by Mel Odom
W e’ve got an inexperienced crew here, Leah.”
“I know that, Marrick, but it’s what we have to do the job with.” Leah knelt in the shadows draped atop a building that offered a view of the Apple retail store on Regent Street in the West End.
“For something like this,” Marrick grumbled, “it seems like upstairs would have found more to send than wet-nosed pups.” He was in his fifties, a slim, dapper man who’d spent most of his years in the killing fields of foreign countries.
“We don’t know if this is anything yet.” Leah scanned the front of the building. Back when it had opened in 2004, the computer store had been all the rage. Her father had taken her there to pick out her first tri-dee player when she’d been just a girl.
The once-fashionable building was now a wreck. The large, ornate glass windows were shattered. Computer parts littered the sidewalks, either dropped by the early looters or cannibalized by survivors trying to find a way to make contact with the outside world.
“Upstairs reported organized demon activity here?” Marrick asked.
“Yes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”
“It means that we’re here watching for organized demon activity.”
“And we’d recognize it?”
“Upstairs seems to think so.”
“Jolly good for them.”
Undeterred, Leah kept surveying the building. They’d been there for over an hour since sunset. So far there’d been no demon activity.
“The demons are building new things,” Leah said.
“Like the weapons plant.”
“Yes.”
“You have to wonder why they waited so long.”
“I don’t think they believed it would take quite so long to terrorize and take over this world,” Leah said.
“Meaning we’re fighting back harder than they expected us to?”
“Perhaps.”
“It’s not like they gave us any bloody choice.”
“Nor any place to go,” Leah agreed. Activity down on the street drew her attention. She refocused the binoculars.
Regent Street was a curving boulevard designed to take advantage of the Crown Estate lands, and to set off the disreputable Soho District from the shopping elegance of Mayfair. As a barrier between the haves and have-nots, it hadn’t succeeded too well. Pickpockets simply lived across the street from their work environment.
Through the binoculars, Leah watched as a group of Darkspawn led four humans in chains toward the Apple building. Two of them were women. One was a man. And the fourth was a teen that might have been either.
“They’re bringing them in alive,” Marrick said.
Leah said nothing.
“It would be better if we killed them now than let the demons torture them. They’re as good as dead already.”
“If we do that, we give away the fact that we know this place.”
“You’ve seen what the demons do with their prey, Leah. Putting a bullet through the heads of those four people would be merciful.”
“I know, but they’re going to be inside that building before we could get ourselves into position to fall back to safety. We’d just lose our team.”
Marrick sighed. “I know.”
Below, the Darkspawn herded their prisoners into the building. They disappeared into the darkness.
Leah opened the comm-link. “Red Raven Six, this is Red Raven Leader.”
“Red Raven Six reads you, Leader,” came the prompt response. The young woman’s voice was confident and ready.
“You’ve got Spy Eyes, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you navigate that building? Let’s see what’s around it.”
“All right.”
Even though she looked for it and knew where Red Raven Six was, Leah barely spotted the drones speeding across Regent Street. She tracked her binoculars constantly, but didn’t see anything amiss.
“Negative, Leader,” the young woman reported.
“No guards?”
“None.”
“Set up eyes overlooking the area. Let’s give it a few minutes.” Leah muted the broadcast and glanced at Marrick. “Why wouldn’t they have sentries?”
“Because they’re not afraid of anything,” the older agent replied.
“I know.” That answer irritated Leah more than she was prepared to deal with.
Forty minutes later, with no demons in evidence and no return of the hostages—after all that time spent trying not to be consumed by thoughts of what had happened to those people—Leah decided to lead a small team into the building.
“My advice,” Marrick said, “is not to do it.”
“Upstairs sent us out here for answers. We’re not going to get them sitting on the rooftop.”
“We’re not going to get them quickly,” Marrick replied. “Doesn’t mean we’re not going to get them. Going inside that place is risky.”
“So is coming back to this rooftop—”
“Doesn’t have to be this rooftop.”
“—or one like it, seems at the very least as risky.”
Marrick scratched his jaw through his tight-fitting mask. “Then my next bit of advice is to let one of the young pups lead the insertion.”
“They don’t know enough.”
“Then send your seasoned pro.”
“You?”
Marrick shrugged. Due to the faceless appearance of his mask, the effort looked strange. “That’s what we underlings are for.”
“Sending other people to do my scut work isn’t my way.”
“You’ll never get into an upstairs position.”
“I see that you didn’t, either.”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’m depending on you to get me out of there if this thing goes badly.”
“I will.” Marrick offered his hand. “Godspeed.”
“You, too.” Leah shook his hand, then laid a palm on the side of the building and swung over. Nanowire hooks slid out of her armor from her palms, boot soles, forearms, and knees. They bit into the mortar and held her like a human fly as she crept down the building’s side.
Three of her team met her at the bottom of the alley. Together, they ran away from Regent Street a block deeper into Soho District, then six blocks down. Crossing Regent there, they crept back up to the Apple store.
