The Templar Chronicles Omnibus

by Joseph Nassise

  “Slave and servant, lord and master,” he gasped, the surge of power forcing him to his knees, the pain all but unbearable. He could feel his flesh rippling on his frame, felt as if a thousand cockroaches were squirming there beneath his skin. His eyes bulged and he was convinced that at any moment his skull would burst from the energy flaring out of his form, but he continued the chant nonetheless, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that to stop now would be the death of him. “With these words I take your freedom and force your service, here and now and ever after.”

  As the energy left him, Riley crashed forward onto the floor, his whole body convulsing with the release of all that power. He kept his gaze on the angel however and so he saw what happened next.

  No sooner had the final word left his mouth that the angel’s dive was arrested and it crashed in a heap less than a foot from where Riley now lay.

  “Holy crap!” Riley gasped, the fear striking him belatedly, making his whole body shake and shiver. He turned to one side and vomited, so acutely did he recognize how close he’d just come to dying.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  Gabrielle had warned him that the binding was only temporary, that without the usual level of arcane talent needed to maintain it, his control of the angel would depend on many things; his faith in his own abilities, how strong the angel actual was, the conditions when the binding was cast. All of which practically shouted to Riley that he and the rest of Echo had to get the hell out of there as fast as humanely possible. As he pushed himself painfully upright and turned to face the others, he was already mapping out the path they would take back down to the monorail tunnel and out into the desert proper.

  Except the knight commander had other ideas.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Cade strode past Riley and walked up to Baraquel. Without breaking stride he began to kick the creature where it lay, over and over and over again, never once making a sound.

  At least two, possibly three, of his men were dead, more were injured, and this thing had been the cause of it, just as the Adversary had been the cause of his wife’s demise. He hated these damnable creatures with a passion born on personal sacrifice and pain. After this mission the stakes, and Cade’s personal regrets, had grown even higher.

  “Leave him, Cade! We’ve got to go!”

  Cade ignored his executive officer; there was information to be had here and Cade wouldn’t leave until he had it in his grasp.

  Stopping his tantrum, he reached down and flipped Baraquel over on his back. The angel stayed where he was, unable to do anything, not even wiggle a feather, until Riley ordered him to do so.

  Cade leaned in close, looking the so-called Lord of Eden in the eye. “You slaughtered the people here, the very ones who brought you back into existence. I want to know why.”

  The angel ignored him.

  “Tell him what he wants to know, Baraquel,” Riley ordered, figuring the sooner they got out of here they better.

  But the angel ignored him, refusing to respond.

  That’s not good, Riley thought. Was he losing control already?

  Cade drew his sword. “You will tell me what I want to know, or I will force you to do so.”

  Baraquel sneered. “You don’t have the strength to harm me,” Baraquel said mockingly, the light of challenge in his eyes.

  But Cade had been studying angelic lore for years now, searching for that tiny scrap of information that might lead him to the Adversary, might bring him face to face with the abomination that had killed his lovely wife and scarred him body and soul. He had learned a few things during that process and he dragged one of them out now into the light.

  The wings were the key.

  “So you say. But what happens when I hack off those wings with the edge of a weapon blessed at High Mass by the Lord’s representative here on Earth? What of your power then? And what’s to keep me from going onward from there?”

  The heart of an angel’s power was in its wings and removing them would render the angel practically helpless. Cade prodded the paralyzed creature with the edge of his weapon, poking the relevant body parts as he named them aloud. “What will you do when I hack off an arm? Or a leg? Or a hand or foot? Will you be fit for heavenly service then, Baraquel?”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  In reply Cade kicked the creature over onto its stomach. He planted one foot on the center of its spine and grasped the edge of a wing in his left hand. Raising his sword up over his right, he prepared to bring it slashing down on the exposed flesh where the wing grew out of its back.

  “Wait! Wait!” Baraquel shrieked, fear in its voice for the first time.

  Cade ignored it. He’d had enough, he’d decided, and he no longer really cared why the creature had done what it had. Vargas’ people were dead and so were his own men. It was time for retribution and righteousness.

  Taking a firmer grip on the creature’s wing, Cade brought his sword slashing down toward it.

  “I know about your wife! I can tell you about your enemy, the one you call the Adversary.”

  Cade’s sword point skittered across the floor an inch from the angel’s neck. Dropping its wing and grabbing the creature by the hair, he hauled its head up off the ground so he could see its face. Cade said, “What?”

  “I will tell you everything you want to know about your enemy. All you’ve got to do is let me go.”

  “I’ll carve you into a hundred pieces if you don’t tell me!” Cade growled.

  But Baraquel had found his weak spot and he knew Cade was bluffing. “No, you won’t. If you do, you’ll never get the information you need. It could take years for you to find it on your own.”

  Cade slammed its head down into the floor and stepped away, his rage in full bloom but knowing he couldn’t lose control.

