* * *
Riley stared at his commanding officer, trying to understand the turn the conversation had just taken. Cade’s questions made no sense and just hearing them set Riley’s nerves on edge. Had something happened to the Knight Commander that he wasn’t aware of?
Had he been injured at some point? Had his earlier problems caused some damage that they weren’t aware of, that was only coming to the fore now under the pressure of the mission?
He was about to ask if Cade was feeling all right when it finally dawned on him just what it was about the Knight Commander’s face that was bothering him so.
The black eye patch Cade habitually wore was covering his left eye.
But the damage the Adversary had inflicted to his face had been on the right!
“I asked you a question,†the imposter said.
Something in Riley’s face must have given him way, for the imposter suddenly smiled at him and Riley felt his blood run cold at the sight. It was a terrible smile, a smile full of all the horrors of the world rolled up into a single expression, a smile full of families destroyed by death and disease, of abused children and beaten wives, of war and famine and drug abuse and…the list went on.
It was a smile that never should have graced the face of a man.
That smile made everything crystal clear to Riley.
This…thing…was not Cade.
And he, Riley, was in a whole heap of trouble.
For just an instant, the barest flash of an instant, he thought he saw something else standing there, something with taloned feet and great looming wings of tattletale grey, something that filled him with fear and a certain sense of his own puny worthlessness, and then it was gone and only the imposter Cade remained.
The mirror behind the imposter suddenly drew his attention as it went smoke dark and frost formed at its edge. A fog began to billow from deep within its depths, filling the surface with a twisting, churning cloud of grayish white. Even as he watched something swam up out of that fog and a face formed behind the frosted glass, a long gaunt face of winter grey. The face had started out as vaguely human, it seemed, but that’s where the similarity ended.
It was as if the Creator had grabbed the creature’s lower jaw with one hand and pulled outward while simultaneously hooking the finger of his other hand through the nasal cavities and wrenching upward, warping the face into a twisted parody of something that might have started out as human and was now anything but. Its oversized mouth gaped wide and he could see that it was filled with multiple rows of different sized teeth. Its nose, little more than holes that seemed to have been gouged into the top of its snout, was mated to eyes of liquid green that glowed with a light of their own in the semi-darkness of the room. Atop its head was a wriggling mass of hair that twisted and turned as if possessed of an intelligence all its own, reminding Riley of the Greek legend of the Medusa.
Those eyes pinned him to the floor.
It reached an arm forward and Riley watched as the surface of the mirror rippled and then allowed that arm to pass through it without resistance, as if the glass had become as fluid as water. Unsurprisingly, that arm was capped with a foot long sickle-shaped claw instead of a hand.
Riley could only stand and stare as it slowly dragged itself free, clambering over the sink to stand upright on the floor not ten feet from him. Below that face was an equally hideous body; a thick neck and muscular torso that ended in two sets of arms equally equipped with those long scythe-like claws. The thing’s lower torso resembled that of a huge bloated spider, a fat ovoid body from which sprouted six legs covered in some kind of chitinous shell.
The master sergeant had seen many things in his thirteen years with the Order. He’d faced down demons and devils, shape-shifters and sorcerers. He’d been cursed by a voodoo hougan and had felt the cold kiss of the grave when a barrow wight had seized him in its iron grip. He’d long ago come to grips with the fact that there were a good many things out there in the darkness that did not have humanity’s best interests at heart and he had dedicated his life to keep them at bay.
This, he was sure, was one of those things. He had never personally encountered one, but the tomes of the Order’s library contained accounts of those who had. Known for their ferocity and identified by their scythe-like claws, reaper demons were one of those creatures that Riley would have been happy to have gone his entire life without running into, never mind facing in solo combat.
Behind the demon, the surface of the mirror wavered once more and then shot back into solidity with a loud snap.
The sound finally shook Riley free from his paralysis.
His Mossberg swung up, the barrel centering on the reaper’s chest, and Riley pulled the trigger several times in rapid succession. The gunshots were thunderous in the small confines of the room and he had the satisfaction of seeing the demon thrown backward with the force of the impact against the very mirror it had just crawled out of. In the half-light its purple blood looked black as it splashed across the tiles. Without hesitating Riley swung the gun back to his left, intent on pouring several more shots into Cade’s doppelganger, only to have the thing vanish right in front of his eyes before he could even get off a shot.
Nor did he have time to figure out where it went, for even as he watched several of the others mirrors in the room were rapidly going dark.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
REAPERS REAPING
The boom of Riley’s shotgun reached Olsen’s ears as he skidded to a stop outside the entrance to the locker room. Four shots, in rapid succession, and then silence.
“Riley?†Olsen shouted into the locker room, his back flat against the wall next to the door, but the only response he received was the thunder of another shot being fired somewhere inside.
