If he had even an hour’s rest, he would have simply taken the Mirror’s Road and left the commandery behind in a heartbeat. But the torture the night before, never mind the extended exposure to the emotional detritus of all those who had last occupied his cell before him, had left him with barely enough strength to stagger down the hall. If he travelled the Road into the Beyond, he’d be a sitting duck for anything with an appetite for the living, which, as near as he could tell, was just about everything on that side of the Veil. No, better to stay firmly on this side of reality.
Grabbing one of the guard’s ball caps, he put it on and pulled the brim down low, doing what he could to hide the scarring around his right eye, and then headed off down the hall without a backward glance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Adversary handed off the body of its latest acquisition to its three waiting acolytes and watched with satisfaction as they rushed it over to the nearest bed and began re-attaching the various wire leads and plastic tubes that were needed to sustain it for the time being.
This one was a particularly good specimen, he thought, a lean but well-muscled warrior woman who had fallen in the line of duty just a week before. The bullet that had been her downfall had entered her head on the right side, hugged the interior of the skull cap, and exited on the left, doing just enough damage to put her into an indeterminate coma. Her long blonde hair had been shaved away prior to the surgery that had saved her life, leaving her skull looking like an oddly-shaped melon with fuzz growing atop it.
It was unfortunate but hardly relevant. Araqiel would be more interested in the body’s physique that in the length of its hair. Besides, the hair would grow back.
Two other patients, both male, occupied beds in the makeshift ward, leaving three more to be filled. The Adversary was confident its people would find the right candidates soon enough and when they did, he would retrieve them as he had all the others. When he had, the ritual could begin.
Soon, my brethren, he thought, looking at the bodies lying unmoving in the beds before him, soon we will be reunited.
A monitor above the bed of the patient nearest to him began beeping incessantly. He had no idea what it meant – that’s why the acolytes were there, after all – but he’d learned to press the reset button to stop the noise as he found the high-pitched warbling to be extremely annoying.
He stepped over to the monitor and reached up to silence the alarm, only to have his hand freeze in mid-air before he could complete the motion.
He frowned.
His finger was poised two inches from the surface of the button and he mentally ordered it to finish its arc.
His hand refused to listen to him.
It hung there, as still as stone, while that horrendous wail of an alarm continued to shout in his ear.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see that several of his acolytes had stopped what they were doing and were looking in his direction, no doubt wondering why he hadn’t switched off the alarm yet. Indignation and fury washed over him in equal measure at his loss of face, but no matter what he did he couldn’t get his hand to move.
In the darkest depths of his mind he heard a woman laughing.
Now he understood.
He’d been surprised when her personality had suddenly risen up the first time, when he’d been out searching for prey to ease his hunger, and she’d seized control of the body they inhabited together before he’d had time to lock things back down under his control. When he’d regained control, he’d found himself miles from where he’d intended to be, standing on the edge of a bridge in front of several dozen Templar knights, all of whom were trying to kill him and the body he inhabited. He’d managed to stuff her personality back into the depths of his mind and had taken control of their physical form quickly enough to escape serious injury as the Templars had opened fire. He’d even managed to send two of their souls to the Hell they belonged in before leaving them all in his wake.
He had no intention of ever letting something like that happen again. She would stay in her box where she belonged, until it was too late for her to do anything else and it no longer mattered.
He directed his attention down into the depths of his consciousness, down in the dark where that laughter originated.
Release me, he mentally commanded.
Silence.
I said, release me.
A mental image of a woman’s hand – the hand on the body that he had seized as his own – appeared before him, its middle finger raised.
A voice filled with righteous fury rose from the darkness.
Fuck you.
The woman’s insolence was obviously designed to anger him, but he merely found it amusing. That she thought she still had some control over what was going to happen was downright laughable. And if she was counting on that fool of a Templar to come rescue her, then she was in for an even bigger surprise. Williams had failed on the Isle of Sorrows and had done so again while trying to stop the ceremony that had called him back from the infernal plane. What hope did he have of succeeding this time? Absolutely, none.
The Adversary laughed aloud, knowing that she would hear it.
I will not ask again. You will either release me or I will slowly skin your husband alive inch by inch and savor his flesh while the two of you look on helplessly.
He made sure to call up a mental image of him torturing her fool of a husband in exactly the way he’d just described to be certain she understood what he intended to do if she continued with her impertinence. He let the scene roll out in his mind; her husband hanging naked in front of him, hands and legs bound, while he used claws that sprouted from the tips of her own fingers to slice just beneath the layer of skin and then slowly drag it downward to tear it lose from the body...
He caught a sudden burst of abject horror welling up from deep inside and then his hand jerked and he was free.
The Adversary completed the motion he’d started earlier, reaching forward and silencing the monitor with a quick poke of his finger while inside he laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
While his wife was battling the Adversary some two thousand miles away in the only manner that she was capable, Cade Williams was preparing to take an equally dangerous path, stepping out into the unknown and seeking help from an entity that even the Templars avoided at all costs.