  Riley rushed over and grabbed his arm. “Cade, that binding is only temporary! I don’t know how much longer it will hold. He already won’t follow my commands; it can’t be much longer until he is free to move again. We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “How did you learn to do that?” Cade asked. In all the years they’d been together, he’d never known Riley to be anything but leery about the use of magick of any kind.

  Riley glanced away, letting go of Cade as he did so. “It doesn’t matter now. We’ve got to get out of here while we still can.”

  But Cade would have none of it. “Tell me, damn it!” he shouted, grabbing Riley and forcing him to face him once more.

  The big master sergeant held up his hands, showing he wasn’t a threat, and sighed. “It’s complicated, boss.”

  “Then you’d best get started before that thing over there,” he pointed at Baraquel, “gets up again.”

  Riley glanced at the angel, the fear plain on his face. He began talking, trying to get the story out as quickly and as coherently as possible, given the circumstance. “Earlier, after Davis stabbed that thing with his sword, it called down an incredible amount of power and sent all of us, the entire Echo Team, into the Beyond.” Riley explained how Cade had been injured, how they’d gotten lost in the endless tunnels, and how they had only healed him with outside help. “Your wife, Gabrielle, appeared, ordered us to take her to you. With her help Duncan was able to heal your injury.”

  “Gabbi? Gabbi was there?” Cade’s rage fled. Now he felt confused, hurt. She had appeared to the others, but wouldn’t appear to him?

  “She said you were in danger of dying, that she could come to you only when your life was in mortal danger. She also gave me a message for you.”

  Cade looked at him and Riley could see the hope shining in his eyes.

  “She said to tell you that you could ’find her across the Sea of Lamentations, on the Isle of Sorrows where the earth weeps beneath the tear in the sky.’ And she made me promise to tell you that looking for her was exactly what the Adversary wants you to do. Now can we go now?”

  “Not yet. Get everyone ready to move out.”

  Ig
noring Riley’s growing nervousness, and the stares of his surviving men, Cade stalked back over to Baraquel. “All right, you son of a bitch,” he said, holding up his sword in front of him so he could swear on the cross built into the shape of the hilt. “I give you my word before God that I will personally not harm you further, provided you tell me what I want to know.”

  “And your men?” Baraquel asked slyly.

  “My men, too. They will allow you to go free upon my orders.”

  “Sworn and done!” The angel laughed, its face creasing into a wide grin, and it was a horrible sight to behold.

  “Tell me about the Sea of Lamentations. And the Adversary.”

  “The Sea lies at the heart of the place you call the Beyond. Its waters are poisonous to the living and its depths contain the souls of the dead, those who either have refused or are unable to travel onward to the other side. The angel Asherael, the one you know as the Adversary, makes his home on an island in the middle of the Sea.”

  Baraquel’s left wing twitched and Cade knew he didn’t have much time left. “What is his weakness? How can he be killed?”

  “A man of God, talking of killing? How distressing!” the angel joked, but answered the questions nonetheless. “There is a city there, the City of Despair, and within its boundaries Asherael is vulnerable. To destroy him, you will have to face him on his own ground.”

  As Cade watched, the angel moved its head back and forth, as if stretching its muscles. “You have vowed not to harm me,” it said, its grin growing wider in anticipation of the slaughter to come. “But I have not done the same. I’ve answered your questions, absorbed your abuse. Now it is my turn to have a little fun.”

  Echo’s commander stepped back, out of reach, as the angel’s hand snapped shut and then opened again. The binding was failing; Baraquel would be free in a matter of moments.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Riley shouted from the doorway.

  But Cade had one more card up his sleeve to play. He had sworn that neither he nor his men would harm the renegade angel directly, but that did not mean there weren’t others who might be willing to do the job for them. It was a calculated risk, and a huge one at that, but Cade was willing to take that chance.

  “Go!” he shouted to his teammates and then turned away, not looking to see if they obeyed. Time was at a premium and he needed every second he had left.

  An understanding of an angel’s vulnerability was not the only thing he had learned in his years of research. Opening up his heart and raising his hands to heaven, Cade bowed his head and called out in a language that hadn’t been spoken on earth in centuries.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Baraquel heard what he was saying and began to twist and squirm; doing everything he could to free himself from the last remaining traces of Riley’s binding. Standing nearby, Cade repeated his call.

  It started softly, slowly, a gentle hum that rose in the air around him, forcing him to listen closely to be certain he was hearing it. It grew steadily louder, the pitch rising, until it filled the room around them and made Cade want to cover his ears to escape it.

  And still it grew, rising in volume, until the very sound buffeted Cade where he knelt on the floor.

  “Do you remember what a group of angels is called, Baraquel?” He had to shout to be heard over the rising shriek filling the air around them, growing louder and stronger with every passing second. “A scream. A group of angels is called a scream.” The sound built and built and built again, rising higher and higher, louder and more piercing until it forced Cade to his knees. Behind him, having ignored his order to leave, the men of Echo collapsed on the ground as well, their hands over their ears as they tried to block out the rising wail.

