The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic

by Peter Meredith

  Fainting from pain was a key indicator that intervention was needed.

  She woke a minute later with Father Gomez kneeling over her, a warm, white light spreading from his hands. “…and through his blessings, the Lord heals all wounds. Stand, Cynthia Childs and know that you are healed and whole through your faith in God.”

  Instead of saying thank you, she asked: “What about Jack?” The priest shrugged and Cyn leapt to her feet and swayed for just a second. Her back and wrist were completely healed but her head swam from everything that had happened in so short a time.

  “Where is Ja…” She stopped as she saw the destruction around her for the first time. The helicopter had spun into the ground out of control only two minutes before and there were chunks of flaming metal and debris everywhere. And there were bodies.

  There had been fifteen people in the helicopter when they had taken off—now there were only four, and one was the dead pilot. The force of the spin had flung men in all directions. They looked like little crumpled heaps of clothing with a hand or a face sticking out.

  Captain Vance was limping from man to man, his face, cut and bloody stony with anger. He paused over one of the French crewmen who was crying in pain. His screams went right to Cyn’s heart. “Come on,” she said to Gomez, and ran through the wreckage to Vance’s side and stared down at the soldier, her stomach doing turns.

  The man was broken in so many places and his limbs so obscenely bent that he seemed to be made of rubber. Immediately, Father Gomez knelt down and started making the sign of the cross.

  “No,” Vance said, shoving the priest away. “Find Jack. See if he needs help. He’s our first priority.” The priest hesitated and Vance yelled over the wounded man’s screams: “Go! Now!”

  Even Cyn, who loved Jack more than life itself, had trouble leaving the poor man. His pain was so great. Slowly, she stood and looked around for her shotgun—it was lost in the rubble, but there was another nearby and there was a sword that the priest picked up and held with weak hands.

  “He’s our first priority,” Gomez said in a whisper, giving his head a little nod, as if he needed to convince himself before he could move.

  Cyn wanted to ask when had Jack become anyone’s first priority and what that meant, but Vance’s urgency had caused her fear for Jack to ramp up. She picked her way through the rubble, hurrying to a side street that ran straight to St. Martin’s Basilica, which was only a block away.

  In seconds, she was at the edge of the main building with the found shotgun poised at her shoulder and Father Gomez right behind her. She had seen the sorcerer from the helicopter and guessed that he had brought down the machine—and that meant he was strong, stronger than Jack.

  And yet, she wasn’t shocked when she peeked around the corner and saw Jack standing over the kneeling sorcerer. It wasn’t a surprise at all. She knew her Jack was tough, just as she knew what was coming.

  Quickly, she turned to Father Gomez. “Go back and heal that man. I have this under control and Jack’s fine.” Both were not completely true.

  “He’s going to kill that man,” Gomez said.

  There was no question that he was. Cyn wanted to make excuses for Jack, but none would come. “Just go,” she said. “Do something good.” She turned from the priest and walked toward Jack, just as he swung his sword. The head came off the sorcerer’s body and bounced and rolled; just like her stomach.

  Purposefully, keeping her eyes up, she went to his side. He didn’t turn but must have felt her presence. “I had to,” he said in a whisper.

  “Yeah,” she answered, not knowing what else to say because a part of her didn’t believe him. He was covered in dirt and grime and what looked like oil and yet, he seemed strong and the sorcerer seemed so weak now that he was headless. Maybe there could have been another way.

  “No,” a voice said at her elbow, making her jump. It was Father Gomez who couldn’t take his dark eyes off the headless body. “Jack is not lying. I don’t know why he did what he did, but he’s not lying.”

  Had he read her thoughts? Flustered that her mind was open to the priest, she stepped back from him and pointed the way they had come. “Go and heal that man like I said.”

  Gomez nodded, cast his eyes once more back to body of the sorcerer, and then left. Cyn watched him go as an uncomfortable silence fell about the battlefield, which was crisscrossed with blood and oil, scorch marks and ash.

