The Heretic

by Joseph Nassise

  “How can you know that?” asked one of the locals.

  “Because the Preceptor told him,” Duncan replied quickly, cutting Cade off before he could answer himself. The last thing they needed at that moment was a discussion of the Heretic’s powers. He would deal with the Commander’s wrath later; right now they needed to defuse the situation. The men from the detail knew him. They’d be far more prone to believe a simple explanation from him than one from Williams.

  Cade stood back and watched as Duncan marched over to Donaldson and began questioning him under the watchful eyes of the locals.

  “You okay, boss?”

  Cade turned to find Riley at his elbow, watching him.

  “Yeah,” he said, spitting the taste of dust and debris out of his mouth. “That son of a bitch did this. He knows where that bastard Logan is. He might even know how to find the Adversary. He’s going to tell us what he knows. And I intend to make him pay for what he’s done here.”

  But it didn’t look like Duncan was getting anywhere. His questions were met with silence. Donaldson stared at the floor, ignoring everything that was said to him. From where he stood Cade could hear his teammate’s voice raised in anger at the prisoner’s indifference, but he knew that without any real threat, the traitor would simply keep his mouth shut. The longer he did so, the farther away his accomplices could get with the stolen relics and the less chance the Templars would have in recovering the Spear.

  Something needed to be done, and it needed to be done quickly.

  Cade glanced around, taking in the positions of the men in the room. His gaze fell upon the doors that had once guarded the entrance to the secondary vault.

  Duncan stepped over to his teammates. “We’re not getting anywhere. We’re going to take him upstairs to one of the interview rooms and let him stew for a while. Then we’ll take another shot at him. Don’t worry, we’ll get what we need out of him.”

  Cade ignored the statement. He’d already decided on another course of action, and it didn’t involve further delay. He remained standing between Malone and Riley, waiting for his chance.

  Duncan took charge of the Knights, ordering two of them to get Donaldson on his feet and the others to begin searching the room for any other bodies or missing artifacts that might be uncovered.

  With Duncan in the lead, the small group made its way toward the exit.

  “The hell with this,” Cade said beneath his breath.

  He waited until the group had come abreast of him, then made his move. He stepped between his men, reached out, and grabbed Donaldson. He pulled him close, one arm around the man’s neck, the other holding the barrel of his pistol to Donaldson’s head.

  Everyone, including Riley and Malone, were taken by surprise. They stepped toward him, but Cade had wasted as much time as he intended, and he let them know it.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said, twisting the barrel of his gun sharply against the prisoner’s skull. “I’ll put a bullet through his brain faster than you think. I don’t need him alive to discover what he knows.”

  It was a bluff, pure and simple, designed to let his men know that he hadn’t completely lost it, at the same time using his reputation to keep the other Knights at bay.

  It worked, for the group froze where they stood, waiting to see what he would do.

  Cade had timed his move perfectly and stood with his back to the pile of debris on which the steel doors that once guarded the entrance to the secondary vault now rested.

  He needed time to question Donaldson properly, needed the freedom to do it his way. He didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to analyze the possibility of success or failure. Instead, he simply threw himself backward at the reflective surface of the doors without letting go of the stranglehold on Donaldson.

  As the rest of the soldiers in the room watched in shocked surprise, Cade and his unwilling passenger struck the reflective surface of the doors and disappeared into the Beyond.

  26

  The sun was just rising over the treetops when Cade appeared at the gate outside the commandery. Word of what had happened in the Reliquary must have spread, for he noted that the guards opened the gate and waved him through without a word. He also saw the fear in their eyes as he passed. One soldier even crossed himself when he thought Cade wasn’t looking.

  And with that the legend of the Heretic grew.

  So be it, the knight commander thought. He was under too much pressure to care. He’d deal with the fallout later.

  Cade had one of the guards transport him down the long drive and to the manor house. Once inside he went immediately to the Preceptor’s office. Two guards stood outside, but they made no move to stop him as he stepped up to the doors, found them unlocked, and disappeared inside the office.

  After that it only took him a few more moments to get the video-conferencing equipment powered up. Placing the call, he stood in front of the screen, waiting for the connection to be made.

  The call went through quickly. Cade wasn’t surprised to find that someone had been specifically detailed to wait for any incoming messages. The higher-ups would want to know as much as possible as soon as possible.

  When Cardinal Giovanni finally appeared, however, it was clear that he was disappointed to see Cade.

  “Knight Commander Williams,” he said, with a bit of a frown as he took his seat before the camera. “Where, may I ask, is Preceptor Michaels?”

  “I’m sorry to report that Preceptor Michaels is dead, Your Eminence.”

  Giovanni’s expression remained steady, though Cade thought he saw his lips tighten ever so slightly. “What happened?”

  Cade explained how Michaels had died and what he had learned from his interrogation of Donaldson; how the traitor had disabled the wards and granted the Necromancer’s troops access to the grounds, how he had led them into the manor house and down through the lower levels to the Reliquary, how he had fooled the Preceptor into opening the sanctuary to the very enemy he was trying to protect it from. He saved the worst for last.

