Nightbringer (13 page)

Haider nodded.

As if he were laying his hand on a living serpent, Melanchthon slowly touched the canvas. Then he gently pulled it from the niche so that he was not forced to reach inside the blackness. He paused, then untied the string and opened it.

With the darkest aspect, Melanchthon stared. But the professor had no patience for enigmatic postures. He spoke angrily. "Speak, man! What is it?"

Melanchthon seemed shaken.

"So it comes to this ..."

Entering the room, the professor stared down at a very old, discolored
spear point. Three nails tied with threads of gold, silver, and copper held them all together as one weapon. The professor did not immediately reply, then a word came in a whisper.

"Cassius?
"

"Only Cassius will know," Melanchthon replied somberly. "I suspected it was buried within these walls, but
we were not meant to know of it. Or touch it."

What was left unspoken spoke more loudly by the manner Melanchthon tightly wrapped the spear
point and closed his fist so tightly around it. The professor placed a hand on the monk's shoulder as he muttered, “"There is no need."

Melanchthon expressed no surprise. "I did not forsake my vow. It was the Lord who told you." He moved toward the door. "So be it! We must find him! Quickly!"

He snatched a torch from the wall and led them down a corridor, not looking to see if he were being followed.

"The children didn't run for the catacombs!" the professor shouted as they rushed forward. "They probably hid in the first room that offered protect
ion! And Cassius will be searching for them! But so will this creature!"

"Why would this creature search for the children?" Melanchthon responded, already breathless.

"Because it will want bait!" The professor's certainty was contagious. "It knows Cassius will come for the children no matter the risk! It will use the weakest to destroy the strongest!"

"Of course!" The monk's next words were a vicious growl. "Evil has its own wisdom!"

"Legend lives in this cursed place!"

Melanchthon's frown was bitter.

"And kills."

***

Without warning Cassius froze in the center of a cross-roads of corridors. Head bent, he stood and listened intently. The torch pitched his shadow into the wall to his right.

Watching from twenty feet away, Gina crouched with the MP-5 close. It was a formidable weapon—capable of hurling two thousand rounds a minute if the barrel didn't melt. But the best way to use it was in short bursts—squeeze and release, squeeze and release—and not to let the barrel overheat.

Subtly, she allowed herself to wonder.

Cassius—and she no longer harbored any intellectual doubt that could withstand the overwhelming force of her instincts—was, in one way, not unlike other soldiers. She'd seen it in his eyes when they had spoken and laughed.

He had lived two thousand years hunting and killing creatures that were never meant to walk the earth—creatures that first made man retreat from the darkness. He was quite probably the ultimate warrior – a man so skilled, so strong, and so fearless that he could have decided the fate of continents—even the world. Yet he lived in secret and fought his battles in secret—battles fought to redeem the world, and yet the world knew nothing.

She understood.

If they knew of him, they would hunt him down and destroy him. Because they would fear him.

Yes, he was utterly alone—alone in a way Gina could scarcely imagine. Because he had known centuries upon centuries of loneliness—of hiding among men, of fighting valiantly to save the human race, yet feared and even hated by the very ones he saved. She could not think of a greater curse for crucifying the Son of God, but Cassius did not seem to reckon it a curse. Either that, or, even now, he could still not count himself redeemed and so he was resolved to fight forever to win his salvation.

She wondered what he pondered deep in the night when he could not sleep and all he had were his memories—ghosts, regrets, visions of battles fought centuries ago. Watching hundreds of thousands fighting against him, thousands more fighting for him, following him as kingdom upon kingdom was saved or conquered.

Still, Cassius had not moved and Gina moved up quietly beside him. Her voice was barely audible. "What is it?"

"It's playing for position."

Her eyes flared and she took a heavier breath.

"How close is it?"

Cassius pointed his sword to the stone ceiling. "It's moving parallel with us, stopping when we stop."

Without removing his eyes from the ceiling, Cassius lifted three extra clips from his belt and gave them to her. Gina slid two into her back pocket and one into her belt. Now she had over six hundred rounds. Her thinking was purely tactical now. "It's going to try for an ambush or it wouldn't be staying out of sight."

"I know."

"Or maybe it's injured."

"Maybe
. But this one is using sorcery to shape-shift. It's difficult—very difficult—and maybe even beyond the power of the young one. But the old one ... it could do it."

He began walking slowly forward, watching the ceiling as if he could see through the stones. He held the .45 in his right hand, the katana in a sheath at his waist.

"What's the point?" Gina whispered.

"The point is that if it is using sorcery to shape-shift, then it has the power to reduce injuries. When it shifts shape, it can alter its surface. It can eliminate shallow wounds."

Gina was so into it now that she understood the rest. "But not deep wounds," she added.

"No. If an injury is mortal, shape-shifting won't save it. It doesn't have the power of life and death. It can rearrange just
its appearance. But even that takes very old sorcery that this world doesn't even know existed."

"Like the storm," Gina muttered.

"Yes."

"How long can it keep it up?"

Her questions didn't even touch his concentration. "It took very little power to manipulate wind this high, which is all it did to cause the storm. If we were in a desert, it couldn't have done it at all."

"Why not?"

"Because sorcery isn't what you think." Cassius stopped in place, his brow hardened in concentration. "It's stopped. It's waiting."

Gina wanted to know if the storm could be reduced somehow. Anything was better than what was raging outside right now. "What do you mean about sorcery?"

