Infernal Games (Templar Chronicles Urban Fantasy Series) (17 page)

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T
he cavernous interior of the warehouse
stretched away before him, illuminated by a series of old arc lights strung
across the ceiling, revealing that warehouse
486 was full of shipping containers.

They
were stacked three rows high and more than a dozen deep, with long aisles
between them. Several forklifts were parked in a nearby bay, charging off the
building’s power supply.

Cade
didn’t hear anything aside from his own breathing.

He
chose an aisle at random and began walking forward. The warehouse was eerily
similar to the one they had encountered at the start of all this back in
Bridgeport and he knew that the similarity wasn’t coincidental. Since the
Necromancer rarely did anything by chance, he meant for Cade to notice the
similarity and was therefore most likely waiting for Cade near the rear of the
building.

He
found the open area at the back of the warehouse, just like the one they’d
found in Bridgeport, but it, too, was empty. He walked to the center of it and
turned about, his anger building as he began to suspect that he’d been duped.

As
if by some prearranged signal, the doors of the shipping containers behind him
suddenly flew open and out poured a literal horde of the walking dead.

Their
flesh, what was left of it, was pasty white and bloated, wrinkled from long
emersion in the water. Their eyes, lips and other softer parts had been eaten
away by marine life and many of them still wore the chains and weights that had
been wrapped around their bodies to keep them from floating back to the surface
when they’d been clandestinely dumped over the side of a boat or tossed like so
much garbage from a nearby bridge.

It
was as if the sea had suddenly vomited up all those who had been buried in its depths
and as one the mob focused its attention on Cade.

Shit.

Without
a sound they rushed toward him.

Cade
didn’t hesitate, just lifted the MP5 and opened fire, blazing away at the dead
at a rate of 800 rounds per minute.

Bullets
tore through waterlogged flesh with minimal resistance and a wet sucking sound,
but did little to stop the mob unless they happened to find a hole in a
revenant’s skull. Bodies collapsed, sometime literally disintegrating under
the weight of the gravity pulling on long-rotting flesh. Those behind them
just walked over them in their excitement to reach their prey.

The
previously silent warehouse was now filled with the staccato chatter of Cade’s
weapon and the tramp of the creatures’ feet as they came inexorably forward.
Cade didn’t have time to chose his shots too carefully but he kept the weapon
at eye level and tried to take as many of them out with shots to their skulls
until the weapon ran dry.

He
hit the release and was slamming the new magazine in before the other one even
hit the ground. The creatures covered three quarters of the distance between
them and he’d barely made a dent on their incoming numbers. He began to
concentrate his fire on one particular direction, hoping to create an opening
he could use but getting nowhere as more and more of them seemed to pour out of
the container cars.

As
the gun ran dry a second time Cade cast it away and reached for his handgun,
but a suddenly looming revenant tore it out of his hands before he could bring
it to bear. He kicked the creature’s legs out from underneath it and drew his
sword, turning to run at the same time only to discover the creatures had
somehow managed to surround him!

Unable
to retreat, Cade chose the alternative and tried to push forward instead. If
he could get out of the open area and into one of the narrow aisles he could
limit the number of revenants he’d have to face at one time. His sword danced
like a living thing, flashing in
the light, striking his foes with savage grace as he fought to cut his way
through the mob to safety.

But
the size and scope of the horde was too much. They closed in on him, lurching
over the bodies of their wounded comrades in their haste to get their hands on
him and soon they were pressing so close on all sides that he no longer had
room to swing his sword. Then the weapon was torn from his grasp and he had
nothing left to fight with but his own hands and feet.

Cade
refused to give in. Gabrielle depended on him and he fought like a demon, his
fists and elbows and knees and feet laying waste to the rotting bodies on all
sides, hammering joints and smashing skulls in an all-out effort to reach
safety.

For
a moment he thought he might make it. A channel opened between several of the
creatures and he steered the mob in that direction, hoping to catch a break and
slip through the ever-closing noose, but then a wild swing from a zombie with
only half a face left on its skull caught him on the temple and he felt the
world spin before him.

That
one stumble was all it took.

The
creatures closed in, pummeling him with their own fists and feet until darkness
threatened. Cade staggered, would surely have fallen if the press of the
creatures hadn’t been so close, and at that point a rather large and
thick-skulled individual reared up in front of him and slammed its generously
sized-skull directly into his forehead.

What
had merely been grey a moment before went black and Cade fell before the
torrent, still being hammered beneath their blows.

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“C
an’t
this thing go any faster?” Riley said to the pilot over the intercom.

He
was sitting in the co-pilot seat of a Blackhawk helicopter as it whipped over
Long Island Sound, headed for the shipping terminal where he was convinced he
would find both Cade and the Necromancer. With him in the chopper were the men
of the Command Squad, First Squad and half of Second. In the other chopper
less than two hundred feet behind them came the other half of Second, as well
as Third and Fourth Squads.

