by Mel Odom
In short order, they loaded the first lorrie and worked on the second. The buttoncams picked up movement aboveground.
“Alert,” the suit’s AI said. On the HUD, a square melted down and showed a nearby street corner.
“Nathan,” Simon called.
“Got it, mate.”
“Carry what you have, and let’s get it loaded. Everybody out of the tunnel.”
Once everyone was out of the storeroom, Simon sealed the hatch, replaced the wall, and screwed it back into place. Sword in one hand, case of nutrient bars in the other, he headed back up the stairs.
Dawn remained hours away, so full dark lay over the city. The eternal pall of black smoke blocked out whatever moon there might have been.
“Load the lorrie,” Simon said. “If we can get out of here in one piece, that’s what we’ll do.”
Before the Templar had the loading finished, an amplified voice announced, “Stop what you’re doing and step away from the lorries.”
Simon’s team bristled with weapons. He sheathed his sword and held his hands up. “Everybody just relax.”
“It’s going to be hard relaxing,” Nathan said, “knowing we’re looking down gun barrels now.”
“This is Simon Cross,” Simon said. “I—”
“We know who you are,” a harsh voice replied. “Step away from the lorries.”
“I’ve got people who need this food.”
“That belongs to the Templar. To us.”
“Since when did the Templar own anything that they weren’t prepared to give to the first person they saw who needed it?” Simon asked. “My father, Lord Thomas Cross, taught me that we’re knights first and foremost. Our duty in this life is to make the burden of others easier to bear when we’re on the road together.” He pointed at the lorries. “That food is going to women and children who will otherwise starve without it.”
“That’s not our problem.”
“It should be,” Danielle said. “You should be embarrassed to call yourselves Templar.”
Not exactly what I would have said at this point, Simon thought ruefully. But he let it stand and waited to see how it would go over.
“High Seat Booth gave orders that you’re not to be allow—”
“Enough,” a deeper voice growled. “You’re givin’ me a headache, you are.” One of the Templar stood and walked out of the shadows. His armor was gray matte and olive, sleek and rounded. He carried a two-handed battle axe.
“Get back here, Sergeant Harstead.”
“No sir, I won’t,” Harstead replied. “Not when there’s hungry people waiting on those supplies. You won’t catch me taking food out of the mouths of babes and women. On nobody’s orders. Including the High Seat’s.” He laid his massive axe over his shoulder and looked back at the other Templar taking shelter there. “Is that how the rest of you want to handle your duties here?”
A chorus of nos rang out.
Simon’s gut unclenched a little.
Harstead turned back to Simon. “Is there anything else you’re gonna be needin’, Lord Cross?”
“No,” Simon said. “We’ve taken almost as much as we can carry, and we’ve overstayed. We’ve locked up inside. Thank you.”
“Have you got safe passage out of the city?”
“We’re going to find out. I’ve got armored vehicles waiting for me at the city’s edge.”
“Perhaps we could ride along,” Harstead volunteered. “We’ve got four armored units. If you get into a sticky wicket on your way out of the city, maybe we could lend a hand.”
“That would be appreciated. If you’re sure you’re not going to get into any trouble.”
“I’m a Templar, Lord Cross. Maybe some of these other men and women have forgotten what that is, but I haven’t. I knew your father. I would have died with him if I could have.”
“I’m sure he would have wanted you to live,” Simon said.
Harstead yanked a thumb over his shoulder at the first speaker. “That’s the High Seat’s cousin. We’ve noticed that a lot of positions have gone to Booth’s family within the House of late. This one has brains and is good with a sword, but he’s still in the process of learning to think for himself. Still busy kissing his cousin’s boots.”
“Keep a respectful tone, Harstead,” the younger man replied.
“I will, Lieutenant, just as soon as you give me something I can stomach, let alone respect.”
“You can’t just take over this patrol.”
“Do you really want to put it to a vote, Lieutenant?”
The officer was quiet for a moment. “No.”
“Good. Then I’ll let you come with us instead of tying you up and shoving you into the back of one of the vehicles.”
Behind his blank faceplate, Simon grinned. With the extra security, travel across the city would be safer, but it was still a long way to get through the city.
THIRTY-NINE
A painful slap woke Leah. Agony ripped through her face. She blinked through a haze of tears up at the monstrous demon above her. Automatically, Leah tried to grab her weapons and blast it, but she couldn’t move her arms. In fact, none of her moved. She’d been strapped naked to one of the modules in the machine.
The demon above her had an elongated head and a curved proboscis that looked as if it could strike through palladium alloy. The thin frame looked too weak to support the bulbous head.
“Are you awake now?” the demon demanded. It spoke English haltingly.
Leah didn’t reply.
A grin curved the demon’s lipless mouth. “You’re close enough.” It reached back and took out a collar. His thick fingers manipulated it for a moment, then it sprang open.
Leah fought as the demon encircled her neck with the collar. Vibrations and heat raced across her flesh as the device started working. She growled in helpless rage.
