by Mel Odom
“James!” the guard holding the civilian yelled. “Don’t run, mate! It only feeds the fire!”
If the burning man heard his friend, he gave no sign. He careened into the wall and fell into a pile of debris that also caught on fire.
At that moment, Warren lost sight of the man as he concentrated on the other one who was even then turning on him with the machine pistol. Warren brought his hand up in front of him and pushed more energy into the spell he had ready.
The guard fired his weapon. Dozens of bullets spat from the machine pistol like a swarm of metallic bees. Muzzle flashes lit the alley like miniature lightning strikes.
Despite his confidence in his abilities, fear trickled through Warren. His senses sped up so much that he could see the bullets clearly as they streaked for him. Most of them wouldn’t miss.
Afraid? Merihim taunted.
Warren ignored the mocking voice. He flicked his hand open over his heart. A shimmer passed over his body several inches from his skin.
The bullets struck the barrier he’d called up and froze in mid-air only inches from him. The lead projectiles were partially melted from the heat created in the barrel, and from the impact against the shield. They hung suspended as he gazed at them.
Then he realized his left shoulder felt as if it was on fire. When he looked, he saw that one of the bullets had evidently struck him and penetrated the flesh. The sensation of blood spreading down his back let him know the bullet had gone all the way through.
How?
It is a reminder, Merihim said. I do not want you to get too complacent. You will not take for granted what I’ve given you.
Silently, Warren wondered if Merihim had intentionally let him be wounded, or if the demon’s powers weren’t as strong as he’d claimed. The fact that he could question such a thing without Merihim knowing also proved the demon didn’t have quite the hold he professed.
Of course, the possibility existed that the demon did know and only allowed Warren his misplaced confidence. Warren forced the thought away almost as soon as it dawned. He concentrated on survival.
He ignored the pain in his shoulder and focused on the guard that had shot at him. Shot me, Warren corrected.
The man brought his weapon up again. The bullets held in stasis before Warren created silvery-green waves of energy that bumped against each other like rocks in an incoming tide.
Warren swept his hand toward the man. The bullets immediately spun back toward the guard. Mushroomed and deformed from being fired, they wreaked havoc on the man’s body. Impelled by greater forces than mere cordite, the projectiles ripped through the man’s body armor and hurled him backward a dozen feet. He smashed against the wall behind him and slumped to the ground. Only blood, bone, ripped flesh, and shattered Kevlar remained of his face.
Warren strode to the two survivors. “Shoot me and you die,” he told the guard.
The man hesitated, then dropped his weapon to his side.
Kill them all, Merihim ordered.
I don’t have to, Warren thought back at him.
I have told you to. They die… or you die.
“All right,” the man said. “What do you want?”
Warren stopped in front of the man and held his hand out. It hurt to move his arm, but he kept his right hand clenched and ready to unleash another spell.
“The book,” Warren said.
“No,” the man pleaded in a thin voice. “You work with the demons. You’re one of the demon worshippers.”
Warren didn’t bother to correct the man. The Cabalists weren’t demon worshippers. No one alive on the planet was fool enough to think that the demons bore any goodwill toward humankind. Cabalists were fools who thought they could control demons.
The man wrapped both arms around the bag he carried. “Please. How can you do this? How can you turn against your own kind?”
“My own kind?” Warren’s tone turned bitter and the old anger he had reared its head. “My own kind didn’t care about me. My mother had me but cared more about learning witchcraft than rearing a child. I never knew my father. My stepfather tried to kill me when I was eight. After he’d killed my mother.”
The gunshots sounded in Warren’s head again. He should have died that night. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d commanded his stepfather to shoot himself in the head. It was the first time he’d ever used his power like that.
“The courts turned me over to foster care,” Warren continued. “I won’t bore you with the abuse that I suffered there… among my kind.” He took in a deep breath and shook his head. “In this world, there’s only me and you. And it’s a bad day for you when I have power over you.”
Tears coursed down the man’s cheeks. “Please. You don’t understand. This is important. This is something we need to know that the demons don’t.”
That interested Warren immediately. Knowledge was power. Especially when that knowledge was about secrets. He’d learned that at an early age.
“The demons know everything, mate,” Warren said. “You’re a fool if you think they don’t.” He grabbed the book with his left hand to leave his right free. Pain burned through his shoulder but he worked through it. With a wrench that nearly brought him to his knees, he yanked the book from the man.
The guard lifted his weapon and tried to bring it to bear.
Growling a curse, Warren thrust his right hand at the man and squeezed it viciously. Power erupted through his body and he knew Merihim was boosting his abilities.
The guard screamed in agony, dropped his weapon, and pressed his hands to his head. As he fell backward, his head and the Kevlar helmet blew up and spread over the wall behind him.
Warren took a ragged breath. Even after the horror of the past four years and everything he’d done in Merihim’s name, he hadn’t been prepared for the man’s grisly death.
The other man collapsed into a fetal ball with his arms over his head. “Please,” he whispered frantically. “Please. Don’t kill me. I’m begging you.”
