A Tear in the Sky
Book Three of the Templar Chronicles
by
Joseph Nassise
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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A Tear in the Sky
Copyright © 2008 by Joseph Nassise
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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CHAPTER ONE
ANCIENT ENEMIES
The priest ran toward the altar as if hell itself followed on his heels.
He didn’t have much time, minutes at best. Still, that might be enough. The others would have a warning at least. It was the best he could do, given the circumstances.
Racing up the steps, he crossed to the tabernacle and spun the dials on the lock with trembling fingers. He set the second one incorrectly and had to do it again, losing precious seconds in the process. Opening the tabernacle, he bent one knee, genuflected, and then removed the ciborium from inside the blessed chamber.
From the other end of the church he could hear them banging on the inside of the sacristy door. He’d locked it behind him, but he didn’t expect it to hold them for long.
Opening the ciborium and removing one of the communion wafers, he begged for Christ’s forgiveness for his sins and then placed the wafer on his tongue. From years past the voice of Father Jerome, his old seminary professor, came to him.
“Viaticum, from the Latin ‘via tecum’, meaning ‘provisions for the journey.’ The final rite in the sacrament of Extreme Unction, the giving of the Eucharist ensures that the dying do not die alone, but have Christ with them in their final moments just as He has been with them in life.”
Behind him, the door to the sacristy burst from its hinges and the howls of his pursuers filled the nave.
He was out of time.
Steeling himself for what he knew was to come, he calmly closed the tabernacle and spun the dials, locking it against intrusion. It wouldn’t hold out a determined thief, but he had done his part and could rest easy on that score. He got to his feet and turned to face the front of the church.
The shadows had reached the transept.
He hurried to the altar and took up the Bible resting there. It wouldn’t hold them off but he felt better with it in his hands.
As they reached the foot of the altar, he calmly went down to meet them.
CHAPTER TWO
MONSTERS AND MESSAGES
Knight Commander Cade Williams stalked down the hallway of the Bennington Containment Facility, angry at himself for being there yet knowing that he really had no choice in the matter.
Just hours before a request had been relayed to him by the facility’s warden. The request had originated from the prison’s most high-profile prisoner, Simon Logan, the Necromancer, a man who had used the arcane power in the Spear of Longinus to try to destroy the Order itself.
He would have succeeded, too, if it hadn’t been for Cade and the men of the Echo Team.
Logan had apparently asked to see Cade. Said it was urgent even. But it was the note that accompanied the request that had captured his attention.
Just eight simple words.
I have a message from your wife, Gabrielle.
Anything else the Necromancer might have said would have been ignored outright. After turning Logan over to those who ran the facility, Cade’s interest in the former head of the Council of Nine had vanished. He had other, more pertinent things to worry about than the fate of a man who had tried to take on the Order and lost.
But if Logan had actually received a message from Cade’s long dead wife, Gabrielle, then that was something Cade couldn’t simply ignore. As a necromancer, Logan certainly had an affinity for the dead, which made the possibility that he’d spoken to Gabrielle a realistic one.
Cade knew his wife’s spirit was not at rest. He’d encountered her shade several times over the last few months and it was Gabrielle herself who had convinced Cade not to slay Logan outright when he’d been at Cade’s mercy following the assault on the Council’s stronghold. Why she might have relayed a message through the Necromancer rather than simply coming to see him herself was what he didn’t understand and that lack of understanding was what had driven him to agree to the visit.
He reached the guard station at the end of the hall. There he surrendered his side arm, watch, and the contents of his pockets. The black feather he wore on a piece of leather about his neck was glanced at curiously when he laid it down with the rest of his items, but no one made any comment. One of the guards requested that Cade remove his gloves, but the senior officer stepped in and informed the guard that that wouldn’t be necessary.
Which was good because Cade wouldn’t have agreed to the request anyway. His gloves stayed on, no matter where he went. He wouldn’t have objected to giving up the eye patch that covered the ruin of his right eye, but they didn’t ask.
He waited with the senior officer for the junior one to buzz them through the gate and then the two men moved down the end of the hall and through a series of three more barriers until they came to the room outside the Necromancer’s cell.
Cade was a member of the Holy Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon, or the Knights Templar, as they were once more commonly known. Long thought to have been destroyed in the fourteenth century, the Templars had emerged from hiding during the desperate days of World War II and had joined with the very entity that had excommunicated them en-masse so many centuries before, the Catholic Church. Reborn as a secret military arm of the Vatican, the Templars were now charged with defending mankind from the supernatural in all its forms.
As the commander of the Echo Team, the most prestigious of the elite strike units fielded by the Templars, Cade was known for both his ruthless efficiency and his often unorthodox methods.
The two men guarding the Necromancer recognized him by sight, despite the fact that he’d never been down to this part of the maximum security level before, and were already opening up the doors to the room beyond as he stepped up to the guard station.
The man who’d escorted him turned to face him. “Rule #1: Nothing goes in that doesn’t come out. Rule #2: No physical contact with the prisoner. And Rule #3: If you need help, just yell and we’ll come running. Got it?”
Cade nodded and then stepped through the door.
The room was large, about twelve feet to a side, and in its center stood a cage of iron. The cage had been home to Simon Logan, the man known as the Necromancer, ever since Cade had defeated him in battle several months ago. It was furnished with a bed, a toilet, and a small writing desk, nothing more.
Inside the cage waiting for him was the Necromancer.
