by Mel Odom
If. That was suddenly a big word standing there out in the open. It was almost easier standing up to demons. At least those were guaranteed to attack and he didn’t have to wonder.
He left his faceshield open, which was another risk, but he didn’t like the idea of simply presenting the armor’s blank face to Macomber as the professor left. It was a small personal touch but Simon needed to do it.
Macomber looked up to him and spoke in a whisper. “I’ve told you where you can find the Goetia manuscript. I will hope that you do.” He looked over his shoulder as the nearest ATV’s control center hatch opened. Two Templar stepped out onto the ATV’s deck. “I will forestall them as long as I’m able. But, if I were you, I wouldn’t take too long.”
“Understood, Professor. Take care of yourself.”
“Until we meet again.” Macomber offered his hand.
Simon took the old man’s hand gently for just a moment, then released him.
Macomber negotiated stepping from one ATV to the next with ease. It helped that the vehicles were butted up against each other.
Neither of the Templar spoke to Simon as they watched him. The faceshields were blank and offered only dim reflections of Simon in them.
“What do you think you’re doing out there?” Nathan asked. “Get back inside the vehicle before Booth orders someone to light you up.”
It was good advice, and Simon knew he should have taken it. But he couldn’t. Maybe it was pride on his part, or maybe it was defiance. Either way, he stood his ground till Booth’s vehicles backed up and rolled away.
“You have an incoming communiqué,” the suit AI announced.
Simon knew who it would be from. He closed his faceshield and pulled up the HUD. The communiqué came over a private frequency. Simon allowed it to connect.
Booth’s gloating face formed on the HUD. “You’ve been saving people for the last four years. You’d probably be better off sticking with that and staying out of my way.”
“It’s hard to be in your way,” Simon said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
An unpleasant scowl darkened Booth’s features. “I hope the demons don’t get you. Honestly I do. One of these days there’ll be an accounting between you and me.”
“It can be today if you like,” Simon offered. “I’m here.”
Booth cursed ferociously for a moment, then blanked the screen and broke communications.
Behind the faceshield, Simon grinned. Okay, maybe that was childish, but it felt good.
But helplessly watching Booth’s ATVs roll away took some of the joy out of it.
Once more seated in the command center, Simon watched as Booth’s ATV units headed back toward London.
“We know where the Goetia manuscript is supposed to be,” Nathan said. “Do we go there?”
“Not tonight,” Simon answered.
“Do you think it’s wise to wait?” Danielle asked.
“It’s almost four a.m. If we went there now, we’d arrive at daybreak. And we’re not set up for an insertion into the city.”
“You’re gambling that Booth won’t send a team into the sanitarium before we can get there,” Leah said.
Simon felt tired. Tonight had been a series of mixed blessings. Hope had been offered and taken away, and he wasn’t exactly sure what the final balance between the two was. He suspected that he’d come out on the short end.
Unless the Goetia manuscript is at Akehurst and it really does offer a weapon against the demons.
“No, I’m gambling that Macomber will keep quiet as he promised he would. Going into London right now the way we are—tired and not properly prepared—that’s just asking for a death sentence.” Simon took a breath. “We’ll do it tomorrow night.”
If it’s to be done at all.
When he woke, Warren found a dead woman standing beside his bed. The sight startled him so much that he drew back across the bed and almost unleashed his power on her. Then he recognized her.
Kelli.
She looked worse than ever. He hadn’t seen her in days. Putrefaction has settled into her flesh and her skin tones were beginning to change colors, showing greens and yellows now. The stench was horrible and her body moved with the things that lived within her.
“What are you doing here?” Warren asked.
Kelli only turned her head and silently regarded him. He couldn’t remember when she had ceased speaking. Then again, she hadn’t had much to say in a long time.
Warren wanted to tell her to go away, but he didn’t have the heart. She was with him because he’d wanted her to be with him. And she was dead through no fault of her own.
Without a word, Kelli sat on the edge of the bed. She had one leg folded up under her, and the flesh was torn so that he could see bones beneath. She creaked when she moved and there was the rippling sound of leather.
Unable to bear sitting on the bed with her, Warren got up and pulled a house coat on over his pajamas. With the fullness of day outside it was too hot to be clothed, but he’d always been modest. He was even more so now with his body scarred and alien to him.
Besides, he had a plan to put into effect.
An uncomfortable itch at the back of his mind alerted him to the silent warning of the Blood Angel’s eye. He chose to see through it for a moment, and watched as Naomi left her room and came up the stairs toward his.
Warren glanced back at Kelli and knew things weren’t going to begin well.
Naomi at least had the good manners to knock before she barged into his room, but she barged all the same. Then she stopped stock still in the doorway and stared at zombie on Warren’s bed.
“What’s she doing here?” Naomi asked.
“I woke up and she was here.” Embarrassment stung Warren. He could only imagine what thoughts first ran through Naomi’s mind. “I can’t get her to stay away.”
