The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (38 page)

“You are in no position to sit and quote
scriptures to me,” she retorted hotly. “If I were you, I’d pray for
a miracle instead.”

With that final declaration she left him and
Maxie followed her out. He heard the precious key turn in the lock.
The key that had been within his grasp so many times. He shook his
head at his own stupidity.

“I was talking to myself,” he spoke to the
empty room in frustration.

“And yet she was right, Brother Ramsay,” a
deep voice from behind him, made his heart almost stop.

He twisted his head to see who was coming to
kill him now. The closet door stood open and one of the dark
figures from his dream stood looking down his long nose at him. The
man wore black from head to toe and tall black boots. A broadsword
encased in a black leather scabbard hung from his belt and he wore
a long cloak on his shoulders. His craggy face was dark of demeanor
and his eyes seemed to gleam from deep sockets. His long, dark hair
was streaked with silver. He looked like a vampire or an ancient
sorcerer. Konrad von Hetz. Knight of the Apocalypse. An
unforgiving, brooding man with little to offer in the way of hope.
“Pray you should, before it is too late.”

Ramsay sat perfectly still, awaiting his
fate, waiting for his heart to start beating again. The man drew
the sword and he winced at the sound the blade made as it exited
the scabbard. A disturbingly familiar, zinging sound. The
bell-shaped hilt was configured in the likeness of a coiled black
dragon with red eyes. He drew what he thought to be his last breath
with his head still attached to his body and instinctively closed
his eyes, waiting for the blow to fall.

Instead of finding his head on the floor, he
felt pressure on the ropes at his bare ankles. He opened his eyes
and saw the dark Knight kneeling in front of him, cutting the ropes
with the blade. The man stood up and bent over the handcuff
attached to his right wrist, inspecting the device briefly, before
pulling a chain with a number of small metal devices attached to it
from under his collar. Mark watched in silence as the man worked on
the lock. Within a few seconds he was free.

The man backed off quickly and pointed the
sword at him.

“Get your boots and your shirt.”

Mark hurriedly followed the instructions,
noticing that his boots were remarkably similar to the pair his
‘rescuer’ wore. “I thought you were going to kill me,” he commented
dryly as he sat on the bed, pulling them on.

“That could be in the offing, Brother,” the
dark man told him solemnly.

“How long have you been in my closet?”

“Since before breakfast. I came while you
were enjoying your shower.”

“That long?” Ramsay felt his temper rising.
“Who are you? What do you want?”

“You know who I am, Brother Ramsay.” The man
shrugged slightly and then placed the point of the blade under his
chin and knelt on one knee in front of him. “I have come to offer
my help. You are in grave danger here and I believe that you are
well aware of it.”

Mark raised his eyebrows. This was an odd bit
of irony coming from a man pressing a wicked blade against his
throat.

“So I see,” Mark said quietly trying not to
move his head.

“Come with me. We have to hurry.”

The man stood up and turned on his heel
toward the door.

“What about John Tellman?” Mark asked as he
joined him at the door and then wondered why. John Tellman was
Cecile’s accomplice. Nothing more. He had to get these things
straight in his mind. John Tellman was not a Templar, but Konrad
von Hetz was.

“Who is John Tellman?” The man frowned down
at him as he tried the door knob. He bent in front of the door and
used the same probe that he had used on the handcuffs to open the
door. So simple! He had to learn how to do that.

“Another who calls himself my brother,” he
continued in the same vein simply to have something to say. An
attempt to distract the Knight from his purpose. When lost, stay
lost until someone finds you. That was his motto.

“Where is your sword? Still in the basement?”
the man asked as he opened the door wider and peered cautiously
into the hallway. He seemed totally unconcerned about John
Tellman.

“I suppose so,” Mark leaned out the door to
look as well. “I don’t know. I thought I had it… at one time, but I
… lost it.”

“We will go back to the cellar to get it,”
the man told him and stepped into the hall.

