Swinging his sword, Simon buried the blade in the thick corded muscle of a Darkspawn’s neck and chest. The sword lodged, trapped there as the demon fought with its last breath to stick him with the sword it carried. Simon kicked at it, trying to free the dying creature from his sword.
Before he succeeded, another Darkspawn shouldered its wounded comrade aside and aimed a pistol at Simon’s face. Simon attempted to duck but couldn’t get out of the way in time. Bilious green liquid splashed against his helm, followed immediately by a cloud of white smoke that partially obscured his vision.
Abandoning his hold on the sword for the moment, Simon fisted his right hand, twisted his hips to get everything he could into the effort, and punched the Darkspawn in the throat. Bone snapped and gave way before the blow.
The demon hu-urked twice, stepping back as it struggled to breathe. Simon hit his opponent twice more, tearing the leathery hide and flesh from its face and crumpling the skull bones.
Spotting the demon that still had his sword in it, Simon stepped over to it, placed a foot on its chest, and yanked. The sword tore free. In that moment, he spotted the pitting left by the liquid the demon had shot him with.
“Armor integrity,” Simon said, moving toward the closest demon.
“Armor integrity is at 83 percent,” the HUD computer answered.
“Identify substance coating armor.” Simon thrust his sword into a demon’s back, hoping the heart was close by. Demon physiology was different and they weren’t necessarily all the same.
“Substance: unknown. Never before encountered.”
New weapons or old ones we haven’t seen before? Simon wondered. The demon he attacked tried to whip around. Using his left arm to block the creature’s attempt to point a pistol at him, Simon yanked hard on the sword with his right. The spinal cord separated with a loud crunch. Lower body paralyzed, the demon sank to the ground. Simon blasted it in the face, killing it.
“More of them are coming!” someone shouted.
Simon threw himself at a pair of Gremlins that had pinned a Templar against the shattered wall. One of them had hold of the Templar’s sword, trapping it in a sword-breaker. The other fired fiery bolts from a pistol that left ghostly images on Simon’s HUD.
Wrapping his arms around the head of one Gremlin, Simon managed to get a shoulder into the next and knock all of them to the ground. One of the Gremlins recovered almost at once and was on top of Simon in a heartbeat. It slammed a razor-sharp blade into his faceplate twice before Simon shoved the Spike Bolter up under the Gremlin’s chin and pulled the trigger. The palladium spikes chased the last fleeting thoughts from the demon’s head.
Simon pushed himself from beneath the dead weight just in time to get slammed with a huge hammer that caught him in the center of the chest. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs. For one brief moment he panicked that the blow had smashed in the breastplate to the point it was going to suffocate him. Then he managed a breath, realized that the breastplate had only transferred the hydrostatic shock it hadn’t been able to transfer throughout the suit, and caught another blow on the shoulder that spun him over.
Dazed, Simon pushed himself away and scrambled across the bodies of Cabalist security men, demons, and a fallen Templar. The brief contact with the Templar let him know that the man was dead.
He shoved himself around, swinging his legs to take out the legs of the Gremlin that had hit him. When the creature fell, Simon rolled to straddle it, then slammed his sword through its chest and twisted. The Gremlin bucked through its death throes.
On his feet again, Simon swept the battlefield. More demons were coming through the chimney at the other end of the basement.
This was a trap, Simon realized. They knew we were coming. Then he remembered the Cabalists and amended that. The demons had known that someone was coming.
There were too many to fight through. Nearly a third of the Templar had fallen, most of them dead. It wouldn’t be long before they all fell because the demons didn’t seem to worry about dying.
Forty-Two
S imon thought desperately, looking for a way out. He parried the blade of another Gremlin, then rolled behind an attacking Darkspawn that lunged at him. He thought about the tunnels that ran under London. The city was honeycombed with them. Tunnels allowed pedestrians to cross under the Thames. They carried waste in huge sewers. And they were used to transport cargo.
“Bring up building schematic,” Simon told the computer. “Visual overlay. Mark my position.”
“Complying,” the computer responded.
Simon shot the Darkspawn in the back of the head before it could turn to face him. As the demon fell, Simon put a shoulder into its back and propelled the dead weight into the Gremlin. Both demons went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Crossing to them, Simon pierced the Gremlin’s chest with his sword before it could get up, then kicked it in the face hard enough to snap its neck.
“Schematic processing,” the computer said.
Almost instantly, a fine gold three-dimensional blueprint overlaid the HUD. A gold dot marked Simon’s position.
“Are there any tunnels beneath this room?” Simon asked. He stumbled back as a beam hit him and chipped his armor. Turning, he moved in behind a Darkspawn for cover and watched as the next beam hit the demon instead of him.
“Affirmative,” the computer responded.
Immediately, a wide tunnel showed up in silver on the HUD.
“What is it?” Simon asked.
“A private cargo tunnel from the docks. It was used by Holdstock Glassworks until the business closed.”
“Is it still viable?”
“Unknown.”
“Mark it on the blueprint,” Simon ordered. He slashed with his sword as the demon turned to face him. One side was a smoking, charred ruin from the
