by Mel Odom
“Sumerisle.” Danielle’s voice held a note of reverence.
The House of Sumerisle always found favor and respect among the Templar. The last Grand Master, Patrick Sumerisle, died fighting the demons on All Hallows’ Eve. Simon had known and respected the man.
“So he’s one of the royal nephews,” Simon said.
“Grandnephew or great-grandnephew is more like it,” Danielle replied. “He’s only seventeen.”
Simon shook his head. “What were the two of them, as young as they were, doing out here on their own?”
“We were that young,” Danielle said softly. “Not so long ago.”
“They might not have been out here on their own,” Walter added. “This could be all that’s left of a group.”
That sobering thought struck Simon sharply. He didn’t like wondering if there were a line of dead Templar that led to this place.
“Simon.” The voice came from one of the Templar outside the Taylor & Loftus building.
“Yes.”
“There’s movement inside the building.”
“What?” Simon stood.
“Zombies, mate,” the Templar said tensely. “The parking garage is full of them.”
They decided to leave the Templar trussed up in the spider webbing. Walter and Kevin carried the unconscious warriors slung over their shoulders while Simon and Danielle led the way back up the stairwell.
By the time they reached the second landing, the zombies had crowded in after them. Hideous and disfigured, the zombies lurched after their prey, bearing down on them inexhaustibly.
Blood covered the zombies in the stairwell and promised all manner of infectious diseases with any contact on an open wound, eyes, nose, or mouth. Remnants of clothing clung to them and hinted at what they might have been before their lives had been snuffed out and their bodies claimed by the demonic spell that brought them back.
Simon pointed the Spike Bolter and fired. The palladium rounds chewed through undead flesh and tore limbs, heads, and pieces from the bodies. He swung his arm like club and battered them out of the way. His pace slowed from steps to inches.
“Simon,” Danielle said, “my Shockwave is prepped.”
With a lunge, Simon grabbed one of the zombies in the midsection. He felt its flesh tear and its ribs snap as he held it. The undead creature flailed at him with decomposing fists that shattered against his faceplate.
“Do it,” Simon ordered.
The Shockwave was another handheld weapon the Templar carried in their arsenal. It operated on HARP (Harmonic Resonance Projection) technology, which had been developed under Templar guidance. HARP technology used electronic and sonic generators to emit a static field that conducted sonic waves.
Designers intended HARP technology to help in mining operations and search and rescue efforts. The sonic waves generated by the HARP blasters shattered nonorganic items by altering frequencies too fast for those things to survive. Wood, stone, and steel items in the path of the sonic blast ruptured under the assault. Caves survived the punishment because they were too large to lose their integrity. But loose debris went to pieces.
Living matter—plants and animals—had their neural systems disrupted. Plants sometimes went into shock, but animals and humans blacked out under the assault.
Danielle triggered the Shockwave. It was a cut-down version of the HARP rifle. In order to get the reduced size, the designers had sacrificed room for the electromagnetic pulse gatherers and capacitors which had lengthened recharge time considerably. The area of effect was also cut back to fifteen to twenty feet and there was no way to aim the weapon. It discharged in a radius burst that went in all directions.
The Shockwave clicked loudly, then hummed. A moment later it fired. The sound even affected the ambient light. Particle waves became brighter and blistered in a blinding blue-white flash.
Simon’s HUD adjusted to the light assault immediately. He experienced only a momentary discomfort and blank screen because the suit’s AI was programmed to compensate for the Shockwave’s effect. His vision returned in time to see what happened to the zombies.
In life, the zombies had been composed of living organic matter. In death, that composition changed. Blood no longer flowed and the body’s internal rhythms were silenced. Inert corpses suffered the same fate as inorganic materials struck by the HARP waves.
The zombies froze like statues for a moment. The ones behind those affected by the Shockwave kept struggling to get to their intended victims. A moment later, the zombies shook and quivered, then flew to pieces and disappeared as they were reduced to energy waves. Some of those dead a short time were only blown back into the others.
