The Heretic

by Joseph Nassise

  Doing so, he noted something else.

  On the opposite side of the blade, a second word had been inscribed, in a fashion similar to the first.

  Ulciscor.

  Vengeance.

  Seeing it made Duncan pause, both for its very presence and what it said about the weapon’s owner. According to the Code, a Knight was allowed personal ownership of only a few, specific items. The sword given to each of them during the investiture ceremony was one of them, a symbol of their fidelity to the Order and their unrelenting dedication to its ideals. The weapons were supposed to remain undecorated, chaste, if you will. Enhancing the weapon in any manner after it is awarded was cause for a variety of punishments, for doing so was considered a sin of pride.

  Duncan’s new commanding officer had clearly ignored this aspect of the Rule.

  How many others does he ignore?

  He didn’t have time to ponder the answer.

  “Like it?” a gruff voice asked from the darkness at the rear of the cabin, startling the younger knight and almost causing him to drop the weapon in surprise as he looked up to find his new commander leaning against the door of the lavatory, watching him.

  Embarrassed to be caught, Duncan mumbled an apology beneath his breath and quickly replaced the sword in its case. Cade moved farther into the cabin and took a seat in one of the reclining chairs, gesturing with one gloved hand for Duncan to do the same.

  “Tell me about your gift,” Cade said.

  Duncan started, clearly expecting to be taken to task for his transgression and unprepared for the question. “What?”

  Duncan’s eyes followed Cade’s gloved hands as his new commander reached up and removed his eye patch.

  “Could you heal this?” Cade asked.

  Duncan stared.

  He was unable to look away. The destruction to the right side of Cade’s face was worse than Duncan had expected. It appeared as if someone had taken a blowtorch to the tender flesh around his eye socket, the skin flowing and surging together in a grotesque parody of the natural order of things. The eye itself was still intact, but was nothing more than a milky white orb floating in a sea of damaged flesh.

  “Good Lord,” Duncan breathed.

  His hands drifted up from his lap toward Cade’s ruined face, seemingly of their own accord, but he snatched them down again as soon as he realized they were in motion.

  Duncan glanced away, unable to continue to meet his commander’s gaze. When he again found his voice, he replied, “No. No, I couldn’t heal that.”

  “Why not?” Cade asked, making no move to cover his face or lean back out of the light.

  Duncan shook his head in frustration. “It’s too old. I can only heal things that are fresh. Tissue that hasn’t scarred over.” He stared at his hands, not for the first time cursing their limitations. Without looking up, he said to Cade, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” came the reply, and to his amazement Duncan heard humor in Cade’s voice.

  “I’m long since over it. I was more interested in your reaction than anything else.”

  “You were testing me,” Duncan said matter-of-factly.

  “Of course,” Cade replied, nodding. Referring to the other man’s ability, he asked, “Does the Order know?”

  “It’s not general knowledge, but it’s probably in my file somewhere,” Duncan replied.

  “Have you tested its limits?”

  Duncan’s mind swept back over the years spent overseas, the endless lines of the sick and the injured, the bright sparkle of hope in their faces, their utter belief that he and he alone could heal them of their afflictions. Wearily, he said, “Yes. I’ve tested it.”

  Cade nodded but didn’t push him any further, for which Duncan was grateful.

  “I suspect that you are going to learn a lot in the next few months,” Cade told him. “Things that you will probably wish you had never learned. You’ll see things the ordinary man will most likely never see, but that is one of the crosses that we bear in service to the Order. I’ll expect you to do your duty no matter what the situation. If you can do that, you’ll have the respect of every man in this unit. Understood?”

  Duncan nodded.

  Cade continued, “You’ve probably heard a lot about me — some good, some bad, I’ll wager. I won’t comment on any of that except to say that I’ll expect you to make up your own mind. Like you, I have certain abilities, abilities that not everyone understands. Sometimes I’m forced to use them in ways others would consider unconventional. But I took the same oath to the Order as you did. Remember that.

  “As you know, Echo Team is made up of four squads plus a command unit. Martinez is in charge of First Squad, Wilson has Second, Baker and Lyons have Third and Fourth Squad respectively.” Cade continued by spending several minutes going over the standard operating procedures in the unit; hand signals, radio call signs, and the like. After a time, he dismissed Duncan to get some sleep before they landed.

  As he was leaving, Cade spoke up once more.

  “Let’s keep your ability between the two of us for now. It’s probably better that way. No sense in making the men uneasy, right?”

  Duncan couldn’t imagine how his own healing ability would make men who called the Heretic their leader uneasy, but he nodded nonetheless.

  Cade smiled and then leaned back in his chair.

  The darkness around him seemed to swallow him whole.

  9

  The early hour and the hum of the aircraft engine finally lulled Cade to sleep.

  The dream came quickly.

  In reality, the events had played out in horrible slowness.

  In the dream, they always flashed past like a strobe light, one scene after another in endless succession.

  Flash…

  “Williams here. Go ahead, Dispatch.”

  “Urgent call from your wife, Cade. Says she needs you to call her on a landline.”

