Hellgate London - Exodus Part 27

The physician didn't offer a comment to that.

The thought sickened Warren even worse. He knew from Haggarty's silence that the physician had been thinking along those lines as well.

"Could you-" Warren's voice failed him. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Could you remove the scales?"

"Surgically?" Warren nodded.

Haggarty was quiet for a moment, regarding Warren's nude figure floating in the air. "The skin is an organ. The largest organ possessed by the human body. If we attempted something like that,if we were successful,if you survived, you'd be in terrible agony for a long time."

"Couldn't you put me out? Drop me into a coma or something?"

"A coma would reduce the healing factor. And it would be risky. We-you-have to consider the possibility that if we could remove this new skin, you might never grow any more."

"I'm being invaded by a parasite that's going to kill me," Warren said, trying to keep his voice level but not at all sure he'd managed.

"You don't know that," Tulane said. Warren glanced at the man.

"Don't panic, Warren," Tulane coaxed. "You don't know that those scales represent anything harmful to you."

"In fact," Haggarty quickly put in, "I would say that scale layer has saved your life. If not for the healing that your new skin has provided, you very probably would have died. I believe they're the only thing that saved your life. There's no other explanation for why you survived those burns. Or why you're not horribly disfigured."

"I havescales," Warren croaked.

"But not scars," Haggarty agreed. "You've even maintained your sensitivity in those areas." He reached over and touched Warren's arm.

Warren felt the physician's warmth through the scales, and thesoftness of Haggarty's flesh. The man was weaker than he was. On some subconscious level that he didn't understand, Warren knew that was true.

"You can feel this," Haggarty said.

Warren said nothing, but removed his hand from Haggarty's touch.

"You're looking at this wrong," Tulane said. "What you've gotten, Warren, it's a gift."

"It'snot a gift!" Warren shouted. His voice filled the physician's office. "The demons don't givegifts! I've seen them. Up close and personal. No one else in that room that night received agift. They were murdered. Horribly and mercilessly."

"Theywere," Tulane said in a soft voice. "But not you. You were-for whatever reason-spared." Warren's thoughts turned more desperate. "What about arcane energy? Can this be eradicated by a spell?"

Tulane slumped back in the chair. He rubbed his face. "I don't know. But we're learning. More and more every day, Warren. Give us time. If we can help you, we will. But you have to stay with us. Can you do that?"

Warren wanted to tell Tulane no. In fact, he wanted to leave the cave at that precise moment. But he knew he couldn't. He was trapped. More than that, he knew he'd been cursed. He heard Merihim's laughter in the back of his mind and knew that somewhere the demon was mocking him.

Thirty.

The house stood three stories tall, squeezed between two other houses. It was made of brick, with a series of bay windows that thrust out the front. A wrought-iron fence was curled around the corpse of a motorcycle that somethinghad picked up and launched into the poles. The motorcycle had caught fire and burned as well.

Scanning the front of the house, Simon found that the address matched the one they'd been given.

In quick, terse sentences, Derek placed the Templar in a security perimeter around the house. Simon was one of the men that Derek wanted with him inside the dwelling.

Drawing his sword and Spike Bolter, Simon followed Derek and the four other Templar up the short flight of steps to the door under a low-hanging alcove. Despite the sheltering darkness, Simon felt like someone was watching him. He glanced around, using the telescoping imaging available through the helmet.

Nothing moved on the street or in the shadows.

Someone had already broken into the residence. The door had been closed, but the lock had been shattered.

"Somebody's been here before us," Derek whispered.

"I'll bet it wasn't Goldilocks," Bruce replied. He led the way into the building.

Derek went next, followed almost immediately by Simon. Using the light-multiplier function built into the HUD, Simon saw that the foyer had been opulent. Shelves had showcased miniature Asian statues and pottery that now lay smashed on the floor. Delicate rice paper watercolors hung crookedly on the wall. Most of them showed fantastic dragons and chimeras.