Simon’s right hand suddenly grasped nothing but empty space. He surged forward at once and barreled into the next line of zombies. The Spike Bolter leaped and howled in his hand. Palladium rounds chopped the zombies to pieces. He lowered his shoulder and slammed into the knot of undead trying to fill the vacuum at the doorway.
He tripped over a tangle of dead limbs and rolled forward to take advantage of his weight and momentum. Adroit as an Olympic athlete or not, the armor still had a lot of inertia to account for.
The undead buried him before he could get to his feet. Their combined weight threatened to crush him to the ground.
These are the quick ones, Simon thought. Even though he was outnumbered and outmassed, potentially looking at death, a savage joy hummed to life inside him. No matter what happened, no matter how the fight ended up, he knew he was where he was supposed to be. He’d trained all his life for the battles ahead of him.
He pushed himself up to his knees with his right hand. The suit strained to comply. The undead horde pressing him down shifted. He brought the Spike Bolter up in front of his face and squeezed the trigger.
A hole opened up in the undead flesh. He shoved himself toward it as the panoramic view through the HUD showed nothing but zombies around him. On his feet now, he whirled to the right with the Spike Bolter roaring in his fist. He reached for the sword sheathed between his shoulders and raked it free.
Four feet of gleaming steel sprang free in his hand. Since he’d learned to walk, his father had taught him the way of the sword. Bladework came as naturally as breathing.
He spun back to the left and hacked through the zombies with a horizontal slash that sliced through undead flesh and bone almost effortlessly. As he drew the sword up over his left shoulder to ready a backhand slash, he stepped into the crush of his enemies and brought up the Spike Bolter.
The HUD marked the three Templar in the building with him, and it marked the four Templar that had started in from the underground parking garage’s street entrance. The Spike Bolter yammered as he blasted down the enemies to his left. With a hard pull, he yanked the sword from his shoulder in another level swing that emptied the ranks of the zombies to his right.
“Team Two, Team Three,” Simon ordered. “Hold your positions. We’re coming out.”
The four advancing Templar pulled up and retreated. “Then come on,” Drake said irritably. “You look like you’re infested down there.”
FIVE
W hen Simon looked to check their progress, Danielle, Walter, and Kevin came from the basement door. Walter and Kevin added their own small-arms fire.
Walter’s Scorcher set zombies on fire as if they were dry tinder. The magical elements of the Greek Fire that fueled the hand flamethrower disrupted the control of the zombies’ master. They lumbered and lurched in all directions, no longer intent on anything except the orange and red tongues of flame that consumed them. Kevin carried a Spike Bolter like Simon’s, and he used it with deadly skill.
In the darkness, Danielle’s Molten Edge sword burned through the zombies. It was a solid shaft of yellow and orange coal. The metal hilt and spine of the sword gave the eldritch energy its shape. The fiery blade left ash and cauterized flesh in its wake. Several of the zombies caught on fire and spread the flames to their mates.
But as many as the Templar
destroyed, more arrived. The trap had been well set and well stocked.
Simon saw a Jaguar XKE-2 overturned ahead of him. He fought his way toward it. He holstered the Spike Bolter and chopped through the zombies between him and the sports car. When he reached the car, he caught hold of the bumper and yanked once to test it. Satisfied that it would hold for his purposes, he set himself.
“Anchor right foot,” he ordered.
Immediately the suit’s AI changed configurations and fired a spike into the concrete from the ball of his right foot. Only the ground anchor allowed him to use the suit’s full strength to accomplish his goal. Otherwise the XKE-2’s mass would have been too great for him to manage.
He spun and pulled with all the armor’s strength. Metal shrieked in protest as he yanked. When a suit of armor was made, no two suits ended up the same. They were designed to enhance a Templar’s natural abilities. Bigger, stronger Templar ended up even bigger and stronger.
At six feet five inches tall and built broad and thick, Simon was a human tank to begin with. In the armor, he became a wrecking machine. It would have been impressive if some of the demons weren’t bigger and stronger.
