The Heretic

by Joseph Nassise

  Malone and Duncan were in the first of the two choppers that had stayed behind. They circled above the property, using the high-intensity spotlight mounted under the nose of the bird to highlight threats for the ground force and communicating with them via radio. From their vantage point they could see Cade and his men join up with Bravo Team. Fanning out, the group began its advance on the nearby buildings.

  “Look!” Duncan cried, pointing.

  The door to the plantation house opened, and several individuals stepped out into the porch. Duncan got a good look at them through the binoculars, and what he saw made his blood run cold. He’d seen those hooded robes before, worn by the sorcerers he and Cade had faced at Stone’s; he knew what power they had at their disposal.

  The battle was about to become bloody.

  Malone got on the radio to their commander. “Malone to TOC.”

  “Go, Malone,” Cade’s gruff voice replied.

  “I count five hostiles on the porch, repeat five hostiles.”

  “Understood. Engage at will.”

  At the same moment, one of the Council members raised his fingers to his lips. The men in the Blackhawk could not hear the resulting whistle over the sound of the rotors, but the men on the ground clearly did.

  For a moment, nothing moved on the battlefield.

  And then, in a thundering rush, dark forms came pouring out from around the sides of the house and headed straight for the Templar formation.

  The first of the corpse hounds ran through an area of the lawn illuminated by the chopper’s spotlight, and Duncan could hear the voice of the Bravo Team leader clearly over the radio in response. “What in the name of God?”

  They were the size of Great Danes, but no living Dane ever looked like this. Their skin hung rotting on their frames, and their empty eye sockets seemed to blaze with an unholy light. They charged across the grounds with unnatural speed, moving unerringly toward the Knights who were advancing on the plantation house.

  The Templars met the oncoming rush with brutal efficiency. They had positioned themselves in such a way as to deliver overlapping fields of fire, and their gunfire cut a swath through the enemy ranks.

  Just as the Knights had discovered when fighting the revenants, these creatures were only minimally affected by the bullets that ripped through their already ravaged bodies. A few fell to lucky headshots, but the rest simply regained their feet or continued undeterred.

  In seconds they would be among the Knights.

  “Swords!” Cade called out over the communication’s equipment and the men of both units drew their holy blades and met the oncoming charge straight on.

  Swords flashed, hounds bayed, and both men and dogs bled into the night air.

  High above, Malone and the sniper in the other Blackhawk finally entered the fray.

  They targeted the Council members still standing on the porch, taking out two of them with their first shots. Before the rest could respond to the threat, Malone fired again, striking a third. While he did not think the second shot had been a fatal one, at least there were two less sorcerers for them to worry about.

  As the rest of the Council members dove out of sight behind the portico columns, Malone turned his attention to the battle below him, seeking new targets, firing again and again until he was forced to reload.

  The battle raged on.

  In the distance, the storm gathered momentum.

  Once he had secured control of the tempest, Logan set the second half of his plan into motion. Calling upon the power inherent in the Spear, and adding it to his own dark arts, he reached savagely across the barrier into a realm long since forgotten.

  With the aid of his magick, he swept up several of the realm’s denizens and pulled them back into his side of reality. Controlling them, he sent the creatures forth, hidden in the heart of the storm.

  Cade moved through the melee, Riley at his side. Grim determination was etched on his face as he fought, his blade flashing repeatedly in the moonlight. Each corpse brought him closer to the plantation house. The hounds were designed to slow them down, of that he was certain, and so he refused to give them what they wanted. With the core of Echo Team at his back, he smashed his way through the ranks of the enemy.

  From out of the chaos in front of him charged an incredibly large beast; standing more than waist high, it resembled a full-grown lion more than a dog. Snarling, it launched itself at Cade.

  As Riley watched, his commanding officer disappeared completely beneath the beast’s form.

  “Cade!” he cried, dispatching the corpse hound he was currently fighting and rushing over to his friend.

  He needn’t have worried; even as he looked on the point of Cade’s sword came through the creature’s skull from the inside out. With a mighty shove, the commander rolled the corpse off him, his sword still embedded to the hilt in the base of the creature’s neck. Getting up, he placed a foot on the body and pulled the sword free.

  Cade was covered with blood and other unrecognizable substances from the corpse, but he was otherwise unhurt.

  Riley clapped a hand on his shoulder in a silent show of support, and they returned to the battle.

  A Blackhawk roared overhead, its light dancing across the lawn and over the front steps, and in its glow Cade saw a startling sight.

  Gabrielle stood on the steps gesturing to him.

  He raised his sword, to show that he had seen her, and watched as she turned and disappeared inside the house.

  It was clear that she wanted him to follow.

  As chance, or providence, would have it, several quick shots from the helicopter above him cleared the last of the corpse hounds from his path.

  The way to the steps was open.

  “This way,” he cried, charging forward, with Riley at his heels.

  30

  Inside the plantation house, they sheathed their swords and drew out their firearms. A double staircase immediately in front of them led up to the upper floors.

