He shuddered. Not home. Not anymore. That image faded and was replaced by the crackle of a cheery fire in a huge stone hearth. A lanky Scottish deerhound lay on the stones in front of the fire, snoring peacefully on a woolen rug. Above the mantle was the portrait of a beautiful woman with long, dark hair, wearing a gold tiara on her head. Her eyes were deep blue and her smile was full of kindness. Mother? No. Not anymore.
The portrait vanished and he was looking across a bleak landscape of white rock and sand. The sun shimmered on the horizon, causing the distant desert to take on the appearance of an inviting lake. In the foreground was a stark black and white striped tent with a red and white banner flying above it in the hot, desert wind. A pair of horses stood near the tent stomping and snorting. They were thirsty. He needed to find water for them. He needed to find water for all of them. A dust devil obscured his vision and he heard the undulating warble of Bedouin women, bidding farewell to their sons and husbands as they rode off to war. He opened his eyes and looked into the cool blue eyes of the Pixie.
“I canna say where ’ome is,” he told her in confusion. “It’s not there anymore.”
“Of course it is,” she assured him and held his head up to give him a drink of something very sweet. “It’s the fever, Mark Andrew. The fever has made you forget. Now you must remember for me. Think. Concentrate. What can you see?”
“I can’t see anything, but you, Meredith,” he said and closed his eyes again. She was so beautiful. So delicate, so innocent. He wanted to kiss her, but couldn’t reach her. He wanted to touch her face, her arms, her breasts. He wanted…
“You must think, Mark,” she urged him. “We must get away now before they come for us.”
“Come away with me,” he pleaded with her in the language of the Church. She didn’t understand. He had to make her understand. “Leave this land to the adders and come away with me, Meredith,” he tried the language of the Frankish Knights. She blinked in confusion. “Let me save you from this pit of perdition,” he tried Greek and she smiled, but there was no understanding in her beautiful eyes. “Am I so lost that I should die with you?” he asked in English.
“Yes, of course, Mark, whatever you say,” her smile widened and she answered in English.
“Why?” he asked in English. Something was not right.
She frowned down at him. His question seemed to startle her as if she had not expected it.
“Why? Would you leave your home? Why should I die for you?” He asked again and blinked rapidly, trying to clear the fog from his mind.
Her smile vanished and she looked at him in alarm.
She had to answer the question. It was imperative that she answer the question.
“You need me,” she said too quickly. “You are just ill. You won’t die. You just need my help to get home.”
“I don’t need you.” He tried again to sit up, but he felt drunk. His hands slipped on the floor and he banged the back of his head on the marble rectangle behind him. He reached up slowly, as if he was moving through quicksand and felt the back of his head. “Women are not allowed. You cannot go there.”
“Your brothers are waiting for you,” she told him. Her tone had changed. It was no longer soothing. “Tell me where the meetings are held and I will take you to them. Please, Mark! Tell me.”
“I have no brothers. My brother is dead. The woman killed him,” he said as his confusion turned to anger. The wind picked up and the candles began to go out one by one. She moved away from him.
“I won’t do it, Cecile!” she shouted. “I’m not going to do it!”
“Merry!” he called to her as she hurried down the steps.
The wind picked up leaves and dust, swirling them into the building around him. He pushed himself up shakily and then leaned against the altar. Altar! An altar! Of course, he was in the gazebo again. This was their meeting place. He pushed off the thing and lurched after her, down the steps as the first flash of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder rumbled across the landscape bumping and bouncing off the boulders on the hillside above the garden.
The Pixie ran down the brick path toward the house, leaving him! Her white dress whipped about her legs as the sudden summer storm whipped the tops of the cedars and oaks. Mark missed the top step and ended up on the brick walkway on his hands and knees.
