Goetia

looked at Warren in disgust.

“He didn’t even try to make himself over in your image,” the woman said.

You can be everything for me that I wanted and needed, Merihim said. His gift is yours for the asking.

“I’ll take it.” The woman held up her right hand.

In a rush, Warren understood what they were talking about. He tried to push away, tried to reach out to Naomi. But he was too afraid. “Help me,” he calledout to the voice. “Please.”

“He cowers,” the woman said.

Merihim whipped his arm and his claws slashed through the woman’s forearm.Her hand fell away from her arm. Miraculously not a drop of blood spilled.

The demon reached for Warren’s hand—the one Merihim had given him—and graspedit around the wrist.

With a pulling twist, the demon ripped the hand away from Warren and shoved it onto the woman’s stump. Merihim waved his hand over the transplant and it washealed almost immediately.

Warren felt jealous when he remembered how long it had taken him to heal after Naomi’s Sept had decided to experiment on him. Then agonizing pain shot uphis stump, through his shoulder, and exploded into his head. The demon reached for his head, claws extended.

In that moment, mercifully, Warren felt Naomi take hold of him and pull him back. And he blacked out.

“Booth,” Simon roared across the intervening distance as Wertham brought thehelicopter down toward them.

Booth turned around to face Simon and lifted his pistol. “I should kill youright now, Cross. You’re a jinx, and you’re constantly pulling us into this warwith the demons.”

Simon resisted the impulse to lift his pistol. He doubted Booth’s pistolcould penetrate his armor even at the short range.

“The war is already here,” Simon said. “It’s not going to go away justbecause you hide from it.”

“Don’t you get it?” Booth asked. “Why haven’t you gotten it through thatthick skull of yours? The war is already over.”

Despite the undead closing in around him, Simon was confused. “What are youtalking about?”

“The war with the demons,” Booth said. “It’s over. We lost.”

“No. We’re just getting started. That’s why Lord Sumerisle sacrificed allthe Templar at the Battle of All Hallows’ Eve. To buy us time.”

“Time? Time for what? So we can die more slowly?”

Simon didn’t say anything.

“You’re an idiot,” Booth exploded. “Lord Sumerisle led those Templar intobattle thinking that was going to be the end of it. They expected to rout the demons and throw them out of this world. They didn’t believe for a secondthat they were going to have their heads handed to them.”

“That’s not true,” Simon said. The story that had been told for four yearswas an important one. The sacrifice of the Templar was a tale of respect and honor.

“They’d never fought a Hellgate before,” Booth said. “Don’t you see? They’dtrained and practiced for years. For generations. All to beat the demons in one battle. That didn’t happen. They lost.” He waved his armshelplessly to point out the undead all around them. They filled the moat now and were starting to climb up onto the bridge. “We lost, Simon. The Templarare pathetic. Despite all our weapons and our training, the demons spanked us and sent us home. The one who didn’t die immediately in that battle? We’re theunlucky ones.”

“No,” Simon argued. “My father was not a foolish man. What you’re describingdescribes foolish men. That was not Thomas Cross. Not for his life. Not for a night. Not for a moment.”

“But it is the truth,” Booth said. “And you just keep stirring up theTemplar. You keep giving them some kind of hope and spreading the idiocy. If you’d just leave it alone, just die or go away so that we never have to hear ofyou again, the survivors could just sit back and live out our lives in secrecy.”

“That’s not how we’re supposed to live.”

“Then we’ve been living,” Booth argued. “All these years hidden away from therest of the world? We’ve already been living like that. But you insist on luringthem out of their shells. They’re going to get caught, and they’re going to giveup the Templar Underground so that we’re all killed. And it will be all yourfault.”

Simon thought of the young male and female Templar back at his stronghold and how few—if any—of them would live long lives.

It’s not about how long your life is, boy, Simon heard his father sayagain. It’s about how long it’s worth living.

“Simon,” Wertham said. “We’re losing our chance to get out of here.”

Simon nodded to the helicopter. “We can get you out of here,” he told Booth.

Booth shook his head. “I’ll take my chances with the undead. They may not getme killed. That’s not true of you, Simon. You’re going to get a lot of peoplekilled.” Without another word, he turned and ran. He blasted undead and used thesuit’s prowess to leap over them.

None of the other Templar followed him. Two of them had fallen to the undead.

“We’ll take you up on your offer, Lord Cross,” one of them said.

“You know you don’t have to give them a ride,” Nathan said. “Kidnappers andtorturers, the lot of them.”

“No,” Simon said, “they’re Templar. Our brothers and sisters. We won’t leavethem behind.”

They all loaded onto the helicopter. The pilot lifted them out of the clutches of the undead and unlimbered the jet thruster.

In seconds, the Tower of London was in the distance and Simon was headed for home. He tried to keep his eyes open and couldn’t. He sunk down to his haunchesand rested his head on his knees. The vibration of the fleeing helicopter lulled him to sleep.

EPILOGUE

Simon woke two days later, but he didn’t know it until he climbed into hisarmor—against doctor’s orders—and checked the time. Then he was irritablebecause he felt like he’d lost too much time.

Also, despite the nanomolecular bonding that had been done on his jaw, it fit differently and gave him a headache. But he could eat solid food and he found he was ravenous. However, he ate on the go.

Word had gotten out about his injuries and—according to Nathan—there was somespeculation about whether