by Mel Odom
“Well, maybe you should.” Nathan hesitated. “What she did, taking that Node design, you and I would have done it, too.”
Simon took a breath. “I know.”
“In the end, mate, we’re all just trying to survive.”
Simon crouched in a corner of the tube station. He didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was putting his head on his arms at his desk just to rest a moment. With all the signage around, as well as the rubble, the place looked familiar, but a lot of the underground areas in London did.
Darkness filled the low-ceilinged area. His helmet scanned his surroundings with night vision. Something scraped against the wall to his right.
Simon stood and took a better grip on his sword. He slid his shield free from his back and positioned it in front of him.
“Nathan,” he called softly over the comm.
There was no reply.
“Scan for other Templar,” Simon ordered the suit AI.
“Scanning,” the suit AI replied.
The scrape sounded again, closer this time. And higher.
Simon glanced up at the ceiling. It was low enough that he could reach up and touch it. He felt something watching him.
“No Templar in area,” the suit AI reported.
That didn’t make sense. He wouldn’t have come, wherever he was, alone. “Scan for all other life signs.”
“Scanning.”
Simon backed away from the scrape and tried to increase the night vision. Whatever it was, it somehow seemed to know exactly how far his night vision reached. It stayed just out of sight.
“No life signs in area,” the suit AI stated.
“What about undead?”
“Select parameters.”
Simon thought quickly. “Scan for decaying biological matter. Approximately ten pounds and up.”
“Scanning.” Then the suit AI sounded a warning almost immediately. “Unidentified object incoming.”
Reacting to the unseen threat, Simon raised his shield. The webbing appeared out of the darkness, lit up by the night vision. The strands had two-inch squares. The webbing flared out in an eight-foot by eight-foot square that just raked the ceiling and the floor.
Simon knew he couldn’t avoid the net. It came too fast, and it was too big. He pushed his shield forward, hoping to create some room as it closed round him. Instead, the net struck his shield, wrapped around him in a cocoon, and drew tight with a metallic hiss.
“Templar weapon,” the suit AI said. “Extraction attempts useless.”
Despite already knowing that, Simon struggled. The net tightened around him, trapping him. He couldn’t believe he’d been caught so flat-footed.
Footsteps rang against the concrete floor. In the next moment, lights flared to life in the tube station and revealed an armored figure.
She was—or had been—a Templar. Judging from her features, revealed through her faceplate, she was about Simon’s age. Her brunette hair was pulled back and severe brows arched over her ice-blue eyes.
“Hello, Simon,” she said in a low, seductive voice. “Or should I call you Lord Cross?”
“Miriam?” Simon said, recognizing the woman. He hadn’t seen her since he had last been in the Templar Underground, over four years ago.
“I was.” Miriam drew her sword and squatted in front of him. She rested the blade across her thighs. “And I am.”
“Why did you do this?”
“Because I came hunting you.”
For the first time, Simon noticed the greenish tint to Miriam’s features. She’d always been more a handsome woman than beautiful, but the greenish cast to her skin made her look striking.
“Why?” Simon asked.
“My master wanted you.”
“What master?”
The familiar rumble of a train suddenly filled the tube. Simon knew the sound, but he couldn’t believe it. No trains had run since the night he’d escaped with survivors from the city.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Miriam said.
A train roared into the station and screeched to a halt. Sparks flew from the steel wheels as the brakes bit and took hold.
Simon struggled again, but the net grew so tight that it made it hard to breathe even with the armor.
“Warning,” the suit AI said. “External pressure now dangerous. Suit integrity may not hold.”
The train door kicked open automatically. Steam boiled from inside the cars. Miriam took hold of the net in one hand and lifted Simon from the ground. She walked toward the car.
“Where are you taking me?” Simon asked.
“Just wait,” Miriam said. “It’s a surprise.” She stepped through the doors and dropped him in the middle of the car. She took a seat and opened an electronic reader as if she were a regular traveler.
Simon struggled again, but only got the warning once more. His mind raced as he tried to figure out how he’d ended up in the tube station, and how the train remained operable with all the power grids shut down.
It was madness.
“Then you’re mad,” Miriam said, as if she’d heard his unspoken conclusion. She gazed at him over the reader. “Have you given any thought to that?”
Unable to free himself, Simon lay back as the train hurtled through the tube.
FORTY-THREE
S hrieks pierced Simon’s ears as the train’s brakes locked down. Sparks sprayed high in the windows and sent flashes of light reflecting inside the car.
“Time to go.” Miriam stood and reached down for Simon, catching a fistful of the net near his neck with her hooked fingers. She dragged him from the car as if he were a sack of potatoes. The action caused the net to squeeze more, and some of the strands cut into his armor.
“Warning. Armor integrity breached,” the suit AI said.
The train doors shrieked open, and a huge splash of bright light flared into the car. Pain stabbed into Simon’s eyes till the faceshield could polarize and counteract the illumination.