  “Will do, Dispatch. Thanks for the relay.”

  Cade replaced the mike and turned to Jackson. “She probably wants me to pick up some milk and bread on the way home,” he joked with his partner, Jackson, as he reached for his phone.

  He dialed and got a busy signal.

  He hung up and tried again.

  Still nothing.

  He frowned, a small tendril of unease unfurling itself in his gut. He turned to Jackson. “I know I’m supposed to drop you off first, but would you mind if we go straight to my place? I can’t get Gabbi on the phone.”

  “It will cost you a beer or two,” Jackson said good-naturedly, and they had a deal.

  Flash…

  The interior lights were all out.

  A tentacle of unease began to twist and turn in his gut, churning with a life of its own.

  Something was wrong…

  He parked in the driveway behind his wife’s Audi.

  The two of them got out of the car, Cade turning to say something to his partner.

  Whatever it was, the words never left Cade’s mouth.

  Jackson suddenly buckled, just as a sharp report reached Cade’s ears. A single flash of light came from the living room window off to his right and Cade knew Jackson had been taken down by gunfire.

  “Run, Cade!” Gabrielle shouted from the darkened house.

  Cade drew his gun and crouched behind his open car door, looking across the front seat to where Jackson lay slumped against the door, half-in and half-out of the vehicle.

  “How bad?” he asked him.

  “It hurts, but it’s a clean through and through. He didn’t hit anything vital.” Jackson grunted in pain, then, “I’ll call for backup.”

  But Cade was no longer listening. He leapt to his feet and rushed the front door, hoping his severe departure from standard police procedure would catch the shooter off guard long enough for him to make the safety of the porch.

  Flash…

  Inside.

  A harsh laugh coming from the kitchen, down the hall in front of him.
>
  The light from that room spilled out into the hallway, and movement in the shadows cast on the floor let Cade know there were at least two people in there. As he got closer, he could hear his wife sobbing.

  With his gun held out before him in a shooter’s stance, he took a deep breath and entered the room, a look of confidence on his face and fear in his heart.

  Flash…

  Cade knew the man standing in his kitchen with a pistol at his wife’s head. Not personally, but he knew him nonetheless. He’d just spent the last five hours staring at his likeness in a police sketch, for he was wanted in connection with several recent homicides.

  What Cade didn’t understand was what the hell the Dorchester Slasher was doing in his home, threatening his wife.

  Cade’s arms moved slightly, and his aim settled on the center of the intruder’s forehead.

  Flash…

  “What do you want?” Cade asked calmly.

  “What do I want?” the intruder cackled.

  The hairs on the back of Cade’s arms stood at attention.

  Cade’s gun never wavered.

  “Look. I can get you whatever you want,” he said, indicating the radio on his belt. “All you’ve got to do is tell me what it is and let the woman go. We can work this out.”

  “Aren’t you even curious, Officer Cade?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Aren’t you curious? About why I’m in your house? Why I shot your partner and am holding your wife hostage?” He giggled. “Aren’t you curious about why I’m going to kill you both?”

  Gabbi’s eyes widened.

  Flash…

  Cade pulled the trigger and put a bullet through the right side of the Slasher’s forehead.

  The shot twisted his body back and away from Gabbi, as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  The gun went off.

  Flash…

  Gabbi gasped, her eyes wide with shock. Holstering his pistol, Cade walked over and put his arms around her, holding her tight. From out in the hall he could hear Jackson calling his name.

  “We’re in here. We’re okay,” Cade called back.

  Flash…

  One minute the Slasher was lying on his back, the next he was standing beside them. Before any of them could react, he grabbed Gabbi with one hand on either side of her head. Wrenching her away from Cade, he shoved his face against hers.

  An inky blackness swelled forth from the corpse’s mouth, enveloping Gabbi’s face. Cade could hear her screaming and beneath that a wet lapping sound, like a dog drinking from a bowl of water. He forced himself into motion, intent on getting that horrible thing away from his wife, and though he knew he was moving with his usual agility, each second seemed to pass with excruciating slowness. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jackson’s hand reaching for his weapon, taking what seemed like hours to move only a few inches.

  Flash…

  The thing released his wife, casting her away from itself across the room, her face a mess of raw flesh and blood, the outer layers of skin torn off. As she fell, Cade could see her eyes were fixed and staring. He knew in that second that he had lost her. His hand reached for his weapon as the corpse in front of him began shaking violently.

  A crack suddenly appeared in the thing’s forehead, starting at the bullet wound and flowing like rainwater down across its face. As Cade dragged his weapon free of its holster, the corpse’s hands moved with dizzying speed and shoved its fingers into either side of the crack on its face.

  Pulling sharply in either direction, it split its own skull in two, revealing the thing that lingered beneath.

  For just a moment a face could be seen, with eyes a deep crimson and teeth gleaming blood red in the room’s light. A malevolent smile crossed its face as it pulled the corpse’s flesh down and away from its own form. A hint of wings could be seen as it sought to drag itself free from the fleshly remains in which it had been hiding.

