The time passed slowly. Riley kept alert by constantly changing his focus of attention; first he’d watch the staircase, then the doors to the elevator, then the corridor leading back into fitness area, and so on. Staring at one thing for too long was often what caused more junior soldiers to lull themselves to sleep, Riley had learned, and he had long ago devised little tricks and methods like this to keep that from happening.
Which was why he was focused in the other direction when a sound came out of the darkness of the locker room behind him.
Riley turned, aiming the muzzle of his Mossberg in that direction as he did so, and listened.
Nothing.
Remembering the shadowy form that had escaped from them on the staircase earlier that afternoon, Riley climbed slowly to his feet, his attention locked on the thin shaft of light that shone into the locker room proper from the doorway, his ears straining as he tried to hear it again.
Only silence greeted him.
He had just about convinced himself that he had imagined it when it came again.
The gentle sound of a footfall.
That did it. “Hey Nick, you out there?” Riley whispered into his mike.
The response was immediate, “Yeah?”
“Heard something in the locker room. I’m gonna check it out.”
“Roger that. Touch back in two or I’m gonna call out the troops.
“Sounds good. Riley out.”
He flipped the switch of the light clamped to the barrel of his shotgun and moved cautiously into the locker room proper.
The first portion of the room was devoted to a changing area, U-shaped with a double row of lockers running around the outside edge. He shone the light around, confirming his first impression that the room was empty. Beyond the changing area were a set of shower stalls on both sides which led to a single row of sinks bolted to the rear wall.
Even in the dim light coming from the front entrance, Riley could see that there was someone standing in front of the sinks.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, shining his light directly onto the figure.
The man had his back to Riley, leaning with both of his hands on the sink before him, but Riley could tell it was Cade, could see his scarred face and eye patch in the mirror above the sink. In response to the challenge, Cade glanced up and raised a hand to ward off the light reflecting from the glass but didn’t say anything.
“Sorry, boss,” Riley said, aiming his light at the floor so it wouldn’t be in his commander’s eyes anymore. “Didn’t see come down the hall past me.”
Cade looked back down at the floor. “I came in the other way.”
Riley frowned and then remembered there was another entrance into the locker room from the front of the fitness center; Cade must have used that. The Knight Commander sounded tired; his voice had that same harshness to it that he’d had when he’d first come out of the hospital. “Are you all right?”
Cade didn’t reply.
Riley stood there for another moment, waiting for his answer. When it was clear he wasn’t going to give one, Riley decided he’d best get back to his post.
He turned and walked back toward the entrance to the locker room, keying his mike as he did so. “It’s clear, Olsen,” he said. “Turns out it was just Cade. Guess he couldn’t sleep.” He saw no need to mention his commander’s odd behavior, even to his teammate. Some things were just better left unsaid.
Behind him, in the darkness, Cade said something.
“Hold one,” he said into the mike and turned back to face his commanding officer. “Sorry, say that again.”
“Where did Vargas go?”
He must be more tired than I thought, Riley said to himself, but he answered the question nonetheless. “He’s with the medics at Ravensgate, where we left him.”
His commander seemed to think that one over and then asked, “Will he be returning to Eden?”
Eden? Oh, right. The inscription over the door; the patches on the uniform. “Your guess is as good as mine, boss, but I really doubt it.”
Cade finally looked up, catching Riley’s stare in the surface of the mirror. His good eye seemed to gleam strangely in the dim light and there seemed to be something subtly wrong with his face, but Riley couldn’t quite put his finger on just what it was. Cade’s next question was even stranger than his first few.
“Will you take me to him, then?” he asked.
*** ***
On the other side of the fitness center, Olsen lowered the volume on his radio and turned his attention back to watching the front entrance. Riley seemed to have things under control, so Olsen felt there was no need to wake up the troops. As he had done repeatedly since he’d started his watch, he glanced behind him at the others resting peacefully in the semi-darkness, unconsciously mimicking Riley’s habit, which was how he spotted Cade lying fast asleep on the floor between Davis and Chen.
If Cade’s asleep, then who…
He was up and moving before the thought had fully formed, racing between the rows of fitness equipment for the entrance to the locker room that he knew was against the far wall. Even as he ran he was shouting at the others and trying to raise Riley on the radio without success.
*** ***
Riley stared at his commanding officer, trying to understand the turn the conversation had just taken. Cade’s questions made no sense and just hearing them set Riley’s nerves on edge. Had something happened to the Knight Commander that he wasn’t aware of? Had he been injured at some point? Had his earlier problems caused some damage that they weren’t aware of, that was only coming to the fore now under the pressure of the mission?
He was about to ask if Cade was feeling all right when it finally dawned on him just what it was about the Knight Commander’s face that was bothering him so.
The black eye patch Cade habitually wore was covering his left eye.
But the damage the Adversary had inflicted to his face had been on the right!
“I asked you a question,” the imposter said.
