The Heretic

by Joseph Nassise

  He’d seen his share of combat; it came with the job, but he’d never heard of a Templar commandery being attacked directly. The Holy Order of the Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon, or the Knights Templar as they were once commonly known, existed in secret, away from prying eyes. The days when the Order guarded the route to the Holy City had long since passed, the general public was no longer aware of their existence. Finding the base should have been difficult, assaulting and overwhelming its defenses nearly impossible.

  But someone had done both.

  According to popular belief, the Templars had been destroyed in the 14th century when the Order was accused of witchcraft and the Pope had burned their Grand Master at the stake for the heresy. In truth, the Order had gone underground, hiding its wealth, disguising its power and managing to remain a viable independent entity right up through the end of the First World War. A treaty with Pius XI was followed by a reversal of their excommunication, and the Templars were reborn as a secret military arm of the Vatican. Their mission: to defend mankind from supernatural threats and enemies.

  There were thousands of members worldwide, organized into local commanderies. These in turn were gathered into continental territories, each led by a Preceptor. The Preceptors reported to the Seneschal, who in turn answered to the Order’s Grand Master, the individual who governed the entire order from its Scottish base at Rosslyn Castle. While the Order was primarily allowed to run itself, it was still an arm of the Vatican. Over the years, the Holy See had appointed three cardinals to interact with the Order’s senior leaders to help guide the group along a path that did not conflict with the Pope’s wishes.

  The commandery in Westport, Connecticut, known as Ravensgate, was one of the largest on the East Coast. Only the Preceptor’s headquarters in Newport, Rhode Island, was larger. The grounds consisted of thirty-eight acres of rolling green hills bounded on all sides by woodland, putting the nearest neighbors more than two miles away. The manor house was enormous; forty-seven rooms, from the firing range in the basement to a chapel in the north wing.

  And now it was in ruins.

  The driver pulled to a halt next to the smoldering car, and Duncan stepped cautiously out, his hand on the butt of his weapon. The smell of scorched leather and gasoline washed over him, though the stench of burning flesh he’d expected was mercifully absent. As the rest of his protective detail took up position around the vehicle, Duncan continued to assess the scene. He glanced once more out over the lawn at the work crews and then he turned his attention to the manor house.

  The damage here was no less extensive. The windows had all been blown out; the odd pieces of glass that remained in their frames reflected the rising sun with little flashes of brilliance here and there, but not a single pane remained intact. The front door was smashed, its splintered pieces still hanging haphazardly in the frame. Bullet holes pockmarked the entryway and surrounding facade. There was a three-foot-long crack in the marble steps leading up to the door. The sight of it made Duncan’s blood run cold. The amount of force it must have taken…

  Despite the destruction, there didn’t appear to be any immediate threat, so Duncan passed the signal to the driver in the car behind him. A moment later the rear door opened, and Joshua Michaels, Preceptor for the North Atlantic Region, stepped out.

  Duncan was the head of the Preceptor’s security detail and ultimately responsible for the man’s safety in much the same fashion that the Secret Service watched over and protected the president of the United States. He’d held the post for the last three years; the first for Michaels’ predecessor and the last two for Michaels himself. It was a highly-respected position and one that gave Duncan significant insight into whatever current matters the Order was involved in.

  Presently that meant finding out who, or what, had attacked them so viciously.

  The Preceptor had chosen to be onsite for the investigation, and they’d quickly made the trip from Rhode Island. A temporary command center had been set up inside the manor house, and it was from there that Michaels intended to oversee the activity.

  Duncan took his position at the Preceptor’s side, the rest of the team forming up around them. As one they mounted the steps and entered the manor house. Inside they were immediately met by a group of officers, who led them to a room down the hall. As they walked, one of the local commanders brought the Preceptor up to speed, his low voice the only sound other than the clump of the men’s booted feet.

  A video-conferencing unit had been assembled in the corner of the command center and, upon arrival, Michaels headed directly to it. A technician activated the link, and a moment later, Cardinal Giovanni’s face filled the screen.

  “What can you tell me, Joshua?” the older man asked.

  “Not much yet, I’m afraid, Your Eminence. As you know, the commandery was attacked at some point during the night. Our best guess puts the event in the neighborhood of 3:00 a.m., though we’ll be able to narrow that down some once the mortuary team has had the chance to do its work.

  “The intruders breached the gates, then struck directly at the manor house. We’ve been unable to determine if they were after anything else aside from the destruction of the commandery, but it’s still early yet. We should know more as the investigation continues. The site’s been secured, and the bodies are being tended to. At this point we’ve yet to find a single survivor. It’s starting to look like we’re not going to, either. Whoever they were, they were thorough.”

  The cardinal’s response was drowned out as the connection momentarily faltered. The Preceptor simply went on, wanting to get the worst of it out of the way and on the table quickly. “Based on what I’ve seen and learned so far, I’m going to hand the investigation over to Knight Commander Williams and his team.”

  The cardinal visibly recoiled from the camera in surprise. “The Heretic? Are you certain that’s wise?”

