They slid down on their backs, looking ahead to a narrow buttress, and launched themselves toward it. Aguilar and Maria then began to leap from ledge to overhang to roof, always making sure they were never too far away from one another, trying desperately to shake off the dogged Templars at their heels.
Aguilar heard one of them cry out as, in a futile attempt to follow the Assassins as they jumped nimbly from one small foothold to the other, the Templar lost his footing and tumbled to the streets far below. A quick glance down revealed to Aguilar that the broken body of the Templar had fallen not amongst terrified crowd members, but amongst his own brethren. They were running through the streets, their faces peering upward, some on foot and some on horseback. Aguilar heard a humming sound as a crossbow bolt whizzed past, too close for comfort.
Maria and Aguilar had reached the end of this stretch of rooftop, and leaped in tandem to a narrow balustrade. Aguilar, slightly ahead, landed solidly, but Maria’s foot slipped. She fell, grasping onto the chain that still bound them together. Aguilar’s hand shot out, seizing the chain as well, and hauled her back. Old stone crumbled beneath them, and they immediately leaped again.
This time, they surprised a group of bare-chested, dust-covered stonemasons, who stared at them blankly in shock. They offered no resistance or complaint as Maria’s hand darted out and closed on a chisel. She squatted, letting the chain stretch out flat on the roof’s surface, and looked up at Aguilar expectantly.
He was already grabbing a hammer out of one of the mason’s unresisting hands. With a single powerful blow, the chain snapped, and they were off and running again, the masons staring after them. Aguilar allowed himself a hint of amusement at the thought of what these men would be telling their families at the next mealtime.
Aguilar had lost track of the layout of the city at this point. But as long as they were on a roof, they had the advantage. Assassins were trained to maneuver in such places in a way the Templars were not.
But the Templars did have numbers, and it now seemed they were swarming in every direction, like insects emerging from their nest to descend upon their enemies.
Aguilar and Maria jumped through crenellations onto a flat roof. A church, Aguilar realized absently. They had barely landed when a Templar appeared, racing after them. He launched himself at Maria, slamming into her, and the two tumbled down into a courtyard below.
She recovered quickly, but so did her foe. Maria easily dodged his sword strike, darting forward to seize his overextended arm and turn it—and the sword it grasped—to strike the staff of a second Templar coming up behind her. A quick jab to the abdomen laid the second Templar out on the stone, and Maria made short work of the first.
A level above her, Aguilar lithely sprang from bridge to parapet to roof, supple as a cat. Half a dozen Templars descended upon him, but he was ready.
A few short minutes ago, he had been staring at certain death. The memories of his family had threatened to overwhelm him, but he had pushed them back and not surrendered to grief or fear. Benedicto’s execution by fire had been horrifying to witness, but it had bought Aguilar the precious time he needed to free himself and Maria.
He had been thirsty, hungry, exhausted. Had even tasted the first prickling of despair. But now, he was not about to let a mere handful of Templars become an obstacle.
Aguilar’s blood sang and he felt alive, so alive, and when they descended upon him, it was child’s play to strike one down with a whirling, leaping kick, seize his staff, and turn with a fierce, demonic grin of pure relish to fight off the other five. This was his heritage. His parents lived through him, now, and he would not dishonor that gift.
Maria appeared beside him as the lone remaining Templar gasped out his last breath. Their eyes met, and she jerked her head toward the next roof. No sooner had they made the jump than Aguilar caught a flurry of movement over his head.
Running along the ledge above them was a line of Templars, firing down at them.
CHAPTER 15
It was time to go down instead of up. This time, when they reached the edge of the roof, Maria dropped to the sloping stone arch of a balcony’s roof and swung herself inside.
Aguilar followed. They crashed through the wooden slatted door and tore through a small, long room. The church attendees screamed and dove for cover. Without even slowing, Maria and Aguilar leaped out the next window they saw and clung like burrs to ledges about six inches wide. The overeager Templar who followed them missed the handhold and plunged downward, screaming.
Up they went, leaping from a ledge on one building’s side to a higher ledge on the one about six feet away, zig-zagging steadily upward, to emerge on the front of the great cathedral. They were afforded a splendid view of the city, and a more sobering one of the now-dozens of Templars, on other roofs and at street level, who had come to join in the hunt.
One of them, Aguilar saw, was Ojeda. Their eyes met and the Templar shouted incoherently, kicking his great warhorse violently and plunging toward the church.
Aguilar heard footsteps behind him. Planting his feet on the narrow ledge, high above the city streets, he turned and bodily seized the charging Templar, using the man’s own onrushing motion to hurl him down to the stone street. He hauled Maria up beside him and they turned, racing across the flat, wide-open top of the church.
Templars were crawling up the sides now. Maria, running full tilt, slammed the top of her boot underneath one’s jaw, lifting him up and breaking his hold on the side of the roof.
They had to throw the Templars off somehow. Pausing to catch his breath, Aguilar looked down at the lines of rope that stretched between this building and the one nearest it. They had been erected so that colorful banners could be hung from them, but they appeared to have been tied off solidly.
There was only one way to find out.
