Immortal Hope (41 page)

“He was talking with Raphael.” A chill possessed Anne as she recited the phrase that had haunted her dreams.
“I suppose I should be grateful she has not said a word. Should she identify her mate, I shall have no choice but to send him to defend the final nail.”

Gabe’s gaze pierced her like a spear. “Think clearly. In your vision, Merrick held his sword?”

Anne nodded.

“What did it look like?”

She shrugged. “Plain, like always.”

“Oh, Anne.” Gabe sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Need I remind you the nature of visions? That a glimpse into the future is only how things are,
given the present circumstances
? Have you forgotten a person has the ability to change the outcome of his future if he is given the proper means?”

Anne’s heart slowed to a stop. Her lungs contracted, and her palms turned suddenly sweaty. Whatever Gabe was about to say, she didn’t want to hear it. Not in this lifetime, nor the next.

“Your oath is a holy vow, more powerful than any marital pledge. With it, you gain Merrick’s immortality. And he…” He lifted his head to turn sorrowful eyes on her. “He gains the light that combats the darkness in his soul. Each vile beast Azazel creates claims part of him when he kills it. In time, he will turn into a thing of nightmares.”

She closed her eyes, willing Gabe to stop. At once, the image of the dark knight that had wounded Gareth leapt forth. She shuddered involuntarily.

“Your light heals him. Without it, Anne, your vision will come true.”

“No,” she wailed. “Why didn’t my second sight show me more?”

Gabe let out a heavy sigh. “It was a test, Anne. Of your faith. Of your ability to trust the hand that guides us all. To trust in the things you cannot see and believe in the preordained.” He lowered his voice to add, “One you failed.”

Failed
.

The word pounded through her head. She hadn’t just failed, she’d killed Merrick. In an attempt to keep him safe, she’d done the opposite. Oh God, she had to tell him. Before he left, they had to say their oaths. Racing for the door, she jerked it open.

“You don’t know what to say,” Gabe called after her.

Not slowing down, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll bring him back to you.”

She barreled up the steps, nearly falling several times when her socks slipped on the time-smoothed stone surface. At the top of the long flight of stairs, she grabbed a passing knight and demanded, “Where’s Merrick?”

The man pointed a nubby arm at the stairs. “He leaves now.”

Anne shoved away from the face she didn’t recognize and ran as fast as her legs would carry her up the second flight of stairs to the front door. As she reached for the handle, tires crunched against gravel. Anne’s stomach rolled over. She yanked the door open, bolted out into the rain.

The last silver SUV rolled down the drive and turned onto the lane. Running after it, she chased until she reached the heavy iron gates. There, she stopped, staring down the empty street as distant taillights crested a hill and disappeared.

Anne’s legs gave out. With a choked cry, she sank to the ground, one hand twined around a thick iron post, the other clawing at the dirt. He was gone. Off to battle and doomed to death, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do to stop this nightmare.

CHAPTER
33

Merrick leaned his shoulder against one of the plantation home’s tall white columns and stared out into the darkness. He watched. And waited.

Beyond the artfully maintained gardens and several yards of cropped grass, tall pines canopied a dense growth of brush. Out there, Azazel’s fiends crawled among the scrub. Rising shadows announced their presence, accompanied by the occasional snap of a branch, rustle of leaves. They slunk through the surrounding countryside, gathered their forces, and like the Templar, they waited.

He shifted his helmet to his other arm and surveyed the knights between the adytum and Azazel’s evil. Squatting behind evergreen bushes, kneeling beside tree trunks and laying against low mounds of earth, they too watched the trees. How many would lift their blades for the last time this night? How many would take their last breath at the end of their brothers’ swords when their souls succumbed to Azazel’s hate?

The gentle breeze stirred his hair, and he closed his eyes to his thoughts. Fulk was there somewhere. A mighty foe far more dangerous than any other fallen knight. He possessed the strength of three men and the skill of several more. In light, he had been a formidable ally. Now he was the threat Merrick must slay.

A task made more difficult by the vile being inhabiting his cousin’s shell. His face would hold the same charisma, his eyes the same familiar light. But the spirit Merrick once laughed with, he must remember had vanished.

