Judgment Day (Templar Chronicles Book 5) (9 page)

Here in the Beyond, the fountain was overgrown with creeping vines the same color as the brackish water, and the lawns resembled scorched earth more than they did lush green swards.

Thankfully, there were no sign of any spectres.

Cade knew his living presence here would attract the spectres like bees to honey. It wasn’t a question of “if” they would get here but rather simply one of “when”. It was almost as if crossing the barrier rang some kind of cosmic dinner bell somewhere, riling the spectres up and pointing them in the right direction. Once they caught your trail, they wouldn’t give up, either, until they’d either taken you down or you’d taken them out.

The last thing Cade wanted right now was a pack of spectres on his heels. For one, he didn’t have any weapons to fight them with. And two, time worked differently here. Minutes could become hours, hours could become days when you made the trip back into the real world. When he and Riley went in search of the Adversary’s hideout on the Isle of Sorrows in the Sea of Lamentations, the week they’d spent in the Beyond had actually been four months back home. The Order had declared them both dead and buried them in absentia; something that Cade knew still freaked Riley out. The longer Cade stayed here in the Beyond, the more time might pass in the real world and the closer the Order might get to tracking down the Adversary, and, by extension, Gabrielle.

He couldn’t afford to let that happen.

Over there, every mirror was a potential pathway to the Beyond, but from this side, the pathways back were far more rare. It was almost as if the two worlds were spinning at different rates and he had to wait for one of the rifts on this side to line up with one of the mirrors on the other. When that happened, a portal appeared and he could cross back over to the other side. Normally, at this point he would have to start wandering about, looking for one of those very portals. But the vision-like dream he’d experienced while being transported to the commandery gave him a different idea.

He descended the steps and crossed the cul-de-sac, giving the choked-off fountain a wide berth in the process. At the edge of the lawn he stopped. He lifted the eyepatch covering his right eye and then put his hands at his side and bowed his head slightly. He kept his good eye open, afraid something would sneak up on him if he didn’t, but mentally called up an image of his home in the forefront of his mind and did his best to focus on that. He pictured the large mirror in the spare bedroom, the one that had belonged to his wife’s mother and which they’d inherited upon her death. It was one of the few mirrors, along with the two smaller ones bolted to the wall in either bathroom, that he hadn’t stripped out of the house during his grief-stricken search of the Beyond months earlier. His wife had loved that old mirror and at the time he just hadn’t been able to find the force of will to make use of it in so cavalier a fashion. Now, however, he needed a target for what he was about to attempt and that mirror was the best option going for him.

He’d just have to remember to explain it all to Gabrielle when she woke up.

With the image of that mirror fixed firmly in his thoughts, Cade crossed his fingers and then triggered his Sight.

# # #

Riley was in the officer’s mess, wasting time with a cup of coffee, when the alarms began blaring through the commandery. As those around him scrambled to their feet, he hid his smile behind another sip of his coffee before getting to his feet to join them.

Men were hustling through the corridors to their duty stations as Riley made his way back to the block of interrogation rooms on the lower level. There he found the men he’d left in charge of Cade frantically searching the nearby rooms. Upon seeing him, they snapped to attention.

“What the devil’s going on here?” he asked.

“Sir! The prisoner has escaped!”

“What?” Riley shouted, glaring furiously at them as he played his part to the hilt. ”You were supposed to keep an eye on him!”

“We did, sir! Honestly!”

“Then how on earth did he escape from a locked interrogation room?”

Riley didn’t wait for an answer but pushed past the guards and headed over to the room where he’d left Cade not twenty minutes before. He knew what he would see - the empty room, the discarded restraints, the cracked mirror - but he pretended to survey it as if for the first time. He looked back at the guard he’d left in charge of Cade and felt the temptation to go easy on the guy; he was an unwitting accomplice to Riley’s own plan to help Cade escape, after all. But Riley knew he couldn’t if he wanted his own involvement to be overlooked.