He steadied himself and jumped, right foot landing on one rope and then his left on the next. Maria followed him, and the two raced across the taut ropes effortlessly, as if they were leaping from stone to stone across a river.
A furious bellow came from behind and above them. Somehow, Ojeda had managed to bring his horse through the church and out onto its flat roof.
An instant later, Aguilar’s next step landed on air. The Templar had sliced the rope free. Aguilar reached out, grasping it as it passed. Maria fell with him, clinging to his leg as they swung crazily, without direction, slamming into the shutters of a closed window and smashing the delicate wood to pieces as they tumbled inside.
Scrambling to their feet, Maria and Aguilar pelted down a corridor. Up ahead, running figures came to meet them. They veered abruptly, dashing down another hallway to the left, into a storeroom of privately-owned weapons—and a pair of guards coming from a door on the far end of the room. Maria balled up her fist and punched one square on the jaw. He stumbled backwards, shaking his head and blinking.
Aguilar quickly dispatched the other in a similar fashion. Each Assassin seized a bow and an arrow. Back to back, as they had fought so many times before, they faced in opposite directions—and each fired an arrow directly into the chest of a Templar. Maria sprinted for the door Aguilar had been facing, while he turned around once more and sent another arrow singing into a foe.
The door opened onto a walkway that ran along the entire side of the building. A red-cloak with a sword swung at Maria, but with her usual grace she ducked, grabbed his sword arm, pressed it against the railing, and pinned it there savagely and efficiently with an arrow that she shoved the entire way through the man’s arm.
Emerging from the door, Aguilar fired an arrow at the Templar racing futilely to help his companion. More and more of them were coming onto the walkway, seemingly crawling out of the woodwork.
Aguilar released shot after shot, turning one way and then the other, while Maria dispatched the ones who came too close for him to shoot.
At one point, she turned to him, her eyes bloodshot from the smoke and strain and exertion, but still smoldering
with the raw excitement she always experienced when the two of them fought side by side. He knew his own eyes were bright with intensity as their gazes met for the briefest of instants before he turned, slamming a red-cloak with his elbow in the very same movement that he used to draw back the bow and let another arrow fly straight and true.
They raced down the walkway, leaping over bodies, and took a hard right into another room. It was not empty, but this time it was not crowded with Templars—only a nobleman and his family, who had clearly been sitting down to the midday meal when the sounds of fighting on their balcony had disturbed them.
Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent. The first tenet of the Creed.
These people would come to no harm through him or Maria. Aguilar could only hope, as he looked at a mother holding her child tightly, her eyes enormous with fear, that the Templars who would pursue them would leave the family be as well.
Even as he had the thought and was almost through the room, the shuttered windows crashed open. An enormous, solid figure burst through. Impossibly, it was Ojeda. The bigger man hurled himself upon Aguilar, shoving the Assassin into the table.
Maria snatched up a knife used to carve the roasted fowl and hurled it at a second Templar moving in on Aguilar, sword at the ready. The knife caught him in the throat. Ojeda whirled to stare at her, but she had already fled, and Aguilar darted through the door.
They joined up a moment later, both racing as fast as they could down the long balcony beneath hanging laundry, drying herbs, and other symbols of ordinary life.
The Assassins knew they couldn’t simply outrun Ojeda. They were pushing their limits, first fighting to rescue Ahmed, then languishing in prison without food or water, and then fighting their way to freedom. Ojeda had had opportunities to rest and eat. He was a large man, but he was startlingly fast. He would simply run them down. Even as Aguilar had the thought, he risked a glance back to see that Ojeda was within a few strides of seizing Maria.
They were coming up on a tower that appeared to be part of Seville’s massive cathedral. It had scaffolding around it, and both knew that this was their only chance. Without slowing, they leaped, slamming into the platform that was little more than crude slats of wood. Ojeda was right behind them, his bulk crashing through the outlying slats of wood to land heavily on the platform below them.
Maria gazed at him for an instant, then began to climb after Aguilar. There was nowhere for them to go but up. Ojeda recovered after a moment and continued to pursue them as they surged ever upward, craning their necks to find the next hand- or foothold.
Aguilar’s heart slammed against his ribcage. His muscles burned with each movement. He refused to acknowledge their threats of cramping. He had been born into an Assassin family; bound by blood and choice to the Brotherhood. His body was fit, strong, and lithe—and under control of his will and his discipline. It would obey.
But the Templars had spotted them. They, too, had been climbing, pacing them on nearby buildings and jumping onto the scaffolding. To anyone watching, it would appear as though the Templars had surrounded and trapped their prey.
Even as the two Assassins reached the top of the massive tower, the town spread out below them looking like a jumble of children’s toys, a crossbow bolt sang across Aguilar’s path, barely two inches in front of his face.
Maria sped to the edge of the scaffolding and did not slow, launching herself off, spreading her arms wide and embracing the empty air. Aguilar glanced back over his shoulder at Ojeda.
***
Cal’s face furrowed, the tension in his body changing subtly. Sofia’s breath caught as his eyes refocused, and realized that, in this moment, Cal had surged forward, displacing Aguilar.