When he could bear the light again, barely, he stared out at his surroundings in surprise. Instead of a tube station, Miriam dragged Simon into an open field of burned grass and diseased trees. It was like no place Simon had ever before been.
Miriam tossed him forward effortlessly. He bounced and skidded across the ground, digging divots into the scorched earth as he hit. He rolled into a shallow lake and sank into the mud three feet below the scum-covered surface. Wicked, barbed plants stood above the lake and curled beneath it. They immediately whipped into motion, drawing back and surveying Simon.
“Danger,” the suit AI said. “Flooding through suit breach.”
Simon felt the water invading his armor at his waist. Instead of cool or cold as he’d expected, the hot water threatened to boil him. Pain climbed his midriff.
“Seal breach,” Simon ordered.
“Attempting seal,” the suit AI responded.
The water gurgled into the armor. The noise echoed in Simon’s ears. The hot water continued to spread, filling up his chest cavity, then trickling into his helmet.
“Failure,” the suit AI said. “Failure. Failure. Failure.”
The barbed plants struck without warning. Needle-sharp points rapped against his faceplate. Fissures splintered across the surface, but it held for the most part. Beads of hot water formed along the cracks and dripped inside his helmet.
Panic rose inside Simon. He fought to hang on to his composure. Struggling, he managed to rock and roll enough to roll over in the lake. The movement only mired him more deeply in the mud. Then he saw that it was alive with thorny creatures equipped with questing mouths that latched on to his armor. His helmet continued to fill.
You’re dreaming, he told himself. You have to be. Since he couldn’t remember coming here, the tube station and this strange world all had to be figments from a nightmare.
But he couldn’t wake.
Something dark and sinuous slithered out of the scummy shallows. It looked l
ike a snake, but he quickly realized it was a tentacle of something much larger. The tentacle rooted under him, then wrapped round him and lifted him from the lake bottom.
“Do you know what this place is, Simon?” Miriam asked over the suit-comm.
“No.” Simon had to turn his head to keep water from going down his throat or up his nose.
“This is one of the demon worlds. Not where they’re from. They haven’t shown me one of those yet. But this is one of those they’ve captured. This world has been Burned and remade.”
The tentacle dragged Simon across the lake bed. For the first time he realized chunks and pieces of buildings lay at the bottom.
“This is what’s going to happen to your world,” Miriam taunted.
Simon spat water and tried to find room to breathe in the filling helmet. “It used to be your world, too.”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened to you?”
“I…became someone else. Someone that could survive in this world.”
“How?”
“You ask too many questions.”
Simon’s focus returned immediately to his own survival when he saw what the tentacle was attached to. The silt-filled water proved hard to see through, but he saw the massive, bloated body seated in the middle of the lake.
The dark green creature possessed six tentacles. A single, malevolent eye measuring nearly three feet across stared at Simon from the center of its body.
“Identify demon,” Simon whispered. He couldn’t remember anything like the creature in the material the Templar library had held.
“Command failed,” the suit AI replied.
“Can you identify the demon?”
“Query failed.”
Simon bumped across the muddy lake bottom. The lake water that half filled his helmet smelled foul and tasted worse. “What kind of demon has hold of me?”
“Parameters for question invalid.”
“Why are the parameters invalid?”
“No creature holds you.”
“The creature ahead of me.”
“Nothing is there.”
“Scan for demons.”
“Scanning.” A handful of seconds passed. “No demons.”
Simon concentrated on the demon. However it blocked the suit AI’s sensors, the demon did a complete job.
Something splashed into the water next to him. Holding his breath, he turned his face into the rising water inside his helmet.
A shimmering figure stood there. She was so transparent that she looked like she was made of glass. The shape told him at once that she was female. Her hair floated freely in the lake. A one-piece uniform covered her body. Then he recognized her profile.
“Leah,” Simon spluttered.
She turned to face him. Her expression showed doubt and fear. “Simon?” He didn’t know how she talked underwater.
The water inside his helmet made it impossible for him to keep watching her. He had to breathe. He turned his head, took a breath, and looked back for Leah. He was surprised to find her at his side.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Simon shook his head, unable to speak because of the water in his helmet. He wasn’t going to be able to breathe inside the helmet much longer, either.
“This isn’t real,” Leah said. “None of it.”
Simon thought that might have been interesting to debate if he hadn’t been drowning.
“For all I know,” Leah said, “you’re not real.”
The tentacle dragged Simon toward the demon. A gaping maw opened in the creature’s body. A pink gullet lined with foot-long fangs took shape.
“Are you real?” Leah asked.
Simon turned his head and tried to answer, but it was too late. The water had risen so far inside his helmet he could no longer breathe or speak. He stared at her through the cracked faceplate.
Leah extended a large knife. She sawed at the tentacle. Black blood flooded the water in a spreading cloud. The tentacle writhed, then released Simon.
He knew it was too late. The water inside his helmet was drowning him. He struggled against the net. Leah dragged her knife along the armor. The net strands parted liked string. That wasn’t supposed to happen, either.
