Rift (9 page)

The dagger hit its mark, tearing flesh and crunching through bone. The thing’s gargling screech became a whine. Its body jerked and then went still, all its weight dropping against her.

Ember shoved the creature’s limp form off and rolled over onto her hands and feet. She gasped, gulping air as if there would never be enough of it. Then she began to sob. Her muscles trembled as she tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t support her.

Another groan reached her ears. Ember bowed her head, closing her eyes, waiting for the creature to overpower her. But no other sound followed. No scuffling. No wheezing.

She looked up and saw light where there had been none. A river of sunshine poured down a straight, narrow staircase different from the spiraling steps by which she’d entered the cellar. Fighting for control of her trembling limbs, she crawled to the base of the stairs.

SIX

EMBER HALF RAN,
half climbed up the stone steps. Her hands were shaking, but she refused to let go of the dagger as she pulled herself forward. The creature’s blood painted her pale skin crimson, warm red liquid sliding from her fingers to her wrists.

She staggered through the doorway at the top of the stairs. Warmth and light surrounded her, pressing back the nightmare of the cellar. She whirled, raising the dagger to strike, when she heard the door shut and lock.

A figure in a cowled brown robe raised his hands. “Peace, Lady Morrow. You’re safe now.”

Ember recognized the weathered-face priest from the ceremony.

“God bless you, my child,” Father Michael said. He touched her forehead, making the shape of the cross. Water dripped down her brow. “You have completed your ordeal.”

“Father.” Ember fell to her knees, her voice rasping. She finally unclenched her fingers from the dagger, which clattered onto the stone floor. “That thing . . . I don’t understand what happened.”

Father Michael bent down, retrieving the weapon and depositing it beneath the folds of his robe. “We see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, but we shall see face-to-face. Where you have known in part, now you shall know fully.” The priest reached out, helping her to her feet. Ember recognized his words as scripture but could make no sense of their meaning.

He took her arm, leading her away from the closed door and the horror it hid. As shock loosened its grip on her senses, Ember lifted her face to the light that streamed in through tall windows. The stained glass transformed sunbeams, washing the dark wood of the walls in gem-like tones. Father Michael guided her from the small antechamber into a long, narrow room filled with rows of wooden benches. At the far end of the room, an altar was stationed beneath another stained glass window, this one large and round. Suspended within the bright colors was an angel, his face proud and unyielding, his hands bearing fiery swords.

“My namesake,” the priest said, looking up at the window with a brief smile. “The archangel Michael who cast Lucifer out of heaven.”

Ember simply nodded as they passed from the chapel into another, smaller space that held a table and chairs and a simple wooden pallet.

“My humble quarters.” Father Michael gestured for her to sit. A cup of steaming liquid sat on the table and the priest pushed it in front of Ember when she settled into her chair.

“A simple herbal tonic,” he said. “It will calm your nerves and your spirit.”

Ember took the cup in her hands, sniffing before she took a sip. She recognized chamomile, lavender, and mint. When she drank, the tonic chased lingering chills from her body.

“Where are the other initiates?” she asked. “Didn’t they have trials?”

He smiled kindly. “Yes. A trial awaited each of the pledges. But you alone chose the office of war, which requires a more dangerous and frightening ordeal than that of knowledge or craft. I’m here because I wanted to offer you assurance that such a trial was necessary and to be certain that, having faced the darkness, you are still fixed upon this path.”

Ember didn’t know what to say, so she settled for drinking more of the tonic.

“You have many more questions, I’m sure,” Father Michael said. “And I will now do my best to answer them.”

He seemed prepared to speak to her fears, so Ember waited and listened.

“What happened in the cellar was the means by which you will know the purpose of Conatus,” he said. “And the tasks of the Guard in particular.”

He crossed the room, hands clasped at his back. “We seek to emulate Michael’s work. To drive evil from the earth.”

Ember took another draught of the tonic. “That creature in the cellar. It was evil . . . unnatural.”

He nodded.

“What was it?” she asked.

“A revenant,” the priest told her. “The foul pet of a necromancer.”

“One who raises the dead?” Ember asked. “Can someone truly wield such power?”

Father Michael sighed. “While it is often creatures of darkness you will face, in truth it is their masters we must thwart: those who draw evil into our world to feed their hunger for power.”

“Who are they?” Ember’s mind reeled. She knew of witches’ curses and mischievous spirits but only in the way that children fear what hides in shadow.

“They have many names, none of which I suspect are true: wizards, witches, sorcerers, magicians. There are few who find a way to draw the dark, but enough to manifest evils that harm many,” he said. “Our work here is to seek them out and quell their evildoing.”

“How do you find them?” she asked.

“Sadly, it is often following in the wake of violence left by their minions.” Father Michael bowed his head. “We are hunters chasing a trail of blood. By the grace of God, I would we had the means to set snares and stop them before they wreak havoc on innocents.”

Ember sat quietly, letting his words sink in.

Father Michael watched her. “Now a choice belongs to you, Lady Morrow.”

“And what is my choice?” she asked.

“We ask none to serve against his or her will,” the priest said. “Our work, continuing the war waged by Michael and God’s army against the rising darkness, is too dangerous and too vital to be done with doubt or hesitation. If you give your life to the Conatus Guard, you forsake all else. The comforts of family and the flesh will be denied you. Your body, your will, and your spirit shall belong to us and to this fight. But the war is not only waged by sword. You saw the other rooms, but chose war. I ask you now to affirm your choice, lest in doubt you balk in your service, putting our cause at risk.”

Ember met the priest’s kind gaze, finding no judgment, hope, or expectation, only kindness and patience. She could walk away from the violence she’d chosen by walking through war’s doorway. The stink of death that pursued her in the cellar would be forgotten.