No… please, not now, Cal…
“Jump!” she shouted. “Jump!”
***
Aguilar had done this many times before. It had been a key part of his training. Confidently he ran off the scaffolding’s platform, gracefully raising his arms as if in a dance, as much at peace in this freefall as he ever was. Below was a market; he would land safely, as he always did. The white squares of the vendor’s canopies raced toward him as—
***
Cal’s arms pinwheeled, his body wrenching itself back from the rapidly approaching stone floor, from the perception of impending death. The arm holding him halted, and he hung limply in its grasp.
“Complete desynch,” barked one of Sofia’s technicians, and her heart leaped in horror.
“Get him down!” she cried, racing toward him, begging the universe, No, no, don’t let this happen—
Cal’s unconscious body suddenly twitched, then erupted into full-on spasms, flailing frantically as the Animus arm lowered him to the ground. Sofia crouched beside him, trying stupidly to still his frantic movements with her own small hands.
“Where are the medics? I need help!” she cried.
Three of them were on the floor now, two holding down a leg each, one keeping Cal’s head immobilized. Cal’s body fought them fiercely, trying to buck and thrash. His eyes had rolled back into his head so that only the whites were visible.
Ordinarily, Sofia, the researcher and scientist, would step back and let them attend to the patient. But this time she stayed where she was, reaching out to grasp Cal’s hand, holding it tightly in one of hers while the other ran soothingly along his chest and shoulder.
Simple human contact. Potent. Powerful.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, blinking back tears that suddenly, unexpectedly stung her eyes. His face was flushed a dangerous purple hue, and there was foam dripping out of his mouth.
“It’s okay, Cal, stay with me—”
She looked up, and she, Sofia Rikkin, who never lost her self-control, screamed at the fourth medic running toward her, “Hurry up!”
She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t. She pressed Cal’s hand to her heart as the medic lowered a clear mask over his mouth and nose. His eyes opened, and they were wide with terror as he bared his teeth in a grimace beneath the plastic of the mask.
Sofia squeezed his hand, trying to exude calm when inside she felt anything but.
“Look at me,” she urged him, and the rolling blue eyes fastened on her. Something wet plopped down on his white shirt, making a darker spot. She hadn’t realized she was crying.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, and as his spasming slowed, she smiled, shivering herself as relief crashed through her.
CHAPTER 16
Rikkin was in his office, lost in thought and savoring a snifter of Hennessy Paradis Imperial, when his daughter stalked in. He had expected to see her sooner, but McGowen reported that Sofia had instructed Alex to inform both the head of security and her father that she was “unavailable until further notice.”
Rikkin had accepted that, but with poor grace. It was reasonable for Sofia to want to take the time to find out what the hell had gone wrong, and to see to Lynch’s safety. Now she was here, and he wanted answers.
His daughter’s anger was contained, but he had learned how to recognize it. It flashed now in her eyes, revealed itself in her body language in the tight press of her lips and the way she folded her arms when she stopped in front of him.
But he was angry, too. He’d watched her with Lynch, holding his hand, talking to him like he was a child. Or perhaps, something else. He’d never seen behavior like that before from his daughter, and he should not be seeing it now, when so much—when everything—was at stake.
His face was as hard as hers as he demanded, “What happened?”
“He desynched,” she answered in a clipped voice.
Irritation flared. “I know that, why?”
“He wasn’t ready.” She did not say I told you so. She knew she didn’t have to. He waited. “We lost him. We lost control of the Animus. We don’t know where he went, what he did… nothing.”
Sofia placed her hands on his desk and leaned forward. Her eyes were sapphire fire. “What if we lose him again?”
Rikkin did not reply. If they lost him again… they would lose everything.
***
Cal was being crucified and drowned at the same time. He was in a cage, feet together, arms spread, engulfed by water. Terror spurted through him. His lungs cried out for air. Above him, only dimly glimpsed, was a ripple of gray in the aqua-blue, lit only by flashing ribbons of light. Gray, and white, and a face.
Aguilar.
Cal screamed, expelling air, inhaling water—
He blinked, his chest heaving. He was not immersed in the water, not now; he floated atop it as an orderly patiently waited for his breathing to slow, for him to take another deep breath, before steadily submerging him again.
He recalled now, bits and pieces at least, about what had happened. The horror of seeing—smelling—someone being burned alive. The sharpness and clarity of everything, and the speed with which Aguilar’s mind raced. The rightness of the violence against the Templars, who had performed such atrocities. The bone-deep connection of passion and trust between Aguilar and Maria.
And the city laid out, far below, with Templars on every side and—
Cal had awoken to a mask over his mouth and nose, providing oxygen as he lay in the salty, body-temperature water. They had said something about electricity and galvanic stimulation and something else, enough for him to understand that this was a treatment, not a torture. Cal wanted to have some measure of control and insisted they remove the mask, which meant that every half-minute or minute or so, they’d pull him up.
Dim blue light emanated from below him. The room was walled in black metal, with a band of low-level light running horizontally along it. The water steamed gently. If he had been there of his own free will and not strapped down in a damned cruciform cage, it might have been pleasant.
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