Infernal Cries: An Echo Team Urban Fantasy Novel

by Joseph Hutton

  He stepped over to the stove to check on the soup he’d been preparing just prior to the messenger’s arrival. A quick taste told him that it was ready and he spent a few minutes preparing a tray to take upstairs, adding a glass of water and a rose from the bouquet on the table to the bowl of tomato soup that he set down in the center. Grabbing a spoon from the drawer and a napkin from the holder on the table, he lifted the tray and headed up the stairs.

  “Lunch time,” he called softly as he neared the bedroom at the end of the hall and then eased the door open with his foot.

  Across the room, seated in front of the window looking out at the snow falling gently in the backyard, was his wife, Gabrielle.

  “The snow’s beautiful, isn’t it, love?” Cade said, as he walked across the room and set the tray down on the card table he set up earlier for just that purpose.

  Gabrielle didn’t answer.

  Cade sat down in the chair opposite Gabrielle’s and pulled the card table over between them. Picking up the napkin in one hand and the spoon in the other, he smiled at his wife as he said, “I’ve brought you some lunch. It’s your favorite, tomato soup.”

  Gabrielle did not turn away from the window. Did not, in fact, acknowledge that Cade was even present in the room.

  Cade pretended not to notice. He scooped up a little of the soup with the spoon and brought the utensil closer to Gabrielle’s mouth.

  “Here you are. Open wide now. That’s my girl.”

  Gabrielle’s mouth opened slightly as the spoon drew closer and Cade slipped the food deftly between her lips, catching the little that dribbled out the side with the napkin in his other hand.

  “That’s it. One bite at a time.”

  Little by little, spoonful by spoonful, Cade Williams fed his once-dead wife.

  Years before, when Cade had been an officer with the Boston Police Department, he and his wife had been attacked in their home by a serial killer he’d been hunting known as the Dorchester Slasher. The killer wanted to talk, to gloat, but Cade had dealt with enough men like him to know that things would only end badly if he gave in to the maniac’s demands. Instead, he’d drawn his weapon and put a bullet through the killer’s forehead. His swift action had saved both his and Gabbi's lives.

  Until the thing living inside the killer’s body broke free and attacked them in turn.

  Gabrielle had been killed in the first few moments of the attack, or so Cade thought. It wasn’t until years later, after he’d discovered that the creature he’d known as the Adversary was, in fact, the fallen angel, Asharael, that Cade learned his wife was not quite dead, her body held in some kind of arcane stasis and her soul a captive of the Adversary deep in the heart of the Beyond. It was then that Cade had taken the fight to the enemy, had tracked the fallen angel to its lair on the Isle of Sorrows in the middle of the Sea of Lamentations, and, with the help of his friends and fellow Templars, Matthew Riley and Sean Duncan, had slain the infernal creature and set Gabrielle’s soul free.

  It had been Cade’s fervent hope that when he returned to the world of the living he would find his wife alive and well, her soul restored to its rightful place inside her now breathing body.

  But it was not to be.

  Instead, he’d returned to find her as she was now, a barely responsive shell of her former self. Her body functioned as it normally should – she ate, drank, slept, and the like – but there didn’t seem to be anyone home. The spirit that had animated her, the very thing that had made her who she was, seemed to be missing and Cade had no idea how to get it back.

  Ever since the night he’d returned he had been caring for her as one might an invalid; feeding her, bathing her, helping her with her bodily functions. While she slept he continued his research, searching for a solution to the problem. What the Adversary had taken away, Cade was determined to restore and he would not rest until his wife laughed and cried and spoke his name again.

  Gabrielle’s presence here was the reason he’d turned the Preceptor’s messenger away. He didn’t have time for the distractions of the Order, no matter how much he might miss the rush of action or the companionship of his team members. Gabrielle had to come first.

  When he was done feeding her, he put the soup dish back on the tray beside him and picked up the copy of A Tale of Two Cities that he had brought up from the library earlier. Dickens had always been one of her favorites. They had recently finished Oliver Twist and Cade was eager to begin this new volume. Maybe the familiar cadence of the story would be the thing to start to bring her back to him…

  Cade opened up the book and turned to the first page.

  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Later that morning.

  Riley was standing in the Preceptor’s office at the Bristol, Rhode Island commandery, having just finished delivering his initial report on the Necromancer’s escape, when the door opened and the Preceptor’s aide, Hennessy, hurried into the room.

  Hennessey didn’t even bother to look and acknowledge Riley’s presence, just rushed over to the Preceptor’s side and bent to whisper in the man’s ear. Whatever news he carried, it couldn’t have been good, for Riley watched as the older man’s face turned an unusual shade of red as his anger got the better of him.

  “How dare he!” the Preceptor exclaimed, then he turned his angry visage in Riley’s direction. “Did you put him up to this? Just what in heaven’s name does he think he is doing?”

  Riley stared at the Preceptor, nonplussed, and then calmly said, “If I had any idea who or what you were referring to, I might be able to answer your question.”

