The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (53 page)

Caedmon
immediately charged forward and manacled a hand around the cardinal’s right wrist. Shoving his shoulder into the other man’s chest, he slammed the cleric’s hand against the chalkboard, attempting to jar the gun loose.

Instead, t
he impact caused another bullet to discharge; this one ricocheting off a light fixture.

Like a feral animal, the
cardinal instinctively tried to pull his right hand free of Caedmon’s grasp, foamy spit spewing from his mouth.

Seeking to end the bout posthaste,
Caedmon pummeled a fist into Cardinal Fiorio’s face, the man howling in pain, his nose broken on contact. Caedmon grunted as the cartilage-shattering blow sent an agonized burst from his balled fist to his battered jaw. The Beretta clattered to the floor, the tenacious little bastard finally letting go of it.

Having disarmed the cardinal, he stepped back, the man in too much pain to launch a counter- attack.

Odious little prick.

‘
Don’t think for one instant that I’m not tempted to kick him in the crystal balls,’ Edie said in a nakedly vicious tone of voice. ‘I don’t care if he
is
a cardinal.’

‘
I’m a Prince of the Church!’ Fiorio wailed loudly, bracing either side of his nose with his middle fingers. ‘How dare you treat me as –’

‘Spare us the dirge
,’ Caedmon interjected, cutting the cleric off in mid-lament. ‘It sickens me to hear you drone on as though
you
were the victim.’

‘
More like a devil in a cassock,’ Anala remarked. To Caedmon’s surprise, she capably held the Beretta pistol, having retrieved it from the floor.

Stepping over to where Father Santos had collapsed in the doorway,
Caedmon went down on bent knee and put a finger to the priest’s neck. Just as he feared, there was no pulse.

‘I don’t know if Gracián Santos was an evil man or one who was terribly misguided,’ he said quietly as he stood up. ‘Regardless, I’m indebted to him.’

‘Hey, look what I found in teacher’s desk.’ Holding up a thick roll of strapping tape, Edie ripped a long length and handed it to him.

‘
Excellent.’ Caedmon slapped the piece of tape over the cardinal’s mouth and wrapped the ends completely around his head. Mummifying the bastard.

With Edie’s help, he then secured the Cardinal’s wrists and ankles, wrapping
his limbs in enough tape to have shipped him on air freight.

‘
That should keep him until the authorities arrive. Speaking of which, you’ll need to find a landline telephone,’ Caedmon said to Edie, their mobiles having been confiscated. ‘Tell the police that they’re urgently needed at Sanguis Christi.’

Hearing that, the
cardinal’s face betrayed an animal fear. No doubt he’d just realized that not only was the contest lost, but he would have to make restitution for his crimes.

‘“
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,”’ Caedmon quoted from Milton, unable to summon an ounce of sympathy for a man who had the ambition and guile of a bloodthirsty Borgia.

Anala
glanced at the hobbled cardinal. ‘I was going to say, “Britain, of course, always wins one battle – the last.”’

‘
Not quite. Unfortunately, Cardinal Fiorio was merely the dragon master. I now have to slay the beast.’
Or, at the very least, capture him.

A fearful look instantly crept on to Edie’s face. ‘You mean Hector Calzada?’

Caedmon nodded wordlessly.

‘Do you have to?’

‘He’s a nasty piece of work. Far too dangerous to be released into the wild,’ Caedmon said, taking custody of the Beretta. Popping the magazine, he checked the ammo, counting three bullets.
He jammed the magazine back into place. ‘I want both of you to stay inside Mercy Hall until the police arrive.’

A reckoning in order
, he rushed out of the classroom.

As
Caedmon dashed through the stormy torrent, a silver-glazed bolt suddenly broke free from the sky, pulverizing a towering maple and snapping the heavy-limbed sentry in half. The stentorian boom that accompanied the horrific act sent a pulsing shock wave across the school grounds, as though a cannon had just gone off on yonder field.