A glance back at the rest of the unit showed them climbing to their feet, weapons in hand, but none of them would get their quick enough to help. Olsen had to choose; wait for back-up or go in alone and hope he could save Riley.
It really wasn’t any choice at all.
Olsen spun around the corner.
The corridor ahead of him was empty.
He moved swiftly down its length, until he reached the point where the corridor turned right and entered the locker room proper. Flattening himself against the wall again, he double-checked his weapon. The sound of a struggle could be heard in the next room, raising Olsen’s hopes that Riley was still alive, and so he took a deep breath and spun around the corner.
He took in the scene with a single glance.
Riley was on his back on the floor with a six legged monstrosity astride him, the creature’s scythe-like forearms locked in either hand as Riley struggled to keep from getting his head cut off while simultaneously trying to dodge repeated attacks from the creature’s lunging jaws. Around him were the carcasses of three other reaper demons, one of which still twitching with its death throes.
Seeing his teammate standing in the doorway, Riley shouted, “Shoot it, for God’s sake! Shoot it!â€
Olsen did.
The bullets tore into the demon’s torso, ripping gaping holes in its flesh. It shrieked in pain and raised its upper body to turn and face him, which was just what Olsen was waiting for. He fired again, driving the creature off of Riley and up against the nearest wall, pinning it there with the sheer impact of the firepower and he didn’t stop until he’d emptied his clip into it and there was little left to recognize.
“You okay?†he asked.
“I will be,†Riley replied, as he climbed to his feet. His uniform was ripped in a several places, but the pads of ballistic armor sewn throughout had done their job and he had only minor injuries. Nothing their medic couldn’t patch up, given five minutes of peace and quiet.
Olsen watched his teammate snag his shotgun from the floor where he had dropped it, but
rather than heading for the exit, Riley crossed to the row of mirrors over the sinks. Olsen was about to ask what he was doing when Riley made the question mute by grasping his weapon by the barrel and slamming it butt first into the surface of a mirror. A few seconds was all it took for him to shatter all four of them.
“Don’t tell me,†Olsen said.
“Yep. They came through the mirrors, just like Cade always warned us.â€
Any further discussion was cut short when the sound of gunfire coming from the main room reached them.
They took off at a run.
* * *
Riley skidded to a halt as he and Olsen emerged from the depths of the locker room, trying to process the scene before him. Reaper demons seemed to be everywhere and the rest of Echo had their hands full trying to fight them off. Cade, along with Davis and Chen, had their backs to the glass wall separating the exercise room from the pool. A stack of bodies lay at their feet already and four more demons were doing what they could to advance despite the withering hail of gunfire the three men were sending in their direction. Ortega was helping Duncan to his feet, apparently after dispatching a reaper that had gotten the best of their younger companion. Callavecchio, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.
“Where in heaven did they all come from?†Olsen wondered aloud and it hit Riley like a train wreck. How could he have been so stupid?
“Follow me!†he shouted over the clamour and took off running without waiting to see if his companion was following. There were two locker rooms and that meant two sets of mirrors. He had destroyed the first, but the second…
He just hoped he was in time to prevent any more of them from coming through.
Riley’s path took him diagonally through the center of the room, twisting and turning through the maze of Nautilus machines and other exercise equipment, headed for the dark maw of the entrance to the women’s locker room on the far side. His course took him past the demons threatening Cade and the others. As he passed, he pumped two shots into the back of one of the beasts and was very nearly taken out by a stray shot from one of the other knight’s weapons, but then he had left them behind and reached the entrance to the locker room.
He heard Olsen shouting behind him, telling him to wait, but he plunged inside the entrance without slowing.
Riley took half a dozen steps and then his foot came down on something round in the darkness and he felt himself tumbling forward, out of control. He hit the ground hands first and the shotgun he was carrying went off with a roar, nearly taking his arm off at the shoulder.
Disgusted with himself and with the fact that he’d just lost any opportunity of surprise, Riley glanced at the floor as he climbed back to his feet, curious to see what he had stepped on.
A human hand, severed about half way down the wrist, lay nearby.
Considering the Templar ring on the fourth finger, there was very little doubt as to who the hand had once belonged.
Callavecchio.
Feeling like he’d just been punched in the gut, Riley reached down and picked the hand up, just as Olsen came charging down the hall and caught up with him.
“Is that…â€
“Yeah.†Riley stuffed the hand in his pack, knowing it might be the only piece of their friend they would get the chance to bury given the nature of the things they were facing. At least the coffin won’t be empty, he thought, and then turned his attention back to the job at hand.
They came around the corner into the locker room proper, weapons at the ready. Unlike the men’s locker room, with its four sinks and accompanying mirrors, this room had one long mirror that extended the length of the wall and the two men were just in time to see a pair of reaper demons disappearing back through its surface, carrying Callavecchio’s limp body with them.