“What happened?” Riley demanded.

“I marked the prisoner’s arrival in the log as required, sir. Upon returning I glanced into the interrogation room through the observation window and noted the prisoner had removed his restraints. I shouted for help and entered the room in an attempt to subdue the prisoner, but he was gone by the time I got the door open.”

“What do you mean, gone? Prisoners don’t just disappear!”

“He...um, ah…”

“Speak up, corporal.”

“He...ah, jumped through the mirror.”

Play your part
, Riley reminded himself.

“Excuse me? He did what?”

Having already stuck his neck out, the guard must have figured it was all or nothing, for he straightened up and said more clearly this time, “He jumped through the mirror, sir.”

Riley stared at him for a long moment before saying, “Have you been drinking, Corporal?”

“No, sir! I swear.”

“One does not simply jump through a mirror, Corporal, not even if you are former Knight Commander Williams.”

The guard grew pale at the mention of Cade’s name and Riley knew the rumors would soon be spreading far and wide. If the rank and file didn’t think that Cade was allied with the enemy before this, those rumors would probably go a long way to convincing them. After all, why else would he have run?

Riley shook his head. Couldn’t be helped, he guessed. Cade had chosen to make the jump into the Beyond directly in front of the guard so there wasn’t much to be done about that now except try a little obfuscation to confuse the issue even more.

“The prisoner must have misled you, fooled you into thinking you were watching him jump through the mirror when he was, in fact, slipping out the door behind you,” Riley said, as he turned away.

“He’s probably still in the building somewhere. If we work quickly to organize the search, we might be able to salvage this mess. Follow me!”

# # #

While Riley was rounding up a search party to scour the commandery looking for Cade, the object of their search was staring in amazement at the brilliant lance of light that shot away from the point where he stood, out across the lawn, and into the distant trees a quarter-mile away.

He had no doubt that following that light would take him to the portal he needed to emerge back into the real world at the point of his choosing - in this case, his own home. It was an exhilarating feeling. All those years, all those trips in and out of the Beyond, and he’d never once thought to use his Sight as a kind of homing beacon for where he wanted to end up. He wanted to shout in excitement, but settled for a fist pump of victory instead.

Cade made note of the path the light blazed across the lawn and the point where it disappeared into the woods. Once he was sure he had it fixed in his memory, he flipped that mental switch deep in the back of his mind that turned off his Sight and the illuminated path disappeared right along with it.

No matter; he knew where he was going now.

No sooner had he dropped his Sight that a piercing howl lifted into the air from somewhere in the distance. It was almost immediately answered by several more and the sound of the pack howling together as one sent chills running up and down Cade’s spine.

He recognized that sound. It was the hunting cry of a pack of corpse hounds.

Cade had encountered them once before, in the battle against the Council of Nine in the swamps of Louisiana. He’d been fully armed and armored at the time and the undead creatures had been dispatched without too much difficulty.

But he was unarmed this time.

And alone.

Time to get moving.

Cade took off running in the direction revealed through his Sight. He had no idea how far away the portal was that he needed to take him where he wanted to go, nor how far back the pack of corpse hounds might be. It was going to be a race to see who reached their target first.

The grass beneath his feet was limp and lifeless, its many shades of grey a sharp contrast to the sea of vibrant green that stretched out in front of the commandery in the real world. Here, too, the lawn was dotted with great, burrow-like holes that led down into the dank earth below and he could smell the stench of the grave as he ran past. Cade didn’t know what lived in those holes and he hoped he never had to find out. The corpse hounds and spectres were bad enough; he didn’t want to know what kind of creature made its home in holes that seemed to even devour the light that spilled across them.

When he reached the trees on the far side of the lawn, some four hundred yards from where he’d started, he glanced back and was just in time to see the first of the corpse hounds charging around the corner of the house.

