Night's Templar: A Vampire Queen Novel (Vampire Queen Series Book 13)

by Joey W. Hill

  The child was crying. Or was that his father? Uthe put a bloodstained, unsteady hand on his father’s face. “It’s all right. Just lie still and it will feel better soon. I promise. I should have done this for you long, long ago.”

  His father gripped his wrist, holding his gaze. Now his expression held a child’s trust. Uthe could gain the trust of the innocent, of the fearful, of the lost, because he meant what he said and was sure of his faith when he said it. Or rather, he’d made himself sure of his faith, because to do otherwise was to be completely lost, and he couldn’t handle being lost.

  But that was what he faced. Being lost in that fog for the rest of his life, once it closed in and never let up again.

  He shoved the wooden stake into his father’s heart. His sire’s hand clenched on his wrist, then slackened. His expression lost awareness, the soul slipping away. Everything slipping away.

  Uthe was bent over, cut adrift in nothingness, floating in fog once again. The blood and his father were both gone, but the weeping continued.

  Where was he? The innocent’s mind. A blank slate. Was that why there was endless fog here? Like an empty vessel, yet something did exist. He could feel it, like the distant voice of a child. An uncharted soul. John would argue this one deserved to be freed even more than himself, for it was a story as yet unwritten. It had been trapped with him all this time, but if this was the world it had always known, had that made it less frightening? Would this be so bad, especially if he could relive memories like the one he’d just relived with Keldwyn? Keldwyn had teased Uthe about playing chess and debating philosophy in the Shattered World. Uthe could create any world he wished here, and eventually his mind might be so duped he would believe it was real, that he wasn’t truly, forever alone.

  The only way to release John was to release the innocent, but something had to be here to keep the demon pinned down until the two of them could get clear. He had to be willing to take the innocent’s place, for it was the anchor. Then he and Fatima’s magic would make sure the demon was banished. Uthe would be his personal escort.

  It was what Templars had originally been trained to do, escorting pilgrims to their destination, protecting them. He’d be a prison guard instead of a pilgrim’s guardian. A prison guard trapped in his own prison.

  Looking down, he discovered he was in full Templar battle gear once again. It was the only answer he needed. “You will play no more tricks, demon. We die together.”

  The sorceress had known Uthe would figure out. He removed the dagger from his belt. It wasn’t wooden, but it was consecrated. In the cause of Christ, Uthe was certain it would do what it was intended to do.

  “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's…” Should one of your number be killed, “we know he has not perished, but has come safely home."

  Bernard again, whose words and wisdom had been the spiritual backbone of the Order.

  Dropping to one knee and uttering a short prayer of thanks, Uthe closed his eyes, visualized Keldwyn one more time, and shoved the dagger into his chest.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Though they were merely humans summoned from beyond the grave, their foes were deft with their blades, quick on their feet, and savage. Still, Keldwyn and the others held formation, battling them away from the altar until their side formed a solid line in front of it, a crescent wall to give Uthe the protection he needed. Keldwyn and Daegan held the center, taking the heaviest crush. He and the vampire assassin fought only far enough apart to be outside the sweep of their respective blades. The Templars, Gideon and Jacob worked on decimating the numbers of those who tried to get past them on the ends.

  Though there was always precious little time to notice such things, Kel had brief glimpses of clever, brutal maneuverings on the part of the Green brothers. They used grace and speed as easily as sheer toe-to-toe brute strength to put bodies on the ground. The Templars fought as fearlessly as their history had suggested, displaying no fear and giving not an inch a ground. The enemy fought just as courageously, though, the air punctuated with shouts, the clang of metal. Grunts of exertion. Wounds flavored the burning smell of the courtyard with the sharp tang of blood. Everything smelled of death and rage, and the intense heat of battle cloaked them all.

  They were gaining ground. They’d started five to one, and they were facing a more even number now. The Templars, Jacob and Gideon showed no sign of flagging. Likewise for Daegan, whose blade and long dagger flashed like lightning, the strikes close together and lethal.