“Struggle,” the demon encouraged. “It only makes the inevitable more pleasant to watch.”
Pain screamed through Leah’s body. For a time, she heard her own screams, then she either went deaf or lost her voice. After a while, she passed out.
Leah stared at the featureless metal walls of the small room around her and struggled to remember how she’d arrived there. There were obvious gaps in her memory because the last thing she recalled was having the collar around her neck.
She raised a hand to her neck and felt nothing. More than that, instead of being naked, she wore her blacksuit again. She opened a comm-channel.
“This is Raven Leader. Does anyone read me?”
There was no reply.
“This is Raven Leader. Is anyone out there?” Anxiety ratcheted up inside Leah. For a moment, she thought a shadow drifted along the ceiling. She ducked, raised her left arm, and drew the Thermal Bolter and SRAC machine pistol from her holsters.
Her distorted reflection formed a large, fuzzy patch on the metal ceiling. Even when she recognized it, Leah didn’t lower her weapons. The sense of dread remained strong within her.
No door existed in the ceiling. She scanned the floor. No door existed there, either. How could she have entered a sealed room?
She stomped the floor, but it sounded solid. Unable to accept the fact that no opening existed in the room, she sheathed the Thermal Bolter and rapped the SRAC’s folding butt against the wall. She took a sounding every six inches.
When she’d made her way around the room along all four walls without finding anything, she took a break, calmed herself, and started from top to bottom. On the second wall she detected a hollow bong that let her know the area beyond wasn’t solid.
Trying not to get overly hopeful, Leah concentrated on the section of wall. She ran through the various light bands open to her goggles and finally discerned a hairline crack in the surface.
An image floated to her mind and she remembered the strange machine she’d discovered with the demons in the Apple store. Where had that gone? How had she gotten away from that?
Heat filled the ro
om till it felt like an oven. She placed her palm against the section and sprung the nanohooks that allowed her to cling to walls. Released, the hooks bit into the metal. She pushed a foot against the wall to gain leverage, then pulled.
The wall section creaked open reluctantly. Darkness filled the narrow opening behind it.
“Raven Leader,” a weak voice called over the comm-link.
Thank God. “This is Raven Leader,” Leah answered. “Who is this?”
“Geoffrey,” the voice responded. “Geoffrey Timms. I need help. I’ve been wounded.”
Geoffrey Timms was one of the younger men who had been assigned to the team.
“Stay calm,” Leah said. “Tell me where you’re at.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look around.”
“Some kind of room. Metal walls.”
“Do you remember how you got there?” Leah asked.
“No. I just woke up here.” Geoffrey broke into a fit of coughing. When he started speaking again, he sounded weaker. “I’m bleeding bad.”
“I’ll find you,” Leah said, even though she didn’t know how to manage that. She closed her eyes and thought. “Bang on the wall. Let me hear you.” She prayed that he was close by.
A moment later, thuds sounded behind the wall to her left, not the wall with the opening.
“Can you hear me?” Geoffrey asked.
In answer, Leah banged on the left wall. “I can. Do you hear me?”
“I do.” Geoffrey laughed in relief, but that quickly ended as another coughing fit started.
“Hang on,” Leah said. “I’ll find a way to find you.” She sheathed the SRAC and hauled herself into the narrow hole in the wall.
The darkness inside the short tunnel was complete. She couldn’t see anything. Now that she thought about it, though, she didn’t know where the light in the small room behind her had come from. Just as she thought that, the light went out.
Leah couldn’t tell how far she crawled. It didn’t make sense that it was far, but it seemed like forever. Her ragged breath sounded like a bellows in the confined space. It was worse because she couldn’t see. Her imagination filled the darkness with all kinds of demons. None of her suit’s light emitters worked.
“Geoffrey,” she called out because she didn’t want to be alone anymore, “are you still with me?”
“Yes. Barely.”
“Just hold on. I’ll be there soon.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“The way is confusing. Just keep talking to me.” The comm-link suddenly spat painful static into her ears. She almost ripped her mask off before it stopped. “Geoffrey?”
There was no answer.
“Geoffrey?” Leah crawled a little faster. She wondered if the demons had found him.
Then she reached the end of the tunnel. Her fingers brushed against it, then she put a palm against the smooth metal surface and found that it completely covered the end of the passageway.
Panic vibrated through her. She tried getting leverage against the end but couldn’t push hard enough. It didn’t make any sense that the passageway went nowhere.
Machinery hummed behind her and a light came on. When she glanced back the way she’d come, she saw that the other end of the passageway was now closed as well. Even worse, a series of spinning blades fired into motion and came inexorably toward her feet.
Desperate, she glanced around and spotted another wall section to her right. She slammed her palm against it, fired the nanohooks, and yanked the cover from the opening behind it. Hoping to jam the spinning blades coming for her feet, she spun the metal at them. Without pause, the blades turned the metal cover into confetti in a harsh buzz that deafened Leah.
“Leah!” Geoffrey called.
His communicatio came as a surprise. Leah had barely enough room to twist her body and pull herself inside. She imagined the blades were only fractions of an inch from her feet when she got clear.
