Darkness Reigns

by Joseph Nassise

  He'd just said as much to Gabrielle when a powerful blow slammed into the loading dock door from the opposite side, sending the sound of ringing metal echoing through the tunnel. As one, the pair shone their lights onto the door and were just in time to see it shake again from a second blow. To Cade, it seemed as if the entire door shook within its frame.

  Apparently my estimate was a bit off, he thought to himself. Get a move on.

  "This way! Quickly!" Cade cried and headed down the tracks with Gabrielle at his heels.

  They ran for all they were worth, neither of them wanting to face a pack of shadow demons down here in the dark where they could barely see anything. Cade set his sights on reaching the station at the other end of the tunnel, knowing the shadow demons would be weaker in the sunlight, and praying that the door held long enough.

  After what felt like forever but was probably less than ten minutes, light broke the darkness ahead of them and a few moments later they emerged from the tunnel to find themselves at their destination.

  The station had fallen into disrepair before Cade had gone into the Beyond; now it looked absolutely dilapidated. One section of the roof had caved in and the glass in the windows of the station office had broken at some point, allowing a large family of squirrels to make their nests just inside the windows. There was a large sign next to the tracks with the words Barlett Station crossed out. Some joker had replaced them with "End of the Line," which was true both literally and figuratively.

  Guy probably didn't know how prophetic he was being when he wrote it, Cade thought.

  Aware that the clock was ticking and that the shadow demons couldn't be far behind, Cade began looking for some sign that Riley and his men had made it out of the tunnel. He found it after several minutes, a small set of symbols, four to be exact, carved into the front wall of the station office. The symbols were from a set he'd created for clandestine communications among the Echo Team leaders shortly after he'd been promoted to Knight Commander and which had proved useful several times in the years since.

  He knew the symbols by heart and so had no trouble translating the message they contained.

  Code Black. Heavy Casualties. Retreating to secure location. Command Third Squad.

  Cade stared at that last line, his thoughts awhirl. The fact that command had been assumed by the leader of Echo's Third Squad reinforced the idea that Riley had been injured, possible even killed, by the grenade in the warehouse. Given Gabrielle's description of those final few moments, he didn't see how his friend could have escaped, but he couldn't think about that now. There was nothing he could do about it until they found the Templars anyway, so focusing on Riley's potential injuries was a waste of time, he told himself. Stick to the mission.

  He tried to remember who Riley had promoted to command of Third Squad when Cade had stepped down, but the name just wouldn't come. Sanchez? Billings? Ransom? He couldn't remember and that frustrated him. Whoever it was, they'd done the right thing and left a message for anyone who might come looking for them.

  The only problem was that the message was next to useless to Cade, for it didn't tell him the one thing he needed to know.

  Where they had gone.

  Retreating to a secure location?

  Great idea. But which one?

  He didn't have a clue.

  Cade pointed out the symbols to Gabrielle, explaining what they meant, and then asked, "Did Riley mention a backup plan of any kind? Where they might regroup if the Preceptor's men came after them?"

  "Maybe to his troops, but not to me," she replied.

  "And Uriel didn't say anything, either?"

  She shook her head.

  "Shit!" Cade kicked the station wall, knowing they'd reached a dead end for the time being.

  From deeper in the tunnel came an eerie cry that was instantly taken up by half a dozen other voices, the sound echoing within the tunnel over and over again, sounding ten times larger than life and filling both Cade and Gabrielle with dread.

  The shadow demons had found them.

  Gabrielle drew her sword and faced the tunnel.

  "How do you want to handle this?" she asked over her shoulder, assuming that Cade would stand his ground the way he'd done so many times while fighting spectres in the Beyond.

  But Cade had other plans.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the other half of the mirror he'd left near the truck earlier. He stepped up next to Gabrielle and placed it on the ground in front of them.

  He gripped her about the waist, pulling her in close, and said, "I think it's about time we got out of here, don't you?"

  The first of the shadow demons came charging out of the tunnel mouth at that moment, headed directly toward them. Cade's mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing as the creature seemed to flow across the space between them, nearly quicker than the eye could follow, all gleaming eyes and sharp teeth wrapped in a shroud of darkest black. He felt Gabrielle stiffen beside him, but then he took the smallest step forward, his foot landing on the reflective surface of the mirror shard, and with a mental twist he and Gabrielle left this world behind and stepped elsewhere along the Mirror's Road.

  Behind him, he heard the shadow demon howl in frustration.

  Bye bye, doggie, he thought with a grin of satisfaction.

  8

  They burst through the surface of the mirror and went sprawling across the ground next to the Blazer, having moved from the railroad station to the ridgeline above the quarry in the space of a heartbeat and losing their pursuers in the process.

  As Cade rose to his feet and brushed the pine needles from his clothing, he noted the driver's side mirror hanging from the side of the truck, looking for all the world as if someone had taken a Louisville slugger to it.

  The piece of mirror he'd left next to the truck, his intended exit point, lay gleaming and intact, right where he'd left it.