“Merry! Wait!” he shouted after her, but she did not look back. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
He could not gain his feet. His legs would not hold him up. He half-crawled after her along the walk. The effort was too much. He stopped and then focused on a pair of black boots in front of his face. Not Merry. With an effort that drew an audible groan from his lips, he looked up. Valentino stood over him holding a broadsword that resembled a frozen flame. The Golden Sword of the Cherubim! He recognized it immediately. The lightening reflected off the golden, double-edged blade and the air filled with the smell of ozone. He managed to sit back on his heels and frowned up at her in total confusion. Where had she come from? Where had she gotten the Flaming Sword?
It was his sword!
The first drops of rain spattered down into his upturned face. He blinked as the rain came down harder and harder, drenching him to the skin almost instantly.
“You have profaned the temple!” she shouted at him. The rain poured over her, soaking her dark hair and running down her face in rivulets.
“Meredith!” he shouted again and tried to look around the woman.
“You have disgraced your order! You have broken your vows!” Valentino shouted at him above the roar of the wind and the rain.
“My sword,” he gasped in the cold rain. “Give it to me…. please.” He had to be nice to her.
“What is the purpose of the Flaming Sword, Sir Ramsay?” she asked.
“The Flaming Sword of the Cherubim guards the way to the Tree of Life,” his words came easier now. But his heart was racing with fear and anger. The sword was dangerous. He had to have the sword. Why did she have his sword? Why had Merry left him?
“And how would you use it?” she asked him, blinking back the water.
“To slay any who would profane the Temple,” he answered rotely, without thinking.
“And of what temple do you speak?” The heavy sword wavered in her grip and she wrapped her other hand around the hilt to keep it aloft.
“The Temple of Solomon.”
The lowered his head and felt as if he were choking to death or drowning. The rain beat down on his head and he shivered uncontrollably.
“And who is the Tree of Life?”
“Edgard d’Brouchart, Keeper of the Secrets of Sherma and of the Secrets of King Solomon the Wise. Holder of the Fruit of the Tree of Life.”
“And where is the Tree of Life?” she continued to ask questions. The answers came to him automatically. He raised his face again. Who was this woman? What did she know of the Temple?
“In the Temple,” he answered in spite of himself. “The Master is the Temple.”
He lowered his head again, gasping for breath. The sight of an ancient Roman Villa filled his vision. A long dark table with a white circle with a red cross in the center and an up-ended golden goblet with the letters IAAT inscribed on its side. Wine spilled across the surface of the table. A dark man dressed in black pounded the table with his fist. Mark Andrew covered his ears at the sound of the man’s deep laughter and squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of the cup. Death! Death! The Knight of the Apocalypse! The Knight of the Apocalypse was in his mind. He pressed his hands against his ears.
The woman was screaming at him “Where is the Temple?!”
He put his hands against the bricks and launched himself at her with what strength he had left. She lowered the sword at precisely the right moment and he impaled himself very neatly on it. The blade cut through him effortlessly, as well as, painlessly… at first. The realization of what he had done struck him at the same instant as the pain. He looked up in astonishment at the woman who stepped bac
k with a pleased look on her face. Blood ran down his stomach mixed with the rainwater and washed across the bricks at his knees. Mark Andrew grasped the hilt of the sword in both hands and pulled against it fruitlessly. He knew that the blade had passed completely through him. A futile effort to pull on it only caused more pain though he was unable to scream, unable to speak. He felt himself falling and then nothing.
(((((((((((((
Mark Andrew woke suddenly and rudely, fighting his pillow. He was on his hands and knees in the bed and the pillow was unarmed. He flung it to the floor and climbed out of the bed. Broad daylight. What had happened to the storm? He felt his hair. Dry. He pulled up his shirt and looked at his stomach. No wound. No pain. No new scar.
