Templar Chronicles: Judgment Day Part 5

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" Riley shouted over the din as he wrenched his weapon free of Cade's grip and hurriedly tried to line up another shot.

Cade went nuts.

He knocked Riley's gun aside a second time with one hand while punching him in the face with the other. The blow caught Riley completely by surprise and as his head rocked backwards, Cade swept Riley's legs out from under him and rode him down to the ground where he began pummeling him with both hands in a fit of white-hot rage.

Riley was the bigger of the two men, but the intensity of Cade's attack had caught him by surprise and Cade had the upper hand as he kept Riley pinned to the ground. It might have gone on that way for several minutes if some of the other Templars hadn't seen Riley's plight and rushed to his aide. Three men tried to drag Cade off of the Echo Team commander, but all they managed to do was earn several blows of their own as Cade successfully fought them off.

Those few moments of respite were all Riley needed, however.

When Cade raised his fists, ready to deliver another series of punishing blows, Riley jabbed him in the side with the Taser he'd managed to pull off his belt.

Cade's eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen.

Sorry, boss, Riley thought, as he pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

He stood in the midst of a great wood, the ma.s.sive trees looming around him like ancient sentinels glaring down at an unwelcome intruder. All he could see in every direction were trees, which was disconcerting, for he had no idea where he was or what he was doing there.

Nor did he know how to get out.

The dense foliage and thick branches high above his head kept most of the light out and what filtered down through cast long, lazy shadows between the trees, shadows that seemed to twist and sway of their own accord when he looked in their direction.

A distant voice called his name and he recognized it immediately as that of his wife, Gabrielle. He turned in a slow circle, trying to get a sense of where the call had come from, suddenly knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was in danger and that he had to get to her as quickly as possible; but the sound of her cry bounced off the tree trunks and made it difficult for him to get a fix on her position.

"Gabrielle?"

Again he heard her cry out. "Here, Cade! I'm here!"

He moved in one direction and then, second-guessing his decision, turned back and moved in the other.

"Keep talking, Gabrielle! Help me find you!"

For a moment he didn't hear anything and then...

"Hurry, Cade!" she cried, and then something else.

Her voice seemed to be fading, as if she were moving away from him, and he wasn't certain that he heard her correctly. It had sounded like she'd said, "Open your eyes and see!"

Open his eyes? he thought, frustrated. What on earth was she talking about? His eyes were open!

"Gabrielle!"

This time she didn't answer.

He shouted again, several times, to no avail.

Cade started to panic. He hurried through the trees in one direction, then turned and moved in another, shouting her name all the while. When he at last stopped to catch his breath, he no longer had any idea what direction to move in.

He was missing something; he knew it.

Open his eyes?

Then, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear summer sky, it came to him.

She hadn't said open his eyes, but rather open his EYE, as in his third eye, his Sight. Open his Eye and see!

Cade did as he was told. He lifted the eye patch off his damaged right eye, revealing the scarred socket and milky-white eye hidden beneath, a gift from the Adversary in their very first encounter. He stared outward into the trees surrounding him, and, fixing his wife firmly in his thoughts, triggered his Sight.

The first time Cade had faced the Adversary, he'd very nearly been killed and had come away scarred to the core, body and soul. It was only later, while recovering in the hospital, that he'd discovered that the encounter had left him with a some rather unique abilities. His Sight was one of them.

Like shining a light into a darkened room, it allowed him to see reality as it truly was, stripping away the glamours and disguises that the supernatural world typically cloaked itself in and revealing the faces behind the masks. It also let him peer behind the mystical veil that separated the world of the living from the purgatory-like realm he called the Beyond.

Cade didn't understand how it was going to help him now, but that didn't matter. Gabrielle had saved him too many times in the past for him not to trust her. She'd been able to communicate with him when her soul had been lost in the Beyond and he expected she could do the same now, despite the fact that the Adversary had laid claim to her physical form.

The moment he made the mental connection that triggered his ability, a lance of light shot forward from the spot on which he stood, piercing the darkness between the tree trunks about fifteen degrees away from the path he'd been following. It hung there in the air a moment, illuminating the way before him, and then faded slowly from view until nothing remained but the afterglow in the corner of his eyes.