It had been horrible, yes, but something else as well. Ember shivered with the thrill of it. She’d been pitched into darkness to face an unnameable terror. And she’d won. Her blood sang with that knowledge.

“How did you come to fight these creatures?” she asked.

Father Michael leaned back in his chair. “You know of the Templars. The knights of faith, born out of the Crusades and sanctioned by the pope himself.”

Ember nodded though unease slithered over her limbs, muting some of her excitement. Talk of the Templars offered no comfort. It had been nearly one hundred years since those knights, however renowned, had met a terrible end. An end filled with betrayals. Sins punished by fire.

“But they are no more,” Ember said quietly.

The priest shook his head slowly. “When the servant grows too strong, too willful to offer his master obeisance, the master will sometimes destroy the servant to save himself.”

Her eyes widened; it was more than a little startling to hear a priest suggest that the Templars had become more powerful than the pope.

At the sight of her shocked face, Father Michael laughed. “You think I blaspheme, child?”

She blushed, looking at her hands, which were folded yet trembling on the table’s surface.

“Do not fear, Lady Morrow,” he said. “I do not speak ill of the Holy Father, only of the nature of power. A nature that does not lend itself to sharing.”

When she didn’t reply, Father Michael said, “Conatus was born within the Templar order. Where the knights pursued the conquest of the Holy Land, our small contingent confronted the secrets of the arcane, the mysteries beyond the veil.”

Ember swallowed the thickness in her throat. She had so many questions but no idea how to voice them. Their shapes remained unwieldy in her mind.

The priest’s gaze was sympathetic. “The Church teaches of evil spirits, of darkness and the craft of witches and sorcerers.”

Ember nodded, hardly able to draw a breath in her eagerness to hear the story.

“The Crusades offered the means by which we might tap into the very font of that knowledge and harness it for good,” he said.

“Why?” Ember frowned.

“Conatus emerged when a few of the knights learned the secrets and wisdom of our Saracen counterparts,” he said.

Ember jolted upright in her seat. “The heathens?”

The priest held up his hand. “What makes our order unique is that we place the value of good over evil. The pope himself agreed.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Encounters in the East did not always end in bloodshed,” Father Michael answered. “And we’ve learned a great deal from the holy texts of our adversaries. For example, did you know that King Solomon had the power to command devils?”

Ember barely stopped herself from laughing. Only the calm, serious eyes of Father Michael choked off the mirth trying to rise in her throat.

He held her gaze. “‘He subjected the wind to him, so that it blew softly at his bidding wherever he directed it, and the devils too, among whom were builders and diverse others and bound with chains.’”

“What words do you speak?” She frowned.

“Those of the holy text of our adversaries in the East,” he said. “One that contains many mysteries of which we must learn.”

Ember’s frown deepened. “What mysteries?”

“Perhaps you think of spirits, demons, and witches as frightening tales spun for children?” He stood up, clasping his hands behind his back. “I trust that your trial in the cellar made you see the truth.”

Ember’s pulse began to thrum again. Father Michael was right. Hadn’t she just faced an unfathomable horror in the darkness below? The revenant had been a creature of nightmares, not anything she would have believed part of creation except for her life-and-death struggle with it. This was the war. And it was incredible.

“King Solomon, in his wisdom, could harness dark forces without letting them corrupt him.” Father Michael paced beside her. “But his spirit was a rare thing. We know that from some other place, some dark place, monstrous beings thrive. Sometimes the beasts steal into our world, corrupting everything they touch. Some arrive of their own free will, hunting poor souls who stray across their path. But others are summoned at the will and power of the prideful wizard, witch, or sorcerer who believes himself able to command the dark.”

The priest stopped in front of Ember, leaning down so his gaze pierced into her. “The wandering evil is the prey we hunt and slay. But the true mission of Conatus is to find those evildoers who willfully bring these monsters into our world.”

“You hunt witches?” She watched Father Michael in amazement.

He smiled. “Among other things.

“The affairs of men are filled with blood, violence, and sin.” Father Michael straightened, turning partly away from her. “That cannot be helped, for we are a fallen people in need of redemption. But to invite more darkness, unnatural evil, into our midst—that is a sin greater than any other. It must be stopped. Conatus serves that purpose.”

“And the Church?” Ember asked, remembering the fate of the Templars.

Father Michael nodded. “When the Templars were disbanded, and many of their number executed for heresy, Conatus was unharmed, but hidden. The Church knows that our work in the mysteries of the spirit world remains essential. We deal not in the world of men, but the world of darkness and demons. Our war is endless, and our enemy cannot be allowed to go unchecked. And we do not sojourn alone. The evil we fight overspreads the world. Our allies do as well. Lukasz joined us as a token of goodwill from our brothers in the East. And we benefit from the continued studies of our counterparts in the Holy Land.”

Ember was shaking her head. “Are you saying you still rely on the knowledge of the Saracens?”

“Any wisdom that lights the darkness we face cannot be ignored, no matter the source,” he said. “The libraries of our sometime enemies boast stores of knowledge far older and broader than any found in Christendom. The roots of our order lie in the Holy Land. Did you recognize the tree in the great hall?”

“No,” Ember said. “But it’s beautiful.”

“An exceptional tree with an exceptional purpose,” Father Michael told her. “That tree was carried by Templars from the Holy Land and planted here over one hundred years ago. It is a cedar of Lebanon. Each year we renew our fealty to serving the earth and seeking knowledge of its mysteries and sharing that knowledge with our brothers and sisters of Conatus near and far. The tree is the symbol of that commitment.”