by Mel Odom
“That was my face,” Warren grated. “Not this patchwork horror.”
“You can look like that if you wish.”
“I can’t. I tried.”
“You tried to heal yourself,” the voice said. “You’re already healed.”
“I’m not healed. I suffered third-degree burns. My own flesh died and was replaced by the demon’s hide from my hand.”
“I can help you look the way you wish.”
Warren didn’t want to get his hopes up. “The demon hide has claimed my face and my arm. My torso and legs are covered by more scales.”
“You tried to eradicate the demon skin.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t do that. It’s become too much a part of you. You have to accept it.”
“I have,” Warren said. “I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to look like this the rest of my life.”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
Warren glared at his images. “How can I change this?”
“Let me help you. Reassemble the mirror.”
Almost without thinking, Warren gestured toward the mirror fragments. The leaped from the floor and fitted themselves back to the mirror frame. In less than a minute, every piece had slid back into place and left the cracked surface facing Warren.
Then the mirror rippled, lifting and falling back into place. As it fell back into the frame, the mirror was once more unblemished and whole.
The horror that was him looked back at him. He wanted to shatter the mirror all over again.
“Try again,” the voice coaxed. “This time don’t try to heal yourself. Try to … sculpt.”
“Sculpt? I’m no sculptor.”
“You liked art as a child.”
Warren’s surprise grew. The voice knew so much about him it was unsettling. When he’d been a child he’d drawn the comic book heroes he’d read about. He’d also experimented with modeling clay. But he’d never been satisfied with the results.
“Try,” the voice entreated.
Fear told hold of Warren then. He thought about how he’d been able to heal Naomi’s heart valve. What if he really could reshape his face? Could he make it better? Or would he make it worse? Even more frightening, what if he’d do something irreparable to himself? What if he blinded himself?
“You won’t do any of those things,” the voice said gently. “Trust me.”
Warren knew he had a hard time trusting anyone. He’d spent his whole life trying to live small, to be inconsequential and fly beneath everyone else’s radar. But his stepfather had hated him enough to kill his mother and try to kill him. His flatmates had hated him in spite of the fact that financially he’d pulled more than his weight. He’d been passed over for promotions and fired from jobs because he’d drawn the ill will of others.
And he’d become enslaved to a demon and haunted by a talking book.
“I am not the book,” the voice reminded. “The book is the key.”
He’d had more than his share of bad luck.
“Trust me,” the voice repeated.
Warren lifted his human hand. “All right.”
“Close your eyes and think about how you want to look.”
* * * *
When Warren first began using the energy, his face turned hot. In places it felt as if it slipped. He started to open his eyes.
“Don’t,” the voice said. “This is very careful work and you’re changing areas close to your eye.”
Warren made himself wait. The movements of his hand weren’t his own. A moment later, fierce bee stings ignited in his face along his chin. The flesh had burned away to the bone there.
Unable to keep his eyes closed, he looked at the mirror. His surprise muted the pain he experienced. Waves of shimmering force radiated from his hand and touched his face. Where the energy touched his face, new skin grew over the demon’s scales. But the new skin was smooth, unblemished ebony just as he’d imagined.
“You can’t reject the demon side of yourself,” the voice said. “It will always be part of you now. But you can clothe it in your own flesh.”
Warren watched in stunned fascination as the process continued. He controlled the pain and pushed it to the back of his mind.
“I apologize,” the voice said. “There’s nothing that can be done for the pain.”
“It’s all right,” Warren said. “I’ve handled pain all my life. Continue.”
* * * *
Long minutes later, Warren looked at the face he’d imagined in the mirror. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever looked exactly like that or if the features were idealized from what he could remember. In the end, it didn’t matter. He looked human again.
Perspiration coated his face from the strain and the discomfort he’d suffered through. He was afraid that the thin coating of perspiration would wash away what he and the voice had accomplished.
“That won’t happen,” the voice said. “The changes you have made are permanent. Unless you’re damaged or wish to change your features again.”
“What about my power?” Warren asked. For the first time he thought about that. “The Cabalists scar and tattoo themselves to use the arcane energies that the demons brought into this world.”
“Only because they believe they have to. Or because they wish to. Those who tap the Well of Midnight and choose a path through Darkness are marked in other ways that don’t show on their bodies. Your power grows, Warren. Where the others borrow that energy, you’ve got Darkness inside you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Darkness is part of your being.”
The thought twisted and writhed in Warren’s head. It caused the pain at his temples to beat even more harshly. “Because of Merihim?”
“Merihim didn’t put it there,” the voice said. “It’s always been there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But it was probably what saved you from Merihim’s attack four years ago.”
“He said he spared me.”
“He lied.”
“Could he have destroyed me?” Can he now?
The voice hesitated, then answered. “Yes. You must be careful. The Darkness within you is strong, but it’s not as strong as a demon. However, that Darkness within you is still growing.”