“You
volunteering to get out and push, Knight Captain?” the pilot asked and Riley
realized he was badgering the man. He gave him an apologetic look, but he
didn’t think the pilot even noticed; the man was too busy dealing with keeping
them low enough to avoid the radar of the air traffic controllers at La Guardia
and JFK but high enough so that they didn’t play chicken with any rogue waves
rising off the surface of the water.

“Two
minutes out!” the pilot announced and Riley clapped him on the shoulder to show
he’d heard. Thankful to have something to do other than worry, Riley keyed the
intercom channel that would not only connect him to the men in the chopper with
him, but also those in the other bird still hanging off their tail.

“Two
minutes, Echo, two minutes. The LZ might be hot, so we’re going in locked and
loaded with weapons free. If it looks like a threat, take it down before we
regret it. We’ve dealt with Logan enough to know that he won’t give any
quarter so don’t take any chances where your life or the lives of your
teammates might be in the balance. Unless he proves to be a threat, Commander
Williams is to be taken alive and unharmed. Good luck and good hunting.
Wilson, would you do the honors?”

Third
Squad’s preacher-turned-Templar took the mike for the pre-action prayer.
“Lord, we are Your humble servants, ever mindful of our duty and obligations.
Tonight we go into battle again in Your name. Stand with us. Grant us the peace
and protection afforded Your servants in times of strife. I ask that You watch
over every man that bears Your sword this night. Fill their hearts with
courage and their souls with peace. If this be their time to join You, may You
welcome them home with open arms. In Christ Jesus, Amen.”

A
chorus of “Amens” echoed over the intercom as the pilot banked the chopper and
brought them swooping in toward the container terminal.

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C
ade
came back from unconsciousness with a start to find himself tied securely to a
pillar in the middle of a warehouse much like the one he’d fully expected to
die in.

In
front of him, blocking his view of the rest of the room, was the Necromancer.

“Hello,
Cade.”

Logan
looked better than he did the last time Cade had seen him, back when the
sorcerer had been in Templar custody and Gabrielle’s ghost had been badgering
him to get a message to Cade, but that still didn’t make him pretty to look
at. The right side of his face was a veritable ruin; his skin scarred from
exposure to some kind of extreme heat, the flesh melted together and re-formed
into some hideous approximation of normalcy. Like Cade’s, his eye had not
escaped harm, but where Cade’s was left intact as a milky white orb, the
Necromancer’s had been destroyed outright, leaving the empty socket to gape
like an open wound in his face. A few remaining wisps of long white hair hung
from his damaged scalp.

The
Necromancer was dressed in a long, hooded robe, tied at the waist with a black
sash that had more than a few arcane symbols sewn onto its surface that Cade recognized.
It was the kind of robe one wore for ritual workings and the sight of it
worried Cade more than waking to discover himself in the Necromancer’s
custody.

“You’re
just in time for the show. And wouldn’t you know, your lovely wife is the guest
of honor.”

Logan
stepped to the side, allowing Cade to see the rest of the room.

It
was the ritual scene from the Brideport warehouse all over again, with two
important differences.

The
first was that the men lying on the floor inside the casting circle were still
alive, their arms and legs bound tightly and gags in their mouths. One of
Logan’s acolytes stood nearby with a naked blade in their hands.

The
second was that the body of Cade’s wife, Gabrielle, had been lashed to the
metal framework at the top of the ritual layout. Her unseeing eyes were open,
staring out across the space at Cade’s.

The
Knight Commander threw himself against his bonds, trying to loosen the ropes
that held him enough that he could tear himself free, to no avail. He cursed
and screamed and told Logan that he was going to tear him limb from limb with his
bare hands if he didn’t let his wife free, but the Necromancer simply watched
it all with mild amusement. Cade strained against his bonds until he was red
in the face and then strained some more but he didn’t gain even a quarter of an
inch extra space. Whoever had tied his bonds had known what they were doing.

He
wasn’t going anywhere
.

When
he had exhausted himself, when he was hanging with only the tautness of the
ropes holding him up, the Necromancer spoke again.

“Perhaps
you’ve figured it out already, perhaps not, but I don’t want you to
misunderstand what is about to happen here so let me explain just to be
certain.”

Logan
pointed across the ritual circle at Gabrielle and this time Cade noted that she
was wearing the feather from the Adversary’s wing in a necklace around her
throat.

“When
you rescued your wife from the Beyond you seem to have forgotten to retrieve
her soul in the process, leaving her physical form nothing more than an empty
vessel. A healthy vessel from all appearances. One that would be a sin to
waste.

“After
all,” he leered, “there are so many things on the other side of the Veil that
wish to walk under the light of our sun, so many entities that wish to walk
among those they hope to feed upon, to soak in the anger and fear and despair
of their victims in the way that only those with physical form can do.”

