by C. M. Palov
Raising his right arm, Caedmon felt the muscles in his belly tighten. While he knew the element of surprise would be on his side, he also knew there would only be a few seconds to exploit the advantage. A few scant seconds to stun Aveles and seize the Uzi sub-machine gun.
He held the five-foot-metal stake like a spear as he cocked his arm back. His bicep bunched; a coiled spring. Gaze locked on the target, he hurled the stake through the air. Just as he’d hoped, the metal spike plowed into the gunman’s right dorsal – the soft, vulnerable patch of flesh protecting the kidney.
Howling in pain, Javier Aveles pitched to his left side. Away from the sub-machine gun.
Caedmon lunged forward. Panting breathlessly, he belligerently stood over his quarry, the well-honed axe in plain view. Cowering on the ground, Aveles stared up at him, wide-eyed, clearly aghast to see him.
Finish him off! a voice inside his head commanded. This is no time for delicate sensibilities. This is war!
With that thought in mind, Caedmon viciously swung the axe.
Only to swerve away from Aveles’s neck at the last possible moment, the sharpened blade harmlessly swooshing through the air.
The will simply wasn’t there to kill a defenseless man.
‘I’m going to be pissing blood for the next week,’ Aveles gasped with a pain-wracked shudder.
‘Stop your griping, Javier. A dead man would envy you the ailment,’ Caedmon snarled. Annoyed that he now had to contend with a prisoner, he jutted his head towards the parked SUV. ‘Give me the keys.’
A nasty sneer affixed to his face, Aveles shoved his right hand into his jeans pocket and removed a key ring. Just as he was in the process of handing over the keys, Aveles suddenly tossed them into the nearby field. In the next instant, he jettisoned towards the limestone slab, making a desperate grab for the sub-machine gun.
No!
Caedmon reflexively swung the axe at that grasping hand, the sharpened blade cleaving the appendage at the wrist. A clean cut.
Aveles screamed in agony as a torrent of blood gushed from his amputated limb. A hideous, pulsating geyser. Still shrieking like a madman, Aveles suddenly rolled towards the Uzi, reaching for it with his left hand.
Christ!
Caedmon had no choice –
―He sliced the axe blade across Aveles’s neck, severing his carotid artery.
More dead than alive, Javier Aveles glared at him in those last few gossamer moments . . . just before he surrendered the ghost.
Still holding tight to the axe, Caedmon stared at the dead man: Aveles lay in an ungainly sprawl in the thick, overgrown grass. A butchered mess.
The vultures will dine well this evening.
The thought induced no pang of Christian guilt. Caedmon was mad as hell.
‘You fucking stupid bastard!’ he bellowed, infuriated that he’d been driven to kill. ‘You didn’t have to die.’ Why did you have to reach for your weapon? You had to have known that I’d counterattack?
Enraged by how quickly he’d lost control of the situation, Caedmon snatched hold of the Mini-Uzi. The slight motion caused a tumult of pain. His ribs ached so intensely, it felt as though someone had maliciously taken a red-hot soldering iron to them.
Battered, physically and emotionally, Caedmon flung aside the blood-drenched axe and turned away from the carnage.
As he wearily made his way back to the stone cottage, he caught sight of a white golf cart on the far hillside.
What in God’s name . . . ?
79
‘. . . are you doing here!?’
‘I came to warn you!’ Edie shot back, receiving a less than enthusiastic welcome from Caedmon. Cheeks flushed from having run across the dale, he stood beside the parked golf cart, a sub-machine gun tucked under his arm. ‘Javier is headed this way.’
‘That particular threat has been neutralized. And I’m sorry to have roared.’ Sighing wearily, Caedmon glanced down at his blood-splattered shirt. ‘As you can see, we were embroiled in a rather precarious situation.’
‘Please tell me that Anala is –’
‘Unscathed.’ Caedmon turned towards the small stone cottage. ‘It’s all right to come outside, Anala!’ he summoned in a booming voice.
Within moments, the back door opened and Anala Patel, clutching a shotgun to her chest, tentatively emerged. Edie noticed that her finger was poised on the trigger – as though she wasn’t completely convinced that the coast was clear.
