Devil's Lair (27 page)

“When in doubt, always
choose love.”

They listened to the storm.
A rivulet of blood flowed in from the mouth of the cave and pooled at Nadja’s
skirt.

“My sin is too great,” she
said. “That’s why I’m here.”

“God’s love is greater than
our capacity to sin.”

“But His vengeance...”

“He wants to forgive you.”

Nadja clutched William’s
hand in the dark. “Help me, Father. Please. I don’t know the way.”

“Have you prayed to God and
asked for His forgiveness?”

“Yes.”

“Do you promise never to
repeat this sin?”

“Yes.”

“Do you promise to love God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might?”

“Yes, yes, please, yes.”

“Then let this pilgrimage be
your penance.”

She pressed her cheek
against his shoulder, wetting his robe with her sorrow. William held her
trembling body, stroked her hair, and whispered in her ear the words of
absolution.

When the rains subsided,
Marco led them to the left along the cliff wall until he came to a river of
boiling blood. He wondered whose blood this was. Perhaps it flowed from the
world above, from battlefields and slaughterhouses and graves. The riverbank
was patrolled by centaurs with crossbows. Shades in armor wallowed in the
crimson flux.

“Soldiers,” Marco observed.

“Punished for a life of
slaughter,” Giovanni said.

Marco saw one of the
soldiers rise out of the bloodbath. He was dressed as a centurion. “Who are
you?” the dead man demanded. “Why do you have my lance?”

The knight bristled. “Your
lance?”

“It belongs to me.”

“Are you Longinus?” Giovanni
asked. “The centurion who killed Christ?”

“That’s a lie! I never
killed him. Stabbed him, yes, but he was already dead.”

“How many men did you kill?”
asked William.

“In battle? Too many to
count.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“War is a noble calling,”
the centurion declared.

“War is good for morale and
bad for morality.”

“We were the greatest army
the world had ever seen.”

“A solution in search of a
problem.”

Longinus wiped the blood
from his eyes. “We had every right to defend ourselves.”

“By raping villages? Sacking
cities? Enslaving tribes?”

“Rome never fought a war of
aggression. Only defense. If we had not attacked them, they would have attacked
us.”

William frowned. “War is
sometimes a necessary evil. But when it is not necessary, it is only evil.”

Nadja said, “Two thieves
were killed with Christ.”

“Murderous bandits,”
Longinus answered.

“Did you kill them?” William
asked.

“They deserved to die.”

“We all deserve to die.
Death is our birthright. But God will take us in His own good time.”

“They got their justice.”

“‘
tibi hodie mecum eris
in paradiso,
’” said
William. “
True justice belongs to God,
not man. It requires perfect knowledge and perfect love.”

Longinus seemed amused.
“Love for criminals?”

“Without love, there can be
no justice.”

“I followed orders. That was
my duty as Roman soldier.”

“You should have followed the
commandment to love. That was your duty as a child of God.”

“Any man would have done as I did.”

“Not the man you crucified. Christ saved
a woman who was about to be executed. You might have followed his example.”

“Set murderers free to kill
again?”

“No,” said William. “Keep
them in prison until God takes them. A man awaiting execution is alive, as we
are, by the grace of God. Who are we to deny him that grace? If God wants a man
to die, he’ll stop the man’s heart. God is all-powerful. He does not need us to
do his killing for him.”

“But Father,” Giovanni
interrupted, “surely a murderer should be put to death.”

“By whom?”

“An officer of the law.”

“And who will execute the
executioner?”

“No one.”

“A murderer should be
stoned,” said William, “yet stoning itself is murder: ‘
si lapidem iecerit et
ictus occubuerit similiter punietur.
’”

“‘
oculum pro oculo,
’” Giovanni argued.

“‘
mihi vindictam ego
retribuam dicit Dominus,
’”
William shot back.

“I speak of justice, not vengeance.”

“An eye for an eye,
Giovanni? Is that truly what you believe: that you should do to others what
they have done to you? If a man plucks out your eye, you pluck out his eye? If
he kills your family, you kill his family? If he rapes your daughter, you rape
his daughter? That’s not justice. That’s a perpetuation of evil.”

As William and Giovanni
argued, Marco saw three bearded knights step out of the bloodbath. They looked
familiar. He had seen these men before, but could not remember where. They
called to him in turns.

“Marco da Roma!”

“Marco da Roma!”

“Marco da Roma!

“Do I know you?” Marco
asked.

“We know you.”

Marco said, “Speak your
names.”

“Hughes de Payen.”

“Gerard de Ridefort.”

“Jacques de Molay.”

He remembered them now.
These men were grandmasters of the Knights Templar.

“Our blood is on your
hands,” said Jacques de Molay.

“No.” Marco looked down at
his hands, scarlet and wet. He tried to wipe them clean on his tunic, to no
avail.

“You tricked us—”

“Betrayed us—”

“Lied to us—”

Marco said, “You’re
mistaken.”

“You destroyed the
brotherhood—”

“Fractured the
fraternity—”

“Brought chaos to our
order.”

Marco shook his head and
took a step back. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“Brutus!”

“Cassius!”

“Judas!”

“No!”

