Fall of Night: A Templar Chronicles Novel

by Joseph Nassise

  Wanting to put him at ease, Ferguson smiled kindly and said, “Care to have a drink with me?”

  “I’m on duty, sir.”

  “Nonsense. A single drink in the afternoon won’t hurt. I won’t tell anyone, if you don’t.”

  Ferguson poured them both a generous helping of Scotch and then walked over and handed one to the other man. He raised his own, toasted “Slainte,” and took a sip.

  Green did the same.

  The Seneschal waved Green back into his seat and then returned to his own on the other side of his desk. “I’ve got a problem,” he began once he was seated, “and I’m hoping that you can help me with it.”

  “I’ll certainly do what I can, Seneschal.”

  Ferguson nodded, took another sip of his drink, which promoted Green to do the same.

  “I appreciate that. I really do.” Ferguson paused, as if thinking about how to approach a delicate subject, but in truth he was just wasting time, letting the alcohol and the unique substance it contained move through Green’s system. “You’re probably aware that Captain Riley was brought before a disciplinary tribunal the other night.”

  Green nodded.

  “What you might not be aware of is that Captain Riley returned from a mission earlier today and promptly attacked Preceptor Johannson for some perceived slight against him and is currently cooling his heels in the brig.”

  Green didn’t say anything, but Ferguson didn’t find it difficult to pick up the man’s growing nervousness and discomfort with the topic at hand.

  “I have great respect for the Knight Captain,” Ferguson continued. “His work since assuming command of the special mission teams has been as exemplary. But I have to admit to growing a bit concerned with his behavior of late.”

  The Gamma Team commander finally found his voice. “I’m sorry, Seneschal, but with all due respect, what does this have to do with me?”

  “I’m getting to that, Sergeant. I’m concerned that the stress of the position is getting to Captain Riley. I don’t want to see him throw away a very fruitful career over some impulsive act. I want to be able to step in and keep things from getting out of hand, but in order to do that I need to know what’s going on within the unit.”

  Green was no dummy; he could read between the lines. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and said, in what was more a statement than a question, “You want me to spy on him.”

  Ferguson smiled and waved a hand dismissively. “Spy? No, that’s too harsh a word. I simply want someone I trust to keep an eye on him and to let me know when it looks like he might need a break.”

  The Gamma Team leader wasn’t buying it. “Right. You want me to spy on him.”

  “Call it what you want,” Ferguson told him, with growing annoyance. “Fact of the matter is that it needs to be done.”

  Green looked around, as if expecting someone to step out of the walls and take his place, and, when that didn’t happen, reluctantly focused his attention back on the Seneschal.

  “I’m not all that comfortable with that idea. Sir.”

  “Do you think I actually give a damn whether or not you are comfortable, Sergeant?”

  Green didn’t say anything, which Ferguson took as acquiescence.

  “I will expect you to report back to me twice per-“

  The Gamma Team commander interrupted him. “No, sir, I will not,” he said firmly.

  Ferguson stared hard at the other man.

  “This isn’t a request, Sergeant, it’s an order.”

  “One which I’m refusing to obey. Sir.”

  Ferguson was surprised; he didn’t think Green had it in him to disobey a direct order. Not that it mattered in the long run. He’d already prepared for such an eventuality.

  “Very well,” he told the other man. “If that’s the way you want to play it, you leave me no choice.”

  Ferguson raised a hand and sketched a symbol in the air, causing a small burst of arcane energy to flash between the two men.

  Green’s eyes went wide at the sight, no doubt recognizing it for what it was. Ferguson watched him try to get up, only to discover he had lost control of his muscles and smiled in satisfaction at the fear that suddenly blossomed in the man’s eyes, like oil spreading across water.

  Without a word, Ferguson rose and walked over to an armoire that stood in the back of the room. He opened its twin doors, reached inside the unit, and placed his palm flat against the back panel. A flash of blue outlined a rectangular panel that swung open when he removed his hand, revealing a recessed space about a foot deep. Standing in it was a jar of clear glass filled with a murky, green liquid.

  Ferguson removed the jar and carried it with him back to his desk, leaving the armoire open behind him. He put the jar on top of the desk in full view of his visitor, savoring the fear that wafted off the man as he spotted the dark, sinuous shapes that were moving within the liquid it contained.

  “I see you’ve noticed my little friends,” the Seneschal said, smiling. He tapped the glass, causing the creatures inside to grow more agitated, their dark bodies flashing into view and then disappearing again just as quickly.

  Green’s muscles strained as he fought to move, but the paralytic the Seneschal had added to his drink and then activated with that quick touch of arcane energy wouldn’t allow Green to do much more than twitch.

  Ferguson gazed at the jar with admiration. “These, my friend, are conqueror worms. A bit rare, I must admit; they can only be gathered from the shores of the Sea of Sorrows and must be transported to this realm with extreme care. Not an easy task, I assure you. But once they are here, they are extremely useful creatures indeed.”

  He grasped the lid of the jar and unscrewed it with slow, deliberate twists of his hand, watching the Templar all the while.

