Besides, he didn't need to look; he knew the trio would be fanning out behind him so that they could cover the entire room in overlapping fields of firepower. Not that it would do much good against the Adversary, as previous experience had shown, but it was better than nothing.

Trying to buy some time to figure out how he was going to get the Adversary away from the patients so that he would have room to strike, Cade spoke the traditional Templar words of challenge offering the creature before him the chance to surrender.

"In the name of the Lord Almighty, I call upon you to relinquish your weapons and receive the mercy of Christ the King."

The Adversary smiled, spreading its hands and playing along. "Alas, I have no weapons to surrender. Instead, I have an agreement to offer you."

"What agreement?"

"Join me," the Adversary said simply, indicating the still empty bed.

For a moment Cade could only stand there, incredulous that the Adversary still believed there was something it could offer that would turn him from enemy to ally.

Mistaking his hesitation for serious consideration of its offer, the Adversary went on.

"Rule with me, Cade. Rule with me! Together we can be regents of the new world order that will rise from the ashes of the decimation to come. Side by side, husband and wife, just as we were always meant to be!"

It sounded just like Gabrielle. Of course the Gabrielle that he knew would never want to rule over anyone, least of all those left to sc.r.a.pe out a living in the blasted ruins of an earth that Cade had seen in his vision on Poveglia, but the Adversary didn't seem to understand that.

And that lack of understanding gave Cade the opening he needed.

"You're not my wife," Cade said, but he let a bit of doubt creep into his voice as he did so.

The Adversary took the bait.

"I am your wife and more!" it exclaimed. "Every thought, every feeling, every moment of her life is right here, ready to be accessed as needed. Combined with that is more power than you could ever imagine, power to turn this body into anything you've ever dreamed it could be. Think of what we could do, Cade! Join me now, before it is too late!"

Cade could feel the tension coming from the men at his back and he knew at least one of them had to be wondering if Cade would take the Adversary up on its offer, especially given the recent rumors. What he had to do next was going to increase that concern, but it couldn't be helped. He needed to get closer if he was going to use the soul blade as intended.

He took a few hesitant steps forward, letting the tip of the Spear sink downward a little as he did so. Just a few more inches...

"Join me, husband," the Adversary said in Gabrielle's most seductive voice and Cade felt his stomach churn at the sound. To hear it speak that way to him, knowing that Gabrielle herself had nothing to do with it, was an abomination and he intended to put an end to it.

Now or never, he thought.

Cade stopped; he was less than a dozen feet away from the Adversary now and within what he hoped was proper striking range. He was only going to get one chance at this...

"Join you?" he said. "I think not."

And with those words he thrust the Spear forward, mentally calling forth the power he knew lay within the weapon and demanding that respond to his call.

For a second nothing happened but then the Spear burst to life in his hands, a brilliant blaze of green light igniting around the lance head in a swirling ball of power and then lashing forward straight for the Adversary.

The fallen angel responded instantly, throwing itself to the side so that the beam narrowly missed it by inches, striking the empty hospital bed behind it instead. The force of the blast flung the hospital bed out of the semi-circle and halfway across the room to slam against the far wall.

At that point, several things happened simultaneously, but Cade was so pumped up on adrenaline that they seemed to like the stop frames in a slow motion film.

The curtains at the back of the room were flung back and half a dozen armed guards came running out on either side, firing the AR-15s they held in their hands at the waiting Templars.

The Templars responded in kind and Cade suddenly found himself in the center of a whirling dervish of bullets whipping back and forth between the two groups like the shoot-out at the OK Corral.

That's when the Adversary entered the fray.

It brought its hands up to shoulder height and then flung its arms forward as if it were a circus performer throwing a pair of knives. Blasts of blue arcane power shot from her hands in Cade's direction.

Cade didn't have time to think, just to react and so that's precisely what he did, bringing the Spear up in a sweeping arc in front of him, moving it from left to right as fast as he could.

A glimmering sphere of energy appeared in front of him, deflecting the Adversary's strikes upward into the ceiling and sending dust and ceiling tiles tumbling downward in their wake. No sooner had he managed to deflect the first two that more were on their way and Cade soon found himself in a battle just to keep from getting struck without any time to deliver a blow of his own.

