Cal remembered Maria and her two unique blades, and felt the stab of another man’s great loss as keenly as if it were his own.
He and the others readied themselves for battle. Cal nocked his bow and pulled the long, slender arrow back smoothly, the sharpness of its tip undulled by time. Moussa had his claw hand flexed and languid for now, and at his side, his other hand gripping a staff.
Nathan seemed almost to have disappeared since he gripped the sword. He clearly was in the full grip of the Bleeding Effect, and Cal was glad of it. The memories of his ancestor fueled him, and there was steel in the boy’s eyes as well as his hand.
And Lin—she grasped the crossbow she had taken from a guard during the flight to the Animus Room. At her hip, she wore a short, double-edged sword. And on her feet… her unique blade.
The enemy had been steadily banging on the door with no success.
Then, all at once, the doors slid open.
Emir had fallen.
The first two guards who rushed in, yelling, joined him in death, each felled by a different style of bow. Once Cal had released the arrow, he used the bow itself as a weapon, knocking one charging guard off balance with a smooth sweep and bringing the bow up to block the downward stab of a second.
He turned, drawing another arrow in the same motion, fitted it to the string, and let it fly. It pierced a third guard through the eye. He dropped like a stone.
Cal turned on the next assailant, kicking, punching, ducking, his body moving with an almost joyful ease.
He had spent his whole life preparing for this moment, fighting alongside his brothers. And he was only now realizing it.
***
Lin utilized both her traditional weapons with deadly grace and speed. She leaped and executed a kick, the motion activating the blade in her boot. Her foot struck a guard under the chin, knocking him back and impaling him in the same efficient, single strike.
She landed, drawing her jian, and began beating back attacks from all sides, darting, springing up, and dodging like a demon. It felt so good to be wielding it. It was an extension of her arm, as was the blade on her boot, and she finally felt she was home.
One guard got his skull split. Another staggered back, his hand to his throat as he impotently tried to stop the spurting crimson. A third came at her with one of the baton blades, and she lopped off his hand with a single, almost bored, motion.
Lin knew about the scientific reasons for the Bleeding Effect. But for her, in this moment, it felt more like an ancestor’s spirit was dwelling in her body, sharing it for their common purpose.
At this moment, Shao Jun was happy.
She was doing the thing she loved to do best: killing Templars, and fighting alongside her brothers.
***
There was a lot of rage inside Moussa. Pure, cold, precise rage. Rage at injustices personal and not, at things that had pained his ancestor, at things that had broken his own heart. Like Lin, he, too, darted and dived, using his staff as familiarly as if he’d been practicing with the weapon his whole life.
It felt so easy, so natural. He would bring it sweeping down low, knocking his foe off his feet, then dart forward for a quick swipe of the claw-gauntlet. Moussa didn’t need to slice open an artery. Baptiste had said once, “a little nick will do the trick.”
And if that little nick put a Templar out of commission, and that little trick was that the man suffered agonizing torment as he spat froth and died in convulsions… well, that was just a little extra something that made the whole thing better.
He whirled in anticipation of a blow, cracking a skull, and laughed.
***
Nathan easily blocked a baton strike with his own edged steel, then deftly twisted his wrist to send the guard’s weapon soaring uselessly across the room. The guard’s side was left open for just an instant. Nathan was there, stabbing forward with his left hand. Eight inches of steel pierced the guard’s heart and he fell as Nathan dodged the blow of another guard, coming upward with a cruel grin on his boyish face.
Damn, but he was good. His sword was an extension of his arm, slicing clearly across another guard’s throat. Nathan turned with military precision, seized another guard by the shoulder, and held him there as he ran him through.
A sudden white-hot pain shot through his right shoulder and the grip on his sword loosened. A crossbow bolt protruded from his arm. Furious, Nathan grabbed the bolt and yanked it out. A guard charged him and managed to knock the sword out of his hands, sending it spinning through the air out of reach.
He paid for it, though. Nathan used the bloody bolt as a weapon himself, stabbing it down into the man’s shoulder and kicking him backwards. When the guard turned, Nathan fired his hidden blade and took great satisfaction in seeing its slim shape pierce the guard’s throat.
That was more like it. Despite the searing pain in his arm, Nathan seized another guard and, using the man’s own baton as leverage, snapped his neck.
He paused to catch his breath, staring down at the man, taking just a moment to congratulate himself. Even without weapons, a gentleman was always superior to—
The blade piercing him from behind took him by surprise.
It struck deep and true, and almost at once Nathan felt his body grow weak. He staggered, turning in all directions, took a couple of steps, and then fell.
Damn you, Duncan, you arrogant prick, Nathan thought, then knew nothing more.
***
Cal punched a guard, sending him staggering back, then snapped his wrists. The twin blades sprang free. He brought them slashing across the man’s chest in an X motion. As the man fell to his knees, Cal plunged both blades into either side of his neck. Blood spurted, and the guard toppled to the floor.
Cal looked up for his next target, and saw a gray-clad form sprawled limply on the stone. Nathan’s eyes were still wide. In death, he looked so young.