As plans go, it wasn’t the greatest.
It was, in fact, pretty freaking stupid, if he was being honest with himself, but then again, what choice did he have?
He couldn’t leave things in the hands of the Order; they’d slaughter Gabrielle the moment they saw her in the belief that doing so would keep the Adversary from returning, but Cade knew first hand that evil would somehow find a way to come back. It had happened before and he had no doubt that it would happen again.
He didn’t know how or why the universe had elected him to be the one to constantly face this threat, but since it had happened he was determined to see it through.
It had taken him fifteen minutes to find his way through the Rosslyn commandery to the motor pool. He’d found a car from a local rental company there and taken that instead of stealing one of the commandery vehicles, figuring the missing rental wouldn’t be noticed as quickly. From there he’d driven himself to the Edinburgh airport.
It was the most obvious place for him to go and in a bit of reverse psychology he was hoping that it would be the last place the Order would look for him as a result. He expected them to assume that he would avoid the airport and go overland instead, maybe drive south to Hadrian’s Wall and cross into England. Echo had a safe house outside of London, which Riley knew about; it would be logical to think he would head in that direction. They knew he didn’t have any identification on him and getting aboard a flight without it these days was next to impossible, so the airport would be out, at least to most reasonable folk.
Cade wasn’t reasonable, however.
He needed to get to Venice and he needed to do it as quickly as possible. The drive from Edinburgh to London was at least seven hours, plus however long it took him to find a way across the border and then get to the safehouse. He guessed he was looking at ten hours plus and something told him that was too much time wasted. He needed to do better, hence his current plan. Arriving at the airport, he ditched the car in the long-term parking lot where he hoped it would remain unnoticed for a few days.
Once inside the terminal he checked the flight schedule at one of the free internet kiosks and discovered that there was a direct flight from Edinburgh to Venice at 1:30pm. That gave him roughly three hours to figure out a way to get some identification, buy a ticket, and get past security. If that didn’t work, he’d have to sneak past security and do something drastic like stowaway aboard an aircraft.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
Trying to think positively, Cade began to wander through the ticketing area, looking for an opportunity.
# # #
When Riley came to, he found himself surrounded by several individuals. His own commander, Preceptor Johannson, was there, as was the local commander and head of the European territory, Preceptor Ochoba. There were also a handful of local security officers that Riley didn’t recognize.
Seneschal Ferguson was kneeling next to where he laid stretched out on the floor.
On the floor? What was he doing down here?
“How are you doing, son?” Ferguson asked, reaching out and helping him into a sitting position.
Riley winced; his head was pounding and the side of his face hurt. “I feel like I went a couple rounds with Mike Tyson.”
He thought quickly. The last thing he remembered was getting the stretcher out of the equipment closet so he could transport Cade to...
Cade!
Cade had knocked him unconscious!
As if aware of his thoughts, Johannson suddenly pointed an accusing finger in his direction.
“You’d better have a good explanation for what you’re doing in a restricted area, Captain!”
Riley kept his head down to hide the sudden flash of fury that passed across his features. If it hadn’t been for the pressure Ferguson applied to his arm, silently warning him to tread carefully, Riley might have leapt to his feet and slugged Johannson in the face. That asshole had been torturing Cade and he intended to make him pay for it!
Thankfully Ferguson was thinking more clearly than he was and answered the Preceptor’s question.
“I requested Captain Riley’s presence here this morning,” the Seneschal said, looking up at the others. “I intended to question Commander Williams with the Captain present to help me ferret out incorrect answers, but I was delayed.”
Ferguson turned back to Riley. “Can you tell us what happened, Captain?”
Riley thought quickly.
“I arrived at the duty station to find both guards on the floor, apparently unconscious. I stepped over to the first man and was checking his pulse when I sensed movement behind me, from the direction of the equipment closet over there,” he said, waving his hand to indicate the direction he meant. “As I turned to look, something struck me hard in the side of the head.”
“Did you see who it was?” Ferguson asked.
Riley shook his head. “No, sir. Sorry.”
The older man smiled. “Not your fault, son. Sounds like he got the better of you, that’s all.”
“That’s certainly not all!” the Preceptor exclaimed. “Someone let that traitor Williams out of his cell and I want to know who!”
Riley shrugged, not trusting himself to answer. Further antagonizing the man probably wouldn’t be the best course of action, no matter how badly he felt the urge to do so. Better to focus his attention on finding Cade before the others did.
Ferguson helped him to his feet and then addressed the group.
“Commander Williams couldn’t have gotten far on his own,” he began, “so if we work swiftly we should be able to apprehend him before too much time passes.” He turned to face Preceptor Ochoba. “Put a second detail around the Grand Master - I don’t want Williams or anyone else taking advantage of the confusion to make another attempt on his life – and then dispatch a couple of squads of men to search the commandery from top to bottom. If he’s here, I want him found.”