Marco ran from the
riverbank. The other knights gave chase. The centaurs, seeing the
blood-drenched Templars flee the river, raised their crossbows and let fly a
flurry of arrows. Hughes de Payen was hit first, then the other two. Marco
thought he might escape, but the arrows came for him. He was struck in the leg,
the buttocks, the back. He fell, crippled by a dozen bolts, and the grey air
went black.

Nadja felt a shudder in her
heart.
No. He can’t be dead.
She ran for him, with William and Giovanni close behind her. The
centaurs galloped after, reloading their crossbows. Nadja picked up the Lance
as William and Giovanni each grabbed one of Marco’s arms and dragged him to the
edge of a dark wood, leaving a smear of blood like a brushstroke over the rocky
canvas. Glancing back, Nadja saw centaurs hauling the Templars back into the
river. Another came for Marco, charging fast.

The forest was too far.
We’ll
never make it.
She held
the Holy Lance in her hand. It thrummed with a power she had never felt before.
It thrilled up her arms and radiated throughout her body. Her fear vanished.
She knew what she had to do.

Stopping, turning, Nadja
pointed the Lance at the charging beast. “Leave him alone!”

The centaur rushed at her.
Nadja braced for the impact, but the beast stopped short and reared up on two
legs, towering above her, his forelegs kicking the air. She jabbed the Lance at
him. He turned, trying to circumvent her, but she stepped into his path,
keeping herself between the centaur and his prey.

“Go away!” she screamed.

The centaur laughed. “You
will not survive the woods.”

He raised his crossbow and
released a bolt over her head. She looked back. Marco was being dragged by his
arms into the trees. The bolt struck him in the back and through the heart.
When Nadja looked forward again, the centaur was riding away.

She ran for the woods,
following Marco’s bloody trail, and found her friends huddled in the dark.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

Marco grunted. “Not yet.” An
arrowhead poked through his chest where his heart was. He pulled the arrow out
the front.

William muttered, “‘
arma
Dei.
’”

They rested at the edge of
the oppressive forest, which creaked and moaned about them. William drew the
arrows from Marco’s flesh. With the blade of the Holy Lance he cauterized the
wounds and set them to healing.

“What is this place?” Marco
asked.

Giovanni said, “The wood of
suicides.”

CHAPTER 28

The eldritch forest was
thick with gnarled and twisted forms. William felt a sense of dread.
She’s
here.

“There must be another way,”
he said.

Marco laughed. “They’re just
trees, Father.”

“Souls,” said Giovanni.
“Suicides.”

“These trees were once
people?” Nadja asked.

The poet nodded.
“Transformed, like the Heliades who wept for their brother.”

“These trees weep only for
themselves,” said William.

Marco rose to his feet with
great effort. The friar helped him up. The knight leaned against a tree trunk,
waived William off, and stared at Nadja.

“What?” she asked.

“The Lance, please.”

She gave it to him. When he
regained the relic, his strength seemed to return. Marco used the weapon as a
staff and, limping, led the pilgrims into the haunt of the hamadryads. They
found no path, but the ground sloped into a valley, giving them a sense of
direction. The temperature dropped. The lancelight shrank from the shadows.

William muttered a psalm: “‘
nam
et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala quoniam tu mecum es....
’”

A harpy darted overhead,
quick as a bat, but with the face of an old hag. Another swooped, and another,
shrieking and cawing with talons poised for bloody vengeance. Marco swung the
Lance, knocking one harpy from the air before the others fled.

William heard a low growl.
The pilgrims stopped to listen. Footsteps rustled on the forest floor.
Something waited beyond the lancelight.

“Hellhounds,” Giovanni said,
needlessly.

Marco led them to the left, pursued by
pawsteps, a hunting pack in the edgy dark beyond discernment. William felt the
urge to bolt, to break from his companions, but he remembered Saint Francis at
Gubbio and thwarted the impulse.

He felt a cold wind. A susurrus of dead
leaves whispered his name in voices he knew.
Father Ignazio? Fat Tom?
These were the men he met in Corona Corvina. He knew
now where he was: in a holt of suicides who had untimbered the town walls and
stepped into the air.

Marco picked up the pace, and soon they
were all running, stumbling, cursing, clawed on all sides by a conspiracy of
branches.

William felt a tug at his sleeve. The
muzzle of a hellhound worried the friar’s robe. William tried to slap the beast
away, but he twisted and collapsed. Shadows claimed him. When he looked up
again the lancelight was gone. He heard panting and slavering. His bare feet
were anointed with drool. He scrambled and lurched into a run, unsure of his
direction
, fending off malevolent brachia until he
could go no further. Embrangled in a thicket that tore at his robe, he
struggled. When his eyes adjusted he saw three hellhounds waiting a short way
off. They did not attack, but blocked his exit.

Above him he saw a jutting
branch. He reached for it, but it was too far. He jumped. The branch reached
down to meet his hand. He grabbed it, pulled himself up, and climbed until he
found a place to sit.
Not bad for an old man.

“William,” said a faint,
familiar voice.

His heart jolted.
Evette.

“William.”

Evette’s voice came through
the trees. She sounded very near.

“William.”

Then he saw it. In the tree
that had rescued him, a twig had snapped, leaving a small hole in the trunk.
Blood bubbled from the hole, giving the tree a voice: “You came back to me.”

“I was chased,” he said.

“But you ran to me.”

Why?
Of course. “I wanted to see you.”

“You rejected me.”