Shades of Blood and Darkness (Templar Chronicles Missions eNovella #1) (3 page)

The drained, lifeless husk that is left behind after such a theft had become the Ch'iang shih's signature the world over. No other creature left such evidence of its passing in their wake, making them easily identifiable for hunters like Cade's team.

Identifying them was the easy part.

Finding and defeating them was another matter entirely.

Leaving Olsen on guard, Riley and Cade did a more thorough search of the church, looking for anything that might indicate what had happened to the missing advance team, Bishop, or the church staff.

After an hour of searching, they came up empty-handed.

Which left the body itself and the need for more drastic measures.

Cade bent over and examined the corpse on the altar before him. The priest had clearly been middle-aged; his thinning gray hair and liver spotted skin gave evidence to that. A close look at the shrunken flesh of the right side of his face revealed a large bruise. The black cloth of his shirt and pants was ripped and tattered in certain places, mainly about the arms and lower legs.

Cade removed his gloves and placed them in his pocket. He checked to be certain his men had control of the situation, receiving a nod of confirmation from each of them, and then turned back to face the altar.

It was time to go to work.

There was no way Cade was going to use his Talent on the body itself. The priest had no doubt suffered greatly at the hands of the Ch'iang shih and Cade had no desire to relive any of that experience, not like that. Instead, he was going to take a reading from the surface of the altar itself, in the hopes that it would filter enough of the horror out of the encounter to allow him to understand just what had happened here.

Cade took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the task ahead. Using his Talent was never easy. It physically drained him of energy at an alarming rate, leaving him weak and disoriented for several long minutes afterward. The need to constantly guard against being overwhelmed by another's thoughts and emotions made it mentally demanding as well. Staying immersed too long in the flow made it difficult for him to regain his own identity, and though he had never tested the theory for obvious reasons, Cade believed that his physical form could be affected by what he was seeing through his Gift as well.

When he was ready, he reached out and laid his palms flat on the altar's surface.

Hands.

Hands carrying him, perversely caressing him, while others seize hold of his arms and legs and haul him bodily into the air.

Our Father, who art in heaven…

Movement, the whisper of bodies parting to get out of the way, a low murmuring of anticipation filling the air.

He’s dropped onto a hard surface (the altar?) and his limbs are pulled out and away from his body, his captors’ claws clicking against each other as they expose the skin of his wrists and legs.

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with me…

The cloying scent of rancid meat hangs in the air.

More hands seize his face, forcing his jaws open, the taste of something metallic as an object is shoved into his mouth while gnarled fingers snatch at his tongue.

Pain, terrible pain, as his blood flows freely, filling his mouth…

With a sudden cry Cade snatched his hands away from the altar top, the coppery taste of phantom blood sharp in his mouth. His turned his head and spat on the carpet to clear it.

When he looked up, Riley and Olsen were staring at him expectantly.

"Vamps, all right," he told them, as he pulled his gloves back on. “A lot of them. And they left us a calling card." Cade reached out, held the corpse across the forehead with one hand and, with the other, yanked the pieces of duct tape off the corpse's mouth. The man's mouth remained locked open, so Cade peered inside and then reached in with two fingers to draw something out.

Cade held the object out for the other men to see.

It was a gold signet ring set with a ruby stone in the shape of a cross. It was identical to the ring that each team member wore on their right hands, the same rings they were given on the night of their initiation into the Order. On the reverse side, directly beneath the stone, were the initials JKB.

"Bishop's ring," Cade said.

Riley swore.

Cade handed the ring to him, removed the glove on his right hand and then extended that hand back toward his team-mate again.

"You sure you want to do that, boss?" Riley asked.

Cade nodded. “We don't have any other choice. They obviously want us to know they have Bishop. The ring might be able to tell us if he is still alive, and if he is, where they might be keeping him."

Shaking his head in resignation, Riley gently dropped the ring into his team-mate's open palm.

