Darkness Reigns

by Joseph Nassise

  "You're in my seat," said their leader, the one with the ram’s horns jutting from either side of his head. The rest of his entourage laughed, despite the fact that it was a line probably as old as time itself. Clearly they were just here to cause troubler him and Gabrielle.

  For a moment, Cade considered planting a fist right between Ramshead's big yellow eyes. The bigger they are, the harder they fall and all that, he thought, but he managed to restrain himself. Getting in a fight with this crew wasn't exactly living up to his promise to Dean to keep things low key.

  Instead, he put a smile on his face and casually pushed his chair back from the table, allowing himself room to maneuver if it was going to come to that.

  "I'm sorry," he said, putting as much sincerity as he could into his tone. "We didn't realize that you were sitting here. We'll find somewhere else to sit."

  He gestured with his head to Gabrielle, indicating that they should give up the table and find somewhere else to sit, but as he moved to stand Ramshead thrust his face right in Cade's, no doubt intending to deliver some more verbal harassment.

  Unfortunately for him, he never got the chance.

  Cade's sight activated on its own, startling him because it was something that had never happened before, and like a curtain being lifted at the start of a play he could suddenly see the true nature of the creature before him. His initial assessment had been wrong. This wasn't just a Fomori, but an actual demon, a lesser one, but still a demon nonetheless slumming in the guise of one of its half-breed cousins.

  In the same moment, the demon's eyes went wide as it no doubt saw Cade's true nature as well.

  "Hey, we've got a..." the demon shouted, but got no further.

  Dean's admonition about staying out of trouble aside, Cade knew that being identified as a nephilim would have far greater consequences than a bar fight between angry patrons, so he whipped the knife from his belt and slashed it across the demon's throat, severing its vocal chords with one powerful blow.

  The hot smell of demon blood filled the air as it sprayed out of the wound, splashing across Cade's face and upper body even as Cade pulled his boot back and kicked the demon in the chest, sending him stumbling backward right into a group of humans playing cards at a nearby table.

  The demon crashed into their table, sending cards and money flying, as those seated there lurched to their feet, spoiling for a fight.

  Cade pointed to the nearest of Ramshead's companions, shouted, "He did it!" and waited to see what happened next.

  Thankfully he wasn't dealing with the sharpest tacks in the box. The card players, no doubt already having drunk their fair share of the rotgut being passed off as alcohol by the bartender, took one look at the dead fomori in the middle of their table and back at his companions standing nearby with belligerent expressions on their faces and that was all it took.

  With a roar the card players rushed for the fomori and in seconds pandemonium had broken out across the entire room.

  Someone grabbed his arm and Cade spun about, arm already pulled back to deliver the punch that would free himself from the other's grip, when he realized it was Gabrielle.

  "What the hell was that about?" she shouted above the din.

  "He recognized my true nature," Cade told her. "I didn't have any choice!"

  "So now what?"

  Cade didn't know. With only one exit, they were going to have to cross the room if they wanted to get out and that meant making their way through a milling mass of patrons currently taking their frustrations out on each other in every way they knew how. Fists, feet, and bar stools flew everywhere he looked.

  There's no way we're getting through that, he thought.

  The sound of breaking glass drew his attention and he turned just in time to see a body disappear out of sight behind the bar after being thrown in the mirrored wall behind it, pieces of glass raining down atop the hapless victim.

  About half the mirror remained attached to the wall behind the bar.

  Staring at it, Cade knew he'd found their way out.

  "Cade!" Gabrielle shouted and he turned just as a fist came flying out of nowhere, aimed straight at his face. He ducked beneath the blow, kicked the fool who'd thrown the punch square in the crotch, and then grabbed Gabrielle's hand and began to pull her behind him deeper into the room, headed directly for the bar.

  Twice they were forced to stop and deal with an assault by various patrons, but both of them were trained fighters and their opponents were nothing more than belligerent drunks who didn't even know why they were fighting. Each time Cade and Gabrielle made short work of their foes and in less than a minute they were scrambling up onto the bar.

  Cade glanced out over the crowd and caught sight of Dean standing by the door, hesitating, no doubt looking for him and Gabrielle. As if on cue Dean looked up, his gaze connecting with Cade's.

  "Go!" Cade mouthed, knowing he'd never be heard over the din in the place, and then, without waiting for Dean's response, he grabbed Gabrielle's hand and together they leapt straight at the mirror before them.

  At the last second Cade activated his power and carried them through the glass and into the Beyond without a sound.

  22

  Cade burst out of the Beyond in the middle of a puddle of water, the forward momentum he'd brought with him from the other side sending him rolling across the rubble-strewn floor of the room he suddenly found himself in as if shot from a cannon. When he finally came to a halt, elbows and knees a bit banged up but otherwise intact, he took a second to catch his breath and then sat up, looking around in the dim light for Gabrielle.

  The beam of a flashlight shot out of the darkness, pinning him in place in the midst of its glare.

  "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" he shouted, holding his hands up over his head so whoever was on the other end could see that he was unarmed.