Logan was a shadow of his former self. He’d lost considerable weight, his features sinking into the ruin of his face like a pumpkin past its prime, his bones poking awkwardly against the confines of his jumpsuit. He was in constant movement, shuffling back and forth across the small space of his cell, eight steps across and then eight steps back, over and over again, like a man hunted by something he couldn’t see nor understand.
His first words to Cade seemed to reinforce that viewpoint.
“The dead torment me.”
His voice was a reedy whisper, so different from the bold commands he’d shouted at his followers before his defeat.
Cade had no sympathy for him. “As well they should,” he replied. Logan had thought nothing of dragging the souls of the dead back across the barrier between the land of the dead and that of the living and forcing them to reanimate their decomposed and corrupted bodies. For him to be haunted by those he’d treated in such a fashion was nothing but justice itself and Cade told him so.
Logan went on as if he hadn’t heard.
“They torment me. Especially her.”
Cade’s pulse quickened.
“Who?” he asked.
“You know who.”
Cade crossed the room to stand in front of Logan. For all he knew Logan was running an elaborate con and so Cade refused to give him anything. “No, I don’t,” he said, “tell me.”
Logan’s response, when it came, surprised him.
“She said you wouldn’t believe me, so she said to give you this.”
As Logan reached inside the pocket of his prison uniform, Cade automatically braced for an attack, expecting him to pull out a shiv or some other makeshift weapon he’d fashioned without the guards’ knowledge. But Logan’s hand emerged from the interior of his clothing with only a pewter medallion that dangled from a silver chain.
Logan tossed the necklace through the bars at Cade.
Wary of arcane trickery, Cade refused to catch it, stepping back and letting it fall to the floor at his feet.
A glance downward told him it was a Saint Christopher medallion, the kind a lot of cops carried around, Christopher being the patron saint of policemen and lost causes.
This particular medal had a dent in it, right in the center where the face of the saint had once been, a dent large enough that it obliterated the saint’s entire image, leaving just the caption running around the outside of the disk.
Seeing it, Cade froze.
He recognized that dent. Remembered the night that medallion had deflected a bullet that should have take his head off like it was yesterday, how that tiny piece of medal had saved his life and consequently the life of his partner as well. They’d been pinned down in a shadowy corridor inside a Southie tenement house and had never even seen their assailant until that shot had come blazing out of the darkness. Saint Christopher had saved his life, there was no question of that, and he’d worn that medallion night and day for years afterwards in a superstitious show of faith.
Cade’s heart beat wildly. A hand reached out in front of him and it took him a moment to realize it was his own. He picked the medallion up and turned it over, knowing even before he did so what he would see.
The inscription read: “Every day after this is a gift. Use them well.”
He’d put it there, the day after the shooting, to remind him just how fragile and transitory life actually was. He’d never taken the medallion off, not until that horrible summer day seven years ago.
Cade’s fist clenched around the medallion.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, his voice as cold as winter snow.
But Logan didn’t even flinch. He simply stared at Cade with those eyes that had seen too much and said, “She said you’d suspect that I’d taken it from her grave, so she gave me a message for you.”
Cade visibly started. It was as if Logan were reading his mind. He had been thinking that Logan, or at least one of his cronies, had disturbed Gabrielle’s rest and he was ready to tear the man limb from limb for doing so.
“One day at a time. She told me to tell you one day at a time.”
A wave of dizziness washed over him at the implications of what Logan was saying. Seven years ago he’d put that same Saint Christopher medallion in his wife’s hand just before the funeral director had closed the casket over her still and silent form. Call it superstitious, but he’d wanted her to have some extra protection in the next life, considering how horribly this one had ended for her. He vividly remembered leaning down to kiss her cold cheek and whispering to her, asking her how he was going to survive without her.
She’d apparently decided to finally answer his question.
Cade stayed lost in thought for several long moments. At last he looked up and met Logan’s eager gaze. “I’m listening,” he said.
Logan seemed to gain some of his old confidence back at Cade’s reaction. He stepped away from the bars, went back to pacing back and forth across the space of his cell. “I have some requests,” he began, but Cade cut him off.
“I don’t have time to play games, Logan. Get to the point.”
The Necromancer turned to face him.
“Sunlight.”
“I’m sorry?” The comment was so unexpected that Cade had trouble following the other man’s train of thought.
“Sunlight. I want to see sunlight again, before the end of my trial.”
Cade didn’t have to even think about it. He knew the prisoner was going to be transferred from Bennington to Longfort at the end of the month and doing so would require him to travel in an armored transport vehicle. The transport had windows. Provided it didn’t rain on the day he made the trip, Cade knew he could persuade the warden to forget the blindfold and let the prisoner have one last look at the sunlight, though why Logan would want it was beyond Cade’s ability to fathom. No matter. He’d put a window in Logan’s personal cell if that was what it would take to get the information he needed out of him, orders to the contrary be damned.
“Done,” Cade replied. “Sunlight. Before the end of your trial.”
Logan grinned slyly, but Cade pretended not to see it. “Now,” he said instead, “tell me what she said.”
Logan explained that Gabrielle’s shade was visiting him every night, tormenting him, refusing to let him sleep. “She just keeps repeating the same refrain, over and over again, her voice like an ice pick in my mind.” He closed his eyes, as if he wanted to avoid any distractions and get it right.
