The priest rose to his feet, his mannerism suddenly serenely hostile towards Purdue. “I will never tell you.”
“Excuse me?” Purdue frowned.
“Father?” Sam prompted.
“Why do you think,” Father Harper asked Purdue, “your new lady companion was being murdered in broad daylight by the Militum?”
Purdue gave it some thought, but he could find no answer. Sam became agitated, but he did not act yet as the priest’s enormous frame stalked the confounded billionaire explorer.
“They would not have been stoning her with rocks from the Temple Mount, if she was not already in possession of the crown, David,” he sneered. “You have been played, my friend. Whatever reason Toshana Baldwin had to engage you, I regret to inform you that it was not for your good looks or to elicit your help in finding some bewitched relic for her.”
Sam and Purdue stood perplexed in the barren halls under the Al-Aqsa mosque. Their feet rested on the earth where Solomon had walked, where blood had been spilled over gods and power for centuries. Whatever was ensuing was far too great for their capacity as humans.
“She has the crown, Purdue,” Father Harper revealed. “That is why the Militum wants her. To restore the relic to a place where no man or woman can defile its power, and I fear she will have to sacrifice a lot more when we give her back to them. The Sacrifice of Baphomet is an ugly business for the one who steals its head, the crown of the idol.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam asked, his heart racing.
“The Templars who were reputed to worship Baphomet, those burned for consorting with the devil,” he started, “were discovered during a ritual that looked like a ceremony of worship. But what the church did not understand – what they perpetually neglect to fathom – is that not every ritual is for the sake of religion or worship. They were discovered doing exactly what the Militum will do if they do not get what they want. The restoration of the crown can only be achieved by means of the Sacrifice of Baphomet, a ritual. Simple as that.”
“We have to deliver Toshana before they run out of patience,” Sam told Purdue and the priest. “They will not wait much longer, and Nina will suffer for it.”
“I agree,” the priest said.
Purdue laughed. Shaking his head, he looked at them in disbelief and fear. “Are you out of your minds?” he chuckled, but his laughter was filled with betrayal. “My own friends! She was right! You are all just using me. Now you have used me to trap my beloved Toshana in a subterranean snare so that you can give her back to a bunch of killers?”
“Purdue,” Sam tried, but Purdue pulled out one of his defense devices, a pen shaped mechanism that directed a deadly laser. The beam was invisible, unless there was smoke present to detect it, but Purdue had the favor of clear darkness as he pointed the end at Father Harper. Spittle foamed at his mouth, his eyes wide with fearful defense.
“You are not taking Toshana. I swear to Christ, I will slice you both in half!”
30
The Knight’s Valor
Sam and Father Harper stared down the maniacal Purdue, suddenly beside himself.
“What are you doing, Purdue?” Sam asked plainly, trying not to rile up his friend even more with insinuations of misplaced loyalty. Father Harper, he noticed, inched gradually towards the white haired puppet of Toshana Baldwin. That is how he saw Purdue right now. A puppet controlled by a vice few men could resist.
“You’re not taking her,” he hissed at Sam.
“And Nina? Are you going to leave her to die when your beloved Toshana does not show up?” Sam asked, occupying Purdue’s attention as the priest stalked nearer.
“But I always show up, Sam,” Toshana said from the darkness of the side tunnel. “I might take some time, but I never let a good deal get away from me.”
The men swung around as her pretty face appeared from the pitch darkness of the tunnel she was traversing. Purdue’s heart fluttered, but not for long. With his eye keenly on the dangerous Father Harper, he did not notice Sam hurtling toward him. Unexpectedly, the journalist flung his body at Purdue, spearing him off his feet. The two men landed hard on the cold rock of the tunnel floor, now completely robbed of light. Purdue’s tablet and his laser-based weapon clattered somewhere in the darkness.
Father Harper allowed Sam to take care of Purdue, but having seen Sam’s viciousness before, he did feel the need to cry out some advice. “Just don’t kill him. Sam! This isn’t his fault!”