A few moments earlier, he would have agreed
wholeheartedly. He wanted the sword, but he did not want to
accompany this dark fellow down to the basement. Besides, Maxie was
probably watching them or already on his way up with his trusty
shotgun.

“Why don’t we just leave it there and buy
another one?” Mark offered hopefully. He only wanted to get away
from the house… Now!

“Do not trifle with me, Brother,” the tall
man turned on him, still holding the sword at a dangerous
angle.

Mark took a deep breath and followed the man
down the hall. Anything was better than sitting strapped to a
chair, waiting for God knows what to happen, but then it had
already happened, hadn’t it? At least this man seemed much more
adept at what he was doing than John Tellman. He cursed himself for
fixating on John Tellman. The man was most likely dead already. And
he cursed himself for falling asleep after breakfast. Especially
with his head on Merry’s stomach and this fine fellow in his
closet.

Why did he sleep so much? His stomach growled
and a second, nagging question popped into his mind. Why did he eat
so much?

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

The house, from the second floor down, was
full of people. All sorts of people. Cleaning crews moving
furniture to get at the corners. Maids dusted and polished the
furniture even as the carpet crew moved it. Other workers cleaned
the windows and the chandeliers hanging above the grand staircase.
Two florists argued loudly about where to place their arrangements.
Caterers tromped in and out the front door carrying all sorts of
foods, beverages and dining equipment, while the sound of lawn
mowers and hedge trimmers drifted in through the open front doors.
No one paid any attention to the two men coming down the stairs
from the third floor. They were unaware of the long sword carefully
concealed under the tall man’s cloak. They could have been guests
or interior decorators. They were not the only strangely attired
persons in the house. They walked boldly down the hall past Merry’s
door and down the staircase to the foyer. Mark held his breath,
waiting to be recognized at any moment.

“Is this how you got in?” Mark asked him in
surprise as they cleared the front steps.

“Yes. Sometimes the direct method is best.”
The dark Knight nodded to a brass lamp standing near the living
room door. “I came in with the window washers, carrying that lamp.
It reminds me of a campaign I was on in Gaul once.” He talked as
they made their way casually around the house toward the basement.
“The enemy had laid siege to the city and had subsequently breached
the wall in several places. The confusion was so great, all we had
to do was throw cloaks over our armor and ride into the midst of
the enemy camp at night to take what we wanted.”

“What did you want?” Mark asked as he eyed
the people hurrying and scurrying around them.

“Food, arrows, beer, you know,” the man said
offhandedly. “The usual things.”

“Ah,” Mark nodded. Of course, the usual
things!

“These people do not know each other and the
right hand does not know what the left is doing.”

They stopped in front of the slanted doors
leading into the basement. One of the doors stood open and a
heavy-duty power cable snaked up the steps and around the corner of
the house toward the verandah. The taller man paused only briefly
before starting down the steps, pushing Mark ahead of him. The
place seemed even more vast and uninviting than before, but his
companion seemed to know his way around quite well. The bright
lights made it sterile and impersonal. Not like his own cellar back
home.

They went directly to the laboratory. His
survival instinct kicked up a notch as he watched the man use
another small instrument from the chain on his neck to open the
lab’s steel and glass door. He knew this man or, at least, he
thought he did, but his returning memories were too fresh and too
jumbled to trust. His faith in his own mind faded abruptly and he
found himself back at square one, unsure of everything. This fellow
could very well be another of Valentino’s ploys to trick him in
some way. Had she not just told him that she was not giving up? And
had he and this man who looked like something from a bad vampire
movie, gotten out of the house far too easily. He looked about the
hall as the man bent in front of the door.

When the man looked up, he took a step back
and turned to run, but the stranger was upon him with the sword
immediately, dragging him backwards with the sword’s sharp edge
pressing lightly against his throat.

“You must regain your wits, Brother Ramsay,”
he told him harshly. “We must have the sword. It is not an option.
I must take you and the sword to the Grand Master. It is your only
hope for redemption, Brother.”

