Hellgate London - Exodus Part 22

This time, though, Simon tracked the rocket back to its source. "Mark target," he told the onboard computer system.

"Target marked. Designation confirmed."

Immediately, crimson crosshairs formed around the demon nearly a hundred yards farther down the tube tunnel.

Unfortunately, the Darksp.a.w.n wielding the rocket launcher had a better view this time. The rocket struck one of the Templar and left him lying in a pool of twisted and slagged metal.

Rushing forward, Simon scooped up his fallen Spike Bolter and sped for his quarry. A knot of Darksp.a.w.n blocked his forward progress. Only a few feet in front of them, Simon leaped into the air. Without the armor he could have performed such a maneuver, but with it, the move was even stronger.

Simon sailed a few feet over the heads of the Darksp.a.w.n, flipped, and landed on his feet hard enough to crack the cement floor underfoot. Even flipping through the air, the HUD had remained locked on the target and kept Simon oriented.

He ran, feeling the actuators and servos kick in, adding their own response to the sheer, naked strength that drove him. Adrenaline pounded through his system, and he knew better than to let it take over. But he didn't have much choice.

All the years of practice he'd had in the armor hadn't prepared him for how he felt while he was using the full prowess of the armor. Despite the practice he'd had, he couldn't control his body.

He wondered if his father had suffered from the same reactions. Had Thomas Cross suffered from the enthusiastic antic.i.p.ation that he now felt? Somehow Simon didn't think so. His father was the most competent and complete man he'd ever known.

But he's dead, isn't he?The thought tore through Simon's mind like a palladium spike or a Prayer of Conflagration. He felt his heart accelerate again. He wasn't afraid to die. It was what he'd trained to do his whole life. And yet...

"Accessing stim kit," the armor's...o...b..ard ent.i.ty said. "Standby for anxiety alteration."

"No," Simon said, knowing that he just hadn't acclimated to the suit and the situation. No one could have truly prepared for this. Anxiety, under the circ.u.mstances, was understandable. "Override programming." He added the pa.s.sword.

By that time he was closing on the demon with the rocket launcher. The Darksp.a.w.n glared at Simon as it struggled to feed another rocket into the breech. A demon stood nearby, this one armed with a flexible curved horn hooked to a blob of reddish-purple moss on its back.

The horn started spewing liquid fire and smoke in Simon's direction. In the next instant, intense fire covered him.

Even with the special armor, Simon knew he couldn't last long. The NanoDyne tech hardwired into the armor as well as the spells weren't inexhaustible. The defense systems dropped on the readout, spiraling downward now.

The HUD automatically switched from light-multiplier mode to thermographic display. The program was so sensitive that Simon could differentiate between tongues of flame that were a few degrees of heat apart.

"Warning," the HUD's feminine voice said, "defenses nearing critical-"

With two more strides, Simon burst free of the flamethrower's superheated blast. He leveled the Spike Bolter at the demon wielding the flamethrower. Instead of aiming at the Darksp.a.w.n's face, though, Simon aimed at the fuel reservoir on its back.

He squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession.

The palladium spikes both embedded in moss, in what he hoped was the fuel reservoir. In the next instant, the mossy blob exploded, creating a fireball that washed over Simon.

"Warning," the HUD called out. "Defenses now approaching critical levels."

Staggered by the concussion, Simon peered through the haze of smoke and distorted vision caused by the HUD's attempt to find focus. He stared in the direction he'd last seen the Darksp.a.w.n with the rocket launcher. Heat flooded the armor even as the cooling systems cycled through the liquid cushion. Smoke hung thickly in the tube tunnel. No wind existed to blow it away.

Movement within the depths of the smoke caught Simon's eye. The HUD marked it as well, automatically adjusting to bring the scene into clarity.

The demon swept the readied rocket launcher up. Simon leaped, holstering the Spike Bolter and closing both hands around the sword hilt. Landing near the Darksp.a.w.n, Simon whipped the sword down at an angled slashing attack. The blade sparked as it collided with the rocket launcher, then the rocket launcher shattered and the sword's edge bit into the demon's shoulder and sliced through its chest.

Squawling in pain and fury, the Darksp.a.w.n fell back. It threw the broken rocket launcher away and reached for the pistols belted at its waist.

