Chapter 8: The Staff

My palms began to sweat as I slowly descended the ladder. I heard a voice from below, but it was not Rebecca's and that worried me. I could still hear her scream in my head. The idea that something could have happened to her filled me with dread. I also worried about William, whom I had left alone above to finish the fight. And then I still had the vision of the Templar's dying scream. It was hard to believe that I had witnessed a man being killed. All of these thoughts filled my brain and clouded my thoughts. I knew that I had to push them all out. I needed to have a clear mind for whatever would be waiting for me at the bottom of this ladder. Whatever was going to happen, I felt that this would be the end of it.

The voice became clearer the lower I got down the ladder. I recognized it as the voice of Lewis, the Templar who had at one point welcomed me into this church, the man who had ordered his men to kill me. The lower I got the brighter the light below me shone. The continuous flicker was casting shadows along the walls surrounding me.

After another ten feet or so of descending the ladder, I noticed that the area was beginning to widen. I saw wooden beams stretching across what looked to be a concrete ceiling. The ladder would take me all the way down to the floor, but that was not where I wanted to go. The moment I saw the wooden beams a plan formed in my head. They were about 15 feet above the floor and looked more than able to handle my weight. I only hoped that I would not be heard. Leaping off of the ladder and falling only a couple of feet, I landed on the beam farthest from the center of the room. The room which now came fully into view for me was indeed a crypt.

As I had suspected, flickering torches did indeed line all of the walls. Tombs lined the walls which were intricately engraved with crosses that I at once recognized as the symbol of the Knights Templar. I could only assume that they held the remains of powerful Templar's of ages past. It was what I saw in the center of the crypt that filled me with fear though. Lewis was standing in the very center of the room, his back to me. A dazzling gold staff was gripped tightly in his left hand. I knew at once that this was an item of immense power. Power beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I knew this, because in front of Lewis, a frightened look on her face with a bit of blood trickling out of the corner of her mouth, was Rebecca. What frightened me was the fact that Rebecca was not on the ground. She hovered a few feet off of the ground, arms spread wide, a furious look frozen on her face. It looked like she was trying to move, but her body seemed to be paralyzed.

I couldn't be sure whether Rebecca had noticed me above yet or if she could even move her eyes at all for that matter. There was another beam about a foot in front of me and another in front of that one. They lined the entire ceiling from one end to the other. I considered myself lucky that the beams were so close together. It meant that I wouldn't need to jump. I could simply step from one to the next, hopefully keeping silent, hopefully keeping my balance.

I stood up as straight as I could manage to without slamming my head on the ceiling and took a careful step ahead to the next beam and stopped. It didn't make any kind of a creaking noise so I took that as a hint that I could safely keep advancing. Slowly and carefully, I continued to step from beam to beam until I was as close to Lewis as I dared get. There was only one beam between him and I; and I crouched down, fully prepared to drop down on top of him and put an end to this. I could see no other way to save Rebecca. I knew in my heart that I would have no choice but to kill him.

I was just about to drop down and end him when Lewis spoke. "Did you really think that I was not aware that there would be three of you?" He asked looking at Rebecca and jabbing her with the staff. "Were you really stupid enough to believe that I would not be fully aware of every single move that you Assassin scum would make? I had eyes on all of you ever since you got here. Sure, the young bitch kind of caught me by surprise, but she was deeply stupid when she came here. A real shitty liar."

I clenched my fists and stood up, once again being careful not to smack my head. Who the fuck did this guy think he was, calling me a bitch like that? Not that it was the worst thing I had ever been called, but something about this Templar prick calling me that pissed me off royally.

"You know," Lewis went on "I don't hear any more commotion coming from up top." He turned around and I instinctively held my breath, hoping he would not look up. "Maybe, my men have killed your other two. One was quite up in age, wasn't he?"

Or maybe one of them is right above you, you fucking arrogant bastard, I thought to myself as he turned back towards Rebecca. I knew I had to strike. I couldn't wait. Lewis could end Rebecca any time he wanted, and I refused to let that happen. It was his life or hers, and I would do what I had to in order to save her. I had promised before we even came to New Orleans that I had her back.

"Free will," Lewis scoffed edging ever closer to Rebecca. "You people fight for free will and peace, but you are all delusional. The only way this world and the human race will ever know piece is through being controlled. And so, I do what I must…for the greater good. I will put an end to every last Assassin I come across." He pulled out a long dagger from the confines of his robes and pointed it at Rebecca's throat. "Starting with you."

