Infernal Cries: An Echo Team Urban Fantasy Novel Page 11

  Riley opened his mouth to respond, but before he could do so he was greeted by the click of the phone as the connection was severed.

  As he hung up the phone, Cade thought back over his conversation with Riley and smiled in satisfaction. He’d learned what he needed to know, namely that someone had connected the theft of the relic to what was going on with the Necromancer. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have sent Riley.

  That didn’t bother Cade as much as how quickly it had all happened. It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours since he’d taken the Hand; he thought he’d have another day, possibly even two before connections would start being made.

  No matter, he thought. What’s done is done. I’ll have to move on to phase two quicker than I planned, but so be it. I just hope Riley is up for what comes next.

  Cade put away the phone, smiled at the Customs official in front of him and handed over his paperwork. He answered the usual questions, collected his things and headed for his gate. The plane was already boarding, so Cade found his seat and settled in. A few moments later the flight attendant came down the aisle asking them all to store their electronic devices so that they could get underway and Cade nodded his assent. He slipped the phone into his bag and then stored the bag in the overhead compartment for taxi and takeoff.

  He had one other important call to make, but that one would have to wait until he was back on solid ground.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “I’ve got what you asked for.”

  Cade was sitting in a car in the airport parking lot, rented with another false ID after he’d gotten off the plane from France. He was using a prepaid cellular phone to call the number he’d been given, just as they’d arranged.

  The response, when it came, was in a voice full of gravel and broken glass. “Good. Bring it to me.”

  “Happily,” Cade said. “Just tell me where you are.”

  Simon Logan laughed and it was not a pleasant sound. “Ever the eager one, aren’t you, Commander? It’s so touching to see your enthusiasm.” He gave Cade a detailed set of instructions as to where and how he was to deliver the package.

  The former Templar commander jotted them down and then said, “I want proof of life. I’m not turning this thing over to you until I see that Gabrielle hasn’t been harmed.”

  Another laugh. “Proof of life?” repeated the Necromancer. “Don’t you think that will be a bit difficult, given that your wife wasn’t alive when she came to stay in my care, Commander?”

  Cade gritted his teeth but didn’t respond. Technically the Necromancer was right, but the bastard knew what Cade meant and he’d be damned if he was drawn into a conversation about semantics.

  “And as for sweet Gabrielle being ‘unharmed,’ I’m afraid you ruined that possibility the day you married her. After all, you didn’t think she brought all this unwelcome attention onto herself, did you?”

  With that, the Necromancer hung up.

  Cade cursed, told himself that Logan was just trying to mess with his head, and did his best to ignore what the other man said, but the notion was planted in the back of his head and like a constantly mutating virus he found hard to shake off. In a way, the Necromancer was right; if Cade hadn’t entered Gabrielle’s life then she probably would be alive and well somewhere in the world right this very minute. Cade had caught the Adversary’s interest, for whatever reason, and she’d been an unwitting casualty of that. In a way, he’d been the one to…

  Stop that! he told himself, shaking his head as if to physically clear the notion from his mind. He was no more responsible for Gabrielle’s death than the victim of a serial killer was responsible for their own demise. He knew that. It had been the Adversary who had killed Gabrielle; the Adversary and the Adversary alone. Cade had done nothing to bring the creature’s attention upon them and he was not responsible for what had ultimately happened. He’d killed the bastard that had invaded their home and threatened his wife; how was he supposed to know that a deeper, darker evil was lurking within the man’s form, just waiting for a chance to show its face in the light?

  Bottom line? He couldn’t have.

  Which is why you need to keep that asshole out of your head and do what you came here to do. Rescue Gabrielle.

  Right.

  There was no way the Necromancer was going to come to the meeting himself. He was far too intelligent for that. But even if he used a series of cutouts to keep himself isolated, Cade knew that eventually those cutouts would have to lead back to the one in charge. Link by link, Cade intended to use the information he gained to find the Necromancer, starting with whoever was sent to meet with him tonight.

  Given Riley’s veiled comments about being ordered to bring him in, Cade knew that his house was most likely under surveillance. That meant he was going to have to find someplace else to question his “guest.” Luckily, he had a place in mind.

  The Templar Order had safe houses and equipment caches in nearly every major city. This particular one was located along the water in Stamford, a quiet residential community about half-an-hour north of New York City along I95.

  The house was set back from the road behind some well-manicured hedges that provided a good deal of privacy but also prevented Cade from getting a sense of whether or not the safe house was currently in use. That left him no choice but to bite the bullet and go see for himself.

  He pulled into the driveway and up to the terminal controlling the gates. He keyed in a code he’d used in the past, hoping as he did so that the Order hadn’t seen fit to refresh them in the last month. There was a moment’s hesitation and then the gates swung slowly open, allowing him access.

  Cade drove to the end of the driveway and put the rental car in park. He hopped out, keyed the same code he’d used on the gate into the access panel for the garage, and waited anxiously for that to go up. If there was someone here, they’d most likely be waiting for him on the other side, but the garage was empty.

