As she moved to check the other two prone and unmoving forms, Sir Reginald Christy, Hurricane and the rest of the workers emerged from the pit. Christy set about designating men to fashion a litter to carry out the wounded, while Hurley joined Molly alongside one of the fallen. The man lay in a spreading pool of blood and even from a distance, she could tell that it was too late. The third man was still alive, bleeding profusely from a leg wound, but awake and alert.
"It was terrible," he rasped. "A nightmare come to life. It… it devoured them."
"Hush," Molly chastised. "You need to lie back and elevate your legs. You're going into shock."
"It disappeared into the ground, like some kind of burrowing worm. It could be under our feet right now, waiting to devour us too!" The man continued to rave, but with some irresistible persuasion from Hurley, he lay back and let her work. She fashioned a tourniquet to stanch the flow of blood from the leg wound and by the time she had finished, the ambulance team was ready to haul the two men away.
Hurricane ventured ahead of them, leading with his twin hand cannons. Just inside the shadows of the tunnel mouth, he paused, holstered one of his pistols and knelt to retrieve something. It was a large silver crucifix that nevertheless appeared delicate in his grasp. With gentle pressure from his thumb, he pushed against the figure on the upright, revealing a hidden blade.
"The Fraternis Maltae!" exclaimed Christy.
"Like there was ever any doubt," Hurricane muttered, stuffing the cruciform dagger into his belt. "But this is all that's left of 'em."
"The same could be said for my men. Four of them are unaccounted for. Not just dead; it's like they've been completely erased from existence! How is that possible? What was that thing?"
Hobbs, still maintaining pressure on Baylor's wound dressing, regarded the other man with an unblinking stare. "This is not a coincidence, Sir Reginald. They couldn't possibly have followed us. That means they already knew about this place and what you discovered."
"How?"
"'How' doesn't matter. What matters is that the attack by the Fraternis Maltae, this…manifestation and the prophecy of the Child of Skulls…they're all related. I must speak with this man, Winterbourne."
The apprentice knelt in supplication, both hands pressing the dagger that was the badge of his rank, to his forehead, as prescribed in the rites of the Fraternis Maltae. He remained that way for several long minutes, until the uncomfortable silence prompted him to shift his gaze to the motionless form of his superior. "Chevalier?"
" 'I alone survived to tell thee.'"
The apprentice nodded and in a breach of decorum, lowered the dagger. "The Book of Job."
"I was thinking of Melville actually, but yes, I believe he was quoting from Job." Despite his shaved head, the Chevalier's pleasant face and round features gave him a placid, even jovial expression that was decidedly at odds with his profession. It was especially unusual given the nature of the news he had just received.
Indeed, he was anything but calm.
The story the apprentice had told him, a story that involved an attack by something otherworldly, something from Hell itself, was horrifying on its own merits, but it portended a disaster of epic proportions. The assault on the subterranean archaeological excavation was to have been the endgame — his final triumph. He had played masterfully, taking pieces off the board when it suited, sacrificing his own pawns when necessary, but the arrival of the Americans was the signal for him to finally checkmate the Trevayne Society. Those instructions had come from the Grandmaster himself and the Chevalier had not hesitated to commit his entire force of subordinates to the fight.
And now they were all gone, all but this one lone apprentice who had returned to their rented house — their temporary base of operations — in the Surrey countryside with a tale straight from a nightmare. Not that every aspect of the tale was completely unexpected. Their client had wired ahead, warning them that the arrival of the Americans might trigger some kind of response from the artifact the Trevayne Society had uncovered, but nothing in the Chevalier's experience could have prepared him for something like what the apprentice had described.
He was English by birth, born and raised less than a hundred miles from the very spot where he now stood. But for nearly two decades, he had been living abroad, ever since a fateful moment on a foreign battlefield where he had, in a moment of weakness, deserted his post. A man without a country, he had found new courage and an odd sort of redemption with the brotherhood of assassin monks known as the Fraternis Maltae.
He was not a religious man, but then despite their clerical trappings, the Fraternis Maltae was hardly a religious order. While their historic origin was loosely tied to the Church, the brothers served a different god. In scripture, its name was Mammon. Though they dressed and lived as monks, they were nothing more or less than mercenaries and fiercely proud of both their accomplishments and the wealth they had accrued.
There were many levels in the hierarchy of the organization and he, like all others who had labored to attain the rank of Chevalier had his eye on the still vacant position of Chevalier Premiere — First Knight — the penultimate station in the fraternity, second only to Grandmaster Yves St. Jean d'Arc. The former Chevalier Premiere, a man whose family had been the historic guardians of the brotherhood's vast treasury and who had been present when a sadistic Prussian commander had massacred his entire village in order to seize that wealth, had recently perished in an ill-conceived and uncharacteristically personal, mission to root out the Prussian, now living in America with a new identity, kill him and recover the treasure.
Only the Grandmaster could appoint a replacement Chevalier Premiere from among the uppermost tier of the brotherhood and given the old man's advanced years, whomever he selected would almost certainly in short order take up the mantle of Grandmaster. A victory against the Trevayne Society would have all but guaranteed that seat of power for the ambitious Chevalier. His absolute failure promised a much different "reward."
Was there a way to salvage this?
His fingers curled around the hilt of the ceremonial sword belted to his waist. His palm bit into the intricately detailed figure crucified there. The sword was of the same design as the daggers worn on a silver chain around the necks of the lower ranks, but unlike those stilettos, the swords given to the Chevaliers rarely drew blood. Those who had been knighted did not fight with physical weapons, but rather utilized their apprentices and acolytes to achieve victory.
Perhaps that was my mistake, he thought. Perhaps I should have led them into battle. The outcome might not have changed, but at least I would have died with honor instead of facing this humiliation.
Perhaps it's not too late for that.
He turned to the apprentice, drawing the sword in a single fluid motion. The kneeling man quailed, but did not move from his position of supplication as the blade sliced the air above his head and then arced toward his unprotected neck. Instead, he simply closed his eyes.
"How did you survive?" he asked, the edge of his blade hovering inches above the other man's shoulder.
"I fled. When I saw what was happening to the others, I ran. I… I am a coward. I deserve to die."
"And yet you returned here, to report the outcome and face the consequences of your failure." The Chevalier offered a smile, which in any other face would have seemed more a pained grimace. "I think you are braver than you realize.
"But it is not the place of an apprentice to divine the intention behind his orders. You were sent to kill the Trevaynes and take their treasure. Your mission is unfinished, which means that my mission is unfinished. It seems I still have need of you."