My heart started racing as soon as I saw the knife. I would not let this happen. With a flick of my wrist I extended the blade on my wrist and took a single step off of the beam. It felt like I was dropping in slow motion. I knew that as soon as I had taken the step that Lewis was dead, that I was taking his life. I would be a killer, an unapologetic killer in order to save the woman that I had grown to care so deeply for over the past few months.

My blade slid into his throat as easily as a red-hot knife sliding into a stick of butter. I felt something inside of me change as Lewis collapsed with me landing on top of him. The golden staff in his hand clattered to the floor and as it did Rebecca fell to the ground, free of whatever the artifact was doing to her. Lewis coughed lightly as I pulled the blade from his neck and he grasped the wound with his hand to try to slow the bleeding. It would do no good though, he was a dead man. My strike had been true. I knew that within a matter of minutes he would bleed out. I was a killer. I had taken a life.

I stared at my blade, covered in Lewis's blood and then looked into the man's eyes as Rebecca got to her feet and knelt down beside me and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "You…you saved me," she said, drawing my eyes to her own. "He…he knew I was coming. Got the jump on me as soon as I tried to strike. I couldn't do anything."

"I told you," I whispered, still in shock that I had delivered a fatal blow to a man who now lay dying before me. "I've got your back. I'll always have your back."

"How very touching." Lewis's voice was weak and strained and what little strength he had left started to fade. I looked back down into the dying man's eyes and he smiled. "I can see it in your eyes, Assassin. I am your first. Your eyes betray that. I want you to look at me, look into my eyes as I die. I want my face burned into your memory. Never forget…that you…killed me.'

I wanted to look away but found myself incapable of doing so. For a moment I wondered if maybe the staff was in some way controlling me, but I quickly realized that despite how much I had hated this man, despite the fact that he had tried to have me killed and was seconds away from killing Rebecca, I felt that I owed it to him, as his killer, to watch the final lights leave his eyes.

"You're weak, Assassin," Lewis went on, still holding my eyes. If you were like us, you would not be feeling any guilt about killing me. You would have the strength to kill without mercy."

"I could never," I said slowly, making each and every syllable of my word's crystal clear. "I could never be like you."

"Right there," Lewis said, and I thought I could hear a small amount of strength in his voice. "That weakness there will be the end of you one day. It will be the end of your entire little brotherhood."

He smiled and took his hand away from the wound on his neck and grabbed me by the shirt. In that instant his other hand flew up and I realized what was going on in the millisecond before it did. An intense sharp pain struck my shoulder and ran down my entire left arm. I screamed out in pain at the exact same time that Rebecca yelled.

"Son of a bitch!" I yelled out looking down at the front of my shoulder and the tip of the dagger protruding from it. I reached around and felt the hilt of the weapon by the back of my shoulder. A glance down at Lewis told me that he was dead. The Templar bastard had used his final moment, the last little bit of his strength to stab me.

"No!" Rebecca yelled out looking in horror at the dagger in me. No, no no!" She jumped up and ran towards the ladder, leaving me on all fours panting as warm blood seeped through my shirt. "William! William are you up there?" She shouted up through the passageway.

"Cleaning up the mess up here," came Williams voice from just above the ladder. "You have the staff?"

"Never mind that," Rebecca yelled. "Get down here now! Madison's hurt!"

"How bad?" William asked a moment later and I could hear him coming down the ladder.

"Fucking cockwaffle stabbed me!" I yelled out and I could swear I heard Rebecca chucked ever so slightly at my words. It's not that I never cursed, I was not opposed to dropping some choice words on occasion, but I was guessing she had never heard someone call someone else a "cockwaffle."

"Shit," William said as he and Rebecca ran back over to me as I attempted to push myself into a sitting position but only managed to collapse on top of the now very dead Templar.

I found it hard to feel much guilt about killing him now that he had stabbed me. "Take it easy," William said, kneeling next to me and helping me to sit.

"We can't take her to a hospital," Rebecca said, her voice full of concern. "The wound is too bad, questions would be asked, cops would be called."

"I know," William responded while looking at the dagger still stuck in me. "I have some supplies back at the hotel but getting her back could prove to be complicated. I can carry her up the ladder, but we can't very well walk down the street with a knife stuck in her. That would draw more attention than a hospital."

