Darkness Reigns

by Joseph Nassise

  The room was massive, the vault stretching above and away from him for a good distance beyond the edge of his light. He remembered being surprised by the sheer size of the room the first time he'd been here and it was no different now. All about him stood tall display cases in neat rows, their glass surfaces reflecting the red and orange light of his torch back at him. Glass littered the floor at his feet, the remains of the case his entrance had shattered, but thankfully that was the only damage he could see.

  The cases around him, he noted with a sigh of relief, were empty. Most of them stood with their locks disengaged and their doors open, the lack of damage to them suggesting that the keepers of the relics, the Custodes Veritatis, had been warned in advance and had enough time to remove the items from the reliquary before the enemy could get their hands on them.

  Unless the enemy had access to the keys, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

  Cade did his best to ignore it.

  He moved through the rows, remembering the first time he'd been granted access to the Reliquary. He'd been hot on the trail of the Council of Nine at the time, having just learned that the group's leader, Simon Logan, the Necromancer, was searching for the fabled Spear of Longinus. To help him with his investigation, then-Preceptor Michaels had not only revealed the presence of the artifact vault to him, but had given him and his fellow Echo Team member, Sean Duncan, a tour of the facility, bringing him face to face with the legendary weapon in the process. Cade could remember the sense of wonder he'd felt when his Sight had revealed the power inherent in the Spear, as well as the other artifacts stored in the vault. The room had practically vibrated with the arcane energy stored within and Cade remembered thinking how disastrous it would be should any of the relics fall into enemy hands...

  They'd nearly been undone by treachery back then; Preceptor Michaels' aide de camp had not only allowed the enemy onto the commandery grounds but had used an opportune moment to take the Preceptor's life. In the resulting confusion, the Necromancer had stolen the Spear.

  Thankfully, Cade recovered the weapon in the subsequent assault on the Necromancer's stronghold, after having made sure that Henderson paid a price for his crimes by leaving him to fend for himself in the Beyond.

  A suitable punishment for a traitor.

  In the wake of the Necromancer's attack on the Bristol commandery, the Reliquary had been moved here, to the newly constructed vault beneath Ravensgate. Information about the vault's location had been a tightly controlled secret and Cade had been one of the few who'd known.

  Unfortunately, Preceptor Johannson was another.

  And therein lies the rub, Cade thought.

  Knowledge of the reliquary and what it contained had no doubt gone with him when Johannson went over to the dark side. Which meant it could just as easily have been the enemy who had cleaned out the place as it could have been the surviving Templars.

  And Cade had no way of knowing which it was.

  Unless...

  Carefully laying his torch on the floor, he turned and walked in the opposite direction of the light, wanting to limit its interference in what he was about to do as much as possible. When he'd reached the far side of the vault and the light was just a dim presence at his back, Cade stopped and, with barely a thought, triggered his Sight.

  Around him, the room lit up with a faint silvery light, a vestigial remnant of the power that had been present in the room for so long. Cade turned in a slow circle, carefully examining everything in view. Just as the relics had left their mark on the room in the sense of the silvery aura he was seeing, so, too, should the presence of anything with infernal ties do the same by way of a darker aura, usually in hues of crimson and black.

  Thankfully, there was no such aura to be seen anywhere in the room.

  Score one for the good guys, Cade thought in satisfaction as he let his Sight fade back to normal. He might not know where the relics were, but he was fairly positive that it was not the Preceptor and his new allies, that had taken them.

  Satisfied that he'd learned all he was going to learn down here, Cade walked back to where he'd left his make-shift torch and picked it back up. Stepping over to the nearest display case, he positioned himself so that the light caused his reflection to appear on the glass door.

  Calling up his destination in his mind, he took a deep breath and opened the doorway through the Veil once more.

  15

  "We have a breach, sir."

  "A breach? Where?"

  "The reliquary at Ravensgate."

  There was silence for a moment as the senior officer considered the implications of what he'd just been told. "Have you run a diagnostic check?" he asked finally.

  "That's just it, sir. It wasn't any of the tech we left at the entrance to the vault that was tripped, but one of the wards inside that was activated."

  "Inside the vault, you say?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Hmm. Who do we have nearby?"

  The other man consulted a clipboard hanging nearby.

  "Sergeant Moretti's unit is doing surveillance on a target about fifty miles north of Ravensgate. Rollins' unit is even closer, but are slated to be off rotation until tomorrow."

  "Leave Moretti where he is. We need that intelligence more than anything else right now. Send Rollins' team to Ravensgate. If he bitches about being recalled early, tell him he can talk to me about it after the fact. Right now, we need him on site as quickly as possible."

  "Roger that."

  16

  Cade returned along the same path, bursting back into the world through a reflection of moonlight on one of the surviving panes of window glass in the south wing of the commandery. He picked his way through the ruins and out onto the lawn, then circled the house to return to where they'd made camp.