Riley shook his head. “If I know Cade, he’s long gone already.”
Ferguson turned to face him. “That’s why I’m sending you to the airport. Keep an eye on the flights to Heathrow and New York and make sure that Williams doesn’t slip out of the country.”
Riley stared at him in surprise. “You want me to case the airport? That’s the last place Cade would go. Without identification he’s not going to get through security and he’s smart enough to realize that he isn’t going to be able to bluff his way onto an aircraft. No, he’s far more likely to drive south, try to cross the border and get to one of the safehouses Echo maintains near the airport. That’s where you need to send me!”
But Ferguson was shaking his head before Riley even finished. “You’ve just sustained a pretty severe blow to the head; I’m not sending you driving across the country quite yet.”
He turned to Johannson. “Contact the London commandery and let them know what’s going on. Have them send some men to the airport to watch the flights out. While their doing that, send another team south to the border. Perhaps we can catch him there before he crosses over.”
The Preceptor nodded in agreement, but wasn’t content to leave it there.
“Edinburgh’s too big for Captain Riley to cover alone, especially if his injury winds up being serious. I’d like a squad of my men to accompany him; we’ll have a much better chance of catching Commander Williams if he heads in that direction if we have more than one pair of eyes watching out for him.”
The last thing Riley wanted was a set of Johannson’s thugs tagging along with him but the Preceptor had phrased his request well. There wasn’t any way for the Seneschal to turn him down without it looking suspicious, so Riley didn’t voice any reservations when Ferguson agreed to the request moments later.
Satisfied that the proper measures had been taken care of, the group dispersed but not before Johannson shot a smug look in Riley’s direction, which he ignored. He would ditch Johannson’s goons at the airport and do what he needed to do, which was find Cade before any of the rest of them did.
Just before walking off, the Seneschal leaned over and said, “There’s a package in my office for you. Be sure to pick it up before you leave for the airport.”
Riley had no idea what package Ferguson was talking about, but he nodded nonetheless. He still thought casing the airport was a poor use of resources, but he’d been wrong before and if that’s where the Seneschal wanted him, that’s where he would go.
He just hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a colossal waste of time. Something told him they didn’t have too much of that left.
# # #
Two hours after arriving at the Edinburgh airport, Cade was all but ready to admit defeat. He dropped onto one of the cushioned benches in the waiting area and considered his next move.
First he’d spent some time watching the new arrivals, looking for someone of his general size and build who was traveling alone and with whom he might be able trade places, willingly or not, to get through security. But all of those who were a reasonable match were traveling with at least one other individual, some with families even, and trying to take any of their places would be too difficult to pull off.
When he realized Plan A wasn’t going to work he turned his attention to Plan B, which involved sneaking past security into the main concourse and finding a way to board the right aircraft without being seen. The problem was that all of the entrances were watched pretty extensively and he’d have to be dressed like a security agent to stand a chance of slipping thru.
&nb
sp; That, of course, prompted the idea to snatch just such an individual when the opportunity presented itself. If he could find a security guard who was alone and roughly the right size, he could steal his uniform and use that to get through the security checkpoint.
It was a good plan except for the fact that the guards didn’t go anywhere alone. They stayed in pairs, from the time they came on shift to the time they went off, even going to the restroom together. It was a far sight more effective than the security in the U.S., Cade noted, much to his disappointment. He watched various targets for more than an hour before giving up.
He wandered over to one of the long, padded benches in the waiting area near the Delta counter and sat down. Cade had been sitting there for only a few minutes when his attention was drawn to a nearby television screen set to CNN.
“...last night. Foster is a former Marine Recon sergeant who recently served two tours in Afghanistan, where he was wounded in a convoy attack.
“This makes the fourth former U.S. soldier abducted while undergoing medical care at a U.S. hospital and the FBI has been called in to help with the investigation. Sources close to the investigation claim that all four of the alleged victims are coma victims, though this has yet to be confirmed by hospital officials.
“Police are asking anyone with information that might help their investigation to call the task force hotline.
“And in other news, the New England Patriots have...”
Cade turned away, having no interest in the Patriots or football in general for that matter. The news report, limited thought it had been, had upset him.
What kind of sick bastard snatches a coma victim right out of the hospital, for heaven’s sake? And a soldier at that? Hadn’t the guy’s family suffered enough already?
He was shaking his head in disgust when a sudden sense of danger nearly overwhelmed him. Never one to ignore his instincts, he looked around as nonchalantly as he could and spotted two men moving through the lobby in his general direction. Both their heads were slowly swiveling back and forth as they walked, searching the crowd around them, clearly looking for someone. He didn’t need to recognize them to know they were from the commandery and that they were looking for him. He was just surprised that there were only two of them.
Judgment Day (Templar Chronicles Book 5) Page 15