Carrying the Cluster Rifle she’d chosen as her lead weapon for the insertion, Leah crept through the shadows leading to the target building. The way the structures had been built along Regent Street, all butting into one another and standing shoulder to shoulder, hadn’t allowed for alleys. But with the carnage that had occurred during the invasion and the continued depredations by the demons, most of the buildings in the area stood Swiss-cheesed with holes and gaps.
She crawled over rubble, then made her way across debris-strewn floors. She’d deliberately chosen to enter on the second floor of the building adjacent to the Apple store. Once there, they crossed through shattered walls. They maintained radio silence.
Over the main showroom floor, feeling a vibration pulsing below, Leah pressed her left little finger against the floor, straightened her wrist, and fired a monofilament link through the concrete and acoustic on the ceiling below. The vid-link came online just in time to reveal the small puff of dust that floated down from the ceiling. That was the only disturbance that the penetration created. The small cloud of dust vanished before it floated three feet.
A quick survey showed that macabre machinery honeycombed the area. Leah had never seen anything like it. A rectangular mass of wiring and components, all of it looking jury-rigged instead of finished, occupied the center of the room. Darkspawn demons labored slavishly over it.
Bilious green and yellow lights flashed within the machine’s interior and made it look like the gaping maw of some great creature. Power umbilical cords snaked across the floor and threaded through the machinelike veins and arteries. For the first time, Le
ah realized the vibration she felt came from the machine below.
Looking up at her team, Leah held out her hand. Taggart took it, then the suit-to-suit stealth link booted so that they saw what she saw through the vid-link. All of them kept watch for demons.
A demon yanked one of the four hostages to her feet and shoved toward the machine. She didn’t go willingly. The Darkspawn slapped her with his gun butt and knocked her down. When they stood her up again, she swayed drunkenly.
Another Darkspawn fitted a collar around the woman’s neck. A moment later, a demon attached an umbilical as well. The woman fell backward into the arms of one of the waiting Darkspawn. They carried her to the machine. Another demon opened a recessed cubicle that slid out of the machine. Without care, they dumped the woman into the cubicle and closed the hatch.
Looking at the hatches on that side of the machine, Leah realized room for forty or more people existed within. Nausea twisted sharply through her stomach.
A shadow moved in front of her. It took her just a moment to realize it was in the room with her, not something in the horror below she was watching.
She retracted the monofilament snooper wire and reached for the Cluster Rifle as dozens of Stalker demons slithered out of the shadows around them.
“Run!” Leah ordered. “Back the way we came!”
Bright lights from energy blasts and muzzle flashes filled the room. The building vibrated with the assault. Leah pointed the Cluster Rifle at one of the largest groups of Stalkers in the room and squeezed the trigger. A salvo of missiles tore into the demons and blew her backward. She remained on her feet, but only just.
Pieces of shredded and flaming demons stuck to the walls. A cavernous hole opened in the center of the ceiling and started spreading. She took brief satisfaction in the destruction, but her survival instinct quickly eclipsed that success.
She ran after her team. Weapons fire from the demons below broke through the ceiling and shattered the surface. Sections of it buckled and dropped, leaving holes.
Then they reached the gap leading to the next building. Taggart stepped aside, pulled the pin on a grenade, and slipped the spoon. “Fire in the hole!” He counted down and tossed the grenade.
The incendiary blew up and filled the immediate vicinity with flames. Some of the fire clung to Leah’s suit, but she ignored it. The material was fire-suppressive. Once the flames burned through their fuel source, they’d go out.
Before they reached the wall breach that led to the alley outside, a Fetid Hulk rose up from the debris. Muzzle flashes and the flames briefly lit up the creature’s dark green scales. The demon lashed out with its clublike fists, dropping them like hammers.
Leah lifted her weapon, aimed at the center of the Fetid Hulk’s chest, and fired. Missiles streaked on target and blew the creature back several steps. Before she reached her downed teammates, another Fetid Hulk reared up beside her.
She tried to turn, to bring up her weapon and back away at the same time. Her back foot slipped on loose debris, but even without that, she’d known she wouldn’t have gotten away. The demon was too close.
Its huge hand closed over her head and one shoulder and punched her into the ground. A moment of incredible pain filled her, then she blacked out.
THIRTY-EIGHT
H atton Cross tube station stood silent and empty, but Simon knew that didn’t mean the place had been left unprotected. Especially not with the secrets it held.
The familiar red, white, and blue sign advertising the London Underground hung askew. The windows held shards. Several sections of the train tracks under the cut-and-cover housing of the tube trench had been ripped up. Simon didn’t know if the destruction had been done by demons or by scavengers looking for steel.
A pulling engine and several cars lay overturned and broken inside the tube trench. The cargo had been jettisoned by looters—or survivors, depending on when the action had taken place—and covered the ground. There wasn’t much use for electronic equipment after the invasion. Food and medicine had become everything.
Just as it was in the redoubt, he reminded himself grimly.
