Fall of Night: A Templar Chronicles Novel

by Joseph Nassise

  For several seconds the room was utterly silent.

  Then a voice rang out from the middle of the group.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Riley turned at the sound and saw Green, Gamma’s commander, pushing his way forward through the ranks of the men until he could face Gabrielle directly.

  “You come in here expecting us to believe a cockamamie story like that? How do we even know you are who you say you are? You could be just about anybody with an invented story, trying to infiltrate our ranks and throw us off our true mission!”

  Riley could see that Green’s words were having an impact. Several men were talking between themselves now, casting discomforting glances in Gabrielle’s direction.

  He stepped forward to stand next to Gabrielle.

  “I have absolutely no doubt,” he said, “that this is Gabrielle Williams. I would not have brought here her if I had any suspicions otherwise.”

  “With all due respect, Captain, I think you’re in over your head. Your word isn’t good enough for me anymore.”

  Riley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Green had always been a team player and this kind of insubordination was completely unlike him.

  But before he could say anything in response, a figure stepped out of the shadows off to their left.

  “Perhaps you’ll take my word for it then, as she indeed speaks the truth.”

  The giant of a man might as well have just appeared out of thin air. Riley had looked in that direction earlier and he would have sworn that no one had been there. The newcomer wore a dark cloak and hood that covered him from head to foot, keeping his face in shadow, but power seemed to radiate off him in waves and more than a few of the assembled Templars hastily pointed their weapons in his direction.

  The newcomer appeared not to notice. He looked over those assembled and then turned to face Riley.

  “You need to listen to her,” the newcomer insisted.

  Riley didn’t have any objection to listening to Gabrielle. He had, in fact, brought her here for that very purpose. After all, he knew she was who she said she was.

  This stranger on the other hand…

  Holding up a hand to keep any of his men from acting precipitously, he asked the stranger, “Who are you?”

  The newcomer came forward a few steps so that he was no longer hidden in the shadows. Reaching up, he took off the hood that concealed his face.

  “I have been known by many names through the years,” he said, “but you can call me Uriel.”

  Riley stared at him, taking in the square-jawed masculine face, a face that was human and yet not, a face that was perfectly proportioned in every way, so much so that it appeared almost alien in its perfection.

  “The Uriel?” he asked.

  The man tilted his head to look at Riley from an angle, reminding him of a dog cocking his head to the side.

  No dog was ever that powerful or dangerous, he thought.

  “Who would pretend to be that if he were not?” Uriel replied.

  Riley considered that a moment. He’d seen his fair share of angels, including the resurrected one, Baraquel, that he’d bound to his will, and he was willing to give the entity before them the benefit of the doubt.

  Some of the others were not so easily convinced.

  Green, still looking for an argument it seemed, stepped forward. “You expect us to believe that you’re an archangel of the Lord? What? We’re just supposed to take your word for it?”

  Uriel glanced at Riley, his expression unreadable, and then he turned and thrust one hand in Green’s direction. As if caught by an invisible power, the other man froze in place, unable to move even the slightest muscle. Riley could see the struggle Green was putting up in the depths of his eyes, but that was the only outward indication that he was fighting against whatever it was that held him in place.

  Uriel watched him the way a boy might watch a bug under a magnifying glass, curious but with no real feeling. It was clear to Riley that Uriel would just as soon crush his fellow Templar as let him go.

  Without looking away from Green, the archangel addressed the others.

  “I am as old as time itself. I am the watcher in the dark, the chronicler of the ages. It is my curse to watch and record all that passes in the world of men in order to keep the balance.”

  He reached up and parted the front of his robe, revealing his chest. His skin was the color of burnt sienna but it was the tattoos that caught Riley’s eye. Every inch of his flesh seemed to be covered; from the base of Uriel’s neck down to the waist of his jeans and apparently lower still.

  The tattoos twisted and moved and roamed about on his flesh like living breathing creations with a life all their own. Images rose to prominence as a scene played out his eyes and then fell into the background again as another took its place. Each of them were different than the one before and it didn’t take long for Riley to realize that he was watching events from the past, present, and quite possibly the future play out in an endless sequence on Uriel’s flesh.

  Events from his own life, in fact.

  Glancing at the expressions on the faces of the men around him, he believed they were seeing memories and events related to them in turn.

  When Uriel shrugged his shoulders, setting his robe back into place, there wasn’t a man left in the room, Green included, who didn’t believe the angel was who he said he was.

  By now, it seemed, they were all ready to hear what the angel had to say.

  “Gabrielle Williams speaks the truth. The Adversary was not destroyed; far from it. He twisted the ancient ritual to his own purposes, releasing the spirits of his former angelic companions into the bodies of the Seven who came to face him, corrupting them from the inside out. He now inhabits the body of the man you once knew as Sean Ferguson, who was, in fact, the angel Lenestiel.”