"Who lived here?" Bruce asked.

"A fantasy writer," Derek replied. "Robert Thornton."

"I read him," Kyle, one of the younger Templar, said. "He writes good stuff."

Blueprints of the house's interior, broken down by floors, ghosted onto Simon's HUD. He oriented himself as they pa.s.sed along the hall toward the stairs.

"So where's this book supposed to be?" Bruce asked.

"Thornton's study," Derek answered. "Third floor. The information we have is that he's supposed to have a collection of occult books and objects in a vault there. He used them as research for his novels." "Where's Thornton now?"

"Gone. He was in the United States on a book tour when the demons struck." "Lucky him."

Simon looked around the large living room. His father had told him that Chelsea had once been Bohemian, home to writers and artists, but that had given way to the families of military officers and wealth.

A large fireplace nearly filled the living room. Broken gla.s.s let the cold night air into the room. Snow frosted the floor and the expensive furniture. Home wasn't going to be the same when-andif -Thornton ever returned.

The picture above the mantel caught Simon's attention. It showed a man, a woman, and two young children.

"What about Thornton's family?" Simon asked. "Were they in the United States with Thornton?"

"I don't know."

Simon had to pull his gaze from the picture. He hated to think that the woman and her children had fallen prey to the demons. But it was a grim reminder of what he was fighting for.

The second floor contained bedrooms and bathrooms. They found the study on the third floor.

It was a large room filled with bookshelves and a computer center. Framed pictures of the author and some of his books occupied wall s.p.a.ce. Models and toys of fantastic monsters paraded across the desk. None of the windows on the third floor were broken.

"Give me a hand." Derek stood beside the bookcases. Simon joined him. "Behind the bookshelves?"

"That's what I was told."

Simon checked the blueprints on his HUD. There was a void behind the bookshelves. "Trite," Bruce said.

"It only has to be functional," Derek replied. Simon trailed his fingers along the shelves.

"Gang way!" Bruce called out. "I've found the switch." He stood at the desk with one hand under the edge.

Simon and Derek stepped back.

"There's not any power," Derek said. "We'll be lucky if it operates. Go ahead." Bruce pressed the b.u.t.ton. Nothing happened.

"All right then," Bruce said. "We'll do it the hard way." He reached under the desk and grabbed a fistful of wires. Another tug popped them free of the wall, tearing them free of the Sheetrock and paint that had covered the wires. They peeled out of the wall like the seal on a sardine can.

The wires went up to the ceiling, across the ceiling, and to the bookshelves. Hunkering down, Bruce traced the wires to a release switch. He laid a forefinger against the switch.

"Let's see if I can tickle it open," Bruce said. He loosed a burst of electricity through his armor. The latch sprung and a section of the wall popped free on silent hinges.

"There we go," Bruce said, standing. He gripped the bookshelves and pulled, revealing the s.p.a.ce behind. More books lined shelves, accompanied by artifacts, vials, jars, and objects that Simon couldn't identify in the infrared view he had.

Derek switched on an exterior torch built onto the suit.

Several dozen books occupied the shelves. Most of them were ponderous things, not the uniform size and shape of the novels that filled the shelves in the study.

Bruce squeezed into the s.p.a.ce after Derek. Simon remained outside but watched with interest. Bruce reached for an oblong stick with shiny silver metal thread woven into it. Without warning, the stick sprouted legs and scuttled away from Bruce's fingers.

"Now that's interesting," Bruce commented. "Maybe we should consider taking more of this stuff back with us."

Simon studied the stick as it cowered in the corner. Had it been able to move before? Or had the opening of the h.e.l.lgate somehow increased the strength of magic in the surrounding areas?

That was a topic of investigation back in the Templar Underground. Those who studied arcane forces more diligently claimed that some arcane energy, particularly in the younger Templar children, had seemed to be on the increase.

