“Y-Yes-s,” he said. His voice cracked. He licked his dried lips. “Y-Yes. I'm sorry.” His brilliant eyes found their focus. “Yes, Brandy, everybody, we'd better go.”
Felix, standing behind Eve, his hands on her shoulders, started backwards at Trevelyan's suggestion. He quickly discovered that fear had frozen his girl in place. With no time, he dragged her along.
The first Templar, the leader of the hellish group, waved his hand. The knight in the dark cloak sauntered his horse in a loop to his right. Another living mummy followed after. They clopped to a halt on the left side of Brandy's group blocking the courtyard to the north and escape to the castle. The Templars dismounted. The first set the standard on the stones, as if planting a flag, and held the gold cross triumphantly above them. The second drew something from his saddle; a black object of considerable weight. He extended his arm and let one end drop – a spiked iron ball swinging from a chain.
“He has a mace,” Felix whispered.
“It's not a mace,” the priest said. “It's a flail.”
“Merci,” Felix said, glaring at the crazy priest.
The leader waved the other clawed hand. Two more Templars spurred their horses and moved, in an opposing arc, cutting off escape to the entrance and the drawbridge. They too dismounted. One stung the air with hissing metal as he drew daggers from the scabbards on his belt. The other brandished some sort of spear.
“Ray,” Brandy whispered. “We better get out of here.”
She heard a strange metallic click and, as she turned to the leader, saw the knight to his right notching a little arrow into a crossbow. As if that were a cue, all of the knights began slowly to creep forward.
“The chapel,” Ray whispered. Then again, but this time shouting, “The chapel! Everyone… run for it!”
And they did – with the exception of Loup. Terrified, the pathetic rapist froze in place so, when the others broke and ran, Aimee slammed into him. The Templar fired his crossbow with a startling twang and the bolt, like a bullet, passed between Aimee and Loup as they fell. The arrow sparked as it struck the courtyard stones then skipped away to bounce off the castle steps. Loup untangled himself from the reporter. He got his feet beneath him and used Aimee for leverage to push himself up. She screamed in outrage. He ignored her cry and ran for the chapel.
“Come back, you bastard!” Brandy screamed. She'd witnessed the appalling cowardice and ran to Aimee. “Are you all right?”
The reporter, despite her angry tears, said she was and let Brandy help her to her feet. Both joined the others – running.
The Templar knights broke ranks and took chase. Eve, somehow separated from Felix and still on the castle side of the courtyard, found herself confronted by the dark cloaked Templar. He waved the cross and stared with blazing red eyes.
Loup was running toward the Templar reloading his crossbow. Brandy thought, for a second, he'd found his courage and might take the monster on. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The Templar was simply between him and his intended hiding place. Loup skirted around him, took the steps in one bound, and grabbed the chapel's heavy front door. Despite his panic, Loup quickly opened it and disappeared inside. The door banged shut behind him – leaving the others to the demonic knights.
The Templar leader had Aimee's arm. She screamed and beat his moldy tunic with her free hand. The ancient knight looked unconcerned, almost unaware, of the pummeling as he pulled her toward him. Unable to use his sword at such close quarters the mummy threw it down with a clang. Then he grabbed the screaming reporter with both grizzled hands.
Ray appeared and took hold of the knight. The Templar threw Aimee away and turned on Ray. He lunged; both fell and rolled on the ground. The mummy fought atop Ray and moved in, mouth opened wide. It took a second for the big American to realize the damned thing was trying to bite him. He grabbed the creature's wiry beard using every ounce of strength to yank him back.
By then Father Trevelyan had Aimee on her feet. Though aching, she assured him she was unhurt and Trevelyan gently pushed her toward the chapel. He turned back to the fray and saw Ray in jeopardy. The priest inhaled to gird himself and grabbed the Templar's molded cloak. Trevelyan pulled with all his might. The knight, in spite of Ray's hold on his dry beard, turned screaming, teeth bared, glaring hatred at the priest.
“Dear God! Oh, Dear Lord!” Trevelyan released the living corpse and retreated. The Templar snapped like a vicious dog. Beneath them, Ray took advantage of the diversion and kicked the Templar off.