Something in Riley’s face must have given him way, for the imposter suddenly smiled at him and Riley felt his blood run cold at the sight. It was a terrible smile, a smile full of all the horrors of the world rolled up into a single expression, a smile full of families destroyed by death and disease, of abused children and beaten wives, of war and famine and drug abuse and…the list went on.
It was a smile that never should have graced the face of a man.
That smile made everything crystal clear to Riley.
This…thing…was not Cade.
And he, Riley, was in a whole heap of trouble.
For just an instant, the barest flash of an instant, he thought he saw something else standing there, something with taloned feet and great looming wings of tattletale grey, something that filled him with fear and a certain sense of his own puny worthlessness, and then it was gone and only the imposter Cade remained.
The mirror behind the imposter suddenly drew his attention as it went smoke dark and frost formed at its edge. A fog began to billow from deep within its depths, filling the surface with a twisting, churning cloud of grayish white. Even as he watched something swam up out of that fog and a face formed behind the frosted glass, a long gaunt face of winter grey. The face had started out as vaguely human, it seemed, but that’s where the similarity ended. It was as if the Creator had grabbed the creature’s lower jaw with one hand and pulled outward while simultaneously hooking the finger of his other hand through the nasal cavities and wrenching upward, warping the face into a twisted parody of something that might have started out as human and was now anything but. Its oversized mouth gaped wide and he could see that it was filled with multiple rows of different sized teeth. Its nose, little more than holes that seemed to have been gouged into the top of its snout, was mated to eyes of liquid green that glowed with a light of their own in the semi-darkness of the room. Atop its head was a wriggling mass of hair that twisted and turned as if possessed of an int
elligence all its own, reminding Riley of the Greek legend of the Medusa.
Those eyes pinned him to the floor.
It reached an arm forward and Riley watched as the surface of the mirror rippled and then allowed that arm to pass through it without resistance, as if the glass had become as fluid as water. Unsurprisingly, that arm was capped with a foot long sickle-shaped claw instead of a hand.
Riley could only stand and stare as it slowly dragged itself free, clambering over the sink to stand upright on the floor not ten feet from him. Below that face was an equally hideous body; a thick neck and muscular torso that ended in two sets of arms equally equipped with those long scythe-like claws. The thing’s lower torso resembled that of a huge bloated spider, a fat ovoid body from which sprouted six legs covered in some kind of chitinous shell.
The master sergeant had seen many things in his thirteen years with the Order. He’d faced down demons and devils, shape-shifters and sorcerers. He’d been cursed by a voodoo hougan and had felt the cold kiss of the grave when a barrow wight had seized him in its iron grip. He’d long ago come to grips with the fact that there were a good many things out there in the darkness that did not have humanity’s best interests at heart and he had dedicated his life to keep them at bay.
This, he was sure, was one of those things. He had never personally encountered one, but the tomes of the Order’s library contained accounts of those who had. Known for their ferocity and identified by their scythe-like claws, reaper demons were one of those creatures that Riley would have been happy to have gone his entire life without running into, never mind facing in solo combat.
Behind the demon, the surface of the mirror wavered once more and then shot back into solidity with a loud snap.
The sound finally shook Riley free from his paralysis.
His Mossberg swung up, the barrel centering on the reaper’s chest, and Riley pulled the trigger several times in rapid succession. The gunshots were thunderous in the small confines of the room and he had the satisfaction of seeing the demon thrown backward with the force of the impact against the very mirror it had just crawled out of. In the half-light its purple blood looked black as it splashed across the tiles. Without hesitating Riley swung the gun back to his left, intent on pouring several more shots into Cade’s doppelganger, only to have the thing vanish right in front of his eyes before he could even get off a shot.
Nor did he have time to figure out where it went, for even as he watched several of the others mirrors in the room were rapidly going dark.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The boom of Riley’s shotgun reached Olsen’s ears as he skidded to a stop outside the entrance to the locker room. Four shots, in rapid succession, and then silence.
“Riley?” Olsen shouted into the locker room, his back flat against the wall next to the door, but the only response he received was the thunder of another shot being fired somewhere inside.
A glance back at the rest of the unit showed them climbing to their feet, weapons in hand, but none of them would get their quick enough to help. Olsen had to choose; wait for back-up or go in alone and hope he could save Riley.
It really wasn’t any choice at all.
Olsen spun around the corner.
The corridor ahead of him was empty.
He moved swiftly down its length, until he reached the point where the corridor turned right and entered the locker room proper. Flattening himself against the wall again, he double-checked his weapon. The sound of a struggle could be heard in the next room, raising Olsen’s hopes that Riley was still alive, and so he took a deep breath and spun around the corner.
He took in the scene with a single glance.
Riley was on his back on the floor with a six legged monstrosity astride him, the creature’s scythe-like forearms locked in either hand as Riley struggled to keep from getting his head cut off while simultaneously trying to dodge repeated attacks from the creature’s lunging jaws. Around him were the carcasses of three other reaper demons, one of which still twitching with its death throes.
Seeing his teammate standing in the doorway, Riley shouted, “Shoot it, for God’s sake! Shoot it!”
Olsen did.