Taking notice of Caedmon’s blood-splattered shirt, Anala’s brows worriedly drew together. ‘Did you, um –’
‘Yes, I did,’ Caedmon interjected. ‘He gave me no choice. Although our assailant left us a rather nice parting gift.’ Grim-faced, he brandished the compact sub-machine gun.
‘I was so terrified that he would hurt you,’ the young woman said shyly.
‘While I’m sure that he would have liked nothing better, the brute’s plans were cut short.’
Anala peered at the golf cart.
‘No need for alarm,’ Caedmon assured her, noticing the direction of her gaze. ‘This is my partner, Edie Miller.’
‘Actually, the alarm is blaring,’ Edie said on his coat-tails. ‘Calzada and Diaz are on the prowl and, from what I overheard, they’re gunning for you.’
‘Christ!’ Caedmon peered furtively at the hill that overshadowed the ramshackle cottage. ‘But that makes no sense,’ he said a split-second later. ‘They don’t have the third plate.’
Edie shrugged, at a loss. ‘They didn’t mention that they’d found it. And, by the way, Cardinal Fiorio has arrived at Mercy Hall.’
The announcement incited another irreverent expletive.
Again, Caedmon gazed at the towering hillside. ‘In that case, we need to head in the opposite direction from Mercy Hall. It’s imperative that we escape the Fellowship grounds.’
Within moments they were off, Anala riding up front with Edie, and Caedmon scrunched in the rear folding seat. Overhead, a brilliant pyrotechnic show flashed on the horizon, ominous silver streaks randomly materializing. As they made their way across the rolling hills, the skies opened up, treating them to a heavy rainfall. While the golf cart had a hard top, that didn’t stop the rain from sluicing in from the sides.
‘Did the priest ever show up?’ Caedmon asked, raising his voice to be heard over the pounding rain.
‘I saw him rush into Mercy Hall right before – Oh, no!’ Edie exclaimed suddenly, catching sight of a vehicle in the distance. ‘There’s a pick-up truck headed our way!’
‘We need to take cover!’ Caedmon shouted. ‘Quickly! To the Parthenon!’
Edie wondered if she’d heard correctly. ‘Where!?’
‘He means the folly over on that hillock!’ Anala said, gesturing wildly.
Surprised to see a miniature Greek temple, Edie yanked on the steering wheel, navigating in that direction. ‘Hopefully, whoever’s in the truck hasn’t caught sight of –’
An ominous ratatattat of automatic weapon fire rent the air.
Terrified, Edie slammed her foot on the accelerator. But the golf cart refused to comply. They were stuck at a very sedate twenty miles per hour.
‘Keep driving towards the folly!’ Caedmon ordered. ‘Don’t stop!’
‘Like I’d even consider it,’ she muttered, flinching as Caedmon returned fire.
Edie glanced over at Anala, who was in the process of yanking on the fore-end of the shotgun. A split second later, she pulled the trigger, the recoil flinging her against the back of the seat.
Tightly gripping the steering wheel, Edie headed down a steep hill. Worried that they weren’t going to make it to the folly before the truck overtook them, she whipped her head around and stole a quick glimpse at their assailants. Hector Calzada was behind the wheel and Diaz was leaning out of the passenger window, firing a sub-machine gun.
No sooner was that image imprinted on her ocular nerve than Diaz was hurled back into the truck, a cloud of red blood misting the windshield.
/>
Ohmygod!
‘I think you killed –’
Just then the golf cart drove over a stony precipice that Edie hadn’t seen in the tall grass. For a few seconds, all four wheels came off the ground before they landed with a shuddering impact that caused her to lose control of the cart.
The small vehicle jackknifed, first one way, then the other. Frantic, Edie slammed on the brakes. A lost cause. The grass was rain-slicked, the cart actually picking up speed as it hydroplaned down the hillside.
‘We need to jump out! Now!’ Caedmon ordered. ‘Before this damned thing rolls over on us.’
Hearing that, Edie immediately leaned over and –
– flung herself free of the driver’s seat.
For several seconds, she was airborne. Soaring . . .
Before gravity got the better of her.
80
Caedmon hit the ground with a spine-jarring thud.