“The Lady in the Tower sleeps beneath the banner of night on the island of lost dreams, but her sleep is not restful and she can find no peace.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I would think it would be obvious, Commander.”
“So wow me with your superior knowledge.”
“Your wife is not dead, simply a captive of the Adversary.”
Cade stood there, stunned.
It was perhaps the last thing he’d ever expected to hear. And yet, somehow, he suspected that the Necromancer was right.
Gabrielle? Alive?
That put a whole new perspective on things.
CHAPTER THREE
A FAR, FAR BETTER REST
Cade spent the next three days wrestling with his thoughts, trying to come to grips with the doubts that had arisen in the aftermath of his conversation with the Necromancer. They had burrowed deep within the heart of him, their questing tendrils seeking out the soft places of his soul and anchoring there like some kind of cancerous mass, growing roots, oozing outward unchecked, until they were so large that ignoring them was no longer even an option. Not knowing would eat him alive, would consume him from the inside out. There was no other choice; he would have to see for himself.
For that, he was going to need some help.
Later that afternoon he knocked on the door to Riley’s quarters in the senior noncoms housing unit. “I could use your help,” Cade said to him without preamble when Riley opened the door.
The other man shrugged. “Sure. Anything you need.”
“You might want to hear me out first,” said Cade and something in his voice made Riley do just that.
Cade had his personal vehicle there at the commandery and so the two of them took a leisurely afternoon drive, wandering the back roads as Cade laid out the problem and exactly what he intended to do.
Riley was silent as Cade talked, letting him get it all out without interruption, but when he was finished Riley didn’t hold anything back.
“You know Logan’s a lying son-of-a-bitch, don’t you? That he’s probably telling you all this just to mess with your head?”
Cade nodded. “That was my first reaction. But what if he’s not?”
“What do you mean ‘what if he’s not’? Of course he is! He’s the freakin’ Necromancer. Lying is all that he does.”
“Maybe. And maybe not. But I can’t take that chance. If there is even the slightest possibility that some part of what he told me is the truth, then I need to find out. And there is only one way of doing that.”
Riley shook his head. “What you’re proposing is nuts. It’s public property and the cops are always cruising by the place. You wouldn’t last twenty minutes.”
Cade shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t have any choice. I’ve got to try and see for myself. I’m going nuts second guessing it all.”
Riley didn’t reply.
They continued driving in silence for a time, each of them lost in their own thoughts. The December landscape unfolded around them, empty fields and stark, barren trees that reached outward with skeletal branches, the road winding up and down, around this hill and over that, headed everywhere and nowhere. Cade knew the idea was risky, and he had no desire to try explaining everything to the police should they be caught, but he was willing to take that chance. The only issue was whether his friend was willing to go along with it.
After a long while, Cade spoke up. “So, are you in or not?”
Riley looked over at him. “Of course I’m in.”
And at that, Cade just had to smile.
* * *
It was a simple headstone, plain grey New Hampshire granite, its front polished to a glistening shine so that the words carved into its face contrasted sharply with the smooth surface. Unlike the other stones around it, this one did not contain a name. Nor was there the usual assemblage of dates. Cade had not seen the need for them; he knew who rested here, knew when she had been born and the awful day that she’d died. He didn’t need a set of dates to remind him of those times. He’d known that he’d be the only one returning here after the funeral was over and he’d chosen to leave them off the marker. In their place he had selected a line from Dickens that seemed particularly appropriate to him during those dark summer days immediately following Gabrielle’s death.
It is a far, far better rest I go to,
than I have ever known
Now, looking at those words in the pale light from his flashlight, he was struck with an overwhelming sense of bitterness. What foolish arrogance had made him choose that quote over some other? Rest was certainly the last thing she had received and he suspected that it was all his fault.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Riley asked. Cade knew it was his friend’s way of giving him one last chance to think about the potential consequences, but he’d already made up his mind. He had to know. It was as simple as that.
In answer to Riley’s question, Cade picked up his shovel, drove it deep into the earth in front of the headstone, and began digging.
Riley watched him for a moment and then joined in.
They worked in companionable silence, save for the sound their shovels made biting into the dirt and the whispering of the wind through the trees around them like a watchful taskmaster urging them on. The recent rains had softened the earth, but all the moisture it retained made it heavier and Cade soon found himself sweating from the effort. His only focus was getting to the casket below so that he could quench the growing sense of urgency unfurling in his gut.
They piled the dirt beside the grave, knowing they were going to need it again before they were done. Its rich full scent filled Cade’s nostrils and he thought it strange how the aroma of life could be found here even surrounded by so much death. The work was hard, the dirt heavy and seemingly unwilling to reveal that which it hid from prying eyes. A backhoe would have made the effort far easier, but Cade dared not risk it. This was a public cemetery, after all, and the machine would only call attention to them. A passerby might miss a pair of men digging in the glow of a flashlight but ignoring a bright yellow piece of earth moving equipment was another story entirely. Getting caught was the last thing Cade wanted to happen; grave robbery had a fairly serious sentence attached to it. He’d taken as many precautions as he could think of. They’d parked his Cherokee in the woods a couple hundred yards away from the cemetery entrance and had cut through the woods until they’d reached the stone fence that surrounded the property. They’d clambered up and over it and from there made their way through the maze of headstones until they’d come to the secluded area where Gabrielle had been laid to rest. It was in the rear quarter of the cemetery, as far from the road as it was possible to get, and their flashlights had been covered with red filters to limit their visibility.
