“You’re with Derek?” Anne asked.
“Yes.”
“The units are going to be reorganized soon. Since we trained together, maybe we’ll be put together.”
“Maybe.” After what he’d seen today, though, Simon didn’t think he wanted that to happen. Watching Anne die at the talons of some infernal demon wasn’t something he wanted to do. Then he checked his ego. He had no guarantees he would live through the next encounter.
“Graydon is still here,” Anne said.
“I saw him.”
The four children shifted uneasily. If times had been different they would have been protesting the inactivity. Templar children stayed hurried throughout the day.
But these kids looked pensive. They were already carrying the full weight of their heritage. For them, Simon knew, demons had always been real. They’d never had the chance to grow away from it. Now he wondered if they would ever know a time when demons weren’t in their world.
“I could drop by your barracks sometime,” Anne offered.
“I’d like that.” The words were out of Simon’s mouth even as he was thinking he didn’t want to try to renew old acquaintances with death staring them in the face. Losing fellow warriors was one thing, but losing friends was going to be even harder.
“We’re going to be late,” Keiko announced. Her faceplate closed with an abrupt ping that conveyed annoyance.
Anne looked embarrassed. “I guess I need to be going.”
“It was good to see you.”
She smiled at him and looked like the quiet girl he’d known while growing up. “I’ll be by sometime soon.”
“If you’re not, maybe I’ll look you up.”
The smile became a grin. “See that you do.”
Keiko snorted, and the noise sounded even more disparaging through the suit’s audio system.
Urging the children into motion, the two Templar headed for the museum. Anne glanced back at Simon again, then her faceplate closed.
“Old friend?” Leah asked.
“Yes.” Simon started forward again.
“I got the feeling there might be some history there.”
“What do you mean?” Simon asked, although he was pretty sure he knew what the young woman was getting at.
“I sensed a romantic tension.”
“No.”
“I’m not often wrong about things like that.”
Simon considered telling Leah no again, or not responding at all. But being here—with the circumstances being what they were, his father dead and not really a friend left to his name—he was surprised to find that he did want to talk about things a little.
“My father had started negotiations for me to have Anne’s hand in marriage,” Simon said.
“Marriage?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding. An arranged marriage?”
Simon looked at her and wondered how much of their conversation the tunnel security systems were picking up. “This isn’t the best place to talk about this. Nor the best time.”
“I’m not ready to go crawl back into bed. I feel like talking.”
Simon felt the same way. Seeing Anne had been a mixed blessing. Anne didn’t know about Saundra, and he’d never mentioned his life in London to Saundra.
He wasn’t ready to go back to the barracks, either. Maybe Derek had accepted him into the unit, and maybe he’d been blooded with them today, but there were a lot of warriors there who weren’t especially pleased to have him among them.
“All right,” Simon said.
Twenty-Eight
A t a small table in a corner of the almost-empty commissary over two steaming cups of hot tea, Simon said, “Not every marriage here is arranged. Some of the Templar still fall in love with each other, get married, and have kids.”
“But why do the Templar have arranged marriages?” Leah acted like the idea was reprehensible.
“It’s not as much of an anathema as you’re putting on,” Simon said.
“It’s positively barbaric. What if the woman doesn’t want to be married? What if she doesn’t want to be a mother?”
“She,” Simon said, “doesn’t have any more choice than the man does.”
“Oh.” Leah blinked. “Men don’t want to get married?”
“Sometimes less so than the women.”
“Then why get married?”
“To have children. The ranks of the Templar have to be maintained.”
Leah frowned. “Propagation of the species?”
Simon felt a hint of anger at her words. He considered only briefly ending the conversation. But the alternative would have meant going back to the barracks and sitting by himself. “We have a unique way of life. Not everyone is meant for it. Forming liaisons with women—or men—from outside the Templar world is problematic.”
“Problematic?”
“In the mid-nineteenth century, two Templar were put away in sanitariums.”
“Why?”
“They told their wives about their roles as Templar. Their missions.”
Leah frowned. “Back during that time, a lot of people ended up in sanitariums. Family outcasts. Wives that couldn’t be divorced. Children that couldn’t be controlled.”
Simon nodded. Those times were chronicled in the Templar histories that were required reading in school.
“What happened to the Templar?” Leah asked.
“They had to be broken out.”
“So no one has ever been brought in from the outside?”
“There have been a few. A very few.”
“Doesn’t say much for love, does it?” Leah smiled crookedly.
“Marriages are hard anyway. Trying to add secrets to the mix, or other loyalties, makes them almost impossible to manage.” Simon waved at the commissary. “Even with arranged marriages, divorce seldom happens here.”
“Because it’s a captive environment?”
“Because husbands and wives have the same goals in their lives.”
“Then why didn’t you settle down with a nice Templar girl? How did you end up in South Africa?”
Simon took a deep breath. “I wanted more than the Templar way of life offered. And I didn’t believe in the demons.”
“Not even with those museum exhibits?”
“If you hadn’t seen the demons outside of this place, do you think you would have believed?”
Sighing, Leah shook her head. “Probably not. So you broke that young woman’s heart?”
Simon smiled. At least it hadn’t been that hard. “No. Two years ago, Anne was too young to marry. My father wanted grandchildren.”
“He might have been looking for another way to anchor you here.”
“Perhaps.”
“So that’s why she was so chatty in the hallway instead of wanting