Warren felt bad for the man. Despite his resolve to see to his own needs first, he knew with devastating clarity how it felt to be alone and vulnerable. The man in the alley was both those things.
He was also too weak to make it back through the city without ending up in some demon’s gullet before daybreak. Killing him was merciful.
Warren knelt and placed his hand over the man’s chest.
“Please,” the man whispered.
“Sleep,” Warren said, when what he meant was die. The man’s ears heard one thing, but his heart heard another. It stilled within his chest and never beat again.
You should have let him beg more, Merihim said. Begging is music to my ears.
Quiet and contained, Warren pushed himself to his feet. “I have your book. Where do you want it?”
I’ll let you know. For the time being, keep it safe.
The absence of the demon in Warren’s head left a vacuum. It also left him feeling dangerously fatigued. He forced himself to move and to ignore the pain in his shoulder. He wanted to get back to his sanctuary where his sentries could watch over him.
And, since he had the chance, he wanted to know what was in the book he’d killed five men for.
Two
Armored from head to toe in the magically reinforced palladium alloy armor his father and he had crafted when he’d gained his full size, Simon Cross paused at the entrance to the underground parking garage beneath the Taylor & Loftus Building in the May-fair District.
“Confirm comm link,” Simon said.
“Reading you five by five,” Danielle Ballentine called back over the frequency immediately.
In swift order, the rest of the twelve-man unit counted down.
Simon listened to them and tried to bank his fear for later. The emotion was never truly useful except as extra energy during an impromptu escape. But only if it could be successfully mastered. Otherwise it simply drove a man to foolish acts.
He wasn’t there for a fool
ish act. They were there to rescue teammates. Or avenge them.
Before stepping into the armor, Simon stood an impressive six feet five inches tall and weighed two hundred fifty pounds. Clad in the armor, he gained three inches and almost one hundred fifty pounds. The suit’s Nanodyne microprocessors and “muscles” gave him the movement of an Olympic athlete and the speed of a racehorse.
Smithed primarily of palladium, the armor had also been blessed and had spells of protection woven into it. It was the finest combination of magic, science, and faith that had ever been built.
It was primarily powered by solar energy streamed through a microfusion drive. Even under harsh circumstances, the armor could operate for eighteen to twenty-four hours nonstop. When those solar cells were depleted, there was a spell that provided a boost of arcane energy for a time. With any luck, the reserve system would hold out long enough to get a Templar to safety.
When all members of the team had been accounted for, Simon focused on the building. So far nothing had moved in or around the building. There weren’t even any “gargoyles” present.
Checking for gargoyles had gotten to be second nature whenever Simon’s Templar went into the city. So much of the architecture was Gothic, and gargoyles had been a prominent feature. But many more of them these days were Blood Angels and other demons from whatever Hell they’d crawled out of.
“Here we go,” Simon said. He drew his sword, a double-edged great weapon forged of palladium alloy that presented four feet of gleaming, rune-etched razor sharpness. It was light enough, with the armor’s boosted strength, to wield one-handed.
Simon scanned the street and immediate area one more time. The helmet’s HUD provided a 360-degree panorama. He could literally see where he was going and what was behind him at the same time. A whispered command to the armor’s online entity could change the view from normal to night vision to thermographic.
“Magnify,” Simon said.
“Magnify,” the suit’s AI responded in the melodic feminine voice.
The HUD reflected the changes immediately. Simon was already using night vision. He scanned the building again. There was still nothing there to cause him to scrub the mission. He took a deep breath and took the first step.
* * * *
Simon crossed the road and avoided the burned-out hulks of the vehicles scattered in the street like a child’s toys. A red double-decker bus that itself had once been a sight to see in London lay on its side. Skeletons—adult and children, Simon saw—were scattered throughout.
The driver, still wearing his uniform, occupied the driver’s seat. Most of his teeth had gotten knocked out during the wreck. A plastic Buddha figurine sat on the dash beside a Hawaiian hula girl. Stitching on the side of his shirt read: GEOFFREY.
Behind him, Danielle placed her hand on his shoulder and cued suit-to-suit communication only. That frequency was used for private chat and to circumvent anyone who might have the technology to break the encryption. The contact also provided an immediate medical readout on the other person.
“Simon,” she said gently.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”
“I know.” But that’s the bad part, Simon thought. Don’t let me get used to this. Let every one of these sights strengthen my resolve to fight the demons. He turned and moved on.
Danielle stayed close behind him. Her armor was colored green and black, but—like him—she had the camouflage function turned on and its surface rippled with the night’s shadows.
The other two Templar flanked them and mirrored the placement of the second and third teams. All of them carried swords because of tradition and because the Templar had been training to fight the demons since the Crusades. That war—man versus demon—would always be fought in close quarters in the cities that men built. They knew no other way, but they had adapted. The Spike Bolter Simon wore at his hip proved that.
“Incoming signal,” the suit AI announced.
“Who?”
“Unknown.”
Simon signaled the teams to stand down. He squatted against the building and studied the 360-degree view of the street. He touched Danielle’s forearm.