Two hours after they started, Riley’s shovel hit something hard, something that wasn’t dirt. He drew the shovel out of the ground and pushed it back in again, this time a few feet to the left of his previous strike. Another dull thud came back to them.
`They worked a bit more quickly after that, reenergized by the discovery, and it wasn’t long before the top of the casket was revealed, its black lacquer surface, so polished and shiny the last time Cade had laid eyes on it, now dulled from the patina of dirt that coated it. Once the lid was uncovered it took only a short burst of effort to clear the earth away from the sides of the casket, giving them room to open it. As Riley climbed out of the hole to get the necessary tools, Cade got down on his knees and examined the lid. Even in the limited light of his flashlight he could tell at once that it was still sealed shut, just as it had been in the day it had been lowered into the ground.
As he waited, Cade’s thoughts turned to what was before him. Gabrielle’s death had not been an easy one. The damage the Adversary had done to her face had been horrible. In the autopsy that followed, a legal requirement in the case of a homicide, the medical examiner had been unable to determine a specific cause of death. The idea that a mortician would continue the process the ME had begun, heaping further indignities on her earthly remains, had been more than Cade could bear and he’d had her immediately buried without even the benefit of being embalmed, just wanting to get the whole process over with as quickly as possible. To be certain the funeral home carried out his wishes, he insisted on being present throughout the preparation process and had them seal the casket in front of him.
Now, seven years later, he knew little would remain of the woman he had once held so lovingly in his arms. The human body began decomposing shortly after death and nature was remarkably efficient at the process of tearing it down. Cade knew that within just a few weeks the hair, teeth, and nails become detached from the rest of the body, the body itself swells with gases, the skin splits open, and the tissues begin to liquefy. After about a year all that’s left are a bare skeleton and teeth.
As Cade cleaned the last of the dirt from the lid of the coffin, Riley jumped back down into the pit, a pair of tire irons in hand.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Nothing but dust and bones, Cade thought, dust and bones. I can handle that.
The lock on the casket wasn’t a typical pin and tumbler device but actually a simple cranking mechanism. A narrow key, similar to an Allen wrench, was inserted into the lock and then the key was turned several times to crank down the lid and seal it tightly. Cade had no doubt that moisture from the spring rains and melting winter snow had gotten into the lock over the years, corroding the interior, sealing together the moving parts deep in the core, and so he hadn’t even bothered trying to get his hands on a proper casket key. Instead, he’d brought along a battery-powered electric drill and he used it now to drill out the lock itself, driving deep holes into the center of the mechanism, effectively rendering it useless.
When he was finished, Riley handed him one of the two crowbars they had brought with them and each man took up a position on either side of lock with about three feet between them. Inserting the flat ends of their wedges into the thin space along the rubber seal between the side of the casket and the lid, they counted to three aloud and then pushed down with all their weight.
At first the lid resisted their effort to open it. But after working at it for several long minutes, they began to make some headway. Finally, there was a sharp crack as the lock broke and the lid jumped open a few inches before coming back down to rest against the edge of their crowbars.
Riley stepped back a few feet, giving Cade some distance out of respect for what he had to do, and for that Cade was grateful. Cade put down the crowbar, placed both hands on the lid, bracing himself for what was to come. Gathering his courage, he said a quick prayer for forgiveness, and then pushed the lid fully open.
For a long moment all he could do was stare. Somewhere in the back of his mind he dimly registered Riley’s whispered “Mary, Mother of God!” but he didn’t acknowledge it. He couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to, for what lay in front of him had stripped him of his ability to do anything but stare in shocked amazement.
His wife Gabrielle’s body lay inside the casket just as it had on the day they’d sealed it away, perfectly preserved and without even the faintest hint of decomposition or decay. It was as if she belonged in some storybook fairytale, Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or some such, the princess resting peacefully on the bed of white silk that lined the casket, dressed in the sky blue summer dress that Cade had selected for her so long ago. Her hair shone as though a brush had been run through those auburn tresses only moments before and her skin was firm and taut, just as it had been in life. Her good eye was still closed, adding to the illusion that she was just sleeping, and it was so perfect, so real, that Cade found himself reaching out with one hand, intent on checking for a pulse, half-believing for just a moment that maybe she wasn’t dead, that there had been some horrible mistake and that she had been waiting here all this time for him to come and rescue here.
Reality came rushing back in with a crash, as his gaze landed on the thick piece of gauze that had been used to cover the other side of her face, the side that the Adversary had sloughed the skin from, leaving the tissue and muscles beneath exposed to the light, and on the end of the autopsy incision that could just been seen near the scooped neckline of her dress. Gabrielle was dead, Cade knew that, knew it with the certainty of one who has loved and lost, and yet…and yet something clearly wasn’t right here.
“What sorcery is this?” Riley asked, stepping back up next to Cade so as to get a better look at the tableau laid out before him.
Sorcery indeed Cade thought, and he knew that Riley had it right in one. Sorcery was exactly what had happened here, sorcery of the type that only a creature as powerful as the Adversary could pull off. With a sudden flash of understanding, Cade reached up and pulled the eye patch off his right eye. He turned his bad eye just so, activating his Sight, and the shimmering web of arcane energies that surrounded his wife’s body sprang into view, wrapping her so deeply in their depths that she resembled a spider’s prey encased in a cocoon.
Cade let Riley know what he was seeing.