  Silence fell and in the suddenness of its arrival, they were there. Seven of them, seven being the perfect number, seven bright and shining forms, so full of God’s glory that they were difficult to look upon, their very presence overwhelming to the senses. The men of Echo squeezed their eyes shut, unable and unwilling to look upon the face of such glory.

  All but Cade.

  They had come when he’d called, had answered a man who until recently had sworn that he would no longer worship a God that let his beloved bride die in so horrible a manner. They had heard and responded to the true voice of his heart, the voice that knew that no matter what sins he had committed in the past or what might happen to him and his companions in this midst of this confrontation, this evil could not be allowed to walk amongst men, could not be allowed to work its twisted hopes and dreams on a populace that reacted as little more than sheep when faced with such danger.

  They had come and he understood instinctively that it was his duty to watch and record what happened here today, to keep the record straight for any and all who might have need of it in the future.

  Baraquel shrieked his rage and fury at the appearance of his former brethren and at last the binding that had held him was gone. He had time only to rise up onto his taloned feet and then the seven fell upon him en-masse.

  The renegade did not last very long after that.

  When it was over, the men of Echo were left alone in the room. Of the angels, and their fallen brother, there was no sign.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The men of Echo made their way back through the complex to the train station and then retraced their steps along the tunnel to the exit beneath the motor pool. There, exhausted, beaten and torn, the survivors at last emerged into the open air.

  It had been only three days since they had entered Eden.

  For most of them, it felt like three weeks.

  The dark funnel cloud that had covered the base was gone. The sky above was clear and cloudless, a bright vibrant blue that seemed almost artificial after all the time they had spent in the dim lighting of the base and the grey landscape of the Beyond. The two HWMMVs were still outside the building, right where the team had left them days before, but Cade couldn’t be certain that Baraquel hadn’t interfered with them in any way and so he ordered that they remain untouched until a technical team could be brought in to check them out.

  Which meant Echo was going to have to hoof it out on foot.

  They all wanted to put as much distance between them and Eden as possible and so no one hesitated when Cade gave the order to move out. Duncan and Chen had both suffered burns to their hands and faces, so Riley and Davis carried their gear. Olsen kept a sharp eye on Cade, just in case the commander’s injuries got the better of him again. Their exit was far less dramatic than their entrance; when they come in, they’d done so as a well-organized military force, confident in their abilities to face whatever was before them, riding their modern chariots of steel and chrome, but as they left Eden behind, they looked more like a ragtag group of refugees than the trained military unit that they in fact were.

  While the mission was a success, it had cost them dearly. Along with the ten men of 3rd Platoon, Echo had lost two of its own, Callavecchio and Ortega. Never mind the unknown number of staff members and scientists that Vargas had led to their doom by launching the Eden Project in the first place. Yet Cade was not unsatisfied. Good men had lost their lives, yes, but they had done so in the name of a worthy cause and their sacrifice had not been in vain. Cade was willing to trade ten men’s lives, a hundred, maybe more, if it meant keeping one of the Fallen from walking the earth.

  As they moved down the main street, past the crumbling administrative buildings and housing units, Cade was able to make radio contact with Captain Mason, who seemed overjoyed to hear from him. He gave Mason an abbreviated sit-rep, let him know that they had wounded with them, and asked that his medical personnel be ready to receive them when they arrived back at the staging area sometime in the next half hour.

  Mason did them one better, sending a pair of SUVs to pick them up just outside the gates and was waiting for them on the steps of the command center when they arrived. On seeing the condition of the unit, he came down and personally lent a hand
in helping Cade out of the vehicle.

  “Praise God,” he said, a smile on his face. “We’d all but given you up for dead.”

  Cade winced in pain, but refrained from mentioning how close they’d really come.

  Mason must have read something in his expression, however, for he leaned in and asked, “Is it over?” His voice was steady but his eyes betrayed his concern.

  Cade nodded. “Yes,” he said wearily. “It’s done.”

  “My men?”

  Cade shook his head. “I brought their rings out with me and should be able to direct you to their remains, but there was nothing we could do. They were dead long before we arrived.” He intentionally refrained from telling the captain about the way the bodies had been used by Baraquel; that could wait until later at the full debriefing. There was no need to bring it up now.

  Mason seemed to understand there was more to the story than what was being said but he was content to let it go until later and for that Cade was grateful. What he needed now more than anything else was a hot meal and a cup of coffee.

  But as he turned to join his men, his thoughts were already drifting to the clues the fallen angel had given to him.

  The Sea of Lamentations.

  The Isle of Sorrows.

  The City of Despair.

  A grim smile crossed his face.

  At last he had a destination and he would not be long in seeking it out.

  EPILOGUE

  One week later.

  Cade was in the midst of unbolting the shattered mirror from the floor of his workshop when the radio on the table next to him sputtered and then quietly died. For a moment the sound of the birds singing in the trees outside could be heard through the open door and then that, too, was abruptly cut off.

  Everything was still.

  Cade felt a grim chill wash over him and he glanced across the room to where his sword case rested on its shelf.

  Somehow he knew he’d never make it in time.