A stinging sensation burned in the priest’s side. He was familiar with the feeling, the blunt pain of a blade sinking into his flesh. Vacuuming into his tissue, the blade retracted as Sam and Purdue’s altercation echoed through the blackness. Another bite of the blade sank into his chest, the steel scratching the bone of his chest plate as it rested short of his lung.
Toshana’s breath raced as the kill excited her, but she neglected to remember that she was not dealing with an opponent who died easily. Father Harper tried to ignore the pain that flowered through his torso, numbing his muscles. Using his massive hands to grab at where the knife was lodged before she could pull it out again. His actions were so rapid that Toshana had no chance. He found her hand and promptly snapped it at the wrist before seizing her by the throat.
Her scream reverberated in the underground sanctuary of the Templars of bygone centuries, giving it a superb voice that thundered back at the party before it dwindled into a guttural rattle.
“He’s strangling her, Sam!” Purdue shrieked under Sam’s blows.
“Good! I hope he fucking kills her!” Sam spat furiously as he brought down his knee in Purdue’s gut, rendering him breathless. “You are so goddamn pussy-whipped you can’t see straight!” Sam was wheezing madly, his arms exhausted and his knuckles burning.
Purdue had gotten in a few good ones, though. Sam’s brow smiled wide open and crimson over his eye, the blood blinding him while he wiped profusely at it. His chest ached from the side kick Purdue had connected expertly a few moments before. “Father Harper!” Sam cried, trying not to raise his voice too much, should anyone above hear the ruckus.
“I’m here,” the weak voice of the priest answered. His hand was still firmly on Toshana’s throat, but she was still writhing. Both her delicate hands were clasped around his wrist, but she was too weak to pry his hand from her neck.
“Are you hurt?” Sam asked. “Father?”
“Bit busy, Sam,” Father Harper said, hardly releasing the words from his mouth. He could hear Sam’s footsteps approach, following the sound of his voice. “Toshana, if you tell me where the crown is, I will let you live,” Sam heard the priest say.
Purdue switched on the bright light on his tablet. He could barely stand upright now, propping his arm on his knee. His face was bruised and swollen and his shirt ripped, straining over his heaving body. He could see Sam support the priest’s large frame as he sank to his knees, still holding the treacherous woman firm.
“Please, Father, don’t kill her,” Purdue begged from a distance as he watched his lover chocking under the fading power of the priest. Father Harper was weakening rapidly, but he insisted on knowing where the crown was.
“Toshana, please, tell him,” Purdue implored. “Don’t let me watch you die.”
“Let go, Father. I’ll restrain her. She’ll get no mercy from me.” Sam grimaced as he took hold of Toshana’s hair in his fist and pulled her free of Father Harper’s grip. “Now, where is the crown?”
“Do you think I will tell you?” she coughed.
Sam looked at Purdue and shrugged, ignoring his friend’s pleas for mercy as Sam landed a hefty boot in her back, ripping the breath from her. Toshana gasped for air, screaming in pain when air was permitted.
“They’re going to kill me if I don’t give them the crown!” she shrieked angrily as the pain overwhelmed her.
“They are going to kill you anyway, bitch,” Sam growled in her ear, away from Purdue’s perception. “No matter how you play this, if you
don’t tell me where that fucking relic is, I am going to end you right here, where the Militum ended the last bitch who stole the crown. It would be rather…poetic, I think.” He jerked her head back so hard that her neck crunched softly inside. “Don’t you think that would be poetic, Toshana? So…ironic.”
“Not the Militum, the Bilderberg representatives of the Order of the Black Sun,” she whimpered, “are going to kill me.”
“Sam,” Purdue tried, but Sam roared, “Shut up! You! You just stay over there and be a good boy, Purdue, because I like Nina way more than I like you right now!”
Father Harper whispered, “I suppose Miss Harris got the wrong end of your knife as well. You brought us all down here to make away with us, didn’t you? This whole excursion was staged to facilitate our murders.”
Toshana said nothing, but her face affirmed the priest’s suspicion. “All of you, but especially you, Purdue. My God, they hate you,” she said, relishing the heartbreak in Purdue’s eyes.
“And Harris,” Sam added.
Toshana silently nodded at the assassination of the annoying journalist. Sam almost felt sorry about the loss. He probably would mourn his old foe even for just a minute, had he not been livid and sore beyond sympathy.