“This is not good, boss, not good at all,” the big master sergeant said and for the first time that night there was a hint of fear in his tone.
“Tell me about it,” Cade muttered back in reply, still examining the black glistening bands of energy that shimmered with power in front of his eyes. He’d never seen anything like them and considering all the strange and unusual things he’d dealt with in the years since he’d joined the Order that was saying a lot.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m taking her home,” Cade replied, hesitantly at first, and then with more conviction. “Yes, taking her home.”
Riley ran a dirty hand over his bald head. “Man, I don’t know,” he said. He started pacing in the small space in front of the unearthed casket. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
Cade laughed and there wasn’t anything close to humor in it. “Of course it’s not a good idea. But what else am I going to do? Leave her here? Just cover her up again and pretend that I don’t know anything about it? Not bloody likely!”
“Damn it, Cade, for all you know she’s some kind of ticking time bomb, waiting until she’s close enough to her target before going off with a bang. You can’t bring that kind of power into the commandery without knowing more about it.”
Cade shook his head. “I don’t intend to. I’m not talking about bringing her back to the commandery, I’m talking about taking her home. To my place. I can put her in the workshop, get someone I know to erect a series of wards around her. That way, if anything does happen, it will be confined within the bounds of a sacred circle, limiting its impact.”
“How do you even know it’s safe to touch her?”
Cade gave that one some thought. His Sight hadn’t manifested itself until several weeks after Gabrielle’s funeral, so he hadn’t known anything about the mysterious web of power before unearthing her body, but he suspected that whatever it was, it had been there since the moment the Adversary had snatched her life away. Which meant that the police, the coroner, and even the funeral home staff had touched her without disturbing it and that reinforced Cade’s suspicion that he could do the same. Impulsively, he reached out toward her and Riley’s shouted “No!” but wasn’t in time to stop Cade from laying his hand upon Gabrielle’s.
CHAPTER FOUR
STEALING THE DEAD
Her skin was warm.
So warm that Cade could feel its heat even through the thin cotton gloves that he habitually wore.
It was utterly unexpected and Cade snatched his hand back, swearing beneath his breath.
“What is it?” Riley asked, and when Cade turned to face him, he found Riley standing with his gun pointed at the casket, his gaze jumping back and forth between Gabrielle’s body and Cade himself.
“Her skin,” Cade said, “It’s…warm.”
“Warm?” Riley asked, his thumb stealing along the butt of his pistol and flicking the safety off as he turned to give the casket and what it contained his full attention.
Cade pushed the muzzle of the gun downward. “It’s okay,” he said, holding up his other hand in a calming gesture, “it just surprised me is all. I wasn’t expecting it.”
Riley still looked uneasy, but he deferred to Cade’s judgment.
Cade reached in, sliding his hands beneath his wife’s body, and lifted her carefully out of the casket. Her body was soft and pliant, like she had simply fallen asleep rather than been dead and buried for seven long years. Feelings Cade had never adequately dealt with came rushing back, threatening to overwhelm him.
Focus, man, focus.
Turning, he passed Gabrielle up to Riley, who placed her gently in the grass a few feet away as Cade climbed out of the grave. The two men picked up the shovels and got to work, filling in the grave as quickly as they could, conscious that if they were discovered now it would be disastrous.
Filling in the hole took a lot less time than digging it had and it wasn’t long before they were winding their way back between the headstones, Riley carrying the tools and leading the way while Cade followed behind with Gabrielle’s body slung over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry. When they reached the stone wall that marked the burial ground’s perimeter, Riley tossed the tools one at a time over the top. The ‘clank’ they made as they landed in the gravel on the other side seemed unnaturally loud in the night’s stillness. They waited a moment to see if anything came of it and when nothing did, Riley boosted himself up onto the wall and then disappeared over the other side.
It was about a ten minute walk back to where they’d left the Jeep, which meant Cade had some time along with Gabrielle before Riley returned. He sat with her in his arms, his back against the wall, and talked to her. Told her how much he loved her. How much he missed her. How sorry he was that he hadn’t searched for her before this and of how he would do anything to release her from whatever strange sorcery held her in its grip. His tears flowed freely.
A few moments later Riley was back, a blanket and coil of rope he’d taken from the back of Cade’s truck in hand.
Riley tossed the blanket over the wall to Cade, who used it to wrap up Gabrielle’s body. While Riley held on to one end of the rope, Cade wound the other end around the blanket-wrapped form, tied it securely off, and then climbed up astride the wall where he guided the bundle up the side of the wall as Riley hauled on the rope from the other side. Once the body reached the top, Cade lifted it over the edge and then passed it down to Riley, who was waiting below.
Riley picked up the tools and then led the way through the woods as Cade followed behind him carrying Gabrielle. It didn’t take them long and both men breathed a sigh of relief once Gabrielle’s body was secured beneath a blanket in the rear compartment.
The ride itself passed without incident. Arriving at his home, Cade drove around behind the house to his workshop, a two story barn that he had gutted and remodeled shortly after buying the property. He turned the Jeep around in the drive and backed it up close to the entrance. His neighbors were half a mile away on either side, far enough that the chances of being seen were slim in the middle of the day, never mind the dead of night, but Cade had learned to be cautious. The two men maneuvered Gabrielle’s body out of the back of the Jeep and carried it inside.