  "Knight Commander?" a voice asked from behind the light. "Is that you?"

  Cade recognized the voice as belonging to the knight they'd left behind to guard the horses. The man's Scottish burr was hard to miss.

  "Meikle?"

  A moment later the other man appeared at his side and helped him to his feet. Together they found Gabrielle sitting a few yards away, rubbing her head from where she'd bumped it as she'd emerged from the gate.

  "How'd you two get in here?" Meikle asked, looking around the dead-end room in confusion, as if expecting to find an entrance he must have missed the first time around. "And where's everyone else?"

  Cade ignored the first question, knowing he didn't have a good answer for it at the moment, and addressed the second one instead.

  "We got separated from the others back at the bar. Dean ordered everyone to make their own way back to the rendezvous."

  Cade breathed a sigh of relief when that seemed to satisfy Meikle. After making sure the other two were okay, the Templar returned to his guard post to watch for the others.

  The rest of the team arrived about two hours later, having dispersed with the crowd and slipped out of the city one by one as the evening had worn on. Meikle didn't say anything aloud about the strange means by which Cade and Gabrielle had arrived back at the rendezvous point, but Cade saw him having a quiet word with their leader later that night and he had no doubt that the information was passed on.

  For the first time, Cade found that it didn't bother him. He'd hidden his abilities from everyone but his closest allies for years and doing so had gotten him nowhere. Perhaps now, in this new world, it was time to stop hiding behind the mask and show what he was capable of in more ways than one.

  He was still mulling over the consequences of doing so when the decision was made to hole up where they were for the night and head back to the commandery in the morning. Traveling at night would look suspicious if they were discovered, never mind exposing them to additional danger from other, nocturnal foes. Better to keep their heads down and set out at first light.

  The decision made, the team settled in to wait for morning.
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  They saw the carrion crows first.

  A great mass of them was circling above the trees in the distance, their loud calls mixing and merging with each other as they dove out of sight toward the ground, only to rise again moment later to start the process anew.

  The sight of them brought the group to a halt.

  Sergeant Dean rose up in his saddle, studying the flock for a moment, and then turned his horse in that direction without a word.

  Behind him, the others followed suit.

  About a quarter mile later they emerged from the tree line to find themselves on the edge of what had once been Route 8, a four lane highway running north from Bridgeport to other parts of the state that still served as a main byway into the remains of the city.

  Rough X's made from hewn logs had been erected on the other side of the roadway every ten feet in either direction as far as Cade could see. Secured to each X was a human form and it was on these that the crows were feasting.

  Cade was urging his horse forward before any of the other had even managed to reconcile what it was that they were seeing and so he reached the nearest X first, scattering the birds with a shout that was swiftly drowned out by their irritated cries.

  Tied to the wooden X was the body of a naked male. Cade guessed him to be somewhere in his mid-forties. His arms and legs were secured to each beam of the X by thick strands of rope, holding his body in place and keeping him from struggling free. The man's eyes were wide, staring forward unseeing, and his mouth hung open, chin against his chest, partially obscuring the wide slash that ran across his throat. Blood from that slash coated his bare chest, which no doubt had helped to attract the feasting crows.

  Carved into the center of the man's forehead was a Templar cross.

  Anger washed over Cade in a wave and for a moment all he could see was red.

  Someone was going to pay for this.

  By the time the others were just reaching the first body Cade had gotten himself under control and was spurring his horse over to the next makeshift cross. The man tied to this one was a good thirty years older than the first, but he had been strung up and tortured in the same fashion, right down to having the cross carved into his forehead.

  The same went for the body after that. By the time he reached the fourth victim, a young boy no older than sixteen, Cade knew that they were all going to have been killed in the same fashion. He also knew why.

  The crosses carved into the victims foreheads were a clear sign.

  These men been killed in reprisal for Cade's attack on the patrol four days earlier.

  Not just men, Cade thought in furious disgust. Children, too.

  There would be hell to pay. He would make certain of it.

  He returned to the others, dismounted and stepped up to that first cross, knife in hand.

  "What are you doing?" Sergeant Dean asked.

  "What does it look like I'm doing?" Cade responded without looking at him, as he bent and began sawing through the ropes that held the man's right foot to the wooden beam. "I'm getting this poor bastard down."

  "No, you can't."

  "Watch me."

  "No. That's an order. Leave them be." Dean replied, more forcefully this time.

  Cade paused, then slowly turned and rose to his full height, staring at Dean where he sat atop his horse a few feet away. "You can't be serious," he said, his voice growing dangerously calm. To his surprise, none of the other men had bothered to get down off their horses to help him.

  That made no sense to Cade.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gabrielle note the way the other soldiers were eyeing him with concern, saw her tense and then watched as her hand slipped to the hilt of the knife at her belt.

  Always has my back, he thought with satisfaction.

  Sergeant Dean, on the other hand, didn't appear to have noticed Gabrielle's motion as he focused his attention on Cade.

  "There's got to be two dozen bodies here!" he said, pointing to the long row of crosses. "We'll be here for half the day jut pulling them down and then what do you expect to do with them? Give them a decent burial?"