  With that revelation, Riley began to understand just what had been happening within the Order. The Adversary, in the guise of Seneschal Ferguson, had been intentionally working to destabilize the Order, destroying it from within.

  “But why?” Gabrielle asked. “What is he trying to do?”

  Uriel crossed the room to stand before her and gently placed his hands on either side of Gabrielle’s face, tilting her head upward so that his eyes were staring directly into hers. She made no move to stop him.

  “Here is what the future holds,” he said softly and then the ground seemed to fall out beneath her and Gabrielle felt herself falling backward, her body picking up speed as it tumbled away into the darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  She opened her mouth to scream…

  …and found herself standing on a stony point high above the earth, looking down at a highway that cut its way through the rock-strewn landscape far below like a stretch of black ribbon. She wasn’t alone; the tattooed man stood beside her, dressed in jeans but bare from the waist up. The tattoos drew her attention but try as she might she couldn’t quite understand exactly what she was seeing within their shifting shapes.

  She stepped closer, trying to get a better look, but her companion interrupted her perusal by reaching out, grasping her upper arm, and stepping off the edge, taking her along with him.

  A sickening sensation of falling washed over her but it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Instead of slamming into the earth at the foot of the cliff, body broken on the unyielding rocks below, she found that she was standing in the midst of a jungle clearing, her companion by her side. Around them was a massive crowd of people, most likely numbering in the thousands, standing at the base of a stone step-pyramid that carved its way upward toward the night sky above. The sound of drums – many, many drums – came from somewhere nearby, the air literally vibrating with their heavy beat.

  A ceremony was taking place high above on the top of the pyramid. Even as Gabrielle looked on two burly men wearing feathered jaguar masks brought a woman to the edge of the pyramid, facing the crowd below, and forced her to her knees. Whi
le they held her arm stretched out to either side, a third man stepped up behind and grabbed her hair, pulling her head back to expose her throat. A knife flashed, one quick, sharp slash across the woman’s throat, and blood began to spurt outward in long, wet streams, painting the steps below.

  The guards shoved the dying woman’s body forward, watching as it tumbled end over end toward the screaming crowd below before moving out of the way as another prisoner was brought forward and forced to his knees.

  Her companion touched her arm and in the blink of an eye they left the jungle sacrifice behind and found themselves atop a massive dune in the midst of a desert. Africa most likely, she thought, given the fact that she was currently sitting astride a camel the likes of which she’d only seen in movies or zoos. Her companion rode a similar beast.

  As with their last destination, they were not alone. A group of desert nomads dressed in loose-fitting robes designed to shield them from the desert sun surrounding them. Oddly enough, none seemed to notice the two strangers within their midst; it was as if their gaze slipped right over them whenever one turned in their direction.

  Gabrielle turned her attention to what it was she’d been brought to see.

  A giant stone statue, easily five stories high, was being constructed in the valley below. Groups of men wearing little more than loincloths in the scorching desert heat were dragging massive stone blocks by hand along the valley floor toward the worksite, where others would take over the chore of dragging them up long, earth ramps to their intended position and slotting them into place as part of the statue’s form. It was brutal work, made all the more so by what were clearly slave drivers scattered throughout the work crews, driving the slaves onward with the repeated lash of a whip whenever they faltered or slowed their pace.

  Gabrielle could almost have imagined that it was a scene out of ancient Egypt, if it weren’t for the wreckage of modern vehicles lying half-buried in the drifting sand.

  No, this is present day, she thought, or pretty damn close to it.

  The realization chilled her to the bone.

  She was looking about, searching for something that might tell her where she was or who these people might be, when the scene dissolved for the third time and she and her companion were whisked away once more.

  This time, their destination needed no explanation, for Gabrielle immediately recognized the iconic New York skyline. Or, at least, what was left of it. She stood on the top floor of a partially destroyed skyscraper, looking down upon the wreckage of a city laid to waste by what seemed like years of warfare. At first it appeared that nothing living remained amidst the ruins, but then her companion raised his arm and pointed, directing her attention to a motorcade that emerged into view.

  Gabrielle counted five cars in all; two SUVS in front, a limousine in the center, with two more SUVS bringing up the rear.

  The target will be in the center car, she thought, and was still wondering where such a thought had come from when everything went the hell right there in front of her.

  A rocket raced out of the ruins, striking the lead vehicle smack in the middle of the chassis and exploding on impact, sending it ten feet into the air before it crashed back down in a burning heap. Gabrielle was still gaping in astonishment when a second rocket raced out of the debris, turning the last vehicle into twisted, burning wreckage much like the first. The remaining vehicles were now effectively boxed in between the building debris on either side of the road and the disabled vehicles to the front and rear.

  Men dressed in dark BDUs emerged from either side of the road at that point, firing automatic weapons at the two remaining SUVs, ignoring the limousine in the middle.

  Recognizing the danger that they were in, the driver of the lead vehicle tried to make a break for it, stomping on the gas and sending his own SUV racing forward, hoping to ram the disabled on in front of him and move it out of the way. His actions backfired, however, as the attackers focused their firepower in his direction, riddling the SUV he was driving with a cavalcade of bullets and killing all those inside.

