C7 Chapter Seven

When the news came back that the explosive and forensic teams were finished with the package, Cade assembled Echo Team’s command unit in the main hall’s conference room to go over what they’d found. Along with Cade and Riley, the team consisted of Sergeant Patrick Flynn and Lieutenant Sean Duncan. Flynn, a veteran who’d been with Echo for fifteen years, almost as long as Riley had, was slim and short, with curling reddish-brown hair and the type of grin that had you constantly looking over your shoulder, waiting for the practical joke. Duncan was the newest member of Echo, having joined several months earlier, just prior to the showdown with the Necromancer and the Council of Nine. He’d been in charge of the Preceptor’s protective detail before being transferred to the unit at Cade’s direct request. He was younger than the other three men and his blonde hair and good looks probably would have been an asset to him in some other line of work. He was also prone to speaking his mind, regardless of the circumstances, which had brought him in conflict a few times with the way Cade ran the show, but so far he’d been a valuable asset and Cade was pleased with his impulsive decision to add Duncan to the unit.

By now the other two men had heard about the mysterious package Cade had received and so the Knight Commander wasted no time with preliminaries, instead moving directly into a discussion of what the investigative teams had found. Which, in truth, wasn’t that much. The package was free of dangerous substances; no explosives, no biological or chemical agents, no mystical wards or traps. It was plain brown paper wrapped around a simple cigar box, the kind you can buy in any office supply store, both so common that tracking down their specific origins just wasn’t worth the effort. The paper held no fingerprints, nor was there any trace evidence such as hair or fiber samples recovered from it. Since it had apparently been delivered by hand, there were no stamps or postmarks that could be used to pinpoint where it had come from, either. Even the handwriting spelling out Cade’s name on the front of the wrapper turned out not to be handwriting at all, but a computer-based font that only looked like handwritten script. It was as clean a dead end as Cade had ever seen in all his years in law enforcement.

Which made the two items the box contained all the more interesting.

The first was a handwritten note on plain white paper, addressed to Cade.

Dear Captain Williams,

Please come quickly. Information has come into my hands that I dare not entrust to anyone else. An old foe has returned and already I fear for my safety and the safety of those around me. Time is of the essence. I will explain further when you arrive.

In Christ,

Father Thomas Martin, S.J.

The second item was a standard 4×6 snapshot of a crowd gathered in front of a church. The lab had confirmed that ordinary photo paper had been used in processing the picture, the kind available in hundreds of thousands of drug stores and copy centers across the country. The shot appeared to have been taken from a moving vehicle, for many of the faces of those gathered were slightly blurred. There was writing on the back of the photo, in the same script as the letter.

Perhaps this will help you see the urgency of my request.

The evidence team cleared the items for handling so Cade passed them around, letting each member take a good, long look. None of them knew what to make of the photo. It seemed completely ordinary. There were ten, maybe twelve people walking down the street with the church just barely visible in the background. Most of them were looking the other way, though a few had been caught in profile. Due to the quality of the picture, none of them were identifiable, however.

Duncan asked the obvious question. “Who’s Father Martin? And why does he refer to you as Captain Williams?”

“Because the last time I saw him, I was a Captain,” Cade said absently, still staring at the photo and trying to discern the meaning of Martin’s cryptic comment.

Riley took pity on Duncan and tried to bring him up to speed when he saw that Cade was too preoccupied to do so. “We met Father Martin several years ago, shortly after Cade took command of Echo. As Cade said, he was just a lowly Captain back then,” he said, earning him an amused glance from the knight commander. “Martin and several other priests in the Boston archdiocese nearby were having trouble with a new cult that had sprung up among the street gangs in the area. They contacted the Order and, since the cult had shown no hesitation to use violence against the Church, a combat squad was sent in to deal with it.”

Duncan shrugged. “Sounds fairly routine.”

“Yeah, you’d think so. Unfortunately, we were way off base.”

“What happened?”

“The squad disappeared without a trace three weeks after arriving in the area. Eight highly trained men. Every single one of them a veteran combat soldier, trained specifically for such situations. So of course, Echo gets the call. Our orders were to find out what happened to the squad and to deal with the cult that had gotten the Order involved in the first place.”

Flynn cut in. “Recognizing that the Order’s initial show of force had done little good, Cade decided to take a different approach. He sent one of our men, a lieutenant, into the neighborhood undercover with orders to set up a safe house and then to make contact with the local clergy. For the first few days, everything went without a hitch. Bishop, Jonathan Bishop, that was the lieutenant’s name, got us a secure location, rendezvoused with the locals, and let us know that it was okay to bring in the rest of the team. But by the time we had arrived, Bishop had vanished, just like the men from First Squad.”

