Hellgate London - Exodus Part 17

Leah's face softened. "I saw those armored warriors on tri-dee. One more soldier-or knight, or whatever-wouldn't have made a difference at St. Paul's Cathedral that night. You'd have died."

Maybe that would have been easier.But he didn't say anything.

The morning brought another mix of snow and fog. Simon lay under a camouflaged lean-to deep within the forest. Giselle and the other Templar had strung warblers around the site, security devices that tracked movement and pinged warnings directly to the armor. Warblers were harder to use in an urban setting.

Simon lay quietly curled up in a high-tech blanket he'd salvaged from the supplies they'd found among the survivors. There hadn't been much. The blanket gathered ambient light through patented NanoDyne technology and turned it into heat.

A dial on the blanket allowed him to choose the temperature. The trick was to leave it cool enough that it didn't melt the snow on the lean-to and warm enough that he'd be comfortable to sleep. The new wave of falling snow made that even harder. He lay quietly, almost warm enough to go back to sleep.

The fresh mantle of snow made the day look even brighter, but it also made it cleaner. The trees looked naked and vulnerable without their leaves, and the scattered evergreens stood out even more.

The Templar rotated standing watch. None of them asked Simon to take a turn, and he knew the oversight was deliberate and intended as an insult. But there was also the possibility that they didn't trust him. He didn't blame them for that. He didn't know if he'd trust him, either.

Despite the emotions warring within him and the desperate need to get up and do something, he managed to sleep most of the day. He kept a recovered broadsword and a Grenadier close at hand. When he got hungry, he ate some of the power bars Giselle had given him and drank water from a canteen.

The day pa.s.sed slowly, but it finally gave way to night.

Simon spent four days out in the forest. He traveled with the Templar and fought alongside them, too, encountering two more bands of Darksp.a.w.n that had attacked survivors. Mostly the Templar killed the demons where they found them and kept the survivors in motion toward the coast.

"We serve a rotation out here," Giselle told Simon one night. She'd been forced to suture a wound in his back because he couldn't reach it and Leah hadn't had the stomach for it. "Usually ten days out, then twenty days inside London. I think that's to give us a break from what's going on in the city."

"What's happening there?" Simon forced the pain from his mind. He'd learned to do that in his training. Giselle tied off another st.i.tch. She hesitated a while before speaking. "We're losing the city. The demons are hunting down everyone that hasn't left London. Exterminating them where they find them. Like vermin."

"Just the way the prophecies foretold." When Simon had been young, the Templar prophecies had frightened him. Then, as he'd grown older and bored with constant tales of bogeymen that he'd never seen, he'd stopped believing in them.

"Yes. But there's something the prophecies didn't talk about."

Simon waited, glancing over his shoulder as Giselle slid another piece of nylon into the eye of the curved suture needle.

"They're changing the land," Giselle said. "Starting at the h.e.l.lgates-" "h.e.l.lgates?" Simon hadn't heard the word before.

"That's what Lord Sumerisle calls the nexus points that vomited the demons into our world." "The name fits."

"Yes. Anyway, starting at the h.e.l.lgates, the demons have unleashed some kind of force-we still don't know if it's technology-based or magic-based, or some combination of the two-that is morphing the land. Buildings and roads are slagging down, becoming bleak, burned lands filled with lethal chemical pools and acid rain. The general consensus is that they're turning our world into something that resembles theirs."

"Terraforming?"

"That's a term that works as well as any other."

"That would tell us something about them." Simon considered the problem. "Does Lord Sumerisle have any scouts in that area?"

"Yes, but they run a high risk of discovery."

"The demons must already know they didn't kill all the Templar."

"They do. But the Templar who go there often get caught and killed. And we don't have a means of understanding what we've found there. Whatever we learn, it's going to be learned slowly. At great cost. I've no doubts about that."

Simon didn't, either.

"Have you decided?" Giselle asked as she put the medical equipment away. "Decided what?"

"What you're going to do. Whether you're going to stay or go."

Simon thought about not answering, but he knew that was only due to the rebellious side of him even his father hadn't been able to control. "I'm going to stay."

Giselle's helmet flared open. She gave him a tired smile. "Your father's House will have to agree to that, Simon. And, to be truthful, they may not."

That hurt. Simon tried not to show it. "They would be stupid not to let me stay."

"You already deserted them once." Giselle's voice was soft and held no accusation.

"I didn't desert."

"In their eyes, you did."

Simon knew that was true, and he knew arguing with Giselle wouldn't do any good. He'd have to make his case to his House when he got back to London. "Why would you stay?" Giselle asked.

To avenge my father,Simon thought bitterly. Then, just as quickly,Because I don't know anything else to do. But what he said was, "I was trained to be a Templar, Giselle. Maybe I never believed in the demons until the last week or so, but I've always believed in what the Templar stood for."

Giselle gave him a wan smile. "That's very good. I almost believe you. Keep working on it, though. Master Booth is High Seat of the House of Rorke and won't be as easy to convince. He didn't much care for you before you left."