This time, Cade's Talent was a bit more generous.

Pain.

A deep, throbbing pain that pulsed in his left side, right where the vamps had slashed him with his own weapon. He knew he was still bleeding; the wet trickle that marched down his ribcage and under the waistband of his pants clearly told that story. His right wrist hurt as well, where two of the vamps had locked their vile mouths on his flesh before their leader had stopped them from draining him dry.

He was bone-weary, evidence that the two junior vamps had taken a fair amount of life force from him before the stronger one had intervened. Still, he was alive, and while he was he had no doubt that his team would make an effort to rescue him.

Which meant he had to stay that way until they could get to him.

He knew he was in the warehouse district; he’d seen as much when they'd grabbed him at the church. While he’d been unable to determine the exact location of the building to which they had brought him, he had been able to catch a glimpse of the sign out front. "Markhams Slaught.." was all he’d been able to see before they’d dragged him inside.

A quick search of a phone book was all Cade and the others needed after that.

Markhams Slaughterhouse was located on South 52nd Avenue, near the intersection with Grand. Olsen went out to the car and returned with his computer equipment. Using coordinates from a GPS device and some mapping software, he quickly pinpointed the exact location of the warehouse in relation to their current position. It was less than fifteen minutes away.

Neither Jones nor Riley were surprised when Cade suggested they head directly for the warehouse. The fact that Cade had “read“ anything at all off of Bishop's ring meant that he had been wearing it sometime in the last forty-eight hours, for this was how long any given object could retain the psychic impressions imprinted on it. While forty-eight hours was a long time to be trapped in the hands of the Ch’iang shih, the possibility remained that their team-mate was still alive.

They couldn’t take the chance and leave him to the vamps mercy.

They had to try to get him out, as he had known they would.

Cade had no intention of going into a nest of vamps without someone knowing what had happened to them, however. Using Bishop’s computer equipment, he sent a coded email directly to the Preceptor, informing him of everything that had occurred so far and letting him know what they planned to do next. If they did not return, at least the Order would have the information amassed to date and could plan an appropriate response to the situation.

Cade had every intention of surviving, but it never hurt to be prepared.

*** ***

The warehouse seemed to be deserted.

Cade and his fellow knights stood just inside the entrance, their weapons held ready for use. The cavernous interior of the warehouse stretched away before them, illuminated by a series of old arc lights strung across the ceiling. A few piles of discarded crates and equipment lay in the far corners of the room.

One of the lights shone down directly on the bruised and bloody face of a man whose slumped body was tied to a support pole halfway across the room.

Bishop.

Cade looked carefully around the interior of the warehouse, searching for any sign of movement either in the shadows that lined the walls or among the rafters and catwalks that stretched high overhead.

Nothing moved.

With Jones and Bishop ready to provide covering fire, the three men cautiously made their way across to their fallen companion. While the others stood guard, Cade knelt down beside the pole and gently touched Bishop’s face. The man’s skin was icy cold.

They had gotten here too late.

Keeping one arm around his team-mate’s body, Cade leaned around the back of the pole and cut through the cords that bound the body to it with his knife. With its support suddenly released, Bishop’s corpse slumped against him. Cade gently eased Bishop onto his back on the floor.

Just to be certain, Cade leaned in close and listened for a heartbeat.

All he heard was silence.

Cade raised his head and looked down at his team-mate’s dead face, burning it into his memory, another victim he would now have to avenge.

Bishop’s eyes suddenly popped open.

His gaze met Cade’s confused one and a wicked grin scurried across his lips.

"Sorry, boss," he said, without a touch of remorse, and his hand whipped around toward his former leader, a razor sharp set of talons extending from his fingertips and seeking Cade’s face.

At that exact moment, most likely the result of some undisclosed prearranged signal, the rafters suddenly vomited a scurrying, seething horde of ravenous creatures that descended the walls with spider-like grace and came rushing across the warehouse floor toward Olsen and Riley.

