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I came to slowly. My body was a throbbing heap of pain and my head felt like a trio of inelegant elephants had danced a jig on it. It took me the better part of a minute to realize where I was. I drew in a shallow breath.
My cheek was pressed against the cool stone floor of the island and all about me there was commotion. I tried to move my arms, but they didn’t budge. They were bound together behind my back.
I kept my eyes closed in an effort to hide my consciousness from my captors. An old trick, but a good one. It never hurt to gain what intelligence you could while your foe believed you indisposed. It was also surprising how much you could discover, using only your ears.
“Boss, are you there?” a voice echoed in my earpiece.
It was Murdoch. I hadn’t spoken to him since descending the well. I’d figured communications might be difficult beneath the earth. Clearly, we were much closer to the surface now and somehow the signal was getting through.
“I can hear them,” he muttered. “Sounds like they got you good. Are you still in play? Or do you need some backup? Give me a sign if you can hear me.”
I let out a low sigh and Murdoch cursed in my ear. “Well, I’ve got news for you, boss, and it’s all bad. There is another force moving on your position. They will be there in less than a half hour. Try to stay alive. Things are going to get real hairy, real quick.”
“I will do my best,” I whispered.
“I do believe our guest is awake,” the smooth voice said.
A big arm grabbed me under my armpit and sat me up, my hands still cuffed behind my back. The temple ziggurat stood before me and as I stretched my wrists, I knew what I was up against. I had felt such restraints before and knew the familiar and uncomfortable sensation of the arcane manacles. They suppressed a user’s ability to channel their will. The manacles were a common tool in the supernatural world for subduing wizards.
“Seth, good of you to join us,” a rich Spanish accent boomed. I opened my eyes and looked up to find a man in his late forties, his brown hair turning gray, dressed in the regalia of a Catholic bishop. It could only be Diego Torquemada.
Beside him stood a giant of a man. A few inches over six feet, he was built like a buffalo. I recognized the meaty fist that had cold cocked me. Taking another look at the man, I realized I was lucky he hadn’t taken off my head. My jaw ached, and I slowly opened it, testing its limits.
Across from me sat a figure in a loose-fitting brown robe. He had a beard that looked like it hadn’t seen any care in a fortnight, which explained the smell. He looked like a cross between a stowaway and Chewbacca and I noticed his hands were cuffed behind him in much the same way as mine were.
Torquemada loomed over me, his brow furrowed, his cold dark eyes weighing my presence. “That was quite a display in the entrance hall. A dizzying display of power for one so young.”
“You don’t belong here,” I muttered. “I was just trying to take out the trash.”
Torquemada laughed. “You’re as deluded as your father.”
I stretched my neck. “He’d have come himself, but he didn’t think you were worth the effort.”
“Oh, we’ll deal with him in due course, don’t you worry.” The Bishop raised the death mask in one hand. “My thanks for returning the mask to us.”
“What can I say, I’m in a giving mood. What’s left of your last assault team will be waiting for you when you get home.”
The Bishop shrugged. “At least I’ll be going home. You, on the other hand; well, we have grand plans for our budding thief. We had such limited options until you arrived. Now we’re well ahead of schedule.”
I looked around the chamber. Members of the Inquisition had fanned out. They had taken a number of the canoes and were making their way across the water, ferrying gold from the stash back to their companions on the stone island we now sat on.
“Tell me, Seth, how is it that you knew so readily the safe path through the temple annex?” Torquemada asked. “We had the mask for weeks, but you seem to know a great deal more than you should.”
I looked down at my boots. “I’m not telling you a damn thing.”
With my eyes downcast, I searched my vest. I still had my tactical vest and combat rigging but my sidearm was gone. Clearly, they were in a hurry. They hadn’t made much of an effort to search me, only taking the obvious weapons. Perhaps they thought the cuffs would prevent me from being much of a danger. I was going to have to disappoint them, even if it killed me.
“Looking for this?” the towering thug asked.
I looked up to find the meat mountain holding my sidearm, a Walther PPK. It was lightweight and compact. Not much use against the army the Inquisition had brought along, but it was something.
“Cute weapon.”
“Yes,” Torquemada chimed in. “With the power you are able to throw around, why do you even bother?”
I shrugged as I continued searching for a way out of my current predicament. “It always helps to have a plan B.”
Torquemada stooped low. “I hope you have a plan C, child. Those cuffs will prevent you from using your magic, and I have it on good authority that they can’t be opened without the key.”