The blade had been so real. He had felt the pain very distinctly. The only thing he felt now was the usual hunger pangs and he wondered if it were the next day or the same day or a week later. Why had she drugged him again? The dream had been terrible, but he remembered it with crystal clarity. Every word, every move. All the questions. And he had answered every one. The Flaming Sword of the Cherubim. His sword. The sword he used to kill his Brothers. His Brothers. He used the sword to kill his Brothers! They would be coming for him. He had broken his vows. He was a disgrace to the order. He had profaned the Temple and he was in despair.
When he had sufficiently collected his wits, he went into the bathroom and splashed water in his face. He was not feeling superior or contemptuous. He was afraid. Not of Valentino, but of Edgard d’Brouchart and Konrad von Hetz, the Apocalyptic Knight. They would want to know if he had found Anthony. They would want to know what he had been doing. They would want to know why he had broken his vows and how would he explain to them that he was falling in love… nay, already fallen in love with a woman? It was not negotiable. It could not be tolerated. It was too dangerous. They would never allow it.
But who were they?
His memories were still incomplete. There were huge gaps and holes in it. He knew who the Grand Master was now and he knew the other one, the dark one, but he knew very little else about the mission other than that he was supposed to locate Anthony and bring him back, alive or dead. Back to where? To the Roman Villa near Pompeii, of course. At least some questions had been answered for him as well as Cecile Valentino.
Much of what he had lost had returned, but along with it he also knew that someone was coming for him and he didn’t want them to find him. Not yet. He had not completed his mission. Whatever all this insanity about the Tree of Life was, he wanted no part of it. He didn’t want to have anything to do with Valentino and her batch of lunatics and he certainly wanted to avoid the Grand Master and his deadly Knight of the Apocalypse until he could report that his mission had been accomplished. After that, he would quit the Order and take Merry very far away from all this. But what he wanted and what was possible were two very different things. It had always been so and deep within his muddled mind he knew this beyond all else. He would have to try to complete his mission even though he felt broken and defeated. If he could do anything for Merry, he would. As all these thoughts were passing through his head, he heard the key in the lock at his door.
The balding little weasel entered the room cautiously and looked about. When he spied Mark standing in the bathroom door, he hurried forward to greet him and Mark neatly side-stepped the kiss.
“Brother Ramsay,” the man said breathlessly. “I have arranged everything. We will leave tonight after dinner.”
“After dinner,” Mark nodded and his stomach growled. “Good. Where will we go?”
“To the Temple, of course,” the man told him brightly.
“Of course. And when is dinner?” Mark was more interested in food than playing Valentino’s games.
“Six o’clock,” the man told him.
“Do you have a name, Brother?”
“John Tellman,” the man stuck out his hand and Mark took a step back before realizing he wanted to shake hands. He took the man’s clammy hand in his and then cringed as the man planted another kiss on his lips like lightning. He suffered the kiss with a grimace and let go of the hand, shuddering visibly.
“Should I pack, John?” he asked idiotically.
“If you like, sir,” the man shrugged. “Just be ready after dinner.”
“I will be,” Mark nodded. He would be ready. Ready for most anything.
(((((((((((((
While Ramsay was pacing the floor in his bedroom upstairs, trying to organize his thoughts and new memories in his muddled head, Valentino was pacing the floor in front of the big windows in the library below him. Maxie stood behind one of the leather armchairs watching her apprehensively, ready to duck any miscellaneous flying objects. Merry sat on the sofa with her head back on the cushion, staring up at the ceiling. Every now and again Valentino would stop pacing to beat her fist on her own head or her leg or whatever was within reach before continuing her ranting. This was how she organized her thoughts. Her two companions waited patiently.
She stopped and pressed both of her hands against the sides of her head.
“It almost worked, by God,” she said for the umpteenth time. “Merry, if only you hadn’t run off like a scared rabbit, we would have succeeded. He was right on the verge of telling me everything when he saw the sword. Now I have to use that stupid fool, Tellman.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” Merry told her again. “You didn’t tell me he would be asking questions. I don’t like this, Cecile. Someone could get hurt and I don’t like what you’re doing. You killed him again!”