  And the Russian judge gives that a six, he thought to himself with a shake of his head. He'd been getting better with practice at walking the Mirror's Road, but there were still a few tweaks he needed to make apparently.

  Even so, it had been good enough to get them away from the shadow demons and that was just fine with him for the time being.

  "Next time, a little warning might be nice," Gabrielle said dryly, dusting herself off in the process.

  "So says the woman who used to complain that I wasn't spontaneous enough."

  Cade meant it to be light-hearted, but somehow it came out wrong. Rather than making her laugh, it reminded both of them of all they'd been through over the last several years; the pain, the loneliness, the despair. They'd endured the worst the world could throw at them and by some miracle here they were still, damaged, yes, broken, no doubt about that, but still standing, still fighting back with everything they had.

  He honestly didn't know whether to shake his fist at the universe in defiance – still here motherfucker, do your worst! – or weep uncontrollably for all that they had lost.

  The same emotions were reflected in Gabrielle's eyes and before he could say anything more, she had crossed the space between them and wrapped herself tightly against him, holding on to him as if for dear life. Cade found himself gripping her just as tightly back; it had been years since he had held his wife like that and he felt the tears pouring down his face as the emotions overwhelmed him.

  In that moment, it didn't matter that she inhabited someone else's body or that he'd be irreversibly changed by the power of the Adversary and the angel blood that flowed through his veins.

  In that moment, it didn't matter that the world they'd known had apparently ceased to exist, that the simple life they'd once longed for was now forever out of reach.

  In that moment, they were simply husband and wife, united against the world. They'd come through the impossible more than once and he had no doubt that they'd do it again. His love for her had been the thing that had driven him forward for so long and would be the thing that would allow him
to do it all over again if need be. They were together again and everything else was secondary to that. The knowledge that she felt the same was all Cade needed to continue.

  He kissed the top of her head, then gently pulled away.

  "We need to go, love."

  "Go where?" she wanted to know. "We don't have any idea where the Templars went."

  He nodded. "You're right. We don't know where the Templars went, so we'll go looking for them where they used to be instead."

  They climbed back in the truck, now sans one mirror, and Cade started it up. He pulled back onto the forest road, but rather than heading back the way they'd come, he drove forward, following the road as it led deeper into the woods.

  Twenty minutes later they came out on the other side of the state parkland and Cade headed south, looking for State Route 7, which he hoped would take them all the way to Westport and the Ravensgate Commandery. His plan was a simple one. If he couldn't find Riley and the remnants of the actual Templars, he'd go looking for the other half of the equation – those who had turned to the darkness, who had allied themselves with the Adversary for reasons beyond Cade's comprehension. If he could find the enemy, then just maybe he could find out what happened to his allies as well.

  The hug they shared seemed to have broken some barrier between them that Cade hadn't even realized was there. Perhaps it was the fact that for the first time since Gabrielle had located him in the Beyond, they didn't have to think about survival every second of the day and night. They weren't constantly beset by spectres on all sides; they didn't have to sleep with one eye open waiting for the next attack. Yes, they had a pack of shadow demons on their tail but they'd outsmarted them for the time being. The world was in disarray around them, the population, of Connecticut at least, seeming to have vanished into thin air, but for now Cade could breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that he'd been reunited with the one person that mattered the most to him in the world.

  The sun was going down by the time they spotted signs for State Route 7. They still had not seen another person; the road was empty of vehicles and they hadn't seen anyone in the few homes that they passed along the way.

  There was no doubt now that something had gone horribly wrong since Gabrielle had stepped into the Beyond in search of him. Whatever the Adversary had done in the midst of that ritual had turned things for the worst, that was clear. The question that needed answering was just how bad things actually were.

  Was this a local issue, Cade wondered? Or had it spread across the nation, perhaps even across the entire world? Had they escaped some kind of world-wide devastation, only to be left to wander these empty highways, ever searching for signs of life?

  Cade shook himself, trying to stave off the depressing line of thought that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Think positive, he told himself. After all this time and everything you've been through, you managed to find Gabrielle, right?

  He had, yes, or rather she had found him. And with her by his side, he was certain he would find Riley, Uriel, and the rest of the Templars, as well. Together they'd put the world to right again.

  They had to; there was no one else to do it.

  As the sun went down and darkness crept over their part of the world, it started to rain. Not a light, gentle drizzle either but a harsh, heavy downpour, big fat drops striking the windshield like phantom spirits suddenly finding substance and incessantly knocking to get inside.

  Cade switched on the windshield wipers, thankful to discover that they actually worked, and kept driving.

  Nature, however, wasn't done with them apparently.

  A wind kicked up, at first just blowing the rain harder against the windshield, but then increasing so strongly that it began to blow the truck around on the road. Cade gripped the wheel with both hands and peered through the windshield, trying to see the road as best he could.

  The first peal of thunder, so close and so very loud, made them both jump. The crash of lightning that followed lit the interior of the truck cab with a harsh, blinding light.

  "Think we should pull over?" Gabrielle asked.

  Cade shook his head. "Not yet. I want to put some more distance between us and the quarry."