"Sorcery can't create anything at all, Gina. Sorcery can only use what's already here. A spell can borrow something, open a gateway, or even influence someone to a degree. But it can't force anyone to do anything against his or her will—even the gifts of God are subject to the control of the individual. So a far as this storm goes, this spell is only shifting winds that are already here. But even that takes wind from somewhere else, so nature will resist the spell. Nature will fight, and nature will win. Nature always wins in the end. It's just a matter of time."

Gina didn't care to add that they were almost out of time. It was ridiculous to tell him the obvious.

For a split second Cassius, or what was him, seemed to ascend from his body, from the corridor and the abbey, then just as quickly he reappeared behind his ice-blue, deadly eyes.

"It's gone," he whispered.

Gina caught a faint alarm in his voice. "Gone?"

"Yes."

He ran toward a staircase.

Gina matched him step for step. "How do you know?"

"I know!"

He took the stairs three at a time, and they burst together onto the fourth floor. But even before her second step, Gina knew the long corridor was empty.

"What happened!"

Cassius' face was a mold of fury. He stared in each direction.
"It heard something that we didn’t hear."

"Like
what
?"

"Like the
children."

***

It was the strange sense of a presence that provoked Professor Haider to turn and look behind the small band led by Melanchthon's torch. He stared into the darkness as if someone had called his name. He lifted the torch higher.

"Rebecca?"

Melanchthon turned at the professor’s call, staring back. It took him a moment to understand and then he leaped forward. "No!"

A thunderous roar like the blast of a hurricane erupted mere feet outside the light and then they glimpsed a monstrous arm sweep in and sweep out with the last monk. Then they were running wildly and waving torches and Melanchthon threw his shoulder against a door.

They did not wait for stragglers as Jaqual cascaded through the portal and Melanchthon and the professor slammed it shut. The monk shot the bolt as a fist struck the timber like a sledgehammer.

The bellow on the far side thundered with a bestial note of frustration and it pounded the door again and again—a
strong, rhythmic pounding that knew neither fatigue nor pain— relentless impacts that promised the ancient timbers would not hold for long.

"Marcus!" Jaqual cried and clutched frantically at the door. "He's
still outside the door!"

Together they pulled the hysterical monk from the bolt, hurling him into the chamber. Melanchthon bent over him, grasping his shoulder. "He's dead, boy! He's dead!"

"But—"

"No!" Melanchthon hauled him to his feet "Come! There is a passage to the Hall!"

Past weeping stones they moved to a very narrow stairwell that led upward. The sounds of cracking timbers grew louder step by step until suddenly it stopped.

Everyone spun and stared
, waiting tensely. But no abomination came hurtling up the stairway. No door crashed across stones, echoing in the shadows. No, nothing—nothing but silence.

"What's this?" the professor hissed.

He began to move, but Melanchthon turned and pushed him against the wall with his greater bulk. "To go there is death, man! We will find your daughter and the children! But not along the way we came!"

The professor took a quick breath and made a decision just as quickly. "Lead
on!"

Together they moved up the stairway, the loudest sound the flame of their torches, and within seconds emerged in the maze of tunnels located south of the Great Hall.

Melanchthon paused since he also heard someone whisper his name. He stared long into the darkness. His teeth clenched angrily as he strode immediately into the shadows.

"I will not be deceived!" he bellowed, holding his spear before him. "It is using tricks! Sounds!
But it is not close or it would have already attacked us!"

T
he professor shouted, "It's trying to drive us from these passages!" He rushed forward. "Rebecca and the children!"

In seconds they were running hard down another corridor, throwing open doors, calling to Josh and Rachel and Rebecca. Even Jaqual forgot his fear as he searched, boldly throwing open door after door, moving with astonishing agility into a
corridor.

"Follow me!" Melanchthon began to descend a stairwell. "And brace yourselves like men! We will run no more!"

Josh whirled and screamed at the cascading crash that rolled through the corridor outside the door. It was the sound of a door torn completely off its hinges and hurled aside.

Again the sound repeated
... and again.

***

"It's coming," Josh whispered as Rachel grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the far side of the room. Rebecca was attempting to unlock a door that led from the room into another. She pulled and strained at the bolt.

"Hurry!" Rachel shouted, casting a quick glance at the door. "
It's coming toward us!"

Rebecca picked up a broken beam and struck the bolt but it didn't move at all. She staggered back, shocked, and spun as the door on the far side of the corridor was struck with a single titanic blow. Her words died in a choked gasp.

Rachel's eyes fled the walls. "We're trapped!"

Rebecca reached out and pulled them close. "No!" she whispered. "We're safe! We're safe as long as we don't make a sound, okay? So be very, very quiet—both of you."

"But —"

"Shhh
hh." Rebecca turned Josh's face into her chest. "Shhhhh ... It'll be all right."

Josh rolled his eyes toward the door. There had been no sound since the timbers on the opposite side of the corridor shattered. "No," he said softly, "it knows we're here."

The door seemed to grow closer.

Rachel whispered, "No, Josh, it can't."

"It does."

"Josh..."

"It's coming, Rachel."

Then the atmosphere beyond the door seemed to darken somehow, as if what stood before it brought its own darkness— a darkness more substantial, heavier and dense
r than any natural darkness.

Josh whispered, "It's
..."