  Green’s breath was coming faster, his panic growing, as he began to understand just how helpless he was. His face began to grow red with the strain of his attempts to shake off the paralytic and Ferguson savored every moment of the growing fear.

  “Conqueror worms are not actually worms, you see, but rather psychic symbiots that can be attuned to a certain individual’s mental wavelengths. When they are introduced to the nervous system of another creature, they allow the host to remotely control the victim’s thoughts and actions, much like a puppeteer controls the movement of his puppets.”

  Ferguson’s smile grew wider. “I’m sure even someone of your limited intelligence can figure out who these particular worms are attuned to, yes?

  “Once one of these little beauties is released, it burrows through the victim’s skin and attaches itself to the cervical nerve branch at the base of the skull, allowing the host to take control of the victim’s entire nervous system. I’m sorry to say that the process is quite painful, but you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”

  Having finished unscrewing the lid, Ferguson put it down on the desk next to the jar. He rolled one sleeve of his shirt to mid-forearm and then plunged that hand into the mouth of the jar, waiting a few seconds before pulling his hand back out with one of the jar’s occupants clamped to the back of his hand.

  The conqueror worm looked more like a centipede than a true worm, moving about on twenty-four little legs rather than sliding along the ground. It had a chitinous outer shell, two long antennae, and a double set of pincers growing out of either side of its mouth. When Ferguson held it out for Green to see, the creature pulled the front half of its body into the air and snapped its pincers in his direction.

  “I think it likes you,” Ferguson said and then moved around behind the chair Green was sitting on.

  A high-pitched whine escaped the man’s mouth as he realized what was about to happen, a testament to just how much he was fighting to break the hold the Seneschal had on him, but that was as much as he managed and far too little stop what was about to happen.

  Ferguson didn’t waste any time. He pushed Green’s head forward, exposing the back of his neck, and deposited the conqueror w
orm on the man’s sweat-covered neck.

  The worm raised its head for a moment, antennae waving about, and then froze like a dog locking onto a scent. For a second nothing happened and then the creature raced up the back of Green’s neck to a point just below his hairline and began to burrow its way into his flesh, disappearing into the blood-filled hold its pincers had created in the blink of an eye.

  Green’s body suddenly went stiff, like he’d grabbed a live wire and had 30,000 volts of electricity rocketing through his frame, and then slumped forward, limp and exhausted.

  A few second later Ferguson felt the mental connection between them click into place. At any time he wanted, he could now look through Green’s eyes, hear through his ears, even control his physical actions, all without the other man being able to do anything about it. Nodding in satisfaction, he walked back around the chair to stand in front of Green.

  The other man’s head was slumped forward, his chin still on his chest.

  “Look at me,” Ferguson said.

  Green followed the instruction, lifting his head as if nothing had happened. “Yes, Seneschal?”

  “Do you remember what we were discussing, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. You asked me to keep an eye on Captain Riley.”

  “And you’ve agreed to do so?” he asked, giving a little mental nudge as he did so.

  “Of course, sir. An order is an order.”

  Ferguson smiled. “Very good. To be clear, you are not to tell anyone else about this request or meeting. You are to report back to me – and me alone – whenever Captain Riley does something unusual or beyond the scope of the orders he’s been given. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Seneschal.”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  The Gamma Team leader rose, nodded to the Seneschal, and then crossed to the door, pulling it shut behind him as he left.

  The Seneschal mentally monitored Green’s progress for a few moments as the other man began making his way through the halls, headed in the direction of the barracks, but once he was satisfied that the connection was solid and that it could be called up at any time, he let it drop into the back of his mind, waiting there until he needed it.

  Not if, but when Captain Riley moved from being a nuisance to an actual problem, Ferguson was confident that he would have adequate notice to deal with the problem.

  He turned, absently knocked a conqueror worm that was trying to climb over the lip of the jar back inside, and then screwed the lid back on tightly before returning the jar to its hiding place and reactivating the ward that kept it secure from prying eyes.

  Satisfied the issue of Captain Riley had been dealt with appropriately, the Seneschal turned his attention to what he considered more important matters.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Gabrielle continued on her way, catching rides when she could, walking when the traffic, and the generosity of strangers, grew scarce. Slowly but surely she made her way northeast, headed for New England, guided by the few, scant memories of the life she’d had with her husband, Cade.

  An elderly woman by the name of Eunice stopped to pick her up earlier that morning, stating, “We ladies need to stick together,” with a seriousness that at first worried Gabrielle, but the widower turned out to be a delightful companion, if a little heavy on the gas pedal. Together they’d driven across Illinois and on into Indiana before she’d let Gabrielle off at a truck stop outside of Indianapolis.

  Eunice, being the kind soul she was, offered Gabrielle all the cash that she had on her at the time and Gabrielle gratefully took it, knowing that $26.74, meager though it was, would at least let her put food in her belly for the next couple of days.

  Eunice gave a little wave as she pulled out of the lot and Gabrielle waved back, silently wishing the woman well in the days ahead. The good ones are going to suffer the most.