  “The Council probably has the Spear in its possession by now, Eminence. Logan more than likely also has a significant number of other artifacts along with it; the investigation team is still trying to determine what was destroyed versus what is missing from the Reliquary.”

  “I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this situation has become, do I, Knight Commander?”

  Cade shook his head. “No, Your Eminence, you don’t. That’s why I’ve taken the liberty of calling up both Echo and Bravo Teams and putting them on combat alert. Donaldson gave us the location of the Council’s stronghold in Louisiana. I intend to stage a combined air and land assault against it before nightfall. All I need is your approval, sir.” I don’t even truly need that, he thought to himself, but it doesn’t hurt to play nice in the sandbox now and then.

  “Of course, Knight Commander. You have my permission to do whatever, I repeat, whatever, is necessary to recover the Spear.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  As Cade reached for the disconnect button, the Cardinal leaned forward to ask a question. “What have you done with the traitor, Knight Commander?”

  Without hesitation Cade answered, “I’ve got him secured in a place where he can’t cause us any further harm.”

  Cardinal Giovanni nodded. “Good, good. When we’ve finished with the Necromancer and recovered the Spear, we’ll want to see to it that justice is served.”

  For the first time in days, the Knight Commander smiled. “Have no fear, Your Eminence. Justice will be served. I’ll take care of it personally.”

  Malone, Riley, and Duncan had just finished eating when Cade strode into the dining hall. The Knight Commander was still dressed in the same clothing he had worn the night before, bloodstains and all, and conversation among the other tables drifted to a stop as the rest of the men in the room got a good look at him. Cade barely noticed the effect he was having on those around him as he crossed to where Malone was sitting
and laid a piece of paper on the table before him. On it was the address in southern Louisiana that Donaldson had given to him.

  “I need to know as much as possible about that location, and I need it in thirty minutes,” Cade told him. Turning to Riley, he said, “That’s how long you have to assemble the squad leaders from Echo and Bravo Teams and get them in the air with their men to the Lafayette Commandery in Louisiana. We’ll meet them there later this afternoon. We’re running out of time, and I don’t intend to waste a minute more.”

  Duncan got to his feet, a confused look on his face. “Where is Donaldson?” he asked, looking past the Knight Commander as if expecting him to enter the room behind him.

  Cade ignored him, still concentrating on Riley.

  “We’re going after the Spear. I want the Blackhawk pilots on alert and the armorers ready to outfit the assault teams. Be certain you’ve…”

  “What did you do with Donaldson?”

  Duncan’s voice was loud and cutting, his eyes full of anger.

  Silence fell.

  The two men stared at each other.

  Malone tried to intervene. “Duncan, I don’t think now is…”

  Duncan cut him off with a wave of his hand without taking his attention from Cade. “I asked you a question, sir. I want to know what happened to Donaldson.”

  Cade placed both fists on the table and leaned forward so that his face was inches from Duncan’s own. Softly, he said, “I left him behind, where he belongs.”

  Duncan pulled back, the confusion on his face evident.

  Cade watched as a look of horror slowly crossed the younger man’s face, but the Commander was past caring. He’d spent the last three hours forcing the location of the Council’s stronghold out of the traitor, hours that should have been spent going after the Spear. He no longer had time to cater to the other man’s precious sense of fair play.

  The Necromancer and his allies had declared war.

  Cade intended to give them one.

  He turned away, believing the conversation to be finished, but Duncan’s voice caused him to turn back again.

  “You killed him.” Duncan said, and his tone spoke volumes.

  Cade stared directly into the younger man’s eyes, speaking slowly and clearly so there could be no further misunderstandings.

  “No, I left him in the Beyond.”

  With grim satisfaction, Cade remembered looking back from the edge of the portal to where Donaldson stood in the middle of a mist-encircled field in the Beyond. In the distance, the howling cries of the oncoming spectres that had picked up their scent could be heard, drowning out the man’s pleas for mercy as Cade returned to the real world without him.

  The Echo Team leader watched Duncan’s eyes grow wider as the impact of his statement registered, and he couldn’t resist a parting shot.

  “Considering what was closing in on him, I’d say that killing him would have been a blessing. Which is precisely why I left him alive and well.”

  The room was absolutely silent as he turned on his heel and walked out.

  Several hours later the command elements for both Echo and Bravo Teams were assembled in a large conference room on the second floor of the training center at the Lafayette Commandery in Louisiana. Riley, Malone, and Duncan had been joined by the rest of Echo Team’s squad leaders; Martinez, First Squad’s fiery Latino; Wilson, Second Squad’s temperamental preacher, Baker and Lyons, Third and Fourth Squads grizzled veterans. Also present were the four officers from Bravo Team; Swanson, Mace, Kurita, and Pantolano. The rest of the two teams’ members were waiting in the main facility one floor below them.

  A number of free-standing bulletin boards were set up in the front of the room. One contained a map of the state of Louisiana, with the target site circled in red southwest of where they presently were. Another contained old sepia photographs of a plantation house. Each of its two stories was surrounded by a wide veranda, with prominent columns. On the right side, the home was connected to what appeared to be a two-story greenhouse or conservatory. Separate photos showed additional buildings; a stable, a garage, others whose purposes were not immediately apparent.

