“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam asked, his heart racing.
“The Templars who were reputed to worship Baphomet, those burned for consorting with the devil,” he started, “were discovered during a ritual that looked like a ceremony of worship. But what the church did not understand — what they perpetually neglect to fathom — is that not every ritual is for the sake of religion or worship. They were discovered doing exactly what the Militum will do if they do not get what they want. The restoration of the crown can only be achieved by means of the Sacrifice of Baphomet, a ritual. Simple as that.”
“We have to deliver Toshana before they run out of patience,” Sam told Purdue and the priest. “They will not wait much longer, and Nina will suffer for it.”
“I agree,” the priest said.
Purdue laughed. Shaking his head, he looked at them in disbelief and fear. “Are you out of your minds?” he chuckled, but his laughter was filled with betrayal. “My own friends! She was right! You are all just using me. Now you have used me to trap my beloved Toshana in a subterranean snare so that you can give her back to a bunch of killers?”
“Purdue,” Sam tried, but Purdue pulled out one of his defense devices, a pen shaped mechanism that directed a deadly laser. The beam was invisible, unless there was smoke present to detect it, but Purdue had the favor of clear darkness as he pointed the end at Father Harper. Spittle foamed at his mouth, his eyes wide with fearful defense.
“You are not taking Toshana. I swear to Christ, I will slice you both in half!”
30
The Knight’s Valor
Sam and Father Harper stared down the maniacal Purdue, suddenly beside himself.
“What are you doing, Purdue?” Sam asked plainly, trying not to rile up his friend even more with insinuations of misplaced loyalty. Father Harper, he noticed, inched gradually towards the white haired puppet of Toshana Baldwin. That is how he saw Purdue right now. A puppet controlled by a vice few men could resist.
“You’re not taking her,” he hissed at Sam.
“And Nina? Are you going to leave her to die when your beloved Toshana does not show up?” Sam asked, occupying Purdue’s attention as the priest stalked nearer.
“But I always show up, Sam,” Toshana said from the darkness of the side tunnel. “I might take some time, but I never let a good deal get away from me.”
The men swung around as her pretty face appeared from the pitch darkness of the tunnel she was traversing. Purdue’s heart fluttered, but not for long. With his eye keenly on the dangerous Father Harper, he did not notice Sam hurtling toward him. Unexpectedly, the journalist flung his body at Purdue, spearing him off his feet. The two men landed hard on the cold rock of the tunnel floor, now completely robbed of light. Purdue’s tablet and his laser-based weapon clattered somewhere in the darkness.
Father Harper allowed Sam to take care of Purdue, but having seen Sam’s viciousness before, he did feel the need to cry out some advice. “Just don’t kill him. Sam! This isn’t his fault!”
A stinging sensation burned in the priest’s side. He was familiar with the feeling, the blunt pain of a blade sinking into his flesh. Vacuuming into his tissue, the blade retracted as Sam and Purdue’s altercation echoed through the blackness. Another bite of the blade sank into his chest, the steel scratching the bone of his chest plate as it rested short of his lung.
Toshana’s breath raced as the kill excited her, but she neglected to remember that she was not dealing with an opponent who died easily. Father Harper tried to ignore the pain that flowered through his torso, numbing his muscles. Using his massive hands to grab at where the knife was lodged before she could pull it out again. His actions were so rapid that Toshana had no chance. He found her hand and promptly snapped it at the wrist before seizing her by the throat.
Her scream reverberated in the underground sanctuary of the Templars of bygone centuries, giving it a superb voice that thundered back at the party before it dwindled into a guttural rattle.
“He’s strangling her, Sam!” Purdue shrieked under Sam’s blows.
“Good! I hope he fucking kills her!” Sam spat furiously as he brought down his knee in Purdue’s gut, rendering him breathless. “You are so goddamn pussy-whipped you can’t see straight!” Sam was wheezing madly, his arms exhausted and his knuckles burning.
Purdue had gotten in a few good ones, though. Sam’s brow smiled wide open and crimson over his eye, the blood blinding him while he wiped profusely at it. His chest ached from the side kick Purdue had connected expertly a few moments before. “Father Harper!” Sam cried, trying not to raise his voice too much, should anyone above hear the ruckus.
“I’m here,” the weak voice of the priest answered. His hand was still firmly on Toshana’s throat, but she was still writhing. Both her delicate hands were clasped around his wrist, but she was too weak to pry his hand from her neck.
“Are you hurt?” Sam asked. “Father?”
“Bit busy, Sam,” Father Harper said, hardly releasing the words from his mouth. He could hear Sam’s footsteps approach, following the sound of his voice. “Toshana, if you tell me where the crown is, I will let you live,” Sam heard the priest say.
Purdue switched on the bright light on his tablet. He could barely stand upright now, propping his arm on his knee. His face was bruised and swollen and his shirt ripped, straining over his heaving body. He could see Sam support the priest’s large frame as he sank to his knees, still holding the treacherous woman firm.
“Please, Father, don’t kill her,” Purdue begged from a distance as he watched his lover chocking under the fading power of the priest. Father Harper was weakening rapidly, but he insisted on knowing where the crown was.
“Toshana, please, tell him,” Purdue implored. “Don’t let me watch you die.”
“Let go, Father. I’ll restrain her. She’ll get no mercy from me.” Sam grimaced as he took hold of Toshana’s hair in his fist and pulled her free of Father Harper’s grip. “Now, where is the crown?”
“Do you think I will tell you?” she coughed.
Sam looked at Purdue and shrugged, ignoring his friend’s pleas for mercy as Sam landed a hefty boot in her back, ripping the breath from her. Toshana gasped for air, screaming in pain when air was permitted.
“They’re going to kill me if I don’t give them the crown!” she shrieked angrily as the pain overwhelmed her.
“They are going to kill you anyway, bitch,” Sam growled in her ear, away from Purdue’s perception. “No matter how you play this, if you don’t tell me where that fucking relic is, I am going to end you right here, where the Militum ended the last bitch who stole the crown. It would be rather… poetic, I think.” He jerked her head back so hard that her neck crunched softly inside. “Don’t you think that would be poetic, Toshana? So… ironic.”
“Not the Militum, the Bilderberg representatives of the Order of the Black Sun,” she whimpered, “are going to kill me.”
“Sam,” Purdue tried, but Sam roared, “Shut up! You! You just stay over there and be a good boy, Purdue, because I like Nina way more than I like you right now!”
Father Harper whispered, “I suppose Miss Harris got the wrong end of your knife as well. You brought us all down here to make away with us, didn’t you? This whole excursion was staged to facilitate our murders.”
Toshana said nothing, but her face affirmed the priest’s suspicion. “All of you, but especially you, Purdue. My God, they hate you,” she said, relishing the heartbreak in Purdue’s eyes.