Templar's Code

CHAPTER 86

“Ohmygod!”

Edie stood at the hotel window. Cell phone clasped in her right hand, she began to shake. Afraid she might collapse, she grabbed hold of the window frame. A photograph of Caedmon, unconscious and blood-splattered, was displayed on the small LCD screen. Beaten to a pulp. A little welcome-to-your-room present from Rico Suave.

Horrified, she stared at the photo, the need to scream so strong, she didn’t know if she could control it. Instead, she threw the cell phone across the room, the device harmlessly landing on the plush wall-to-wall. Then, like a deflated balloon, she slowly slid down the wall onto the carpet. Knees drawn to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked to and fro. Paralyzed with fear. Sobbing, praying . . . begging.

Please keep him alive.

Trapped in a bell jar, a prisoner, she could only peer through the glass.

When she was eleven years old, she’d walked into the trailer and discovered her dead mother on the floor, an empty needle in her arm. Grief-stricken, she’d lain down beside her mother on that stained, threadbare avocado-green carpet. Until a neighbor found her the next morning.

She was now on the verge of that same stupefied kind of shock.

Determined not to slip over the edge, Edie lifted her head from her knees. The driving rain cast distorted shadows across her huddled body, the night animated with shadows. Dark, murderous shadows.

Earlier in the day, she’d pleaded with Caedmon to turn and walk away from the Emerald Tablet. Just like Benjamin Franklin had done more than two hundred years ago. It couldn’t have been easy for the inquisitive genius, but Franklin knew the staggering fallout that would ensue if the Emerald Tablet fell into the wrong hands. Men would lie, steal, and kill to learn the secret of creation. As Rico Suave had so pitilessly demonstrated. But Caedmon had been hell-bent. And now they had to contend with a fiend from hell.

To escape the monster, she’d sought refuge in a small hotel in D.C.’s Chinatown district. Mentally and physically exhausted, she’d picked up a take-out order of kimchi and bulgogi from the late-night Korean restaurant on the corner. She hadn’t eaten since early afternoon and needed to recharge.

She glanced at the unopened food cartons that she’d put on the desk, suddenly nauseated by the smell of cabbage and beef.

Worried that the outcome of Caedmon’s abduction was a fait accompli, she felt a deepening sense of dread. They were dealing with a preternatural killer who, from the onset, had been one step ahead of them.

How the hell did Rico Suave find us? Rhode Island, London, Philly, D.C.—somehow he’d always managed to put in an unwelcome appearance.

Okay, he probably trailed us from D.C. to Arcadia in the Audi, she thought, the fog slightly clearing. When the arrows started to fly, she and Caedmon had been forced to abandon the netbook computer. A casualty of war. It could be that Rico retrieved the netbook and discovered the online booking that had been made for London.

But how in God’s name did the fiend track us to the Christ Church Burial Ground? And then a day later track them to the Willard? Because, obviously, that’s what he’d done. And then he went the extra mile, locating the Mini in the valet parking lot and sabotaging the brakes. For all she knew, he’d been shadowing them the entire day.

Hit with a niggling suspicion, Edie crawled across the carpeted floor and snatched her leather satchel off the bed. Unzipping it, she rummaged around and removed a hardbound notebook. She flipped it open. That’s when she felt it—a small nearly invisible strip. She reached over and turned on the nightstand lamp. Holding the notebook near the bulb, she saw what appeared to be a clear Band-Aid stuck on the inside cover.

A magnetic tracking strip!

As she sat there mired in fear, the bastard, transmitting device in hand, was simply waiting for her to retrieve the Emerald Tablet from the Willard Hotel. The device would indicate exactly when she stepped foot in the hotel lobby. He could then follow her, forcibly take custody of the relic—and pull the trigger.

Fear now trumped by rage, Edie shoved herself upright, strode across the room and snatched the container of kimchi off the desk. Opening it, she smashed the magnetic strip into the fiery cabbage concoction, her nostrils twitching from the sudden burst of cayenne pepper. She then headed over to the window; a benefit of being on the third floor, the window actually opened.

For nearly five minutes, she stood at the ready, container in hand. A white pickup truck stopped for a red light directly beneath the window. The rap music blaring from the truck’s sound system meant—

Taking aim, Edie tossed the food carton.

The driver didn’t hear the thump in the truck bed when the kimchi plopped all over ribbed cargo space.

Mission accomplished, she walked over and grabbed the discarded cell phone off the floor. She set it on the nightstand. Rage a clarifying antidote for fear, she began to devise a plan of action.

Not having a weapon was most definitely a handicap.

No! That wasn’t true. Granted her weapon didn’t come with round-nosed bullets, but it was deadly.

Edie mirthlessly smiled.

The devil may have demanded a dance, but she would pick the tune.