by Mel Odom
Three Darkspawn crawled through the broken window. Leah fired three rockets into them. The front of the store turned into an inferno, and the concussion of the explosions blew the Darkspawn back out onto the street.
Another demon tried to force its way through the door, but the entrance was obviously jammed. Wickersham shot the demon through the head with his M3 Perforator. Head and features obliterated, the Darkspawn staggered back and went down.
Through the window, Leah saw that the Darkspawn dead and other demons lay sprawled across the street, buried in the building’s wreckage.
“Nice little bit of luck for us,” Wickersham said grimly. “I guess you could say you brought down the house, Leah.”
More Darkspawn arrived on the scene.
“Are you able to run?” Leah asked. Nearly all of Wickersham’s upper body glistened with dark blood. A few jagged pieces of glass stuck out of his torso.
“Don’t have a choice, love.” Wickersham started to remove a shard of glass.
“Don’t,” Leah warned. She’d left the glass protruding from her body in place as well. “The glass might be the only thing keeping you from bleeding out.”
“Oh.” Wickersham took his hand back. “Well, I suppose we should be thankful for that then.” Pain masked his derisive tone.
Leah led the way out of the shop’s rear. The door let out into a small alley. She got her directions from the bot scans, then took off once more for the O2.
They stayed with the shadows and discovered they were behind the demons’ skirmish line. The scans also showed that the demons were winning the engagement, pushing the attacking team back farther and farther.
The dome stood less than eighty yards away. Wrecks littered the way. Carnagors or other demons not yet identified had torn up the ground.
“Once we’re in,” Leah said, “the river is our only hope.”
Wickersham nodded. “Only one of us needs to go, love.”
“Do you want to stay here?”
“No. I was suggesting that you might.”
Leah shook her head. “I started this. I’ll finish it.”
“Then let’s have at it before things become worse. For I’m certain they will.” Wickersham held his Perforator and pulled the NanoDyne Firestarter he also carried.
Leah turned and ran, and Wickersham followed. They were flitting shadows among the fog, smoke, and twisting darkness in front of the dome. Instead of trying to force their way through the main entrance, Leah blasted a new one through one of the walls. The heated concussion blew through the barrier and hurled debris before them.
The O2 wasn’t anything like Leah remembered. She’d gone to athletic events and concerts there, and shopped with her mates. Now the building housed strange demonic devices. Green glowing power cells lit up the darkness. Strange conveyor belts and machines clumped and thumped and squealed and roared as weapons passed through the assembly line.
Darkspawn labored over the machines to keep everything running. Others ran toward the opening she’d blasted through the wall. Their weapons blazed.
“Satchel Team Three,” Commander Hargrove broke in. “We show that you have penetrated the objective.”
“Affirmative.” Leah fired the Thermal Bolter at the arriving Darkspawn and knocked them backward. Wickersham added his own fire.
“Drop the satchel charge and go,” Hargrove commanded. “We’ve started the countdown. You have ten seconds. Nine…”
Leah used the suit’s augmented strength to hurl the satchel charge deep into the O2. Combined HARP charges and highly concentrated plastic explosives made up the destructive package.
“Go,” she ordered Wickersham.
The younger man turned and went back out the hole they’d blown through the wall without argument.
“Toward the river,” Leah commanded as she followed. Something hit the right side of her face. Pain lanced through her skull and her vision suddenly collapsed and became smaller. Adrenaline fought off most of the pain as she forced herself to keep moving.
“Five,” Hargrove said, continuing the countdown.
Wickersham stumbled as he ran toward the river. Leah caught the man by the arm and added her strength to his. They stumbled and managed to match stride.
“Two,” Hargrove continued relentlessly.
Even with the augmented speed the suit produced, they weren’t quite to the river’s edge when Hargrove reached zero.
A massive flash of light blazed behind Leah and Wickersham.