Planting his feet against the muddy bottom of the lake, Simon propelled himself toward the surface. His hands worked at the helmet locks because he couldn’t verbalize the order for the suit AI to disengage the armor. He managed to get the helmet off just before he reached the surface.
When his head broke the surface, he breathed in great draughts of air. He held the helmet in one hand. Treading water in the armor was almost impossible. If it hadn’t been for the automatic flotation feature to ensure neutral buoyancy, he’d never have managed.
“You’re still alive?” Miriam called from a small hill overlooking the lake.
Simon didn’t answer. He spun around in the water and looked for Leah. Despite her unexplained ability to breathe and talk underwater, he still didn’t know how much danger she was in.
“Simon.”
He turned to Leah’s voice and found her standing in the water just below the surface. She made no effort to swim, merely stood there as if she were on level ground.
Then she lifted his sword toward him. Somehow it had fallen loose during the underwater struggle. For a moment the image of her handing him the sword out of the water mesmerized him.
“Take it,” she said.
Simon closed his fist around the sword’s hilt an instant before a tentacle wrapped his leg and pulled him under. He managed to finish one last breath of air, then slid once more beneath the water.
Submerged, he manually blew the air from the buoyancy bladders the armor had automatically filled from his air supply. Bubbles erupted around him and boiled to the surface. Taking his sword in both hands, he reversed it and took a firm grip on the hilt. He sank like a stone to the bottom, then managed four quick strides to the demon nestled in the crater.
The demon’s tentacles lashed at Simon and took hold of him. He didn’t know where Leah had gone until she was suddenly beside him. Somehow, she managed to bat some of the tentacles aside.
As if sensing what Simon planned, the demon hoisted itself from its nest and tried to scuttle away. Simon leaped forward and put both boots on top of the demon’s center body mass. He fired the boot anchors and felt them bite into the creature’s flesh. Then he rammed the sword through the awful eye staring helplessly up at him.
Blood and green-tinted fluid flooded the water. Either the blood or the fluid—or, possibly, both—burned Simon’s exposed face. The warm tingle quickly turned angry.
With a final twist of the sword, Simon withdrew his boot anchors and yanked the blade free. A paroxysm shuddered through the demon. The tentacles whipsawed through the water and churned the silt from the lake bottom.
Holding his breath, Simon turned and ran toward the lake’s edge. Even with the armor’s amplified strength pushing him onward, the going was hard. When he got there, Miriam waited with her sword drawn.
FORTY-FOUR
W ho’s the woman?” Miriam demanded.
Sword in hand, Simon looked back over his shoulder. Leah strode from the lake in the one-piece black armor. She didn’t wear her mask. Her hair hung wet and heavy. She didn’t carry a weapon.
“She’s my friend,” Simon said.
Miriam smiled, and it was a ghastly caricature of the expression Simon had seen on her face in times past. “Then ‘your friend’ has come all this way to watch you die.”
“No. I didn’t come here to die, Miriam.”
“Simon,” Leah called.
Simon shifted so that he could keep an eye on both women.
“This isn’t real,” Leah told him. “None of it. You’re dreaming. Or I’m dreaming.”
“This isn’t a dream.” Simon stood his ground uneasily.
“How did you get here?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
> “It does. The last thing you remember is that you went to sleep, right? Back in the redoubt?”
Simon shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m here. I feel like I’m here. My sword feels real. That demon in the lake felt real.”
“I know.” Leah’s voice was patient. “I’ve been going through this for days.”
“Going through what?”
“I’ve been taken prisoner by the demons. They’re holding me at the Apple store. They’ve got me in some kind of machine that—”
“Shut up!” Miriam snarled. She whipped a hand forward and a dagger glittered as it spun through the air toward Leah.
Simon reached for the deadly blade, but even his amplified reflexes were too slow. The dagger buried to the hilt in Leah’s chest.
Curious, not seeming at all in pain or concerned, Leah glanced down at the knife protruding from her sternum. “This isn’t real.” She grasped the knife and pulled it from her flesh.
There was no blood, no wound.
She looked up at Simon. “You’re dreaming. Do you see? But it’s dangerous in here. While you’re dreaming, the demons access your mind. You’ve got to wake up.” She threw the knife at him.
Effortlessly now, Simon plucked the twirling knife from the air. It tinked against his armored palm.
Miriam drew a sword from her back and sliced the air. In response, the blade ignited and became wreathed in flames.
“I’m going to kill you, Simon.”
Miriam started forward, and the heat from her sword baked into Simon’s exposed flesh. “You can listen to your little harpy all you want to. She’s just going to be the death of you.”
“Simon, don’t—” Whatever else Leah was going to say was lost when she abruptly faded from view.
Moving slowly, never stepping over his feet, so he remained balanced, Simon kept his sword in front of him. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Miriam’s smile was sweet poison.
“What happened to her?”
“She was never here. Just a figment of your pitiful imagination.” Miriam slashed with her sword, coming close to Simon but not making him yet defend himself. “Are you in love, Simon?”
