The Paladin's Message

by Richard Crofton

  < BOOM! >

  The sound again forced its way throughout the room, accompanied by splintering wood giving way to a massive impact. Megan no longer saw the snake-like mist creature, no longer felt its presence. Suddenly she could move her head by her own will, and she turned to her right, realizing that the booming sound had come from the large door. Everyone, including the priest, had turned to face it with indecisiveness.

  There was a moment so dead with silence that she could almost hear the drop of melted wax from one of the candles hit the stone floor, like the calm before the storm, only so calm that time seemed to stand still.

  But only for a moment.

  A third “boom” rattled the dungeon as the large door burst open. Shards of wood and fragments of broken bolts flew inward. Instantaneously, a gust of wind from the force of the nearly explosive swinging door, blew in with such uncanny might that every flame upon the hundreds of candles with black wax went out. The entire room became pitch dark.

  Father Paul shielded his face with one hand as if the door that was broken through would send a shock that might knock him off his feet. When every candle extinguished, a phenomenon that only added to his perplexity, he desperately looked around into the blackness. What in the name of the dark lord had just happened? He could feel the transfer of the girl’s life force beginning to transpire. He could feel the manifestation of dark power engulfing the room. Then, in one moment, it was gone. Snuffed out like the candles.

  Along with his fellow brothers and sisters, the false priest returned his gaze to the opening where the door had once been closed. The light bulb from the other room was still lit, and somewhat offered reprieve from the darkness. He could see the door hanging at an angle, halfway off its hinges. And in the threshold: the silhouette of a man, silent and still. Standing there like Hamlet’s father.

  “Who is that?” he heard an equally perplexed Steven Madsen ask in a whisper.

  The man in the doorway finally spoke, breaking the tense silence of the room with a voice that both the priest and the professor recognized immediately; only this time there was no slur in his speech:

  “This the prayer meeting? I’m here for the prayer meeting.”

  Chapter XVI

  Paul Cunningham slowly removed the silver mask from his face as he stared in wonder at the dark figure in the doorway. “Cliff?” he called with hesitancy. “What… what are you doing here?”

  “Just looking for the bathroom,” Cliff’s voice replied.

  A touch of anger rose in the priest’s voice. He was in no mood to play games, especially when time was short. All of his efforts, the efforts of the Primary and Secondary Circles, everything they had worked for was now on the line. The ritual had to be completed, and soon. The interruption caused by this nuisance would have to be dealt with quickly. Yet he wanted answers.

  He waved a hand from his left to his right, speaking in strange tongues; “Cali thay immen noo lai.” Suddenly, to Megan’s astonishment, tiny red blazes engulfed the wick of each extinguished candle. As abruptly as they had blown out, they were now ignited once again. She turned to look upon the figure in the doorway. The one whom all the cultists were staring at. The one with Cliff’s voice.

  As the room became illuminated again, the man stepped forward into the large room of stone. Members of both Circles began removing their masks to get a better look at the intruder. Father Paul squinted. He was young, much younger looking than the poor wretch who made an ass of himself at Bible Study. His hair was a shorter brown, his face now clean-shaven, though still somewhat hidden in shadow as he had only just breached the threshold of the open door, and he no longer wore the dirty camouflage jacket over a mud stained tee shirt, nor ripped jeans. His black cargo pants and biker’s sport jacket seemed more… tactical. The priest regarded him with caution.

  “You don’t look like Cliff,” Professor Madsen accused. “How did you find this place?”

  The man slowly reached into his front pocket, pulling out a necklace with a crucifix. He dangled it in front of them. “I believe this belongs to the girl,” he answered, now in a voice that sounded nothing like Cliff. “It was her mother’s. Something this important to her… makes her easy to track down.”

  Father Paul’s eyes widened with disbelief and a growing rage. Whispering filled with uneasiness started to spread among his fellow agents.

  “It can’t be,” Tom Homan gasped, taking a step back. “He’s a Keeper of White!”