Cade had no doubt that if he followed that path, he would find Gabrielle.

He released his Sight, replaced his eyepatch, and then moved out.

A thick fog covered the ground and rose to about mid-calf, making it difficult for Cade to see where to put his feet. Several times he tripped and fell, only to stagger to his feet and continue on his way, and it wasn't long before his hands and knees were sc.r.a.ped b.l.o.o.d.y and raw from catching himself on unseen debris.

After what felt like forever, the trees gave way to a wide clearing a good fifty yards across. On the far side rose an enormous oak, larger even than the trees surrounding it, and twice as wide. Great swaths of th.o.r.n.y vines surrounded its base and stretched upward in creeping strands against its trunk. As his gaze followed them, he was shocked to discover his wife pinned against the trunk and held captive high above the ground, her hands and feet secured to the tree with twisting strands of those same cruel thorns.

Cade gasped in surprised horror and, despite the distance between them, Gabrielle opened her eyes at the sound.

She recognized him immediately. "Help me, Cade," she said and he heard her as clearly as if she was standing next to him, speaking into his ear. Without thought, without hesitation, he charged across the clearing toward her, determined to find a way to get her down.

The first twenty yards pa.s.sed without incident.

But as he neared the center of the clearing, his foot caught on something a rock? a root thrust upward through the soil? and he stumbled, staggering forward several feet before losing his balance entirely and falling to his knees.

Feeling like an idiot, he tried to get up, only to discover that he could not. His foot was stuck fast, apparently by whatever he'd stumbled over.

"Hurry, Cade," Gabrielle called.

"I'm coming," he said, a little impatiently, as he kicked his leg to free it while glancing back to see what he'd caught himself on.

His thrashing parted the fog a moment, allowing him to see.

At first he thought he thought he'd gotten his foot tangled up in a ma.s.s of roots, but then they moved and he realized what he'd taken for roots were actually long, narrow fingers that had burst from the soil and wrapped themselves around his ankle. Even as he looked on he could feel them squeezing tighter...

Heart racing, Cade tried to raise his other leg to kick himself loose, only to discover that it, too, had been snared. The fingers were squeezing so tightly that they had sunk into his flesh and he could feel blood running down his leg as they fought for more purchase.

"Let go!" Cade shouted in frustration, kicking his legs to no avail. He tried clawing his way forward, digging his fingers into the earth and pulling with all the might of his upper body and still getting nowhere.

That's when the ground beneath him started to give way and the hands began to drag him under.

Cade fought like a cornered rat, throwing himself about and scrambling to hold on to whatever was within reach in an effort to tear himself away from the hands holding him, but nothing helped.

Slowly but surely his legs were dragged beneath the surface, until he was buried from the waist down. His legs were going numb from the tightness of the grip on his calves, but he refused to give up.

Gabrielle was screaming his name at this point and yet he didn't dare take the chance of looking in her direction for fear the distraction would cause him to lose even more ground.

He slipped deeper, nearly up to his armpits, and he could feel dozens more hands grasping at his torso and upper thighs, nails digging into his flesh as they pulled him deeper.

He was still flailing in vain when the hands dragged him under...

Cade lurched awake, the dream receding into the depths of his consciousness like a snake slipping into the night's shadows.

For a moment he didn't know where he was or why he was there. Then he realized that he'd been dreaming and the memories of what had really happened came rushing back; images flashing on the Imax screen of his mind with all the grace of an avalanche as he relived seeing his former allies gunning down the woman he loved in an effort to kill the creature that held her captive. He'd lost control at that point, charging forward like some kind of crazed lunatic and attacked anyone he could get his hands on until someone had clubbed him unconscious from behind.

Now, with his eyes open, he found himself in the back of one of the Order's transport vans as it headed heaven knew where. Twin benches lined either side of the cargo area and he was secured to one of them with handcuffs and belly chains. A glance told him the restraints hadn't been put on well, for he had at least six inches of slack that he could use to cause trouble if he was so inclined. Sitting across from him on the other bench was a Templar soldier, MP5 in hand. The name tag on his ballistic vest read Dalton.

