“Do you have a way to get there?”
“Maybe.”
“Can I come with you?”
Simon studied the woman for a moment. She looked slim and compact, more of an acrobat than an athlete. He felt certain Saundra could have taken her hands down in a physical encounter. He knew he didn’t want any baggage trailing along after him when he reached London. Or even during the trip there. He was headed into a war zone.
“Please.” Leah’s voice softened.
Hardening his heart, telling himself that the woman’s welfare was no concern of his, Simon started to say no.
“It’s my father,” Leah went on. Her violet eyes gleamed wetly. “After my mother died, we only had each other.” She drew in a quick breath to calm herself. “I got mad at him a few months ago. I had no business doing that. He put me through university, then wondered why I wasn’t working at a job I’d trained for. Marketing. I ended up back in the same dress shop I’d worked my way through university in. Ended up barely making the bills again. Almost starving to death. He told me he didn’t see to it that I got all that training only to see it go to waste.”
The words hit home inside Simon, cutting deeply. They were a lot like the final words he’d had with his own father before he’d picked up and gone to South Africa. Simon had received Templar training all his life, and his father had rebuked him for squandering it with his excesses in extreme sports. The base-jumping had been the final straw.
“I tried to tell him that jobs weren’t that easy to come by,” Leah said. “But he wouldn’t listen.” She wiped at her eyes and wetness gleamed on her fingers. “So I got a job, only it was down in South Africa and he didn’t like that, either. By that time I was mad, and I’d already signed off on my flat. All my money was tied up in moving to South Africa and making it in that job.”
Simon felt the weight of his own decision settling across his shoulders. It hadn’t been easy. And he knew exactly what Leah had gone through.
“That was fourteen months ago,” Leah whispered raggedly. “I haven’t been back to see my father since. If something’s happened to him—” Her voice broke and she couldn’t continue speaking.
Simon tried to figure out what to say but couldn’t. Leah’s fears were his own, and he didn’t know how to deal with his own.
Angrily, with a trace of embarrassment, Leah slid away from him and resumed her place on the other side of the plane.
For a while, Simon tried to listen to the plane’s engines and the other whispered conversations around him. He wanted something to take away the guilt and fear that plagued him. She’s not my problem. But he felt like she was. She’d touched his emotions and made him realize how raw they were.
“Maybe your father made it out of London,” Simon said after a while. “He could be in one of the refugee camps.”
Leah ignored him. She turned on her side and pulled a worn coat up over her head, shutting him out.
Simon leaned back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes. Her father might have made it out of London. Several thousand had. But Simon knew his father would never leave. Grudgingly, his stomach partially full, he drifted off to sleep.
But the demons waited on him there.
Nine
REFUGEE CAMP
OUTSIDE PARIS, FRANCE
S imon only stayed in Paris for sixteen hours, long enough to secure passage to Coquelles, not far from Calais. A heavy blanket of snow lay over the French countryside. Most of the meteorologists seemed to think it had something to do with the strange weather and power that seemed to gather over London.
On the tri-dee, storms roared through London’s streets without interruption, filled with jagged lightning and unaccustomed heat. Some of the reports that got out of the city said that an incredible black fog filled much of the sky and blotted out the sun.
“You’re sure you want to go there?” the truck driver asked after Simon had made the deal to help with the cargo in return for them taking him along.
“I need to,” Simon said. If he had to, he’d walk through the snow to get to the hell on earth dawning in London.
In the back of a cargo truck filled with supplies for the English refugees, Simon sat still and tried to remain warm. He’d arranged passage by agreeing to help the truck driver and his second with the loading and off-loading of the supplies. It was backbreaking labor, but they’d added sandwiches and wine as well.
The back of the truck wasn’t heated. He’d managed to buy a heavy winter coat, gloves, and a watchcap with some of the money he had left. There hadn’t been enough money left over to purchase a pistol and ammunition although he’d wanted some kind of armament.
Not that it would do any good against the demons.
His breath fogged out in front of him. Cases and buckets rattled in their restraints as the driver drove. Through the flaps at the rear of the truck, snow continued to come down in thick, fat flakes. Pristine whiteness, lit up by the moon, already covered the landscape.
Without warning, the truck jerked violently to one side. Boxes tumbled across each other and crates skidded across the metal floor.
Simon shoved both arms out, managing to span the rear compartment of the truck and brace himself as boxes fell all over him with bruising force. For a moment he thought the driver was going to lose his vehicle.
When the truck finally stopped, Simon pushed the supplies off and stood up. He stepped over the tailgate and down to the ground.
The driver and the handler stood at the front of the truck, gazing glumly down at the shredded left
