by Mel Odom
“The zombies are losing us again.” Naomi sounded as petulant as a child.
“I know.” Warren stopped at the top of a promontory and glanced back. He had started with sixty zombies, all pulled from graves inside London at the beginning of his long trek. Now he had less than forty.
He’d robbed one of the older graves. The most recent interment there had been over eighty years ago. It had been a potter’s field, a place where the unknown and indigent had been buried. No mortician had pumped them full of preservatives. These had rotted down to bone, wisps of hair, and leathery flesh. Over the course of the past few years, Warren had learned that zombies like that were more durable than those contaminated by formaldehyde and other chemicals.
“Come,” he ordered. He didn’t just speak. He pushed the command out to the zombies with the arcane energy he harnessed.
The zombies stopped what they were doing and turned toward him. The moonlight and starlight showed the gaping holes of their eye sockets and broken-toothed mouths. In that moment, they reminded Warren of a television special about prairie dogs he’d seen. The zombies had that same frozen attentiveness.
A moment later, they approached him. Several came out of the trees and the tall reeds that almost masked their presence. Snow flurries eddied about them as they stirred the white powder from the brush.
Marching zombies in wide open spaces was a lot like herding cats, Warren couldn’t help thinking.
“You should have waited to summon an army,” the quiet, melodious voice inside his head told him. “As I suggested.”
Warren didn’t argue. His exception to her plans had been obvious the moment he’d ordered the corpses from their graves back in London. He wasn’t as completely within her power as he’d been in Merihim’s. He didn’t flaunt that lack, though.
Her name was Lilith. She claimed to be Adam’s second wife. Mythologies mentioned her, and many of them claimed that she was the mother of demons, of vampires, and the dark things that hunted in the night.
Warren didn’t know all of her story. He’d inadvertently found her in an arcane book Merihim had ordered him to steal. The demon had forgotten about it, and Lilith took the credit for that. She was powerful, she’d told Warren, but she wasn’t ready to take on Merihim. Not yet.
The thought of fighting Merihim when the demon had easily twice bested him left Warren sickened and hammered by anxiety attacks. But even though he didn’t do everything exactly the way Lilith wanted, he knew he didn’t want to step completely away from her. He needed her protection.
When the last of the zombies joined the group standing at the base of the promontory, Warren pointed at three of them.
“Lead,” he commanded.
The three zombies fell out of the pack and marched toward Romney Marsh again. One of them promptly disappeared into the deep salt bogs that plagued the countryside. A moment later the zombie crawled back out of the muck. Not all of them reappeared from the bottomless bogs.
Warren waited a moment and followed, stepping in the footprints left by the zombies that didn’t sink. The snow continued to fall and swirl around them.
Naomi fell into step beside him. Warren felt her presence and her mood weigh heavily on him. After all this time, it was easy to read the woman.
“You haven’t told me what we’re out here looking for,” Naomi said.
“No.”
Naomi loosed a sigh of disgust that turned gray in the cold wind. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like I can tell anyone.”
Warren looked at her and thought again that bringing her was a problem.
“She’s going to be trouble,” Lilith said. In an eddy of snowflakes, she was suddenly there walking beside Warren. She was taller than Naomi, almost as tall as Warren. Her milk-white complexion caused her to blend into the snow, and it almost made her black eyes and long black hair stand out. She wore a long, flowing dress with deep cleavage and wide sleeves. The cutting wind bothered neither her clothing nor her hair.
Naomi couldn’t see her because she wasn’t there. Not in physical form, at least. She manifested so that Warren saw her, but no one else. Warren still wasn’t sure if that resulted from the book or the silver hand.
“Warren,” Naomi said. “Did you hear me?”
“You shouldn’t have brought her,” Lilith went on.
“I heard you,” Warren said, and the answer sufficed for both women. Neither was happy with his response.
“If you’re not going to trust me, why did you bring me?”
“I brought you because I felt I needed you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is bloody asinine.”
Lilith smiled, and moonlight and shadows stippled the cruel expression. “I told you that she would be trouble. Better to leave her now. Or kill her.”
The thought had crossed Warren’s mind. Violent solutions to problems tended to be normal for him these days. Before the Hellgate’s opening and the arrival of the demons, that had never been the case. He’d run from every fight he’d ever faced. As a result, nearly everyone he’d trusted had taken advantage of him.
“This is not asinine,” Warren said. But he felt it was because Lilith hadn’t told him what they’d come this far for, either. She’d only told him that he needed to come. “There’s something out here.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I feel it.” Warren lifted his metal hand. “In here.”
Naomi started to say something, then she glanced at the hand and closed her mouth. He’d already proved much more adept at the arcane forces the demons wielded than her. Now that he had a new hand, his power had taken on new turns that he hadn’t had access to before.
“All right,” she said finally. She pulled her long coat more firmly around her. “But I hope we find it soon.”
Another of the zombies dropped into one of the unseen bog holes barely covered by ice. The sharp crack sounded just before the zombie plunged into the black water. This one didn’t come back.
