by Mel Odom
“When I was younger. They were too hard to read and I didn’t understand them.” Leah hadn’t cared for them even though many of her fellow students had thought they were brill.
“We believe he was one of the people who came closest to understanding the demons,” Nathan said. “The Templar think Lovecraft had an arcane ability—everyone knows he had an interest in such things—to touch the minds of things that lie beyond human understanding. When he wrote his stories, he gave flesh to some of the visions he’d seen in the minds of demons.”
“What demons? That was a hundred years ago. The demons weren’t here then.”
“We believe the demons have been here for hundreds of years. They’ve been gathering information and preparing for the invasion. The Order found proof of them and tried to bring it to the attention of the world. In return, the Templar were stripped of their lands, wealth, and titles. There’s some rumor, though it was never proven, that the demons had a hand in that as well.” Nathan fell silent for a moment. “That’s why we went underground and hid from the view of the world.”
“How can you expect to win against opponents like those you’re describing?” Leah asked in hoarse voice. It all sounded impossible to her. Her superiors had already accepted the inevitability of loss. Even the main Templar Order that Simon had separated from seemed to accept that.
Only Simon Cross and his group seemed determined to fly in the face of the odds.
“We don’t have a choice,” Nathan answered. “If we don’t think we can win, if we don’t believe we can save the world, why should we do anything?”
“Because we can’t let them win,” Leah said. Everyone in her group held onto that one absolute. If they couldn’t win, then they also couldn’t allow anyone else to win. It wasn’t a victory, but it wasn’t defeat.
“What does it matter if there’s nothing left to save?” Nathan asked.
“We can’t save this world, but perhaps we can save the next.”
“You’ve already given up on saving this world?”
Leah squirmed under the mild rebuke she heard in his voice. She sensed Simon watching her and she imagined his disappointment. You’ve got to accept the truth, she told herself. Don’t give in to their foolishness. If you reach beyond what you’re able to do, you’ll fail at every thing you attempt. “Even if we could, everything we’ve known has been destroyed.”
“If enough of us survive, we can rebuild the world,” Nathan said.
“It won’t be the same.”
“Nothing is ever the same. The world changes and evolves and moves on every day even without being destroyed.”
“But London—”
“Has been semi-destroyed a number of times,” Nathan said. “The Black Plague. The Great Fire. The exhaustion of natural resources. The bombings in World War II. This is a great city. One of the eternal cities of our world. London will come back. We just have to clear out the infestation so that she can once more take root.”
Leah stood silently.
“Look,” Nathan said, “I don’t know what your training is. I don’t know what group you’re affiliated with. But you—and they—don’t know as much about demons as you think you do.”
“They think that the Templar are fools.”
Nathan chuckled. “Then they don’t know much about us either.”
“No,” Leah agreed. She’d never met any warriors like the Templar. Not even those she’d served with. “I don’t think that they do.”
“Are we all done here?” Danielle asked. “Or do we want to hang around long enough for some other demon to come around looking for the one we just killed?”
* * * *
Laughter exploded from Warren when he thought about what the voice had just told him. “You’re here to save the world? That’s what the bloody Templar claim they’re trying to do.”
“The Templar are trying to destroy the demons,” the voice said softly. “That isn’t the same thing.”
“If you ask them it is.”
“They don’t know everything.”
“I’ve heard the Cabalists talk about the Templar. The Templar have been studying the demons even longer than the Cabalists have been examining the powers of the demons. If there’s anything they don’t know—”
“They don’t know what I know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What you believe doesn’t matter.”
Warren hated the fact that the voice didn’t have a face to look at. He would have stared it in the eyes and called it a liar.
“What would you do,” he asked, “if I chose not to believe in you?”
“I would wait.”
The quick answer unnerved Warren. He thought surely the threat would at least cause a momentary consternation.
“Wait for what?” he asked.
“For another who will believe.”
“What if I destroyed the book?” Even as he asked that, Warren knew that he couldn’t do that. There were too many unanswered questions he had about it.
“You can’t.”
Warren looked at Naomi lying cold and still on the floor in the center of the protective barrier he’d drawn. He wished she would just wake up. He didn’t want to be alone.
“The book can be destroyed, Warren,” the voice said. “But the idea behind it can’t. When the book that you have is no more, another will appear just like it. The weaving was long and arduous, and it cost me a lot to do it, but it had to be done and I did it properly. I would do it again if I had to.”
“How did you manage that if you’re bound?”
“I’m bound. Not helpless. If I were helpless, I wouldn’t be able to aid you.”
“I can’t see that you’ve aided me.”
The voice was quiet for a moment. “I can help you now.”
Warren waited. He wanted—no, needed—the voice to prove itself.
“You want the female to wake. I can help you wake her. And I can take away your pain.”
Warren didn’t say anything.
“Hold your hand over her forehead.”
Gently, Warren placed the demon’s hand over Naomi’s brow.