“Shush now. I didn’t really kill him. I just made him think so. Did you see any blood on him when we brought him in? No! No, you didn’t. He just thought he was dead. Do you understand what that means, little girl? I just presented the idea to him and he reacted. He really did respond to my hypnosis after all,” Cecile asked her and there was an insane glow in her eyes. “It means that he can think himself to death! No pulse, no respiration. Intriguing! Now look, we’ve been through all this already. We were so close and now we’ve lost two more days,” Valentino started pacing again. “I can’t believe he was able to get up and crawl away with all the drugs I gave him. He should have been dead from the drugs alone, but when he thought that sword was in him, he really died!”
“Yeah, he was dead all right,” Maxie agreed. His face was pasty. He’d been drunk for almost twenty-four hours and he still didn’t understand what was going on. “What did you say to him? It looked like you stabbed him or something.”
Maxie had begrudgingly helped them carry Ramsay’s lifeless body upstairs and waited while Merry cleaned him up. The man had been dead. Whatever Valentino was up to, he had no idea. He’d never believed the immortality bullshit, but he’d seen him take his last breath on the path in the garden and he’d seen him take his first breath in the house a few minutes later. Like Jesus coming back from the Cross. It was too weird. Maxie was thinking of dragging up and heading west.
“I didn’t stab him. He did it to himself,” she argued. “I guess his mind is stronger than I had given him credit for.” She stopped and laughed. “You should have seen his face when he realized what he had done. He wasn’t so smart and macho then, but damn, that scared the shit out of me. I guess you have to cut out their hearts or maybe cut off their heads or something like vampires. There has to be a trick to it. I mean keeping them dead.”
“You’re sick,” Merry mumbled and looked away from them out the window. “Both of you.”
“Hey, don’t put me off in this bullshit,” Maxie retorted and made his way behind Valentino’s bar, looking for a shot of whiskey to bolster his courage.
“I really wanted to stab him with it,” Valentino told her and then lowered her voice. “I wanted to cut him in little pieces. He called you Isis. I heard him. I wanted to make him like Osiris. Missing a few vital parts.” She held up her hand with her thumb and forefinger held very close together. “Especially when he launched himself
at me. I couldn’t believe it. He knows everything and he refuses to tell it. He makes me so mad. Why won’t he just tell me what I want to know?”
She went to the book case and pulled a heavy tome from one of the shelves. Her face took on a fierce look as she thumbed through its worn pages.
“I have to look up all that stuff about the temple and the tree and flaming sword. In the meantime, I guess we’re back to plan A,” she muttered as she thumbed through the dog-eared pages. “I’ll go ahead and send John up after supper and we’ll try again. There must be a way to get through to him. I thought he cared more for you, Merry, but I see that it was just sex after all. He certainly wouldn’t stick his neck out for you.”
Merry turned her face to the window again in disgust. That was not what Mark had said and he’d said it under the influence of the horrible drugs that Cecile had used on him. He had said that he would die with her. With her. What a morbid thought.
“I think we ought to get rid of him before there’s real trouble,” Maxie put in his opinion somewhat hesitantly. “He’s awful violent and damned hard to kill.”
“Violent?” Valentino spun on the man, finally loosing her patience with him. “You haven’t seen violence, Sturgeon! You haven’t seen people burned at the stake and gutted on the battlefield. You’ve never seen the Templars riding over a hilltop, coming at you with their banners flying. You’ve never had everything taken away from you by an invading army. You haven’t seen anything. In the old days, they did horrible things to people accused of heresy and they almost killed all the Templars back when the Church decided they were too powerful. Money talks. What if you could get arrested just for having too much money? And what if you got accused of witchcraft and they burned you alive? Then you might be able to understand something. You can’t imagine what that guy has been through. He’s real, Maxie. You’re nothing in comparison. You don’t know what violence is.”
The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death Page 18