Riley came hustling out the diner’s front door moments later and practically ran for his truck. Cade watched him pull out of the parking lot, then started his own vehicle and followed at a discreet distance.
Sure is in an awful hurry to deal with a bunch of boggarts, Cade thought to himself in amusement. Then again, he could afford to be amused because he’d known Riley was lying the moment he’d mentioned Father Corrigan. Cade had spoken to the man just yesterday and he’d made no mention of having any difficulties of any kind, never mind an infestation of angry little sprites. Riley had been trying to get rid of him, which was a very un-Riley-like thing to do, and Cade wanted to know why.
Cade followed him through town and then north for twenty minutes along state route 7. When Riley turned off onto Huntington Drive, a smaller two lane road with little traffic, Cade hung back, not wanting to give himself away given the scarcity of other vehicles. He let the distance between them widen to a few hundred feet, and as a result almost missed it when Riley turned off the paved road altogether. If the other man hadn’t hit his brakes just as Cade was driving past the entrance to the narrow forest track Riley had turned onto, Cade never would have known where he’d gone.
As it was, the sudden flash of red from the truck’s break lights caught Cade’s eye at the last second. He drove past, not wanting to give himself away, continuing on for another hundred yards or so until he found a place to pull over. Leaving his car by the side of the road, Cade doubled back on foot until he found the place where Riley had turned off.
The road was nothing more than a narrow track through the forest, just barely wide enough to fit a vehicle the size of Riley’s truck. Cade could see lights through the trees a few hundred yards ahead, so he knew his destination wasn’t far. He crept forward, trying to make as little noise as possible.
Ten minutes later he saw the back of Riley’s truck loom out of the shadows ahead of him. He crept forward until he reached the back doors, then hunkered down and peered around the side.
Light was filtering through the trees ahead of them and in its glow Cade could see Riley standing at the front of the truck, talking in low, earnest tones to another Templar who was decked out in full combat gear. When the second man turned slightly, allowing the light to catch him across the face, Cade could see that it was Jimmy Martinez, a veteran member of Echo’s command squad. Cade himself had promoted him in the wake of Sergeant Olsen’s death several months before.
Cade couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was clear that they were prepping for some kind of operation. Martinez stood holding Riley’s helmet and primary weapon, a Mossberg pump-action combat shotgun, while the Echo Team commander finished sealing the Velcro enclosure on the side of the ballistic vest he’d just pulled on, and then passed it over. Riley popped the helmet on his head, chambered a round in the shotgun with a quick jerk of the slide, and then nodded to Martinez to lead the way.
Together they turned and headed for the trees.
Cade gave them a moment and then followed.
# # #
Martinez led Riley to the staging area just inside the tree line near the south side of the bridge. Ten more men awaited them there; the rest of Echo’s command squad as well as the men from squads Three and Four. That brought their full complement to twelve.
Twelve men, Riley thought. Twelve men to take on the Adversary. Should prove to be an interesting evening if they managed to live through it.
He glanced around him. All of the men were wearing standard Templar combat armor that consisted of ballistic vests with chest and back plates made of boron carbide ceramic plates covered with Kevlar fabric, flexible bicep armor, and guards over the elbows and knees. Kevlar helmets and wireless communications rigs completed the get-up. Many were armed with the standard issue Heckler Koch MP5 submachine gun, though a few carried Mossberg combat shotguns like he did. To a man they had their blessed swords strapped diagonally across their backs; knights never went into combat without their swords unless it couldn’t be helped.
In short, they were ready to tango.
Now all they needed was a dance partner.
“Where is it?” Riley asked in a low voice.
“This way,” Martinez replied. He led Riley and the rest of the men a short distance through the woods until they stood at the top of a small rise. Below them, in a narrow gully running perpendicular to their direction of travel was a set of train tracks.
Martinez held a finger to his lips and then began making his way down the slope. Riley followed, moving as quietly as possible. At the bottom, Martinez pointed down the length of the tracks to their left.
Riley looked in that direction.
About fifty feet from where they stood the woods gave way, revealing the swiftly running waters of the Housatonic River and the large, timber-and-iron trestle bridge that spanned them. The bridge was at a slight angle from where they stood so he could see the woman standing on it, just a few yards past the entrance. Even from this distance he could see that she had auburn-colored hair and was wearing a long, dark coat.
Riley never had the pleasure of meeting Gabrielle Williams when she was alive – she’d been “killed” by the Adversary before her husband Cade had entered the Order – but he had encountered her three times in the years since. She had been instrumental in helping him and the rest of Echo escape the Beyond when Cade’s injuries at the hands of the fallen angel Baraquel had stranded them there while investigating the Eden facility. Weeks later Riley had been with Cade when he had unearthed Gabrielle’s body and discovered that she wasn’t truly dead - her body lived on while her spirit was trapped in the Beyond. He’d also been present when the Necromancer had summoned the Adversary to inhabit Gabrielle’s empty, physical form during the ritual at the Brooklyn Container Facility.