But there would be time to mourn him later. At least Nathan had died fighting the real enemies.
He took a precious moment to assess what the other two remaining Assassins were doing. Cal’s torso was glistening with sweat, and he could see that Moussa—implacably slicing with his clawed gauntlet or seizing his enemies and apparently effortlessly snapping their necks—was sweating as well.
Lin, however, seemed to have not been physically affected by any of the battle. She had gotten hold of a thin, weighted rope, and was now almost literally dancing through the fight, looking calm and in control, minimizing effort and maximizing kills as her rope tripped opponents, whipped around throats, or simply crushed skulls with the heavy ball at its end.
The floor was littered with bodies. Cal did not waste time counting, but there were easily a dozen, perhaps twice as many fallen Templars. No doubt more living ones would be coming to replace them soon—unless the other prisoners had assisted Cal and the others by dispatching them.
As he caught his breath, he heard a distinctive sound from high above him. The battle-focus left him. He had been transfixed earlier, when somehow he had found himself surrounded by so many Assassins from bygone centuries. But part of him had also been aware of what else was going on around him.
He had heard Alan Rikkin say that he had gotten what he needed, and order that the facility be purged. He had seen Sofia offer up resistance—and been dragged away.
They knew where the Apple was hidden.
And the sound coming from above him was the sound of helicopters about to depart for Seville Cathedral to claim the Apple of Eden.
Cal sprang before he even consciously chose to do so, leaping onto the great mechanical arm that had been the source of so much torment and so many blessings at once, climbing up it with monkey-like agility. Below him, Lin took out a final guard and then jumped up onto the arm as well, following him.
Rikkin had to be stopped. The fate of the world quite literally depended on it.
He reached the top, his progress stymied by the enormous circle of the skylight. Furious, fearful, Cal acti
vated the blade on his right hand and punched the glass of the central circle. It shattered, falling in glinting pieces around him, decorating his body with tiny scarlet slices.
Cal ignored the pain, leaping upward and balancing on the large, gently curving dome. The helicopters had already left.
Cal gave chase, leaping from the dome onto another part of the roof, running as fast as he could, but he was too late. A minute more—perhaps even twenty seconds—and he could have caught them.
Instead, alone on the rooftop of the Abstergo Foundation Rehabilitation Center, Callum Lynch watched the helicopters full of Templars angle off into the cloud-filled sky.
CHAPTER 25
Sofia had never been to the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See, better known as Seville Cathedral, before. She had seldom ventured forth from the Madrid facility, and then only when it was pertinent to her research. Hitherto, the Cathedral had not been.
She knew about it, of course. One could not be a Templar without being aware of the role played by the major medieval cathedrals.
Once, religion had been an important part in the Templars’ quest for control and direction of humanity’s destiny. Rumor had it that in 1401, when it was decided to build a church to replace the mosque that had stood on the site the cathedral now occupied, the members of the cathedral chapter vowed, “Let us build a church so beautiful and so grand that those who see it finished will think we are mad.”
Sofia suspected if they had lived to see that day when it was completed in 1506, they would have deemed their request met. Seville Cathedral remained one of the largest in the world, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.
The central nave rose to a staggering height of forty-two meters. Its lavish gilding and the large stained glass windows bathed the interior in a warm, color-spotted glow. Sofia supposed that many would find a sense of peace here, in the quiet beauty with the scent of old incense permeating the wood. But she found none. Her heart was heavy and aching, with guilt and fear and anger.
She had not said a word to her father since they had departed the rooftop of the Abstergo Foundation Rehabilitation Center. She had watched as the rest of her team also piled into helicopters, choppered to safety. Sofia knew better than to think it was an act of kindness on her father’s part to include them in the evacuation. She had heard him order McGowen to secure the Animus; for him, the people that operated it were part and parcel of a machine that had proven singularly valuable and would continue to be so. Retraining new people would take time, and money.
Things were as simple as that in Alan Rikkin’s world.
They flew straight from the facility to the cathedral, radioing ahead and explaining that yes, it was indeed absolutely imperative that the location be closed down upon their arrival and that the tomb of Christopher Columbus be opened. And no, it could not wait for the archbishop to return to oversee the process, one of the bishops already on site would have to suffice, and by the way Her Excellency would also be arriving, could she please be accommodated as was appropriate to her position.
In silence the Doctors Rikkin had traveled, and now in silence they walked along the marble flooring. Sofia followed several paces behind her father. No one noticed, or cared. It was Alan Rikkin whom they knew and respected. Sofia was little more than an afterthought to the bishops as her father was greeted and shown inside.
Columbus’s body had traveled almost as much in death as it had in life. His remains had been moved from Valladolid, Spain, where he died in 1506, to Seville. In 1542, they were relocated to colonial Santo Domingo—the future Dominican Republic—and rested there until 1795, when they were transferred to Havana, Cuba.
It wasn’t until 1899 that Columbus was interred here, in a tomb as splendid and ornate as the rest of the cathedral. It was held aloft not by angels or pillars, but by allegorical figures representing the kingdoms of Spain during his life—Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Leon. Sofia halted, letting her father go up to speak with the bishop.
