Hellgate: Goetia

by Mel Odom

  “If that would get Simon back, I’d be all for it,” Leah replied. “Until we have that guarantee, we’re not going to choose that course of action.”

  “If he’s hurt Simon, I’m going to kill him.”

  “Calm heads win battles,” Wertham stated from the corner. “Not young hearts.” The old Templar sat quietly at the back of the room. “If Lord Cross is alive, we’ll get him back. If not, then we’ll see to his vengeance.”

  “Can you call Booth back?” Leah asked.

  “We don’t know,” Danielle said. “At the time there didn’t seem to be much point in it. We figured the less said, the better. We didn’t want to admit that we didn’t have the manuscript.”

  “When did Booth take Simon into custody?”

  “Early this morning,” Wertham said. “Before first light.”

  “Why did he go with him?”

  “Booth offered a Flag of Honor,” Nathan said.

  “Tell me again what that is.”

  Nathan did. “I asked Simon not to go. I offered to go in his stead. But he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Why?” To Leah the decision sounded foolish.

  “Because Booth played Simon,” Danielle said. “He knew that by offering Simon a Flag of Honor he was essentially presenting Simon a chance to clear his name.”

  “Clear his name of what?” Leah asked.

  “Abandoning the Templar six years ago,” Wertham said.

  “While he was down in South Africa?”

  Wertham nodded.

  “But I thought the Templar—at least some of them—were allowed lives outside the Underground.”

  “Some of them were,” the old Templar said. “I was a fisherman for many years. But Simon walked away not only from the Templar, but from his father.”

  “That’s where Booth had Simon,” Nathan said. “And Booth knew it. Histories are kept of the Order and the Houses, and the individual nobility that serves them. There’s never been a more loyal Knight Templar than Lord Thomas Cross.”

  “Simon feels he’s brought shame to his father’s name,” Wertham said. “All those years ago, with his father still alive, Simon didn’t think about it. He probably couldn’t even fathom the idea of his father getting killed. I know he still has a hard time dealing with the guilt involved in that.”

  “All right,” Leah said, “I get that Simon was highly motivated and vulnerable to this deal.” With her own upbringing, though, family honor was an alien concept. But she understood the integrity part and knew—at least partially—what kind of man Simon Cross was. “What I want to know is how Booth can feel free to break this offer to Simon? Doesn’t that leave a black spot on his honor somewhere?”

  “If Simon were in good standing with the Templar,” Danielle said, “most definitely. This would be an egregious breach of ethics.”

  “Templar Houses have fallen over such matters of honor,” Wertham said.

  “What if we let the rest of the Templar Underground know what Booth has done?” Leah asked.

  “For all we know,” Nathan said sourly, “one of the other Lords or Ladies came up with the idea.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  “T he other Houses in the Templar Underground didn’t like it when Simon walked out on them four years ago,” Nathan went on, “and they like it even less that other Templar have continued to come to us.”

  “Did you tell Booth that you would bring him the manuscript?” Leah asked.

  Nathan looked guilty. “Yes. I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t know what might happen if I told him it had been destroyed.”

  “Good, because now we’ve got it.”

  “You’re going to give it to him?” Danielle looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Of course we are. We can make a copy for everybody. We’re just not going to give Booth the file with the secret text.” Leah had already briefed them on what she’d found out.

  Some of the Templar scholars were already working on the text, but so far they didn’t have a clue as to what was hidden in the language.

  “Wait,” Danielle protested.

  Already guessing what was coming, Leah looked at the Templar and waited.

  “This is our problem,” Danielle said angrily. “No one died and made you queen.”

  Leah let the other woman’s emotion roll off her and didn’t take it personally. She knew Danielle was dealing with her own guilt and frustration in the matter, and none of that had anything to do with her. “I’m not trying to be queen.”

  “The way you’re trying to take over everything says otherwise.”

  Nathan and Wertham seemed only too happy to stay out of the discussion.

  “You’re not a Templar,” Danielle said.

  “No,” Leah said calmly, “I’m not. But I care about Simon. A lot.” She felt her face burn a little at the admission and wondered where that emotion had come from. “I don’t want to see him hurt.”

  “We can handle this.”

  “How?” Leah challenged.

  Danielle looked at the other two Templar. They both looked elsewhere and didn’t meet her gaze.

  “We don’t have any reason to believe Booth will deal in good faith with us—”

  “It’s not us,” Danielle interrupted.

  “—in this matter after the way he’s treated Simon.”

  “We don’t think that.”

  “Then what do you plan to do?” Leah asked. “And charging in isn’t the answer.”

  Danielle sighed. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice. “But you’re right about not expecting the best from Booth. The bad history between him and Simon goes back to the time they were boys.”

  “Subtlety and subterfuge are my game,” Leah said. “If I can put together something we can all agree on, we can get ahead of Booth. But if you try to freeze me out of this, you’re going to be losing an asset you need. Trust me on that.”

  Danielle nodded.

  Leah checked the time and found that it was a little after eleven o’clock p.m. “All right, we’ve got some time to play with. Let’s see if we can come up with something that even remotely resembles a plan.” She looked at Wertham. “Is there any way I can get a blueprint of the Templar Underground?”

