Warning & A/N: This is the chapter you've all been waiting for. Just to be sure, I've upped the rating to R, or M for Mature Audiences Only. There is quite a bit of action and violence, some nasty description – but it's not as bad as previous chapters. Please just be aware. I was going to split it up with another cliffhanger, but you got lucky – it didn't want to be split. So it is also one-third as long as usual. Enjoy. And no, I'm not done just yet.
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The knife's unstoppable descent was halted sharply, mere inches from the Jerusalemite's skin. Lamar never noticed.
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
"Father," gasped Derek Hastings, his voice lost to the strain of holding the other man back. "What are you doing? It is not time; those are not the proper words for -"
The older man laughed harshly, a rough, grating sound. "Did you truly think that we would be able to triumph by fighting as we have always done?" He shoved his son away, distracted at a crucial moment.
Carl was staring in mute shock. The friar and the hunter had been completely forgotten by the four men ringed around the table with its sad burden and gruesome history.
"You and your kind have persisted in thinking the old ways could work. I have been fighting for longer than you have been alive, boy," the warlock snapped bitterly. He stepped back from the table, turning to fully face the others. "I have lost friends, good friends, and family to the evils which stalk our world. Never has anything we have done allowed us the protection they know in Rome. Never have we been safe, had a sanctuary in our relentless toil." His fury was growing, and the man was purple with apoplectic jealousy. "Never have we had the power to defeat the evil that roams this land, once and for all time. I will save us, I will!"
"You will destroy us!" his son retorted hotly. A hand was flung out in passionate plea, begging forgiveness. "I have bowed to your will my entire life, father. But how can I do other than stand against you now? There is no way we can control the beast you intend to call up, not without -"
"Not without me," the warlock replied smugly. "The summoning has already begun. The words have begun it. If you kill me, you ensure death for the village – a death that will not be contained by your paltry pentacle. It will spread, through America, and over the entire world. Even those in Rome will not be safe," he finished with a good measure of gloating satisfaction. His face was twisted into a sneer; the expression was repellent in its malicious glee.
Derek Hastings was pasty white and shaking, but never once did he lose his composure as he backed away from his father. "Robert," he snapped. Ancell moved forward, an immovable obstacle, to stand protectively at his shoulder.
At the same moment, Jason Schoen swept forward. He sideswiped the blacksmith, and the student stumbled backwards, grunting. A thin line of blood scored the side of his face.
Derek Hastings was left alone, facing his father.
All hell broke loose.
Before their very eyes, student and teacher became locked in a fierce battle, a violent dance with each endeavoring to kill the other, without spilling blood onto the snow that was being churned up under their feet.
Derek and Joseph Hastings were frozen, on either side of the breathing sacrifice chained to the table between them. Carl could not see the battle they were fighting, but Gabriel could. The air between them was thick with twirling tentacles of evil, smoky strands grappling and sparking invisibly.
It was the battle between Ancell and Schoen, however, which was of most import. Back and forth across the clearing, it appeared that neither could gain an advantage. Blows were traded and evaded, strikes blocked and returned, only to be blocked once more. It was clear that student and teacher knew one another too well, could predict and anticipate with equal success.
They were eerily equal, the dance continuous as they darted around small obstacles that would have the ability to turn the fight in favor of one or another. Circling the clearing, their familiarity with one another was clear in every motion.
Ancell used his power to his advantage, but Schoen turned his smaller target size, speed and reach to his advantage. The blacksmith's moves were precise, sneaky, and powerful. He landed one blow, splitting Schoen's lip as the other darted back, misjudging the distance. At that moment, Ancell smiled slightly. It seemed he had scored a victory against his teacher, one that was all too rare in his experience. The blacksmith seemed buoyed with new confidence.
There was a short, significant pause as Schoen stopped, wiping his lip carefully on his sleeve. When he looked up at his former student, however, there was a cold deadness in his eyes that visibly drained the blacksmith's confidence. It was a sly move, a simple look, which turned the blacksmith's momentary victory into his ultimate defeat.
The fight was rejoined, but now Schoen was showing the depth and breadth of training that he had obviously never revealed before. The battle between father and son broke off as the men seemingly reached an impasse. In silent agreement, their attention turned to the fight that was moving slowly, inexorably, but increasingly in favor of Jason Schoen.