He lifted a silver key from his pocket and hurled it into the lake. “So now that is settled, answer my question. How do you know the secrets of the temple?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” I replied, shifting my wrists behind me as I slowly checked for what items remained on my tactical vest. The scuba gear remained in place. Clearly, the Inquisition were not afraid of being bludgeoned to death with it, an image I entertained for a few moments before moving on. My remaining flash bang was also missing. I suppose that would have been too much to hope for.
“Want me to soften him up?” the minotaur disguised as a man asked.
“Not yet, Michael.” Torquemada placed a hand on the man’s chest. “I remain hopeful that common sense will prevail.”
“Whatever you say, Father. We need to keep moving though. We are almost out of time.” Michael looked toward the stone bridge, eying the temple ziggurat.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said, stretching my legs to keep the circulation moving. If I needed to run, I didn’t want to be doing it with jelly for legs.
“Do what?” the Bishop asked.
“Enter their sanctum,” I answered, nodding at the island the ziggurat stood on. “You two have been meandering around like the blind leading the blind, while dozens of your men die. Do you think the Brujas de Sangre would restrict their traps to the outer halls? There is a series of rites that must be observed before you enter the inner sanctum.”
The Bishop cocked his head to the side. “Care to enlighten us?”
“Don’t do it,” the cuffed prisoner sitting five feet from me said.
Michael took two large steps and delivered a savage kick to the man’s midsection. The prisoner doubled over in pain, gasping and wheezing.
“They’re... going... to kill us anyway,” he gasped. “Don’t... help... them.”
“Yes,” Torquemada replied. “We are, but at least this way, your death will have meaning.”
I tested the cuffs. The Bishop wasn’t bluffing. There was no way to pick the lock, and the key was on the bottom of the lake. I knew from experience they functioned by absorbing any arcane power directed at them. I had done some work for a Spell Smith who crafted them. He’d explained that in theory they could only absorb so much power but the unfortunate genius of their creation was that the amount of power they could absorb was far in excess of what a wizard could afford to expend without reducing their brain to a puddle of gravy in the process.
It was a tragic irony, but one that could be exploited given the right conditions. I just needed to buy a little time. Making a move with two dozen armed Inquisition standing around was going to get me killed, whether or not the cuffs were on. I suspected more of their soldiers waited in the passage outside.
Murdoch had mentioned another force approaching the temple. They could well provide the distraction I needed.
“I’m not going to help you loot the temple,” I said. “The Spanish have taken enough already.”
Torquemada chortled. “Don’t give me that righteous indignation. The English were more than willing to share in the spoils. Besides, our plans here go far beyond some paltry gold.”
“Speak for yourself,” Michael replied. “Your brethren care little for your obsession. They backed you because the archive spoke of incalculable wealth. If we return empty handed there will be hell to pay.”
“Patience, Michael,” Torquemada countered. “The Inquisition can’t content itself with merely glutting ourselves on riches. We have a broader mandate that grows more urgent by the day. I do not want to be found wanting in the day of judgment.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with. Don’t make me listen to your breathtaking ignorance. You know nothing of magic, nor the purpose it serves.”
Torquemada crouched before me. “Oh? Care to enlighten me?”
I was being goaded. I could hear the air of superiority in his every syllable but if it shut him up and served to buy me some time, I could indulge his curiosity, or failing that, his ego.
“If you succeed in wiping out the supernatural community, you will be dealing unfathomable damage to an ecosystem you don’t understand and it’s going to result in your wholesale destruction,” I said, flexing both hands in frustration. “Wizards are no more the source of magic, than you are the source of those miracles you cling to. People of faith everywhere implore the divine and seek for miraculous intervention, but they don’t make the miracle. They are simply tools in the hands of a greater power. Wizards work magic. We channel it, shape it, and direct it as needed, but we do not create it. Kill us all and you will discover only too late the part we play in your survival.”
Torquemada nodded along as I spoke, and the gesture shocked me. He wasn’t mocking me, in fact he appeared to be genuinely agreeing with me, and I ran out of steam, unsure of what to do with someone I felt certain would fight me on the issue. The Inquisition’s feelings on the topic were relatively well documented.
“I have often thought as much,” the Bishop replied as his men unloaded a canoe laden with gold. “I won’t pretend to understand the heresy of your existence, but what I have seen suggests there may be merit in your words. Unlike some of my more traditional colleagues who might not like to believe it, I have a broader vision. I have made greater plans.”
“Greater plans?” I asked, picking away at the back of my tactical rigging, peeling it away from my Kevlar vest. “Greater than genocide? Pray tell; what harm can it do? You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“Oh yes.” Torquemada’s dark irises seemed to glimmer and grow. “Why do you think we came here? There is wealth to be had elsewhere. No, we came to the temple for a purpose. It is a site of power positioned atop one of your sacred ley lines. Magic courses through the very fabric of this place. I can feel it.”