  At the top stood Gabrielle, waiting.

  Cade never hesitated.

  He charged up the steps, with Riley close behind.

  They encountered no one in the halls, so it was only a matter of moments before they found themselves led to the entrance to the grand ballroom on the second floor.

  Across the room stood Logan, the Necromancer.

  “We’ve got trouble,” Malone said, inclining his head toward the window while he finished reloading his weapon.

  Duncan turned to see what he was referring to and instantly wished he hadn’t.

  A thick bank of storm clouds appeared practically out of nowhere, moving faster than any earthbound wind could have carried them. And through a break in the clouds, they caught sight of the cause of that speed within the depths; shapes writhed and rolled within the clouds, shapes that had no purpose for being on this God-given earth.

  Clearly, they were some form of summoned being, but not one either Duncan, with his limited knowledge of such creatures, or Malone, who’d faced more than his fair share, had ever seen before. They were a good ten to fifteen feet in length and shaped, more than anything else, like manatees, except instead of front fins they had fully functional arms complete with claws. They had large bulbous heads with human faces and gaping maws full of oversized teeth.

  Their eyes, thought Duncan in the instant before the spectres were upon them, their eyes are full of hatred.

  Logan turned to face Cade and Riley as they entered the room. In his hand he held the Spear. He was dressed in a long, hooded robe, tied at the waist with a black sash. Cade recognized more than a few of the arcane symbols sewn onto its surface and knew that this was not a man to be trifled with.

  But neither was he.

  Riley moved out to his left, his weapon securely aimed at their foe, making it difficult for the sorcerer to strike them both with one blow.

  The Necromancer, however, didn’t even acknowledge Riley’s presence. His darkened hood concealed his features, bu
t Cade could tell his gaze never wavered from him just the same.

  “He said you would come.”

  The Necromancer’s voice was distorted, garbled, and it took a moment for Cade to understand. When he did, the words set his heart racing as the Templar Commander realized the Necromancer could only be referring to one being.

  The Adversary.

  “Where is he?” Cade demanded.

  Logan ignored the question, taking a step closer as he spoke. “Why are you here? Did you think you could defeat me?”

  Cade raised his gun. “Put down the Spear. You will not be harmed if you do as you are told.”

  The Necromancer acted as if he hadn’t heard. “You and your pathetic ally?” he asked, looking over at Riley for the first time. “Do you really believe you are strong enough to face me?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. In a surprisingly lithe move, he swept the Spear around in an arc and pointed it at Riley.

  Riley wasn’t taking any chances. As soon as the Necromancer moved, he pulled his weapon’s trigger.

  Cade watched, stunned, as the bullets from Riley gun arced around the Necromancer and smashed harmlessly into the doors behind. Logan mouthed something in a tongue Cade did not recognize, and in the next instant Riley was lifted up off the ground and tossed half-way across the room.

  The Templar sergeant slumped to the floor, unmoving.

  Logan turned back toward Cade, returning the Spear to his side. With his other hand, he reached up and threw back his hood, revealing his features for the first time.

  The right side of his face was a veritable ruin; his skin scarred from exposure to some kind of extreme heat, the flesh melted together and re-formed into some hideous approximation of normalcy. Like Cade’s, his right eye had not escaped harm, but where Cade’s was left intact as a milky white orb, the Necromancer’s had been destroyed outright, leaving the empty socket to gape like an open wound in his face. A few remaining wisps of long white hair hung from his damaged scalp.

  The similarities between Cade’s condition and that of the Necromancer were too obvious to ignore.

  Could this have been what the Adversary had intended for me?

  And then an even more disturbing thought.

  Why didn’t he finish the job?

  Despite his inner turmoil, Cade kept his gun pointed in the Necromancer’s direction. “Put down the Spear and step away from it,” he said.

  The Necromancer laughed. “Go ahead, shoot me,” he said, spreading his arms wide, the Spear still held securely in his right hand. “You can’t harm me and you know it. What I did to your companion was child’s play. As long as I am in possession of this,” - he shook the weapon slightly - “I am invincible.”

  Cade knew the rumors. He had heard the legends. He also knew that at least some of them regarding the Spear were true; he had seen the power of the weapon firsthand.

  Yet he had little choice.

  His enemy could not, must not, retain control of the Spear.

  “This is your last chance, Logan. Put down the weapon.”

  The Necromancer smiled. Instead of obeying Cade’s command, he began chanting under his breath. As he did so the head of the Spear started to glow a brilliant crimson in response.

  The storm, and its fearsome passengers, hit in a rush. One moment the helicopter was above the estate in clear skies, the next it was encased in a maelstrom of horrific proportions, surrounded by clouds so thick that if it weren’t for the instruments, the pilots would have been unable to determine which direction was up. As it was, they had their hands full fighting against the gale force winds and struggling to keep the aircraft on station.

  In the back, Duncan and Malone, strapped into their seats with safety webbing and seatbelts, did their best to keep the spectres away from the helicopter with shots from their weapons.

