“Shulgoth.” Thomas didn’t mean to say the demon’s name. There were some who maintained that naming a demon aloud gave it strength. Thomas didn’t know if he believed or disbelieved that.
But he knew this demon. He’d seen it crush the British military’s finest weapons. Shulgoth had waded in among them fearlessly. Armor-piercing rounds and even sabot rounds fired by British tanks only bounced from his impervious hide. Single-handedly, Shulgoth had lain waste to tanks, armored cars, and self-propelled guns. He’d left only carnage in his wake.
Snarling in a harsh grating language Thomas didn’t understand, Shulgoth opened his mouth and breathed out a cloud of vapor. Thomas ducked to the side but couldn’t evade all of the thing’s volatile breath. The gray steam slicked over his right arm and right side.
Instantly emergency lights flared up inside his HUD.
“Warning,” the calm male voice said. “Outer integrity of armor has been breached on—”
“Cancel warning.” Thomas ran, aware that Shulgoth raised his massive fist to slam down like a hammer. The Templar threw himself forward, rolled, and regained his feet as the blow struck the ground where he’d been.
Whirling, Thomas swung the sword into one of Shulgoth’s legs. The keen blade, further enhanced by the magic the Templar had woven into the weapon, bit deeply into the demon’s flesh. The acidic blood hissed and spat.
“Warning. The sword has taken—”
“Cancel warning.” Thomas could already see the damage the sword had taken. The palladium alloy was the hardest substance the Templars had to work with. Even it wasn’t impervious to the demons’ powers. Or their blood. He yanked the sword free.
Thomas dodged two more blows, then pulled the Spike Bolter up and fired at Shulgoth’s exposed eye. Rounds tracked along the side of the demon’s head and glanced from the spikes, but none of them struck home.
In the next instant, Shulgoth swept Thomas up in his harsh grip. The Templar felt his arms and legs break, heard his armor splinter. His ribcage and the armor’s torso became a vise over his lungs. He couldn’t breathe, but if he had been able to, he would have screamed in pain. He tried to fire the Spike Bolter, but he knew then that it was too late.
Shulgoth lifted Thomas to face him. The demon grinned. The long tongue slathered through the horrible fangs.
Thomas wanted to shout defiance at the blasphemous thing, to let it know that he wasn’t afraid. But he was afraid, and he knew he was dying. His crushed lungs wouldn’t let him make a sound.
Opening his jaws wide, Shulgoth breathed out a noxious breath. The purple-gray mist coiled against Thomas’s helm. In the next instant the HUD’s display lit up with warnings. Pitting scarred Thomas’s vision.
Then, mercifully, everything went black. But his last thoughts were of his son, of Simon, wondering if they would see each other again.
One
FYNBOS BIOME
OUTSIDE CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
L oud gunshots woke Simon Cross from a too-short slumber and threw him directly into the path of a killer hangover. He sat up in the tent, automatically reaching for the hunting rifle beside his sleeping bag. He tried to figure out where the gunshots had come from, but had to admit that he might have dreamed them.
Or hallucinated them. He groaned and cursed as he forced himself to his feet. You know better than to drink like that, you stupid git. Especially while you’re out in the brush.
Bright sunlight lay in wait outside the tent and the mosquito netting. No one else was up and about. The three other tents comprising the group of vacationing tourists he’d brought out to view the flora and fauna of the Fynbos grasslands for the last two weeks hadn’t stirred.
Simon listened intently but the gunshots weren’t repeated. You dreamed it. Go back to bed. Get what little sleep you’ve got coming to you and be glad of it. With all that alcohol in your system, you’re going to be sweating your bleeding guts out today.
With a sigh, he turned back to the sleeping bag. Last night Saundra had joined him. Sometimes she did, but she liked to be out of his tent before their clients got out of bed.
Saundra McIntyre was long and lean, five foot ten if she was an inch, but he still towered seven inches above her and made her look small because he was so broad-shouldered. She wore her long auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. Freckles spattered her cheeks and nose.
He held a great affection for her, but it wasn’t love. He’d been truthful about that. They’d been conducting safaris in the South African wilds together for the last sixteen months. Long enough to get to know each other really well. And to develop great affections for each other.
Neither one of them wanted to risk continuing the relationship anywhere else. Simon, if he ever went home again, lived in London. Saundra lived in Sidney, Australia. Both of them had family ties.
Simon figured he could leave his family—his father was it, more or less—behind easier than Saundra could, but he was unwilling to do that at this point. He preferred an…extended absence from England, he supposed, rather than a more permanent separation. That was the kindest way to put it. Saying it like that didn’t feel so grim and so final.
He sighed. You’re thinking way too much. Dreaming strange things you’ve no business dreaming about. Imagining things. Then there’s that huge hangover you’re going to have to pay for last night’s festivities.
That had been a definite mistake. He’d told everyone when they’d left Cape Town that there weren’t to be any unnecessary items in their gear. He and Saundra hadn’t checked their clients’ gear. If they hadn’t been getting paid so well, Simon might have pressed the issue and looked to