  The men in the final SUV chose to stand their ground and fight back, spilling out of the vehicle and taking cover wherever they could find it. There were too few of them, however, and the resulting firefight didn’t last long.

  With the bodyguards dead, the attackers advanced on the limousine.

  Gabrielle had no idea who was inside, or what they were fighting over. She glanced over at her companion, looking for some insight, but he must have misunderstood her for he simply shook his head and pointed into the distance.

  She turned, looking in the direction that he’d indicated, and was just in time to see what she first took to be a flock of birds emerge from behind the hulk of a partially-damaged skyscraper.

  But as the birds drew closer…

  “Those aren’t birds,” she said aloud, surprised that she could even hear herself over the roar of the automatic weapons still going off below them.

  She didn’t know what the hell they were - Gargoyles? Demons? Something worse? – but she could see that they were scaled, reptilian creatures the size of horses supported on bat-like wings as they swooped through the air with the grace of beings one-fourth their size. Within seconds the flock spotted the conflagration going on below and, as one, wheeled about and dove downward, their clawed feet extended like those of a hawk preparing to break the back of its prey.

  A shout rose up from the men below as one of their own spotted the diving creatures as well, but by then it was too late. The gargoyles-demons-whatever-the-hell-they-were were among them in seconds, their claws rending and tearing flesh with wild abandon and the attack that had been going so well just seconds before devolved into a rout. Those that survived the initial onslaught scattered like mice, racing into the closer confines of the crumbling ruins around them, hoping to find shelter from the aerial attacks that had decimated their numbers so quickly.

  Gabrielle never saw what happened to them, for again she was whisked away to another location, first to London, then Sydney, then Moscow, and last, but not least, to a barren snow-swept landscape that she instinctively knew was somewhere in Antarctica. Seven locations. Seven continents. Seven scenes of murder and mayhem.

  It was the future of the world under the leadership of the Adversary and his princes.

  It was hell on earth.

  Uriel let go of her face and Gabrielle stumbled backward, her senses spinning as the things she had seen flowed across the surface of her mind like water bursting from a crack in a pressure dam.

  “Now do you understand?” Uriel asked in a booming voice, directed not just at her but at all of the knights assembled in the room.

  Glancing around and seeing the expressions on their faces, she realized that somehow Uriel had shown them all the same images, that the scenes had been playing out in their minds even as they were unfolding in her own.

  “The Adversary must be stopped or all you have seen will come to pass.”

  Riley couldn’t keep the look of horror off his face. It was perhaps the biggest mission the Templar Order had ever faced and, thanks to the Adversary’s machinations, there weren’t more than a few dozen of them left to carry it out.

  He felt despair begin to overwhelm him.

  Riley knew he was a good soldier, a good leader, but he was also enough of a pragmatist to realize that a task like this was beyond his abilities. They needed someone with tactical experience, yes, but also the kind of magnetic charisma that would get other men to follow him to hell and back in order to see things through.

  Gabrielle asked the question before he could.

  “Where is Cade?”

  The archangel glanced at Riley, as if sensing the self-doubt that was festering across the surface of his mind, before turning his attention back to Gabrielle.

  “The Nephilim is following his own path.”

  Nephilim? Riley thought. What in holy hell?

  Gabrielle either didn’t pick up on the significance of t
he appellation or simply didn’t care, barreling right past it. “Don’t give me that crap! I’ve come all this way and I intend to find my husband. Where is he?”

  Uriel considered her a moment and then nodded once, as if acknowledging her need to find an answer.

  In an oddly-gentle voice for someone with his power, he said, “Your husband blames himself for your death. He believes that he failed you, not once, but thrice; when the Adversary first invaded your home, when your soul was offered as payment for Cade’s ability to bridge the way between worlds, and when he failed to protect you from the Necromancer’s ritual. He has dedicated himself to fighting spectres in the Beyond until he either destroys them all or dies in the attempt.”

  As Gabrielle stared at him in horror, Uriel went on.

  “Unfortunately, without your husband, this little resistance you’ve formed has very little chance of succeeding.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Riley found his voice first.

  “So what do we do?” he asked.

  “I would think that was obvious,” Uriel answered. “Someone is going to have to enter the Beyond and find him.”

  That was about the last thing Riley wanted to hear. He had a deep, innate distaste for that other worldly place and he would do just about anything to avoid going back there. Twice was two times too many.

  An idea suddenly struck him.

  “Why don’t you go?” he said to Uriel. “You’re an archangel, if anyone can find him in that hellhole it would be you.”

  But their new ally – if they could call him that – was already shaking his head.

  “I cannot enter the Beyond.”

  “Why not?” Riley asked.

  “Because the Beyond is just that – beyond the reach of the heavenly host. If I were to enter it, I would fall, just like Asherael.”