Momentarily stunned,
he stared, wide-eyed, at the smoking flames that burst up from the severed bole.

Hoping it wasn’t a dark omen, he continued running towards the stone chapel.

A few moments later, he arrived, out of breath and soaking wet. The door to the chapel was open. Inside, he could hear a steady thumping.

What the bloody hell was Calzada doing?

Caedmon removed the Beretta from his waistband and stepped through the open doorway into the chapel. Standing near a stone font filled with holy water, he scanned the dimly lit environs.
Wooden pews. Marble altar. Black and white checkerboard flooring. Stained-glass windows
. Typical church fare.

Circumspect, h
e crept forward a few feet, his footfall muffled by the resounding thuds. Catching sight of Calzada near the front pew, he paused, taken aback to see that the man was in the process of breaking the marble floor tiles with a sledgehammer. Searching for the hidden cache that didn’t exist.

Unwilling to move closer, afraid that Calzada
would catch sight of him and open fire with the Uzi, Caedmon ducked behind a marble pillar. He considered his options, wanting to take down the beast without any bloodshed. He’d spilled enough already.

I need a decoy
. Something to momentarily distract the Bête Noire.

Caedmon
scoured the near vicinity, his gaze landing on a small framed oil painting of the martyred St Sebastian, his body pierced with arrows. Removing the painting from the paneled wall, he chose a spot on the other side of the chapel and – waiting for Calzada’s next swing – hurled the framed work of art through the air.

Just as he’d hoped, Calzada dropped the hammer and lunged for his Uzi. Having already moved into a shooter’s stance,
Caedmon quickly fired a round. His aim true, he managed to blow the Uzi out of the Bête Noire’s hand, the sub-machine gun skittering across the marble floor.

Calzada bellowed with rage as he moved to retrieve the weapon.

Seizing his chance, Caedmon rushed forward and, going for the soft target, he kicked Calzada in the lower belly. So hard, he felt the satisfying mush of abdominal wall. Felled, Calzada dropped to his knees, braying like a donkey. Unable to stop himself, Caedmon kneed him under the chin, hurling his foe on to his back. For a brief instant, the brute’s torso arched before he went completely slack, limbs splayed.

‘
Finally
,’ he muttered as he stared dispassionately at the unconscious man sprawled at his feet. He felt a singular lack of remorse, convinced that in this one instance, evolution’s arrow had gone astray, Hector Calzada more beast than man.

Barely able to stand,
Caedmon shambled towards the exit, stopping to pick up the Uzi along the way. As he stepped through the doorway, he heard the welcome blare of sirens. The rain had stopped, the air laden with a fine mist that felt oddly refreshing.

Edie and Anala both ran towards him.

‘We heard a gunshot! Did he hurt you?’ Edie asked anxiously as she threw herself at his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist.

‘
I’m all right, love.’ Wobbling slightly, he held her, not entirely certain who supported who.

They’d survived! All three of them!

Standing a few feet away, Anala smiled shyly at him. His emotions in a jumble, Caedmon stared into eyes that were hauntingly similar to his own.

‘You need to ring your mother.’

‘I did. Soon after we called the police,’ Anala informed him.

‘Right. Of course you did. I didn’t mean to sound like a –’
Father.
He shook his head, stymied.

‘Look!’ Edie pointed to the sky. ‘There’s a rainbow.’

For several moments, Caedmon stared at the shimmering bands of color that arced across the eastern horizon. ‘It’s like peering through Newton’s prism,’ he murmured.

‘Don’t you know what that is?’ As she spoke, Anala sidled closer to him and Edie. Still smiling, she said, ‘Indra, the Hindu god of thunder, used a rainbow arrow to destroy Asura Vrta, the demon serpent.’

Edie gently nudged him. ‘Did you hear that?’

Shoulders relaxing,
Caedmon pushed out a cathartic sigh.