"I got it," Rebecca said. Use the Templar's robe. "I'll tie it around the wound, but it'll have to be under your shirt Madison. Even at night a white cloth covered in blood will draw a lot of attention.

"Fine," I said. "Do whatever you need to do, just get this god damn knife out of me."

"Okay," Rebecca said and turned to William. "Use his robes, cut them off around thigh high since he hasn't bled that far down. I need several large strips." She turned back to me and spoke softly, a gentleness in her voice that said she was trying to comfort me. "I'm so sorry," Rebecca went on. "But this is going to be painful, maybe not as bad as actually getting stabbed, but it will hurt."

"Just do it," I said.

Rebecca was not joking. What they did was painful as hell. She had both her and me hold a piece of the shredded robe while William swiftly yanked the dagger out of me. As soon as the knife came out, we had to press the robe pieces to both sides of the wound. If that wasn't bad enough on me, I then had to wriggle halfway out of my shirt which was stuck to me with blood so that Rebecca could tie a large chunk of robe around my wound. I took a glance at the front of my shoulder before it got tied off. It looked nasty, much like the Templar's neck did. It was a good thing that the three of us were fifteen feet or more underground, because if we were not, I am sure that my screams would have carried through the walls of the church itself as I was forced to move my arm. When my shoulder was finally wrapped and my shirt back on, I hopped up on William's back and he awkwardly climbed the ladder back to the church while I hung on for dear life with my one good arm as Rebecca came up just behind us carrying the staff.

William was not kidding about the mess left behind on the floor of the church. Five bodies were piled up near the alter and my stomach wrenched as I saw that they were all dead. I supposed that William thought it too risky to leave any of them alive and I couldn't help but to wonder what he planned to do with the bodies. Blood stained several sections of the floor. It was going to be one hell of a cleanup job that would probably take most of the night.

"Take Madison and the staff back to the hotel," William said firmly. "Go to my room, the first aid supplies are in a cabinet in the bathroom. Get her stitched and cleaned up and then check out. Get back to her house. Our work here is done, and we can't afford to linger."

I looked down at my shirt and was so thankful that it was black. The blood hardly showed on it. Someone would have to really be looking for something out of the ordinary to notice it. It was a struggle for me as Rebecca and I walked out of the church leaving William behind, but I managed to all but block out the pain I was in. Rebecca had managed to find a set of robes to wrap the staff in and she strapped it across her back. I made a quick dash to the side of the church where I retrieved my bag and stashed my blade and baton in it.

It was a quiet walk back to the hotel. Neither Rebecca nor I said much of anything until we walked back inside the hotel and made our way very quickly to the elevator and up to William's room. The medical supplies were just where he said they were. I sat down on the bathroom counter and Rebecca helped to take my shirt off.

Getting stitched up sucked ass. With no numbing agent on hand I was forced to endure the pain of the needle going in and out of me as Rebecca sewed me up. It was nowhere near as bad as actually getting stabbed, but it was still not fun at all. Rebecca kept my mind off of the pain by simply talking to me.

"You did so wonderfully," she said. "I am so fucking proud of you and I know that William is as well. I know that it could not have been easy, doing what you had to do."

"It's kind of scary just how easy it was," I replied as I flinched in pain from the needle. "I didn't enjoy killing him, but I do not regret it at all. You were in danger. He…that man, he was going to kill you and I couldn't let that happen." I flinched again as the needle penetrated my skin once more. "I just can't stand the idea of anything happening to you. You mean so much to me."

I could swear I heard Rebecca's voice break slightly as she responded to me. "Madison," she said, softly pressing her forehead against mine. "I'm touched. I truly am." She wrapped me in a gentile hug, doing her best not to press against my wound.

It only took a few more minutes for Rebecca to finish sewing me up and then it was back to our room where we both packed as quickly as possible. The small clock on the nightstand between the beds told me that it was well past midnight. If we left now it would be after two in the morning by the time I got home. The pain in my shoulder had subsided to nothing more than a dull throb

A few minutes later we were completely packed and down in the lobby. The staff was safely wrapped up and strapped to my back while Rebecca turned in our room keys. We tossed the luggage in the car and stored the staff in the trunk. The Rebecca cranked up the music as loud as she thought she could get away with this late at night and we tore down the road in the direction of the interstate like a bat out of hell, both of us singing along with the music in an attempt to clear our minds of everything that had just happened.