What had once been horse stables was now a large, open room with bookshelves lining the walls and several work tables arranged in a semi-circle facing toward the door. A wood-burning stove stood in the far corner, its thick black pipe running up through the floor of the second story high above.
Cade caught Riley’s glance at the throw rug in the center of the room between the tables, where a large mirror had been hidden only a few weeks before.
“Don’t worry, it’s gone.” Cade said.
The mirror had served its purpose, allowing Cade regular travel into the Beyond while he searched for his wife’s shade, but it had almost killed him too. If it hadn’t been for Riley’s timely arrival on that night less than a month before, he would have died from hunger and thirst, the prolonged travel in and out of the Beyond having depleted his body’s natural resources without him being aware of it. Riley had called in the cavalry, rushing him by helicopter to the nearby Ravensgate Commandery and into the care of the best physicians the Order had on call.
Cade still wasn’t exactly clear about who or what had miraculously cured him while in the hospital, but there was no doubt that it had been a supernatural event. He had vague memories of a hooded figure standing over his bedside but that was all. At the time he’d suspected Sergeant Duncan of using his own unusual powers to heal him, but the younger soldier swore adamantly that he had nothing to do with it when confronted later about the issue.
They carried Gabrielle’s body over to the couch and laid her down gently.
“You want me to get a few of our mystics over here?” Riley asked, reaching for the cell phone on his belt.
Cade shook his head. “I’d rather keep the Order out of this for as long as I can.”
“But I thought you were going to have the place warded?”
“I am. I’m just not going to use the Order’s mystics to do it.”
Riley thought about that one for a moment, then, “Okay. I suspect this is one of those things that I don’t really want to know, right?”
Cade lifted his hands in a “what can I say?” gesture.
Over the years Cade had cultivated various contacts outside the approved ranks of those the Order considered allies and he used them whenever necessary, despite the fact that doing so was against the Rule. Riley was aware of the practice and even condoned it in certain situations, but he preferred to remain ignorant of the details unless it was absolutely necessary that he be brought into the loop.
“That’s fine with me. Just get those wards up as soon as possible.”
“I will. You can trust me on that.”
Riley grunted, glanced once more at Gabrielle, and then moved toward the door.
“Matt?”
Riley turned and faced him.
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
The other man smiled at last. “You owe me so many I’ve lost count. But you’re welcome anyway.”
* * *
About an hour after Riley left there was a soft knock on the workshop door. When Cade opened it, a dark-haired woman slipped inside and moved to the center of the room.
“Thanks for coming so quickly, Denise,” Cade said as she marched past him without even a hello. She was a fit woman in her late twenties, dressed simply in jeans, a pull-over sweatshirt, and hiking boots. Her brown hair was pulled back with a rubber band, but Cade could still see a streak of green and blue here and there. A green Army surplus satchel hung from a strap over her shoulder.
She waved away his thanks, her gaze moving about the room, searching. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she turned to face him.
“Where is she?”
Trying to keep the grin of amusement at her single-minded focus off his face, Cade inclined his head toward the stairs. “Spare bedroom, last door on the left.”
Denise Clearwater was a witch. A hedge witch, actually. Able to use the power inherent in Nature to bend reality to her will. Nothing drastic, just a nudge here and there, when time and circumstance demanded it. He’d met her several years before when Echo was forced to deal with a nest of minor demons that tried to lay claim to Long Island. Operating on the age-old principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Cade had agreed to an alliance with Clearwater and her coven. With the two groups working in conjunction with each other, they were able to isolate and ultimately banish the infernal creatures back to their own realm. Clearwater herself had set the wards that would keep the portal from opening again for another thousand years and it was her obvious mastery of that talent that had brought her to mind when he found himself in his present circumstances.
Without knowing exactly what the Adversary had done to Gabrielle, Cade didn’t dare have her body in his home without some kind of protection around it. A set of wards seemed to be just what the situation called for.
Designed to guard a specific location or object, wards were one of the mainstays of modern magick. They came in two types; minor and major. Minor wards were just what the name inferred; minor magicks that could be used to protect an object or a location for the short term. These could be performed by a single individual with limited preparation, often on the fly. Major wards were another story entirely, intended to last indefinitely and requiring several days of preparation by a sorcerer with considerable power, using several acolytes to assist. They were not undertaken lightly and the slightest mistake could have disastrous consequences. Major wards that failed outright often ended in the deaths of all involved in the casting.
Not only could wards be used to keep people away from a particular location, they could also be used to keep someone or something confined. In this case, Cade hoped to use the wards to shield Gabrielle’s body from outside interference while at the same time providing him some protection should the Adversary have left any unexpected surprises.
Cade followed Clearwater up the stairs but remained in the doorway so he’d be out of her way. He watched as she wandered slowly around the twin bed, observing Gabrielle’s body from every angle. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she reached out and tried to lay her palm on Gabrielle’s forehead.
Much to Cade’s surprise, she was unable to do so.
She tried again, with the same result. Each time her hand would stop a few inches above Gabrielle’s flesh and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it to go any closer.
She stepped back, clearly puzzled. Cade was, too. Neither he nor Riley had any problem moving Gabrielle from the cemetery.
“Is there…?”
She held up a hand, stopping him in mid-sentence. Digging into the satchel at her side, she rooted around in its depths until she drew out a long-handled mirror. She made a few odd-looking gestures over it with her free hand and then exhaled heavily on its surface, fogging the glass. Before it could clear she held the mirror over Gabrielle and stared into its depths.