Pressing his advantage, Simon thrust his sword before him and followed the point through the demon's heart. His momentum slammed the creature up against the wall behind it and pushed the sword back out. The Darksp.a.w.n flailed one large arm at Simon's head. Twisting, Simon caught the arm. According to his training, the Darksp.a.w.n were articulated like humans, with elbows and knees structured like hinge joints.

Simon trapped the demon's arm with his own, then jerked. The elbow snapped and bent inward. Bone tore through the flesh. Using his grip to aid him, Simon shoved the sword sideways, shearing through the Darksp.a.w.n's chest, hoping to cleave the heart. He felt the spine break, then the demon dropped to the ground.

Breathing hard, knowing he had to find a rhythm to get his oxygen consumption back under control before he asphyxiated or hyperventilated, Simon placed a foot on the demon's chest and yanked his sword free. Malevolent fires glinted in the Darksp.a.w.n's eyes, reflecting the flamethrower fuel still burning on Simon's armor. Then the eyes locked, focusing on some impossible distance.

Another blast of coolness ghosted across Simon's skin as the armor's cooling systems got ahead of the residual heat from the flamethrower blast. He turned and looked back in the direction he'd come. None of the demons remained alive. Derek and his group stood around two fallen members.

His weapons naked in his hands, Simon walked back to them. He saw at once that the fallen warriors wouldn't be getting back up. The rocket had blasted one's breastplate into pieces, tearing open his chest as well. Blood covered his body, but metal shards stuck out as well. The other had been blown nearly in half, but he still managed to hang on to life for a few desperate moments.

Helmet open, Derek knelt beside the dying Templar. He held the dying man's b.l.o.o.d.y hand in his own, then softly talked him over to the other side. The man seemed calm, accepting his death without complaint, but Simon knew part of the serenity was due to the drugs that the armor fed into the warrior's systems through slap-patches.

Leah stood nearby. Firelight limned her face. Surprisingly, she showed no emotion.

Simon guessed that she was just overloaded with everything that had happened in the past few days.

Derek kept speaking till the dying warrior could no longer hear him. Then he quieted and sat there on his knees for a time.

One of the other Templar knelt beside Derek and talked to him briefly. Gently, the other Templar loosened Derek's grip on the dead man's hand.

Standing again, Derek looked at Simon. The Templar's face was haggard and filled with pain. "This is what you came back for," he told Simon. "All the dying, the pain, and the loss. His wife was killed three days ago. Now I've got to tell their children that they've lost their father, too." He took a ragged breath.

"Are you certain you're ready for this?"

Simon let out a breath, focusing on hanging on to the calm that he needed as a warrior. They had prepared for this eventuality, of course. But his teachers had colored the loss of warriors carefully in layers of courage, bravery, and self-sacrifice.

Thomas Cross had offered no such illusions. He'd always maintained that dying was hard, frightening business no matter how prepared a person was to end up there.

"No," Simon said. "I don't think anyone can be ready for this. But I'm not going away." He paused, putting everything he felt into words. Not just for Derek, but for himself as well. "You and I both know there's nowhere to go. If the demons are left unchecked, they'll take everything."

Grimly, Derek nodded. "If you're with me, you're going to do what I ask, when I ask. Without question and without fail."

"I will."

"Good." Turning back to the fallen men, Derek frowned. "Let's get these warriors home."

Two of Derek's warriors invaded the tube train and brought back blankets and cargo netting. They placed the dead men on the blankets and rolled them into them. After putting the warriors on the netting, they lifted the bodies from the ground and carried them.

Derek called one of the men forward and instructed him to take the point position. Simon took the man's place on the blanket to help carry one of the dead men. Two other men helped the wounded Templar stagger along.

"You're going to stay here?"

Seated on the bed in the general barracks room that had been a.s.signed to him, Simon gazed up at Leah. "Yes," he answered. He'd been surprised to have been accepted by someone. He'd a.s.sumed he would have gotten his armor at best, then been forced out into the city on his own. He would have gone without question.

Derek's willingness to make a spot on his team for him had been surprising. Of course, it looked as though spots were regularly made on the teams.

"What about me?" she asked.

A few of the other Templar listened in to the conversation. A tri-dee at the other end of the room had collected a crowd. There were few new broadcasts from London proper, but the media people seemed determined to fill the channel with old footage and new conjectures.

Simon shifted his helmet in his hands. He'd been working hard for hours to clean the surface. Dirt and grit that clung to the armor made operation of the stealth mode harder. More than anything at the moment, he wanted to finish working on his armor and get some sleep. He was surprised by how tired he felt.