It was after three in the morning by the time we pulled into the driveway of the house and got unloaded. I wasn't sure what William was planning to do with the staff, and neither was Rebecca, so I simply unwrapped it and stored it on top of the fireplace for the time being. Despite how tired both Rebecca and I were, neither of us felt like going to bed, so instead we picked out a series of movies and relaxed on the sofa talking and watching until the sun came up. I couldn't be completely certain, but I thought a couple of times I saw Rebecca just looking at me with a smile planted firmly on her face, but she always seemed to look away blushing slightly the minute that she saw me notice.

William showed up late in the evening. He looked tired and run down, which was to be expected considering everything that had happened. I couldn't help but to wonder if he had slept at all after we obtained the staff. I know that neither Rebecca nor I had. We were both running on copious amounts of caffeine.

He plopped down at the kitchen table and Rebecca poured him a cup of coffee before both her and I sat down with him. "Well done," he said, taking a large pull of the drink. "I mean it. I honestly don't think it could have gone much better."

"You know, aside from me getting stabbed," I said with a small smirk. Getting stabbed had sucked of course, and I knew that it was going to leave me with one gnarly ass scar, but it was a scar that I would wear with pride. A mark of me helping someone that I care about.

"How is the arm?" William asked looking over at my heavily bandaged shoulder.

"Sore and throbbing, but I'll be fine, I think," I replied. "What about the staff though? What should I do with it?"

It was Rebecca that answered me. "William and I actually talked a bit about that before you and I went to New Orleans. He thinks that because both you and I are living here right now, that the staff would be safest here."

"Why here though?" I asked.

"The basement that your parents have is quite secure," William said calmly. "And I plan on adding even more security measures to it as well, plus with two Assassins staying here full time for now, I don't think anyone would try to take it."

I nodded my head. It made sense. "One thing I don't really understand though," I said, motioning with my head to the fireplace where I had the staff sitting. "What exactly is the staff? I know that someone had mentioned it was a Piece of Eden, but what exactly does that mean?"

"It's an artifact," William said simply. "An ancient artifact from an ancient civilization. The first civilization. A civilization more advanced in technology and knowledge than any in this room can even dream of. That staff," he went on "is a great and powerful weapon that, in the wrong hands, can bring about unimaginable destruction and ruin."

"And that is why the Templar's want them?" I asked.

"The Templars," Rebecca said "do not believe in freedom of choice. They believe that the only way that the world can be at peace is through complete and total control by their Order. The Assassin's and Templar's have been at war for as long as anyone can remember."

"We cannot allow them to use these ancient artifacts to control the world populous," William continued, taking over for Rebecca. "So, we fight, and we give everything we have. We've all suffered losses to this never-ending war. Several years ago, I…I lost my son. He gave his life to save this entire world."

William departed very shortly after that conversation. He told me that he had a plane to catch and was headed up north to investigate another possible artifact location. Rebecca and I moved the staff down to the basement and placed it on one of the many racks that had been mounted to the walls.

A few hours later a storm had started to move in, thunder and lightning rattled the house and Rebecca and I decided it would be easier to just stay in that evening instead of going out for food. I cooked a simple dinner and we ate in the living room as we once again started another string of movies. It was a peaceful evening, one of the first times that I truly felt at peace since I had been brought into this crazy life. I knew that my life would never truly be normal again, and I was strangely okay with that. What did I not know was what the future would bring for me, but I was excited to find out.

I glanced at Rebecca out of the corner of my eye and caught her looking at me and smiling once more. Without even thinking about what I was doing, I scooted closer to where she was sitting on the sofa and rested my head on her shoulder. She leaned her head down to rest it on top of mine and my heart started racing. It was an off combination of nervousness and excitement. Our hands were less than an inch apart and it was just like that that Rebecca and I spent the remainder of the evening and late into the night.

Witchy's notes:

I honestly don't have much to say here this time. It is probably the fastest that I have ever pumped out a chapter to this tale. I have one more part coming. A shortish epilogue that I will be working on probably before I even post this final chapter. This story has been quite a journey for me and I am both happy and kind of sad that it has reached its conclusion…but the exploits of our lovely Madison Gratton are not quite over…..An apple may yet be in play.