  As before, some magic worked, some didn’t. With split second decisions to make, Keldwyn fought mainly with fist and blade. Knowing he was risking having a vital appendage lopped off, he nevertheless kept an eye on Uthe, a mere twenty feet out of the fight, standing at the altar. But the Templars had thought of that. Jacques was positioned just behind the line, getting the least of the fighting, but it put him in a position to call out if the demon sent anything unexpected against Uthe. Like now.

  The squire shouted. Kel glanced back in time to see a dragon thrust its large, horned head through an opening in the castle rubble, to the right of Uthe. Teeth bared, it raised its head, preparing to shoot flame upon the vampire. Uthe had both hands in that silver-blue net, his eyes unfocused. His sword was propped against the table, forgotten. He was defenseless, oblivious to anything happening outside that magical sphere.

  “Re-form to the right,” Keldwyn roared. Thanking the gods for experienced warriors, he saw his allies grasp the situation and adjust the line fast as a whip unfurling to strike. He and Daegan advanced, taking on the bulk of the remaining two-legged enemy with the Templars to the left, as the ones to the right closed into a tighter arc around Uthe and faced the dragon.

  “Need a moment,” Kel snapped to Daegan. The vampire assassin lunged forward to guard Kel’s back as he spun. Magic might have a sporadic effect on the Saracens, but the demon had put effort toward warding them and his energy was limited, especially now that he was under direct attack from Uthe. Had he risked a bluff, hoping Kel would assume the dragon was warded like the soldiers, and wouldn’t even test it? If so, he’d figured wrong. Charging one of his daggers, Keldwyn shot lightning-infused fire at the beast’s open maw.

  The dragon stumbled back, roaring, wings slapping against the walls. A Saracen sword whistled so close behind Kel, it shaved off a layer of skin. A shallow wound, a graze. He ignored it. Daegan’s body brushed against his and Keldwyn vaguely registered a gurgled scream as the vampire took care of the distraction.

  The beast was too big for single shots to be effective fast enough. Sheathing the daggers and raising both hands, Keldwyn shouted the incantation and flung the net he formed outward.

  It caught the beast around the head. As it tossed its giant cranium forward and back, up and down, trying to rid itself of the impediment, Kel was grimly satisfied to see he didn’t have to tell the Templars to take the advantage. Gideon ran forward, Manfred at his heels. The intrepid vampire hunter stepped onto the dragon’s knee like a stair and flung himself upward, driving his sword into the scaled neck while Manfred stabbed at the underside. The throat wasn’t an easy target since the scales could be like armor, but Gideon, clawing his way up the side of the beast like he was scaling a rock wall, twisted his blade to a different angle and shoved it through. The dragon collapsed with a shriek, making the ground shake.

  Kel spun to help Daegan re-engage, and found there was no longer any need. The last of the foe dropped as the vampire finished a follow-through with that deadly katana. He and the other Templars stood over a pile of sprawled bodies. None were moving.

  His attention snapped back to Uthe. His vampire was on his knees, a black oil boiling out of the head and crawling up Uthe’s arms. Kel bolted away from the line and to his side.

  It was a novice’s mistake. The shielding on Uthe was so solid, it was like hitting a brick wall. It knocked Keldwyn on his ass, bloodied his nose. Sensing the others coming to his aid, Kel snarled to keep them back and reac
hed into Uthe’s mind with the second mark. He couldn’t find any awareness in the vampire, couldn’t latch onto a random thought. All of it was a maze of gray fog, so thick Keldwyn stood at the periphery with no point of reference.

  Yet Keldwyn felt a sucking sensation, like something vital was about to be ripped out of Uthe’s mind. Though he wasn’t touching him, he could sense Uthe’s body shuddering with the strain. The miasma of evil magic swirled around him, tighter and tighter, like a cocoon. Now Keldwyn heard voices, but they weren’t Uthe’s. A cacophony of chuckling, shrieking and keening, bone-chilling and repugnant.

  “He might send me to Hell, Fae,” the demon howled. “But I will not go alone. You are helpless. You do not have the strength to resist all the power I now have to defeat you.”