Riley and the rest weren't fairing much better. The Templars training gave them the advantage in the firefight and three of the Adversary's human followers lay dead on the floor within the first few seconds, with two other wounded and out of the fight, but it wasn't long before a stray shot caught O'Connor in the throat, leaving the odds two to seven in the enemy's favor.

Riley and Martinez headed for the nearby pile of debris, miraculously avoiding being hit in the process, and hunkered down behind it for protection while continuing to fire at their a.s.sailants on that side of the room.

Cade meanwhile ran the other way, trying to put the patient's beds between him and the Adversary while rushing the last two gunmen on the opposite side. He had no idea what he was going to do when he got there; all he knew was that he couldn't stand still. If he did, he'd be cut to ribbons in the crossfire.

The Adverary turned to follow his movements and stepped onto the remains of an IV bag that had come loose in the initial exchange of fire. Its foot slid out from under it, momentarily distracting it, and Cade lashed out with a strike of his own, hitting it square in the chest with a blast of energy that picked the Adversary up and flung it backward across the room.

The move wasn't without consequence, however, for it left him exposed to gunfire coming from the gunmen on his right and he felt a searing pain cross his thigh as a bullet tore a furrow on the outside of his right leg.

Cade stumbled, then regained his footing. The near-fall saved his life, as he felt the bullet that had been aimed at his head pa.s.s harmlessly over his shoulder, and he reacted with a fear-induced burst of energy, dropping to his knees in a slide across the floor while aiming a blast from the Spear in the gunman's direction.

Blood, bone, and vaporizing flesh blew in every direction as the arcane strike tore the gunmen to literal pieces.

Cade scrambled to his feet and was just in time to see the Adversary doing the same. He was both disappointed and relieved; he wanted the Adversary to be out of the fight but didn't want to permanently damage Gabrielle's body in the process. Apparently fallen angels were made of sterner stuff than the average human, even while possessing a body not its own.

The Adversary raised it arms again, but this time Cade was faster off the mark and the blast of green energy that burst from the tip of the Spear struck his opponent in the leg, throwing it to the floor once more.

Cade screamed a wordless shout of victory and charged forward, rushing toward the Adversary while brandishing the Spear. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had some vague idea of getting the creature to surrender under threat of the power of the relic, but the Adversary was faster than he expected. Before he had even crossed half the distance, it had scrambled to its feet, crossed the remaining s.p.a.ce at the back of the room and disappeared through a door Cade hadn't previously noticed.

Oh, no you don't, you son of a b.i.t.c.h, Cade thought and went after it.

He burst through the door and flung himself to the ground, allowing the strike from the Adversary to pa.s.s harmlessly over his head. He sent a blast of his own shooting down the corridor in return, but the Adversary was already hauling itself up the staircase at the far end and the strike did nothing more blow a hole in the wall nearby.

Climbing to his feet, Cade ran in pursuit.

He could see the Adversary was struggling; its movements weren't as fluid and its attacks, when it looked back to send a blast of power in his direction, were less accurate than before. He didn't know if that was because he had injured it somehow or if Gabrielle had joined the party, fighting back against the enemy from within. Cade hoped it was the latter, but either way it allowed him to close the distance much quicker than he expected.

He was only a quarter of a flight down when the Adversary burst through the doors at the top of the steps and Cade caught a brief flash of starscape as it slipped through.

That's when it hit him.

The doors led to the roof and the Adversary intended to abandon the fight to try again another day.

Cade couldn't let that happen!

He threw every ounce of energy he had left into climbing those steps and burst through the doors just steps behind his quarry. As the Adversary's wings burst from its back and began to beat in rhythm, Cade raised the Spear for another strike.

Except this time, it failed to respond.

Frantic, knowing that if he let it go he might spend years tracking it down again, Cade did the only thing he could think of.

He called out the words of an ancient Sumerian binding spell he'd long ago committed to memory, completely unaware that it was the same spell his wife gave to Riley to control the angel Baraquel during their accidental trip into the Beyond while exploring the Eden facility years before.

The Adversary bunched its legs, preparing to launch itself into the night air...and then froze in place as the words of the binding washed over it.