Schoen was calling on unique moves, and endurance that he had ruthlessly built up in himself, and his student was baffled and confused, continually losing ground. Carl felt a flash of pity, despite his dislike of the man, as a panicked, shocked expression manifested in the blacksmith's eyes. Nowhere else was his frantic emotion evident; the only sign that it affected his ability was in his renewed awareness and determination.
The first he knew of defeat was when, with a shock of horror, Ancell realized that he had let knowledge of his surroundings slip from his all-consuming focus. He was being backed toward the massive pyre in the center of the clearing; he could feel the warmth of the flames searing his skin, sweat was pouring from him in rivulets. He stepped sideways, attempting to turn the fight in another direction.
It was in that one move that his defeat was sealed. The balance tipped slightly for the first time, but it was enough.
As the blacksmith shifted position, his feet fumbled for only a moment over a small dip in the ground. Schoen shot forward, and the two were suddenly fighting in much closer quarters. The blacksmith grappled with his teacher, but the taller man knocked him off balance. Suddenly, they were wrestling in the snow, rolling back and forth, away from the searing coals that sizzled and spat tiny sparks on the two combatants.
Ancell ended up on top, using his greater weight to attempt to crush Schoen into the snow, but the lanky man hooked a leg around and up, flipping his student with ease. Slamming his elbow back, Schoen's first such blow crushed Ancell's nose in a move Gabriel immediately recognized. The second blow ground lips against teeth, knocking the tiny bones from their moorings. Taking advantage of his student's momentary disorientation, Schoen continued to rain blows down on the blacksmith, hitting vulnerable areas in rapid succession. A ragged scream burst from Ancell's lips as Schoen dislocated his knee with a single ruthless kick.
Panting harshly, Ancell's attention was on getting to his feet when Schoen made the final move. Sweeping out and around, a blow to the solar plexus doubled the larger man over in pain. When he finally rose, he moved directly into Schoen's grip. Long-fingered hands gripped his skull firmly.
Carl looked away, but forgot to cover his ears. The meaty crack of Ancell's neck snapping did not travel far through the clearing, but Carl was close enough to hear. He winced at the thick, dull sound, but there was no noise of a body falling. He couldn't help himself, and glanced back. Schoen gently lowered his student to the ground in a motion that played at tenderness, but was spoiled by the flat, careless expression in the killer's eyes. Wide eyes stared sightlessly, dead blood dribbling down slack features to stain the snow. The friar swallowed, and turned his face determinedly away.
The next sight that met his eyes was that of Schoen, plunging his hands into the snow to wash them, and emotionlessly accepting a scrap of linen cloth from Joseph Hastings. The warlock turned then to his son. "Will you continue to defy me, son?"
Derek's face was gray with fear and indecision. "What are you doing?" he whispered unevenly.
"Will you defy me?" Joseph thundered. His gaze bore down unremittingly on his only offspring, demanding obedience. No one could stand before that for long, though to his credit Derek Hastings did try. In the end, he crumbled before his father's overpowering will, and nodded, eyes lowered.
"Take the position of the dedicator," Joseph Hastings gruffly ordered.
The three men then moved, slowly, for Derek Hastings' steps were small, his attention locked on the forgotten body of his friend. They took up different positions around the table. Lamar had not so much as twitched, and gave no sign that he was even cognizant of his surroundings.
It appeared that the warlock did not trust Derek, for the mayor of Boxborough took a position at Lamar's head, facing the flames of the pyre, with his hands locked loosely behind his back. Joseph Hastings himself stood to Lamar's right, and Schoen faced him across Lamar's prone body.
Gabriel's attention was drawn from Ancell's corpse as the chanting resumed. Hastings had obviously decided to begin again. The words that he heard slowly unraveled in his mind, did not hiss and slither from his hearing as they did from that of the other listeners. Powerful words, strangely spoken, twisted the elements to their will, tracing out a containment for whatever being they were still trying to call up. He recognized them, despite the way Hastings garbled each syllable. For all his pride and menace, for all the power that he proclaimed control of, the warlock's knowledge was full of dangerous, gaping holes. He was making mistakes, and with growing dread Gabriel realized that Hastings was completely unaware of his failings. He continued, in ignorance of his own inadequacy for the task he had set himself.