These words fell right in line with Cecile’s
own agenda. The Master. Always the Master. They had to go to the
Master. They had to find the Master. His mistrust grew enormously
as the man pulled him through the door into Cecile’s office. A
small green lamp burned on the desk, casting shadows throughout the
rest of the lab. The hair on his neck stood on end as he looked at
the chair where Valentino had poisoned him. Everything looked
perfectly prim and proper and there were no bloodstains on the
carpeted floor. No handcuffs on the chair though he could see the
deep scratches and gouges in the wood where the metal had cut into
the finish. It was no wonder that his wrists had been bruised, but
nothing else seemed out of order. It was just a well organized
office with gleaming rows of glass fronted bookshelves.

As expected, Mark found himself pressed into
the same chair near the desk and admonished to remain seated or
else. The man then leaned his own sword against one of the
bookshelves and raised both arms toward the ceiling. With his eyes
closed, he turned around slowly in the center of the small room.
Mark watched him curiously, trying to decide whether to make a
break for the door or not. After a moment, his eccentric captor
stopped and went directly to one of the bookcases. He opened the
top shelf and reached inside, feeling above the books. He pulled a
cloth-wrapped bundle from inside with a satisfied smile on his
face. The cloth fell to the floor and Mark recognized the black
scabbard with the golden hilt protruding from one end. The Golden
Sword of the Cherubim. He did not need to see the blade unsheathed
to know what it looked like.

He felt as if he were in a Cathedral, in the
presence of a Holy Relic.

The hilt gleamed in the soft light of the
lamp. The white medallion with the red cross patee in the center
mesmerized him. He reached unconsciously for the sword, but the man
drew back quickly, surveying his face closely before hesitantly
presenting the blade to him, hilt-first. He was a trusting
fellow.

Mark took the sword and held it gingerly. It
was the same one from his dreams and his bleary memories. The long,
twisted blade made a familiar, comforting sound as he drew it from
the leather. Mark clutched the hilt in his right hand and a great
sense of relief washed over him. He looked up at his companion, but
the craggy face was unreadable. Mark also realized why the fellow
had insisted on coming after it. It was far more than just a
sword.

“Put the blade away and we can go, Brother,”
he said as he put his own sword back in the long scabbard under his
cloak and turned his back.

The gesture seemed rude somehow, an insult.
Either the man considered him inept and non-threatening or else he
trusted him completely. Mark could have used the sword on him
easily, but something held him back. He hefted the sword in one
hand and the scabbard in the other as he wore no belt to which he
could attach it. The tall man’s scabbard slapped his boots as he
walked. Another comforting sound from some long lost memory.

They were in for a disappointing surprise
when they reached the cellar doors. Someone had removed the power
cable, closed the door and activated the electronic lock… from the
outside. They could not open them without setting off the alarm.
There was an intercom box on the wall beside the controls, but they
could not call for help.

“I don’t suppose you have something on your
necklace for this contingency?” Mark asked him as they peered at
the green lights blinking on the security panel.

“I do not think we have been locked in by
design, but rather by accident,” the man nodded absently. “There is
no one else in the basement with us. If they had suspected us here,
they would be searching for us.”

“That makes me feel so much better. I would
have hated to be locked in here on purpose… with someone
unfriendly,” Mark commented sarcastically.

“It is comforting to know that they are
unaware of our presence,” the man ignored the sarcasm.

Mark didn’t believe him at all. This was all
a set up.

“But how will we get out of here?” Mark asked
him when he turned back down the hall.

“The Creator will provide the means. He
provided a way in. He will provide a way out.”

“I somehow knew you would say something like
that,” Mark muttered under his breath as they went back to the
laboratory.

Back inside the office, the tall Knight took
a seat on the edge of the desk. Mark stood holding his sword and
scabbard, waiting for the man to do something. Strangely enough,
the man had not offered to kiss him.