  Gabrielle was still sleeping fitfully when he lay down beside her for a second time that night. Now that his curiosity about the artifacts was satisfied, he hoped he could get some rest himself.

  He lay there, staring up at the stars, wondering what they were going to do next, until, at last, he fell asleep.

  Only to snap back away some time later, his senses on high alert and his ears straining to recapture the noise that had awakened him.

  He couldn't be certain, but he thought he'd heard the distant sound of an engine.

  It didn't come again, and it might just have been wishful thinking, but he couldn't be sure if he'd heard it or not and that bothered him enough to keep him from falling back asleep again. After lying there for a moment he sat up, drawing his knees up and leaning his upper body against them. The fire had gone down to little more than coals and he stirred with a stick left nearby for just that purpose, preparing to throw another log into the fire. As he reached for the wood, his ears caught a new sound.

  He froze.

  After a moment it came again and there was no mistaking that sound.

  It was the call of a marsh bird in mating season.

  Except there was no marsh for fifty miles and it was late November, a far cry from mating season.

  Cade dropped the piece of wood he'd picked up and reached for his sword instead. Now armed, he knelt over Gabrielle and gently put his hand over her mouth. When she startled awake, her eyes wide in the moonlight, Cade leaned closer so she could see it was him and put a finger over his lips, indicating she should be quiet.

  When she nodded her understanding, he took his hand away from her mouth and then used it to point to the area around them on the other side of the wall.

  There was something out there, the gesture said.

  Another nod. While Gabrielle quietly sat up and reached for her sword, Cade kicked dirt over the fire coals, not wanting the light to give away their position.

  With both of them now armed, they turned and took up positions on either side of the corner wall section that they'd been using as their windbreak and waited for their eyes to adjust to the darkness so they could see what was out there.

  When he was re
ady, Cade peeked around his side of the wall, looking out into the darkness beyond. He didn't stare at any one location, but let his gaze drift across his entire field of vision, watching for movement.

  It didn't take long.

  The moon had all but set while he slept, but there was still enough ambient light left for him to spot the five-man team slowly making their way across the lawn toward where he and Gabrielle were hiding. They were well-spaced out and moved together as a unit, keeping the distance between them and advancing at the same pace. There wasn't enough light to make out any details, all he could see were shadowy silhouettes, but something about the way they moved told him they were armed, most likely with rifles of one sort or another.

  Cade glanced at the sword in his hand and shook his head.

  If he was right, they were more than a little outgunned.

  He signaled to Gabrielle to stay where she was and then quickly crossed the room, staying low as he went, not wanting to present an obvious target to those getting closer. Once against the opposite wall, he edged over to the window and then stood up, flattening himself against the wall next to the window. Slowly, inch by inch, he moved close enough until he could see around the window's edge and out behind the building.

  Their movement, slow though it might be, gave them away. He counted at least four more men trying to box them in from that direction. They were still a good distance away, so Cade made the split-second decision to focus on those coming from the other direction and returned to Gabrielle's side.

  He had just peeked back around his side of the wall when he saw the squad leader raise a clenched fist and the assault team stopped, its members going down on one knee to present smaller targets while keeping their weapons trained forward, each covering their assigned angle of attack.

  A voice shouted out of the darkness.

  "We know you're in there! Come out with your hands up and no one gets hurt!"

  Cade didn't respond. The other man might be bluffing and there was no sense in confirming their positions for him. Better to wait and see what they intended to do.

  When it was obvious no answer was forthcoming, the squad leader pointed at one of his men and gestured toward the section of wall behind which Cade and Gabrielle were hiding.

  First mistake, Cade thought.

  The problem with taking a room by yourself is that there are simply too many angles of exposure to cover all at once. You have to make choices; expose yourself as little as possible while checking one way and hoping you didn't get a bullet in the back of your head when doing so before turning and checking the other side. There was no way to do it without exposing yourself for even a few seconds.

  And a few seconds was all Cade would need.

  The overwhelming majority of people were right-handed and Cade had seen men time and time again clear a room by looking to the right first; it just felt more natural to right-handed people to do it that way. He was betting on that happening here.

  If the newcomers had assaulted the position as a unit, it would have been impossible for Cade and Gabrielle to defend the location, armed as they were with just melee weapons against the others' firearms. But by sending a single man in to do the job that should have been handled by half a dozen or so, the opposition had just given Cade the chance to even up the odds a bit.

  He stood on the left side of the opening, sword in hand, waiting.

  Seconds passed.

  He still hadn't heard anything from the other side of the wall, but an electric tension ran through his body, letting him know that the other man was close.

  Then he heard it.

  The sound of breathing, low and heavy.

  Guy's psyching himself up to do what needs to be done.

  The opening was suddenly filled with the silhouette of the soldier as he stepped across the threshold and spun to the right, checking that corner.

  It was exactly what Cade had been hoping for.

  Before the other man could spin about and check the opposite side, Cade stepped forward, grabbed the other man's forehead and pulled his head back sharply, exposing his neck to the knife blade that Cade now held against it.