He stood and sniffed. “I can sense it in the air all about me. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I can recognize the power of this place. It was to those witches what our cathedrals are to us, bastions of strength against the world. The Santiago de Compostela, the Seville Cathedral, the streets of Jerusalem, Rome. Yes, places have power. That is why we are here; the vast reservoir of power that has gone unused for centuries.”
A cold icy grip tightened around my heart. I had been operating on the flawed assumption that the worst the Inquisition could do was destroy the temple. Without magical talent, what purpose could they possibly have? Then my gaze met the wizard who was cuffed opposite me, and my palms began to sweat.
“You mean to use the temple?”
“Oh, Master Caldwell,” Torquemada gloated, “I have spent most of my life seeking out the knowledge that would make today possible. My brethren would have wiped wizards from the face of the Earth. That was never part of the divine plan. I have read the Bible and I see plainly the truths contained therein.”
If the deluded priest was willing to talk, I saw no reason to stop him. Clearly, he felt he had the upper hand. As I worked on freeing myself, I saw no point in disabusing him of the notion.
“And what truth would that be?”
He clasped a crucifix dangling from a gold chain around his neck. “That great powers wrestle for control of this world, and for two thousand years we have been fighting at a disadvantage.”
“And what would that be?” I asked, my eyes following Michael as he paced back and forth.
“We wait for the return of our God, but all the while He waits for us to do our part.”
“Torquemada,” Michael warned.
The Bishop raised a hand to silence him. “The Book of Revelations, Chapter 6. Have you read it?”
“Not lately,” I admitted, still trying to buy time. “Always preferred the Gospels over all the fire and brimstone. You might need to prompt my memory a little.”
Torquemada’s eyes bored into mine. “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, and the heaven departed as a scroll.
“And the kings of the earth hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
My mind started to race at a million miles an hour as I followed his insane logic. The Bible prophesied of a great and future day when God would return to the earth and it would be transformed at his coming. Only a select few would be saved. The remainder would be consigned to endless misery. There was no shortage of descriptions of what would happen to sinners, warlocks, and all who didn’t fit the mold, but it was the mention of the seal that stuck in my mind.
“The sixth seal?” I asked, looking for clarity.
“Yes, the seal that divides this world from other realms. Our master didn’t leave us helpless. Contained in the scriptures were everything we need to bring about his return.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. It seemed I had woefully underestimated the Bishop’s intentions. I’d studied the Bible, as any student of history had. The problem lay in the fact that the Bible had been translated many times, sections had been changed and altered over the years; their meanings twisted to justify the position of those in power and authority.
If I understood correctly, the mad Bishop was using the book of Revelations as a roadmap to hasten the apocalypse. I felt sick to my core.
“Yes, my child.” He smiled his grin showing teeth. “We’re going to bring down the Veil.”
My jaw dropped. It was so much worse than I could have conceived. Wizards knew well how to avoid the Inquisition and their ilk. We’d been doing it for hundreds of years, hiding in plain sight. Even though the World of Magic had been thrust into the spotlight, we still had our tricks. But never in a thousand years would I have thought that the Inquisition had shifted its focus. The Bishop had no desire to kill every wizard. No, he wanted to do an end run around that little obstacle and tear down the veil that divided our world from the realm of spirits—all in the hope of hastening his great day of salvation.
Of course in my mind salvation had giant air quotes around it, as no one who knew better could possibly think destroying the veil between our world and the next was a good idea.
Hell no.
The Veil was what kept a dizzying array of nightmarish creatures from making their way into our world. Beyond the veil lay the world of the Fae, the creatures that served them, and the realms of the Gods themselves. Obviously, the Padre hoped that his maker and legions of angels would applaud him for his intervention.
More likely his insanity, if successful, would bring about the destruction of every living thing on the earth as ravaging spirits consumed a population not equipped to deal with their presence.
I groaned in pain. I felt it in my soul. I had come to the temple to cure my own curse, but I now had far more important work to do. If I couldn’t stop Torquemada, my curse hardly mattered. I wouldn’t live long enough for it to kill me. No one would. Not my father, not my mother, and certainly not Lara.
I wanted to leave this place and run for my life, but the thought of Lara changed that. She had spent her life studying humanity and yet she always managed to see the best in people. She’d certainly seen the best in me; things I didn’t see in myself. I thought of her and wanted to be more. Not the thief she’d met in Manhattan, but the man she had wanted to marry. I knew that I couldn’t allow this insanity to unfurl.
