Hellgate London - Exodus Part 33

"Safe until we rile the demons up and bring them back to us," someone in the back said in a low voice.

"Is there anything else?" the sergeant asked, ignoring the comment from the back.

"No." Simon thanked him and left, feeling confused. It didn't make sense for Leah to leave. She was safe in the Templar Underground.

Her father's out there,he reminded himself. Then just as quickly he told himself that Leah would realize that the chances of her father still being alive were incredibly small.

He tried to remember if she'd ever given him her father's address. They'd talked about it. He could remember that. But he'd never written an address down. Nor could he remember if she'd ever told him.

It was possible that he had forgotten she had.

Frustrated and impatient, conscious of the stares of Templar he pa.s.sed in the corridor, Simon pulled his helmet on. It sealed and the HUD came online. He had four minutes to make his rendezvous with his team. He tried to focus, knowing that he was about to put his life on the line again.

Thirty-Seven.

Amournful howl woke Warren from the cold dead blackness that coc.o.o.ned him. He'd expected to wake up in the Cabalist infirmary. After all the pain Naomi had sent into his mind, he couldn't imagine waking up anywhere else.

Instead, he found himself in a room made of burnt orange gla.s.s. Or maybe it was crystal. Warren wasn't sure. He was sure he had never seen anything like it.

The material was translucent. The walls were thin enough that he had a sense of the world beyond them. Other buildings cascaded across a broken skyline, orderly, yet somehow jarring, as if something were missing.

The floor was evidently much thicker, because a few inches in, it turned ink-black. He knew he wasn't at ground level because the view through the walls showed that he was quite some distance up.

Symbols adorned the walls. The light source was a ball filled with glowing spiders, each about as big as his fist. They crawled over each other and, though they never created any shadows, the light's intensity wavered.

Warren was surprised to find he was standing, but he was. The golden light from the spider ball gleamed against the greenish black scales showing on his left arm. He turned, looking around the room and wondering what he was doing there.

Did Naomi send me here, or is this just a dream?For a moment, it crossed his mind that he might be dead and this was someplace beyond the life that he had known. But he rejected that. If he was dead, he was sure he would know.

"Welcome, Devourer," a loud voice boomed.

Instinctively, Warren stepped back toward the nearest wall, wanting to limit an attacker's choice of approach. The room remained empty and he didn't know where the voice had come from. The burnt orange gla.s.s or crystal, or whatever it was, of the wall behind him felt warm to the touch.

"What would you have?" the voice asked.

Hesitant, but not feeling anyone else in the room, having no place to hide, Warren said, "I don't understand."

"I can explain. You have but to ask."

"Ask what?" Warren listened but there was no telltale echo to let him know the voice was coming from any other room than the one he was in.

"Whatever you wish to know."

"Why am I here?" Warren pushed himself free of the wall and stepped toward the back of the room.

There, barely revealed in the light, was a rectangular shadow in the burnt orange that might be a doorway. As he neared it, he saw that it was a door that sat at an angle to him and was hard to see.

"You are here because you wish to be here."

"No. I didn't come here on my own. I didn't know about this place, so there was no way I could wish to be here."

"Merihim the Bringer of Pestilence opened your way to this place."

Cautiously, Warren stepped through the door. It opened onto another room, this one as empty as the first. "Where am I?"

"This is the Hall of Weapons," the voice said. Now it appeared to be coming from the center of the next room.

Warren considered the information. "Why would Merihim open this place to me?" "So you may learn more about that which you must seek."

"What am I supposed to seek?" "The Hammer of Balekor."

Confusion twisted tightly inside Warren, but he was intrigued as well. "What is that?" "A magnificent weapon. It was lost to the human world hundreds of years ago."

"What does it do?"

"It kills. It destroys. The hammer is one of the most powerful weapons ever created by Vegalok." "Who was Vegalok?"

"A smith of the Dark Forge," the voice replied. "It was his strong right arm that smithed many of the personal weapons of the Dark Wills."

Warren wanted to ask what the Dark Wills were, but he was afraid to. "Tell me more about the Hammer of Balekor."

"What do you wish to know?"

That stumped Warren for a moment. He hadn't expected to be asked that question. It stood to reason that if the voice knew how he came to be there, it would also know why.

"Tell me about the hammer's history."

"After Vegalok made it, he presented it to Pa.s.sapar, the Bringer of Flashing Ruin."

A demon,Warren thought. "Why was it made?"

"As a weapon of war." "Against whom?"

"Whomever Pa.s.sapar wished to wage war on." "Where is Pa.s.sapar?"

"Dead. Not yet resurrected."

Not yet resurrected?The announcement chilled Warren. Even if the demons could be killed, they could be resurrected? He hadn't guessed that. Fighting them was futile then.

"Where is the hammer?" Warren asked. He had to survive, and if Merihim had staked his survival on finding the hammer, Warren intended to find it.

"It was lost in the human world centuries ago," the voice continued. "If the hammer isn't here, then why am I?"

"Because you came."

Warren chose not to argue the point. He walked to the nearest wall and peered out at the jagged skyline of the city. "Is this the world of the demons?"

The voice didn't answer for a moment. "I will accept your designation of those who live here as *demons.' The term has been used before." "Is there another name?"