The bullets tore into the demon’s torso, ripping gaping holes in its flesh. It shrieked in pain and raised its upper body to turn and face him, which was just what Olsen was waiting for. He fired again, driving the creature off of Riley and up against the nearest wall, pinning it there with the sheer impact of the firepower and he didn’t stop until he’d emptied his clip into it and there was little left to recognize.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I will be,” Riley replied, as he climbed to his feet. His uniform was ripped in a several places, but the pads of ballistic armor sewn throughout had done their job and he had only minor injuries. Nothing their medic couldn’t patch up, given five minutes of peace and quiet.
Olsen watched his teammate snag his shotgun from the floor where he had dropped it, but rather than heading for the exit, Riley crossed to the row of mirrors over the sinks. Olsen was about to ask what he was doing when Riley made the question mute by grasping his weapon by the barrel and slamming it butt first into the surface of a mirror. A few seconds was all it took for him to shatter all four of them.
“Don’t tell me,” Olsen said.
“Yep. They came through the mirrors, just like Cade always warned us.”
Any further discussion was cut short when the sound of gunfire coming from the main room reached them.
They took off at a run.
*** ***
Riley skidded to a halt as he and Olsen emerged from the depths of the locker room, trying to process the scene before him. Reaper demons seemed to be everywhere and the rest of Echo had their hands full trying to fight them off. Cade, along with Davis and Chen, had their backs to the glass wall separating the exercise room from the pool. A stack of bodies lay at their feet already and four more demons were doing what they could to advance despite the withering hail of gunfire the three men were sending in their direction. Ortega was helping Duncan to his feet, apparently after dispatching a reaper that had gotten the best of their younger companion. Callavecchio, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.
“Where in heaven did they all come from?” Olsen wondered aloud and it hit Riley like a train wreck. How could he have been so stupid?
“Follow me!” he shouted over the clamour and took off running without waiting to see if his companion was following. There were two locker rooms and that meant two sets of mirrors. He had destroyed the first, but the second…
He just hoped he was in time to prevent any more of them from coming through.
Riley’s path took him diagonally through the center of the room, twisting and turning through the maze of Nautilus machines and other exercise equipment, headed for the dark maw of the entrance to the women’s locker room on the far side. His course took him past the demons threatening Cade and the others. As he passed, he pumped two shots into the back of one of the beasts and was very nearly taken out by a stray shot from one of the other knight’s weapons, but then he had left them behind and reached the entrance to the locker room.
He heard Olsen shouting behind him, telling him to wait, but he plunged inside the entrance without slowing.
Riley took half a dozen steps and then his foot came down on something round in the darkness and he felt himself tumbling forward, out of control. He hit the ground hands first and the shotgun he was carrying went off with a roar, nearly taking his arm off at the shoulder.
Disgusted with himself and with the fact that he’d just lost any opportunity of surprise, Riley glanced at the floor as he climbed back to his feet, curious to see what he had stepped on.
A human hand, severed about half way down the wrist, lay nearby.
Considering the Templar ring on the fourth finger, there was very little doubt as to who the hand had once belonged.
Callavecchio.
Feeling like he’d j
ust been punched in the gut, Riley reached down and picked the hand up, just as Olsen came charging down the hall and caught up with him.
“Is that…”
“Yeah.” Riley stuffed the hand in his pack, knowing it might be the only piece of their friend they would get the chance to bury given the nature of the things they were facing. At least the coffin won’t be empty, he thought, and then turned his attention back to the job at hand.
They came around the corner into the locker room proper, weapons at the ready. Unlike the men’s locker room, with its four sinks and accompanying mirrors, this room had one long mirror that extended the length of the wall and the two men were just in time to see a pair of reaper demons disappearing back through its surface, carrying Callavecchio’s limp body with them.
From the way the man’s head hung half off his shoulders, it was clear that their teammate was beyond assistance.
Now unhindered by concerns over Callavecchio’s fate, Riley didn’t hesitate. With a twitch of his finger he turned the mirror into a shower of shattered glass, preventing the demons from returning along the same path. Behind him he could hear more breaking glass and knew Olsen was doing the same to another mirror elsewhere in the locker room.
By the time the two men re-emerged into the main area, their teammates had dispatched the rest of their foes.
Echo had survived their first attack, but not without casualties.
It didn’t bode well for the hours ahead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Commander Williams’ self-imposed deadline had come and gone. Convinced that the men of Echo had met an untimely demise, Mason had no choice but to move on to the next phase of the plan that he and the commander had agreed upon before the other’s departure.
He gave the necessary orders and fifteen minutes later all five of his squads were suited up and assembled outside the command center, ready for action. He intended to lead them into the base himself, descending into the tunnels that Echo had uncovered below, and mount a frontal assault on whatever they found there. Summaries of what they had discovered were already on their way to headquarters by high speed courier, so in the event they failed the next unit wouldn’t have to start over from the beginning, but Mason was convinced that if he waited any longer whatever it was inside that base would only grow stronger and that was a chance he couldn’t afford to take.
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