  Cade breathed a sigh of relief.

  He got back in his vehicle, drove it into the garage, and then shut the garage door behind him, sealing him off from the rest of the world for the time being.

  The safe house was well-stocked and not just with arms and equipment, either. Cade ate a hearty lunch, fueling up with the energy he knew he was going to need later, and then headed for the cellar.

  He knew immediately that it would serve his purposes. The room was fashioned of bare concrete, without any external doors or windows, which would help deaden any noise the prisoner made. The ceiling was low and had exposed joists for the floor above; that would make securing the prisoner easier. Add a drain in the center of the floor and spigot for the hose on one wall and he could almost imagine that the space was custom-made for what he had in mind.

  He knew the garage would hold a variety of tools, for knights in the field often had to make repairs to their arms and equipment, and planned to take the rest of what he needed from there. He wasn’t subtle – a hand drill worked just as well as an electronic one and a shattered knee cap hurt no matter what you broke it with.

  Cade didn’t care who the Necromancer sent in his stead. He was going to get some answers, no matter what it took.

  Nodding with grim satisfaction, Cade headed back up the stairs to prepare for the rest of the evening.

  The meeting was scheduled to take place just after 8pm in the parking lot of an old elementary school that had been slated for demolition months earlier, but which the city hadn’t gotten around to actually tearing down. Cade surveyed the place via Google Earth prior to leaving the safe house. He memorized the general layout of the school buildings and the surrounding neighborhood in case something happened and he needed to make a quick getaway.

  The school stood by itself at the end of a short lane surrounded by elm trees. As he approached, his headlights picked out a thick chain pulled taught across the entrance to the parking lot. There was a hole in the chain link fence off to one side that looked large enough and Cade was able to d
rive the rental car through it without any difficulty. Once in the parking lot, he continued to the far end and parked under a large elm that provided plenty of shadows for him to hide in, facing back the way he had come.

  He rolled down the driver’s window, then got out of the car and gently closed the door behind him. The night was quiet, with just a light breeze blowing. Cade was wearing boots, dark jeans and a thermal shirt under a black motorcycle jacket. He’d left the jacket partially unzipped despite the cold; he wanted easy access to the pistol he was carrying in a shoulder holster if things went south. He opened the trunk, took out the messenger bag that now only contained the Hand and his sword, and then closed the trunk. He set the bag atop the trunk for a moment when he was done so that he could use both hands to buckle the sword case across his back.

  Feeling much better now that he was properly armed, Cade settled in to wait.

  Ten minutes passed.

  Fifteen.

  Cade was just starting to grow impatient when he spotted movement among the trees off to the right of the parking lot.

  He drew his gun and flicked off the safety, but kept the weapon down along the side of his leg where it wouldn’t easily be seen. For all he knew the newcomer was just a local out for a stroll and he didn’t want to get anyone up in arms unnecessarily.

  As the figure came toward him the size and build told him it was a man. He could also see that the newcomer was moving with an odd sort of hitch in his step.

  Something about that walk set Cade’s nerves on edge. Before he knew it he found his fingers tightening on the grip of his weapon and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest, but he really wasn’t sure why.

  Maybe the guy was injured in an accident, he thought. Or was born with a handicap.

  But something told him that wasn’t right.

  The real reason was much worse; he could feel it in his bones.

  Cade waited until he judged that the figure had drawn close enough and then reached inside the driver’s window and hit the headlights, bathing the newcomer in their illumination.

  Instantly Cade understood his gut-level trepidation.

  And knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he wasn’t getting any answers tonight.

  The man standing in front of him was dead. Two, maybe three days at most, but definitely dead. His skin had the waxy-pallor of the newly embalmed and his eyes had been sewn shut. He must have dug himself out of his own grave for his fingers were caked with dirt, as was the suit he’d been buried in.

  In his hands, he carried an iPad.

  It was such an incongruous sight that for a moment Cade could only stare. The walking dead. Carrying an iPad.

  Cade considered shooting the revenant and forcing the Necromancer to send someone else to pick up the package. He even went so far as to raise the gun and line up the muzzle with the revenant’s skull. One shot and the thing was out of its misery. It was only when he realized that his enemy would simply force more innocent people to claw their way out of their own graves to do his bidding that Cade was able to pull his finger off the trigger.

  The revenant wasn’t bothered by the headlights shining in its face. Its eyes had been sewn shut, after all. And yet it walked unerringly toward him with that strange hitching gait and came to a halt less than a yard away from where Cade stood.

  “You sonofabitch,” Cade muttered, staring at the thing in front of him. His entire plan had just gone out the window. It made no sense to torture a dead man; he wouldn’t feel anything. Never mind the fact that he couldn’t talk.

  Cade reached out and took the iPad from the revenant’s fingers. It made no effort to resist. The screen was dark, but when he swiped a finger across it, the device woke up.

