CHAPTER NINE
Darkness.
A sense of gentle languidness, like a leaf floating in the water, waiting for what was to come next, whatever that might be.
Peace.
Acceptance.
Nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear.
Something cold pressed against his lips and the edge of a glass bumped his lips.
Drink this, a voice says, drink.
Now rest.
Rest.
Cade pulled his hand away, breaking the connection before following the man’s last moments too deeply. It was clear that the victim had not had any idea what was going on in the moments before his death, which made Cade suspect that the victim had been drugged, perhaps even poisoned. There was definitely no doubt that the victim hadn’t been conscious, perhaps not even alive, for the final coup-de-grace.
Cade stood, pulling his glove back on as he did so. He was standing there, staring down at the body, thinking, when Riley walked over.
“Well?”
Cade gestured at the corpse at their feet. “He was dead before they slit his throat. My guess is that others were as well.”
Now it was Riley’s turn to frown. “What’s the point of that?”
“That’s just it; there isn’t one. You can’t use corpses to power a summoning or any other kind of major ritual that I know of; even a necromancer – especially a necromancer – needs a living sacrifice.”
While Riley was thinking that over, Cade turned and looked across the room at the corpse still hanging in the frame. The only corpse with blood cascaded across its chest. The one his Sight had shown still pulling forth residual power from the bodies in formation around it.
Could that be...
Cade abruptly strode over to the sixth and final corpse. Like all the others, this victim was male and relatively young but was stripped nude where the others were still dressed. The reason for the difference was obvious in the hundreds, if not thousands, of slashes cut into his bare flesh. The others might have died peacefully but this one...this one had died very slowly and had no doubt been aware for much, if not all, of it.
A wave of blood had splashed across his chest and dried at some point before their arrival, suggesting that the killing blow had been struck after the victim had been placed on the rack and not before.
The man’s head hung forward on his chest and his long hair obscured his face and neck. Cade reached up and gently pushed the man’s head back, wanting to see the wound that had killed him, only to jump back in stunned amazement.
Riley must have seen Cade’s reaction, for he was suddenly there at his side, his HK Mark 23 pistol in hand pointing at the man on the rack. The Templars knew all too well that just because the target was dead didn’t mean that it was no longer dangerous.
“I’m good, I’m good,” Cade said quickly, holding up his hands in a calming gesture. “Just surprised, that’s all.”
Riley nodded. A bit sheepishly, in fact. “Probably should have warned you about that, huh?”
Cade glared at him. “You think? No harm done.”
The former Knight Commander reached up and lifted the man’s head back up a second time, taking a good look at what awaited him there.
Someone had taken a blowtorch to the right side of the man’s face, torching his eye socket and the flesh surrounding it in a savage attack that led from the man’s eye socket around to behind his ear...
Almost subconsciously Cade reached up and ran his fingers along his own stretch of scar tissue.
The Necromancer was mocking him.
That was the reason for all this; the dead victims, the false ceremony, even the lights shining on the dead man in front of him like some kind of museum display. The Necromancer had wanted him to find this place. Find this body.
But why?
Cade gently lowered the man’s head back down and stepped back, trying to put aside his emotion and view the body dispassionately again. The man was about his height and weight, though younger, and had his face disfigured to match Cade’s own. From all appearances a proxy for Cade himself.
He’d been handcuffed to a metal frame that held him suspended and on display while the lights shining upon him illuminated his torture and suffering for all to see.
So where had he seen something like this before?
It only took him a moment to come up with the answer. Death by a thousand cuts, or death by slow slicing, was an old Chinese method of execution that had been outlawed around the turn of the twentieth century. The victim was strung up in a public place, stripped of his clothes, and then cut with a sharp knife until dead. It was a hideous punishment and one that was reserved for what the Chinese had considered rather severe crimes, such as treason or killing one’s own parents. It was also used as a lesson of deterrence for others who might be considering the same. The victim would suffer a long time before dying and most importantly, would be aware of their pain for most, if not all, of their suffering.
Cade didn’t like the implications that the tableau spread before him was making. If he was reading the signs correctly, it meant that he was going to suffer harshly and publically for some sin he had committed against the Necromancer in the past. Nor did it take much to figure out what that sin might be. Cade was, after all, instrumental in capturing Logan. If he hadn’t done so, then Logan never would have been imprisoned.
Was the Necromancer threatening to execute him in such a fashion? Was that what this was – a warning of some kind? And what about that weird flow of power between the corpses? What was the story with that?
There seemed to be more questions than answers here and Cade didn’t like it.
He needed more information.
Thankfully, he had a way to get it.
Cade stripped his glove off again, tried to find a spot that wasn’t covered in blood on the man’s body, and was finally forced to select the top of the man’s head as the only reasonable place to use. He braced himself for what he was certain to be nearly overwhelming pain and then reached out and put his hand atop the man’s head like a benediction.
Darkness, and then...