Only a little farther on, gray smoke plumed against the dark, star-filled sky. The feeling that pulled Warren lay in that direction as well.
Lilith walked beside him again. “You’ll want to hurry,” she stated calmly. “You’re being followed.”
THREE
S imon Cross hated what he was about to do. The whole performance was unfair. His victim—and he saw no other term that fit—didn’t have a chance. The only good thing about it was that death would come quickly.
It’s meat, he told himself. You’ve got to make meat for the others. They’re depending on you.
The doe stood less than five feet away. She scraped at the snow with one delicate hoof till she exposed a few tufts of grass that weren’t quite dead. The earth didn’t die immediately after the coming of winter. It wavered and clung to life.
Other deer dotted the hillside. They worked the ground with their hooves and muzzles as well. Several of the does were heavy with fauns that would be born in the spring. That, at least, was promising.
Provided we don’t eat this herd into extinction, Simon amended.
That was a very real threat with the way things were going these past few months. The hydroponics systems back at the redoubt that he’d chosen as their fortress weren’t keeping up with the demand of the burgeoning numbers of people living there. Enlarging the redoubt and building more hydroponics tanks took time and materials.
One of the main problems was that the population at the shelter continued to grow. In addition to survivors whom the Templar were still bringing out of the wreckage of London and the suburbs, babies were being born. Simon couldn’t believe that anyone would have children given the threat of the demons in the world. But it happened.
Focus, he told himself.
The doe ate the tender shoots.
For a time after he’d left London and the Templar lifestyle because he’d lost faith in the existence of demons, he’d been a guide
in South Africa. He had learned to track and hunt animals. That had been an honorable profession. His skills as a Templar had made the vocation a natural fit for him.
Primarily, though, he’d guided people who’d only wanted to record video of the animals. His fellow guide, Saundra McIntyre, hadn’t liked killing. He’d liked Saundra enough, and the money had been good enough, that he hadn’t often pursued trophy-hunting guide work.
But then the animals he’d sometimes hunted had had an even chance against him. His strength, speed, and instincts had been matched up with theirs. He hadn’t taken any part in the “canned” hunts that went on there. Hunting animals that had been fed and trained to live in certain areas wasn’t hunting. Those animals had been slaughtered.
They were taken for trophies, Simon reminded himself. These aren’t going to be trophies. These are going to feed people.
He knew his argument was right, and the necessity was there. But it still didn’t feel good to do what he was about to do. Even worse, he believed this kind of “hunting” brought only disgrace to the armor he wore.
Dressed in the dark blue and silver Templar palladium shell, Simon knew he could weather a direct hit from a main battle tank’s long gun. With his strength and speed augmented, he was superhuman, stronger and faster than anything the deer had ever before faced.
Except demons, Simon reminded himself. If they’ve been preyed upon by demons, they’ve seen creatures far worse than me.
“Simon,” Nathan Singh called over the suit’s comm.
“Here,” Simon replied.
“Are we going to do this, mate?” Nathan Singh was one of the other Templar currently involved with the hunt. “Not that I’m in any hurry to start the carnage of When Humans Attack, but waiting around isn’t going to make it any easier.”
Simon took a deep breath. “I know.”
“Then let’s be about it and get on home.”
Home.
Simon heard that term resonate in his mind. It was a good thought, but he didn’t even dream about that anymore. All real possibility of the world going back to anything normal was certainly past the end of his years.
“All right,” Simon said. “Count them down as we take them. Only as many as we need. The killing stops when we reach our quota.”
Grimly, he hefted the short sword in his right hand. He wore his Templar blade down his back. He wouldn’t defile it on hunting the deer. Nor would the other Templar. They’d all forged plain, steel blades, good quality, but not blessed as their righteous weapons were.
“Do it.” Simon shifted into motion. He streaked for the nearest doe, one of those they’d marked from the herd. She never heard him coming. His sword pierced her side and split her heart before she knew death was on her. He yanked his sword from her body as her legs buckled and she fell.
Fast as he’d been, Danielle counted her kill before his. “One,” she said.
“Two,” Simon echoed.
“Three,” Boyd Lister said.
And Nathan, almost on Boyd’s heels, breathed, “Four.”
By that time the deer herd broke into a run. They flitted and bounded across the snow-covered terrain. Muscles bunched and exploded into motion as the deer fled for their lives.
The “hunting” continued unabated, as did the relentless countdown.
In less than three minutes, it was over. Feeling sickened and disgusted, Simon watched the herd race to safety. They headed south and west of London. Everything that wanted to live these days headed in that direction.
Inside the armor, Simon had a full 360-degree view of the nearby terrain. He saw the corpses of the deer lying behind him. The kill zone, according to the measurements provided by the suit’s onboard AI, was less than a quarter mile long.
Simon tried to tell himself that it wasn’t seventeen deer that lay dead on the ground. It was over a ton of red meat that people back at the shelter needed.