  Commotion grew from the whispering. Members of the Inner Circles were looking around at one another, each one hoping the other would take control of the situation. The only one who did not surrender a look of alarm or distress was Diana. She remained still, eyeing the stranger coldly.

  The man returned a quick glance back at her (Be careful with that woman, son. She’s the worst of ‘em). Then he repositioned his attention back at the priest.

  “Impossible,” Father Paul disputed. “You couldn’t have found us! He couldn’t have found her with that! She couldn’t be traced! Now tell me how you really found…”

  “You’re referring to the ashes on her head,” the man cut him off. “The upside down cross. Keeps her hidden and all that, right? Makes it so wherever she is, it’s the last place anyone would look. Makes it so people like me can’t track her. Yeah well, you might wanna check your dear mother’s remains again, priest.”

  Father Paul’s mouth opened as if he were about to retort the man’s arrogant rambling. Instead, he reached under his robe and into his own front pocket, removing a small box of tin. The ashes inside were not those of his late mother’s (he had her murdered decades ago), but of a fellow agent who was too low on the totem pole to be of any better use. He suspected the intruder somehow knew this too.

  He opened the box and began to carefully sift through the ashes with the tip of his index finger.

  “Got a few tricks of my own, priest,” the man explained with a harsh tone. “Left you a little present in the ashes when your heads were turned. Remember? You were going on and on about that stupid statue.”

  Father Paul finally felt a tiny, hard bump within the ashes. He pressed down on it to hold it in place (he could tell it was roundish in shape), then used his thumb and forefinger to grip it in place. Pulling it from the box, he brought it to his lips and blew the attached ash from it. Then he recognized the foreign object and understood why the remains of the sacrificed agent did not work the way they were supposed to.

  A mustard seed.

  He stared at it, angered and confused. He was aware that the homeless man, or rather the man who disguised himself as one, had robbed Megan of her precious necklace, but he assumed it was a simple mugging since she had also reported that he took her money as well. Now he realized, that part of it was just a ruse meant to prevent him and his colleagues from suspecting his true purpose. And it had worked. He never assumed that he was anything other than what he had appeared to be, not a Keeper of White attempting to use the artifact to find the girl.

  And the mustard seed: how could something so small counter the effects of the substance used to form a dark barrier around whomever he marked with it? He had been practicing the black arts for decades, and learned what he could of the enemy’s ways. Never had he even heard of such a method. Knowledge like this must be rare if not lost to the modern world. One conclusion he could make of it: this stranger was not to be underestimated.

  “Who are you?” Paul demanded, staring him down with animosity. Everyone in the room remained motionless, also wanting an answer. Everyone but Bill Biddle, who was slowly stepping to the side of the room as inconspicuously as possible.

  “Who am I?” the man repeated. “Good question. No simple answer. I am one man with one story, though my story has been told countless times throughout the ages. One, central, universal theme that seems to be destined to repeat itself. I am Edmund Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo. I am Montresor. I’m Frank Castle, the Punisher; Johnny Blaze, the Spirit of Vengeance. I
am Spartacus and Maximus the Gladiator. I am Guy Fawkes, or you may simply call me ‘V’.

  “Who am I? I’m Captain Ahab. And you’re all a bunch of Moby fucking Dicks.”

  The priest raised an eyebrow.

  “Cliff,” Madsen spoke blandly, “you’re beginning to bore me. Diana?”

  The beautiful woman beside the priest called out three commanding words: “Kill the boy.”

  There was a slight opening in the small crowd of robed figures where Megan could see Things One and Two suddenly animated to life. They both drew large knives and rushed the young newcomer.

  The brutes were fast, but the boy was faster. Thing One lunged first with the knife, but he sidestepped as Thing Two also came for him from his other side. His movement flowed like water, but so quickly it was a blur. He shot out a sidekick at Thing One’s kneecap with the blade of his foot. If Megan had blinked, she would have missed the counterattack. The large man dropped down, using his free hand to hold himself from the floor. His right leg bent unnaturally from the blow.