“Jump,” Leah said when they were thirty feet from the river. “Go as deep as you can.”
Back when the River Thames had been full, rising actually, due to global warming, the river had lapped up onto the banks. Now that the Burn had taken away much of the water, the water level was five feet below the old banks. Leah only hoped it was deep enough from the trenching efforts in 2012 that had allowed more river traffic, to protect them.
The roars of the explosions caught up with them while they were in midair. But they hit the water before the air filled with fire and debris.
Leah went twenty feet down to the murky bottom and caught hold of a submerged boat that probably sunk sometime since the arrival of the demons.
Flames lashed out over the river and turned the water bilious yellow and orange. Wickersham clung to the boat’s gunwales as murky blood threaded up from his wounds, and Leah did the same.
Her mask tightened over her face and changed shape a little as the safety features kicked in. Once the suit recognized the environmental change, it sealed around her face and the ten-minute air supply kicked on. Leah forced herself to breathe slowly even though her heart rate remained frantic.
Debris from the dome rained down into the river. A few charred demon bodies fell as well. Above the bank, it looked as though dawn had torched the sky.
“Good work, Satchel Team Three,” Commander Hargrove said. “We confirm destruction of enemy target. Are you still with us?”
“Yes sir.”
“There were two of you.”
“Both of us, sir,” Wickersham said weakly.
“Good. Make your way back to the rendezvous point and let’s see how badly we’ve been bloodied.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wickersham stared at Leah. “Are you all right?” He reached out to touch her face.
Instinctively, Leah drew back. A fog of murky blood occupied the space where her head had been.
“Don’t,” she said. The blood convinced her that his touch would be painful although the whole side of her face felt numb.
“You’re bleeding badly,” Wickersham said.
“We both are. Let’s go.” Leah released the boat and swam underwater. With the burning dome so close by, she easily negotiated the river channel.
She hadn’t counted on seeing the skeletons littered across the river bottom. The gleaming white bones, all of them human, lay mired in the mud. Leah didn’t know if the river deposited them there when the demons destroyed some of the bridges or if the current swept the bodies there from shipwrecks and destroyed boats.
Or if the demons simply chucked them there like garbage.
The sight filled Leah with dread. From the beginning of the demon war, Control had stated that they would never be able to win the engagement. The best that the Agency hoped for was to keep the demons from winning as well. At the very least they wanted to at least force the demons to win more slowly and at a more costly price.
That’s not enough, Leah told herself. She thought of the dead men and women she’d known before tonight that wouldn’t return come morning. The Darkspawn were cannon fodder in the plans of the Dark Wills and Greater Demons.
The blow struck tonight had taken out a weapons factory, but that factory would be rebuilt within a few weeks or months. At best, even with all the death and sacrifice involved, this had been a delaying action.
Leah tried to forget about that as she kept swimming. But even that became too much for her as the throbbing pain in h
er head finally pushed her over into the blackest night she’d ever known.
NINE
T he snowdrifts rose higher in the direction of the cliffs. By the time Simon reached them, the Templar plowed through drifts well over waist high. The disguised terrain made footing treacherous. Simon fell more than once and struggled to push himself back up.
As if sensing their prey had nowhere else to run, the Ravagers and Carnagors gathered. Overhead a few winged demons that Simon couldn’t immediately identify flapped through the night air and became silhouetted against the starry brightness.
The Minion remained astride the Fetid Hulk. Reaching back over its shoulder, the demon drew a spear with an obsidian tip that somehow glowed black even in the night. The black light stood out against the pristine white snow.
“Templar,” the Minion snarled in a guttural voice. “Do you want to give up?”
Simon strode forward. Three of the Templar had fallen in combat. Only seven of them stood on the windswept cliffs. No trees or boulders offered temporary cover.
“Who are you?” Simon demanded as he held his sword and shield.