Restless, Merrick pushed away from the towering support and crossed through the bright porch light to the opposite side of the entry stairs. His boots scraped across painted wood, the echo ominous in the unusual quiet. Another column down, Gareth acknowledged him with a nod. Further still, Merrick observed Caradoc’s long shadow. Behind him, he would find Farran and Tane. He had yet to speak a word to his traitorous brother, but now, as the hour approached, he said a silent prayer for Tane’s presence.

Inside, Lucan, Tomas, and William the Strong guarded the stairwell and the hidden ark that held the nail. Overhead, lining the second-story balcony, Nikolas assigned four men. The legendary archer assumed a frontal position behind the immediate row of juniper. Mikhail and Raphael joined forces with the men in the open, strong arms much needed.

Well fortified, the strongest and most skilled protected the relic. Yet they were such a tattered bunch, Merrick could not help but question how long they could hold out. He could not shake the feeling of futility. In all the battles against Saladin’s terrific Muslim forces, only the march from Hattin left Merrick with the same unease. There too they had outnumbered Saladin’s men, but like tonight, their health weakened their swords. At least Azazel’s creatures could not pelt them with arrows—in that, the Templar held advantage.

The clink of chain pulled him from his memories. He looked to the open field. Swords at the ready, helms now donned, the knights prepared. A long, low whistle broke through the quiet, and Merrick set his own upon his head.

“To arms,” a voice hidden in the dark called.

The front lines broke. A sea of shadows descended on the grassy plain, met by the fury of the noble knights. Hoarse cries joined the enraged howls as nytym, shade, demon, and man clashed beneath the starless sky. Above, ahead, the twang of bowstrings punctuated the battle calls, and Merrick watched as holy arrows rained down upon their foe.

“God be with us,” he murmured as he drew his sword.

*   *   *

Anne didn’t know how long she’d huddled on the wet pavement, sobbing, until Gabe hauled her back inside. She distinctly remembered the warmth of his hands as he hefted her up and dragged her through the door. However, she couldn’t remember returning to her rooms, and she certainly didn’t recall changing her clothes.

But as she opened her eyes to the dim lamplight in her sitting room, she was warm and dry. An empty bowl on the coffee table told her she’d eaten something too, and the matching one on her end table hinted someone had eaten with her. Probably Gabe. She didn’t have the faintest idea when, though.

Her face felt swollen and stiff, her eyes as scratchy as if she’d been through a sandstorm. She ached all the way down to her toes, and though she’d slept hours judging by the dark outside her window, the hollow feeling inside hadn’t gone away.

She’d failed Merrick.

Out of the hundreds of readings she’d done, she’d forgotten the one thing she tried to pound into her clients’ minds—never take a glimpse of the future as unchangeable fact. They were guides, markers on a path. Change an aspect of the present, and the future would adjust.

Nothing was ever permanent except the past.

She’d gotten caught up in her emotions, and Merrick would pay the price.

Tears welled again, and Anne covered her face with her hands. The whole Order would condemn her when they realized she’d deliberately kept Merrick in the dark about her tattoo. If he died, they’d lose their leader. Tane would suffer for no reason. She had inadvertently divided ties. For that, she’d never forgive herself.

God, please let there still be hope. Let Merrick come back alive.

Swiping at her eyes, she forced herself to sit up. Why couldn’t Gabe have come back a day earlier? If he had, this nonsense would be over, and Merrick wouldn’t be in some battle for his life.

She should have told Merrick from the start. Even if he did return, he’d be furious. She’d looked him in the eye, lied, and thrown him right in the path of danger. If he survived, he would hate her.

With a heavy sigh, Anne glanced around her room. Memories swamped her—Merrick exploring the room for the first time, Merrick on this couch kissing her, Merrick in her bed … Why hadn’t he told her about his soul?

Her gaze caught on a white envelope taped to her door. Curious, she rose on weary legs and shuffled across the carpet. Pulling it free, she studied the handwriting across the front. The fancy loops and swirls marked it distinctly as Gabe’s.

She tore open the flap and withdrew a folded square of paper covered on front and back with his writing. Frowning, Anne scanned the first line.

I have to meet a scientist in D.C. I’ll return when I can. Heed the words within.