  Johannson threw his hands up in fury. “That bastard Williams, that’s who!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “He refused his reactivation order and threatened the life of the man I sent to deliver it. Just who in heaven’s name does he think he is?”

  Refused his reactivation order? For a second Riley had no idea what the Preceptor was talking about and then it dawned on him. Johannson must have tried to call Cade back to active duty on some pretense or other to get him to hunt down the Necromancer. In an odd way, it even made sense; Cade was the man who had hunted down and then captured Simon Logan in the first place. If anyone knew how Logan thought, it would be Cade. Then the irony of the situation hit Riley full bore and he had to work to keep the smirk off his face. Johannson had been the one to drum Cade out of the Order. It wasn’t surprising, at least not to Riley, that Cade had basically told Johannson to stick it when he’d been ordered back to duty.

  He coughed to cover his amusement and then said, “I find it hard to imagine Knight Commander Williams threatening a messenger.”

  Johannson glared at him. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Damn right I am, Riley thought, but what he said was, “Of course not, sir. I’m just suggesting that there might have been some miscommunication between Knight Commander Williams and the messenger you sent to speak to him.”

  The Preceptor would have none of it, however. “Miscommunication my ass, Captain. He did it deliberately and I guarantee that he’ll regret it when I haul his ass before the Seneschal for a disciplinary hearing!”

  Riley chose not to point out that it would be hard to call a disciplinary hearing against a man who was no longer part of the Order and therefore not subject to its discipline. Nothing like giving the idiot an opportunity to embarrass himself further.

  “Is there anything else, Preceptor?”

  Johannson took a moment to visibly calm himself before answering. “I’m formally assigning Echo as the point team for tracking down the escaped prisoner and returning him to custody. I want regular email updates on your progress and expect you to make some headway quickly, Captain. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal, sir,” he replied dryly.

  The Preceptor didn’t seem to notice his tone.

  “Excellent!” Johannson said. “Bennington has sent a courier with the blood and DNA sa
mples taken when Logan was first admitted; they should be here within the hour. I’ve ordered a scrying ceremony to take place as soon as they arrive and expect you to have your team briefed and ready to go as soon as the ritual is concluded and the Necromancer’s location known. That will be all.”

  Riley nodded to show he understood, then turned and left the room before he said something he might regret. The man’s pompous nature always got under his skin. He understood now why Cade had always avoided the headquarters commandery when he could, preferring to spend time at Ravensgate in Westport instead. Of course, that had been when the Echo Team leader reported directly to the Seneschal at the Order’s headquarters in Scotland rather than to the North American Preceptor.

  Oh, how times have changed.

  Riley grabbed a passing initiate, discovered he wasn’t doing anything important, and sent him to deliver a message to the other Echo team members that there would be a briefing in an hour in the east wing second floor conference room. All those who were on assigned duty were expected to attend. Riley had the initiate repeat the message back to him to ensure that he’d gotten it right and then sent the young man on his way.

  As he made his own leisurely way toward the conference room he’d commandeered for his meeting, Riley’s thoughts turned to his friend, Cade. He’d told the Preceptor the truth; he didn’t believe that Cade had outright threatened the initiate the Preceptor had sent to deliver the reactivation order, but he couldn’t deny that his longtime commander had grown sullen and withdrawn in the wake of their defeat of the Adversary and their return from the Beyond. Hell, he was Cade’s friend and he didn’t think he’d seen the man more than two or three times in the last two months.

  They’d never really talked about what had happened over there. Riley remembered the Adversary taking over his body, forcing him to fight against his friend and fellow squad member, Sean Duncan. He remembered how he’d screamed in rage and fear as his body had refused to obey his commands, as he’d watched his hands plunge his blade into Duncan’s chest. He remembered the pain he’d felt when Duncan had stabbed him in the throat with his combat knife. After that things got a little hazy.

  Because the two of them were still alive, he knew that Cade had defeated the Adversary, but they’d never discussed the details. By the time Riley had recovered enough to leave the hospital, Cade had flown home and faced what could only be called a behind-the-scenes court martial. His forced retirement had caused him to pull away from Riley; Cade not wanting to taint the other man with his own supposed sins. The Order had made a point of keeping Riley busy as well, which further worked to isolate them. When he thought about it, it almost seemed to Riley that their separation was intentional, but he didn’t know if that was the Order’s doing or Cade’s.

  'Bout time you found out, isn’t it?

  He had to agree that it was, he answered himself.

  The one time he’d gone looking for information about that final confrontation in the Beyond, he’d discovered that the after-action report had been sealed by none other than the Seneschal himself. Riley had been there, had been involved in the actual battle, and not even he was cleared to read it.

  Riley didn’t like it but there was little he could do about it. At least the Necromancer’s escape would bring Cade back into the fold where he belonged; Riley didn’t think he could stay away knowing a man like Simon Logan was on the run again.

  And maybe when Cade does, things can get back to normal around here.

  A short while later Riley stood at the front of the conference room and looked out at the twelve men assembled there.