"It’s a trap!" Cade yelled, throwing himself away from Bishop and out of reach of those deadly claws.

His warning was unnecessary, however, for Olsen had already caught sight of the swarming horde. Without hesitation the Templar opened fire with his MP 5, pouring 800 rounds per minute into his foes. Riley followed suit, his combat Mossberg booming in the echoing confines of the warehouse in sharp contrast to the buzz of Olsen’ weapon.

Cade rolled away from his opponent and came up in a crouch, his pistol held securely in his right hand. He could see that Bishop had already risen to his feet and was snarling in rage at having missed his target.

As his enemy came charging toward him, Cade triggered his Sight.

In the Beyond, the warehouse was a darker, more ominous place, full of the shadows of pain and suffering caused by the slave-driving mentality of its owners. Here, the true nature of the team’s attackers also revealed themselves, as their thirst for the team’s life force was an almost physical presence pulsing out from them in waves of need and desire.

There was no mistaking the fact that the warehouse was full of very hungry Ch’iang shih.

Nor was there any doubt as to what had happened to Bishop.

Cade calmly noted his former team-mates’ altered condition - his savage hunger, his unholy rage, and his dual existence in both the real world and in the Beyond - and then he was out of time. As his formed team-mate rushed in to savage him, Cade fired point blank into the man’s face.

Bishop went down, hard, with a bullet hole just beneath his right eye.

In the fifteen seconds it had taken Cade to dispense with Bishop, Olsen and Riley had littered the warehouse floor with vamp bodies. The staccato stutter of Olsen’ weapon was interspersed with the booming tones of Riley', but still more of the creatures swarmed off the rafters high above and charged toward them. Worse yet, many of those who had gone down were now starting to get back up.

While Bram Stokers’ fictitious creations had access to regenerative powers, the Chaing ’shih did not. Yet such powers were not really necessary, for their bodies were really nothing more than animated corpses give new life by the hunger and desire of their souls. As such, bullets, even high powered ones from a weapon like Olsen’ MP5, did little to actually stop them. Those Chaing ’shih who had gone down under the Templars’ onslaught did so more from the sheer velocity of the striking ammunition than from any physical harm the bullet might have caused them. A bullet hole to the chest was of little concern for an undead creature and was nothing more than a few moments worth of inconvenience as they were knocked off their feet.

Cade quickly took in the situation. “Go for their legs, “ he yelled to the others. When it appeared they did not hear him, he stepped up between them and directed his own fire at the legs of his opponents. It only took a moment before his companions caught on to what he was doing and followed suit.

The warehouse was filled with a cacophony of sound; the bark of Cade’s handgun, the booming sound of Billing’s shotgun, the shrieks and wails of the Chaing ’shih as they were cut down in mid-step by the precision shots of the knights. Conversation between Cade and his men was next to hopeless. It was only the steady training and discipline that Cade enforced on his team that allowed them to operate as a cohesive unit even in the face of such an overwhelming assault. As one man’s weapon would run dry, the others would step up their volume of firepower, allowing him to reload and rejoin the fray.

Soon, however, their supply of ammunition began to dwindle and then disappeared altogether.

As one, the knights dropped their weapons and drew their swords. The vamps closed in, anticipating an easier time of things now, only to discover that the knights’ still had plenty of bite left to them.

In the face of the savagery of the knights’ defense, the vamps retreated to the darkness among the machinery in the far corner of the warehouse. Those wounded that could walk followed suit, while still others, unable to walk due to shattered legs and kneecaps, used their arms to drag themselves along the floor in pursuit.

The three knights took a moment to catch their breath.

"Bishop’s gone," Jones said matter-of-factly as he kicked a still twitching forearm away from his boots.

Having already written off his former teammate, Cade glanced over to his right where he had left Bishop’s body before joining the fray. That section of floor space was empty. Jones was right; Bishop was gone. But had he gotten up of his own accord or been dragged away by his comrades?