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Cross as his herald.
    But his father had far different ideas. Especially after Missy died in a car wreck and Sarah had been kidnapped two years later. Evan knew he would never see either of them ever again.
    Father should have lost faith, but he found a new faith. One similar to, but more undisciplined than what the Templars adhered to, The Faith of Forgiveness. The Templars were the Sword of the Church, but this doctrine of Christ had no place in a Templar household. This only furthered the expanding gulf between Evan’s father and his grandfather.
    Evan’s father tried making him go to seminary instead. He said if Evan did so with open eyes, he would see the world as God did, a world full of suffering sinners who needed the love of Christ to make them whole again. Evan refused. It seemed to be the one thing his father couldn’t forgive, causing a rift between father and son, Generation 2.0.
    Gramps took Evan and secreted him away, which was the nail in the coffin. Gramps raised Evan in the ways of the Templars. He trained him in the fighting arts, matters of spiritual warfare, cleansing himself and purging evil from others with the Edge of God, Evan’s five-foot, two-handed, long sword. Gramps trained him to use it one handed, should the need ever arise in the field of battle.
    The battlefield is never kind to handicaps, Evan ; he told him. He trained him to fight under every possible adversity and condition which could be imagined: without air, while partially immobilized, under duress of immolation, fatigued, starving…any real life scenario that could be staged with psychological stressors associated with field combat. They had a name for it now; simulated battlefield training.
    Just like her father, Evan mused. For over a decade now, he alone has watched her, ever since his grandfather passed onto the Crypts of the Ancients. He knew of her mother’s car accident, her grandmother’s mysterious death before that and her father’s estrangement from her. And now they were moving against her and he had to intervene. He was bound, above all else in this one regard. He opened the book to a well-worn passage. The pages had yellowed with time, but there was a particular preservative used by the Templars to keep it through the ages. Evan knew not where the process originated, only that it involved beeswax and other natural ingredients.
    The Edge of God hung over his head on a decorative mantelpiece placed above his chair serving as his reading chair.  This, his only concession to ornamentation in his entire life. The sword had served well, but was obsolete in an age of C&C permits covering most any type of handgun and knife, but ironically, not five-foot swords. Okay, Evan thought looking up at his sword. Maybe less conceal and more carry would have been a better law.
    Evan despised those who fought by underhanded treachery. A man should be willing to face his enemy and watch the life drain from his eyes as he destroyed his very body. Only a coward could do less than that.
    He returned his attention to the book lying open in his lap.
     
    Sir Rhodan fought for his life. His body riddled with arrows from the dark cloaked sorcerers, left for dead by the side of the road, he contemplated his warrior’s death.
         His ponderings were interrupted by a strange glowing light. Before him appeared a beautiful woman with dark hair. She knelt beside him. “It’s almost over, misguided one.”
         Her utterances were soft, her voice melodious, and the words themselves confusing. Rhodan was not ‘lost’. He was one of God’s chosen warriors, the Knights Templar.
         “Are you an angel? ” he asked her. “Please grant me absolution.”
         She shook her head, and her eyes seemed sad. “I am called Mother Earth by many. I am the Goddess Gaia.”
         Rhodan gripped his sword and strained to lift it. “Demon!”
         The woman, this Gaia, snorted. “How many shall fall to the ignorant new