  Echo Team was made up of four squads of four men each, plus Riley’s personal command squad, bringing the total to sixteen. Baker and the rest of the men from 3rd Squad were on assignment somewhere in Kentucky which accounted for the missing men. Most of the men were veterans; many had served in Echo under Knight Commander Williams and had been a part of the operation to bring the Necromancer to heel the first time around.

  When Riley had assumed command of Echo, he had made some personnel choices that had necessitated moving men from one squad to another. Manny Ortega and Jimmy Martinez had both been promoted to the command squad, leaving the First Squad without a commander. Riley had solved that by promoting Corporal Stevens, Second Squad’s second in command, to Sergeant and moving him over to run First. Empty slots in both squads had then been filled with the top men out of the latest training class to come back from Scotland.

  Riley got down to business.

  “All right, listen up.” He waited for the scuttlebutt to quiet down, then continued. “As some of you know, we had an escape from the Bennington Containment Facility last night. Simon Logan, former leader of the Council of Nine, aka the Necromancer, somehow managed to overcome the men assigned to his transport crew and escape while enroute to the lockdown facility at Longport. Echo’s been given the job of hunting him down and returning him to the fine accommodations awaiting him at Longport.”

  Given that Longport was the most secure of all the Templar containment facilities, otherwise known as maximum security prisons, the men chuckled appreciatively at Riley’s joke.

  “Some of you were with Knight Commander Williams and me when we assaulted the Necromancer’s stronghold in Louisiana and understand what we are up against. For the rest of you, Logan is the individual directly responsible for the attacks on both the Ravensgate and Templeton commanderies earlier this year.”

  Never mind subverting the loyalty of the Preceptor’s personal aide de camp and stealing the Spear of Longinus, one of Christianity’s most powerful artifacts, right out from under our noses, Riley thought. Knowledge of those events was still highly classified, however, and thus Riley kept the information to himself.

  “The Necromancer’s powers extend far beyond what most of you are accustomed to dealing with, so understand that this isn’t going to be an easy one. You’ve all been provided with a dossier detailing exactly what we know about the man and his abilities; I expect you to have it committed to memory by 1600 hours.”

  He glanced around, trying to gauge the mood of those in the room. Here and there he saw a concerned expression, mainly on the faces of Echo’s new recruits, but the rest of the men seemed to be taking it in stride, which was all he expected. These men had seen combat in all its different forms, had come face to face with some of the most horrifying creatures known to man, from hordes of revenants fresh out of the grave to major demons summoned from the fires of Hell itself, and did so without hesitation or fail. They were humanity’s first and last line of defense against the things that hunted them in the dark. Recapturing the Necromancer was just another mission in a long line of such missions stretching back to the earliest days of the Order’s existence. They would stand in the gap and protect their fellow man because there was no one else to do so; it was that simple.

  Riley spent some time detailing what they had learned from the crash site, which admittedly wasn’t much, let them know that they would be heading out as soon as the scrying team had managed to pinpoint the Necromancer’s location, and then dismissed the men to see to their weapons and equipment.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The hair and blood samples taken from the Necromancer when the Templars had first incarcerated him arrived by mid-afternoon. Riley met the courier at the door personally, took control of the samples, and then walked them down to the ritual chamber where several of the Order’s mystics had been preparing for the scrying ceremony for the last several hours.

  Mystics had long been a part of Christian tradition and the Order had reluctantly embraced them hundreds of years before. Since that time the use of arcane powers like those the mystics could command had become a standard part of the Order’s response to supernatural threats and enemies, for without those powers they were vulnerable to the abilities their enemies could bring to bear against them. Certain practices were more accepted than others while some – scrying and protection magick, to name just two – had
become commonplace.

  The room in which the ceremony was going to take place looked like a bizarre combination of high-tech command center and a centuries old place of religious worship. Several high-speed computers were networked together on a table in the center of the room and were linked to a fifty-six inch flatscreen that was hanging on the chamber wall, while inscribed on the floor surrounding it all was a giant hermeutaugic protection circle that looked like it had come out of some ancient magician’s text, which was precisely where it had come from. Acolytes from the information technology section manned the equipment, ready to jump in to solve any hardware or software issues that might come up in the midst of the ritual.

  At the appointed time the nine mystics filed silently into the room and took up their assigned positions around the great circle; four at the cardinal points of the compass and the others at positions that represented the points of a Star of David. Each man was dressed in a dark robe tied at the waist with thick white cords, but the hoods of each robe were tossed back, exposing their features to all that were present. What they did here today was for the benefit of those they were sworn to protect and there was no reason to hide their faces away in the darkness.

  Behind them came five other similarly dressed men, who took up position kneeling in the center of the formation. Riley, standing opposite them, knew that they were there to step up and replace any of the primary participants if something went wrong. They would not be able to enter the circle once the ritual began, however, hence their position at the center of it all. Riley hoped they wouldn’t be needed at all, but he suspected this ceremony would be tougher than most. They were, after all, going up against a necromancer with more than a little skill in such arts himself.