  “I had to,” Jack said again. He wouldn’t look at her or the dead sorcerer. The setting sun held all of his attention, although Cyn guessed that he wasn’t seeing that either.

  “I believe you,” she replied. In answer, he made a noise; a short laugh that was more misery than mirth, and she realized he hadn’t been trying to convince her, he’d been trying to convince himself. “Come here,” she said. “Let me see what sort of mischief you’ve put my favorite body through.”

  She spun him around and inspected his numerous nicks and cuts, but saw that most of the damage he had suffered had been psychological. Beneath the gruff exterior and the growing power of a sorcerer and the sharp intellect was the innocent boy she had met a year and a half ago. It was this boy who was constantly being wounded.

  “He threatened you,” Jack said, still trying to convince himself that he had been right to cut the head off the sorcerer.

  “It shows how weak he was,” she answered. “Threatening a poor defenseless girl. Now, stop dwelling and tell me what that nutter was after in St. Martin’s tomb.”

  Jack turned from the distant horizon to look back at the basilica, what appeared to be a large decorative church. “He wouldn’t say, even after I threatened him. He was more afraid of the Mother of Demons than he was of my sword. So…so what kind of shape is everyone in?”

  “Not good,” Cyn answered. “But we have a priest and there are more in the other choppers.”

  His face sank. “He was strong, Cyn. His magic was very strong.”

  “I noticed. Come on, let’s go see what Robert was after.” Hand in hand they began walking toward the basilica but had only taken a few steps when Cyn found her eyes drawn to the head of the sorcerer. She noted the burned out eye. “It was him,” she said. “He was the one spying on us. It was the Mother who did that to him.”

  Jack, who had yet to sheath his sword, used it to turn the head slightly so they could see the blackened hole better. “It’s a wonder that he lived. Well, you know, lived longer.” Neither of them could stand to look at the face and so Jack turned it back toward the ground.

  They were both glad to leave the sorcerer behind them as they went to the basilica with a choice of going in through the open front doors or around to the side where a tunnel had been literally clawed into the ground. “I say we check the bones,” Jack said, indicating the front doors, “though I don’t have much hope that they’re still there.”

  In this he was wrong. They went into the church which was quiet, cool and growing darker with every passing second. The tomb, an elaborate construction of polished granite and marble columns sat in its own separate alcove. Or it had, at least. Where it had once stood, there were now only chunks of rock, dust, and debris.

  “So much for resting in peace,” Cyn remarked as they went up to the remains of tomb and looked in at an old casket. Its lid had been torn open and inside, resting on yellowing white silk, was part of a skull, a bit of rib and two long bones; there wasn’t enough to raise.

  “Okay, Robert didn’t get what he wanted here so why does he suddenly decide to dig under the place?” Jack asked, picking up one of the leg bones and giving it a sniff.

  “The original tomb was destroyed centuries ago,” Cyn said, reciting what she remembered from her research. “In 1860, the bare outlines of it were re-discovered and the basilica was built over the original site. I’m guessing Robert suspected that something or someone was buried down there with the remains.”

  Jack tossed the femur back in with the rest, thought for a moment, leaning on the caske
t, and then said: “Or he was desperate and was looking for more bones. Maybe he was hoping that a few had been overlooked. Either way, let’s go see what there is to see below.”

  They left the church just as a helicopter came to hover over the crash site; soldiers began to repel down from the machine. Some went over the side nervously making Cyn think that they were priests, unused to the more adventurous side of God’s calling.

  The copter disappeared from view as the pair went around the side of the basilica to where mounds of dirt two-stories high marked the entrance to a demon-made tunnel. It was tall and wide enough for them to walk side by side without stooping. It was also dark and damp and the prints in the earth were mostly odd bone-prints.

  Seeing them gave Cyn the shivers that spread throughout her body. They went up her back and across her shoulders. They were in her belly, making her queasy, and her chest and suddenly it was hard to breathe, and then the shivers were in her hands and it felt as though they were no longer hers to control.