Having no control over his limbs, he tumbled and bumbled – an ungainly free-for-all – before finally rolling to a stop. Stunned, he lay sprawled in the field grass, the rain pummeling his face.
Edie! Anala!
Gasping for air, he shoved himself on to his hands and knees, nearly toppling over. Everything was off-kilter. Blurred around the edges. He blinked several times, desperately trying to bring the world back into focus. No good. It remained a topsy-turvy mess.
He shut his eyes, pressing his lids together as tightly as possible. He then quickly popped his lids wide open. The trick worked, his vision clearing. At a glance, he could see that the golf cart was lying on its side at the bottom of the hill.
Hearing a low moan from somewhere in the near vicinity, he called out, ‘Edie! Anala!’
‘Still in one piece,’ he heard Edie gasp breathlessly. ‘Just dented.’
Anala, her voice barely audible, assured him of the same.
Thank God.
Biting back the pain, Caedmon turned his head in the other direction. He saw a parked pick-up truck and a hulking shape swiftly approaching on foot.
Hector Calzada!
The Uzi! Where in God’s name is the Uzi?
His ribs screamed in protest as he hurriedly crawled through the tall grass on his hands and knees. Frantic, he swiped his hand back-and-forth across the tall blades of grass, fishing for the sub-machine gun which he’d tossed aside just before he’d jumped from the golf cart. Afraid I’d blow my own head off.
Just as his hand grazed across the blackened metal, a booted foot stomped down on the Uzi, preventing Caedmon from seizing it. He craned his neck and peered up at the looming brute who wielded a sub-machine gun in his right hand and the Mossberg shotgun in his left; he’d obviously plucked the latter out of the wet grass.
‘Well done, Hector. Hats off to you,’ Caedmon deadpanned.
Proving that he was impervious to irony, Calzada snarled, ‘You’re not going to be able to wear a fucking hat after I rip your head from your fucking neck, you fucking cocksucker!’
The foul-mouthed diatribe did not bode well, although Caedmon was reasonably certain that the brute wouldn’t follow through on the vicious threat until after he had custody of the third copper plate. My ace in the hole as the Americans were wont to say; the ace, of course, was the most propitious card in the deck. And one that he intended to keep securely stuffed up his sleeve.
None too gracefully, Caedmon, still on all fours, sat back on his haunches. ‘Your language is appalling. Need I remind you that there are ladies present?’
The rebuke earned a swift reply, Calzada striking him in the side of the jaw with the butt of the shotgun.
Caedmon’s head violently jerked to the right, blood spewing from a cut lip as his head exploded in an excruciating burst. As though he’d just been shot pointblank, a sickening bolt of pain radiated from his jaw to the back of his skull. He fought the urge to collapse in the tall grass, to give in to the siren’s call, close his eyes and let his body be swallowed in soothing darkness.
Unmanned, tears pooled in his eyes, the pain agonizing.
In the next instant, Calzada aimed the sub-machine gun at Caedmon’s chest. Ready to cut him to ribbons.
Gathering what stray bits of defiance he could summon, Caedmon flung his ace at the other man. ‘Kill me and you’ll never retrieve the last plate.’
‘Your curly-haired bitch will be only too happy to turn it over to me.’ Calzada spared a quick glance at Edie who, like Caedmon, was still on her hands and knees. ‘Isn’t that right, Bella?’
‘One small problem,’ Caedmon countered on a painful hiss. ‘She has no idea where I hid it. Ace up the sleeve, old boy. You didn’t really think that I’d walk into the lion’s den without taking a few precautions.’ Tasting the coppery residue of blood, he pursed his lips and spat out a red ribbon.
‘Where’s Javier?’ the bastard demanded to know, abruptly changing the subject.
‘How the bloody hell should I know?’
‘I’m not stupid, cabrón. That’s his weapon.’ Calzada jutted his chin at the Uzi still underfoot.
‘Yes, that.’ Caedmon gingerly rubbed his jaw, grateful that it was still properly hinged. A small blessing. ‘Javier handed the Uzi over to me. So to speak.’
