Betty’s cry shot out of the tunnel like a crossbow’s bolt. All eyes turned in their direction, and before Miriam could move, a large figure stepped across the mouth of the tunnel. It was a third guard. He had been hidden by the side of the was, ensuring that no one left. When this happened, Mariam silently cursed Betty, and with no time to devise a strategy, she simply had to improvise.

As the guard raised his rifle, Miriam shot him in the knee, and the pop of her pistol was explosive in the confined space. The .357 round at such close range blew the guard’s kneecap out in a mist of blood and bone. Mariam then leaped as the guard screamed and toppled forward. She caught him, embracing him with one arm like a long-lost lover, and used her momentum to carry him into the room. She then pointed her SIG Sauer past his body and targeted the guard to the right as he stepped clear of the pillar, and shot him in the face.

Screams erupted across the room. The flock scattered to all sides, like a flushed covey of quail. The remaining guard fired at Mariam, strafing wildly, but she used her new “lover” as a body shield while bulldozing forward. Rounds pelted into the man’s body armour, but one bullet struck the back of his head. His struggling weight went suddenly limp.

Mariam carried the man’s deadweight for another two steps, enough to get a good angle around the pillar. She then fired at the exposed man, squeezing the trigger twice. She clipped the guard’s ear, knocking his head back, and the second shot ripped through his exposed throat, severing his spine. He then crashed to floor.

Miriam dropped the guard in her arms and took up a shooter’s stance, aiming toward the altar. Gabriel’s clone had retreated behind it, while Christine, still dazed and slow to react from the drugs she’d ingested, looked confused. She still held the sword stuck in the bound man’s stomach. A trickle of blood was flowing from where the blade’s razor edge had already sliced his tender skin. The other sacrifice, unguarded now, leaped to his feet and fled away. Miriam waved the dark man toward the exit as he came running at her, and it was already too late when Miriam noticed the dagger clutched in the man’s hand.

With a scream of rage, the man lunged at Miriam. Unable to get clear in time, Miriam twisted to the side, ready to take the knife strike to the shoulder rather than somewhere more vital. It proved unnecessary, though. Before the dagger could hit her, something flew past Miriam’s shoulder and smashed the man square in the face. A pale human head bounced on the stone floor and rolled away.

From the corner of her eye, Mariam spotted Betty running over while clutching another head in her fist. She had clearly grabbed the only weapons at hand from one of the niches. Her attack caused Christine to stumble long enough for Miriam to get her pistol around and fire point-blank into the woman’s chest. The impact knocked her off her feet, then she slid across the floor with a bloom of blood brightening the front of her white shift.

Betty came rushing in. She tossed aside the head and snatched one of the guard’s assault rifles from the floor, but from the way she bungled with it, it looked like she’d been better off with the head. Betty stared down at the dead woman with her face a mask of confusion. The reason for her bewilderment became clear a second later, though.

From the altar, Gabriel’s clone resurfaced. Other members of the flock began fleeing out of the tunnel, abandoning their leader. But he was not going to give up so easily. From a pocket of his robe, he pulled out what looked like a transmitter with a green light glowing at the top. He had a finger pressed to a button.

“If I let go of this switch, we all die,” the clone 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 come out of this thing alive.”

Miriam backed away and waved Betty aside. Despite the clone’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 blast zone. The clone then studied Miriam, attempting to read her. A good cult leader needed a keen eye to judge people and predict their actions. He slowly moved forward, step-by-step, toward the exit, pushing Miriam ahead of him.

“You want to live as much as any of us, Miriam,” the clone said. “Yes, it took me a moment, but I recognise you now. From what I’ve heard, you were always reasonable. None of us need to die.” While he was speaking, two tiny holes exploded from the centre of his chest. The bullets had effortlessly flown out of the pistol in Miriam’s hand.

“Not reasonable like that, apparently,” Mariam said as the clone fell to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth. She then dropped her pistol and lunged forward, grabbing for the transmitter with both hands. She got her finger over the trigger before the clone could let go.

Facing her nose to nose, the clone stared back at Mariam with his eyes shining with disbelief and shock, but also with understanding. In the end, he had reaped what he had sown.

“That was crazy,” Betty said, coming forward.

“Not more than you throwing human heads at people,” Miriam said, pointing at the door. “We have to go.”

Betty stared down at the transmitter clutched in Mariam’s hands. “Is it over?”

Miriam caught the glint of steel shining above her scarf. “Not yet.”

Tell us: What do you think Betty and Mariam should do now?