  A wider-angle photo on the next board showed how the lawn ran down to the water’s edge, where a boat-house had been built next to a dock that extended out into the bayou itself.

  Duncan paid close attention to the photos, memorizing as much of the detail as possible. In the heat of a major firefight things could get confusing very quickly and he didn’t want to be at a disadvantage if he became separated from the main assault group.

  Provided the commander even keeps me in the unit, he thought sourly, remembering his outburst from earlier that morning.

  Duncan’s concern was unnecessary, for Cade had already dismissed the incident from his mind. He had far more important issues to focus on.

  “All right, listen up,” Cade said loudly as he moved to the front of the room. He waited a moment for the chatter to quiet down, and then continued in a quieter tone. “As you know, several of our commanderies have been attacked this week. We’ve managed to identify the group behind the assaults, and it’s my intention to carry the battle to them this time. Riley?”

  The walled-mounted flat-screen lit up behind Cade as Riley activated it. On the screen was a picture of a man in his mid-thirties, with dark hair and beard, dressed in shabby and ill-fitted clothes. Duncan thought he had the lean look of a man fallen on hard times, despite the fire in the man’s eyes.

  “This is Simon Logan, a self-styled necromancer and leader of a group that calls itself the Council of Nine. We don’t know much about them, other than a few basics. They have always been fringe players, minor-league at best, without any real talent or ability. Given the number of genuine threats we face, worrying about the wannabes is usually counterproductive and so we ignored the Council in favor of bigger targets. As it turns out, that was a mistake.”

  Cade turned away from the screen to address his men directly. “During the last few months, Logan and his followers have increased their knowledge of the dark arts to levels we never imagined they’d be able to achieve. My personal belief is that they have had some outside help — they’ve moved ahead too quickly to have done so on their own — but we do not yet have any concrete, tangible proof to that effect.

  “Logan hasn’t been seen in public in almost three years, yet all indications suggest he’s still alive and running the show. His core group of followers, the ‘Nine’ from the group’s name, are seen only slightly more often, though we don’t have anything better than blurry photos of men in hooded robes in an undisclosed location. Personal information on them is practically non-existent. Next image, please.”

  The image of Logan was replaced by a blurry image of the plantation house. It had been taken from a distance, probably from a boat out on the bayou, and was in color. The quality was poor, but even so the men could see that the structure had fallen into disrepair, and the bayou had long since begun its encroachment on the property.

  “This is the plantation as it is today. Or so we think. No one has been allowed on the property for several years. The man who took the picture, a real-estate developer looking to make a big score, had just come back from a clandestine visit to the site three years ago when he was killed in a hit-and-run accident while getting out of his car to visit the local coffee shop. The photo was the only one that the police were able to develop from the camera that he’d left on the front seat of his car. Next.”

  A photo of the Spear of Destiny followed.

  “This is the Spear of Destiny, also known as the Spear of Longinus. It is the weapon used by the Roman soldier of the same name to pierce the side of Christ at the crucifixion. For hundreds of years, people have believed that the weapon was either in the hands of the Vatican, safely ensconced in one of the pilasters that form the framework of Michelangelo’s Dome, or in a display case in the Hofberg Treasure House in Vienna.”

  Cade looked up at the image, then back dow
n at the men assembled before him. “I suspect you’ve all heard the news by now. Until last night, the real Spear was under our control in a special vault. What you probably haven’t heard is that we were betrayed from within. A man named Donaldson, the Preceptor’s personal aide, was, in fact, a mole working for the Council. As a result, Preceptor Michaels lost his life, and the Spear, along with several other important relics, which vanished into the night in the hands of Logan’s followers. It’s our job to bring them back.

  “We believe that Logan’s men have returned to their headquarters in northern Louisiana and that they are unaware that we are onto them. They will more than likely remain at that location, believing they are safe, at least for the time being. It is my intention to use that false sense of security to our advantage. By this time tomorrow, I expect that facility to be in the hands of our Order.”

  The room buzzed with righteous excitement as the squad leaders acknowledged the mission before them and the chance they were being given to strike back at those who had dared to attack the Order.

  The men quieted down as Cade revealed a large-scale map of the local area. The plantation’s position was prominently noted. “Echo Team will take ground transportation to here,“ he said, indicating a landing some miles away on the edge of the bayou. “A guide has been arranged to take us through the swamp so we can approach the plantation from there. Bravo Team will be inbound in the Blackhawks by then.” Cade turned to face the Bravo commanders. “I want the men off-loaded and the choppers back out of the way as quickly as possible, understood?”

  There was an answering chorus of yes sirs.

  “Echo will take the plantation house, Bravo the surrounding buildings. Once the Spear and any other relics are secured, we’ll get them out of there aboard one of the choppers, then destroy the rest of the vermin.”

  “Questions?”

  Kurita was first. “What can we expect by way of resistance?”