Silence settled about the room as the men stepped into position and mentally prepared themselves for what was to come. Riley could feel the tension in the room go up several notches.
The man standing at the point of the Star of David raised his hands in a posture of supplication and looked heavenward as his voice rang out.
“Heavenly Father. Blessed Redeemer. Creator and Protector of Man. Hear us, O Lord. Fill this place with your Spirit. Guide our hearts, our minds, our hands as we seek to do Your will this night. Turn Your gaze upon the world and show us the one we seek.”
One by one those around him added their own prayers, each man invoking the Lord’s blessing and asking for His protection and benevolence in what they were about to attempt. The air seemed to grow more heavily charged as each new voice was added to the mix and when Riley looked down he could see the hair on his arms standing on end in reaction to the power slowly building in the room.
But that was just the beginning.
The call to the archangels came next, the invocations announced by each of the men standing at one of the four points of the compass, beginning with the man facing north.
“Uriel, Angel of the north, Ancient one of the Earth, I call you to attend to us this night. I do summon, stir and charge you to witness our rite and to send your blessings upon it. We ask you to protect our actions and guard us with your holy might.”
A shimmering wall of light erupted from the floor and rose upward toward the ceiling, forming an arc of power between the speaker and the next man a quarter of the way around the circle. For just an instant Riley thought he heard the sound of stone grinding against stone filling the chamber, but it was gone too quickly to be certain. The light before him flared brilliantly and then faded slightly until it was just a luminescent glow through which the other participants were partially visible.
The ritual team didn’t waste any time. As soon as the light had settled, the next man began speaking.
“Raphael, Angel of the east, Ancient one of the Air, I call you to attend to us this night. I do summon, stir and charge you to witness our rite and guide us with truth and precision. Bless our actions and guard us with your holy might.”
Again there was a brilliant flash of light and a rising wall of power, charging another quarter of the protective circle. A gale force wind rushed over the group for a moment, forcing Riley to squint, and then it was gone.
Despite this, the next man’s voice was steady and strong as he called out, “Michael, Angel of the south, Ancient one of the Flames and General of the Lord’s Armies, I call you to attend to us this night. Protect us with your sword and guard us from the actions of the Evil One and his minions with your holy might.”
With the ringing sound of a thousand swords leaving their sheaths, the third quarter of the circle burst into flame. Riley could feel the ferocious heat of the flames on his face and hands for an instant and wondered how those who were much closer managed to bear it before it died away.
Then, at last, the final invocation rang out.
“Gabriel, Angel of the west, Ancient one of the Waves, I call to you to attend to us this night. Cleanse us with your holy waters and make our hearts and minds full of the purity of your blessed strength.”
With the crashing sound of waves striking the seashore, the final portion of the protective circle flared to life, sealing the ritual workers inside its boundary. With the circle activated, nothing could pass in or out of its confines until the ritual either reached its proper conclusion or failed spectacularly. The mystics were committed now; there was no turning back.
The real work of the ritual could now begin. The leader of the group, the same man who had started the invocation, began to chant in a low voice. It was hard to hear exactly what he was saying, but to Riley the music had the same form and pattern as that of a Gregorian chant. One by one the other three mystics who had called the invocation joined in. When their four voices were raised together in harmony, the computer screen at the back of the room suddenly flickered to life, displaying an image of the earth as seen from space. Riley knew from previous experience that the image was being beamed directly from a network of satellites that the Order had put into orbit through a series of dummy corporations that had been set up for just that purpose. Other organizations had tried to unravel the ties between the shell companies in the past; all had failed. If need be the Order could tap into any of the various government satellite systems orbiting the planet, but doing so allowed for the possibility of their covert use to be discovered. By creating a network of their own, the Order effectively minimized that risk while at the same time providing an incalculable resource for use in its day to day operations.
As the Order’s mystics continued their chant, the image on the screen began to change. Slowly at first and then with increasing intensity, the image shifted from one of the earth seen from space to that of the North American continent and then to the continental United States. The chant continued; the mystics’ voices raised together in a deep, throaty sound that filled the room and seeped into the spaces between things until it seemed to Riley that it was a physical presence standing there in the room with them.
The screens continued to shift and change, the view shrinking with each change as the mystics began to hone in on their prey. The image of the United States was replaced with one of the Northeast coast and then with a shot of the state of Connecticut.
Riley glanced at the mystics, and saw several of them swaying on their feet. Sweat rolled off their faces and several of them had their eyes clenched tightly shut as they pushed harder toward their goal. From the way they held their bodies and the expressions on their faces it was obvious that the location of the one they sought was not coming easily; Riley imagined that the Necromancer had used his own dark magick to try and make the task of finding him as difficult as possible.
Still they persisted. Their chanting grew louder, their efforts more focused, and the screens flashed again. Gone was the map showing the state of Connecticut and in its place was a map of Fairfield County.