The Minion took a deep breath and shook its blunt head. “For the moment, I am no one. I am not Named. I came to your pitiful world to fight and kill so that I might earn a Name. That’s the way it has always been. Who are you?”
“Simon Cross, of the House of Rorke, and not one who’s of a mind to surrender to demons.”
The demon nodded. “Rorke. That House is known to us.” It grinned, baring yellowed stumps of teeth. “We have killed your ancestors.”
Simon didn’t know if that was true. Human and demon interaction on this world had been slight. He stood there and tried to think of a way out, a way to still survive. Nothing came to mind. Burned by lack of sleep and the stim-packs he’d used to keep himself alert the last few days, he stood swaying.
“Tell me where the rest of you are,” the demon said.
Taking heart in that, Simon stood his ground. If the demon didn’t know where the Templar redoubt was, hope remained. When the hunting team didn’t come back, the others would know that something had happened and would go on high-security alert. They would wait, as Simon had instructed, for a few days and then investigate. The possibility of getting the innocents out of harm’s way still existed.
“There are no more of us,” Simon said.
The Minion laughed mockingly. “Is that your answer, Templar, if I asked you to swear it upon your honor?”
“I have no honor for demons,” Simon said. “Nor courtesy, nor mercy. My kind and yours, demon, only one of us will remain alive on this world.”
“We will find the others,” the demon promised. “Now that I have found you, I will take your head on my spear and let my masters know that other Templar hide out in the woods and hills here. Then we will find them and kill them all.”
“You haven’t killed us yet,” Danielle retorted.
“That will take only a short time,” the Minion said. He leveled his spear at Simon.
Simon barely had time to raise his shield in front of him before a black beam jetted from the spear. The shield dissipated most of the electrical charge from the arcane weapon, but the force involved blew Simon off his feet and knocked him backward.
“Warning,” the suit AI informed calmly. “Defenses down to forty-three percent.”
As one, the Carnagors and Ravagers attacked. Their taloned feet churned through the snow as they raced forward. In the end, though, their numbers worked against them. They got into one another’s way as they strove to attack.
Simon stood and moved to the forefront. Smaller and quicker, the Ravagers struck first. Simon bashed the first one and snapped its neck, but even as its corpse slid down his shield, the next Ravager was already in line. It launched itself at Simon’s head. He swung his sword and nearly cut the Ravager in half. His sword got stuck in the demon’s spine. Stepping on his vanquished enemy, Simon ripped his blade free.
Before he could set himself, the Minion blasted him with the beam from the spear again. This time Simon spotted the green crystals that decorated the haft. They pulsed with energy.
The snow provided treacherous footing. Simon tried to anchor himself, but the spikes only pierced snow and found no purchase. Black flames clung to his armor and obscured his view.
“Defenses down to twenty-eight percent,” the suit AI said.
“Analyze fire,” Simon ordered.
“Analysis incomplete,” the AI responded. “Not enough information in database.”
Despite the armor, Simon felt the heat threatening to sear his skin. He shifted his shield to block the sustained burst, and barely got it into place before a Carnagor reared up in front of him. Simon thrust his sword forward and pierced the Carnagor’s midsection, but the demon’s massive feet slammed against the shield and knocked him backward.
He felt his right foot slide over the cliff’s edge and tried to stop himself from falling. The gutted Carnagor struck him again, driving both feet forward again.
The demon’s momentum propelled Simon over the edge, but the Carnagor failed to stop its own headlong momentum and ended up following after him. They both began the long fall to the broken ground below.
In mid-fall, Simon’s reflexes and training took over. He’d learned a lot about falling and how to handle momentum in his Templar training, but his background in extreme sports had taken what was out of the ordinary and made it everyday for him.
Upside down in his fall, Simon slapped his empty hand against the cliff’s sheer face. “Anchor right hand.”