“If this priest dies, Toshana, I am smashing your skull against this wall. I swear to Christ! You had better spill it, or you die right now,” Sam reiterated. “Purdue, I am really reaching the end of my tether right now.”
“Alright, alright,” she finally cracked, “but I’ll take you to the citadel myself. That way you will have to let me live. Otherwise you get nothing!”
“The citadel?” Sam asked. “Here in Jerusalem?”
“Not in Jerusalem,” she stammered though bloody teeth. “That is where Lieutenant Hermanus was on her way to when she was…” she looked at Father Harper, “…intercepted.”
“We knew Hermanus was Vril Society. We found her fleeing to Medina. She had their mark branded on her chest, between her breasts,” Father Harper mumbled. “A warped lightning bolt springing from a Black Sun emblem. But you, Toshana…”
“What?” she gasped. Sam’s grip seemed to tear her scalp from her skull.
“You serve something much older, don’t you?” the priest grunted. His voice shivered over its last two words and his body went limp on the floor. Sam and Purdue both felt their impatience escalate at Toshana’s delays.
“Finally, a Templar dies in the Templars’ ill-begotten palace,” Toshana remarked. Her impudence earned her another kick and she cried out in a hoarse voice, refusing to weep.
“Where is the citadel?” Purdue asked, sounding harsh and tired.
“I will take you if you let me live,” she insisted.
“Do we still have to give her to the Militum, Sam? Isn’t there a way out of that?” Purdue asked.
“Aye, there are two ways. Toshana dies now or Nina dies later. Either way, one of them will die, Purdue,” Sam said. He turned and gave Purdue a sharp look. “Choose very carefully which one you would prefer to keep breathing. I know I’ve made my choice.”
From a distance, they could hear a rumbling ensue. It was way past closing hour and the mosque had to be empty by now. Above them there was no trembling of ground, so Sam and Purdue realized that the sound came from both sides of the tunnel. “The light!” Sam whispered loudly. “Kill the light before they find us.”
Purdue promptly switched off the light. Men shouted from the sudden darkness, confirming that they had been discovered under the mosque.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Sam whispered. “How do we get out?”
“They sound very angry, Sam. Have any ideas?” Purdue asked.
“Your pen laser,” Sam suggested. “Why don’t you use that hostile fucking stationary on someone besides your friends?”
“I have no idea where it is. You knocked it out of my goddamn hand, genius,” Purdue retorted.
Suddenly, Sam felt a terrible pain in the arm he was holding Toshana with. A heavy, sharp stone came down on his elbow joint, spraining the joint and forcing Sam’s hand open on impact.
“Jesus Christ!” Sam bellowed. He lost all feeling in his arm for a while, but his legs were still strong. “You bitch!” He jumped up and pursued her clapping footsteps in the dark.
“Sam! Wait for me!” Purdue cried, bolting forward as much as his beaten body would allow. It sounded as if the soldiers were lost down there, their voices floating in argument and suggestions. Their flashlights could not penetrate far enough into the tunnels to locate the intruders. With the speed that Sam and Purdue moved after the fleeing Countess, they quickly left the soldiers behind.
But by the time they found the exit of the tunnel, they had been walking for over an hour. Toshana’s footsteps were silent now. Either she had escaped through the women’s mosque or she was hiding somewhere in the dark. The two men had no time to waste trying to find her in the perpetual dark of an endless maze.
“What do you wager she is on her way to the citadel?” Sam finally asked.
“She paid me in gold bars, stamped ‘RB,’ you know?” Purdue confessed. “I should have known.”
“What is ‘RB’?” Sam asked, wedging out through a crevice in the tunnel that led out from the Temple Mount.
“It is how the SS marked their gold, the abbreviation for Reichsbank. Now, how many normal financial institutions have those?” Purdue asked, shaking his head at his own foolishness.
“Don’t worry. We might not know where to find the citadel exactly, but we know someone who would know,” Sam said. “Doubt he will be very helpful, though, once he knows that we lost Toshana again.”