Riley felt his heartrate quicken as his excitement grew.
They were getting close.
A sharp cry of pain burst from the lips of one of those performing the ritual and Riley turned just in time to see the man standing at the southern point of the compass collapse to the ground. The loose, fluid nature of his fall told Riley that the man was unconscious before he hit the ground. Thankfully he fell forward and did not break the sanctity of the circle.
Who knows what would have happened then?
The man was barely on the ground before one of the others who was crouched in the center took his place, his voice added to those of the others without missing a beat.
On the screen, the image flickered for a moment, then solidified once more before drilling down another level to a map of the city of Bridgeport.
Now we’re getting somewhere, Riley thought.
The Templar mystics must have broken through whatever spell defense the Necromancer had employed to keep them from tracking him, for things moved much more quickly after that. The focal point on the screen slid east, then west, then south before settling on a section of the city by the harbor.
Another shift and the map was replaced by a live satellite view of the same region. The screen gave the illusion that the camera was plunging earthward as the viewpoint zoomed in. Riley recognized the area as being on the east side of the harbor, diagonally opposite the ferry landing.
Like a hawk swooping in on its prey, the satellite view suddenly centered on a large fenced-in lot right along the water at the end of East Main Street. Several smaller buildings and one large warehouse were on the lot but there were no cars parked nearby and it looked like the place was not in active use.
With a grim sense of finality, the view settled on the warehouse in the center of the lot.
Gotcha! Riley thought.
CHAPTER SIX
Ten minutes later Echo Team was airborn
e aboard the three Blackhawk helicopters Riley had arranged to transport them from Rhode Island to Connecticut. They would land at Sigorsky Memorial Airport inside the Bridgeport city limits, where they would transfer to a set of SUVs that local knights would have ready and waiting. A few minutes after that they would be breaking down the doors of the warehouse revealed in the scrying ceremony and hopefully taking the Necromancer back into custody.
The men of Echo, including Riley, were dressed in jumpsuits of black flame-retardant material worn over a set of ceramic body armor that had been blessed by the Holy Father. They carried the standard issue HK Mark 23 .45 caliber handgun, complete with a twelve round magazine, a flash suppressor, and a laser-targeting device. Two spare magazines for the pistols were affixed with Velcro to their left wrists. A combat knife was either clipped to their belt or in a calf sheath on the outside of their boots. Their swords, recently blessed again during Mass, were slung across their backs, the hilt of the weapon extending just beyond their right shoulders for easy access. On their heads were lightweight Kevlar tactical helmets with built-in communication gear.
Subtract the swords and they could be mistaken for your average SWAT or tactical response team from any major agency on the planet, which was the entirely the point. In fact, Riley carried false I.D. which identified him as Agent Wilson of the Department of Homeland Security’s Rapid Response Team if he needed to discourage further investigation by a local law enforcement officer or nosy citizen. It was amazing what the public would accept in the name of national security nowadays and it was a rare occasion when the Order had to back up any of Riley’s creative storytelling with some actual data.
God bless the Patriot Act.
Riley handed out copies of the satellite image of the warehouse complex to the men in his chopper and knew the squad leaders in the other two were doing the same.
“A scrying ritual has put the Necromancer inside this building here,” he said over the intercom system, pointing to the large warehouse at the back of the property. Local eyes and ears on the ground have indicated that no one has gone in or out of the building since the satellite shots were taken, so we’re pretty confident we’ve found his bolthole.
“I want First Squad on overwatch, protecting our backs while I take Command and Second Squad with me into the building proper. Radio silence and hand signals only until we breach, then use Tac channel 9 for all communications. We are cleared for deadly force, so don’t hesitate to put this SOB down if given the chance. He certainly won’t hesitate to use his powers against you. Take it from me, that’s not something you want to experience.”
Riley had been there with Cade when they’d last fought the Necromancer. He remembered all too vividly the pain he’d felt when hit by a blast of power from the Necromancer’s staff, how he’d been lifted up and tossed away like so much trash. Granted, the Necromancer wouldn’t have the power of the Spear of Destiny at his beck and call this time around, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a force to be reckoned with.
This was not going to be an easy assignment.
The trip to Bridgeport didn’t take long at all and before he knew it, Riley was climbing down from the chopper and rushing across the tarmac to the trio of black SUVs waiting for them a few yards away. The cars were running, the onboard GPS devices preprogrammed with information on how to get to the address in question, and within seconds of arrival the team was driving through the city streets toward their destination.
Despite their urgency they kept their speed down to just over the legal limit, not wanting to call attention to themselves. Even so, it took them about ten minutes to reach their objective. The gates to the property were chained shut but as the SUVs came around the corner at the end of the street the Templar who had been watching the complex on their behalf stepped out of the shadows with bolt-cutters in hand and quickly took care of the problem. He hauled the gate open on rusted wheels as first one, then two more, SUVS swung into the entrance and raced on past.
