Isaiah tossed and turned upon his bed. Sweat drenched his body beneath his blankets as a nightmare unfolded itself while he slept. He sensed urgency in this dream not present before in earlier dreams and the images pulled him in.
Isaiah viewed the Temple from above, saw angels in white apparel and golden breastplates guarding The Order of Shaddai. Demons of all sorts descended en masse against their heavenly defense. The angels rose to the fight and a battle of epic proportions shook the very heavens as blades and war hammers, battle-axes and whips, fist and claw clashed above the citadel of Shaddai’s priestly servants.
The vision warped to a man in black lurking in shadow, then to Gideon running across the courtyard stones as black pitch rose around his feet, steadily hindering his progress until he struggled to keep his head above the thick darkness. He saw young Ethan, then the man in black sprang from the shadows to attack the boy.
The High Priest burst out of the dream as suddenly as he had been dragged into the nightmare. He was awake, sitting upright in bed, heaving every breath in and out of his tight chest. His senses screamed to him that this vision was not merely part of the future. The danger was now!
Mordecai laughed at how easy they had made this assassination for him. There on the door was the boy’s name: Ethan. He knew the layout of these rooms as well as anyone. His own room, when he had been a trainee, stood just three doors down from this one.
Mordecai drew his blade and kicked the door in. The assassin shot into the room, heading for the teenage boy sitting up in bed. His blade sliced the air. Goose down exploded into a cloud around the bed.
Ethan crouched on the floor in the dark, trying to orient himself after waking up so suddenly. The attacker came again, but Ethan evaded, rolling across the cold stone. Sparks leaped after him as Mordecai whipped the blade back and forth against the floor, following his prey.
Ethan rolled up to his feet, facing his attacker. Mordecai was dressed completely in black, but Ethan could still see him, even feel the heat from his body. The edged steel whistled, cutting through the air. Ethan ducked beneath the strike. But he was backed against the wall already.
Mordecai made a quick thrust, which should have finished the boy, but his blade only bit into the stone. The boy had disappeared. Mordecai leaped back quickly, slicing the air around him as he did so. He had already been informed of the boy’s power by Jericho. Ethan might be invisible, but he could still kill in the physical realm if he put the proper effort forth. One asset Jericho had equipped Mordecai with was the knowledge that any spiritual being, seen or unseen must become physical to affect the physical world.
This was where the rigorous training of a priest of Shaddai would either fail him or empower him. Mordecai closed his eyes and focused on his other senses. He shut out the need for physical sight, waiting motionless for the boy to make his move.
A spiritual blade, suddenly taking on physical characteristics, cut through the air behind Mordecai. He whipped his own sword over his head to his shoulders to block. His steel sang out, impacting with the boy’s unseen weapon. Mordecai’s skin tingled with expectation, every hair standing erect, waiting to taste the ripple of an air current when his invisible enemy moved into the physical world again.
“Come now, boy, let’s not play this game all night,” Mordecai hissed.
The glow of lamplight and the sound of rapid footfalls approached the open doorway. “The sentry…can you warn him before I kill him, Deliverer?” Mordecai asked.
Mordecai ran for the door to meet the unprepared priest who was coming to investigate the noise.
Ethan materialized in order to sound a warning. “Assassin coming out of my room!
Mordecai turned back when he heard Ethan’s voice, whipping his sword at the boy. Ethan sidestepped the weapon, as he had the arrows earlier, but caught the pommel as it passed. Now he had Mordecai’s sword and he went after him.
The sentry appeared in front of the open doorway with a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other. Mordecai kicked the lantern back into the priest’s chest. The glass bell shattered upon impact, spraying the sentry with fire. He dropped his sword as he tried to beat the flames out.
Mordecai swept the blade up, turning to meet a strike from Ethan. A rapid-fire series of strikes, blocks, parries, and faints ensued as each of them tried to find gain the advantage-neither could. Ethan’s sight allowed him to see every move Mordecai made with vivid detail, but he could not make his own movements fast enough to get past his defense.
The sentry screamed as he rolled on the ground, trying to put the flames out. The other priests on the first level began to emerge from their rooms along with a few from the second level. An alarm bell sounded.
Mordecai turned from the fight and ran out into the darkness of the courtyard, expecting Ethan to follow without thinking. He was right. Ethan ran after him without a second thought, bent on destroying his assassin.
