As he touched the book, it suddenly bloated like a toad, straining at the palladium alloy chain. Then it leaked dark fluid that looked green on the HUD. Simon thought he knew what it was.
“Is that blood?” Derek asked.
Simon steeled himself and shoved the book into the backpack without answering. Neither of them really wanted to know. He thought he felt the book quivering but was willing to admit that it might have been his imagination.
Just then a voice broke in over the HUD. “Demons have found us, lads.”
The immediate threat seemed to calm Derek, giving him something to worry about that he could deal with. “Where?” He walked out of the hidden room back into the study.
“All around us.”
Simon settled the backpack across his shoulders and hoped his armor could hold off the fiend if it happened to get away from the blessed chain. He freed the Spike Bolter as he stepped out into the study.
Claws rasped across the roof.
A snarling face suddenly peered in through the window. The massive head looked like a gray-white starfish with huge malevolent eyes shoved into the center of it. The maw gaped, filled with serrated teeth between the two eighteen-inch tentacles hanging from its jaws.
“Gremlin scout,” Derek said.
Simon had already identified the creature and was lifting the Spike Bolter. Gremlin scouts, even though that might not have been what they called themselves, performed the job the name implied. If the scout knew Templar were in the building, the rest of the pack did, too.
Before Simon could fire, the Gremlin scout hefted a Shockwave pistol up and pressed it against the glass. The sidearm used HARP technology to gather an electrical charge from the air, then release it in a concentrated blast. The blast was limited to a twenty-foot radius, but that distance easily covered the study.
Simon aimed and started to squeeze the trigger on his Spike Bolter when the world detonated in a blinding white-hot flash.
Thirty-One
T he electric discharge blew the glass out of the window and knocked Simon from his feet. As he flew backward, he realized he should have locked his boots down. But the force was so strong he didn’t know if even that would have helped.
He crashed against the wall. Books tumbled down over him. He thought the book in his backpack squirmed, but he couldn’t be sure. His senses reeled and for a moment he thought he might pass out. Even with the boosted power of the armor, his arms felt like lead.
Derek was knocked flat and rolled backward. He lost his Firestarter.
The Gremlin scout clambered through the shattered window. A second one followed. The high-pitched hum of the Shockwave the first one carried filled the study.
Struggling to swallow the nausea that swirled up in him, certain that his brain had turned to jelly, Simon pointed the Spike Bolter and fired without aiming, knowing all he had on his side was his quickness. The projectiles ripped bloody furrows in the Gremlin scout’s neck, then tracked up to its huge face and shredded its eyes.
The Gremlin scout roared in rage and staggered back. It fired the Shockwave a second time.
The massive blast hammered Simon back up against the wall again. The true danger of the sonic wave created by the pistol was that it didn’t truly have to be aimed. The blast radiated out from the center of the shooter’s mass and grew stronger as it went.
This time Simon did black out for a moment. He came to almost immediately. The rusty taste of blood trickled through his mouth.
The first Gremlin scout dropped to its knees. Its face hung in gory tatters. Broken bone showed through. It tried to bring the Shockwave up again but pitched forward on its face.
Shoving himself to his feet, letting the armor do most of the work, Simon stood. His hand was empty when he lifted it. The Spike Bolter lay somewhere under the second wave of falling books.
The second Gremlin scout struggled to its feet and gripped the war axe it carried. Some kind of rifle hung over its shoulder. Falling snow eddied in through the broken window behind it.
Simon drew his sword. Derek lay silent and still near the doorway. Simon didn’t know if the Templar was alive or dead.
The Gremlin smiled and growled. Though he didn’t know the words, Simon realized a challenge had been issued.
Simon moved forward. The Gremlin brought the axe around in an abbreviated arc. Reacting instantly, knowing the outcome would be decided in seconds, Simon blocked the haft of the axe with his sword blade. Even with the augmented strength given him by the armor, Simon was barely able to stop the axe.
The demon snarled in a guttural voice.
Twisting, Simon drove a side kick into the demon’s face that snapped its head back. He followed it with two more kicks, not believing the massive creature was still standing when the armor gave him enough strength to kick down a wall.
Unable to bring any true sword skill into play, Simon headbutted the Gremlin in the face and knocked it back a half-step. He thought he almost brained himself in the attempt. But he ripped the sword away from the axe haft, took a step back, pointed the sword before him, and lunged.
The sword slid through the demon’s chest with effort. The sound of splintering bone and ripped scales cracked through Simon’s auditory receptors.
The demon dropped its axe and reached for the sword. Shouting harsh, guttural noises, the creature wrapped its hands around the blade. Incredibly, it halted the sword as Simon locked his boots down and put the armor’s weight behind his effort.
For a moment, fear touched Simon, almost consuming him in its intensity as the demon fought him to a standstill. He pushed the weakness away and concentrated on his father, on his loss, and all the training and faith his father had put into him.
He shoved.
The sword
