one arm free, and the take on was a losing conflict. Langdon's legs bowed in the main open space he had, his feet looking for the coffin floor above him. He discovered it. Curling, he planted his feet. At that point, as the hand around his neck pressed more tight, Langdon shut his eyes and broadened his legs like a slam. The coffin moved, somewhat, however enough. With a crude pounding, the stone coffin slid off the backings and arrived on the floor. The coffin edge smashed onto the executioner's arm, and there was a suppressed shout of agony. The hand discharged Langdon's neck, winding and twitching ceaselessly into the dull. At the point when the executioner at long last pulled his arm free, the coffin fell with a decisive crash against the level marble floor. Complete murkiness. Once more. What's more, quiet. There was no disappointed beating outside the toppled stone casket. No meddlesome to get in. Nothing. As Langdon lay in obscurity in the midst of a heap of bones, he battled the end haziness and turned his considerations to her. Vittoria. It is safe to say that you are alive? In the event that Langdon had known reality †the ghastliness to which Vittoria would before long conscious †he would have wanted for the good of she that she were dead. 94 Sitting in the Sistine Chapel among his paralyzed associates, Cardinal Mortati attempted to understand the words he was hearing. Prior to him, lit distinctly by the candlelight, the camerlegno had recently told a story of such scorn and injustice that Mortati ended up trembling. The camerlegno talked about seized cardinals, marked cardinals, killed cardinals. He discussed the antiquated Illuminati †a name that dug up overlooked feelings of trepidation †and of their resurgence and pledge of vengeance against the congregation. With torment in his voice, the camerlegno discussed his late Pope†¦ the casualty of an Illuminati harming. Lastly, his words very nearly a murmur, he talked about a fatal new innovation, antimatter, which in under two hours took steps to annihilate all of Vatican City. At the point when he was through, maybe Satan himself had sucked the air from the room. No one could move. The camerlegno's words hung in the obscurity. The main sound Mortati could now hear was the strange murmur of a TV camera in back †an electronic nearness no meeting in history had ever suffered †yet a nearness requested by the camerlegno. To the articulate amazement of the cardinals, the camerlegno had entered the Sistine Chapel with two BBC journalists †a man and a lady †and reported that they would transmit his serious explanation, live to the world. Presently, talking legitimately to the camera, the camerlegno ventured forward. â€Å"To the Illuminati,† he stated, his voice extending, â€Å"and to those of science, let me state this.† He delayed. â€Å"You have won the war.† The quiet spread now to the most profound corners of the sanctuary. Mortati could hear the urgent pounding of his own heart. â€Å"The wheels have been moving for a long time,† the camerlegno said. â€Å"Your triumph has been unavoidable. At no other time has it been as evident for what it's worth as of now. Science is the new God.† What is he saying? Mortati thought. Has he gone frantic? The whole world is hearing this! â€Å"Medicine, electronic correspondences, space travel, hereditary manipulation†¦ these are the wonders about which we presently tell our kids. These