‘Get up! All of you!’ Calzada ordered, sweeping the shotgun in a wide arc. As Edie and Anala both struggled to their feet, he returned his attention to Caedmon. Narrow-eyed, he snarled, ‘One misstep, cabrón, and I will shoot pointblank into both of your fucking kneecaps.’
Caedmon returned the glare, his gaze focusing on the ludicrous teardrop tattooed in the corner of Calzada’s eye. A teardrop that wrongly presumed Hector Calzada was capable of a tender emotion that could actually produce a tear.
Wincing, he shoved himself to his feet with a groan, having lost his dignity somewhere on the hillside. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping a foamy smear of crimson saliva.
A few feet away, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, Edie and Anala both stood their ground. Bruised but not broken. Caedmon was unable to look either of them in the eye.
I’m a pathetic excuse for a knight. The Templars would have nothing to do with me.
Prodded forward by the well-armed brute, the three of them trudged across the meadow towards Mercy Hall. The smell of gun smoke still hung heavy in the air.
The smell of a battle lost.
81
Drenched to the skin, Edie shoved several hanks of wet hair away from her face. Walking beside her, Anala shivered. She resisted the urge to put a comforting arm around the young woman’s shoulders, afraid that it would incite Hector Calzada’s fury.
‘Where is Father Santos?’ Caedmon asked as Calzada ushered the three of them down a dimly lit hallway on the first floor of Mercy Hall. ‘I had hoped to make his personal acquaintance.’
‘G-Dog died a traitor’s death,’ the thug replied with a callous shrug. ‘I was happy to pull the trigger.’
Edie gasped, horrified that anyone would actually brag about killing a Catholic priest. A heinous act, it not only qualified for a very long prison term, but a one-way ticket to hell.
‘Go into the classroom.’ Calzada gestured with his sub-machine gun towards an open room.
Like truant students who’d been dragged back to school, they trudged through the doorway. At a glance, Edie could see that it was a standard-issue classroom: several long rows of plastic-shell seats with attached tablet-armed desktops; oversized chalkboards on the front wall; and a teacher’s desk with a lectern.
To her ire, the teacher’s desk was piled high with her and Caedmon’s personal belongings, someone having retrieved their tote bags from the rental car. Each and every one had been turned inside-out, the contents completely ransacked.
Somebody has obviously been searching for the Evangelium Gaspar.
Now, suddenly, it made perfect sense to her why Caedmon had shoved his rucksack into the cement urn. Never trust the enemy. Even if he wore a cassock and a cross. Especially then, some might sa
y.
‘Sit!’ Calzada ordered, this time using his sub-machine gun to point to three desks at the front of the classroom.
Water dripping in their wake, each of them squeezed into a molded plastic chair, with Caedmon taking the middle desk. Sighing wearily, Anala immediately slumped over, resting her head on her arms, a vision of utter defeat. Caedmon reached over and awkwardly patted her on the arm.
Several moments later, a short, balding man wearing a black cassock entered the classroom.
‘I am Cardinal Franco Fiorio,’ the cleric announced without preamble as he strode over to the teacher’s lectern.
‘Who, in addition to being an esteemed member of the Roman Curia, occasionally writes under the catchy pen name Irenaeus. It’s my understanding that Father Santos is no longer among the living. I hope that you were considerate enough to have given him the Last Rites before pulling the trigger,’ Caedmon said, cutting wit the only weapon in his arsenal.
The cardinal’s expression turned decidedly frosty. ‘Gracián Santos was a sniveling coward who refused to defend the Faith. He did not deserve to live.’
‘To hear Christian compassion so poignantly expressed warms the cockles.’
Gripping the lectern, the cardinal glared at Caedmon. ‘The battle is lost. You would be wise to show the victor proper obeisance.’
‘And do what? Kiss your big golden ring?’ Edie snapped irritably, jumping into the fray.
‘“From battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.”’ Caedmon paused, letting a full beat pass before he put a hand to his heart and mockingly bowed his head. ‘Forgive the lapse. It’s from the Great Litany in the Book of Common Prayer which is, undoubtedly, anathema to you. So, to the victor the spoils, eh?’ He pointedly glanced at the messy heap of clothing, notebooks and toiletries.
‘I’m on a very tight schedule. Where is it?’