From the way the man’s head hung half off his shoulders, it was clear that their teammate was beyond assistance.
Now unhindered by concerns over Callavecchio’s fate, Riley didn’t hesitate. With a twitch of his finger he turned the mirror into a shower of shattered glass, preventing the demons from returning along the same path. Behind him he could hear more breaking glass and knew Olsen was doing the same to another mirror elsewhere in the locker room.
By the time the two men re-emerged into the main area, their teammates had dispatched the rest of their foes.
Echo had survived their first attack, but not without casualties.
It didn’t bode well for the hours ahead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MASON’S GAMBLE
Commander Williams’ self-imposed deadline had come and gone. Convinced that the men of Echo had met an untimely demise, Mason had no choice but to move on to the next phase of the plan that he and the commander had agreed upon before the other’s departure.
He gave the necessary orders and fifteen minutes later all five of his squads were suited up and assembled outside the command center, ready for action. He intended to lead them into the base himself, descending into the tunnels that Echo had uncovered below, and mount a frontal assault on whatever they found there. Summaries of what they had discovered were already on their way to headquarters by high speed courier, so in the event they failed the next unit wouldn’t have to start over from the beginning, but Mason was convinced that if he waited any longer whatever it was inside that base would only grow stronger and that was a chance he couldn’t afford to take.
The men mounted the waiting HWMMVs, weapons at the ready, and Mason gave the order to move out. One by one, the armored vehicles turned and headed in the direction of the gates.
But it was not to be.
As Mason’s men drew close to the entrance of the base, the strange storm that they had been watching for hours moved to intercept them. Mason had not other words for it; it was as if the storm had a living presence of its own, that it moved with intelligent forethought and intention. The black funnel cloud roared down the main thoroughfare toward them, kicking up waves of dust and dirt that mimicked the powerful sandstorms of the Arabian desert. In seconds, visibility was reduced to a few feet and then down to nothing. Radio communication between the vehicles died and each unit found itself on its own, unable to see and as a result, unable to move forward at any decent rate of speed without endangering those in the vehicle before them.
Mason ordered his driver to leave the road and try to go around the storm, but the howling wind and blowing sand made that next to impossible. While the HWMMVs were designed for strenuous off-road travel, the land around them was crisscrossed with steep ravines and treacherous sinkholes. If they couldn’t see, they couldn’t maneuver around them and driving blindly into such an obstacle would ruin their day for certain.
In the end, Mason had no choice but to give the order for his driver to turn around and do his best to get the back to base, hoping that the drivers of the other vehicles would have the initiative to d the same. They had no defense against the power of the storm and pushing forward would just result in the useless deaths of more of his men. He would regroup at the command center and wait for the storm to die down again before making another attempt.
If they were still alive, Echo was on their own.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A VISIT TO THE HOLDING ROOM
Not wanting to remain in the same place directly after the attack, Cade ordered the team to make for the stairwell at the other end of the corridor, intending to take them up another level and away from the scene. Unfortunately, as the old saying went, even the best laid plans can come undone.
When they arrived at the end of the hall, they discovered that the target stairwell was completely blocked by a convoluted pile of discarded furniture. Everything from desks to book-cases to box springs seemed to have been tossed down the stairwell from above until they filled not just the first staircase and its landing but also at least the one above that
as well.
None of the jumbled mass was balanced very well and Cade had visions of it tumbling down on them the minute they tried to work their way over it or through it. He had no desire to see any more of his men injured in such a useless manner and he quickly made the decision to take an alternate route.
He didn’t want to chance going through the exercise complex again, so he turned his attention to the elevator shaft beside the stairwell.
Prying back the doors revealed the fact that the car itself was somewhere below and that was all Cade needed to know.
They would go up the shaft.
Ropes were quickly rigged and minutes later Chen and Davis were hauling themselves hand over hand up the elevator cables to the floor above. Finding the doors on that level open and the corridor beyond clear, the former stood guard while the latter secured himself to the ledge to serve as a belayer and then sent a rope down for the next man.
Ten minutes later all seven of them were standing on the third level of the complex, the elevator door behind them now closed in an effort to give them some warning should anything attempt to follow them up the same route.
Continuing their investigation, they found that the corridor in front of them extended only a few feet before taking a sharp turn. Around the bend they discovered a massive vault door prevented them from progressing any further down the hall.
With the way ahead sealed off and the path behind under tight guard, it was as good a place as any to take that much needed, and previously interrupted, rest. Cade ordered the group to do just that.
The men knew the routine, knew the watch schedule and who was in charge of preparing meals for the others, so Cade settled down against one wall of the corridor, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as he mentally worked through what they’d encountered so far.
His thoughts were quickly interrupted however, as Riley settled down next to him with a look of concern on his face.
“How are the men?†Cade asked.
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