Free The Templar Chronicles by Joseph Nassise Page A

pulled the corpse’s flesh down and away from its own form. A hint of wings could be seen as it sought to drag itself free from the fleshly remains in which it had been hiding.
    Cade’s hand came up, the pistol in it centering once more on its target. Peripherally, he could see Jackson’s weapon doing the same.
    Cade never had a chance to pull the trigger.
    With the flick of its hands, the thing was free; the rest of the bodily remains flung away in either direction. One long clawed hang swung around and locked on Cade’s, trapping his gun in its iron grip. The other slapped itself against the side of his face.
    An inky black cloud of darkness flowed out of its hands and onto Cade’s skin, burning his flesh with the intensity of molten steel.
    In the back of his mind Cade could dimly hear himself screaming in agony and could feel the flesh on his face and hand melting away.
    In front of him, those eyes glowed with intelligence and an awful, inhuman glee…
    Flash…
    Cade awoke.
    He sat upright, the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. It sounded loud enough to him to be heard by his men in the forward compartment. He could feel the sweat running down his neck and pooling in the middle of his back beneath his shirt.
    As he tried to center his thoughts, something moved in the darkness of the compartment.
    He reacted the second he sensed the intrusion, moving out of the chair and into a crouch before it, balanced on the balls of his feet.
    “Cade.”
    Just a word.
    One simple word, spoken in a voice no louder than a whisper.
    But a word that had all the power in the world when spoken by the woman he had loved more than life itself.
    “Gabbi?” he asked, in a hoarse whisper.
    When the figure did not respond, Cade reached beneath the shade of the lamp on the table next to him and turned on the switch.
    In the sudden light, Cade discovered that he was alone.
    The figure, if it had ever been there, was gone.

CHAPTER NINE
    Logan climbed the cellar stairs, the howl of the revenant below causing a smile to dance upon his lips. They’d taken several of the Templars captive, on the off chance that they might be able to reveal something of importance. When they’d refused to answer his questions, he’d had them all slaughtered, then resurrected one at a time as revenants.
    His questions were posed again.
    Unfortunately, they’d been telling the truth. None of them had known anything of value.
    Snatching them hadn’t been completely in vain, however, as they were providing some merriment for Logan’s acolytes, an experience that would only bond them even more securely to him as their leader.
    As he moved through the house, headed for his nightly audience with the Other, he considered where the plan had taken them so far. The sheer audacity of it all was exhilarating. To steal one of the most powerful artifacts of Christianity right out from under the noses of those who had been tasked to guard it throughout the ages was a thrilling accomplishment. To do it with the help of one of their own was even more exquisite.
    His smile grew wider at the thought.
    Leaving the house, he crossed the grounds swiftly, a dark shadow against a darker background, with just the light of the moon to guide his way. Behind him only a slight disturbance in the dew-wet grass marked his passage.
    Seconds later that, too, faded from view.
    As he neared the old chapel, his pace slowed noticeably. The door stood slightly open to the night air, as he had known it would, just as it was every time he came here.
    An unspoken invitation
    The chapel had once been holy ground, but that was years ago. Any vestige of God that might have once inhabited the place had long since fled. Countless ceremonies and blood sacrifices had seen to that.
    The Necromancer stepped through the door and moved down the center aisle to the edge of the raised altar platform, continuing around the side to its end.
    He waited in silence a moment, until a form moved out of the