“I’ve got a communiqué,” he said. “Relay that to the others. Tell them to stay alert.”
“Yes sir.” Even though Danielle’s blank faceplate showed nothing but the reflection of Simon’s own blank faceplate, tension tightened her voice.
Both of them knew they wouldn’t have been there if they hadn’t gotten tipped off. And they still didn’t understand the role of the woman who had given them the information about the captured Templar.
“Acknowledge incoming signal?” the suit AI asked.
The fact that the signal wasn’t simply jammed through spoke volumes to Simon. Either the sender couldn’t take over the suit’s comm array. Or she’s being polite, Simon thought.
“Acknowledge,” Simon said.
“Simon,” the feminine voice said.
Simon recognized her voice immediately. It belonged to Leah Creasey, the young woman who had accompanied him, back from South Africa when he’d heard about the London invasion. As it turned out, she’d been in Cape Town looking for him. He still wasn’t sure why, or who had sent her, but during the last four years of hard-fought battles they’d learned to trust each other. They just didn’t talk about who she was with.
Back in London after her arrival there with Simon, she’d temporarily spied on the Templar Underground, then disappeared when she chose to. He still didn’t know what that was about either.
Later, when he’d split with the main group of Templar and set out on his own to rescue those he could that had been stranded in the country, she’d shown up in time to help him pull off that escape by train. He still hadn’t figured out how she’d managed to know where he was or that he’d needed help against the Cabalist with the demon’s hand. He’d only seen her a few times since then, hit and miss encounters that had left him asking even more questions about who she was and what she represented.
But he had learned that he could trust her when it came to survival issues. She—and whomever she ultimately worked for—wanted the demons gone as well.
“Leah,” Simon said. “This is a bad time.”
“It’s about to get worse.”
Simon paused at that. “How do you know?”
“Because you’re walking into a trap.”
* * * *
Across the street from the front of the Taylor & Loftus building, Leah Creasey lay prone on the roofs edge. She had a cluster rifle snugged up against her shoulder and peered through a sniper scope down onto the street five stories below.
She wasn’t supposed to be there. She knew she was going to be in a world of trouble if she was found out. But in a world that had suddenly been infested by demons, no trouble outside of that looked big enough to worry about.
So she’d shown up to see how Simon Cross and his group handled the problem she’d put into their laps. She’d felt bad about dropping it on him because it wasn’t—at least in a way—his problem.
“How do you know we’re walking into a trap?” Simon demanded.
Leah sighted on him through the sniper scope. He looked huge in the armor, like a human tank. But it was hard to see him with the camo effect engaged.
“Because I was just told that those Templar are being held as bait to pull you out of hiding,” she replied.
“I haven’t been hiding,” Simon replied.
He sounds tired, Leah thought. “I know you haven’t been hiding.”
For the last four years he’d been building his own underground. All of that was without the resources the Templar had assembled over hundreds of years.
He’d also been saving lives where he could. That endeavor had dropped off steeply. It wasn’t just that there were fewer people to save, but that it was harder to find them among the city’s ruins. Simon had been weeks without saving anyone, and Leah knew he kept tr
ack of that. During the last four years, even with infrequent meetings, she’d come to know what kind of man he was.
And the kind of man he was…
Well that’s what’s brought you up on top of this bloody building in the middle of the night and breaking cover, which you’ll catch bloody hob for if you’re caught, isn’t it?
From what Leah Creasey had seen, Simon Cross was the kind of man they didn’t make any more. And she wasn’t about to let him just up and die without lending a hand.
Or warning him off.
“Are there Templar inside that building?” Simon growled.
“There are,” Leah told him. “But the demons holding them are expecting you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the bloody High Seat of Rorke, Terrence Booth, left them there as bait.” When she’d been in the Templar Underground as a reluctantly admitted guest, Leah had met Booth. The man wasn’t likable, and he held a huge grudge against Simon for bygone trespasses.
“Booth knew they were there?” Simon asked.
“Yes.”
“And he did nothing?”
“They’re still there, Simon. I’m sorry. But you can’t go in there. They’ll be ready for you.”
“How do you know this?”
Leah couldn’t explain everything. There was still too much that depended on secrecy. Even if they couldn’t defeat the demons, the people she was with were determined not to let the death of the planet go unavenged.
She’d sworn an oath to uphold her station, and she couldn’t breathe a word to anyone until she was released to do so.
“You’ll have to trust me, Simon.”
“You’re spying on them, aren’t you?”
Leah didn’t bother to deny it. The information her superiors gleaned from the Templar Underground was important. The Templar were the only people to be truly ready to battle the demons.
And nearly all of them had died that first night of the invasion. The rest, everyone except Simon and his lot, had gone into hiding.
“Who are you with?” Simon growled.
“I can’t talk about this,” Leah said. “And this isn’t the time or place even if I could.” She paused and watched him through the sniper scope. Throughout her upbringing, she’d been raised on heroes, of men that would lay down their lives in a heartbeat for their country.