  A video appeared. In it a woman lay on her back on a portable cot in a room somewhere. The video had a grainy quality to it but it was still easy to see that the woman was Gabrielle. She was staring at the camera, but it was clear from the expression in her eyes that she wasn’t seeing it or anything else for that matter. Occasionally she’d blink, which is how Cade knew she was still alive. He scoured the image looking for something that might help him identify where she was, but came up empty. Whoever had filmed the video had been careful enough to keep from leaving any clues.

  When the video was over, a message appeared on the screen.

  Give the package to the revenant.

  Instructions for next acquisition to follow.

  That was all. The message stayed on the screen for a moment and then the screen went blank. No matter what he did he couldn’t get the tablet to come back on again, either.

  He was getting ready to take it apart to try and salvage the hard drive, thinking he might be able to get a tech to take a look at the video if he could download it from the drive when there was a flash from inside the unit and the screen began to melt from the inside out.

  Cade dropped the tablet on the ground and watched as flames quickly consumed it.

  So much for analyzing the video.

  The revenant was still standing there, waiting for its package.

  Cade picked up the bag, extended the strap and slung it over the revenant’s outstretched arm.

  No sooner had he done so that the revenant turned and headed back the way it had come.

  Cade watched it for a moment, considering, and then set off on foot in its wake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The revenant was easy to follow, given the difficulty it had moving in its reanimated body, and Cade was able to stay within a few feet of it as it crossed the parking lot and headed for the woods from which it had emerged. It didn’t seem to notice him following along in its wake, or, if it did, it apparently didn’t care.

  Just because he couldn’t question the damned thing didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to learn from it, Cade reasoned. If he could follow it back to wherever it had come from…

  The moon cast a silvery hue over everything and provided enough light for Cade to keep the revenant in sight, even when they entered the trees. The dead man plunged ahead, forcing his way forward through the overhanging branches and thick brush growing between the trunks. He stuck to his direction of travel with single-minded devotion, refusing to deviate from it. It didn’t matter that there was a clear path only a few feet to one side, the revenant followed whatever path he was seeing in his head with unerring accuracy, a juggernaut on a mission. At one point he walked directly into an oversized tree and became stuck, his feet still trying to drive him forward while his body was pressed up against the tree’s trunk. Cade debated stepping forward and pulling him loose when the revenant turned slightly to one side and was able to slip past on his own.

  Cade let himself fall behind the creature by about fifteen feet, close enough that he could keep it in sight but far enough back that he would have some advance warning when they reached their destination. He didn’t want whoever was waiting for the revenant to see him before he saw them. Thanks to his earlier research, he knew these woods extended for a couple of miles before ending at the eastern edge of a newly developed residential complex. Hopefully they would either change direction or come to their destination before they reached that point because he couldn’t let the revenant be seen by Joe Citizen.

  They’d been walking for about fifteen minutes, covering roughly a quarter mile or so in that time period, when Cade caught sight of something moving through the trees off to their left. In the dim light it was hard to get a good look but he had a sense of a sleek body moving through the trees on all fours.

  A dog, maybe? If so was it just some neighborhood mutt or was there something more dangerous on their trail?

  Cade kept moving, but now he was trying to keep one eye on the revenant and another on the trees around him, searching for whatever it was he had seen.

  He was soon glad that he had, for he saw it again moments later, on his right this time. It was closer now, too.

  Definitely a dog of some kind, he thought. He caught a glimpse of a sleek s
nout and ears tipped back in an attitude of attack but then it was gone again, lost in the deepening darkness between the trees.

  Unfortunately for Cade, not lost enough.

  The first of them came rushing in from the side and only the fact that Cade caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye allowed him to throw himself to the side as the creature passed through the spot he had just been standing, its jaws snapping shut on empty air and no doubt pissing it off.

  Cade had gotten a look at it as it sailed overhead, however, and as he scrambled to his feet he drew his sword and put his back to a large oak in order to keep it from sneaking up on his blind side.

  He was just in time.

  Three of the creatures stepped out of the shadows in front of him.

  They were the size of Great Danes, but no living Dane ever looked like this. Their skin hung rotting on their frames, and their empty eye sockets seemed to blaze with an unholy light.

  Cade had fought their like before and knew them for what they were.

  Corpse hounds.

  Arcane creatures dragged to earth from another plane for a specific purpose, released to return to their home afterwards only if they fulfilled their mission. And in this case, it looked like Cade was their target.

  Snarling in rage and hunger, they charged across the grounds with unnatural speed, moving unerringly toward Cade.

  He met their teeth and claws with the sharp bite of his sword, snarling his fury at being interrupted in his pursuit, directing every ounce of his anger down through the weapon at his attackers. All the anger and frustration he was feeling at being forced to work for the Necromancer poured out of him now that he had a target at which to direct it. His sword spun like a dervish, striking with deadly accuracy, neither giving nor receiving any quarter from his foes.

  For their part, the corpse hounds harassed him on three fronts, striving to pierce his defenses, to gain the opportunity to sink their fangs into his flesh or rake him with their claws.