  “No. Those aren’t drawn out for two reasons.” Wertham ticked them off on his fingers. “Number one is so that those plans can never fall into anyone’s hands and be used against the Templar.”

  Leah understood that. Command didn’t allow blueprints of their hidden centers for the same reasons.

  “The second is because much of the Underground has changed over the years as new construction has taken place.”

  That, Leah knew, was going to be a problem. “But you can draw a map?”

  Wertham nodded. “All of us can.”

  “Then all of you do it. Without conferring with each other. We’ll need to check against error and omission.” Leah looked at Wertham. “Can you assemble a team willing to go in after Simon?”

  “If the rest of the stronghold knew Booth had him,” Nathan said, “we’d have a mass evacuation on our hands. They’d all go after him. That’s why we’ve kept this to ourselves.”

  “All right. Keeping control of the information was good. But you’re going to have to put someone in this room who can deal with Booth in case he tries to contact you again.”

  Wertham nodded. “All of that can be done.”

  “Then get it done now. We need to be en route as soon as we can be. Without anyone here being the wiser.”

  The three Templar stood.

  “One other thing,” Leah said. “Do you have someone who can print the manuscript out and make it look authentic? I don’t want to give Booth an electronic copy. Then he’ll know we’ve already gotten copies of it ourselves. And I don’t want to make it easy for him to resource. He can do his own bloody scut work.”

  Pain exploded in Simon’s head and drew him back to wakefulness. When he felt the warm spill of blood down his
chin he knew he’d been hit again. He ignored the pain and tried to focus on his tormentor. Chains covering his upper body and legs confined him to the straight-backed chair in the small room where he was being held.

  “I think he’s awake again,” the Templar in front of Simon said.

  It took a moment of intense study for Simon to realize it was one man and not twins.

  “Are you awake, Simon?” Booth asked.

  Still weak and partially disoriented, Simon sagged against the chains and turned his head to look at Booth. The High Seat sat across the metal table in the room.

  “I’m awake,” Simon mumbled through swollen lips.

  “I’ve talked with your friends. They’ve agreed to exchange the Goetia manuscript for you.” Booth ate fresh cherries from a bowl.

  The Templar Underground gardens were a mixture of hydroponics and mysticism. Almost anything could be grown there because conditions for any type of plant were possible. The systems in the stronghold Simon had established hadn’t reached anywhere near the same efficiency or potential variables.

  Do to the pain and the drugs coursing through his system, Simon had trouble sifting through Booth’s words. “They told you they would trade the manuscript for me?”

  “Yes.” Booth popped another cherry into his mouth.

  Simon hated the High Seat for his excesses, and he was sure Booth knew it. In the stronghold it sometimes became a struggle to feed everyone. Yet the Templar in the Underground produced enough to have surplus and could grow things beyond the staples.

  Given the circumstances and the fact that he hadn’t been privy to the conversation with anyone Booth had talked to, Simon felt certain Booth wasn’t telling the truth. He licked his lips and tasted blood.

  “You’re lying,” Simon croaked. He craved a drink of water. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious.

  Almost casually, Booth tapped a remote control next to the cherry bowl. A tri-dee screen opened on one of the walls and showed Nathan seated at the comm command center in the stronghold.

  “—either you produce the manuscript by sunrise tomorrow or I stake Cross out as demonbait,” Booth’s recorded voice said.

  Booth tapped the remote control to freeze the image on Nathan. “That was me, making my demands. This next bit is your friend.” He tapped the remote control again.

  Nathan stared at the screen for a moment, then said, “We’ll bring you the manuscript. But we need more time.”

  “No more time,” Booth’s recorded voice replied. “Sunrise tomorrow. After that, Simon Cross is a dead man.”

  Booth turned off the tri-dee and smiled brightly. “You’re going to be a dead man anyway, but he doesn’t think so. Yet.”

  Simon made himself grin. It was hard because his lips didn’t work right in the shape they were in. His nose felt broken and he couldn’t breathe through it.

  “Nathan knows you’re a liar,” Simon said. “He already knows honor doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “What?” Booth feigned surprise. “Because I broke the Flag of Honor agreement with you?”

  Simon refused to take the bait.

  “You make agreements like that with men with honor,” Booth said. “Not the likes of you. That agreement is for Templar. You’re an outcast. There’s no honor in dealing with you.”

  Something Thomas Cross had told Simon a long time ago came back to him. He hadn’t really seen the truth of it until four years ago when he’d come back to find London in the hands of demons.

  “Honor isn’t something between men,” Simon said. “It’s something inside a man that can be used to take his measure. And because he has it, he can extend it to others.” He pierced Booth with his gaze. “You have no honor.”

  Booth scowled. “Don’t bore me with your platitudes.”

  “They’re not platitudes,” Simon said. “They’re words my father gave me to live by.” He looked at the other Templar in the room. “They’re words I’m sure he gave to all of you.”

  The other Templar dropped their eyes and wouldn’t meet Simon’s gaze.

