Chapter The Templar Traitor

1241 C.E.

Lying in the filth, Anjael stared up at the clouds beyond the high window praying it wouldn't start raining again. It was late Autumn, but she had no idea what day or month it was. She scratched the stone wall every dawn while she sang the chants and prayed. She had been here for almost a year. Brother Geoff left two months ago when the news of the death of Pope Gregory IX came. Grand Master Du Lauzon came to her cell a few days later and demanded to know where he went but she didn't know. Then Brother Mathes came to inquire. After whipping her until her clothing was shredded and he couldn't raise his arms to continue, he left. He returned the next day, but Du Lauzon stopped Mathes from torturing her further when he couldn't make her say anything untrue about Brother Geoff.

They locked her in the dank cell alone. The bruising almost overcame her and petrified her, but she knew if she petrified, they would crush her before she awoke. Geoff's elderly friend brought her a robe to cover her rags with. He would bring her bread daily and listen as she sang the evening prayers. One day he stopped coming. Since then, she lived on bugs and algae scraped from the stone walls, and even sucked the blood of a rat and three pigeons before she ate their flesh. It was horrifying, and horrible tasting, but she believed Geoff's promise to free her, and she would keep her promise to him that she would do whatever she had to in order to stay alive until he returned.

Sunset turned the slate clouds every color from golden flame to blood crimson. A tear leaked down her cheek because she knew the rope ladders were drawn up and it would be another dark night. Curling into a ball, she shivered and rocked herself as she sang the night vespers in throaty whispers. A whistle woke her. She inhaled, barely able to lift her head. The sound of a nightbird hid her uncle's call. Struggling to stand, she pulled at her chains, then the door unlocked, and the smells of a familiar human and werewolf flooded the room with its opening. She sobbed aloud, "You came back."

"Anjael? Shhhh, be silent." Brother Geoff rushed in and began turning the key in the locks.

Lycaon, wearing a Benedictine robe, helped him by raising her up. She touched his shaved head in surprise because wolves never shaved their heads. Outside rain began and in moments, water was pouring into the window.

Torchlight and rapid footsteps approached. Brother Geoff looked at them hard, murmuring quietly, "Caon, remember no matter what happens. You must not change into your beast. If there is a fight, you must fight as a man would." He stood up and took off his cloak, revealing his Templar robe. He then demanded in a loud, authoritative voice, "And you are certain she will survive to meet Pope Celestine?"

"I believe so, Templar Geoff," Lycaon responded as the Grand Master, Brother Mathes, and a guard hurried in.

"What is going on... Brother Geoff?" Grand Master Du Lauzon stood there with Brother Mathes, who declared, "The traitor has returned to free the demon."

Anjael forced herself not to look at the male who murdered Prêtre Tomas and tortured her. She wanted to leap on him and claw his heart out, but she was so weak, she could not hold up her head for more than a moment as Lycaon held a bowl of broth to her lips.

"I have returned, Brother, but it is you who are the traitor. Grand Master, he told me to go to the new Pope and seek an audience about the Bibre Cruor Damsel. He claimed you ordered it, but then four Templars wearing Franciscan robes ambushed me and tried to murder me. I was saved by this Benedictine and his brothers." Geoff pulled a leather pouch from under his chainmail. "Anjael Anutari is to be delivered to Ravena and to her uncle, another Cruor under the protection of Pope Celestine. From there, they are to be sent to aid the Holy Emperor Fredrick II in the defense of Jerusalem."

Grand Master Du Lauzon took the leather pouch, unwrapped it, then broke the papal seal on the letter and read it. "Very well. As his eminence commands, so shall it be. Tomorrow, we shall escort you to Ravena."

"The storms delayed me so we must leave tonight, and I will not stay overnight or in this place filled with traitors to our creed longer than required. I will go back down the ladders in the rain and darkness rather than wake with one of my brother's daggers in my throat."

"You lie. The Holy Emperor or our brothers would have sent for us," Mathes refuted him.

"I suspect the messages were diverted from the Grand Master." Sounding gruff, Geoff stood taller, casting a disparaging look at Mathes, then announced, "The war against the Ottomans is going poorly, the Bibre Cruor are needed and so are the Templars who remain here. Are they ready to join our brothers in the Holy Land, Du Lauzon, or are they like Mathes and enjoy the ease of monastery life while the blood of our sect stains the swords of Mohamad's followers?"