Upon seeing that Cade was awake, Dalton shifted position, bringing the muzzle of the gun not so subtly in line with Cade's chest.

"Don't even think about trying to escape, a.s.shole," the guard said.

Cade sized him up with a glance and was unimpressed with what he saw. He didn't know this man; he suspected that he was one of the new recruits brought up through the ranks after the war with the Chiang Shih. That meant he was most likely one of the Preceptor's cronies.

Which explains the hostility.

With nothing to do but wait until the van reached its destination, most likely the commandery in Westport, Cade decided he'd been pushed as far as he intended to be pushed. It was time to push back, starting with the idiot sitting on the bench across from him.

"Why not?" he said. "You think you're up to stopping me if I tried?"

The guard licked his lips and slid his finger inside the trigger guard.

"The Preceptor doesn't care if you're dead or alive when you're brought to justice," he said with a smug grin, leaning forward to make his point. "All I have to do is pull this trigger and claim it was an accidental discharge. That would stop you all right. When all is said and done, I'd probably get promoted and you'd be right where the Preceptor wanted you to be. Deader than a piece of roadkill in the Texas sun."

Cade looked away and said something beneath his breath.

"What was that, a.s.shole?" the guard said, rising to his feet. "You got something to say to me, say it to my face or I'll beat it out of you."

Cade let his shoulders roll forward a bit and ducked his chin even lower, as if cowed by the other man's threat. He mumbled again, keeping his gaze on a certain spot on the floor in front of him.

Dalton took his hands off his weapon and let it fall to his side on its sling. He balled his hands into fists and took a few steps forward, bringing him across the spot that Cade had been watching.

Almost...

The guard leaned down and thrust his face and finger toward Cade.

"Listen to me, you stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d! No one disrespects..."

That was as far as he got.

Cade reared back and then whipped his head forward, slamming the crown of his skull into Dalton's forehead right about at the point where his eyebrows met. There was a loud smack of impact and the other man's eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Cade kicked him a few times, just to be certain.

Satisfied that Dalton was down for the count, Cade leaned back against the side of the van to wait for the ride to be over.

It didn't take long.

After another twenty minutes or so the van began making a series of short, sharp turns that Cade recognized as the roads leading to the entrance to the Ravensgate commandery. They stopped briefly a few moments later guard booth at the gate, Cade thought and then continued for another ten minutes before the driver parked the van and turned off the ignition.

Cade heard the front doors open and close, then footsteps approaching the back of the vehicle. When the door opened, he was sitting on his bench, hands out in front of him, and an innocent smile on his face.

Riley and another man he didn't recognize stared in at him and the unconscious guard at his feet.

"What happened?" Riley asked.

Cade shrugged. "He wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He fell and hit his head when you went around one of those turns a while back."

The man standing beside Riley sneered and said, "You expect us to believe that?"

Cade laughed. "I don't really care what you believe," he said. "If you think I'm capable of knocking him unconscious while I'm chained and handcuffed to this bench, more power to me, I guess."

"Why you smug, little..."

"That's enough, Brooks!" Riley said, putting out his arm to restrain the other man when he tried to climb into the back of the van.

"But sir! I..."

"I said, that's enough," Riley said, in a voice that brooked no further argument. "I will take the prisoner. You will see to Corporal Dalton, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Cade watched as Riley climbed into the back of the van and walked to him. He kept his expression carefully blank as Riley stopped in front of him, his back to the other Templar at the doors of the van, and mouthed the words, "Play along." Cade nodded almost imperceptibly to show that he understood.

"You're not going to give me any trouble, are you?" Riley asked aloud.

"No."

"Good. Keep your cool and we'll have this sorted out soon enough."

Riley squatted down in front of Cade to unlock his leg manacles and then did the same with his waist chains. As he got back to his feet, his hand brushed against Cade's and, in the process, pa.s.sed him the key to his handcuffs.

"All right, on your feet," Riley ordered.

Cade did what he was told. As Riley turn to lead the way out of the van, his bulk momentarily hid Cade from view, and Cade used that moment to reach up and wipe the sweat from his face, slipping the key into his mouth in the process.