Cade
began struggling again, but the Necromancer paid him no mind.

“I
know I don’t have to explain all of this to you. You know exactly the kind of
being I’m referring to, don’t you?

“You
think that you vanquished the Adversary, but I am here to assure you that that
is not the case. You cannot kill such a being, only inconvenience it for a time,
prevent it from visiting our plane of existence until it has once again managed
to gather the power necessary to cast it presence back to this side of the
Veil.

“Of
course, if one were to invite it to return, to provide the power it needs to
make the passage or, even better, provide a vessel for it to reside in...”

Cade
went berserk, the idea that something so foul might inhabit the body of his
precious wife making him temporarily lose his mind.

The
Necromancer let his explanation trail off, smiled, and said, “Shall we
begin?”

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W
hen
Cade came back to his senses, he found the ritual already started. Incense
burned in braziers somewhere out of sight behind him, filling the room with
their cloying scent, while in front of him the Necromancer’s acolytes were
draining the blood from their four victims into large, silver bowls specially
prepared for that purpose as they chanted a deep, guttural song in a language
Cade didn’t recognize.

His
gaze shot across the room to find Gabrielle, his heart skipping a beat when he
saw that for the moment she was still unharmed, still herself.

Or,
at least, the shell of whom she had once been before all this.

The
Necromancer stood between them in the center of the ritual circle. His head was
bowed and he was chanting something in counterpoint to what his acolytes were
saying. The songs hurt Cade’s ears to hear, for they were the kind of songs
not meant for human consumption but fashioned and played in places far darker
than the mortal realm.

The
Necromancer stepped slightly to one side, revealing what his body had been
hiding from Cade’s view. A small wooden table stood there and resting on the
table was the Hand, the Staff, and a meat cleaver.

While
his brain was still trying to process that last item, the Necromancer reached
out and picked it up. His song rose higher, mixing with those of his
followers, the entire chorus seeming to rise toward some mysterious
denouement. Cade felt something in his ear pop and blood trickled down the
side of his face.

The
Necromancer laid his left hand flat upon the table top. He brought his right
hand, the one holding the cleaver, up over his head.

As
the song swelled to its climax, the Necromancer shouted out a word of power and
brought the cleaver whistling downward. It slashed through his wrist – skin,
flesh, muscle, and bone – as if it wasn’t there and embedded itself half an
inch deep into the wooden surface of the table.

The
veins in the Necromancer’s neck stood out like taut wires and Cade thought
Logan was going to scream and collapse to the floor in pain, but the sorcerer
held himself together long enough to let go of the cleaver and snatch up the
Hand. Without hesitation he shoved the base of that shriveled relic against
the bleeding stump of his severed wrist.

The
moment the Necromancer’s blood touched the mummified skin of the Hand power
flashed across the room in a wave that was almost, but not quite, visible to
the eye. Cade felt it as though and it slammed him against the pillar with
awesome force. Two of the Necromancer’s acolytes were thrown to the ground and
Cade thought he heard the unmistakable sound of a neck snapping under the
impact. Cade watched in horror as the flesh of the Hand filled out, the skin
pushing away from the bones, the blackened, shriveled husk swelling and turning
a healthy pink color.

Silence
fell.

The
laughter began moments later, starting slowly but building in volume and tone
until it was echoing around the massive room.

The
laughter was coming from the Necromancer and when he thrust his hands into the
air in a victory stance, Cade could see that the Hand had grafted to the
sorcerer’s wrist completely, as if he had lived with it since the day he had
been born. Power literally dripped from its fingers in blackish-green threads
of arcane might.

“Behold!
The Hand of Glory reborn!” Logan shouted.

There
was more than a touch of madness in his voice.

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T
he
Blackhawks set down with military precision and discharged their passengers before
climbing back up into the night sky above where they would remain until the
extraction order was given. The minute Riley’s feet hit the concrete he forgot
about the choppers, confident that the pilots knew their jobs and needing,
right now, to concentrate on his own.

The
windows of the warehouse ahead of them were lit from within by a strange
greenish-black hue and Riley knew that they had found their target.

That
was where they would find the Necromancer.

And
hopefully Cade.

He
charged forward, knowing without needing to look that his men were forming up
around him in a classic SWAT formation with overlapping fields of fire that
would support and enhance their effectiveness as a strike unit. Five yards to
his right another squad was doing the same and Riley had a moment to admire the
precision of the team’s operation before figures lurched toward them from the
shadows surrounding the building.

It
took only seconds for the lead men in each squad to recognize the newcomers for
what they were – reanimated corpses fresh from the grave, or, in this case, the
sea – and to pass the signal to the rest. Gunfire arced out with brutal
efficiency, cutting a swatch through the enemy ranks.