*   *   *

The angry sound of steel against steel engulfed the adytum’s grounds. Men and beast alike grappled and clashed, each matched in determination, if not might. Merrick had never seen so many of Azazel’s creatures in one spot, and worse, he had never witnessed so many evil knights. They had poured out of the trees, numbers he had forgotten, and clearly so had the other Templar knights, for the ensuing moment of hesitation gave their attackers immediate advantage.

They stormed the grounds, cutting through the first line of Templars as if they sliced through butter. The charge forced the archers to their swords and brought them from the balcony down into the field.

“Behind you!” Gareth bellowed.

Merrick spun. Arcing his blade from his hip to his shoulder, his momentum gave him extra power, and he neatly lobbed off a demon’s arm. The thing screamed in rage as its vile life force oozed onto the ground.

Charging in for the felling blow, Gareth sank his blade deep within the demon’s heart. As he had done since the fiends had reached the wide porch, he used his healthier spirit to Merrick’s advantage and prevented Merrick from assuming the taint. There was no need for thanks, Merrick’s gratitude went unsaid. He needed his strength for Fulk.

Gareth shuddered as the darkness rolled down his sword and into his veins. When he looked up, his brown eyes flashed to black before shifting once again to dark toffee. ’Twas the only sign he suffered from the stain of evil.

Merrick whirled back around to parry off a nytym’s razor-sharp claws. As his sword deflected blows intended for his neck, Merrick scanned the grounds for the face he had known since boyhood. Sweat soaked his brow, rolled down into his eyes. He squinted against the sting and blinked the droplets away. As his vision cleared, he spied his target. Fulk stood tall and imposing in his ebony armor, his uncovered face unmistakable.

Nudging Merrick aside, Gareth stepped in to finish off the nytym, and Merrick moved behind him to attack a shade. He dealt with it quickly, removing its foul head with a backward slice.

As the vile shadows seeped into his veins, Merrick grimaced. The darkness that already consumed him rose with a dragon’s fury, embracing the invading evil. His spirit roiled, his blood burned.

Taking advantage of his weakness, a nytym slammed a shadowy hand into his face. As if he had been hit with an iron club, pain erupted and tiny pinpricks of light burst behind his eyes. He grabbed for the railing to keep himself from dropping to his knees. As he panted, Caradoc stepped up to send the creature back to hell.

When the tremors in Merrick’s limbs subsided, and the spinning in his head ceased, he felt the fire in his tired muscles. He could not take much more of this. If his spirit did not fail him, his body soon would.

Yet as he sucked in a deep, fortifying breath, determined to fight until he could no longer move, he looked once more to the battlefield. When he took in the scene that played before him, his gut coiled, and his chest collapsed. “No,” he whispered.

Several feet away, Fulk advanced on Nikolas. The knight could not see him, his focus riveted on a pair of demons to his left. They pushed him backward, their skilled attack too fierce and fast for Nikolas’ lesser-trained arm. He set one foot behind him, widening his stance as any trained soldier would. Sword extended, he thrust and ran the first demon through.

The felling blow exposed him, and Fulk closed in like a hungry lion. Mirroring Nikolas’ strike, he plunged his onyx blade into Nikolas’ back. Nikolas’ body convulsed. His head jerked backward, he sank to his knees. His weight dragged the blade through his flesh, until he hung suspended by his ribs.

“Nikolas!” Merrick bellowed.

Enraged, Merrick vaulted over the railing. He cut through the sea of despicable shadows, ignorant of their wretched screams. Possessed by the need for retribution, Merrick advanced like a blind man. He swung wildly, landing a heavy blow to Fulk’s left shoulder.

The strike forced Fulk to acknowledge his attacker. He settled his hate-filled gaze on Merrick.

Years of fighting side by side gave Merrick the benefit of knowing Fulk’s weaknesses. He knew his cousin’s strongest attack, understood his vulnerabilities. Merrick took full advantage. He thrust and retreated, parried and struck, landing several damaging but otherwise insignificant blows.

Yet the same advantage applied to the thing that possessed Fulk’s mind and heart. In less time that it would have taken the former man, the demoniacal knight gauged Merrick’s tactics. He countered his blade, evaded his lunges. They danced together in unison, a perfect pairing of mirrored counterparts.