The Heretic

by Joseph Nassise

  Cade stood at the water’s edge, waiting for whatever was approaching.

  After a moment, Duncan moved to join him.

  As the two men watched, the approaching figure finally emerged from the fog.

  Charon the Ferryman, Cade thought, a shiver of fear striking his heart as he gazed at the newcomer, who was wrapped in a long, hooded robe that prevented the two Knights from gathering any specific details. The figure certainly did resemble the mystical boatman of the River Styx and the narrow boat the newcomer piloted did nothing to dispel the illusion.

  The three of them stood there, staring at each other for several seconds. No one said a word. Then the ferryman lifted an arm, its hand all but hidden in the bulky folds of its sleeve, and gestured for the two soldiers to step into the boat.

  “No way I’m going anywhere with that thing,” Duncan said under his breath, but with the other creatures closing in on them from behind, he had little hope that they could escape under cover of the fog or fight their way through the marauding pack.

  At the moment, the ferryman seemed to be their best option.

  A howling cry came out of the fog, mournful and hungry at the same time.

  Duncan visibly started at the sound.

  The figure on the boat gestured again, clearly indicating that the two of them should board the vessel before the creatures, whatever they were, attacked.

  Cade moved forward and grasped the prow of the boat in one hand. The ferryman moved to the rear of the vessel, preparing to cast off and giving them room to board.

  Behind Duncan, Cade could see several sets of eyes peering at them out of the fog. Misshapen forms could be seen moving closer, cutting off their escape.

  “Come on!” Cade yelled.

  Duncan cast one last look to the rear and then rushed for the boat.

  The creatures chose that moment to charge.

  Cade waited for Duncan to jump aboard, then pushed their boat into shallow water before clambering inside. A shrieking cry sounded right at his heels and he turned to see a wave of sinuous serpent-like forms rushing across the sand toward them, all scales and gleaming teeth.

  Too late! his mind cried, but he had forgotten their mysterious benefactor.

  The ferryman swiftly moved forward, standing over Cade where he sprawled on the floor of the boat. As the creatures closed the remaining distance to the water’s edge the ferryman struck out with its staff, slashing through their forms with ease.

  When the beasts retreated, the ferryman used that opportunity to take the boat out into deeper water.

  Their adversaries chose not to follow.

  They moved out through the shallows, headed for what Cade hoped was deeper water. The fog was thicker there. Cade quickly lost any sense of direction in the heavy, shrouding mist, but their guide moved the boat through the water with deft precision. He was about to begin questioning their rescuer when Duncan cried out in alarm and backpedaled away from the edge of the boat.

  “Sweet Jesus!”

  Cade looked over the side, trying to see what had brought such an unlikely curse to his teammate’s lips.

  Deep within the water pale faces stared back at him, their eyes gleaming, their mouths opening hungrily, their arms stretched toward the surface as if inviting him to join them.

  Cade turned away, unwilling to meet their gaze. He made several attempts to engage their guide in conversation instead, but each effort met with failure. The ferryman continued to stare straight ahead, guiding the boat on its path.

  They traveled for what seemed like hours, though Cade knew that time operated differently here. Minutes could be hours, hours could be seconds; there was no direct correlation between time on this side of the barrier and time back in the living world. He and Duncan sat in the prow of the boat, holding tightly to the sides, cautious of the open water around them. Their guide remained in the stern, moving the boat across the water’s surface with powerful strokes of the steering pole.

  Dark clouds began to gather in the distance.

  Eventually, a dark stain could be seen on the horizon. As they grew closer, details began to emerge. The black sand beach seemed to be deserted, but just above the high-tide line the shimmering surface of a rift portal could be seen hovering several feet above the ground.

  A short time later their guide drove the boat through the shallows and up onto the shore. Silently he stepped out of the boat and crossed the black sand to stand before the gateway, head bowed. The wind had picked up, buffeting the two soldiers where they crouched in the gunwale of the boat, but did not seem to affect their mysterious benefactor at all.

  Cade watched as the ferryman reached out and grasped the edges of the rift. With a shouted word in a harsh guttural tongue that Cade could not recognize, their benefactor suddenly wrenched the rift open wide, wide enough to let both men pass through it into the living world that was visible just beyond.

  The storm flared in response. Thunder crashed in rapid succession, deafening in its majesty, and several strikes of lightning tore into the beach. The sea surged, threatening to pull the boat, and them with it, back out into the current.

  Their guide waved at them with one hand.

  “Let’s go!” Cade yelled, over the storm.

  Duncan nodded his understanding and agreement.

  They climbed over the side, being careful to avoid touching the water, and fought their way up the beach against the wind until they had reached the rift. Duncan stared at its shimmering surface, the fear evident on his face. “How do we do this?” he shouted above the storm.

  Cade pulled him in close. “I don’t know if you can pass through the portal alone, so we’d better stay in contact. Grab my hand and hold on tight.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Don’t even think that. It will work.”

  The nervous Knight could only nod in response.