A grimace crossed her face.
Cade opened his mouth, intending to ask what she was doing, but the intense expression on her face made him change his mind. Instead, he waited patiently for her to finish.
After a second longer look in the mirror she put it down and turned to face him.
“Your wife isn’t dead,” she said.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALMOST DEAD
Having expected her to come to that conclusion, particularly after the Necromancer’s comments and his own experience with the body, Cade wasn’t surprised by her announcement. He focused on the practical aspect of the situation.
“How can that be?”
Clearwater sighed and sat back on her haunches. “I don’t know exactly. It’s as if she’s stuck in that moment between life and death. Here, look.”
She waited for him to join her, kneeling beside the bed, and then lifted the mirror again.
“This is a scrying mirror. Normally I use it to locate an object or person that I’m looking for, like the way a dowsing rod is used to find water. But it can also be used to view an object more clearly, to look beyond the obvious. In this case, I used it to “see” your wife’s body, hoping it might show me something about the binding that you mentioned on the phone. What it showed me...well, you’d best see it for yourself.”
Clearwater repeated her actions with the mirror, but this time angled it so Cade could see what it had to show.
A glimmering web of deep blue energy wrapped itself around Gabrielle an inch or so from her flesh, a literal reminder to Cade of how they had been trapped in the Adversary’s web like two hapless flies. Yet that wasn’t what had caught Clearwater’s attention. Beneath the binding, Gabrielle’s body was covered by a shadow of the deepest grey Cade had ever seen, darker even than the angry summer storm clouds he’d watched roll across the plains as a child.
“What is that?” he whispered, as if afraid of disturbing something.
Clearwater’s answer was matter of fact. “Her aura. Or what’s left of it actually. Her spirit, her soul if you will, has clearly left but her body still lives on in some strange fashion. It seems trapped outside the natural cycle of entropy, held in that particular moment of time, which is why we’ve seen no sign of decomposition or decay. She might not be breathing, but I wouldn’t necessarily call her dead.”
“So what does that mean? Is there anything that can be done about it?”
Clearwater shrugged. “I haven’t got a clue. That one’s way above my pay grade, so to speak.”
The knight commander mulled it over.
“Can you still cast the wards?”
“I don’t see why not. Since they affect the space around her, rather than her directly, I don’t think it will be a problem.”
Agreeing the wards were probably the best bet for the time being, at least until Cade understood a bit more about what he was dealing with, the two of them settled down to work. Cade helped Clearwater pull the bed away from the wall and then moved the rest of the furniture off to the side of the room, giving Clearwater plenty of space in which to work. While she disappeared downstairs to get a few things from her car, Cade took a small folding table out of the closet and set it up a few feet away from the bed, giving Clearwater a platform from which to work. When she returned she was carrying a cardboard box. She put the box on the floor and began sorting through it, occasionally taking an item and placing it on the table Cade had set up for her. It wasn’t long before there was an odd assortment of items there. Cade recognized the brass thurible and the incense boat that went along with it, though he hadn’t seen one outside of a Catholic Mass before. The same thing could be said for the silver chalice that she set beside them. He wasn’t sure if the bottle of water was a part of the ritual or just in case she got thirsty, but he figured he’d find out soon enough. A large red candle, several long wooden matches, and a jar of what looked to be salt completed the ensemble.
Clearwater took several chunks of incense cake from inside the boat and placed it in the base of the thurible. She lit the incense with one of the matches and, picking up the thurible, moved to the head of the bed.
“Interrupting me once the casting has begun can be dangerous for both of us, so no matter what you see or hear, stay out of the circle and out of the way.”
Cade indicated that he understood.
Clearwater lifted the thurible and blew in through one of the holes on the lid, fanning the burning incense so that yellow smoke began to pour forth. Satisfied with the color and density of the smoke, she turned to the east and began gently rocking the thurible back and forth on its chain.
She walked a slow circle around the bed, the incense hanging in the air as she passed, creating a ring of yellow smoke that followed in her wake and filled the room with a thick, cloying scent. When she returned to the head of the bed and the ring of incense smoke was complete, she drew the shutters on the thurible, preventing any more from coming out.
She resumed her starting position, facing away from the bed, her hands lifted to either side. “O Guardian of the East, Ancient One of the Air, I call you to attend us this night. I do summon, stir and charge you to witness our rites and guard this Circle. Send your messenger among us, so that we might know that we have your blessing, and protect us with your holy might.”
A light breeze caressed Cade’s cheek, stirring his hair. Within seconds the breeze strengthened to become a wind, churning the ring of smoke around the bed, spreading it out and pushing it upward until it formed a hazy yellow dome that surrounded the area Clearwater had marked out with her steps.
The smoke stung Cade’s eyes and tickled his nose, as he strained to see through its depths. Through the haze he could see Clearwater still standing where she had been moments before, but now her clothes stuck to her frame as if pushed there by a gale-force wind and her long hair streamed out behind her as if held by ghostly hands. Her gaze was directed upward, over her head, and Cade couldn’t help but follow her line of sight.
His mouth dropped open in surprise.
A giant bird of dark grey smoke hovered above her, stirring the air inside the circle with every powerful thrust of its great wings. Even as he watched, it turned its head toward him, its beak opening, its empty eyes piercing him to his very soul, and in the back of his mind he heard its shrieking cry of hunger and warning.