Part of me wanted to believe that Torquemada couldn’t possibly have the knowledge and wherewithal to make good on his delusions. But his calm, patient demeanor and the manic pride in his eyes spoke of someone close to fulfilling their ambition. He was a dangerous foe, but not because of any physical prowess. It was the cold, calculating mind behind it that gave me pause. The fact that I was still alive and not already dead was evidence of a greater plan at play.
“What did you mean you are glad that I came along?” I asked.
The bishop lorded over me. “The ritual requires sacrifice. And as you and I both know, magic is in the blood, my boy.”
He pointed at the second captive. “We had intended to use him. He was the best we could lay our hands on. But then you, like a spider to the fly, wandered into the temple. You have a prodigious talent and will make a far more viable offering for the ritual.”
These lunatics meant to sacrifice me. Somehow they thought the power of the temple and my life force would be enough to destroy the Veil.
I had absolutely no concept of how such a thing was even possible, and I was a student of arcane lore. Ancient knowledge was my stomping ground. Torquemada was half-right. I had some arcane talent, but I was young, still learning to harness my power. My real strength lay in the knowledge I had acquired during my life. I had read the secret works of some of history’s greatest practitioners. I’d looted tomes of forbidden knowledge that would have given the Arcane Parliament cause to toss me in a deep hole. All of which begged the question, if I had no idea how such a ritual would function, how the hell did the Bishop?
I licked my parched lips. “A discerning mind might wonder where you learned how to accomplish such a feat?”
His eyes darted left, back toward the entrance hall. “Perhaps I obtained it from the Inquisition’s archives, like I did the location of this temple.”
I shook my head as I reached for the pouch that was sandwiched neatly between my vest and my back. A pouch I had stolen from the catacombs in Rome.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I countered. “If the Inquisition had that kind of knowledge, they would have tried this centuries ago. You can’t be the first member of your order insane enough to want to accelerate Armageddon.”
The Bishop’s smile widened just a little. It wasn’t at all comforting. “You’re right. Others might share my ambition, but I am singularly committed. That’s why the Messenger sought me out.”
Messenger? Spiritual beings bearing knowledge from beyond the Veil were dangerous creatures. Seldom were they operating in the best interest of mortal kind. No, they usually dabbled and interfered in order to bolster their own position.
“What messenger?” I asked.
Torquemada folded his arms over his chest. “The Archangel Gabriel appeared to me in a vision and taught me what I must do.”
The wizard sitting across from me snickered, and I had to admit I shared his skepticism. Angels, like most supernatural beings, were only too real. They dwelt in the realm beyond and acted as messengers between deities and their faithful followers, but accommodating Armageddon hardly seemed to follow God’s usual modus operandi. In fact, after the great flood, I seemed to recall a distinct change in the overall level of smitey-ness exhibited by the Maker of Mankind.
It was far more likely that some other creature was impersonating the Archangel and had appeared to the deluded disciple to beguile him into carrying out its own agenda.
It also meant I had no idea whose knowledge was being acted upon and how viable or insane the Bishop’s actual plan was.
There are powerful creatures in the world of spirits, most of whom longed for the opportunity to roam wild through the world. It was an all-you-can eat buffet. Most creatures there would see us as little more than livestock to be devoured. I was certain such a being was manipulating the Inquisition and the Bishop to their own ends.
Unfortunately, the day the Bishop discovered he had been deceived, we were all going to die. It would be an Armageddon of sorts, but it was not going to be filled with the angelic fanfare he was looking for.
“He gave us the means to perform the ritual and guided us here so that we might carry it out.”
“You don’t want to do that,” I said. “You’re going to kill us all.”
Torquemada made a shooing motion. “Lies. And poor ones at that. Michael, secure the temple. The time is here.”
Michael barked orders at his men who took up positions around the island. He grabbed the captive wizard and dragged him toward the stone bridge leading toward the inner sanctum.
The man fought back but to no avail.
“Michael, don’t,” I shouted. “There’s no need.”
“Nonsense,” Torquemada bellowed, his voice rising. “The mask speaks the truth. Tradition begins with blood. Now that we have Seth for the ritual, spill it all.”
The wizard kicked and fought but Michael grabbed a fistful of his hair, wrenched his head over the ceramic bowl, and slit his throat.
I tore my eyes away from the barbarity as blood ran into the bowl.
“It begins,” Torquemada cried.
I turned back in time to see Michael’s feet touch the stone bridge leading to the ziggurat.
The temple began to shake.