The XKE-2 shrilled across the pavement as it came around. Simon pivoted on the anchored foot and threw the car. The vehicle didn’t go far, no more than thirty or forty yards, but it cleared the way of zombies almost to the entranceway of the parking garage.
“Go,” Simon shouted as he pulled the Spike Bolter free again. “Danielle, you’ve got the point.”
“Understood.” Danielle sheathed her Molten Edge and pulled the twin Spike Bolters she carried on her hips. The pistols roared as she picked up the pace to an open field run in the wake of the thrown XKE-2. “Stay on me. Stay on me.”
Walter and Kevin, their burdens slung over their shoulders, followed Danielle. Their pistols fired continuously.
“Retract anchor,” Simon said.
“Retracting anchor.”
His foot came free of the pavement. He pushed himself forward and drew his Spike Bolter as he covered the retreat. The remaining zombies hurled themselves in pursuit. The palladium rounds mowed them down like a scythe. When they got close enough, he cut them down with the sword.
Simon fought and spun to meet the challengers. With the HUD guiding the way, he never lost his sense of direction or his teammates’ positions.
With a lithe leap, Danielle reached the top of the overturned XKE-2. Spinning in a circle, she fired into the advancing ranks of the zombies. They went to pieces all around her.
“Regroup,” she yelled. “My Shockwave’s recharged.” She holstered one of the Spike Bolters.
Walter and Kevin took cover on the lee side of the XKE-2 as Simon reached them. Almost immediately, the blue-white burst of the Shockwave blast took shape around them. The zombies within fifteen feet—and the XKE-2—vanished into displaced particles. The floor and ceiling remained because they were part of large structures.
Danielle landed effortlessly and swept her pistols toward the wave of zombies that separated them from the street entrance. Walter and Kevin were at her heels.
For a moment, Simon thought they were going to make it easily, then he saw the winged demons approaching the teams waiting in the streets. He didn’t know if Leah Creasey was on-scene, but from what he knew of her, he felt certain she’d be nearby.
“Leah!”
Atop the building across the street, Leah saw the demons swoop down from the dark sky. They hadn’t been there a moment ago.
And that means someone called them in, she thought grimly. Then she heard Simon’s voice echoing through her comm-link.
“I see them,” she told him calmly. She sighted down the Cluster Rifle and took aim at the demon closest to the Templar teams holding positions on the street.
At first glance, Leah had thought the flying demons were Blood Angels. Those things were among the deadliest in the demon hierarchy.
These looked like pterodactyls from the natural history books Leah had studied as a girl. Back then, she’d loved the idea of dinosaurs and blamed it on Steven Spielberg’s movies. Velociraptors had been great movie monsters, but they paled in comparison to the demons in London these days.
Instead of triangular heads, these flying demons had massive wedge-shaped heads that looked like they were all mouths and teeth. Horns clustered on the demons’ heads over their eyes and along the backs of their necks. No lips framed the curved mouths. They were harsh, razor-edged beaks. The eyes were long and the pupils filled them, a certain indicator that they were nocturnal predators. Bat wings sandwiched massive bodies that had four limbs and tails that doubled the demons’ length. Mottled dark scales covered them.
Four of the demons descended in a diamond shape on the unsuspecting Templar.
Leah heard Simon’s warning cry over the Templar frequency she monitored. She put aside her fear and anxiety for the Templar and concentrated on the shot.
The onboard computer built into the small backpack unit she wore fed information to her helmet. Her sighting ocular flipped into place over her right eye as she lined up the shot.
In less than a heartbeat, the computer adjusted for the demon’s descent rate, the prevailing winds, the light, and the distance. The ocular pulsed and turned Leah’s vision blood-red to let her know she had target lock.
Her finger caressed the Cluster Rifle’s trigger long enough to send a full salvo of missiles streaking toward the demon. The Templar were only then reacting to Simon’s frantic instruction.