  Strength comes…from…God…

  It wasn’t the Baptist. It was Uthe. Uthe was still in there. Uthe lifted his head with painstaking effort, as if he was pushing against a great weight. His gaze locked with Keldwyn’s. Kel saw the demon simmering in the brown irises, yes. But he also saw Varick. It filled him with a violent wave of pride and love, seeing the valiant struggle the vampire was making against the demon’s hold. He was holding open a window, using his connection to Keldwyn to give him the strength to do it. Since Keldwyn was in his mind, and a magic user, he saw the soul slip through that narrow passage, out of the head and toward freedom at last. The Madman of the Wilderness.

  The soul’s essence swirled around Uthe, a gesture that was blessing and embrace. It would have been lost in the haze of dust left from the fight, except it shimmered. As it hovered between the detached head and Uthe, it formed a tight vortex, the center like a nest. A tiny spark of light emerged from the mouth of the head and dropped into that nest. The light of the Baptist closed over it, a safe cocoon, then both souls were drawn away, slowly moving upward.

  As Keldwyn tilted his head up, he watched them rise, higher, higher. He wanted to keep watching Uthe, but Uthe’s head was back down and Kel knew he’d want verification that the most important part of the task was done. As he followed the ascent of the two souls, a different wave of magic hit him. A flash in the smoke and dust gave him the brief impression of wings, a warrior’s face and a drawn sword. An angel, now providing heavenly escort. Kel remembered Shahnaz’s visit by one and wondered if it was the same being. A celestial being’s help would have been advantageous in this fight, but no one told an angel what to do, did they? None except a Force beyond understanding.

  It was done. He returned his attention to what was most important to him. The shield that prevented Kel from approaching wasn’t giving way, which alarmed him. It meant the demon was not yet dispatched.

  Varick, are you there? As he became more insistent, the shielding seemed to be thickening. Uthe’s hands, still covered with the thick black oil, gripped the altar. When he wrenched one free, his face crumpled in agony from the effort. Kel could scent burnt flesh even through the shielding. Uthe’s flesh. “Varick.”

  Uthe was beyond hearing him. He groped along the table, and clutched the Spear. The blackness on his hand began to coat it, the shaft pulsing with energy, the black oil catching fire and turning the weapon to flame from shaft to point. Uthe let out an animal noise of pain, but he held onto it, lifted it. He swayed on his knees. His eyes were still vacant, but now the expression was different.

  Fear pierced Kel. It was the way he looked when the Ennui came upon him. Now he was not caught in a magical trance. He was drifting, the stress and strain of what he’d done catapulting him into the lost world in his mind.

  “Uthe. Varick!”

  Kel tried everything he could to breach the shield around him. The demon’s laughter grew louder. “We’re off to Hell, my lord,” he spat from the head, a nightmarish effect since the lips stretched in an unnatural way, grimacing over the words. “Hooray to the victorious warrior. He has done the Lord’s Will, and now it is my Will he will serve…”

  “No,” Kel roared. “My lord. The beauseant has not fallen. It has not fallen. Take him. Now. Your Master commands it.”

  Uthe paused, head tilted. But then Keldwyn saw it. It was the briefest of flashes, but in it Uthe clasped the one thing he knew better than anything else. Obedience to God’s will, now reinforced by obedience to the Master who loved him.

  By some miracle, Uthe made it to his feet. Kel could see the pain that racked the vampire, the effort it took to focus past the tricks of his mind and do what needed to be done. He tried not to think of what such a monumental strain could do to the mind. To Uthe’s heart and body. The vampire’s eyes were unfocused, lips peeled back in an agonized grimace, but he still had the Spear in his grasp. The demon shrieked.

  “Now, Varick. Do it.”

  Flame roared out from the altar, over Uthe, over Keldwyn, over the courtyard. But it was not enough to blind Keldwyn. In one violent move, Uthe shoved the metal point through the eye socket of the skull.

  The bone shattered. Uthe jerked the weapon free and did it again, until instead of stabbing, he was hacking the skull into pieces.

  When it was nothing more than shards and mangled flesh on the altar, he fell to his knees, staring at his hands. Kel pushed against the shielding, and it still refused to give way, though he could tell the demon’s magic was churning, shifting. Uthe’s mind was back to that gray nothingness again, no different from the wall of the Shattered World. He had no strength, no vigor left to look toward Keldwyn again. Only one word got through.