Another knight swung his heavy flail in a great arc; the spiked ball whistling. The blow missed but drove Felix back and to the ground. The monster threw the weapon down and grabbed Eve. His glowing eyes bored into the soft pink flesh of her throat as he drew the red-head, screaming, toward his open mouth.
Recovering on the stones at their feet, Felix laid his hand on a stray crossbow arrow. The tour guide grabbed it, jumped to his feet, and hurled himself at the Templar. Felix rammed the metal bolt into the creature's back. The knight bucked and released the girl. Eve fell to the ground. The Templar swung, howling at Felix, struggling to reach the object impaled in his back. Felix, with both hands and more effort than he'd have guessed necessary, lifted the discarded flail and swung it.
The spiked ball struck the mummy solidly in the chest. His mail and soft underarmor took the blow with a metallic chink and puff of dust; still it knocked the undead creature onto his back and drove the impaled crossbow bolt completely into the Templar's body. Felix lifted the flail to deliver another blow – unaware the knight in the dark cloak was behind him.
Seven hundred years since, Benoit Lambert rode at the right hand of Francois de Raiis and, as Christ's intercessor, at the right hand of God. He carried the golden cross standard as a symbol of devotion to their holy mission. Now he dropped the same wooden pole over Felix, a gnarled hand on either side of his head, and yanked it back against his throat; choking him. Felix dropped the flail and grabbed the pole. As they struggled the standard snapped in half. The upper portion, baring the cross, clattered to the courtyard stones while the Templar adjusted quickly and continued to strangle Felix with the lower half.
Eve had risen to her knees and was crawling away when she froze in terror. The knight Felix had knocked down was back on his feet and standing over her. With fury in his red eyes, he tore his own rotted mantle and pulled it aside, exposing the gray stretched skin on his chest. He clawed into the dried and rotted flesh and tore it open. He howled, a hair-raising sound, grabbed something inside his chest and pulled it out. Triumphantly, the Templar held up the crossbow bolt. He threw it down and, again, grabbed the screaming Eve. The knight sank his teeth into her throat.
Felix was all but unconscious. The dark cloaked Templar released him and let him fall. Then he bent over Felix, lifted him in his boney grip, and drew him to his mouth.
Brandy, on the run, scooped the broken standard from the ground, turned the golden cross in her hands and rammed the snapped end of the pole through the knight's back. The wooden shaft passed through what once had been the chaplain's beating heart and burst from his chest and tunic in the front. The Templar roared and released Felix. He stood – impaled - with the wooden shaft protruding from his chest and the Templar cross jutting behind.
Brandy shook Felix awake. Then, with his help, she grabbed the rotted cloak of the Templar biting Eve. They pulled him away; the red-head's blood pouring from his mouth, running down his lips and chin. They threw the Templar onto his back, scooped up Felix's girl and dragged her toward the chapel.
The dark cloaked Templar struggled to his feet. He angrily hissed at the shaft protruding from his chest and fought, with little success, to reach the cross sticking from his back.
With Eve on his shoulder, Felix tripped on the chapel steps, falling. Brandy, on her other side, had no option but to fall with them.
“Father!” she screamed to Trevelyan – behind.
The priest, satchel in one hand, flash
light in the other, came to their rescue. He lifted Felix and Brandy, they lifted Eve. Beyond them, Trevelyan saw Ray coming from the courtyard with the Templars' leader, sword raised, fast after him. “Ray, behind you!” the priest shouted. He threw the American the torch.
Ray caught the flashlight, turned and blocked a strike as the Templar brought his sword down mightily. The flashlight rang like a bell. The blow sent a vibration zinging up Ray's arm and the force spun him. As he came round, Ray drove the obscenely dented light across the knight's skull with a boney crack.
Aimee was suddenly there, holding the chapel door open. Brandy and Trevelyan, dragging Eve, raced past the reporter. Ray hoisted Felix up the steps and pushed him safely over the threshold. He waved Aimee in, followed her, and helped shove the chapel door closed against the headlong rush of the dark knights.