Just
as Cade had discovered earlier, however, these creatures were only minimally
affected by the bullets that ripped through their rotting forms. A few fell to
lucky headshots, but the rest simply regained their feet or continued on
undeterred by the gunfire.

In
seconds they would be among the knights.

“Swords!”
Riley called out over the team’s communications equipment and his men ceased
their fire, drew their holy blades, and met the oncoming charge straight on.

Swords
flashed, bodies collided, but the precision and unity of the Templars was no match
for the restless dead. Riley and his men chopped through the enemy ranks in
moments, leaving the field littered with corpses and the path to the warehouse
clear of obstruction.

Riley
raised his sword and signaled for the squads to form up on him as they
converged on the entry point, a tall warehouse door that filled half of the
structure’s rear wall and used to bring the oversized shipping containers into
storage. Two men ran forward, placed demolition charges, and ran back. Riley
crouched down and turned his back.

The
shout came next. “Fire in the hole!”

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T
he
Necromancer snatched up the Staff of Anubis and power flashed again,
surrounding him in a sickly black corona of arcane energy that seemed to shift
and dance with a mind of its own.

Without
another word to Cade, Simon Logan pointed the Staff of Anubis at Gabrielle and
shouted out a long string of words in ancient Sumerian.

Power
flashed out from the end of the staff and struck the feather around Gabrielle’s
neck, enveloping her in an inky ball of energy so thick that she was
momentarily lost from sight as the ground beneath Cade’s feet seemed to shake
in response.

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R
iley
raced in through the breach in the warehouse door, his eyes going wide at the
sight of the Necromancer wielding the Staff of Anubis in what looked to be an
attack against Cade’s wife, Gabrielle, while Cade himself struggled against the
bonds that had him tied to a support pillar nearby. Between the two groups
were several of Logan’s personal entourage, who appeared to be involved in some
kind of ritual summoning that looked suspiciously familiar to Riley.

He
centered the muzzle of his gun on the Necromancer’s back and fired three swift shots.

All
three struck home with deadly force, throwing the Necromancer forward and
sending the Staff of Anubis tumbling free from his hand. The arcane power flashing
about the room snapped off with the suddenness of someone flipping a switch.

Now
released from the onslaught of all that energy, Gabrielle’s body sagged against
its bonds in the metal frame on the other side of the room. Her head lolled
back and forth on her chest for a moment before going still.

Riley
rushed over to Cade’s side. Riley could sense the battle winding down around
him, the Necromancer’s acolytes surrendering now that their leader was out of
the fray, but Riley’s attention was focused now on his friend. He cut through
Cade’s bonds with his knife. The Knight Commander tumbled forward and only
Riley’s quick hands kept Cade from collapsing to the floor. Riley was helping
him try to sit up on his own when a voice cut across the chatter and commotion
filling the room.

“Cade?
Cade, where am I?”

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G
abrielle!

Cade
couldn’t believe what he was hearing and his grip tightened like a vice on
Riley’s arm as he muttered, “Up. Help me up.”

He
didn’t think he’d spoken loudly enough, but Riley must have heard him because
his friend was suddenly helping him to his feet so he could see.

Cade
looked across the warehouse floor, across the death and destruction, across the
blood and the bodies of the dead, and looked into his wife’s eyes for the first
time in seven years.

“What
happened?” she asked. “Why am I in this thing?”

It
really was her,
he realized.

She
was here. Alive.

Whole!

Summoning his strength, Cade replied, “I love
you. I’m here. I’ll explain everything.”

Then
to Riley, “Leave me. Get her down.”

Cade
looked up to reassure her once more and that’s when it happened.

Gabrielle’s
body convulsed.

One
minute she was looking at him with a sense of deep bewilderment and then her
body snapped as if she’d been hit with a bolt of lightning.

For
one, long moment she was still with them, afraid and uncertain of what was
going on, and then she blinked and convulsed again.

When
she opened her eyes a moment later, someone, no,
something
, had taken up
residence there.

It
stared across the room at Cade and then it smiled.

That
smile promised a hundred horrible things, each one worst than the last.

But
that was nothing compared to when she spoke.

“Hello,
Cade,” said the Adversary from behind her eyes.

As
her husband shouted in horror, “Gabrielle” flexed her arms and legs, snapping
the iron frame holding her prisoner like a small twig. She landed in a crouch
and as she rose to her feet, great, grey and black molted wings sprouted from
her back and spread out behind her with the snap of clothes on the line.

The
muzzles of Templar weapons swiveled in her direction and shots began to snap
out, peppering the air around her, but she flexed those great wings and
launched herself upward, smashing through the roof and disappearing into the
night sky high above.

A
single black feather drifted down to the floor of the warehouse in the wake of
her passing.

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T
HE END

(Continued in JUDGEMENT DAY)

Coming 2013