By the time the High Seat crawled to his knees, Simon was on him. Anger boiled out of Simon, uncontrollable, dark, and terrible. He kicked Booth in the head and sent him back down to the floor. Simon lifted his foot and smashed it onto Booth’s helm again and again, shattering the armor but not yet breaking through.
Someone grabbed him from behind and pulled him back. Simon turned to defend himself, then recognized Wertham’s armor.
“Stop,” the old Templar said. “Stop it now. Before you kill him.” Wertham allowed his helm to become transparent enough for Simon to see his features. He maintained his hold on Simon’s arms. “Do you hear me?”
Breathing hard, Simon couldn’t answer at first. He nodded, then said, “Yes.”
“Kill Booth and they’ll never let you leave this place,” Wertham said.
Simon knew that. He looked beyond the Templar and saw that Booth’s personal guards stood ready, but some of the Templar had interposed themselves between them and Simon.
“Kill him!” Booth yelled. “Kill him!”
“No,” Wertham said. “There will not be any killing done here today.”
“If you support him, I’ll have you locked up in the same detainment center with him,” Booth threatened.
“Try to stop Simon from leaving,” Wertham replied in a calm voice, “and you’ll have to put more than just me in that detainment center.”
Booth swayed, cursing loudly.
“The Templar have never recognized masters,” Wertham said. “Only leaders. Each Templar chooses his own way. You know that, High Seat, and even under these times that must be upheld.”
Simon stood, not knowing what to do. He hadn’t intended to snowball this into a big problem. I should have just left. He could have simply stepped out into one of the tube tunnels and never come back.
But he knew he hadn’t wanted to go that easily. There was something in him that hadn’t relished the idea of walking away without telling Booth what he thought of the way he was running things.
“We’re not supposed to be guerrilla fighters,” Simon said. “We’re supposed to be champions. Warriors that fight the demons and preserve life. All life. Not just our own. By hiding in the shadows and picking and choosing your precious missions, you’re just as guilty of walking away from everything the Templar stand for as when I left.” He paused. “I’m not going to dishonor my father’s memory. I’m going out there and I’m going to do what I can to help those people trapped in this city. You’re going to have to kill me to stop me.”
Booth walked over to Simon. The High Seat moved unsteadily and with effort.
Wertham slid between the two.
Booth’s helm popped open, revealing his bloodied face. One of his eyes was swelling shut. “Go then. But don’t you ever try to come back here.” He spat saliva and blood onto Simon’s faceshield. Then Booth stepped back and raised his voice. “Let him go. Let the demons have him.”
Without a word, Simon shouldered his duffel again, turned, and walked away. Fear trickled through the anger that he still felt, breaking some of his conviction, but he remained convinced that he was doing what he had to do.
Booth’s private guards and some of the Templar followed Simon all the way to the exit that let out into the tube. They passed him through the security doors and he stepped out into the darkness where the monsters lay in wait.
His footsteps sounded hollow in the tube. They also sounded vulnerable.
A moment later, Wertham and three other Templar stepped out into the tube. Each of them had duffels over their shoulders.
Simon stopped and looked back at them. “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you,” Wertham said. He made his faceshield translucent, revealing his wide grin. “What you said back there reminds me of why I took pride in being a Templar. Over the years, I’ve had my own doubts about all the training I went through and the secrets I had. I can’t fault you for those. But I’m not going to sit idly by while you go off on your own to try to do what I think we should be doing.”
Simon stared at the older man. “If you come with me, you’re probably going to get killed.”
Wertham grinned. “Maybe you’ve got some doubts, but I don’t think they’ve made the demon tough enough to take me.” His grin grew wider. “Or, at least, that demon hasn’t caught up with me yet.”
“Booth won’t let you back,” Simon said.
“Regular meals and a bed to sleep in are overrated, if you ask me.” Wertham sobered. “Those people we left back in the museum…I didn’t like doing that. Just walking away from them and leaving them there.”
“I know.”
“I suppose we’ll be checking in on them? After you’ve figured out how we’re going to get them out of London?”
“I have a plan,” Simon said.
“Well, now’s the time to hear it,” one of the other Templar muttered.
“How much do you know about trains?” Simon asked.
Forty-Five
W arren woke in an anesthesia-induced fog. He remembered the feeling from when he’d been a child, after his stepfather had shot him and he’d spent days recuperating in the hospital.
He lacked the strength to sit up or pull the plastic mask from his mouth and nose. It was everything he could do to roll his head to the side. An IV ran a drip into his left arm, taped to his scaled skin, but the blue tinted liquid with small fishy-looking creatures didn’t resemble anything he’d ever been given in the hospital before.
One of the creatures pressed its flat face against the plastic bag and ballooned its mouth. An inky substance jetted from its mouth, then dissipated in the liquid, turning the blue slightly more blue. Almost immediately Warren’s head felt thicker, more distant from the rest of his body. Whatever the fish creature secreted had something to do with