Coolly, Leah shifted targets before the first salvo struck the demon. The Cluster Rifle’s tri-barrel chugged as it rotated and fresh missiles were loaded. After acquiring her new target, she squeezed the trigger again as the first target was hit.
All the missiles sailed true and hammered the mark. Leah had come prepared for quick takedowns. The missile sequence loads were comprised of a sabot round designed to penetrate a demon’s hide and explode the secondary charge within, Greek Fire, and a shotgun blast of palladium flechettes to slice and dice.
The flying demon buckled in the air under the impact. The fletchettes opened gaping holes in the batwings and sliced through several of the smaller support bones. The wings turned to shredded meat. As the demon fell, the Greek Fire caught and it became a comet on the way to the ground. Only a few feet before the demon hit the ground, the sabot round exploded and blew a great hole in the center of its back.
Even then, when the demon hit the ground, it was still alive. It wobbled uncertainly on its back legs and focused on the Templar. The demon stood two feet taller than the Templar. Its serpentine neck lashed out as the wedge-shaped head split into a huge mouth.
The second demon was in freefall as well. Leah kept her attention focused on the two flying demons still in the air. Hopefully the Templar could handle them on the ground. The demons were more dangerous when they could streak in.
Unfortunately, she’d drawn the attention of the two surviving demons. They skirled high in the air, then flipped over like fast attack fighter jets and came screaming at her. Literally screaming. The noise was like fingernails on a chalkboard, and Leah’s audio receptors struggled to knock down the decibel level and provide her with auditory contact.
One of them opened its mouth just as her ocular flared red to let her know she had the target. Roiling flame twisted from the demon’s mouth and rained down on her. She hadn’t seen that coming.
Free of the zombies, Simon ran for the nearest demon. It had its back to him and struck savagely at the Templar in the street.
Without giving quarter, Simon ran toward the demon. He sheathed the Spike Bolter and took a two-handed grip on the sword. Some preternatural sense warned the demon of his approach. It swiveled its massive head and tried to turn. A belch of flame hissed out over Simon as he swung the sword.
“Warning,” the suit’s AI said. “Critical damage taken.”
Simon set himself, almost blind in the fire as the HUD sensors struggled to keep up wit
h the assault, and swung the sword. He didn’t aim for the demon’s head or neck, even though those were tempting targets, because they moved too much.
Instead, he cleaved through the demon’s spine. As long as a demon or demonspawn wasn’t undead, basic anatomy applied. Provided an attacker could sever the spinal column through the scaled hide, the damage would render the demon paralyzed.
The demon toppled, but it didn’t give up. It propelled itself forward with its front legs and managed to grab Simon’s left leg in its mouth.
“Warning,” the suit AI said in the calm female voice. “Structural integrity at risk.”
Although the armor was so form-fitting as to be unique, there were still hollow places. A Templar couldn’t gain weight without compromising his ability to fit into his armor, but weight loss was sometimes a problem during a campaign. The hollow spaces also created weak areas.
To neutralize those voids, the Templar smiths had created a special hygienic chemical “liquid” protein that filled in those areas and flowed all around the Templar’s body. That way if a Templar was in his armor for days or weeks at a time, the “liquid” massaged the body and skin, keeping both healthy. The fluid could also be appropriated by the suit’s AI and used to patch cracks and even holes from the inside in case of emergency.
It was also used to reinforce targeted areas to prevent damage from impact and crushing. Electrical impulses “hardened” the fluid in Simon’s leg and provided extra strength.
Ignoring the pain in his leg, Simon reversed his sword and thrust it into the demon’s eye all the way up to the hilt. The other end of the blade protruded through the demon’s head. Then Simon twisted the blade.
The demon quivered convulsively. Its jaws went slack and it dropped.
The demon still blazing, Simon put his foot on its head and freed his blade. The other demon toppled as he glanced up. But the HUD showed there were two more. Both of them closed in on one of the nearby rooftops. As he watched, one of them breathed fire onto the rooftop. In the same moment, a salvo of missiles struck the demon and knocked it from the sky.