Warren thought about that and was afraid. If he was tied to the Darkness, did that make him evil? Was that why no one had ever cared for him? Because they somehow sensed the taint?
“The Darkness isn’t evil,” the voice said. “Light and Darkness are merely two separate paths. Acceptance between those who walk separate paths is hard-earned.”
Warren looked at his face and touched it with his human hand. A thin line of beard, just as he’d imagined it, ran from his sideburns to his chin. He’d never been able to grow that before.
He tried to comprehend the explanation he’d been given.
“Do you see Merihim as evil?” the voice asked.
Warren thought about all the things he’d done in the demon’s name over the last four years. He’d snuffed out lives and taken things—like the book—that Merihim had wanted. And he’d given no regard to those lives because it came down to a decision between their lives or his.
“Yes,” Warren answered.
“Merihim—and all of demonkind—is evil because he wishes to be. Even if he was allied with the Light, which would never happen because the demons were shut away from that path a long time ago, he would be evil. Light and Darkness are beginnings after a fashion. And an end. What a being does with the powers in between is up to that individual being. Do you understand?”
“I think so. But how does that apply to me?”
“Do you see yourself as evil?”
All the deaths at Warren’s hands—hand, he corrected himself—swirled through his mind. People had died screaming from wounds he’d caused. They’d gone down beneath zombies he’d raised.
“No,” he whispered. It had been their lives against his. No one could fa
ult him for saving his own life. People in natural disasters did that all the time. No one would argue that the Hellgate was the worst disaster to ever occur. “I’m not evil.” But he knew that others would think he was.
“Then you’re not.”
Warren tried to take solace in the explanation he’d been given, but he didn’t know if everything could be weighed so simply. He peered at his image in the mirror. He certainly looked less evil than he had. But the demon hide still gleamed dark and liquid at his throat.
“Can we continue?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Thirty-Six
“You should get some rest, Simon. Standing there isn’t going to heal young Mathias any faster.” Simon had to admit he was nearly out on his feet as he stood staring through the glass of the infirmary they’d built in the fortress. On the other side, Mathias was wired into a dozen different machines they’d salvaged from hospitals throughout London that no longer had the power or personnel to man them. They’d even gotten a few of them from Templar Underground areas that had been evacuated after the All Hallows’ Eve battle at St. Paul’s.
“I will,” Simon replied. “I’d just like to spend a few more minutes here and make sure he’s going to be all right.”
Wertham joined him at the window. The other Templar was in his sixties, worn and haggard-looking from a lifetime of fishing on the Thames and in the North Sea. He’d been one of the Templar who’d lived full lives outside the Underground. His hair was a peppered mix of sandy blonde and gray. He wore a squared-off short beard that framed a generous mouth. Like the other Templar, he wore his armor everywhere throughout the redoubt except in his sleeping quarters.
“You’ve been standing watch for over two hours from what I’m told,” Wertham said.
Simon didn’t know that. They’d managed the journey back from Akehurst Sanitarium and hooked up with an ATV without incident. There had been a brief encounter with a party of Gremlins, but they’d quickly evaded them and sped out into the countryside.
The surgeons, some of them Templar-trained and others recruited from London, had moved Mathias’s broken ribs back where they belonged and used nanobond molecular adhesive to hold them there, reinflated his collapsed lung, and repaired other damage. The jury was still out on whether he would live.
“I felt that as long as I was watching him nothing would happen,” Simon said.
Wertham nodded. “I understand the thinking, lad, but we’ve both been through enough battles that we know that isn’t true.”
“I know.” All the same, Simon couldn’t help doing it.
“You brought Mathias home. That’s the most he could ask for under the circumstances. You and I have both come home without mates and fellow warriors we stood side by side with over these past four years.”
Too many, Simon thought. He didn’t say anything.
“I don’t suppose you’d mind if I kept you company for a while,” Wertham said.
“No.”
For a time they stood in silence.
“You’ve talked to Nathan and Danielle?” Simon asked.
“I have.”
“They told you I let Leah go?”
“They did.”
Simon’s eyes burned from lack of sleep and his body ached from the accumulated bruises. “Do you think I did the right thing?”
The old Templar looked at Simon. “I think you shouldn’t be asking such things.”
“Maybe I’m trusting her too much.”
“Simon, if I can speak freely.”
Simon nodded. “There’s never been a time when you couldn’t.”
Wertham had been instrumental in helping assemble the train that had gotten so many out of London four years ago. He’d been at Simon’s side ever since as they’d assembled the Templar and started waging their quiet war against the demons to free others that had been left trapped in the city.
More than that, Wertham had been largely responsible for getting Simon out of the Templar Underground after he’d fought with Terrence Booth, whose parents had died at All Hallows’ Eve. None above Booth or of equal ranking stood beside Simon at that time.
“That’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about,” Wertham said. “I think you’re far too lenient letting others talk to you and tell you their opinions.”