The vehicles charged across the parking lot and pulled to a halt in front of the warehouse. Doors burst open and men swarmed out almost before the vehicles came to a complete stop.
Riley raced over to the office door along the side of the warehouse, ignoring the larger, loading bay doors that were directly ahead of him, knowing that the former would be much easier to breach. Martinez was to his right, carrying the breaching ram while to his left and slightly behind him were Ortega and Simmons. Behind them came First Squad, led by Sgt. Stevens.
Confident that his men knew what they were doing, Riley kept his focus on the task before him. Gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, he waited to the side while Martinez employed the breaching ram and then he was the first through the door, his light swiveling left to right and back again as he took in his immediate surroundings and searched for threats. Behind him, the others followed suit.
The warehouse was huge, a good three stories high and probably two hundred feet in length. The front of the building included two large loading-dock style doors, both currently closed and chained shut. No one was coming in that way to bother them without giving away their location, so Riley turned his attention to the rest of the warehouse.
The main portion of the warehouse stretched out to his left and was filled with massive steel shipping containers, the kind you would see aboard an ocean freighter. They were arranged into three rows. Each row was three containers wide, four containers high, and stretched an unknown distance into the dark depths of the warehouse, creating two lanes in which to walk between.
Using hand signals, Riley indicated that he and his men would take the left lane while First Squad would take the right.
As they moved deeper into the warehouse, Riley kept waiting for the Necromancer’s followers to erupt out of the shipping containers and fall on his team, but the doors around them remained sealed firmly shut.
Still, something about the place felt wrong. Riley could feel it at the base of his spine and in the uneasy tightening of his gut. He kept wanting to turn around and head back the way he had come before he found whatever it was waiting for him ahead.
For make no mistake, there was something waiting.
Of that he was certain.
He counted twenty containers, stacked lengthwise end to end.
And something else, too.
Light.
It was spilling into the aisle from a larger, open space at the end of the row.
Cautiously, Riley moved forward.
As he reached the end of the aisle, he caught movement to his right out of the corner of his eye, but it was only Sgt. Stevens and his squad emerging from the other aisle. Together, they surveyed the scene.
The final third of the warehouse stretched out before them, free of the shipping containers that filled the building to this point. Instead, it held the bodies of five men.
A large casting circle had been drawn on the floor with what looked from this distance to be salt. Inside the circle was a strange hermeneutical symbol that Riley didn’t recognize, also etched in salt.
Extending outward from the circle were four bodies, arranged in positions reminiscent of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci, with their feet closest to the casting circle and their heads pointing away from it toward the Templars. Blood could be seen pooling beneath and around each of the bodies.
But what really drew Riley’s attention where the two portable spotlights set up at the back of the room, shining on the metal framework that was the focal point beyond the casting circle. Suspended in the framework, his arms and legs also stretched wide, was the corpse of a naked man.
Even from where he was Riley could see that the man had been tortured, for his body was covered in a thousand different cuts going every which way across his flesh; his skin a canvas painted in blood.
The grotesque scene drew your attention automatically, whether you wanted to look or not, and Riley knew that it had been intentionally designed that way. With all of them staring forward in shock
, their enemies would have the perfect opportunity to strike.
Riley raised a hand, index finger pointed skyward, and spun it around in a quick circle. The men were moving almost before they’d given the signal any conscious thought; the reaction had become simple muscle memory after training as long and as hard as Echo Team had. The two groups became one, their backs to each other as they formed into a tight circle, their weapons pointed outward, covering both the tops of the shipping containers that were now at their backs and the area at the front of the warehouse that was lost in darkness behind the bright wash of the portable floodlights.
Riley braced for an attack, knowing that this was exactly when he would have ordered his own people out of hiding if their positions had been reversed, yet none came.
They moved forward, skirting the gruesome tableau in front of them, to make certain there wasn’t anyone waiting to ambush them in the darkness behind the portable spotlights. Then, and only then, when he was certain they were alone, did Riley give the signal to stand down.
There were still dozens of shipping containers to check – and check they would, each and every one of them – but Riley could already tell that they were the only ones here; at some point, their target had flown the coop and seemingly had done so right under their watcher’s noses.
For the second time since the hunt for Logan had begun, Riley got the sense that he was in over his head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was just after eight o’clock that evening when the phone rang. Cade was in his workshop, fighting his way through a new tome he had acquired just that week, searching, as he did most nights, for some clue as to how he might return Gabrielle to her former self. So far he hadn’t had any luck, but that didn’t mean the answer wasn’t out there, perhaps even on the very next page…
Cade didn’t receive many calls. When it came to the few he did receive, most callers hung up when he didn’t answer after five or six rings. But this time, when the phone rang a possible record fourteenth time, Cade knew who it was.
Infernal Cries: An Echo Team Urban Fantasy Novel Page 4