Flynn stared off into space as he continued and from the look on his face, Duncan knew he was reliving it in his mind’s eye. “We got a lead that both Bishop and the leaders of the cult could be found in an abandoned warehouse over in Roxbury. Timing was critical. First Squad was guarding the Bishop’s residence in Cambridge and Second Squad was en route. We knew we couldn’t wait, so Cade made the decision to hit the warehouse with only the command squad, hoping things wouldn’t get too hairy before the reinforcements arrived.”

“Good Lord,” Duncan said, stealing a glance across the room at Cade. “Just the three of you?”

The question brought Flynn back to the here and now. “Just the three of us, Cade, Riley and I. What can I say? We were younger then, younger and full of confidence. You know how it is. Sometimes you just think you’re invincible.”

Riley picked up the story again. “We snuck in through the skylight and from the second floor walkway we could see Bishop tied to a post in the middle of the warehouse. He wasn’t moving, and with the place looking empty, we thought maybe we were too late. That they’d already executed him and left his body for us to find.”

“So what did you do?”

“We made our way down to the first floor and over to where they’d left Bishop. Flynn and I, we stood watch while Cade checked him out. Turned out we were right. Bishop was cold as ice.”

Riley shook his head. “That was our first mistake.”

“And it was a big one,” said Flynn, anger in his eyes at the memory. “Bishop might have been dead but that didn’t mean he was out of the fight. We found that out the hard way when he reared up and tried to rip Cade’s throat open. Course by then Riley and I had our hands full as a horde of Chiang Shih began pouring out of nowhere, charging right for us.”

“Chiang what?”

“Shih. Chiang Shih. Also known as the Shadow People. As far as anyone knows they originated in China, but they’ve spread over the last few centuries and now can be found throughout Central and Southeast Asia. Tradition says they are formed when an individual has an outstanding karmic debt that must be paid, a debt so enormous that it prevents the soul from moving onward through the Great Cycle and forces the body to rise again from death. More often than not, the higher, rational aspect of the soul, the Hun, becomes dormant, leaving the P’o, or the lower bestial aspect of the soul, in control of the resurrected creature.”

Duncan grimaced. “Sounds pleasant.”

“Neither truly living nor altogether dead, the Chiang Shih are creatures without the essence of life, or Chi as the Chinese call it, and therefore must constantly steal it from the living to sustain their existence. They also have the option of turning their victims into a lesser version of themselves, blood-thirsty undead creatures that crave the flesh rather than the life force of the living.

“Which is just what we were facing,” Riley cut in.

“Right. And good thing, too, as full-blood Chiang Shih aren’t as susceptible to firearms as are their lesser counterparts. Cade dealt with Bishop while Riley and I held off attacks by the others. By the time we’d beaten back the third wave, we’d run out of ammunition and had to resort to using our blades.”

Duncan could see it all in his head, the three combat veterans standing back to back, the bodies of their foes littering the floor at their feet. What he couldn’t understand was how they managed to survive if they were so badly outnumbered, so he asked them.

“We almost didn’t,” answered Flynn. “We got lucky, that’s all. Second Squad showed up at the last moment, cutting into the Chiang Shih from behind, making them believe that we’d set a trap for them. Believing they were vastly outnumbered, they retreated, leaving us to clean up the mess, which wasn’t that hard since the bodies turned to ash the minute their Queen disappeared out the back door.”

“And Bishop? Did you ever find out what happened to him?”

Flynn and Riley shared a glance.

“Yeah,” Flynn replied. “Yeah, we did.”

But he didn’t say anything more and before Duncan could ask him to explain further, Cade tossed the photo onto the tabletop in front of them, a frown of disgust on his face.

“I don’t get it. What does he expect us to see in this thing?”

“Why don’t we just call him and ask?” Flynn suggested.

With the others looking on, Cade summoned an initiate and gave instructions for him to bring them any and all telephone numbers for either Father Thomas Martin or the Church of the Blessed Sorrow, both in Brookline, Massachusetts. It didn’t take the initiate long to come back with the information; most of it readily available through directory assistance and the single number that wasn’t, the priest’s personal cell phone, was in one of the Order’s databanks.

Cade spent the next several minutes trying each number, all without success. In light of the nature of Martin’s message, the lack of response made Cade uneasy and so he made a snap decision based more on instinct than reason.

“I think it’s time we take a little road trip. Grab a kit bag and meet me in the motor pool in twenty.”

Just like that, Echo’s command unit was headed for Boston.