Crown of Souls Read online

  © 2017 by Ronie Kendig

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-1194-8

  Interlude titles taken from John Hay’s “Hymn of the Knights Templars,” recorded in Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838-1915) Yale Book of American Verse (1912). Hymn #197

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible and the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Kirk DouPonce, DogEared Design

  Author is represented by the Steve Laube Agency.

  To Victoria (Robertson) Kendig, my amazing mother-in-law. As a journalism professor, you poured your soul into teaching your students how to be better, stronger writers, and you turned a flagging program into an award-winning one! You have always inspired me. I remember when Brian and I were dating, I saw your first book manuscript and was so in awe of you. And I thought, “Maybe I could do that, too.”

  Together, may we pass on our love and passion for the written word to the next generation, and the one after that, too. Infect them all!

  I love you, Mom.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  In Desert March or Battle’s Flame

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  In Fortress and in Field

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Our War-Cry Is Thy Holy Name

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Thy Love Our Joy and Shield!

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  And If We Falter, Let Thy Power

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  Thy Stern Avenger Be

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  And God Forget Us in the Hour

  39

  40

  41

  42

  We Cease to Think of Thee

  43

  44

  Mother of God! the Evening Fades

  45

  46

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Ronie Kendig

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself . . .

  You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame;

  how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?

  —Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

  1

  — DAY 1 —

  VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

  It took one ten thousandth of a second—exactly 0.000169 seconds—for the bullet to rip through his shoulder. The sniper shot shoved him backward onto the sun-warmed beach. In the chaos and shock, his mind powered down to microscopic analysis. Though it only took seconds, the pieces came in numbingly slowly.

  What . . . ? What had happened? Cole “Tox” Russell struggled against the quagmire of sights, smells, and sounds to figure out how he’d landed faceup on the beach, staring up at a picture-perfect blue sky and puffy clouds. Confused, he blinked, his breath trapped in his throat.

  His first clue was the warmth spreading around his shoulder blade and down his back. Sliding across his right pectoral and abs.

  “Cole!” Blond hair spilled over a knotted brow and wide eyes.

  Get up, idiot! He pushed up from the sand.

  A volcano erupted in his shoulder. Fire. Needling, explosive fire. He howled and arched backward. Gripping his shoulder, he found it slick. Dark, shiny. Blood. Heaviness weighted his limbs. Shock. Blood loss. He sagged against the beach, disoriented.

  “Cole? Cole!” Haven reached for him.

  Haven. Right. They’d been walking the beach, talking about . . . about what? He struggled to remember. To think.

  About what?

  Mom—they’d been talking about his mom, whom Haven had just visited for a party.

  “She’s good—misses you still,” Haven had said.

  He nodded, thinking, aching to see his mom again.

  “Here.” She angled in with her phone to show him a photo. “I convinced her to take a selfie.”

  His heart clenched at his mom’s beautiful smile, instantly recalling her laughter. Her advice. Her wisdom.

  Haven’s bright green eyes studied the photo, then him. “You have her smile.”

  His throat was raw.

  Haven’s words had filled him with reassurance about his mother’s welfare but had also drowned him in a squall of grief, because he’d never see his mom again. It was own fault. His decision five years ago had declared him persona non grata with the U.S. government and severed his familial ties.

  “Cole? Cole, talk to me!” Haven’s voice pitched. “There’s so much blood!”

  He dragged his gaze to her, feeling strange. A little . . . hungover.

  Panicked, frantic eyes darted over him. “Ram, help!” Her primal scream scraped its way out of her throat.

  In a plume of dust and sand, a tornado of curses and olive skin whirled into view as Ram Khalon slid up to his three-o’clock position. “You’vebeenshotdon’tmove.” His words tumbled over one another as he slammed both palms against Tox’s shoulder.

  Fiery shards exploded at the touch, pinning Tox to the ground. “Augh!”

  Shot? He couldn’t have been shot. He was in Virginia. Home. Safe. “I’m fine.” He hated this—hated the look in Haven’s eyes. The worry in Ram’s voice.

  “Maangi!” Salty wind pulled Ram’s shaggy hair free of its ponytail and tossed it into his blazing eyes. “Keep still, you hardheaded son of a—”

  Whoosh! Maangi wedged in beside Ram to take over. “How bad?”

  “Entry and exit—”

  “Get my kit!” Maangi mashed one hand to the wound, another to Tox’s carotid artery. “Okay, Sarge—”

  “Car keys,” Ram demanded.

  “Right pocket.” Maangi was assessing, looking, squinting. “Sarge, I’m going to check the bleeding.”

  Gritting his teeth, Tox squeezed his eyes against the pain. Against the situation. Who had shot him? It’d only been a few seconds ago that Haven had been sharing about her visit to his parents’ estate in Maryland for his mom’s sixtieth birthday.

