The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (24 page)

She frowned down at him. His question seemed
to startle her as if she had not expected it.

“Why? Would you leave your home? Why should I
die for you?” He asked again and blinked rapidly, trying to clear
the fog from his mind.

Her smile vanished and she looked at him in
alarm.

She had to answer the question. It was
imperative that she answer the question.

“You need me,” she said too quickly. “You are
just ill. You won’t die. You just need my help to get home.”

“I don’t need you.” He tried again to sit up,
but he felt drunk. His hands slipped on the floor and he banged the
back of his head on the marble rectangle behind him. He reached up
slowly, as if he was moving through quicksand and felt the back of
his head. “Women are not allowed. You cannot go there.”

“Your brothers are waiting for you,” she told
him. Her tone had changed. It was no longer soothing. “Tell me
where the meetings are held and I will take you to them. Please,
Mark! Tell me.”

“I have no brothers. My brother is dead. The
woman killed him,” he said as his confusion turned to anger. The
wind picked up and the candles began to go out one by one. She
moved away from him.

“I won’t do it, Cecile!” she shouted. “I’m
not going to do it!”

“Merry!” he called to her as she hurried down
the steps.

The wind picked up leaves and dust, swirling
them into the building around him. He pushed himself up shakily and
then leaned against the altar. Altar! An altar! Of course, he was
in the gazebo again. This was their meeting place. He pushed off
the thing and lurched after her, down the steps as the first flash
of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder rumbled across the landscape
bumping and bouncing off the boulders on the hillside above the
garden.

The Pixie ran down the brick path toward the
house, leaving him! Her white dress whipped about her legs as the
sudden summer storm whipped the tops of the cedars and oaks. Mark
missed the top step and ended up on the brick walkway on his hands
and knees.

“Merry! Wait!” he shouted after her, but she
did not look back. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

He could not gain his feet. His legs would
not hold him up. He half-crawled after her along the walk. The
effort was too much. He stopped and then focused on a pair of black
boots in front of his face. Not Merry. With an effort that drew an
audible groan from his lips, he looked up. Valentino stood over him
holding a broadsword that resembled a frozen flame. The Golden
Sword of the Cherubim! He recognized it immediately. The lightening
reflected off the golden, double-edged blade and the air filled
with the smell of ozone. He managed to sit back on his heels and
frowned up at her in total confusion. Where had she come from?
Where had she gotten the Flaming Sword?

It was his sword!

The first drops of rain spattered down into
his upturned face. He blinked as the rain came down harder and
harder, drenching him to the skin almost instantly.

“You have profaned the temple!” she shouted
at him. The rain poured over her, soaking her dark hair and running
down her face in rivulets.

“Meredith!” he shouted again and tried to
look around the woman.

“You have disgraced your order! You have
broken your vows!” Valentino shouted at him above the roar of the
wind and the rain.

“My sword,” he gasped in the cold rain. “Give
it to me…. please.” He had to be nice to her.

“What is the purpose of the Flaming Sword,
Sir Ramsay?” she asked.

“The Flaming Sword of the Cherubim guards the
way to the Tree of Life,” his words came easier now. But his heart
was racing with fear and anger. The sword was dangerous. He had to
have the sword. Why did she have his sword? Why had Merry left
him?

“And how would you use it?” she asked him,
blinking back the water.

“To slay any who would profane the Temple,”
he answered rotely, without thinking.

“And of what temple do you speak?” The heavy
sword wavered in her grip and she wrapped her other hand around the
hilt to keep it aloft.

“The Temple of Solomon.”

The lowered his head and felt as if he were
choking to death or drowning. The rain beat down on his head and he
shivered uncontrollably.

“And who is the Tree of Life?”

“Edgard d’Brouchart, Keeper of the Secrets of
Sherma and of the Secrets of King Solomon the Wise. Holder of the
Fruit of the Tree of Life.”

“And where is the Tree of Life?” she
continued to ask questions. The answers came to him automatically.
He raised his face again. Who was this woman? What did she know of
the Temple?

