To command them, Merihim said, you must first command yourself.
“Warren!”
The demons came on, gnashing their teeth and waving their weapons. Miraculously, none of them had yet opened fire.
The SUV door closed behind Warren. He heard the sound and immediately recognized it for what it was. Then he heard the engine accelerate over the din of demonic growls and knew that they were pulling away. By then it was too late to run because the demons were on top of him.
“Stop!” Warren said, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.
The demons, dozens of them, halted immediately. Two of the Blood Angels flapped their wings and came to agile landings atop the Edgware Road tube station canopy. They eyed him with cruel interest.
Warren felt their hunger and excitement and knew that they scented his blood and lusted for the taste of it. Forcing himself into motion, he walked toward the demon pack. The fear was frozen inside him, held in place by the fascination he got from seeing the demons standing before him. They shifted as he neared them, making room for him to walk among them.
They didn’t like him. Despite his ability to command them, Warren knew they’d tear his throat out in a minute if they were allowed to. Merihim controlled them through fear, Warren felt that, and he was the demon’s favorite.
They hate you for that, too, Merihim said. And the day you fail me, I’ll let them have you.
Warren almost grew afraid again, especially standing in the middle of all the demons. But he kept himself strong. Whatever fortune had favored him so far, it had brought him to this point. If he had powers as the Cabalists seemed to agree, and the way his stepfather had died bore that out, then he could somehow reach more deeply into that power.
I can learn and get stronger, he told himself, and I will. I won’t live in fear of anyone.
Merihim laughed. Go carefully, whelp. Ambition is a good thing, but it can border on insolence.
Warren ignored that, enjoying the feeling of power he got from knowing he controlled the demons around him. “I’m hunting a man,” he told them.
The demons listened, but many of them growled and spat, eager to be running and chasing prey.
Warren pictured the armored knight—the Templar—in his mind. “I want this man. And I want him dead.”
More of the demons shifted, anxious to be moving.
“He’s in that tube,” Warren said. He pointed at the Edgware Road tube station entrance. “Find him and bring him to me.”
Immediately the demons turned and charged toward the station. They tore down the doors and raced inside.
Warren followed them, running after them, moving with a demon’s speed and knowing that too was part of Merihim’s gift. Dark anticipation filled him. He couldn’t wait to see the look on the Templar’s face when he wreaked his revenge.
Braced and ready, worried that McCorkleson and the others wouldn’t get the train onto the tracks in time, Simon stood with his sword in one hand and his Spike Bolter in the other. Wertham was to his right. The other Templar, and there were forty-three of them now because more of the Templar had abandoned High Seat Booth’s command, stood in a ragged line behind Simon.
All of them had wanted to help clear the city of survivors as much as they could before they concentrated on battling the demons. None of them were convinced that the Houses yet had a plan for dealing with the demons. Most of the ones who had taken up arms with Simon had lost family and friends at St. Paul’s.
In the distance, lit up by night vision, Simon saw the first of the demons as they came into the tube tunnel. Wertham ran ahead of the pack, reaching the Templar easily.
“Bloody hell,” someone swore.
“I told you there were a lot of them,” Wertham said.
“We can’t hold them,” Simon said. “We can only slow them.”
“We wouldn’t have to slow them as much if the train were up and running,” someone grumbled.
“And it would have been better if we’d left an hour ago,” Wertham said. “But there’s no use complaining about that now.”
None of them, Simon noticed, suggested they leave. While they’d been tending to the survivors they’d pulled from the wreckage of the city, Simon had seen that the Templar had shown more spirit while surviving on lean rations than in living in the relative lap of luxury within the Templar strongholds.
They were born to fight, Simon realized proudly. But that also meant dying in battle.
A few tentative blasts from the demons’ weapons struck all around them. Then three of the Templar were struck, but their armor protected them.
“Hold,” Simon said calmly. “On my mark.”
They held.
The demons came closer, bearing down quickly.
Paddington Station was wide and tall. Shops lined the walls on either side of the rail lines. Most of the glass had been broken and the goods stolen over the last few weeks.
“Ready,” Simon said, “now!” At the same time, he sent a signal through his armor, broadcasting to the detonators they’d placed at that end of the tube.
All of the Templars had the same signal coded into their HUDs. That way the explosives they’d seeded the mine with would go off as long as any one of them survived. They’d mined the tube at that end as a defensive line. The other end of the tube past the train spur had been mined as well, in case they’d needed to shut down an attack from that end.
The explosives detonated in waves, throwing debris and clouds of dust into the air. In an eye blink, that end of the tube was obscured and littered with wreckage. Rocks pounded Simon’s armor but he ignored it. Part of the high ceiling sagged and came down, dropping across the advancing line of demons.
“McCorkleson,” Simon called over his HUD frequency, patching in to the radio the man carried.
“Yeah,” McCorkleson answered. “I guess they’re