He might not have known her personally, but he would bet everything that the woman on the bridge was Gabrielle Williams.
And yet it wasn’t.
Something was...off.
Maybe it was the way she held herself with such perfect, deathlike stillness. Or the icy chill that ran up his spine at the very sight of her. Or the way his animal brain was screaming at him to get the hell out of there, the same way it did every time he encountered something that was higher up the food chain than mere mortals.
Riley knew in that moment that he wasn’t looking at Gabrielle Williams.
He was looking at the Adversary in human form.
He could feel his heart racing as he remembered the last time he’d faced off against this particular foe. Never had he felt more helpless than when the Adversary had taken over control of his body and forced him to fight against Sean Duncan, his friend and fellow Echo Team sergeant. That battle had ended with Riley’s sword shoved through Duncan’s chest and Duncan’s knife embedded in Riley’s throat.
He had been completely at the Adversary’s mercy the whole time and it made him shudder even now just to think about it.
Keep it together, Riley told himself. You’ve faced this bastard before and you can do so again. This time he’s on your turf.
He turned and beckoned Martinez over to him.
“Pass the word that we’re moving up. The men are to hold their fire until I give the word. When I do, it’s weapons free.”
“Understood.”
As Martinez turned to go, Riley reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“One more thing. Let them know that the thing on the bridge isn’t human. It might look like it, but it’s not. They need to keep that in mind when push comes to shove.”
“Roger that, Captain.”
As Martinez turned to bring the men up to speed, Riley began walking toward the Adversary, determined to put an end to this once and for all.
# # #
Cade crouched amidst the brush at the edge of the train tracks, watching as the Templars moved down the tracks toward the bridge. Riley was already there, standing in the middle of the span, with the gun in his hands pointing at
a second figure standing on the railing as if ready to jump off into the waters far below.
Something about that second figure was immediately comforting to him, like the sight of home after a long absence, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why.
The figure was smaller than Riley, that was easy to see, but he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman from this far away, never mind who it might be. He was going to have to get closer if he wanted to understand what was going on.
Cade stood, hoping to get a better view of the heads of the men in front of him. A gust of breeze chose that moment to cross the bridge and in doing so it swept a long lock of hair out from behind the figure’s head.
A lock of auburn-colored hair.
The shock of recognition was like a lightning bolt through his brain and Cade was already rushing forward even as the woman reached up to corral her wayward hair and push it back behind her ear with a motion that was intimately familiar to Cade.
The woman on the bridge was his wife, Gabrielle!
Cade’s heavy footfalls alerted the soldiers ahead of him and they spun about, the muzzles of their weapons pointing in his direction as they prepared to fire on the unexpected intruder.
Riley’s shouted order to “Hold!” saved Cade’s life, but Cade barely noticed. He forced his way through the ranks of the Templars until he reached his former squad mate.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Riley asked, grabbing Cade’s arm and pulling him to a halt.
Cade didn’t even look at him – his attention was entirely focused on Gabrielle – as he said, “Don’t you recognize her? That’s my wife.”
Riley shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
But Cade wasn’t listening. He shook himself free of Riley’s grip and took two steps forward, putting him at the vanguard of the Templar formation and only a few yards away from the woman he’d been raising hell trying to find.
“Gabrielle? Can you hear me?”
She turned and looked down at him from her perch on the railing. At first there was nothing in her eyes – no recognition, no feeling – and he thought she was gone for good, but then her vision seemed to clear and he knew that she could see him, that she knew who he was.
Her next words confirmed it.
“Cade?” she asked, in a voice like that of a lost little girl.
Cade wanted to weep with joy. Not only was she here, but she recognized him as well.
“I’m here, Gabbi! Don’t worry; we’re going to help you.”
He didn’t know how she’d managed to free herself from the Adversary or what on earth she was doing standing on a bridge in the middle of the Connecticut woods, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was here and that she recognized him; it proved she was still Gabrielle Williams. After all she’d suffered through, she was still the woman he’d fallen in love with so many years before.
He glanced over at Riley and was surprised to see that his friend was still standing with his weapon at the ready and watching Gabrielle like a hawk.
“Hey,” Cade said, holding up his hands in a “take-it-easy” gesture. “It’s okay. She’s not a threat to anyone.” He turned and faced the other knights. “It’s okay; you can lower your weapons. I’ve got this.”
But Cade couldn’t have been more wrong.
Gabrielle was staring at the men gathered on the bridge in front of her, as if noticing them for the first time. As Cade looked on, a startling transformation swept over her face.
Her gaze lost its softness, growing hard and focused in a matter of seconds. The gentle smoothness of her features disappeared, replaced with harsh lines and angles as they took on a more predatory appearance. Even the color fled from her eyes, leaving nothing but silvery orbs. In seconds, the woman Cade knew was replaced by a total stranger who stared at him as if he were utterly beneath her contempt.