“We’re not going to stand out here all night, are we, mate?” Nathan asked.
Simon waited a beat more, scanning the area one more time. “No.”
“So which do you least want to run into?” Nathan asked. “Templar from the Underground? Or demons? I mean, if we get busted by the Templar, there’s all that embarrassment to factor in.”
“I want to get in and out quietly,” Simon replied. “No muss, no fuss. I just hope the supplies are still there and in good shape.” He waited just a moment more, then gave the order to close in. Once they were moving, some of the indecision and worry went away.
Long, quiet minutes passed as they sifted through the wreckage inside the tube station and cleared the underground section. They used their armored hands like miniature steam shovels to dig through the wreckage. Once they had the way cleared, they crept deeper into the tunnel. Simon shoved buttoncams into the walls and ceiling at regular intervals. He linked them to the HUDs of the team and used them to mark the distance.
Five hundred seventeen yards into the tunnel, Simon turned to the wall and scanned the surface. Neon-bright graffiti stood out on the concrete. A broken skeleton lay at the bottom. Another was scattered across the tracks.
“Let’s put up a Node there,” Simon said, indicating a tube section fifty yards away. “That should give us breathing room enough. And I want buttoncams, heat sensor, and motion detectors a hundred yards farther on from that.”
The team moved into position and started working. The security alarms were in place before the Node generators were. They’d gotten faster at implementing them.
When everything was in place, Simon turned his attention back to the wall.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been this way in some time, mate,” Nathan said.
“No.” Simon struck the slab surface with an armored fist. Concrete plugs concealing bolts shattered and fell out of the holes. “This supply dump was set up as an auxiliary. A way station for anyone that got locked outside the main areas. Or if the main areas were lost.”
“So what kind of swag are we hoping to find?”
Simon had the suit form and ID Spike and rammed it into the six bolts. Trying to get at the hidden door without properly releasing them would trigger an explosion that would destroy everything within.
“Dry goods. Cereals. Powered milk. Powdered eggs.”
“Any chance of those little sausage tins?” Nathan asked. “I’ve missed those.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Danielle told him. “You may just have to forgo that pleasure a little longer.”
Once the ID Spike recognized Simon as a member of a Templar House, the bolts released. He grabbed hold of the wall section and pulled it away. A gleaming security door lay beneath. The steel oblong looked like a submarine hatch.
“How did you know about this storage facility?” Nathan asked.
“My father made me memorize the locations of all of them,” Simon said. “At least, he tried. He knew them, all of the lords did, but I could never remember them all.”
“Good thing you remembered this one. We’ve got meat and water to last for a time, but the dry goods will help.”
Simon agreed. They’d still been taking deer, but he feared they’d already overhunted the area and that the herd might not recover. That didn’t agree with the conservation the Templar taught.
“But I’d kill for some cheese, mate. And a bottle of wine.”
The door unlocked with a series of rapid-fire clicks. An automated voice sounded inside Simon’s HUD.
“Welcome, Lord Templar.”
Simon pulled and the heavy door opened on a sheen of frictionless metal liquid. Lights dawned inside the hallway. He stepped inside.
Danielle grabbed his shoulder and halted him. “This isn’t the only way in and out, is it?”
“It’s a Templar storage f
acility,” Simon said. “There are two ways out once we’re inside.”
“Oh. Okay. I was just checking. How big is this place?”
“Two stories.”
“There should be quite a lot of supplies in here.”
“If no one’s gotten to them—”
“Which I doubt,” Nathan said. “Going by the shape of the concrete wall.”
“—there should be enough to help us for months,” Simon finished. He strode down the hallway.
“Then why haven’t we come here before?” Danielle asked.
“I didn’t want to take anything from the Templar.”
“We’re the bloody Templar, mate.” Nathan slapped the wall. The metal-on-metal contact reverberated through the hallway. “Not those people still in hiding.”
“Not all of them want to hide,” Danielle said.
“So far,” Simon said, “we’ve been able to work things out for ourselves. We haven’t asked for anything.”
“We’re not asking now,” Nathan said.
“And we haven’t taken anything that we haven’t earned, either,” Simon went on.
“Sometimes, mate, you play it too straight and narrow. If my father had been a lord of a House so that I knew about a place like this, we’d already have been here.”
“Simon’s right,” Danielle said. “If we’d taken this straightaway, Booth and some of the others would have had cows over it. They’d have reduced what we’re doing to thievery, not survival.”
“It’s not thievery or survival,” Simon said. “It’s taking care of the innocents that rely on us. We’re not going to break that faith.”
He stopped at another door, fed it his ID, and opened it. Beyond a two-story vault sat filled with packaged cereals, powered milk, powdered eggs, pastas, and canned goods.
“Bloody brill,” Nathan whispered, and the relief in his voice sounded strong. “We need bigger lorries, mate.”
Simon hated stringing the Templar out on a supply line, but trying to move everything together would have taken far too long. They were already exposed and vulnerable. At least the suits’ extra strength and speed helped cut off some time.