Cade breathed a sigh of relief, hefted the seemingly useless Spear, and advanced on his quarry.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

Up close, Cade could see the changes the Adversary had wrought in his wife's form. Her face was narrower, with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, a face that was far harsher and more severe than her normal one. Her brilliant green eyes were now flecked with black splotches and Cade could see that it wouldn't be long before all of the color was overtaken and replaced.

Her skin had taken on a leathery tone as well and he could see the veins beneath pulsing with a fluid far darker than human blood. He had no doubt that her flesh would eventually resemble the reptilian-like hide that currently covered the oversized wings that sprouted from her back.

She was frozen in the act of launching herself into the sky above, those wings caught in mid-stroke, but her eyes followed him as he drew closer and the hatred that spilled from them was as alien to Gabrielle as the wings at her back.

This was not his wife; he knew that now beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But he hoped and prayed that she was still in there somewhere.

Time to find out.

He pulled the dagger from his beltand watched the Adversary's eyes widen at the sight of it.

Cade could feel all the anger and hatred that he'd been holding back for years coming to the fore and the Adversary's obvious fear at the sight of the ancient weapon acted like gasoline thrown on a bonfire.

"Years ago I swore I'd have my vengeance, that there would one day be a reckoning. That day has arrived. You escaped me once, but you won't do so again."

He reached up and carefully placed the edge of the blade against the exposed flesh of the Adversary's upper arm.

"Back to h.e.l.l where you belong, a.s.shole!" Cade said and then drew the dagger slowly across the skin, going just deep enough to draw a thin line of blood that spilled across the surface of the blade.

He didn't know what he expected; some mystical lightshow straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with lost souls flying hither and t.i.ther about the room as the Adversary was slowly pulled free of Gabrielle's form and banished to the nether realms, at the very least.

What he didn't expect was what he got, which was nothing.

Or next to nothing, actually. The blade soaked up the blood that spilled across it as if it was a man dying of thirst in the Gobi desert, but that was all.

No spectacular explosions of mystical power.

No scream of defiance as the Adversary was pulled from Gabrielle's body.

Uriel's words whispered unbidden in his mind.

You must either slash the Adversary's throat or plunge the knife into its heart.

No.

He couldn't do that. Wouldn't do that.

This had to work.

But after another minute, when nothing else happened, Cade was faced with the realization that it would not.

Involuntarily, Cade glanced up into the Adversary's eyes and found the creature laughing at him.

The Adversary knew.

Knew he could no more take that knife and plunge it in his wife's heart than he could shove it into his own.

Knew that the binding would not hold it for much longer. Knew that when the binding failed, the Adversary would be free to escape to continue its plan once more.

Knew that Cade had failed.

It was too much for Cade to handle. He could feel his mental defenses starting to crumble, the barriers that he had erected to keep himself sane and functioning in the face of all that he had done and witnessed in the days since first encountering the fallen angel collapsing inward as if under a.s.sault from a relentless foe, and in a last-ditch effort born of despair and frustration Cade did something he hadn't done in years.

Cade turned his face upward into the night sky and cried out in agony.

"What have we done to deserve this? Why have you abandoned us? Abandoned me?"

There was, of course, no answer.

Cade hadn't actually expected one; he just couldn't think of anything else to do.

He dropped to his knees before the still frozen form of the fallen angel before him and waited for the binding to wear off and the end to come. If he could not save Gabrielle then he would not save himself either.

It would end here, for better or worse.

The sound started softly at first, a gentle hum at the edge of his hearing, but it built swiftly, growing louder and rising in pitch, forcing him to cover his ears in pain and still it continued.

Cade had heard the sound twice before, knew what was about to make its appearance, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Nothing mattered in the face of his failure to rescue Gabrielle.

The sound built and built and built again, growing louder and more piercing until when he thought he couldn't possibly endure it any more...silence fell.

Cade looked up to find the seven standing before him, just as they had on previous occasions, shiny with the glory of the Almighty that, if asked, Cade would have told you he was hard-pressed to believe in.

The leader stepped forward and for the first time there was a sense of urgency in his voice.

"Son of Adam, you must finish what you have started."

Cade shook his head.

"I can't," he said wearily.