Terrence Booth was four years older than Simon. When they'd been boys, they hadn't liked each other. There had always been compet.i.tion between them. When Simon had been fourteen, they'd fought.

Simon had beaten Booth even though Booth had had his full growth. It was something that people had talked about for ten years.

"I'll convince him."

"I hope that you do. But he likes you less now than when you broke his nose." Giselle leaned in and kissed Simon's cheek. "Get some sleep. We're heading back to London tomorrow night."

Simon pulled his shirt and coat on. The cold had been so severe that he'd started to go numb, which hadn't been a bad thing considering the wound. Once he was covered and his body started to warm, the pain returned.

"It seems the two of you have made up." Leah stood behind Simon only a short distance away. She leaned a hip against a tree. Dirt stained her face and matted her hair. Scratches scribed one cheek. She'd helped out in some of the battles, choosing to stay back and snipe targets. She had great skill with a rifle, and Giselle had grudgingly made use of that talent.

"I wouldn't go that far," Simon said. He gathered his gear and retreated to the lean-to, which was four inches deep in snow. "Get some rest."

"Why?"

"We're going to London tomorrow night." As Simon crawled under the thermo-blanket, he couldn't help wondering what the city looked like. Nightmares twisted through his mind all night, and he kept imagining the black rot that crept through London. When he got up the next day he felt more tired than when he'd gone to bed.

Nineteen.

BRIXTONMARKET LONDON, ENGLAND.

The Templar traveled to London by two specially modified Land Rovers that could have doubled as tanks with all the extra armor and guns that had been mounted on them. Getting back to the city took two days. Luckily they missed any demon patrols that might have been in the area.

Coming from the south, they arrived first at Brixton Market. The market was devoid of life. A few campfires burned in the distance. Wrecked cars, some overturned and some smashed and ripped by missiles and beam weapons, filled the streets and created an obstacle course between the buildings. The torn wreckage of a double-decker bus had been shoved through the front of a florist shop.

Seeing the wanton destruction in all directions, seeing buildings lying in ruin that had been so vivid in his mind from when he'd last seen them, shook Simon. It had been one thing to hear about all the carnage that had been unleashed, but it was quite another to view it.

"It gets worse," Giselle said. She sat at the Land Rover's wheel in her armor. She used the armor's imaging system as she drove rather than the vehicle's headlights. "In many parts of the city you'll find the bones of the dead, tossed there by whatever scavenger had finished with them. Most of the buildings in Greater London are damaged in some way, if not outright destroyed."

Guilt coiled tightly within Simon. He'd been raised all his life to help prevent this. Even though he knew his presence in the city wouldn't have prevented the destruction he saw lying all around him, he couldn't absolve himself of not being there. He felt ashamed in ways he'd never thought he could.

They continued on.

The damage grew more intense in Camberwell and Newington. Kensington Park was filled with burned, blackened trees that stood out against the white snow. In Newington, Giselle pulled the Land Rover into an underground garage that was guarded by a group of Templar.

"We'll have to walk from here," Giselle said. "Vehicles draw out the demons inside downtown London. And gasoline is a problem. Once we use up what few stores we have access to, there probably won't be any more fuel. Some of the smiths in the Underground are developing power cells to replace the need for gasoline. Still, the conversion takes time."

Settling his pack over his shoulder, trying to find a position where it didn't chafe his wound so badly, Simon fell into step behind Giselle. The Templar walked in a single file through the tumbled-down buildings and wrecked vehicles.

Every now and again, Simon spotted wary-eyed people watching them from the ruins.

"The survivors," Giselle said quietly. "Usually, as long as you're in numbers, they won't attack you. But after days with little or no food, they'll attack and take what they need. It's not about nationality for them anymore. It's about territory and survival."

Simon spotted a few of the groups that had small children. "Doesn't anyone take care of them?" he asked.

"How?" Giselle's voice sounded tired. "There's food in the city."

"Going after it only makes them targets for the demons. Bait in a trap. It's better if they leave. The Templar council hopes the civilians leave. That would free us up somewhat on our own course of action."

"The French aren't exactly happy with all the refugees that are piling up on their sh.o.r.es." Simon had heard a lot of resentment about the situation after he'd landed in Paris and made his way to the English Channel.

"Can you think of another thing to do?" Giselle's tone challenged him.

Simon looked away from her and at the dark cloud that hovered over London. "No." "Then until someone can think of something else, that's the plan."

Simon followed Giselle through the streets and alleys of Newington. Full dark had descended upon the city. All of the electric lights were out, and if there were any oil lamps still to be had, no one lit them.

He'd never seen London that dark, though he had imagined it as a child when he'd read about the German night attacks on the city in World War II.

They hunkered down across Elephant and Castle Street from the tube station house. The house was a two-story stone box with arched windows. Some time in the past the structure had been painted dark red, but the paint was blistered and peeling from weapons fire or acid. The windows had been broken out and bodies littered the sidewalk in front of it.