Kelli’s dead gaze focused on Naomi. Kelli had never liked Naomi when she’d been alive because Kelli had felt threatened that Naomi would take Warren away from her. Evidently that dislike had run deeply enough to carry over into death.
“She’s dead?” Naomi’s voice carried curiosity. She walked closer to get a better look at the zombie.
“In the shape she’s in, I certainly hope so.” Warren took a bottle of water from the box against the wall. There was no way to keep it refrigerated. He admitted that the thing he most missed about the early days of the invasion was when the beer was still good. Unfortunately, like Kelli, there’d been an expiration date.
“Did you kill her?”
“No.” Warren felt angry and ashamed that he had been asked that question.
As Naomi neared her, Kelli stood to face her.
“When did she die?” Naomi asked.
That was an even worse question.
Warren shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
Naomi shifted her gaze to him and looked incredulous. “How can you not remember?”
“You’ve seen her. Even when she was alive she wasn’t very talkative.”
“What about before you messed with her mind?”
“She wasn’t very bright to begin with.”
“I can’t believe you.”
“She’s dead. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“You could have at least cared enough to notice that she was dead! Or better yet, that she was dying!”
Warren cursed. “This wasn’t a relationship, Naomi. I didn’t love her and she didn’t love me.”
“No, you just used her are so you wouldn’t have to be alone.”
“Would you listen to yourself? This isn’t some chick lit drama. I’m trying to stay alive. And so are you. That’s why you’re here.”
Naomi folded her arms. “If I had any sense, I’d be anywhere but here.” She glared at him.
Without provocation, Kelli attacked and flailed her arms at Naomi. Caught flat-footed, Naomi didn’t have a chance to defend herself or move away.
Warren threw a hand out and p
ushed with all his might. The shimmering wave of force jetted from his fingertips and hammered Kelli.
The zombie suddenly looked as if she had been thrown through a jet engine. Pieces of decaying flesh and shattered bone flew toward the other side of the room.
For a moment, Naomi stood frozen. Then she doubled over and was sick.
Warren figured that everything had officially just gotten worse. He went to get a trash bag and a broom. And a dust pan. Looking at all the little pieces, he figured he would need one of those too.
TWENTY-FOUR
S imon stared at the blueprints of the Akehurst Clinic. He had downloaded everything he could from the computer database regarding the building. His eyes burned from the sustained effort over the last few hours.
“You should get some sleep.”
Changing his perception of the large wide-screen monitor in front of him, Simon spotted Leah’s reflection in the surface. She wore hospital scrubs, which was one of the more accepted modes of dress up in the underground fortress.
Simon wore gray sweatpants, joggers, and a navy muscle shirt out of deference to the civilian population. There were a lot of children within the walls of late. It still amazed Simon how they had managed to survive the last four years.
Bruises from the previous night’s encounter with the demons had turned a nice shade of blue and purple. In a few more days they would change colors and fade away.
“I could say the same thing about you,” he said.
Leah leaned her hip against the desk and folded her arms. She stared down at him. “I’ve got six hours of sleep. Nathan tells me you haven’t slept yet.”
“Nathan talks too much.”
“If you don’t rest, you’re going to lose your edge. If you lose your edge, you’re going to die.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.” Simon felt angry at her and knew that she didn’t deserve his ire. What she said was the truth. He let out a breath. “I’m going to go to sleep in just a little bit.” He shook his head. “If I tried to go to sleep right now, with everything in flux, I’d just be wasting my time anyway.”
Leah directed her attention to the monitor. “So what’s in flux?”
Simon looked at her. “I thought you had somewhere to be.”
She lifted a speculative eyebrow at him. “Would you let me leave here? Do you think I would leave not knowing if that manuscript that’s supposed to be in that sanitarium is really there?”
Simon held her gaze for just a moment. “No.”
“I guess that means both of us are in a flux.” Leah studied the blueprints. “Where did you get access to all these blueprints?”
“The Templar have been involved in the architecture of London since the city began. All the files of every building, every house, and every railway tunnel are in our files.”
“Where did you get the files? This isn’t the Templar Underground.”
“One of the volunteers from the Templar Underground brought a copy with her when she joined us. Having that kind of information has been helpful.”
Leah went back to its studying the blueprints. “The architects and builders remodeled the building.”
“Several times.” Simon used the touchscreen to blow up various sections of the blueprints. “There appears to be an underground labyrinth under the building that later contractors neglected to mention.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Probably so they wouldn’t have to bring all the underground sections up to code as well. It would’ve been expensive.”
“What did they do with the underground sections?”
“Walled them over for the most part.” Simon pointed at three different areas. “These used to be entrances to the underground. In later blueprints—” He touched the screen and the blueprints changed. “—they’re not shown.”