  "Don't move," he whispered in the man's ear.

  The soldier froze.

  "Drop the gun."

  A moment later there as a clatter as the weapon fell to the floor.

  Cade shook his head. The idiot wasn't even using a sling.

  He pressed the edge of the blade tight against the man's throat to keep him from making any smart-aleck moves as Gabrielle bent and picked the weapon up off the ground. She checked it over and then returned to her position by the wall, making sure they weren't being flanked while letting Cade deal with their captive. The rifle she was now carrying would make doing so infinitely easier, he knew.

  "On your knees," Cade told the prisoner.

  When the other man had complied, Cade asked, "How many are out there?"

  The man shook his head.

  With no time for niceties, Cade yanked the guy's head back further and pressed the knife hard against his throat. "I've no time for bullshit! Tell me how many of them are out there or I'll cut your throat here and now."

  This time he got an answer, but it was a far cry from what he expected. Against all reason, the other man said, "In the name of the Lord Almighty, I call upon you to relinquish your weapons and receive the mercy of Christ the King."

  Cade froze for a moment, stunned. Ever since the Crusades, the Templar Rule had required that enemies be given the chance to surrender before hostilities could commence. It was one rule Cade never bothered to follow – warning your enemy that you were about to attack was one of the stupidest things he'd ever heard of – but he knew there were men in the Order who followed every element of the Rule to a T. His friend and fellow Echo Team member, Sean Duncan, had been one of them.

  If these men were Templars, that changed everything.

  But he wasn't ready to trust them quite yet.

  Pulling the man to his feet, Cade stepped in close behind, keep his blade against the man's throat. "Alright," he whispered in the man's ear, "we're going to go out there and talk to your friends. Nice and slow, understand?"

  The man nodded.

  Cade looked over at Gabrielle. "You good with that?" he asked, nodding at the rifle in her hands.

  Gabbi gave him a thumbs-up, then turned to cover him from behind the protection of the wall.

  Cade turned his head and shouted out into the darkness, "Don't shoot! We're coming out!"

  He nudged the man in the back to get him moving and together they stepped out into view of those outside the ruined walls of the manor house.

  Cade stayed close to the wall; it would allow him to duck back under cover if things didn't go well while at the same time preventing any of the soldiers in front of him from maneuvering around behind him.

  The squad leader held a hand behind him, palm up, indicating to his men to stay put as he took a few steps closer. His weapon was lowered by his side but that didn't fool Cade for a moment. He knew how quickly it could be brought to bear should the need arise.

  With only a few yards separating them, Cade could see that the man before him was young, mid-twenties or thereabouts, but he held himself like a someone who'd seen his fair share of action, loose and ready to move. He was tall and thin, with a few days beard and eyes that gleamed hard in the moonlight.

  "Let him go," the squad leader instructed.

  Cade ignored him; there was no way he was letting go of the only leverage he had.

  "Who are you and what do you want?" he asked in return.

  The squad leader shook his head and then snapped his weapon up to his shoulder, ready to fire.

  "I'm not going to ask again. Let him go and we'll talk. Otherwise I'll be forced to do something you'll find unpleasant."

  Unpleasant? Was this guy serious?

  Aloud, Cade said, "Think again. The minute you pull that trigger, it's all over for you."

  Gabrielle cho
se that moment to activate the laser sight on the rifle she'd acquired, putting the green dot square in the middle of the man's chest, where he couldn't miss seeing it, and then sliding it up to rest in the center of the man's forehead.

  To give him credit, the squad leader didn't flinch at the realization he was under Gabrielle's sights, but neither did he lower his weapon, much to Cade's annoyance.

  "Look," Cade said, "we don't want any trouble. You're the ones who crashed our party, not the other way around. Why don't we cut the bullshit and get down to business? I know who, or rather what, you are." To prove his point, he recited the Templar motto. "Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini tuo da gloriam."

  Not unto us, Lord, not unto us but to thy name be the glory.

  The squad leader was not impressed.

  "Anyone can learn a motto," he said, rather stubbornly in Cade's view.

  "Yeah? So, tell me, who's running the show these days? Is that bastard Johannson still in charge?"

  That got a response. Behind the squad leader, the other men in the unit suddenly raised their weapons and aimed them at Cade.

  "Lower your weapons!" the squad leader shouted, no doubt still cognizant of the laser sight focused on his head.

  Behind him, the men did as they were told.

  Cade let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Touched a nerve with that one, I see.

  The squad leader addressed Cade again.

  "You're standing in the remains of a Templar facility, so clearly you know something about the Order. But that doesn't prove anything."

  The former Echo Team commander wanted to hit the man. "I'm not trying to prove anything!" he said. "I'm the one who was minding my own business, remember?"

  But the squad leader stubbornly held to his previous line of questioning.

  "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

  It was Gabrielle who broke the impasse.

  Stepping out of the shadows still holding her recently-acquired rifle steady on the man in front of her, she said, "His name is Cade Williams."