When the tone of the words shifted, moving from containment to calling, Gabriel knew it, with a thrill of adrenaline-pulsed dismay. Schoen's rolling baritone drifted to silence, and he began to prepare the knife whose earlier journey had been so abruptly cut short. As the master trainer's voice was silenced, that of Derek Hastings rose to take its place. Although he was clearly not trusted, it was just as clear to see that he was needed in this ceremony.
The two men spoke slowly now, alternating phrases, words and syllables in increasing complexity. Precision was the key which would unlock the demon's prison. Simply by listening, the hunter could tell that Derek was much more knowledgeable than his father, or had a gift for languages. His command of the Old Persian they spoke was much cleaner, his grasp of intonation and meter much firmer, than that of the domineering warlock at his side.
Gabriel focused on the words, waiting for the name of the beast they were attempting to command. Only with the true name would the creature they summoned be fully bound to the warlock's will, instead of its own. It was only in this way that could he ignore the cresting wave of malice sweeping inexorably through the clearing. He did not think he could bear it, chained and helpless as he was, and doomed to remain that way for fear of his friend and the innocent bound as sacrifice. His control was thread-thin, and already his concern was washing away in the tide of light rising within. He must wait – the time was not yet right. It could destroy everything if-
The voices that had become lost in his inner battle for control, blurring to meaningless mumbles, rose in a triumphant crescendo. It was only now that Gabriel blinked, realizing that at some point, Derek Hastings had dropped out of the chant and the warlock was speaking alone.
He shouted the final enunciation with a flourish, taking the knife that Schoen held out to him. Without further ado, he set the razor edge to skin, and began making sharp, quick cuts over Lamar's body. The Jerusalemite's shirt had been lost during the chant, disposed of by Schoen in preparation for the live butchery taking place before them.
Hastings began on the inside of Lamar's right thumb, slicing the skin in a graceful curve across the palm, up the wrist and into the inside of the elbow. As he slit Lamar's wrist, the blood began to flow, soaking the table in a crimson wave and pooling repugnantly over the wood. The knife-stroke never ceased, tracing in an unbroken line up the bicep and across the collarbone. The motion of the blade was continuous, even as it was transferred from the warlock to Schoen, who carved an identical line down Lamar's left arm ending at his thumb. Only then was the blade lifted from his flesh.
Hastings began once more, carving a line to bisect Lamar's ribcage, straight down his body from collarbone to groin. The knife moved then to the Jerusalemite's legs, slicing a single continuous gash along the top of each leg. These last wounds were more symbolic than practical. The damage had already been done. Lamar's lifeblood was soaking out of him, ruby-red droplets merging into a red tide that swept over the wood which had weathered many such waves. Once he had made the ritual cuts, Joseph Hastings halted the ceremony, and waited; the sacrifice had been dedicated in all but actuality.
As he waited, Gabriel's attention was fixed on the blood, vibrant with life. After all, Lamar's heart was still beating. Carl's face was a mirror, reflecting each of his thwarted emotions, among the foremost of which were fury, fear and helplessness.
As the first drops trickled down each of the table legs, drawn by gravity to the ground of the desecrated clearing, the hunter braced himself, gathering his remaining strength.
The first sign that something untoward was happening came in the dampening of the flames. The massive pyre had burned hotly all through the day, gobbling up the bodies dedicated to its voracious appetite. It had shown no signs of dying down as it consumed flesh, bone and wood. The red and orange tongues of fire grew smaller now, and did not leap as high. Gradually, they shrank and disappeared until even latent heat was sucked from the air. Coals grew cold, giving up the ghost in tiny wisps of smoke.
Even heat from the sun was leeched away. The light grew dim as passing clouds gathered and spun themselves into nebulous masses covering the sky. The clearing grew shadowed, and darkness laughed at its victory over the day.
The silence that filled the clearing was overcome by a gradually rising noise; the sound of whispers, growing ever louder, filled the space between the men. Each voice whispered ugly, terrible secrets that were never meant to be repeated. The earth shrank from the force of those voices, trembling under their feet.
Then, slowly, it appeared.
Gabriel did not know which one it was, precisely. But of what it was he had no doubt.
In heaven's war, sides had been chosen by all, from archangels to the smallest seraphim. Those that sided with Lucifer were cast out and fell, forever distorted by the descent into something different, opposite of what they had been intended. But they did not grow; they changed, only.