  “I hear you’re really good at air guitar,” Haven said with a mischievous laugh.

  “No no no.” Roughing a hand over his face, Tox growled. “Please tell me she doesn’t still have that video.”

  Haven laughed even more. “You were pretty cute at four.”

  He hung his head. “I should’ve destroyed that a long time ago. I was buck naked.”

  “Were you? I only remember your grunt-song,” Haven said around another laugh.

  He snorted, knowing full well his nudity could not have been missed.

  “So, no repeat performance?”

  “—ox? Hey! Tox, talk to me, man.”

  Only at the frantic words did he register the darkness clouding his vision. He blinked, and piercing light shot through his corneas. Hollowed hearing unplugged slowly and pulled him back to the chaos. Maangi was working on him with Ram. Had he already gotten the kit?

  If Chiji Okorie hadn’t flown home to Nigeria for his brother’s funeral, he’d quote a Scripture. About God protecting Him. Crazy how much Tox wanted to hear those words right now. This wasn’t a mortal wound, but it was significant. He could tell by the way Maangi moved, the ferocity in his eyes. Tension hovering so thick, it’d take a bomb to eradicate it.

  Maangi angled into Tox’s view, cutting off the vibrant blue sky. “How you feeling?”

  Tox grunted. “Like dog meat.” Entry and exit wounds, Ram had said. A sniper, then, since he hadn’t seen anyone with a gun nearby. “We safe?” They should get to cover.

  Maangi said nothing. The others towered over Tox, expressions etched with rage and shock. He could relate. “Cover,” he reiterated. At least, he thought he did. His body was going into shock, thoughts and limbs rubbery. Movemen
ts jerky, uncoordinated.

  “No more shots,” Victor “Thor” Thorsen called.

  “Only one shot? Was the sarge targeted?”

  “Here? Why?”

  “Who cares. Let’s find this guy,” said Barclay “Cell” Purcell. Angry. Hateful. “Show him what dead feels like.”

  Tox fought to distract himself from the pain. He’d been shot before, but not on home turf. Not where he should’ve been safe. They’d been on the beach for the Fourth of July. Early in the day, before fireworks started. Before dark. A volleyball game—the team and some family members. Shouts as they played. Barking dogs. Cries of children. Little faces.

  “The kids.” Tox bit through the fire to sit up.

  “Down!” Maangi barked, pushing hard against him.

  Nausea swirled with the pain, flopping Tox onto the beach. He was going to lose it. Vomit. Pass out.

  Lost a lot of blood.

  Swallowing hard, he relaxed a little. Were they still in danger? “Sitrep,” he wheezed, then wet his dry lips. His words sounded like sandpaper against stone. There’d been four kids. A baby. A pregnant wife. Three girlfriends. “The kids,” he moaned again. “Get them”—was someone using a cattle prod in his shoulder?—“safety.”

  “Easy,” Ram said. “They’re good.” His hands moved toward the kit, then back to Tox’s shoulder. “Foster’s getting them out of here. They’re leaving. ”

  Foster. Someone’s friend. Or was it brother?

  “Always in charge.” Ram snorted. “Thor, Cell, and Keogh have taken VVolt to check the buildings and find the shooter. Neutralize him before he can hurt anyone else.”

  “Good,” Tox whispered. A touch weighted his palm. Reflexively, he tightened his fingers, knowing only one person would try to hold his hand. He peeled his attention from the blue sky, past Ram’s furious expression and Maangi’s hair dark with sweat as he aimed white gauze at Tox’s shoulder, to—“Haven.”

  She was beautiful. More than he could’ve dreamed. Too good for him. In danger because of him.

  “Go,” he said. “Get to—”

  “I’m not leaving.” Her eyebrows rose, fire in her green eyes.

  “Don’t argue,” Tox grunted.

  “Just did,” she said with a smirk.

  “I mean it. Go.”

  “Shut up and roll onto your side,” Maangi ordered, then to Ram, “Help, so we don’t destabilize him.”

  As pawing hands shifted Tox onto his side, he gritted his teeth. Sticky warmth slipped over his dorsal muscle. Blood from the exit wound. But not gushing. Good.

  “Sand’s doing its job,” Maangi said, “packing the wound, slowing blood loss. They’ll have to clean it out.”

  Sirens howled in the distance. More eyes on scene, making the sniper’s escape more difficult. Tox shifted his attention to the buildings in the distance. Roughly eight or nine hundred yards out. Three shadows shimmied up to the wall. By the tactical approach used to infil, they were his guys, the military working dog, and sometime Wraith asset, Drew Keogh. But Tox couldn’t see—

  “Hey!” Maangi snapped, his brow sweaty. “Keep still, or I’ll make sure you feel this.”

  He didn’t like his team going in without backup. Without him. If the shooter was still there . . . He tensed. But he didn’t have enough in him to fight a combat medic, let alone a sniper. Tox slumped back.