  The thought brought her up short.

  Just what the hell did that mean? she wondered.

  She didn’t know.

  And that’s what unnerved her the most.

  Shaking her head to clear it of her unusually gloomy thoughts, Gabrielle turned her attention to the truck stop behind her.

  Unlike the others she’d stopped at over the last two days, this was no sprawling corporate affair but rather an eclectic little family-owned joint that was doing what it could to hang on in tough times. Wandering inside, the differences were soon apparent. It had washrooms, but no showers. Snacks and beverages, yes, but no racks of clothing or shelves of corporate merchandise. It did have a small coffee shop/restaurant, but Gabrielle avoided it in favor of just getting a cup of coffee out of the machine near the soda dispenser and Slushie device.

  The owner of the truck stop had a trio of cheap computers and set up an “internet café” in one corner of the store. Usage was sold in fifteen minute increments at $5 a pop and a bright red LED display attached to every computer showed how much time one had left on their session.

  Gabrielle was standing nearby, drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup and debating whether or not to ask one of the truckers in the store for a ride when a commotion at one of the computers caught her attention. A heavyset man in jeans and an AC/DC t-shirt who had been calmly video chatting with a woman a few years his junior suddenly lost his temper and began shouting at the screen. Apparently the woman on the other end of the call had no interest in being berated in public and promptly cut the connection, dropping the call. As Gabrielle looked on, the trucker swore at the blank screen for a few seconds and then abruptly got up and walked off, fuming as he went.

  She watched him go and then glanced back at the computer.

  The time clock was still counting down.

  25:13

  25:12

  25:11

  Gabrielle was walking toward the computer before she realized she’d consciously made a decision to do so. She sat down and tapped the mouse, bringing the screen to life. Tentatively, she began to examine the icons on the screen.

  It had been several years since she’d used a computer and she was afraid the speed at which technology changed and improved would make everything unfamiliar to her. Thankfully, she recognized most of what she saw on the screen, including an icon labeled Google, and in just a few moments had the internet browser open and the search screen staring back at her.

  Here goes nothing, she thought, as she typed her husband’s name into the search bar.

  Cade Williams.

  More than 2 million responses came up. She glanced at the first few, but none of them had anything to do with her Cade.

  Too wide, she thought. She put the words in quotation marks to narrow the search and ran it again. This time, the responses were limited to just over 17,000.

  Better, but still too big.

  A moment of thought and then she tried again, this time using a combination of phrases, “Cade Williams” and “Boston Police.”

  Her husband’s photograph stared back at her from the very first response.

  “Hero Cop Gravely Injured; Dorchester Demon Slain.”

  Her husband’s face brought back a flood of memories of that day. The Dorchester Demon was the nickname the press gave to a vicious killer that plagued the city of Boston that summer, never realizing how close to the truth they actually were. He had come looking for her husband and found her instead. She remembered waiting for Cade to come home, waiting with that bastard’s gun pressed to her head. She remembered the fear she’d felt, not just for herself but for Cade as well, and the sudden shock that had washed over her when he hadn’t hesitated to pull the trigger and put a bullet right between the intruder’s eyes.

  She couldn’t remember much of what had happened after that, but that wasn’t surprising given her shoddy memory. She still didn’t have an address, but at least she had confirmation that Boston was the right place to start looking.

  Gabrielle was about to turn away when the headline of a related article caught her eye.

  “Cop Critically Injured;
Wife Slain.”

  Heart beating in trepidation, she clicked on the link.

  The reporter must have had a decent source, for he actually had gotten most of the facts straight. The writer noted that the killer known as the Dorchester Demon had fixated on Officer Williams for some unknown reason and had taken his young wife hostage in their home, luring Cade home by faking an urgent call from her. When Williams and his partner had pulled into the driveway, the killer had opened fire, wounding the other officer and leaving Cade to deal with the situation alone.

  But that’s where the story deviated from the one she remembered.

  According to the reporter, Officer Williams had arrived too late to save his young wife, who had been tortured at the hands of the maniac long before the phony phone call had gone out. The killer had strangled his captive and then used some kind of acid to peel away the skin from her flesh. One side of her face remained serenely beautiful, while the other was transformed into a ghastly ruin.

  The picture the words painted was horrifying but even as she read them she knew that the reporter was wrong; it hadn’t happened like that, hadn’t happened like that at all.

  Cade had come into the house and confronted the killer, that much was true, but rather than surrender his weapon as the killer demanded, Cade had taken a shot when the chance presented itself. Gabrielle remembered standing there with the killer’s blood splattered across the side of her face as Cade rushed across the room and took her in his arms.

  That was when the horror truly began, Gabrielle remembered.

  Like a movie playing on an Imax screen in front of her, the memories drifted up from some dark, neglected place in the back of her mind, rolling out in High Def and Dolby Stereo for her to relive all over again…

  …the killer, rising to his feet with that sick leer on his face and a bullet hole in the center of his forehead while she stared in horror over Cade’s unsuspecting shoulder.