What these foolish, foolhardy men had called upon had once been one of those seraphim, in the time before the world and before creation itself. One of the Lord's sweet children, who had followed the Light-bringer into everlasting damnation. Now, it was twisted beyond recognition and Gabriel could no longer tell who it had been.
It knew him, though, and faced him immediately upon entrance into the mortal realm. A sneer covered the face that was not precisely a face. It was not named, and so not bound – though it appeared that Gabriel himself was the only one aware of this. Carl might have known, but he was filled with horror and shock, struggling to retain his sanity.
Unbound as it was, it had no need to cater to the limited senses of mortals, and thus its painful otherness cracked the minds of unprotected humans. Gabriel could tell that it was using its time to pull the completeness of itself from beyond, into the clearing and the reality of Earth. Once it did, it would be utterly, completely and forever beyond Joseph Hastings' illusions of control.
As the thing began to manifest, the wave of evil flowing through the space around each man broke over their heads. The others could only sense the chill on their skin as it passed. Gabriel was caught, drowning in swirls and eddies as the force of it crashed against his nature and was repulsed. Ancient instinct reared up, and would not be denied. With the last of his strength, remembering Carl, he forced it back. Mercy, after all, had many definitions. The friar did not deserve the unyielding justice that would be meted out; the drugs clouding his mind kept Gabriel confused enough that he could not tell if he would remember or recognize friend from foe. His trust in himself wavered, and an unfamiliar fear for the power resting in his bones overtook all rational thought.
The idea of a laugh, sinister with intent, filled the clearing. It came from the thing still patiently waiting to be unleashed. It did not know why he did not destroy it even as it was caught before him. It only knew that he sought to prevent something, that he was unable to do so. And at the failure of angels, devils danced.
Gabriel snarled, tugging once more at his chains. Whether from the forces pulling at the world around them, or the undeniable change in the hunter, mere metal could no longer withstand him and the shackles fell from his wrists.
It was too late.
At the same moment the metal released the hunter, the creature yanked the lagging remainder of its essence into the mortal realm. With incredible speed, it turned on its summoner. Joseph Hastings had time enough to realize his fate, and begin panicked, jumbled words of command, before he was wiped from existence. The creature, distressing to look at and stretching beyond the dimensions of comprehension, snatched the warlock with something like teeth, which were nevertheless pointed and sharp, and gulped him down whole. Beneath the weight of such evil, Gabriel knew that the man's sanity snapped and his life ended at the same moment. His soul was lost – God only knew what ultimately became of Joseph Hastings.
Truly free now, the creature made its first and last mistake. It turned its complete attention, the full force of its corrupted soul, on the being that was now, unbelievably, trapped in a mortal incarnation and at its mercy. It would rend flesh, taste the blood that was tinged with something more than mortality, and destroy one of the favored. It would be the victor, despite its fall; for it would obliterate one of the Unspoken One's servants, the Left Hand himself.
The power rose up in the hunter, crushingly intense, and swept aside all rational thought. Fuelled by the drugs still within his system, unchecked by any restraint, radiance blazed from Gabriel in the only possible physical manifestation of the power within. Derek Hastings was reduced to a dead faint at the sight. Schoen turned his face away, and Carl squinted, shocked at the raw power being displayed.
The warding line containing the friar was rendered useless. Guided by an instinct he would later call almost surely suicidal, Carl stumbled toward his friend. He searched wildly for the – whatever the warlock had conjured up. The thing had vaporized, it seemed, blasted into nothing without time for a scream. With an emotion he would later recognize as hysterical humor, Carl saw a small, charred smudge of black where it had been . . . standing? Floating?
Shaking his head, he continued onward, for his friend was burning with a light that should be too hot to stand, a light that merely breathed across his skin, ghosting gently over his flesh. When he reached the source, Carl could not see, and grabbed Gabriel's arm.
It was like swallowing a bolt of lightning. Gasping at the strange sensation, Carl turned to survey the clearing, and saw what Gabriel saw. Strange images of white and black, tinted with emotions so far beyond his experience that he didn't know what he was feeling, flashed through his bones and settled behind his eyes. Derek Hastings, where he lay in a cold stupor in the snow, was cocooned in gray tendrils. Schoen was limned in crackling wisps of black and red.