  Cade didn't respond.

  Dean stared down at him for a moment, then sighed and looked around, no doubt making sure that they were still alone on the road before turning back to face Cade.

  "Look. I get it. Really, I do. Seeing this kind of shit makes me crazy, too. But if we're caught taking any of these "examples," as the Regent calls them, down from their crosses, our lives will be forfeit right here on the spot."

  Cade scowled. "I'm not worried about getting caught. We can handle ourselves."

  "We can, sure, but can the fifty innocents the Regent rounds up next in response to what we do here defend themselves equally well? I don't think so."

  The former knight commander knew the sergeant was right, but he couldn't bring himself to just leave these men here to be feasted on by the carrion birds and said as much.

  The rest of the men were growing more anxious, casting looks down the roadway in both direction with increasing frequency, when Gabrielle spoke up.

  "How about we turn them into funeral pyres?"

  The sergeant twisted about in his saddle to look at her. "What?"

  "Leave the bodies where they are," she said. "That way we aren't breaking the Regent's edict or whatever the fuck it is. But instead of leaving them there to rot, we set each of the crosses alight, keeping the birds away and giving them a kind of burial, at least. I mean, if it was good enough for the vikings..."

  Cade liked the idea and he watched a Dean weighed the options in his mind, though not without another glance in either direction down the old roadway.

  Finally, Dean nodded and turned to his men. "Savile, Leveen, head up the roadway about a hundred yards and play look-out. Meikle and I will do the same from this end. Care, a blessing for the dead, please."

  As his men moved to do as he'd asked, Dean turned to face the Williams. "There are gasoline soaked torches in Care's saddlebags. Get them going as quickly as you can. Every minute we stay here our risk of being caught increases."

  By the time Cade and Gabrielle had the torches lit, Knight Corporal Care was finished saying a prayer over the bodies of the dead. Together the three of them ran from one cross to the next, setting the wooden structures alight with the torches in their hands. The smell of burning wood and scorched flesh was almost overpowering as twisted columns of dark smoke began rising into the air.

  The stench drew the others back from guard duty and together they turned their horses for the woods they'd emerged from, knowing that to travel on the road at this point was tantamount to suicide.

  As they prepared to ride off, Cade turned and stared at the scene before him one final time, the crosses now giant pyres throwing heat and smoke into the air as if in replacement for the voices of the dead which could no longer be heard.

  Remember us, they seemed to be saying, and Cade vowed to do just that.

  He would make the Regent pay for what he had done.

  With a final glance, he turned his horse and spurred it into the undergrowth, intent on catching up with the others.

  23

  Shortly after arriving back at the commandery later that evening, Cade, Gabrielle, and the rest of the companions were called to a debriefing with Major Hale. There, they went through the events of the night before, including the pre-emptive attack Cade had made on the fomori gang leader.

  Not wanting to talk about the fact that angelic blood, no matter how distant, ran through his veins, a fact that he'd only recently come to grips with himself, nor how he'd somehow lost control of his Sight, thereby revealing that nature to his opponent, Cade did the only thing he could think to do.

  He lied.

  "I'm not sure how, but that guy knew I wasn't who I claimed to be. He said he was going to alert the guards and opened his mouth to shout for assistance. I knew if he got that far that we were all going to be in serious trouble, so I shut him down. Permanently."<
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  "You endangered the entire mission," Sergeant Dean said flatly.

  Cade nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right," he agreed, knowing that doing so would steal some of the wind from Dean's sails. "But if I hadn't done something, the entire mission would have been scrapped anyway and the whole lot of us would probably be sitting in a jail cell, or worse, rather than standing here discussing it."

  Dean opened his mouth to say something further but Hale intervened.

  "All right, all right," Hale said. "That's enough on that topic. What's done is done."

  He turned to face Dean. "After all that, did your man give you anything useful?"

  "Aye. My informant told me that the Regent is unhappy with the recent attacks on his scheduled supply convoys, especially those to occur so close to their destination. Says it makes him look weak and he can't have that," Dean began. "So this time he's going to try something new.

  "Instead of sticking to the usual format of a dozen trucks guarded by at least the same number of armored vehicles all running non-stop from Boston to New York, he's going to start running smaller loads on non-standard schedules, hoping that being lighter and faster will make them less of a target.

  "The trucks will make their way to Lesser York, where they'll be loaded on barges and taken along Long Island Sound until they reach the East River, where they'll be offloaded again in time to take the Queensboro Bridge over to Manhattan."

  "Do we have any idea what the convoy will be carrying?" Hale asked.

  Dean couldn't help be smile as he said, "My guy tells me that there will be three trucks in all; two carrying ammunition and one carrying medical supplies."

  There were whoops of excitement from several of those present, as apparently both of those items were currently in short supply.

  "What can we expect in the way of an escort?" Gabrielle asked.

  "Word is that they are traveling light," Dean told them, "with only a single escort vehicle attached to the convoy. My understanding is that they are hoping not to attract the kind of attention a most robust convoy usually does."