  “I am,” the Preceptor replied. “He’s absolutely ruthless. He can’t be bribed, he can’t be tempted, and he won’t stop until he’s discovered who or what is behind this attack. His men are all combat veterans, with the experience and firepower necessary to deal with anything they might uncover, human or otherwise. If the situation is as bad as I’m beginning to believe, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have leading the investigation.”

  Listening in, Duncan wasn’t so sure he agreed. While Williams was technically a member of the Order, having gone through the investment ceremony just like every other initiate who petitioned for membership, he and his Echo Team unit operated more like freelance operatives than true Knights of the Order. Where members of other units were selected and rotated regularly by the regional leaders, Cade handpicked all of his men, and they were loyal to a fault. Where other units answered up the chain of command to the Preceptors, Echo Team reported directly to the Seneschal, only a step removed from the Grand Master himself. They had a reputation for bending the Rule, the laws by which the Order operated, and of occasionally following their own agenda. Rumors swirled around Commander Williams like the tide. He’d been accused of everything from practicing witchcraft to speaking with the dead. He was both feared and revered, depending upon to whom you were talking. His Nickname, the Heretic, was a result of that fear and the belief among some that he was nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing, destined to corrupt the Order from within. Duncan tended to agree with them.

  But this wasn’t his call to make.

  The cardinal’s expression clearly showed the dissatisfaction he had with the idea, but like a good general he let his people on the ground make the decisions. Reluctantly, he nodded in agreement. “Very well. Keep me informed of your progress.”

  “I will. Good night and God bless, Your Eminence.”

  With a hand raised in blessing, the other man said goodbye and the television screen went dark.

  Once the connection had been cut, Duncan didn’t hesitate. “With all due respect, sir, I think you are better off putting one of the other te
ams on this. Williams might be more trouble than he’s worth.”

  The Preceptor turned to face him, shaking his head in disagreement. “I know he can be difficult to work with, Duncan, but it’s his very independence that can benefit us here. Whoever did this knew not only the location of the commandery, but also how to take it by surprise. Without, I remind you, a single word of warning escaping to the rest of us. That takes more than overwhelming force, it takes detailed knowledge of who and what they would be facing.”

  “You believe they had inside knowledge,” Duncan said, giving voice to the suspicion that he’d been harboring ever since he’d heard of the attack. “You’re bringing in the Heretic because of his lack of political connections then.”

  “Correct, though that’s not my primary reason for using him. I’m convinced that Echo Team is the right choice for the job. They’re veterans; they know what they’re doing. We’re going to need the many years of knowledge and skill that they’ll be bringing to the table.”

  Based on what he’d seen outside, Duncan couldn’t argue with that.

  “Last I’d heard the team was on a two-week leave. Track down Commander Williams and get him here ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Duncan moved to carry out his orders, he wondered just how bad things were going to get.

  Later that night.

  He stands alone in the center of the street, in a town that has no name. He has been here before, more than once, but each time the resolution is different, as if the events about to transpire are ordained by the random chance found in the motion of a giant spinning wheel, a cosmic wheel of fortune, and not by the actions he is about to take or has taken before.

  He knows from previous experience that, just a few blocks beyond this one the town suddenly ends, becoming a great plain of nothingness, the landscape an artist’s canvas that stands untouched, unwanted.

  This town has become the center of his universe.

  Around him, the blackened buildings sag in crumbling heaps, testimony to his previous visits. He wonders what the town will look like a few weeks from now, when the confrontation about to take place has been enacted and reenacted and reenacted again, until even these ragged shells stand no more. Will the road, like the buildings, be twisted and torn?

  He does not know.

  He turns his attention back to the present, for even after all this time, he might learn something new that could lead him to his opponent’s true identity.

  The sky is growing dark, though night is still hours away. Dark grey storm clouds laced with green-and-silver lightning are rolling in from the horizon, like horses running hard to reach the town’s limits before the fated confrontation begins. The air is heavy with impending rain and the electrical tension of the coming storm. In the slowly fading afternoon light the shadows around him stretch and move. He learned early on that they can have a life of their own.

  He avoids them now.

  The sound of booted feet striking the pavement catches his attention, and he knows he has exhausted his time here. He turns to face the length of the street before him, just in time to see his foe emerge from the crumbled ruins at its end, just as he has emerged each and every time Cade has come to this place. It is as if his enemy is always there, silently waiting with infinite patience for him to make his appearance.

  Pain shoots across his face and through his hands, phan-toms of the true sensation that had once coursed through his flesh, from their first meeting in another time and place. Knowing it will not last, he waits the few seconds for the pain to fade. Idly, he wonders, not for the first time, if the pain is caused by his foe or by his own recollection of the suffering he once endured at the enemy’s hands.

  He smiles grimly as the pain fades.

  A chill wind suddenly rises, stirring the hairs on the back of his neck, and in that wind, he is certain he can hear the soft, sibilant whispers of a thousand lost souls, each and every one crying out to him to provide solace and sanctuary.