  Their gunfire only had marginal effect, however. The bullets seemed to skip off the creatures’ scaly hides or were tossed away in the winds before they could reach their targets.

  Above the howl of the wind and the sharp clatter of their firearms, a new sound could suddenly be heard.

  The sound of metal tearing somewhere in the rear of the aircraft.

  Duncan looked at Malone, and the same thought flashed in both their eyes.

  The engine.

  Cade had no intention of letting his enemy call forth any more of his infernal allies.

  He had to do something.

  But what?

  The Necromancer was right; Cade couldn’t harm him while he was in possession of the Spear.

  Couldn’t harm him.

  But that didn’t mean that Cade couldn’t harm the Spear itself.

  It was a difficult shot, made more so by the narrowness of the weapon’s shaft and the room’s dim lighting. It was a shot that few men could have made.

  Cade was one of those men.

  The shot flew true, striking the wooden shaft of the Spear a few inches below the metal shank that held the tip in place and splintering it into pieces. The head of the weapon flew off into the shadows behind the Necromancer, leaving him holding a useless shaft of oak.

  Logan’s shriek of pain and outrage echoed off the walls around them.

  But before Cade could end the confrontation with another well-placed bullet, a tremendous blow shook the house, sending them all to the floor.

  A sharp whine filled the crew compartment, the sound cycling upward into almost painful levels; and then, with a loud crack, something snapped.

  The Knights stared at the ceiling; the rotors had shut down.

  Seconds later the loud braying of the emergency alarm filled their ears and the pilot gave the Mayday call over the radio.

  As soon as he understood they were going down, Duncan pulled himself into a tight ball, protecting the back of his neck with his hands, just as he’d been taught.

  One moment they were in the heart of the phantom clouds, the spectres feasting on their engine, and the next they were plummeting through the huge glass walls of the conservatory, the air filled with flying glass, crumpled steel, and the screams of the living and the dead as the ground came up to meet them.

  Cade pushed himself up on his hands just in time to see the Necromancer disappear through a door in the back of the room. Hauling himself to his feet, he looked for Riley, who was just climbing to his knees, a thin trickle of blood seeping across his forehead. Cade ran over to help him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, pulling the big man up by his arm.

  Riley nodded, wiping at the blood absently. “Yeah, I’m fine. I could see and hear, I just couldn’t move. What the hell just happened?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t have time to find out.” He turned and pointed across the room. “Logan escaped through the back door. I want you to grab the Spear and get out of the house with it. Do whatever you need to in order to keep it safe. I’m going after Logan.”

  “But…”

  “There’s no time. Get the Spear. I’ll meet you out front as soon as I can.”

  And with that Cade ran off, following his enemy deeper into the house.

  Duncan came to with the straps of his seatbelt cutting into his chest and threatening to suffocate him. He was hanging upside down in the darkness, bruised and battered, but intact.

  He took a deep breath, gave a short prayer, and pressed the belt release with his left hand.

  He landed on the ceiling of the Blackhawk with a jarring crash. As he moved to get up, he put his hand in a pool of something thick and wet.

  Fuel oil, was his first thought, but when he got a good whiff of the substance he corrected himself.

  Blood.

  The thought put more urgency in his movement.

  Climbing carefully into a crouch, he reached into the leg pocket of his coveralls and withdrew one of the standard-issue light sticks he carried on every mission.

  By its light, he could see Malone still hanging above him, held in place by his safety straps.


  He could also see the wide stain on the front of the man’s coveralls and the thick piece of shrapnel that had gone through them, his body armor, and, finally, deep into his chest.

  With a tentative hand, he reached up to see if his companion was still alive.

  31

  Logan plunged down the back steps and outside into the wall of fog he had summoned while on the run just moments before. With the loss of the Spear had come a huge loss of power, and he knew this latest act of sorcery wouldn’t last very long. He had to be under cover before it disappeared.

  With a sense of direction bred from years of familiarity, he headed for the chapel.

  He had to reach the Other before they caught up with him.

  He would know what to do.

  He would help him recover the Spear.

  He had to.

  To have come so far, only to lose it now would be unthinkable.

  Logan couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. His early-alarm system had worked perfectly, letting him know the assault was on its way. He’d placed his troops, summoned reinforcements the likes of which he had never been powerful enough to summon before, and had counterattacked before the Templars had even known what was happening.

  Yet somehow the damned Templars had managed to breach his defenses.

  Everything he had worked for was in ruins.

  From the sounds of the small-arms fire coming from other parts of the property, it seemed the Knights were still fighting against his allies, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before the last of them were destroyed, and the full force of the Templar contingent would descend upon the house.

  He had to regain some measure of control before that happened.

  Reaching the chapel, the Necromancer hauled the door open and stepped inside.

  The chapel was lit with the same eerie red glow that always accompanied the Other’s presence; but even as the Necromancer made his way down the center aisle, it slowly began to fade away until he was left standing before the altar alone in the darkness.