More darkness. Complete, utter darkness, darkness that surrounded him and held him in place as securely as iron shackles and chains, darkness that he could feel but not see, taste but not touch, like an invisible presence that had swallowed him whole and now refused to let him go free. Darkness like a malignant, living thing. Darkness like the rot at the center of the Necromancer’s soul.
And then a voice from the depths of that darkness.
A voice he recognized all too well.
“Hello, Cade.”
Logan.
“What’s the matter? Demon got your tongue?”
Cade tried to pull free, to return to the living world around him, to break the link with the dead that his Gift had created, only to find that he no longer had a reference for doing so. How do you push when there is nothing for you to push against? How do you break yourself free when there is nothing and no body with which to do it in the first place?
“Did you think we were finished, you and I? Did you think I would forget what you had done?”
What I had done? Cade tried to shout back, only to discover that he couldn’t do that either, shout that is, for he had no lungs with which to give the statement voice.
He was in trouble and he knew it.
“You meddled where you did not belong, Templar, and took from me something of value. Now, I shall do the same in return.”
Cade tried to ignore the Necromancer’s mocking voice, tried to shut out that horrid laugh, and concentrate on the task before him. He understood now that the power the Necromancer had gathered with his ritual had not been intended to summon anything at all, but had instead been used to build the cage he now found himself in. A cage in which he would remain lest he marshall the strength necessary to break free.
But as he mentally pushed and pulled and did everything he could to find a way free of the metaphysical c
hains that bound him, he found himself growing weaker. Found the chains that held him growing stronger. Slowly, bit by bit, he began to lose himself to the nothingness that surrounded him.
He might have stayed there, might have truly fallen victim to the trap that the Necromancer had set for him if his opponent had been content to leave it at that.
Fortunately for Cade, Logan had to gloat and in doing so gave Cade the key to his prison.
“Know this, Templar. While you struggle to escape the prison cell I have constructed for you, I will be taking from you that which you admire most. And I shall not be as lenient as the Adversary has been.”
The Necromancer’s words cut like a knife through Cade’s growing confusion. They gave him the focus he needed, the rock upon which to mount his defense, and he gathered the pieces of himself back together. With one great incoherent shout of rage, he flung himself back from the precipice...
Cade stumbled away from the corpse, his heart sick with fear. He knew what the Necromancer wanted, knew he’d been played the fool and if he didn’t do something about it quickly he was likely to regret it for the rest of his life.
Hands were on him, holding him, and he shoved them violently away, looking up only long enough to see the pain and confusion on Riley’s face as Cade went reeling away from him in surprise as Cade’s shove caused him to lose his balance and fall to the floor.
Cade barely noticed, his attention solely on getting out of there as fast as he could.
Gabbi! his mind screamed and he had to clamp his mouth shut with iron determination to keep from echoing that cry aloud. If he gave voice to it there would be questions and he would not betray the fact of her resurrection like that. Not yet. Not without him there to protect her.
If she even survived that long.
With his heart in his throat and fear in his eyes, Cade Williams charged passed the bewildered Templars and headed for the door.
Behind him, he heard Riley cry out, “Cade! Wait!” but Cade ignored him.
He had little enough time as it was.
As Cade rushed out of the warehouse, his gaze fell upon the three SUVs parked in the lot and the soldier from 2nd Squad who stood near them. Cade didn’t waste any time, just ran to the man’s side.
“Give me the keys,” he demanded.
The guard took a step back, confused. “What? Why do you want the keys?”
Cade didn’t hesitate, just threw a blistering right that connected cleanly with the man’s chin. The soldier’s head snapped back with the sound of a mallet striking a watermelon and he want down like a sack of cement. Cade bent, searched through the man’s pockets, and came out with the keys. As he straightened, he heard Riley shout from behind him.
“Cade! What are you doing?”
Without even a glance back, Cade threw himself into the vehicle, started the engine, and stomped the accelerator. The SUV surged forward, narrowly missing the men Riley had sent to block the gate, and raced off into the night.
CHAPTER TEN
The Necromancer stood at the end of the long drive, staring up its length at the little house set back from the road and nestled among the oak trees.
Inside that house was the prize he’d come to here to claim, the prize he needed in order to carry out the grand plan he had conceived during his last few months in captivity. Without it he would fail. But with it...ah, with it, he would soon regain what he had lost when the Templars had broken the power of his Circle and murdered his followers.
All he had to do was seize it.
Hours before he’d traded his prison jumpsuit for comfortable clothes and the long, hooded robe that he preferred to wear to keep his disfigured face hidden from view. Now, as he raised his hands and hooded face to the sky above and began chanting, he looked like some Hollywood version of a medieval monk, casting benedictions over his flock.
The air around him went still, as if Nature itself understood there was a power to be reckoned with within her midst, and the temperature seemed to drop an extra ten degrees, making the cold night even colder.
The Necromancer did not notice the cold, so intent was he on the power he was summoning.