  They clasped hands and stepped up close to the rift.

  “Ready?” Cade yelled over the noise of the storm.

  “No. But let’s do it anyway.”

  They moved forward.

  Cade’s right foot pierced the shimmering surface of the rift and swiftly disappeared. A crawling sensation enveloped his leg, as if a thousand spiders had suddenly swarmed over him.

  As he passed through the opening, he glanced back at their rescuer.

  At that moment the wind finally succeeded in tugging their mysterious benefactor’s hood to one side, revealing the face that had previously been hidden within its concealing shadows.

  A face that was horribly wounded, stripped of its skin, but still recognizable.

  Gabrielle!

  They had already entered the rift. It was too late to go back; the vortex pulled them across, back through the barrier into the living world.

  They burst through the mirror on the other side, sending shattered glass in all directions, and ended up sprawled haphazardly on the hardwood floor. The bedroom they emerged into was small and clearly hadn’t been used for some time; a layer of dust covered the furniture and floor, clearly visible in the silver glow of the moonlight coming in through the window. It was quiet, the only sound the occasional creak of the floorboards beneath their feet as they moved around the long-deserted room.

  As Duncan struggled to clear the fuzziness from his thoughts, Cade shoved past him and rushed down the hall. Out in the corridor, Duncan saw his commander looking into room after room, an expression of anger on his face.

  “What is it?” Duncan asked, suddenly nervous, looking around for some new threat.

  There was nothing there.

  Just an empty house.

  “What’s wrong?” Duncan asked again.

  Cade ignored him, still searching. When he came to the end of the hallway he swore vehemently and turned back in Duncan’s direction, scrambling to reach the stairway to the floor below.

  As he passed, Duncan grabbed his arm, pulling him up short. “What’s going on?”

  “That was my wi
fe!” Cade didn’t even look at him as he replied, intent on reaching the lower floor and struggling to free himself.

  Duncan did not understand and refused to relinquish his hold on his commander’s arm. “What are you talking about?”

  Cade spun around, fixing his subordinate in his baleful stare. “My wife. My wife was our guide. I need to find a way back to the Beyond, and I need to find it now!” He pulled free and rushed down the steps.

  The stairs descended into a living room. It, too, was deserted and clearly unlived in for some time. Dust covered everything; the sofa, the matching armchairs, the glass-topped coffee table that stood between all three. The windows were bereft of curtain or blinds, and no pictures hung on the walls.

  The living room was connected to a kitchen, and beyond that stood a formal dining room. Cade moved through them quickly, hoping that a three-bedroom home like this was would have more than one bath, as the mirror in the one upstairs had been missing, the discolored spot on the blue wallpaper the only evidence that one had once hung there at all.

  A single door led off from the dining room and Cade made a beeline for it. The knob turned easily and he stepped inside.

  It was, indeed, a second bathroom.

  A toilet, a sink, and above that, a mirror.

  But as he stared at his distorted reflection in the few remaining pieces of shattered glass that hung in the frame, Cade realized the futility of what he was doing. Even if the mirror had been whole, he wouldn’t have been able to return to Gabbi. The Beyond just didn’t work like that.

  His frustration at being so close burned like a white-hot flame, threatening to consume him.

  21

  Duncan watched Cade emerge from the rear of the house, trembling with barely concealed anger, and take a seat in one of the dust-covered chairs in the kitchen. He stared straight ahead at the wall in front of him, isolated by the weight of his emotion.

  Choosing discretion over valor, Duncan kept his mouth shut, intent on giving his commanding officer time to cool off. Instead, he turned his attention to trying to figure out where they actually were and how they were going to get back to where they should be.

  All right, how hard can this be? The first thing he tried was his cell phone, but either the battery was dead or the passage through to the Beyond had damaged it. There was a telephone mounted on the wall in the kitchen, but when he picked the receiver up, he found there was no dial tone. He’d expected as much, but it didn’t hurt to be certain. Maybe an old newspaper or something with an address label on it? He rummaged around in the kitchen for several minutes, but came up empty. The drawers and the cabinets were bare. As were the corner tables in the living room.

  Perfect, just perfect!

  He returned from the kitchen to find Cade waiting for him.

  “It’s time to get some answers,” was all the other man said, before leading Duncan through the house and out the front door into the cold night air without even a backward glance.

  They found themselves at the very end of a long dirt road. On either side stretched barren fields as far as they could see.

  There was nothing to do but start walking.

  The temperature was above freezing, though not by much, Duncan figured. The sky above was clear, the stars shining brightly, and Duncan said a prayer that it would stay that way.

  They headed north, the only direction the road would take them. The bright moonlight illuminated their way perfectly.

  Under other circumstances, it might have been an enjoyable stroll.

  But for Duncan, it was anything but.

  The last few days had opened his eyes with all that he’d seen and done. In just seventy-two hours, he’d been attacked by packs of revenants and flesh-hungry spectres, fought off a giant demon, journeyed to some other dimension under the power of a man known to most as the Heretic, and finally been rescued by his superior’s wife, a woman who’d been dead for several years.