  Warmth compressed his hand again. Haven’s face was streaked with dirt and blood.

  Blood? “You hurt?”

  Lips thinned as she fought tears, Haven shook her head. And then it hit him—the blood on her face was his. Before the shot, he’d been staring across the beach at Ram, who lifted a hand as if to call him back. Then came the puff of red around Tox’s shoulder. His blood. Haven had been walking with him, arms linked. . . .

  Three inches off, and she would’ve taken the bullet.

  Guilt tore at Tox for exposing her to this. That she had to see him laid out. “Go.”

  “Here,” Ram shouted.

  Emergency lights splashed across the buildings and vehicles in the lot. Seconds later, two EMTs carrying a stretcher and medical bags crested the small rise from the parking lot and jogged down the beach toward them.

  Maangi called out to them, “My name is Tane Maangi. I’m a combat medic. Single gunshot wound to the right shoulder. Entry and exit wounds. No major arteries hit, as far as I can tell.”

  Ram stepped away, but his bare feet remained in Tox’s peripheral vision. Watching over him. When Maangi shifted aside for the EMTs, a chill swept Tox’s spine. Wanting to reassure Haven, he squeezed then released her hand. As the EMTs loaded him onto a stretcher, a foam wedge propping his torso up off the exit wound, he let himself analyze the incident one more time.

  A lazy Fourth of July before fireworks.

  The team—playing volleyball.

  The families—gathered around the grills and picnic benches.

  Tox—with Haven. Fifty yards off. The time between the crack of the rifle and the instant he found himself on the ground . . .

  As they secured him in the ambulance, he stared down the length of his legs, a terrible fear digging into his gut. “Haven, come with me.”

  She gave him a smile, apparently reading into this insistence, and climbed in, staying out of the way of the EMTs.

  Asking her to come wasn’t about sentimentality. This was about insurance. Guarantees. Making sure Haven didn’t eat a bullet, too.

  2

  — DAY 1 —

  VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

  It was stupid, but she couldn’t shake from her mind the glittering grains of sand in Cole’s hair. Glints of gold in his dark brown hair. Framing his head and face.

  As Haven washed her hands, red swirled in dizzying circles down the drain. Spiraling. Vanishing. Like life. The stress and grief of the afternoon’s events tumbled out in a choked sob. She held the back of her hand to her mouth, stifling it. Gripping the edge of the sink, she swallowed hard. Closed her eyes.

  But doing that only gave her mind the freedom to shove Cole’s ashen face, splattered with his own blood, back to the forefront. The measured breaths she took didn’t ease the band of pressure tightening around her temples.

  He’s stable, she reminded herself. The doctor said he’s stable.

  But her mind refused to surrender the image of him flat on his back at her feet. Holding hands one second, ripped apart the next. He had lain there, staring up the sky. Red pooling across his shoulder.

  Going from near bliss to shattered world in a heartbeat. Thinking he was . . . dead. He hadn’t moved, not for several excruciating seconds. After all she’d gone through to have him in her life, to be dating him, to be the bridge between him and his parents—who still didn’t know he was alive—and then to think he was dying . . .

  Voices outside the bathroom door shoved steel down her spine. Pull it together. Haven scrubbed with the antibacterial soap, digging the dark spots from beneath her nails, then dried her hands. She stuffed the paper towel in the trash and returned to the small hospital room.

  A shape peeled off the wall. The man stood straight, shoulders back, chin up. Thor. “They said this was his room.” He glanced at the empty space where a bed should be.

  Strange, the instant comfort she felt at finding one of Cole’s guys waiting. She offered a smile. “He’s in surgery but stable.” She swallowed and hugged herself.

  “Surprised he already has a room.” Thor went to the window.

  Haven watched as he glanced out. “Pays to have the president as your brother. Galen pulled strings, sent security—”

  THWAP!

  Haven jerked when he ripped the cord on the blinds, snapping the room into near darkness.

  “Least he’s good for something,” Thor muttered as he returned to the door, spread his legs shoulder-width apart, and folded his arms. Standing guard. Since Cole wasn’t here, who was he guarding?

  Me. The thought struck her. Alarmed her. Yet comforted her. “And the others?” Was it too much to hope that they’d caught whoever had done this?

  “Ram’s making calls. The team just left the site.”

  Site. Not the beach. Because now it was a crime scene. Someone had tried to kill Cole. Throat suddenly raw, Haven swallowed.

  The door punched open. In a blink, Thor somehow had a weapon cradled in both hands, aimed at the opening. Shadows gave way to light, and Ram entered. Stepping to the left, Thor holstered his weapon.

  Ram held a souvenir T-shirt out to Haven. She frowned, but when he nodded to her blouse, she glanced down and felt a simultaneous rush of dread and nausea as she saw her white sweater splotched with Cole’s blood.