“Poor Father Harper,” Purdue lamented the fate of the priest. “That man saved me from a terrible fate under Mother’s house when nobody else knew where I was or cared to rescue me.” They stumbled out over the loose rocks, their tired eyes blessed by the beauty of the lights everywhere around the site. Jerusalem by night looked like a galaxy of floating stars shimmering over highways that held their orbit.
“He died because of my mistakes, you know,” Purdue persisted.
“He died because he came to Nina’s rescue,” Sam corrected Purdue. “Something I would do in a heartbeat.
31
In Hoc Signo Vinces
After Nina had played witness to the terrifying symbology in the grand hall, she found it impossible to sleep or hold down any of the food she was given. Ayer came to check on her where she was listlessly lying on her stone bed.
“Dr. Gould, may I have a word?” he asked politely from the doorway.
Nina only shrugged, not feeling like talking at all. She could hear his clothing rustling as he came in and sat down.
“I have received word from Mr. Cleave,” he began, watching Nina sit up at once.
“What did he say?” she asked.
Ayer’s face betrayed nothing of his thoughts or plans, making it difficult for her to ascertain the amount of trouble she was facing, if any. It was just good to hear that Sam was still alright – alive. She had no misgivings about the men who kept her. After their violence on Toshana and the killings at the morgue, not to mention the manner in which they conducted the funerals of their fallen brothers, she knew full well that these were by no means gentle monks that would make Buddha proud.
“He cannot deliver Toshana to us. Apparently they had her, but somehow allowed her to escape them. Dr. Gould, I hate to have to resort to this, but it is time for a sacrifice on one of the sides here. Otherwise we will be locked in this stalemate, you see,” he imparted the sentence as politely as he could. “I must prove to Sam Cleave that Toshana must be killed at all costs, either by him or by us. But I fear he misjudges us, thinking us fools who will wait patiently for him to deliver what he stole from us.”
Nina felt her legs go numb, a sure sign of terror, but she tried to hold her voice steady. Ayer’s cryptic words did not clarify enough for her to make a decision in her emotional state. Her hands were perspiring dreadfully, as if h
er common sense had already made the decision to panic. With a heavy heart, she tried to come to a certain conclusion. “So, what does that mean for me, Ayer?”
As he spoke, Nina watched his face distort into a monster, the result of the tears impairing her sight. “I am so sorry, Dr. Gould,” he said, “but we will have to make an example of you. If Sam still does not comply after what we do to you, he will have proven inept, spiteful, and unreliable.”
“W-wh-at?” Nina stuttered in disbelief. Her slender hands wrung within one another, savoring for old time’s sake the comfort of not being in pain, of being alive and comfortable. “What? Are y-you going to k-ill me, then?”
He simply nodded, looking down in sympathy. “Please, do not see this as a personal act of animosity towards you, Nina.”
That was the illogical attitude that sent her into a fit of rage. Nina did not mean to, but her emotions had a way of steering her will and she leapt to her feet, her eyes burning into him as she screeched, “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Are you fucking insane?” Nina’s body inadvertently darted forward and she swung at him. The impact of her palm against his face clapped so hard that Gille came rushing in, but Ayer motioned for him to leave. “Oh, it’s not personal, but we are going to kill you to teach Sam a lesson?” she carried on in repugnance.
Ayer regarded her, keeping his hands steadily next to him on the edge of the chair. He had no intention to return the blow – yet. Intelligence afforded him understanding of her reaction and he allowed her to fume. She deserved as much. His cheek felt like coals under a grill, but what hurt more was the fact that he’d truly believed that they wouldn’t have to harm the historian. Killing Nina Gould had never been in his plan book, but now it was the only way, a way that did not please him or boast any pride for him.
“How could a smart bloke like you allow that sort of thinking to dictate your vendetta’s, Ayer?” she hissed, her pretty face tainted by fury and panic. “Tell me! Tell me how you can condone this irrational ideology?” Tears streaked over her cheeks and rained from her jaw line as her teeth held back the saliva of her words. If he could, Ayer would have held her to make amends, but there was no place for affection or mercy in the eye of ancient rites that had to be upheld.
The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar (Order of the Black Sun Book 19) Page 18