Immediately, the suit AI shot spikes out from the underside of his wrist that bored into the solid rock of the cliff. Simon’s fall ended abruptly and uncomfortably as his hand stayed connected to the cliff face. He was suddenly right side up again, but his hand was trapped behind him. Pain flared through his wrist and arm. He slammed his boot soles against the wall and anchored them as well.
Shifting his shield to his back, Simon anchored his left hand and released his right. He swung out a little and stared at the Carnagor’s broken body below.
Nathan cried out in panic.
Simon glanced up as a flood of snow poured over the cliff’s edge nine feet above him. He barely registered the fact that Nathan fell before he reachinged for his friend. Nathan fell headfirst when Simon’s hand closed around his ankle. For a moment Simon thought his shoulder might pop out of joint, but it held.
“Lord love a duck,” Nathan breathed as he swung like a pendulum from Simon’s hand. “I thought I was done for then, mate.”
“Me, too,” Simon said.
One of the flying demons dove from the sky. As it neared, Simon judged that it wasn’t much bigger than an African condor, but that still made it bloody big. It had batwings and a forked tail over half again its length from nose to anterior.
The flying demon beat its wings fiercely and brought itself to a brief halt. Then it whipped its tail forward and attempted to drive the barbed end through Simon’s visor. Minute fissures appeared in the high-impact polycarbonate.
“Warning,” the suit AI said. “Repeated blows—”
The demon wheeled around, screamed in bloodlust, and attacked again. The fissures grew longer and wider.
“—may succeed in faceplate penetration,” the suit AI finished. “Atmosphere integrity breached.”
Simon swung Nathan toward the wall. “Lock on,” he growled, then heard Nathan’s suit anchors fire. Trusting the suit anchors to hold, Simon turned his attention to the attacking demon.
Staying with its usual method of attack, the demon swung around again and struck once more with its tail. This time, though, Simon seized the striking tail and stopped the wicked barb less than an inch from his faceplate.
The demon tried to escape by flapping its wings furiously. When it discovered that it couldn’t escape, the demon curled over and attacked with a razor-sharp bill that scored Simon’s armor.
Two other winged demons ga
thered in front of Simon. He whipped the demon to one side with its tail. Bones shattered when they met the cliff face. He released the dead demon and raised his free arm to defend against the two new ones.
Before they reached him, Nathan curled up with his Firefield Caster clenched in his fist. Flames belched from the pistol and charred both demons to ruin. Dead or dying, they dropped like stones.
“Thanks,” Simon said.
“Don’t mention it,” Nathan replied. “If it weren’t for you, mate, I wouldn’t still be hanging about.”
Turning back to the cliff face, Simon used the suit’s anchors to climb. As he pulled himself up, he accessed the other Templar’s video feeds through his HUD. Danielle and the other four battled desperately against terrible odds. Then Honeywell went down beneath a Carnagor’s attack. The demon reared in savage, animalistic glee and pounded the fallen Templar.
Simon hauled himself over the edge and got to his feet. He freed his sword while on the run to aid Honeywell, hoping that he wasn’t arriving too late. Nathan trailed behind him.
The Carnagor spotted Simon on the approach and tried to turn to face him. Before the beast set itself, Simon slit the Carnagor’s throat with his sword. He rammed a shoulder into the demon to shove it from Honeywell.
Be alive, Simon commanded as he knelt and put a hand on Honeywell’s chest. The suit-to-suit dataswap kicked in immediately and provided the fallen Templar’s vitals.
Honeywell was alive. But only just. The list of broken bones and internal injuries spilled forth. She wouldn’t return to the battle, and might not live to survive it.
“Initiate medical override,” Simon said, contacting Honeywell’s AI.
“Initiating medical override,” the suit’s AI responded.
“Full system shutdown.”
“Affirmative. Kris Honeywell needs immediate medical attention.”
“Noted,” Simon replied. He stood and shifted his shield from his back. As soon as it locked into position, his suit powered it up again. By that time Nathan stood at his side, and the Ravagers had turned their attentions to them.