I did.

Paris, France

Two Weeks Later

‘
Ravissant!
’ Caedmon enthused, kissing his fingertips
à la française
as Edie entered the study. Attired in a cream-colored halter dress that showed off her toned arms and legs, she was stunning.

Smiling cheekily, Edie perched herself on the edge of his desk, leaned over and kissed him full on the lips.
‘Right back at ya, Big Red.’

He
chortled, amused. ‘If you don’t mind, I prefer “dashing”.’

‘
That you are. Particularly since the nasty bruise on your jaw has
finally
faded. I think the chartreuse stage was the worst.’ Extending a bare arm, Edie snatched the desk calendar that he’d just finished marking before she walked in. ‘I see that you’ve blocked off the first week in October.’

‘
That’s the week before Michaelmas terms begins at Oxford.’ Caedmon stared at the calendar in Edie’s hands, hoping that he’d not bitten off too much. ‘Because I’ve never envisioned myself playing the role of father, I’m admittedly out of my bailiwick.’

Edie returned the calendar to him.
‘First of all, stop thinking of it as a role. Just be yourself. And don’t be afraid to let Anala know that you’re nervous. Trust me. She’ll be charmed. And you have a clear advantage . . .’ She paused, a mischievous glint in her brown eyes. ‘Not every father can lay claim to having a quiverful of rainbow arrows.’

‘
Lucky for all of us that I did,’ he muttered. Discomfited, he changed the subject. ‘Did I mention that I got us tickets for
Rigoletto
at the Paris Opera?’

‘
No, you did not.’ Edie clapped her hands, clearly pleased with the announcement. ‘Ooh-la-la! How I love the gilded splendor of Palais Garnier. This is an outing that most definitely requires a new dress. Champs-Elysées, here I come.’

‘
Unfortunately, all of the orchestra tickets were sold out. The best I could manage was the second balcony.’

‘
Quelle horreur
!’

‘
Yes, well, the good news is that our seats are in the same box,’ he deadpanned.

‘
My hero.’ Grinning, Edie patted her heart, miming a fluttering heartbeat.

Delighted by her playful reaction,
Caedmon stared at his lady love, Edie Miller, the source of all his bliss. And an astonishing gift that he wasn’t altogether certain that he deserved.

‘
Stop the presses,’ Edie whispered, returning his stare. ‘I think that I’m in love.’

‘S
peaking of the press, I thought you’d be interested to see this.’ Rifling through a stack of newspapers that he’d earlier picked up at the corner kiosk, he plucked a day-old edition of the
New York Times
out of the pile. ‘Franco Fiorio didn’t make the headlines, but he is front-page news,’ he remarked, handing Edie the paper.

‘“
Cardinal Fiorio Faces Uphill Legal Battle”,’ she read aloud. ‘Good. I’m glad that the district attorney is pressing forward with the criminal case. Although I think it’s a shame that she can only charge him with being an accessory to murder and kidnapping. He was, after all, the mastermind.’ Wearing a sly grin, Edie lowered the newspaper. ‘I wonder if he and Hector will share a jail cell.’

‘
A fitting punishment for both of them,’ Caedmon muttered uncharitably. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It’s getting rather late in the morning. If you like, I can whip together something in the kitchen.’

Putting a hand to her lower belly,
Edie said, ‘Please, not another one of those egg and sausage fry-ups that you love to “whip together”. And is the black pudding and baked beans
really
necessary? Just thinking about it is causing my cholesterol level to escalate.’

‘
The heart dies, but the breakfast lives on,’ he declared in a booming voice.

‘
I have a better idea. How about we stroll down to the patisserie? I’m in the mood for a gooey éclair. The one that’s covered in caramel, what’s that called?’

‘That would be a
bâton de Jacob.’

Edie laughed; a full, throaty sound that was utterly contagious.
‘Sounds biblical. In a naughty kinda way.’