His chant dipped and swayed as words that had not been spoken on this world for thousands of years fell from his lips with perfect inflection and tone, calling out to those whose assistance he needed.
On the other side of the Veil, something heard his call.
The ground in front of the Necromancer suddenly split open, as if a hot knife had been drawn deep through its surface. Strange, haunting cries poured out of the rift, cries filled with such sorrow and despair that they would have turned even the hearts of the strongest men to fear, but the Necromancer barely noticed, for pain, suffering and death were the tools by which he plied his trade.
From out of the door the Necromancer had opened, wraith-like forms began to rise. They hovered in the air in front of their Master and waited for him to give the command. Logan did not need to see them directly to know that their faces and bodies would be twisted parodies of the human form; spectres had once been human after all. They shrieked and screamed their hatred and disdain for the living as they burst through the Veil and into this reality and Logan laughed aloud at the hunger that poured from them in waves.
Once he was finished with them, he would set them free to wreak further havoc. That should tie up pursuit long enough to let him get away.
In a very short time there were a dozen or so gathered in front of him, waiting for his commands, and he sent them surging forward toward the house at the end of the drive.
The wards protecting Cade’s property had been specifically designed to keep out anything with the taint of the unholy and the spectres surging forward across the front lawn certainly fit the bill. Power flared as they reached the barrier and for one long moment the Necromancer could actually see the shimmering curtain of power that extended around and over the property, a giant dome of protection erected to safeguard the one who lay within.
With his target’s position locked firmly in his mind, he was then free to begin his own assault.
The spectres hit the ward with every bit of power at their disposal, crashing into it with the concentrated force of a warhead. Arcane energy spit and crackled like fat on a fire as the ward sought to repel the invaders and for the first few times, it did, indeed, throw them back. But the spectres were thinking, reasoning creatures where the ward was not, and they began to strike it in alternating waves, sapping the magick inherent in the construct without giving it a chance to recharge.
As the strain of continual attacks began to take its toll on the effectiveness of the barrier, the Necromancer at last entered the fray.
Stepping forward, the Necromancer drew power from the rift to the netherworld that still loomed open nearby, binding it with his hands into a twisting, turning ball of energy which he then sent crashing into a point near the base of the ward’s outer shell. No sooner had he released the first blow that he repeated the process, dragging forth more power, bending it to his will and sending it crashing into the same spot he’d struck with the first. Sparks flew and thunder filled the air as the positive power of the ward crashed against the negative force of the strikes.
Eventually, something had to give.
One moment the ward was intact, shrugging off each attempt to breach its integrity, and in the next there was a blinding flash of power and the spectres were charging across the lawn, their sinuous, wraithlike forms slipping through the darkness with impunity.
They smashed through the door and disappeared inside.
A moment later, from somewhere deep in the house, a woman screamed.
The Necromancer smiled, following in their wake.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Riley stared in stunned amazement as the SUV Cade had just stolen shot through the gates, bounced over the curb, and sped off down the street.
Just what the hell was going on?
One minute Cade had been standing there, examining
the body of the poor guy strapped onto the torture rack through the use of his Gift and the next he was dashing across the room, assaulting one of Riley’s people, and disappearing down the street.
Riley didn’t think he was going to forget the look on Cade’s face in the split second after he’d let go of the corpse. Cade had been scared; there was no doubt about that.
If Cade was scared, that usually meant Riley should be terrified.
Just what had he seen?
Riley headed for one of the other vehicles, intent on chasing his former commander down and demanding an explanation, when the sound of a helicopter coming in on fast approach filled the air.
A spotlight stabbed down, illuminating Riley as he stared upward. It stayed on him for a moment and then moved on, dancing over his men and the entrance to the warehouse, before finding and settling on a wide open space about twenty yards away.
What the hell?
Riley put a hand up to shield his eyes and tried to get a look at the chopper itself, hoping it might tell him something about its occupants.
Must be the local police, he thought, but rather than the standard police chopper he could see that the aircraft now coming in for a landing was an executive helicopter, one painted solidly black.
He’d seen that chopper before; was all too familiar with whom it contained.
Cade would have to wait.
Prop wash splashed over him as the chopper began its descent and Riley turned away to shield his face from the bits of flying debris and trash that it kicked up as he walked back toward his men and told them to stand down.
After a few moments the rotors of the helicopter wound down and the door slid open. Two men from the Preceptor’s personal protection detail stepped out and surveyed the scene, then gave the all-clear signal to Preceptor Johannson, who had been waiting inside the aircraft and now stepped out.
Cursing beneath his breath, Riley went to greet him.
Cade sped through the night behind the wheel of the stolen SUV. Every passing second felt like an eternity as he rushed toward his destination, terrified that he would be too late and cursing himself for ever leaving Gabrielle alone in the first place.
Infernal Games (Templar Chronicles Urban Fantasy Series) Page 6