  “You okay?” Jack asked, stepping near and looking at her closely. She felt as though she was about to shake to pieces, but he seemed perfectly fine.

  She tried to shrug but with her body rattling away, it wasn’t obvious. “I guess I never get used to some parts of this life. Headless bodies and bone prints, those weren’t in the job description.”

  “And neither were helicopter crashes,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t the most comforting thing. They were now armor to armor and for the first time she noticed that his had dozens of little holes in it, each large enough for her to fit the tip of her pinky in. She wanted to ask about them and at the same time she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know what had driven him to decapitate a defenseless man. What would happen if she didn’t find his reasons compelling enough? Would he forever be a murderer in her eyes?

  It was best not to know. “I think I just need some light,” she said, digging for her phone…her new phone…the one that one of CaptainVance’s men had handed over without question. It was smashed beyond repair. She had survived the helicopter crash, but for some reason it hadn’t. And neither had the man who had given her the phone. He had been one of the ugly piles of jutting bone and torn flesh that lay crumpled in a pool of red.

  Seeing the phone triggered her shakes to go into overdrive and she was forced to sit as her muscles turned to jelly.

  Jack squatted down next to her and brushed a strand of blonde hair from her face. “It’s just a phone, darling. And if you want light, I can help.” From his pocket he brought out a pinch of dust and gently blew on it. The grains leapt from his hand as glowing embers of gold. Soon the entire tunnel was bright enough to read by. “You see? No problem.”

  But there was a problem. The now dead phone that belonged to the now dead soldier had a picture of a pretty woman, holding a pretty baby, as its screen background. Now there were a thousand cracks running through their faces. Seeing them caused Cyn to break down in tears and she wasn’t exactly sure why. She didn’t know the soldier beyond the fact that he was one of Vance’s Raiders. And there had been many pretty women killed in the last year and a half and she was sure that many had pretty babies.

  So why was this one special? Why was this woman and her baby making her cry?

  “It’s the adrenaline from the crash running through you,” Jack said. “It can mess with your emotions.”

  “Or it’s all of it,” she replied. “I think it may be time for me to…”

  A voice from up the tunnel cut in on her. It was Captain Vance and he was still limping; a bad sign. “Please tell me that guy without the head is your cousin.” Jack shook her head, making Vance sigh. “At least tell me he was a bad guy, then.”

  “Bad enough,” was all Jack replied. “What kind of casualties are we looking at up there?”

  “Four dead and four in critical condition. The rest of us are a little nicked-up, but we’ll survive.”

  Jack grunted, a sound, Cyn knew, that meant he had already put the dead and wounded behind him. As always, he was focused only on Cyn. He truly cared only about her. The world could burn and as long as she was alright, he would be fine. It wasn’t healthy and yet he could still function in an environment of constant danger which would destroy a lesser man.

  “What were you saying?” he asked her. “It’s time for what?”

  She wanted to tell him that it was time to quit, to run away, only she couldn’t. Her simple job of being there for Jack was vital. If she left so would he, and no one else could do what he could.

  “It’s time for a vacation,” she answered. “Once this is done, we are going somewhere blue and tropical and far away.”

  He grinned. “Sounds good, but in the mean time we have to figure out why Robert was interested in St. Martin.” The three went down the tunnel, which ended at a large pit the size of a backyard swimming pool. Jack went down into it and studied the dirt walls and floor.

  “What do you make of this?” he asked Cyn and tossed up a bit of what looked like rock to her.

  She ran her hands over it only to feel bits break off. “Wood, probably from a coffin. This must be the site of St. Martin’s original tomb, but since there isn’t another sacrificed body, it’s safe to say that they didn’t find any more bones. If that was indeed what they were looking for.”

  Jack poked around a bit more, sending his particles of light here and there to illuminate one part of the pit or another. Eventually, he came out, looking thoughtful. “What do a Roman centurion, St. Gregory, St. Martin and ancient Egyptian funerary texts have in common?”