  He had expected his time with Echo Team to be different than his work on the protective detail, but this was bordering on the absurd, particularly since he was now wandering in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out just where in Creation they actually were.

  They covered several miles, all in silence. The landscape did not change; they were surrounded by wide stretches of barren fields the entire distance.

  About an hour after they started out, they came to a crossroads.

  Ahead of them, the road continued onward, disappearing in a straight line into the darkness ahead.

  To their right, it did the same.

  To their left, however, it continued for several hundred yards before reaching the edge of a dark wood. There, it curved around the trees and out of sight.

  Cade stood in the middle of the road and tried the radio phone again, but still no luck. He replaced it in his pocket, looked at Duncan, and shrugged. “Take your pick,” he said.

  The younger man pointed to the left. “At the very least, we’ll be able to look at something other than these darn fields.”

  They set off again, this time walking side by side. They reached the tree line and followed the road as it curved to the left.

  There, just around the corner, was a gas station.

  The pumps were gone; the caps in the raised concrete dividers the only evidence they’d even existed. The large neon sign that had once stood proudly over the facility was reduced now to a single G, dark and lonely on its pedestal. The exterior walls of the station were covered with graffiti, and a thick sheen of dust covered the windows, but it couldn’t have been mistaken for anything but an old gas station.

  Beneath the streetlight in the corner stood a battered old Coke machine, its front smashed open. Next to it, under the single streetlamp that lit the scene, was a pay phone.

  With Cade following behind him, Duncan jogged over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

  It came loose in his hand, the severed end of the cord hanging free.

  “Damn!” he said, throwing it aside.

  He turned away from the phone and moved over to the station. Rubbing his sleeve against a window, Duncan cleared a section of dirt and grime as best he could, then peered inside. He could just make out several empty sets of shelves, a smashed refrigerator case, and a cashier’s station.

  Behind the counter, faded and torn but still tacked firmly to the wall, was a large map.

  He found the front door was unlocked, long since having fallen victim to a few well-placed kicks. Duncan climbed over the counter to look at the map.

  In the dim light coming in from outside, he could see that it was a large scale map of northern New York, so at least they were still in the same state.

  But if the big red “You Are Here” symbol was correct, the deserted gas station he now stood in was more than twenty miles away from where they started.

  It was going to be a long walk back.

  As the search for Duncan and Cade continued, Riley and Malone turned their attention to trying to determine the significance of the information they’d been entrusted with. They borrowed several squads of men from Major Barnes and began checking out the most likely possibilities. Maps and GPS coordinates were cross-checked. Teams were dispatched to the nearest public libraries, searching their catalogs for books with a catalog number that might match. Train stations, bus stations, airports, and health clubs, all were searched for a locker with the proper number and combination. State driver’s license records were clandestinely searched, hoping for a match.

  Several hours after the search got under way, they had their answer.

  Fifteen miles from Stone’s residence, a locker bearing the designation B27 was located. The remaining numbers proved to be the combination that opened it. Inside, the search team found a sealed packet of files. The information was collected and brought back to the Broadmoor Commandery, where it was turned over to Master Sergeant Riley.

  He and Malone wasted no time in going through it. It contained daily logs and activity reports
from the Custodes Veritatis going back several months, in which Commander Stone made more than one reference to his belief that there was a mole within his unit. He’d been unable to pinpoint a source, though, and had been left only with circumstantial evidence and no real suspect to tie to it. Included with the packet was another file, this time centering on a man named Simon Logan, a self-proclaimed mystic, who had expressed a sudden interest in the mystical Spear of Longinus. The evidence Stone had collected was slim, and several years out-of-date, but one particular detail caught their attention. In the margins of one of his reports, Stone had drawn the number nine surrounded by a snake eating its own tail. Beneath it, he’d written “Council of Nine?”

  At last, the Enemy had a name.

  Late that evening their missing comrades finally made contact from the pay phone in the lobby of a Days Inn some fifteen miles away. A car was sent for them, and Echo’s command team was reunited just as the sun was clearing the horizon.

  Each group filled the other in on what had happened in their absence; Cade and Duncan describing their battle with the sorcerers and their subsequent escape to the Beyond, Riley and Malone outlining the assistance they’d received in the search for Cade and the file they’d located at the bus station.

  It was readily apparent to all of them that the Preceptor knew more than he’d revealed. After weighing his options, Cade decided it was time to pay the man a visit.

  22

  Preceptor Michaels had just finished his morning cup of coffee when the door to his office burst open and his personal aide, Donaldson, was tossed inside to land in a heap on the carpet in front of the Preceptor’s desk.

  Behind him, the Heretic stalked into the room, anger evident on his face. With him was the Preceptor’s former security chief, Sean Duncan. Through the open doorway, Michaels could see Cade’s two other sergeants, Riley and Malone, taking up guard positions outside the door.