  Goodbye.

  “No,” Kel snarled.

  Energy was swirling around all of them. It was wild, unfocused, the death throes of a demon leaving the earthly realm. But the beast had had time to throw one more distraction their way as he sought his victory.

  Daegan seized Kel’s arm, yanking his attention out of Uthe’s head and to the present. More Saracens were charging through the archway behind them. Screaming their war cry, some of them mounted, others on foot brandishing their swords, all coming at a full run. The line around Kel was regrouping at Jacob’s shout, the men ready to start the fight anew.

  Kel didn’t care. Uthe was slipping away from him. Had that been part of the price of Fatima’s magic, a bribe to get the demon to go on his way? He’d lost the Baptist, but would be given a faithful Templar to accompany him into a hellish eternity instead?

  He didn’t accept that. He wouldn’t accept it. Turning away from the fight, Kel threw himself against that barrier, calling on all his skill as a magic user, all his physical strength as a fighter. He would figure out the shape of it, he would get him back.

  Then he felt a pulling sensation. The floor was becoming unstable, the air around him shifting. His heart leaped in his throat, his stomach thudding to his knees as he realized what was happening. The souls were freed, the demon on its way back to Hell. The task was done.

  “No,” he shouted. “Don’t…”

  Sand, blood and screams vanished.

  * * *

  He emerged from the nightmare, sweating, bloody, on his hands and knees, one long dagger still clasped in his hand. He was on sleek translucent tile, gazing through the thick wavering ice at a school of fish below. They were being herded playfully by a team of water Fae with feathery tails and high jewel-toned crests instead of hair. One twisted in the water, saw him and squeaked. Fish and Fae alike darted away.

  He was looking at the moat that ran beneath Caislean Uisce, the Castle of Water. What Uthe had called the Ice Castle. He was in the Queen’s large throne room. Keldwyn pushed himself up to his heels, his blood-soaked blade scraping against the ice blue marble tile that outlined the translucent ones. The blood left a smear. Other drops fell as he lifted his hand to his brow to wipe it across his sand-gritted eyes. Now that he was out of the fray of battle, he noticed his arm had been cut. It would heal, like the mass of bruises and cuts he could feel over his body.

  He shook off the disorientation and took an accounting of who was with him. Daegan and Gideon were a few feet away, both in sim
ilar condition with wounds that would need blood nourishment, but which would heal. Jacob was speaking to them.

  Keldwyn looked around the room. His gaze passed over a small group of Fae nobles, but they were blurred images to him, of no consequence. Uthe. Where was Varick?

  He struggled to his feet and spun around to be sure of it. Jacob was at his side. “He is not here, my lord.”

  He remembered now. Uthe on his knees, the demon trying to drag him down to Hell. If the demon hadn’t succeeded, it still left Uthe in the Shattered World, facing the last desperate wave of the demon’s army. The Templars weren’t here, but had they vanished at the same time? Was Uthe facing them alone? Was he still lost in that gray void in his head, so the Saracens could cut the warrior down with no resistance at all, like a defenseless child? The idea enraged him. If the Queen had summoned them back, why were all of them here and Uthe wasn’t? Had the demon’s hold kept him from going through?

  “Lord Keldwyn.” Queen Rhoswen’s imperious tone penetrated. Perhaps she’d been speaking for several moments, because Jacob touched his arm to command his attention. Yes, he needed to pay attention. There was nothing else more important than Varick, but only the Queen could permit him back through the gateway of the Shattered World. He’d have to find his vampire again. How long could he last, if he survived the Saracens, the demon? Keldwyn didn’t want to think about Uthe wandering in that lost mind state for more than a second, let alone the two weeks Keldwyn had been there on his own.

  “Your Majesty, you must send me back. Something happened. It is not finished. I don’t know why I’m here…”

  He registered that Rhoswen had a handful of her most powerful advisors in attendance, along with several of the Queen’s Guard. Cayden, their captain, was here. He stood at her back, studying all with his usual singular focus. He’d assess threats to his Queen before assigning priority to any other matters requiring attention, like the new arrivals bleeding all over her floor.