"There are many other names. You may give them another if you wish."

"No." Evil grew as it got more names. Warren remembered that from the books his mother had read. "You said this was a place of the Dark Wills."

"Yes."

"What is a Dark Will?"

"A ranking within the demon hierarchy. A demon warrior must kill billions to achieve this designation."

"Is Merihim a Dark Will?"

"Not yet. But he aspires to be."

"Will getting the Hammer of Balekor help Merihim achieve that designation?" "Yes."

ThenI'mgoing to be helping him, Warren realized.

"You will be helping him," the voice said. "You should rejoice." "Why?"

"Because Merihim might choose to be generous." "And if he chooses not to be generous?"

"Then he will destroy you."

Nausea twisted through Warren's stomach, but he managed to keep control of himself. He didn't know what would happen if he got sick inside the tower.

"What does the hammer do?" he whispered.

"It controls the darkness," the voice replied. "It casts withering black fire, controls the elements, and opens gateways in Shadow."

"Shadow?"

"The places that lie between the worlds. The possessor of the Hammer of Balekor can draw up the dead to fight at his side."

The announcement, delivered so matter-of-factly, left Warren chilled. He was being asked to be part of that?Not being asked, he reminded himself.Being commanded. That's different. And if you don't do it, Merihim will kill you and find someone else to do his dirty work.

Fleetingly, he wondered if Tulane and the Cabalists could save him from the demon if it came down to it. Once the question was posed, though, he immediately doubted it.

"Your time here grows short," the voice said. "Even with the way made open to you by Merihim, even he can't keep the way open for long. You must finish your task." "How?"

"Come." One of the room's sides suddenly glowed brighter than the rest. Feeling hypnotized, Warren crossed the room and stood in front of the wall.

An image took shape in the air before him, like a tri-dee coming to life. He recognized the war hammer from books he'd read while growing up. It looked like a Norse weapon, but the head was ma.s.sive-over two feet in length and a foot wide and thick. It had to weigh a couple of hundred pounds. The black metal had crimson threads that ran through it. Most Viking hammers were four or five feet in length, but the handle on Balekor's weapon was at least eight. It might be unwieldy even for Merihim.

Before he knew what he was doing, Warren reached for the hammer. A green electrical shock leaped from the haft just before he touched it. Reeling, his hand spasmed and closed around the haft, pa.s.sing through it without touching anything substantial.

"You're linked with the hammer, Devourer," the voice boomed. "Now find it for your master."

The blackness returned and pulled Warren down into it. He fought against it, trying to stave it off. The effort was pure reflex, though, because as he thought about it, he didn't want to stay in the tower, either.

He just wanted some kind of control over his life. But he wasn't strong enough to stop the blackness from washing over him.

When Warren woke, he was freezing. He pulled weakly at the covers that lay across him and tried desperately to find more warmth. His thoughts spun dizzyingly, shattering against each other.

"Get me another blanket," a woman's voice said. "He's burning up with fever."

The rustling noises reached Warren, but he couldn't open his eyes even though he tried his hardest. He felt increased pressure over his body as another blanket was added. He clung to it gratefully.

"Were you able to stay with him?" a man's voice asked.

With the echoing in the room, or in his hearing, Warren barely recognized the voice as Tulane's. "No." That was Naomi. "There was a barrier. I couldn't get around it."

"Do you think he managed to get there?" "I don't know."

Warren's teeth chattered. His back and legs ached from shaking.

"His fever's nearly reached a hundred and five," another male voice said. Warren thought that one belonged to the doctor he'd met earlier. "We've got to get him into an alcohol bath before we lose him." "He's going to be all right," Tulane said.

"You don't know that," the doctor argued. "Merihim didn't contact him just to kill him."

"The demons have killed countless numbers of people. One more isn't going to make a difference." "He's going to be all right."

Something touched Warren's head. It felt ice-cold.

"He's at a hundred and six," the doctor said. "If you don't let me treat him, he's going to die within minutes. He may be brain-damaged already."

Warren didn't know what would happen if his brain overheated. He'd heard about the danger of high fevers, but he didn't know what they actually did to the brain. Did it cook like an egg? Or did it melt like candle wax? He wasn't sure.

Tulane answered reluctantly. "All right. Treat the fever."

Immediately, several pairs of hands grabbed Warren and yanked him from the bed. He tried to fight against them, but he was too weak. They stripped his clothes from him, carried him across the brightly lit room, and lowered him into a waiting bath of freezing liquid. A fresh wave of nausea swirled through him.

"We shouldn't have let him go to the demon world," Naomi said. "He didn't go," Tulane argued. "He remained here."

"His body didn't leave, but I felt his mind go. I couldn't keep up. Getting glimpses of the demon world is dangerous enough. Everyone who's ever been there has always come back insane or mentally damaged.

We shouldn't have let him go."

"Naomi," Tulane said in a softer voice, "he's compelled by the demons. He's in thrall to Merihim. I don't think you could have stopped Warren from going even if you'd tried."

"I should have tried. What's happened to him...it's more than anyone has ever dealt with." "We're all dealing with harsh times."

"We've been trained for this. We knew it was out there. Warren didn't."