  Cade’s hand came up, the pistol in it centering once more on its target. Peripherally, he could see Jackson’s weapon doing the same.

  Cade never had a chance to pull the trigger.

  With the flick of its hands, the thing was free; the rest of the bodily remains flung away in either direction. One long clawed hand swung around and locked on Cade’s, trapping his gun in its iron grip. The other slapped itself against the side of his face.

  An inky black cloud of darkness flowed out of its hands and onto Cade’s skin, burning his flesh with the intensity of molten steel.

  In the back of his mind Cade could dimly hear himself screaming in agony and could feel the flesh on his face and hand melting away.

  In front of him, those eyes glowed with intelligence and an awful, inhuman glee…

  Flash…

  Cade awoke.

  He sat upright, the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. It sounded loud enough to him to be heard by his men in the forward compartment. He could feel the sweat running down his neck and pooling in the middle of his back beneath his shirt.

  As he tried to center his thoughts, something moved in the darkness of the compartment.

  He reacted the second he sensed the intrusion, moving out of the chair and into a crouch before it, balanced on the balls of his feet.

  “Cade.”

  Just a word.

  One simple word, spoken in a voice no louder than a whisper.

  But a word that had all the power in the world when spoken by the woman that he had loved more than life itself.

  “Gabbi?” he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

  When the figure did not respond, Cade reached beneath the shade of the lamp on the table next to him and turned on the switch.

  In the sudden light, Cade discovered that he was alone.

  The figure, if it had really been there, was gone.

  10

  Logan climbed the cellar stairs, the howl of the revenant below causing a smile to dance upon his lips. They’d taken several of the Templars captive, on the off chance that they might be able to reveal something of importance. When they’d refused to answer his questions, he’d had them all slaughtered, then resurrected them one at a time as revenants.

  His questions were posed again.

  Unfortunately, they’d been telling the truth. None of them knew anything of value.

  Snatching them hadn’t been completely in vain, however, as they were providing some merriment for Logan’s acolytes, an experience that would only bond them even more securely to him as their leader.

  As he moved through the house, headed for his nightly audience with the Other, he considered where the plan had taken them so far. The sheer audacity of it all was exhilarating. To steal one of the most powerful artifacts of Christianity right out from under the noses of those who had been tasked to guard it throughout the ages would be a thrilling accomplishment. To do it with the help of one of their own was even more exquisite.

  His smile grew wider at the thought.

  Leaving the house, he crossed the grounds swiftly, a dark shadow against a darker background, with just the light of the moon to guide his way. Behind him only a slight disturbance in the dew-wet grass marked his passage.

  Seconds later that, too, faded from view.

  As he neared the old chapel, his pace slowed noticeably. The door stood slightly open to the night air, as he had known it would, just as it was every time he came here.

  An unspoken invitation

  The chapel had once been holy ground, but that was years ago. Any vestige of God that might have once inhabited the place had long since fled. Countless ceremonies and blood sacrifices had seen to that.

  The Necromancer stepped through the door and moved down the center aisle to the edge of the raised altar platform, continuing around the side to its end.

  He waited in silence a moment, until a form moved out of the deeper darkness at the rear of the chapel behind the altar, back where the sacristy had once been. It did not come fully into the light; indeed, had never
done so in the months since it had first unexpectedly taken up residence here. Once, the Necromancer had gotten a brief glimpse of the creature, a quick vision of a humanoid form, but that had been all he’d seen before it had retreated into the darkness it seemed to prefer. He hoped never to repeat the experience. Summoning his courage, Logan began. “The search for the Spear continues, though we have recently begun to narrow the area of interest. The one they call the Heretic has been assigned to the case, just as you predicted, and is even now following the trail we have laid out for him.”

  “Good.” The voice was deep, guttural, and it danced along his nerve endings like grease on a spit, grease that pops and cracks with searing heat as it drips into the fire. “You have done as I have asked, then?”

  The Necromancer nodded, knowing from past experience that the other could see him quite clearly despite the cloying darkness of the chapel’s interior.

  A sound came from it then, a sound that might have been a laugh though not one that could ever have been produced by human vocal cords. When it had exhausted its good humor, it went on. “Set out the bait. It is time we caught our prey.”

  “As you wish.”

  The Necromancer bowed curtly and backed out of the chamber, never taking his gaze away from the thing that stood before him.

  Despite their temporary partnership, the Necromancer had no delusions about the nature of his ally.

  It would destroy him on a whim, just as it had decided to aid him.

  He had come too far, was too close to his goal, to allow that to happen. He would give it no reason to doubt him.

  Not until he was ready.

  11

  The four members of Echo’s command team arrived at the Cincinnati International Airport around 6 a.m. local time. A rented Ford Explorer was waiting for them in the private hangar where the pilot parked the aircraft. Their destination was about an hour’s drive north, and after transferring their gear into the vehicle the team wasted no time getting under way. Cade and Malone climbed in back, with Riley behind the wheel and Duncan riding shotgun.

  Cade stared out the rear passenger window. He couldn’t get the echo of Gabbi’s voice out of his head, calling out his name the night before.