C2 Chapter Two

As quietly as possible, Commander Williams, Sergeant Flynn, and Private Callavecchio slipped through the blast doors and into the corridor leading to the cell block proper. All of them were dressed in jumpsuits of black flame-retardant material worn over a set of ceramic body armor that had been blessed by the Holy Father. They carried the standard issue HK Mark 23 .45 caliber handguns, complete with a twelve-round magazine, a flash suppressor, and a laser-targeting device. Two spare magazines for the pistols were affixed with Velcro to their wrists. A combat knife was either clipped to their belt or in a calf sheath on the outside of their boots. Their swords, recently blessed again during Mass, were slung across their backs, the hilt of the weapon extending just beyond their shoulders for easy access. On their heads were lightweight Kevlar tactical helmets with built-in communication gear. The night vision goggles covered the upper parts of their faces.

Flynn and Callavecchio scanned the walls and ceilings in their general vicinity as carefully as possible. Cade, however, decided to rely on his own peculiar set of talents.

Several years before, he barely survived an encounter with a supernatural entity he had since come to call the Adversary. The battle resulted in the death of his wife and left him scarred both physically and emotionally. He lost the sight in his right eye and the flesh on that side of his face was savagely disfigured, leaving him with a wide band of scar tissue that stretched from the hairline above his eye, down across his cheekbone, and around behind his ear. The eye itself was still intact, but was nothing more than a milky white orb floating in a sea of damaged flesh. Normally he wore an eye patch over it, more for the comfort of others than for himself, but he’d left the patch behind tonight, wanting nothing to obstruct his Sight.

While the damage to his eye had cost him his ability to see in any normal sense of the word, he had gained something unexpected in return. When he moved his ruined eye just so, the supernatural world was revealed to him in all its so-called glory. Nothing could hide from his Sight; he could see through the guises of demons and angels alike, as well as anything in between. Mystical power was as obvious to him as a mountain in the middle of a desert plain. For short periods of time he could even see into the Beyond itself, without setting foot outside his own plane of reality, but doing so also revealed him to the denizens of that realm and so he didn’t do it all that often.

As a reanimated corpse that fed on the life-force of the living, the Eretiku’s very nature would make it impossible for it to hide from him. What he didn’t know was whether or not its killing gaze would have any effect when seen through his Sight and so he intended to be as careful as possible in the confrontation ahead.

Still, he didn’t hesitate to activate his Sight.

Much of the spiritual world is driven by emotion, with objects and locations taking on the predominant feelings surrounding them. In a prison, the primary emotion is despair. The corridor before him went from cold, hard steel to looking like a diseased artery that pulsed and glistened with unidentifiable growths and sores in the eyes of his Sight. The bodies of the dead were black with fear and pain and the ghosts of several of the guards stood beside them, the confusion about what had happened clear on their faces. They became aware of Cade in the same moment he became aware of them, but they didn’t advance and so he left them alone. At the end of the corridor, the doors were inscribed with a number of mystical seals and signs, the power within them glowing with a white-hot heat.

Of the Eretiku, there was no sign.

“All right,” he said to the others, “we’re clear. Keep those mirrors handy and let’s move out.”

Weapons drawn, they advanced down the corridor, through the guard station, and into the main cell block.

They emerged on the second and middle tier of the block, roughly in the center of one of the short sides of the rectangle. On each level a narrow walkway extended in front of the cells, with enough room for two men to walk abreast comfortably. A waist high railing prevented anyone from slipping over the edge.

Flynn leaned against the railing and used his mirror to look at what was beneath them and then did the same with the level above. The other two tiers were arranged just like this one, as the plans had indicted, and the center space below them was simply left empty. He didn’t see any sign of their quarry and he let the others know it.

For Cade, the cell block was even worse than the corridor, for it was the place that the inmates spent the majority of their time. The Mother Church had long ago decided that it was unjust to simply execute those enemies that surrendered to its mercy, but knew at the same time that it couldn’t allow those same enemies any chance of escape back into the world where they could continue to wreak havoc and harm. Containment facilities like this one were the best answer the Church had come up with and it had put its most battle-hardened veterans, the Templars, in charge of the operation and maintenance. Cell Block D was in the lower security area of the prison, but even here inmates were not allowed to interact with each other, lest they combine their abilities and discover a way of getting past the guards and the wards built into the building itself, and so their existence was reduced to solitary confinement inside of soundproof cells. They were given an hour of exercise per day, in separate, isolated exercise rooms and only on rare occasions did they get the chance to see the sun and open sky.

Some of the creatures confined in this space had life spans that were all but indistinguishable from immortality to the humans who operated it. Decades spent in confinement with only hope of centuries more of the same made for a blanket of rage and despair so thick that Cade had to take a moment to get used to looking at it all. When he was ready, they began moving along the walkway that extended the length of the cell block on the right side. Some of the cells were still sealed shut and secure; from outside of them the three knights caught glimpses of a variety of things that would have sent ordinary men away screaming in fear. They even recognized a few, captives from earlier missions Echo had carried out on the Order’s behalf. Others had been torn open, victims of the Eretiku’s search for nourishment and the corpses of more than one littered the walkway before them. The men from Echo were cautious, making certain the victims were dead before trying to move past them.