  Booth nodded at the big man in front of Simon. Knowing what was coming, Simon tried to turn away from the blow. It didn’t do any good. The man’s hand caught him full in the face. For a moment it seemed like the pain was going to be enough to knock him over into the abyss.

  “Don’t use your father’s good name to hide your shame,” Booth said. “There’s not a man in this room that doesn’t know what Thomas Cross meant to the Order. He never once turned his back on us.”

  Simon spat blood into the cherry bowl.

  Booth cursed him and got up from the table. Unlike the man who’d been hitting Simon with his fists, Booth still wore his armor. If he hit Simon, the blow would undoubtedly kill him.

  Simon didn’t turn away.

  “High Seat Booth,” one of the Templar said, “I won’t be party to murder.”

  Booth turned to the man. “Then you should leave, Whitehall.”

  The Templar drew himself up. “No. I agreed to this because I believe we need to have the Goetia manuscript. If what Macomber told us about the protective nodes was correct, we can’t continue holding out against the demons without them. If Cross’s friends find out he’s dead, they won’t give us the manuscript.”

  Rage darkened Booth’s face. He curled a hand into a fist and hammered the table, knocking it flat. The boom of the impact filled the room.

  Simon guessed that the room was soundproofed. Many of the Templar Underground rooms were. But his thoughts centered on what Whitehall had said Macomber had talked about.

  “You’re being insubordinate,” Booth declared.

  “No sir. I’m here to get the manuscript,” Whitehall said. “All of us are. And we agreed that the Flag of Honor didn’t apply to Simon Cross. But we will not permit this. No Templar murders a helpless prisoner.”

  “Then you’re all fools,” Simon told them. “Because the manuscript had already been destroyed when we got there. Whatever information it contained was lost a long time ago.”

  “You’re lying,” Booth accused.

  “On my father’s blood,” Simon replied.

  “Your friend Nathan said he was going to bring the manuscript.”

  “He didn’t have a choice. You told him you were going to kill me.” Simon drew a breath. “You’re just wasting time and broke what little honor you had for nothing.”

  Booth stared at him for a moment, and Simon could see the fear in the High Seat’s eyes that what he said was true.

  “No,” Booth said. “That’s not completely true, is it? If it were, you wouldn’t have agreed to meet me. There’s more to this than you’re saying.”

  “I came here to defend my father’s honor,” Simon said.

  “That’s true, but that’s not all of it. You’re hiding something. I want to know what it is.”

  Simon looked at Booth and firmed his resolve. “The manuscript was burned. It doesn’t exist any more.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Booth turned to one of the Templar. “Hail Nathan Singh for me.”

  The Templar stepped to one side and talked quietly for a moment.

  Simon tried desperately to force away the pain filling his face and body, but even with all his training it was a hopeless cause.

  “I’ve got the Templar stronghold,” the Templar said.

  “Put it on the monitor,” Booth ordered.

  Even though he didn’t want to, Simon glanced at the monitor. He recognized Pelter, one of the older Templar at the stronghold at the comm array and couldn’t help wondering where Nathan and Danielle were.

  “Where is Nathan Singh?” Booth demanded.

  “Hold on, High Seat Booth,” Pelter said. “I’ll have Nathan for you in just a moment.” He leaned forward and the monitor changed.

  In the next moment, Nathan’s image filled the screen. “What do you want?” he demanded, not sounding friendly. The background showed that he was standing in the ATV bay.

>   The confusing thing was that Simon knew there was no comm array in the caves where the ATVs were stored.

  “I’ve been having an interesting chat with our friend Simon,” Booth said.

  Nathan jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “If you want us there on time, you’d be better off not wasting my time.”

  Displeased with the cavalier treatment, Booth scowled. “Simon tells me there is no manuscript. He says that it burned up at the sanitarium.”

  “So?”

  “Did it?”

  Nathan cursed. “Simon doesn’t trust you, Booth. Obviously he has reason not to. He doesn’t want us trusting you either. So he’s going to lie to you about the manuscript and tell you it doesn’t exist so you’ll call the deal off. The way he sees it, he’s trading his life for all of ours.”

  “Then you have the manuscript?”

  “Yes.” Nathan acted bored with the subject.

  “Show me,” Booth ordered.

  “Show me Simon’s still alive.”

  Cursing, Booth stepped back and waved to Simon. One of the Templar came closer and used a vidcam to capture his image.

  “He’s alive,” Booth said.

  “That could be a holo,” Nathan argued. “Have him say something.”

  Booth nodded at the big man, who immediately backhanded Simon in the face before he could get away.

  “He bleeds on demand,” Booth said smoothly.

  Nathan cursed Booth fluently.

  “I suggest you stop playing games with me,” Booth said. “Show me the manuscript if you have it, or I’m going to have Simon killed right here in front of you.”

  Nathan reached out of the cam’s view and pulled up a sheaf of papers. They looked old and authentic, not like the burned sheets Simon had found in the tube they’d recovered from the sanitarium.

  “I need to get moving if I’m going to make your deadline,” Nathan said. “Now, if there isn’t anything else?”

  Booth gave the command to break the comm connection and turned back to Simon.

  “It seems you can’t speak the truth any more these days,” Booth said. He nodded at the big man.