  Immediately the young man spun around and swooped his arms downward, repelling the hand of Thing Two just in time to avoid being thrust in with his knife. His own arms continued their motion as they came back up, palms open, and slammed hard against Thing Two’s ears, forcing air pockets through his canal and into his brain. The blow caused him to drop his knife as he crashed to the stone floor. He never got back up.

  The man turned his attention back to Thing One, who was struggling to get up using his good leg. He never had the chance. The man, in what seemed like one single motion, grabbed the wrist of his hand still holding the knife, and violently struck the center of his throat with fingers curled into a half-fist.

  Though she wasn’t counting, everything had happened in well under three seconds. Two of her captors dead in the time it took her to breathe in and out once. None of the cultists reacted. They were too shocked by the man’s ferocity and swiftness. By the time the ordeal even registered in their brains, the man was standing in his original spot, facing the group by the altar again.

  “I’ve been to Gettysburg, Professor Stephen Madsen,” he continued as if there were no hiatus in the conversation. “About ten years ago. I was there, just hanging out with some buddies.” Megan remembered Cliff saying this during the last Bible Study.

  “So you’ve mentioned,” the professor said, still shaking off his disbelief from the deadly display that had just transpired.

  “We had some good times there, Professor Stephen Madsen. Had us a little game of… paintball.”

  Upon hearing the stranger’s last word, Madsen’s disbelief suddenly became unshakeable.

  “Am I still boring you, Professor Stephen Madsen?” The man took a couple steps closer; his face now entirely in view. The cultists closest to him stepped back from him, not taking their eyes off of him.

  Madsen now recognized the man. Something about him had been familiar ever since the night of Bible Study. Now it clicked. He unconsciously brought a hand to the tiny scar on his left cheek and touched the mark. “You!” he said with a vile gasp.

  “I asked you the other week if you’d ever seen any ghosts up in Gettysburg. Do you remember? You told me you don’t believe in them. Are you sure about that, Professor Stephen Madsen? Because you look like you’ve seen one now.”

  Madsen could not control his emotions any longer. “How dare you show your face here, you miserable little shit!”

  Unexpectedly, the priest began to laugh. His chuckle was one of amusement, but it was sinister enough to strike new fear into Megan’s heart, where hope had begun to grow. The throbbing and stinging pain in her fingers, ears, and nose seemed to intensify, and the minimal regaining of her motor skills allowed her to shudder coldly.

  Yet underneath the growing laughter that resonated from the priest, she heard a quiet voice deep inside her subconscious being, as if it were transmitting to her:

  (Megan, as soon as you can move, drop behind the altar. Take shelter there and stay put.)

  Father Paul’s chuckling died down enough for him to speak. “How wonderful!” he said with a wicked smile. “This is all very interesting! How long have you been looking forward to this moment, boy? What is his name, Stephen? Matthew, is it? Mark? No! I remember. Michael! Am I right? Michael something-or-other. How many sleepless nights have you planned and premeditated, I wonder? Has it turned out the way you expected?”

  “I suppose…” the man paused. From what Megan could see, he appeared to be blinking, as if momentarily forgetting his surroundings, as if something were suddenly bothering him. “I suppose… that remains to be seen.”

  The woman joined in the taunting. “What did you expect to accomplish here, boy? Did you honestly think you would be able to stop us from taking away our destiny? Are you really that naïve?”

  “He won’t stop our sacred ritual,” the priest laughed again. “He’s going to walk back through that door and leave us to our deeds. He’s going to forget all about his little quest that he’s concocted in that broken mind of his, aren’t you boy?

  Leave? Madsen thought with fury in his black heart. Kill the bastard! I want him dead.

  The man… Cliff… Matthew… Mark… Michael… whatever his name was, took an unsteady step back. Megan could see the police chief quietly sliding into the shadows behind a couple other cultists who remained motionless. He appeared to be sliding his hand slowly to his side, through an opening in his robe. He’s reaching for his gun! she thought.