It was a big beast, half-again the size of a Great Dane. From this distance he couldn’t see the flesh hanging off its rotting frame, but he didn’t need to. He knew it was there; nothing living made its home in the Beyond. He could see the reddish-yellow gleam of the unholy fire that burned in the creatures eye sockets, however, and apparently those strange orbs were good enough to see him as well, for the moment the creature’s head turned in his direction, it issued an ear-splitting cry and came charging across the lawn toward him.

From somewhere behind the house, several other hounds answered their leader’s call.

Cade turned and headed into the woods, running as fast as he could.

The trees were like skeletal creatures, their branches hanging down to the ground as if in search of something to grasp and rend and tear. More than once Cade thought he saw something lurking behind one of the massive trunks, but he dashed past without stopping to look. He’d deal with them if they showed their faces, but for now, he knew that what chased after him was more dangerous than the things watching from the shadows.

As he ran past a bit of deadfall, Cade took a few seconds to snap off a thick branch that he could use as a makeshift weapon. The branch was about three feet long and about as thick around as his wrist, with a jagged spike at one end. It wasn’t much, a makeshift hand spear at best, and his chances of holding off a pack of corpse hounds with it were slim, at best, but it was all he had.

Gonna have to do
, he thought and ran on.

The baying of the hounds was louder now, closer, and he knew they were gaining on him. If he didn’t find that portal soon, things were going to get ugly.

To be certain that he was still headed in the right direction, Cade pictured his destination in his mind once again and then triggered his Sight a second time.

Just as before, a brilliant shaft of light shot out before him, lancing through the trees a few feet to his left until, in the distance, it met the glimmering surface of the portal he was searching for.

The hounds couldn’t follow him through the portal. If he could reach it, he would be safe.

Cade dropped his Sight and hurried forward eagerly.

He was only a few yards from the portal when something rushed toward him from his blind side. If it hadn’t been for the snapping of branches as it burst out of the undergrowth, it might have caught him completely by surprise. As it was he barely had time to turn and brace himself for the impact as a corpse hound hurdled toward him like an NFL linebacker intent on sacking the quarterback. It plowed into him, its claws scrabbling for purchase against his body and its jaws snapping shut mere inches from his face as it bowled him over backward.

Those few seconds of warning were enough, however. Cade used the hound’s momentum against it, thrusting it over his head and away from him as he crashed to the ground. Miraculously he didn’t drop the makeshift spear he held and as he rolled over into a kneeling crouch, facing his opponent.

The hound scrambled to its feet even faster than Cade thought possible and was already charging back toward him as he got into position. Cade had just enough time to slam the base of his weapon against the ground behind him and brace himself for impact when the creature leapt forward, jaws snapping and claws extended.

The tip of Cade’s spear caught the beast in the chest and plunged through its rotting body, its own momentum carrying down the length of the shaft until the point burst out its back between the shoulder blades.

For an instant Cade was close enough to stare deep into the creature’s eyes and the hunger and madness he saw there was enough to remind him that this was no place for the living, no place at all. It snapped and snarled in an effort to reach him, but was unable to do so thanks to the piece of tree limb thrust through the center of its body.

Cade knew the other hounds could arrive at any moment, so he didn’t waste any more time. He thrust the spear, and the injured hound impaled on it, away from him and staggered to his feet. He kept his eye on the injured corpse hound as he headed for the portal.

The beast kept trying to get to its feet, desperate to reach him, but the spear jutting out of its chest kept hitting the ground and knocking it off balance. So great was its hunger and drive, however, that it kept trying to get up and come after him no matter how many times it fell over.

As he stepped through the portal, his last sight was of the injured corpse hound, dragging its body forward as it tried to reach him...

CHAPTER NINE

Cade burst through the mirror hanging over the sink in the guest bathroom of his home with a thunderous crash, sending shards of glass flying in every direction. He clipped the sink with his knee as he went tumbling past before landing gracelessly in the middle of the bathroom floor, but that was a small price to pay for arriving intact and in the right place.