“How did the demons know they were there?”
Giselle shook her head. “No one knows. Yet. They’re smart and incredibly inventive. However they did it, they came into our world, and they began hunting us down.”
None of that had been in the news.
“The demons got into some of the Underground complexes, Simon. They found families there. And they killed them. Worse than that, the demons brought the dead back as undead.” Tears ran down Giselle’s cheeks. “We—I—had to go down there and help destroy a complex that had gotten slain to a man, then drawn back to serve the demons as zombies. We had no choice. We had to burn them out.” She took a breath. “When I go to sleep at night, I still see them screeching and trying to get out of the flames. But we didn’t let them.”
Seeing Giselle’s pain before him, Simon found that his own dimmed. He took shallow breaths and focused on her words.
“In the end, Lord Sumerisle and the others felt they had to fool the demons,” Giselle said. “Convince them somehow that all the Templar had been killed. At least enough of us so the concentrated hunting would stop and give us time to regroup and make new plans.”
“The Templar attacked the demons at St. Paul’s Cathedral,” Simon said.
Giselle nodded. “All of those who went there died that day. Every Templar wanted to go, but they drew lots. Some had to stay behind. Your father, some of the other warriors, said that those who stayed behind were left with the hardest task. We have to find a way to live, and to find the demons’ weaknesses.”
“That was easy for Lord Sumerisle to decide.”
She frowned. “Lord Sumerisle died there. His brother Maxim now serves in his place.”
Simon thought about that. Everything seemed impossible. “If most of the Templar are dead, how can you hope to succeed?”
“Because that’s what we have to do, Simon. We don’t have a choice anymore.”
“But if they hadn’t attacked—”
“The demons would have kept hunting,” Giselle said. “They would have killed our future, too. At least this way we can try to figure out what to do next.”
Simon wanted to challenge that line of thinking. He couldn’t help himself. He started to speak.
“No.” Giselle closed her helmet and started walking again. Through the armor’s audio pickup, her voice sounded cold and metallic. “This is what we have to do, Simon. There’s no other way.” She left him standing there.
Simon watched her go. The other Templar walked past him. No one said anything. He felt hollow and empty inside.
Leah approached him, her arms filled with weapons they’d taken from the demons. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Simon redistributed the load he was carrying and started walking again.
Fifteen
DOWNTOWN
LONDON, ENGLAND
W e call ourselves Cabalists these days, but that wasn’t a name the founders considered for themselves,” Jonas told Warren as they observed the gathering of people in the larger room. “We were called that by the Templar, but only in the truest sense of the word.”
“In the beginning we had no name,” Edith interjected. “The founders of our organization simply knew each other, preferring no name so that they could remain more hidden. They shared an interest in the demons. Their studies brought them together.”
“A cabal is a secret organization,” Jonas went on.
I knew that, Warren thought. He didn’t like the fact that Jonas wasn’t willing to admit that someone might know as much as he did, but he chose not to interrupt.
“That we even have a name for something that is supposed to remain hidden is ludicrous. But there you have it,” Edith said.
“By necessity,” Jonas said, “the early members of our organization were secretive. What we’re trying to do isn’t understood by many. The few that knew about the demons didn’t want anyone prying into their ‘unholy’ natures, as most claimed—which is a defense the ignorant always mount against things they don’t understand. Most historians over the years have linked us to the Jewish Kabbalah, but that’s simply not right. The Templar knew that when they called us Cabalists. I think they wanted to gift us with as much negativity as they could. The very name inspires mistrust and suspicion.”
“The Templar named this organization?” Warren repeated. “The Knights of the Crusades?” Every step he took seemed to introduce impossibility. His mind balked at the notion of the Templar knowing the Cabalists.
“The Templar,” Edith said at his side, her horns sparking green fire, “weren’t just warriors who took it upon themselves to regain the Holy Lands. There is still a large group of them who train to fight the demons.”
“Not as large after All Hallows’ Eve,” Jonas said.
“Not everyone continued to believe in the demons after the years passed and the Crusades ended,” Edith said. “The Templar were eventually ostracized by King Philip IV for promoting their cause and soliciting help against the demons. But no one wanted to believe in the bits of bone and armor they found that they insisted were of demonic origins. Their heirs have kept their beliefs together, and they trained for the day when the demons would try to take our world.”
Warren remembered the stories of the armored men who had died at St. Paul’s Cathedral on All Hallows’ Eve. If they’d trained to fight the demons, he didn’t think they’d done a very good job of it.
Instead, he said, “I thought they were all dead. I’ve heard reports of what happened at the cathedral.”
Jonas shook his head. “Not all of the Templar were killed. A great many of them died that night and the following morning. I saw their corpses in the aftermath of that battle. Enough of them died that the demons no longer regard them as a threat. I think that’s a mistake, but those that remain serve to