Five
They were seven breathless, terrified people in the dark.
Ray heard the latch fall into place and felt for it making sure. Still holding the dented flashlight, he leaned back, bracing the door and letting it brace him. Among the group he heard crying, gasps for breath, incomprehensible bits of French, a whimper of pain and a whispered prayer. Outside, he heard the somber, blasphemous chanting of the Templar knights.
“She needs to lie down.”
Ray's flashlight, miraculously operable, stabbed the darkness with a horizontal shaft of light. “Dear me!” Trevelyan howled, trying to cover his eyes with his free hand while still holding up his share of Eve. Ray apologized for blinding the priest, aimed the light up and cast the vestibule, overstuffed as a midtown elevator, in a gray gloom. Trevelyan nodded at Eve and repeated, “She needs room to lie down.” Brandy agreed and pointed into the dark chapel. The injured girl merely moaned.
Then Aimee startled them all, screaming, “What are you…?”
She pointed past Brandy into the chapel. There in a pool of moonlight filtered through two stained-glass windows in the high south wall was the figure of a man. Ray shown the flashlight past them. As their eyes adjusted each breathed a sigh of relief. It was Loup standing alone in the dark.
“You frightened us,” Aimee complained.
Loup made no reaction.
“Felix,” Brandy called, passing Eve to him. “Here, help Father.” With a hand on each, she guided Trevelyan and Felix from the vestibule into the chapel. Her goal was a place to lay Eve down and the going was slow. The darkness along the sides of the chapel was all encompassing; Eve's pained moans and the labored breathing of those carrying her only added to the eeriness.
To the left of the door, along the western wall, they found a table all agreed would serve as a bed. Felix rolled his coat into a pillow and they laid Eve down.
“We need light.”
On the day she lost Vicki, Brandy had stood not ten feet from that spot on a chapel tour so unsatisfying she'd committed little of it to memory. She closed her eyes now to concentrate. They'd entered the vestibule and filed into the back of the chapel. Ropes, like the cattle lines in a bank, prevented their forward progress. Thus corralled, they listened to another of Felix's by-rote speeches (mercifully short). When it ended, they were ushered back out again. Any half-hearted book on the subject, Brandy remembered thinking, would have shown as much and told more without the expense of a trip to France.
No matter, the trip down memory lane helped; there were candles. She found the rope line, pulled it out of the way, and crossed the expanse toward the front of the chapel. She passed Loup still frozen and trembling in the moonlight, found and pulled down a second set of ropes, and reached the altar. There in the dark, she located one of several candelabra. She dug a lighter from her bag and lit the candles. A yellow glow pushed back the gloom.
Brandy pocketed a handful of unlit candles and returned, delivering some to Felix and the Father. No sooner was their corner lit than they heard shouting in the vestibule. In her zeal to help with Eve, Brandy had forgotten Ray.
She found him and Aimee, in the dark, bracing the door. The Templars, still chanting, were bearing down, banging and pushing to get in. Brandy's candle threw stark shadows that revealed empty brackets on the door's inside frame. There was a locking bar somewhere. She found it in a tiny closet and a delighted Ray helped her slide it home securing the door, at least for the moment, from the onslaught.
Ray's body ached before. Now he flexed his hands just trying to get the blood… He paused as a thought suddenly occurred. “We had better…”
“…check the building,” Brandy said, finishing his sentence. She retrieved her light from the table and offered her last unlit candle to Ray. He passed, opting for his cock-eyed flashlight. “For looking round corners,” he explained.
She headed back into the chapel, calling, “Spread out! Check the building.”
Her candelabrum flickered by the distant altar. A tiny pool of light glowed in the corner where Felix and the priest tended to Eve. Brandy's candle gave her and Aimee light. Beyond these the chapel lay in darkness.
“Brandy,” Aimee stammered, trembling. “I am afraid of the dark.”
“I know how you feel.” Brandy said. “Tell you what, later on you and I will be girls, okay? We'll just sit and we'll cry. But right now we have to get the building secure before those things find another way in.”
She lit her last unclaimed candle, shoved it into Aimee's hands and started for Eve's corner. Aimee hurried after her.