"We'll pack what we can." Derek took down a tome from the shelves. "I think this is what we came for." He opened the book and shined the exterior torch onto the pages.

Under the magical light, the creatures ill.u.s.trated on the page slithered and shied away. Moans echoed inside the hidden s.p.a.ce.

"Do you hear that?" Derek stared at the open book. "Hear what?" Bruce stood next to him.

"Moans," Derek said. "No."

"I do," Simon said.

Bruce looked at both of them with a puzzled frown, his features barely visible through his faceplate. "I don't hear anything."

A hand snaked out of the book. Simon saw the four fingers and two opposable thumbs, but only realized how large it was when it covered Derek's helm with its palm and curled its fingers behind the Templar's head.

Bright blue energy shimmered from Derek's armor as a defensive magical shield activated. "Look out!" Derek warned.

"What?" Bruce's hand curled around a dagger at his hip. "I don't see anything." He tried to crouch and back away from Derek.

Flailing again, the hand reached for Bruce. A multi-jointed arm shot out after the hand. The palm slapped against Bruce's helmet without incident this time, and the fingers-thick as sausages-wrapped the Templar's head.

"Something's got me!" Bruce yelled, struggling to free himself.

Simon drew the Spike Bolter and tried for a clear shot. It was obvious that Bruce couldn't see what had him. In the next instant, he was yanked from his feet and pulled into the book. Impossibly, Bruce's body stretched , thinning just enough to fit through the page of the book.

Throughit but not onto it, because when Bruce disappeared from the hidden room he never reappeared on the page among the scuttling things huddled there. The book leaped from Derek's hands and thudded to the floor.

"What's wrong?" one of the other Templar downstairs called up.

"Stay back!" Derek ordered. "Hold your positions!" He drew a Firestarter pistol, small and compact and immediately recognizable by the hand guard. If that hadn't been enough, the stream of liquid fire that gushed from the barrel would have been.

Flames created by an almost-forgotten concoction of Greek Fire splashed across the book. Incredibly, none of the pages caught fire, though soot did collect on the pages. The figures on the page fled, leaving only blank parchment behind them.

Derek cursed.

The book closed, then shook itself like a dog and lay still. The moans returned to fill the hidden room, but this time they were mixed with Bruce's frightened screams.

"No," Derek said hoa.r.s.ely. He knelt and reached for the book.

The possessed tome flapped open like a huge mouth and the hand darted out again. Bruce's screams sounded louder.

Simon raked his dagger across the back of the demonic hand. Yellow blood wept from the wound and dripped on the wooden floor. Tiny flames and wisps of smoke threaded up from where the blood touched the floor.

"No," Simon ordered. "Don't touch it."

"Bruce is in there." Derek had sprung back against the wall.

"We don't know how to get him out." Simon flipped the book cover closed. Bruce's screams were muted, but this time they stopped as well.

Simon was certain he knew what the sudden silence meant. He knelt and placed an armored knee on the closed book. It struggled against him for a moment, then lay still.

"Do you have anything to bind it?" Simon asked. "Otherwise we're going to have to leave it."

Derek pulled a long length of small-linked chain from a hidden compartment inside his armor. "I was given this."

Simon took the chain, examining it. The HUD identified it as palladium alloy. His father's teaching told him the intricate knots that formed the links were magical in nature.

"I was told it's been blessed," Derek said.

"Let's hope so." Simon lifted his knee just enough to allow him to slide the chain under the book. When he had the ends around the book, he twisted them together and took them back around the tome like Christmas ribbon, coming in from all four sides. Then he made a simple but st.u.r.dy knot. "They just said to tie it?"

"Yes. I was told a blessing would bind whatever evil existed within it."

Derek sounded better now, and Simon took heart in that. But his imagination was already playing with what other horrors the hidden room might hold.

"They didn't say it would...would do that," Derek said. "If they had, would you have come?" Simon asked.

"They didn't know about this. They would have told me about that."