"What do you want to do?" Simon asked. "I want to find my father."

"We're going out on patrol tomorrow." Simon was amazed at how quickly his thinking had become plural. "If you'll give me the address, I'll discuss it with Derek. Perhaps we'll be able to get by there."

Leah crossed her arms over her chest. "I feel like I should be doing something." Simon put his helmet aside. "You are doing something. You're surviving."

"It's not enough. I should be out there."

"If you were out there, on your own, you'd be dead in minutes." Simon nodded in the direction of the wounded man a few beds down. "Even armored up, we're taking our chances out there."

"Then why go?"

"Because we were trained for this."

Leah glared at him reproachfully. "You were trained to fight demons." Her tone dared him to make her a believer.

"Yes."

She shook her head. "That isn't something I can believe so easily."

"You've seen them over the last few days. You know the demons are real."

Letting out a quiet breath, Leah said, "Yes, but believing that you were trained to fight these creatures is even harder to accept than believing in demons."

"Now," Simon said gently. After a moment, she nodded.

"We can hurt them," Simon said. "We can kill them. That's something the London police and the British military haven't been able to do."

"The...the demons still outnumber you."

Simon noticed that she still had trouble acknowledging what they were up against even though she'd seen the demons up close on more than one occasion. For most people, one introduction was all that was required.

"Unless there are a lot more of you than I've seen," Leah added.

"There are more demons," Simon replied. "That's why we have to move cautiously. The demons have weaknesses. We've got to discover them."

"But lying here in wait,hiding," she said it like it was something obscene, "is only allowing them to terraform more of London."

"We can't stop it. Not yet."

"What if the effects of...whateverthey're doing can't be reversed?"

Simon barely maintained control of the fear that surged within him. Leah was. .h.i.tting every major fear that he had. He kept himself calm with effort. All his Templar training had been targeted survival and saving people. "You can't think like that."

"Why?" Leah looked more frustrated. "Because we need to remain hopeful." "Hope isn't a blessing. It's a curse."

Simon held back his own frustration. The young woman hadn't been brought up as he had. And even he hadn't held to the Templar mind-set.

"Thinking you're just going to get killed," Simon said quietly, "will generally get you that way."

"How did you get trained?" Leah gestured at the barracks. "How did all of this get here? Why are you people so secretive about what you do? Don't you realize that if the police and military had known what you did, that things could have progressed differently?"

Taking a deep breath, Simon gathered his thoughts. "The Templar Orders weren't always secret. And this isn't the first time we've encountered the demons."

Leah calmed a little. "How long have you known?" "I've been told that since I was born."

"By whom?"

"My father. My grandfather. Everyone I've known here." "They told you about the demons?"

"Yes."

"Did you believe them?"

That hurt. Simon broke eye contact for a moment, then looked back at her. "No. I didn't. I got tired of living like this. So I left."

"That's what you were doing in South Africa? Hiding?"

"I didn't think of it as hiding," Simon protested. "I wanted my own life. I'd spent twenty-three years down in this place with very little time spent aboveground. I went to South Africa because people there didn't ask too many questions, and I could be away from civilization while I worked as a guide."

"When was the last time you...theTemplar fought the demons?" "We've never fought them before."

Leah shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Come with me. I'll show you." Simon stood and stripped out of the warm-ups he'd worn down in the barracks. Nude, he started pulling on the armor.

Leah turned away from him.

Realizing that she was embarra.s.sed and knowing he was the reason why, Simon felt bad. Not sorry or modest. "Sorry. You get to where you don't notice nudity down here. We can't wear clothing under the armor."

"It's all right."

Simon wasn't embarra.s.sed. Most of the barracks were co-ed. He finished dressing, then pulled his helmet on. Once the suit had hardened, he opened the helmet and picked up his weapons. They were already clean. Weapons always got cleaned first.

"We don't go anywhere down here without our armor."Especially not now. "Let's go." Simon took the lead.

Twenty-Five.

Warren sat in the back of a panel van and waited tensely, peering through the darkened window at the bat-winged creature that flew across the face of a three-quarter moon. Snow covered the forested landscape around the vehicle.

"What is that thing?" Kelli asked. She sat beside him in winter wear and under a blanket. When Warren had decided to go with the Cabalists, she'd insisted on going.