Grand Master Du Lauzon stiffened at the young warriors chastising. He glared at the parchment again. "Let us speak in my office."

"Brother Caon, please tend to your patient and be ready to leave as soon as I return," Geoff ordered.

After the Templars left except for one at the door, Lycaon shifted his body to hide that he put his arm to her lips. "Take as much as you need," he whispered.

"I am close to turning to stone. My uncle says to jump from the wall, and he would catch us, if they will not let us leave," she murmured against his skin before she impaled his arm and drew his blood into her blood starved body.

When the guard came closer, Lycaon pretended to be wiping her face with his sleeve. "Brother Templar, may I have some water to clean her face, hands, and feet? The Holy Father cannot see her like this."

"The rain will wash her clean enough," he grumbled then demanded, "What sect are you?"

"Benedictine, why?" Lycaon asked.

"Prove it, sing the Deum Verum that Saint Augustine wrote," The Templar sneered at him, with his hand on his sword hilt.

"Actually, Saint Hilary of Poitiers, wrote it almost a century before Augustine took the credit." Correcting him, Lycaon began to chant in his rich tenor voice as the Templar looked at him in surprise.

He didn't even finish the first verse when the Templar scowled at him, interrupting, "Fine, you are who Brother Geoff claims."

"Who else would I be? Are the brothers of your order as untrustworthy as those who tried to kill Brother Goeff for some stupid superstition that Demons and Cruor are the same. I have seen both, they are not; Cruor protect the innocent that Demons would feed on. I have also seen a Unicorn and a Nosferatu and what they do to the children of Adam and Eve." Thinking of his mother's last prophecy, he declared, "If those evil creatures keep getting superstitious men to kill the Bibre Cruor for them, someday when no Cruor are left, they will try to kill us all." Lycaon held out the bowl. "Bring me more broth or you can explain to Pope Celestine why she died."

Snatching the bowl, the Templar walked out.

"I feel like I am petrifying," Anjael muttered as she shook trying to resist her body's need to turn to stone and heal. Looking up at him, Anjael was surprised when he kissed her lips gently. In his blood memories, she saw his affection for her and his desperation to find her after killing the one who killed his father.

"Not yet. We're almost free." Lycaon held her against him, kissing her hair, "Stay with me."

They heard the guard returning. It was a different Templar who smelled strange, almost like he had rubbed his body in rosemary and cedar oil to hide his scent. "The Grand Master wants you to bring her."

"She is too weak to walk." Lycaon picked her up gently and followed.

As they walked out into the dwindling rain, the guard let them the opposite direction from the way Geoff and Du Lauzon's scents went. There was a whistling like a bird and Anjael murmured, "Uncle say flee."

"What did she say?" The guard demanded.

"I don't know, she's been muttering nonsensically in Latin since I got here. I can't believe your sect locked her in a cell and took such poor care of her," Lycaon reprimanded him harshly as his wolf's eyes sought a way to escape when two more strange smelling Templar surrounded him.

"Our sect does not believe in cavorting with cursed creatures like yours."

Shouting came from the direction they came, and the guard pulled his sword. Lycaon backed away from them, "You cannot hurt her; she has papal protection."

"Pope Celestine is dead, and we are changing the rules. No more Templars are going to go die for that godforsaken..."

Suddenly, he was gone. His shouts came from above for a moment then his body crashed into the ground followed by his head. His blood smelled of Nosferatu venom and human death. Lycaon stood there staring at it as Anjael stiffened in his arms. Brother Geoff rushed toward them with several others carrying torches.

"Why did you try to escape with her?" Du Lauzon demanded.

"I did not. That Templar said he was to bring us to you then he led me here and pulled his sword to kill me when his fellows came to join him." Lycaon looked upward and shouted, "Elder Cruor, are you there?"

Ouroboros's winged giant landed and pointed at the Templar's body. "He has been dead for many days. A Nosferatu bit him."

"What do you want, demon?" Brother Mathes demanded then backed up when Ouroboros hissed at him in a deeply inhuman way.

