“There we go,” Bruce said, standing. He gripped the bookshelves and pulled, revealing the space behind. More books lined shelves, accompanied by artifacts, vials, jars, and objects that Simon couldn’t identify in the infrared view he had.
Derek switched on an exterior torch built onto the suit.
Several dozen books occupied the shelves. Most of them were ponderous things, not the uniform size and shape of the novels that filled the shelves in the study.
Bruce squeezed into the space after Derek. Simon remained outside but watched with interest. Bruce reached for an oblong stick with shiny silver metal thread woven into it. Without warning, the stick sprouted legs and scuttled away from Bruce’s fingers.
“Now that’s interesting,” Bruce commented. “Maybe we should consider taking more of this stuff back with us.”
Simon studied the stick as it cowered in the corner. Had it been able to move before? Or had the opening of the Hellgate somehow increased the strength of magic in the surrounding areas?
That was a topic of investigation back in the Templar Underground. Those who studied arcane forces more diligently claimed that some arcane energy, particularly in the younger Templar children, had seemed to be on the increase.
“We’ll pack what we can.” Derek took down a tome from the shelves. “I think this is what we came for.” He opened the book and shined the exterior torch onto the pages.
Under the magical light, the creatures illustrated on the page slithered and shied away. Moans echoed inside the hidden space.
“Do you hear that?” Derek stared at the open book.
“Hear what?” Bruce stood next to him.
“Moans,” Derek said.
“No.”
“I do,” Simon said.
Bruce looked at both of them with a puzzled frown, his features barely visible through his faceplate. “I don’t hear anything.”
A hand snaked out of the book. Simon saw the four fingers and two opposable thumbs, but only realized how large it was when it covered Derek’s helm with its palm and curled its fingers behind the Templar’s head.
Bright blue energy shimmered from Derek’s armor as a defensive magical shield activated. “Look out!” Derek warned.
“What?” Bruce’s hand curled around a dagger at his hip. “I don’t see anything.” He tried to crouch and back away from Derek.
Flailing again, the hand reached for Bruce. A multi-jointed arm shot out after the hand. The palm slapped against Bruce’s helmet without incident this time, and the fingers—thick as sausages—wrapped the Templar’s head.
“Something’s got me!” Bruce yelled, struggling to free himself.
Simon drew the Spike Bolter and tried for a clear shot. It was obvious that Bruce couldn’t see what had him. In the next instant, he was yanked from his feet and pulled into the book. Impossibly, Bruce’s body stretched, thinning just enough to fit through the page of the book.
Through it but not onto it, because when Bruce disappeared from the hidden room he never reappeared on the page among the scuttling things huddled there. The book leaped from Derek’s hands and thudded to the floor.
“What’s wrong?” one of the other Templar downstairs called up.
“Stay back!” Derek ordered. “Hold your positions!” He drew a Firestarter pistol, small and compact and immediately recognizable by the hand guard. If that hadn’t been enough, the stream of liquid fire that gushed from the barrel would have been.
Flames created by an almost-forgotten concoction of Greek Fire splashed across the book. Incredibly, none of the pages caught fire, though soot did collect on the pages. The figures on the page fled, leaving only blank parchment behind them.
Derek cursed.
The book closed, then shook itself like a dog and lay still. The moans returned to fill the hidden room, but this time they were mixed with Bruce’s frightened screams.
“No,” Derek said hoarsely. He knelt and reached for the book.
The possessed tome flapped open like a huge mouth and the hand darted out again. Bruce’s screams sounded louder.
Simon raked his dagger across the back of the demonic hand. Yellow blood wept from the wound and dripped on the wooden floor. Tiny flames and wisps of smoke threaded up from where the blood touched the floor.
“No,” Simon ordered. “Don’t touch it.”
“Bruce is in there.” Derek had sprung back against the wall.
“We don’t know how to get him out.” Simon flipped the book cover closed. Bruce’s screams were muted, but this time they stopped as well.
Simon was certain he knew what the sudden silence meant. He knelt and placed an armored knee on the closed book. It struggled against him for a moment, then lay still.
“Do you have anything to bind it?” Simon asked. “Otherwise we’re going to have to leave it.”
Derek pulled a long length of small-linked chain from a hidden compartment inside his armor. “I was given this.”
Simon took the chain, examining it. The HUD identified it as palladium alloy. His father’s teaching told him the intricate knots that formed the links were magical in nature.
“I was told it’s been blessed,” Derek said.
“Let’s hope so.” Simon lifted his knee just enough to allow him to slide the chain under the book. When he had the ends around the book, he twisted them together and took them back around the tome like Christmas ribbon, coming in from all four sides. Then he made a simple but sturdy knot. “They just said to tie it?”
“Yes. I was told a blessing would bind whatever evil existed within it.”
Derek sounded better now, and Simon took heart in that. But his imagination was already playing with what other horrors the hidden room might hold.
“They didn’t say it would…would do that,” Derek said.
“If they had, would you have come?” Simon asked.
“They didn’t know about this. They would have told me about that.”
Simon hoped so. Since he was tying his future—however long that might be—to that of the Templar, he wanted to think they would be honest with him.
“And yes,” Derek answered. “I would have come, Simon. The Templar are the only way the world is going to rid itself of these demons.”
Simon slid his backpack off and opened one of the compartments. He emptied munitions onto the floor and