“Could they have filled them in? When some of the older buildings developed flooding problems, it was easier to simply fill the basements with concrete and forget those areas ever existed.”
Simon shifted back over to the initial blueprints he had been studying. “There were four floors beneath the main building. An undertaking like that would have been huge. People would have noticed.”
“Why so many floors?”
“London has never been fond of her lunatics. The Victorian era was filled with people who resented and rejected the sexual repression that was going on. According to the files I’ve looked at, if you had a relative who was a homosexual, a nymphomaniac, or simply had another way of looking at the world that was considered dangerous or embarrassing, you could put them in Akehurst and plan on never seeing them again.”
“Lovely bit of history you found there. Gives me the chills.”
“The truly depressing part is the number of individuals that were locked away. Disappeared. And after they had finally died, they were buried unmarked in some graveyard for indigents.”
“I trust knowing this isn’t one of your hobbies.”
“No. I hadn’t known how prevalent the problem was until I accessed these files.”
“Australia wouldn’t have existed if not for the London poor, thieves, prostitutes, alcoholics, and the great unwashed. But for those who couldn’t get to Australia, I guess there was Akehurst.”
“And other places just as bad.” Simon brought up another section of the blueprint. “The four subterranean levels are all primitive. They’re not rooms; they’re caves carved into the limestone underbelly of the city. Iron bars covered the front of the caves.” Sour bile burned at the back of his throat as he thought about the conditions Akehurst’s patients had suffered through.
“That’s where Macomber said the manuscript was?”
“Yes.”
“And we’ve got to go there?”
“I have to go there,” Simon corrected.
Leah rolled her eyes at him. “What? And leave me here?”
“Actually, I was thinking that once I had the manuscript, you can be freed.”
“Awfully generous of you.”
“It is. Especially since I don’t know who tipped Booth off about Macomber.”
She frowned at him. “You’d be a fool if you thought it was me.”
“Just for the record, I don’t think it was you. It could just as easily have been one of those men that met us last night.”
“Whatever would they do that for?”
“To keep the Templar divided.”
“As if you couldn’t manage that on your own.”
Simon held off on an angry retort.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn like that.” Leah looked genuinely regretful. “I’m just tired, and I wouldn’t like to see you throw your life away on a fool’s errand.”
“I wasn’t trained to throw my life away. I was trained to fight and sell it dearly if it came to that.”
“Do you know what your problem really is, Simon?” she asked in a soft voice.
Sensing that he was on dangerous ground, Simon chose not to answer.
“You still believe you can win this war.”
“What other way is there to think about it?”
Leah looked away from him. After a moment, she replied. “You make the other guy lose just as much as you do. That way it’s a draw. Nobody wins.”
Simon didn’t know what to say about that. Even after everything that had happened at St. Paul’s Cathedral, he couldn’t let go of the idea of defeating the demons.
“Do you know what’s truly foolish?” he asked. “Fighting without thinking you’re going to win. The demons are the hardest thing I’ve ever faced, but there’s nothing and no one that exists in this world that can’t be beaten. All we need is the proper advantage.”
She stared at him for a long time and didn’t say a word. Then, finally, she said, “Get some sleep. Soon.” Then she turned and walked away.
Simon watched her go. She was beautiful. He had recognized that the first time he had seen her on the plane from South Africa.
She was also an enigma.
That was dangerous.
After he had swept up the last of Kelli’s remains, Warren tied off the lumpy trash bag and worked hard to breathe as little of the stench of as he could. He carried the bag to the window and he heaved it outside. It joined several other bags at the bottom of the long fall.
The bag, like its brethren, burst on impact and spread Kelli all over the alley. For a brief time he watched to make sure the pieces of her didn’t try to get up and come back.
He followed up with a mop bucket and a pine-scented cleanser. When he finished, the gore was gone but the stench lingered as a pine-scented version of itself.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Naomi said.
Warren picked up the broom and dustpan, looked at them and realized that he would never use them again, and tossed them out the window as well.
“I can’t believe you didn’t help. After all, it wasn’t me she attacked.”
Naomi regarded him silently for a long time. Warren grew uncomfortable with her intense attention.
“You’ve changed,” she said.
“I’ve lost my hand and been horribly disfigured. And you’re just now noticing?” Warren shook his head. “Four years ago when this happened, I was still naive. When I was going through the worst of it, as I recall, you chose to stay away. It wasn’t till the First Seer, who is now dead after trying to kill me, sent you to contact me that you seemed to remember who I was. I moved on and became someone else because I had to.”
“That’s not fair,” she protested. “It wasn’t like that. All of us had to learn. All of us had to change.”
“You had company. The only friend I had, I just swept up in the dust pan and tossed out the window. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have let her toss you out the window.” The emotion of what he had just done hovered in the back of Warren’s mind. He didn’t let it get close to him or touch him in any way that would make him weak. That was for when he was alone.