“Not that hand,” the voice said. “The other hand. The hand that is truly part of you.”
Taking the demon hand back, Warren felt helpless. “I can’t use the energy with my hand.”
“You can.”
“I can’t,” Warren replied angrily. “I’ve tried.” That had frustrated him as much as anything. It was like the power that he used all the time tied him directly to Merihim.
“You’ve allowed yourself to become dependent on Merihim’s hand because it was easier.”
Warren shook his head. “No. That’s not true. I can’t get the energy to flow through my own hand.”
“You were able to change your sight at the first meeting with the Cabalists four years ago. You’ve sensed danger all your life. You convinced a demon that it didn’t see you when you first encountered one. You bound Kelli to you when you needed someone to guard you while you recovered from the wounds you suffered when Merihim arrived in this world.”
All of those things were true. What astounded Warren was that the voice knew about them.
“More than that,” the voice went on, “you used your gift to save your life when you were only a child.”
Warren closed his eyes as the images filled his mind of his stepfather holding the gun on him after killing his mother. He remembered how fear had scored his stepfather’s face when he turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger.
“How… how did you know that?” Warren asked hoarsely.
“I know you,” the voice said. “I know your secrets. I know things about you that you hide from yourself.” There was a pause. “Now hold your hand over Naomi’s brow.”
Warren did.
“Feel for her using your powers,” the voice instructed. “I’D guide you. After I show you this, you’ll always be able to do it.”
Warmth spread acro
ss Warren’s palm. Vibrations shivered through his flesh. The skin across his shoulders tightened and turned cold.
“Her heartbeat is there,” the voice said. “All you have to do is find it.”
Closing his eyes, Warren felt. When he was about to give up, he felt the thrum-thrum-thrum of her heart. It felt muffled and almost hidden away.
“You feel it,” the voice said.
“Yes.” Amazement filled Warren and drove away most of the uncertainty and anger that coursed through him. “That… that’s incredible.” He stared, conscious of the fact that his hand was inches from Naomi’s flesh.
Then he felt a wrongness in her heart. It was something that somehow didn’t fit.
“What is that?” Warren asked. .
“An imperfection.”
Warren regarded the feeling. As he did so, an image formed in his mind. He remembered some of his biology classes. The heart was a muscle composed of four different compartments. All of them had valves that opened and shut. One of those in Naomi’s heart felt weak and thin. It quivered beneath his touch.
“If that imperfection is left alone, it could kill her,” the voice said.
Warren grew afraid. Few doctors were to be found in London these days. And the ones that could be found couldn’t do something as demanding as heart surgery.
“Warren,” the voice said softly, “you don’t have to let it kill her.”
“Then what?” His voice broke at the thought of being alone.
“You can fix it. I can help you.”
“When?” The idea of letting Naomi live another moment with the weakened heart valve was intolerable.
“Now. Concentrate on that piece of her heart. Visualize it in your mind. I can see by your thoughts that you’re familiar with what you’re seeing.”
“Yes.”
“Concentrate on that piece and make it healthier.”
Warren tried. He felt the heat and quivering in his palm grow stronger. But he felt the heart valve grow stronger as well. He visualized the valve getting thicker with muscle.
Suddenly the thrum-thrum-thrum of Naomi’s heart grew more sure and more steady.
“You’ve done well,” the voice said. “Do you feel the wrongness anymore?”
When he passed his hand over Naomi’s heart, Warren didn’t feel anything out of place. “No.”
“Good. Perhaps you’ve saved her life.”
Warren liked the idea that maybe he’d saved Naomi’s life, but he knew that the voice could only have fooled him as well. The whole experience could have been only the power of suggestion.
“It was real,” the voice insisted.
Warren hoped so.
“Now,” the voice instructed, “reach into her thoughts and wake her.”
Placing his human hand over Naomi’s forehead, Warren felt for Naomi’s attention. Images of the past few days, all of them from the young woman’s point of view, flooded his mind’s eye. Softly, he called her name.
Naomi looked up at him. “Warren?”
“I’m here,” he told her.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“No.”
“Hargastor is dead?”
Warren nodded. She tried to stand and he helped her to her feet. She stood for a moment and gazed around at the darkened room.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your heart?” Warren said.
She looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You had something wrong with your heart.” Warren couldn’t let it go. He had to know if the voice was telling the truth or if it was lying to him.
“A murmur,” Naomi said. “That’s all the doctors told my parents it was. It was nothing to worry about” She knitted her brows as she regarded him. “I mentioned that while I was out? What an odd thing to do.”
Warren shook his head and was shocked to learn he was smiling. “You didn’t mention it.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I learned something.” Warren took her right hand in his. Half-healed cuts twisted around her fingers and across her palm. He hadn’t even known they were there before, but he could sense them now. He passed his hand over hers, and when he did only smooth, unscarred flesh remained behind.