“In the Temple,” he answered in spite of
himself. “The Master is the Temple.”

He lowered his head again, gasping for
breath. The sight of an ancient Roman Villa filled his vision. A
long dark table with a white circle with a red cross in the center
and an up-ended golden goblet with the letters IAAT inscribed on
its side. Wine spilled across the surface of the table. A dark man
dressed in black pounded the table with his fist. Mark Andrew
covered his ears at the sound of the man’s deep laughter and
squeezed his eyes shut against the sight of the cup. Death! Death!
The Knight of the Apocalypse! The Knight of the Apocalypse was in
his mind. He pressed his hands against his ears.

The woman was screaming at him “Where is the
Temple?!”

He put his hands against the bricks and
launched himself at her with what strength he had left. She lowered
the sword at precisely the right moment and he impaled himself very
neatly on it. The blade cut through him effortlessly, as well as,
painlessly… at first. The realization of what he had done struck
him at the same instant as the pain. He looked up in astonishment
at the woman who stepped back with a pleased look on her face.
Blood ran down his stomach mixed with the rainwater and washed
across the bricks at his knees. Mark Andrew grasped the hilt of the
sword in both hands and pulled against it fruitlessly. He knew that
the blade had passed completely through him. A futile effort to
pull on it only caused more pain though he was unable to scream,
unable to speak. He felt himself falling and then nothing.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Mark Andrew woke suddenly and rudely,
fighting his pillow. He was on his hands and knees in the bed and
the pillow was unarmed. He flung it to the floor and climbed out of
the bed. Broad daylight. What had happened to the storm? He felt
his hair. Dry. He pulled up his shirt and looked at his stomach. No
wound. No pain. No new scar.

The blade had been so real. He had felt the
pain very distinctly. The only thing he felt now was the usual
hunger pangs and he wondered if it were the next day or the same
day or a week later. Why had she drugged him again? The dream had
been terrible, but he remembered it with crystal clarity. Every
word, every move. All the questions. And he had answered every one.
The Flaming Sword of the Cherubim. His sword. The sword he used to
kill his Brothers. His Brothers. He used the sword to kill his
Brothers! They would be coming for him. He had broken his vows. He
was a disgrace to the order. He had profaned the Temple and he was
in despair.

When he had sufficiently collected his wits,
he went into the bathroom and splashed water in his face. He was
not feeling superior or contemptuous. He was afraid. Not of
Valentino, but of Edgard d’Brouchart and Konrad von Hetz, the
Apocalyptic Knight. They would want to know if he had found
Anthony. They would want to know what he had been doing. They would
want to know why he had broken his vows and how would he explain to
them that he was falling in love… nay, already fallen in love with
a woman? It was not negotiable. It could not be tolerated. It was
too dangerous. They would never allow it.

But who were they?

His memories were still incomplete. There
were huge gaps and holes in it. He knew who the Grand Master was
now and he knew the other one, the dark one, but he knew very
little else about the mission other than that he was supposed to
locate Anthony and bring him back, alive or dead. Back to where? To
the Roman Villa near Pompeii, of course. At least some questions
had been answered for him as well as Cecile Valentino.

Much of what he had lost had returned, but
along with it he also knew that someone was coming for him and he
didn’t want them to find him. Not yet. He had not completed his
mission. Whatever all this insanity about the Tree of Life was, he
wanted no part of it. He didn’t want to have anything to do with
Valentino and her batch of lunatics and he certainly wanted to
avoid the Grand Master and his deadly Knight of the Apocalypse
until he could report that his mission had been accomplished. After
that, he would quit the Order and take Merry very far away from all
this. But what he wanted and what was possible were two very
different things. It had always been so and deep within his muddled
mind he knew this beyond all else. He would have to try to complete
his mission even though he felt broken and defeated. If he could do
anything for Merry, he would. As all these thoughts were passing
through his head, he heard the key in the lock at his door.

