Page 154 of Decimation

The GPS on my phone is dead, jammed like everything else, but I don’t need it. I know the way. The fortress is two hours north of Rome, high in the Apennines, accessible only by a single winding road that has probably not been maintained in decades.

I press the accelerator and the Fiat lurches forward, tyres squealing on the cobblestones. Behind me, the first police cars arrive at the scene, their blue lights painting the alley in strobes of electric colour.

I don’t stop,

I don’t slow down.

I drive through the chaos and into the night, heading north, heading toward the mountains, heading toward whatever awaits me.

The road opens before me, dark and empty, leading up into the mountains. I press the accelerator harder, pushing the Fiat to its limits, watching the speedometer climb. I don’t know what I’ll find when I reach the fortress. I don’t know how many men Ezekiel has, or what traps he’s laid, or what he plans to do with Leandra and Ezra. I only know that I am going to kill him, I am going to tear him apart with my bare hands if I have to.

No more games, no more politics. No more careful manoeuvring and patient strategy. The time for that has passed.

Ezekiel touched my family.

Now he dies.

The golden bullet was an invitation. I am going to shove it down his throat.

The first thing I feel is cold.

Not the cold of a winter morning or the chill of a draft through a window. This is deeper. Older. The kind of cold that has lived in stone for a thousand years, that has seeped into the marrow of the earth itself and made a home there.

I open my eyes and see nothing but darkness.

No. Not nothing. Shapes. Shadows that move and shift at the edges of my vision, forms that seem to breathe with the rock itself.

I blink, trying to clear the fog from my mind, trying to remember how I got here, where here even is.

The last thing I remember is Lazarus. The car crash, no not a crash, an explosion, and then… Nothing. A blank space where my memory should be.

Now I am here.

I try to move and feel resistance. Rope. Thick and rough, biting into my wrists, my ankles, my waist. I am spread-eagled on what feels like a massive slab of stone, its surface worn smooth by centuries of use. The cold of it seeps through my clothes, no, not clothes. I am wearing something thin, something that feels like gossamer against my skin. A shift. A shroud.

I whimper before I can stop myself.

The sound echoes off walls I cannot see, bouncing back to me distorted and strange. And then, as if my whimper were a summons, the shadows begin to move with purpose.

They are women, I realise.

Five of them, emerging from the darkness like ghosts rising from a grave. They wear dresses of sheer white fabric that clings to their bodies, revealing the curves beneath, the dark circles of their nipples, the shadows between their thighs. Their faces are hidden behind veils of the same material, but I can see the gleam of their eyes, the wet shine of their mouths.

They move in perfect silence, their bare feet making no sound on the stone floor. Behind them the darkness seems to pulse and breathe, and I realize with a start that the walls are not walls at all, they are carvings. Medieval reliefs cut into the living rock; scenes of knights, crosses, and figures kneeling in supplication. Tombs line the edges of the chamber, stone sarcophagi topped with the effigies of men in armour, their hands folded in eternal prayer.

Oh god, I know this place.

The knowledge hits me, stealing the very breath from my lungs. I have heard stories of this chamber since I was a child, whispered tales passed down through the Esau like forbidden scripture.

This is where it all began.

Where the Templars, broken and bleeding, dragged themselves after the Church turned on them. Where they buried their dead and swore their oaths of vengeance. Where the Brethren was born not as a holy order but as something else entirely, something twisted and secret and so very hungry.

The holiest of places. The most profane.

“Wakey wakey, Leandra.”

The voice comes from behind me, and I jerk against my bonds, craning my neck to see. Ezekiel steps into my field of vision, and the sight of him sends ice water through my veins. He wears golden robes, as if he’s dressed like some sort of king. His dark hair is slicked back from his forehead, and his smile is the smile of a man who believes he has already won.