He leaned down and grabbed a handful of snow to clean the sword blade. Crimson slush dripped to the ground, but gradually the sword was clean. He sheathed it along his leg and reached down for the carcass of his last victim. Slinging the deer’s body over his shoulder, hardly noticing over three hundred pounds of deer, he walked back to the center of the kill zone.
They strung the deer up from trees, and the bodies hung there like obscene fruit. All of the Templar knew how to kill demons. They’d been trained to do that from the day they’d taken their first few steps. But few of them had known how to field dress a kill. Simon had had to teach most of them.
Danielle and three others stood guard while Simon, Nathan, and the other four Templar gutted the deer. Simon worked quickly. Steaming entrails piled at his feet.
“Warning,” the onboard AI gently interrupted. “Perimeter invasion imminent.”
Simon shifted his attention to the HUD and studied the approaching shapes. They were long and lean. Before the demons had invaded the world, he felt certain he would have known what they were immediately. Now there were too many opportunities for him to be wrong. Even four years into the invasion, they hadn’t managed to identify all of the demons because new ones kept arriving.
“Identify invaders,” Simon instructed.
“Canis lupus,” the female AI voice responded.
“Wolves,” Danielle said.
Simon watched the shapes come closer to the Templar. Normal wolves couldn’t offer a threat. Their claws and teeth would never penetrate the armor. But creatures didn’t always remain the same after the demons were through with them. The shambling corpses that crawled from graveyards to attack proved that.
Nathan stood nearby in his dark gray armor trimmed in red. At five feet eleven, he was six inches shorter than Simon and considerably lighter because he wasn’t as broad in the shoulders. He wore a gunfighter mustache, had short-cropped black hair, and had the tattoo of a dragon from shoulder to elbow on his left arm.
“Think they’ll attack?” Nathan asked. His faceplate remained impenetrable and blood-red, so dark in the moonlight that only red highlights now and again hinted at the color.
“No,” Simon answered quietly. Their voices couldn’t be heard outside the suits, so the wolves wouldn’t know for certain that they were human. “They’re just hungry. Maybe curious.”
“It’ll be better if they don’t attack. I don’t feel like killing anything else.” Nathan’s voice sounded hollow. Patches of dried blood stood out on the armor.
Simon silently agreed and turned his attention back to the next deer. He used a short knife to open its belly. “According to the sec stats, the wolf population in the area has increased since the time we moved into the redoubt. The jury’s still out on whether they’re increasing through reproduction or being crowded into the region by the expansion of the Burn.”
“Does growth of the wolf population mean anything?”
“There was a time back in the early part of this century that the gray wolf had to be reintroduced into Europe. Civilization had almost rendered them extinct.”
“But the predator population is growing again.”
“In just four years since the Hellgate opened,” Simon agreed. “Things are going to be even more different a short time from now. If the deer population thins, the wolves may decide that human flesh is tasty.” He concentrated on his blade and tried not to think about the ramification of what he was talking about. “If they do, it’s going to be even harder for escapees from London and the suburbs to survive out here. But—given the paradigm we’re seeing here—I’m wondering if that increase is everywhere.”
“You’re wondering that if the predators here—the natural predators—are increasing in numbers, then what does it mean for the rest of the world?”
“Something like that,” Simon admitted.
“Maybe you should hope that the wolves develop a taste for demon flesh.”
“I am. I just don’t see it happening. I think the wolves and other predators like them may become more of a threat outside the Burn
. We’re not exactly the dominant species on this planet anymore.”
Although they hadn’t gotten any news in years, Simon knew that other Hellgates had opened around the world.
“You win a war one battle at a time,” Nathan said.
“I know. We just need an edge. Something that puts us on a more equal footing with the demons for a while.”
“Professor Macomber is still translating the Goetia manuscript. He and the other members of the geek squad seem to think they’ll come up with something.”
Professor Archibald Xavier Macomber was a specialist in dead languages. He’d also become something of demonologist as a result. Until the Hellgate had opened, he’d been a prisoner in an insane asylum in Paris. When those people had been released, they’d been turned out into the streets or killed outright.
Macomber had been one of the lucky few.
Someone connected to Leah Creasey had negotiated delivering Macomber to Simon. The professor had known Simon’s father, Thomas Cross, and about the Templar Order enough to know that no one there could turn away from the fight. For a time, Terrence Booth—the present High Seat of the House of Rorke among the Templar still living in the Underground—had taken Macomber prisoner. Simon had been forced to try to get Macomber back, and in doing so had gone head-to-head against Templar that he should have been treating as his brothers.
Macomber had reputedly found information in the ancient Goetia manuscript, written by King Solomon, that detailed how to build arcane and scientific defenses against the demons. In all the annals of the Templar, there had never been mention of such a thing.
Simon dared not get his hopes up too high regarding those defensive fields, but it was hard not to wish for the knowledge to exist. There were too many men, women, and children who depended on him. He couldn’t fail them.
“Let’s get back to work,” Simon said finally. “Danielle and the others will watch over us.”
“Maybe the wolves will be patient and wait for the leftovers.”