Naomi looked at her hand in amazement. “How did you do that?”
“With my power. Not Merihim’s.”
“Merihim chose you,” the voice said, “because you already possessed this kind of power. He bound you to him to make you afraid and dependent on him. And to keep you from becoming all that you could be. Demons never do favors. They always strive for what is best for them.”
Even you? Warren asked.
“Yes.”
And what do you want?
“I’ve already told you.”
To save the world.
“Yes.”
I only want to save myself. As he looked at Naomi, though, Warren thought perhaps he might set his goal a little more generously than that. But only as long as both could be saved. He didn’t want to die attempting to save her if that were impossible.
“You’re part of the world,” the voice said. “I want to save you too.”
Warren didn’t wholly believe the voice. He’d never wholly believed anyone except people who offered him harm. The voice still hid something from him, though. He didn’t fool himself about that.
Naomi looked up from her hand and into his eyes. “Can you teach me this?”
“Perhaps.” Warren strode from the protective circle and she followed. His thoughts were on Merihim. There were still two of Fulaghar’s lieutenants to track down and kill.
If they didn’t track him down and kill him first.
Thirty-Four
“Sensor array available,” the suit’s AI stated.
“Execute,” Simon said. The HUD flickered for just a moment as the system shifted from Danielle’s borrowed sensors to the repaired system in his armor. Then he was whole once more.
The repair coming online also made Simon aware of how much time they’d spent in the sanitarium. Despite the fact that the higher demons often worked independently, the one they’d killed—or helped kill—would have been responsible to another demon. Someone would come searching.
He flipped through the button cams he’d left in strategic points throughout the underground levels. He saw the Templar they’d left on guard behind, but nothing else.
Only a few cells yet remained to be searched. The horror story of what had happened to the sanitarium’s “patients” continued. Simon felt the heaviness of Leah’s doubts and concerns. Despite whatever training she’d received and the four years she’d experienced, she hadn’t been prepared for the war against the demons.
He wished he had words to say to her, but Nathan had told her as much as anyone could. From this point on, choosing what to fight for was a personal matter.
The next room Simon investigated had suffered a fire that had killed the person within. The skeleton lay curled up in a fetal ball in one corner of the room.
“When did the room burn?” Nathan asked.
“When this person was alive.” Simon knelt beside the skeleton and picked up the tin locket that had corroded from moisture. Black carbon covered the locket’s exterior.
“How do you know that?”
“The body’s curled into a fetal position,” Simon said. “Fire victims are usually found like that.”
“Because they’re trying to hide from the fire?”
“The fire burns the fluids out of the cartilage and tightens the victims up till it pulls them into that position.” Simon gently brushed the corrosion and carbon from the locket. He wondered what would be inside: a picture of a loved one? A child? Parents? A lover or husband? The face of someone who had lost her or someone who had betrayed her? He knew the victim had been female because of the width of her pelvic bones.
When he opened the rusted-out locket, only ash spilled out. Whatever had been inside was gone. Tenderly, Simon placed the locket back on th
e corpse’s chest.
“What started the fire?” Danielle asked.
“I don’t know.” Simon straightened and studied the scorch marks on the ceiling, floor, and wall.
“It started around the corner.” Leah reached up and touched the low ceiling.
“How do you know that?” Nathan challenged.
“Part of the training I had.” Leah walked out of the cell and back into the passage way. “You know demons. I know mayhem. My visual enhancements come with a fluoroscopy subset. I can see the burn patterns. The fire started in this cell.”
The door was locked at the next cell. A burned skeleton lay at the foot of the bars. The entire interior of the cell was covered in soot.
“It was a chemical fire of some kind,” Leah said. “Probably coal oil-based from the signature I’m reading.”
“Then it was deliberate,” Simon said. The thought chilled him as he looked at the small skeleton curled up at his feet.
“No doubts about that,” Leah replied. “Whoever put the coal oil into this cell put plenty of it. Probably splashed some of it onto the bedding in the cell next to this one.”
Simon glanced at the bronze plaque above the cell.
313
“Coincidence, mate?” Nathan asked. “Or is this cell directly below the other one?”
“Don’t know.” Simon called up a schematic on the HUD. The AI immediately calculated the distance they’d traveled since entering the sanitarium. The cross-sectional view of all four underground floors placed the new cell more or less beneath the one that had the walls covered with strange symbols. “Yes.”
“Then I’d say that isn’t a coincidence.”
Simon silently agreed. Then he broke the padlock on the door and entered.
* * * *
The interior of the cell was filled with black soot and ash. It hung thickly on the ceiling and walls and was thick as a carpet on the stone floor. Simon would have been reluctant about walking into the room without a filtration mask of some kind.
A skeleton lay curled at the back of the cell. This one was male, but almost child-small. There was no doubt about what had killed the victim: half of the head had been caved in. Soot caked the ivory bone.