  The easy answer and likely the true answer was: “Nothing,” Cyn replied. “As far as we know, neither saint ever went to Egypt. I don’t think St. Gregory ever left Europe. The Romans were everywhere. The connection is likely there…except that particular Roman lived right around the time of Christ, while St. Martin lived three-hundred years later and Gregory was a hundred and sixty years after that.”

  “What I want to know,” Captain Vance said, “is what do Chinese sorcerers have to do with any of this?”

  “Nothing,” Jack told him. “And it’s not the right question. It’s only adding an unnecessary variable.”

  Feeling drained, Cyn sat down on the lip of the pit and let her feet dangle. Vance and Jack joined her, one on either side and they each took turns reading from Vance’s cell phone. He had looked up both saints to see if there was a connection. Gregory was a biographer, turned bishop of Tours who was “canonized,” or sainted, after his death. Martin began life as a Roman soldier who later became a pacifist. He eventually became Bishop of Tours and was also canonized after his death. But what they had to do with a long dead Roman soldier and funerary texts was impossible to discover with what they knew.

  “Maybe we are adding our own unnecessary variable,” she said. “Maybe Egypt has nothing to do with this. If you take that out, we have a link between the three: St. Martin connects the soldier to Gregory. Maybe the connection has to do with Rome.”

  Jack thought this over for a time. “It’s possible. Gregory never went to Rome and the soldier likely never made it to France.”

  “So St. Martin is the key to their connection, like Cyn said,” Vance stated.

  “Except St. Martin was most famous for his sudden turn against war,” Cyn noted. “Why would Robert care about that?”

  The idea made Jack snort. “He wouldn’t. He would only care about what caused him to turn from war. There is a more obvious connection joining the three: Jesus Christ. Robert could be very interested in something from that era.”

  “The Holy Grail!” Vance cried, suddenly. “He has to be after it. Doesn’t it give you immortality?”

  “I doubt it,” Cyn said. “The cup of Christ was a metaphor for the belief in everlasting life after death. Besides, how would a soldier end up with it? And if it did make a person immortal, how did he die?”

  Jack laughed. “I admit I was thinking about the Grail as
well. What about the True Cross? The cross Christ was hung up on was drenched in his actual blood and, mythologically speaking, there are many tales concerning its power.”

  The three were silent for a time, the men thinking and Cyn pouring over the phone. She tried redefining her search adding the term “Holy Grail” along with the names of the two saints and when that didn’t bring up anything, she tried the same thing with the words “True Cross.”

  “Damn it. I’m not getting anything out of Google,” she complained.

  “It’s a computer so garbage in equals garbage out,” Jack said, gazing into the pit. “We need something deeper. What we are looking for is a secret so deadly that St. Martin took to it to his grave, perhaps literally.” He pointed around them at the pit.

  What Jack said struck a chord in Cyn, but not about Martin. There was something about St. Gregory, some little tidbit that stuck in her mind and was gnawing at her. “There may be a different connection between Gregory and the other two and maybe even the funerary texts,” she said speaking as fast as the words popped into her head. “According to several sources, Gregory would actually write himself into the biographies of long dead saints, acting as if he had been there and seeing things first hand.”

  Jack caught on. “Gregory was a sorcerer!”

  “Or just a clairvoyant,” Cyn said. “And maybe he saw something.” She typed on the phone’s miniature keyboard, entering: St. Gregory holy relic. “Whoa, I got something and it’s something Robert would definitely be interested in: the Lance of Longinus.”

  “The what?” Vance demanded, trying to turn his head at a screwed up angle to see the phone’s display.

  Cyn pointed the phone at him, but Jack answered before he could begin reading: “It’s the Spear of Destiny! The Holy Lance. When Christ was on the cross, possibly right at the moment of his death, one of the Roman centurions pierced his side with a spear and out flowed blood and water, but it wasn’t water that came out. It was part of Christ’s soul.”