“Leah!”
The blades stopped moving an inch or so from the wall. For a moment Leah had feared they were going to turn and pursue her. Instead, they blocked her return.
“Geoffrey,” Leah said. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
“That noise sounds horrible.”
“I know. It’s nothing.” Now. Leah crawled forward more and reached a ninety-degree turn to a tunnel that went straight up. She barely managed to negotiate the turn, then had to use the nanohooks to climb into the waiting darkness.
The opening slammed shut behind her.
“Geoffrey,” she called. There was no answer.
Leah found four more openings and two more deathtraps. She kept the turns in mind, mentally mapping the way, and believed she was at least headed in the direction of the thudding she’d heard earlier. It was impossible to know, however.
“Leah.” Geoffrey’s voice sounded weaker than ever when she heard it again.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Thought I’d dreamed you.”
“No.”
“I’ve been having a lot of weird dreams.”
“It’s probably fever.” Leah reached another dead end and wanted to scream in frustration.
“I’m cold.”
“Just hang on.” Carefully, Leah felt around the wall blocking her way, then the sides of the passageway. “Can you bang on the wall for me again?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
Leah listened intently. A moment later, she heard slow, weak thumping from below. She silently cursed the fact that she couldn’t see in the darkness even with the new eye and all the tech included in her suit.
“I hear you,” she said. “You sound closer.” She thumped the walls.
“So do you.”
“I’ll be there in just a few more minutes. Just hang on.” Leah slapped a palm against the bottom of the passageway and tried to shift a loose cover. Then her knee banged against the passageway and she heard the hollow boom. Excited, she pushed herself back down and slammed a palm against the surface there. A plate pulled away. Light dawned at the end of the tunnel some ten feet below.
“Leah?”
This time Leah heard Geoffrey’s voice over the comm-link as well as with her own ears. He was below.
“I hear you, Geoffrey. I’m almost there.”
She resisted the impulse to drop down feet first because she wouldn’t have been able to see what—and who—was inside the room until she was already there herself. She shoved her head and shoulders into the opening and crawled through. Blood, drawn by gravity, rushed to her head.
At the bottom, she looked around. The low-level light barely revealed the metal walls of the small room and the man lying on the floor. Blood gleamed dark and wet on the metal.
Geoffrey looked pale as he lay there. His eyes were burning hollows that struggled to focus on her. He kept both hands tight to his middle.
“Hey,” he said.
“Take it easy,” Leah said. “I’m going to help you.” She placed a hand on one side of the opening, then the other hand on the other side. When she had herself anchored, she slithered out and flipped to land on her feet.
“Can’t believe you found me,” Geoffrey croaked.
“I did.” She walked toward him.
“Do you have any water?”
Leah started to say no, then she felt the familiar weight of a water canteen at the back of her equipment belt. She handed the flask to the man.
“Go easy with that,” she admonished. “You look like you’re burning up with fever.” In the end, she had to help him. The odd thing was that even though she poured and Geoffrey drank, no explanation existed for why water pooled on the floor.
Then, as she watched, Geoffrey’s skin faded away and left only a skeleton behind. She’d poured the water through the open, ivory grin of a dead man.
Chilled, Leah recoiled and sealed the water flask. Depending on how long she was going to be trapped inside the maze, she needed to conserve water.
Mental
ly fatigued and emotionally wrought, Leah stared at the skeleton and wondered how it had gotten there. When she closed her eyes just a moment to rest them, she was unprepared for what faced her.
The skeleton had disappeared. She was once more back in the featureless room.
FORTY
T hey’re not going to like you being there,” Naomi said.
“Not at first,” Warren agreed. “But when they hear what I have to offer—”
“They’ll hate you even more. They’ll want to believe you, but some of them will still be afraid.”
“—they’ll hear me out.” At least, Warren hoped that was true. Two days had passed since he’d lost his refuge. He and Naomi had slept in squats while seeking out a Cabalist sept that he could influence. This morning they’d found one.
They were down in Piccadilly, sorting through the wreckage of flats and shops. Naomi had heard about some of the Cabalist groups gathering in the area. The one they’d found was on the sixth floor of a tenement building.
Guards posted at the perimeter challenged them. All three men were large, obviously chosen because of their size. Tattoos covered their faces and exposed arms, necks, and chests. Their armor had been fashioned from demon beasts, pieces of hide stitched together with sinew because artificially made thread or fishing line would have robbed what little arcane energy they possessed.
“What do you want?” The speaker was a gaunt-faced young man with a Mohawk. His face was discolored by the red tattoos he bore. He held a machete in one hand and had another slung over his shoulder.
“I’m Warren Schimmer. I need to speak to the Voice of your sept.”
The three guards swapped knowing looks.
“Our Voice won’t want anything to do with you,” another man said. Blood leaked from wounds in his head where he’d recently grafted three small demons’ horns. They were from a flying demon no larger than a spider monkey, but which had the ability to throw off waves of electricity.