They had advanced almost to the end of the first walkway when it happened.

A hand snaked out from beneath the railing and clamped itself around Cade’s ankle. Before he had a chance to react, it yanked him off his feet and then dragged him with amazing strength across the walkway, beneath the railing, and out into the open air high above the floor three stories below.

But Cade would not be so easy a victim.

He released his grip on his pistol, sacrificing the weapon so as to leave both of his hands free. As his gun made the long fall to the floor below, Cade made a wild grab at the post of the railing as he was swept past.

Luck was with him. He caught ahold of it with one hand, arresting his fall, but the Eretiku still had a firm grip on his leg and was already trying to pull him loose from his makeshift anchor. Against the creature’s awesome strength, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. He began kicking at the creature, trying to loosen its grip.

“Help!” he yelled and hoped the others would be in time.

He could feel the thing’s claws digging right through the thick leather of his boot, searching for a better hold, and he redoubled his efforts to kick himself free of its grasp.

Hands wrapped themselves around his wrists and he looked up to find Flynn holding onto him, the other man’s feet braced against the railing as he fought to keep Cade from falling. Beside him, Callavecchio leaned over the railing, trying to line up a shot.

“Hold still!” he shouted, and Cade had a second to think Easier said than done before the other man opened fire.

It was a difficult task, firing over a ledge at an angle, past the struggling body of a friend. Cade was all but certain he was going to end up with a slug in the leg, but even that would be preferable to the thirty-foot fall he was currently staring in the face, so he simply closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

Callavecchio made three quick shots, one after another without pause, and the third and final shot was followed by an angry shriek that echoed off the cold, stone walls. Cade felt the grip on his leg loosen and realized with something close to shock that he was uninjured and free.

“Quick! Pull me up!” he said and Flynn did just that, while Callavecchio kept his eye on the space beneath them, visible through his mirror.

“Do you see it?” Cade asked, climbing to his feet and drawing his sword so that he wouldn’t be defenseless if it attacked again.

Callavecchio shook his head while continuing to scan the lower area through his goggles. “No. It’s gone, for now.”

But they knew it was there. Somewhere. The attack had merely increased their determination to find it and end its miserable life.

An hour later, however, they were back where they had started, at the edge of the third tier, still empty-handed. They had searched the entire cell block and had not found any further sign of the creature. Cade knew it was here somewhere; there was nowhere else for it to go. But so far it had managed to elude their best efforts at tracking it down.

Just where the hell was it?

As he looked out over the open space at the walkway on the other side of the cell block, something swung down from the tier above, hanging upside down directly in front of his face. It was close enough that he could feel its fetid breath on his cheek, could smell the stink of its unwashed body.

With the help of his Sight, Cade could see through the creature’s human guise, could see it for what it truly was; a rotting corpse with slavering jaws and molted skin. A third eye existed in the center of its forehead and it was from this that its wasting gaze originated. With the help of his Sight he could even see a black wave of power emerging from that orifice and he didn’t stop to think, didn’t even take the time to reason out the options, knowing his companions would be dead the moment they turned to look. Instead, he simply squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his head forward as hard as he could.

His skull smashed into the Eretiku’s, dazing it, and he felt its weight fall upon him as its clawed feet lost hold of the railing. They tumbled to the floor, each fighting for the advantage, and ending up with Cade on his back and the Eretiku lying atop him, his hands wrapped around the other’s wrists as he fought to keep its slavering jaws from sinking into his unprotected neck. He bucked back and forth, trying to throw it off him, but it managed to wrap its feet around the back of his legs and held him close. He could hear it shrieking its rage and hunger at him, but he wouldn’t let that distract him.

As the creature shoved its face forward in another attempt, Callavecchio’s hand shot out and held a mirror directly in front of its eyes.

The result was astonishing.

Cade didn’t know if it was because its mystical gaze had been redirected back upon itself or if it simply couldn’t bear the sight of its true nature, but the Eretiku reared up, its prey beneath forgotten for the moment as it clamped its hands over its eyes, shrieking in agony.

Flynn was ready and waiting. His sword flashed out in a savage blow, slashing through the creature’s arms just below the wrists and continuing forward, severing its head.

Its screams cut off abruptly and the body fell over backward, spewing blood as black as tar in every direction, as its head rolled off the edge and disappeared from sight.

For a moment no one moved, shocked into immobility by the suddenness of its end, and then Cade was kicking the thing’s rotting corpse off him in disgust as the other two men helped him to his feet.

“Are you all right?” Flynn asked, his gaze never leaving the Eretiku’s corpse, as if he wasn’t quite convinced it was dead. It was a move learned from long experience; too many of the things they’d faced had a nasty habit of getting up again.

This time, however, the creature was good and gone.

Cade nodded in reply and fought to catch his breath. That had been closer than he liked. But the job was done and once more Echo had defied the odds, coming out on top without the loss of a single man. That made him smile, then laugh, and soon the other two men were laughing along with him in simple relief at the fact that they were alive while the enemy lay dead at their feet. They clapped each other on the back, congratulating themselves on the success of what they had accomplished, and then turned toward the doors leading to the rest of the complex where their friends and squadmates were waiting.

Once again, Echo had triumphed.

But in the back of his mind Cade realized how close they had come to disaster.

Next time they might not be so lucky.