They reached the tree line without incident and continued forward, slipping between the ancient trunks like wraiths. It was half-past nine in the morning but it felt like early evening; so dense was the cloud cover that very little light was getting through. Something about the darkness felt unnatural and Duncan had little doubt that the daylight was being held back in no small part by their infernal adversary.
Whatever the enemy has in store for this part of the world, it can’t be good.
No sooner had the thought passed through Duncan’s mind than Cade stopped abruptly and sank to one knee, a closed fist raised in warning.
As the others sank down behind him just as they’d been trained to do, Cade stared across the clearing at the spot where he’d seen his dead wife just seconds before. She’d only been there for a moment, but he was certain he’d seen her. She’d been standing amidst the trees, pointing at a spot between the trunks in the distance, and had looked back at him with an odd expression on her ravaged face.
He was staring off in that direction, trying to pierce the gloom brought on by the overhanging branches when a twig snapped somewhere out in the darkness.
It could have been a deer.
Or maybe a fox.
But he knew better.
“Hide yourselves! Quickly!” he hissed at the others urgently, afraid to raise his voice above a whisper.
Another glance that way showed several indistinct figures moving through the trees in their direction. Cade didn’t think they’d been seen, but it wouldn’t be long…
He scrambled to follow his own orders.
The thing that had once been Malcolm Heigler, the local butcher, and which was now a butcher in an entirely different sense of the word, followed the rest of his brethren as they made their way back through the trees toward the town of Durbandorf. Human vermin were still hiding there, somewhere, and it was Heigler’s job, along with that of the others, to root them out.
Heigler didn’t exactly think in those terms — he didn’t exactly think at all anymore — but the instinctual imperatives that he was following as part of the new creature he had become demanded it just the same, and he was happy to comply.
The group was roughly halfway across the clearing when something tugged at Heigler’s awareness. He paused, letting the others stumble,slither,lope, and walk around him, and then he glanced around.
Something didn’t feel right…
The clearing appeared deserted, the snow undisturbed except where his brethren had crossed it, and the thing that had been Durandorf’s butcher decided he had been mistaken. He turned and hustled after his brethren, eager not to be left behind.
In the creature’s wake, a moment passed.
Two.
Then three.
Suddenly the empty silence of the clearing was broken as a patch of snow near the base of several trees shifted and then rose, revealing the four men who had lain there for the last several minutes, pressed against the freezing surface with a half-a-foot of snow hastily thrown over themselves for camouflage.
They brushed the snow off and then checked to be certain that the flamethrowers hadn’t started to leak from being turned on their ends. Chilled but satisfied that nothing was amiss, the group got underway once more. As they did Cade thought he saw Gabrielle watching through the trees, but in the shadowed light he couldn’t be sure. Nor was there time to track her down and find out.
I’ll see you again soon, my lady, he thought in her direction, as he set out at the front of the squad once more, and that would have to be enough.
Hours earlier Gabrielle had led him through these very trees to a looming rock formation hidden deep within the depths of the forest. There’d been a cave at the base of that formation; a dark, brooding place that gave off a sense of evil so strong that it tied his stomach in knots and made him want to run away screaming.
Instead, he’d stayed just long enough to ensure that what they were looking for was inside and then he’d turned away, intending to return for the rest of his squad, only to find himself back in the church, lying on the pew where he’d settled down to rest just over an hour earlier.
At first he’d thought it had all been a dream, something brought on by his need to rescue his men and get out of this disaster alive, never mind his constant desire to see his wife again. But that notion only lasted until he’d swung his feet to the floor and discovered his previously dry boots were now suspiciously wet.
He didn’t know how or why his dead wife kept appearing to him, but one thing was for certain — he trusted her implicitly. He’d trusted her since the very first day they’d met, which was one of the reasons her loss had cut so deeply and had nearly drowned him in a sea of sorrow so deep that he might never have returned. Only his desire to avenge her death had brought him back from the brink, had driven him to track down the Templar Order and to rise though its ranks to his present position. And it was that position which allowed him to hunt creatures like this one — foul things that belonged locked deep in the bowels of hell, and not wandering free to terrorize other innocents like his beloved Gabrielle.
Her appearance now meant that time was running out; Cade was certain of it. They needed to get moving.
He checked with the others, making sure they were all right, and then set off again through the trees, moving as quickly as he dared without giving away their position.
So far, he was reasonably confident that the master demon was still unaware that they were coming. If it had known, the woods would have been teeming with so many demons that they wouldn’t have been able to move, never mind advance.
Unless, of course, it’s a trap.
The thought brought him up short momentarily and then he shrugged it off and continued on his way.
If it was, there wasn’t anything to be done about it now. They were going to face this thing, one way or another.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Duncan stared at the cleft near the base of the cliff wall in front of him and felt icy fingers scurry up his spine to burrow deep into the base of his neck. The very sight of the place unnerved him and he had no doubt it would be ten times worse once he was inside.
But inside was precisely where they were headed.
As they got closer Cade told them all that the entrance to the cave complex where the master demon was hiding was narrow. Staring at it now, Duncan realized that the knight commander’s comment was a contender for understatement of the year. It was barely more than a crack in the wall — wide enough to slip through, yes — but still barely a crack. Whoever was going in first would have to push his pack and weapon in ahead of him or wait for the others to pass it through once he was on the other side. Either way, for several agonizingly long seconds, that man would be defenseless.
Because of this, Cade would go first. He wasn’t the kind of commander who led from the rear; he would never ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do himself and often assigned himself the duty of doing just that. Which is why Duncan found himself passing off the tank of his homemade flamethrower to Echo’s second in command and getting ready to slide into the cave mouth behind Cade.
How on earth do I get myself into these things? Duncan wondered.
Then there was no more time for wondering as Cade gave him a nod and then slipped inside the cleft, pushing his way through the narrow passage to the wider chamber he knew lay just beyond. Summoning his courage, Duncan did the same in his wake. Once the two of them were safely on the other side — and nothing rushed at them out of the darkness once they were there — Cade gave the ‘all clear’ sign. The equipment was handed through the gap and then Olsen and Riley followed in its wake.