The first alarm caused more bells to sound all over the complex. The priests came out of their rooms like angry bees from a busted hive, weapons at the ready. But they were all focused on the first sentry who had managed, by now, to extinguish himself with help from some of the first responders.
Mordecai and Ethan were now shrouded in darkness a good one hundred yards out onto the courtyard. Mordecai turned and swiped at Ethan as he ran up behind. Ethan had too much momentum to stall on the dew-laden grass, so he used it to somersault over the blade as it cut horizontally through the air.
Ethan landed and countered, but Mordecai blocked again. The stalemate raged on in the darkness. Mordecai heard voices: the sentry trying to explain what had happened. Others mentioned the courtyard.
Warrior-priests ran out onto the training grounds with lanterns and weapons, trying to locate Ethan and the assassin. Sparks, from the two blades in combat, led the way as the priests and their lanterns began to light the training-field-turned-battlefield. Mordecai tried his best to get past the young man’s defense, but Ethan’s skill was simply too much to overcome head to head.
Several times, Mordecai made clear strikes past Ethan’s weapon only to meet thin air as the boy realm shifted out of the physical, changed position, and then came back at him. Mordecai’s surprise tactical advantage was gone. The priests of Shaddai ran upon him. Ethan backed away from the fight as the others tried to get around the assassin.
Mordecai stood exposed. Several arrow shafts launched from the crowd. But Mordecai struck them down with deft movements of his weapon or dodged them entirely. The time had come to change his plan. The boy was no longer a feasible goal. I can still hurt The Order though, he thought.
Mordecai charged, flanking of the crowd where the number of priests was fewer. Several tried to intercept him, but he cut them down quickly and charged back toward the edge of the training field. The crowd ran after him with Ethan following.
As Mordecai reached the first set of stairs, leading up toward the second level, he encountered more priests coming down, but they were unsure what was happening. He used surprise to his advantage and struck them down before they realized the situation. He charged upward again.
As he ascended to higher and higher levels, Mordecai encountered less and less resistance. The priests had taken other routes toward the lower levels already, but one man in particular would stay near his quarters. Mordecai pushed his aching legs onward and upward until he reached the seventh level. When he charged onto the landing, he saw the older man standing near the end of the walkway, looking over the stone railing, trying to ascertain the situation.
Mordecai sneered at the High Priest and charged at him like a rabid animal. Isaiah readied himself as the assassin in black rushed toward him. He had no weapon in his hand.
Isaiah let the first strike glide diagonally above his right shoulder. The cutting of the air whistled in his ear. He stepped inside Mordecai’s line of attack-his arms entangling the man’s movements so a second strike became impossible. Isaiah sent several rigid fingers under Mordecai’s ribcage striking his liver, then hammered the man’s right ear with an open palm as solid as a board.
Mordecai staggered backwards, allowing Isaiah to whip one fist out between his arms and knock the sword free. It clattered to the stone floor. Mordecai quickly recuperated and leaped at the High Priest. “I’ll kill you, old man!”
“Mordecai?” Isaiah realized. “I should have known. Only you would have the audacity to try and attack the Temple.”
The crowd quickly stormed up the staircases, trying to find the assassin. Mordecai launched a vicious round of kicks and punches at Isaiah. For a moment, the High Priest met them. But Mordecai soon overwhelmed him with youthful vitality.
He smashed Isaiah in the chest, complicating his already labored breathing. The elderly High Priest staggered back, but Mordecai pursued him, landing several severe blows to his head. Isaiah fell to the stone floor as Mordecai picked up his sword and prepared to deliver the deathblow.
Multiplied air-whistles warned him in time to turn and deflect Gideon’s sword whirling toward him from twenty feet away. Mordecai smiled at his nemesis. “You should never throw away your weapon so foolishly, Gideon!” He charged at the priest who had nearly killed him months before, revenge boiling in his eyes.
“I didn’t,” Gideon said. He pulled a cocked pistol from his robe and fired. The blast caught Mordecai unexpected in the sternum. He buckled to his knees, dropped his sword, blinked once in astonishment, then fell forward dead.
Gideon ran to Isaiah’s side as many more of the priests reached the seventh level and charged down the walkway. “Are you all right?” Gideon asked.
“I never would have thought to see the day when you would use such a crude weapon,” Isaiah said as Gideon helped him to his feet.
Gideon looked at Mordecai lying in a pool of blood on the stone walkway. “I’m starting to gain a new appreciation for them.”