It was Lamar, however, who caught his attention. Insubstantial strings of the palest silver were all that tied him to this world. He was fast fading, and Carl would stop it if he could. He tugged at the unresisting hunter, who seemed overcome by something that Carl could not understand. All the friar knew was that he must get to Lamar.
Step by step, they approached the table and the heavily drugged, nearly lifeless Jerusalemite. When they finally reached him, he was much more dead than alive, his heart pounding a sluggish, unsteady rhythm his chest. Carl reached out to him, not sure what he could do, if anything.
A familiar warmth descended over him, pulled in and through his body as his fingers made contact with flesh. For a moment, he did not recognize the feeling. Then he saw the cuts sealing, leaving faint white lines in their wake as they healed. The blood slowly disappeared, and the pallor left the Jerusalemite's skin until he was glowing healthily. His breathing, tight and labored, eased as the disease was cleansed from his body. The last bruises from his fight with Ancell darkened, then faded as they were fully healed. He was left sleeping, all signs of his misfortunes over the last few days erased in only a few seconds.
But the light faded now, and Carl stumbled as the warmth that had filled him disappeared abruptly, leaving a faint tingling in his veins. Something flashed by his face in a rush of color and air; a faint grunt sounded next to him as his grip on the hunter was ripped loose.
Schoen tackled Gabriel, driving both men to the ground as he sought to overcome the hunter. He jerked away on contact, however, a howl of pain on his lips. Large blisters were already raising on his skin, anywhere he had made contact with the hunter's bare flesh.
Gabriel rose effortlessly to his feet, and glanced at Carl. The friar backed out of the way, reading the look in his friend's eyes, and breathed easier. There was a clear lucidity in the hunter's hazel eyes that had been missing since their arrival in Boxborough. Carl knew without needing to be told that the drugs had been burned away, their effects eradicated at long last.
Schoen rushed forward once more, closing quarters with the hunter. This time, he was unprepared for the fight. For all his covert examination and preparation, his measurement of his opponent, Gabriel's style defied definition. His method of fighting was every method, blended together in a mix so familiar and strange, it confounded explanation – much like the hunter himself.
This battle was a dance between white and black; a reversal of the fight in St. Peter's Basilica mere months ago. This time, the forces of goodness were garbed in white, and those of evil were cloaked in treacherous shadow. Even though the power had faded, there was now no hiding just who and what Gabriel was. The color white could not keep a secret. Some part of Schoen understood, even as he opposed the hunter.
A confusion of images floated past Carl's eyes. A distant part of his mind registered that he was in shock, but his attention was locked elsewhere. He was focused on the kicks and punches Gabriel easily turned aside, on Schoen's increasing anger as he was unable to even get near the hunter. The friar focused on his friend's calm, efficient movements and used the motions to ground himself in the here and now, when so much of his mind wanted to crumble before what he had just seen, and what he was still witnessing.
Gabriel defended himself, only, until in his desperation Schoen grabbed the knife that lay in the snow, still wet with Lamar's blood. He hurled himself, blade-first, at Gabriel. After that, it was a struggle for control of the knife; the handle, slippery with someone else's blood, was in constant danger of sliding to the ground. Gabriel twisted, managing to turn the blade almost at the last second. He felt the metal slide over flesh, glance off bone. A hot rush of blood hit his skin.
Schoen fell, gasping, to the earth. The knife was deeply lodged near his heart. In near-silence, the master trainer gurgled out his last breath in a froth of crimson foam that spilled from his lips.
Several heartbeats passed in silence. With a loud roar that startled a yell from the jumpy friar, the pyre rekindled, rolling heat and stench in a wave through the clearing. Sunlight returned to light the blood-soaked snow. All was as it had been, though nothing was completely finished and everything was still horribly wrong. Derek Hastings was lying unconscious off to the side. Lamar slept deeply on a table tainted with the wasting of innocent lives. Gabriel washed his hands of the blood of the guilty, the white cloth draping his form only highlighting the lingering glow that caressed his figure, and did not seem to want to leave. Carl was breathing hard, steadying himself from the awful shock he had just received, from the quick rush of violence and death that would have overwhelmed anyone else. Everything was different; nothing had changed.
But for now, it was over.