"You allow a Vampyri halfling serving a Nosferatu to dwell among you, Grand Master? The rules of this cloister are not as they were registered with the council and yet you accuse us of serving evil." Ouroboros sounded judgmental, he demanded, "Give her to me." He took Anjael from Lycaon's arms, but she was already petrifying and could not move. "Abandon these others to their condemnation, Brother Geoff, Brother Caon. I will return for you then we shall set off to Ravenna."

"You can't leave, when the day comes..." Du Lauzon tried to stop him.

"Did the sunlight affect my niece?" Ouroboros interrupted.

"No."

"The rules of our kind to not apply to all of us." Ouroboros towered over the Grand Master as he spread his wings, then he added, "Pope Celestine has ordered my niece returned to me, so we may join the war in the Holy Land. You may stay in your mountain hold and die as a coward if you wish." He launched himself, skyward. Anjael let herself loose consciousness as he laid her in a cart driven by Lord Griffe Du Loup. She didn't remember what the said to each other as she became stone.

Her memory-dream shifted to watching through Lycaon's eyes.

Ouroboros vanished into the sky.

"We have been deceived! Pope Celestine is dead," Mathes snapped. "He died this morning."

"How do you know that?" Geoff demanded as Du Lauzon stared at his second in surprise before either could react, Geoff revealed. "The Elder Cruor only reached us before we climbed up with the news that a Nosferatu killed Celestine. He spoke the truth, you're a Vampyri halfling and traitor! You have revealed yourself."

Mathes jumped toward Du Lauzon, with his sword out, but Geoff blocked the blow with his arm's chainmail. "No!" He punched Mathes breaking the other's nose then kicked him hard away.

Grand Master Du Lauzon stumbled backward and fell as the Benedictine Monk Caon knocked another away from him. Swords clashed like lightning as the rain started again. The young Templar and Benedictine monk fought valiantly against the five enthralled by a greater evil. Suddenly, those trying to kill Du Lauzon, Caon, and Geoff stopped fighting and dropped to their knees then fell over dead. The Cruor returned with a dead Nosferatu in his talons while Mathes writhed on the ground.

Ouroboros pointed at the dead four. "Those were bitten and resurrected after that one killed them in the last few days."

"He is my second, surely he cannot be... I mean, he doesn't look or act like a vampire," Du Lauzon exclaimed.

"Vampyri halflings are vulnerable to Nosferatu, they do not have to die to be controlled." Ouroboros pointed at Mathes. "He was not changed by his sire. I can smell that he only drinks cooled blood from corpses. He is the one causing harm to your sect. Brother Geoff and Brother Caon reported those who attacked him smelled of decay and did not bleed."

"How could you do this?" Du Lauzon demanded of Mathes but instead of answering, he flung a dagger back.

Ouroboros's wing blocked it easily, then he snorted derisively. "He will only continue trying to kill you, Grand Master. His mind is corrupted... Come, Geoff, Caon, we must go."

"No, Elder Cruor, I will stay and help rebuild my sect. Good luck in the Crusades. Perhaps we will see you there." Geoff bowed to the Cruor. "What do we do now, Grand Master?"

"I make amends for failing to save our brothers and innocent lives from this traitor," Du Lauzon admitted, then he rammed a sword through Mathes' head.

"You will need to burn his body." Ouroboros revealed then he lifted Lycaon and flew away into the storm. He stopped to pick up Anjael's petrified body from Griffe before flying though out the night. It took them three nights of flying to reach home. It took Griffe a month traveling by cart but he was able to bring three hundred more Lycani from nearly-destoyed packs to join them. By summer, Lycaon's pack held over a thousand and spread into the Spanish Mountains to the south.

/\^^^^/\

Anjael turned over in bed, awaking slightly at the end of Lycaon's memory of what happened after she petrified. It was comforting to think of how he placed her in his late mother's garden and kissed her among the falling snowflakes when she revived. Sighing happily at the memory of her first werewolf lover and how she willingly gave him up after he found his mate. She could still smell Lycaon's scent in the scent of his many-great grandson Abel, it was comforting to have it on her skin again and she fell back asleep.

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