“Help me?” she said, in a voice that swept across the assembled knights like a cold Arctic wind. “What makes you think I need your help?”
Cade knew that voice. He’d first heard it in his own kitchen on a hot summer night when an inhuman killer had come to call and it had haunted his dreams every night since. It might be speaking through his wife’s lips but it did not belong to his wife.
It was the voice of the Adversary.
And in the next moment it attacked.
What Cade had taken to be a long leather coat was suddenly revealed to be a pair of enormous bat-like wings as they sprang open with the sound of a sail sharply unfurling in the wind and the Adversary launched itself into the air directly at the Templars!
Riley threw himself at Cade, knocking him to the ground ahead of him as the demon swept overhead, raking the air where their heads had been seconds before with fingers that morphed into claws even as it struck.
No, no, no! Cade thought as he pushed himself up on his hands, his head swiveling to take in the scene behind him in the wake of the Adversary’s passing; knowing already what he would see but desperately wishing he was wrong.
He opened his mouth to shout, to order the men behind him to hold their fire, but his cry had barely begun before it was drowned out by the roar of more than a dozen submachine guns going off nearly simultaneously as the Templars opened fire.
Cade could only watch in horror as the Adversary seemed to dance and shake in mid-air as two squads of Templar knights hit it with concentrated firepower at the same time. The creature let loose a thunderous roar that literally shook the very framework of the bridge on which they stood as it was blown off course by the simultaneous impact of so many projectiles and disappeared over the side of the bridge.
The former Echo Team commander lurched to his feet and raced to the railing, screaming his wife’s name as he searched the water for any sign of her. Beside him, the Templar soldiers were doing the same, but for a very different reason.
It was too dark to see much and the sound of the water rushing past a hundred feet below covered any sounds their quarry might have been making. Shouts of “Anyone see it?” and “Where did it go?” passed between the men as they searched for it as earnestly as Cade.
Riley stepped up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You all right?” he asked.
Cade spun toward him. “You sonofabitch! You knew...”
That was as far as he got.
The Adversary exploded upward from the river below, moving so quickly that those lining the railing barely had time to focus before it was upon them. It had no weapon other than its claws, but they were all it needed as it lashed out at the closest individuals as it rushed past, laying the throats of two men open to the bone before it headed for the nearby trees in an attempt to put something between it and the Templars on the bridge.
Cade’s gaze followed the creature as it raced for safety and found himself mentally cheering it on, knowing it was the only way Gabrielle was going to survive.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Riley bring his weapon up, preparing to fire, and that was more than he could take.
Cade flung himself at his former comrade in arms, knocking the barrel of his weapon downward just as he went to open fire.
“What the hell are you doing?” Riley shouted over the din as he wrenched his weapon free of Cade’s grip and hurriedly tried to line up another shot.
Cade went nuts.
He knocked Riley’s gun aside a second time with one hand while punching him in the face with the other. The blow caught Riley completely by surprise and as his head rocked backwards, Cade swept Riley’s legs out from under him and rode him down to the ground where he began pummeling him with both hands in a fit of white-hot rage.
Riley was the bigger of the two men, but the intensity of Cade’s attack had caught him by surprise and Cade had the upper hand as he kept Riley pinned to the ground. It might have gone on that way for several minutes if some of the other Templars hadn’t seen Riley’s plight and rushed to his aide. Three men tried to d
rag Cade off of the Echo Team commander, but all they managed to do was earn several blows of their own as Cade successfully fought them off.
Those few moments of respite were all Riley needed, however.
When Cade raised his fists, ready to deliver another series of punishing blows, Riley jabbed him in the side with the Taser he’d managed to pull off his belt.
Cade’s eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen.
Sorry, boss, Riley thought, as he pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He stood in the midst of a great wood, the massive trees looming around him like ancient sentinels glaring down at an unwelcome intruder. All he could see in every direction were trees, which was disconcerting, for he had no idea where he was or what he was doing there.
Nor did he know how to get out.
The dense foliage and thick branches high above his head kept most of the light out and what filtered down through cast long, lazy shadows between the trees, shadows that seemed to twist and sway of their own accord when he looked in their direction.
A distant voice called his name and he recognized it immediately as that of his wife, Gabrielle. He turned in a slow circle, trying to get a sense of where the call had come from, suddenly knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was in danger and that he had to get to her as quickly as possible; but the sound of her cry bounced off the tree trunks and made it difficult for him to get a fix on her position.
“Gabrielle?”
Again he heard her cry out. ”Here, Cade! I’m here!”
He moved in one direction and then, second-guessing his decision, turned back and moved in the other.
“Keep talking, Gabrielle! Help me find you!”
For a moment he didn’t hear anything and then…
“Hurry, Cade!” she cried, and then something else.
Her voice seemed to be fading, as if she were moving away from him, and he wasn’t certain that he heard her correctly. It had sounded like she’d said, “Open your eyes and see!”
Judgment Day (Templar Chronicles Book 5) Page 5