  “I…” Cliff/Matthew/Mark/Michael stuttered, “I… no.” Megan was too far away to notice that sweat was forming on his brow. But it was light enough in the room for her to see that he slowly gripped something hanging by his neck under his shirt. Something small. A memory stirred:

  I wear somethin’ ‘round my neck too. ‘Cept it ain’t no cross. Just a little medallion. It’s got a weird symbol or rune on it.”

  “Do you know what the symbol is supposed to mean?”

  “Protection, I think.”

  The young man closed his eyes and drew in a breath. Megan moved her eyes back to Chief Biddle, who kept his hand hidden under his robe. Her eyes darted back in the direction of the man, who had reopened his eyes. The confidence he had entered with was there again.

  “Whatever you’re trying to do to me,” he said with a less shaky voice, but still with some effort, “it won’t work.”

  “And what is it you’re trying to do, Keeper of White?” Diana Palmer shot back. “You can’t win here. You’re not strong enough. Not focused. How could you be, after what’s happened?”

  “She’s right, boy,” the priest added. “You’re broken. I can feel it in you. Anger. Hatred even. I know the ways of your kind. You can’t possibly hope to utilize the skills that feed on inner peace. There is none in you. That display you performed with the door is impressive, I’ll give you that, but any remnants of the skills you may have once had is not enough to contend with the likes of us. You realize this don’t you, boy? You cannot prevent tonight’s sacrifice.”

  “That,” the man repeated, “remains to be seen.”

  “Besides, even if you could stop us, what will you have gained? You know our resources. We have connections everywhere. If you could prevent this Dark Year, our people will deal with you like we did before, only much worse this time. And we’ll simply wait for the next Dark Year.”

  Megan’s eyes quickly darted back to the police chief. He had removed his revolver, now holding it behind his back, watching the man warily.

  “There is no scenario in which you would come out on top,” Father Paul continued. “It’s better that you leave and go back to whatever life you have made for yourself. Enjoy that which you still have to cherish and stay peacefully out of the future’s way. The world we are creating will have little effect on you if you refrain from crossing our path.”

  The man lowered his head and looked away, as if he were considering the priest’s advice. He had relaxed his stance and ga
ve no reply.

  “If I recall, boy,” Diana chimed in, “you still have loved ones to consider. Do you really want to put them at risk by interfering with us again? We didn’t take everything from you. We left you with at least some kind of a life to rebuild. I’m offended that you would show such little regard for our generosity in that matter. Tell me, did you not get the message we sent you?”

  At her words, the man’s eyes became distant, but his face did not show uncertainty this time. Only pain. “Message,” he answered in a dead voice just above a whisper. “Let me see. It was an email. There was a video file attached. I watched it. There was a boy; looked to be in his late teens. He had a knife in his hand,” he refocused his gaze upon the cultists by the altar with eyes of burning blue, “like the one you’re holding now. Tied to a chair in a dark room, someone very close to me. The things that boy did to her will never leave my mind. I remember her screaming for me as that young man cut into her. He took his time. Over half an hour. He enjoyed every minute of it.”

  Megan’s eyes filled with fresh tears as she listened to the man’s woeful recollection of terror. She began to understand the look in his gleaming eyes when he sat incognito in the passenger seat of his car.

  “When the boy finished his handiwork, he turned and faced the camera. He approached it, careful not to block my perfect view of his victim, now lifeless in that chair. With no emotion he held a white sheet of paper to the camera with a note written thickly in black marker. It read, ‘If you ever interfere with our business again, more of your loved ones will suffer the same fate.’ Then he flipped the paper around to show more writing on the other side: ‘Professor Stephen Madsen says hello.’ Then he shot the camera lens with a paintball gun. I saw nothing but a yellow blotch on my screen until the video stopped. I remember staring at my computer screen long after it had ended.”

  He took a step forward, his body no longer relaxed. “Is that the message you’re referring to? Yeah, I got it.”

  “Taught you a lesson, you little prick,” Madsen spat out vilely.