Ray shook his head. He understood Brandy but felt for Aimee. The chanting and thumping grew louder outside as the Templars hammered and hacked. Ray returned his attention to the entrance, ran the flashlight across the inside of the barred door - hoping it would hold.
The bite was high on Eve's shoulder and, thankfully, had missed the major veins and arteries. That said, a sizable chunk of flesh had been avulsed and her bleeding to death remained a possibility. Not to mention the risk of God only knew what kinds of infectious diseases. Felix tamped the wound with a pocket handkerchief, under Father Trevelyan's supportive gaze, as Brandy and Aimee passed.
“That needs to be cleaned, Felix,” Brandy said. She handed him a plastic First Aid kit from her bag.
“Oui…” He fumbled opening the kit and the priest relieved him of it. Felix, near panic, was having difficulty arranging his thoughts.
“Have you any water?”
“There is a kitchen, I think,” Trevelyan put in. “Felix, we need water for Eve. There is a kitchen here? Or water?”
“Oui. Yes.” He pointed to the north wall. Brandy's candle revealed a door – and more darkness. She led Aimee through.
It was an ambulatory hallway that, in candlelight, had the cramped feel of a tunnel. Aimee's frozen grip was alarming and Brandy felt her tremble as they made their way through the gloom. They passed a door on the left, an alcove with stairs heading up and, beyond that, a second door. At the end of the hall stood a final black and gaping doorway.
“That should be the kitchen,” Brandy said. “See if you can find water? And secure any windows or doors that aren't secure. I'm going to make sure of these rooms.”
There was terror in the reporter's eyes. Brandy squeezed her hand, nodded and turned back down the hall. Aimee lifted her candle and crept toward the open doorway.
Felix packed a new bandage over the already blood-soaked one at Eve's throat and, crying softly, whispered that he loved her. Trevelyan turned away to catch his breath. He saw Brandy and Aimee's candlelit shadows dancing on the walls of the ambulatory hall and reaching into the chapel through a door by the sanctuary. The priest's gooseflesh popped as, in the glow, he also saw a figure by the altar.
A second glance showed it was Loup. He'd finally moved and now sat on the sanctuary steps, like a cathedral gargoyle, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking rhythmically. The girls passed the door, their light vanished down the hall with them, and Loup was again swallowed by darkness.
Trevelyan was no friend of Fournier's chief henchman. Still, at that moment, Loup was a lone sole a
nd despite his personal feelings the priest felt his duty. Eve was in good hands. He had an obligation to the others.
“If you're all right, Felix,” Trevelyan said, “I'm going to see where I can help.”
“Mr. Wimund?” The priest stood by the sanctuary steps, candle in hand, looking down on the unresponsive Loup; still sitting, gently rocking, in a world of his own. “Loup?”
Nothing. Trevelyan hesitated; feeling he'd failed. But he'd given it his best. For the moment, there was nothing further to be done.
The sound of hammering took Trevelyan into the ambulatory and to an open door across the hall. In the room, crowded with tools and building materials, Brandy worked by candlelight securing the only window with a sheet of plywood.
“My heavens,” Trevelyan exclaimed. “Let me help you!”
“I've got it,” Brandy assured him. “If you'd like to help,” she pointed with the hammer. “Aimee's down the hall somewhere. Make sure she's…”
A tremendous bang sounded. Brandy and Trevelyan jumped. Somewhere in the dark, Aimee screamed.
Six
Moments earlier, Aimee found the dirty little kitchen Felix spoke of at the end of the ambulatory. It was small, her candle lit all but its corners, and rustic but not as old as the chapel. It had evidently been added on.
To her right, cupboards, a worn countertop, and cabinets filled the far wall. A large window occupied the one opposite the door. Aimee checked and found its wooden shutters secure. An island rose off-center from the floor; a small counter with an inset metal tub built under a hand operated well pump. Its prominent, but odd, position suggested the kitchen may have been built around it. Odd or not, Aimee hoped the old thing worked. She was looking for a vessel to carry water when a thunderous bang scared the living hell out of her.
The Devil's Bed Page 17