  The voices act as a physical force, pushing him forward from behind, and before he knows it he is striding urgently down the street. His hands clench into fists as he is enveloped with the desire to tear his foe limb from limb with his bare hands. So great is his anger that it makes him forget the other weapons at his disposal in this strange half-state of reality.

  The Adversary, as he has come to call his foe in the years since their first, life-altering encounter, simply stands in the middle of the street, waiting. The Adversary’s features are hidden in the darkness of the hooded cloak that he wears over his form in this place, his mocking laughter echoes clearly off the deserted buildings and carries easily in the silence.

  The insult only adds fuel to Cade’s rage.

  Just as he draws closer, the scene shifts, wavers, the way a mirage will shimmy in the heat rising from the pavement. For a second it regains its form and in that moment Cade has the opportunity to glimpse the surprise in the other’s face, then everything dissolves around him in a dizzying spiral of shifting patterns and unidentified shapes.

  When the scene solidifies once more, he finds himself standing in a cemetery. Large, carefully sculpted angels adorn the nearest of the gravestones, with only the word Godspeed carved beneath them. Older, more decayed stones decorate the other burial plots nearby, but he is not close enough to see the details etched there.

  A sense of urgency grips him in its bony fist.

  It forces him into motion, and he sets off across the lawn, winding in and out between the stones, letting that feeling guide his passage until he sees a small plot set off from the rest by a white picket fence. In the strange twilight, the rails of the fence gleam with the wetness of freshly revealed bone. The coppery tang of blood floats on the night air.

  As he moves closer he can see that the earth on the other side of the fence has been freshly disturbed. A grave lies open, a gaping hole in the peaceful sea of green grass that surrounds it, filled with a darkness deeper than that of the night sky above. This intrusion of the landscape and of the sanctity of the place draws him closer still, pulling him in toward it the way a fly is coaxed into a spider’s web.

  He stops just short of the small fence and gazes down into the darkness of the grave.

  Unable to see clearly, he places one hand on the fence and leans forward, straining to get a better look.

  Something moves down there, a furtive motion.

  Beneath his hand the fence begins to twist and turn, tumbling him forward toward the darkness of that open grave, just as two eyes gleam hungrily from that inky murk…

  Cade awoke in the darkness of his bedroom, his heart pounding and his body slick with cold sweat. He lay still for a moment, gathering his breath, and reached out for the phone in the second before its shrill ring pierced the silence of the bedroom.

  “I’m on my way,” he said into the receiver, then hung up before the startled novice placing the call could explain the reason for the late-night summons.

  He does not need that information.

  The dream has already told him everything he needs to know.

  3

  After checking with the duty commander and learning that the prisoner was being held in Interrogation Room Four, Cade made his way there, only to find the rest of his command squad already assembled there, staring through the two-way glass at the revenant on the other side. They turned when they heard him enter the room, and Duncan immediately moved to confront him.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the prisoner they had secured in the next room. “That thing needs to be destroyed. Immediately.”

  “That thing, as you so quaintly put it, is a former member of this Order.” Cade replied sternly. “You will treat him with the respect he deserves, no matter what his present condition. Is that clear?”

  But rather than getting him to acquiesce, the reminder that the thing in the next room had once been one of their own only inflamed the young Templar further. “Treat him wit
h respect? You’ve got to be kidding me! The only way to do that is to put a bullet through his skull and let him rest. This,” - he indicated the revenant seated in the next room - “this is simply obscene.”

  It had been a long, difficult day, and Cade had had enough. He stepped close, crowding the other man with his bulk, and this time his voice had a steel edge to its tone. “Your opinion has been noted. Now shut up. My duty is to find the threat to our Order and put a stop to it. I intend to do that. Right now, that man in there is our best hope of doing so, and I’m going to use him as much as I have to in order to accomplish that goal. If you don’t like it, you can remove yourself from the room. Is that clear?”

  They stared each other down for several tense seconds before the younger man looked away, nodded, and stepped aside.

  Cade crossed the room and looked through the one-way mirror into the interrogation room where their guest was shackled to the wall. The chains were long enough to let him sit on the floor with his head between his knees, so Cade was unable to see his face.

  Then again, he didn’t need to.

  “You recognize him, don’t you?” Cade asked, looking back over his shoulder at his second-in-command.

  Riley grimaced but nodded his head. “George Winston. Bravo Team, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s right. Assault squad, if I remember correctly.” Cade turned to Malone. “What’s happened since they brought him in?”

  “He fought against the restraints at first, pulling on the chains as if he might get them to pop free through brute force alone. Ended up slamming himself against the wall a couple of times, too. When that didn’t work, he tried chewing through his arm, but gave that up when he tasted his own flesh. Since then he’s just sat there, waiting, as if he knows we’ll come to him eventually. He’s been that way for over an hour now.”

  “Just what, exactly, do we hope to learn from this…thing?” Duncan asked.

  “I don’t know how much we can learn,” Cade replied without turning. “But right now he’s the only clue we’ve got. If there’s a possibility he can tell us anything, we have to try.” He looked at Riley. “What do you think?”