It did not escape Sofia that although he lay in the most extravagant surroundings imaginable, Christopher Columbus had died in poverty—a fate he could so easily have escaped by selling the Apple to the Templars.
They were precisely on time. One of the bishops was climbing down from the tomb, carefully cradling a small, ornate metal box next to his body.
Sofia inhaled swiftly.
This was not the same box she had seen in the simulation.
Was it possible that the Apple she had spent her life pursuing had vanished—or been stolen—during Columbus’s post-life adventuring?
Part of her—absurdly, madly, traitorously—hoped it had.
The bishop handed the box to her father, who stared at it for a long moment without touching it.
I should be the one opening it, Sofia thought.
It was like ashes in her mouth. She had spent her life working toward this moment, had permitted her father to perform an atrocity in the name of this Apple. She had told Cal she was his protector, but in the end, she had abandoned him.
Her father’s callous words floated back to her: We’ve merely abandoned them to their own inexorable fate.
And her father, who had forced her to abandon Cal, would be the one granted all the honor.
Sofia heard the click-click of high heels behind her, the sound echoing in the vast space. She turned to see Chairwoman Ellen Kaye standing beside her.
“Your Excellency,” Sofia said, inclining her head slightly in respect.
Kaye did not initially acknowledge the greeting. The two women stood watching as Alan Rikkin slowly opened the small metal casket.
“The glory will go to your father,” Kaye said unexpectedly. “But we both know who found it.”
Sofia turned to look at her, surprised and gratified. She had met the chairwoman before, but Kaye had never seemed to take any interest in her. Now, the older woman graced her with a smile—reserved, as Ellen Kaye ever was, but sincere.
“Your time will come, my child.”
Then the chairwoman of the Council of Elders of the Templar Order walked up to stand beside the CEO of Abstergo Industries. And together, they looked upon the Apple of Eden while Sofia Rikkin, scientist and discoverer, looked on from a distance: unwelcome, unacknowledged, and unwanted.
And as she stood there, solitary and ignored, her thoughts crept back, unbidden, to the woman in the hood who wore her face.
***
Sofia was nominally English, having been born in England and living there for the first few years of her life, but in her adulthood she had seldom returned. It was too damp and cloudy for her liking.
When she was a little girl, she often asked why the sky cried so much, and if it was because it had lost its mama, too. She never shook that association. As far as she was concerned, it was either raining there, about to rain, or had just finished raining.
Tonight, it was the latter. The road, black and wet, glistened in the lights of the busy night street as her car pulled up directly across from the future scene of her father’s performance—Templar Hall.
Many similar cars were doing likewise. Templars from all over the world would be gathering here, for the momentous occasion. Politicians, religious figures, captains of industry; nearly two thousand would be present.
Father will have a full house tonight, Sofia thought sourly.
She stepped out of the car, closed the door, and crossed the street to the huge stone building, which exuded power in its strong lines, but was still beautiful. In one hand, she clutched a sheaf of paper, crumpled from her tight grip.
She wore a conservative dress, high heels, and a cape—all black.
It seemed appropriate.
Security, of course, was out in full force. There were cameras everywhere, metal detectors, sniffer dogs, pat-down stations. Sofia was greeted immediately. After a cursory and apologetic inspection, she was ushered inside.
She located her father in one of the side cloakrooms. He was busy donning traditional Templar
robes over his smart Savile Row suit, examining himself in the mirror.
He caught her reflection, and smiled fleetingly at her as he adjusted his impressive cravat.
“How do I look?”
As always, he was fiddling with his cufflinks. She did not offer to help.
Sofia took in the perfect graying hair, the distinguished lines in his face, the crisp fold of the maroon and black of his hooded robe, the classic, square red cross on the medallion on his chest.
“Like a Templar,” she replied.
He either did not catch the ice in her voice or, more likely, did not care.
“A world without crime,” he said. “They’ll give you a Nobel Peace Prize for this. You’d better start writing your speech.”
“I’ve read yours.”
This time, he did catch it. His motions slowed and his eyes met hers in the mirror.
“And?”
Sofia lowered her eyes to the sheaf of pages she had clutched so tightly, repulsed all over again at the words in front of her, and read aloud.
“‘If we eradicate free will, we eradicate the Assassins. A cancer that has menaced society for centuries.’”
Her voice caught on the word “cancer.” Violence is a disease, like cancer, she had told Cal. And like cancer, we hope to control it one day.
For her, the cancer was violence. For her father, it was the Assassins themselves.
She flipped through the rest of the speech angrily. “‘Mongrels… vermin…’”
“It’s not my best work, but it gets the point across,” he answered.
“Your point is genocide!” Sofia snapped.
“It’s a new beginning.”
His voice was calm, rational, and his mien was pleasant as he turned to regard her.
“You’ve done a remarkable thing, Sofia. You don’t see it now, but you will, one day. All these centuries, we’ve been looking for solutions. You, my child… you’ve eliminated the problem.”
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