The balding little weasel entered the room
cautiously and looked about. When he spied Mark standing in the
bathroom door, he hurried forward to greet him and Mark neatly
side-stepped the kiss.

“Brother Ramsay,” the man said breathlessly.
“I have arranged everything. We will leave tonight after
dinner.”

“After dinner,” Mark nodded and his stomach
growled. “Good. Where will we go?”

“To the Temple, of course,” the man told him
brightly.

“Of course. And when is dinner?” Mark was
more interested in food than playing Valentino’s games.

“Six o’clock,” the man told him.

“Do you have a name, Brother?”

“John Tellman,” the man stuck out his hand
and Mark took a step back before realizing he wanted to shake
hands. He took the man’s clammy hand in his and then cringed as the
man planted another kiss on his lips like lightning. He suffered
the kiss with a grimace and let go of the hand, shuddering
visibly.

“Should I pack, John?” he asked
idiotically.

“If you like, sir,” the man shrugged. “Just
be ready after dinner.”

“I will be,” Mark nodded. He would be ready.
Ready for most anything.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

While Ramsay was pacing the floor in his
bedroom upstairs, trying to organize his thoughts and new memories
in his muddled head, Valentino was pacing the floor in front of the
big windows in the library below him. Maxie stood behind one of the
leather armchairs watching her apprehensively, ready to duck any
miscellaneous flying objects. Merry sat on the sofa with her head
back on the cushion, staring up at the ceiling. Every now and again
Valentino would stop pacing to beat her fist on her own head or her
leg or whatever was within reach before continuing her ranting.
This was how she organized her thoughts. Her two companions waited
patiently.

She stopped and pressed both of her hands
against the sides of her head.

“It almost worked, by God,” she said for the
umpteenth time. “Merry, if only you hadn’t run off like a scared
rabbit, we would have succeeded. He was right on the verge of
telling me everything when he saw the sword. Now I have to use that
stupid fool, Tellman.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” Merry told her
again. “You didn’t tell me he would be asking questions. I don’t
like this, Cecile. Someone could get hurt and I don’t like what
you’re doing. You killed him again!”

“Shush now. I didn’t really kill him. I just
made him think so. Did you see any blood on him when we brought him
in? No! No, you didn’t. He just thought he was dead. Do you
understand what that means, little girl? I just presented the idea
to him and he reacted. He really did respond to my hypnosis after
all,” Cecile asked her and there was an insane glow in her eyes.
“It means that he can think himself to death! No pulse, no
respiration. Intriguing! Now look, we’ve been through all this
already. We were so close and now we’ve lost two more days,”
Valentino started pacing again. “I can’t believe he was able to get
up and crawl away with all the drugs I gave him. He should have
been dead from the drugs alone, but when he thought that sword was
in him, he really died!”

“Yeah, he was dead all right,” Maxie agreed.
His face was pasty. He’d been drunk for almost twenty-four hours
and he still didn’t understand what was going on. “What did you say
to him? It looked like you stabbed him or something.”

Maxie had begrudgingly helped them carry
Ramsay’s lifeless body upstairs and waited while Merry cleaned him
up. The man had been dead. Whatever Valentino was up to, he had no
idea. He’d never believed the immortality bullshit, but he’d seen
him take his last breath on the path in the garden and he’d seen
him take his first breath in the house a few minutes later. Like
Jesus coming back from the Cross. It was too weird. Maxie was
thinking of dragging up and heading west.

“I didn’t stab him. He did it to himself,”
she argued. “I guess his mind is stronger than I had given him
credit for.” She stopped and laughed. “You should have seen his
face when he realized what he had done. He wasn’t so smart and
macho then, but damn, that scared the shit out of me. I guess you
have to cut out their hearts or maybe cut off their heads or
something like vampires. There has to be a trick to it. I mean
keeping them dead.”

“You’re sick,” Merry mumbled and looked away
from them out the window. “Both of you.”

“Hey, don’t put me off in this bullshit,”
Maxie retorted and made his way behind Valentino’s bar, looking for
a shot of whiskey to bolster his courage.