“How else am I going to get their counsel?”
“There should be an order to it. A time and a place. If everybody keeps talking to you willy-nilly, nothing’s going to get done.”
Simon smiled. “And yet look at all we’ve accomplished.”
Wertham frowned. “There needs to be more respect for your position, that’s all I’m saying.”
That jarred Simon and he didn’t much care for the implication. “I don’t have a position.” He’d never assumed any position of authority. He felt he’d only guided.
“You’re the leader here. You’re our Grand Master.”
“No,” Simon said immediately. “The Grand Master is in the Templar Underground.” The position was hereditary and always came through House Sumerisle. The Templar had always served the Sumerisle family, and they always would.
“We’re split off from them,” Wertham argued, “and have been for four years with no end of it in sight.”
“That’s a mistake. It will rectify itself.” Even as he said that, though, Simon didn’t know if it was true. Those who remained in the Templar Underground believed they should hide out from the demons until they were once more strong enough to take them on. After all the deaths at St. Paul’s, though, that could take generations.
During that time the Burn would continue changing the world and the demons would continue to fill it. Simon hadn’t been prepared to live with that. As it had turned out, other Templar—like Wertham—were of the same mind-set.
“We’re waging our own campaign,” Wertham said.
“We’re saving people,” Simon said. “And we’re gathering information about our enemy.”
“I understand that,” Wertham said gently. “But I also know that the Templar were born and bred to order. To rank and file. For four years, we’ve more or less winged that down here.”
“It’s worked.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not going to work any more. Four years ago, when we started this thing and knew we might be dead tomorrow, we didn’t have to worry about how we were doing things. Survival was the best we could hope for.”
“It still is,” Simon said.
“We’ve gotten larger than those few that came out of London on that train that night,” Wertham said. “More Templar have come to serve with us.”
Serve. The term bounced crazily inside Simon’s head. Dying while losing to the demons wasn’t a higher calling. Dying while triumphing over them was. It was all a matter of which way the body count went. At the moment, there were far too many demons.
“We’re no longer so few and we’re no longer so desperate,” Wertham said.
“That could change in one day,” Simon whispered hoarsely. It was a fear he lived with every day. “If the demons find us, we could be right back where we were. Where all of London is.”
“But we’re not, lad. And that’s the thing.”
Simon met Wertham’s honest gaze but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
“We need to form our own groups,” Wertham continued.
“No,” Simon said.
Wertham pursed his lips unhappily. “I’m not the only one who feels this way.”
“Then there are a lot of you who aren’t thinking clearly.”
“They want to start a new House, and they want to call it House Cross.”
Simon turned toward the older man and tried to keep a rein on the anger that filled him. He hadn’t asked for this. He hadn’t asked for any of this. “We are of the House Rorke.”
“You and I may be,” Wertham agreed. “And a few others. But there are more besides that are from all the Houses. Even some of them from the House Sumerisle are with us and
want to be united.”
“Splitting the Templar isn’t the way to do it.”
“Then you need to tell them that.” Wertham crossed his hands over his broad chest. “Because that’s what they want to do.”
“I’m not going to allow them to start up a House in my name.”
Wertham nodded. “It’s not in your name. It’s in your father’s. Whether you know it or not, many of the Templar with us now were trained by Thomas Cross. They wanted something of him to live on.” Unable to speak, Simon turned away.
* * * *
Leah made her way through the Ellis Building in the Limehouse District. Her destination wasn’t far from Akehurst, but she’d taken her time getting there. What she was about to do and the probable reception she had waiting for her weighed heavily on her mind.
Not only that, but the way had been more difficult than usual. Demon patrols had taken to the streets with a vengeance. She didn’t know if it had anything to do with what had taken place at Akehurst Sanitarium or not. She suspected that it might.
The Limehouse District lay on the north side of the river between Shadwell and the Isle of Dogs. In the past, it had been a major port for the English Navy. The locals had been called limeys due to the numerous limekilns in use at the various potteries that existed in the area. Gradually the name had spread to the English sailors, who’d been forced to drink rations of lime juice to prevent scurvy.
The Ellis Building had been erected in 2014 and named after a popular English writer. It had also been put to use by those that Leah served.
Staying to the shadows, mindful of the Soul Reaper clinging to the top of the eight-story building, Leah went up the steps. The Soul Reaper didn’t overly worry her. The demon only preyed on the bodies of those recently slain. Living beings didn’t interest it.
They tended to be crudely formed of writhing flesh and pulsed with what the Cabalists called “spectral” energy. This one looked like a cowled man from the waist up but had a serpent’s tail that flicked restlessly. Four tendrils of purple-white energy opened and closed around it.
Leah went through the shattered doors and stepped into the lobby. Framed pictures of the author’s creations hung on the wall and looked out of place in the devastation. Debris and corpses lay scattered on the floor.