  Both of them knew what he really meant, that he wanted to get farther away from the shadow demons that were no doubt still on their tail, but somehow mentioning them by name didn't feel right, as if doing so would call them forth like Bloody Mary from the mirror. Neither of them wanted to face the creatures again so soon, especially not in these conditions.

  With his knuckles white on the wheel, Cade continued driving, doing his best to stay to the middle of the road, avoiding the sides where the water was starting to collect in deep pools. The force of the weather and his speed of travel were directly opposed to each other; as the weather grew worse, his speed grew slower, until he was moving along at half the pace at which he'd started half an hour earlier.

  Just a little bit farther, he told himself.

  Then Gabrielle gasped as the lightning lit up the sky.

  "Good Lord," she whispered.

  Before he could ask what she'd seen, another flash filled the sky ahead of them and this time he saw them for himself.

  Three enormous twisters, moving together like the three Norns of fate, headed in their direction, tearing up anything and everything that stood in their path.

  "Fuck me," Cade said.

  There was no way they could outrun the things; they were just too big and moving too fast for him to have any hope of avoiding them. He had only seconds to find them some safe harbor before the twisters would be on top of them!

  He pumped the brakes, knowing he needed to stop but fearful of putting the truck into a dangerous spin if he did it too quickly with this much water on the road and the high winds pushing and pulling on the vehicle's frame.

  They could hear a roaring sound filling the night sky now, adding to the cacophony of thunder and wind and rain, and Cade was genuinely afraid for the first time in what felt like forever. These twisters were monsters and they had come to swallow them whole.

  Cade looked frantically about, searching for safety, but there were no structures that he could find to hide them in and no guarantees that they'd survive hiding in such a place even if there were.

  His gaze fell upon a stand of trees to the right of the vehicle. The tops of the trees were bending and twisting in the high-speed winds, but the trunks looked steady enough. The youthful nature of the trees allowed them to bend and twist without tearing up from the roots as older, less flexible trees might have.

  Another flash of lightning and this time there was a fearful "Cade!" from the seat beside him. He could barely hear her over the sound of the storm and so he didn't bother to reply, just jerked the wheel to the right and stepped on the gas, knowing he was going to need some speed to accomplish what he was thinking of doing.

  You're insane, he told himself, but that didn't stop him from pushing down on the accelerator a bit harder and silently urging the truck to "Go, go, go!"

  As the twister bore down on them, filling the sky overhead, Cade bounced the truck down the side of the embankment and ran it straight toward the copse of trees ahead of them. Brush scraped and bounced off the grill and sides of the vehicle, but he kept his foot on the gas as the trees sped toward them.

  "What are you doing?" Gabrielle shouted.

  Cade didn't have time to explain.

  "Brace yourself!"

  The first of the trees passed them by and then Cade was in the thick of them, aiming for a narrow opening between two sets of trees, hoping to use them as an anchor to keep the truck from lifting away in the winds.

  They were almost there, just yards away, when the rear end of the vehicle started to lift, robbing them of some of their momentum as the twisters sought to seize them for their own.

  "No, no, no!" Cade shouted as he stomped on the accelerator.

  The engine roared, the storm screamed, the tires bit into the dirt beneath t
hem and there came the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass as he ran the truck right between the trunks of several trees, wedging it in, good and tight.

  As the twister reached down to seize them in its grasp, Cade turned off the engine, grabbed Gabrielle and pulled her toward him, covering her body with his as the storm descended with fury and tried to tear them from their anchorage.

  "Hang on!" he shouted over the winds, but he wasn't sure if Gabrielle even heard him.

  For several long moments it was touch and go as the trio of twisters roared overhead, the trees bending nearly to the ground and the truck shifting in unison with them as they moved, the roar of the tornado drowning out nearly every other sound except the groan and crunch of bending metal, and then, at last, the twisters continued on their path, leaving the truck, and the pair within, safe for the time being.

  "You okay?" Cade asked, as he helped Gabbi sit up.

  She nodded. "You?"

  "Yeah, I'm good."

  The rain was still coming down hard, hammering the truck like steel ball bearings, and Cade decided enough was enough for one day.

  "What do you say we sit tight for the night? If the storm comes back in our direction we won't be caught out in the open and it will be easier to get the truck free in the morning when we have some light."

  "Fine with me. You okay with me breaking out some food? As crazy as it sounds, I seem to have worked up an appetite."

  "Be my guest," he told her.

  Slipping through the space between seats, Gabrielle climbed into the back and rooted around in the box of canned goods for a few minutes, at last coming up with a family-sized can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. They didn't have any way of heating it up inside the vehicle, but neither of them cared. Food was food and at this point they'd gone most of the day without. Gabrielle peeled off the lid and they took turns passing the can back and forth, savoring the thick pieces of meat and the chunks of potatoes and carrots that went along with them. They each drank a bottle of water with the meal; they needed more than that but given the shortage of supplies they'd found so far neither of them were willing to risk haphazardly tearing through their supply of drinking water until they better understood the situation in which they found themselves.