Cade glanced away, unable to meet the naked threat in its eyes, and when he looked back Clearwater was alone. The bird was gone, as was the dome of yellow incense smoke.
Clearwater turned and, catching the expression on his face, gave him a wink before moving back to the table and preparing for the second part of the ritual. She returned the thurible to its position and picked up the candle and another match. She walked around the bed until she faced the south this time and then placed the candle on the floor directly in front of her. Striking the match against the wooden floor, she lit the candle.
“O Guardian of the South, Ancient One of the Flames, I call you to attend us this night. I do summon, stir and charge you to witness our rites and guard this Circle. Send your messenger among us, so that we might know that we have your blessing, and protect us with your holy might.”
No sooner had she finished speaking that the candle flame flared up like a bonfire, flooding the room with scorching heat. For just a moment Cade thought he saw a large, dragon-like creature made entirely of flames standing before Clearwater, but then the flame returned to normal and whatever it had been, if it had been there at all, was gone. The candle was once more just a candle and Clearwater stood alone.
Leaving the candle in place, she took up the chalice. She filled it with water from the bottle and moved to the end of the bed, facing Cade where he stood in the doorway. She raised the chalice in front of her and called out a third time.
“O Guardian of the West, Ancient One of the Waves, I call you to attend us this night. I do summon, stir and charge you to witness our rites and guard this Circle. Send your messenger among us, so that we might know that we have your blessing, and protect us with your holy might.”
Nothing happened.
Another minute ticked passed.
Then two more.
Without warning a thunderclap roared throughout the room. No sooner had the echoes died away that rain poured from the ceiling, hammering them in a torrential downpour. Something large and wet loomed overhead, like a wave about to break over them, and in the next instant the rain stopped and Clearwater, Gabrielle, and the room around them were dry.
Cade, however, was soaked to the skin, his hair plastered against the sides of his head.
Apparently even the Guardians of the Quarters have a sense of humor.
Seeing him, Clearwater cracked a bemused smile and then went on with the ritual.
Taking the jar of salt, she moved to the bed for the final time. Facing north, she uncapped the bottle and began retracing the steps she’d taken when using the incense burner, pouring out the salt into the floor in an unbroken line as she went.
The by-now familiar incantation accompanied her. “O Guardian of the North, Ancient One of the Earth, I call you to attend us this night. I do summon, stir and charge you to witness our rites and guard this Circle. Seal this Circle with your strength and let neither man nor beast break it until the Word is given.”
As she said the last, Clearwater stepped to the other side of the salt line and brought the two ends together in an unbroken circle that completely encircled the bed. When the two ends touched there was a sudden trembling in the floor beneath their feet and the line of salt changed in a heartbeat from white to a deep forest green. A new kind of tension filled the air, as if every molecule had gained an additional charge.
“Well now, that should do it,” Denise said, stepping back from the circle as she replaced the lid on the jar of salt.
Cade looked at Gabrielle’s unmoving body atop the bed and the line of salt that surrounded it. “That’s it?” he asked, not quite sure what it was he’d been expecting but knew it certainly wasn’t a line of green sand surrounding his wife’s body.
Clearwater glanced at him.
“What were you expecting? A host of heavenly angels to stand guard?”
“Can you do that?” A scream of angels would be perfect. The last one he’d run into had scared the hell out of him; he had no doubt that Gabrielle’s body would go unmolested with them standing watch.
Clearwater let out a sharp bark of laughter. “If you’d wanted that, you should have called Mother Church rather than a beaten-up old hedge witch.”
“You’re not old. And I don’t want the Church involved. But come on, a line of green salt? What’s that going to do if the agents of the Adversary come knocking?”
Clearwater stared at him. “You don’t see it?”
Cade was baffled. Don’t see what? But then it occurred to him that if he were looking for mystical effects he’d probably be much better off using something other than his ordinary eye sight to do it. Turning back to face the bed, he triggered his Sight.
A shimmering wall of emerald green energy completely encased the bed. It was so thick that Cade was unable to see through it. Neither the bed or Gabrielle’s body were visible and he had no doubt that the ward would protect her from everything all the way up to an attack by one of the Fallen. Maybe even one of those, too.
“Satisfied?” Clearwater asked.
Cade deactivated his Sight and turned back in her direction. “Very. Now how do I bring it down if I need to?”
They spent the next ten minutes covering the proper ritualistic phrases that Cade could use to disband the warding and then he helped her gather her things and carry them back down to her car.
“Thanks, Denise. I owe you.”
She nodded. “And don’t think I won’t collect on it.”
They said their goodbyes and Cade watched her drive off into the night. When he could no longer see her taillights, he wandered back inside, changed into dry clothes and camped out in the room next to the bed on which his wife’s not-quite-dead body lay, wondering just what the hell he was going to do next.
CHAPTER SIX
AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL
The next morning found Cade at the commandery trapped in a series of planning meetings with the other senior force commanders. He was by nature a man of few words, one who preferred to be doing things rather than sitting around talking about them, but a highly specialized organization like the Templars didn’t run itself on action alone and so several times a week, when he wasn’t out on a mission, he was required to sit through organizational briefings like this one. An officer from Planning and Logistics was currently at the front of the room, outlining the new method for requisitioning additional office supplies that would be put in place for the coming quarter and Cade quickly tuned him out before the man’s nasal voice could set his nerves further on edge than they already were. Instead, his thoughts turned inward, pondering recent events, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that made some kind of sense.