The street had been named for a pub that had been built sometime in the 1700s. It had been rebuilt twice in the 1800s. The name had come from the Indian elephant and the howdah carried on its back, which had looked a little like a castle to early British travelers. But the symbol had been adopted by the Cutlers' Company, which carried the image on their coat of arms. Later it was used by the Royal African Company for the slave trade the Stuarts had taken part in.

"They took out the subways a few years ago," Giselle said as she eyed the street. "It would have been to our advantage if they'd left them."

Simon silently agreed. His father had brought him to the area when he was a boy, familiarizing him with all of London the way Templar were supposed to do with the sons and daughters that would join them as knights. Simon could remember using the underground pathways, called subways in Britain while the Americans called their tube trains by that name, to get across the busy street. Now the streets were more European, featuring street corners and pedestrian crosswalks.

Back then, when the choice had been made to rebuild the Elephant and Castle area, city planners had felt the subways were too unsafe. Simon would have gladly taken his chances with muggers instead of demons.

Simon carried the Grenadier. He'd sheathed the sword down his back. He sat and listened, knowing that was what Giselle was doing.

Every now and again, the wind carried the sound of screams and roars, and the stench of dead things.

"One at a time, then," Giselle whispered. She led the way, using the armor's speed to get her across the street quickly.

Another Templar went next, following the order that Giselle had prescribed. Then Simon ran across with the cl.u.s.ter rifle in his arms.

He took up a position inside the tube station. The moonlight penetrated the gloom just enough to show the debris that had been left by looters and battles that had been fought there. Vending machines lay overturned on the floor. More bodies lay sprawled. The reek of death filled the interior so strongly that Simon had to open his mouth to breathe.

The rest of them crossed the street without incident, but a gliding shadow high in the air attracted Simon's attention. He stood behind one of the broken windows that left him with a clear field of fire.

The movement drew his eyes naturally, and the Grenadier followed. As he watched, a Blood Angel landed on the side of one of the buildings across the street. The demon clung there like a locust or a bat, looking obscene and predatory. Moonlight glistened across the leathery wings.

Simon kept the Blood Angel in his sights but didn't move his forefinger into the trigger guard. He'd been trained not to do that until he was ready to fire.

A moment later, the Blood Angel pushed away from the building, spread its bat-like wings, and took flight. It disappeared almost immediately without a sound.

As he turned around, Simon noted that even the Templar looked relieved. No expression showed on their faceplates, but their body language revealed it.

"They don't come alone," Giselle whispered. "That's one thing you can always count on."

They skirted the vending machines, which had long since been emptied, and the bodies. Simon grimaced when he saw that the corpses had been robbed. He doubted that the demons would have any use for human money, but he supposed there might have been some purpose for wanting personal possessions.

The Elephant and Castle station didn't have an escalator. They took the steps down to the underground rail.

Over half of London's tube system was aboveground. The rest of it was buried in the underground. There were two different levels of underground rail. The subsurface tubes were constructed using the cut-and-cover method, by digging a fifteen-foot trench into the earth, then covering it with concrete.

The Elephant and Castle station connected to the Bakerloo Line, which was one of the first to be constructed as a deep-level line. It had been bored using a tunneling shield and ran sixty feet underground for the most part. Except for when it nipped back to level ground here and there. Cut stone and iron rings framed the narrow tube line. Deep-level lines were smaller than subsurface lines, and they used smaller trains.

The Templar made their way around in the dark easily with their infrared imaging, but Simon couldn't see much. He didn't like having to rely on them to guide him, but he knew using the flash in his pack would give away their position. His imagination kept seeing demons that reached for him out of the darkness all around them.

"Place your hand on my shoulder," Giselle said.

Simon found her after a moment and did as she suggested. He still stumbled over debris and b.u.mped up against train cars that didn't seem to quite be on the tracks.

"What about the electricity through the tracks?" Simon asked.

"All the grids are down inside the city. The power stations were some of the early targets the demons took down."

Simon didn't ask where they were going. He already knew, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

Only a few minutes later, Giselle stopped. Simon felt her shift and knew that she was reaching over her head. A purple light glowed briefly in the palm of her mailed fist.

Then a section of the wall slid away. Simon couldn't actually see it happen in the darkness, but he knew from experience what the terrible grinding noise was. He felt Giselle start forward, so he followed her.

A moment later, Giselle halted. The ma.s.sive wall section behind them slid shut with a hollowboom. "Speak your name," a mechanical voice challenged.

Simon heard Giselle's helmet flare open in the claustrophobic quiet of the room where they stood. He removed his hand from her shoulder. They were in one of the hidden checkpoints leading to the London Underground-the secret Underground that no one but Templar knew about.

When the city planners had first begun building the Underground as a means of travel under the city after so many of the people moved from the farms and the rural lands, Templar had been inside their organizations. The Templar had sworn to always protect the land and the city because their prophecies had shown that London would one day be in danger.